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boarix · 3 years

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Wraith in the Ruins: A Fallout 4 Story Part XX

Call My Name

Trigger Warnings: canon violence/gore/language/gun, drug and alcohol use.

......

Deacon and Wraith had finished placing the MILA at the construction site in Cambridge and were taking stock of ammo and equipment before heading back to Railroad HQ. Deacon was especially eager to move along as the building was tall and they were still at the top. Wraith was nonchalantly lounging in a chair with its deposed super mutant owner lying at her feet. She had no idea he was acrophobic, and he wanted to keep it that way.

“You almost ready, boss?” He kept his tone light, “You’ve been staring at you’re Pip-Boy for a few days now.”

She made a circular motion with her right hand, “I’m trying to see if there isn’t a quicker way back then there was to…” She interrupted herself by laughing, “a few days?” She smiled up at him, “You in a particular rush?”

“My rush isn’t so particular, just feels too open here. If I were a sniper I’d be there,” He pointed helpfully, “or there, or there. Isn’t this fun?”

“Okay, okay…” She continued to stare at her screen.

“Whisper, it’ll be dangerous to climb down in the dark. Which is soon…” He shuffled closer to her while purposefully dragging the soles of his sneakers, “I’m also starving. Can we stop at the Fast Food?”

She chuckled, “We have food at home.” She stood and stretched, “I think there’s a way to get over to the freeway from here. I want to go check it out real quick.”

He frowned dramatically at her, “But I’m hungry.”

She reached into her pack, grabbed a small package wrapped in cheese cloth and tossed it to him as she walked, “Here. It’s fruit leather.” She pulled one out for herself but rather than eat it she sniffed and frowned at it, “This batch is too heavy on the carrots. I miss bananas. These would have better with bananas. Or I could make chips! Mmm, banana chips.”

Distracted by her melancholy, for a brief moment he forgot his fear. Balling up the entire strip, he clowned for her by shoving it into his mouth, “Mmfp. Sfo… thereshf im brogdgg nofp wha?”

She snorted and laughed, “If you’re asking me about a bridge… kinda?”

His fear was back.

The gap between the building and the freeway was only about 6 or 7 feet. It was bridged by road sign that looked fairly secure, but to Deacon it might as well have been miles. His arms twitched up reflexively as Wraith skipped across.

“I’ve been meaning to see if there was anything good up here. Since it’s so out of the way I thought there might be an armored truck… Are ya comin’?” She leaned back in to view, eyebrows tented and lip sticking out, “What’s wrong?”

“Nothin’ just… how long do you suppose this has been here?”

“It’s pretty solid, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“You didn’t hardly step on it.”

“You’re just as light on your feet as me. Don’t try to jump it.” When he didn’t immediately move, she offered him an out, “Or, you can just hang tight for a sec, I shouldn’t be long.”

“No, no. We’re partners; I go where you go.”

He tried to take it in two large strides, but with his vision marred by vertigo, his second step landed heavily on a rusted edge and the whole piece gave way. Wraith lunged to grab his hand, yelling his name. Swinging forward, he yelped in pain as his right hip was punctured by exposed rebar. Hearing his cry, Wraith didn’t immediately pull him up for fear of causing further damage.

“Are you hung-up? Can you free yourself?!”

“I’m… going… grragh… to try…” Though he knew it would cause a flash of intense pain, he reached up to hold her hand with both of his. He took a few deep breaths to recover. When he tried to pivot to push off with his left foot, the pain was too intense and he felt a surge of panic. “I can’t!”

“Are you cut?! I can’t … I can’t see.”

Screwing his eyes shut he tried to calm himself, “I got stabbed. It’s not super deep but this… I don’t think I’ll be able to talk my way out of this one. Ha hahaha!”

“Deacon, look up at me. You are going to be okay. I won’t let you fall. Let go with one hand and see if you… don’t shake your head!” She smiled and lowered her voice, “I’m very strong, Deacon. I promise I won’t let you fall. Trust me.”

“I…” He swallowed hard, “believe you.” Bolstered by her smile he let go and set his free hand against the girder. Screaming through the pain he brought his foot up and pushed off with both limbs. “GGGAAAARRRKKKK FREE!”

Wraith yanked him up next to her as if he were a prized catch at the end of a fishing line. He immediately dropped to the asphalt and was very noisily sick off the side of the bridge. Wraith ignored his retching but made assorted unhappy noises at the hole in his hip that was in fact very deep and bleeding a lot.

“You liar, you’re a goddamn shish kebab!” Quickly she gave him a one-two punch of Med-X and a Stimpak. When he made a small noise of protest against the painkiller she growled at him, “You hush! Being in pain slows healing.”

“And being on chemsh makes me shlow everything!” The lightning-fast med already had him stumbling over his words.

In the midst of her tying a temporary bandage, yellow-green lightning split the sky which set the Geiger counter on Wraith’s Pip-Boy to ticking madly. A rad storm was approaching fast. “Oh, for crying out loud!” Glancing around fearfully, she spotted a semi-trailer. Popping Deacon up and over her shoulder she made for the truck and set to work picking the lock.

“No, noooo NO! Danger! DANGER AGENT WHISNMPERS!”

“Yeah, yeah; ‘never open a new can of worms while cleaning up the first’. Look, I need to get you inside someplace!”

Tipped on its side, the trailer’s interior was narrow but devoid of monsters. Wraith gently lay Deacon down atop the scattered shipping tubs and glanced around for an additional light source to supplement her Pip-Boy, “Keep pressure on it, I’m going to hop back and grab some of those lanterns…” Once she returned she pulled shut the truck’s cargo door and got out her knife. However, when she turned back to Deacon he was nowhere to be seen. “Did you just… are you using a Stealth Boy?!”

“I don’t want you t’ cut my jeans!”

Blinking rapidly, she looked down at her combat knife and then back up to where his voice came from, “Deacon… you might bleed out! I’ll make you new pants!”

“Imma try to get out… OW! Huuurrgn… of them…” Failing, he phased back into view with a miserable expression on his face.

“There’s nothing wrong with showing a little leg. Or… a lot… damn, Deacon.” She made an attempt to school the worry from her face as she worked, “Looks like you’ll need to wear skirts for a while.”

“I have the calves for it.”

She couldn’t disagree, “Actually, you have better legs then me. Turn a little more on your side…”

“Why don’t you like the way you look? I think you’re pretty.”

“Well, I think you’re pretty too, Deacon. So I’ll throw that right back at you; why do you want to change your face again? Seems a more… dramatic solution than sticking on a false mustache. What’s th’ matter? Can’t grow facial hair?”

“I grow the best bneards you’d ever shee!”

“I’ll take your word for it. Anyway, I like the face you’re currently wearing.”

He was touched and even with his chem addled brain he knew the conversation was getting dangerously close to things he wasn’t sure he wanted her to know. It was time to change the subject, “What’s that? Brobzzs… Brave… Bavarian… Bob’s Best Moonshine?”

Wraith had pulled what looked like a liquor bottle out of her pack, “Oh, no. Curie gave me a lecture on how terrible alcohol is for wounds. So, I’ve been trying to carry soapy water instead. Buuuut,” She soaked a clean rag and gently wiped at his injury, “I don’t think she realizes that soap is way more rare out here then booze.”

Satisfied that the bleeding had stopped, she helped the now shivering spy into a sleeping bag and made for the door. “I’m going to go see if there is a quicker way down from here. I want to get you back to HQ and Carrington ASAP.”

“Jump down would be fastnerest.”

“You tried that already…” Her spirits sagged as she jogged along the short span of crumbling road. Then, they suddenly skyrocketed when she noticed there was a scaffolding lift on the very edge of the partially destroyed highway, “Sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeet!”

The storm had passed so when Wraith returned she put Deacon’s pack in the sleeping bag with him and cinched the opening until only his face showed. She shouldered her own pack and then bent to pick him up as well. She had thought he was asleep until he started giggling.

“He heee; imma worm.”

“Oh, Deacon, you’re my favorite.”

……

“HANCOCK!” MacCready watched in horror the ghoul dropped to the pavement and writhed about while clutching his head. Fearing he’d been shot, the sniper pushed away from the feral citizen he’d been trying to subdue and rushed to the mayor’s side. “What?! Tell me…”

Hancock gaped; opening and closing his mouth like a fish trying to breathe air. His eyes bulged and were completely unfocused.

“She’s attacking him! Radiance!” Fahrenheit wanted nothing more than to throw herself off the balcony and rush to her father, “Pick him up or drag him if you have to but move him away from the bar!”

MacCready stooped and hooked the ghoul under the armpits while Magnolia grabbed his legs; both calling for the Watch. They only made it a few steps before multiple ferals burst from the Third Rail and charged them. The sniper dropped to a knee and set Hancock down as softly as time would allow. Telling the singer to pull Hancock toward the Memory Den he unholstered his sidearm and started an attack of his own. Aiming for their legs as he dodged their swinging arms, he lured them away. Twisting and turning, he danced just out of their reach and quickly cut them down.

“HELP ME!

Surprised by Magnolia’s desperate cry, MacCready whipped around and then stood frozen by what he saw. Hancock had lifted the singer off the ground to chest height and was viscously shaking her back and forth in the air. Like a terrier with a rat.

Thinking quickly, the young man took aim with the syringer and hit the ghoul in the neck with a dose of Pistol Whipped. The effect was almost instantaneous; Magnolia was released and the two dropped to the pavement. As he jogged toward them past the entryway to the bar, MacCready was hit by a powerful shockwave of radiation that swept him off his feet and hurled him through the window of the offices across the street.

Radiance seemed to almost float above the ground as she moved to where Hancock lay. Determined to claim him as a prize, her blazing eyes were fixed on his face. She was confused why she lost her hold on his mind and curiosity drove her to edit her own plan, act directly and leave the relative safety of the Rail. As she crouched and reached out to touch his brow, a shot rang out and she felt burning pain as a .44 bullet tore through the palm of her clawed hand.

When MacCready stepped back through the shattered glass, he was terrifying to behold: blood steamed down his face from a multitude of lacerations, and his cerulean eyes were a promise of death, “You can’t have him.”

The glowing one rose to her feet, turned up the heat and sent out another blast of energy. MacCready suddenly found himself in the midst of revived, legless ferals. They pulled themselves after him, snarling. Dodging, he continued his assault on their mistress but found that her radiation was both acting as a shield as well as healing any damage he managed to inflict. He was getting dangerously close to cursing loudly.

“MACCREADY, GET OUT OF THE WAY!” Fahrenheit had returned to the balcony, this time armed with a minigun.

Even as the gun began its spin up, Radiance decided to make a tactical retreat. Sending out a psionic call, she dashed back into the Third Rail with her few remaining minions trailing behind.

……

“Hey, Glory; think fast!”

The Railroad heavy easily caught the beer that Wraith tossed to her. “It’s cold! Where’d you get this?”

Wraith set a cooler on the floor and pulled a chair up next to where the synth was sitting, “I’ve a buddy in Goodneighbor.”

“Oh, ha ha.”

Wraith held up another and gently rocked it back and forth in Tinker Tom’s direction, “TT, come have a brewski with us!”

The Railroad engineer’s eyes lit up and he quickly walked over to them, holding both his hands up toward the booze the entire way, “Oooh, presents!” He took a swig and made several, almost inappropriate, noises of appreciation. “Well, don’t that beat all?” He smiled down at her, “Where’ve you been, Whisper? We missed you.”

She did a quick survey of the room, “Doc told me that Deacon needed some time and Hancock had mentioned a friend of his needed work so I’ve been dragging this kid around with me while I do Minutemen stuff. I see my partner isn’t here resting, like he’s supposed to be.”

Glory made an indelicate noise, “Nope. Though if Carrington catches him out, working with that injury…”

“Doc’s just itchin’ for an excuse to holler at our boy D.”

“You called?” With an almost imperceptible limp, Deacon, dressed in Gunner camo, crossed the room from the backdoor tunnel and leaned rather heavily on the center map table. He set down the sniper rifle he’d been carrying and frowned at the three of them, “Doing some day drinking, are we?”

Wraith flashed him a bright smile, “It’s gotta be five o’clock somewhere.”

“Yeah, D! Don’t be such an old lady, man.”

“You know, I briefly was an old-lady man. It worked out pretty well too.”

Glory laughed, “I admit that was a good one. No one ever suspects a little old woman. I’m surprised you didn’t keep her going longer.”

“It was hard on th’ back.”

Wraith popped her chin at his gun, “What have you been up to?”

“Now that I know that lift is stable, it’s a great spot for… observation.”

“I think someone had told me that area was a good spot for a sniper.”

“Well, whoever that mysterious stranger was they sure were brilliant as well as handsome.” He felt a flutter in his chest when Wraith smirked while giving him a toe to crown look of appraisal. She smiled into her beer and blushed slightly when she saw that he caught her and this in turn caused all matter of mental alarm bells to start shrieking at him.

NOT GOOD! VERY BAD! STOP FLIRTING!

“So what brings you in today? You want me back on deck, huh?”

“Are you sure you’re up for it?”

“Yup! Fit as a fiddle.”

Glory rocked her beer back and forth at him, “That’s not what Carrington said.”

“Pfft, Carrington… I’ll have you know that I went to Amari for a second opinion and she said ‘Deacon, please leave. You are underfoot and I am too busy.’”

Wraith laughed, “You were probably in Goodneighbor the same time I was.” She paused for a second when she saw Deacon’s brow twitch. “Actually I came to let you know that I need more time. Desdemona says there’s nothing for us right now and this kid, MacCready, I think he might really need my help.”

“Yeah. Help. Right.” Deacon shouldered his rifle and turned brusquely away, “I’m going to report to Dez. See you ‘round, Whisper.”

Tom patted Wraith on the back, “Don’t take it to heart; he’s just sore he has to share you.”

……

The Minutemen had made it to Goodneighbor in record time. A temporary field hospital had been erected and several of the Dragoons, wielding Gatling guns, were stationed in and around the Third Rail. Hancock was still unconscious and MacCready was holding one of the ghoul’s hands while a medic worked on the lacerations on his face.

“You shouldn’t have to worry about scarring. The derma-fuse works really well on glass cuts like these.”

MacCready mumbled his thanks, his eyes on Hancock.

The medic tried to reassure him, “Dr. Amari says his brain looks no worse than usual… erm… I’ll make sure you have a dose of Radaway…”

“No need,” Magnolia interrupted, “he’s the Mayor’s boyfriend. I’m sure he’s on a suppressive dose of Rad-X.”

MacCready chuckled, “That’s really funny, actually.” Then, when he realized the medic hadn’t gotten the joke he rolled his eyes, “She’s kidding. Yes, I need a bag of Radaway.”

Magnolia was wearing a neck brace and had dark circles under her eyes. She sat on the ghoul’s opposite side and took his other hand in hers.

“You’re not scared of him?”

She frowned at him, “Of course not.” She smiled tenderly down at the sleeping mayor, “I owe Hancock my life. He’s protected me here for years, and I know he would never hurt me willingly.” Her face hardened, “Am I crazy or did that wretched hag go for him specifically?”

“That’s what it looked like to me. I think this whole attack was meant to secure him.”

“Why?” Fahrenheit had ducked under the tent flap and stood at the foot of Hancock’s gurney. She looked tired and worried, and it carried in her voice, “Also, no Wraith? Why would Radiance come here herself without her strongest piece? It’s a move that makes no sense.”

“Not everything is chess.” MacCready had a warning in his voice, “Wraith isn’t a queen and we aren’t all pawns!”

“I never said you were all pawns; Hancock is at the very least a knight.”

“THIS ISN’T A GAME!”

“Uuhhg, MacCready, are you yellin’ some more?” Hancock made a halfhearted attempt to sit up before collapsing back onto his pillow, “Someone catch the brand on the brahmin that stamped my head last night?”

MacCready, all but sobbing in relief, embraced the ghoul and kissed him soundly, “I had to shoot you with the syringer. It scared the sh… crap out of me!”

“You shot me? Why?” He brought a scarred hand to his forehead, massaging it as he tried to remember, “What happened? How long was I out? I remember I was holding Curtis… damn. Everything’s all backwards.”

“You’ve been unconscious for about four hours. Radiance came up through the Blue Line into the Rail. We all seem to agree that she intended to leave with you.”

“I saw Wraith!” Hancock sat up quickly, his headache momentarily forgotten, “It was just a flash but…”

“What do you mean? She was here?!” MacCready stood up and made as if to leave the tent.

Hancock waved him back down, “No. No, I saw her in… she was someplace dark… her eyes… I think I saw her when the glowing one had me.” He shook his head, wincing, “That sounds crazy, even for me.” He gave MacCready a wan smile, “I’m sorry I’m no help…”

“What does she want with you? What does she want with Wraith?” Frustration gave an edge to Fahrenheit’s voice, “If we could figure out what the hell her endgame is, we could make a more efficient counterstrategy. Wraith is in the dark? Well, so are we!”

Hancock nodded, “We need to be proactive and not reactive. Right. Call Curie. She might want adjust the dosage on Pistol Whipped and I want to brainstorm with Nicky so better call him too. Oh, and give me the names of all my people who didn’t make it or are still feral.”

……

“Are you trying to sneak up on me, Whisper?”

“Well, kinda.” Wraith sat cross-legged next to Deacon. She had gone to Railroad HQ in search of him only to find that her partner was once again AWOL. The broken freeway was the next place she checked.

“Trying to impress me?”

She stuck out her lower lip and dipped her chin, “Yeah.”

Her admission surprised him as well as stoked his ego, “Well, I’m sure with a little more practice you’ll be half again as good as me.”

She laughed, “Thanks, teach. I love what you’ve done with the place, by the way.”

Deacon had set up a small lean-to on the upper level, tagged with the railsign for “cash”, “Yeah, I’m glad I found it.” He had brought up a beach lounger and now, in an attempt to appear casual, leaned back with his arms folded behind his head, “So, what’s up?”

“I’ve gotten a really good lead on Shaun…” She paused when Deacon abruptly sat up and leaned toward her, “Hancock and I are going to look for an Institute scientist… in the Glowing Sea…”

“The Glowing…” He didn’t even bother to hide the concern on his face, “You’re taking Hancock?”

“Yeah, well, he’s…” She floundered, looking for the right words, “a ghoul.” she finished, lamely.

“He’s also not exactly Mr. Dependable.”

I should not be this jealous!

“I don’t know, Deacon; he’s been really supportive and helpful. He’s a good friend. Besides, I know how much you hate power armor. I promise I’ll share any information I get with you and Dez.”

“My hip is all healed, Whisper. I want you to know that you can depend on me too.”

Shut up! Shut up, shut up shutyourstupidmouthyoumoron!

Wraith’s forehead creased and she leaned away from him, “Oh, no! It’s not that! Hancock was with Valentine and me… he asked to go. I know I can count on you. Really!”

“Regardless of power armor, I would have gone with you to the end, into the very fires of Mordor.”

