#but goddamn do they look good standing in a row all menacing-like

[livelivefastfree]

ammoth said to livelivefastfree:  therE ARE SO MANY GOOD OUTFITS FUCK how are we supposed to choose.[...]  burnerswap Julie in G3 for MAXIMUM DANGER LADY  Anonymous said to livelivefastfree: evil booster Chuck looking like a classy evil scientist 

Well with burnerswap Julie and burnerswap Chuck in the mix, how was I not supposed to go hunting and find an outfit for Mike too? :D  Some stylish villain!Burners for y’all

[loversandantiheroes]

Anything else you'd care to tell us about what gets Frankie off (aside from manhandling you and getting you off)? 👀👀

SO!  This was gonna be a nice little bullet point list, but then I got a little stuck on what would be on it and ended up distracted thinking about a couple specific points while I was hopped up on anxiety and too little sleep and too much caffeine so now it’s just a whole goddamn fic!  I have been staring at this for so long I have no idea if it’s good anymore so Happy Thanksgiving / I’m sorry, YMMV.

Risk and Reward

Excruciatingly shameless Frankie/F!Reader smut, 4.2k+ words (don’t ask me I don’t know what happened either), unbeta’d bc I’m impatient and the offered beta-er went to sleep, moderately edited bc I cannot linear a thought process.

Warnings: praise kink, risky sex, dirty talk, road hand (this is apparently what it’s called???), semi-public sex, semi-feral Frankie, car sex (truck sex?), unprotected sex (do as I say, not as I fictionalize), cream pie, implied come-eating (not actually shown).

Pedro Perma-taglist: @littleferal, @thirstworldproblemss, @corvueros

It’s nothing you mean to start.  It’s just a congratulatory kiss on the cheek and a soft mutter of “Good job, baby,” when Frankie thrashes Benny at a game of pool at the bar.  It’s been a rough week, and it’s good to see him enjoying himself and not propped up miserably on your couch while you try to work the knots out of his shoulders and neck for the fourth night in a row.  He preens a little at the attention, eyes downcast but with a crooked smile that stops just on the verge of smug.  You loop your arm around his waist to keep him close, hooking your fingers under his belt, and as Frankie raises his head for a proper kiss you catch a wicked little glimmer in his eye.

His mouth hits yours and there’s nothing telling in that, it’s perfectly sweet and nearly chaste, but his hand slips up to the back of your neck, squeezing gently like a thank you.  The wheels in your head are turning a little slow courtesy of the drink you’ve been nursing while you watched Frankie play, and it takes a long, long moment for the thought to finally land: he likes it when you praise him.  It was possibly the easiest of his inclinations to find - the first time you’d taken him to bed and locked your ankles around him and told him how fucking good he felt had dragged such a gut-wrenching sound out of him you’d thought he’d pulled a muscle until he’d begun to move faster. 

You hadn’t considered that maybe that might push his buttons outside of the bedroom, but now you’re thinking maybe it’s worth a try.

Frankie tugs you along back to the table to sit, scooting close enough that your chairs knock into each other whenever one of you shifts, but it’s enough for you to lean into the crook of his arm comfortably.  You drift through the conversation, not feeling any pressing need to be included, just pleased to be close enough to feel the way laughter buzzes through Frankie’s chest.

“What about you, Fish?  How’s the mechanic gig working out?”

“Eh, it’s fine,” he says.  “It’s work.”

You nudge him with your elbow.  “Understatement of the century, baby.”

Frankie inclines his head in reluctant agreement.  “We’re shorthanded right now, I’ve been picking up extra shifts.  But the boss isn’t a complete prick, and it’s good money, so…”  He trails off, shrugging as if that’s the only explanation needed.

He’s modest to a fault, god bless him, and you sigh with exasperated affection as you knock your head against his shoulder.  “Well I’m proud of you, baby.  You’ve been working your ass off.”

Santi points a finger over his beer.  “Ooh, careful, man, you ain’t got much of that to spare.”

Frankie mutters a short stream of Spanish over the top of your head - the only word you manage to catch in your limited vocabulary being pendejo - and the other man grins.

“Language, Francisco,” Santi says, one hand to his chest as though scandalized.  “There are ladies present.”

You laugh, craning your neck to place a kiss by Frankie’s ear.  “Don’t listen to him, baby, you’ve got a cute ass.”

His cheek grows warm, and warmer still when Benny cuts in: “All right, ease up on hype routine before we gotta call emergency services to get Fish’s giant fuckin’ head out the door.”

“We got a hacksaw in the truck, it’s fine,” you insist, giving Frankie’s thigh a squeeze under the table.  “Not my fault you yahoos have never heard of positive reinforcement.”

Frankie’s chuckle is so low you almost miss it, his face hidden under the bill of his hat.  Santi eyes this display with one of his impressive eyebrows hiked.  He meets your gaze for a second, a knowing smirk on his face that suggests he at least is fully aware of what you’re pulling on his friend right now.  You only smile, sip your drink, and let your hand wander out of sight up and down Frankie’s thigh.

