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#actually i have a suspicion given my follower pool
dorylinae-supremacy · 1 month
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💀 Necromancer AU 💀
Wooo I'm home finally time to post my snippet!
Uhhh AU I've posted vaguely about before but its basically Phil being a delulu necromancer who thinks of himself as an artist and ends up accidentally making himself a son (or three) as he decides to explore a new 'era of art.'
Tags: Dark Phil, darker than usual so heads up, explicit gore, i mean its a necromancer au, idk what you expect, dead boar, graphic description of corpses / rot, grubs / insects, ~584 words, you get the vibes as you read.
Phil liked to think of himself as an artist.
Really, if you thought about it, that's what he was. He took what was discarded by others and turned them into wonders of art that few could even begin to imagine.
Sure, sometimes his artworks liked to rebel. Some parts simply rejected their other parts and forced him to find new materials that would actually be able to fit but that's what made it fun. It kept him thinking.
No piece of art was ever truly done, sometimes one might get a bit too reckless and a part might fall off. Luckily as a witch he was able to fix such minor mistakes. He was able to toy with the very material of reality and he could turn it into the most beautiful of pieces.
That's what led him here, he was desperate for a new piece to work on. All others had slowly lost their shine, no longer filling him with satisfaction every time he looked at them. Now he looked at his old works and only saw mistakes, things he could've done better if given the chance. He didn't bother recycling them; the parts felt tainted and useless.
This work would be a brand new start. A clean slate for him to test all his skills on. Luckily there was a market for his discarded pieces, people looking to snatch up whatever shit he decided he didn't want anymore. It'd be pathetic if they weren't giving him such good money for it.
Or maybe that made it even worse? He was never sure. It wasn’t like he cared enough to, after all. They gave him money and he gave them crap. It worked out wonderfully in his favour.
Tonight he was following a path through the woods that led him to his harvesting grounds, a scrapyard that had unwittingly become the source for his most recent materials. The pieces he was able to find always had some knack about them, a quirk that told a story. It made wonderful fuel for his imagination.
He surveyed the ground, sending out little magic tendrils to feel for the telltale spark of opportunity. He always allowed his magic to guide him in his artistic pursuits, the mana that fuelled his veins had amazing taste in scraps.
He shifted the grip on his shovel as he made his way to the first blip, eagerly cracking open the earth below him. A couple minutes of digging and he was soon rewarded for his effort.
In the shallow grave sat a boar, bloated and rotting. Flies and whatever other insects had already gotten to it, maggots working their way out of where they were laid. The stench of death wafted with the disturbed soil but he didn’t let that bother him. 
It felt almost welcoming, something so familiar about it bringing him a warm comfort.
There was no doubt that livor mortis had already set in for this cadaver, the fur wet and sticky against his hands as he hefted it out of its pit. Eagerly, he brushed away the squirming grubs from their feeding grounds in favour of inspecting the corpse a bit more.
Some of the insects were clearly still inside, skin writhing when muscles have long gone still. It would do well for a new piece of art. The little skin that he could see was a deep purple in colour, confirming his suspicions of blood pooling.
That wouldn’t do, though.
It wouldn’t do at all.
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edvonstein · 4 years
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which precures would read homestuck without being dared to
Boy howdy. There’s a question I didn’t expect. Well let’s see here and go down the list:
Nagisa: Got into it shortly after launch, after hearing Honoka talk about it.
Honoka: OG reader, has been around for most of Hussie’s stuff.
Hikari: She didn’t read it until about halfway through its publication run, but caught up in a single night. She made fanart.
Saki: She tried to get into it for Mai, but it never really meshed with her. Still learned enough through osmosis to cosplay both Dirk and Dave.
Mai: She has five sketch books that are just redraws of the entire series with everybody replaced by Saki. None of her friends must ever see. They saw. They didn’t get it, but liked the art.
Nozomi: OG reader, not the absolute biggest fan, but did walk away liking it.
Rin: Saw Nozomi read it, and tried a little herself. Then she met Kanaya. The rest was history and fanfics. And special flower arrangements.
Urara: Currently lobbying for a broadway adaption. She is undecided which role she wants to play tho.
Komachi: She has changed her writing pseudonym to John Egbert, to get a better likelyhood of getting her Pirate Hurricane series published. She writes more like a mix of Dave and Rose though. It’s fucking mind expanding.
Karen: She had it fed through her home’s in house cinema to watch it with Komachi initially. They all ended up watching it.
Milk/Kurumi: “Vriska did nothing wrong”
Love: Her and Setsuna totally are like Rose and Kanaya. She is Rose of course.
Miki: She knows she is everybody’s Kanaya. She spend some time making masks of the characters. You can imagine how well that ended. Her Kanaya cosplays are somehow still great for the family boutique.
Inori: Yeah, she read it. Each reading session was followed by a trip to the confession booth. Eventually she just started reading it in the confession booth. The priest liked it too.
Setsuna: Her and Love totally are like Rose and Kanaya. She is Rose of course.
Tsubomi: Yes she read it. No her friends must never know. She doesn’t realize all of them have read it too.
Erika: The only friend Tsubomi opened up to about Homestuck. Turns out Erika runs one of the main japanese fansites of Homestuck.
Itsuki: Main mod on Erika’s fansite. Tsubomi must never know. Nor her family. Itsuki still feels too uncomfortable in their skin for that.
Yuri: Almost OG reader, she and Honoka frequented the same forums. Upon casual mention from Honoka, Yuri tried it out. Her young friends must never be tainted by this horror. Hopefully Hussie updates soon!
Hibiki:Learned about it through Ako. Found it pretty sweet, but didn’t make it all the way.
Kanade: Also learned about it through Ako. her bi heart couldn’t be stopped as she steamed through almost all of it in one go.
Ellen: Had been following it for about a year with Hummie before Suite happened. Continued reading while on the villains side. Often plays Homestuck songs while busking, and has several rearrangements on niconico.
Ako: Has been reading Hussie’s stuff since halfway through Problem Sleuth. She was 7 at the time. There’s a reason she a) is so crumby, Karkat is her spirit animal, and b) she decided to go and become an extra af phantom thief precure.
Miyuki: She is a reading machine, and of course this would capture her attention. She came in a bit late but found it on her own.
Akane: Similarly to Rin, she saw it over Miyuki’s shoulder one day, did a bit of reading herself, and got pretty hooked for a while.The hiatuses however broke her streak. Oddly enough the main emotion she took away from it is a hate for Equius, which she shares with Nao.
Yayoi: Main fanart contributor to Erika’s fansite. Her and Reika spend hours talking about Terezi.
Nao: Never did read it, she was too busy with her family and superheroism. More recently though, she decided to kinda wiki crawl the subject. Walked away primarily with a hate for Equius.
Reika: Another mod on Erika’s fansite.She has found her path. Her parents are disappointed. Screw her parents.
Mana: Tried it, didn’t like it. Square.
Rikka: Wishes she could live on that first planet they showed, with the froggies. She tries to dare Mana, but continues to get shot down. Mana is such a square.
Alice: Found it on one of her internet binges to bring her temper down. It proofed a surprisingly good tool to keep her mellow, which is why we see so little of her inner rage during the show. Another Terezi fan.
Makoto: Somehow has never come across a single shred of evidence that Homestuck exists. As unlucky as she is, she might be the luckiest of us all.
Aguri: Unlike Makoto, she has seen what Rikka and Alice are up to. She did read it a little, and liked what she saw well enough, but didn’t stick with it. Not enough time, and her twin sister lives fifty miles in Vriska did nothing wrong territory, so clearly she must be better than her. (She isn’t.)
Megumi: Came across it on her own, read it, but lost interest.
Hime: Runs the discord server for Erika’s fansite.
Yuko: Does occasional lyrics for Ellen’s arrangements, both on youtube and niconico, and makes the occasional troll riceball.
Iona: She was in fact dared, but by Megumi of all people, after she stopped reading. There is no bigger Rose fan now.
Haruka: As an avid reader, it did cross her radar, she went through it, and came out more determined than before to be the best princess she can be.
Minami: Amusingly enough, stumbled across it during her internet binges boning up on marine biology. Feferi popped up in her searches somehow, and the rest is history.
Kirara: Fans suggested it to her. She read it. The most fabulous Kanaya cosplayer of them all.
Towa: Kirara suggested it to her after she herself had finished (by now the webcomic is done IRL) partially because nerds gotta share, and partially because she truly felt it might help her cope with some of her inner turmoil from the guilt over being Twilight. Towa is slow in reading through this particular one, so she is still going through it today. Results unclear, she doesn’t talk much about it, even with Kirara. It might be helping though.
(The remaining characters I don‘t know as well as the others yet, but I’ll see what I can conjure up. Intriguingly I feel this also marks the first generation of Cures that lived in a post Homestuck world, what with Mahoutsukai airing in 2016, and Homestuck ending in 2016.)
Mirai: Got dragged in by the hype over the ending of Homestuck. Dared Riko to read it with her. They did. They planned their wedding to be like Rose’s and Kanaya’s.
Riko: Got dragged in by Mirai. Would feel very big deja vu next year when they both became moms to Kotoha.
Kotoha: Her moms protect her from this vice. (She found it anyways. There is no stopping the corruption of the youth.)
Ichika: Heard about it, but didn’t really care. Unfortunately for her she is on a team with Aoi, Yukari, and Akira.
Himari: Closet fan, wrote several dissertations about the science in Homestuck on Erika’s fansite. Which is probably where her crush on Honoka comes from.
Aoi: Loud and proud, likes this retro comic. Has started collabs with Yuko, Ellen, Amour, and Emiru because of course.
Yukari: She was a depressed gay teen during Homestuck’s peak... what do you think?
Akira: She was a gay teen during Homestuck’s peak... what do you think?
Ciel: She would have been save. But Undertale dragged her right into this fresh hell.
Hana: Huge fan of Undertale, but never quite pulled together the energy to tackle the behemoth that is Homestuck. Did learn through osmosis, with so many of her senpai cure friends being raving lunatic homestuck fans.
Saaya: Actually dodged both the Homestuck and the Undertale bullet initially. Hana then tossed Deltarune at her, and Saaya fell down the rabbit hole.
Homare: She had some inner hangups about getting into the whole mess, but Hana did dare her, knowing enough about the series to know that it’s message might gibe Homare the kick in the behind she needed to give ice skating another go.
Emiru: Big Undertale fan, but doesn’t care about the webcomic herself. Uncertain if even a dare would work, she does her own thing... well, besides the music. She freaking loves the music.
Amour: Read the whole thing in one hour to understand its impact on culture. What else would make her crash and join the heroes? Jokes aside, she did do it, and it did leave an impact on her. She was the one who connected Aoi and Emiru.
Hikaru: What are the freaking odds that she hasn’t read through it in its entirety three times this week alone?
Lala: Had her ship read it to her as something to fall asleep to. It put her to sleep quickly, actually, like tales from home. Her ship didn’t fare as well. It’s one of the biggest crack shippers on Erika’s site. Lala only heard like ten percent of the story.
Elena: Has neither the free time nor privacy to read a webcomic that’s now a decade old. Likes listening to Hikaru’s ranting about the series. Also likes how somehow that ranting makes Madoka’s face light up.
Madoka: It is unknown how she found the time, but she is a freaking huuuueg closet fan. She wants to talk with Hikaru about it, but still feels too uncomfortable being public about it. Hikaru does however know that MoonSollux, one of the biggest fanfic writers on Erika’s site, is her, but will wait for Madoka to come out of her shell in her own time.
Yuni: Missed the whole mess being a space alien idol phantom thief. Is getting a very wrong idea about human culture from Hikaru’s ranting. A dare would totally work.
(I have zero grasp on the Healin’ Good Girls, so not gonna do them.)
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hongism · 3 years
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1:58 am - c. jongho 18+
↣ pairing: jongho x fem!reader ↣ genre: fluff, smut ↣ wc: 2.0k ↣ for @ppersonna​​: “HELLO MY BESTIE RATTY PLS JONGHO WITH 25 - Being somewhere you’re not supposed to be 34 - “It’s 2am. Go back to sleep.” ↣ warnings: language, oral sex: f
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In your defense, Jongho is both a maniac and insatiable. What started as a lovely movie night between the two of you, with his roommate Yeosang curled up in the armchair by the couch, has quickly devolved into leagues of stress for you and endless amusement for Jongho. Yeosang is (thankfully) off in dreamland and fast asleep despite the movie still going in the background, although that does nothing to quell your current nerves as Jongho’s hand is moving further up by the minute. 
It started at your kneecap, two fingers tracing mindless patterns into your skin under the blanket. Then he slipped to the inside of your knee and clutched tight at your flesh before pulling up the inside of your thigh.
Now, he has a hand basically over your crotch, close enough to make you sweat but far enough away to have you refraining from squeezing your thighs shut over his fingers.
And being a cocky little shit, of course Jongho knows exactly what he’s doing to you — if the smirk curling over his lips is any indication at least. You aren’t about to scar yourself or Yeosang by fooling around on the already stained leather couch in their apartment, as much as you really want to give in to his lingering touches.
You haven’t been paying attention to the movie on the screen for at least an hour, maybe longer than that because you don’t even recall the name of the damn film at this point, and all your focus is honed in on the fingers pressing into your thigh. Jongho won’t stop teasing with his touches either. Every few seconds, he squeezes just enough to startle you into sitting up straight just when you’ve recovered from the last touch. You’re certain he’s trying to seem interested in the movie given the way he keeps making interested noises or scowling at the screen, but then his smirk returns and you know what he’s really up to.
In short, you have had more than enough of his fun and games, growing increasingly frustrated with each passing second. Your body is so pent up and overheated that sweat is pooling at your brow, and that’s what makes you nudge his hand away as a last-ditch effort to save yourself from this teasing hell he’s trapped you in. Yet this isn’t your apartment and you can’t very well escape to his bedroom without looking suspicious to Yeosang. As far as his roommate is concerned, you and Jongho are still just friends, even if there is an ungodly amount of sexual tension lingering between the two of you like this.
Water. Yes, you need water. And where can you get water? The kitchen of course. Perfect plan. You should be safe from Jongho’s antics there, no?
“Feeling alright, Y/n?”
As it turns out, you are very much not safe in the kitchen.
You nearly throw the glass in your hand at Jongho’s head out of sheer shock when he sneaks up on you, creeping into the kitchen behind you like a damn ghost. You manage to hold back from doing that, but a small yelp escapes your lips instead. Jongho laughs at that, continuing to chuckle under his breath even when you try to level him with a sharp glare. He has the audacity to look absolutely delectable at nearly two o’clock in the morning wearing nothing but a stupid black t-shirt and stupid grey sweatpants with his stupid hands shoved deep in the pockets like he wasn’t trying to practically finger you on the couch moments ago.
“I don’t know, am I?” It made sense in your head, although that might be because of the haze of arousal over your brain because once it actually comes out, you’re wondering why the hell you said that.
“Well, you felt more than alright just a few minutes ago.” He’s smiling again, another lascivious grin that has you sinking your teeth into your lower lip.
“Not here,” you hiss back as a last-ditch effort to talk yourself out of this (again).
“Because Yeosang is in the other room? Come on, Y/n, you know half the fun is in the risk of getting caught.”
A scoff passes through your lips, loud enough to resound through the small kitchen.
“You’re insatiable.”
“And you’re painfully aroused. Are we done stating the obvious?”
Throwing this glass at his head is a lot more tempting now, but that would certainly cause a ruckus and Yeosang would wake up in a heartbeat.
“Only because you were fucking feeling me up on the couch like it’s your goddamn job!”
Jongho crosses the kitchen in three seconds flat, suddenly so close to you that you can’t breathe your own air without feeling the heat of his breath against your lips. You stumble back and hit the edge of the counter behind you. Jongho doesn’t give you a moment to recover, catching your wrists in his grip and pressing them hard against the surface of that same counter.
“Careful there, doll, you wouldn’t want to wake anyone up, would you?”
“No, that’s not what I want,” you exhale. It’s not enough to quell the desire in your gut, especially not when Jongho’s fucking thigh is pressed between your legs and leaving you squirming. He knows how you feel about his thighs thanks to an unfortunate admission on your part one night when you had too much alcohol (and unfortunately Yeosang knows too since he was an unwilling participant in that conversation).
“What do you want then? Although, I’m fairly certain that I know.” Again, Jongho’s gaze flicks down over your body, enough to be obvious about the way he’s checking you out from head to toe, but he returns to staring you in the eye after a second.
“Shut up and eat me out already,” you hiss under your breath. In the same sentence, you free your wrists of his grasp and push down hard on his shoulders. It’s nothing compared to his strength — he’s more than strong enough to resist your futile efforts, but he goes along with it anyway and lets you push him to his knees in front of the counter.
“You’re lucky I never make you beg, baby. If I did, you’d never get to cum.”
Tempting, you think, but right now you aren’t in the mood to be edged or teased anymore. Jongho did his fair share of that for over two hours, so all that is on your mind is a release under his skilled tongue.
“Please, Jongho, I’d like to do this before Yeosang wakes up…”
His hands are already curled around your pajama shorts, taking the soft fabric into his grip and pulling down with no resistance. A sharp inhale follows as the cold air hits your nether regions, and Jongho lifts one of your legs up to his shoulder as he bunches your shorts into the palm of his hand.
“Be glad I didn’t take you on the couch right in front of him then.”
Then Jongho is smiling up at you from between your legs, and you would be lying if you said that isn’t one of the hottest things you’ve ever seen in your life. You brace yourself on the counter, knuckles white from the effort of clinging to the marble, and the man beneath you takes his teasing a step further. Soft lips caress the inside of your knee over the spot he clung to for the better part of an hour, then he follows the same path his hand took as well. He doesn’t stop until his nose is flush with your folds, and even then he exhales against you in a way that has a chill rushing down your spine. Your curl away from the counter, unintentionally pressing your hips closer to his mouth in the same fluid motion. It’s enough to make his nose hit your clit dead-on in a way that has a strangled moan escaping your lips. You fling a hand up to your mouth (too late as it does absolutely nothing to conceal the sound).
“Now it sounds like you’re trying to wake Yeosang up, doll.”
“I’d like to see you stay quiet when I’m sucking you off next time.” You manage to smirk a little, just enough to be playful and throw him off a little. He’s just as quick to retaliate, which is both a good and bad thing for you because his next move is to hoist your other leg onto his shoulder, and it takes every ounce of your willpower not to clamp your thighs around his face. You have to bite the side of your thumb to quell the noises bubbling up your throat; your remark seems to have been enough to spur him fully into action, his tongue brushing between your folds until he reaches your hole with practiced ease. You can’t count on one hand how many times you’ve indulged in this — his tongue pressing at your entrance like he has no other purpose in life, eating you out with more enthusiasm than ever, drawing so many noises out of you that it’s getting difficult to keep quiet.
“Jongho?”
The man between your legs freezes but doesn’t move away from your cunt, staring up at you from between your legs without blinking for so long that you think he’s truly stuck like that. Admittedly, you’re stuck where you are too, both because he’s got your legs around his face and on account of Yeosang’s sudden intrusion on your otherwise intimate moment. Your gaze goes straight to the archway to the kitchen. The kitchen island is tall enough to block the view of your lower half, but if Yeosang steps even one more foot into the room, he will certainly see what Jongho is up to. There’s no telling how long it’ll be before he does enter, and you’re watching with peaked anxiety as Jongho sidles up your body into a standing position again.
His hands find your hips, and next thing you know, he’s moving you around and pushing you until your back hits the kitchen island. It protects you from possible exposure to Yeosang, which proves to be a good move on his part because Yeosang pokes his head in the archway a second later. Jongho moves to the side enough to avoid suspicion but you’re still quite nude from the waist down and screwed if Yeosang decides to come further in.
“Oh, there you two are. The movie’s over?” Yeosang says, easing his weight against the doorframe.
“Yeah, you fell asleep pretty early on honestly. But it’s 2 am. Go back to sleep. We’re just picking up some snacks we pulled out while you were asleep.”
You think that excuse is far too easy to see through, especially if Yeosang decides to even so much as glance around the kitchen to see that you are certainly not doing any cleaning whatsoever. You squeeze your eyes shut. Looking at Yeosang right now would be a mistake and you would probably give away what you and Jongho have been up to in the blink of an eye.
“Yeah, yeah, okay. I’m too sleepy to help you anyway. See you in the morning.” Yeosang stifles a yawn, lifting the back of his hand to his mouth, then lets his arms fall into a stretch. He lingers for only one more second before disappearing from the archway. You exhale the second he disappears, shifting to stare Jongho down as your heart continues to race rampantly in your chest without relent.
“That was a fucking mood killer,” you mutter before crossing your arms over your chest. Jongho huffs out a sigh and puffs his cheeks full of air. He stretches a hand out to touch your bare hip again.
“Let me make it up to you?”