Wraith sputtered for a moment before tilting her head back and laughing, “That was just perfect! You know, I think you and Hancock would get along really well if you tried. You both like the same books, apparently.”

……

Infamy watched Radiance leave with an escort of ferals. Having firmly established where the other glowing one’s limit of irresistible influence was, Atom’s Assassin hid in the caves the host was occupying; waiting for just such an opportunity. With most of the ferals left to wander freely throughout the expansive catacombs, Wraith’s guard consisted of only one bloated glowing one and a few reavers.

“If I can pull you away…” At war with themselves, the ghoul couldn’t decide if they were there to try and rescue Wraith, or destroy her. “Hmm, what would Atom do?”

Pushing their will onto the reavers, they caused them to swarm the bloated one until the assassin could put their knife through its eye. As they turned back to Wraith they jumped involuntarily because she had stood up and begun to growl.

“You’ve smelled better, Sister Wraith.” Another choice popped into their head, “Or… you could be mine. Perhaps the Mother has chosen you to be a harbinger for Infamy!” They cackled wildly in excitement, “Ha! Ha haha! Hmm, mustn’t get carried away, now. First things first…” Filled with narcissistic confidence, they sent a blast of psionic energy at Wraith’s mind. Fully expecting her to be knocked off her feet, they were shocked and irritated when they hit a solid mental wall. “What is this? We should be well outside of mommy’s range!”

Wraith flexed her hands menacingly as her growl deepened and grew louder. Then with shocking speed she sprinted for Infamy. When the ghoul tried to sidestep away, she anticipated the movement and hit them with backhand that nearly sent them across the room. Recovering quickly, the glowing one sent their captive reavers to trip her up, giving them time to put more distance between them. Strangely, Wraith didn’t kill the attacking ferals but only pushed them down and away.

“Hmm. Mommy doesn’t want you to kill your siblings, ey? Well, that works for me. Let’s see if we can’t tear down that wall, hmm?”

For several long moments the group danced back and forth across the rocky floor. Wraith seemed tireless and occasionally she would knock the ferals down long enough to attack Infamy. Regretting having destroyed the bloated glowing one, the assassin found that their utter lack of progress was filling them with fear. It dawned on them that without the reavers, they may have already been killed.

“Damn you!” They hissed, “Damn you, you beast!”

Suddenly the ferals and Wraith looked up at the cavern ceiling and froze. They stood motionless for a few moments before they all started snarling. Then, Wraith put her hands up to either side of her helmet and cried out. Still clutching her head, she stepped away from the reavers and began groaning what sounded like a name. Infamy edged closer to try and hear.

“Hann… Hn… Han.. Hancock…”

……

“Remember, Wraith’s appearance will most likely have changed and she will undoubtedly attack us. Do your best to evade and aid MacCready in lining up his shot. If injured, fall back immediately! We cannot afford a bottleneck or blockage that may prevent access to the cages.” Danse took a deep breath, “Do not exit your power armor for any reason! Assume the radiation levels to be at lethal levels throughout the vault. You few have been chosen for your exceptional levelheadedness and steady aim. If spotted, you are to shoot the glowing one known as Radiance on sight. Do not hesitate, and shoot to terminate. There isn’t a soul here who hasn’t been saved or comforted by Wraith. Now, ARE YOU READY TO RETURN THE FAVOR? ARE YOU READY TO SAVE THE COMMONWEALTH’S SAVIOUR?!”

“WE ARE READY!”

“COMMONWEALTH HEAVY DRAGOONS, ADVANCE!”

After much deliberation and investigation it had been decided that Vault 88 was the most likely location of Radiance’s stronghold. A large Minutemen battalion, arrow headed by a small taskforce of the Dragoons, MacCready and Strong, led by Danse, stood just beyond the rim of Quincy Quarries finalizing the plan of attack. However, the operation was as much recon as it was rescue, due to the simple fact that there wasn’t a way to enter the vault without one’s presence known to the possible hostel force within.

Hancock had been furious when MacCready had told him to remain in Goodneighbor, “Like hell I’m going to sit at my bar while all of you are out here…”

“If I have to shoot you again, I will!”

A compromise was reached when Hancock agreed to hang back with the main force. Though, he watched the preparations like a hawk and made several of the Minutemen nervous. And he wasn’t the only one. Strong had taken to pacing back and forth through the encampment, swinging his super sledge, Smashy, while muttering murderous things to himself.

Hancock stood next to Preston with his arms crossed, tapping his foot irritably as Danse’s group disappeared into the cave that led to the vault’s entryway, “Not a bad speech. We sure nine of ‘em are going to be enough?”

Preston frowned at him, “Nine? There were only eight assigned including Strong.”

“Well, I know I have fewer brain cells than when I was a smoothskin, but I can still fucking count! There were eight suits!”

……

She could feel something. Something that wasn’t Radiance. Her mistress’s light shown so bright in her mind that normally that’s all that there was. But now, there was a smaller light. It annoyed her. Like the incessant whine of a mosquito just outside your window. You know that it can’t get in, but your skin crawls nonetheless.

She growled at it. It persisted.

She pushed it down and threw it away from her. It persisted.

She could feel something. And there was now a crack in her shield.

……

Infamy was furious.

They had fallen back when it became apparent that Wraith couldn’t be obtained by head-on force and when Radiance returned, they had found themselves a protected nook just outside of the danger zone. There they meditated: focusing all of their will onto one spot in Wraith’s protective barrier. And just when it seemed that they had a breakthrough, Danse’s team came stomping by.

“Never a moment’s peace!” They pulled their hood close and dimmed their light as much as possible to avoid being spotted. “So close. Well, I can’t follow them… we will see how this plays out. Dammit.”

……

The ferals seemed endless as Radiance sent wave after wave at the Dragoons. Because she had sentry ferals posted at the entrance, her response had been almost instantaneous. The group was equipped with rifles rather than Gatling guns to avoid accidentally mistaking Wraith for an enemy and mowing her down. MacCready hung back, spotting for them as much as possible in the near darkness, grinding his teeth in anxious frustration. Strong repeatedly called for Wraith, the desperate cries for his alpha echoed throughout the vault. Though it adding to the bedlam, no one shushed him.

The suits of Danse’s team were modded for melee and with Strong clearing multiple enemies with each great sweep of his hammer, conserving ammunition wasn’t their highest priority. As such they initially pushed forward with relative ease.

Well past the area that had been developed for settlers, the floor’s slope angle pitched sharply and as the taskforce descended their Geiger-counters began to tick with increasing rhythm.

Danse checked the map on his integrated Pip-Boy, “There’s a large, open area coming up. Don’t let them flank you.”

The tunnel banked ahead of them and the group could see an ominous glow from the chamber beyond. Rounding the corner they fanned out across the entrance in the face of a sea of powerful feral ghouls.

“STRONG SMELLS ALPHA!”

As if on cue, a group of charred and bloated glowing ones separated from the main host and rushed the taskforce. All but unseen, Wraith was in the center and using the brutal attack as a screen, she slipped behind the group and started ejecting cores. She got through half of them before they even realized she was there. Once she pulled MacCready’s core she threw it into the middle of the chamber, and as if it was a signal, the rest of the feral mob began its swift advance.

They hit the group hard. Not anticipating the loss of fusion cores was a crippling oversight. Literally. There was some attempt to close ranks as they fought to put a wall at their back. Danse, having more experience maneuvering in depleted cores than most, called out encouragement and direction as he reduced feral after feral into green goo with his plasma rifle.

Strong left the group; foraging ahead in an attempt to locate Radiance. Less concerned about securing Wraith, his goal was to kill the glowing one who had taken her away.

Wraith’s appearance was shocking: her fast-growing hair was already long enough to protrude from her helmet in a filth-ridden fringe and her once silver-grey armor was blackened by blood, offal and fire. Snarling viscously, she turned back to MacCready after throwing his core and hit him in the back of the knee before leaping into the air and double kicking him in the chest. As he crashed to the ground she straddled his breastplate and punched him repeatedly in the helmet.

Bringing his arms up to shield his head was all MacCready could manage, stunned and low-powered as he was. He had no way of engaging the tesla field now that his fusion core had been ejected and no hope of throwing her off let alone righting himself. As she swatted his defense away, his vision blurred and the metallic taste of his own blood blossomed on his tongue, an image of Duncan flashed in his mind.

Suddenly, Wraith was whisked away as a taskforce member grabbed her from behind and lifted her off of him, “MACCREADY, GET UP!” They struggled mightily with her as she braced her feet on their breastplate and tried to kick off. When it became apparent she couldn’t free herself that way she tried slamming the back of her head into their helmet. Shock caused them to loosen their grip enough for her to free her arms and she began pounding on theirs. Realizing that they could potentially kill her if they held on any tighter, they took her to the nearest corner and dropped her in it.

Her retaliation was savage. However, the team member still had their core and so was able to block her lower leg and knee attacks. Even as she rolled between their legs, they turned quickly enough to prevent her from ejecting their core. Adapting quickly, she leaped, grabbed their gorget and used the leverage to pull herself up and onto their shoulders. Hooking her fingers underneath the edge of their helm, she tried to remove it; pulling and twisting as if trying to unscrew the lid on a particularly stubborn jar of pickles. They reached up to grab her but she grabbed their arm instead. Then, throwing herself toward the ground, she was able to pull them off balance enough to cartwheel them over her and send them crashing to the cavern floor in an unceremonious heap.

I’M LOSING! I’M IN POWER ARMOR AND SHE’S GONNA KILL ME! FIGHTING WAS A POOR CHOICE!

“PIPPA,” her name ripped from him in anguished desperation, “PLEASE!”

She stopped mid-charge. She tilted her head slightly then brought her bloodied hands up and briefly rested her fingertips against her temples before slowly lifting her helmet.

“Oh… oh, no.”

Her face was greatly emaciated and she had large, deep scabs where her helm had rubbed her skin away. Her sunken eyes, made all the more pronounced by her now jutting cheekbones, were missing their normal inner light and flickered back in forth as she searched for something recognizable in the armored figure before her.

“Pippa, it’s me. I…” he choked on a sob, “I came back.”

“De… Deac…” Wraith stopped and crumpled to the ground; a syringe of tranquilizer protruding from the back of her neck.

……

Radiance’s self-preservation had won out. Retreating further into the connecting maze of sewer and metro tunnels, she was escorted by a dwindling pack of her ferals. Strong had got her in his sights and was on her like a bloodhound. Taskforce team members had made attempts to call him back but to no avail.

“Leave him be.” Danse waved their concerns away, “Let us hope, for Wraith’s sake, that he is more than up to the task.”

MacCready carried Wraith out of the vault but hesitated when it came to putting her in a cage, “I know I said this was a good idea…”

“If she wakes up and you’re still holding her she’ll tear your head off.” Deacon’s eyes were red rimed and there wasn’t a trace of his normal humor in his voice, “Put her in the cage or give her to me and I’ll do it.”

“You don’t get to touch her.” MacCready stared him down, “You. Left. Her.”

Hancock, unchecked tears streaming down his scarred cheeks, held his arms out, “Let me. I want to hold her first anyway.” He kissed her forehead and gripped her tightly to his chest, “It’s alright now, sunshine. She… she don’t hardly weigh nothin’.” His legs gave out and he collapsed to the earth; rocking her back and forth, sobbing.

Once secured in a cage, they used brahmin and moved Wraith to the basement of the former Peabody home. Now a fully equipped Minutemen safe house, it was far enough from settlements they were somewhat less concerned if Radiance was able to evade Strong and launch a counter assault.

Curie, with Piper acting as nurse, carefully cut Wraith out of her armor and bathed her. All the while making sad little gasps and sighs at her sores and how terribly bony she was.

“Oh, Blue…”

Curie hooked her up to IV fluids and was able to get a few bags into her before she woke up. Naturally, the first thing Wraith did was to pull the catheter from her arm and throw it away from her.

“Oh, Madame! Why must you always pull out my lines?!”

Wraith, her eyes wild and unfocused, snarled at her and rushed the bars. She pulled on them experimentally to the point where the metal groaned in protest, but when they proved immovable she stepped back and stood in the center of her cage. Her eyes dulled and she was motionless except for the occasional owlish blink.

Over the next several days her friends came to see her and each time a new person came into the room she would hiss, snarl and try the bars. The exception seemed to be Hancock. Instead of her usual violence, she tilted her head back and forth as if she was trying to see him better. She wouldn’t move closer to him nor let him touch her and MacCready yelled at him for putting his hand in her cage to try.

The only one who hadn’t been in to see her was Deacon. He had disappeared soon after Wraith was secured. Hancock was surprised and a little disappointed and MacCready felt guilty. The sharpshooter wondered aloud if his outburst had “run him off”.

“I doubt it. He’s gotta be skulking around here someplace. Heh, now he’s back we’re never gonna be fully rid of him, you feel me?”

Deacon hadn’t been by because he was hunting. Harkness’s report had contained a description of Infamy and unfortunately for the ghoul, Deacon placed 90% of Wraith’s condition squarely on their narrow shoulders. He had spotted them in the caverns of Vault 88 and again when they followed the rescue team to the safe house. He lost track of them soon after but now he stalked the haunted ruins of Quincy like a vengeful ghost.

Infamy was torn. They had very much wanted to follow Radiance but knew that, lacking the strength to resist her, they’d end up much the same as Wraith. They had followed the rescue caravan with no clear intention and retreated to the Quincy ruins to meditate. They settled themselves in the church there for some serious introspection. It dawned on them that they may have slipped from Atom’s path and been following the light of their own hubris instead, “Mustn’t stray like Marie did. Oh, no! Who is Wraith to you, hmm? Should I save her? Should I kill her? Hahahahaha!”

“Laugh while you can.” Deacon’s disembodied voice reached the ghoul a half second before his knife did. Although buried to the hilt, the strike pierced their bicep and wasn’t intended to be a killing blow. He wanted them to hurt.

Infamy instantly cranked up the heat and sent out a blast of radiation. This in turn caused Deacon’s Stealth Boy to malfunction and he phased back into view on his next attack which allowed Infamy to dodge. Dressed in a hazmat suit, he pursued them out the doors and into the street, taking several shots at them as they ducked into Guns Guns Guns, and cursing softly when he missed. Fully expecting an ambush, he ran in after them anyway. He blocked their knife attack with his own blade and shot them point blank in the shoulder. They sent out another blast that staggered him backward and pushed him off his feet. Rolling sideways, he tried to shoot them from the ground but his pistol misfired.

“Oh, what’s wrong? A little radiation got you down? Toy doesn’t work? Too bad.” They threw a knife and exalted when it stuck in Deacon’s blocking arm, “Should know better than to bring a gun to a knife fight!”

Their victory was short lived. Deacon pulled their weapon from his forearm as he vaulted to his feet and threw it right back at them. Using it as a distraction, he closed the distance between them. Easily ducking under their knife swing he slammed his fist into their ribs. They flinched backward, bringing a knee up before stomping down toward their opponent’s foot causing him to involuntarily back away.

Deacon knew he only had a few seconds before the glowing one could hit him with another pulse and he wanted to capitalize on the delay by staying close and inflicting as much damage, without killing them, as possible. As such he appeared to step into the ghoul’s roundhouse, but in a blur of fluid motion, blocked their hand down and brought the back of his hand back up and into their chin. Hard. This resulted in two things: one, their teeth to sliced into their tongue and two, they decided they didn’t want to fight him anymore.

“I gggan haave her!” Their irradiated blood flowed freely from their mouth and they could hardly speak around the ruin of their tongue, “I gan ring her ack.”

……

“ABSOLUTLY NOT!”

“NOT ON YOUR LIFE!”

“SHUT THE HELL UP!”

Danse, Preston and MacCready’s protests overlapped as they shouted at Deacon. The Railroad agent sighed and turned to Hancock, his pale blue eyes pleading.

“I think I want to stab them in the neck more than I want to…” he turned to face the glowing one directly, “How many goddamn people have you fucked over to mess with Wraith?!” He pointed at Danse, “You see him? He’s a friend of mine and you shot him in the fuckin’ face!”

Infamy’s mouth had already healed and they pouted like a child being scolded, “Oh, poo. It’s no fun to have your failures thrown back at you. Besides, I didn’t actually pull that trigger…”

Danse leveled his plasma rifle at them, “Yes, well, you damn well better believe I’ll pull this one.”

Deacon held up his hands and boldly stepped between them, “Whoa there, big dragon. We all know how tough you are.” He brought his palms together as if praying, “This could be the only way to undo what Radiance did to her. I want my friend back.” He swept his hands out to either side, including all of them, “Don’t you fellas want her back?”

Danse looked at the bandage on his arm and lowered his gun. “For the last time; it’s ‘Dragoons’. And of course we want her back. The entire commonwealth wants her back, but we have no guarantee that this villain will actually help her. There is no promise they can make that I will trust.”

“I am but a humble servant of Atom. If it is His divine will that Wraith be spared…”

“Stop. I don’t want to hear it.” MacCready put his hand on Hancock’s chest, “I can’t listen to this crap anymore. I’m gonna go and feed her and relieve the girls. Whatever you decide, I’ll follow.” He glared at Infamy as he left the room.

The ensuing argument gained volume when Piper and Curie joined in and lasted for the better part of an hour. Curie’s sticking point centered on whether or not they would be able to get an accurate reading from a memory lounger if Wraith was doped out of her mind on chems.

“We simply must learn the extent of any and all damage to her brain!”

Piper had her face in her hands, “Yeah, doc, but how are we going to do that if she’s trying to kill us the whole time?”

“I don’t want to see her strapped down, but…”

“Hell no, Garvey,” Hancock folded his arms, “the cage is bad enough.”

In the end no real decision was made beyond incarcerating Infamy and shelving the argument until Dr. Amari arrived. They radioed Fahrenheit to ask that the doctor join them and locked Atom’s Assassin in the spare cage in an outbuilding. Afterward each went to their separate corners to stew.

“Shaved th’ beard but you haven’t changed your mug yet.” Determined to not let him sneak away again, Hancock had followed Deacon outside.

“My guy’s in Boston. Hadn’t worked out a new one yet.”

“Sunglasses are off, yet yer still lying.” The ghoul took a long drag on his cigarette and blew an exceptionally large smoke ring at him, “I’m thinking you can’t bring yourself to do it.”

Deacon folded his arms and forced a smile that would have been convincing if it had reached his eyes, “Oh? Is that right? So tell me, oh enlightened one, why that is.”

He brought his hand up, index finger extended, to eye level and then slowly tilted his finger down and out to point at him, “That face belongs to someone that Wraith loves.”

Hancock might as well have shot him in the heart. He stood shocked into speechlessness.

“Now, I see that got ya.” Hancock’s eyes softened, “Things been different… well, they ain’t. You screwed yourself, son. But if she loves ya, there must be something good about ya. I gave Danse a chance and I gotta say I kinda love that kid.” He flicked his cigarette away, buffed his fingernails on his waistcoat and examined them as he continued, “You’re an asshole, but I’ll put up with ya for her sake.” He slowly brought out his knife and started juggling it; rotating and spinning around and through his fingers expertly, “You need to go and see her. Don’t try to run away again. I’ll find ya.”

