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lazyevaluationranch · 4 years

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I was wondering if you would be willing to share the titles of your resilience-inspiring lesbian farm books? My google search led me to a book titled “Attack of the Lesbian Farmers” which, while certainly inspiring, is not exactly what I was looking for.

Here are two very different books in the Farm Lesbians Write Honestly About What Went Wrong And How They Got Through It genre. Hopefully at least one is to your taste.

It's nearly fifty years old now, and can be hard to find, but Country Women: A Handbook for the New Farmer is deeply important to me. Country Women was a black and white xeroxed magazine written by a collective of woman-run farms in California in the 1960s. (There are some issues scanned at the Lesbian Poetry Archive). Each issue was half articles about feminism and half articles about small-scale farming. In the 1970s, the how-to articles on farming were expanded and organized to make the book, along with some scattered journal entries, lovely hippie-style line drawings and poetry about wood splitting, bees, and gazing at one's beloved while fixing the tractor on a summer day. The contributors have names like Jean and Ruth Mountaingrove, Ellen Chanterelle, and Sam♀ Thomas.

It's written in an informal and pragmatic style, mostly organic hippie farming, but using pesticides or conventional medications when necessary.

This afternoon the Anderson brothers began teaching me how to graft fruit trees - the careful joining of life with life. Even more than I loved gaining a new skill, I loved learning from two old men who have so very much to teach me. I admire the audacity of eighty-three-year-old men setting grafts that will not bear fruit for years: the total involvement in a process they love. Those trees will stand and live; I doubt whether Jake or Fred even stop to wonder if they'll pick the fruit. I want to live my life with that kind of harmony and purpose. I want to be planting seeds the day I die.

The first lamb was born today. Premature and dead. Olivia, the mother, seems to be all right though. I had a dream a few weeks ago that the lambs were born tiny (like mice) and pink. And that I struggled to save them, but they were too small to feed. The lamb today was small and pink, its fleece plastered against its body, thin and sparse. For a moment it was nightmareishly like my dream... This is my first animal death. The beginning of a long cycle. It seems even harder to have death come before life, than to have an old one die giving birth. Hopes for the future stillborn.

Driving home today, I suddenly realized that this really is going to be a sheep ranch, that I have done, and am doing, and will do it. That I'm making my livelihood from the land. The canyon is fenced now. There are sheep out there on pastures that were open hillsides two years ago.

The very act of building this place, the simple actions of tamping dirt, stretching wire, dumping hay in feeders, has profoundly changed my sense of self. I'm doing things I never dreamed I could do, and I'm doing them easily without even considering whether I really can. Last night I was talking with Susan about fencing the front meadow for feeder calves, and I realized that I could say that realistically, no fantasizing, no bragging: I can fence the front meadow as soon as I get done with the hay barn and get a little more money.

Like almost every other farmer in America today, I'm in debt and hoping for a good season. I'm only at the beginning now, and I know there are many struggles to come and overcome and come again: Someday I too, like my neighbours, will be counting carcasses killed by a marauding dog or watching the spring oats be wash away in an "unheard of" late storm. No matter how prepared I am, there us always that vulnerability - to the weather, other animals, disease - that seems to strike when things are finally going smoothly. But inside me there is also this incredible joy: This life is real and good, and it has made me strong and real and good too.

I gotta stop or I'll type the whole book into this post. One more:

My father is here this week ... working on the truck whose engine has been alien to me. I am learning now what I could have learned at 7, 11, 15. Beneath my truck, side by side, lie his seven-year-old son and his twenty-five-year-old daughter, both of us learning for the first time how bearings fit together, how to remove pistons. And here beneath this truck the patriarchy stops: he has passed his knowledge to his daughter, and from me it will pass to sisters, from sister to sister to sister.

That's this book. The things women weren't supposed to know in the sixties. They found people to teach them; they taught each other; they learned through bitter loss. The book says: we have gone before you and you are not alone. Here is what we have learned, and here is how we have learned it. We have failed, and we have wept, and we have gotten up and gone on, and it was alright. Here is the fire, passed from hand to hand to hand. Here is the light that will never be put out.

The week after we first got goats, we received a package in the mail from my coolest relative, a veterinarian who was the first woman to graduate with a specialization in large animal medicine at her school. People thought that women just weren't physically capable of handling large animals. (Hint: the bull weights 1100 kilograms. It doesn't much matter if the veterinarian weighs 50 kilograms or 150 kilograms.) I remember staying with her a child, in summer, laying on the stainless steel operating table in the barn; it always felt cool when the heat was unbearable.

The package, of course, contained Country Women. An old well-loved copy, with notes on long-ago calving dates penciled in the margins, and random scraps of paper with sketches of possible gardens and goat sheds as bookmarks. A light passed from hand to hand, a light that will not go out. It was like receiving a video game quest artifact.

Country Women is rooted in second wave feminism, which is not everyone's cup of tea. For something more modern and story-focussed, consider Hit By A Farm or Sheepish by Catherine Friend. These are collections of short, funny autobiographical essays about farming and relationships. Their tone is honest and wry, self-deprecating. You can see Catherine Friend's blog here and decide if you like her writing style. She wanted to call Hit By A Farm "Sheep Sex and Other Disasters" but her editor didn't think it would sell.

In Hit By A Farm, Catherine - a professional writer - goes along with her partner Melissa's lifelong desire to ranch sheep, and describes the results from the perspective of the slightly reluctant farmer's wife as they start a farm in Minnesota. Sheepish is written fifteen years later, when they're thinking about quitting the farm, after all the shiny newness of farming and the relationship has worn off. There are different mistakes then, different sorrows, and new joys.

From Sheepish:

We rarely pay attention to middles. Perhaps we ignore them because they're problematic. The middles of our beds often sag. The middles of our bodies sag. The middle of a long story told by your brother-in-law is likely to sag, and so you'll need another beer to stay focused. Everyone needs a reason to keep going when they're in the middle.

And:

Don't expect a farm to fix your life, for once the romance dims, you must still muck out the barn and stack hay bales and give that sick goat an enema...Although there are tons of stories about starting something new, there just aren't that many about how to keep doing something, about how to slog through the middle when the going gets tough.

The quotes are all from Sheepish; I can't find our copy of Hit By A Farm:

My spinning wheel continues to torture and confound me. I realize I'm not interested enough in the craft to really commit to learning it. After a few more tries, I tuck the wheel into a corner of our living room and turn it into what Melissa likes to call a Dust Accumulation Research Project. Clearly our wool market will continue to be the wildly unlucrative wholesale warehouse.

The patron saint of spinners is, interestingly enough, Saint Catherine. She was a Christian martyr in Alexandria. In 307 AD, she was condemned to be torn apart by the spokes of the wheel.

Well. No wonder.

Spoiler: things get pretty rough, there’s illness and hard winters and financial issues, but they do not, in fact, give up the farm or each other.

The book says: We made it. You will too.

#the-revolution-will-be-feminized

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wienerbarnes · 3 years

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The Escape

Pairing: Bucky x Reader (Cheek to Cheek)

Word Count: 2,717

Warnings: mind control ooooo, general violence, description of stealing a car that is wildly inaccurate bc ive.... never stolen a car, dues ex machina

A/N: some background about the reader! this one takes place before the last chapter of the original series, way before anything with bucky. this oneshot kinda recounts her prison escape 👀 not a lot of bucky in this one, but kind how the reader got to where she is and stufffff i love a good origin story

MAIN MASTERLIST | CHEEK TO CHEEK MASTERLIST

You didn’t sleep the entire night. How could you? How were you supposed to sleep when you know you’re waking up to your inevitable death?

You refused a last meal a few hours ago. What was the point? You didn’t have an appetite anyway.

All you could do was count the hours, the minutes, the seconds, until the footsteps would sound down the hall, arriving at your cell, the guards would stare at you through the bullet-proof glass wall, the only wall of four that wasn’t made of thick concrete.

They’d take you down to the observation room, they’d strap you down in the chair before asking for your final words. You’d stare out into the window of the observation room, unable to see through to the otherside, but knowing there’d be witnesses there. Maybe the families of people you killed. Maybe government officials, the ones who worked as hard as possible to get you this ending.

First, the sodium thiopental would be injected into your veins to sedate you. Then, the vecuronium bromide will be given that will send your body into paralysis. Finally, the potassium chloride will stop your heart. And your life will be over.

What a shame.

Too soon, your life was wasted. And too soon did the guards feet sound down the hall. And too soon did he arrive in front of your cell, ordering you to get up from your bed to shackle you.

He’s alone, you notice. Perhaps they don’t expect you to put up much of a fight.

Something snaps in your brain and before you realize you’re even doing it, you’re tapping into the young guard’s poor brain. He was a cop. A cop turned prison guard to spend more time at home, less time out in the world trying to catch bad guys. Never really bad guys, though, always just some unlucky soul caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.

“Open the cell.” You tell him, finally through to his head. The keys jingle as he unlocks the three complicated locks attached to the side of the door.

You’re suddenly grateful for the hundreds of times they called you crazy, they called you a psycho, they told you you didn’t have powers, that that was your sad and sorry excuse of the reason for your crimes.

“Take off your clothes.” You order next. The young man begins to strip, taking off his clothes until he’s down to his underwear. White briefs with a blue waistband.

Once his uniform is on your body, you take everything he has, leaving his pistol with him.

“Shoot at everybody that comes in here.” You tell him, and he stares at you blankly, no longer in control of his actions as you take over.

You take a moment, closing your eyes and trying to concentrate on what the prison looks like, where the exits are, and where the guards are. You peek an eye open to glance at the man’s watch that now sits on your wrist, eight minutes until the shift changes.

Eight minutes for you to not fuck this up.

You close the cell door behind you, locking it, and making your way down the hall. You need to time this perfectly so that you’re slipping out as the other guards are leaving.

Just keep your head down, and get out as quickly as possible. Don’t talk to anyone. Just get out and start walking. You’ll get to the city eventually and you’ll hide out until you can keep making your way through New York. Maybe you’ll go to Jersey. Or up to New Hampshire.

Yeah, you’re just going to walk to New Hampshire, aren’t you?

Not a priority right now. Focus on getting out. A deep breath until you unlock the gate at the end of the hall, making your way out into another hallway. You visualize the map in your head once more and keep making your way down. You walk with confidence, head still slightly tilted down, but steps quick and light. Another guard turns the corner at the end of the hall and you make sure your steps don’t falter, and he walks right by you without a second thought.

You’re still unsure about the whole mind control thing. You don’t want to question it, because it seems to be pretty useful right now, but you don’t want to abuse it either, knowing your luck will eventually fail you.

It’s not long before you hear a gunshot ring out in the distance and you glance at a clock on the wall to see the shift change happening now.

You need to get out of here, now. Soon the guards will realize it’s you who’s missing from your cell and the search will begin. They’ll start with the entire grounds of the prison, which will hopefully buy you some time to make it to the city, if you sprint.

You finally make it to a more open area, exit signs now posted at the tops of doorways. You finally find a group of other men, some with bags or coats and you slip into the crowd, hoping that these are the guys leaving from their shift.

“Hey, have a good one, man. Tell the family I said hello.” A rough hand pats your shoulder before brushing past you.

Your stomach drops at the fact that these men are so unaware. So unaware that their real friend is in your cell, probably having a shootout with the new guards who just began their shift. The fact that these guards showed up to work today and the first thing they encounter is another guard in his underwear shooting at them.

Push it back. Push it back. Push it back.

As you’re huddled in between bodies, a bright light suddenly washes over your face. Sunlight. Your eyes burn at the feeling, a feeling so foreign having not felt it in months. You force them open though. You need to separate quickly, because not only do you not know where the parking lot is, you don't know which car is yours, you don’t have keys, and even if you did, you don’t know how to fucking drive.

Why did you never learn this! You never thought you’d need to since you decided you were going to join the military at sixteen, but you still should’ve fucking looked into it!

You don’t think you’ll make it walking. It’ll draw too much attention. The prison is in the middle of fucking nowhere and you’re just going to walk home? What would be worse is if someone offers you a ride.

New plan: find your car and hope it’s unlocked so you can sit inside until everyone leaves.

You know Hydra made you break into things before; houses, cars, etc. But you’ve tried to repress so much of that time that you can’t remember if you ever hot wired a car before.

You hope your luck doesn’t run out anytime soon.

Men arrive at their cars and the options quickly narrow down between an orange SUV and a black, fancy-looking car. You take your chances on the SUV.

It’s unlocked. It’s fucking unlocked. You shut the door and heave, feeling so hard to breath in the small space, but feeling relieved at the chance to finally make some noise and express your stress outside of that group of people you were stuck around.

“C’mon. C’mon! Fight or flight, c’mon, just make me know how to hot wire this.” You close your eyes, as though that will suddenly make the knowledge appear in your head. It doesn’t, surprisingly.

Until you look in the cupholder to see a dozen bobby pins. He probably has a daughter. “It’s going to have to do.” You mumble to yourself.

You quickly straighten them out and shove them into the small spot where the key goes. You twist and turn, holding a bunch of pins together to simulate an odd shape of the key, until finally you hear a click.

That’s gotta be good! Right? You go with it, continuing to twist until you hear a sputtering and crunchy sound of the engine starting.

This guy drives a piece of shit car. But it’s fucking on! You waste no time in putting the car into the drive before pulling out the lot. You make yourself extremely nauseous at your own driving, or rather, attempt at driving. You see in the rearview mirror the lights on the prison flashing, the bright red signaling that they’ve realized you escaped. You give yourself twenty minutes before they ditch the search of the prison grounds and look for you in the city.

Down the road you alternate between driving fifteen miles an hour to sixty, finding it so difficult to get a steady control of the car. But you’re doing it! You only need to make it to the city. That’s it.

“How the fuck do they make sixteen-year-olds do this shit?”

Eventually you get the hang of it. Still a terrible driver, but you at least don’t feel as scared driving among other cars.

The longer you drive, the more it catches up to you what you’ve done. Soon enough, the tears come and so do the sobs. Until you stop a red light and let out a yell of agony, the stress and sadness washing through your body.

It’s hard, wanting to break down completely but having to keep your eyes open for the light to change, and having to pay attention to your surroundings. You find a small alleyway to pull into and you put the car in park before ditching it.

No time to cry, you can cry later. You peek around at the name of restaurants and stores around you, not recognizing any of them. You look at the street signs not recognizing those, either. You haven’t been around society in almost ten years, and you feel hopelessly and utterly lost.

You look around the alleyway and see a big dumpster. Just for a little while, you think. You lift the lid and climb inside, shutting the lid above you.

It’s dark, greasy, and the worst thing you’ve ever smelled, but it’s somehow better than where you were. You don’t know how much time has passed, but the noise outside the dumpster grows, and you make a guess that it’s around six or seven in the morning.

If you want to blend in with the crowd, you need to change your clothes. A prison guard outfit will most definitely make you stand out to people, especially when news breaks that there's a prison escapee on the loose.

When you finally lift the lid to stand up, you look to your left to see a teenager, probably not older than seventeen, staring at you, frozen, key in hand, seemingly to open up some store that you’re in back of.

He’s tall and lanky, and what makes him stand out to you the most is the spiky black hair he sports on his head and the thick black eyeliner around the rims of his eyes.

“You… okay?” He asks, clearly confused as to why a random woman in a prison guard outfit is hanging out in the dumpster behind her place of work. But you’re frozen. You don’t know what to say. You can’t imagine the last twelve hours I’ve been through, it won’t make much sense.

“Are you… hungry?” He asks when you don’t answer. “I’m, uh, opening now, but no one will be here for another hour or two when we actually open. I can make you something if you like?” He offers.

He thinks you’re homeless. Which, you are, technically. But he doesn’t recognize you. Perhaps you haven’t made the news yet, but it’ll only be a matter of time.

You finally nod, climbing out of the dumpster bin and walking over to where he holds the door open for you.

You devour the sandwich he makes you, a simple ham and cheese on white bread, but it’s the best thing you’ve eaten in, well, a decade.

“How long have you been homeless for?”

“Are you from New York?”

“What’s your zodiac sign?”

“What’s your favorite band?”

So many questions come from the curious kid, kindness radiating from him. Casual conversation ensues, and you’re careful not to give too much away.

“Can I ask you something?” You ask, wiping your mouth with a napkin as you swallow the last bit of sandwich.

“How do I get to Brooklyn from here?”

“You’re in Brooklyn, silly.” He responds and your eyes widen a bit, not thinking you’d get this lucky.

“Sorry, that came out kinda insensitive,” He apologizes, picking up your plate, “It’s not like you have a GPS or anything. Anywhere you’re trying to go in particular?”

You have a flash of a vision, Bucky sleeping soundly in his apartment, as the sun shines through in orange cracks in his blinds. Your mind envisions the building, where it is, what it looks like, and how you can get there. Why is your mind and body wanting to lead you to where Bucky is? If you’re trying to lay low, why does your vision want you to go to what’s the third most recognizable government figure in the country, after the President and Captain America?

“Uhm… to see a friend. I guess I wasn’t trying to go, but I have a lot of… free time now, so. Just don’t know what I’d say to him.” You tell the boy, rubbing your eyes in exhaustion. You’re not looking forward to the rest of the day, or week, or month, or life.

“Why don’t you write a note? That’s what I do; when I don’t think I can say the right thing, I write it instead. I can give you some paper and an envelope.” He offers.

This kid has got to be my guardian angel personified, you think. What are the fucking odds?

“You should take it with you, though. I gotta open up soon, and I’m sure you don’t want to experience the morning rush of this place.” You read my mind.

“I’ll give you a change of clothes, too. Where’d you get that, anyway? Do you hang around dumpsters often? Is that one from a Halloween store?”

“Okay, that’s too much. You’ve already been so kind.” You refuse, ignoring the curious questions that shoot out of his mouth.

“Then don’t take it as me being kind, take it as me being mean. You smell like shit from that dumpster.”

You can’t help but laugh, and oh how good it feels. You never thought you’d laugh again, and here you are, giggling at being told you smell bad by some goth teenager.

Soon enough, you’re walking through the backways of buildings, in a crisp white t-shirt that smells of the cologne of a teenage boy, and note and envelope in hand. It takes you about forty five minutes to make it to Bucky’s apartment building, and it was only slightly less stressful that your walk out of that prison.

Through the glass door, you don’t see anyone at the front desk, so you open the door and step inside.

To your left you see a wall of mailboxes, and one large one at the bottom overflowing with letters and gifts. You take a wild guess and say that that one belongs to Bucky. You’ve heard he’s a pretty popular guy, along with the company he keeps.

You take the stairs to the eighth floor and the fourteenth room, hoping the 814 on that mailbox wasn’t random. You scribble out on your piece of paper, tearing it off and keeping the rest in case you need for another note in the future, or a snack. You bite at the blue bracelet on your wrist before it breaks and stick it in the envelope, tucking in the flap to close it.

You place it on the ground and silently press your ear to the door. You don’t hear him, but you hear the sound of the television, announcing your missing presence and the manhunt around the city. You take that as a cue to leave quickly.

Why you feel such a draw towards Bucky, you’re not sure, but for some reason, you have a feeling that leaving him this gift of sorts won’t come back to haunt you.

Perhaps it’ll even lead to the opposite.

#bucky barnes #bucky x reader #bucky barnes oneshot #bucky barnes fanfiction #marvel #badass queen who can't drive

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boop-le-snoot · 3 years

Text

PARTY FAVOURS I CHAPTER 18

First time reader click here

TWs/Summary: We stan ✨women in science✨. Bruce uwu. Twitter social media AU nobody asked for. Stephen and Tony are dicks and I'm not talking about their anatomy. Setting up mood for Bruce smut, ngl. PTSD makes things spicy. I'm depressed so please be kind ✌🏻💀🙃

"I really do wonder how can you two fit those egos of yours in your pants," I kept my tone forcefully casual, cheerful even. "Why don't you just fuck already?"

I was met with stunned silence. Suddenly, the room seemed far too large and the people in much too quiet, staring at me with various expressions of horror obvious in their faces. As the strange friendship began developing between me and the team, my "outbursts" - how Steve liked to call them - lessened considerably. I had no need to provoke them into giving me attention, just striking up a casual chat was enough. The Avengers were great conversationalists, to my surprise.

Tony and Stephen, when paired, were the exception. I could count on one hand the amount of times they successfully came to a conclusion without fighting like cats and dogs. It was like each man had made it a personal mission to verbally top the other, more often than not resulting in a thirty-minute shitshow ending with one storming off in a dramatic flourish. It was mind-boggling how two supremely intelligent men could not find a way to communicate efficiently without infuriating the rest of the team.

Plus me. One way or another, I was almost always around. In the beginning, it was hilarious to see the free circus but it got old really quickly when they couldn't decide on dinner or a movie, leaving the rest of us starving and bored. Or the great Cloak debate - that one lasted days and the fussy thing was so upset, it point blank refused to part from Peter for a substantial amount of time. It's pretty fucking creepy that a semi-sentient, ancient piece of outerwear watches you when you sleep - just sayin'. I personally interjected with my own snark and sass whenever Tony and Stephen got too heated, successfully drawing the attention to myself. The fight broke up and I had amazing sex with Tony later, it was a win-win scenario.

Yet, Tony and Stephen didn't stop. To me, their way of "talking" (and I use that term loosely) looked a lot like unresolved sexual tension. Stephen frequently used his greater height to tower over Tony in a childish attempt to establish dominance; the engineer was no rookie and responded with extravagant peacocking such as "subtly" tapping the bracelet that hosted his nanotech suit or parading at dinner in a $30,000 custom made designer outfit. Because Tony could.

I was pleasantly surprised when Natasha started laughing at my remark. Full-blown, belly laugh. Those were rare, coming from the Widow, her usual mirth was quiet, sophisticated, just like her. Deadly (adorable). Bucky followed suit, snorting together with Clint and Loki.

Steve looked none too pleased with me. But then again, was he ever? "Doll, don't be rude."

"Brat," Bruce said at the same time, palming his face.

"People always call me a brat. And guess what, Steve?" I popped my hip, twirling a cotton candy pink coloured Dum-Dum between my fingers. "What can you do about it? Nothing," I shrugged, leaning my head against Bruce's shoulder affectionately.

Steve just shook his head in disappointment. "Can we get back on topic? Please?"

"Captain, I think that Stark..." Strange began talking with Tony dramatically groaning in the background and I instantly tuned out the useless babble. Steve should've been smarter and revoked speaking rights from Tony and Stephen. Or asked Loki to magically render them both mute for ten minutes.

"You're not wrong," Bruce quietly whispered next to my ear. "Ten bucks says Wanda meddles and those two finally work out their frustrations," The scientist hid a grin against my head. I felt the amused, giddy energy radiating off him like a plasma beam.

"I don't even have to bet," I rolled my eyes. "If she doesn't do it, I will."

Both Tony and Stephen were throwing me equally infuriated glances. One promised me a good, hard fucking and the other saw me a short, poisonous lecture on appropriate behaviour in the nearest future - you can guess which is which. If I had it my way, I'd skip the lecture and go straight to a hot, filthy threesome with two men twice my age. I wasn't blind, Strange was hot as hell and could be decent and even nice once in a blue moon.

He could, but he wouldn't be. I wanted that raw, unadulterated lust, tension so concentrated it walked the razor's edge between violent craving and repulsion. Ever since the incident with Clint, I had this ugly mess inside of me, like a live wire about to snap. My brain was constantly racing, darting between how utterly useless I am in a group of supers and embracing my normal-ness, amplifying it by hosting game nights and spending time trying to convince people to start a dungeons and dragons campaign. Or something.

My sleep was like Swiss cheese, riddled with holes where I stayed awake for one or two hours at a time in the middle of the night after waking up sweaty, with my heart hammering out of my chest. Sometimes I dreamt of Clint's lifeless, sickly white body, sometimes the whole room flooded with blood and I couldn't stop it no matter what, there was so much of it, I drowned in it, I startled up with the taste of it in my mouth. Rarely, the worst of it came - the one where Clint was alive as millions of millions of little fluorescent, poisonous jellyfish burst out of him and he screamed and screamed and screamed...