Abruptly Santi thumps Benny’s shoulder with the back of his hand.  “C’mon Benny-boy, I feel like knocking balls around.  I’ll let you win the first round, get you some of your pride back.”

Benny scrunches his face up, scooting away from the table with his hands spread.  “Like hell.  You ain’t letting me do shit, Pope, I’ll kick your ass fair and square.”

Santiago tips you a wink as he ushers Benny off to the pool table.  “Behave yourselves.”

“Hell no,” you shoot back, and he grins.

Immediately Frankie’s mouth brushes your ear.  “You’re a menace,” he says, a little heat crackling through his amusement like dry lightning.

It’s a small effort to school your expression into something reminiscent of innocence before you turn to face him.  “What, can’t a girl pay her boyfriend a compliment?”  You trail your hand up, brushing the back of your knuckles against his fly.  His jeans feel just a bit tighter than they really ought to, and it absolutely delights you.

His eyes seem to darken; no small feat in the already dim light of the bar.  “I know what you’re up to,” he says, that small, pleased smile still curling the corners of his mouth.

“And?” you press, a little laughter coloring your voice.  “Is it working?”

He doesn’t answer, but the way he looks at you suggests he finds it funny you even have to ask.

Emboldened now, you leave a kiss against the corner of his mouth and press your hand a little more firmly between his legs.  “Come on.  You work so hard, and you always take such good care of me.  Let me be sweet on you, Frankie.  You’ve been so good, you deserve a little praise.”

“Querida,” he mutters, low and light enough that his voice nearly cracks.  If it weren’t for the feel of him stiffening you might’ve mistaken the tone for embarrassment rather than barely concealed excitement.

You smile at him, all sugar, and cup him through his jeans, the outline of him clear against the fabric.  “Say it, Frankie.  C’mon baby.  Tell me you’ve been good.”

The bulge under your hand twitches hard and swells, the denim stretching even tighter.  “We’re leaving,” he announces quietly, pulling his coat into his lap as he stands.  “Now.”

Grinning, you stand, unhurriedly slipping on your own coat and waving as Frankie ushers you past the pool table and towards the front door.

“Good night, boys,” you call back over your shoulder.

Santi laughs, and the last thing you hear before the door closes is him announcing to Benny: “Told you.  Not even five minutes.  Pay up, bud.”

Ever the gentleman, even now, he follows you to the passenger side to get the door.  You stretch up, offering a kiss in thanks, but he damn near collapses into it, pushing against you so suddenly the backs of your legs strike the step behind you and you almost lose your balance.  Luckily Frankie’s reflexes are better than yours, even now, and as quickly as you start to feel your balance go he gets an arm around your back, dragging your body flush to his again.  The surprise leaves you giddy and giggling, and before you even know you’re planning on doing it you’re giving his cock a heavy squeeze through his jeans.

“Fuck,” he breathes, breaking away.  “Not here, baby.  Fuck don’t get me started here.  We’ll get caught.”

“Thought you liked it a little risky, Francisco,” you tease, but you still your hand anyway.

“Baby there’s two cruisers parked over there,” he says with a thin laugh, jerking his chin over your left shoulder.  “Shaking my dick at the cops is not the kind of risky I like.”

You glance over and sure enough, there’s two police cars in the parking lot, one of them still occupied and idling.  The men inside don’t appear to be paying you any mind, but Frankie’s right: it’s best if it stays that way.  Sputtering laughter, you pull your hand away and cup the sides of his face, thumbs stroking through his coarse stubble.  “Better take me home then.”

Frankie keeps a close eye on the occupied car as you pull out onto the road, eyes returning again and again to the rearview mirror for at least three blocks before he finally seems to relax a little.  He rolls his shoulders, nodding, muttering a quiet affirmative to himself, and then tenses all over again when you slide your hand back up his thigh.

“Baby,” he warns.  There’s a heady mix of panic and excitement in his eyes as his right hand darts out, grabbing your wrist inches away from your prize.

“Both hands on the wheel, baby,” you tell him evenly.  “Let me do this for you.”  And then you wait, thumb rubbing a slow circle across his denim-covered thigh.  It’s an offer, not an order.  You’re honestly not sure if he’s actually good with this idea, and you’re not about to bulldoze him into something he doesn’t want to do on a blind, horny whim.

He squeezes your wrist a little tighter, then nods.  “Okay,” he whispers, and returns his hand to the wheel. 

“Good boy.  You’ve got this, Frankie.  Just keep your eyes on the road,” you mutter, shifting a little closer and giving him a slow squeeze.  Your heart’s beating faster now, thrilled at the prospect of what you’re about to do - what he’s about to let you do.  “I know how good you are behind the wheel.  What’s it Santi always says?  ‘Anything with wheels or wings,’ that’s your specialty.  You just focus on the road and let me take care of you.”

“Jesus,” he croaks when you undo his belt, lifting his hips automatically as you draw his zipper down and work his jeans down just enough to let his cock spring free.

You can’t help but crow a little at the sight of him: hard and wavering and already welling a glassy bead of pre-come.  “Fuck, I love how hard you get for me, Francisco,” you murmur as you take him in hand, delighted at the rigid heat under your fingers.  He whimpers at the praise, shoulders pushing back hard against the seat.