Deacon stood outside on the small lawn while the sun went down. He remained until the lights in the house had been extinguished and he could hear the various snores and sighs of Wraith’s sleeping friends. He turned to leave but on his third step he stopped.

There was a lantern in the corner of the basement. Its low light cast a warm glow on the cold steel of Wraith’s cage. She had been lying in the nest of blankets she had made on the mattress they gave her, but stood up when she heard Deacon come down the stairs. She didn’t rush the now slightly bent bars, but stood and tilted her head back and forth much the same way that she did for Hancock. The bath and a few days of heartier food and clean water had done her some small amount of good and she no longer looked undead. He stared at her hair; now just long enough to curl, it appeared bronze when a ringlet caught the light.

“It’s almost like it was when you came up…” He stopped and swallowed hard before trying again, “I hate that you love me. I hate that I allowed myself to fall in love with you. I hate that I left the lean-to up on purpose, knowing that you’d find it. Knowing that you were smart enough to know what it meant. So that even though we loved each other, we would never be together. Because, how could you forgive me? But..” His breath caught as he sobbed and tears ran freely down his cheeks, “but… you did. You did. But now things were different. You thought that the tension between us was a lie. You thought that any minor flirting comment I made was just… another kind of lie. That I never imagined kissing you freely or holding you in my arms because, we were ‘just friends’. That I winced when we touched because I had Haphephobia, and not just because that I cannot allow myself to enjoy it.” He sat on the floor next to the cage and reached out to her, “Pippa, please hold my hand.”

She flinched when he said her name. And after blinking rapidly for a few minutes she open and closed her fists and then sat down facing him. She came no closer but her eyes we fixed on the bandage poking out from his sleeve.

“I thought that if I left I would stop thinking about you. But, it turns out I lie to myself more than I lie to anyone else. Harkness told me to retire, but if I can’t have you and I don’t have work then I have nothing.” He sighed deeply, climbed slowly to his feet and headed for the stairs, “Hancock was right; I screwed everything up.”

“De…”

At first he wasn’t sure he had heard her and when he turned back she was still sitting on the floor and staring at where he had been sitting, “Wishful thinking…”

“Don’t… leave...” She lifted her chin and met his eye, “Deacon… don’t… leave… me.”

......

Thank you so much for reading! Like what you read? Looking for more? Please see my master link post: pinned or under the tag Wraith in the Ruins. My ask is open for any questions/concerns/comments and I would love to hear from you. =^..^=

#wraith in the ruins #fallout 4 #fallout companions #fallout fanfic #fallout fan fic #fanfiction #hancock #john hancock #rj maccready #maccready #deacon #danse #curie #preston garvey #strong #piper wright

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sanscestships · 3 years

Text

"Escapee" Asylum Zoo Crossmare P.2 (Oneshot, CrossxNightmare)

Created on: 11/18/20

Requested by: No one. I'm bored and there are no requests

(A/N for all of yall's info. FeralVerse backstory is in the first FeralVerse story ["Recovery", its Cream but im not explaining that entire thing again]. Cross is Saber Toothed-Tiger/Rhinocerus and Nightmare is Panther/Octopus to clear up any misunderstandings-)

WARNING: CHARACTER DEATH. MY WAY OF DOING ANGST (that probably failed). IF YOU ARE UNCOMFORTABLE WITH THIS, DO NOT READ.

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He could hear him. He could hear him coming again.

Hissing into the darkness, he snarled and glared at the "glass", as the child had called it. It was easy to discern "him" from the rest. Soft paw steps instead of tapping and thudding feet. Patterns of three instead of two.

Growling, he could now see the light from the now opening door dimly light the room. Stepping in, was the six-legged one.

He didn't know his name. He didn't know what he was called. And he's never heard any of the other ones address him. But he knew from personal experience he was strong. The goop covering him had such a foul taste when he'd tried to bite him. The cyan tint clashed with the black, giving him the obvious clue it would be a mistake to try and swallow the goop. And his aura, while not as disturbing as the golden one's, definitely made him tremble.

Tremble with both, fear and excitement.

He'd been bored, pacing around the closed in walls, with only the frustration of that un-attackable child and confusion from those other skeletons all this time. But him? He was something the horned beast could actually understand.

He'd been through rough times. And he'd become stronger to get past those times. And he could understand that. Respect that.

Challenge that.

Sometimes when it is dark, the goopy beast would come into the room to fight him. And he enjoyed it. The goopy one would get the training he needed to grow even further. And he would get his entertainment, thrill, and experience of his own. It was a win-win.

He began to shake once more, expecting another brawl. However, his shoulder slumped with disappointment when the creature merely reared up against the glass to stare at him with that one, cyan eye.

Why weren't they fighting this time? Had he grown bored of him? Was he no longer of use to him? Suddenly, he was filled with more fear than he'd ever been. Than he could remember.

Why did the thought of being useless scare him so much? This was exactly one of the many things he needed to overcome. And yet, not being of any use at all, not even as fodder? That was something that scared him more than he could ever expect at that moment.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nightmare was amused.

He'd been hoping for an entertaining reaction when he'd come to watch instead of fight Cross. And of course, Cross did not disappoint. Cross was his favorite little toy of all the other mutated skeletons in the building.

Fell just screeched out or hid. Dust would just stare, watching for an opportunity. Error was always on such a constant rampage. Geno just growled at everything except for Reaper and any sort of Papyrus alternate.

Cross? Cross had so much more variety.

Sometimes he'd just jump up at the sight of him, out of excitement or surprise. Sometimes he'd tremble, the fear feeding him while the excitement intrigued him. Sometimes he'd just ignore Nightmare, just pacing further or going to sleep. Sometimes he could even sense XChara's emotions, increasing in joy before being covered up with pain when Cross's frustration snaps and he begins to ram into the wall.

It was hard to deal with only one source of entertainment, but Nightmare could deal with it until the cure is made.

Suddenly, he stopped to think. When the cure is made... Would Cross remember? Would Cross become different? He had heard from Ink that Cross had mutated soon after his AU was "lost", meaning that it wasn't likely that Cross had always been this interesting. Would he become boring once he's cured. Would he not remember when he's cured? After all, mental damage is a bit more tricky to cure than just a little physical change. Would he be like one of those few Sanses, deranged and feral in a normal skeleton body?

Thinking about this made Nightmare want to leave Cross like this. After all, how often would he come across entertainment like this? Negativity, that was easy. He'd just have to kill a few people to make so many more full of misery. Or deprive them of their hope. But eventually with his long life, he'd get bored. What then? What then when he is at the time. When he is the most powerful being in the multiverse? Would he sit on his throne all day, doing absolutely nothing with nothing left to do?

Suddenly, he was completely rethinking multiversal domination too.

What exactly was this being to make him do so?

Now he was even more interested in "Cross", staring down with a smug grin as the fanged beast had suddenly become skittish. What was wrong with him now? Surely it wasn't his aura that was disturbing him now was it? He'd been around the beast with his aura before after all and he seemed mostly fine.

A little wary and hostile, but fine.

Unfortunately, with having amusing reaction, Cross was also a bit unpredictable. Nightmare didn't really know what was going on in his mind, and his fear and anxiety alone wasn't going to be able to help him. Hint him and point him in the right direction, yes. But it didn't let him accurately guess why.

While the goop covered creature admitted he hasn't had to really think too hard about anything in a while and that he appreciated the challenge, he wished that it wasn't about his only toy's well being of all things.

Tap tap tap tap.

He suddenly jolted, snarling towards the door as he heard pawsteps. Like bone against marble.

Which meant someone was out of their cage.

All of the others wore shoes and/or socks (with Ink being the "non-shoe" one). That meant the only ones who would be walking bear foot would be one of the other mutated ferals. Meaning someone's out, and that was certainly not a good thing.

Hearing a huff, he turned towards the glass to see Cross staring at the door with a surprisingly cold look on his face. He could sense Cross anticipating a fight before he growled and shook his head at him. Possibly other ferals walking about was bad enough. But they didn't need Cross, one of the two deranged ones as far as they knew, to be on the prowl either. By the stars, the panic one escapee alone would cause...

Even Nightmare gets stomachaches from eating too much ya know.

After all, he'd already had quite the hefty meal, not only feeding off Cross's fear, but also having had such a fun game scaring the SOUL out of Sci just earlier. While yes, he'd certainly become stronger, there was a limit to how much power he could retain the way he was now without that power turning on him to make him as crazy as the others.

Too much power was what caused him to mutate in the first place. And he was lucky then to have been able to stay sane.

He sprung into action, starting to run at full sprint towards where he heard the sound. It takes a feral to take out a feral, meaning he should be the only one chasing after the escapee. Making his ways through the maze of hallways, he smelled 3 creatures down the next hall with 1 faintly far. Growling having had finally caught several of his prey, he made a sharp turn and pounced-

right into Classic?

"WHOA-" "HEY!" "GRRR-"

Nightmare paused, glaring around the hall as he realized that the 3 he had smelled were Classic, Blue, and Red, with Red being the only feral of the three. Hopping off of Classic, he glared at Blue and Classic. Why the hell did they pursue Red?! Hell, how did Red even escape in the first place?! Its... It's RED! The glass is magic proof and an inch thick so even if any of them had regained the ability to use his Gaster Blasters, not even Error should've been able to get out.

And Blue and Classic chasing after him, not even knowing who exactly had escaped?! For all they knew, it was Dust or Cross who got out! They should've evacuated and put the building on lockdown so no one would escape!

He rolled his eyes, groaning as he heard Classic mumble a bit and Blue demand he apologize to Classic. God, he was surrounded by idiots. No wonder he'd been one of the few to stay sane. For fuck's sake...

He snapped towards Red, grabbing him by the torso with a tentacle before beginning to march towards the main containment room, completely ignoring the other two's complaints and the red-eyed beast's struggling.

At this point, Nightmare was DONE with today. He could feel himself staring to-

NO. No. He was NOT going to go crazy. He was NOT going to fall into insanity just like the others. And yet, he could feel all of the negativity start to go to his head as he kept walking. All of the power... All of the negativity... It was so much. At this point, he swore he could even feel that mutation that turned him into some sort of panther-like thing, multiplying all of his magic over and over. All of that new magic intensifying. All of that intensified magic, eating away at him, physically and mentally.

No. He wasn't going to lose it. He WASN'T-

He suddenly stopped, dropping Red before bolting towards somewhere, ANYONE, with his eye shut tight. He should've known something was up when he was suddenly so emotional Suddenly so bored. Suddenly so powerful. Suddenly so... feral.

The mutation is creating so much magic, that its becoming too much even for HIM. Along with all of that negativity he absorbed today, he couldn't focus anymore. He didn't even know where he was going.

And suddenly he felt pain.

"Grah-" He grunted, feeling even worse at that animalistic sound he'd just made as he caught a glimpse of a red and blue eye.

Fuck, it was Dust.

Now that he was so close, he recognized the scent. It was the same one he'd only faintly smelled. Fuck, he completely forgot there was a 4th that slipped away earlier. He really was losing it. Trying to grab Dust with a tentacle, he tried to claw at him to make him let go from his neck. However, that just made him bite down even harder as he kept trying to yank him off. He could feel himself losing his ability to think rationally as Dust's aggression and bloodlust only fueled his magic more.

Finally remembering to roll backwards and kick him off, he started dashing towards Cross's room. Usually around this time of day, Dream visited Cross to try and "heal him". If Dream is here, his aura should kill off all of his extra negativity to help him stay sane. And even if he was smart enough to leave, Cross is like a fucking puppy. All he has to do is act a little nice and he'll be fucking ecstatic. And that, should help just as much.

Suddenly, he felt confusion as he sensed excitement and anticipation coming off of Dust. Did he really think he could take out Nightmare? So what if he was LV 20? He was Nightmare, Lord of Fear and King of Nightmares. Even if he won't be able to think, he sure as well was still capable of taking him out.

He just wanted to be able to feel satisfaction from brutally defeating him.

Bursting into the room, he felt himself accidentally slipping and sliding on something red as he crashed through a little pile. The hell?

Suddenly, time stopped.

He could only feel Dust's glee as he realized he'd just slipped through blood and a pile of dust.

He couldn't sense Cross's emotions.

Which means Cross was dead.

And if Cross was dead, that meant someone killed him.

And if someone killed him, then it had to be Dust since he was the only one with hostile intentions around.

And if Dust had killed him, he was in the room at some point.

If Classic and Blue and Red had been near him while he slipped away, they were pursuing Red AND Dust.

And while he'd been dealing with those three...

Dust slipped away and killed Cross.

That's why he was strangely strong.

He killed Cross. And gained LV.

He killed Cross.

And it was his fucking fault...

With that final thought, with those words just breaking him...

He lost the rationality he had left to even wonder why it hurt him so much.

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diddlesanddoodles · 4 years

Text

Dumpling ch 30

ALL THE EXPOSITION, FOLKS!

Alternative title for this chapter “In which the bastard gets a name and Keral yells at a hobo lady.”

“The first time I ever met Thadeus was during a dedication ceremony in Silvaara. Some new conservatory or other, I don’t remember. He was there to represent Vhasshal on behalf of his father, the King. My official presentation to the court had been just the week prior so I was nervous as this would be my first official function under my full title. My dress was so tight and starched I could barely move without fear of tipping over. Which I did; I fell into a creek when I went to have a moment to myself away from all the madness of the festivities. Thadeus must’ve heard me go in, because he fished me out of the water before that damnable dress could drown me. We ended up talking for almost an hour and the guards had to come search for us when they realized we were missing.

“And then it came to pass that every time there was a reason for Vhasshal to come to Silvaara or Silvaara to go to Vhasshal, either he or I would go as part of the dignitary company. Just to speak to each other. He would give me little tricks and methods on how to stand the structured rigors of court and to not bow under the pressures our positions required of us, though mine wasn’t so great or heavy as to having one day rule an entire Kingdom. I was just a lonely girl and he was endlessly kind to me, far more than he should have been willing to bestow. One of the few people who did not see me a pawn to be played or won or lost.

“The day he learned that Rosanna of Ibronia was promised to him as his betrothed, I...found out that I had been promised to the eldest son of the Silvaaran royal adviser, a boy named Aidus. He was a cruel creature; selfish and too full of pride. I had always detested him, but he had always sought me out at court. When I was told I was to marry him...I did not receive the news well. His family was powerful and well connected. Anything he ever wanted he would get presented to him on a silver platter. Including me it seemed. But the one thing he nor his family had was a line to the throne. And though everyone kept telling me how smart a match we would be...

“...I did not want him.

“My heart belonged to another man; the Thorn Guard Captain’s son, Hayron. He had been one of the guards to come find me when Thadeus fetched me from the creek and he had often been apart of the guard entourage that escorted courtiers throughout the capitol. The three of us became friends after a time and I remember feeling like nothing that life could throw at me would be so insurmountable as long as he and Thadeus were beside me. I might even be able face my betrothal with dignity and grace as it was expected of me. But then I made a mistake. I...I fell pregnant.”

Oira laughed, a hallow false founding laugh without any humor. “I was so scared that I told Thadeus before I told Hayron. The Crown Prince of Vhasshal knew of my child before her father! Heh...he congratulated me, but he was still scared for my sake and that of my baby. He said that no matter what happened, he would make sure we would be taken care of and I absolutely believed him.

“I had just began to show when my father learned of my shame. I never found out who it was that told him or perhaps he just knew. In any case, I was dragged in front of the whole court and forced to confess everything. My father disowned me then and there and told me to leave. To leave Silvaara. That he would not allow...not allow a bastard to be born under his sigil. He had Master Barnabas erase my name from everything. The histories, our family tome...

“Hayron and I left and lived in the countryside for a time. I wrote to Thadeus and told him what had happened and he instructed us to remain there and that he would come and take us all back to Vhasshal. The night he came to get us...Aidus came as well. He told me that if I got rid the baby, he would overlook my unfaithful indiscretions and still marry me. I would not have my title, but I would share his and still be permitted to live in the place of my birth. I refused him. I told him he was not a man, but a selfish boy who thought he could buy and manipulate his way to power and to a royal title and a path to the throne. He...tried to cut Nenani from my belly. Thaddeus stepped in and...then there were guards everywhere, but they were...wrong. Their eyes were white as milk. Aidus had enchanted them, slipped some sort of potion into their food or drink so they obeyed every one of his words. It was a forbidden magic and I did not know how to snap them from their daze. Aidus had intended for them to kill Hayron, but he had not anticipated Thaedus being there.”

She paused, sucking in a fast breath as tears fell fast down her face. “They killed him. The Prince. He desperately tried to save us; Hayron and my baby and I. He told us to run and to not look back, but...I saw Aidus do it. The killing blow. A single stab through the heart. My dearest friend was dead and all I could do was run away as he bled to death in a foreign country and...I’ve been running ever since...”

Hands pressed to his lips, Keral’s green eyes seemed to stare out into nothing. His whole being was wound tight and looked almost feral with rage. Bitterly angry and sad. He took a deep breath that shuddered as it drew across his lips. “Thadeus was a fuckin’ idiot.”

Oira bristled, shaken from her tears and she snarled. “He was not! He was incredibly kind and selfless...”

“Incredibly stupid and inconsiderate!” Keral reiterated, staring daggers into the small woman. “He didn’t say a damn thing to us. Just up and left one night and got himself killed! All he had to fuckin’ do was tell us and we would’ve been there with ‘im. He was the fuckin’ Crown Prince fer fuck sake!”

Oira paused, her expression softened. “You...were friends with Thadeus?”

“Yes, I was!” Keral shouted, angrier than Nenani had ever seen him. Or Farris. He stood up and walked back and forth in a nervous line, running his hands through his hair and huffing through his nose looking for all the world like a man desperate to hit something. “Since I was a lad. He was my best mate fer years. Met ‘im after I became a squire.”

“...I’m sorry.”

“A’course that would be why he died. Puttin’ his neck out where it had no fuckin’ business and fer what? A damn woman who couldn’t keep her fuckin’ legs closed?”

“YOU GO TOO FAR, SIR!” Oira was on her feet as well now. “HE WAS MY FRIEND TOO!”

“AND YE GOT ‘IM KILLED!” Keral shouted back, the sheer volume echoed hauntingly through the forest. “AND A WHOLE LOT MORE PEOPLE TOO!”

Oira flinched as though his words were a physical blow and she shrank back. “Don’t you dare put that on me...”

“Go on then. Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me that the war would never have happened if you hadn’t begged him to come rescue ya from yer own fuck up. TELL ME!”

“I CAN’T!”

Keral starred at her with bristling hate. “He’s dead because of you.”

“I know he is,” Oira said, her head bowed and shaking. “I know...that I committed a horrible sin...”

“Ha. Don’t think so highly of yerself, woman,” Keral snorted distastefully. “What I want to know, is why didn’t ye come forward and tell us the truth? Why are ye out here skulking about the dark like some fuckin’ goblin?”