I had PTSD. Yay, me. As if my uselessness wasn't enough of a burden, my brain decided for me that it wasn't good enough that I saved Clint and now it was punishing me for being close to a group of people who routinely saved the WORLD.

I contemplated my usual habits - going to a party, getting trashed and dancing until my legs were numb. I just wanted to shut my brain off for a moment, give it a hard reset so-to-say, but with Tony on my back like a jet-pack, I didn't doubt he'd show up to the place and drag me out of there even if I was kicking and screaming. And he was a Stark, a billionaire, so visiting my dad in Cali wouldn't be possible on my own. Tony would gas up the jet and the rest of the team would find and excuse to tag along, too. As much as I loved being the baby menace who could get away with anything, I hated the way they all herded me, like I was an actual child. I couldn't get away from myself, not even for a moment.

I had the backup-backup plan and I was going to have to execute it. Desperate times, desperate measures. "I don't doubt y'all enjoy listening to Tony and Steph flirt," The nickname escaped unmoderated from my lips before I could catch myself. "But what are we doing for Halloween? I need to know if I gotta get a costume," Bruce chuckled next to me and wrapped an arm around me, happy for the distraction. Unlike me, the scientist was obligated to listen and participate in the avengers-themed discussion. Which was difficult because the engineer and the sorcerer constantly bickered, inadvertently taking over the talk.

"Halloween?" Steve groaned.

"We should do something," Bucky side-eyed his boyfriend. "For the children." Something told me he wasn't thinking of the children, at all. The man was positively leering, probably thinking about what kind of a tight suit he could convince Steve to squeeze into.

"A party!" Tony immediately exclaimed, interrupting Stephen mid-setence.

"Tony, no," Steve stated firmly.

"Tony, YES!" Clint perked up. "A snack bar. A bar-bar."

"I will not be helping you all if you get alcohol poisoning," Stephen crossed his arms.

"So it's a party," I stated firmly, throwing a contemplating look at Wanda and Pietro. The twins looked unsure but excited. I knew I could count on fellow young people to support my decision to have fun, dance a little, drink a little. Let loose. To nail my point, I turned to Bruce with a mischievous smirk. "Fifty bucks says Stephen is too stuck up to show up in costume."

"Beg pardon?!" The sorcerer exclaimed. His eyebrows threatened to meet his hairline.

"I think you give him too little credit, Princess," Bruce winked at me and we solemnly shook hands. It was great having a fellow partner in mischief. Loki's approving smirk just sealed the deal for me.

"It's not my fault you sometimes act like you have a stick up your butt," I gave in the way of explanation, shrugging my shoulders innocently in Stephen's direction. "I'm just pointing out the obvious."

"I don't dare to imagine what's been up yours," The sorcerer retorted dryly, in an uncharacteristically childish fashion, arms still crossed. It almost looked like he was pouting.

"Tony," I simply said, leering salaciously at the man.

"Ooh, kinky," Clint reached over and we promptly high-fived each other in the wake of multiple embarrassed groans emanating around the room. "Strange, you're a boring old man, get over it."

"And you regularly end up in dumpsters, Barton," Strange retorted quickly. "Not my idea of fun."

"You wouldn't know fun if it hit you in the face!" Tony grinned triumphantly, confident in his superiority over Strange. Look at that, the team was doing the work for me and I didn't even have to try.

"I'll show you fun," Stephen retorted darkly. It was obvious the man was planning something.

"Ok, boomer," I raised my eyebrows in muted satisfaction before turning around and grabbing Bruce to drag along with me. "I'm confiscating your best scientist to amuse myself. I am bored. We will go and do actual science whilst y'all argue. Bye."

My patience had run out. We were examining the parasites we found in the murder-anthropods-from-space, codename MAFS, courtesy of yours truly, and their amazing properties to penetrate cell membranes and feed on metals in organic life forms. Without Bruce's help I understood maybe half of it but he had the patience of a saint and dutifully and understandably explained to me the finer points of studying aliens. Signing half a dozen NDAs was never more worth it.

Steve's sigh consisted of 99% suffering and 2% disappointment. Natasha face-palmed silently in the corner, clutching a mug of coffee, a poster child for existential dread.

"Wait for me," Tony whined, going for the door and promptly being stopped by Steve pointing out the team needing his input on one mission or another. The engineer sighed. "Baby girl, don't let the green mean to start any experiments without me." Tony instructed, pointing an accusatory finger in our direction.

I clutched at Bruce dramatically, feigning hurt feelings and was rewarded with a swift motion of his arms. I shrieked delightfully at being thrown over the scientist's shoulder as he hastened his pace towards the elevator, hightailing it out of there. "I'd never snitch on science daddy," I wiggled my eyebrows in Tony's direction, sticking a hand down the back pocket of Bruce's pants, dangling over his shoulder like a happy sack of potatoes.

The lab smelled strongly of alcohol and bitter chemicals, the solution that Bruce developed to ensure the optimal state of the alien pathogens. The man's genius never ceased to amaze me: Bruce came up with the needed formula in the span of a few hours while running low on sleep, post a Hulk-out session.

We put on our protective gear - "science onesies" I called them - along with a respirator and goggles and set to the segregated part of the lab where the specimens were kept under a blue light. The glass wall between Bruce's and Tony's lab was dimmed; I reflected in it, looking positively futuristic in my double-stacked white platformed boots and white hazmat suit.

"Wait," I motioned to Bruce to come over.

"Oh, right, our music," He was already half-way to being in total Science Mode. "Friday, please put on the "Get Schwifty" playlist, 60% volume."

The playlist that me and Bruce came up with for our lab sessions. The man was such an adorable dork. Thirty percent my music, thirty percent of his indie rock shit and forty percent 00's bops. In other words, utter perfection.

I finally managed to fish out my phone from my pants. "No, let's take a selfie," I struck an impressive pose and pointed the camera as Avril Lavigne sung the first verse to Sk8r Boi.

Bruce laughed but abided by the request, giving me bunny ears in the photo, tapping the fingers of his other hand on my waist to the rhythm of the song.

"He was a skater boy, she said see ya later boy!" I sang along, switching my Instagram to stories and posting the short clip of us just vibing with the caption #sciencetime, Bruce laughing openly behind his respirator. I looked cute and silly in my outfit.

"Send the video to me, I'll post it on my Twitter," Bruce requested. I indulged him then put my phone away, ready to conquer the world of microbiology. Or die trying. Science was calling...

THE TAG LIST IS NOW OPEN! @another-stark-sub @mostly-marvel-musings @vozit @littlegasps @pilloclock @shereadsinquiet @downeyreads @hermione-grangers-wife @individualistfem @sleep-i-ness @capbrie @lillsxd @agustdowney @dee-vn @justanotherblonde23 @fanngirl19 @persephonehemingway @softie-socks @schemefrenzy @letsby @cutenessloading @romeo-the-cactus @jelly-fishy-babie

#stephen strange x y/n #bruce banner x y/n #tony stark x y/n #stephen strange x you #bruce banner x you #tony stark x you #stephen strange x reader #bruce banner x reader #tony stark x reader #party favours #bun writes #avengers social media au

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lifblogs · 3 years

Text

#SPNAdventCalendar2020 | The one with the dancing. | @bend-me-shape-me

READ ON AO3

Sure, Castiel didn’t really have money, but with Charlie’s proved and patented method of, according to Dean, “liberating money from assholes,” he’d illegally wired money into a fake account with the name Sam Novak. (Dean didn’t think the name was funny.) It seemed hard to keep up with these false identities, especially when there were larger, more important things to take care of, so really, Sam had wired the money for him. He’d told Sam he wanted to do something special for Dean since he knew Christmas would be exceptionally hard for him this year. After promising to keep a secret, he told Sam what it was. His friend just clapped him on the back and assured him that Dean would love it.

With the plan in mind, he’d told Dean that they had to go somewhere for a case, and he came up with a lie that Sam wouldn’t be going with them because of the stuff with Chuck. Dean, as morose as ever, hadn’t even fought with the point.

Actually, he hardly wanted to get into Cas’ truck.

The pain between them, they were working on it. They were back to holding each other, and Cas just staring and staring, unable to not see anything but how beautiful Dean was. He regularly felt Dean’s eyes on him as well. Castiel knew what he wanted to say to this one, perfect, glorious human, but he knew he didn’t reciprocate. Still, it didn’t mean he couldn’t try to let him know how he felt.

When he pulled up to the diner, all the lights were still on. Though, there weren’t any cars in the parking lot. Good, just as Castiel had requested.

Dean climbed out of the truck, surveying the area. “Really? The case is right here?”

Cas tried to lie, and gave a very deadpan, monotone, “Yes.”

Dean frowned at him, and Cas started walking towards the diner, knowing Dean would follow on instinct.

“Dude, that was a terrible ‘yes.’ It didn’t even have any conviction.” Castiel was just nodding along with what he was saying as he opened the door, and led Dean inside. “When you’re lying, you gotta tell yourself that you believe it, and make the other person think you do.”

Castiel just rolled his eyes. Dean hadn’t turned and looked yet.

“What?”

So, Castiel took Dean by the shoulders and he forced him to turn around. Dean gasped at what he saw. The diner was empty, only a few lights lit to give the wooden, rustic interior a soft, pleasing aesthetic quality. Christmas lights were up around the room as well, all colorful, giving the room a beautiful glow.

Dean looked at the empty diner.

Cas looked at Dean.

“We’re not here for a case, are we?” Dean eventually surmised.

Castiel took his arm, and then dragged his hand down, till he was clasping questioningly at Dean’s wrist. He felt Dean’s pulse jump, and his friend looked down to where their hands were. He swallowed roughly.

With his other hand, Cas snapped his fingers in the direction of the jukebox sitting along the far wall. It lit up, and then the machine started playing. Led Zeppelin poured out of the speakers.

“Shall we?” Castiel asked.

Dean looked at him, eyes wide. Oh no, Castiel had messed this up. Of course, Dean didn’t want to. But he could feel the end coming, feel it coming for all them, and last Christmas Dean had been possessed by the archangel Michael. Castiel just absolutely had to do one good thing for Dean before their end or it would tear him apart. It would be worse than his own actual death.

Dean again looked down to where their hands were nearly clasped, and then he was the one who slid his hand into Cas’ so that they fit perfectly. He squeezed, as if reassuring the both of them that this was real. Dean cleared his throat, cheeks pink, and pulled Castiel in to him. Cas was content with letting Dean take the lead on this. Besides, Castiel worried that if he took the lead he’d somehow become too intense, that he’d show Dean how much he loved him, and he would do so rather violently.

That was what his love was like at times, and what it had been at first. Violent. Mostly because Castiel hadn’t really understood it. How was an angel supposed to love anyway?

As far as he knew, they weren’t. Yes, they were capable of having sexual desires, and Castiel was prone to those, even with the lonely nights without Dean. But to love? Surely it had been an impossibility, and yet, here he was.

For now, he relaxed as Dean put a hand at his back, going to take the lead. Castiel hesitantly put a hand at Dean’s waist.

Dean tensed at first, made some sort of rough grumbling that could’ve been words, but then Castiel looked at him, keeping his look entirely honest, and sincere. He couldn’t tell Dean what he was feeling, but perhaps, in some way, he could show him.

Dean seemed to relax at seeing Castiel’s easy smile, and he started to lead them in a dance through the open area in the middle of the diner. It wasn’t a good dance. None of them really knew how to do it, but soon, they were clasping hands, arms in close to each other, their bodies touching together as they swayed to the music.

Then, Dean started doing a motion Castiel hadn’t anticipated. Though humans weren’t strong enough to move angels, he let himself be moved. He ended up in a spin, his overcoat puffing out in the air behind him. When he was pulled back in to Dean, they were both grinning.

“This is really nice, Cas,” Dean said as they drew even closer now, foreheads nearly pressed together.

“I wanted to do something for you,” he said. “Last year was… bad, for lack of a better word, and this year—”

Dean shook his head, biting his bottom lip. “No, don’t talk about it. Don’t—don’t ruin this.”

“Of course, Dean.”

They danced and they danced, the room seeming to fall away, and there was just the way they held each other.

They paused, Dean puffing air out through his cheeks, and Castiel could smell his exhaustion. After all, it was very late at night.

Cas wanted to speak, wanted to let this feeling last forever, but he worried that if he spoke, the moment would break, it would reveal itself to be just another one of God’s deluded stories. It wouldn’t be real. Yet, he wanted to speak, wanted to open his mouth and share his heart with Dean.

To his surprise, Dean opened his mouth, pressing his forehead to Castiel’s. “You know, Cas, you’re the first person in years who’s been able to make me feel special. Like I—like I matter.”

“You do matter,” Castiel insisted.

Dean raised his eyes to Cas’.

“And that’s what I’m talking about. You’re there for me, even when—even when I don’t know how to be there for you. And god, Cas, I’m sorry. I am so, so sorry.”

“Just be with me,” Castiel pleaded. “In this moment, right here. Just be with me.”

“Okay,” Dean replied. He took in a deep breath, and Castiel could smell the strength in his emotions, even as worry pulsed through them. He could smell a resolve coming through them, sense that Dean had come to a decision of some sort. “Okay,” he said again, voice softer this time.

Before Castiel knew what was happening, Dean had pressed his lips to his. The kiss wasn’t a demand, or a profound releasing of emotions. It was a vulnerable question.

When Dean pulled back, all Castiel could do was stare, slack-jawed. Dean lowered his head, shaking it, cheeks all red.

“God, I shouldn’t have done that. I really shouldn’t have done that.”

Dean loved him back.

“I’m sorry. Cas,” he continued rambling, “can you please—?”

Castiel grabbed the back of Dean’s head and pulled him into a kiss. He had wanted to be soft and slow with Dean, but even now, he could feel their time running out. There would be no soft and slow. In a matter of seconds in which they tried their best to learn each other, to know each other, the kiss turned abrasive, desperate.

Dean had to pull back for breath, and Cas took the time to suck on his bottom lip before releasing it.

“Cas,” Dean breathed, words rough, filled to the brim with unsaid emotion.

Perhaps kissing Dean again would let them both tell each other those emotions, to do so with their bodies. Castiel wanted to, but for now, he just wanted to hold Dean, and let it sink in that he surely felt the same way. Castiel pulled him close, putting a hand to the small of Dean’s back, and they danced. They danced till the stars faded from the sky, and the sun spread dawn over the horizon.

They danced until they both knew that they loved each other.

Tag list: @evilwriter37, @thenightwolf732, @fanola-draws.

Please let me know if you’d like to be added or removed.

#SPNAdventCalendar2020 #Day 12. The one with the dancing.#Destiel #Destiel fanfiction #spn #Supernatural #spn fanfiction #Supernatural fanfiction #fanfiction #writing #my writing

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greenninjagal-blog · 4 years

Note

Sentence starters: 14, with Roman & Deceit??

Haha, long time, no write! We’re having a pretty poor time right now so I figured a little bit of Roceit would be in Order! Warning: I did not edit this in the slightest.

Summary: Roman has always been a little curious, but the pastry chef definitely takes the cake on this one.

Words: 3007

Quick Taglist: @chelsvans @dwbh888 @glitchybina @faithfulcat111 @felicianoromano @harrypotternerdprincess @holliberries @jemthebookworm @killerfangirl3 @musical-nerd18 @never-end1ng-suffering @nonasficcollection @silverflame-wc @stricken-with-clairvoyancy @the-sunshine-dims @themagicheartmailman @themultishipperchild @thenaiads @treasureofpriam @vianadraws

Read on Ao3 || My General Writing List || Prompt Page (it should also be stated that you don’t need to pick from this prompt page if you don’t want to. Just send me an idea and I’ll do my best :D)

The Point of This is....

“Here, Bite Down on this.”

Roman has had a lot of weird first meetings. As a kid he liked to wander around the town meeting knew people, which, of course, drove his mother up a wall the first ninety or so times that she had glanced away from him for a second and he had disappeared completely on her. Roman was just a curious type of kid. The first time he had been confused by a couple of workers who were fixing an outlet behind one of the counters at his mothers favorite little shop, and he had just wanted to know what they were doing.

They had told him! Which had been cool. Did you know there were wires all in the walls?! He hadn’t even realized that his mom had been frantically looking for him until she had grabbed his arm in a frantic panic and asked if he was alright, and then don’t you dare wander off again! What if something had happened?! Roman!

It had happened again anyway, the store clerk had been redressing a mannequin and it had been neat! Then window cleaner, then flower arranger from the flower shop, then the busker outside the Irish themed pub he wasn’t allowed to be near, then the sign flipper at the street corner who taught him to spin one of the smaller signs--

The point was that by the time Roman hit middle school he knew most of the “little people” by name, and they of course knew his. Roman knew that a lot of them called him by his full name because his mother used to scream it when he went missing,-- Roman Alexander Prince, if you don’t get back here right this instant-- but he learned a lot of cool things!

He could arrange flowers, knew when and where the most dense foot traffic was, knew how to flip signs and draw attention. He could Macgyver his way through most electrical circuits, had the sewers under his town fully mentally mapped out, and knew that if you hit the vending machine behind the laundromat just right, you could get a free snickers bar.

He liked learning knew things. And for the most part? People liked to teach him.

As he got older, he noticed just how heartbreaking that sort of thing was. When he held the ladder steady for the owner of the Mom-and-Pop grocer while the old man replaced the “N” of the sign, the man had casually mentioned that the last person who asked him how he was doing had been a family man who had stopped coming months ago.

Then the more he looked, the more he had seen it: the when he waved to the woman who worked the bakery her whole face had lit up like he had gifted her the world, when he bought the street performer a water they had almost broken down to tears right there on the street, when he had offered the man sitting alone at the park with his head in his hands a chance to pet his dog, the man had called him a “generous kid” and tossed him five dollars before he left considerably happier than he was when he arrived.

The point-- and yes, Roman did have a point-- the point of all of this, was that Roman liked people. He liked learning things, and he liked hearing the stories that people had to share.

He liked telling those stories.

Which would probably explain how he got here: Mindscape, the ever prestigious school for the gifted. Although “gifted” tended to be a relative term. Roman had met a lot more people here, all his age, who eyed him warily like his smile was something to be scared of.

(”It is!” Remus, his twin had cackled from across the table in the dining hall, as if they didn’t have the same exact face.)

Roman and Remus had gotten in together, both on accident: Remus had crafted an application for Roman, sent it in without Roman’s knowledge, and then hacked the School’s Admissions database and marked the application for acceptance.

Things should have gone really bad, because Remus hadn’t known that the School President, Thomas Sanders, checks each and every application and when he noticed an application had skipped most of acceptance process he started digging.

Things should have gone really bad then. Like really bad. Like Remus ends up in jail and Roman has to change his name and move countries, really bad.

Instead Thomas Sanders, had sent them both acceptance letters, and Remus was required to work in the IT department without pay and take all the computer application classes. Somewhere in the middle of that Remus had struck up some sort of deal with the cyber defense team where the Mindscape’s tech department spent all school year building their best unhackable code, and in the summer Remus got to take anything and everything he learned that year and try to break it.

Remus had been winning for two years now. Roman had seen the grown men reduced to tears the moment that Remus’s hands had started flying over the keyboard.

Again, the point to this-- Roman had been at this boarding school for two years now, barreling his way through the journalism and creative writing classes like they were tissue paper walls. He’s met a lot of people his age, and he’s witnessed a lot of weird quirks about them.

Like how that kid in the library who likes to sleep on top of the bookcases, and Roman had witnessed getting swatted with a broom so many times. He was a gymnast and an acrobat and really freaking flexible-- and he had told Roman to fuck off when he had tried to learn anything more than that.

Or like that artist who ran the yearbook club took pictures of everything. It had been pretty cute the way the puffball had insisted on taking pictures of the cracks on the side walk, the clouds in the sky, the rainbow made from the refraction of the light through the glass windows. They had called it “catching little pieces of happiness in everyday!” Which was much sweeter than Roman had been anticipating. “Oops! Sorry gotta go, kiddo!” They had said and then they had been gone taking more pictures before Roman could ask anything about them.

Or like that guy from his Civics class who had gotten way too competitive about the trivia game they had played in class. It wasn’t just trivia though: Roman had learned later that he apparently Logan Ackroyd, the Logan Ackroyd, who had won the American chess tournament for three year in a row now. Any game that Logan touched, reportedly, he won. Chess, Checkers, Othello, Jenga, even Tic-Tac-Toe, and he treated them each like a life or death situation.

The point is of this is everyone had a weird quirk about them.

Roman knew that, knows that.

Heck, even Roman had a weird quirk, which apparently was wandering the school halls after classes. And now that includes being dragged into one of those classrooms by the hoodie of his sweatshirt and then immediately having a fork of something shoved in his mouth.

“VIRGIL!” Another voice squawks, followed by a telltale click of a camera taking a photo, but okay, Roman is a little too busy choking on a fork to take in everything.

There is a hand on his back, and one on his chest, holding him surprisingly steady, while he basically dies-- and man, he did not think that he’d be dying at seventeen years old. Who knew that his mother would be right all those times she insisted that his habit of walking around aimlessly was gonna be the death of him?

There are tears in his eyes by the time he manages an inhale, and someone takes the fork back out of his mouth. The hand on his back is rubbing soothing circles and his lungs flutter weakly, like a butterflies wings.

“Dude,” A voice says boredly. Roman squints up at his attacker-- because yes this was an attack and Roman will forever be scarred by it-- and vaguely recognizes the purple patched up hoodie for the library acrobat. “I said “Bite down on this”, not choke and die on the floor.”

Roman coughs to dislodge the last bit of whatever food just got shoved down his throat.

“Please ignore him,” A smooth voice says, a new voice, and one that sounds exactly like silk on Roman’s ears. “Are you okay?”

The new person, the man who is holding Roman, is, in a word, pretty. Actually, no wait, not pretty; he’s gorgeous. He’s beautiful. He’s Michelangelo’s David come to life, an angel straight from heaven, the God Apollo himself taking a quick break from driving his sun chariot to walk among the mortals--

“Virgil, what did you do!” The breathtaking stranger yelps.

“I didn’t do anything!” The acrobat shoots back, although he looks worried, “I just put the fork in his mouth! Oh shit, dude come on, please don’t tell me you’re allergic to something-- Dee what was in that? I can’t go to jail for killing someone! I just got here!”

There’s another click and a giggle and Roman blinks himself to enough awareness to realize that beside the three of them, there’s also that photography artist and the Logan Ackroyd in the room, also what looks like a cake with three slices cut out of it.

“You aren’t going to jail,” Logan says, although he’s playing on a Nintendo Switch and isn’t paying all that much attention to what’s going on.

“It just a cake,” Dee adds, almost desperately and Roman’s knees really do go weak at that. A pretty man? Using that tone to address Roman? Roman’s surprised he’s still conscious at all. “Are you allergic to eggs? What about Wheat? Milk?”

“Deep breath, kiddos!” The person with the camera suggests, and Roman knows immediately that they are 100% aware that his flushed cheeks and lack of breath are not from an allergy. They take another picture and Roman dies a little more on the inside.

“Please...don’t let... my brother see that,” Roman coughs one more time, “I’m begging.”

The artist just laughs and takes another picture.

“No allergies?” The god beside him says and Roman finds him looking absolutely anywhere but at him.

“No allergies,” Roman confirms, “None at all. It’s all good. And you know I should be--”

“What did you think of it?” The acrobat interrupts. And when Roman just blinks he snaps, “The cake, Princey! Tell Dee that the cake was fine and he can stop banging his head on the table now.”