He’s silent as you begin to stroke him, his jaw set too tight to allow him to speak.  A small whimper escapes him when you swirl your thumb around the head of his cock, spreading that bead of slickness over it. 

To his credit, the truck doesn’t waver in the slightest.  He damn near drives a razor-line down the highway, speed so steady you would’ve thought it was cruise control.  The only real show that this is costing him any kind of effort is the way the steering wheel creaks under his white-knuckle grip.  It’s still early enough that the roads aren’t fully deserted, and it’s taking all of his concentration to keep his focus on what his hands are doing instead of what your hands are doing. 

The light at the intersection ahead turns from yellow to red and he slows to a stop, one hand trembling on the gear shift. In the brief reprieve his eyes slip closed, allowing himself just a minute to fully focus on the sweet, overwhelming friction of your hand.  He shudders, sinking back into the seat as all the pleasure he’d tried to tamp down overspills.  His hips jerk up into your hand, sharp at first and then rocking, chasing the sensation.  A deep, sweet groan tumbles out of his open mouth and Frankie’s eyes flutter closed, his head dropping against the back window hard enough to make it rattle.

“Good, baby?”

“Fuck yes,” he breathes.  

It’s wonderful to see him like this, so willingly overwhelmed and aching for what you want to give him.  It lights you up, a bright, sweet ache that starts low in your belly and blooms out everywhere, flaring up hotter with every little sound he makes.  The heater’s blowing now, warmth swirling around your legs and you hike your dress up, pressing your fingers insistently against your clit through your tights.  

A moan escapes you before you can stop it, teeth clamping down on your lower lip just a bit too late.  Frankie’s head whips around at the sound, mouth agape at the sight of you with one hand around his cock and the other working half-hidden between your legs.  And then you’re reminded of just how fast this man can be, because one moment his right hand is resting on the gear shift and the next it’s pushing your own fingers aside to rub eagerly at your clothed slit.  The fabric is absolutely soaked through, and Frankie swears under his breath.

“You get this wet for me, baby?” he all but whispers, rubbing a slow, firm circle over your clit.

Sighing, you cover his hand with your own, trying to match your strokes with the rhythm of his fingers.  “Mm-hm.  Just for you, Frankie.  You look so sweet like this, I can’t help it.”

“I promise you, baby, you look sweeter.  Fuck, I could eat you up.  Wanna tear these fucking tights off you and bury my face in your sweet little pussy until you can’t think of anything else.”  He’s quiet - he’s always so quiet - but somehow the gentle rasp of his voice only serves to make that stream of filth even hotter.

A sudden honk makes you both jump, Frankie spitting out a stream of obscenity in Spanish while you can only give an undignified squeak.  The light, you realize as you look up, has gone green again.

Frankie fumbles the truck back into gear, waving an apology to the person behind you. As soon as he’s got the truck into gear his hand returns to you, trying to take its place between your legs again.  Despite literally everything in you that desperately wants to feel those thick fingers against your desperately aching cunt, you shake your head.

“Both hands on the wheel, Frankie,” you remind him, considerably more breathless this time than the first.  “The sooner you get me home the sooner you can take these off me just like you want.”

“Jesus fucking Christ, you’re killing me, baby,” he pants shakily as he settles both hands on the wheel again and eases down the road.  

Control is a little harder to come by now that he’s let it slip, his body turned into a perpetual motion machine, rocking back and forth without the need for his input.  He’s dripping like mad, enough that your hand slides easy back up his length.  Your fingers glide over the slick head and he shudders, swearing, and thumps his heel against the floor.

“Don’t-” he chokes, and his hips press up hard against your hand as a thick runner of pre-come trickles down the underside of his cock.

You slow, squeezing him rhythmically.  “‘Don’t’ what, baby?  You want me to stop?”

He groans, gritting his teeth.  “No.  N-no, no.  Just...fuck, if you keep going you’re gonna make me come.  Don’t make me come like this, baby, please.”

“You got something else in mind?  Tell me, Frankie.  You deserve a reward.  Tell me what you want.”

“Christ,” he pants, searching for words and coming up empty, his ability to think stretched far too thin trying to drive a straight line while you nudge him closer and closer to the edge.   “Madre de fucking Dios, baby, goddamn it.” 

Home is still a good five minutes away, but there’s no way Frankie’s going to make it that far.  Grasping his cock tight at the base, you scoot in closer until your chin’s on his shoulder and you can press your mouth right up against his ear.  “Easy, Frankie.  Take a breath, and tell me what you want.”

There’s a thin whistle as he hitches in a deep breath, the loose front of his t-shirt drawing tight under his jacket as his chest expands.  He holds it for a dizzying moment, pulse thudding so heavily his cock bobs in your grip with it.

“I want to fuck you, querida,”  he whines.  “Lemme fuck you, baby, please.  I don’t want to wait until we get home, I want to feel you on my cock now.”