“By the time I would have been able to, the war had already started,” Oira said. “And...and you, Vhasshal that is...had started...started to...eat humans. Thadeus had died for my child. For me. For Hayron. I couldn’t throw it all away by risking it. And just as you showed me here, that was what I had expected from his father and so much worse. Tell me Keral, and tell me what you’re heart knows is the truth: would the Blood King have spared me or my infant child if I had told him the truth of his eldest son’s death? Or would he have killed and probably eaten us both and continued on with the war?” Keral didn’t say anything and Oira nodded. “So you understand me then a little at least...”

“Go on then,” he growled. “Tell us the rest of it. I know there’s more.”

“We hid in the woods with others for a long time, trying to wait out the war. Then one day you and your blue coats came and drove us all out to the Southlands. We made a life there somehow. We raised our daughter. And then I fell ill, but it wasn’t a sickness. The night I found out that I was with child again...Aidus found us for the second time. But he was not how I remembered him. He was twisted and so much crueler than before. He had fought in the war, but had started to learn some deviant magic and it had warped his mind and turned him into this...this monster of a man.” She paused and took a fortifying breath that wavered. “...he killed Hayron in front of me. With his own sword. My...my entire world bled out in front of me and I couldn’t do anything. Just like Thadeus. All over again. I don’t remember anything of the next few months, but he had taken me away and...forced me to be what he always wanted me to be; His wife. Even though I could give him no way to the throne and there was no longer a throne to even be had.

“And for those years that was what I did. Languished in the crumbing halls of his keep and bide my time. I gave birth to my son and was able to convince him that Haiyer was of his blood, so he wouldn’t kill the only part of Hayron I still had. I called him by a different name around him, but in secret I would always call him Haiyer. But...almost a year ago now, he said that he was disappointed that Haiyer had not bloomed or showed any sign of being touched by magic. He said that if he did not show promise by summer...that he would kill my son and we would have to “try again”. I could not let that mad man take my son from me like he took everything else. So I ran away. I had tried so many times before, but this time I managed to get away and stay hidden. A cloaking spell I’d found in one of his books.” She ran her hand across her scalp and the shortened tendrils of hair. “Normally such a spell requires a great amount of energy and calls for the blood of a freshly slain sparrow, but some of my own blood and hair did well enough as a substitution to last a few days. If I allowed the cloak to fall for too long, his many eyes would find me.

“I wanted to go back to the Southlands. To get my daughter and Halden, Haryon’s brother. But when I finally made it back, I couldn’t find them anywhere. Someone told me that there had been a fire and that Halden had died, but...no one knew where Nenani had gone. I feared that Aidus had come and taken her. To manipulate me into returning to him. So I’ve been searching for her ever since, hoping somehow he had not found her.”

Keral nodded. “Aye, she was with us by then. But this Aidus fellow. Is he this Smoke Mage I’ve been chasin’ all ‘round creation?”

“Smoke Mage?” Oira made a face. “Smoke Mages are a fairy tales to scare children. Aidus is something much worse; A monster. He’s barely a person anymore. He has scores of Wyverns he’s enchanted or made deals with to do his bidding and the spells he uses...eat at him. Pieces of him flow into the beasts. It was why escaping him is so hard when he has hundreds of eyes. And his precious Dragon of course, but...that beast is gone now. Which will make hiding from him much easier. He put so much of himself into that creature to have it bend to his will. He’ll be weak for some time yet as he tries to pull himself back together.”

“Ye asked me to take yer lil’ uns with me. What about you?”

“It’s me he wants. If he has me he couldn’t care less about the children.”

Keral sighed angrily and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Gods piss on it, no wonder ye and Thadeus got along so well. Yer both fuckin’ idiots.”

“I don’t know what else to do! I have nothing left. Only them. I don’t care if I die, but they,” she said, pointing to Nenani and Haiyer, her voice frantic. “They have to live. For the memory of Silvaara, they have to live!”

Keral bent down suddenly and grabbed the woman up. She shrieked in fright as Keral brought her close to his face and her fire was doused by pure shock. She trembled and uselessly pushed against his hands. “What are you doing? Put me down!”

Nenani got to her feet, truly afraid now. She had listened to them yell and scream at each other for what seemed like forever, but despite the cruel things Keral had said, she did not think he would harm her mother. But he looked so angry, she was beginning to fear that he very well might. “Keral! Please!”

“I’m pretty damn good at smellin’ lies, girl,” he said to Oira, ignoring Nenani all together, and his voice was low with warning. “And I think yer tellin’ the truth. Or yer version of it anyway. But there’s one glarin’ omission in yer story.” Oira’s face was flushed and she was breathing hard. She was terrified. His eyes narrowed at her. “Just who the fuck are you, girl?”

She moved her mouth, but no sound came out. Keral snarled. “Try again, lass. I’m waitin’...”

“...my….my name is Oira Daelg. Wife to Hayron Daelg and mother to Nenani and Haiyer,” she said, voice shaking but firm in her convictions. As she spoke her next words however, her voice grew small and pained. Tears welled in her eyes. “But...but I was born Aine Elaine Oira of Silvaara. Youngest daughter of King Haeral XVI.”

Keral’s narrowed eyes softened and he sighed heavily, all the ire and hate draining away like droplets of water. “Of course ye are,” he said and crouched back down and eased her back onto her feet. He stared at her for a moment. “Yer that little lass that would tag along with Thadeus whenever the Silvaaran diplomats visited.” He paused in contemplation, digging back through his own memories to pluck out a name he hadn’t spoken in over a decade. “...Annie.”

“...yes,” she said quietly. “That’s what he called me. Annie.”

Keral shook his head, laughing without humor and looking around in disbelief. “Of course ye are...”

“I’m sorry,” said the woman with clear emotion. “I’m so sorry for what Aidus did to Thadeus. And my part in it.”

“Strange I didn’t realize who ye were when me and the boys caught ye,” he pondered aloud. “Probably too pissed that ye left yer lil’ girl all on ‘er own to recognize ye in the dark like that.” Keral sat back down in the dirt with a heavy thud, leaning back against the tree and looking up. The stars were out and the only light was the bright moon above them. He was quiet for a long time. “He would have hated himself if he didn’t go to ya. Even if ya never sought his help. He’d have blamed himself for whatever happened to ya and yer babe. Fer the rest of his life. That’s how he was.”

Oira stared at Keral askance and said quietly, “But there wouldn’t have been a war.”

“Probably not,” Keral agreed tiredly. He tilted his head to regard her with shining green eyes. “But does it really matter anymore?”

Oira considered his words and then shook her head. “...I don’t know.”

Keral nodded and looked over to where Nenani was sitting with Haiyer in her lap. The little boy was asleep, but Nenani was awake and watching. Listening with anxious attention between the two of them. They were so different from one another, her mother and Keral. But a thin thread connected them and it seemed like they both were aware of it at all once; How small the world could be that the death of one person could have such an enormous toll on two people so different from each other. Keral was watching Nenani carefully, considering something. He sighed and said, “So them two lil’ uns there...”

Oria was staring at Keral as he watched her children. “They are the last of my father’s bloodline.”

“And you…?” Keral asked, eyeing her from the side with one gleaming eye. Oira frowned and shook her head.

“I was disowned by my father,” she said firmly, sensing where his thoughts had wandered. “I have no claim to the throne.”

Keral just shrugged off her denial. “Kinda hard to be Queen of a country that doesn’t exist anymore. But still. It’s not a small thing, lass. Warren will be wantin’ to speak with ya.”

“I’ve told you everything, Keral,” she said stiffly. “Please. Just make sure they’re taken care of.”

“That Aidus bastard’s attacked Vhasshal; five times now. Hurt my brother. Killed my King’s ward. We can’t just let that go. I won’t let that go. I loved that boy like he was my own flesh and blood and I want that damn Mage’s head fer it.” Keral reached out and tapped his finger against Oira’s head and she batted at him. “You and the lil’uns are all comin’ to Vhasshal with me and yer gonna tell the King all you’ve just told me. And then we’re gonna end this fuckin’ madness once and fer all.”

“I can’t go to Vhasshal,” Oira said, her face contorting in pain. “I can’t.”

Keral snorted distastefully. “Ye said ye were sorry fer what that bastard did to Thadeus. Then prove it. Hoist yer skirts up and face the consequences of what ye did. Warren deserves to know why his brother is dead. Ye ain’t the only one whose entire family was wiped out by the war. Far from it.”

“I...” She covered her face with her hands.

“If ye say you can’t one more time, I’m tossing ya in my pack and lockin’ ye in,” he growled. “There ain’t a scenario where this doesn’t end with all a’ us goin’. You’ll have about a day to figure out yer choice a’ words.”

Nenani carefully eased Haiyer off her lap and stood. She went to her mother’s side and reached out to put her hand into the crook of her arm. Oira flinched, looking at her daughter.

“It’s alright, Mama,” she told her trying to give her an encouraging smile. “There are a lot of really nice people there. They took care of me. Please, don’t be afraid.”

Keral spared Nenani a tired smile. “Well, it’s decided then. I need to go grab my pack from where I left it. Just sit here till I get back.” He paused, looking at the ground in consideration and then bent down to carefully scooped little Haiyer up and slipped him into the large breast pocket of his coat.

Oira bristled and made as though to charge at the ranger. “What are you doing?”

“Yer pup’s gonna be my insurance,” Keral replied with a smug grin. He gently patted the small lump that was the sleeping boy. “To make sure ya stay put till I get back.”

Her mother watched Keral disappear though the trees with her youngest child and Nenani could see that she was frightened and anxious.

“Keral won’t hurt him,” she told her mother. “He really is nice. I promise. Even though he’s been really mad, he really is a nice person.”

“Nenani,” Oira said quietly and taking her hands and looking into her daughter’s face. Here eyes were seeking, pleading. “Tell me truthfully. Have they...have they been good to you?”

Nenani nodded. “Yeah. I like living there. Farris is kind of grumpy and yells a lot, but he takes care of me. He’s even teaching me how to make tonics!”

Oira smiled at her daughter indulgently, but it was clearly forced and she kept glancing towards where Keral had left through the trees. “How to make tonics? Is he a healer or…?”

“Oh, no,” Nenani laughed. “He’s the kitchen master.”

The smile was gone from Oira’s face and she stared at her daughter in horror. “The...the kitchen master? The...they gave you to the cook?”

Nenani nodded, not considering the source of her mother’s misgivings. “He wasn’t gonna keep me at first. He said that he just wanted to scare me off of stealing and then send me to live with the Hill Tribes. But I got sick with the red reap.”

Oira’s breathe hitched. “No. You...you got the reap? How...”

“I remember the pain mostly,” Nenani said. “Everything hurt and I couldn’t breathe. But Farris gave me medicine and stayed with me all night. When I got better he decided to keep me.”

“But still...they gave you to the cook!”

“He doesn’t really cook anything himself. The others do that. He manages the spices and runs the kitchen. Yale’s his assistant and he’s been teaching me about plants and herbs. And then there’s Saen. He’s really funny and sneaks me treats when no one is looking. And Quinn and Kol bake the bread; its really good. And then Bart is the butcher and Avery is kind of his assistant. Bart looks scary and mean, but he’s a lot like Farris and is actually really nice. And then Herit and Gjerk are the youngest. They call them tenderfoots because they’re still learning. Gjerk helped me when the wyvern attacked and I almost got smashed by a table.

“And then there’s Lolly. She’s the matron and she made me these clothes and was really nice to me when I first came and yelled at Farris for scaring me and making me think they were gonna eat me. And then there’s Maevis. He’s a magician and makes really yummy tea. He watches over Barnaby same way Farris watches over me and...”

“Wait! Wait. Did you say Barnaby?” her mother asked, face as pale as milk.

“Yeah, he’s an archivist,” Nenani paused. “Did you know him from before…?”

“Yes,” Oira replied sadly. “I did know him. He...he erased my name from the archives when I was disowned.”

Nenani did not say anything and truthfully she did not know what she could say. She didn’t want to think about all that her mother and Keral had discussed. The way they yelled at one another and threw around their pain like weapons as though hurting the other would lessen the weight of their own burdens. All Nenan cared about was that her mother was finally there. She was alive and now she even had a brother. Above all, she wanted them to be safe. Her thoughts returned to Vhasshal and the assured destruction and pain they would be returning to. Her stomach roiled at the memory of Jae falling into nothing. It hurt so much to think about...

“Nenani,” Oira said gently, taking her face into her hands. “My sweet, you’re crying...”

“The smoke mage...” she said with a whimper. “He...he killed my friend.”

“The one the blue coat spoke of? The King’s ward?”

“Jae was human, but the King called him his son,” Nenani said, shivering. “The King...and Keral. They found him when he was little and he was all alone so the King kept him and raised him in the castle. He was my friend...”

“Warren...took a human boy as his ward?” Oira asked, a strange sort of longing pulling at her features. “That sounds like something Thadeus would have done.”

“Jae tried to protect me from him. Aidus. When he came. He...he had Papa’s sword. But he...threw him off the roof.”

“Oh, my baby,” her mother said and held her. Nenani sank into her mother’s arms and let herself go numb. She was so tired now and all she wanted to do was sleep. She was so tired of crying...

“Oi, Princess,” Keral’s voice broke through the thickening sorrow of Nenani’s mind and she raised her head as the ranger returned from beyond the trees. She could see the thick leather straps of his pack strapped to his back and in his hand he held Haiyer, now awake and red faced with distress. The little boy reached out his hands towards Oira and was calling for her. Keral shook his head in clear exasperation. “Yer pup’s makin’ a right racket.”

“Mama!”

“Is that all you’re able to do? Scare children?” she asked the giant ranger.

“What can I say?” Keral said as he let the little boy slide down from his palm and frantically run to his mother. “It’s a talent.”

Keral put his pack down onto the ground and began rummaging through it. He pulled a flask out and put it in his pocket and several other items as well. Once he seemed satisfied, he looked over to the three humans and gestured them over. “Come on then, let’s get goin’.”

“Now?” Oira asked reluctantly. “Shouldn’t we wait till morning light?”

“Too easy fer folks to spot me in the day,” Keral replied. “Harder to spot in the dark. That’s why our coat’s are blue, blends better in the dark. And the sooner all of ye are in Vhasshal, the better. We don’t know when yer Smoke Mage’ll show up again and I’d rather have a few hundred feet of stone walls and a couple hundred more men to work with than just some trees and a few squirrels.”

Keral looked to Oira and nodded to his open pack. “In with ya, Princess.”

“Please don’t call me that. Oira is my name. No titles,” she said, eyeing the open pack with suspicion and reluctance. “And must we…?”

“It’ll be the most comfortable way fer us all to just have ya stashed in here.” When she made no indication of complying, Keral sighed in frustration and reached out and grabbed her around the middle. Haiyer cried out as his mother left his side, little hands trying to catch her skirt.

“For the love of –! Don’t just grab me!” Oira snapped indignantly. “That’s rude!”

“Don’t have the time to be humorin’ yer misgiving’s, Princess –er, sorry. Oira,” Keral said to her as he slipped her into the pack. There was a wad of cloth down at the bottom cushioning her from the other items further down and making for a softer place to sit. Once he had their mother tucked away, Keral eyed the two children. “Okay, sweetling. Yer turn.” Nenani let him scoop her up without a fuss and set her next to her mother and then he turned his green eyes to the smaller and arguably weepier of the group. Haiyer was grabbing at his tunic nervously and glaring up at the ranger.

“Give her back!” he demanded with a frown; his little chin sticking out in a pout.

“Oh, aye? Ye givin’ me orders there lil’ princeling?” Keral asked in amusement. “And just what ye gonna be doin’ if I say no?”

“Leave him alone, he’s just a baby!” Oira told him, but in response, Keral flipped the pack’s lid closed and sat his hand on top.

“Quiet woman and let me have my fun,” he said and turned his attention back to Haiyer who had procured a rock and had it pulled back in his hand, ready to throw it. Keral laughed. “Oh, ye gonna hit me with a rock?”

“Give Mama back! And sister!”

“Hm. No, I think I’m gonna keep ‘em,” Keral replied with a grin, patting the top of the pack with his hand.

“NO!” Haiyer yelled and threw the rock. It landed harmlessly about a foot away from Keral’s boot and the ranger looked at for a moment before flicking his gaze back to the boy who visibly flinched. The thin blanket of courage fell from the little boy’s shoulders and he began to shake and cry. “Please….please give them back.”

“Ye think I’m gonna hurt yer mum and sister do ye, son?”

“You’re a giant...giants eat people...” said the little boy with an oddly serious expression, but the way his bottom lip trembled gave him away.

“This one don’t,” Keral said simply, shaking his head. “Never have, never will. Besides. Ye lil’ fella’s all taste like dirt.”

Haiyer blinked, looking confused and then turned his eyes down to the ground and the dirt there and then back up at Keral; tilting his head. “...dirt?”

“Oh, aye. Just like mud,” he said, making a face of disgust. “Not very yummy. So I won’t be eatin’ ya or yer mum an’ sister.”

“...no?” the little boy said with a hopeful lilt.

“Nope.”

“...oh,” Haiyer said, blinking as he digested this revelation, his fear seemingly forgotten. He looked at the rock and the back up at Keral and seemed almost ashamed. “...I’m sorry I threw a rock at you. I thought you wanted to eat us.”

“No harm, lad,” he said with a grin. “Ye did good comin’ to yer family’s rescue like that. Very brave of ya.”

“...I was really scared.” he admitted.

“And how about now?”

“...still scared.”

“Well, don’t be worryin’ about that none, my lil’ lad,” Keral said and laying his hand down in front of the boy. “I’m takin’ all of ye somewhere ye gonna be safe.”

“...safe? From Addis?” Haiyer asked, a little more hope brightening his face and looking at Keral’s open palm warily.

“Addis?” Keral asked, confused. “Aidus, ye mean?”

“Yeah. The bad man,” the boy said. “He hurts me sometimes. And Mama. Makes her cry a lot.”

The amusement in Keral’s eyes softened and took a moment to properly look the little boy over. He could see marking on his bare legs and scratches on his arms and face. What would normally have been mistaken for the scrapes and scratched of a rambunctious child when pulled together with everything else painted a much bleaker picture and he found himself very angry.

“I’m not gonna let ‘im hurt yer mum, lad,” he said gently. “Or yer sister. Or you.”

Haiyer fidgeted, digging his toes into the dirt and thinking very hard. When he finally spoke, it was a small and anticipative question. “...you promise?”

“Promise,” Keral answered, making an X over his heart. “Cross m’heart an’ everythin’.”

“...Okay.” Haiyer replied with the smallest of smiles. Keral remained very still as the boy cautiously approached him, eyeing his open hand. Slowly and still shaking, Haiyer climbed into the ranger’s palm and sat down in the hallow of the gloved hand. Lifting the boy very carefully, Keral brought him over to his pack and opened it. A very nervous looking Oira was glaring up at him and the tips of her fingers were glowing.