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strange-lace · 3 years
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Macaque
I was in the mood to make more content for Inverted AU, so here’s a short-ish fic of how episode 9 would go in this AU with Macaque, Wukong, and MK! Enjoy the shadowpeach!
Another demon defeated but still no sign of Sun Wukong. Macaque let out a sigh before rolling his shoulders to bring relief to tense muscles. Oh well, he'll just have to keep looking, not like he hasn't been at it for years now. At least this city he wandered to was quite nice with pleasant people, nothing too out there aside from demon attacks.
"Hey! Hey you! Shadow monkey man!" Macaque wouldn't deny that the sudden voice made him jump, considering he was on top of a pretty tall building. Apparently not tall enough to stop the young man from climbing up the side, somewhat out of breath yet that didn't deter from the determined look on his face. He simply brushed his messy hair out of his eyes and adjusted his teal backpack, which looked surprisingly heavy. Macaque couldn’t help but be somewhat curious as to what was in that thing.
Wait was that the Monkey King's staff in his hands?
Indeed it was, he'd recognize that weapon anywhere.
“Ah, you must be the Monkie Kid I’ve been hearing so much about, am I right?” That got him a look of suspicion before the young man also seemed to remember the staff in his hands, causing him to let out an amused huff at his own paranoia.
“Yeah, the staff kind of gives it away, don’t it? Name’s MK though. Now whomst is you? Most of the time, demons who ask me who I am are five seconds away from trying to kill me.” Macaque couldn’t help but chuckle at that, already finding that he was starting to like this little guy and his attitude. Perhaps if a person like MK was chosen to wield Wukong’s staff, then perhaps that meant his love had finally started turning things around for the better. Maybe it meant he finally stopped being someone he wasn’t all for the sake of keeping a memory alive.
“The name’s Macaque, though, the Six-Eared Macaque is actually my full name. But what brings you up here exactly bud? I doubt you’d climb up this high just for anybody.” MK’s face showed that he wanted to argue that point out of principle before remembering his purpose for coming up here.
“Simple, teach me.”
Wait what?
“What what?” MK scoffed at the question.
“I want you to teach me to fight, like how you fought that demon back there. I don’t intend on leaving you alone until you do and that is a threat!” Macaque didn’t doubt that he meant it that way and could very easily follow through on that. Sensing he wasn’t going to get out of this, he let out a sigh before giving MK a smile.
“You sure your mentor won’t have a problem with me teaching you?”
“Bold of you to assume Wukong’s disapproval will stop me.”
“Well alright then, I think we’re gonna get along just fine, bud.”
---
“I see what you’re trying to do, you’re afraid of holding back and giving your enemy the opportunity to win. But the first strike isn’t the most important one. Every strike counts. Other people may tell you that patience and focus don’t matter but a fool allows himself to rush without restraint. While you have power inside you, you have to use it carefully. Take the power to defend others, not just destroy those who stand in your way. You’re not a weapon kid, you wield the weapon above all else.”
---
It started with a fairly innocent question from MK after one of their training sessions, him slowly going through a water bottle given to him by Macaque while the monkey made them something to eat. He needed a distraction to stop himself from taking over the cooking, years of feeding others making him feel guilt the moment someone else took over.
“So Mac, how exactly do you know the Monkey King?” To his credit, Macaque only fumbled the slightest bit at that sudden question and was able to save the plate before it crashed to the floor.
“Oh um well… funny thing about that is, well… we used to be together actually. Like y’know… together-together,” he explained while he plated their food, wincing internally at how awkward he sounded. With his back towards MK, Macaque didn’t notice him go tense and grip the couch arm so tightly that the wood underneath cracked at the pressure.
“Used to be together, huh? What happened?” Macaque couldn’t help but shiver at the chill which traveled down his spine. MK’s voice was perfectly even and calm yet he was filled with an overwhelming fear that warned him to not turn around and remain perfectly still until the danger passed.
His ears twitched at the sound of sparks behind him, magic power permeating through the air.
“I… I messed up honestly. We had an argument about something, I don’t even remember what it was so long ago. But I had to leave to just get some space and air before I said something I’d regret, something I couldn’t take back. It was only meant to be a couple hours but some stuff out of my control happened and by the time I got back… Wukong was gone. I had been looking for him for centuries after that and then… well then you found me.”
“What, you hoped getting on my good side would mean that you’d win the Monkey King back?” His tone promised nothing good if Macaque kept digging himself a deeper hole.
“No! No, nothing like that at all. I don’t expect Pe-...Wukong to take me back or anything like that. I just… wanted the chance to apologize to him is all. If he wants anything to do with me afterwards, then I want that to be his choice. Nothing more, I swear.”
MK remained silent behind him before the sudden tension in the air dissipated as quickly as it appeared. Macaque let out a sigh of relief, slowly turning around to see MK still sitting on his couch, placing the staff back in his ear nonchalantly.
“Fair enough, sounds like you both were just idiots who don’t know how to communicate. If you actually intended on using me to get to the Monkey King, you’d have actually mentioned him during our training and yet you haven’t. And you can’t lie to save your life anyway. Just don’t be an idiot again alright? Monkey King… Wukong, he’s a mess and I don’t think he could handle thinking he’s been abandoned again.”
Macaque could feel his heart break at the idea that his Peaches, his love, thought that he had left permanently. He wanted nothing more than to run to him now and make things right. But that was Wukong’s decision to make, nobody else’s.
The two ate their food in silence after that.
---
Sun Wukong may have supposedly “lost his edge”  but he was by no means dense or oblivious.
And while he was certainly happy about his successor’s vast improvement over the past couple weeks, a part of him sensed something was off. Like his successor was hiding something from him. And those moves he watched MK use to absolutely demolish the old mural, the Monkey King swore he had seen them before.
But it couldn’t possibly be. He hadn’t seen him in centuries. Not since he… left, like everyone else.
“I’m impressed, my boy! Tell me, how did you do that? Have you been seeing another mentor perhaps?” Wukong asked, his typically serene smile straining the slightest bit at the idea of his son student learning from someone who wasn’t him. The sensible part of his brain was gently poking at him, reminding him that it seemed silly to get upset about such a thing as, if anything, MK had appeared significantly calmer during their training compared to when they started. This could be a good thing, it told him.
Yet it was silenced by the majority of his brain which ran on fatherly protectiveness and had immediately been plagued by images of the worst case scenario. A demon had approached MK, promising him to make him stronger while also poisoning his student as a bid to turn him against the Monkey King before stealing his powers or, Heavens forbid, harming him.
No, Wukong refused to even allow a chance of that happening, logic and reasoning be damned.
“Hey, you’re the one always going on about ‘patience and focus’, I’m just finally putting what you said into practice,” MK answered, the picture of being casual which only set off further alarm bells within Wukong’s head. But before he could question him further, MK’s phone dinged to tell him of a new text message which he quickly read over, his eyes widening slightly at the message.
“Welp, looks like I gotta cut things short for now Wukong, something came up and I gotta head out. See ya later! Don’t forget to eat something tonight and sleep, I will know if you don’t.” And with that, MK was off through the hole he had created in the wall where the mural was before the Monkey King could get a word in edgewise. 
Wukong waited long enough to allow MK to get a reasonable distance away before transforming into a bird, flying after his successor.
Something fishy was going on and the Monkey King was determined to find out what it was.
---
“Why exactly are we climbing up to this giant mountain again Mac?” MK wheezed, hating to admit it but this hike had genuinely winded him despite all his training. He had immediately gone to Macaque’s place the moment he got his text only to be told to follow the six-eared demon, leading them to where they were now.
“Well, consider this your ‘final exam’ bud! I want you to use everything I’ve taught you to fight against me, no holding back. Think you can do that?” MK couldn’t help the twitch at the corners of his mouth at the sight of Macaque’s genuine excitement as he explained, all six ears twitching while his tail was wagging like a dog. A demon who was centuries old and had fought countless powerful demons had no right looking that endearing, but here MK was looking with his own two eyes.
MK gave a chuckle before straightening himself out, wordlessly pulling the staff out his ear.
“You sure you’re comfortable getting your ass kicked by me, Mac?” With a smirk, Macaque summoned his own weapon in a flash of purple with the beginning of two shadow clones pooling at his feet. They shyly peeked from the ground from behind their master.
“Oho, a couple training sessions with me for a month and you think you have what it takes to defeat me, bud? Well then, bring it Monkie Kid!” MK didn’t hesitate to charge forward with Macaque mirroring him, weapons at the ready and adrenaline already running through their veins.
“Enough!”
A sudden force landed in between them with enough force to send them both flying backwards.
MK and Macaque recovered in time to see who decided to interrupt their duel.
Both of their hearts nearly stopped at the sight of the enraged Monkey King but for vastly different reasons.
“You have 5 seconds to explain yourself for trying to harm my-” Wukong’s rage quickly deflated as the dust cleared enough for him to truly see who it was he had thought was attacking MK. “Mango Flower?”
“Um… hello again, Peach Blossom. It’s been a while, hasn’t it?” Macaque joked, voice weak as he restrained himself from acting out of bounds even if he wanted nothing more than to gather the other into his arms. It had been so long, far too long. 
He nearly broke at the sight of tears beginning to form in Wukong’s eyes.
His resolve finally shattered as the Monkey King ran towards him, arms outstretched, and before Macaque knew it his legs were moving on their own. The wind was knocked out of him at how tight Wukong squeezed him yet he returned the embrace back with gusto, ignoring the groaning of his ribs. He simply buried his face into the other’s fur, the smell of peaches still there even after all these years. Faintly, Macaque realized he was also crying once he felt a wetness on his cheeks.
Macaque let out a squeak in surprise as Wukong picked him up in the hug and spun him around, the sound of his laughter echoing throughout the mountain. The sight of such unabashed joy on his face was enough to make the six-eared demon to start laughing too, joy contagious in the best of ways. 
MK would deny it unless under the threat of death but he couldn’t help but smile as he watched the two monkeys get lost in their own little world. It made the guilt which nagged at his chest at having to manipulate the two to make this meeting happen ease up, seeing how happy the two were.
“It’s been so long…” Wukong whispered as he placed Macaque back on his feet, gently cradling his face as if afraid that if he stopped touching the other, that he’d disappear again. “But, why are you here? I had thought that you hated me, isn’t that why you…” Macaque went stiff in shock before taking the Monkey King’s hands into his own.
“What? No! If anything, I thought you hated me for leaving instead of talking things out and that’s why you were gone when I came back. I always intended on coming back to you Peaches, I swear on it.” Wukong’s eyes went wide at that, extremely close to crying again a second time that day. “I had been looking for you for centuries now to apologize.”
And now the warm feeling was gone, leaving MK to bite down on his staff to stop himself from screaming at how much those two had failed at the simple of communication.
“We’ve both been absolutely foolish, haven’t we?” Wukong couldn’t help but laugh at it all, which only worsened as he noticed all six of Macaque’s ears turn red in embarrassment.
“Yeah, I guess we have been-” His words were cut off as the Monkey King grabbed his scarf, pulling him into a sudden kiss that made Macaque jolt in surprise before he practically melted into the other’s arms. A purr rumbled in his chest and neither noticed their tails wind around each other.
The sound of MK clearing his throat, loudly, was enough to get them to break apart in embarrassment.
“If you two are done being romantic idiots, I have to beat the shit out of Macaque to prove that I’m better than him. I mean ace my ‘final exam’.” The grin on his face showed that he was lying through his teeth.
“Don’t think I forgot about all your trash talking, young man. How about it Peach Blossom? You willing to go all out with me and the kid?” 
Wukong’s face was the epitome of ‘Every part of my body wants to say yes but I shouldn’t.’ He was already terrible at saying no to MK and now with Macaque’s endearingly earnest face, he knew he was done for, at least with these two working together now.
“...Oh alright.”
The two mutual cheers at his agreement made Wukong feel slightly less guilty in letting his lessons go for a brief moment. But not completely.
But that was okay, Wukong was used to living with constant guilt.
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nerdzzone · 3 years
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Only For A Moment: June
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Summary: A series of shorter one shots from Chris and Whitney’s life together throughout the pandemic. Some happy times, some harder times, some fluff and some things a little more sexy - they work through it all as they try to get settled in their new and blossoming relationship.
Chris Evans x OFC
Part of the Once Bitten/More Hearts series
Only For A Moment: May
Note: Thank you to everyone who liked, reblogged or commented on the first part of this little series. It’s been nice to write some fun family time, but please let me know if you enjoy it too! There will be some drama sprinkled in and relationship building conversations eventually, but I thought I’d let them be happy for a bit 😉
______
June 2020
When I first moved to Massachusetts, I'd been very excited about the change in climate. I was ready to get away from the perpetual heat of California and live somewhere with four real seasons and actual snow in the winter. However, as much as I enjoyed those new things, it only made me appreciate summer even more.
I loved lounging in the sun, I loved the bright early mornings with that fresh smell in the air that tells you it's going to be a hot day, I loved how it brought out all the little freckles on Grayson's cheeks and most of all, this year, I loved that we had easy access to a pool.
Swimming had always been my favourite summer activity and it was something that I must have passed on to Grayson because as soon as the weather turned hot, he was constantly pestering us to let him in the water. We were very stern with him about the rules - that he wasn't to go anywhere near the pool without adult supervision - but his patience was clearly wearing thin. Chris had to clean it and get it ready for the season after it had been out of use all winter and every day that Grayson had to wait seemed to physically pain him. It was the first thing he mentioned in the morning and all he wanted to talk about throughout the day until finally, as the temperatures neared the mid 80s and summer had clearly begun, the pool was ready for use.
And it came at just the right time, when we were all needing a little carefree family fun. On top of the normal, seemingly never ending anxiety caused by the pandemic, Scott had left the day before to return to L.A. and get his life back in order. We were excited for him, but there was a hint of sadness in the air as the house felt just a little bit emptier without him.
But that emptiness dissipated instantly when we got outside. Grayson was practically vibrating with excitement and his squeals and shrieks as he splashed in the pool with Chris did a wonderful job of filling any quiet that Scott's departure had caused. He was constantly impressing us with his patience and understanding of the current restrictions on our activities so hearing the glee in his voice was a comforting sound. I couldn’t help but think how a few short years ago rambunctious kids at the pool used to get on my nerves, but now the noise only added to my relaxation.
I was soaking in that relaxation as I laid on a lounger in the sun wearing the only bikini that I'd packed. I thought it was fairly modest as far as bikinis go - very mom friendly - but from the look Chris had given me when I first came out of the house, apparently it was sexier than I thought. I'd watched in amusement as Chris turned to stare, his jaw dropping slightly as I sauntered over to my seat, but there was no time for those kinds of distractions as Grayson protested his dad's lack of attention with a splash in the face. Chris let out an exaggerated shout of surprise, but was quick to retaliate by dunking him completely under the water. The urge to scold Chris was on the tip of my tongue, but Gray was full of heartfelt giggles when he popped back up and a smile slid onto my face as I relaxed back against my chair.
I did fully intended to join them in the pool at some point, but I couldn't resist taking a few moments to watch them play.
Even when Chris and I hadn't been on the best of terms, I had always been grateful for the bond they shared. Grayson had definitely inherited his father's sense of humour - the way they teased and pestered each other was adorable to see - and they both looked at each other with so much pride, constantly thriving off the other's support and approval. Watching as Grayson flourished in his swimming practice with Chris' constant encouragement made my heart ache with happiness and I could have stayed in that moment - sprawled out on my lounger, soaking in their joy - forever without growing tired of it.
It wasn't until they'd been in the pool just over half an hour that there was any trouble. Grayson was a natural in the water - he had no fear of putting his head under, he didn't panic when he couldn't touch the bottom, he was probably a fish in a previous life - and he was excellent at listening to Chris' guidance to keep him out of any dangerous situations. However, he apparently wasn't as eager to follow our rules when he wasn't in the water.
That became apparent when Chris decided to show him how to do a cannonball. Grayson did as instructed and held tightly onto the side while Chris climbed out to demonstrate, but he got distracted when it was his turn to try. Dodger had been whipped into a frenzy by all the shouts and screams so as soon as Grayson was out of the pool, the happy dog went running past him.
"Dodger! Come back!" Grayson grinned, as his eyes lit up with an idea. "Dodger, get in the pool!"
Chris shook his head at Grayson's plan and insisted that it was a bad idea, but was almost entirely ignored as Grayson bolted after the dog.
"Grayson," I shouted over to him, sitting up straight so I could make sure I got his attention. "Don't run around the pool! Your feet are wet and the ground is slippery!"
Again, he completely ignored the opposition to his brilliant idea and he continued his sprint. I let out a huff of frustration and slipped my feet into my flip-flops, ready to chase after him when Chris spoke up.
"Gray!" He shouted, his voice stern and leaving no room for his seriousness to be misunderstood. "Listen to your Ma! You know not to run by the pool!"
Grayson's excitement was clearly clouding his judgment as he still paid no attention. I'd just stood up to go and physically stop him and make sure he understood why he needed to listen to us when he learnt the hard way, slipping and falling backwards.
My heart was in my throat as I jumped in to action, feeling only a hint of relief that he had managed to catch himself with his hands just fast enough to stop his head from smashing on the hard tiles around the pool. His first reaction was one of shock, but it only took a second for the tears to come.
"Shit," I heard Chris mutter as he immediately hoisted himself out of the water before rushing over, hot on my heels. 
I got to him first and pulled him into my arms.
"Oh, buddy, are you okay?" I asked as he buried his face in my neck and cried. "Where does it hurt?"
He sobbed out a quiet 'everywhere', but he was holding his wrist so it was safe to assume that was what bore the brunt of the impact. I rubbed his back as Chris crouched down beside us and took Gray's little hand in his own. He made him move it up and down and make a fist and when he did so without much more than a wince, it seemed like it was probably just a bit bruised.
"I think you'll be okay," Chris announced as Grayson's cries quieted down to a sniffle. "But this is why we reminded you not to run. It's not safe and you could have been really hurt."
"Sorry, Daddy..."
His words were soft as more tears filled his eyes and he crawled off of my lap into Chris' arms. Still crouched down, Chris gave him a big squeeze and assured him that it was fine, but warned him to make sure he listened to us next time.
Once Grayson's sniffles had quieted down almost completely, Chris glanced at me with a twinkle in his eye before leaning in towards Gray.
"Would it cheer you up if..."
His words trailed off and he leaned down to whisper the end of the sentence in Grayson's ear. From the way his eyes lit up at his dad's words and a giggle bubbled up from his chest, I had a feeling that I wasn't going to like whatever he'd suggested.
"Yes, Daddy!" Grayson grinned. "Do it!"
Chris shot me a smirk before sliding Grayson out of his arms and standing up. As soon as he moved behind me, I had a good idea what had just been discussed and my suspicions were all, but confirmed when he effortlessly lifted me up with one arm behind my back and the other under my knees.
"Chris..." I warned him, looking up at him in what I hoped was a menacing way. "Don't you dare throw me in that pool..."
"Why not?" He smirked. "It's such a beautiful day and you haven't even dipped a toe in yet..."
"I'll get in if you want me to, but I don't want to get my hair wet. The chlorine makes it so gross."
Chris rolled his eyes at my excuse and took a step closer to the edge.
"Do it, Daddy!" Grayson cheered. "Do it!"
"Chris..." My plea was more whiny this time. "Please, don't."
"Sorry, honey. The kid needs cheering up."
The grin on his face made it clear that he wasn't sorry at all, but before I could argue the point he tossed me out of his arms. I had just enough time to let out a squeal of protest before I hit the water. It was colder than I expected, but it wasn't entirely unpleasant since it was such a hot day. Still, as I popped back up at the surface and flipped the drenched mess of my hair out of my face, I glared at Chris. He was grinning as Grayson stood next to him, giggling uncontrollably.
"Chris! That was rude!"
My tone was harsh, but there was a smile on my face. It was hard to be annoyed when it had clearly filled Grayson with so much joy and, truthfully, I didn't mind getting wet. I wasn't about to let them know that though as I forced a pout and paddled over to the side of the pool.
"I'm sorry, Winnie," Chris apologized, but with a smirk that made me think he still wasn't being entirely sincere. "Here, let me help you out."
He held out his hand and I hid a smirk of my own. I couldn't believe he was stupid enough to do that, but I accepted his offer and grabbed on. Planting my feet on the side of the pool, I pulled on his arm and sent him flying into the water beside me.
Grayson could barely breathe he was laughing so hard after that and the look of shock on Chris' face when he resurfaced had me unable to hold back giggles of my own.
"I can't believe you fell for that," I teased. "That's the oldest trick in the book."
"Well, I didn't think you'd pull something like that when I was trying to be nice."
"It's called payback."
I shot him a smirk as I went to hoist myself out of the water, but his arms slid around my waist when I was halfway out and dragged me back in. We both ended up under the water this time and when we popped back up, he'd angled us so his back was towards Grayson and he was holding me tightly against his chest. I wrapped my legs around his waist to help me stay afloat and his hands went down to my thighs to support me.