The heat that’s been pooling in your belly bursts into a goddamn fireball, and any desire you had to keep your hand on the reins in this little scenario, to make him wait for it just a little longer, wholly evaporates.  The skin high up on his neck is cool when you press your lips against him, smooth at first and then raising up into goosebumps when you whisper: “Pull over, Frankie.”

“Fuck, I- fuck.”   His throat works, eyes darting between the road and the mirrors, and then his arm shoots out, holding you back against the seat.  There’s a side road ahead, choked with weeds and largely unused, and Frankie takes the turn onto it one-handed, killing the engine as soon as he gets the truck far enough into the weeds to be mostly unnoticed.  

And then he’s on you, his mouth crashing into yours with a staggering intensity, dragging you up to straddle his lap and sliding his hands underneath your dress.  His fingers hit the apex of your thighs, catching at the sodden seam of your tights and wrenching them apart.  The sound of fabric ripping is startlingly loud in the small space, and you gasp against his mouth, stealing his breath.  

Your head spins, wondering if maybe you teased him just a bit too far, but then there’s another rip and your panties are gone, too, fluttering down to catch on the brake pedal.  The hot, wet head of his cock nudges your entrance and suddenly your only thought becomes - oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck.  You brace yourself for the jolt, because even as wet as you are Frankie is big, and you’re certain you’ve worked him up so much he hasn’t got the control left to give you time to adjust.

But Frankie always has a way of surprising you.  You’re tensed up, expecting force and speed and instead he pulls you down slow; taking you at a crawl when you expected a sprint, and all you can do is scratch your fingers across his scalp and whine as he fills you up, sweet and hot like honeyed brandy.  He shudders so hard the springs in the seat creak as you slip down another inch, and another, clenching and fluttering around him as he buries himself inside you with a groan so deep it’s nearly a sob.

“Yes, baby,” he mutters, words returning to him in a slow trickle.  He drops his forehead against your chest, his breath lovely and hot on the thin skin between your breasts as he tugs the neckline of your dress down to leave a kiss there.  “Fuck yes. You take me so good.  Keep going.”  His fingers bite into your thigh as you sink down a little more.  “Don’t-don’t stop, baby.  I need to fuck you.  I need to.  Don’t stop.”

His body thrums underneath you as you sink down, every muscle trembling like high-strung wire, ready to snap.  He’s trying so very very hard to hold on long enough to let you open for him, to be ready for him to give you what he wants.  The realization leaves you dizzy, your grip tightening around his shoulders and he lets out a choked moan as you settle fully in his lap and all but gush around his cock.

You’ve got bare seconds before his patience gives out, but you settle your hands on his chest, feeling the race of his heartbeat under the well-worn cotton of his t-shirt, and push yourself just far enough away that you can look down at him properly.  God, you want to move.  You need to move.  Every time with Frankie holds the same sense of shuttered awe, like you forget what it’s like to be this full until he’s inside you again, pressing up against nerves you barely knew you had.

It’s dark now, the streetlights barely reaching into the shaded alley, and Frankie’s face is painted only in shades of blues and blacks.  But even in the darkness you can see that awe-struck look on his face: lips parted, eyes wide and impossibly dark.  The first thing you think rolls straight off your tongue without a second to parse it: “You’re so beautiful, baby.”

And Frankie breaks.

He grits out a sound that’s half a snarl and half a whimper and lunges up into you so hard you have to brace yourself against the roof of the cab to keep from hitting your head.  Without even meaning to you cry out, the air forced out of you in a broken staccato as Frankie plants his feet on the baseboard and fucks up into you so hard you swear you feel the jolt of it lance up brightly through your ribcage.  It’s unrelenting, frantic and primal and fucking overwhelming.  All you can do is wrap your arms tight around his shoulders and hang on, let him take what he needs, letting him give you everything he can.

Frankie’s beyond words.  Teeth bared against your throat, arms locked tight around you.  One of his hands is hooked around your shoulder, the other gripping mercilessly at your ass.  Even as wet as you are you still grip him tight, especially at this angle, and it’s nearly a struggle for him to move, to drag himself out of you and bury himself all over again.  

You want to encourage him.  Want to praise him.  God knows he’s earned it, but every nerve in your body is on fire and you can’t even find the air to breathe, let alone speak.  You manage a sharp, keening whine as he shifts under you, just barely grazing your g-spot.  Every nerve sparks like raw metal on flint and without even meaning to you clamp down on him tight, your body taking the initiative and trying to hold him against that spot, to chase that burn.

Snarling, Frankie shoves you back, your shoulders thudding against the steering wheel.  The change in angle is sudden and shocking and oh god it puts him right where you wanted him, driving up relentlessly against your sweet spot.  It’s brutal and blissful and fucking perfect, and when he shoves his hand under your dress and drags his thumb in shaking circles over your swollen clit it’s even better.  It’s fucking heaven, and you’ve got no idea how much more of it you can take.  Your whole body shakes, unmindful of any direction you might give it.  Your hand strikes out blindly, knocking hard against the solid plane of his chest and grabbing a fistful of his t-shirt.

“Please, baby,” he groans through gritted teeth, and you have just enough senses left to hear just how close he is to coming, and how desperate he is to get you there, too.  “C’mon.  Come for me.  Please.”