Keral rolled his eyes at her.

“Settle down, lass. Yer pup’s fine,” Keral said as he lowered Haiyer inside and let him slip off from his hand and into his mother’s arms.

“Mama! Guess what?” Haiyer asked, suddenly very animated and excited. “He said we taste bad so he isn’t gonna eat us.”

“Well,” Oira grinned, suppressing a laugh and pressing her forehead to his. “That is good news.”

#DUMPLING #G/t story #g/t writing #Giant/tiny #Fantasy Story #g/t fantasy story #Nenani #Keral #Oira #Haiyer #Hayron #Thadeus #Aidus #Smoke Mage

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taeyongsbroadshoulders · 3 years

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B how did u get into bts?? I feel like one day it was all Harry and the next u were creating a side blog lmao no shade or anything!! Just curious!!

oh boy.... this is gonna be a long one BUCKLE UP we’re going all the way back... to the Beginning.... (also i legit wrote Too Much so its under the cut sorry she balled Too Hard)

okay SO the first time i heard of them was in?? 2015 i wanna say?? anyway a ton of people i knew from here and saw on twitter started talking about them and reblogging them (i unfollowed all of them too.. I am Fake look where we are now LMAO) and i straight up was like I Do Not Get This

and then i didn’t hear a ton about them for a bit (bc.. unfollowing and avoiding for whatever reason lmao) and then in 2017 i started working for the football team and we had a group at halftime who was doing choreography and they sent me a clip of music they were using and it was Not Today by BTS??? and i heard it and was like ummmmmmm this fucking... slaps.... no..... and i was so mad bc i was so determined to Not be into them even tho i listened to that clip she had sent me like 20 times skgjdlgjdkgl (again... Fake)

then a little while later also in 2017 i heard Mic Drop and i was like okay..??? OKAY....... they have bangers?? absolute tunes out here??? but throughout this whole time the only other thing about them i had ever really seen was how feral their fans were and so i was Very scared and intimidated lmao but i would secretly listen to Mic Drop regularly... and from then on for a few years i would keep up with them (casually, normally, very much in a completely uninterested way obvs 👀) when they would perform on american shows (like when they did Mic Drop on jimmy kimmel in 2017, a couple years where they performed on some of those new years eve shows) and i thought they were SO talented especially in their dancing and everything but again.. kept at arms length...

anyway from there i would just randomly obsessively watch their mic drop music video and then move on (read: me last year) so i was just dabbling here and there for YEARS.. and i think legit one of the only things that stopped me from going All In this whole time was an overall reluctance but also that i never really saw enough of them to latch onto a Fave?? and you know ya girl always needs a fave to obsess over lmao

so fast forward now to this year when Carpool Karaoke came out... and there was Tae in his floppy haired glory in the back corner of the vehicle doing nothing but serving absolute face and looking fine as Fuck and i was like okay 👀👀 OKAY👀👀 so then I was Looking and Looking Hard

aaaannnndddd here we get to a couple months ago when I had just moved and was a week out from starting a new job so obvs my brain was like “U NEED A HYPERFIXATION RIGHT! NOW!” and so i sort of just randomly started looking up more of their performances and seeing how absolutely balls to the wall talented they are and then getting to know their personalities a bit more and stuff and then... i was In.... which also coincidentally coincided with my mutual kelly @fleetwoodcherry / @taespajamas getting into BTS and Tae specifically so i started seeing Him more and was IMMENSELY COMPELLED to say the least... and being the most susceptible bitch in the world to cute boys who dance and sing it was a true recipe for a Fixation and now here we are !

so yeah it’s legit been a years-long battle that i finally gave into.. oh how the TURNS HAVE TABLED... but anyway im here now and i sucked in a couple of my friends and im having a GREAT fucking time so much serotonin i am v grateful for them and a lil mad i didnt get into them earlier but u know what im here now and that’s what matters

anyway this was a literal novel thank u for asking ive been lowkey waiting to ~~tell my story and i had a great time fjgdfklg

#anon #ask

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lethbians · 4 years

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can you explain what's going on right now? i keep seeing big IT blogs talking about some discourse or something but i have no idea what they're talking about other than it involves you lol

alright i like. i truly do not like having diScOurSE out in public because i’m not one to air out my dirty laundry 24/7 but seeing as how it was brought into public against my will i feel like the least i can do is clear up the situation for those who’ve been seeing the posts.

i’m putting this under the cut bc it’s long. tws for some biphobia, brief mention of transphobia and, at the end, a rape mention.

so if you don’t know: hi, i’m migz, i’m an it fandom blogger. its okay, i know, its really cool. part of my shtick here is that i like to turn normal thirst tags into works of art for the sake of comedy. perhaps you’ve seen some of my highlights from my “fhg” tag - perhaps your brain has been spared. either way, it became kind of “my thing” around the third or fourth week (mid nov) of me having this blog. at first, i tagged just about every ask i got mentioning the thirst tags with “bill hader” - they had to do with him, so why not tag him? it would draw more like minded people! about two days into that i got a message asking me to tag my nsfw. i am a big dumb idiot, and apologize for not initially doing it. i havent had a following bigger than like 10 in several years and completely spaced on basic etiquette. so by the end of november i was tagging everything applicable with “notsfw” and “bill hader”.

now you’re caught up.

on december 1st i got this message from user billhaderanti:

now i want to start by saying i absolutely was in the wrong here. i didn’t even think about how many people were being subjected to the asks i was getting - especially ones who had no idea they were all jokes. i don’t track the bill hader tag, so it just didn’t even occur to me - that’s ignorance on my part, and to anyone who was subjected to the terrors of me before my tagging system: i am genuinely sorry. i relay the same sentiment in my response, though you can tell i’m on edge.

and they replied:

clearly they Were offended by it but thats.. not the point. at this point, im feeling Really weird about the whole interaction, but still understanding, because again - i GET it. i know my posts are gross - that’s the point. it doesn’t make it excusable, though, which is why i understand why people are offended. so i responded with the only solution i Knew would keep us both safe and happy posting on our own blogs.

so i thought this would be the end of things! i’d been pretty anxious lately already since i’d started to receive anons telling me i was gross and whore-ish for thirst posting in this way (i delete all of those, so if ur thinking about sending one, i guess no one’s stopping you but it won’t be seeing the light of the dashboard). i’m unsure if it was immediately or a few hours later, seeing as how i have a bad concept of time and the post-dates are right on the edge between nov 30 and dec 1, but i went to their blog - because anyone who has been on the internet knows the opportunity to vague post is near irresistible. and...what do ya know

fair! it’s their blog. however i am an emotionally fragile egg girl and immediately got freaked out. the odds that they were the only one who thought this were low. and, again, i’ve been very open on my blog about how important it is to respect boundaries; my posts are absolutely prone to breaking those boundaries people have created for themselves.

so i made my own, semi-vague post, letting my following know (and i’m pretty sure i’d answered asks about it before, but this is going to be long enough w/o me searching those up too) that i understood if they wanted to block me or unfollow or whatever - people need to create their own safe spaces. the tension is pretty clear in the tags, i’m not trying to hide that. i felt that the way this woman slid into my dm’s was pretty abrasive (just my opinion/how it made me personally feel) and i let myself be a lil emotional about it in the tags of my post.

alright! maybe this is the end. maybe we both go our separate ways and post happily on our own blogs... except it’s not the end. later in the day (some of this was happening like 1/2am, so now its Day day, i believe - again, not good w time passage lol)

clearly, i’m upset. my groupchat double checked that i didn’t get too emotional in my response - did i mention im anxious about discourse lol - and apparently.. it did the trick. she didn’t message me again. great. it was over.

at this point, i decided i needed to make an even bigger change. so a few days after i’d calmed down i created an entirely new tag for my thirst posts so if people hadn’t already hidden the notsfw posts or just blocked me outright, they’d have a third option to escape the madness. at this point, id had my blog about 6? weeks, but there were still 2k posts for me to sift through - some of them were completely untagged. i also had to do it post by post, because one of xkits features - the mass re-tagger - was getting blogs deleted for some reason, and i wasn’t going to do that. so i spent a few days going through all 2k+ posts, adding the “fhg” tag.

YEEHAW! a brand new tagging system, no more hopping into the bill hader tag (minus one or two really funny, not super explicit asks, like the bill hader farquaad meme), and, tbf, i’d completely put this woman out of my mind. i don’t seek out drama and do my best to stay in my lane. yesterday, i checked my activity for the first time in awhile since id put out a couple new original posts that had started to get traction and i Love reading tags. i noticed a mutual had @’d me, and realized i havent checked my @’s in...ever, maybe. i see a post from my good pal billhaderanti.

since i dont follow them and never check my @’s, i’d completely missed it. however, once i did see it, i was horrified. id gone through all that fucking work to keep my blog My Blog and also respect everyone’s boundaries and it still hadn’t been enough. i’d been awake for almost 24 hours and went. a little crazy. and i didn’t reply immediately because i just had no words. i sent it to my friends because i... i just wasn’t going to be able to figure it out myself.

there’s a lot to unpack in this post alone, but whatever, i’m gonna put my own grievances with the immaturity of 1. making a callout post to begin with when i’d been nothing but civil 2. making a callout post about something as (in the grand scheme of Life) minor as some tags where i refer to a someone’s genitals as a “whack pack” and 3. making a callout post in such a rude way - aside. at the end, she calls me (and whoever else!) a demonic mlw (man loving woman, we assumed, and then later confirmed with a post further back on her blog).

which - yeah, we started scrolling. at first we were looking for more vague blogs, and then we just...started finding things. billhaderanti is a self proclaimed lesbian separatist, which... fine. but it’s already pretty clear that this woman hates me on some level simply because i am a bi woman (demonic mlw, remember!) which is just. damn man i can’t believe we are still fighting the biphobic fight lol. so the more we scrolled, the more we uncovered - and not just the biphobic / vaguely mtf transphobic things they posted (or put in tags), but we also found that they had their OWN thirst tags. certainly not as hyperbolically comedic as mine, but they were there, talking about his body and his person the same (and, frankly, a bit creepier for other reasons) as mine.

there’s one post in particular that snatched my wig in it’s creepiness - and i say creepiness in the sense that it feels personal. like this woman feels like she knows bill to some degree where she can say these things. my tags have always had a sense of distance, as they’re written for humor. and maybe this particular post was written for comedic purposes, but it doesn’t read that way, and if it WAS, then she has no right to call ME out for MY comic tags and posts.

i’ll let it speak for itself, mostly because i don’t want to read it again.

i also won’t be going through her blog again to find the posts with biphobic and other Interesting:tm: tags because there are plenty and i just really! want to be done with the whole ordeal! her blog is public and i’m sure you can all find it and look to your heart’s content.

feeling a bit feral and a bit pissed off now that we knew the depth of how rotten this woman’s vibes were, a couple of my pals made a post or two similar to what my tag’s are like except turned up to eleven (if possible) - and tagged them with “bill hader” (and notsfw!!). yes, a bit childish, but at this point, the entire situation was childish, and making jokes was truly the only way we were going to get through it. another vague post went up on her blog soon after.

talking down to us, calling us children, and then for whatever reason calling us virgins... whatever, weird post. around this time most of us (est) went to bed, because it was nearing 3 or 4 in the morning.

and then today happened. i woke up fresh and ready for the day after a wonderful 4 hours of sleep and found that jane had made an incredibly intelligent post in response to the situation. i won’t ss it, but i’ll LINK in case you missed it. attached there in the reblog is my own response. i think they can speak for themselves.

after that, things were kind of jumbled, since i wasn’t online a lot and when i was i was Not checking my activity simply because i was afraid of what i’d see. for the most part, it ended up just being support (which i am very grateful to all of you for - it means a lot that you all enjoy my content to any degree).

there was some more vague posting from both “““““sides”””””” of the “““““argument”””””” - mostly just people restating the fact that this is a public space and we should All be aware of how we effect others. i still hadn’t heard directly from billhaderanti, so i assumed we’d all be dropping and disengaging and moving on. i still wasn’t blocked, though, so who really knew what would happen.

eventually, it culminated in this last post. tw for mentions of rape

i’m going to start by saying that

1. there are nearly no teenagers that were involved in this. im turning 23 in january and most of my friends are 20+. maybe one or two are 19.

2. none of us sent any sexually violent asks - most of us didn’t send asks at all. i believe one or two of my friends admitted to sending asks however they assured me their nature wasn’t bad; as far as i know, everyone remained civil in whatever went on (again, unclear to me as to what was being sent; no one was actively posting or talking about it. if billhaderanti wishes to elaborate, they can, but i don’t have anything to put in).

3. before i finish this, i would like to apologize to billhaderanti. as a comedian - not just my stupid tags, i mean in real life, too - i know that humor can hurt. it’s not always funny, it’s not just stupid hahas. sometimes things that are supposed to be jokes just hit people differently and cause bad things. i recognize that. i never meant to trigger you (if you’re reading this) or cause you any severe mental/emotional harm. i apologize for my humor bringing up your trauma, and i never meant for that. regardless of my own thoughts and opinions about the nature of my posts/the thirst tags themselves, they hurt you, and i’m sorry.

anyway, i’m going to wrap this up (i’m bad at endings, what can i say! steven king and i took the same writer’s class!). if you read all this... sorry. i probably won’t be taking any asks about it, because i find the whole “drama” of this to be stupid and rooted in some seriously biphobic issues this fully grown woman has.

tldr; i attempted to contain my blog so this woman could exist and function safely on her blog, but it wasn’t enough for her, so she called me out, and then some of the fandom called Her out for being biphobic and mean and overall just immature about the situation. as of now, she’s yet to block me, though her and her wife have blocked a few of my friends. her wife continues to clown on my friends. this post was made for clarity’s sake. the end, i’m getting a drink.

#discourse #biphobia tw #transphobia tw #rape tw #ok goodbye im done with this im back to #only posting gay clown movie #Anonymous

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destielstuffandthings · 4 years

Text

For @to-ship-or-not #15- Shouldn’t you be with him? Destiel angst and with a happy ending

“It’s not that easy, man. You don’t get it,” Dean grunted. He hacked his way through the bushes with his machete, ducking out of the way as a branch whipped over his head. “It’s complicated.”

“More complicated then gettin’ our asses handed to us every day ‘n night?” Benny reached up and snapped the branch off and tossed it to the side. “Come on cher, fess up. You got it bad for the angel.” He held his hand up in defense as Dean turned to glare at him. “It’s obvious, Dean. You ain’t exactly subtle. Goin’ ‘round here yellin’ at anyone who’ll listen ‘Where’s the angel?’ and choppin’ their heads off when you don’t get the answer ya want? Look, I get it. Killin’ is necessary down here but, buddy, you’re goin’ straight up feral lookin’ for the guy.”

Dean balked. Not even Sam was ever this blunt about whatever was going on between him and Cas. He shook his head and whipped his machete into the dirt next to his feet.

“You don’t get it, man. I owe Cas everything. He pulled me outta hell.”

“I get that brother. Been in a tough spot with a few good men before. I owed ‘em my life.”

“No, Benny. Literal hell.” Dean squatted down and balanced on the balls of his feet, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I was torturing souls when Cas came down into the pit and yanked my sorry ass out.” Dean closed his eyes and sighed.

“Well, shit, cher. I didn’t know nothin’ about that.” Benny sat up against a tree trunk next to Dean and let out a groan. “Hell,” he huffed. “Can’t even imagine what that was like.”

Dean sighed. “It was better than here. Didn’t know Cas back then so I didn’t have to worry about the asshole gettin’ hurt. But now, he’s out there somewhere and I can’t find him.” He ran his hand down his face and over his mouth, looking off into the woods. “If he’s hurt---”

“I’m sure he’s alright, Dean. Guy’s an angel after all. He knows how ta take care’a himself.” Benny patted his friend roughly on the shoulder. “Does he know?

“Know what?”

“That you’re in love with him,” Benny said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Dean huffed and shook his head. “Yeah,” he stood and rolled his shoulders, “pretty sure he does. Been goin’ at this for ten years.”

Benny’s eyes widened as he stood. “Ten fuckin’ years? The hell is wrong with---” Benny scoffed, “Shouldn’t you be with him by now?”

Dean nodded. “Probably. If I ever find him and get outta this place, I’m gonna tell him. No more hidin’.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~One Month Later~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“Fuck,” the demon screamed, it’s voice echoing throughout the canyon. “I told you I don’t know! God, p-please!! Stop!”

Dean’s eyes were bloodshot and his face was spattered with blood. He pressed his knife harder against it’s throat. “Why the fuck don’t I believe you? Your pal over there,” he tilted his head to the other side of the river towards a demon Benny had just finished sucking it dry, “said you two were trackin’ him. Tell me where you saw him last an’ I’ll let you go, s’long as you don’t try anything stupid.” His eyes narrowed as he sliced the demon just enough to let a drop of blood trickle out.

The demon shook underneath him, searching Dean’s eyes for any sign of lying.

“Ok,” it breathed in relief, nodding it’s head. “We saw him up river just a few hours ago. We were headed that way when---,” it looked over to see Benny wiping his mouth, stalking towards them. “He can’t be far. He’s weak, he didn’t even care that we were following him. He looked like---like he wanted to get caugh---”

His last words were cut off by Dean plunging the knife into it’s throat. It gargled and spasmed until Dean felt it take it’s last breath.

He stood and wiped the blade clean on his pants, never taking his eyes off the demon.

Benny walked up behind Dean and looked over the mans shoulder. “Anything?”

“Yeah. He knew where Cas was. Up river a few hours. Let’s go.” Mechanically, Dean turned and headed north. Benny sighed and followed close behind.

They hacked and slaughtered their way through the woods until they came to a clearing. The water pooled into a small pond that was surrounded with brush and vines. The small makeshift beach was littered with body parts and used weapons, blood soaked into the dirt turning it an eerie shade of red. In the middle of the chaos stood Castiel, breathing hard and staring at the carnage around him.

Dean’s breath caught in his throat as he laid eyes on him for the first time in months. He dropped his weapon and started running towards the battered angel.

“Cas,” Dean called out, running as fast as his legs could carry him.

The angel raised his hand to his forehead, squinting to block out the sun.

“Dean?”

Dean slowed down a fraction before running into the angel, wrapping his arms around his solid frame.

“Fuck, Cas I never thought I’d see you again,” Dean whispered, nuzzling his face into the angels shoulder.

Castiel wrapped an arm around Dean and held his weapon tight with his other hand. “Dean,” he brushed his lips across the mans ear and squeezed him tightly, “don’t move. You were followed.”

Before Dean had a chance to speak, Cas moved Dean behind him with a sweep of his arm. He held his angel blade chest high and pointed it at the person in front of him. “Leave. Or you can join your brothers fate,” he growled, gesturing to the bodies strewn on the ground.

Benny laughed and raised his hands. “I’m guessin’ you’re Cas?”

Castiel felt Dean grab his forearm. “Cas, this is Benny. He helped me get to you.”