"Well, throwing you in the pool was payback of my own," he informed me, his voice low. "Payback for strutting around in that sexy bikini when I can't do anything about it."
He slid his hands a bit higher, giving my ass a quick squeeze and I leaned down to steal a kiss. I'd be lying if I said that the sight of his very chiselled muscles as he splashed around shirtless hadn't been driving me wild too, but as Grayson called to us from the side of the pool, we were reminded just why the situation was so torturous.
"I wanna turn falling in!"
I pulled myself out of Chris' grasp at the sound of Gray's voice and smiled up at him.
"Jump in!"
"No," he shook his head. "I wanna be pushed too!"
Chris swam past me, chuckling as he went, and pulled himself out of the pool with ease. I was treading water, waiting to swim over and help Gray once he landed in the water as Chris scooped him into his arms. He tickled him, earning more hysterical giggles, and started swinging him over the pool. He didn't let go the first time though and repeated the action as he counted to three before he finally launched Grayson towards me.
Grayson's shriek was almost deafening and he landed in the water with a big splash. He spluttered and coughed as he popped back up, but the giggles quickly came back as I swam over and let him climb onto my back.
"Daddy! Come in!"
Chris smiled and turned around, looking down to make sure his feet were right at the edge of the pool.
"Stay back!"
I listened to his warning and swam a little bit farther away. He glanced over his shoulder to make sure we were in a safe place before swinging his arms and doing a perfect back flip into the water.
"Wow!" Grayson gasped, the awe clear in his voice. "That's cool!"
"Yeah? You liked that?"
Chris looked very proud of himself for impressing the three year old and it was cute to see. He had millions of fans all around the world, but nothing meant more to him than his son's adoration.
"Yeah! I did!" Grayson nodded enthusiastically. "I wanna try!"
"No way, buddy," I told him firmly, shooting Chris a glare as I heard that request and making sure he heard me too. "That's a trick for grown-ups only."
Grayson whined about how unfair I was being, but Chris chuckled and nodded his head.
"Your mom's right, Gray. That trick takes a lot of practice," he warned him as he reached over to pull him from my back. "But we can try something else. Here, stand on my hands."
He moved his hands under the water and put them under Grayson's feet. I watched, feeling a bit nervous about what he was planning, but I trusted that Chris wouldn’t do anything dangerous as they got settled into position.
"Ready?" He asked Grayson, who nodded eagerly despite having no idea what was about to happen. "Okay...One...Two...Three...Go!"
On 'go', Chris pushed his hands up quickly, tossing Grayson through the air. It was much less graceful than Chris' back flip, but that didn't damper Gray's enjoyment. As soon as his head was back above the water, he giggled and squealed for Chris to do it again. I smiled at his enthusiasm as I helped him swim back to Chris.
As we probably could have predicted, Grayson made Chris do it over and over again until we were all wrinkled from the water and baked from the sun. He probably would have made Chris toss him around the pool all night if we let him but, after almost an hour, we ruined his fun and dragged him back inside for a break from the warm weather.
To ease the blow of the pool party being over, we set him up on the couch with a popsicle while we got ourselves changed before joining him. As we all lounged in the living room - soaking in the joy of air conditioning - I was filled with a feeling that was becoming increasingly familiar.
Contentment.
The joy of domesticity was still so fresh for us. All these normal days spent together as a family that some people might find mundane were so special, but as much as I enjoyed them, I couldn't help but feel a hint of regret. I'd spent so long trying to protect Grayson by keeping Chris and I apart that I hadn't realized what he was missing out on and - as Chris pulled me close against his side with Gray tucked under his other arm - I was so grateful that we were finally able to give him the family that he deserved.
-
July
Tags:  @maggotzombie @moonlacebeam @mizzzpink @zaylaugh @flowery-mess @flowerjewels @njrronaldo7 @hockeychick10 @partypoison00 @theladybiers @sidepieces @firoozehmoon @patzammit @sparkledfirecracker @mytbel0st
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Derek- Unlikely Allies
A/N: Hey guys, this is a rewrite of something I made a really long time ago. I wanted to mess around with some old concepts that I feel I didn’t flesh out enough. Let me know what you think, or if you want a part 2 of this one!
You raced through the pitch black corridor, shining your flashlight back and forth. You caught glimpses of grimy cement as you ran, narrowly dodging debris on the floor of the old rail depot. It was littered with rusted metal and broken glass, no doubt remnants of Beacon Hills’ abandoned subway cars. 
It was fitting for Derek to have his hideout here, you thought. He seemed to have a habit of living in abandoned places. It must have been working pretty well, because finding him had been difficult. You had torn up your father’s office trying to find the place, knowing Allison must have discovered Derek’s location somewhere in the maps cluttering his desk. 
Your father had narrowed down a couple locations, one of them being the abandoned rail depot on the outskirts of town. When you took a chance and drove out there, a glimpse of Allison’s car out front confirmed your suspicions. She was here to kill Derek. 
You cursed yourself as you searched the depot, wondering if you could have stopped Gerard from getting into her head. Maybe if you had paid more attention, you wouldn’t have had to try and reverse the damage your grandfather had done.
A light up ahead caught your attention. There was a staircase to your right, dimly illuminated from the floor below. You clicked the flashlight off and crept closer. 
“Wait, stop. You don’t know what you’re doing.”
That was Derek’s voice.
“Shut up!”
And that was Allison’s.
You swore under your breath. As you crept down the stairs, you saw Allison standing in front of one of the old subway cars. She had her crossbow raised, and Derek was lying on his back in front of her. He held one hand up defensively, while the other gripped an arrow that was sticking out of his right thigh. Blood was pooling around the wound, which wouldn’t be able to heal until the arrow was removed.
“You killed my mother!” she spat. Her voice was trembling. 
“Your family’s little honor code killed your mother,” Derek snapped. 
You rolled your eyes. Leave it to Derek to still be an ass, even with a crossbow trained on his chest. 
Allison’s finger moved onto the trigger, and you bolted down the stairs. “Wait!”
She glanced over her shoulder, and when she saw you approaching, her brown eyes widened. She turned back to Derek, keeping the crossbow steady. 
“You shouldn’t have followed me, Y/n.”
“I’m trying to protect you,” you told her. 
She let out a bitter laugh. “From what? The monsters? I think we’re past that.”
“Allison-”
“You hid this from me!” she spat. “And now you want to try and protect me? Mom is dead. Maybe you should have protected her.”
You looked down and met Derek’s eyes. He knew that Allison was willing to pull the trigger and so did you. He seemed to be asking the same question you were. Could you stop her?
“I’m trying to protect you from yourself. Killing him won’t bring her back, Allison.”
“No, but it will make me feel better.”
“You sure about that?” Derek asked. 
“Yes,” she snarled, moving her finger back onto the trigger.
She might have actually pulled it if you had given her the chance. You couldn’t have been sure, but you weren’t willing to risk it. Derek was an ally that you needed, whether Allison knew that or not. If saving him meant Gerard would be stopped, you had to do what you did next.
Allison froze at the sound of you cocking your gun behind her. “Put it down.”
“Or what?” she asked bitterly. “You’ll put me down?”
A chill ran down your spine. It was the same thing your father had said to Kate on the night she was killed. Allison’s words brought back the bittersweet feelings your aunt’s death had caused.
“If I have to,” you finally said.
“I’m your sister.” Her voice was uneven, as if she was trying to stop herself from crying. 
“I don’t know what you are anymore. All I see right now is the monster that Gerard created.”
Her hands were trembling. The crossbow was shaking in her grip. For a moment, you wondered if you had said the wrong thing. 
Then the weapon fell from her hands, clattering to the cement floor. Allison bolted, running out of the room and up the same stairs you had come down. You could see the tears dripping down her cheeks as she left. Guilt washed over you, but you knew you couldn’t go after her. 
You holstered your gun and walked toward Derek.
“I’m sorry,” you apologized, holding out a hand.
Derek glared up at you from the dirty floor. He yanked the arrow out of his thigh with a grunt. He didn’t take your hand as he got up, but he did mutter gruffly “You’re not the one who shot me.”
You watched as the  wound in his leg began to close up, leaving nothing but a bloody stain and a slight rip in his jeans. He began to turn away from you, heading toward one of the rickety subway cars.
“I need your help,” you blurted out.
Derek paused, and turned to raise an eyebrow at you. “With what?”
“I need to kill Gerard.”
“You think that’s gonna save your family?”
You didn’t falter under his gaze. “It’s going to save Allison.”
He crossed his arms over his chest, staring at you for a moment. You looked exhausted, and the dim lights of the old subway station hollowed out your face. Your eyes were still full of life though, sharp and gleaming. Derek could see how desperate you were.
“What if it can’t?” he asked. “What if she…?”
“What if she turns into Kate?” 
He nodded solemnly. 
“Then I’ll kill her myself,” you said softly. “But she doesn’t understand that he’s manipulating her right now. She thinks she’s doing what she wants.” 
“And how do I know I can trust you?” he asked. 
“We have a common enemy. And right now, I couldn’t care less about you being an alpha. Bite as many kids as you want. Hell, bite me if you want to. I just want my sister back.”
Derek’s lips twitched. Was he actually smiling at you? 
“You’d let me bite you if I helped you?”
You felt your breath catch in your throat. “If that’s what it takes.”
Derek raised his eyebrows. “Really?”
“Yes.”
“Fine. Give me your arm.”
You cautiously held out your left arm. He reached out and took it, stepping toward you so that your chests were almost touching. He raised your arm to his mouth, and his teeth were so close that you could feel his breath on your skin.
He gazed down at you and grinned, revealing his abnormally sharp canines. You swallowed, and suddenly, he chuckled. That broke the stillness in the air, and you realized he was only messing with you. 
You wrenched your arm out of his grasp as he laughed. “What the hell is the matter with you?”
He grinned. “You should have seen the look on your face.”
“You’re such an asshole,” you spat. “Forget I asked.”
You turned to go, but he grabbed your wrist. “Wait. If you want to stop Gerard, we need to talk to Scott.”
You turned back, shooting him a skeptical look. “Why Scott?” 
“Because we have a plan,” he told you. “And it might be the only chance you have to save your sister.”
“How do I know you’re being serious?” you questioned.
He shrugged. “Like you said, we have a common enemy.”
“And after that?” you asked. 
“We can go on hating each other. Just like old times.”
He was right. The werewolves helping you kill Gerard didn’t necessarily mean you would continue to be allies. As soon as he was dead, you could go right back to the vitriol and violence. 
Deep down though, you knew things in Beacon Hills were shifting. Without Gerard at the helm of the Argent empire, maybe fighting wouldn’t have to be the only option.
“What if things could be different?”
“Like if we didn’t hate each other?” Derek asked.
“I’ve never hated you.”
“I can’t say the same,” he admitted. “But...I don’t hate you anymore.”
“There shouldn’t always be a war going on between us.”
Derek tilted his head. “That’s the way it’s always been.”
“Maybe...maybe it doesn’t have to be.”
Derek’s gaze was skeptical, and you suddenly felt embarrassed for saying it. Of course the idea of peace sounded ridiculous to him. Then he spoke, his words catching you off guard.
“We’ll see,” he said softly. “Hey, what’s wrong with your arm?”
You glanced down, just now noticing the purple bruising that was blooming along your right forearm. It was throbbing with pain, but in the chaos of trying to stop Allison, you had barely noticed. 
You had been headed out of the house after her when you ran into Gerard in the foyer of your home. He was blocking your exit, and when you tried to move past him, he snatched you by the arm. His fingers had gripped you so tightly that you swore the bone was about to break. 
“You’ll never catch her in time.”
“Let go of me,” you spat at him. 
Gerard had simply stared at you with those dark eyes of his. “You’ve always been my greatest disappointment.”
Without a second thought, you slammed your knee between his legs. “Good.”
He had grunted in pain, and his knees buckled. You wrenched your arm out of his grasp and ran. You sped all the way to the rail depot, paranoid he would chase after you and stop you.
“It’s nothing,” you told Derek. “I’m fine.”
He wasn’t buying it. “Did Gerard do that to you?”
“Does it matter?”
“Here,” Derek told you, reaching for your arm. 
“What are you-”
“Trust me?”
You didn’t say anything more, and he took that a yes. He placed one hand under your wounded arm to steady it, and the other one over the bruise. His movements were tender and soft, something you wouldn’t have expected from Derek. You gasped as the veins in his arm began to turn black, and you realized your pain was ebbing away.
When you looked up, there was a hint of a smile playing at his lips. “I bet the hunters never told you we could do that, huh?”
You shook your head, still stunned as he gently held your arm in his hands. “Why did you do that?” 
“Maybe you’re right,” he said softly. “Maybe things can be different.”
You looked into Derek’s green eyes, and for once, you saw something similar inside of them. You and Derek  were both struggling under the weight of your families’ bloody past. You both needed to prove them wrong. If anyone could understand you, it was him. 
You pulled away, but a part of you hesitated for a moment. Something was stirring inside of you, but you refused to acknowledge it while there was so much going on. By the way Derek was looking at you, you could tell he felt it too. 
Finally, you cleared your throat. “So we need to talk to Scott?”
“Yeah,” he said, awkwardly bringing his arms back down to his sides. “We’ve got a homicidal maniac to kill.”
For now that was the plan. Kill Gerard, take back your family, and save Allison. After that, maybe you and Derek could be something more than unlikely allies.
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kpop-zone · 3 years
Text
True North | Chuu
High School AU | exes | “I let you mooch off of my Netflix and this is how you repay me?” | “It’s just so hard not to fall in love with you.”
Genre: angsty
Wordcount: 1,870
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As soon as you stepped foot into the classroom, you instantly felt like turning around and running away again. Of course, she was there. Laughing with people that she probably didn’t even know. But as the social butterfly that she was, she could charm every person on this planet in less than a second. Just like she had charmed you. You hated yourself for hating to see her this happy. You didn’t want to be that ex. But somehow you couldn’t bear to know that she was absolutely unfazed by your breakup while you were still looking through your pictures every night. Just when you were contemplating whether this was enough reason for you to drop this class, you could suddenly feel someone tapping your shoulder, so you turned around in confusion.
“Are you already tired of my class before the school year has even really started?”
Mr.Kim, your math teacher, asked with an amused expression on his face, causing your eyes to widen in shock.
“N-no of course not!”
You stuttered, feeling like he had just caught you redhanded. Embarrassed, you lowered your head and quickly entered the room to search for a vacant seat. What a great way to leave a good impression on the first day of school... Not wanting to make an even worse impression, you quickly rummaged through your backpack to fish out your calculator and your pencil case when you suddenly felt someone tapping your shoulder once more. Stressed out, you turned around, just to be met with the wide (and highly adorable) grin of your ex-girlfriend who waved excitedly at you from the seat right behind you. In an instant, your already bad mood got even worse, and you rolled your eyes before turning to the front again. You already knew that this would be your least favorite class throughout the whole school year. The rest of the week confirmed your suspicion as you were able to avoid your girlfriend wherever else you were going. You attended no other classes together and in the cafeteria you always made sure to pick a table at the opposite side from where she was sitting. It made it easier not to think about her all of the time which was why you had a stomachache right before your next math class on Monday. You knew that seeing her would demolish all progress in getting over her in the blink of an eye.
But to your surprise Jiwoo wasn’t entertaining the whole class yet when you entered the room later than usual after having given yourself a pep talk in front of the school for almost ten minutes. Her seat was still empty, making you hope that she had dropped the class for some inexplicable reason. Nervously, you wriggled about on your chair while staring at the clock on the wall incessantly. There were only a few more seconds left till the class would start. If she wasn’t here yet it had to mean that she would not show up anymore, relieving you of the burden to see her every week, right? To your dismay, however, your ex-girlfriend breathlessly stumbled into the classroom with two iced beverages in her hand right when the bell rang to indicate the start of the first period. Like the needle of compass always found north, her eyes immediately found yours, causing her face to light up in an instant.
With big steps she headed directly for you like she was on some sort of mission, making you get smaller and smaller in your seat. You couldn’t even stand seeing her without having the urge to fling your arms around her neck to beg her to take you back, you definitely weren’t strong enough to talk with her. For a split-second you thought about running away, but before you could make a decision, a high-pitched squeal catapulted you back to reality again. Jiwoo’s wide grin had suddenly turned into a horrified grimace, and you felt a cold shudder spreading from your chest to the rest of your body. Confused, you looked down on yourself, making you realize that one of the beverages that Jiwoo had proudly paraded around, had found its way onto your shirt.
“I’m so sorry!! I didn’t mean to. I stumbled over your backpack and somehow the cup slipped out of my hand.”
Jiwoo gasped, still frozen to the spot. Your initial shock quickly died down as the ice-cold liquid seeped through your clothes, managing to wake you up better than any warm coffee.
“Are you serious?? I let you mooch off of my Netflix and this is how you repay me?!”
You growled angrily, 100% certain that Jiwoo had dropped the beverage on you on purpose.
“No!!! It’s not like that! This was not on purpose.”
Your ex-girlfriend yelled in despair, looking at you with those puppy dog eyes that had always been able to make you forgive her for everything.
“I can fix this!”
From one second to the other, Jiwoo’s annoyingly contagious positivity was back and before you knew what was happening, you already felt yourself being pulled off your chair towards the door. Without granting you a voice, Jiwoo dragged you through the almost empty hallways of your school to -as you assumed- the restrooms. Instead of protesting against Jiwoo’s unsolicited decision, however, you were busy staring at her hand that was tightly gripping your wrist. As much as you fought it, you couldn’t suppress the tingling feeling in your stomach that the much longed for feeling of Jiwoo’s touch on your skin caused. While the two of you had been dating, there had barely been a moment when you hadn’t held hands. And after you had broken up, you sometimes felt like you were going through some sort of phantom pain because your hands felt so empty without hers to hold. Now everything finally felt in place again and you couldn’t help but to wish that Jiwoo would never let go. Unfortunately, however, everything had to come to an end eventually. And your daydreaming of a time when everything was still alright came to an abrupt halt when someone suddenly called your name.
“Y/N?”
With a jolt you snapped you out of your trance and realized that Jiwoo neither was holding your wrist anymore nor dragging you through the hallways. The two of you had already reached one of the restrooms of your school and she was staring at you expectantly like she was waiting for you to say something.
“W-what?”
You asked confused, only faintly being aware that Jiwoo had asked you a question.
“I asked whether it’s ok that I clean your shirt?”
She repeated herself although this was the first time that you actually understood what she had been saying. Still feeling like you weren’t able to form a coherent verbal response because your brain had run too hot, you simply nodded and Jiwoo softly started dabbing a wet paper towel on the giant brown stain on your shirt.
“Oh no, this is your favorite shirt even, isn’t it?”
Jiwoo whined when the stain didn’t vanish as she had hoped, but you couldn’t even care less about it anymore. She remembered what your favorite shirt was? You knew that you shouldn’t feel so flattered by this unimportant fact, but your heart didn’t seem to care about what your brain had to say and fluttered in your chest by its own accord. This would be the perfect opportunity to make her feel bad and finally wipe that annoying grin off her face at least for a while, but once more you remained silent. Jiwoo didn’t seem to be bothered by your silence though. Instead, she started babbling about random things like always when she was nervous, and you simply listened to her sweet voice that you had missed so much. You didn’t know how long you stood there, allowing yourself to get completely entranced by her charms. Once more only an unexpected sound could rip you out of your daydreaming although this time the wake-up call was more unpleasant than the last one. It was the sound of your own voice that abruptly ripped you out of your trance. The most surprising thing about hearing your own voice was that you hadn’t even intended to speak. But it seemed like after the betrayal of your heart, now also your brain had plotted against you.
“It’s just so hard not to fall in love with you.”
It took you some time to process what your mouth had let slip without your permission, but as soon as the message arrived in your brain, your eyes widened in shock and your body tensed up. Jiwoo mirrored your reaction and stopped dabbing your shirt before slowly looking up from your shirt and into your eyes. It was hard to pinpoint what emotions flashed over your ex-girlfriend’s face as your own emotions seemed to ride a rollercoaster in your brain. A little part of yourself was relieved to be freed of this secret. But you were also angry at yourself for letting the truth slip. After letting Jiwoo break your heart, you had sworn yourself to never let her know that she still had a grip on you despite everything that she had done to you. You told yourself that she would never be allowed to know that she still managed to make you fall in love with her over and over again. Every day. Every time that you had to see her.
But now she knew.
And you couldn’t help but to feel ashamed. Although you had known that Jiwoo obviously did not suffer from the breakup like you did, you gave her the gratification of revealing the power that she still had over you. Not being able to bear this shame any longer, you quickly shoved Jiwoo away, causing her to stumble backwards dumbfounded. Without losing another word, you brushed past her and fled the restroom. The tears that pooled in your eyes and stained the floor, made it hard to see where you were going but you trusted your instincts to get you as far away from Jiwoo as you possibly could. Once again, however, her omnipresent grasp reached out for you as her name rolled off her tongue and automatically made you slow your steps.