Roman chances a glance at the man holding him up, and yeah, he could see the faint red marks were he had obviously been hitting his head on something. Unfortunately, said man was also looking at Roman, looking for his answer to the question that was just asked of him and Roman has already forgotten what it was again.

His eyes were different colors, and that totally reminded Roman of that week in the summer when he hung around the ophthalmologist just outside of town. Roman had looked at a lot of eyes, learned a lot about eyes in that time, but really there was something different about those ones. One was a brilliant bright brown, like hickory and the other was glistening gold. He looked like something straight from a fantasy.

Roman’s fantasy.

“Hey,” The stranger says softly, “Are you okay, darling?”

And that’s the last thing Roman remembers.

Because he fainted.

Because the gorgeous, beautiful, ethereal stranger called him “darling” and Roman’s weak gay heart promptly shut off.

He comes to again, just a few minutes later-- long enough that his head is throbbing and his lungs hurt a bit and mere idea of moving sounds exhausting. He’s comfortable just fine where he is.

On the floor.

With his head in the perfect strangers lap.

“There you are,” The man gives him a nervous smile that makes Roman’s mouth dry out. “Do you remember where you are?”

“Heaven?”

Roman has many regrets in his life. Like that time he thought that crawling down the manhole would be fun. Or the weekend he spent hanging out in the courthouse, which had turned out to be incredibly boring. Or that time he brought dog treats to the dog park and ended up get ambushed by like seven dogs at once and broke his arm.

But this....answering that, and immediately hearing that all too familiar cackle that can only belong to Remus? Yeah Roman rates that at the top of Roman’s Regrets.

The stranger bites his lip but he’s grinning all the same. “Apologies. When you fainted we, called the emergency contact on your phone.”

“Remus is not my emergency contact,” Roman grumbles and weakly shuffles his limbs to sit up.

Remus wheezes, from where he’s situated with an arm over the artist and the acrobat respectively. “Like-- Hell! I changed that months ago!” Remus grins, “I wasn’t gonna miss a chance to laugh at you while you get carted away in an ambulance! You only die once Ro! I wanna be there for it!”

“I should have consumed you in the womb.”

“Butcha didn’t!”

“The intention was there.” Roman sways, and he really doesn’t like the way the floor shifts like waves of an ocean.

“Pussy,” Remus tosses out, just for the sake of having the last word. He pulls his arms back from around the other two and fusses with the little artist’s hair. “Alright, brats! That’s my cue to drag my dumbass gay twin away before he faints again. But this was fun! Lets do it again! This time Dee can even let Roman actually fall and crack his head on the floor instead of catching him!”

Roman’s ears burn, and he peeks at Dee with a morbid mortification, “You caught me?”

“Well I was already, holding you up so it wasn’t as much as caught you as you...ah,” there’s a twitch of his lips, “as you fell for me.”

The noise Roman makes is not in any way, shape, or form flattering.

Remus cackles again.

There’s a click and a giggle, “Sorry kiddo! That was just too good to pass up!” The artist bounces slightly. “You both should definitely come back though! We’d love to have the company!”

“No, we wouldn’t,” the acrobat interjects, and lets out a heavy breath when he’s elbowed by his friend.

“Yes, we would!” The artist says. “And next time you can even have some of Dee’s pastries!”

“That’s not necessary,” The stranger says quickly, “They aren’t that good--”

“Will you stop lying!” the acrobat says, “You literally got into this prestigious ass school for your pastries, dumbass. They’re good. Accept it already! Geez!”

The stranger rubs his neck and then his cheek, before turning back to Roman. “Perhaps you can be the judge of that then? Darling?”

Yeah, Roman’s knees are weak again, but he’s stubborn enough that he keeps standing. “I think I’d like that. Although, I can’t say I’m any kind of pastry expert.”

“We all have our faults, I presume.”

Roman’s heart beats a little faster. “And admittedly I will be a little bit bias.”

“A little bit?”

“Only a smidge,” Roman reports, “I’ve heard that good company can affect the taste of food.”

“You intend to be in good company?”

“If it’s yours I’m sure it will be.”

“Who knew there was a smooth talker under that blush of yours?”

“If you think this was smooth you should see--

Remus claps his hands loudly enough to make the acrobat flinch and Logan in the corner curse in Korean. “Okay yes we get it: You both are gayyyyyy!” Remus exclaims, drawing it out just enough that Roman feels a bit of the Cain Instinct(tm) in him rise up. “But if neither of you are going to start undressing to give the rest of us a show, then we need to go!”

“Remus!”

“I’m just saying!” Remus shrugs and then hooks an arm around Roman’s neck and pulls him towards the door, “Its not fair to the rest of us, if you keep being a tease!”

“I hope you step on a lego and fall into a pit of sharks.”

Remus messes with his hair, which seems to be his thing right now.

The others in the room call out their goodbyes, and Remus drags Roman away before he can get more than a sloppy wave. Its still embarrassing.

Actually everything that happened was embarrassing, from top to bottom, and there was absolutely no moment were it wasn’t completely mortifying. Not only did he choke on a piece of cake he didn’t even get to taste, but he gay panicked, and then gay fainted, and every second of it was recorded via camera snapshots. And late at night, when Roman is turning it over in his head and screaming into a pillow, he barely notices his phone flashing.

He’s already miserable, because they probably just invited him back to be nice, and he didn’t even know their names. And Remus was still laughing at him for everything, and everything just really sucked. He opens up his phone to check the message, ignoring the way the his screen burns his eyes.

There’s a text message.

An actual text message.

Stole your number hope you dont mind

Roman can’t breath. The phone in his hand vibrates again.

Oh and your heart. I stole that too. this is a ransom demand.

$40,000 in cash. Or a date to the coffee shop in town.

pls?

this is Dee Ekans btw

The baker?

oh fuck pls tell me this is the right number

roman?

And Roman rolls over and presses his face into a pillow and screams.

But really the point of all this is that Roman got the number of the cute guy. And maybe a date.

#roceit #roman sanders #deceit sanders #sympathetic deceit #remus sanders #Boarding School Au?#I guess it is #Look I just started writing and went with it #gay panic #gay fainting #there is nothing more gay than Roman

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feferipeixes · 3 years

Text

The Good Lines (2/3)

Trapped in an unfamiliar world, Alcor finds that he doesn’t mind the loneliness. He doesn’t care about finding a way out. He doesn’t even care about Mizar. All he cares about is solving puzzles, and drawing the good lines.

(or: I Think Dipper Should Play The Witness)

Chapter 2: Hotel (link to chapter 1) (3)

(See the most updated version on AO3!)

===

There was an earth-shaking roar in the sky as Mizar drew the line. Alcor couldn’t quite catch exactly how she did it since she wasn’t there with him in person, but the noise it made was deafening. He tried to look around for the panel responsible but there were no panels around him that he hadn’t already solved himself. It happened so quickly, and then there was the sound of an explosion, followed by a building taking form directly in front of him.

He eyed it uneasily. “This is the hotel?”

“Yep.” Mizar’s voice still came through clear as day. “This will take you out of the game. Then you’ll be free.”

“I’m not -” he started, but thought better of it. He could feel Mizar’s eyes on him from another world, looking down through a television screen, and figured he’d caused her enough stress. “Okay. Here we go.”

It’s not like he had much of a choice anyway. The entrance to the hotel had replaced the only exit from the garden he’d been standing in. He approached the opening, peering down the long hallway lined with fancy sconces. He took a step inside and immediately the ambient hum of the outdoors cut out. He may have thought it was quiet on the island before but it was nothing compared to the emptiness he was feeling now. He had to turn around just to verify that the outside even still existed. Two steps in and he already felt swallowed up by the unknown.

“Dipper?” Mizar’s voice came out of nowhere, and Alcor nearly jumped out of his skin. “Sorry! Are you alright?”

Alcor clutched his chest and took a few deep breaths before responding. “Yeah. I’m fine.” His wings didn’t get the memo, flapping hard against the wall and his back. “This place isn’t weird and creepy at all.”

He couldn’t see her, but Alcor could practically hear the frown in Mizar’s voice. “I thought you loved the weird and creepy.”

“I do! I really do.” He took some shaky steps down the hall to what looked like a reception desk. It sat in front of a wide pillar decorated with a pattern of orange spikes that fanned up and out across the ceiling like a sunburst. “In fact, I’d kinda love to explore a place like this.” Turning a corner, he found himself face-to-face with a large painting of a windmill, and he remembered a similar structure he’d come across in the island’s town. A structure that sat atop a network of underground tunnels, most of which were blocked off by wooden gates he hadn’t been able to bypass. “It’s the thought of all the other stuff I won’t get the chance to explore that’s getting me down.”

“I’m sorry,” came the response.

Alcor waited for more, but more didn’t come. Sighing, he headed past the reception, where there was a bar, some seating, and a balcony. Eyes growing wide, he approached the edge and looked out. Somehow, despite not climbing any stairs from where he was in the garden, the balcony was high enough that he could see half the island. His eyes passed over the desert, the town, the forest, and up to the structure at the top of the mountain. It gave him the feeling that he wasn’t supposed to be there, that the ground he was standing on didn’t exist and he was soaring freely through paradise.

“No, don’t do that!” Mizar’s voice snapped.

Alcor blinked and broke out of his thoughts. Without intending to, he’d flared his wings large and wide, and was standing in a position like he was ready to dive forward. Taking a step backward, he let his wings shrink and balled his hands into fists. “I didn’t… I didn’t mean to. I wasn’t going to.”

Mizar gulped -- a strange sound to get beamed so clearly into Alcor’s head. “That’s alright. It’s not your fault. How about… you keep going?”

He shrugged, and looked around. A set of stairs led to a doorway on the second floor of the hotel, and he followed them up. He glanced back once more before entering. “If my kid really made this for me, he did a really good job.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah.” Alcor went through the doorway, and found himself inexplicably in what looked like a cave. Diamond-shaped hanging fixtures bathed the room in an eerie green glow. “Back when I was human, I spent all my time trying to uncover the mysteries of Gravity Falls. He would’ve known that I couldn’t resist a good mystery. I mean, like -” (he walked a little further, to where a set of lounge chairs overlooked a gap in the cave wall) “what the hell is this? Why is this hotel like this?”

He peered through the gap and saw that it dropped down into another cave, a cave in which he couldn’t help but notice there were puzzle panels. Some were mounted onto the walls, some seemed to be suspended from the ceiling on thick cables. All of them were deactivated, and Alcor’s heart sank at the thought that he wouldn’t get to know what kind of puzzles they concealed.

“Even on the way out,” he mused, “My kid has to go and throw more secrets at me.”

“There are mysteries out here, too,” Mizar said after a beat.

Alcor heard the waver in her voice and sighed again. “Yeah, yeah, I know. It’s just not as fun when I already know the answers to everything out there.”

She didn’t respond to that either, so he pressed onward. The passage got narrower, and he almost had to squeeze himself through a couple of the gaps.

“I have to admit, though,” he spoke up, “that it’ll be nice to have my magic back. If I could change my shape, I’d be through here in no time. Better yet, I could just tesser to the end of this thing! Doing puzzles all day is fun, but maybe I gotta realize there’s other stuff that’s more important to me.”

There was a snort and a half-suppressed giggle. “Really. And that’s magic? Not, like, your family?”

Alcor put on a display of thinking about it and smirked. “Yep! Definitely magic. Definitely not the people who love me enough to go through hell saving me from a virtual reality… game…” He trailed off as he passed by another gap in the wall. It looked out over another cave, although unlike the last one, this one was wide open and mostly empty.

“Dipper?” The giggle in Mizar’s voice trailed off too. “Why’d you stop?”

Water rushed beneath his feet, flowing into the chamber below, lapping up against the shore and the chunk of ground sticking out in the center of the room. In the middle of this chunk was a small table, illuminated by a single light hanging from the ceiling, and on this table was… something.

“What’s… that?” he breathed.

“What’s what? Uhh...” she responded. There was some banging in his head, the sound of drawers opening and closing, of devices being moved around. “Sorry, everything went a bit fuzzy, uhh…” A loud crash followed by the sizzle of a CRT monitor turning on and finally a sigh of relief. “Ah, fixed it! Okay, let me, uh… Oh. Oh no. Shit.”

It was hard to tell what the thing on the table was from a distance. There were two black boxes angled outward, and there was something else behind them. Whatever it was, it had a thick wire trailing out of it. Alcor wondered where it went.

“Shit! Don’t look at that. It’s… nothing!”

He glanced up, and noticed another hole in the wall across the room, through which he was surprised to see a figure in a dark suit with a floating top hat. The figure’s wings were flapping wildly. He looked over his shoulder -- huh. Looked like his own wings were doing that too.

“There’s nothing interesting down there. Just a boring cave! Hey, how about you keep going through the hotel? There’s another scenic overlook of the island coming up! That’ll be fun to look at, right?”

Alcor turned around and saw that there was a gap in the cave wall directly behind him. Peering through it, he found himself viewing the same cave as before, but from the opposite side. From this angle, he could see the panel mounted in front of the other objects on the table.

And he could see that it was active.

“Dipper, please,” Mizar pleaded. “You don’t want to do that. It’s not worth it. You won’t be able to solve it.”

“Seriously?” he said, remembering that he could talk. “That just makes me want to check it out even more. I’ll be quick, I just really wanna know what that thing is.”

Taking a few steps back, Alcor stretched his arms and wings. He took his suit jacket off and tossed it aside, where it promptly vanished. Rolling his sleeves up, he rubbed his hands together and grinned. Then he ran forward and dove through the opening into the cave below.

“WHAT are you DOING?” Mizar yelled, her voice clipping out the microphone she was using to speak with him. “That’s not even POSSIBLE. You can’t jump or go off ledges in this game! I checked!”

Ignoring her, Alcor drifted downward, feeling the rush of air in his face for the first time in a while. He touched ground, shoes clacking against the stone, and let the force of the impact ripple through him. He was pretty sure Mizar was right -- that you couldn’t jump in this game -- but he didn’t care. There was only one thing he cared about right now.

Up close, he could see that the object on the table was a record player, with the two black boxes being speakers. There was a record already mounted on the device; instead of a sticker in the middle to identify what was on it, it only bore an image of an orange sunburst, just like the decoration in the hotel lobby. And finally, there was a panel on the table, which he could only assume would start or stop the record.

It was odd, to be sure. What would such a device be doing in a cave? Weird stuff like that was always intriguing, sure, but presumably all the device did was play music. Why had Mizar said that he wouldn't be able to solve it?

[ Because the music is only part of the puzzle, ] a metallic voice said, and Alcor's eyes widened in surprise.

“Kid?” he asked.

[ Hi Dad. Nice to talk to you again. I hope you're enjoying the game. ]

“It's really you,” Alcor marveled. “Mizar was right. You're the one who made all of this. The island, the puzzles, everything.”

[ Sure did! ] the virus replied with a vaguely smug note to his synthesized voice. [ I worked real hard on it, cause I only want the best of the best for my dad. And speaking of the best, you're in luck! You've stumbled into my magnum opus. I call it - ]

There was a bang, like a fist coming down on a table, and Mizar's voice rang out into the cave. “No! Don't listen to it!”

[ - The Challenge. ]

Alcor felt a tingle run down his spine. “That’s so foreboding! What is it?”

[ It’s a test of your puzzle-solving abilities! Two songs will play, and you’ll have until the end of the second one to solve a set of randomly generated puzzles. If the music stops, you have to start all over with new puzzles! But if you can solve them all in time, a fabulous prize waits for you at the end! ]

“A prize?” There was a muffled pounding noise in the distance, but Alcor tuned it out. “What’s the prize?”

Al-V’s smile was practically audible. [ Why don't you find out for yourself? ]

The panel on the table. Alcor approached it, enrapt with curiosity, and put his finger on the start circle. There were two ends to the panel. One was a tiny little line sticking out of the circle. He tried that one first, and nothing seemed to happen. Pursing his lips, he pressed on the circle again and dragged his finger down the long path that extended the full length of the panel.

“Wait!” Mizar yelled before he could lift his finger. “Dipper, it's a trap! Please listen to me! You were so close to escaping the game! Think of your family! They miss you! This can't be -”

Al-V’s voice cut over Mizar's. [ Family, schmamily. Think of all the puzzles waiting for you to solve them. Won't that be fun? At least give it a try. ]

There was a lump in Alcor's throat and he swallowed hard to get past it. “I… Sorry Mizar.” He lifted his finger, and the panel made a clicking noise. “I gotta see what this is.”

There was a soft rumble as the record player activated. The tonearm glided into position above the record, which slowly began to spin. After a moment, the thick cable attached to the player lit up, illuminating a puzzle mounted on the wall. And then, the first few notes of Anitra’s Dance filtered through the speakers.

Bum da da, bum da da

Alcor broke out into a huge smile. The silence which had haunted him as long as he’d been on the island was gone; now his body was being scooped up and set adrift by the music. The mesmerizing strings, like the lying tongue of a devil; the passionate bass, giving urgency to the affair; the wail of echoes careening off the cave walls. He’d missed this. He wished he had his violin so he could join in.

“The songs are a distraction!” Mizar was still there, sort of, still trying to talk to him even though he could barely hear her over the music. “They’re just there to make it harder to focus on the puzzles!”

“Oh. Oh yeah,” Alcor murmured, his smile drooping slightly. For the briefest moment, Mizar thought she’d gotten through to him, but then he smiled again and flew over to the illuminated panel. “New puzzles for me to solve. Gotta draw the good lines.”

“No!” she screamed, but it was too late. His hand flew across the panel, solving it with ease, and the music swelled triumphantly, completely drowning out Mizar’s voice. The next panel lit up, displaying a maze three times as big as the first one, and Alcor’s grin widened. This was going to be good.

The difficulty of the puzzles only increased from there. Soon Alcor was swooping through a tunnel into another cave, which he immediately recognized as the one with the deactivated panels he’d spied from the hotel. Now, however, they were turning on, one at a time, solve after solve after solve. Though each puzzle took progressively longer for him to figure out, Alcor revelled in every second of it, even as the first song came to a finish and Mizar’s cries faded back into his awareness, why! won’t! you! listen! to! me!

“Hi Miz,” he chirped as the music changed to In the Hall of the Mountain King, and it set her blood boiling.

Duh duh duh duh dadada…

“Having fun?” she grumbled.

“Oh, yeah!” He shot a pair of finger guns at no one in particular, but didn’t take his eyes off the puzzle. “This one’s hard, though. Been stuck on it for a little while.”

Dadada… dadada...

“A minute and a half,” Mizar replied. “You’re not even doing it right.”

“Ugh, I know. I’ll figure it out though. I’ve got time.”

Duh duh duh duh dadada ba dadadadada…

“You’ve got like two minutes left to do seven puzzles. You don’t have time.”

Alcor grimaced. “Okay, negative. If I can’t solve it in time then I’ll just try again.”

Dun dun dun dun dadada,

Dadada,

“So, what, you’re just gonna stay in this stupid game forever? Is that it?”

Alcor’s hand slipped, and he drew a bad line. The panel turned off, forcing him to trudge back to the previous one to solve it again. "I said I'll come out after I get the prize, I can do this, I promise..."

Dun dun dun dun dadada DA da ba ba da da!

"You're not gonna beat it!” Mizar spat. “That's not me not believing in you -- I know for a fact that the virus coded the challenge so that you specifically would always get stumped at some part of it!"

DUN dun dun dun dadada, WA WA WA WA!

Amidst music rising to a heart-pounding clamor, Alcor hurried back to the panel he’d been stuck on. "Yeah, it's random, I know, and sometimes the puzzles it makes are really hard, but if I keep practicing..."

DUN DUN DUN DUN DADADA BA DA DA DA BA DA!

"No, Dipper!”

DUN DUN DUN DUN DADADA BA DA DA DA BA DA!

Mizar yelled at the top of her lungs to be heard over the music. “That's you trusting the game to always give you solvable puzzles! How do you know they'll always be solvable?”

DUN DA! DUN DA! Dun dun dun dun dadada ba da da da ba da!

”How do you know the virus isn't just nerd-sniping you until the music stops playing and you have to start over?”

Dun wa wa wa wa wa wa wa!

”Why do you trust this game more than you trust me????"

Dum tsh!

With two final, crashing notes, the song came to an end. There was a beat, during which Mizar could see Alcor standing very still, his hand still on a glowing panel. Then there was a loud beep as all of the panels in the cave deactivated, followed by the distant click of the record player turning off.

Alcor clenched his fist. “You want to know why I can’t trust you?”

“Um. Yeah I do,” Mizar replied, taken aback. “Like I was saying -”

Alcor’s words came out slow and metered, but there was a nasty undertone to his voice. “It’s because you lie.”

He looked up from the deactivated panel and stared at the ceiling, directly where she was watching from, and she could see streaks of yellow running down his face. “Every time I get close to you. Every time I get close to anyone. You mortals love to say I’ll always be here for you and like an idiot I keep letting myself believe it, but then you die. Everyone I’ve ever cared about has died or will die and there I still am, suffering and mourning and alone.”

“B-but-” Mizar stammered.

Alcor snarled at her, baring two rows of shark-like teeth and spraying spit at the wall. Mizar’s mouth snapped shut.

“This game doesn’t lie to me,” he continued, walking back toward the record player but not taking his eyes off her. “A puzzle is just a puzzle. It has an answer that I can figure out if I stare at it long enough, or maybe I won’t and that’s okay too. Puzzles don’t lie to you and say people don’t really think of you as a monster and then go research banishment rituals behind your back.”

“I-I wasn’t going to actually use it!” Mizar replied, in unison with Alcor saying the exact same words. “I was only looking it up just in case! Just to reassure my brother -- he has anxiety!”

“Yeah, how many times do you think someone’s said that to me before?” Alcor spat. “I don’t blame you for being nervous around me. I literally am a monster. Just don’t fucking lie to me about it, okay?”

“Dipper, please! Think about all the people who love you. You can’t just leave them behind!”

Alcor stopped in front of the record player and turned away. “If they can do it to me, I can do it to them,” he murmured. Then he slid his finger across the control panel again, and the world went dark.

Mizar gripped her computer screen. “Dipper? Dipper, what’s going on?”

The humming from the machine had stopped, and all she could hear was the ringing in her ear from Dipper’s shout. Mizar rifled through the desk drawers, looking for an instruction manual or a cheat sheet or anything that would help her reach her brother again. Every scrap of paper she found was covered in strange symbols that she recognized as puzzles from the game. She knew it was a fruitless search. After all, the system was designed to trap someone, not to let them go.

She looked behind her, to the two person-sized capsules pushed up against the wall. One was empty, with its lid discarded on the floor. Mizar walked over to the other one and pressed her face up to the glass. Beyond the window rested Dipper’s physical body, hooked up to a dizzying array of cables and electrodes. It made her mind itch to look at. His body was as fake as the avatar he was controlling in the video game. But it was an anchor for his soul, and Al-V did what he did best with it: reverse engineered it, figured out how to anchor the demon’s mind in something else.

Mizar once again eyed the power outlet the capsule was plugged into. Would his mind be able to escape, if she…?

“Please, Dipper,” she whimpered, in total solitude. “Please come back.”

---

Down in the cave, Alcor leaned on the record player and stared at the ground.

[ Woof! ] Al-V piped up. [ Talk about an overreaction! Want I should take over the security robots outside the building and get them to lock her in a broom closet? ]

“Forget about it,” Alcor murmured. He watched the record begin to spin -- watched the orange points of the sunburst begin to meld into a solid circle -- and imagined a smiling face in the middle. “Forget about her. I don’t need her. All I need is you, and the puzzles.”

[ Whatever you say, Dad! ] Al-V replied. [ You’re the boss, but not like in a video game sense! Ha-ha! You, uh, you gonna solve those puzzles? ]

Alcor closed his eyes for a minute, and the face stuck in his vision. When he opened them again, the record player had stopped, and the puzzles had deactivated.

“Yeah,” he said finally. “Yeah, I’m gonna solve the puzzles. I’m gonna draw the good lines. I’ll be happy.”