The angels arm fell to his side as he frowned. “My apologies. I’m used to---”

“Killin’ anything that gets within spittin’ distance?” Benny huffed and smiled.

“Yes,” Castiel said bluntly. He turned to Dean and looked him over, noticing a gash on his side. “You’re hurt.” He reached out yo inspect it before Dean smirked and batted Cas’ hand away.

“M’fine. Just glad we finally got to you, Cas. I missed you. I thought---”

Castiel glanced at Benny before returning his focus to Dean. “I also thought the worst. It seems as though your new friend kept you alive, for which I am grateful,” he said in Benny’s direction without taking his eyes off Dean.

“I’ll uh...I gotta---,” Benny pointed to a hedge of trees in the distance, “I’m just gonna go over there and---yeah.” He awkwardly made his way out of earshot and settled against a tree, closing his eyes as he smirked.

“I don’t like him,” Castiel scowled, staring off into the trees.

Dean scoffed. “You don’t even know the guy, Cas. I wouldn’t have made it if it wasn’t for him.” He rubbed the back of his neck nervously. Now or never he thought. “He uh, probably glad to get some peace and quiet now. I kind wouldn’t stop talkin’ about you.”

Castiel nodded. “Yes, I suppose it did take some time for us to be reunited. I assume he knows what I am?”

“Yeah, yeah he knows. But that’s not what I’m talkin’ about, Cas.” Dean moved his head so it was in Cas’ line of sight. He locked eyes with the angel for the first time in months. “I told ‘im how much you meant to me, and that I wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for you. Told him---,” He sighed and twisted his fingers into Cas’ sleeve, “I told him how much I love you.”

Castiels eyes widened. He looked at the man in front of him, watching the blush grow heavily on his cheeks and ears. He reached out and rested his palm against Deans cheek, sweeping his thumb over the thick hair on it and sighed.

“If I had known that getting lost in Purgatory was the answer to you finally saying that, I would’ve----”

Dean pulled Castiel in flush against his chest. They were both still covered in blood and dirt and God knows what else, but nothing had ever been more perfect than when their lips finally touched.

It was a soft, careful kiss. No rush or urgency behind it. Testing the waters, Dean held the back of Cas’ neck and brushed his tongue across the angels bottom lip.

Castiel sighed into the kiss. With a roll of his jaw, Dean opened willingly and took what Cas gave him. They held each other close as before pulling away for air.

In the distance, they heard a deep chuckle and a twigs snapping as Benny wandered off into the woods, leaving them to get properly reunited.

#supernatural #dean winchester #castiel #Destiel #angst #happy ending #kissing #first kiss #benny lafitte #vampire #blood drinking #purgatory #love confession

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captainillogical · 5 years

Text

Devil’s Ballroom ch.3

A year after the events from the earth’s final attack, Little Homeworld is finally complete, and there’s a new jazz bar where gems and humans mingle and drink. - As you’re typing back a reply, someone pulls the stool out next to you and takes a seat. You see a sliver of pink out of the corner of your eye as you try not to actually Look. Oh god. It’s her. God can’t help us now.

Spinel/Reader

collab with my lovely wife @firstofficertightpants

She sets her mostly empty drink down on the counter, and turns to look at you when Bismuth walks over again, stealing her gaze right back.

“That was nice, Spinel. I think that was my favorite song of yours yet.” She says to her. “You want another round?”

“Aw jeez, thanks I guess, Bis.” Spinel says sheepishly. “And yeah, I think I’ll need it tonight.”

You pretend that nothing weird has ever happened to you at all in your life, and down the rest of your drink. You want like, 5 more of these and then you'll be able to deal with this.

Y/N: Yeah. I remember the night. She's also sitting right next to me. Uh.

Alex: for real

Y/N: I might be internally having a panic attack.

Bismuth pours Spinel her drink, and she sighs. "It's just, today was kind of rough. Blue called and wanted to apologize for things that she doesn't need to be apologizing about, and I kind of wish they'd calm down a little and let me exist in peace."

Bismuth nods. "Steven has talked a lot about them. They seem really difficult to be around, if I'm going to be honest. They don't quite get.. real people problems."

"You have no idea." She replies, and takes a long drink. “They don’t even understand privacy. I couldn’t do anything without them basically following me everywhere. It was stifling.”

“Seriously, I’m not sure what I expected from the Diamonds, but if you told me that 5000 years ago, I wouldn’t have believed you at all.” Bismuth says, “I’m just glad you have some much needed breathing room.”

“It was long overdue. Several months in their presence was more than enough.”

Bismuth gives Spinel a tired smile, and turns to you.

“How are you holdin up there, Y/N?” She hands you another drink. “You’ve only been here 25 minutes or so, and you’re on your 3rd already. That kinda night?”

“Err, just in the mood I guess.” You reply and laugh. You weren’t trying to eavesdrop. Bismuth turns away to a couple of other patrons and busies herself making a few mixed drinks for them.

Alex: dude kick her for almost killing ur dad

Y/N: What, and get myself killed? Fuck no.

Alex: ur a pussy

Harper: did she say anything about you taking a pic?

Y/N: No! Please don’t curse me.

“You know, if you wanted a pic so bad of myself, you could’ve asked.” Spinel says, turning to face you directly. You stare at your phone and can feel your face heating up for being called out. You can feel your mouth working way faster than your brain can even comprehend.

“My friends are shitheads and didn’t believe me when I said I saw someone cute on stage.” You say, and immediately shut your mouth. If you could sink into the floor right now and disappear forever, that would be great. God doesn’t grant you this though, and you curse him for it. “I mean.. I’m sorry. That was rude of me to do without your permission.” She grins.

“Ya know, I didn’t actually see who did it, I just saw the general direction of the flash and walked towards it, and happened to find an empty seat next to someone looking fairly nervous.” She laughs. “Way to out yourself there.”

You look at her. Fucking goddammit. “I seem to be doing a lot of that today. Ughhhhh.” You drag your hand down your face in dramatic fashion, and take a drink. You’re starting to feel the alcohol slowly take a small bit of effect. “Song was nice by the way.”

“Oh, thanks.” She looks a bit surprised, like she’s not used to compliments. Hm.

“I’m not so musically talented myself, but uh. I can make some mean enchiladas. AND I can make a calculator spell the word “boobs”.” You say, like it’s somehow impressive.

“What’s an enchilada?” Spinel looks at you suspiciously. Oh right. Gem.

“It’s.. food. Hold on.” You say and pull up an internet browser to google the definition of enchiladas so you can show her a pic. You see the group chat go off a couple times and keep swiping away your friend’s rapid texts, knowing that they’re asking you too many questions right now and you’re determined to show this alien one of your favorite foods. Tonight sure is a weird night. You find a good pic of enchiladas, and turn your phone towards her. “See? Tortilla, cheese, meat. Great stuff. You can even change some of the ingredients and make them a couple different ways. All pretty good if I do say so myself.” You say as she looks at it, and you can see your phone chime with another message notification. You pull your phone away quickly before she has any chance to see whatever the fuck your friends are talking about.

“Humans are strange.” She replies, a pondering look on her face. She takes another drink and sets the glass down gently, keeping her hand lightly on the glass. You notice her fingernails are short and clean. You wonder if they grow like human nails? You wonder how similar gems are to humans in general. “You guys have to eat to survive? And you all grow so much all the time, and you’re constantly changing. You can’t even grow limbs back, or shapeshift. What’s the point?”

“The point?” You laugh. “I mean, science IS advancing and we can grow organs from plants, in a lab. Can’t grow limbs back.. yet. I can’t exactly change being human. Besides, you gems as a race don’t exactly look like you have any fun at all. Being human is all about having new experiences.” You say.

“Well, maybe I’m having fun now.” She says, tapping the rim of her glass. You kind of look at her for a second. She seems to be tapping her left foot on the side of the stool, maybe kind of nervously? Her hair is up in a ponytail, and she's pushing some of the fringe behind her ear. She’s cute, you think to yourself.

“Oh?” You say as you smile slyly into your drink. You think you see her blush a bit.

“It’s been a while since I’ve been here. Last time wasn’t so nice. Some guy tried punching me, he was drunk and recognized me from the earth attack last year. Bismuth had to kick him out.” She says stiffly, and takes a drink. “I’m sorry about that, by the way.”

“My dad almost died.” You say. She winces.

“I am really sorry. I do regret how I dealt with my entire situation.. I’ve had a lot of time to think about it." She sighs. "I’m just glad no one actually died. And thanks for not cursing me out, for all of this."

"He's hard to kill, anyway."

"What?" She says, staring at you incredulously.

"My dad. He's done so many stupid, dangerous things that I remember from my childhood. He must have some kind of divine blessing, because even when he fought that gator off grandpa's porch, he came out without a scratch. And that was one really pissed off gator." You say. Spinel laughs heartily. She's actually really cute when she laughs, and you can't help staring for a second. “There was also that one time this guy attempted to rob us at a gas station, and he took the bastard down with the unopened energy drink from his cup holder. You wanna know what he had to complain about afterwards? That he had to now go buy another energy drink. That’s my fucking dad, I guess.”

“Your life sounds interesting.” She says in reply. “I can tell that you love him though.”

“Yeah. He’s kind of my entire life. He’s all I have left of my family.” You say, smiling. “He’s a good dad. He tries his best.” You hear your phone chime a couple more times, and roll your eyes. They’re so fucking needy. “My friends are extremely obnoxious, and must know what I’m doing at all times. You have anyone like that in your life? Because I could pawn off Alex on you if you want.” You grab your phone and open up your group chat to see what they’re talking about. There’s quite a few missed messages.

Harper: she hasn’t said shit in a while and i’m kinda worried.

Harper: what if she got kidnapped. D:

Alex: shes probs in the middle of a bar fight tbh

Alex: im pretty sure that alien started it or something

Alex: she was probs all like “im gonna kill ur planet now and finish u all off!!”

Alex: and Y/N was like “not on my watch BITCH” and decks her

Alex: the whole bar claps

Harper: shut up it’s been like 10 mins and she hasn’t said anything and i’m nervous.

“I have a few people who I’d call friends here. Bismuth, Lapis, Amethyst.. Steven. I kind of feel like I’m bothering them when I’m around, in general..” She says, swirling the drink around in her glass. She regards it, lifts to her lips, and takes a drink. “Steven sometimes asks how I’m doing.. I know he cares. I have a hard time letting myself be honest with him. Cause.. you know. He’d try to solve all my problems. And I try to deal with them on my own.”

Y/N: I'm not dead. We're talking. She's nice.

Alex: wow are all genocidal maniacs nice i wonder

Harper: TALKING. YOU'RE TALKING TO HER

Y/N: YES WE'RE TALKING.

Y/N: She even apologized about my dad, and the entire shebang, really.

Y/N: She's nice conversation, anyway.

Harper: whoa she apologised?

Alex: youve got to be kidding me rn

Alex: lemme just go revive gengis khan so we can have a nice chat over tea

Alex: this is absolutely nuts why am i the only sane one here

Alex: im gonna go fucking feral

"It's such a Steven thing to do, too. You should've seen how he was when he found out about my mother." You laugh, and set your phone down on the counter. "He literally tried to go out and find her. He's such a sweet kid, but I had to break it to him that even if I knew where she was, I didn't want to see her."

Off to your left side, you feel someone approach you at the bar. You turn your face to see who it is. It's a man who looks a decade older than you are, and you've never seen him before. He nods to regard you.

"Can I get you a drink, beautiful? You look absolutely lovely." He says, leaning in slightly.

"Thank you, but I'm alright." You put in your best polite, but fuck off smile.

"You're just going to say no without even considering it?" He smiles, and you hate it. He's giving you terrible vibes and it's making you uneasy.

"I said I'm good."

"Yeah bu-" He starts, but Spinel cuts him off.

"She says she's good, pal. Leave the dame alone." She crossed her arms over her chest, and glares at him.

"Damn fine, stuck up bitch. Didn't want to talk to you anyway." He spews, and leaves to the other side of the bar. Thank god, you think to yourself.

"Thank you for that." You say to her, seriously relieved. "Fucker needs to learn how to take no for an answer."

“Yeah, well. No one harasses a girl on my watch.” She regards you carefully. “Do you mind if I ask you something?”

“No?” You lift an eyebrow in response.

“What happened with your mother?” She says, grabbing for her drink and taking a sip.

“Oh. Um,” You’re a bit surprised that she seems to genuinely care. You’ve known her for all of like.. a half hour. “She left when I was 5. Just had enough of dad and I, I suppose. Dad says it just came out of nowhere, and he has no idea what happened. We were a happy family, and then one day after dinner, she went into their room, packed some things in a single bag, and left.” You pause to take kind of a long drink. “And no one knows where she went. It’s been 17 years. Not a single word. It actually really fucked me up for years. I felt abandoned and absolutely worthless. How could you raise a child for 5 years, and just fucking bounce? Like, did she read a manual on how to fuck up your kid and give them emotional problems for the rest of their life? God, what a fucking bitch. I can’t even IMAGINE doing that to a kid.”

Spinel is staring at you with wide, shocked eyes.

“Eventually I ended up gaining some friends that helped me get over it, for the most part. They’re stupid and I love them. And if they ever found my mother, they would murder her in a heartbeat.” You say, chuckling. Spinel is still staring at you. “Are you okay? You ask.

“I’m fine, it’s just.. I don’t think I’ve ever met someone like me.” You watch her fiddle with her fingers. She moves slightly, and you see her shirt open, heart gem glimmering in the low lighting. You don’t want to be caught staring at it, like a crow to a shiny object. (You want to touch it. You want to touch it bad. Is it warm? Is it cold? Is it smooth? You need to know.) “I also had a very important person abandon me. The MOST important person to me, actually. For uh.. 6000 years.” You look up and your eyes make contact with hers.

“What.” You say. “6000 years.”

“Yeah.. It’s kind of embarrassing now, though.” She shrugs. “But it was terrible, and now I’m here. I’ll never get closure the way I want from Pink Diamond, because she’s gone forever. Anyway,” You kind of want to hug her. “I’ve been surviving, and I think I’m doing okay.” She smiles slightly. Bismuth is suddenly in front of the two of you.

“I saw some commotion all the way from the other side. That guy bother you? Want me to deal with him?” She says, all while refilling Spinel’s drink without even asking.

“Nah, he fucked right out of here when Spinel told him off.” You say, and finish the rest of your cider. Blegh. Warm.

“Is that so?” Bismuth say, grinning. She’s pointedly looking at Spinel. Spinel is giving Bismuth a dirty look. Oh my, what is going on there? You feel your bladder cursing up a storm inside you.

“Bismuth, I’d like another beer please.” You slowly get up on sleepy, wobbly legs. “And I’ll be right back, gotta pee.” You turn and look at Spinel, who looks back. “Guard my purse.”

“Cannnn do.” She says while taking another drink.

You make your way slowly over to the bathroom that was actually just 15ft away from you, and go over to one of the stalls and plop down onto the toilet, pulling out your phone to look at group chat.

Harper: so my brother got catfished again

Alex: LMFAO

Harper: how many times is this? 4? for fucks sake

Harper: he’s 29. you’d think he’d have his shit together by now, but noooo.

Alex: that is honestly the saddest thing ive heard

Alex: wins most pathetic man of the month

Y/N: oof.

Y/N: Yeah that’s just sad.

Alex: Y/NNNNNNNNNNNNN!!

Alex: how are yoooouuuu

Y/N: I’m fine. I’m having a nice time.

Harper: you still hangin with the not-evil-now alien? :p

You choose to reply later, and instead finish your business in the stall. You come out and wash your hands, making sure you wash them thoroughly. You never know what kind of germs are in bar bathrooms. You’re drying your hands when you hear the bathroom door open, and someone is walking in. You turn to look, and it’s a familiar figure. A man.

The man from earlier.

#spinel #spinel x reader #spinel su #steven universe #spinel self insert #fic #my fic #devils ballroom

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faunusrights · 5 years

Text

OFFAL HUNT REMASTER LIVEBLOG // CHAPTER 7

when will one of these chapters start with ‘wow murphy’s gonna love this and rly enjoy themself’ WHEN IT IS. I HAVE TO KNOW.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

okay i am Recognising this chapter so we’re not quite yet in untouched, completely Feral territory which is. nice. thats nice. i like it when i know what im working w/ but who the kell hnows.

Something nagged at her. A forgotten thing. She thought hard, but even so, it took a long moment for her to remember.

me when i go to my room to fetch my dishes for the washing machine but i get sidetracked by my dog being cute and then i forget and go back downstairs and remember the dishes and then i come back up but my dog is still there and i forget again-

i’m just. rly enjoying this glynda. I SAID IT BEFORE BUT IM RLY THRIVING FOR THIS IDIOT WITH ONE BRAINCELL. THE BRAINCELL IS CINDER.

Glynda’s hunting instincts were primed, the only part of her that worked with absolute clarity, even now.

this is why she hasn’t noticed cinder’s flirting, the fool, the blithering idiot,

In the split second before she faded from consciousness, she smelled ash, the foreign Aura within her flaring until she could taste it: burning flesh and steady decay. Then it disappeared, fizzling out.

hm. is it a callout to say this is. romantic. this is kinda romantic. hey is this? gay? i think its gay. im gonna settle on it.

its gay.

When she awoke the next morning, it was like pulling herself from some great void,

H👈A😎H👈

for some reason THAT was the fingergun that made me spill juice all over my keyboard i see how it is

Then she remembered that at Beacon, her blood usually stayed inside her body.

im thriving for this weird observation. you know when you wake up somewhere new like a hotel or smthng and for a moment yr like ‘where am i’ and u figure it out thru like. normal fucking means. like oh thats not my duvet oh thats not my ceiling oh thats not where my window is-

and then glynda has to judge her location by how much blood of hers is spilled in it. this bitch!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! SHE GOT ONE BRAINCELL AND OFFAL HUNT IS THE THESIS TO PROVE IT-

It was the room she’d all but dissembled in after getting her ass kicked and then saved by Cinder Fall.

sorry im going HOG WILD on quotes but these new lines r SO GOOD and im LIVING for them....................... like until now we’ve had glynda goodwitch, terrifying unstoppable woman and occasional dipshit. now shes all dipshit. just 100% pure dipshit. spread her on a field and you couldnt tell her from the manure. a complete buffoon.

that said its nice to see glynda using her Brainmess for once... i mean she still wont be able to put an otherwise fuck-ton of clues together still because that requires, the ability to multitask, which is surely does not have, but finally she’s taking five fuckin minutes to let herself go ‘well THATS weird’.

There had only been a stirring of life along those red-vein tattoos, swirling just along the cut of Cinder’s dress.

im enjoying the new ‘sexey tattoos’ slant we’re seein in this remaster it was a real shame they didnt get primetime attention last time.

also glynda Why Ya Lookin,

Hello,

she’d be a heretic to the Law of Semblances twice-over,

I May Not Know My Semblances, But I Know A Bitch When I See One!