“Y/N, wait!”
Her voice bounced off the walls in the empty hallway and seemed to follow you until you reached the front exit, but this time, you didn’t give in to Jiwoo’s grasp. You kept running until you had long left the school building and couldn’t even see it anymore. You only stopped running once your lungs burned and you felt too lost to keep going although you knew this part of town like the back of your hand. It was no help to know the names of the streets by heart when none of these places could make the compass needle in your heart stop spinning. No matter where you would run, the needle would always keep on pointing in the same direction. Your feet would always want to carry you back to the same place.
To your true north that you had just left behind.
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detectivereyes · 3 years
Text
Save Your Tears for Another Day
i wrote this text post about the idea and said someone else should write it because i haven’t been in a writing mood and then @aliceschuyler offered to write it.. and then the fic started to write itself in my head so i wrote it after all. but look out for alice’s fic too because i’m sure it’s going to be great!
word count: 1k
read on ao3
The first time TK Strand got bad news that was so bad that his brain shut down was when his parents announced they were getting divorced. They sat him down when he was 7 years old and calmly explained that while they still deeply cared about each other, they could no longer live together. 
And while his mom stroked his arm, giving him a sympathetic smile and his dad tried to cheer him up by saying he would get to have two beds, two houses, two of every toy, TK couldn’t hear any of it. Too many thoughts spun around in his brain until his parents stopped talking and he whispered a small “okay.”
When they both got called to his school a week later after he picked a fight with a kid in the lunchroom, not much thought was given. Easily finding excuses for why he picked a fight; he’s a good kid, it was just a bad day.
The next time he got bad news, he was 14 and his parents both had to work on his birthday. It didn’t even matter who he was supposed to be with that week, as the schedules often never worked out as planned anyway and usually led to TK crashing on a friend's couch.
But when his father found out he was working a double shift over TK’s birthday, followed by his mother’s gaining a new case last minute, it was hard not to be let down realizing that he would be spending another birthday alone.
His parents both tried to let him down gently, reassuring him that he was a big boy now so he could handle it and they would make it up to him. And in both cases he merely shrugged and didn’t murmur a word. Not that his parents thought much of it, instead remarking how well he always handled bad news.
That night while sprawling out on his friend Jake's uncomfortable futon, he didn’t think twice when Jake told him that he had something that would make him feel better; easily swallowing the small white tablets like they were always meant to slide down his throat.
When he was 17, his dad told him that he was getting another divorce. Owen tried to mask the pain as he explained that Tracy decided it wasn’t working anymore and moved out last night, leaving them both without saying goodbye, but TK could see he was hurting too.
Again he found solace in searching for the bottom of pill bottles and shot glasses. And when a similar conversation happened with his mom as she explained that her and Enzo would be ending things, he found that bottom.
He knew for sure he got his parents attention when he woke up in the hospital and they were both sitting by his bedside. Unshed tears pooling in both their eyes, his parents spouted off apologies and promises that things would change. Still he remained quiet, only agreeing when it was proposed that he move in with Owen and start at the fire academy as soon as he graduated high school.
Things did change, and things got better. Living with Owen for most of the time meant that someone was always keeping an eye on him. His father got almost too good at reading his mood, and could now sense what would happen when TK shut down. Even over small things, Owen would be sure to keep him extra close after he found out something that brought his mood down.
And time apart from his mother also turned out to be a good thing, with Gwyn also picking up on TK’s mood swings when they did get together.
Therapy helped too, with his therapist giving him helpful ways to sort through the storm of ideas whirling in his head, and coping mechanisms to help with any urges that came after.
They were tips that helped him work through failing his academy test the first time, and when Gwyn accepted a head position at her law firm, meaning she would be away more than she would be at home. 
TK struggled to apply it when his proposal to Alex turned into a break up. He was able to utter a few words before leaving the restaurant but his brain went blank after that. He only realized what had happened when he woke up on the floor of his apartment and surrounded his entire team, including his dad.
He tried to remember everything he had learned once he got to Austin. He fought the urge to completely shut down when he saw the results for the pill bottle he found in his dad’s office and uses the time in between that and Owen getting home only to confirm his suspicions to process his thoughts. And it helped him work through his conflicting feelings about Carlos, and getting the news that it had been a kid who shot him.
Though TK can’t help but shut down after Tim’s death, and no one blames him. He may not have known the paramedic well, but that doesn’t make grasping at the fact that one moment he was here, living and breathing and the next he was gone. Carlos, however at this point knows it’s coming and was fully prepared to guide TK through the maze of thoughts.
The next time he completely shut down was when Gwyn informs him that she’s leaving, again, and that his brother is actually his half-brother. It’s enough to concern his mom, and he wanted to fight it and keep talking. But instead he goes quiet, and explains that everything is okay.
He knew that his parents would be rightfully worried about him, he’s worried about himself, but he had enough faith in himself to know he’d pull through. He silently works through all of the urges by himself until his day decides Gwyn leaving is no longer his biggest problem.
And a few months later, Tommy tells him and Nancy that she isn’t coming back. Or she tries to tell him, but TK realizes what she is attempting to say before she can get the words out. He wants to tell her that he understands, and he can tell Nancy is saying as much but he can’t quite get the words out. Instead holds back the tears and goes through the motions of holding his teammates hands; not saying a word.
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Okay so Aguni is sound asleep, just enjoying the few hours of peace he has, when there's a knock on the door. He ignores it, but the person just keeps knocking and knocking.
"Morizono, open the goddamn door!" he hears Takeru call, "This is an emergency!"
He groans to himself before standing up and opening the door.
"What?"
"So, remember that weird chonky cat Niragi found?"
"Yeah... what about it?"
"It's not fat... and is not a cat."
Where Hatter and apparently every other idiot at the Beach mistake a domesticated pregnant genet for a fat exotic cat. And it just gave birth on Hatter's bed.
I have no idea in what direction this is supposed to go lol but hopefully something chaotic.
alright I had to look up what a genet is and DAMN they are CUTE AS HELL and I’m love them v much
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Terminator
Rating: PG-13 for dialogue and like one drug reference
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Aguni Morizono is a simple man who enjoys simple pleasures.
He enjoys a healthy slathering of grape jelly on his toast. He enjoys watching the sunset reflect over the ocean. He enjoys watering his garden and reading the newspaper and taking naps on the sofa on Sunday afternoons after he’s finished his grocery shopping for the week.
What he does not particularly enjoy is being shaken awake by a borderline-frantic Takeru in the middle of the night.
Takeru insists that he has a good reason; that this is an emergency. Aguni reminds him that running out of marijuana does not qualify as an emergency, and pulls the blanket over his head in an attempt to shut the very exuberant man out.
But the aforementioned exuberant man refuses to be shut out, and he references the aforementioned emergency again—this time insisting that it is an actual real emergency and requires immediate attention. Aguni sincerely doubts this and tries his damnedest to fall back to sleep—a truly Herculean task, given Takeru’s incessant talking and the way he’s bouncing on the other side of the mattress like some kind of weird large puppy. Aguni is just about to enter the first misty moments of dozing off as Takeru says words like ‘Niragi’ and ‘cat’ and ‘bed’ and it’s all somewhat possible to ignore until he utters one word that makes Aguni sit straight up.
‘Babies.’
Now, ‘babies’ as a concept does not bother Aguni. He’s actually somewhat fond of them, the way they unabashedly stare at him on the train or in the park, eyes wide and fat little hands waving a clumsy ‘hello’ in his general direction. And if he waves back sometimes, well...that’s his business. (It’s only polite, after all.)
No, the issue here is that ‘babies’ and ‘the Borderlands’ sounds like a terrible, terrible mix. What’s worse is that said babies have, for some reason, been left in Takeru’s care. And, judging from Takeru’s presence in his room, the babies have been left alone.
It takes no time at all for Aguni to throw on a pair of pants and slip into his boots. It takes even less time for him to grab Takeru by the collar of his robe and physically drag him down the hall, the other man switching between heartfelt thank-you’s and desperate pleas for Aguni to be gentle when handling the raw silk of his ensemble.
Now, to those of us on the outside of Aguni’s brain, it may seem like he hasn’t thought this through; that he has tunnel-vision’d his way through the last two paragraphs without a logical thought as to how and why ‘babies’ may be present. That is simply not true. Aguni has considered that ‘babies’ could actually mean a number of things aside from ‘human infants’ and has thus compiled a short list of the three most likely candidates:
The spider plant he had placed on Takeru’s windowsill has propagated—or, as some would call it, ‘had babies.’ This is Aguni’s favorite option of the bunch. It is also the least likely.
Something about the cards. Although Aguni has never Takeru refer to them as ‘his babies,’ it is no secret that he is very protective of his prized collection. Seeing as this may or may not affect the entire Beach, it’s important for him to be aware of the situation.
Takeru is high as a goddamn kite and hallucinating. This is, unfortunately, the most likely scenario.
It is also important to mention that Aguni has taken a good look at his life and his choices throughout this ordeal, particularly when Takeru commented on the state of his biceps and made an off-color insinuation about the right one looking slightly more defined than the left—and then asked if he would like to discuss his love life, with an exaggerated raise of his eyebrows. Aguni chose not to comment. He also chose to push Takeru into the doorframe on the way into his suite, and took a smidge of pleasure when his head collided with the wood with a satisfying clunk-ing sound.
“Look,” Takeru says proudly, pointing a finger at the bed, “babies!”
Nestled in what a bulging nest of fluffy white blankets are...things. Fuzzy things. One big fuzzy thing, with sleepy eyes and what looks to be a long spotted tail wrapped around one, two, three tiny fuzzy things. When Aguni leans in to get a closer look, the big one quirks a corn-chip-shaped ear and gives him a wary glare.
“What,” Aguni asks, “in the goddamn—“
But before Aguni is able to finish his sentence, Takeru is giving him a stinging slap on the arm.
“Aguni Morizono,” he hisses, hands balled into fists and perched on his hips like a mother hen, “I will not have my children exposed to that kind of language.”
There are plenty of things wrong with what Takeru just said, but Aguni is having trouble getting past the idea that these...creatures have somehow been claimed by his very silly friend.
“Think about it,” Takeru continues, swanning his way past a very confused (and tired) Aguni to sit on the edge of the bed just behind the brood of fluffy individuals, “This lovely lady could have given birth on anyone’s bed...but she chose mine.  Why do you think that is?”
“Because you leave the sheets all balled up in the middle and it’s the perfect place for an animal to make a nest?”
“Wrong, but I like how confident you sounded when you said it!”
With his hands pressed together and held in front of his lips, Takeru looks almost prayerful as he very seriously explains his theory.
“A woman alone-- heavily pregnant, scared, and lost in these cold and cruel Borderlands.  Her thoughts shift to her young.  Who will keep them safe?  Who will help take care of them?  That’s when her instincts took over,” Takeru opens his arms, the silken cuffs of his robe pooling around his elbows, “and, using her superior sense of smell, followed her nose to the den of the nearest alpha male for protection.”
Aguni wishes he could say that this is the dumbest thing he’s ever heard. He also wishes he had a cup of coffee (with a healthy glug of Bailey’s in there for good measure) before this whole event took place.
Takeru has since busied himself with the tiny new mother and her young, watching with gentle fascination as the newborns snuffle and snooze against her with unopened eyes and clumsy paws. When he reaches out a ring-bedecked hand to stroke along the bigger one’s head, she gives him a small growl and a pointed glare—to which he laughs and withdraws his touch, saying something cheeky about “the last time she let a man get too close” and quickly following it up with a promise to talk about it “after the kids are asleep.”
Takeru has just held up his hand for a high-five (which Aguni has decided to not reciprocate) when they hear a crash and then a bang and then the thundering thumpthumpthump of angry booted footsteps rapidly approaching their position in the bedroom. For some reason—a reason he’s not very keen to dwell upon at the current moment—Aguni instantly snaps into defense mode, hands curling into fists and shoulders squaring themselves in anticipation of a coming attack.
“WHERE. IS. TERMINATOR!?”
Niragi bursts into the room like a firework, all noise and flash and fire in his eyes. His knuckles strain around the dark of his rifle, ready to shoot at a moment’s notice. Of course, Aguni knows (hopes) he won’t actually resort to filling Takeru full of bullets, but he keeps a close eye on his trigger finger, anyways.
“Ah! There’s my co-parent,” Hatter says with a measure of glee, gesturing with a flourish of his hand towards the cute, hairy pile on his bed, “As you can see, our lovely Terminator is doing very well and—“
“Our? She’s not fucking ours, she’s fucking mine,” Niragi snaps, “and I’m gonna fucking kill you for stealing my cat.”
“Not a cat,” a calm voice says, and Aguni turns to see Last Boss lurking in the doorway, katana sheathed and arms crossed, “She’s a common genet, native to the savanna’s of Africa.”
“Ooh, does that mean the babies have dual citizenship? No, wait,” Hatter claps his hands together with glee, “triple citizenship? Africa, Japan, and the Borderlands?!”
“Africa’s not a country, it’s a continent, dumbass,” Niragi retorts, “and I think we have bigger problems than what’s going to be on their fucking passports.”
It’s probably not the best thing in the world for Aguni to let Takeru and Niragi descend into heated bickering—a back-and-forth of ‘you stole her’ versus ‘no, she chose me’—but Aguni is simply not interested in breaking up their squabbling. Instead he goes to stand by Last Boss, who’s watching the two long-haired men argue like it’s a mildly interesting tennis match.
“So,” Aguni says, “you, uh, seem to know a lot about those things.”
“I did my research when Niragi first brought her back,” Last Boss says calmly, “He’s good with her, but I wanted to make sure we were taking care of her correctly.”
“Did you know she was pregnant?”
“I had my suspicions. Niragi wouldn’t listen, though. Kept telling me she was just fat.”
“Yeah, I thought she was ‘just fat,’” Niragi interjects, his gun no longer pointed at Takeru but a murderous gleam still in his eye, “because this fucking asshole kept feeding her potato chips!”
“Because she loves them,” Takeru shouts back, throwing his arms up in the air, “So shoot me for being a nice guy and sharing my snacks with your weird cat!”
“Don’t,” both Last Boss and Aguni say in unison—which is very uncomfortable for the both of them, but at least it has the desired effect of keeping Niragi from blasting a few dozen holes through Takeru’s person.
With the two of them quickly getting back into their heated back-and-forth, Aguni turns his attention to the creatures on the bed. Somehow, despite all of the noise and excitement, the mother and her babies have curled up and fallen asleep, the rhythmic rise and fall of their bellies a stark contrast to the chaos unfolding around them. Aguni feels jealous, but also, feels bad about feeling jealous because this...Terminator thing has undoubtedly had a rough night, too.
“Luckily,” Last Boss says, “genets are pretty independent creatures. She’ll be fine to take care of the kits on her own, provided that she has access to food and water.”
“So we should just...leave her alone?”
Last Boss shrugs.
“More or less.”
Aguni sighs internally. He sighs externally, too, but the internal sigh is the one that really sums up his thoughts on the whole situation. Just getting one of those hot-headed men to leave those poor animals alone is challenging enough, but both of them? That’s bordering on ‘damn near impossible.’
But, for the sake of those weird fuzzy babies, he has to try.
Takeru jumps when he feels Aguni’s hand on his elbow. He also manages to shut up for a moment, which is a nice bonus. Last Boss has also sprung into action and seems to be talking to Niragi in hushed tones, a hesitant but friendly hand on his shoulder.
“C’mon,” Aguni says, gentle-firm as he guides Takeru into a standing position—much to the other man’s confusion.
“Mori, what—?”
“You’ve had a big night. I’ve had a big night. But do you know whose had the biggest night of us all?” Aguni gestures to the snoozing creatures in front of them, “Terminator. She’s exhausted, and the last thing she needs is the four of us keeping her up. You can stay with me tonight, and we’ll figure the rest out tomorrow.”
“But,” Takeru protests—an iota quieter, now that he’s realized that the pipe on the bed is now a sleeping pile, “we can’t just leave them alone, can we?”
“You’re right. Which is why,” Aguni says, “Last Boss is going to stay with her and keep an eye on things. If he’s okay with that, of course?”
Last Boss offers a solemn nod. Aguni makes a mental note to thank him for this later—maybe he’ll let him pick the music on their next supply run (provided it’s from Aguni’s list of pre-approved artists, of course...)
“You know what? Fucking fine,” Niragi spits, flicking his hair back with a quick jerk of his hand, “it’s too goddamn late to deal with you fucking losers, anyways. I’ll come back to collect my cat and her kittens in the morning.”
Aguni does not risk correcting Niragi on his incorrect terminology regarding his pets—frankly, he’s a little too busy being amazed at how suspiciously easy it was to get him to leave. With a sharp pivot, Niragi is exiting the room in what could be called a ‘brisk saunter,’ no doubt wanting to put as much distance between himself and whatever-the-hell just happened in this room as possible.
Aguni, for once, can relate to Niragi quite well.
With Last Boss keeping vigil over the new little family, Aguni is able to wrangle Takeru away from his room with minimal fuss. It’s probably because the man is very tired—despite multiple claims that he ‘isn’t sleepy yet’ and ‘can stay up for hours.’ This theory is proven when, within a grand total of seven seconds of Takeru flopping face-first onto the middle of Aguni’s bed, he’s managed to slip into what only can be described as a ‘light coma.’
Aguni manages to wrestle a stray pillow away from his sleeping friend’s grasp (he’s a notoriously cuddly sleeper, which has led to some...interesting situations over the course of their friendship) and settles his weary self onto the couch. It’s not quite long enough to accommodate his height, but it’s good enough for what will most likely end up being an extended nap before the sun comes up and he needs to solve whatever other issues have popped up at the Beach overnight.
...But, at least those problems won’t involve babies.
Probably.
💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖
Also here is a common genet and DAMN SIS U CUTE AS HELL
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discoscoob · 3 years
Text
Kiss in the Kitchen | Loki x Female Reader
Loki (Marvel) x Doctor Who
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Three days have passed since Loki started avoiding you and you are presented with an opportunity to talk to him however it quickly escalates into an argument.
Part Four | Part Six | Chapter Index
Words: 2.8k
Warnings: angst and fluff
Read on AO3
You were sat alone at the kitchen table, on the TARDIS, digging into a bowl of noodles. A few days ago you had found some packs of them in one of the cupboards and at first you didn’t know what they were, but you could tell that they definitely weren’t from earth. After checking with the Doctor he assured you that they were safe for human consumption, as was everything else he kept stocked in the TARDIS kitchen.
Donna and the Doctor were currently visiting a leisure palace on a planet called Midnight, but you had foregone the trip in the hopes that Loki would come out of hiding so that you could finally talk to him.
Three days had passed since your trip to The Dark Ages, and you hadn’t seen Loki at all since. He had harboured himself away in the TARDIS and due to its infinite size, you were beginning to worry over the possibility that he might have actually gotten lost, but that concern quickly vanished when you heard footsteps approaching the kitchen.
Your heart rate spiked and you sat up straight. You suddenly started feeling nervous, this was going to be the first time you saw Loki in days, you were finally presented with an opportunity to talk to him, you didn’t want to mess it up.
You rushed to wipe the back of your hand over your mouth and chin, incase there was anything left on your face from the noodles and you straightened out your hair and clothes, hoping that you at least looked some what presentable.
As soon as Loki turned into the kitchen, he immediately halted when he saw you. You noticed that today he was dressed similarly to how he had during your first night on the TARDIS, abandoning his pristine fitted suits for a more casual look, consisting of dark jeans and a hoodie. You offered him a kind smile with the hope that it would encourage him to stay, but instead he swiftly turned on his heel already beginning to storm off somewhere else.
“Damn it, Loki! You can’t avoid me forever.” You lost your patience and your chair had screeched against the floor as you abruptly stood up.
Loki had paused at your outburst, his back still turned to you. Slowly he looked at you from over his shoulder with his head tilted slightly to the side, it was a subtle thing which made him look all the more intimidating.
“Can’t I?” Loki challenged as he turned to completely face you. “You really think your mortal existence is that unavoidable?”
His voice was harsh and distant, directed towards you it felt like being shoved into a pool of ice cold water, your whole body stiffened as you literally felt your blood rushing quicker through your veins from the rapid rate of your heartbeat while unpleasant shivers ran down your spine, but you didn’t let it show. You hardened your exterior, squaring your shoulders and narrowing your eyes.
“If you really want to avoid me, why don’t you just leave? Because the way I recall it, you wouldn’t even be here to avoid me if I hadn’t convinced the Doctor to let you stay!” You began to raise your voice, you weren’t shouting but your tone was teetering on a very fine edge, as you clenched your fists by your side.
By now your chest was visibly rising and falling with all the pent up nerves and frustration that were surging heat through your blood stream.