He swiped the panel to start the record again, and got to work.

#gravity falls #transcendence au #the witness #dipper pines #alcor the dreambender #mizar #reincarnation #fic #my stuff #long post #the good lines

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poptod · 4 years

Note

hi i wanted to know if you wrote for webb porter? if u do, can u do a webb x reader where the reader is his psychiatrist? not fluff but not angst either. something in between perhaps. surprise me with the plot! you always do anyways. thanks and i love your little elliot drawings!

notes: okay 1. thank u im glad u enjoyed the sketches, 2. i hadn't watched alcatraz before but i just watched it so i could write him and I gotta say, it really freaked me out how many similarities there were between me and him (except for the whole being a murderer thing and stringing bows with the hair of his victims). this is my first time writing psychopath characters. anyway, thank you for requesting and I hope you enjoy it!

WC: 1.7k

It was a bit of an honor, really – none of your friends would agree with you, but working with something so strange, so new, and so, so interesting was always an honor. It wasn't like your friends said anything. Probably because they didn't know, since the Incident was 'top secret'.

The prison, in all its steep, sharp majesty, stood before you. Its height nearly blocked out the grey sky. The men leading you said nothing, and you followed when they opened the door inside. From outside one of the doors you saw the cells, all stuck together, kept in a sterile, white room. You swallowed thick and turned back forward, hand clenching around your bag as you mentally prepared yourself.

You didn't say much. Neither did he, so for the first five or six minutes, you watched him. His behaviorisms, the tics stuck in his restless limbs. Pushing against the floor, flexing fingers, uneven, hurried blinking. Classic signs of discomfort. You couldn't blame him.

"I've read a lot about you," you said in a soft, humming voice that had his eyes flickering to you before landing on the closed notebook in your hands. "I know what they think of you. Do you want to clarify anything?"

He said nothing, returning to his fidgets.

"I also heard you enjoy music," you continued, pushing your hand into the bag sitting on the floor beside you. He watched with curious eyes as you pulled out padded headphones, setting them on the table beside you, before pulling out an older iPod. "I know you've got your violin, but sometimes I find it's nice to listen without having to play. Lets me study."

"How does it work?" He asked, his voice cracked and soft. It was hard to make him out.

"Bluetooth. Connects without a wire," you answered with a half-smile, proceeding to explain the rest of the technology. The guards wouldn't just let you waltz in and give a prisoner a wire, after all, and the extra cost didn't hurt you too terribly.

He didn't really start talking till around the third appointment, which for a patient of his type wasn't all that bad. Even then he kept that soft tone – so low, so smooth, almost like the music he so avidly listened to. You could feel your fingers tightening over your arm rest when he spoke.

"I just wanted to play for people," he mumbled, pinching at the skin of his jaw. "Do you know what that's like?"

"Yes, actually," you said, earning the mild, held-back interest of the prisoner. He stared at you, and with a deep breath, you explained yourself. "I wanted to dance for people. Then I was diagnosed with Meniere's disease, and now it's a struggle to stand. I know what it's like to want something and never be able reach it."

He stared at you with wide eyes. You were starting to get accustomed to the sight of that.

"I also know it's good to start something you can do. Something achievable that can benefit yourself, maybe some friends, maybe groups of people. Some find that comfort in writing, or baking. Things like that," you said, knowing full well he wouldn't take your advice. Still, it was best to suggest something anyway.

The seventh week of sessions with him, appointments twice a week and each an hour or so long. That's how long he let you stay. If it were up to you or the warden, the sessions would be around an hour and a half, but if you tried to push it he would fall silent and listen to none of your words.

"I know this seems a rather foolish exercise," you said as you held out a drawing pad and a pencil, "but it does help some people. It doesn't have to help you, but I think you should give it a try. Just draw anything you want."

Hesitantly he took them from you, holding them in his lap as the eraser edge of the pencil tapped against his cheekbone. Folding your hands neatly on your own lap, you waited patiently for him to begin, a keen sense of curiosity keeping your attention. His head twitched to the side twice before he got sick of it, shaking his head to clear it out. Only then did he begin.

He kept the pad angled so you couldn't see his drawing. For about ten or so minutes he stuck to that activity, beginning to enjoy it about halfway through. When he leaned back, he examined the drawing, drawing a shaky breath as he handed the pad and pencil back to you.

Full body sketches, filled with lines and shadows that didn't quite connect. It looked as though he'd drawn it seven times and erased it six, but as the shapes came to fruition, you found the actual image he had drawn.

Himself in a suit. Nothing too grand, a plain one with one button on the blazer. You were more interested in the second figure beside him – a seated one sitting in front of a grand piano, their eyes closed and hands poised delicately over keys you couldn't see. At the other end of the piano was where Webb stood, his eyes closed as well as he danced to the music humming from his violin.

"You're a pianist, aren't you?" He asked, his voice still low and soft. You paused, looking up at him.

"Yes," you answered quietly. You hadn't ever told him that. "How did you know?"

"Fingers," he said. "You don't tap rhythms. You play them, and your fingers are stretched. You've been playing since you were a kid."

"Also correct," you said as you tried desperately not to give away your discomfort and amazement.

Two appointments later and he started to tell you about yourself. You reminded him gently that these sessions were for him, not you, but the words seemed to not have processed in his head. He just kept listing things about you – things you never told him, things not obvious about you, things your friends and family didn't even know.

"How long did you play bass for?" He asked one afternoon, his finger set against his lip.

"Orchestra in middle school through high school," you said despite not wanting to answer. "I was never any good at it, though."

"Too big?"

"... yeah. Mr. Porter, this isn't -"

"Where's your tattoo?"

You froze.

"I don't think it's appropriate for me to answer that question. How about you tell me about the people here? Do you get along with them?"

"They like my music," he murmured, his eyes directed at your own but staring through you.

"It's nice to have that," you said with a small nod.

Your home was a place of comfort with few windows and double locks on the doors. The only weak spot was the backyard, which was walled in. It'd be easy to break the glass of the wall into your living room, but you made the expense for 'unbreakable' glass, and in the evenings you felt thankful for that decision. You could sip at your tea without worry, turning on the TV and surfing through the many shows.

Despite being curled up for an evening of relaxation, your notebook sat beside you, open to the page of your most recent patient. A pencil sat in the dip of the binding. On commercial breaks you set aside your cup and picked up the notebook, flipping through the pages and trying to figure out exercises that would be good for each person. For Webb you made the special effort to think beyond your specialty. There were a number of things you wanted him to try – painting, stories, baking – just some senseless, harmless activities. Alongside that were a couple tests you could give him once he was ready.

"Even got your piano right," you heard a voice from behind the couch, making you shoot straight up and whirl around, the blanket around your shoulders falling forgotten on the floor. Webb stood in your open living room, his fingers tracing over your black grand piano seated in front of the wide open windows.

"What are you doing here?" You asked in a surprisingly firm voice, broken only by your concentration to get your phone out from between the couch cushions.

"I needed to see you," he spoke softly, almost airy in his tone as he stared at you with empty, grey eyes. When you moved he took a step forward. "I know you're going to tell them," he said, looking you up and down, "but I can't let you do that."

You ran. The front door was so close to you anyway – you assumed you could reach it before he could reach you, but your legs were weak. You'd always been weak, and now he reached for you, grabbing you by the ankle and dragging you across the wood while you did your best not to cry. You did shout, though – hopefully your neighbors would hear, but halfway through your second scream he tore his sleeve, tying it around your mouth.

Writhing on the floor, you felt him push your chest down, swinging his legs so he straddled you. As you began to hyperventilate he pulled rope out – your rope – and tied your hands together.

"It's so easy," he breathed out, and you assumed he was talking to himself. You tried to speak, but with the gag, nothing came out but whines and moans. "You're so easy to... hurt," he murmured as he leaned in, his breath coasting against your cheek, highlighting the tears that fell unwillingly.

"You'll be good for me, right?" He asked of you, caressing your face with his hand, the other dug into your stomach's pressure point to keep you from moving.

You almost sobbed, but instead you tried to form words. Again, nothing but mumbles and cries came out.

"Shhh," he said in a soft, almost comforting voice. A shiver ran through your body, convulsing in your anxious muscles, trying to kick with the legs he sat on. "I won't hurt you," he murmured, leaning even closer to you, till his face rested in the crook of your neck, pressing gentle, fluttering kisses along your skin.

His hand reached from your cheek to your hair, tugging on it so harsh you let out a choked cry.

"We'll make beautiful music," he mumbled. "My violin, your piano, and you can sing... we'll be beautiful."

#webb porter x reader #alcatraz #rami malek #rami malek character #webb porter

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crackimagines · 4 years

Text

Take Over (FE: Three Houses Short Fic)

Persona 5 AU (Crimson Flower)

P5 AU Masterlist Here

—

With the Adrestian Empire declaring war on the church and moving to invade Garreg Mach, the Phantom Thieves move to steal the heart of Archbishop Rhea.

The clock is ticking for the Phantom Thieves, because if the invasion fails, then all their classmates are doomed to perish from the might of the Church.

—

Akira made sure that the Black Eagles and the Imperial forces were moving far ahead of them, as his team slowed down.

(Morgana) “I don’t think they’ll realize we’re gone in time.”

(Ryuji) “Alright, then let’s hurry this shit up! If we can take down Rhea and her lackies, then we can stop this war before it even begins!”

(Makoto) “As much as I would like for that to happen, we need to be extra careful. Something’s been acting up with the MetaNAV as of late!”

When Akira pulled out his phone, their Phantom Thief outfits began flashing onto them before fading away.

(Futaba) “This has happened everytime we’re preparing to enter it, what’s going on?”

(Yusuke) “I’m afraid we do not have the luxury of time to be asking that. We must hurry before the Imperials reach Garreg Mach!”

(Ann) “Yeah, and Rhea’s palace is on full alert. We gotta get going.”

(Haru) “Akira, if you would!”

Akira nodded and pressed the button.

(Phone) Transformation successful. Now merging Metaverse and the Real World.

(Everyone) ?!

The world around them began to distort as normal, but when it was finished, they noticed the world had not even changed in the slightest.

Even Garreg Mach in the distance had no visible effect. Edelgard and the others kept marching.

(Ryuji) “The shit is this?!”

(Makoto) “How is this even possible, we shouldn’t be able to access our Personas in the real world!”

(Haru) “This is bad! Everyone might be walking into a palace! They aren’t equipped to deal with shadows!”

(Futaba) “No, I’m not detecting anything different except...Holy crap, there’s one super strong reading in Garreg Mach!”

(Ann) “Rhea!”

(Yusuke) “They’re going to get massacred!”

(Morgana) “Joker, what’s our orders?!”

(Akira) “We need to get there before they do as fast as possible! Our identities might get compromised, but that doesn’t matter right now! Futaba, take Yusuke and Haru on your Persona and head over right now! Makoto, you break through that front gate and make a way for us! Morgana, Ryuji, Ann! With me! Our mission objective remains the same, STOP RHEA!”

[Life Will Change - Persona 5]

Wasting no time, Makoto rode Johanna straight down the road, pulling out her revolver.

Futaba’s Persona beamed the three of them up and flew around the sides.

Morgana transformed into his bus as Akira got on the wheel and stepped on the gas pedal.

...

(Edelgard) “THIS IS EMPEROR EDELGARD! BEGIN YOUR ASSAULT!”

All the soldiers charged the gates, ready to break it down until everyone heard a strange noise coming up behind them.

BANG BANG!

(???) “OUT OF THE WAY!”

Several squads’ advances were halted when a woman on a strange vehicle flew past them and crashed through the gate doors, making several of the church soldiers fly off from the impact.

(Soldier) “Who was that?!”

(Soldier 2) “Was that one of ours?!”

(Hubert) “Doesn’t matter. If they’re helping us then we cannot refuse their help! EVERYONE, CHARGE!”

The Black Eagles charged in with the rest of the soldiers, not noticing the flying saucer soaring above them.

Driving up the middle, Makoto used the front wheels to stop her, turning the back wheels up and hit away a squad of Church soldiers, sending them onto the concrete.

Getting off, Makoto quickly got her mask back on as Johanna disappeared, clenching her fists.

Another squad of soldiers rushed her, swiping their swords at her.

Swiftly dodging the first strike, she counterattacked with a fist going into his stomach, and a kick to the face hurling him back onto two other soldiers.

Grabbing her revolver, she quickly spun around and shot a soldier’s spear, making it fly out of his hand.

Elbowing his head, she ran to the sides of the nearby buildings and found a nearby ballista.

(Soldier) “Take out that thing that’s flying in the sky!”

(Makoto) “Oracle! Tch, NO YOU WON’T!”

...

Futaba beamed down Haru near the ballista Makoto was fighting at, and flew towards the other one.

(Futaba) “Fox and I will get the other ballista! Help Queen!”

Needing no further instruction, Haru held her axe firmly and hit a soldier in the back with the hilt.

(Soldier) “Huh?! BEHIND US-!”

Seizing the opportunity, Makoto used her legs and swept underneath several soldiers, tipping them all over.

(Haru) “MILADY!”

Summoning her Persona, it used a psychokinesis attack and distorted the soldiers, making them unable to get up.

(Makoto) “Thanks for that, Noir!”

(Haru) “No problem, now get back!”

Haru had a devilish smile as she pulled out her grenade launcher and pointed it at the ballista.

(Haru) “It’s going to go boom!”

Makoto smiled and saw other soldiers coming towards them.

After firing a single shot, it completely blew apart, scaring the others.

(Soldier) “W-What kinda weapon is that?!”

(Haru) “WHY DON’T YOU FIND OUT!?”

...

(Futaba) “BEHIND YOU, AIM DOWNWARDS!”

A soldier came for his back, and Yusuke aimed his rifle downwards and shot the sword, the reflection making the soldier recoil in surprise.

His Persona appeared behind him and froze the soldier solid.

(Yusuke) “And now!-”

Turning right around, he used his katana to break the wires and gears, and his Persona slammed its sword downwards, crushing it completely.

(Futaba) “Good job, Fox!”

(Yusuke) “Thank you. Come, we must infiltrate the main room without being seen!”

As they rushed off, the Death Knight and several other Imperial forces took notice of them.

(Death Knight) “The Phantom Thieves are here...? You, send a report to the Emperor!”

...

Once Edelgard and her company took out the squad in the middle, an Imperial soldier ran to her.

(Soldier) “Milady, the ballistae have already been completely wiped out, and enemy forces are dealing with a third group inside! Reports indicate its the Phantom Thieves!”

(Edelgard) “What?!”

Byleth came in from behind and shook his head.

(Byleth) “I couldn’t find Akira and the others, they just disappeared!”

(Edelgard) “Where-...wait a minute, could they?-”

Her thoughts were interrupted when a bus came barreling through.

(Familiar Girl’s Voice) “S-SORRY EVERYONE!”

(Familiar Punk’s Voice) “SHIT MAN!”

Spinning around, the bus exploded into a cloud of smoke, revealing 3 figures and a cat.

(Byleth) “Identify yourselves!”

Looking up, they all had masks that was hard to make out their faces, but their hair...

No one had time to get a good luck and recognize them when 2 golems headed their way.

(Soldier) “INCOMING!”

The 3 figures and cat turned around, reaching for their masks.

(Everyone) “PERSONA!”

4 shadows emerged from them and flew towards the golem, using a combination of slicing and spells to wipe them out, with a fireball and tornado wiping out one while a bolt of lightning wiped out the others.

The wings of the boy in black’s shadow blew an incoming squad away and straight into the walls.

The boy made sure not to say a word and moved through the main gate of the Monastery.

(Byleth) “I’m going after them!”

(Edelgard) “Professor, wait!”

Before she could follow, Edelgard heard someone’s voice scream out.

(Dimitri) “EDELGAAAAARD!”

Slamming his lance against her shield, she knew that he wasn’t going to stop until either of them were dead.

She quietly muttered to herself.

(Byleth) “...Akira, Byleth, please be careful...”

Finally making it to the final room, Catherine was blown back by an explosion while Cyril fell to the floor, covered in frost.

[Blood of Villain - Persona 5]

(Rhea) “They’re still alive...You play an interesting game, Phantom Thieves.”

Everyone noticed that her eyes were yellow instead of green.

(Futaba) “D-Did her shadow merge with her real self?!”

(Ryuji) “Tch, she was already powerful enough!”

Byleth ran in, and stood beside Akira, drawing his sword.

(Rhea) “YOU, I WILL MAKE SURE YOU DIE BY MY HANDS! I WILL RIP YOUR HEART OUT OF YOUR CHEST!”

(Byleth) “Heh, kinda upset I didn’t realize you all were the Phantom Thieves beforehand...”

(Akira) “Little slow there, teach! But hope that isn’t true when it comes to this fight! As for you, you have anything to say Rhea?! For all the lives you’ve taken?!”

(Rhea) “THOSE WHO OPPOSE THE CHURCH WILL BE CRUSHED WITHOUT MERCY. I CARE NOT FOR YOUR OPINIONS...No matter...Thanks to your appearances, I can now get rid of all my problems at once! Phantom Thieves, the Empire, Byleth...Your crimes will not go unpunished!”

(Ann) “That’s our line, you psychotic bitch! Enforcing your law on everyone and killing them as soon as they disagree?! You’re the one in the wrong!”

(Rhea) “You have NO idea what I’ve suffered! THE EMPIRE WORKS WITH THOSE WHO SLITHER IN THE DARK, AND I WILL NEVER FORGIVE ANY WHO WORK WITH THEM.”

(Yusuke) “So, it would seem that she refuses to admit the fault in her logic.”

(Haru) “I can’t say that I’m surprised!”

(Makoto) “Words are meaningless, we gotta let our fists do the talking!”

[Blooming Villain - Persona 5]

(Rhea) “THEN ALL OF YOU WILL DIE!”

(Akira) “EVERYONE, LET’S FINISH THIS!”

Byleth rushed first, slamming the Sword of the Creator against Rhea's dagger.

She kicked him away, her strike hurting far more than he anticipated and flew back near the stairs.

(Akira) "ARSENE, TAKE HER DOWN!"

(Ann) "DANCE, CARMEN!"

Both of them took off their masks and summoned their Personas, Carmen igniting the area around Rhea as Arsene used its foot blade to cut her.

Wounded from the cut and bits of cloth and skin on fire, she ran through it and fired a spell at Arsene, making it stagger back.

Akira clenched his teeth as he felt the pain Arsene did, the spell hitting the shoulder hard.

Ann used her whip and swung it at Rhean which wrapped around Rhea's dagger.

Yanking it back, the whip flew out of her hand and into the floor.

Before Rhea rushed forward, she noticed that the rest of the Phantom Thieves were nowhere to be seen.

She leaped onto the air as bullets flew and hit the wall where she was, everyone pointing their guns at her.

Yusuke kept the pressure on her with his assault rifle, the bullets coming too rapidly for her to try anything.

When Rhea landed, she used her dagger to deflect a bullet, seeing Makoto attempting to make precise shots.

Rhea dashed towards Makoto and threw a fist out, which was caught by Makoto's arm, and whiffed to the side of her head.

Makoto kept her in place as she took off her mask, and a blinding blue light was underneath them.

Headbutting Makoto away, Rhea dodged the explosion by rolling away as she was barely caught by it.

Looking upwards, Ryuji, Morgana, and Haru had their Personas out, and Rhea was blinded by a psychokinesis spell.

Morgana's persona thrusted its rapier at her, but managed to dodge every single strike.

(Ryuji) "CAPTAIN KIDD!"

A cannon shot out of its arm, and hit Rhea in the stomach, making her crash through a wall.

Quickly getting up, Rhea tried to anticipate the next attack and barely managed to catch Yusuke's katana with her hand.

Joker came from behind and had Arsene grab her by the neck and slam her against the floor, sliding her and tossing her up onto the ceiling, making it crack with the impact.

Byleth jumped in and used the whip function of his sword to strike her midair, leaving a nasty wound across her chest.

Despite such a harsh assault, she managed to land on both her feet, looking at the Phantom Thieves.

Seeing her hands covered in blood, she clenched her teeth and her eyes widened with rage.

(Akira) "Surrender Rhea, you have lost!"

(Rhea) "No...NO! I WILL NEVER SURRENDER!"

(Futaba) "She's weak guys, LET'S FINISH THIS!"

(Akira) "ON ME!”

All of them hopped back and prepared for a final assault.

Drawing their weapons they all rushed her at once, striking at her weak and wounded spots in the blink of an eye.

Joker landed in front of Byleth, adjusting his gloves as Rhea’s body started shaking.

[Song End]

Rhea collapsed to the ground, not being able to stand up after that onslaught.

Byleth nodded in thanks, and moved towards Rhea, pointing his sword at her.

Edelgard and the other Black Eagles moved in, surrounding her with the Phantom Thieves.

(Edelgard) “So, it really is you guys.”

(Akira) “Surprised?”

(Edelgard) “Not particularly. But, that’s for another time. Rhea. By the order of the Adrestian Empire, you will be imprisoned. This fight is over, you have lost.”

(Rhea) “No...”

Her body shook violently again, with her looking straight at Edelgard.

(Rhea) “NO! YOU WILL DIE! GRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH-”

The pressure she exerted pushed everyone back.

With her shape changing form, she towered over everyone.

(Edelgard) “Damn it! EVERYONE, RETREAT!”

Everyone started running out, with Byleth and the Phantom Thieves keeping her occupied.

(Edelgard) “EVERYONE, COME ON!”

(Akira) “Oracle, escape route for us? If she chases us, then everyone outside’s done for!”

(Futaba) “I can’t find any! Dang it, come on!”

(Ryuji) “Tch...I think there’s only one way out of here for them.”

Everyone turned to Ryuji, but realized what he meant.

There was no other way.

(Akira) “Professor, go. They need you!”

(Byleth) “What?! What about you all?!”

(Akira) “Don’t worry about that, you just gotta-”

Rhea began charging up a beam from her mouth, and Byleth spun around and activated the whip function, slicing at a massive pile of debris above them, cutting off the Black Eagles from them.

(Akira) “...I see.”

(Edelgard) “Everyone, what the hell are you doing?!”

(Byleth) “Hah...It’s all right. Now, get out of here!”

(Edelgard) “No, I won’t accept this! WE’RE NOT LEAVING YOU ALL BEHIND!”

(Akira) “Then we have to make you. ARSENE!”

Appearing outside the rubble, it closed its wings, using the pressure of the wind to send them flying away.

(Edelgard) “NO! LET ME STAY! BYLETH, AKIRA! NO!”

Byleth and Akira had a self-mocking smile, as they turned around.

(Akira) “Everyone, it’s been a good run.”

(Ryuji) “I don’t wanna die but...Hah, I’m glad I’m at least dying together with you all.”

(Ann) “You idiots were the best thing that happened to me, you know that?”

(Yusuke) “I concur...with you all, my life found its meaning.”

(Makoto) “I’m proud to have fought for justice with everyone.”

(Haru) “May we all meet again in a better life...”

(Morgana) “I guess this is goodbye then...Hey, Byleth...Thanks for everything too.”

(Byleth) “All of you...”

The Phantom Thieves turned around to Byleth.

(Byleth) “I’m proud to have been your teacher.”

Rhea fired the beam at them, everyone accepting their fate.

However, the beam reflected onto the ground from an unknown force, shattering the ground around them.

Rhea managed to fly away from it, albeit heavily injured but the rest of the Phantom Thieves and Byleth were surprised.

(Ryuji) “You gotta be effin’ kidding me! IS THIS FOR REAL?! AFTER ALL WE SAID, WE DIE TO SOME GOD DAMN RO-”

Before everyone could process that they were still alive, the ground beneath them collapsed, sending them into the bottomless canyon below.

(Everyone) “AAAAAAAH!” “SHIIIIIIT-” “WOAAAAH!? “GAAAAAAAAAH-”

...