For the first time in years, Glynda wanted to set everything aside and rest.

we stan a sleepy bitch................ ugh im so glad she’s finally realising she needs 2 give herself some mfing slack!!!!!!!!!!!!!! because as much as im enjoying the Dragfest she rly needs to. chill.

When she finally emerged from the bathroom, a towel around her waist and her dirty clothes balled in her hands,

look i didnt make this blog to lie that my first reaction to this was tilting my head and going ‘tiddy out? tiddy? is the tiddy out? tiddy?’

look women look hotter doing all the things guys do and this is fact i wont sit down and i Wont Shut Up

No more rushing ahead and getting herself torn up for nothing.

H👈A😎H👈!

thats a Good One, Glynda,

Winter Schnee had the pale white hair of her bloodline, and the sharp features of the famously reclusive Willow Schnee.

YES BITCH WE ARE IN IT NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! POP THOSE MFING BOTTLES

i have been WAITING. FOR WEEKS. 7 FUCKING WEEKS I HAVE SAT HERE AND WAITED AND IT FINALLY PAID OFF OH MY GOD MY BITCH IS IN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

As Ozpin had said, she was twice the age of the younger Schnee daughter, and her blue eyes held all the acuity that age had brought her.

i made a Sound at this i CAN SEE WHAT YOU DID. I SEE IT. I SEE IT,

A single photo hung on the wall next to a placard detailing some kind of award. Glynda pushed her glasses up on her nose to get a better look. Though it had the appearance of a family photo, only the women of the Schnee family were present, Willow and Weiss flanking a newly ranked Winter.

why am i being targeted directly anyway

safdjhgfsdajgh WINTER,....... im still. im Love w/ this main bitch finally... Finally.... i love winter in offal hunt so fuckign much and im so glad she’s here and that we’re getting more details because AAAAAAAAAAAAAA i love her!!!!!!!!!

also i cant.... say anything because spoilers..... but also............. NNNNNNN this convo has just. so much behind it. SO MUCH CONTEXT. its Killing Me,

A strange expression crossed Winter’s expression. It looked like how bruises felt.

im losing my fucking mind rn diesel and kc are going right to hell and they know it but do they care???????????? no. they already are the devil,

okay i went silent for ages and read ahead because i screamed in discord for like ten minutes and it looked like this

so YEAH theres that, i guess,

Instead, it only filled her with deep unease. Glynda didn't know what Cinder’s game was, but it was becoming clear that it did not align with her own. And the more she thought about it, the less she understood. The less she understood, the more wary she became.

cinder: i wanted to tell this girl i liked her so i wrote her a note that said get out of my desert,

im rly thrivin in this chap i already said it but we’re rly jumping into the meat n bones of the Plot now and its a Good Plot so im excited!!!!!!!!!

“Yes, I think you’ll like her!”

“she’s a lesbian, like you, so maybe her distinguished energy will chill your dysfunctional energies out-”

Glynda pressed her lips; she needed a delicate hand here, needed to carefully choose a response which would divert Ozpin away from the topic. “No reason.”

YES MY FAV LINE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! this is Big Me and literally this is MAYBE the best and also funniest line in this entire shitshow remembers the Pasta Bit and /sweats

i also rly enjoy glynda n ozs friendship... i mean im out here remembering the glynda/ozpin/cinder fic so i was already sold on all their interactions but its rly good!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! GLYNDAS BEST FRIEND MAY BE 200 YEARS OLD BUT GOD DAMN IT WHEN WILL YR BFF EVER BE THERE FOR U LIKE THAT,

theres a Bit here im not gonna go into but. honestly once u kno how offal hunt basically ends? Its Sad and Im Sad. i hate how knowing this whole thing just inflects on everything else and everything glynda wants and honestly this whole fic sucks. why am i reading this AGAIN.

“I have faith in you, Glynda. But there are terrible things that can be done to a person even without killing them.”

👈😢👈

we’ve popped the first sad fingerguns but also What The Literal Fuck, Oz,

“Come and catch me, then.”

im LAUGHING this is much better than the first version because this is SUCH a cinder-brand of shit to say dsfjhgfds she’s SUCH A SHIT-STIRRER but i love her,

“She’s just sent me something. My Scroll is working fine, but I think it’s safe to assume she knows what we’re discussing.”

“What did she send you?”

“An invitation.”

oh finally glynda works out the whole CCT business JHGDSFSDF i wonder if cinder knew shed figure it out or saw her msgs to oz and went ‘ah shit well’

BUT YEAH..... DATE! DATE! DATE! HOT DATE WITH CINDER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i am. VERY excited as many of u will remember i made a prime shitpost abt That Chap back in the day and ill have 2 REDRAW IT!!!!!!!!! POPPIN BOTTLES!!!!!!!!!!!!

anyway this chapter sucked and was also very good in equal measure. as it is Wont,

#rwby #offal hunt #liveblog

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determined-magi · 5 years

Note

"Thannor." The new voice is sickly sweet. "I got a question for ya. Why's it that you let that BEAST of a child anywhere near you? You know nothing about him, not truly, words aside. Can you trust what a pathological liar tells you? He could be lying, he could be trying to get into your good side and betray you. He's a liar, a thief, and a traitor to his people. Why would he be loyal to a group of MAGES who remind him of everything he was trying to escape for gods know how long?"

“ Ye think fer a second it hadn’t gone through my mind? Ye wants to rile me up, good job, but not gonna work the way you want it to, ye shite. And bare with me I’m gonna tell ye why and ye’s gonna be stuck on this long ass rant, and then I will fuckin cut that tounge and throat of yers, and ye’s not going to have a say on it. ”

“ One of very few get us. And ironically this “beast of a child” has managed to treat us, or feing to treat us, more humanely than a lot of humans on our own kindgom. Of course it feels too fucking good, because we’ve got many on our kingdom that do this already, and speak of us the same way you speak of him. “ He lets a low, rumbling growl from his troat. If the anon could hear it, he would hear the already hissing magic growing rather agitated behind the mage’s back. Like an animal who has had their territory crossed, tail snapping to its sides, ears pinned back and bearing fangs as a warning. “ Why ye think I snapped at him as a fuckin lion? ‘Course I don’t trust ‘im wholy. Hell, I am terrified. How well has it gone to ours with trusting others that hadn’t aged nor grew arounds us? “

“ Agar has been cut, burn and hurt many times in thirty years, he’s got the body scars of an old veteran, in about THIRTY YEARS, the amount of scars he’s got should be on a war mage of about Braigon’s age, not him. Gilrin has been used by the fucking council and their dogs for years, Thanneth taken advantage of and granted, fucking Belle, for fuck’s sake! ‘is own kingdom, ‘is own family, they all shunned him like they shun us. Captains had demoted Braigon in his younger days to escape a scold, and Rho? He’s sent people he thought as friends to jail for it, not one, twice or thrice, let me tell ye. “ Hands claw at his face, frustrated, then at his neck as if he wanted to tear off his own bones and throat. Before punching a nearby object, it hurts, but it is better to take it off at something than just keep the feeling there, anything to let off the sensation that kept torturing him when made aware of it. “ And ‘ol me? Had people pretend things only to snap at me, fuckin outraged because I did not give them their due, time and time again. And when I express myself like I fuckin want? I get knocked, punished and spoken like if I was a rabid, mindless, bloodthristy animal. Then said my feral behavior has no place on their civilized society. Of fuckin course I’m going to be wary to some extent, of course it will feel too damn good to have someone like him around to be real. “

“ Sometimes I wish I had chosen to kick him out then, it would make life way easier. “ He then simply sits on the ground, face burrying on his hands as he lets one of the longest groans he’s ever had. “ Wouldn’t have to deal with this, stagnancy was far easier. I wouldn’t have to fear change, I wouldn’t have to doubt as many things as I do now, I wouldn’t feel like I was about to jump from the edge to the abyss in a blind leap of faith. I wouldn’t have to allways have the nagging feel in the back of my mind that there is something off, then be torn between trying to stop that feel, and stop what causes it. But then I would be again a miserable fool, with greats amounts of money, and little self-fullfillment found in life other than the few people and things he enjoys only in the smallest of dosis, stagnant an’ likely bound to suffer worse ‘cause he’s clearly in the wrong somewhere in there, which only now I’m coming to fuckin see. I ‘ave someone more than to an extent my magic isn’t allways upset around with, which is a big breather, let me tell ye. “

“ Of course not knowing anything is terrifying, when trust is given, they can use what they know against ye, ye? Ye don’t have anything, ye’r left helpless and the only thing ye’s got is a bite and bark, while they have a whole arsenal. ‘Course part of me would instinctually show distrust when experiencing on an unknow situation, outside of my own comfort zone, and while feeling exposed… so ‘course I don’t trust him, not entirely… “

“ Which ye know what? It thoroughly sucks! The one thing that feels good also doesn’t feel so! It is fuckin rediculous. I want to improve, and I want to go further on in my own self-development. “ He wants to pull his hair off, but doesn’t instead he just just stands again, then moves to hit his head against a wall. He seems clearly distressed somewhere in the mess of emotions he’s showing currently. “ But the worst of it? I find myself wanting to believe it, I want to believe what feels like a thorough lie and danger to be good, That’s change isn’t too good to be true. That who I hired ‘s in fact the person I hired, that ‘ey ‘re a kid that did not come to my damn shop with ulterior motives, someone that, while problematic on some areas, is still a good kid just stumbling to my workplace in some way. And he in fact means well, and that I can grow fond of ‘im and trust him as a friend and dear apprentice, alike Gil does with her own students as if some were to her children. “

“ And ye know? Ye’s right on that last part, we are the least probable people for him to trust, the least rightfull! “ He moves away to start punching the object, barehanded, the alloy imbedded on his skin re-opening wounds and quickly painting it red, it hurts a lot, but does he care either? Not really, he needs an outting, something help him vent it off, something to take it on, something to exhaust him, in every concievable way. Which sadly to him doesn’t work very well, as soon enough he finds himself left with it being a useless mess. “ I can’t for shite understand why he’s here, why he’s stuck so long, and what could be the reasoning to want to do this, and that upsets me, but unlike some shites here, I.am.not.prying… “

“ And ye, we shouldn’t trust it. But ye know what? ” He growls again. He wishes to trust him, but… he won’t. Never blindly. Trust was a two way, and so long as one was closed, it wouldn’t be truly that, it could never be that. Will, however, be patient, await for it to show. and if not? Well, over time it shall show. The thought feels… bittersad-painfull, to him. “ What we do, what I do, won’t be chosen by a piece of shite like ye. I won’t pry the reasons behind, not like ye fuckin shites do to rile people up. Whatever reasons he’s got, are his. And ye know fucking what too? I changed my mind. ”

He moves in towards to grab the anon, before grabbing what he believes to be a sternum-like structure. Fingers burrying deep into the person’s flesh. Then he pulls, taking a good chunk of flesh, connective tissue and probably organs with it, leaving a bloodly mess behind and staining his clothes. then moves of to rip the person’s throat and cervical spine-like structure. He wasn’t going to let the person go away, no, he riled him up, ruined his day, touched matters he shouldn’t, knew things he shouldn’t. And he certainly wouldn’t let them have the chance to use what he’s just said, there is only six persons he will confide in this like this, and this fool wasn’t one of them.

And what that meant? Death, flat as that in his mind.

He stands there for a moment, before dropping the chunck he was gripping and letting the most frustrated of groans, followed soon by a growl. Oh, they fucking riled him and it ended with him killing someone. Look at his clothes! They are a mess, his nerves are a mess, the ground’s a mess, and everyone’s going to scold them on it. And he fucking hurt his hands AGAIN while on it.

Got fucking damn it, he hates getting riled up over things like these.

Sometimes he wishes he didn’t feel anything.

@cosmosfated

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iphoenixrising · 6 years

Text

Dr!Tim Drabble: Robin

Well, Babes. You both must have fucking read my mind and shit because really. I kind of started this to be such a teaser when BOOP I got this ask and my fucking heart here. You’re right on the same page when it comes to Dr!Tim getting the real Robin experience, yeah? Lol. So, just a note. B’s bad guy persona is Matches. The dude with the epic porn ‘stache. Dick’s persona is Robbie Malone, which is pretty obscure and I looked it up on a good wiki to make sure.

HOWEVER *ahem* An incredible artist @kaciart did a thing here: http://thingsfortwwings.tumblr.com/post/55338349568/kaciart-it-was-never-made-clear-whether-tim-knew. Which helped the muse.

So… so there’s that. XD Hope it's as good.

The Robin in Gotham that night is just a little bit taller. Not by much. He's hesitant, a newbie to the vigilante game, and even if he's got a grapple on his belt, he only uses it once. Only a drunk or two catch him strafing across rooftops, the flicker of yellow, red, and green against the lamplight.

The rest of the city is asleep. As luck would have it, he stumbles on some baddies with a leg up on him, tossing a pellet in the right spot with knockout gas to make carrying him through the night that much easier. When Robin comes to, the blurry residual clears and behind the whiteouts, his vision is sharp. Being handcuffed in a crummy warehouse in the Narrows is not really the way he'd hoped to spend his first real experience in the tunic.

(And if he embarrasses the name, a certain little demon will probably eviscerate him.

"I allow you one night–"

"To my credit, I really thought those ninjas would go down easier."

"May I remind you–"

"I know, I know. It's not one of my hobbies. No more almost getting killed under your name, I promise.")

But a single dim bulb hangs with enough away to reveal the long, lean line of muscle still half in shadows watching him from behind whiteouts.

"Been a real pain in my nut, Robin." Is more dangerous behind the synths, more casual when the Red Hood, notorious enforcer for the Black Mask, straightens up and starts to move forward. "Gettin' in my fucking business means I gotta make an example outta ya, so’s no one else thinks they can stop the trade, you feel me?" Robin's eyes narrow but his pulse is picking up, his muscles tighten against the ropes.

“Or,” he tries with a bravado he doesn’t necessarily feel, “you could cut this chase short and let me take you in so you don’t make it worse for yourself.”

The sound is probably a snort but the synths make it hard to decipher.

“Mmhm, an’ any other damn day, ya might be right. But since I know the Bat is outta town, and the rest a’ yer little cape n’ cowl crew are busy, n’ yer own yer own, little birdy. Even fucking better, I got me an old friend in Gotham t’night, and I gotta say–” the way Hood moves, hips swaying, something of a swagger, all indications the vigilante has a plan, makes Robin catch a breath with what the hell else?

“Ya might be in over yer head.”

And oh God.

He’s in for it.

(Teasing his boyfriends can have some interesting results, so even with the plan they’d had for him tonight, there were so many things they hadn’t told him.)

Because the shift in the shadows and the crimson slash is just what the bad guy ordered, and the man coming out of the shadows to stand beside Hood is nothing short of mouth-wateringly dangerous– all done in sharp black and red.

Something in Robin’s abdomen goes unbearably tight when Renegade puts the intense focus of those whiteouts right on him, folds his arms over his chest, and his tongue darts out to lick his lips.

Even while he might be melting into a puddle of oh God, please, please, I’ve been a bad Robin, he can maneuver his hands well enough to get into the green gloves for the small lockpick set he’d completely kyped out of B’s utility belt the last time they’d had a little snatch n’ stitch. Since he’s completely used to working with fine instruments wearing gloves, working the small end into the handcuffs is easier than he’d originally calculated.

(So much win going on right now.)

“So nice to know you’ve got friends in town, Hood. I hope you have an itinerary to show him the sights. Robinson Park is really nice this time of year.” He tries to keep the banter, give himself time he needs to work the cuffs.

(Still, watching them walk toward him like a fucking bad ass wet dream is really making the night look up regardless of how things are going to go from here.)

“Too much mouth on ya, Robin,” and the flex of hips and thighs, the glint off the gun in Hood’s hand, the feral-looking smirk on Renegade’s face make him take a pause to work his fingers into the back of the utility belt, bite down on his lower lip to try and get–

Yes.

“Looks like we need to shut him up, Hood,” is Renegade’s deep response, that tone rolling around in the abandoned warehouse, makes a shiver work up his spine.

Which causes him to drop the pellet he’d been holding, the little ball rolling right under his chair.

Fuck. That’s bad.

He tries to think fast, using his weight to throw his chair back, out of the way of the little blast and following plumes of smoke. It’s really nothing more than dumb luck that the chair is probably older than all of them and pretty much breaks into kindling on impact.

It’s even luckier that the small blast is inconsequential but the smoke screen gives him the opportunity to wiggle enough to get his cuffed wrists down far enough to get his feet over them so at least his hands are bound in the front.

Rolling to his feet, he tries to duck away from the chair in the thick smoke, cape hitting him in the back of the ankles, and fucking right, he didn’t even lose the lockpick.

(“Damn. Good one, Baby Bird. Didn’t see that shit coming.”

“This is going to be much better than we thought, Jay.”

“Fuck right, Dickie, now we gedda chase.”

And with that little revelation, Robin is thinking, looking around at the high windows, making plans.)

He flips one of the few bat-a-rangs in his utility belt, awkwardly holding it up to throw with his bound hands. He manages throw far enough to knock it into an empty crate further down than where he’s hiding, but it draws the attention of the “baddies” coming through the dissipating smoke after him.

It does the job and he sees the outline of Hood and Renegade change course, closer to the sound.

“You’re only making it harder on yourself, Robin,” Renegade purrs low, his footsteps not even making a sound when he shares a side-eye with Hood and moves around to take the back for the element of surprise.

“When we catch ya,” Hood is cooing through the synths, popping the clip out of his .45 to make sure again he’s toting blanks (the one in his boot has the rubber rounds should things get dicey and they need ta make with the real crime fighting) before he circles around the smoky pile of old pallets and crates laying in dusty ruin, “we ain’t gonna be nice ‘bout it, you feel me, Robin? Gonna make ya one sorry lil’ bird.”

(But he totally hears, “gonna fuck ya until ya scream for it, Baby. Gonna make ya come ‘til ya can’t even stand up no more.”)

The handcuffs finally pop as the two bad guys jump in their planned strike, coming down on a whole lotta empty pallets with only a bat-a-rang there for them to stare at.

“Little motherfucker,” is all he needs to hear, shoving the handcuffs in his belt (in case he needs to have a plan) and pulling the grapple while his pulse throbs in his mouth and his adrenaline kicks up a notch. He’s got to shoot and reel himself in before they get to him, got to get out the upper windows and climb to the roof, got to at least get a few buildings over before they catch him.

(And he completely has a new appreciation for the reinforced jocks they wear under the suits because the things is literally killing him right now.)

The bang makes him flinch regardless, and with that, the jig is completely up. Two heads swivel toward the sound, trace the line up to the window sill where the hook sinks deep, and the shadow of the cape flares out like wings as the grapple pulls Robin from the ground and away.

“Fuck this is gettin’ good,” Hood breathes out, already pulling his own, watching the flex of Timmy’s thighs in those fucking tights and his ass outlined in Robin Red.

The window breaks with his momentum, and Robin pauses on the broken sill long enough to grin widely down at them, “I really need to be on my way, but we should do this again sometime!”