Loki was momentarily caught of guard by your outburst, but he was a master at disguising his emotions, so all you saw was his eyes darken as he took a menacing step towards you.
“I can’t believe I was gullible enough to believe that you might have actually been different, that I might have found someone who genuinely cared about me, but you don’t even try to hide the fact that you’re ashamed of me. And I’m expected to tolerate it because I should just be grateful for the fact that you found it in your heart to save someone like me in the first place. Well I never asked you or anyone to save me!” Loki finally raised his voice and you flinched. “I never asked Odin to take me from Jotunheim. I never asked Thanos to give me an army and a kingdom to rule and I never asked you to convince the Doctor to let me stay!” Loki’s voice rivalled yours and the callous tone felt like a knife straight through your chest.
You had backed yourself away behind the kitchen table, putting it between you and Loki as he had closed the distance between you, as if it would serve you any form of protection.
“Ashamed...” You barely managed to repeat the word in a whisper. “When have I ever given you the impression that I am ashamed of you?”
“Evidently you don’t hide it as well as you think you do. You couldn’t even bare to be seen holding my hand in front of your auntie and the Doctor.” Your lips parted in realisation and your anger began to dilute with regret, you were about to explain to Loki that you hadn’t let go of his hand because you were ashamed of him, but he continued his rant before you got the chance. “Yet you had no qualms about holding hands with that glorified plagiarist in front of the entire theatre.”
At his words you quickly grew frustrated again and your intentions of explaining yourself to him were quickly forgotten.
“He took my hand what was I supposed to do? Snatch it away just to please you? And what do you even mean by ‘glorified plagiarist’ I thought you liked him?”
“Surely you noticed the amount of times he stole the Doctors words, I doubt that man ever had an original idea in his life.” Loki’s eyes looked off beyond you as he voiced his suspicion, before they focused right back on you and pinned you to your spot. “And what about when he tried to kiss you? Couldn’t snatch yourself away then either?”
Speechlessly your jaw fell slack as you brought your hand up to push your hair back from your face and let your gaze fall to the surface of the kitchen table.
“I can’t believe this.” You muttered to yourself before you dropped both your palms to the table and leaned forward to look Loki dead in the eye. “I already told you I wasn’t interested in him. He approached me because he saw I was worried. Worried about you. He asked me what was wrong, I thought he was going to listen to me. As soon as he leaned in to kiss me I put my hands on his chest to push him away because I want you, not him.”
Loki paused as he considered your words, his eyes cast downwards to follow his finger as he ran it back and forth over the top of one of the dining chairs.
“You want me but you would rather no one know about it.” Loki quietly spoke, still watching his own hand.
“No... God, no.” You gently but firmly told him as you made your way around the kitchen table towards him.
You grasped Loki by his elbows to turn him to face you, he allowed you to move him without resistance, but he still hid his eyes from you with his head lowered. You ran your hands down both his forearms until your fingers intertwined with his and then you brought your hands up between your chests. He kept his arms and fingers limp, but apart from that he didn’t object.
“I didn’t let go of your hand because I am ashamed of being with you, but we hadn’t even properly discussed our situation yet and I wasn’t ready to be bombarded with questions from my auntie, you know what she’s like, and especially in that situation it just wouldn’t have been practical.” You explained to him honestly.
“Wh... why would we need to discuss our  ‘situation?’ We kissed, doesn’t that say enough in itself already?” Loki finally looked at you with confusion written in his eyes.
“don’t you... on Asgard don’t you discuss with your partner whether or not you’re, like... in an actual relationship?” You hesitantly asked Loki, as you struggled to find the right way to phrase the question.
“Well, we just simply would not be intimate with someone who we didn’t wish to be in a relationship with.” Loki explained, his tone balancing between ‘shouldn’t this be obvious?’ and ‘am I crazy for thinking this should be normal?’
After hearing that, the weight of the situation suddenly crashed down on you. Loki believed he witnessed you almost kiss Shakespeare, the morning after you and he had shared a kiss which to him confirmed that you were together. This meant that not only did he believe you were ashamed of him, he also believed you immediately betrayed him.
“Oh, Loki,” you whispered regretfully. “I- I didn’t realise. On Earth, it isn’t uncommon for people to kiss or even have sex with each other and not be official.”
“Then how do people know whether or not they are, as you call it, ‘official?’” Loki asked, looking completely perplexed by these customs, you had to admit they were confusing and only caused complications, the way of Asgard sounded much simpler.
“They usually just discuss it and come to an agreement.” You shrugged.
Loki slipped his fingers out of yours and for a second you felt your chest begin to cave, but when he pulled out the dining chair in front of him and sat down at the kitchen table, your brows knitted together with confusion. Silently, Loki gestured to the chair opposite him with his right hand, offering you to sit, hesitantly and with a questioning look you lowered yourself into the dining chair.
Once you were sat opposite him, Loki reached his hands across the kitchen table to hold yours in his own.
“I realise that these past few days I have behaved like a fool, I should have allowed you the chance to explain sooner instead of jumping to conclusions and I hope that you can forgive me.” Loki sincerely apologised.
“Loki, I already have,” you assured him. “Just please promise that in the future you’ll let me talk to you instead of avoiding me.”
“I swear it.” He promised. “And if... as you say, we have a future, may I request that we be ‘official?’” Loki proposed and you were endeared by how formal he was about it, you couldn’t hold back your smile.
“I’d love nothing more.” You confessed and you supported your upper body on your elbows as you leaned over the table to seal your agreement with a kiss.
“What’s going on here? I leave you alone for one day to visit a leisure palace and come back to find you two loved up?” You both startled and pulled apart at the sound of Donna’s voice and simultaneously turned your heads to find her halfway into the kitchen.
“You’re not possessed again are you?” She squinted her eyes with suspicion and bounced them back and forth between you and Loki.
“No.” You shook your head, before glancing back at Loki who appeared to be perfectly calm as he offered you a soft smile.
“Oh okay.” Your auntie sighed as she now made her way further into the kitchen, “because the Doctor was.”
“What?” You were hardly following what she was saying as your heart rate was racing, you don’t know why you were having this kind of reaction to Donna finding out about you and Loki, but it felt so sudden, you were hoping that you could have been able to tell her on your own terms and now you were nervous about what she will say.
“The Doctor, he got possessed.” Donna informed you, as she pulled a bottle of water from the fridge before she started approaching the kitchen table.
“At the leisure palace?” Your pitch raised with confusion, as she sat down beside Loki, who suddenly looked nervous by her close presence.
“No, on a space truck on his way to visit a sapphire waterfall.” Donna looked up when you remained silent and saw your wide eyed expression. “That wasn’t sarcasm.” She clarified.
“Is he okay?” You asked with concern.
“Yeah, just a bit shaken up.” She frowned. “But they’re going to have to permanently shut the resort down to prevent it from happening again.”
A silence covered the room while Donna drank from her bottle and you glanced down at yours and Loki’s hands which were still intertwined over the kitchen table and he gave them a gentle squeeze.
“So... how long has this been going on?” Donna rested her chin on her fist as she eagerly leaned forward on the table and glanced between the two of you.
“Uh... since the dark ages.” You softly chuckled at how that made it sound like you had been together for centuries and you caught the way Loki’s lip slightly curved, clearly amused by it as well.
“Oh, so that’s why you both disappeared.” Donna raised her eyebrows.
Your cheeks immediately flamed and Loki began stroking his thumb over your knuckles.
“But listen here, Bruce Almighty.” Donna turned in her chair to focus her attention on Loki, who quickly gave her his attention and furrowed his brows at the nickname. “You might be a divine being of immortality or whatever but don’t think that doesn’t mean I won’t hurt you if you break my nieces heart. Don’t think you’ll get off lightly just because I’m a mortal either, I have a time lord on my side and don’t forget it.”
“Donna!” You scolded your auntie, as your cheeks grew even hotter.
“You have my word that if I were to ever impose any harm upon your niece I’d let you deal with me however you see fit.” Loki swore to your auntie with eyes filled with sincerity before they fell back on you, as you speechlessly stared at him completely enchanted.
***
You and Loki had just crawled into your bed for the night and although you were aware that the God didn’t follow the same sleeping pattern as you, he assured you that there was no place he would have rather been.
You were both laid on your sides, face to face, with your legs intertwined and your chests almost flush, Loki’s arm rested over the dip of your waist and his fingertips traced patterns up and down your spine, his other hand was rested between his cheek and pillow and your faces were so close that the tips of your noses occasionally brushed.
You couldn’t wipe the smile off your face even if you tried. Ever since you and Loki had agreed to be official, it were as if you were receiving an endless supply of liquid endorphins shot directly through your veins, except when Donna gave him ‘the talk,’ you shut your eyes with embarrassment as it played back in your mind.
“I’m sorry for my auntie.” You apologised with a wince.
Your own hand was resting on the side of Loki’s neck and your thumb brushed against the corner of his jaw, so you felt him shake his head dismissively and reopened your eyes.
“Don’t apologise, it’s important to have people in your life who look out for you and care about you. I’m glad that she is protective.” Loki told you, and from the proximity of your faces you felt his breath fan across your lips as he spoke.
Your brows pinched together as you listened to what Loki said and considered how, from what he had told you, he lacked people who looked out for him. To hide your frown, you shuffled down the bed slightly and snuggled into his chest and in response he shifted onto his back so you were able to rest your head upon his shoulder with your arm cuddled around his waist.
“I’ll look out for you.” You promised him with a tired voice.
Loki’s head lifted slightly as he looked down at the top of yours, his features completely softened. Of course he found it endearing that a being far more vulnerable than he, was promising him protection, however more importantly he felt your words to be true.
You had displayed it ever since Pompeii when you ensured he was hydrated while barely conscious in an attempt to keep his temperature steady, then once again when you offered him a place to stay on the TARDIS and then ensured that he didn’t lose it.
The sides of his lips lifted softly as he planted them on the crown of your head.
“I don’t doubt that.” You heard him whisper as he pulled you closer with his arm around your shoulders.
“Goodnight, Loki.” You mumbled softly.
“Goodnight, my love.” Loki answered.
My love. Your chest overflowed with warmth and you pressed your lips to the side of Loki’s neck to give him a lingering kiss before you gently floated off into a peaceful sleep.
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wrasslinimaginesv2 · 3 years
Text
I Knew It (AJ Styles x Reader)
SMUTTY SMUTTY AJ STYLES X READER
Requests are open! 
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“Fancy seeing you here.” You heard from behind you.
AJ… AJ Styles.
Where does one begin with this man? You secretly adored him. That sweet, sweet southern charm, those ocean blue eyes, and that strong physique. You would be lying if you said he didn’t cross your mind from time to time… or maybe, a little more often than that. It would be a cold day in hell before you showed him that, though… His ego was big enough as is. You were not gonna be one to add to it. You always showed him that he annoyed you beyond belief, and honestly, you were not sure whether he bought it or not. You made him wait for a minute, before you finally turned around to face him, making sure to roll your eyes.
“Can I help you?” You asked him, the annoyance crystal clear in your voice.
“Relax, kitten.” He took a seat next to you. A little too close.
You quickly scooted away from him, creating space between you two.
“Don’t call me that.” You scoffed.
AJ and you had booked a quick weekend getaway at the same resort. You had seen him while you were checking in, much to your surprise. He had been making moves on you here and there, but this coincidence raised your existing suspicions. You couldn’t tell if this was happening on purpose or if it was truly coincidence. Regardless, he was being a pain in your butt this whole trip, or so he thought.
“Darlin, I wasn’t born yesterday.”
“Yeah, I’m aware… old man.” You nodded, studying his face. “And what’s that supposed to mean, anyways?” You added.
You were only 22. While you liked how much older he was than you, you’d never admit it to him. Something about an older man...especially one like AJ. The experience, the charm… he could teach you so many things. You didn’t like the younger, immature men. Never did.
“Old man?” He questioned, raising his eyebrows as a small chuckle escaped his lips.  
“Yeah, old man. What, you’re like, 21 years older than me?” You shook your head, still wondering what he meant by not being born yesterday.
“How do you know exactly how old I am, Y/N?” He smirked, locking eyes with you.
“I… we work together, AJ. People talk. You didn’t know?” You countered, heat flooding your face as you looked back into his eyes.
It was dark now. You two were sitting on a bench by the resort pool. There was a nice breeze, one you were able to thoroughly enjoy before he sat down next to you. It definitely wasn’t helping you cool off, now. He made you so nervous, your heart secretly raced everytime he was near you.
“Just curious.” He said simply, scooting closer to you. His thigh was touching yours now. “Let’s give up this act, Y/N. I might be an old man, but I know you like it.” He whispered, his words making your heart beat even faster.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” You shrugged, trying your best to keep your composure. You turned away from him and stared out at the pool, watching the reflections on the still, clear water. You knew he was studying your face. You were hoping you looked as calm as you were pretending to be.
He reached out and grabbed onto your thigh, squeezing it gently.
You reacted quickly, standing up and grabbing your bag.
You didn’t plan on playing these games with him. At least not now, not here.
“I’m going to head to my room, AJ. I have a few things to do tomorrow, I should get some rest.” You tried to convince him, looking down at him. “It was nice talking to you.” You added sarcastically.
You began walking away before he even had time to respond, your heart beating at a million miles per minute. You bit your lip, thinking about his words and implications. You wanted to groan when you heard him following behind you.
You soon reached the elevators to head up to your suite, and not too long after, AJ was waiting for one beside you. The wait for an elevator had never felt so long your entire life.
“Are you just going to bother me this whole trip? I’d love to know.” You asked him once you two were inside the elevator.
“Botherin’?” He questioned.
“Yes, bothering, not leaving me alone. I’m on a trip, you know? I’d like to enjoy some quality time by myself.” Your attitude was evident now.
“I’m just trying to go up to my room, just like you.” He laughed.
You let out a little sigh, wishing you had chosen a room on a lower level.
“But, if you don’t mind, I wanted to ask if I could borrow a few teabags from your room. I drank all of the ones I had, I really don’t want to go ask the front desk. You know, they lag, it takes forever...” He tried to explain, albeit poorly. Yeah, cause AJ gives a fuck about whether or not he has tea tonight.
“I do mind, actually. Call room service.” You rolled your eyes once more tonight as you swiftly exited the elevator. He was hot on your trail, keeping up with your pace.
“C’mon, Y/N. What’s with the attitude? I just want some tea, I’ll wait by the door.”
“You’re so annoying, AJ. Did you know that?” You asked him as you pulled out the room key from your bag, holding it against the doorknob. As soon as you opened the door, he gently pushed you inside and followed suit, shutting the door behind him.
“AJ! Wha-” You squealed, knowing you were in some deep shit when he closed the door behind him. The darkness in the room aided him, making it difficult for you to act fast. How were you gonna push him out now? “You said you were gonna wait out-” You continued, before his large hand covered your mouth.
“I don’t give a fuck about tea, Y/N. But surely, you knew that.” He smirked.
You didn’t know what to say, you simply looked up at him. You grabbed onto his wrist, trying to move his hand away. It didn’t budge, you weren’t expecting it to.
He slowly moved closer to you and as you backed up you were eventually pressed up against the wall.
“Right where I want ya.”
“AJ…” You mumbled into his palm. “I…”
“You what?” He asked, amused. “I wanna know.”
He moved his hand away from your mouth. It was dark and dead silent. You didn’t know what to say, you just felt yourself melting against his hard body, and fast.
“Y/N, if you don’t like it, you can say it.” He told you, right before his warm lips pressed against your neck. He left a trail of wet kisses from right below your ear all the way down to your collarbone.
“Just say the word and I’ll stop.” He whispered, effortlessly lifting your smaller body up off the ground. Your legs instinctively wrapped around his waist. You tried to stifle your moans, unsure of whether or not you were going to give into him tonight.
“I can stop…” He reminded you, as he squeezed your ass.
“Oh.” You let out accidentally. You felt him smirk against your neck, the butterflies in your stomach growing rapidly.
Before you knew it he had you on the bed, his hungry kisses covering your chest as he hovered above you.
“I’m..” You whispered, trying your best to form a sentence. “Hm?” He asked, enjoying the horny little mess he had turned you into.
You closed your eyes, focusing on the way he was making you feel. You were in the clouds. Sure, you had been with many different men... and sure, many of them had you in this position, but something about this man was different… all you could think about was having him inside you as soon as possible. You didn’t answer, only tugged at the hem of his t-shirt, eager to touch his body. He obliged and pulled it off, tossing it to the floor. You ran your hand down his strong chest, peeling your eyes away from it for a second only to look at him. He caressed your full bottom lip with his thumb, his eyes fixated on yours. You took the moment to lick his thumb before taking it into your mouth, swirling your tongue around it. You don’t know what overcame you, what he was doing to your mind and body… You didn’t care anymore. He groaned as he watched you tease him, exciting you even more.
“I knew it.” He whispered, smug. You smiled at him with your eyes, releasing his thumb and placing a small kiss against it. He grabbed onto the front of your tank top, ripping the thin piece of fabric down the middle. Your breasts greeted his hungry eyes, his large hands soon covering them. He squeezed and massaged them as he crashed his lips against yours. You moaned softly, finally getting to taste his sweet lips. “AJ…” You whispered, as your tongue danced with his. After a few minutes he pulled away, pushing you onto your side. As you took the time to catch your breath, you felt his arm wrap around your waist from behind. He pulled you closer to him, your back pressed against his chest as his lips found their way to your neck again.
“You’re a slut, Y/N.” He whispered, sending chills down your spine. You felt him poking your ass, driving you insane. You began to grind in circles against him, earning you a hard slap against the ass. “Ow.” You cried out.
You turned over in his arms, absolutely needing to see his beautiful face.
He looked hungry… and dangerous. And you wanted him to use you.
“Bite me.” You teased, grabbing at him through his pants.
“I thought I was an old man, Y/N…” He whispered, his lips brushing against your ear. You shivered. “Does it turn you on? Does it turn you on to think of an older man getting off on your tight little young body?”
“Please.” You breathed out, pulling on the waistband of his jeans.
“A bunch of bullshit, huh?” He asked you, wrapping his large hand around your throat. “Your stupid little fucking act…”
You gave him a small nod, given his hand was restricting your movement.
“Undress.” He demanded, squeezing your throat slightly tighter before letting you go. You nodded again. You sat up, tossing your ripped tank to the ground, followed by your leggings and panties. He watched you closely as he undressed too, making your stomach flutter. Before you knew it, he had you bent over the bed and was standing behind you.
“You don’t get to cum, Y/N. Not after all the teasing you’ve done. Not after how long you’ve made me wait to fuck you.” He said, followed by a hard spank.
You whimpered, impatiently waiting for him. “Not after wasting my fucking time. You’re just my little fucktoy.” He continued.
You heard him curse under his breath as he slowly slipped inside you, holding onto your hips firmly. You moaned out once he filled you completely, the dull ache finally ceasing. He felt amazing. Warm, thick, full. Like he always belonged there. He was gentle by no means, actually, borderline hurting you. But hurting you so good.
“AJ..” You cried out, turning around slightly to look back at him. He looked so sexy, sweaty, with messy hair. He looked like he was in pure bliss. He grabbed onto a handful of your hair, giving it a gentle tug.
“Who do you belong to?” You heard him ask.
“You, you, AJ.” You whispered, your eyes rolling to the back of your head as he continued to hit the sweetest spot.
“Fucking whore.” He groaned, giving you another slap on the ass. “So tight…”
He flipped you over onto your back, giving you needy kisses before continuing his sweet assault. You wrapped your arms around his neck, holding onto him tightly as you felt yourself growing closer and closer.
“I…” You mumbled against his lips. “I’m gonna-”
He slowed down in response, so much so that he was barely moving.
“No, please.” You begged. “Please…”
“I don’t think you deserve it, baby.” He whispered, looking into your eyes. “Don’t get me wrong, I want to see you lose control… but you’re a bad slut. Do you want to?” He teased, his thumb now rubbing out gentle circles.
Your breath hitched as you felt him touch you, your eyes locked onto his.
“Pretty.” He said simply, picking up the pace again. Your moans became uncontrollable, your eyes squeezing shut.
“Control it.” He warned you, applying even more pressure with his thumb.
“I can’t.” You whimpered, all of it becoming too intense.
He brought his lips down to your ear, his warm breath sending shivers across your whole body. “I’m going to cum inside you.” He whispered, his thrusts becoming sloppier by the minute. “Deep inside you.”
His words were enough to send you over the edge, his name leaving your parted lips. He rested his head against your shoulder, giving you a few more thrusts before you felt his warm release fill you up completely.
“Fuck.” He sighed, slowing down and riding it out as long as he could.
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writethelifeyouwant · 3 years
Text
Dive Bar, Ch 8/?
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Pairing: Dean x Sam (eventually, he he he) | Sam x OMC (Chase) brief 
Rating: 18+
Prompt/Summary: After a one night stand with a random college chick turns into a threesome that also featured his little brother, Dean- well, frankly, he panics. What’s even worse than gay panicking? Gay incest panicking. Luckily, Sam winds up being a little more cool about the whole thing than Dean ever would have imagined.