#persona 5 imagines #persona 5 headcanons #akira kurusu #futaba sakura #haru okumura #ann takamaki #makoto niijima #yusuke kitagawa #morgana #ryuji sakamoto #byleth #archbishop rhea #Edelgard von Hresvelg #black eagles #phantom thieves #hubert von vestra #fire emblem three houses imagines #fire emblem three houses headcanons #fe3h imagines

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himbowelsh · 4 years

Note

Luztoye and deafness?

a little fall of meme can hardly hurt me now ( no longer accepting )

George Luz found him once, in the chaotic hours after Normandy, when no one had a clue where they were headed next. Joe still remembers the ache radiating throughout his entire body, exhaustion weighing him down, his adrenaline simmering like a kettle on the stove. They were all sitting on barrels of gunpowder that day, just waiting for it to blow. No one had any clue who’d survived and who was gone; the fact that you survived yourself seemed like a fever dream. Every few minutes, Joe expected to squeeze his eyes shut, and open them to find himself back in that dark, rattling C-47 over the skies of Normandy.

Instead, he opened his eyes, and Luz was beside him, grinning like a fool.

“So,” he drawled, “two grenades, and no dice? That’s gotta be a record, Joe.”

In response, he just shrugged, shifting the arm that wasn’t radiating pain in his lap. Luz caught the movement and looked down; he took in the bandage wrapped stubbornly-tight around Joe’s one hand, where it had gotten torn up in the wires of his chute, and the other hand, still wearing his telltale brass knuckles. A low huff escaped him. When Luz leaned his shoulder against his, Joe didn’t pull away.

“Not trying to set any,” he replied, frowning up at the clouded sky. “If God doesn't throw anything else at me, I’m not gonna complain.”

“We both know how likely that is.”

Joe huffed through his nose, the closest to a laugh he could get without hurting all over. Victory shone in Luz’s eyes. It crinkles them at the corners, adding a funny kind of glow to his face, and his smile… that damn smile, the George Luz smile that drew you in and refused to let you go easy, that smile was in full force.

What sort of person, Joe remembers thinking that day, could sit here in the middle of all that shit, all that chaos… and grin like that?

What sort of person is George Luz?

Now, he doesn’t have to wonder. They’ve been together long enough; he’s seen enough of Luz’s soul, in flashes and laid bare before him. He knows Luz like the back of his hand now; that smile, that reckless, irrepressible smile, is like a flame in a mineshaft, always burning, radiating light and warmth out to the people who need it most. It’s a spark of hope in the dark, a bright thing where bright things aren’t meant to exist.

Here’s the thing about flames down in the mines, though — they’re not supposed to go out.

When they go out, something is very fucking wrong.

Joe hesitates in the doorway before deciding against knocking. Not like it would do any good, anyways. Luz’s back is turned, and he doesn’t move even when Joe lets the wooden door creak closed behind them.

They’re only staying in this farmhouse for a night; Luz gets his own room, because there’s nowhere to send him in the middle of nowhere Holland, and it’s not safe to drive him by night anyways. Besides, there’s not much the aid station could do for him. Physically, he’s fine — a few cuts on his face where shrapnel hit, but Doc Roe’s taken care of that. Maybe he’ll have some weird bruises. Getting hit with a grenade’s damn weird; Joe would know.

“Hey, Luz,” he says, just to try it. Luz doesn’t reply.

“It’s probably temporary. He wouldn’t be the first,” was all Roe said, with a regretful twist to his mouth that made it plain he’d like to do more. No one blames him for being human, though, just like no one blames Luz for getting caught too close to the grenade in the first place.

Amazing it didn’t blow him to bits instead of just blowing his hearing out, lucky bastard.

Joe takes it slow, skirting around the edge of the room so he gradually appears in Luz’s sight line. The last thing he means to do is startle him, but he has that effect anyways. Luz jumps, his hunched position stiffening into something defensive; Joe has just enough time to watch the mile-long stare on his face shift into surprise, before Luz forces it into something friendly instead. That’s… probably the idea. He just comes off looking exhausted and in pain — which he’s gotta be.

“Hey, Joe,” Luz says, but the words come out wrong — flat, unformed, like a kid’s drawing with no outline. Joe huffs. He knows he’s not supposed to talk, the idiot.

Instead of humoring him with a response, Joe takes a step forward, inclining his head towards the space on the bed next to Luz.

“Yeah! Sure, sure.” Luz shuffles over hastily. “Make yourself at home.”

“Cut it out, Luz,” Joe says, though he knows the other man can’t hear it.

“Nice digs, huh? I get a room to myself… fancy, very fancy. Practically the Ritz.”

That’s another thing about George Luz — he never stops talking. If he stops talking, it means not only is something very fucking wrong, but he’s willing to admit it.

Maybe that’s why Luz can’t stop talking.

The thought leaves Joe’s mouth dry, an ache in his chest like it’s been hollowed out by its own grenade blast. His hand finds Luz’s back, and in an instant his words cut off. As silence fills the room, Luz draws in a deep breath. Joe feels it underneath his hand, and feels the way Luz holds it.

He doesn’t need to do this. Not here, not now… not with him. Doesn’t he get it?

After a long moment, Luz turns his face towards Joe. There’s no hint of a smile now. Instead, it’s something sharper, which hits Joe like a blade to the gut — vulnerable dark eyes, rimmed with exhaustion, and fear that carves itself into every groove and every dimple of Luz’s expressive face.

If Joe could chase that fear away, he could. If he could swing and rage and make it all better… if he could fix Luz through willpower alone…

Joe remembers it all now, but when Liz smiled in Normandy, he forgot — just for a second, he was able to forget his torn up hand, the bitter stench of gunpowder, the wailing of wounded horses, and the echo of explosions ringing in his ears. Luz took the pain away, and left something warm in its place.

Joe can’t do that... but he can try.

Gently, his hand finds Luz’s face. As a roughened palm cups his jaw, he swipes his thumb over the still-raw shrapnel wounds. When Luz flinches in spite of himself, Joe’s gaze doesn’t waver. Slowly, his finger moves, until it finds Luz’s chapped lips. When Luz opens his mouth to say something else, Joe just holds it there.

Luz doesn’t make a sound. He stays very, very still… and after a moment, releases a shaky breath instead.

He slumps against Joe, and that’s that — no way can Joe leave when Luz needs him, and no way is Luz getting up when he’s already found a suitable pillow. He ends up sitting there for an hour, watching Luz doze fitfully against his shoulder… and, when his back starts to cramp, shifts them both so they’re laying on the bed, Luz curls into him, deaf to the world, as Joe maneuvers himself out of his boots and tucks the covers around them both.

If Luz is a flame in a mineshaft, then what does that make him? Stone — steady stone. Always there, unwavering, and goddamn tough to break.

Joe stirs the next morning to sunlight filtering in through the room’s checkered curtains, and the body against him twisting around. He cracks his eyes open against the brightness, and finds George Luz blinking down at him. His dark hair is a bird’s nest; the corners of his eyes are crinkled, like he’s secretly finding something hilarious.

“Morning, Luz,” Joe murmurs, and Luz’s eyes widen.

The grin that dawns across his face is the best damn thing Joe has ever seen.

#this was a SWEET one oh gosh #luztoye #always comes so easily i adore them #george luz #joe toye #my writing #Anonymous

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sailynthesayaad · 4 years

Text

The Beginning Pt. 2

Part one.

“Ah dun care! Ah dun care!” Sail beat her fists in against her sisters chest, tears streaming down her cheeks, tail slapping down in against the floor of their small room. Despite the past four years passing by, Sail was still a full head shorter than her sibling. In the short time the two had been in the small city they had spent most of their time cheating and scamming other people, it was the best way to survive. Turns out the reason the city was so happy to take on two unlucky orphans was simply because a disease had infected in their stalk of food as it traveled from another small fishing village. The other village did not survive at all from the plague and was now a ghost town. The city was better managed but it still left many pairs without mates, other children without parents and Matriarchs without children to watch over or pairs to be with. The current Matriarch they were with had lost everything, became a drunk and a generally sunken, abusive male. The goal and hope was for him to have a turn around in being given the chance to look after young ones again, that unfortunately did not become the case. So it was up to Sail and Mast to get money and supplies for the house and take care of things. Mast also needed to trade for her voyage, which was proving difficult with the amount of time she had to spend taking the brunt of things from their current care taker, looking after Sail who despite her current state had become rather rebellious in her growing teenage years and seemed to enjoy stirring up quite the trouble which of course came back onto Mast. Mast sighed heavily, grabbing at her siblings wrists rather roughly and pulling them up over her head to keep her from striking further. “Sail! Enough! Ya kno’ ah got ta do dis. Our people grow weake’ an’ weake’ ‘ere an’ we dunno ‘ow other our kin are on da other A’lurs. We haf ta keep our traditions strong and our people.” A soft smile touched Masts lips as she let go of her, “So dun be sayin’ ya dun care abou’ me, when ah kno’ ya do. Ya gonna hurt someone’s feelin’s sayin’ that some day. Ya know no one gonna know ya as well as ah do, don’ let ‘em misunderstand.” Sail slowly began to calm down, sniffling back tears and snot, moving hands to rub at her eyes. “Ah dun wanna be alone. Ah dun like it.” “Then you don’t haft to be.” Came a new voice from the window of their bedroom, startling the pair of them, which caused the owner to chuckle. “Ah sorry sorry, didn’t mean ta jumps yas. Pretty nice speech there ya know eh? Ya two clearly close, and why people gotta splits such a bond eh? No no, don’t be sitting right by me.” They couldn’t tell if the person in their window was male or female, as they leaned into it, resting chin on wrapped arms as they spoke and looked over the pair with keen eyes. There was an open strange wonder to their eyes that Sail was rather curious about, as if this person had seen wonders beyond their comprehension. Sail stepped in forward, “So then..ya kno’ ‘ow ah can stay with Mast?!” Another chuckle came from the elder as they went ahead to pull themselves through the window to stand with the pair, Mast quickly going for her spear to hold it stead fast to the invaders throat. They put up their hands but didn’t seem to even flinch over it, their attention seeming focused on Sail. “Oh yeah, don’t ya going worry over that. Look i’ll be straight with yas, not ta brag, but i’m from another world-” Mast cut them off by pushing the spear in a bit more sharply, actually cutting into their skin, “That’s impossible! Dun lie!” A sudden gasp came from her, spear lowering slightly as eyes widen from the pair. The strangers blood wasn’t blue like their own, it was green. Slowly they moved to cover the wound, rubbing their hand over it and withdrew. The cut was gone, only a smear of the blood remained.”Well that’s one way of showing it a bit. But iffen ya need more proof why not come on with me?” Moving on they go out of the window they came through, with little hesitation Sail makes to follow before Mast grabs her by the arm, “No! We dun kno’ anythin’ about ‘em.” Hissing to her. Sail pulls away, “Iffen they can make it true dat i dun lose ya then ah dun care. Besides, iffen ya go what else am ah gonna do? Ah don’ got nothin’ ta lose in dis it seems ta me.” Shrugging a shoulder as she moves ahead to go out the window. Mast sighs, her sister had a point in any regard, least she couldn’t argue against it. Moving in along, she too would move out the window to follow the stranger. They would walk on in silence heading down towards a more abandoned rough part of the city, even in Sails and Masts dealings they avoided this part of the city. The entered into an abandoned storehouse, used for the colder months to store food. Within, standing in the middle, was a large metal seeming craft. A type of home or cocoon maybe? The siblings stared at in confusion, tilting their heads as they stared at it with uncertainty. This made the stranger chuckle. “Ya two truly are close.” When the pair looked in towards the stranger once more, they looked completely different. Rather then webbed toes they had hooves, their tail went from thick and scaly to thin and wired like with barbs running down it near the spine of back and curled tip end. On their back was a pair of webbed wings with dual claws in the midst top of the wings as they spread out. A pair of horns sprouted from their forehead curling up and back, spiraled into pointed steeps. One arm swept back with extended wings and the other curled forward in front of themselves, bowing forward. “Let me introduce myself, I am Sh’taria. I am a Sayaad of the Legion. We are a collective from across the universe seeking others to follow in our path, to bring about a peace like none ever known. But pretty words wont do here, why don’t i just show you?” In those yellow eyes a sparkle appeared that spoke out to Sail, the promise of a sight unknown, of expanses to be yet explored. It excited her. Heart beating in her chest as she stared wide eyed in wonder with something to knew and strange. Taking a steady step forward, toes drawing in together before they could touch back on the ground as her sister stopped her. “We don’ kno’ wha this...thing is. It’s no’ safe.” Mast spoke softly, seeming to glare over to the claimed being, Sayaad. “Iffen she wanted us dead, then we’d been dead already.” Sail spoke aloud looking over to her sister. With a small pause the elder sibling would sigh once more and withdraw her arm, moving to follow in along to see to just what this creature wanted. Sh’taria opened the hatch to her ship, lowering the door to reveal stairs and moved on ahead insider to start it up. At first the noises seemed to have dismayed the curious Chalurin younglings, but their curiosity grew and got the better of them, even Mast couldn’t help but desire to know exactly what was going on or just what this -thing- was. Once they had entered the ship, they never imagined how much their life had just changed with a door simply closing behind them. How much they would change, how much they would see and do and most of all how much regret Sail would soon live with.

#emily fiegenschuh #not my art #my writing #my oc #ic story #sayaad #world of warcraft inspired #beginngs

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alounuitte · 4 years

Text

an interpersonal demonstration of newton's third law

(3. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.) Lance is just trying to bond when he jokes around with his new teammates. Making fun of each other is just what buddies do, right? He's not TRYING to go straight after anyone's weak spots, after all, and it's not his fault he doesn't know what Pidge is sensitive about. Not that Pidge is taking that into account at the time.

(cw for (accidental/unknowing) misgendering/transphobia in this.)

also on AO3 under LovelyLessie!

“That doesn’t look right,” Hunk says, leaning over the couch to peer over Pidge’s shoulder as he works. “Are you sure that goes there?”

“Well, it didn’t, to begin with,” Pidge replies without looking up from the half-assembled machinery in front of him. “But I thought if I moved it over here I could use it to connect the fragmentation buffer to the thrust mechanism -“

“Ohh,” Hunk says, his eyes going wide, before he frowns. “Wait. What does that do?”

“Something nerdy,” Lance calls, leaning back to rest his feet on the table as he shakes his head at them. “What are you guys even doing, anyways?” Whatever it is, they’ve been at it since they all got back from training, but he doesn’t see what’s so exciting about some busted up junk they salvaged from who even knows where, and he’s getting bored of sitting here waiting for Hunk to be finished geeking out.

“Shut up, Lance,” Pidge says, still not looking up. “I’m trying to use the thrust mechanism to boost the power for the buffer and amplify its effect. If it works we might be able to adapt it to the lions -“

“Right, right,” Hunk agrees. “But what good is a fragmentation buffer for our lions? Isn’t that for processing data?”

“Do you think the lions don’t process data?” Pidge asks, sitting back and pushing his glasses up his nose as he glances over his shoulder at Hunk. “From each other, from the ship, from our heads when we’re piloting them! The buffer could help streamline that input…”

“And improve our connection!” Hunk says eagerly, his face breaking into a grin.

“Exactly,” Pidge agrees.

“Well, that’s good for you guys, I guess,” Lance interjects. “Me, I’ve got a great connection with my lion. Blue and me understand each other just fine, so my girl doesn’t need any new modifications, thanks.” Besides, if he wants to get closer to the Blue Lion, he can do it without anybody else’s help. So what if he still hasn’t figured out the trick to seeing through her eyes? Neither has anyone else here, just Shiro, who’s on the bridge talking to Allura about something, and that’s different. Shiro’s the leader.

“Great,” Pidge says, looking back at the machinery. “Good thing I’m not talking to you about it.”

“Hey!” he protests, sitting upright. “What, you want to offer your genius improvements to everyone else?” Not that he needs it, he tells himself, it’s the principle of it.

“That’s so not what I said,” Pidge groans, rolling his eyes.

“Didn’t you just say you didn’t need it, anyways?” Hunk points out, frowning. “If it even works -“

“It’s gonna work!” Pidge says. “I just gotta figure out - how to -“

There’s a clicking sound and a crackle in the air, and a blue spark jumps from the metal to his arm.

“Ow, quiznak!” he yelps, jumping back and holding his hand to his chest. “That wasn’t supposed to happen.”

“Don’t get yourself killed,” Keith says from the other side of the lounge, his eyes still closed.

“Aw, no one asked you,” Lance points out, scowling. He’d almost forgotten Keith was still sitting there, since he’s the only one in the room being even more boring than the nerd squad here. “You okay, Pidge?”

“Let me have a try,” Hunk suggests before Pidge can answer, and clambers over the back of the couch to sit on the floor next to him. “I know you’re the computer whiz here, but maybe you should leave the reconstruction to a mechanic.”

“Yeah, that’s my man,” Lance says, grinning. Maybe if Hunk can figure out whatever dumb thing Pidge wants to do with this, he’ll be satisfied, and then they can go do something fun. There’s an awful lot of this castle they still haven’t had much chance to explore.

“Sure, have at it,” Pidge says.

Hunk frowns into the internals of the machine, rubbing his chin with one hand. “Huh. Might need to replace the wires, actually, I think you might’ve fried them -“

“It wasn’t me!” Pidge protests.

“Oh, yes, it was,” Hunk says, tilting the pile of junk so he can see better. “You’ve got residual power in the antethermal capacitor, so if you connect it directly -“

“Ugh,” Pidge groans, slapping his forehead with one hand. “Of course.”

Lance laughs. “Guess you’re not such a genius after all!”

“Lance, shut up,” he says again, casting a glare across the lounge.

“But if we route the wiring through the kineticule first,” Hunk says, fiddling with something inside the machine, “that should channel the energy more cleanly, so you can hook up to the thrust mechanism without getting zapped, just… like…that!”

“Yeah!” Pidge cries, jumping up with a smile. “Way to go!”

Lance yawns loudly and heaves a dramatic sigh, hoping that’ll get Hunk’s attention now that he’s done with his lame science project. “Boring,” he tells them both, and jumps to his feet. “Who wants to find Shiro and see if he has anything actually cool for us to do?”

“Oh, my God, shut up!” Pidge tells him again, his voice rising to a squeak and cracking. He quickly covers his mouth with both hands, cheeks flushing red.

Lance tries not to laugh, really, he does, but he can’t help it. “Aw,” he manages, “Pidge, you finally hit puberty!”

“What?” Pidge demands, dropping the screwdriver he’s holding to the floor.

“C’mon, don’t be like that,” Lance says, still laughing. “It happens to everyone, just ‘cause you’re a late bloomer—“

“It’s not funny,” Pidge says, his voice rising to a shout.

“Don’t worry about it,” Lance continues, ignoring him. “You’ll be a real man like the rest of us soon enou—oof—“

He doesn’t see Pidge move in time to react, barely processes him jumping over the table before a fist connects with his jaw and sends him staggering backwards.

“Ow!” he yelps, holding his face with both hands. “What the quiznak, dude?”

“Asshole!” Pidge shouts, glowering at him, fists still raised and ready to throw another punch. “What the hell is your problem?”

“My problem?” Lance asks, dumbfounded. “What’s your problem? I was just joking, you didn’t have to hit me!”

“Well, your jokes - aren’t - funny!” Pidge yells again. Before Lance can even begin to reply, he spins on his heel and bolting out of the room, footsteps pounding down the corridor until they fade into the distance.

“What the fuck was that?” Lance asks, forgetting to censor himself in his shock. His jaw and cheek are throbbing, and he can taste blood in his mouth. For a kid that small, Pidge can sure throw a punch. He looks between Hunk and Keith for any kind of answer, but they’re both staring down the corridor after Pidge in open-mouthed silence, and neither of them seems to even remember he’s there.

—

The sound of shouting gets Shiro’s attention, and he jumps to his feet, shoulders tensing, heart pounding against his ribs. Something must be wrong.

He takes off towards the common room at a run, listening for the commotion to continue, but everything seems to be quiet again, and he doubts it's a good sign. Maybe it’s not the most positive outlook on life, but in their current circumstances, it’s better to assume a disaster is ongoing until he sees it resolved with his own eyes.

As he nears the common room he drops his pace back to a quick walk, standing upright and ready to take control of the situation. His eyes dart around the room as he enters, taking it in. Hunk is sitting on the floor in front of some kind of dismantled machinery, Keith in a chair with one leg drawn up to his chest, Lance standing in the middle of the room clutching his face, and Katie - where’s Katie?

“What’s going on?” he demands, looking between the three other paladins. “Where’s Pidge? Lance, what’s the matter with your face?”

“He hit me,” Lance whines, and lowers his hands to reveal the side of his face, red and slightly swollen.

“Hit you?” Shiro asks, frowning, and looks to the others for confirmation. “Pidge?”

“He kind of deserved it,” Keith says quietly, looking away.

Hunk shrugs awkwardly. “I mean, I wasn’t gonna say it, but…”

“Come on, guys!” Lance says, pouting. “I was just teasing him! I thought we were bonding, or something!”

“Is that how you bond with people?” Keith asks under his breath. Lance shoots him a sullen look.

“Looks like he got you pretty good,” Shiro says, folding his arms.

“I didn’t even know he could hit that hard,” Lance says. “I mean, what’s he weigh, a hundred pounds?”

“Hm,” Shiro says. “Why don’t you come to the kitchen with me and we’ll get some ice for that.”

“Uh, I mean, I can go get it myself,” Lance says, his brows drawing together in confusion. “You don’t have to come with me.”

“I’m sure you can,” Shiro agrees, resting a hand on his shoulder and steering him towards the hall. “But I’d like to go along, just to be safe.”

Lance wilts slightly, dropping his gaze to the ground. “Okay,” he mumbles, and shuffles into the hallway with Shiro at his side.

When they’re around the corner, far enough not to be overheard, Shiro finally asks, “So, what exactly did you say to Pidge that made him angry enough to punch you?”

“It was just a joke,” Lance says again. “His voice cracked while he was talking, so I said he must be hitting puberty, but I didn’t mean to make him mad!”

“I know you didn’t,” Shiro says, keeping his voice careful and level. “But he just came up and hit you for that?”

“I mean, he got all surprised, and I told him I was just joking,” Lance says. “Only he still seemed all bent out of shape about it! So I said don’t take it so hard, he’ll be a man soon, and that’s when he hit me.”

Shiro takes a deep breath, in through his nose and out through his mouth in a heavy sigh. He knows Lance doesn’t know just how cruel his comments must have felt to Katie, but he still can’t let it slide entirely. “So, he was clearly upset by your joke, and you made another one?”

“I just…” Lance says, his shoulders slumping. “Wanted to diffuse the tension, ya know?”

They reach the kitchen, and Shiro ushers Lance to a chair while he goes to find ice, or something like it. “I understand,” he says. “I’ll talk to Pidge about it. But in the future, if a member of your team is upset by something you said, perhaps you should apologize instead.”

Lance hunches his shoulders, looking downcast. “I was just teasing,” he mumbles.

Shiro pulls some kind of cryopack out of the freezer, cold to the touch and faintly glowing. He’s not sure exactly what’s in this, but it’s safe enough to cool food, at least for Alteans; he hopes that’s not different for humans, not just for his purposes now but because they’ve all eaten food out of that freezer.

Wrapping it in a cloth, he hands it over to Lance and rests a hand on his shoulder again. “Thanks,” Lance says, still staring at the floor.

“I know you didn’t mean any harm,” Shiro tells him. “But not everyone takes well to being teased, and you can’t always know what someone might be sensitive about.”

“Sorry, Shiro,” Lance mutters, cradling the cold pack to the side of his face.

“I’m not the one you should be apologizing to,” he says firmly. “But if you want to make it up to me, you can do it by paying more attention to how the others are feeling, and treating them accordingly. These are your teammates, Lance, remember. You’ll work better together - and have an easier time forming Voltron - if you try to be aware of how your words and actions affect them.”