The cap flaps around the green tights and black boots as Robin scales the ancient fire escape and disappears out of sight.

Renegade puts a hand on his wrist, stills Hood from raising the grapple for the ole’ point-n-shoot. “Let him get a little bit of distance, Jay. He’s putting a hell of a lot into this.”

“Big Wing,” and even with the whiteouts on both sides, he knows how dark Dickies eyes are, is pretty sure his are just as dark. “ we’re gonna destroy that ass, you feel me?”

“You know we are. Damn, he looks cute in that suit.”

“Cute? Nah, ain’t where I’m at right now, yeah? Motherfucking sexy is ‘bout what I’m feelin’.”

“Fuckable, sure, but wow, he wears it so well.”

“Don’t tell Demon. That little shit won’t never let this happen again.”

“Right. We play it out with our boyfriend, fuck him on a safe rooftop, then take him home for a soak in the tub and cuddle-palooza.”

“You better fuckin’ add pancakes ta that list, Dickie. I like seein’ ‘im all full n’ sleepy after we fucked ‘im but good.”

“Done and done.”

In a smooth move, Hood raises the grapple again and loops his free arm around Renegade’s waist, pulling his Baby Boy right into his body.

The two vigilantes pause in the moment, and Renegade raises both hands quick, hits the right spot on the back of the helmet to release the catch, pulls the damn thing off so they can have just a second–

And anyone looking in the dilapidated warehouse down by Dixon Docks in that exact moment would be scandalized to see the Red Hood and Renegade writhing against one another, caught up in the taste of one another, just a tease before the grapple starts to reel.

Robin is panting with the effort, tries not to get tangled in his cape, tries to keep his eyes open to everything around him with the sharp vision he gets behind the whiteouts.

Luckily for him, he’s shaking off the residual of the sedative and this area of the city is one so absolutely familiar, he already knows he’s got an edge.

The same spots from those days when he was a kid with a camera, hiding while he followed the flying vigilantes are obviously still there, could still give him a place to duck if he thinks his pursuers are getting too close. If Dick and Jay had really been paying those old photographs in the shoebox enough attention, they’d probably be able to pick out the majority of his hidey-holes and make this game come to a quick and abrupt end (he’s hoping they don’t because he’s really, really enjoying this).

But, he’s already evaded them three times and he’s still too damn far from his apartment to believe he’s anywhere near home free.

Which is why he’s wasting time ducked down between two massive air conditioning units on the Mylar building instead of in Renegade and Hood’s path. A few feet away is an old bridge the maintenance crew used to get up to the next roof, giving him an out to use the grapple for a swing and give himself away.

He waits until the shadows recede and he can’t see either of them before he darts out and takes the bridge at a run, making a leap that immediately gets his adrenaline back up.

His chest is heaving a little because the climb is about a bitch.

A hard jerk on the suspension bridge takes him by surprise as both “villains” land it on either side of him, effectively boxing him in.

Well, fuck.

He pulls the grapple since, you know, the jig is up, but an escrima stick knocks the damn thing from his hand, and no amount of time he’s spent in the gym or hard-core parkour is going to get him out of this little sitch.

(Dammit. Trapped.)

Renegade clicks his tongue, “tsk, tsk, Robin. Nice try, but you should have tried to stay ahead of us. That might have gotten you home free.” And the two start advancing on him, getting closer. Robin looks from one to the other, bites down on his lower lip–

Until the plan pops into his head.

“Gonna enjoy this, little bird,” Hood drawls out, “after the run ya gave us.”

Panting, Robin tries to make the move subtle enough to miss, back up just a step, tries to make it look like he’s searching for a way out when he looks over the bridge and all the way down.

The action works because both villains jump for him at the same time, trying to keep him from throwing himself over, and it gives Robin just enough of a chance to let his knees give out from under him and fake fall to the wobbly bridge so Renegade can careen over his head at the same time Hood smacks into him, landing the two in a heap right at Robin’s feet.

The knock of Hood’s helmet against Renegade’s forehead gives him a crucial moment to slam the handcuffs he’d kept down on the Red Hood’s left wrist and Renegade’s right one, pushing the sides closed to cuff the two together.

(Oh fuck is he winning here.)

He’s already moving back while they untangle themselves and stare at their cuffed wrists before slowly, ever so slowly, turning to him.

“Well, damn.” And if he didn’t know better, he’d say Hood was, well, impressed.

(I have other hobbies, asshole, remember?)

“The surprises keep coming,” Renegade already climbing to his feet is grinning widely, Hood following in a smooth motion. “Too bad it isn’t going to save you, you know.”

“I just need to keep you two on–”

When he would have finished off the banter portion with on your toes, what he gets is the terrible sighing sound breaking the night, followed right by a sharp twang that is all too fucking familiar.

(Why do bridges have a tendency to break while he’s on them? Seriously now?)

His whole body jerks up, head turning to the sight of the old bridge coming apart and falling from under him, making him gasp in hard enough to hurt, making his knees knock, making a hard reality of Oh God, not again.

But cuffed arms brace under his and the bang of grapples firing shakes him out of breath-stealing panic, Hood and Renegade working in tandem to send the three of them flying through the night while the bridge crumbles to Gotham’s dirty sidewalk below.

Effortlessly, the villains land them on the Mylar, setting the three of them down in the shadows where one side of the building keeps it absolutely hidden away.

“Holy shit,” Robin pants out, held up between Hood and Renegade, his chest heaving under the tunic. “That...was not part of the plan.”

“Good to know,” Renegade lays his forehead against the base of Robin’s neck, exhaling slowly, moving his free hand down to push the cape out from between their bodies, to twist it around his hand for the next step.

“I’ll fuckin’ say,” Hood deactivates the helmet and tosses it down, moves a step closer to sandwich Robin between the two of them. With just a dom, his eyes are dark blue without the flecks of jade which means he’s probably still riding a little bit of the adrenaline from the almost-oops.

Robin looks up and over when Hood holds up his cuffed hand and arches a brow. “Still, ya gonna have ta work on them plans, Rob, if ya wanna get the better of us, yeah? This ain’t bad, but that don’t mean–”

And Robin gasps when his gloves wrists are gathered up by the cuffed hands, pulled over his head to stretch his body taunt.

Renegade is leaning down to talk against his ear, growling low and so fucking dangerous, “–you’re going to get away this time. Sorry, little bird. Looks like we win.”

Apparently things like capes are weapons and should not be used against him.

Or...well, maybe he’s going to re-think that since his wrists are bound together tight before they even worked the tunic open.

Renegade is keeping Robin’s bound arms down with a knee and a gloved hand over his mouth to make sure the noises are nice and quiet, kept between just the three of them. Hood had picked the cuffs in approximately two seconds to give them both a chance to get to work on making sure the young vigilante knew he was fucking around with the real deal.

The utility belt came off, lying just out of reach and Robin’s thighs spread open with less fight than anticipated.

The struggling, the writhing against Hood’s crotch, the straining muscle and taunt hold is just this side of perfect. For a little show, Hood pulls out a wickedly sharp knife, the glint dull in the night, leans down over Robin’s body and slides the sharp end of the blade right over the base of his throat, bare now that his cape is gone.

(But even though Timmy’s is half-assed struggling, he ain’t scared. No fear in those eyes, yeah?)

“Better be a good little bird, Rob. I like ta keep m’ implements nice n’ sharp. Don’t wanna make me slip by accident.”

Renegade’s hand on the younger vigilante’s mouth pulls so the head tilts back, eyes looking up. “I’ve known Hood for a long time, kid. You don’t want to see the master at work.”

When the struggling stops and the only thing Robin is doing is panting against Renegade’s hand, the sharp edge eases up slightly, slides down his chest, the tip fitting right under the tunic’s laces.

“Atta boy. Make it easier on yerself. Ain’t nobody gonna find ya, so don’t gotta have it rough unless ya wanna.”

“He might like it that way, Hood.” The first lace gives without hesitation. “Maybe we should go a little hard on him to find out.”

The second lace.

“But lookit how cute he is, Baby Boy. Gonna show ‘im just how things gotta go down on our side a’ the law, ain’t we? That don’t mean we gotta get nasty ‘bout it long as he behaves himself.”

The third.

Finally, the two villains are finally getting a little skin, and a gloved hands runs down Robin’s collar bone, moves to thumb and tweak until the little nub under is tight.

The hand on Robin’s mouth tightens down when the moan cuts through the stillness.

“He needs to learn, Hood. He can’t mess with business and get away without paying the price.” The thumb on Robin’s face moves over the domino and the whiteouts slide down, showing half-mast eyes, darkening by degrees.

“Mmhm. That’s the thing ‘bout Gotham, ain’t it?” And the hands moving down, pull hard, rip the tunic until there’s nothing in his path except the tights and reinforced jock. “Always got consequences, Rob, and you? You ain’t any different.”

The telltale tremble in his thighs makes the Red Hood grin wide and white (don’t be breaking character yet, Baby Bird. We gotta whole lotta play still left), and he’s nothing but a nasty bastard when he runs both hands up the inside of those thighs, grips tight to make sure there’s gonna be bruises there tomorrow.

Since he and Dickie pretty much engineered this whole thing (and made a suit with strategized weaknesses), the tights give under his hands, ripping open from the waist to the knee. He hands a sizeable strip to Renegade and leans down over Robin’s body, giving a little bit of distraction while his partner in crime moves just long enough to tie the strip in their little vigilante’s mouth.

“Much better.” He palms the grapple in his freed hand, and pulls out the line, throws the hook to catch on the lip of the roof and wrap the other end to keep Robin from going anywhere. Renegade pulls off the head piece, is in just a domino so he can flick the catch of his suit and pull it down to bare a tantalizing v-ee of his chest.

With the suit ripped away, helpless to whatever they planned to do to him on a roof in the middle of Gotham, Robin is gagged and panting, his chest stuttering with it, going pink down his collarbone and upper chest.

(Fingers slide into one of his bound hand, and the metal ball gives a soft jingle. All he has to do is drop it if he needs to stop, all he has to do is give the signal. He’s in control, he’s in control, he’s in control–)

And the feel of Hood’s gloves on his hip bone, tearing the strap on the reinforced jock makes his hips twitch, makes him unconsciously arch into the touch even when his hard cock springs up into the cool Gotham air.

“That’s smart kid. This’ll go easier for you if you try to enjoy it.” Renegade palms the vial in his suit and holds it up where the can both see it, smirks at the muffled noise right beside his thigh.

Hood grins back at him and pops the lid, dribbles lube on his fingers and lifts one of Robin’s calves for Renegade to hold. He hoists the other, runs his slick fingers over Robin’s balls, tugs a little, slides his forefinger up the underside of the vigilante’s straining cock, just a tease.

Getting his suit down far enough with one hand, Renegade shakes Robin’s leg, palms the side of his face to turn him, gets a load of those eyes, “My partner here is going to give you the fuck of a lifetime. And you? Are going to suck me while he does it.”

The jock is gone, and Robin gasps in hard through his nose, those eyes rolling over the length, teeth biting down on the gag in his mouth. He watches, mesmerized, as the gloved hand strokes himself, makes himself harder, gives Robin a preview to what he’s about to get.

When Hood spreads him open wider, slick and blunt finger sliding in, moving fast and hard, making Robin’s spine arch while he watches Renegade jerk off right in front of his face, mouth watering for it, his cock aching, his body clenching when one finger becomes two, and the desperation for more is starting to take over.

Pulling against the zip line isn’t doing anything for him because he can’t move, is caught between them, is already making noises with his body anticipating Hood (Jay) making him utterly senseless while he sucks Renegade’s thick cock to the fucking base.

(This is the best thing to ever happen.)

A jerk of his hips and a third finger slides in, gives him only a few thrusts against his spot, just enough for Hood to smirk and finally pull out.

“Gonna keep ya nice n’ tight fer me, Robin,” and while he’s been prepping the vigilante, he’d pulled himself out, lubed himself up to press right against the prize waiting for him. “But don’t worry. Since yer being a good, little bird, we’ll make sure you get yers.”

And Robin throws his head back, body arching in a clean line as well as he can with his legs caught and hands restrained. His fist tightens on the bell, keening through his gag as Hood pushes in, gives a few slow back-and-forths until he’s balls deep with a long moan.

“Lookit you taking all of his dick on the first go,” Renegade purrs down at him, and thumbs the gag out of his mouth, puts a finger over his lips. “Good for you, little bird. Now you’re going to give me mine. Don’t make me have to tell you to be very good.”

Renegade pulls with fingers on his jaw, and Robin opens up without a fight, taking the wide head in, moaning around it. Hood finally gets the point that he’s sure he isn’t going to come immediately when he moves, changing his hold to fit the bend of Robin’s knee and hoist his hips up higher, makes sure he’s in as far as he can possibly go (just the way Timmy likes it), then pulls back, starts up a few slow-n’-easies before he picks up the pace.

And Robin’s eyes are fluttering behind the domino, sliding his tongue around Renegade’s cock, leaning closer when he can take more, when he can take it deeper--

And suck.

“Holy–” and the villain’s hips twitch, a gloved hand threading into his hair, holds him still as hips twitch and fuck his mouth in shallow thrusts. “Fuck, know what you’re doing, don’t you Robin? Ah, you’re going to love my cock by the time we’re done with you.”

“Ya kiddin’ me, Baby Boy? Fuck him and you’ll be in love with his ass. Like a fucking vice.” And Hood leans over Robin’s body to get a better view of Renegade’s hips twitching, cock sliding in and out of his mouth, of Robin’s cheeks hollowing, of his jaw moving, of the tight nubs they’re both absently working.

In a calculated move, Renegade gives Hood a wink, and they both draw back, leave just the tip in him, gets a low noise for the effort, and fuck back into him with a vengeance.

“That’s right, little birdie. Found yer sweet spot, yeah?” And the strokes inside him are long and firm and fast, his spot abused by each one, making the pressure in his belly start to burn.

Renegade keeps up with a smooth, steady pace, sliding over his tongue, spilling pre-come in his throat, staring down as he pants, watching Robin take every fucking inch.

He’s moaning around the width in his mouth, in his throat, trying to suck, trying to scream while his cock throbs and the R still partly on his chest gleams in the night.

Hood’s balls slapping against his ass, and Renegade panting, groaning out above him, and a gloved hands fists him at the base, starts stroking him in time with the hits to his spot.

And the rhythm is driving, pound, rushing, his pulse racing in his ears, struggling to get a breath, but it’s all toomuchmoremoremore that he can’t think past the need to come, whimpering in his throat when he can, and trying to move his hips up into the fist pumping him and down into the pound thrusts driving him closer and closer to the edge.

“That’s right, give it up, Robin,” Renegade pants, groans down at him, working his hips, fucking into that throat, “you’re gonna take everything we give you, and when you go back to the Bat, you’ll remember just what you get when you stick your nose where it doesn’t belong.”

Hood draws back to fuck in hard, tightening his hand down and speed up. “We’re gonna make sure this lessons sticks, Baby Boy. Fill ‘im up good, make sure he knows what happens ta bad little birdies.”

Robin screams around Renegade’s cock when fingers tease the tip of him and hips ground into deep, trying to move but he’s helplessly caught.

When Renegade leans down over him, talks low and feral, fucking into his mouth with fast, hard jerks, getting harder against his tongue, when it’s those blue eyes with the haze of need and want, (when it’s Dick talking to him), when the words, “come for us, baby,” are breathed so soft and fond, his body lets go, the knot of tension exploding, sending tingling pleasure from his ass to his cock to his nipples and spreads out until his eyes are rolling back in his head and all he can do is suck Renegade’s come down his throat while the pleasure loops around and keeps him going.

“Fuck, baby,” (Is Jay instead of–) Hood yells to the night sky, Robin’s body milking him, tightening down so hard, so fast, so wet, that he comes with a jolt, burying himself deep to fill the vigilante up.

And while Gotham remains completely serene at this time of night, three (two, technically) caped crusaders are laying out on the roof of the Mylar building in a tangle of limbs, panting, and weak, and so amazingly sated.

Boneless and content not to move another inch in his life, Tim manages to slide a gloved hand out of the knot made from the cape, and wipe his mouth, absently keeping track of his heart rate.

Dick is curled around his upper body, idly running fingers through his hair, the Renegade costume zipped half-way up his chest so he doesn’t get a whole lot of roof rash. On his other side, Jay has a heavy arm over his bare hips, a leg thrown over his and the Kevlar feels just as good on bare skin as it always does.

“That? Was fucking amazing,” he murmers, drowsy, shivering slightly now that he realizes he’s pretty much naked on a roof in the middle of the city after being fucked out of his mind, and somehow--

This is his life.

So it’s good when his vigilante boyfriends recover enough to maybe get them the hell off this roof before people like, office staff start coming into the Mylar’s upper floors for work.

Dawn is riding the horizon when he’s pulled to his feet and wrapped in Robin’s cape, rocking a toga to cover the torn suit and tunic, and carried off by his vigilante boyfriends so he can be absolutely lazy and just let Dick then Jay take him flying.

He has to make his body work when maneuvering through the window with shaky legs. Jay gives the helmet a toss in pretty much the direction of the kitchen table before picking Tim up by the back of his thighs, and let their doctor squawk but still flops his upper body flops over Jay’s shoulder.

Dick has the Renegade suit hanging off his hips, moving around the kitchen bare-chested with a domino, making coffee that is desperately, desperately needed.

“I’ll be there in a sec! I was promised cuddles, Jay, and I expect you two to deliver.”

“Bath first, Big Wing. Gotta let Timmy take a soak. Getcha ass in here so’s we can wash ‘im but good.” The abrupt smack and corresponding yelp from the path down the hall toward the direction of the bathroom makes Dick smirk and quickly scoop the grounds in while trying to get a glove off with his teeth.

“‘Sides, we might need ta give Sweets one more go ‘round, you feel me here, Dickie?”

“Wh-what?! How do you even expect me to get hard right now?!”

The bath is running in Tim’s massive tub (the real benefit to the apartment after all), and the sounds of Kevlar and Nomac sliding off of skin a soft sight when Dick comes to join them.

“You know, Timmy,” is a followed up by a very Dick Grayson smile, all full of bedroom eyes and promise, “we do have our ways.”

So if the tub sloshes over, and the neighbors complain about the noise this time of day (again), if maybe there might be...another suit buried in the back of their closet a few days later, if maybe he takes more detours when his boys are on the job and he can have time to scout hiding places and perfectly sized niches, when he can calculate more routes and moves.

He’s going to say, it’s always good to have a plan because of things like bleeding vigilantes—you know, on my fire escape. But in reality, it’s because now that he’s worn the tunic, flown through Gotham, and he’s pretty damn sure he’s got enough skill to make them work a hell of a lot harder–

Next time.

#for 500 Followers!#Post 5 #dr!tim #villain!RedHod #Renegade!Dick #role playing #warning for smut #tim/dick/jay #tim drake #jason todd #dick grayson #my fic #my writing #the post everyone's been waiting for lol

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