“F-f-frankie.”  So close.  Each thrust, each stroke of his fingers pushes you a little closer to your peak, all other sensations fading out and making room for the overload.  You’re not sure if you could see anything even if it was broad daylight right now, but goddamn it you wish you could see his face...

The last thing you hear is Frankie’s shaking voice pleading with you: “Please baby.”  And then there’s just a ringing, high and tuneless.  You have the barest second to wonder if you’ve truly gone deaf and then, like the sheer enormity of it was too much for your brain to process at once, then you come.  Every muscle contracts and you seize up, shuddering, all control over your body lost.  Your throat burns, and it isn’t until Frankie’s hand clamps down over your mouth to quiet you that you understand why.

His heel pounds the floor and he thrusts up into you once more, lifting you up as he goes rigid, under you and inside you, his arms locking tight around your body.  He comes with a broken sob, his face buried against your neck as he quakes his way through the spasms.

The ringing fades, and you listen to the sound your mingled breathing, harsh and labored.  You tighten your grip on him, curl one arm around his head so you can brush his hair back - god, when had he lost his hat in all this? - and press a long kiss to his damp forehead.

Your throat’s a wreck, your voice rough and uneven when you finally find it again.

“Good boy,” you murmur.

“Love you, baby,” he says hoarsely, the words stifled against your skin.  “Jesus Christ I fucking love you.”

“Love you too, Francisco.”

He laughs, breathless and utterly come-drunk.  “Fuck, we need to get out of here.  Somebody definitely heard that.”

You stroke your fingers through his hair, too pleasantly fuzzed to care overmuch about that.  “Hm.  I’m gonna make a mess of the seat,” you complain drowsily, already feeling him begin to trickle out of you as his cock softens.

“‘S okay, baby,” he says, the scratch of his stubble oddly soothing as he kisses his way up your neck. “As soon as we get home I promise I’ll clean you up.”

His tongue traces a shockingly warm line up to the corner of your jaw, and your legs tremble at the suggestion.  

“Very good boy,” you amend.

.

[strangefellows]

4. “I picked a bad time to become a decent person.” with someone of your choice because I can only imagine the situation and I'm sure it'll be hilarious. For some reason I'm imagining Cu to be involved somehow but I don't know how XD

gfsGSgsfgsfgfgsgh oh my god i love this one. i'm gonna have to use my asshole moth for it, i can't picture anyone else, we'll see if cu pops in (time to absolutely bullshit vaguepost about events that haven't happened in NA yet and that I didn't see the translations of!)

--

"No. Absolutely the fuck not. No. I'm not sure I could possibly say 'no' with any more disgust and disdain than I'm already saying it."

And yet, the orange-haired hurricane continued to grin at him. For a human, she was sure capable of that menacing aura a predator had when it was about to eat you, Oberon thought sourly.

"Come on. Everything's more or less settled! We got the Grail, shenanigans have been duly punished, all that's left is to enjoy the Singularity for the few more days it's gonna last!" She grinned at him wider, which made him feel a little bit like a very stupid squirrel that had walked right into a fox's den with an EAT ME sign. "You have to come! It's the first summer Singularity since you got here, you should at least see what it's like!"

Oberon gave her the most withering stare he could muster, which while wearing this particular face was a little kneecapped. Didn't stop him from trying. "No. I don't. In fact, I refuse. I'm not sure what happened in the Singularity, but you have to have hit your head pretty hard to even think about assuming the words 'summer' and 'beach' have anything at all to do with me. Ever." He grimaced, baring the sharp row of pointed teeth he usually hid with a glamour when in this face just to make a point. "I would rather eat thumbtacks."

"Oh, don't be so dramatic," his ridiculous, terrible, horrible, natural disaster of a 'friend'-turned-Master said, flapping a hand. "First off, if head trauma or other grievous bodily harm really caused stuff like that I'd need to be a lot more worried than I am. And secondly, it's not that bad. I'm not even making you put on a swimsuit!"

"First of all, you are insane. Clinically. How has your medical team not all had aneurysms," Oberon asked flatly. "Secondly, if you so much as think the word swimsuit at me again I am never coming out of my room." He crossed his arms. (The only bonus about being in this stupid face was he wasn't accidentally scratching himself with his claw, honestly.) "Go on. You're still completely failing to convince me to come. Try again."

Oh. Wait. No. Abort, abort, that was not a comforting look on her face. In fact it was the opposite. Abort, he took it back.

"Weeeeell," she sing-songed. "Castoria's coming~ She did mention she'd like it if you tagged along for old time's sake~"

Casto-- right. That's what she'd taken to calling her since there were a good goddamn dozen of the girl in the same room back in this metallic hellhole they called a headquarters.

..........fuck.

"I hate you," he said. "I hate you so much. I hate you most out of everything on my long list of things I hate."

Komadori just laughed. "Sure you do," she said fondly. "Now come on, let's go, she's waiting for us at the Command Room."

"If I could set you on fire with the sheer force of my hate," Oberon hissed, undeterred. "God, why did I pick now to attempt to be a decent person? Of all the times, it had to be now."