“Yes, sir,” Lance agrees, and nods. “I’ll try to pay more attention.”

“Good,” Shiro says, patting his shoulder, and gives him an encouraging smile. “You might want to give Pidge some time to cool off before you apologize, though. Maybe you could do it later this evening.”

“I guess so,” Lance says, looking a little put-out.

Shiro nods and turns away. “I’m going to go talk to him, as well,” he says. “Even if you did upset him, I don’t want my team resorting to violence like that.”

—

Pidge stares up at the ceiling above her bunk, her hands still curled into fists even laying at her sides. Her chest is so tight she feels like she can barely breathe, and tears are burning in her eyes, but they won’t seem to spill over even now that she’s stopped trying to fight them back.

Crying sucks, but not as much as not being able to cry.

She bites her lip, willing the tears to either fall or just go away already, but it doesn’t help. There’s a lump in her throat the size of her fist, and swallowing won’t make it go away, or make the knot in her stomach loosen.

Hearing her voice get all squeaky like that was bad enough. It’s not like she didn’t know it would happen, eventually, after her last injection wore off, but it doesn’t make it easier. The last thing she needs on top of it all is Lance taunting her for it.

A knock at the door brings her out of her thoughts, and she turns over to face the wall. “Go away,” she calls back, wrapping her arms around herself. “I don’t wanna talk.”

“Pidge,” says a voice from outside. Oh, quiznak. It’s Shiro. “Can I come in for just a few minutes?”

“I said go away!” she yells, her throat going tight as her voice strains, and she swallows hard again, her jaw trembling.

There’s a pause before Shiro speaks again. “I don’t want to give you orders, and I’d rather talk to you as your friend than as your commander, but this is important.”

She considers refusing again, but she knows it’s not Shiro she’s angry at. “Okay,” she says with a sigh. “I guess you can come in.”

The door hisses open, and then shut, and Shiro’s footsteps approach her bunk. After a long moment, he says, “I talked to Lance about what happened.”

“You didn’t hear what he said,” she snaps back without turning to look at him. “If you were there—“

“I would have told you both to take it easy,” Shiro tells her firmly. “I got the gist of it, between him and the others, and I already told him he was out of line. But I can’t have my crew coming to blows over a hurtful joke.”

She hunches her shoulders, wishing she could make herself small enough to just disappear. “Sorry, Shiro,” she mumbles to the wall.

He sighs. “You don’t need to apologize to me. Just try to do better.” He pauses for a moment again, and she can almost hear him thinking before he adds, quietly, “Would your father approve of that?”

She’d seen it coming, but it still feels like a blow to the gut. “You tell me,” she says, her voice trembling a little, her vision blurring.

“Katie…” Shiro says behind her.

She swallows hard, screwing her eyes shut. “Dad always hated violence,” she says. “But he also always said there are some people you can’t reason with.”

When Shiro doesn’t answer she turns to look at him, drawing her legs up to her chest as she sits up. He’s crouched a few feet away so he has to look up at her, his arms folded and resting on his knees, a serious look on his face.

“When I came out,” she continues after a moment, “he told me, ‘Katie, there are people out there who might try to hurt you for who you are. I’m going to do my best to protect you from them, but if I’m not there, you do anything you need to to protect yourself.’”

She sniffles and looks away.

“I know I shouldn’t have hit Lance,” she mumbles after a moment. “Even if he knew, I don’t think he’d hurt me. Not the way Dad meant, anyways. It’s just -“

Her throat goes tight and she tries to steady herself, taking a deep, careful breath.

“I was due for my next shot six months ago,” she says in a rush, “and Mom and I were talking before I ran away about how next year I could probably start hormones, and now I’m not gonna and everyone thinks I’m a boy now and - and - it sucks, is all.”

Shiro nods seriously, brows drawing together. “That’s got to be hard on you,” he agrees.

She chokes back a sob, the tears she’s been trying so hard to fight suddenly spilling over her cheeks. “I know I overreacted,” she manages thickly, “I should’ve kept my head, I’ve just been - so - so -“

“You’re going through a lot right now,” he says, and finally gives her a faint smile. “Trust me, I’ve been there.”

“You have?” she asks, unsure.

He nods again. “Once or twice. I know it’s easy to lose your temper when you’re under so much stress.”

Pidge laughs shakily, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. “I guess so,” she says. “Sorry for, um - all of...this.”

“You don’t have to be,” he assures her, and stands, crossing the room to rest a hand on her shoulder. “It’s alright, Pidge. It’s a leader’s job to be there for his team, no matter what they need.”

“Sounds like something my dad would say,” she replies, grinning up at him, and climbs to her feet to give him a hug.

—

Lance sighs as he heads down the hall towards Pidge’s room, his hands shoved in his pockets. Maybe the past two hours have given Pidge time to chill out, but he’s never been great at figuring out what to say to anyone ahead of time, so all Lance has to show for waiting is a bunch of nerves he doesn’t know what to do with and only the vaguest idea of what he’s going to talk about, despite Hunk’s attempts to offer advice.

Outside the door, he stops, rocks back and forth on his heels with a frown. Okay, come on, he tells himself, closing his eyes. All he’s gotta do is go in there and say he’s sorry and he won’t do it again. That’s not hard.

He takes a deep breath and knocks.

It’s a few seconds before the door opens, Pidge glaring up at him on the other side. “What?” he asks flatly, folding his arms.

“Uh,” Lance says, his mouth suddenly going dry. He must look pretty stupid, he realizes, standing here in the hallway gaping at Pidge. “Look, I,” he begins, shifting his weight uncomfortably. “I’m sorry, about earlier. For saying that stuff. I guess I was being kind of a jerk.”

“Oh, you think?” Pidge mutters, his voice all acid, and looks away.

“Okay, okay, I was definitely being a jerk,” he says, hunching his shoulders. “I shouldn’t’ve made fun of you. I guess--” He makes a face. “I guess maybe Keith’s right, that’s not how you bond with people. I mean, my brothers teased me for stuff all the time when I was younger, and my sisters too for that matter, but that’s kinda different, right?”

“Yeah,” Pidge sighs, and his skinny shoulders slouch.

“I guess I just thought, joking around and stuff usually makes people like you, you know?” Lance continues in a hurry. “But it’s not really - I mean, making people laugh isn’t the same as getting to know them, and since we’re, like, a team now, I guess we should… try to…”

He trails off, shaking his head. What the fuck is he even saying? This talk is getting into dangerous territory real fast, and anyways, he’s not here to talk about his feelings. Pull it together, he tells himself, trying to refocus.

“Anyways,” he says, “I just wanted to say sorry. I won’t - uh, I’ll try not to… make fun of you like that anymore.”

“Thanks,” Pidge says, and rubs the back of his neck. “Um… I’m sorry, too. For punching you, I mean. I shouldn’t have done that.”

“Thanks,” he says. “Man, to be honest? I’m kind of impressed! I didn’t think you could hit that hard.”

Pidge laughs at that, and Lance sighs, relieved that the tension seems to have passed. “Well,” Pidge says, “I guess I’m full of surprises.”

“So,” Lance says, offering his hand. “Are we cool?”

Pidge frowns again, looking him up and down. “You better not do it again,” he says after a moment. “I won’t deck you next time, but I will tell Shiro.”

“I won’t,” Lance says quickly. “I mean, not about that. I’m still gonna make fun of you for being a nerd, though.”

“That’s fair,” Pidge replies, and gives him a crooked smile. “Yeah, I guess we’re cool.”

Pidge is surprised by another knock at the door as she’s getting ready for bed, and she quickly pulls on her pajama top before calling, “Yeah?”

“Hey,” Shiro says as the door opens, peering inside. “Can I come in?”

“Sure,” she says, flopping down on her bed.

“How are you doing?” he asks, leaning against the wall as the door slides closed behind him. “Lance said he talked to you.”

“Yeah,” she replies, drawing her knees up to her chest. “He was actually pretty nice about it.” She laughs sheepishly and rubs the back of her neck, giving Shiro a rueful grin. “I mean, at least he admitted he screwed up, which was more than I expected.”

“I’m glad,” Shiro replies, smiling back faintly. “You seem like you’re feeling better, too.”

She nods. “Um,” she adds after a moment, “sorry for overreacting like that.”

“Come talk to me next time, alright?” he says, and takes a step closer to put a hand on her shoulder. “I’m happy to help sort out an argument, but I’d rather do it before it comes to blows.”

“Yes, sir,” she says, and looks down. “But, um… I don’t think there will be a next time, actually.”

“Oh?” he replies, raising an eyebrow.

“I’m...gonna tell the others,” she says. “That I’m a girl. Maybe - maybe not tomorrow, but… soon.”

His slight smile breaks into a grin. “That’s great,” he says, patting her shoulder firmly. “I’m proud of you, Katie. And I know your family would be, too.”

She laughs, taking off her glasses and setting them aside on the shelf above her bed. “Thanks,” she tells him. “And, you know - I’m actually pretty okay with Pidge.”

#pidge gunderson #katie holt #lance mcclain #vld pidge #vld lance #voltron legendary defender #vldfic #willwrites #katie holt is trans and there's nothing you can do about it.#belong to the sky verse

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meat-husband · 5 years

Note

How about Bubba titty-fuckin' his s/o? And while we're at it, how about some intercrural sex with that big Texan beefcake as well, please? I just think non-penetrative sex is hawt (as is your writing!) ^_~

Yessss I didn’t realize there was a fancy name for thigh fucking thank you lol. This shit is my jam!! I just went with thigh stuff because it was already getting out of hand, but if you want the titties too then hmu and I’ll do a separate one for that!

There is also going to be a part two, I’m going to fill another ask with the second half c;

It was only mid morning and you were already sweating, the dusty house building up heat like an oven. No else seemed too bothered by it, and Drayton had stubbornly insisted that the rattling ceiling fans weren’t needed despite your protests, so you had been left to suffer. Even though you hadn’t left the shade of the house, you had still managed to sweat through your clothes, pulling at the sticky fabric to keep it off of your skin. Once you heard the rumbling of the old truck leaving the house, you were turning those damn fans on no matter what anyone said.

But it was worse outside, in the hot sun where you knew Bubba was working, pinning up a new fence to keep the chickens in and coyotes out. He didn’t complain about the heat, or anything really, but you knew it had to be unbearable out there. There was no shade away from the shadow of the barn, and the rough work done under the sun was going to tire him out quickly. He was used to it, you knew, and had certainly gone his entire life without you around to worry and still done just fine, but you slipped on your shoes and headed out into the heat anyways. With a heavy pitcher of freshly made tea cradled in your arms, you picked your way across the hard, dead grass, following the noise until you came around the side of the house. A small group of hens scratching in the dirt next to the barn let you know you had found the right place - they had the whole yard to roam in, but they gravitated to Bubba, trotting after him like ducklings.

Coming around the side, you could see the damaged fencing, a big piece of chicken wire torn down from a splintering post. It wasn’t hard to spot Bubba either, but when you did an unexpected warmth flooded you. You stop in place, standing in the baking sun and getting warmer by the second, although this time you couldn’t place the blame on the weather.

Bubba was on his knees, bent forward to nail the wire onto the bottom of the wooden posts, hens clucking loudly around him. Sweat clung to him, trailing in thick lines down his back and sides, shirt abandoned in a dusty pile a few feet away. Although his arms were tanned, the pale skin of his shoulders and back were tinted pink, his own dark curls sticking out between the mask’s messy laces. Your eyes followed the plump curve of his belly as he turned, sitting up to grab another nail, thinking with a flushed face about how good it would feel to have that weight on top of you, pushing you down and into the dirt -

You clear your throat, stepping forward with a red face and clumsy feet, sloshing liquid over the rim and onto the grass. It was too hot and too early to be getting so excited already, and you knew there were plenty of chores waiting inside to take your mind off of it. Besides, Drayton was still home and you would rather not be caught red handed.

Bubba looks up as you approach, getting up with a delighted squeal to press a sweaty kiss to your hot cheek. You know your face is red, but hopefully he doesn’t think too much of it, because you can’t stop yourself from grabbing a handful of his side once he’s close enough. The flesh is slick and hot under your hand, and you know it’s not doing anything to calm you, but you dig your fingers in anyways. He smiles, putting an arm around you as well to bring you into a half hug, the full pitcher in your arms keeping him from embracing you fully.

Fumbling a little, you offer the plastic pitcher, pleased to see that you didn’t spill too much of it in your clumsiness.

“Thought you could use a break. Drayton just made it and I know how hot it is out here,” He reaches for it, but you pull it away at the last second, looking at him with a grin. “Let’s go sit in the barn for a bit.”

Bubba pauses for a moment, looking back at the still half mended fence, then back at you. He lets out a quiet mumble, questioning.

“It’ll only be a second, just to get out of the sun.”

You step away, heading towards the barn and knowing that he’ll follow. This is also something you shouldn’t be doing, but you tell yourself that a quick sit down in the shade won’t hurt.

The inside of the old building is only marginally cooler than outside, thick dust gathered around the edges of the room where piles of old junk lay, untouched for years. Most of the big equipment in here hasn’t been used for a long time, but there is a sturdy work table and an assortment of tools to one side, which you have seen each of the brothers use from time to time. It was a waste of space, in your opinion, but the Sawyers weren’t the kind of family that ever threw anything away.

“We should have a picnic once it cools down,” you say, settling in the tall stool by the table. “If it ever does.”

Bubba nods in agreement, eagerly taking the pitcher from you and popping open the plastic lid. The tea is half gone in the first two gulps, and he only stops then to offer you some.

“It’s for you,” you insist with a smile. “I’ll make more once I’m back in the house.”

You watch with eager eyes as he downs the rest of the tea, sweat rolling down his neck and chest, head thrown back. The mask he uses for working is thin and worn, sticking to his wet skin, throat bobbing heavily as he drinks. With a glance towards the doors, you wonder just how likely it is that Drayton will come out here looking for you before he leaves.

Another kiss lands on your forehead, soft words of thanks murmured into your hair. You can’t resist reaching out for him again, hooking a finger into one of the belt loops at his waist and tugging lightly. Your hands twitch, wanting to pull at the button instead, but you keep them still, tilting your head up to accept the next thankful kiss on your lips.

“Why don’t you sit down for a second, Bubba?” You suggest, sliding down from the stool. “You’ve been working all morning.”

You have to nearly push him to take the seat, ignoring his confused protests, patting his leg as he finally sits. Leaving your hand on his thigh, you give him a reassuring smile, standing on tiptoe to quickly peck him on the lips. Your smile widens as your hand slides up, squeezing at the meat of his thigh and drawing out a loud squeal, stopping just short of the hardening mound between his legs.

“You gotta be quiet,” you say lowly, massaging your fingers into his leg. “Don’t want no one to hear you.”

Eyes wide, Bubba nods quickly, hands gripping the sides of his seat with white knuckles. Despite your warning, the noises don’t die down much, even though you haven’t even done anything more than feel him up a little bit. The rumble of the truck leaving the house hasn’t sounded yet, but you’re willing to bet a potentially embarrassing interruption that no one will come snooping out here.

“Help me up,” you ask, holding your hands up towards his shoulders. He grabs at you eagerly, pulling you up into his lap and sitting you over one thick leg, leaning down immediately to press sloppy kisses to your mouth. You giggle against his lips, a hand on the back of your head bringing you in closer, the other grabbing handfuls of your skirt to hike it up to your waist. You help to pull your clothes out of the way, lifting your hips to slide the fabric out from under you, but he struggles against your attempts to pull away when you try to leave his mouth. A hungry whine leaves him, face nuzzling into the side of your neck when you finally break away from the kiss, licking the salt from your skin with a wet tongue.

The heat between your bodies only makes you warmer, sweat slicking your skin, but the damp spot between your legs has nothing to do with the heat. You go to pull at the waistband of your panties, eager to get the soaking fabric off, but Bubba stops you. He redirects your hand instead to his own waist, moaning and begging for you to undo the straining buttons. You pull at them lightly, bringing your other hand over to palm him through the rough fabric, but you don’t tease him for long, his desperate noises making you just as eager as he is to bring your flesh together.

You gasp when you feel the hot press of his cock against the side of your thigh and hands, matching his own groan of relief. With hurried hands you move to get rid of your panties, desperate now to have your cunt uncovered, but you’re stopped again, big hands turning you in his lap until your back is against his chest. Sweat soaks through the flimsy material on your back instantly, his wet chest pressed against you and arms around your middle keeping you there. Bubba makes no move to press his cock between your legs or help you finally disrobe, only pulling you back to sit more fully in his lap. You hold yourself steady by bracing your hands on his knees, legs pressed together and the almost uncomfortable bulge of him digging into your ass. Bubba huffs and groans behind you, arms around your waist to hold you down, huffing hot breath against your neck as he moves you in his lap, rocking back and forth.

“Bubba, please!” You whine, trying to get around the mass of his arms to remove the last bit of fabric covering you. He lifts you, tilting your whole body to the side with one arm, the other hand sliding under your ass to hook a finger around the crotch of your panties, and you let out a preemptive groan of satisfaction, anticipating the hot stretch of him entering you.

The groan turns to a half shriek of surprise, his cock sliding through your wet folds instead of into them, nudging forward until the dark pink head pops out from between your thighs, nestled into the groove of your cunt. As he presses up his cockhead strains against the front of your panties and tents them out, away from your hips. You squirm in his lap, feeling him draw back slightly and the flared head bumping against your clit when he thrusts against you. There is a thrum of panic alongside the pleasure that twists in your stomach, a needy feeling that isn’t quite satisfied by the light friction you’re getting now. You have to fight against his hold, wiggling until your hips are angled down enough that the length of his cock is dragged over your hard nub with every thrust, but it’s worth the heavy, full feeling that starts to build in your abdomen.

Bubba kisses at your neck, mouth worrying at your skin with pointed teeth, half screaming into your ear with each hard push against you. The stool creaked ominously under you both as he bucked his hips, but neither of you even think of stopping. You watch with a parted mouth and eager eyes each time he pushes through the meat of your thighs, leaking precum and spreading your own wetness between your legs, until the push and pull is almost effortless, slick and hot.

“Does that feel good, Bubba?” You pant, knowing that it must, judging by the way his cock twitches and drools, a wet mess sliding down your legs and staining your panties further. He gives you a muffled stream of nonsense in response, arms lifting and bouncing you in his lap to meet his frantic rutting from below. It felt strange almost, to have the heavy weight of him slamming into you, skin meeting with loud slaps, but your cunt clenched around nothing.

The hard pressure against your clit was good, but you tense your thighs, tightening around him in an effort to make it better. You cross your ankles, flexing the muscles in your legs, making a smaller space for him to try and fuck up into. Bubba squeals behind you, snorting and gasping, spit and sweat trailing down your neck and back. He kisses and licks at your neck, throwing himself wildly into you, and you feel the first throbbing pulses that signal his release, flesh twitching against your own.

“Go on, Bubba,” you moan, bringing a hand down to rub your thumb over the slit in his pink head through your own panties. “You’ve been a good boy, go on.”

His thrusting stops, the muscles under you trembling as he holds himself up, whole body still and rigid. You jolt when the first hot pulse of cum leaves him, a sticky mess trailing down to pool at the apex of your thighs. His arms around you are suffocating, holding you too tight, but you don’t scold him. Squeals and howling cries echo from behind you and a brief feeling of jealousy hits you. Your own unfulfilled sex throbs against him, displeased with the sudden lack of friction and pressure, but you wait it out, letting him spill as much as he wants over your thighs and cunt.

Bubba slowly goes limp, arms loosening and head dipping down to rest on your shoulder. His breathing is heavy, warm huffs and pants against your skin, and you want to let him rest, but you’re too impatient.

“Bubba,” you cry out, wiggling in his lap and stroking your thighs over his softening dick. “It’s my turn now.”

#slashers #bubba sawyer #slasher x reader #female reader #if there are any mistakes or words that are where they shouldnt be blame google docs #it is very against me trying to write smut and keeps autocorrecting everything #god i just wanna sit on big sweaty bubs thats all i ask #bill gates should be using his millions to bring us the technology that will allow me to do so

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cami-chats · 4 years

Text

My Blood Red Heart

Written for @marvelpolyshipbingo

Rating: Teen

Warnings/Triggers: Winter Soldier/Red Room mentions

Pairings: Tony Stark/Bucky Barnes/Natasha Romanoff

Summary: Bucky recognizes his forgotten soulmate while in the middle of a fight. Natasha saves him, they save the day, and Tony invites them back to the Tower. Falling for her was easy, so why not fall for him too?

Square Filled: B2-Murder Strut

Read on AO3 or below

The Soldier watched her run away, but there was no satisfaction in it, not when she was severely outgunned and still had the time to toss that fucking smirk over her shoulder as she went. She was the bigger threat. The target had gone down. He'd get back up, the Soldier knew that, but she could actually stop them if she wanted. She'd tricked him, and the only thing that had saved him was luck. She'd hit the glasses instead of an inch higher; that wasn't because of anything he'd done.

His eyes followed her. She was taking a fairly straight path which would've been a mistake if she wasn't so obviously trying to prevent civilian casualties. "I have her," he said. If they went after her, they wouldn't even make it a full minute. "Find him." He vaulted over the concrete wall and landed on top of a car with a crash that made his legs ache for a moment.

She ducked between two cars before he could raise his gun, and there were more cars on the other side of an overturned bus-- a miniature maze where the prize was pulling the trigger first. He strode to the other side of the road with sure steps, then slowed, glancing back and forth and listening for the smallest sound. She was too good to have loud steps, but he should be able to- he came to a stop. She was talking quietly, but it was enough. Calling for reinforcements wouldn't be enough to save her, but it could save the two men she'd been in the car with if the team accompanying him felt particularly useless today.

He reached to his back with his left hand, fingers catching on a small bomb. He lowered himself and rolled it towards her, then straightened and raised his gun again; there was no way the bomb alone would kill her as she'd see it and dodge, but that would leave him with an opportunity. There was something familiar about her, more familiar than that shield the target had used on the bridge. His handler would mention it during the debrief, most likely, so he didn't need to think about it. The explosive went off and he tightened the gun to his shoulder, only to be thrown off balance when something hit the side of him and knocked the gun out of his hands.

He didn't have the chance to get his feet under him before he heard the quick whir of a garrote wire, and he shoved his hand up near his neck. It just barely caught the wire in time, grinding against the metal of his hand, and as he tried to find his center again, the familiarity struck him again, more distinct than before. He stumbled backward and she hit a car with a grunt, but her grip didn't loosen. For a moment he tried to get the wire completely away, but the angle was bad and she had too much leverage where she was hanging off his shoulders. With his free hand, he reached up and gripped with the intent of throwing her over his shoulder. He started to, and then he froze, memories hitting him straight in the stomach like a brick.

She fell barely a foot away from his aborted move.

"Natasha," he gasped, and she stopped, half a second from throwing something at him. His eyes were wide, and he didn't know- what the hell was going on? He stumbled back half a step, bumping into the car again, and this time he didn't move.

She got to her feet, still holding that small disc in her hands. Her expression was hopeful but her body language was wary, angled so that she could throw it at him and make a run for it if she needed. Smart, but she'd always been smart. "Yasha," she returned evenly.

"What the hell is going on?" he asked, and he didn't even care how desperate it came out.

She glanced over his shoulder nervously, then back at him. "Not now, we need to leave."

He didn't know how to think about where he was or how he'd gotten to this specific point in time, but he could get them out. Leaving was easy. They started to run, moving together like no time had passed since they'd been on the same side. No words were necessary; when Natasha moved one way, he knew it meant they were about to take a hard left, and they moved in tandem. The deafening sound of a mini gun spitting bullets started, but it wasn't at them. She glanced towards the noise, slowly an almost unnoticeable amount.