WC: 3,631
Tags: Awful flirting (but I’m not sorry), gay panic, angst, Dean having graphic naughty thoughts, male masturbation, blow job, rimming, anal sex, cock ring (? kinda) 
Warnings: thoughts about to brother/brother incest
Beta:  @negans-lucille-tblr, actual angel 😇
Divider: @firefly-graphics ❤️
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Sam looked up at the sound of slow clapping, expecting it to be Dean returning with their refills just in time to see Sam pot the last ball. But he couldn’t see Dean, and it took him a moment to identify the clapper as the guy with dark blonde hair strolling towards him with a look of contemplation on his slim face.
“That was pretty impressive,” the guy nodded at the pool table, and Sam straightened up a little, sheepishly rubbing the back of his neck.
“Uh, thanks,” Sam shrugged, the game he’d felt so proud of - and wanted to rub in Dean’s face a moment ago - now making him feel self conscious. He hadn’t meant to draw any kind of attention to himself. That was normally Dean’s forte.
“Where’d you learn how to do that?”
“My um, my brother taught me.” Sam clutched the pool cue between his hands, eyes darting around and landing on Dean at the bar. His breath eased a little once he knew where he was. The new guy’s eyes followed Sam’s and found him watching Dean at the bar.
“That guy’s your brother?”
“Yeah,” Sam nodded cautiously.
“Well, that is a relief,” he laughed fully, openly.
Sam was taken aback. “Why?”
“Because if he was your boyfriend I was probably gonna get beat up for hitting on you.” He smiled warmly, his eyes twinkling, but still a little shy.
Sam blinked, dumbfounded. He didn’t know why he hadn’t been expecting it. He’d had a suspicion that this place was an LGBT haunt based on the number of same-sex couples he’d noticed dotted around, but that hadn’t led him to the conclusion that he’d maybe have an opportunity he hadn’t had since Dean had picked him up from Stanford. Sam glanced nervously back to Dean at the bar, watching him knock back a shot of something, not paying attention to his little brother. But why did Sam even care if Dean saw him talking to this guy? He breathed out sharply when he realised that he didn’t have to hide this from Dean - he’d come out to him last month. He didn’t have to be worried about what Dean thought if he saw him talking to - what was this guy’s name?
“I’m Sam,” Sam offered his hand, and the man took it, shaking it firmly. Sam noticed how smooth the guy’s hands were.
“Chase,” he smiled wider still, like he couldn’t believe Sam was actually having a conversation with him.
“So are you, uh, here with anyone?” Sam wasn’t used to making small talk anymore. The only people he talked to were Dean or law enforcement - or witnesses to supernatural phenomena.
“A few friends,” Chase nodded behind him, but not with enough direction for Sam to actually tell which table of people he might have been talking about.
“Do you, um,” Sam let out a sharp, amused exhale, not really believing he was actually doing this. “D’ya want to have a drink?”
Chase smiled brightly. “Yeah, I’d love that,” he nodded, and the pair started towards the bar. “Then maybe you’ll be so kind as to show me just how you play that game over there?”
Sam grinned, this guy was pulling out a classic, but it was a good one.
“You want me to teach you how to play pool?” he smirked and moved closer behind Chase, bracing his hands on the bar on either side of him, and ducked down to speak against his ear. “I should warn you, I’m a pretty hands on teacher.” Sam felt Chase grin, even though he couldn’t see his face.
“I think I’m counting on it. I might need a lot of hand holding,” Chase laughed at his own joke, probably realising how lame it was, but Sam thought it was cute.
While Chase ordered drinks, Sam glanced over his shoulder across the bar and caught Dean looking right at them. Sam blushed under his brother’s intense gaze, a little embarrassed that Dean had been watching him come onto this guy so strongly. But how was that different to any time Sam had to watch Dean flirt his way through every available pair of boobs in these joints? He decided it wasn’t; he didn’t have anything to be ashamed of. Sam gave Chase a once over from behind, eyes lingering on his ass. Yeah, definitely not ashamed of this, Sam resolved. He flicked his eyes back up to meet Dean’s again and gave him a bold wink.
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Dean’s face was blank, but his gaze wavered between shock and dread. He’d never seen Sam flirt so blatantly with anyone before. He’d never seen Sam flirt with a guy before either, but he guessed he should have expected that to happen eventually. It hadn’t really hit him before now what Sam being bi really meant. It wasn’t just that he was happy to have a threesome that involved two guys instead of two girls, it meant that sometimes he would want to sleep with guys, just because.
The pride Dean usually felt when Sam successfully picked up a chick wasn’t making an appearance right now, though. This was different. Dean reluctantly realised that the difference here was jealousy. He looked at the guy Sam was pressed up against and took in the spiky hair, the henley pulled across decently toned muscles, the black leather cord he wore as a necklace. He was about Dean’s height judging where he stood against Sam. Angry voices inside him shouted at Dean to break it up, stop Sammy from doing this, protect him, though from what, the voices didn’t care to elaborate. Hopeful voices inside tried to soothe his anger. Telling him that maybe Sam wasn’t with him now, but the guy he was with looked just a little like Dean… maybe… and what if that meant that Sam was drawn to him for that reason?
Dean shut down that internal dialogue with a grimace, and ordered another shot. He wasn’t gonna stay here and watch Sam hit on some guy without getting drunk.
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Sam and Chase were two drinks in and back by the pool table, and Sam was having more fun than he could remember having in a long time. Watching Chase bend over the table, ass pressing tight against his jeans, and knowing that he was doing it so Sam could look… it was exhilarating. Even the vague prickling on the back of his neck every time Dean looked over at them gravely didn’t spoil Sam’s mood. He knew his brother was just being an overprotective ass.
Chase shot him a coy smile over his shoulder, still bent over trying to corral all the balls into their frame. Sam grinned back freely, eyes glinting with want that he knew Chase could see.
“You gonna show me how to hold this stick?”
“I’m gonna show you so much more than that,” Sam promised. He pressed against him and threaded his arms through the smaller man’s, slotting their hips and their hands together. “You want to hold it firmly, but not too tight. Just give it a little squeeze.”
Chase burst out laughing, shaking Sam off his body. Sam stood back, confused and a little offended at the reaction. Chase’s eyes glinted under the fluorescent light hanging above them.
“I’m sorry man,” he stifled another laugh and tried again. “Sorry, I just, I couldn’t not think about the innuendo there.” Sam smirked and moved back to Chase, bending him back over and leaning into him heavily.
“That was sorta the point man,” Sam breathed in his ear. “Now, put your hands back on that long piece of wood and do as you’re told.”
Sam realised then that he had been repressing this part of himself for far too long. Or at least his dick thought so, because it was paying quite a bit more attention than it usually did in public.
He was never shy about wanting to be the one in control in the bedroom, but with girls, he never really knew how they would take it. He always worried about hurting them if he was being too rough. With guys it felt a little different, he felt a little freer, like he didn’t have to be scared of throwing them around as much. And he’d had enough to drink that his filter wasn’t inclined to hold him back anymore. The shiver that had run through Chase at Sam’s words only solidified Sam’s resolve to take this guy home and absolutely wreck him.
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Dean thought he was gonna be sick. Most people would think that was down to the amount of alcohol he’d just downed in such a short span of time - switching to tequila had either been a very good or a very bad decision on Dean’s part - but in actuality, he was still on the good side of drunk. The thing churning his stomach and pulling him apart from the inside was what he was watching his baby brother do to that twink pressed against the pool table across the bar.
Jesus, they were in public and Sam was practically dry humping the dude. At least respectable people would go to a club and hide behind dancing as an excuse. But there was his brother, his little kid brother, practically fucking some stranger right in the middle of the room. What the fuck does he think he’s doing?
Dean had never seen Sam so blatantly sexual before. Well no - that was a lie - he had seen him that way once, when he’d been pounding into Dany so hard he shook the bed, and looked right at Dean when he’d broken down inside her, staring right into his eyes as he came undone. But the way Sam was looking at him had Dean believing that, maybe, Sam wasn't thinking about Dany at all.
Dean wanted to pretend that he was only offended by the sight before him because it was indecent - not cool, bro - but if the guy below Sam had been him, he wouldn’t have given two fucks how decent they looked, so long as Sam showed everyone watching that it was them who belonged together. That Sam belonged to him, inside him. His.
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Chase was a horrible pool player. But that might have more to do with the fact that Sam was grinding a semi against his ass every time he helped him line up a shot. Poor guy had to be at least a little distracted. After two games of utter domination from Sam, he took pity on his playmate and graciously bought him a drink to mellow the loss.
Locking eyes over the wet edged shot glasses, Sam tipped his back and swallowed, long and deep. Sam watched as Chase’s eyes traced his throat and down into the v-neck of the t-shirt he’d revealed when he unbuttoned his flannel during the second game. His eyes settled there for a moment, and Sam wondered how long he would linger there before he caught himself. His breathing quickened slightly - bringing his chest up and down with it, and Chase continued to stare. The attention only aroused Sam more. But it was over when Chase blinked harshly, and brought his eyes back to Sam’s, looking a little startled.
“What?” he said stupidly, fingers slipping on his glass, still full and hanging in front of his lips.
“Do you want to get out of here?” Sam enunciated, a knowing smirk back on his lips.
“Yeah,” Chase nodded and downed his own drink, licking his lips to catch the drop of alcohol that had spilled over. Sam’s eyes locked on his tongue and followed it back inside Chase’s mouth. Their lips met briefly, Sam pulling back almost immediately to check he hadn’t misjudged things - to check he was actually about to follow through on going home with this guy.
Chase’s face was hot, colour staining his already sun-kissed skin, eyes wide like he was staring into the sun. Sam jerked his chin towards the door, brows raised, and Chase nodded and leant in close so Sam could hear him better. “I’m just gonna grab my things, meet you outside?”
“Yeah,” Sam nodded and squeezed Chase’s arm in reassurance. “I’m just going to let my brother know where I’m headed.” Sam jerked his head to where he had clocked Dean hunched in a booth nursing a hefty glass of whiskey.
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“Hey,” Sam slid into the seat across from Dean, slapping a rhythm against the table as he sat down.
“Someone’s chipper,” Dean grunted sourly, taking a swig of his drink.
“Someone’s bummed out.”
Sam’s sass tugged at the corner’s of Dean’s lips. but he didn’t let it get an actual smile out of him.
“Sorry the girls here weren’t exactly ‘your scene’,” Sam did look a little apologetic, but he couldn’t wipe the smug excitement off his stupid face.
“Yeah, well,” Dean grunted again, and knocked back more of the burning liquid, “about time you got laid, was beginning to think you’d accidentally pulled it off from jerking too much.”
“Ew, dude, gross,” Sam grimaced. “How would you know how much I jerk off, anyways?”
“We live in each other’s asses, Sam,” Dean excused, not caring to mention the fact that he knows Sam’s jerked off in the shower every night since he’d picked him up from Stanford, and he’s spent the last month joining in from the other side of the door. Choking down the jealousy and shame that came with it, Dean pushed Sam out of the booth with his foot. “Now go on and fuck your little boy toy, he’s over there waiting for you.”
Sure enough, when Sam checked over his shoulder, he saw Chase waiting anxiously by the door.
“You gonna be alright, man? You got a motel key?”
“Fuck off,” Dean grumbled, and watched sullenly as Sam made his way through the crowds of people to the door, slipping out behind his company for the evening. Dean knocked back the rest of his glass and stood, stretching the stiffness out of his joints. He didn’t want to stay here, but he didn’t have anywhere else to go besides the motel room. Remembering they had passed a convenience store on their walk here, Dean figured drinking alone was less embarrassing if he was actually alone while he was doing it, and made up his mind.
-
Arriving back at their room with a bottle of Jack he’d already cracked into, Dean crashed onto his bed and stared at the ceiling. What the hell was he doing? Sitting in the dark, drinking himself to sleep because his baby brother went home with someone else. Pathetic. Pining over Sam had become Dean’s new favourite pastime without him even realising it, and most certainly without his permission.
Dropping his hand over the side of his bed and groping for his duffle, Dean managed to dig his hand into the side pocket hiding the bracelets that he’d pushed out of sight nearly two months ago. Curling his fingers around the smooth-worn wooden beads, he dragged them out, clutching them hard until he felt his nails cutting into his palm.
More Jack; these relics in his hand from a time when he used to be a good big brother, one Sam could actually admire and love, and Dean decided he was done. If he was gonna add this to the list of everything else that was fucked up in his life, then he was gonna goddamn lean into it. He knew Sam had noticed that he wasn’t wearing them anymore, and the thought that Sam might think Dean was mad at him, or didn’t love him with literally everything he had was unacceptable now.
He dropped the beads on the comforter and the bottle on the nightstand, and rose to pull off his jeans. If Sam was getting off tonight there was no reason he shouldn't. But at the thought of Sam, Dean couldn’t stop himself thinking about the guy he’d gone home with, who he’d had bent over the pool table in front of the whole damn bar. It was too easy to picture what Sam was doing to him now. Dean settled back against the lumpy pillows and squeezed himself over his boxers, letting himself sink into the images flashing through his mind.
Sam pressing that bastard up against the door. Sam threading his fingers through the short, dark blonde hair and pulling - the very thought draws a gasp from Dean, wishing it was him Sam was doing those things to, pressing those kisses to, scraping his teeth against and leaving marks on.
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Inside Chase’s apartment, Sam didn’t waste any time. He had him pressed against the door with his wrists pinned over his head in a heartbeat. His kiss started teasing and light. He nipped at Chase’s lips, and the tip of his tongue that had tried in vain to connect to Sam’s. He dragged his teeth across the five o’clock shadow that dusted Chase’s jaw and down, locking on the hollow up his throat and pulling a heavy sign from his partner.
Sam kissed his way back to Chase’s lips and devoured him this time. Their tongues slid together but there was no fight for dominance, no illusion as to how this night was going. Sam was in charge, and that was just where they both wanted him.
Lurching backwards, Sam pulled Chase along with him, and they stumbled blindly around the entryway and managed to fall through the door to the bedroom - Chase’s doing. Sam’s jacket and shoes were discarded on the floor, Chase’s henley tossed onto the scattered laundry piled at the bottom of his bed. The sight made Sam smirk, one more confirmation that he went home with a guy tonight.
Sam sat on the bed and dragged Chase on top of him, grabbing his neck and forcing their mouths back together. At a loud groan from Chase, Sam opened his eyes and stared into the blue-grass eyes he remembered admiring in the bar, but in this dim light they looked darker, greener, and suddenly, Sam wasn’t looking at Chase anymore.
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Dean tried to picture something, anything, other than Sam but he couldn’t. He saw Sam rolling himself on top of that guy and dragging himself down - would they be on the couch, or a bed? - down to the fly on his irritatingly well-fitted jeans and popping the button open with a grin. He saw him pulling the denim down and off, saw him mouthing hungrily over the cotton-covered bulge he found himself faced with, tonguing along the head and leaving a dark stain behind.
Dean groaned and pulled himself free from his boxers, needing it faster, tighter, meaner.
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Sam swallowed Chase down eagerly. He didn’t even have the patience to pull his boxers all the way off, and he twisted the fabric in his hands, pulled it tight. It had been so long since he’d had a cock in his mouth he nearly gagged himself in his excitement to suck down every last inch. Chase whimpered above him, lost in the heat of Sam’s throat. Sam could tell he was trying so hard not to lose it already, so he eased up a little. He didn’t want to see Chase cum until he had his cock inside him.
Granting Chase a brief moment of reprieve, Sam slid further down until his tongue was thrusting in and out of his ass. Chase tried to squirm away but Sam held him down, bracing his arm across the slim hips to keep his prey in place. Chase managed to fish the lube and a condom out of his nightstand and throw them vaguely in Sam’s direction without Sam needing to stop his tongue’s assault. Sam knew he was rushing, but by the time he pushed inside of Chase’s not-prepped-enough hole neither of them cared.
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Dean could feel it, hovering out of reach. He wanted it so badly but he couldn’t get there, and the frustration was starting to outweigh the desperation. The volume of alcohol couldn’t have been helping things either, but logic wasn’t what Dean was interested in right now. He needed something else, something more. Grasping in his mind for the images of Sam to come back, Dean’s fingers clawed against the bedspread, tugging on his cock relentlessly. Then his fingers nudged something - Sam’s bracelets.
Without thinking too hard, Dean clutched them in his fist, bringing both hands to wrap around himself and pressing the small, cool beads against his heated flesh. He still wanted more, needed something to cut through this haze of want and really make him feel. He wrapped the worn strings around the base of his dick, cinching tightly, and squeezing a whimper of pain through his lips. But that pain was just the spark he needed.
The urgency he’d been chasing before came rushing back, and visions of Sam above him, touching him, choking him, calling him a desperate, pathetic little cockslut, beat against the inside of his eyelids, and he was cumming harder than he could ever remember. He felt a white heat burning through every artery, vein, capillary in his goddamn body, and it brought him to an edge he never knew existed. It was agonising, and perfect.
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Sam fucked his hips into Chase’s faster and faster. Their teeth met more often than their tongues as they kissed frantically, both reaching the ends of their tethers. Chase grabbed himself and pulled, beating himself faster and faster until he spilled into the sweat pooling between their bodies, groaning Sam’s name. Sam thrust harder and harder and froze, crammed so deep inside he barely fit, and then he was cumming; spilling his seed into Chase, and spilling Dean’s name from his lips.
*
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eclipsenoir · 2 years
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May 9. 12:46 AM.
On this day, two decades and a half ago, I’d sprouted from the earth, or I sprung from soil into life. What have you. I’d always been bigger than I should’ve been for my age; born heavy with the chunk to prove it, and wailing with a head full of hair and my tiny fists clenched. Although I wasn’t much of a smiler, I was still a fat, happy baby. My father had told me once, while we flipped through my photo book together, that he thought I might’ve punched him in the face if they’d never stopped my crying after I’d come into the world. I told him that it would’ve been entertaining to see or even witness and he gave me a smile that’d always make his nose scrunch up in a funny way, and pulled at my ear for being so cheeky. I was always cheeky, he told me, and greedy. I don’t think I’ll ever stop being either of those things. But then again, nothing is ever truly certain: as a kid I never thought I’d start smiling for photos, and yet here I am.
Speaking of my father, I’ve taken this entire week off and will be spending it with them, more or less. Apparently my parents have recently been trying to tone down on taking up so much work, especially my mother who’s been more tired lately than she usually was some years back. So I’ll see more of her, thankfully, and we’ll get to play some catch up together and I’ll get to eat more of her home cooked meals than I’ve been having the past year. My grandparents will be coming over for a bit too, so it’ll be some feast. We also need to brush up over my inability to take up a real wife a little bit, this time with my grandmother present–her words, not mine–and I really am dreading having that stupid, helpless conversation again, terribly so. Nothing fruitful every really comes of it save for a few empty promises and my mother’s increased suspicion, likely about either my luck or my sexuality, but I guess I can just continue to bullshit my way out of it until she gives up. Or blows up. I don’t look forward to that either.
Also, on the topic of the women in my life, Sera is here. I was with her last weekend and she’s the bane of my existence and the object of my fury, but I’ve missed her, more than I can stomach to admit and actually tell her. It’s only been a week since, so I feel pathetic for my clinginess. But I feel lonely without her. Very much so, so much so that I feel like I’m stuck in a lethal pool of quicksand called sadness. For that I’m eternally grateful that she’s here, otherwise I don’t know what I would’ve done without her. She’s a sore part of me that I can’t remove. A sort of permanence, concrete in my very existence. Almost vital I’d say, as least as long as we keep coming and going back to each other. Is that bad?
Alas. I’m 26 now. It’s pretty cool that I could make it here and say this today. So it’s a birthday, but is it a happy one? I am incredibly happy I get to see another year, given the phantoms of misfortune that’d always followed me into the new year. I’m happy I have a lot of friends to celebrate it with. Generally happy, though? Sometimes, yeah, fairly. I don’t even remember anymore what it is that would rouse and posses me—what they are, or how it feels to have my feathers ruffled with joy. It just hits me. Like a brutal collision with a truck, which slaps you on bare asphalt and holds you there in the baking of sun. I’m bleeding happiness, and it feels so good. So fucking good. It would keep me awake at night and add a hop or two to my step, sometimes lodge a tune in my throat. I’d hum it everywhere, and think No wonder people become so addicted to this shit. Serotonin is a hell of a drug, huh.
But happiness isn’t meant to be a stagnant emotion after all, so when it ebbs away and I’m left as an empty carcass in comparison to its abundance, I think that’s fair enough. If I were allowed to keep it for too long, I’d just start to itch for another emotion after all. Anyway, I’m grateful. Eternally. Another birthday spent with the people I love most dearly is another birthday to remember, says I.