His horrendous natural disaster of a Master grinned at him again. "Because you like me, despite your protests, and you like her, and you would do anything for us with only slightly less complaining than usual. Now hush. Let's go to the beach! I'll buy you something fruity at the snack stand."

"...make it the biggest bowl of sorbet you can find or something stupidly alcoholic and you have a deal. No, wait. A whole ass watermelon. Those are summery, right?"

He really did hate her. He hated them both. He did.

But...he's a liar, after all. His patchwork existence is a lie, even now, impossible to distinguish from the truth. So if he says he hates them...well. He doesn't know. Even he's never been able to tell whether or not he's lying.

...he's not lying about wanting a whole ass watermelon, though. That's worth the trip to whatever this summery hellscape's going to be. That's the only reason he's going. Definitely. Absolutely.

Ugh.

[somethingjustsouthofbrilliance]

When Love Must Die (chapter 8)

Longer chapter this time. Hopefully, you, guys, will enjoy it :)

Link to Chapter 1 (masterlist)

Tagging:  @armaggedidnt @oh-hamlet @foxyfoe-reblog @s3dgy @butttteeerrrrrr @swanheart69 @giulisetta  @tonystark5ever @agentlokii @tardisoftheshire @maehemscorpyus

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

Chapter 8

 A few moments after all the sounds in the adjacent room seem to die down, Anathema finally gathers the courage to step out of her hiding spot in the kitchen and slide cautiously into the living room, Newt following hot on her heels.  She heard… some of what the demon had said, though it didn’t quite make sense to her.  But it was the angel’s reaction to the demon’s words that truly got to her – the raw, unbridled fury in his voice she didn’t think him capable of; the seismic shockwave of it rolling through the cottage like a hurricane-force wind, knocking out light bulbs and rattling windows and doors.

It was terrifying.  And she wasn’t sure she was ready to face whatever the consequences of that fury left behind.

 Turns out, she was right, but not for the reasons she thought.

 The smell hits her first – burned flesh and rot, emanating from a blackened puddle on the floor just outside the now extinguished demon trap.  She doesn’t understand the meaning of it, not at first.  Not until she shifts her gaze to the angel, back in his familiar shape now, standing at the very edge of the still-smoking puddle, with his head low, his shoulders hunched, and his hand gripping a vaguely familiar sword engulfed in flames.

 “Holy Belladonna…,” she gasps out, and the angel startles at that, turns around to face her, sword at the ready.

 There’s a moment of shocked silence as he stares at her, eyes glazed with darkness and pain so palpable that she has to fight the urge to shy away from that gaze, to retreat back into the kitchen and stay there until the suffocatingly terrifying swirl of emotions she feels emanating from the angel settles down.

 The angel blinks, slow and dazed, as though coming out of a trance, and the sword clatters to the ground, breaking the silence, the flame going out the instant it touches the floor.

 “They have him,” comes the equally dazed, quiet revelation.  “Hell… They have Crowley.”

 Anathema flicks her gaze to the gooey puddle beside the angel, purses her lips in doubt.  “He told you that?”

 The angel shakes his head, swallows with visible effort.  “Showed.”  

 There’s something in that admission, in the way his voice catches and breaks on the word that sends a jolt of compassionate worry through Anathema’s heart.  She dares a step or two closer, hovers almost within reach.

 “He’s alive then,” she tries for comfort. “We know for sure now that he’s still alive.  That’s a good thing, right?”

 The angel’s face twists in a terrifying display of raw, unadulterated pain.  “You don’t understand!”  

 The grief in his voice is once again a powerful, physical thing.  It pushes against Anathema’s senses, and she can’t help but recoil from the sheer force of its pressure.  

 The angel doesn’t seem to notice.  Stands where he is, hands gripping the sides of his head as if to keep it from splitting open, and words pour on, disjointed and rambling.

 “He’s an angel now.  The poison he absorbed, the poison he took from me – it destroyed his demonic essence, burned it away.  It should have… it should have killed him.  Permanently.  Because once you destroy a demon’s essence, there’s nothing left.  Same with angels.  But Crowley, he…” Tear-bright blue eyes find Anathema’s, and he smiles, bitter and wistful, “he’s different, isn’t he.  Always has been.”

 “He kept his angelic essence,” the guess spills out of her in an awed gasp.  Because she’s read about the Fall, alright? She got curious after the failed Armageddon, she wanted to know more about the forces that started it all.  And there was a lot of squabbling and disagreements between the different accounts she’s seen, but the one thing they all seemed to agree on was that the Fall was painful and traumatizing for the future demons and that the process burned away all traces of their former angelic essence, everything that ever tied them to Heaven. The mere idea that one of those fallen angels could somehow manage to save even a spark of that heavenly connection within them… it was… it was…

 “Ineffable,” the angel breathes out, as if reading her thoughts, his smile wobbling as tears spill down his cheeks.

 “It’s still a good thing, is it not?” Newt chimes in from behind her, and she jumps, having all but forgotten about his presence.  “I mean, if he hadn’t, he’d be dead now, but this way we can still get him back, right?”