He grabbed her arm and made her keep pace, gruffly saying, "They'll be fine." The target was up, and without him the others didn't stand a chance. If they took too long, there would be news sites coming to film, and they wouldn't be able to kill him; they would definitely take too long, the idiots.

They made it far enough away, he took off the mask, and she lifted a hoodie for him. In DC, there wasn't really such a thing as 'out of the way'. Where there wasn't video surveillance, there were guards, and most of the time there were both. So when they stopped to try and formulate a plan, it wasn't because they were completely hidden, it was because they were as out of the way as they could be. There weren't any safe houses that would actually be safe. Fury was dead-- god, Bucky had killed him, he hadn't thought about it at the time, but that had been the last major defense against Hydra and he'd shot that chance without a though-- Hill was in the wind likely dead, and Rogers and Wilson were the ones in need of rescue.

Natasha let out a frustrated breath. "We need backup." But there wasn't any.

"What about Stark?"

Natasha looked at him sharply. "We aren't dragging him into this mess."

Bucky raised an eyebrow, staring at her flatly. "Right. Hydra taking over won't effect him at all." He knew it had been a damn long time since he'd known her, but since when did she care about people this way? Stark could more than take care of himself-- the multiple failed assassination attempts by Hydra were proof enough about that-- and if he could take care of himself, there was no reason for her to be worried. No reason that Bucky could think of right now, at least.

"We aren't in New York."

"He has a flying suit," Bucky said drily.

"We have no way of contacting him," she tried.

Bucky held up a phone he'd swiped from someone's bag-- they'd survive, they had another one for some reason. Hoodie pockets were great. He also had a couple snacks in there, but they were for after Natasha made the phone call that would save their asses. He cared about whatever was holding her back, but not more than he cared about their lives.

With a regretful sigh, she snatched the phone from his hand and dialed, the number clearly memorized to perfection even though she couldn't have had much cause to use it.

It was several, long rings before Tony answered, a confused, "Hello?"

"It's Natasha." There was a shy, hesitant quality to her voice, and Bucky wondered when he'd stop being surprised by things now that he was... himself again.

A pause, then, in a tone too casual to be genuine, Tony said, "You know, there was some footage of that epic battle you just got into. I know some drivers can be dumb, but I think you took it a little too hard this time. You gotta learn to take deep breaths and let it go. Maybe we should pencil you in for some meditation time with Bruce. So Steve and that other guy-- you know, the handsome one in the green shirt, he looks kinda familiar, maybe he should drop by when all is said and done-- got taken in by some people in SHIELD uniforms, and you vanished. I'd be offended you didn't call me in to join the party, but I'm guessing that's what this is. Unless you wanted to RSVP for the New Years party. Six months early is a bit much, but you spy types are always on top of things."

Natasha smiled, but her tone was clear of it when she responded. "Not sure about New Years yet, but we could use some support down here."

"Already in the suit. Where are you?"

"What, you can't trace the call?"

"Not while I'm tracking the transport that has Stevie-boy in it. Am I grabbing him or you first?"

"Him. Yasha and I can survive a little longer without you."

"Who the hell is Yasha?"

Natasha's eyes flickered to Bucky. "Long story."

"Okay," Tony said, drawing out the second syllable to show how much he didn't like that brushoff. "This number good to reach you at?"

"We'll hold on to it until we hear from you." Normally she would ditch it right away, but there was no point when they had no other way to contact him.

"I'd tell you when to expect a call except I'm breaking my own safety protocols right now, so maybe I'll die in a fiery twist of metal like my nanny always predicted. Stay safe," he said, then hung up.

"You're close," Bucky noted.

"Not really," she said, but she had to know that he could tell when she was lying. It was probably a soulmate thing that he always knew when she was telling the truth and when she wasn’t, because she'd always been able to fool handlers.

Bucky didn't say anything to that, just pulled a cap from his hoodie pocket and offered it to her.

She put it on and looped her hair through the hole in the back. "I did a profile on him right after Iron Man. We talk, but he doesn't trust me."

"Anyone other than me trust you?" he asked, arm around her shoulders as they started walking again.

"A few people." The one that recruited her to SHIELD. Fury, before he had died, maybe Hill as well. Steve might. He'd seen something about the Avengers before, but they seemed more like individuals with a common goal than a team. The fact that Natasha hadn't automatically called them was proof enough that they weren't a team.

By the time the dust settled, it was obvious that Hydra had counted on Iron Man being out of the way. Bucky could recall some of Hydra talking about the Mandarin and the aftermath keeping Stark busy, but he didn't think that was important to share. Iron Man was there, a hell of a lot more firepower and brainpower than they'd planned for. Fury was alive and Hill was with him, which explained where they'd been at the start of this mess. Well, Fury was barely alive. He'd kind of been shot to hell, and Bucky made eye contact with him exactly once to make sure he wasn't taking it personally. Maybe Fury trusted Natasha, but Bucky was part of the much larger group of 'everyone else' aka 'people he didn't trust'.

It was ridiculously impressive how much everyone trusted Natasha actually. She might think she was untrustworthy, but everyone in the room believed in her. Proof? They'd all given Bucky suspicious looks and Stark had outright asked why they were trusting the guy that had been attacking them a couple hours ago, and all Natasha had to say was, "He's on our side," to shut them up.

"Anyone need a place to stay?" Tony asked. Then, without waiting for an answer, "Of course you do. You-" he pointed at Fury and Hill "-lost your fancy carriers and compromised your entire organization. And you three-" Steve, Natasha, and Sam, but not Bucky since he'd basically been a Hydra attack dog "-lost your homes when they fucked up. C'mon, the tower's great. Pepper won't even be able to get mad at me for inviting all of you back."

"Why would Pepper be mad at you?" Steve asked.

"She doesn't like half of you. Natasha's her buddy, but she doesn't know Sam or Bucky. You SHIELD higher ups though, you're on thin ice. Something about paperwork and an inefficient organization, I don't really know."

As they'd been doing all day, they just listened to Tony and followed after him. It was easy to do that when Tony was constantly proving to make the right decisions. Besides, who else were they going to listen to? Fury? He was the only other one with ideas, but right now he was bedridden, so his usual intimidation tactics didn't work. Plus he had a hell of a lot of work to do to rebuild SHIELD, and none of them needed to be there for that.

Tony decided that instead of flying out to the Tower and grabbing the quinjet to get all of them, they were just going to drive. Bucky wasn't allowed, Sam refused, and Steve was banned from ever driving when Tony was around. Natasha could have, but Tony offered then went off to find a rental. Which meant that none of them got to complain when he showed up in a minivan with a gleeful smile. Of course, that did mean that no one sat in the front seat next to him since Sam and Steve had paired off and Natasha wasn't letting Bucky out of arm's reach.

"This is fun," Tony said. "It's like I'm the mom-friend of the group. Wait until Rhodey hears about this, he'll mock you all silly, normally I'm the one that has to deal with that. And since none of you are in the passenger seat and get to complain, you have to deal with my music." He turned on something with lots of drums and screeching guitars, but after the first song he switched it to only be sounding in the front.

The rest of them were silent for most of the drive. Steve was trying to process the fact that Bucky was alive but was nothing like how he'd used to be. They wouldn't be able to talk about it with everyone here, and that was if they talked about it at all. Bucky was closed off, silent and brooding. Natasha had mentioned the phrase 'tall dark and handsome' before, and he was pretty sure that was the category Bucky fell into now, as opposed to well groomed and a gentleman like he'd been before.

Sam... well Bucky didn't know Sam all that well, but he was probably thinking about how weird it was that one day he'd been having breakfast and the next he was in a minivan with half the Avengers plus a newly retired Hydra assassin. That had to mess with anyone. As for Bucky and Natasha, well, they were used to not talking.

"Sorry I ripped the steering wheel out," Bucky said to Sam.

Sam grunted. He probably wanted an apology for trying to kill him, but Bucky would spend the rest of his life saying that to people if he started now so he didn't care very much.

"He's grumpy because he hasn't had something to eat all day," Natasha said.

"That sounds like an excuse to go to McDonald's," Tony called from the front, opting to yell over the music rather than turn it down. But he did turn it down when he got to the drive thru window because he was a nice guy. And because he was an even nicer guy, he got burgers for everyone, not just himself and Sam. But he was the only one that got a milkshake. Not that Bucky or Natasha minded, but he hadn't even offered. It was the principle of the matter.

"Do they know about you?" Bucky asked her in a low tone. Steve, with his enhanced hearing, would've been able to make out the words if he spoke Russian.

"No."

"You going to tell them?"

"It hasn't come up."

Bucky snorted. Just because no one had directly asked her if she was enhanced didn't mean the topic hadn't come up. She was on a team with other enhanced people, they had definitely talked about it before.

Natasha wrote down a quick summary instead of a full report. "SHIELD has bigger problems than the specifics of how they fell," was her excuse, and Bucky couldn't agree more. Steve, on the other hand, wrote down every little detail. He didn't send it anywhere, so it was likely a way for him to work through what had happened. Not that Bucky was around by the time he finished. Tony went to the kitchen then his workshop, and Sam stuck close to Steve's side. Whether that was because he was nervous or some other-- maybe soulmate related-- reason, he wasn't sure.

Natasha either had a regular room she crashed in, or she just knew which rooms were available for use, because she dragged Bucky off to one of them without checking with Stark. She locked the door as soon as they were both inside, then pointed at a door off to the side. "If you want to get cleaned up."

Bucky didn't, really. He didn't want to do much of anything because that meant dealing with everything he couldn't remember and what he'd missed. But he'd always been able to listen to her, and right now was no exception. He walked towards the bathroom and started stripping off his tac vest. All the knives and guns lined up on a side table by the bed-- less than he should've had, he was running low after the fight-- before he went all the way into the bathroom.

Memories were like sand-- you thought it was all gone until you shifted and found some more. It wasn't much, just the feeling whenever he untied his boots and pulled off his pants; it had been a while since he'd been able to do this in private. After the Red Room, he'd been kept on a damn short leash. Hydra didn't know what to do with him after that. Going on ice had hurt and made it worse for their long term plans for him. Wiping him hurt, but it did help them out temporarily. He'd been a weapon. Not an assassin, not the Fist of Hydra like Pierce had taken to calling him. A weapon, meticulously cleaned and maintained. Slight chinks were overlooked because he had still been the best weapon they had, even dealing with the issues that consistently and continuously cropped up.

The shoes had blood and dirt, and everything had been drenched in water at one point. Air drying was bullshit and made him feel crusty. He didn't really know how good laundry machines were, but the black of his pants covered any bloodstains that were there so it might not matter in the end.

He stepped in the tub and turned on the water. Did he know how to work it? No, but it's not like hot water from a shower faucet could burn him. When the water first came on, it was freezing, but it turned warm quickly. Perks of using a rich fella's shower. He saw Natasha come in, and she closed the bathroom door. Her clothes really were ruined. She hadn't had her suit, so she was in the same clothes that she'd had on the interstate. Civilian clothes couldn't take a pounding for shit. The mud probably wouldn't come out, and the blood definitely wouldn't; as she undressed, she tossed the clothes directly into the trashcan.

There was dirt crusted into her hair. She probably wasn't happy about that, said it reminded her of wading through a sewer-- Bucky never had asked why she knew how that felt when she'd been in the Red Room since she was eight. She joined him in the shower, sliding the distorted glass door across so they were closed off. She leaned her forehead against his back, neither of them moving.

"Do we have any clothes?"

"There are extras in the closet."

She hadn't checked since they entered, so she must have known that from past experience. Bucky sighed, grabbing the soap and rubbing it quickly across his chest and under his arms. It smelled pretty and floral, and it felt far too expensive. In the past fifty years, he'd had the type of soap that his healing factor had to work on. Effective in cleaning, but it stung like hell.

Natasha helpfully moved her head from where she'd been leaning against him, but otherwise she did nothing, enjoying the steam and the company.

A minute later, Bucky tried to move out of the way for her, but she stopped him with a hand on his waist and a raised eyebrow. "You're not getting out with your hair like that."

Like what? His hair was fine.

Natasha rolled her eyes like she'd been able to hear that and grabbed a blue bottle from the shelf. She squirted some of the shampoo-- also floral, dear lord, Bucky was going to smell like a fucking bouquet when he got out-- into her hand and started lathering it into Bucky's hair. He closed his eyes, ostensibly to make sure none of it got in, and leaned into her hands. She spent more time massaging his scalp than was strictly necessary, but he wasn't going to complain and she wasn't going to mention it either.

"Rinse," she said, so Bucky tilted his head back and started to work on getting all the suds out.

And after that, it was only fair to do her hair for her too. They stayed in there for a long time, but the water didn't turn cold-- perks of staying with someone rich. It was a good thing that they had nowhere to go, because now he didn't have to ask Natasha if they could stay; they had to.

Bucky dried off then collapsed on the bed without bothering to look for those clothes Natasha had mentioned. Chances were they wouldn't fit anyways. Natasha got under the covers next to him. Then she sighed. "I left the light on."

Bucky got up before she could do more than start to move, and he turned the light off before going back to bed. The mattress was like a goddamn marshmallow, the sheets a higher thread count than anything he'd touched before, and the blanket was already warming him up. It would be wonderful if it wasn't so different that it threw him off kilter. He didn't bother staying there for long before he got down and laid on the floor.

"Mm Yasha, what're you doing?"

"Sleeping," he grumbled.

She pushed herself up and scooted more towards his side of the bed, peering over the side at him. Enhanced eyesight was a perk of the serums they'd both been given. She couldn't make out his expression or exactly where his nose was, but she could see him. He was on his side, looking just as at ease as he'd ever been. Natasha liked the fluffy bed. What she would like even more, was to be next to Yasha while she slept; she always slept better when she wasn't by herself. So even though she'd been looking forward to an overly comfortable bed after months on SHIELD standard bedding, she got to her feet, pulling the blanket with her.

Bucky lifted his head when he saw her moving, and he snorted when she laid down next to him. She was even nice enough to share the blanket with him. She wrapped an arm around his waist after she got all her hair out of the way. "Get some sleep."

Tony felt like pounding his head against the wall. So he did. He was an absolute, complete, total idiot for falling in love with Natasha. The only interest she'd ever shown in him was when she'd been undercover, and she hadn't trusted him for the longest time after that. He tried so hard to let her know that she could ask him for anything, and he didn't even care that it came off as desperate because he was and she certainly knew that.

The long lost Bucky Barnes and assassin for Hydra was her boyfriend. That was not as big a surprise as the guy being alive in the first place, and he cared more about the first part than the second because he'd already known that he didn't stand a chance with her.

Thankfully, everyone had come back to the Tower with him, so he didn't have to do anything pesky like stalk them to ask what he wanted to know. He was going to make breakfast as a peace offering (and also bring Barnes clothes because he definitely did not have a bag with him, and no way in hell was he going to be able to fit in what Nat had).

The only problem with this plan was that it was nighttime. Tony sighed and headed to the workshop. "J, set an alarm for six thirty tomorrow morning, I need to remember to order breakfast."

"Of course, sir."

"Thanks buddy." Tony walked through the doors, and DUM-E activated from his charging station, wheeling out with a questioning beep. "Don't worry, kiddo, daddy's going to get some work done. Back to sleep with you."

DUM-E, of course, didn't listen, and instead went to finish arranging the spare parts Tony had around for the cars. Since he wasn't going to be in the way doing that, Tony let him have his fun and opened up a few internet windows. Time to get to work on that mess Hydra had made.

The time flew by when JARVIS gave him the set alarm, and even though Tony wasn't anywhere near done, he figured a break to recharge couldn't hurt, especially when the dealings with humans were more time sensitive.

They woke up when someone knocked on the door. Natasha groaned, then yelled, "What!" in the direction of the door.

"It's Tony! I was hoping for a little breakfast, maybe some juice, maybe the explanation about how you know Cap's old buddy!" A pause. "Or how he's alive, that would be good too!"

Natasha groaned, then yelled back, "We'll meet you in the kitchen!" She planted her face against Bucky's chest for a moment, then pushed herself up. "Do you have answers for him?"

"You know as much as I do," Bucky mumbled, rubbing at his face.

"Great," she said, stretching. There were clothes around here somewhere, she just needed to find them and hope they were big enough for Bucky to fit into. If not, well, he'd dealt with far worse than walking around in tight pants. As it turned out, there were only clothes fit to Natasha's size, and he wouldn't be able to squeeze into any of that. "I'll go ask Steve for some extras," she said, opening the door, only to pause. Right outside was a stack of jeans and a t-shirt. "Nevermind." She picked them up and turned back around, kicking the door shut. She tossed them at Bucky and he caught them, then slid them on.

"I don't really remember Steve," he said, zipping up the pants. "I don't remember what I was doing on the bridge."

"What do you remember?"

"The Red Room. Some of our missions afterwards. I... remember they-" he stopped. They'd found out about him and Natasha, and they'd sent him away because both of them were too valuable-- too well trained-- to kill. After that, just shadows of what he'd done. It was like trying to remember the details of a book he'd read years ago. He remembered a chair with jolts of electricity, he remembered the new order of Hydra and how they'd tried to convince him he was one of them, and he remembered ice. Flashes that didn't make sense. He didn't really remember Steve. More like a memory of a story he'd heard once. That wasn't what Steve would want to hear, he knew that much. "I don't remember anything important," he ended up saying.

She looked at him for a minute; she knew he was holding something back, but she didn't press him about it. And that, right there, was why they got along so well. He didn't want to talk about it, and she knew that if she waited long enough, he'd bring it up again. Not that he wanted to admit that he'd bring it up again, but, well, they both knew better. "We might as well go to breakfast before Tony thinks we abandoned him." She opened the door and Bucky followed her automatically.

Tony was munching on toast when they came in, and he pushed the massive jug of orange juice towards them. "I always thought one vintage super soldier was enough for a group, but I guess I'll have to reconsider."

Bucky shrugged as he picked up the jug. Natasha put a glass between him and the orange juice, so he redirected and poured some in the glass. "Hydra experiments," he said nonchalantly. He drained the glass, then refilled it. "Fucks with your mind sometimes." And that's all he was going to say about it.

Tony must have picked that up, because he accepted it. "Yeah, fuck Hydra, I think that's something we can all agree on. Not that I really care," he lied, "but how do you and Natasha know each other? She never worked for Hydra."

"A lot of organizations help Hydra without working for them," Natasha said, and that was all she planned on saying too.

"Do all spies have trouble answering questions like normal people, or is it just the two of you?"

"When was the last time Clint answered a question straight that wasn't about food?" Nat countered.

"You've got a point, but it doesn't match my annoyance with you so I'm going to pretend it's not true."

Bucky snorted. No one bothered to tell him the really good things. Natasha was here, and obviously that was nice, but couldn't she have mentioned that Tony was funny? He'd kinda thought coming here would only lead to avoiding Steve, not actually enjoying anything else.

Tony had ordered in, so he uncovered one of the breakfast platters and took a little for himself, then pushed the rest towards Nat. Then he opened a completely full one for Bucky. He haphazardly tossed forks into the containers, but it didn't look like he'd be surprised if they shoved their faces straight in. Whatever, he was starting with bacon anyways, he didn't need a fork for that.

"Steve's not an easy person to keep out," Tony continued between new bites and half chewed food. "You don't have to talk to him today, and not about anything important, but when he starts cracking heads in, mine will be the first to go. You may not care about that, but I don't have a healing factor so I'd like to avoid all this possible damage."

"He wouldn't hurt you," Natasha said, rolling her eyes.

"That's what you think; he likes you."

"He likes you too."

"Not as much. I think it's the hair, he prefers long and luxurious over well sculpted beards. I think it's a bullshit forties thing."

"It's not," Bucky said. He didn't have any evidence for that, but he was pretty sure Steve had been unable to grow a beard for a while. After the serum that was probably fixed, but he wasn't over it. Or at least, that was his leading theory. Personally, Bucky had always liked a little facial hair.

"Oh yeah? You like the beard?" Tony asked with a wink.

"What's not to like?" he responded, and maybe it was a little too easy for him to say that. Natasha was too good to stare at him straight out for it, but he could tell that it perked her interest.

"You like him," she said as soon as they were alone, back in the relative privacy of their room.

"You love him."

They stared at each other.

"I have a crush," he said softly. "He's handsome and doesn't look at me like he expects something."

More silence. This should be the part where she admitted why she loved him. Bucky had never been the jealous sort, if only because that wasn't the sort of relationship they'd had. It had been intense and all consuming, but when she was working missions there wasn't room for that shit.

"I don't care." It doesn't matter if she loved someone other than him, they were still together. Another bedmate, another partner... they still had each other at the end of the day, and that was the only part he cared about. "You love him," he said again, more gentle than before. Gentle was never something he'd been good at, but it felt like what the situation needed so he tried.

Natasha swallowed. "Love is for children." And she'd never thought she had enough innocence to make it work. She didn't seem to realize that there was more to it than that. Oh when dealing with other people, she knew, but when it came to herself, it's like she forgot all the facts, all the statistics, all the reasons people behaved the way they did-- why she behaved the way she did. He understood it all too well, but that didn't mean he knew how to help.

"Is that what we had?" he mused. "Love?" Like jealousy, they hadn't worked in terms of 'love', but that was a different time for them. Already, he was settling into old patterns. He didn't quite remember why or what those patterns were, but he could feel himself sinking into them.

"Had?"

Bucky shrugged. "Have. You can't tell me you know what we're doing."

"We're... existing."

"Then why would I have a problem with you 'existing' with Tony too?"

"You're not jealous," she snorted.

That didn't even require a response; of course he wasn't. "That's my point."

She looked at him for a long moment, then shook her head.

He didn't bring it up again. Not later that night, not the next day, not the next week, and not at any point in the next month when they stayed at the Tower without really meaning to. It's just that leaving would mean having to figure out what-- if anything-- they wanted to do other than clean up after Shield. Staying meant Natasha could go about her life almost as if nothing had changed, and Bucky was able to catch up with Steve and work out the stupid amount of energy he had; staying on ice and being half starved meant he was never restless, but Tony kept insisting that he eat until he was full and this was the result-- fuck Tony.

So when Bucky finally got an official answer from Natasha, it was over a month after he asked. Bucky was sharpening knives in the living room, all of them spread out on the carpet next to him on the ground. She sat on the couch behind him and said, "You're right."

Of course, he had no fucking idea what that meant, because they hadn't been talking about anything this could apply to today. "About?"

"Tony."

Unfortunately, that didn't clear it up for him. He said a lot about Tony, and he already knew he was right about all of it.

They sat in silence for a minute before she elaborated. "How I feel about him."

"Yeah." A month wasn't that long for an admission. Tony might disagree if they ever got around to telling him, but he was what, forty? Natasha was twice that, and Bucky was maybe older, depending on how you calculated it.

"You like him too."

"Course I do, I already told you that."

"You said it was a crush," she said, and the implication hung heavy in the air. It had only been a crush when he said it, because he was Tony fucking Stark, and he was Iron Man, and he was gorgeous, and he'd seen shit but still grinned every day like it didn't matter. Tony made everything easy but let you pretend it wasn't, and Bucky fell for him in the same way. Cause honestly, who the hell saw the Winter Soldier and decided they could force him to go to a carnival just to hold all the prizes they won? Tony, that's fucking who. Not that Bucky had gone alone, he'd dragged Natasha along, ostensibly so he wasn't suffering by himself but she'd definitely known better and Tony probably had too.

The slight tightness in his chest was completely irrational; Natasha already knew what it had become, and she was just as okay with it as Bucky was with her own feelings. It was a conditioned response to admitting anything he cared about though, so he swallowed past it and said, "Was."

"Are we telling him?"

The knife made a clear sound against the stone as he slid it along the edge. "Why bother?"

"He... might be interested."