Happiest halfway to 30 and a day full of champagne and mum’s seaweed soup and cake. And dad’s tipsy blabbering about his current hyper-fixations and my fashion choices (what would the old man know?), and my siblings and Sera, giving me an earth splitting headache as per usual. May it be a really good one!
— T.
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kiatheinsomniac · 3 years
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Unwoven Fate VIII
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"Templar spy!"
She knew better than to escape his grip: it could only make her look guilty.
"Stop this, now!" Ezio exclaimed, looking around at all of the recruits. "You," pointing to Anna, "give that here and you-" now pointing to Emilio, "-get up." He took the broach from Anna and sat down at the table with the pigeon cage.
"(Y/n), come here and explain yourself." It took her a moment to realise that Emilio was off her now and she could actually lift herself from the floor, the shock of the attack just clearing up. She took a seat on the bench opposite him, watching him push her aunt's broach across the table before her. "Why do you have a templar pin?"
She had been told that the Templar's symbol was a red cross during her training but knowing that the Pope was one too had led her to assume it was a cross shaped like the church's one. She had not actually thought to check that she was right in believing this.
"I thought the Templar cross would be shaped like Christ's. My aunt gave me. . ." She felt all of her guts drop inside of her body, fingers beginning to tremble as realisation dawned on her, her lips quivering with a loss for words. Emilio was yelling at her now, she wasn't too sure what, his words less important than her current train of thought.
Suddenly so many things fit together. She had wanted answers but she didn't want this. She wanted a different answer. She ran in her head all of the other possible alternatives but none of them fit as well as what was staring her in the face. That feeling was back now: that pain of such hurt and betrayal that it felt physical, like her organs being torn from her chest.
That goddamn broach.
"-And she's going to get us all killed!" She finally heard Emilio who had slammed his fist down on the table next to her.
"Stop fucking yelling at me!" She finally snapped, whipping her head around to scream this at him, making everyone in the room jump. Her eyes were tearing up now and she realised that she had stood when she yelled.  She struggled to keep her breaths even as she glanced back down to that broach, snatching it up in her hands and storming towards the stairs again.
"(Y/n), get back here!" Ezio called but she ignored him. She had learned that she could make irrational decisions when she was this upset; she had got lucky in running away but this time she could make the wrong choice and she wanted to avoid that. She needed to be away from questioning glares and the yelling of the recruits like Emilio.
Said recruit then grabbed her arm to prevent her from leaving but she kicked his legs out from under him, sending him winded to the floor this time. She broke out in a run, feeling the tears pool in her eyes as she made her way to the north-western part of the city.
It was sundown by the time she finally stopped. She had been running and running for hours, feeling her feet blister and her muscles burn. She didn't want to stop running over Rome's roofs, didn't want to give herself a moment to think, to feel.
When she finally stopped, the last rays of sunlight were slipping down over the horizon. Rich pinks and purples drowned out the final burning orange rays of the sun, themselves being smothered by a black sky that was dotted with stars and patched with thin clouds.
She finally collapsed atop some ruins, looking down at those left in what remained of the Roman bathhouse. She panted for breath, feeling her sweat make her clothes stick to her uncomfortably. She brought her legs up to her chest, suppressing the urge to cry out, to scream so loud that her family in the Tuscan countryside could hear it. Instead, she broke out sobbing.
Her parents had been Assassins, this she knew for a while now. But suddenly so many things made sense. All of her uncle's meetings in his office full of red-crossed banners, the reason why her aunt ordered for (Y/n)'s parents to be killed, why her mother had lied about her past.
Her mother had been born to a family of Templars and fell in love with an Assassin. She had left her family and joined her lover in his battle to protect free will. She felt the need to lie to the rest of the Brotherhood about her past in order to protect herself from suspicion when her loyalties had truly shifted. Her aunt had ordered their murder because she was a Templar who had to get rid of the Assassins who would stand in her way because Emma knew everything about them. It was kill or be killed.
The war between Assassin and Templar had killed her family. Not class prejudice - not a dispute between sisters - war had killed her parents.
She smeared her tears from her cheeks and eyes, feeling some gathered at her chin. She no longer felt bad that earlier that day, she had thought of killing her aunt and uncle. She wanted them to die. Her life had been turned upside down by a war that was hidden from her until recently, she had been lied to for years and years and years.
She had to lay down, pulling her hood up to rest against the hard stone. She needed to rest, her body yearned for it after the last few physically and emotionally exhausting hours. She rested her head on her arms and passed out there on the stone.
⚜⚜⚜
She didn't know what the time was when she woke, only that it was dark still. She wasn't sure if it was the same day or if she had slept through all of that day's sunlight.
What she did know, however, was how stiff she felt upon waking up. She stretched her aching limbs and looked down at the ruins below her, making her way to the edge so that she could peer down. She carefully climbed down, her body crying in protest at the strain on her muscles. She decided that she would simply walk the streets to get back to the hideout, keeping her hood up and sticking to the shadows to avoid unwanted attention. She was so tired that she felt like she was sleepwalking, like someone else was controlling her movements as she simply focused on staying awake, on staying numb to what she had discovered in order to avoid another outburst.
She sighed when she finally reached the stairs of the hideout, making her way down to the main hall and planning on heading straight to her room. She wanted to sleep. She couldn't think if she was asleep, she couldn't be hurt by her reality anymore.
She had only taken a few steps into the room when a voice almost made her leap out of her skin:
"You're back." She looked back to the table to see Ezio. He had waited for her return.
"I'm sorry. . . I needed to get away. . ." She murmured as she kept her eyes down, not wanting to see his expression. He remained silent, a gesture for her to continue. "Everyone was yelling at me or interrogating me and I couldn't take it. I couldn't take the fact that-" She could feel the tears again, biting down on her cheek while thanking her beaked hood for hiding her face, "-that they're Templars. My parents were killed - I was kidnapped - by Templars. Everything finally made sense, just like I wanted it to but it's not what I wanted." She shook her head and felt her voice waver. "This war killed them and it stole my life from me, and I didn't even know it! With my family, I was always who I was told to be, never given room enough to become my own person. The moment I ran away that changed but I'm still figuring everything out and it's too much. I want things to slow down."  A sob escaped her lips.
"Come, sit down." He offered and she listened, sitting opposite him and resting her head in her arms, taking slow breaths to try and calm herself.
"I won't lie to you: you can't slow these things down and they're going to happen a lot quicker than you'd like. But you don't have to go through them alone. Don't take this all by yourself when you have people around you who are willing to help." He hesitantly reached a hand out to rest on her arm, caressing it with his thumb. He thought back to the day his father and brothers died, to the long night that followed, the stress of getting his mother and sister to safety, of not knowing what had happened.
"I don't know who to trust anymore!" She burst out, finally looking up at him. "They raised me! They treated me like a daughter! They lied to my face every second of every day! I saw them as parents!" He got up to sit down next to her, rubbing his hand up and down her back now.
"I still trust you." He spoke softly, trying to glance at her face but she turned her head away, "But you're going to have to prove yourself to everyone now that the other recruits have found that pin. I spoke with the Assassins and they want to see you complete some errands around the city for us." (Y/n) bit down on her cheek and sighed, leaning her face on her hand.
"Everything just keeps on falling apart." She murmured, sniffling now, "I thought that I finally had a place here and now that's being tested too." His hand stopped on her back, palm splayed out.
"You've shown more devotion to the brotherhood than any of the others so far. I'll make sure that you keep your place here." He paused, "Ti prometto."
"You know, I don't usually cry this much in front of people." She laughed a little, trying to lighten the mood now, tired of being upset. He smiled softly back, seeing her wipe the tears from her face with her sleeve.
"You're going through a lot. . ." Ezio replied, "I understand that, truly, I do. But again: don’t force yourself to go through it alone."
They sat in silence for a while, (Y/n) slowly nodding her head and reaching for the papers beside him that she had gathered were her contracts around the city.
"I'll set things right, mentore." She bowed her head and stood to rest for the night before what would doubtlessly be a long day. She opened her door to find the drawers and doors of her wardrobe open, her bed unmade and the contents of the bag she had arrived with spilt over it.
She began to cry.
🏷️: @fuckinherondale @fandomsfanman​
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scpnightwing · 3 years
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whumptober 2021: The Bone Road (1/31)
By night, Robin was his partner in crime, but once the sun rose, all Dick could be was a mirror of his tragedy, haunting his halls and asking for more than Bruce had in him to give.
{The early days of Batman and Robin, and the many mistakes therein) [on AO3]
Chapter One: “You have to let go” | Barbed Wire | Bound
Every day, between three o’clock and five o’clock, Dick would take his schoolwork into the unused sitting room at the very front of the Manor. It was the sort of room they would have taken guests to, if they ever had any, and although Alfred kept it spotlessly clean, it had a bereft air to it; a car left to rust in a garage, a piano silently gathering dust, a performer without an audience. A purpose left unfulfilled.
Much of the Manor was that way. Even after living at Wayne Manor for four months, it still struck Dick as absurd that there were only three of them in that great big house, with its endless rooms dedicated to overly specific things that none of them seemed to do.
There was a music room, but he had never seen Alfred or Bruce pick up an instrument, despite his suspicions that they both probably could play something.
There was a games room with several pool tables and a darts board and cupboards full of old board games, the likes of which Dick had never heard of, but even Dick soon tired of trying to play snooker by himself.
The ballroom particularly offended him. Why on earth would any house need its own ballroom, and if you were going to have a house with a ballroom, then you may as well use it. He had been scolded by Alfred for skidding across its marble floor in his stocking feet, and when he had asked if they would have Bruce’s birthday party in there, Alfred had only nudged him back out the door.
Dick didn’t know the word excessive yet, but he recognized its definition when he saw it, and such a grand house was, in his eyes, utterly wasted on three people, especially when two of those people spent their evenings skulking through the city’s poorest places only to come back to such opulence.
The dissonance of that made Dick uncomfortable in a way he couldn’t quite put into words, not that he would have shared the thought even if he could, afraid that his discomfort may be misinterpreted as ingratitude. He was, it felt, always one wrong word away from being as superfluous to his new guardian as his many neglected rooms.
Dick perched in the window seat, scattering his books and worksheets around him to create an illusion of studious diligence, and began his daily vigil. In the last four months, he had scoped out only a fraction of the front-facing rooms, but he had decided that this one had the best view of the winding driveway up from the front gate.
All the better to spot when Bruce’s car arrived home.
He chewed on the end of his pencil, half-listening out for Alfred’s footsteps, his cue to look appropriately absorbed in today’s math problems. Alfred was still trying to find Dick’s level, and he had finished the worksheet so fast that he was a little offended at where Alfred had set the bar, so low on the ground that Dick could step over it. At least that freed him up for when Bruce got home.
Not, Dick thought glumly, that Bruce was likely to give him much more than a perfunctory hello before he hid himself away in his study. He bit harder on the pencil at the thought. Four months in his house, and two months since he had first declared himself Robin and saved Bruce from the infiltration in the cave on Halloween, yet Bruce seemed to only have time for him when they were wearing masks. Once they were simply Bruce and Dick again, masks hung up until the next patrol, all the camaraderie of the night seemed to fall away.
It stung in a way Dick didn’t quite understand.
It was quarter to five before the gates at the end of the drive parted for the sleek black Lamborghini Bruce favoured, and Dick hurried to the vestibule just in time for Bruce to walk through the door, shrugging off his coat.
“Hi Bruce.”
Despite this having become a daily occurrence, Bruce still looked surprised to find Dick waiting in the entryway, or perhaps he still wasn’t used to having someone other than Alfred in the house. He managed an absent little smile.
“Dick, how was your day?”
Dick dogged his steps into the main hall.
“Boring. I could answer the sums Alfred’s giving me in my sleep! Was work okay? You look all tired.”
“It was work.”
He always said that, like it was an answer in itself. Dick had no idea what it was he actually did when he went to the Wayne Enterprises building, or how it was any different than what he did when he holed up in his study for hours on end, but Bruce never offered any more details and Dick wasn’t sure if it was nosy to ask.
“Are we gonna go out tonight?” Dick asked instead, jogging a little to keep up with Bruce’s longer strides. “I finished all my schoolwork, and I’ve been practicing my leg sweeps.”
“Not on Alfred, I hope,” Bruce said, but nothing more, and Dick’s stomach sank.
They were coming to the study door now, and as Bruce opened it, he looked down at Dick with that same absent smile he gave reporters and waiters and everyone else who didn’t really matter.
“Why don’t you go see if Alfred needs any help with dinner? I’ve got some calls I need to make.”
Dick darted forward as Bruce made to shut the door.
“Actually! I, erm, had a little trouble with the last question. I don’t really understand how Alfred explained it. Could you help me with it?”
It wasn’t that Bruce was cold, necessarily, but to a boy who had grown up surrounded by doting, affectionate people, the absence of outright warmth from him was glacial. Dick’s heart thundered as he waited for an answer, a little part of him irritated that so small a request even needed to be questioned.
“I thought you said you could do those sums in your sleep, hm?” Bruce said lightly, but he at least had the good grace to look a little guilty as he gently nudged Dick back from the doorway. Dick stepped back, the worksheet crumpling in his fist. “Sorry, kiddo, I was stuck in meetings all day so there’s a couple of important calls I need to return. If you’re really struggling, I’m sure Alfred could help you. Why don’t you head down and ask him? He won’t mind.”
It was fortunate Dick had experience shamming smiles for the crowd, as he did just that now, feigning indifference as he was gently but adamantly dismissed.
“Sure. Sorry for bothering you.”
“…You weren’t bothering me, Dick. I’m just busy.”
“It’s okay. I’ll see you at dinner.”
Dick was halfway down the hall, shoulders hunched and bottom lip caught between his teeth, when he heard a weary sigh from behind him.
“Wanna try that leg sweep out on me later before we head out?”
Dick instantly lit up, spinning back around to grin at Bruce.
“You’re taking me out with you?”
“For a little while, at least. Alfred’ll have my head if I keep you out ‘til morning, but considering you don’t have to be up for anything special, we can get a couple hours in together. But only if I finish these calls, okay?”
Dick knew a bribe when he heard one, but if it meant he could suit up and spend time with Batman later, then he could bear a few more lonely hours.
--
They fit together better in the masks than out of them. Never exactly verbose, Batman at least made an effort to keep up a stream of conversation with Robin, having spent the last two months of training instilling in him the importance that they communicate effectively with one another. The drive into Gotham always meant at least fifteen minutes of Batman briefing him on what cases they were looking into, or if there was nothing live at the time, the plan for their patrol route. Unlike Bruce, Batman encouraged questions, and despite his surly countenance, he wasn’t afraid to play along if Dick tried to joke with him.
More than the excitement of protecting people, it was that brief window of time where Batman would speak to Robin that Dick looked forward to the most, well worth the odd punch he didn’t dodge fast enough or the overtired, pinching headaches the following morning.
That didn’t mean Batman couldn’t be just as cold as Bruce, of course, and for all that he would play the straight man for Robin in the privacy of the car, once they were in the field, there was no room for levity or, more importantly, disobedience.
Dick perched on the lip of the warehouse roof, his fingers curling around the cool cement as he watched the shadows of men moving below. The arms shipment had come in as expected, but that wasn’t all that was passing through the docks that night, and Batman had slipped off to the neighbouring dockyard to investigate the chain of cars they had seen driving in through unlocked gates, leaving Robin to watch their original targets. The time to strike was slipping away as they loaded the last of the crates into an idling van, and Dick’s feet were itching to spring forward.
Not without Batman. That instruction had been delivered with a firm hand on his shoulder, which meant Batman really meant it.
“Batman, they’re getting ready to leave,” Dick whispered, index finger pressed to his ear piece. “Are you almost back? We’re gonna lose them!”
There was a fuzzy silence on the other end before Bruce’s voice came though, breathy and almost drowned out entirely by a flurry of gunfire.
“Robin, go wait in the car for me.”
Order given, the connection immediately went silent, and Dick’s heart thundered in his chest as he waited for more, for a chance to hear that background noise again and assure himself that it wasn’t gunfire, that Bruce wasn’t getting shot at alone over there.
Dick touched his ear piece again; “B, are you alright?”
Nothing, not even static.
Down below, the rear doors to the van slammed shut, the men climbing up into the front seats. Dick teetered at the edge of the roof, torn between seeing through the night’s work and doing as he was told. He groaned quietly as the van pulled away, its rear lights growing smaller down the long stretch of road, but he stayed where he was, double tapping his ear piece to switch to the other channel.
“A, I’ve lost contact with Batman. Can you get through to him? I - It sounded like there were guns.”
More silence, but the dull crackle of interference in the connection told Dick the line was live. Distant clicking as Alfred typed at the computer, before, “Bear with me, Robin, I’m accessing the cowl-feed.” More silence, heavier, telling. “…Batman has been outnumbered. It appears he has been hit.” Dick had never heard Alfred sound afraid before, but there was certainly a difference in his voice as he spoke now. “Robin, return to the car. I’m sending a tip-off to the GCPD.”
“What good will that do?!” Dick demanded, pacing the edge of the roof with fistfuls of cape bunched up in his hands. The van had long since vanished from sight, and all his focus was on the distant, dark dockyard where Bruce had disappeared to. Outnumbered, potentially shot, and there had been so many cars heading in that direction. What had Bruce been thinking, engaging when there were so many?! It was the exact thing he told Dick to never, under any circumstances, do. The hypocrisy of it only fanned the flames of Dick’s frustration, and his pacing took him across the roof in the direction Bruce had gone, the complete opposite direction from the Batmobile.
“The sound of sirens will send them running, which will give Batman the opportunity to remove himself from —!”
Alfred’s line cut out.
“Agent A? Are you still there?” Dick switched channels again. “Batman, can you hear me?!”
Perhaps if either of them had answered Dick then, he would have done as he was told and gone back to the car, but if he were being honest with himself, he had already been planning his running leap from the rooftop before Alfred’s line had gone dead. He couldn’t even enjoy the moments of free-fall as he usually did, too consumed with the mental image of Batman at the center of a circle of men, all pointing guns at him.
He was halfway to the other dockyard, sprinting through shadowed alleys between the warehouses, when Alfred’s voice returned.
“Master Ri — Robin, that is not the direction of the car.”
“Did you get through to B?”
“…No. The situation has escalated, and… well, I have alerted the GCPD to a disturbance, but I fear their arrival will not be timely enough to prevent further harm.” Dick didn’t waste breath on answering, crouching at the corner of a building and surveying the open space between him and the chain-link fence ahead. It was topped with barbed wire, stretching as far as he could see in both directions, and there was no convenient hole in the fence to slip through. Only over. “Robin… Batman has been restrained, and it appears to be their intention to throw him into the harbour.”
Dick’s chest clenched, a light-headed fuzziness washing over him. The picture in his head changed from Batman surrounded by guns to Batman sinking into darker and darker waters, bubbles rising from his mouth until they stopped.
“I - I can help,” Dick said, or perhaps it came out as a question, uncertainty thick in his voice. He didn’t realize until Alfred spoke again that he was waiting there, poised at the corner of the building, for permission to move.
“It will be a very narrow window of opportunity,” Alfred began, any trace of that earlier fear absent now, firm in his focus, “You are not to engage the miscreants, Robin. I will guide you to a safe location to hide, and only when they have submerged Batman will you enter the water to sever his bonds. You will then both be free to swim to safety. Is that understood?”
It was reminiscent of a briefing from Batman himself, and Dick wondered how much of Batman’s no-nonsense attitude was cribbed from Bruce’s own experiences.  Dick found himself nodding, though Alfred couldn’t see him.
“I don’t have anything to cut with, though. Br - Batman said I can’t have weapons yet.”
“…Batman should be suitably armed, though he will be unable to reach for his tools at the moment. From your current location, head straight until you come to Warehouse Three. We will need to be careful to keep you out of sight from that point on.”
It was all the permission Dick needed to dart forward. As he neared the fence, he reached up to unclip his cape, wrapping one of his hands completely. His momentum fed into his leap, and he sprung up the fence, clambering hand over foot to the top where he used his enshrouded hand to flip himself over the barbed wire. Though he felt the sharp press of its points, the cape was reinforced enough to withstand the pressure, and as he touched down on the other side, there wasn’t a single tear.
He clipped the cape back on and made for the warehouse with the big off-white ‘3’ painted on its side.
Following Alfred’s directions, Dick soon found himself crouching behind a forklift truck, peering from behind its massive wheels at the scene ahead. There were a lot of people milling about the open yard. Not the scruffy, poster-child sort of thugs Dick had spent the earlier part of the night watching, but the sort of people who hid their guns in suit jackets and blended into the crowd when the police went hunting. Besides them, there were other people, and Dick's chest ached at the sight of them; kids, mostly, no one quite as young as Dick, but kids nonetheless. They were being inspected one-by-one by some of the more expensively dressed men, their hair rubbed between forefinger and thumb, their jaws pressed open to expose their teeth, their hands turned over under torchlight.