 Aziraphale blinks at the question and looks away to where the demon’s remains slowly congeal into a cold viscous mess.  And there’s that wave of pain again that rolls off of him, tinting his aura a sickly mustard yellow.

 “I’m guessing an angel trapped in Hell is never a good thing,” Anathema muses, thinking back to the confrontation at the Tadfield Air Base, remembering the open rage and hatred she felt pouring off Crowley’s demonic colleagues.  She remembers something else, too: the cold, ugly swell of deadly menace from both the demon with a fly-shaped hat on its head and from Satan himself, both directed at Crowley.  “Traitor,” the fly demon had called him. And, oh, she thinks.  Oh!…

 “It’s worse for Crowley, isn’t it,” she blurts out, trying for gentle, but not quite succeeding, judging by the way the angel flinches at her words.  And she gets it now, the reason for Aziraphale’s distress.  Because… “They were already angry at him in Hell, weren’t they?  For messing up their plans?  And now they get their hands on him and he’s an angel…”

 “Archangel,” Aziraphale speaks up finally, voice hollow and bitter with pain.  “Raphael.  Lucifer’s baby brother.”

 Oh… my…

 “He was tortured!” Aziraphale whirls back toward them, eyes blazing with self-directed fury.  “All this time.  All the time I’ve spent feeling sorry for myself, moping around this place like a goddamn fool.  He was tortured, and I… oh dear God!” He pales, hand clamping over his mouth as he looks for all the world like someone about to get violently sick.

 “You didn’t know!” Anathema tries.  “How could you?  We all saw what happened, we all assumed that he was–”

 The angel shakes his head. “Crowley would have known,” he forces out, strangled.  “He always… he always…  He would have known!”  His words break on a pulse of guilt and self-hatred so strong – it physically pushes Anathema back a step.  And then it dies out, just as quickly as it came, leaving behind a swirling murky sea of weariness and despair.  “I gotta get him out of there…”

 “Yes,” she nods, still feeling quite off-balance from the whirlwind of powerful dark emotions radiating from the angel.  “But how?”

 The angel shakes his head, forehead creased in thought.  Murmurs a quietly helpless, desperate, “I… I don’t…”

 “Um… I hate to bring this up,” Newt cuts in again, “but don’t we need to do something about this?” He points warily at the puddle of demon goo on the floor.  “I mean… you said yourself he was a… a duke or something. Wouldn’t the others be expecting him back?”

 Aziraphale’s head shoots up at that, face brightening unexpectedly, eyes gleaming with almost childlike excitement.  “That’s it!” he cries out, reaching his hands toward Newt as though aiming to embrace him.

 “What?” The younger man stumbles back instinctively in the face of the angel’s near-manic fervor.  Reaches up to fix his glasses in an awkward attempt to maintain his cool.  “What did I say?”

 Instead of a response, the angel snaps his fingers, and Anathema sucks in a startled breath as the angel’s form shifts once more: the white hair lengthens, the soft curls straightening out into an unruly tangled mop; the smooth perfect skin darkens and sags, breaking out in ugly, weeping warts; the bright angelic blue of his eyes disappears in the pools of seemingly bottomless inky black…

 “Holy shit…,” Newt gasps out beside her, and, yeah, she thinks, as she watches the newly-baked demon roll his shoulders, adjusting the hopelessly stained, worn-out trench coat on his shoulders, that pretty much covers it.

 The disguised angel smiles at them, revealing a row of rotten smoke-yellowed teeth.  Twirls around for good measure, arms spread out wide, as if inviting them to appraise his newest form.  

 “I’ll be back soon,” he promises, and now, despite his earlier distress and confusion, despite the ever-present pain in his aura, he exudes nothing but frighteningly calm, furious conviction.  “Bring Adam here if you can and have him wait for me.”  At Anathema’s questioning frown he explains, “He helped me once, when my old corporation was destroyed.  I’m hoping he can do the same for Crowley.”

 And with that and another flick of his fingers he’s gone.

 ***

 Hell is different from the last time he remembers.  For one, his return is not greeted by any special fanfare.  There are no demon guards surrounding him, tracking his every move.  No hungrily leering gawkers crowding the hallways, their sharp teeth bared in anticipation of a good show.  He walks through the damp, sewage-smelling hallways unhindered.

 It’s a blessing on the one hand.  On the other – he needs to find Crowley, and he has no idea where to go.

 He gets lucky finally after yet another sharp turn into a winding corridor with a leaking overhead pipe that a couple of low-rank demons are lazily trying to patch up.  

 Perfect.

 Shoulders squared, mouth set in a haughty disgusted sneer he’s seen Hastur wear on numerous occasions, he strides purposefully right up to the pair, growling out a “What the Heaven are you two, idiots, doing here?” in lieu of a greeting.

 The demons turn around, startled, their grime-smudged faces frozen in fear.  Stare back at him in a helpless flounder.

 “Well?” He lets his frustration and worry seep through, disguised as anger.  Lets the threat of it flash in the blackness of his eyes. “Why aren’t you over there guarding that traitor Crowley?”