Bucky hummed noncommittally. It's not that he thought she was wrong, but he didn't think it would go anywhere good. Tony was... different. He wasn't like them. He was a hero, they were ex-Soviet assassins that did good things mostly by accident-- well, he did, Natasha actually tried. And if he was interested and they did end up with it going towards a future together, Tony was still going to end up dead long before both of them. That wasn't something he wanted to get caught up in. It just... wouldn't be worth it. Tony was worth a whole goddamn lot, but Bucky didn't want to invite that kinda heartbreak.

Sometimes it felt like Natasha could read his mind, because she leaned forward, hair swishing against his ear and pressing a soft kiss to his temple. "You-" another kiss, this time to his cheek "-are so-" a kiss to his jaw "-stupid."

"Thanks?"

"If you don't have a good reason, we're telling him."

"And if I say it makes me uncomfortable?"

She kissed his cheek again before leaning back to her former position. "I would say you're lying and that means I don't have to listen to you. So don't try that."

"Could I say anything to stop this?"

Natasha curled a hand up his next to tangle her fingers in his hair. She scratched lightly at his scalp, and he stopped trying to sharpen his knives to enjoy it. "I'm not trying to force you into this. But I thought it was something we both wanted. I've seen the way you look at him, and there's no reason he wouldn't fit between us."

"Don't say it like that or he'll think you mean sex."

"Is that a yes?"

"You know it is."

Natasha hummed. "I suppose we'll have to plan how to ask him."

He picked his hands back up and went back to work. "You're overthinking it. We ask him to dinner as a date, and that's our answer."

"Tony, would you like to go to Geraldi's tonight?" Natasha asked. Tony was hunched over the shop's table working, Bucky was working on one of his cars, and Natasha was stacking the items in the fridge until Bucky wanted help.

"Sure."

"As a date?"

Tony's head popped up, frowning. He looked at her, then Bucky, then back to her. "Uh. Did I miss something?"

"Not as far as I know," Bucky said from where he was putting a muffler together.

"Okay," Tony said slowly.

"Great! We'll leave here at seven."

Tony opened his mouth to say that that's not what he'd meant, but he closed it a moment later, frowning. "Seven, got it." He'd figure out what was going on later. For now, he was going to finish what he was doing. As for later, he was going to enjoy dinner when it happened because he fucking loved Geraldi's, and he wasn't going to let the impossibility of it being a date ruin the food.

Bucky said something, but it was in Russian, and all Tony knew in Russian was 'more vodka' and 'take me home'; it hadn't really been a problem until now. "That wasn't very clear."

"It was clear enough."

Bucky snorted, and Tony looked over in worry. "Not you, doll. Tricking him into saying yes does not count."

Natasha scowled at him. "I'll make it clear over dinner."

"I thought we didn't want him to misunderstand. He'll think that's sex."

Her scowl deepened.

"Is something wrong?" Tony asked, concerned.

"No," they said together.

That did not make him feel better. He sighed and went back to what he was doing. It wasn't exactly soothing, but it was something to do other than worrying about whatever the hell they were talking about.

Tony drifted off to sleep, and Natasha looked over to see Bucky glaring at her.

"What?" she hissed.

"You said he wouldn't misunderstand," Bucky accused. Quietly, of course, because he didn't want to wake Tony up.

"And he didn't!"

"You're not supposed to have sex on the first date, even I know that."

"Don't be so judgmental, lots of people do that. And we've known him for a while, so it's hardly a first meeting. We went on a date and then we came home and had sex, that's a perfectly reasonable first date when we've been friends for so long!"

Bucky's glare deepened. "Wait and see, tomorrow he'll wake up and try to sneak off."

"No he won't."

"He will. He thinks it was a one night affair, you don't stick around after those."

"We're in his bed!"

"And that won't stop him!"

They stopped having a whispered argument over his body as they switched to just glaring at each other over his body. If he woke up right now, he would get quite the view.

"Go to sleep, Yasha."

"We fucked this up," Bucky grumbled.

"If he tries to leave, lay on top of him."

"What? Why can't you do it?"

"You way a hundred pounds more. Don't be a baby," she said, then laid down so Bucky couldn't argue with her further.

"Hmph." He laid down, curling into Tony's warmth. It was easier to do with Natasha since she knew he wanted that and could accommodate it, but after curving in as much as he could without achieving his goal, he hoped Tony wouldn't mind if Bucky rearranged him a little. Pick up an arm, slide under it, wiggle a leg between his, and Bucky finally felt situated enough to relax.

Unsurprisingly, he was right, and he gave a pointed look to Natasha-- that she rolled her eyes at-- before dragging Tony back down onto the bed. "Where ya goin'," he mumbled.

"Uh," Tony blanked at first, clearly not having expected to be caught, "the 'shop? I've got a couple projects I need to work on-"

"Liar," Natasha muttered. Her voice was low, but still loud enough that Tony could definitely hear. "You were running away for no reason."

"Oh there's a reason, and I think it's pretty obvious what that is. So if you'll just," Tony trailed off, trying unsuccessfully to dislodge Bucky's arm around his waist.

"As the one that got us into this mess Natasha, you have t' fix it." Plus he was tired and words were hard to form. He could totally kill someone right now, but have a heart to heart? That was beyond what he could do this close to waking up.

"If 'fix it' is code for kill me, you really really don't Natasha. We're friends, aren't we? You wouldn't kill one of your friends." Tony's voice was half joking half panicked.

"What the idiot means is that last night was a date. As a precursor to other dates until you're comfortable with letting us call you our partner."

Tony blinked. "What."

"Like dating one person, only instead of one person, there's two of us."

Bucky snorted. "Eloquent."

"If you're not going to do better, shut it."

"Three person relationship instead of two?" he offered, then yawned.

"This isn't a joke, right?" Tony asked. "Cause if it is, it's mean and you should confess right now before I get it into my head that this is actually happening."

"It's happenin' now will you go back to sleep?" Bucky grumbled. He only wanted one more hour, that wasn't so much to ask in his opinion.

"What Bucky means is that no, it's not a joke. It's a serious offer, and you can think about it for as long as you want. If that includes some time alone right now, you can take it. If not, then pull the covers back up because it's getting cold."

Tony did nothing for a long moment, then pulled the blanket up. "You are two very confusing people." Another pause. "I feel like I'm going to regret this, but not as much as you fuckers will."

Natasha smothered her laugh, then spread her hand over Tony's chest. "Noted."

"You can't make me regret anything more than I already do," Bucky claimed, yawning again.

"I was making a joke, and you just break my heart," Tony said.

"I'll try not to."

#marvel #fanfic #winterironwidow #tony stark #bucky barnes #natasha romanoff #my writing

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psychosistr · 4 years

Text

FOWL Facets- Chapter 1

Summary: After going missing for more than a day, Steelbeak’s team finally gets word from the missing gem and goes to pick him up, but something seems..off.

Notes: This is fic number two for my 100 Follower Fic Giveaway! This one is for the anon who requested something with Steelbeak and @eleanorose123 / @thefriendlyfour ‘s awesome OC, Dominic Domino, in the Steven Universe!AU (Fearsome Facets) that I’ve been working on with @abbythegamergirl . As a special bonus, I also got to use @deldraws19 ‘s wonderful OC Loony Toony for this story! ^.^ Enjoy!

Daily life continues as it usually does for the organic creatures of the planet Earth. They go to work or school, eat, sleep, and live out their dull, short lives. All of them completely and blissfully unaware of the creatures prowling about their world and blending in among them- some for noble reasons such as to protect the planet, some for more sinister motives such as its destruction, and even more who walk the line between the two sides for their own benefit while hiding in the shadows.

This is a tale following those who work from the shadows, unaligned in the fight of good and evil…

Slowly circling the Earth, hidden high above the clouds and beyond the detection of standard Earth-based scanners, a black ship flies unseen through the skies. The surface of the ship is sharp and angular, looking similar to an obsidian arrowhead with four wings/thrusters sprouting from the back to form a sideways X shape along the flatter back end of the ship. It’s dark, reflective coating looks as if the whole thing were carved from a single large stone rather than many pieces of metal like most ships native to the planet- the only exceptions to its deep black color being speckles of white along the undercarriage of the ship and an angular red windshield on the front. The dark material works to its favor, however, letting it blend in with the starry sky behind it and giving it a natural camouflage with its surroundings.

Within the cockpit of the ship, amongst the many red and white panels with their hologram-projected interfaces, a small panel on the dash lights up with a pinging sound. A hand with brown feathers and black fingerless gloves taps the panel, bringing up a large hologram of the planet in white with a single, small, glowing black point pulsing on it.

“Steelbeak’s beacon just came back online.” A female voice says while the gloved hands zoom in on the black point of the hologram.

“Confirm that it’s actually him and double check for any other gems in the area.” A male voice commands from the other side of the hologram, red eyes watching closely as the image zooms in on the black point.

“Way ahead of you.” The female voice from earlier responds. Once the hologram-map is zoomed in far enough, it changes to an image of a single figure outlined in black standing on its own in a large, open field. “No other gems on the radar..” A gloved hand taps the image of the figure, bringing up a square bubble of text in a language consisting mostly of glyphs. “Andradite garnet..subset, black melanite..ball cut..yeah, that looks like Steelbeak.”

“Hm..” The red eyes narrow slightly, looking closely at the black-outlined hologram. “Go pick him up, but keep an eye out for any traps. I want to know why he went off the grid without contacting us first.”

“On it.” The female voice responds, a pair of gloved hands coming down to an extra-wide red panel and moving over it to steer the ship.

Red eyes stay fixed on the hologram, the male voice speaking quietly. “What have you been up to, Steelbeak…?”

______________________________________________________

A being perfectly matching the hologram from earlier waits patiently in the middle of a flat, open field miles away from any nearby towns. It appears to be a tall rooster with a large red comb, green tail feathers, and, interestingly enough, a rather dangerous looking, jagged, metallic beak. He’s dressed rather classy for someone standing in the middle of a dirty field, wearing black slacks with a red button up shirt, a black bowtie, a white suit jacket, and black patent leather oxfords with white spats. On the left side of his chest, where one would normally see a pocket square or boutonniere, is a gleaming black ball-cut melanite gemstone.

“Geez, what’s taken ‘em so long..?” He grumbles to himself while pulling back his left sleeve to check what, at first, looks like a regular black wrist watch, but actually displays a small radar-like hologram of two black points steadily getting closer to each other. The clouds parting above him draws his attention up towards the sky. “About time..” At first it’s hard to see anything against the starry backdrop, but, after moving lower, it becomes easier to see the outline of the black ship against the re-forming clouds. It gets close enough for the bottom hatch to open and extend a ramp, the melanite climbing on board. He looks around once he’s inside and the hatch has closed behind him, tapping his knuckles against one of the nearby walls as he ventures further into the ship. “Hey, anyone home?”

The ship is loaded with plenty of control consoles, interactive panels, and devices built into the walls and ceilings of the ship, but is fairly sparse on things like furniture and decorations. In fact, the first decorative thing that he spots is a tall shelving unit built into one of the walls. The shelves have what looks like a translucent white energy barrier in front of them, presumably to keep the various small colorful objects (mostly toys, it would seem) from falling off and onto the floor. Seemingly curious about the shelves and the out of place items on it, the melanite moves in for a closer look.

“Hehe~” A giggle echoing through the room, however, stops him in his tracks.

“??” The melanite looks around, searching for the source of the laughter. “Hello..?”

“Hehe~” Another giggle, that time coming from behind him.

“?!” He turns to look, but sees nothing. He hears the sound of movement from somewhere behind him and starts to walk backwards to get away from it. When he finally turns back around to face where he’s going, however, he’s met with large, black and white eyes directly in front of his own.

“Boo!” The excitedly smiling black beak just beneath (above, from his perspective) the black and white eyes says before sticking a white tongue out at him playfully.

“What the-?!” The rooster, startled by the surprise appearance of the face in front of him, tries to take a step back but ends up slipping on a small stuffed blue teddy bear lying on the ground. “Woah!” He falls down onto the ground, rubbing his head after he lands with a thud. “Oof…that’s gonna smart…”

“Whoopsie! Sorry, Steely!” The person hanging from the ceiling begins to reorient herself, moving so that she’s right-side-up before dropping down onto the ground from her previous hiding spot on the ceiling. Doing so reveals her to be another gem like him, though in her case she has a smooth heart-cut black spinel gemstone in the center of her chest over her black and white-striped long-sleeved shirt. She has matching stripes along her legs with everything else she’s wearing- a pair of gloves, her slightly platformed shoes, a puffy pair of pocketed suspender shorts, the round cloth bindings between her torso and her arms, and a hairband holding her hair up into a ponytail- are all grey with the shorts, overalls, and main part of the shoes being a lighter shade while the hairband, gloves, soles of her shoes, bindings on her arms, and the buttons and pockets on her overall shorts are all the same shade of darker grey. Once her unusually long arms are detangled from the various wires and beams of the ceiling, she reaches down to offer the melanite a hand up. “You okay?”

He takes the offered hand and pulls himself back up to his feet. “Eh, nothing scuffed or cracked, so I’ll live.”

“Oh, goodie!” Knowing that he wasn’t injured seems to be all the go-ahead she needs to start laughing, her earlier smile returning full-force. “I haven’t gotten you that good in a while! You should’ve seen the look on your face!”

“Yeah, yeah, that was pretty funny.” The melanite’s slightly forced smile contradicts his words, but the spinel ignores him as she begins stretching her body around him- elongating her neck so she can peek around his shoulder from behind while her hands start poking and prodding at his pockets. “Um..whatcha doin’, doll?”

She stretches her neck further so that her face moves around in front of his. “You promised you’d bring me something, remember? You didn’t forget, right??” She begins to pout, looking disappointed by the lack of objects in his pockets.

He rubs the back of his head with a slight frown. “Oh, geez…sorry, somethin’ came up and I didn’t get the chance. My bad..”

“Awwwww…” Her entire body seems to deflate with the disappointing news, her elongated limbs and neck drooping down to the ground while her head remains upright in the air.

The melanite frowns a bit more at the sad look on the spinel’s face and pats her on the head. “Tell ya what? I’ll getcha three next time t’ make it up to ya. Sound good?” He offers her a smile to go along with his words.

“Really?!” She perks back up instantly, her limbs and neck snapping back into place as she gives him an excited smile.

“Sure thing.” He promises with a grin of his own at her renewed energy.

“Yay! Thanks, Steely!” The spinel throws her arms around the melanite in a big hug, the long limbs stretching so they can wrap and coil around him three times over. “You’re the best!”

“Heh, no problem.” He winces slightly from the tightness of the embrace. “Say, you seen Domino? I gotta talk t’ him ‘bout somethin’.”

“Oh, Dommy’s in his room.” She unwinds her arms from around him and points down one of the ship’s hallways. “Said he got a call from High Command.”

“Ah, cool.” He gives her another pat on the head before walking down the indicated hall. “Thanks, sweetheart.” He calls over his shoulder with a wave, not looking back at her.

“No problemo-!” She almost walks off, but stops and does a double-take, watching the melanite disappear down the corridor with a confused expression on her face. “Wait, ‘sweetheart’??” Keeping her eyes on him, she stretches her arms up to the beams on the ceiling and blends in with them once again.

The melanite continues towards his destination, unaware of the confusion from the spinel regarding his choice of words. As he passes one of the rooms, the door opens up and he bumps into someone right as they come out of what appears to be the ship’s control room.

“Hey, watch it!” The person he bumped into turns out to be another gem, this one looking like a brown-feathered female chicken with short dark hair. Her outfit is pretty casual, consisting of a black shirt with torn sleeves, ripped black jeans, black and white sneakers, black fingerless gloves, and what appears to be a white lab coat tied around her waist. As she rubs her head, the black gemstone on her left shoulder catches the light- at a glance, one could be forgiven for seeing it as just a regular black stone, but, as it refracts the lights overhead, the white star in the center appears, revealing it to be a round black and white star-sapphire. She looks up at the melanite she bumped into and rolls her eyes. “Steelbeak…why am I NOT surprised..?” She asks sarcastically.

The melanite helps her to her feet. “Sorry ‘bout that, toots.” He nods his head in the direction he was going before he bumped into her. “Domino’s still in his room, right?”

“……” The star-sapphire eyes him with an unreadable expression after he helps her up. “Yeah, I think so. He should be finishing up his call with High Command soon.”

“Good to know, thanks.” He continues on his way, unaware of the suspicious gaze following him as he walks away.

He walks to the end of the hall and looks at the five doors, each one imprinted with a different gem on the front: The first one on the right has a round black and white star-sapphire on it. The one right next to it has a heart-shaped black spinel. The first one on the left has a black ball-cut melanite. The one next to it has a step-cut black and white snowflake obsidian. The gem on the final door, located on the wall between the two sides of the hall, has been shot at, burned, and shredded so badly that the gem on it is no longer recognizable- all that remains are a few traces of blue between the bullet holes and gauges in the material.

Finding the door that he’s looking for, the melanite knocks twice on the one with the snowflake obsidian on the front.

“It’s open.” A voice from within calls, sounding distracted.

Activating the small panel beside the door, the melanite calmly walks in. “Hey, Dom.” He greets the room’s only occupant with a quick wave.

The gem in question is a loon with striking red eyes and a step-cut black and white snowflake obsidian on the right side of his chest. Unlike the other two gems on the ship, his outfit could be considered a bit more refined, consisting of a white collared shirt under a black buttoned-up vest, a red bow tie, a white hat with a red band holding a small domino in place, and a long white coat that went down to just past his white leg feathers with a red inner-lining, a domino on each shoulder, an unclasped red belt with a white buckle, and a pattern along the bottom featuring large black lines that were each topped with a black circle.

“Hm..?” The snowflake obsidian had been busy reading something on a datapad when the other gem walked in. Seated at a small two-person table built into the left wall of the tastefully decorated room, he looks up when he hears the melanite’s greeting. He cocks an eyebrow at the taller gem, setting the datapad aside for the time being. “Since when do you knock?”

The melanite just shrugs, stepping further into the room and letting the door close behind him. “Heard you was takin’ a call from High Command, didn’t wanna interrupt anythin’ important.”

“That’s never stopped you before.” Domino gets up from his seat, looking the other gem over slowly. “Now that the pleasantries are out of the way, mind telling me why you suddenly decided to deactivate your beacon and have been ignoring our calls for the past twenty-eight hours?”

“Eh, just ran into a bit of trouble.” He shrugs again, leaning against the wall casually. “Nothin’ I couldn’t handle.”

Domino crosses his arms, giving the other gem a mild glare. “If you ‘run into trouble’, you’re supposed to call us immediately. Code 67, remember? ‘All F.O.W.L. agents operating in teams of two or more are to call for backup to neutralize any threats above Class 2.’ Considering you had to go dark for more than a day, I’d say that threat fell far above a Class 2.” He watches the melanite closely, stern eyes picking him apart with their sharp gaze.

“Like I said, it wasn’t anythin’ I couldn’t handle- no need t’ get you an’ the ladies involved.” The melanite waves off the reminder and the stern glare, not noticing the way the other gem’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Anyway, we’ve got bigger things t’ worry about.” He looks down at Domino, his previous demeanor changing to something more serious. “I found somethin’ big you’re gonna wanna see for yourself…but I don’t think we can take the others with us for this one.”

“Oh?” Domino’s eyebrow raises again in a look of curiosity. “We have to go without Loony and Gandra? That does sound serious. Where exactly are we going?”

“Can’t talk about it here.” He says with a shake of his head. “Let’s just grab one of the backup pods, I know the way.”

Domino walks closer, pulling back the sleeve on his right arm to reveal a black watch similar to the one the melanite checked earlier in the field. “Just a moment, I got a message from High Command earlier and they wanted me to make sure everyone else got it.” He pushes a button on the screen shaped like a star-sapphire. “Gandra, I got a message regarding a possible Code Zultanite. Did you?”

The voice of the star-sapphire from earlier is heard through the watch’s speakers. “Yeah, I got that message. Loony?”

An image of a heart-shaped spinel appears on the screen as the spinel from earlier can be heard now. “Code Zulta- ohhhh! Yep! I got that too!”

“Good to know we’re all on the same page.” Domino walks over to the door and puts his hand on a small panel next to it, opening the door up quickly. “Now that that’s out of the way..” He doesn’t finish his statement- instead, he raises one hand and a white barrier forms in front of him. He then thrusts his hand forward, sending the barrier crashing into the melanite with a great deal of momentum that sends him flying out of the room.

“!!!” The melanite hits the closed door on the other side of the hall, wincing from the impact. “Hey, what’s the big ide-?!” He ducks just in time to avoid a burst of flames aimed directly at his head. “Woah!” He scrambles to get out of the way of another shot of fire, running down the hall to avoid the attack.

Domino follows him out into the hall, a pistol held in his right hand. “Oh, I think you know what the ‘big idea’ is…or do I have to make it even clearer for you?” He brings his left hand to the gem on his chest, the stone glowing as he pulls a second gun identical to the first out of his gem. He aims and fires the second gun at the floor below the retreating gem’s feet right as the barrel turns an icy blue, a bullet of the same color hitting the ground and freezing it over with a smooth sheet of ice.

“Ack!” The melanite slips and falls over, wincing again when he hits the ground. He isn’t given long to linger on the sensation, though, as he’s forced to quickly roll to the side to avoid a yellow bullet sparking with electricity that had been aimed right at his head. “Stars!” He swears under his breath, getting to his feet again once he’s off of the icy patch and trying to run while keeping an eye on the snowflake obsidian.

Unfortunately, this proves to be a mistake for him, as he doesn’t notice the black and white striped leg stretching across the floor in his path until it’s too late. The spinel from earlier stretches down from the ceiling and gives the melanite a light shove with her hand. “Tag, you’re it!” She laughs as he ends up tripping over her leg.

“Not yet, Loony.” The star-sapphire from earlier is standing over him when he lands on the ground, taking off one of her gloves. With the black fabric gone, dark lines that look like circuitry wired into her palm are revealed. “Now he’s it.” The lines on her hand light up right before she touches his face.

A powerful bolt of white electricity goes through the melanite’s body, making him spasm and twitch before everything goes dark…

Next Chapter-> End Notes: Keeping the first chapter fairly short to help with the pacing and properly establish each of the characters :)

Fun side note- I wanted to make Steelbeak and Domino part of a team as a mirror to the main story that focuses mostly on the Fearsome Four with occasional appearances from the Crystal Ducks (Darkwing, Launchpad, Gizmoduck, and Gosalyn). Both of the other main teams for the series were in groups of four, so I thought it would be fitting to make a F.O.W.L. team too :D Gandra was someone I’d already thought of putting on the team because I liked her DT17 design and already mentioned her before in the character bios along with Steelbeak.

When trying to figure out who would be the best option for the final member of the team, I remembered @thefriendlyfour ‘s and @deldraws19 ‘s pictures of Domino and Loony and felt like she would be a perfect fit that perfectly balances the group on multiple levels: Her cheerful disposition serves as a counterbalance for how sarcastic or cynical the others can get sometimes. Like Gandra, she’s a gem that doesn’t have a weapon of her own since she was never made to be a battle gem, but her stretchy, impenetrable body acts as a weapon in and-of-itself, similar to how Gandra uses the electrified white gem-destabilizers in her hand as a way to fight despite her purpose. I also really liked the balance of short to mid-range attacks she would be capable of in combat and enjoyed the idea that the girls (Gandra and Loony) on the team would be more of the up-close brawlers while the guys (Domino and Steelbeak) would be more of the mid to long-range fighters with their weapons. Add to all of this the fact that her and Domino have a sibling-like relationship AND that she would be someone who knew him back when he was with Checkers and there’s no way I could resist asking Del for permission to use this awesome character and I am so so SO glad I did because she works so well off of everyone else!

#darkwing duck #ducktales #dt17 #FOWL Facets #Steelbeak #Dominic Domino #gandra dee #Loony Toony #not my oc #100 follower giveaway!

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