Like show dogs.
“The police are on their way, Robin,” Alfred gently reminded him, no doubt checking Dick’s lens feed and seeing exactly where he was looking. “No such sales will be going through tonight. We must focus on reaching Batman.”
Dick nodded jerkily, and with difficulty, he tore his eyes away from the line of dull-eyed children awaiting inspection.
At least now he understood why Bruce had broken his own rule and jumped in when so badly outnumbered.
A distance away from the men and the children was a fenced-off area where the boats offloaded. A boat was already growing smaller across the bay, no doubt having completed its inhumane delivery, but though the boat was gone, there was still a gaggle of people at the water’s edge.
At their centre was Batman, ensnared by loops of thick, dock-line rope from his shoulders to his waist, arms pinned behind his back. Dick touched the side of his mask and his lenses zoomed in on Batman’s face. He couldn’t tell if his eyes were open behind the cowl, but his mouth was slack, lips parted.
“He’s out cold?” Dick asked, and though he knew the answer, he very much wanted Alfred to tell him otherwise.
“He took a bad knock to the head. The cowl bore the brunt of it, but the attack damaged the cowl’s in-built security. We didn’t realize until one of those people,” it sounded like a different, fouler word in that tone, “attempted to unmask him, and the emergency shock affected them both.”
Dick zoomed back out and belatedly noticed there was at least one man unconscious to the side of the group.
“Good,” he said, more than a little vindictively. “I’m going in.”
“Wait!” Dick froze, still hidden behind the forklift truck. “Tell me your plan of action.”
“I’m gonna go left and keep to the shadows, back around the side of the warehouse, and climb the fence there where they can’t see me. Then, I’ll wait until the police come and these guys all get scared off so I can untie Batman and hide us until he wakes up.”
There was a contemplative silence on the other end of the line, and Dick waited for a thorough critique, for Alfred to propose problems for Dick to counter as if this were a logic puzzle assigned for homework, but in the end, there was only a resigned sigh, and, “Please be careful, Robin.”
The plan lasted as long as it took Dick to get to a part of the fence where he could climb over unseen. That was when the police sirens approached, sending the group into a panic. Startled by the noise, Dick’s foot slipped on the chain-links as he was halfway over the top, and he thanked whatever gods were watching over him that he had thought to lay his cape over the barbed wire, as that was all that protected him as he lost his balance and tumbled down over the other side. The cape itself wasn’t quite as lucky, one of the barbs embedding in its weave, and as Dick grabbed at the cape to right himself, the wire snapped, plunging alongside Dick and his torn cape.
Dick hit the ground with a muffled yelp, glancing in the direction of the group guarding Batman. They hadn’t seen him yet, but they had heard the sirens, and Dick watched the moment they decided to cut their losses and shoved Batman’s bound, unconscious body over the edge of the dock and into the dark waters below.
“No, no, no!” Dick jumped to his feet and made to move forward, only to be jerked back by his ensnared cape, losing his footing completely. With a frustrated grunt, he unfastened the cape altogether and ran ahead without it, uncaring if the fleeing goons looked back and spotted him diving into the water after Batman. He had barely sunk by the time Dick reached him, but even as he clung to the concrete lip of the dock with one hand and tugged at the tail of the rope binding Bruce, he couldn’t keep Bruce’s head above the water. Beneath the sound of the enclosing police sirens and Dick’s own frantic splashing, he heard a splutter. “B, are you with me?!”
The weight at the end of the rope slackened as Bruce came to, instinctively kicking his legs in the water. With his arms bound, however, treading water was the best he could do, and the weight of the Batsuit was pulling them both down. Dick managed to scrabble up the edge of the dockside, sopping wet and trembling from the cold, and with his feet braced against a bollard, he put his all into pulling at the rope, so thick he could barely get his hands all the way around it.
“Robin —“
Dick couldn’t tell if he heard Bruce’s voice through the comms or out loud, but the sound made his heart soar, uncharacteristically reedy as it was.
“I - I got you, B! Hang on!”
Even as he said that, the sole of his boots slipped against the bollard, too wet to gain purchase, the weight pulling against him too strong. He felt the first burst of pain in his shoulders and couldn’t quite bite back the gasp, white flashing across his vision. The rope just kept slipping, and inch by inch, Bruce sank deeper beneath the surface. For all that he kicked up, the water was splashing over his face, into his mouth, his words a gurgle.
“Let go,” Bruce managed before he disappeared beneath the water again. Dick scrabbled desperately as one of his feet slipped off the bollard altogether, and without its leverage, he staggered forward, dropping to his knees and getting dragged across the concrete towards the dock’s edge. He still pulled as hard as he could, feeling the strain like a taut wire across his back. Bruce’s head broke the surface again, only long enough for him to spit out a mouthful of water and exclaim, “You have to let go, Robin!”
If he let go, Bruce would sink. The ropes were bound so tightly around his torso that Dick had no hope of getting his hands under to free a batarang.
Dick sacrificed some length of the rope to scramble back across the ground, grabbing what he could of it to loop around the bollard. The loose knot wouldn’t hold for long, but he knew he had no hope of pulling Bruce up, no matter how hard he tried. Already, his hands were red raw from the rope, and every twitch of his arms brought a lash of pain all down his back.
Desperately, Dick cast his eyes around, a part of him hoping that one of the fleeing criminals would have dropped something useful. A knife would have been a blessing, but no such luck. There was nothing in their wake but the sound of squealing tires and a line of abandoned and traumatised children. The police cars were trying to block the gates, but several of the black cars had already broken through the barricade.
Nothing, there was nothing! Behind him, Dick couldn’t hear any splashing anymore, and panic seized him like a hand around his throat.
A flash of yellow caught Dick’s eye; his cape fluttered in the wind, still caught on broken link of barbed wire.
Dick barely gave the idea a second’s thought before he was sprinting back towards his cape, gathering the material in both hands and wrapping it around the end of the barbed wire. Like unfurling a cotton reel, Dick ran and pulled the chain of wire with all his strength, throwing himself back as hard as he could to separate the barbed wire from the top of the fence. It sprung off jerkily, resistant to Dick’s yanks, and his cape could not hold up against the strength of his grip.
Barbs broke through the material, biting into the meat of his hands. He barely felt the metal sinking in, so focused on pulling down a long enough chain that it would reach Bruce. He couldn’t even feel the pain in his shoulders anymore, mindless of anything but how many seconds had passed since Bruce had last broken the surface of the water.
Tearing away the cape and clutching the end of the length of barbed wire in his bare, bleeding hands, Dick dove back into the water. Bruce was still fighting the pull of the water, legs kicking and lips pressed shut. Dick pushed aside the fleeting thought that his kicks were getting limper, looping his legs around Bruce’s waist for leverage as he began hacking at the topmost rope with the sharp barbs.
Blood blossomed through the water as he worked, his lungs beginning to burn.
The rope was just so thick! The sharp edge of the metal was fraying it, but slowly, too slowly, Dick’s frantic pace staggered by trying to move through water. Bruce was going to drown, and he was going to watch it happen, utterly useless.
As if sensing his growing distress, Alfred’s voice returned to his ear.
“Keep going, Robin. You’ve almost gotten through it. Just a little more.”
Alfred’s air of calm, however forced, was a balm to Dick’s nerves, and he doubled his efforts even as dark spots began to dance across his vision. He couldn’t feel his hands at all any more, just focused on moving his arms, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. So intent on his task, he didn’t notice when the barbed wire finally bit through the last thread of rope, the other bands wound around Bruce going slack.
Instantly, Bruce’s struggle redoubled, and it was Dick who went limp in the water, legs losing their grip around him. The next thing Dick knew, he was on his back on the dockside, hidden behind a storage crate with Batman crowded over him. He was wheezing too, swaying where he knelt, his cape so drenched that it dripped like rain over Dick.
“B… ‘kay?”
Bruce pressed a hand down over Dick’s mouth just before footsteps ran past their hiding spot. Only when their footsteps receded did his hand fall away, but only so that he could pick Dick up as if he were a baby, hoisting him up against his shoulder before running from the cacophony of the police surveying the scene behind them.
Each stride jostled Dick badly, the missing pain returning with a vengeance. Hanging over Bruce's shoulder, he raised his hands to his face and winced at the state of them, lacerated from fingertip to wrist. Blood oozed so thickly that Dick could smell it, and his stomach roiled, only made worse as Bruce leaped a gap between berths and the damage to Dick’s shoulders made itself known.
Bruce set him down gently when they finally made it back to the car, setting him atop the bonnet and pulling a ribbon of bandages from one of the pouches on his belt, thankfully waterproof. He didn’t say a word as he carefully wrapped Dick’s torn hands, nor when he pressed two tablets against his lips to help with the pain.
It was only when Dick leaned forward, catching Bruce’s wrist between his two bandaged hands, asking again, “Are you okay?” that Bruce looked him in the eye.
Dick didn’t need to see past his cowl to recognise Bruce’s disapproval.
There was a part of him that dared to hope he was wrong, that perhaps Bruce might be grateful that Dick had helped him, might even compliment his resourcefulness in finding a way to cut through the ropes.
That hope died as Bruce said, “I told you to go back to the car.”
And that was it. He rounded the car and slammed the door shut behind him, the engine idling while Dick swallowed his hurt and slipped off the hood, fumbling with the door handle between his bandaged fingers.
Quietly, Alfred said over their direct channel, “You did well, my boy.”
They were the words he was desperate to hear, but from the wrong man.
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agwitow · 3 years
Text
(Inspired by this prompt, and a quasi sequel to my laundress fic...)
There were vague rumours about the Duke --mostly mutterings from the elderly in town-- though the few times he had visited Fallholt, he had seemed to be a quiet but kind lord. Younger than expected, given the elders mutterings, though most assumed whatever dark rumours were half-remembered had been about the Duke's father or grandfather.
Those who worked at the Duke's castle had little more information about him. He mostly kept to himself, only interacting with a few elderly servants who had to have started working for his grandparents. Rarely did he even entertain other nobles.
Some said he was nursing a broken heart. That the one he'd intended to make his Duchess had left one day, without so much as a farewell. But no one had any recollections of such a person. Perhaps, like the other odd rumours, it was a story about a previous Duke. Perhaps it was just a fanciful tale invented by bored maids wanting to cast the Duke as some sort of tragic prince.
Whatever the truth, the invitations received by each family were met with a mix of excitement, confusion, and more than a little bit of suspicion.
His Grace, Lord Robyn de Nikoi, Duke of Fallholt, requests the presence of one person from each household for an evening of celebration and entertainment.
Those accepting, must be above the age of majority, and should be in good health.
The seal at the bottom of the letter depicted a stag with brambles wreathed around its neck. This, too, added to the confusion since the Duke's flag was a black rose against a field of green and yellow.
Some chose not to attend, even going so far as to offer their invitations to those houses where they couldn't settle on who would go. In the end, almost 150 people attended the Duke's celebration.
Distant though the castle was, lights and faint strains of music lingered long into the night. So long that no one was too surprised that none of the attendees had returned by morning.
By that evening though, with still no sign of their loved ones, the townsfolk began to whisper the old rumours to each other. Those who worked at the castle were questioned as soon as they returned to their homes that night.
Yes, there had been a grand party with much food and drink. No, they hadn't seen any of the missing townsfolk. No, there hadn't been anything strange about the post-party mess they'd had to clean. Yes, they would look around the castle the next day for some sign or clue about what might have happened.
The entire next day was full of worry and tension, as everyone waited for their loved ones to return, or for some answers from the castle servants.
At long last, the servants returned, though they had little enough to report.
There was still no sign of the missing people, but there was also no sign of the Duke. The elderly steward had seemed unconcerned when questioned, though he'd had no answers either.
The townsfolk decided enough was enough. They would march to the castle at first light and demand answers. Were their loved ones still alive? Where were they? Why were they being kept away?
Though it wasn't ever discussed, each person who volunteered to go on that march made sure to find a weapon and ready it for the morning. Just in case the worst had come to pass.
Whether word of the impending mob had reached the Duke, or if it was simply a coincidence, the missing townsfolk slipped back into town in the pre-dawn haze. Screams and shouts of joy, surprise, and fear rang in the new day as the townsfolk found their missing loved ones sleeping in their beds as if nothing had been amiss.
There was much rejoicing, though by midday it had died back into confusion.
The missing men, women, and people had very little memory beyond enjoying rich food and drink. They hadn't even realized that they'd been gone for more than a single evening.
Worse, still, was that not everyone who'd gone had returned. Eight people never came home.
When asked, the returned ones couldn't say what had happened, or where they might be, but each knew that those eight would never return.
This only fed the reinvigorated rumours about the Duke.
Slowly, life settled back into its old routine.
So what if, on occasion, one of those who'd gone would stop and stare off into the distance with a frown? Or be unable to sleep for days at a time? Was it really so strange that they were changed somehow?
Not until the blacksmith pulled a white-hot iron from the forge with her bare hands, did anyone say anything about the changes.
How the baker's son had broken a solid oak table while kneading bread. Or how one of the clerks had eyes which glowed a soft amber I'm the dark. How a cleric's skin had become rough and cold, like stone. Or a tailor's skin glittered like scales whenever wet.
Suddenly, the changes were the only thing everyone could talk about.
Some thought it a sign of evil magic and wanted to drive those affected out of town, before the corruption could spread.
Others worried that their loved ones had never actually returned and these people who looked and sounded and acted like them were little more than constructs.
A few wondered just how far the changes went.
But everyone agreed it was the Duke's fault.
He had done something to them. Something they hadn't asked for, or agreed to. Something beyond their control.
None were more angry than those affected.
They decided the Duke owed them answers, and a few volunteered to go to the castle and get them. One way or another.
The next day, the blacksmith, baker's son, a trapper whose touch could burn, and the stone-skinned cleric returned to the castle.
The elderly steward met them at the gates. "His Grace has been expecting you. Follow me, please."
They exchanged looks, but followed along to a small audience room. An oval table with twelve chairs took up much of the space, and tapestries depicting a variety of forest scenes covered most of the walls.
The Duke was already seated at the head of the table, with a banner on the wall behind his chair displaying the stag-and-brambles. In colour, and with carefully embroidered detail, it became clear that each thorn on the bramble wreath had drawn blood.
"I was beginning to wonder if any of you would ever come back," he said. "It would have been better if you'd come sooner, but we will make do. Ask your questions."
This was certainly not what any of them had expected, and it took a moment before the cleric asked, "What did you do to us?"
"Straight to the complicated ones, I see." He gave them a small smile before gesturing for them to take a seat. "Allow me to tell you a story about a young girl and a magic pond."
The baker's son frowned. "You mean the old fairy tale where she wishes to be a princess and the pond summons a fairy prince who kidnaps her?"
"Is that the version being told now? Fascinating how it changes over the years. Yes. That story. Though my version is... rather different from what you know."
"We didn't come here for bedtime stories," the trapper grumbled.
"Humour me, please. It will all make sense after."
When there were no other objections, the Duke began his tale.
"Once upon a time, there was a young girl. The daughter of a minor lord with no money and no land. She traveled from one place to another with her father, who was forever looking for a way to rise in wealth and status.
"Though there was no money for a dowry, the lord made a deal with a Duke. In exchange for his daughter, he would be given a bit of land to oversee. The Duke was old and cruel, and none of his previous wives had provided him with an heir. Most were rescued by family when his temper left bruises that couldn't be hidden. The others had died.
"A father who cared more for status than his daughter's wellbeing was the type of inlaw who suited the Duke best. So a date was set and the girl --a young woman, by this point-- was sent to the Duke's castle.
"Her life was not pleasant, in the weeks leading up to the wedding, and her only solace was in exploring the untamed woods around the castle. Whether through luck, fate, or mischief, she found a hidden pond deep within the forest.
"Things might have gone very differently if she hadn't seen the Duke before he saw her.
"She hid and watched as he stripped his clothes off and waded into the pool. Red, angry looking sores covered much of his flesh, and they spread further as the water touched them.
"The Duke called out, demanding fair trade.
"'Fair trade?' a fae said with a laugh, appearing at the other end of the pond. 'You have traded virility for strength, the life of one of your wives for money and power, and now think to bargain for your virility back without giving up your strength. That is no fair trade.'
"'I will not be weak. Name another price,' he demanded.
"The fae shook its head. 'You must trade something of equal, or greater value, to receive my gifts.'
"'The life of my next bride,' the Duke offered. 'Or my best hunting hound.'
"'I will not be fooled by you again. You place no value on the lives of your wives, and you are no hunter. Both a wife and a hound are no more than accessories to you. Neither is a fair trade.'
"The Duke raged and screamed, but his anger had no effect.
"When his tirade ended, the fae yawned. 'How many more times do you think you can enter my waters with ill-intent in your heart? Soon you will have little flesh untouched by the mark of your greed.'
"The Duke didn't bother to answer. He simply climbed out and put his clothes back on. Though the sores would have hurt a lot, the young woman had no sympathy for him.
"Once he was gone, the fae called for her. She crept out and stood at the edge of the pool.
"'Hello, young one,' they said. 'There is much you wish for. Would you care to make a deal?'
"She shook her head.
"'Come now. Surely there is something you wouldn't mind giving up in exchange to be free of the Duke? Even if he doesn't spill your blood as payment, he will kill you in some other way.'
"She shook her head again. 'I will not trade away my future or memories simply to be free of my present.'
"The fae nodded. 'Perhaps a different sort of deal would suit you then? And before you shake your head at me, let me show you what the future holds.'
"They swept their hand through the water and as the ripples spread, images formed depicting war, chaos, and death. In many, the Duke laughed as the ground turned dark with the blood of innocents.
"'What trickery is this?' she asked.
"The fae sighed, sounding tired. 'No trickery. This is the most likely future, as things stand right now. While the squabbles of mortals would not normally concern me, the consequences of this... it will drain the magic from the land.'
"'What does that have to do with me?'
"'I need a champion. Someone who can change the course of things.'
"'Why me?'
"The fae sighed again, this time in frustration. 'I am bound to this forest, and this pond. I can not leave, and the Duke has made sure most people avoid the forest. You are the first person, other than the Duke, I have spoke to in more than a decade.'
"'And what would being your champion mean?' she asked, still wary.
"The fae grinned. 'A bit of skill, a dash of luck, and a vow to protect the magic of the forest.'
"'Where is the trick? The part that makes the hero regret such a hasty bargain in all the stories.'
"They shrugged. 'Not much of a trick. If you fail to keep the magic strong, your life is forfeit. Though I suspect if that happens, you will be dead already.'
"Perhaps it was arrogance, or desperation to avoid marrying the Duke, but the young woman agreed. And true to their word, the fae provided skill and luck. Enough to rescue a kidnapped princess. Enough to stop an assassin. Enough to replace the Duke."
As the Duke's words faded into silence, the four townspeople frowned.
The cleric shook his head. "The first Duke of Fallholt was given this land after rescuing the Emperor's daughter and uncovering a plot against him by several of his nobles --one of whom had been the Duke ruling these lands before."
"Yes."
"But you're claiming it was a young woman who did those things."
The Duke scratched his chin. "Shortly after rescuing the princess, I realized that despite being born a 'girl,' I was not actually one. People were more willing to believe it was a young man doing all the heroics anyway."
"Wait. What? No. That doesn't make sense," the blacksmith said. "You can't have done any of those things. They happened over a hundred years ago."
The Duke laughed, sharp teeth flashing for a moment. "Yes, they did. And perhaps ten years after them, I met a peculiar laundress who offered my a unique gift."
The trapper's fists clenched, tiny flames licking across their knuckles. "What does all that have to do with us?"
The Duke sighed. "The war Vyrnaed saw was only delayed by my actions. It is still coming. And this time I cannot prevent it from starting. But, with help, I can keep these lands safe."
"What did you do to us?" the cleric repeated.
"I took you to see Vyrnaed. They showed each of you what the future holds and offered a choice. Be slaughtered as the war rolls over us, or be changed so that we can defend our homes." He grimaced and glanced down. "I had expected them to grant you all skills and luck, like they did for me, but... I suppose they thought it fitting that I should lead non-humans, since I haven't been one in a very long time."
The baker's son shook his head vehemently. "No. We should remember it, if what you're saying is true. We remember nothing. And what of the eight who didn't return home? What did you do to them?"
The Duke shrugged helplessly. "As powerful as Vyrnaed is, there is a limit to how much they can do in a night. In order to have enough power to affect all of you a trade had to be made."
"You traded our memories of the evening." The blacksmith's voice was cold and flat.
"No," the Duke said gently. "Each of you agreed. It was your trade to make."
"And the others?"
"I had specified in good health... they did not survive the change."
The four townsfolk stared. It was too fantastical. But they couldn't deny that none of them were quite human anymore.
The cleric broke the silence. "When is this war supposedly coming?"
"If Vyrnaed is right, we have a fortnight."
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