 One of the demons, a squatty wart-covered thing, stammers out finally, “Not… not supposed to be there, Your Lordship.  It’s Armaros’ turn now.  And I think… I think they may be waiting for you?”  The demon ducks his head immediately, perhaps fearing he’d spoken too freely.

 Aziraphale narrows his gaze, aware that on Hastur’s face it looks menacing enough to cause the two demons to cower and tremble before him.  He uses that fear to his advantage.

 “Take me to him,” he says, and when the demon hesitates a fraction, giving him a look of scared confusion, he snaps, teeth bared in a clear show of menace, “NOW!”

 The demon jumps forward as if shocked and scurries obediently down the hallway, careful to stay only a couple steps ahead.  Pauses in front of a thick metal door whose surface is dented in places and smeared with grime.  

 “Armaros has been working on ‘im for the past couple hours,” the demon reports with a tremulous smile.  “But ‘e should be good and ready for you now.  You want me to announce you?”

 “Leave!” Aziraphale growls, barely restraining himself from pulling the flaming sword back out of the hidden plane and running the bothersome demon through.  Crowley is there, behind the door.  He can feel him – the familiar tug he’s learned to hone in on over all those millennia.  And he needs to get to him.  Can’t afford to give himself away just yet.

 The demon gulps nervously and is gone faster than could be expected from a short-legged creature like that.  

 Aziraphale yanks open the door and steps inside.

 For a moment – a long breathless moment – everything stops, as he stands, frozen, on the threshold of the makeshift torture chamber, its air so thick with the scent of blood and sweat and despair that it makes him want to gag.  He thought he was prepared, he’d glimpsed some of what was awaiting him in Hastur’s memories, and he tried to mentally steel himself for this very moment.

 It turned out to have been a futile endeavor.  Because nothing, nothing could have possibly prepared him for this!

 He sees Crowley, hanging by his wrists from a spiked metal chain that cuts ruthlessly into the tender skin; rivulets of blood – angel-gold blood – trickling down the skinny trembling arms from there the barbs pierce the wrists, sliding past the awful looking bruises and welts that cover every inch of those arms to drip in a monotonous cadence down to the floor, where they merge with a much bigger puddle that has collected at his feet.  He sees those bare feet, burned and bloodied, barely scraping the cold surface of the floor – not enough, not nearly enough to provide any support for his sagging body; Crowley’s head hanging limply on his scourged chest, the beautiful sun-red hair dull and matted; his beautiful wings – horribly mangled and torn, sticking out at awkward, broken angles, vulnerable and unprotected behind his back…

 There’s a loud roar in his ears, an awful pressure in his chest – so strong he thinks he might burst from it.  And for one horrifying moment his vision goes dark, as though someone somewhere had just turned off the light.

 “Hastur!”

 The raspy gleeful voice pulls him out of the suffocating blackness of his stupor and he blinks to find a tall scraggy demon, whose presence he had previously ignored, stepping out from behind Crowley’s back, one of its many unnaturally long, clawed appendages curled around the handle of a knife steeped in angelic blood.

 “It’s about time you showed up,” the demon continues, a lewd smile pulling at his blackened lips.  “I’ve been getting quite bored here.  There’s only so many notches you can make on those wings before the blasted creature passes out on you, and then you have to wait for him to wake up.  And waiting’s no fun, if you know what I mean.”  

 The demon looks back at his prisoner, pretending to consider him a moment.  “Perhaps I could wake him up for you now,” he offers with a laugh, low and grating.  Grabs Crowley’s wing, pulling it sharply toward him, his knife hand poised to strike down.

 And drops howling to the floor as the flaming sword slices through his appendages like a hot knife through butter, leaving behind blistering, sizzling stumps.  The sword swings down once more, swift and vengeful, and the demon’s screams cut out, silenced into a dying fizzle.

 Aziraphale doesn’t give him another glance.  Steps forward instead, swinging his sword at the chain that binds Crowley in place.  The Hell-forged shackles yield under the furious onslaught of holy energy, crack and shatter, scattering onto the floor in tiny smoking pieces. And Aziraphale lets go of the sword that same instant, lets it clatter to the ground unheeded, as Crowley, released from his cruel bonds, drops boneless toward the blood-covered floor.

 Aziraphale catches him before he hits the ground, the momentum driving him to his knees.  He lingers there just long enough to take a quick, relieved breath – perhaps his first one since crossing the threshold of this awful room.  Then he stands, his precious burden cradled against his chest, his arms wrapped around him with the desperate protectiveness that’s tempered only slightly by his fear of causing Crowley more pain.

 Crowley’s head lolls with the movement, a soft moan slipping past the cracked lips, and Aziraphale stills once again, breath bated as he waits hungrily, selfishly for more.

 “Crowley?” he prods, realizing belatedly as the former demon jerks suddenly in his arms that the voice coming out of his mouth is still Hastur’s voice.  

 And, oh, he wants to kick himself, wants to bang his stupid head against the wall for needlessly scaring his friend!  He should have just kept his mouth shut.  Just long enough to get them both out of here so he could shed this hated disguise.  He should have–

 Crowley shifts against him, effectively silencing his self-deprecating train of thought.  Opens his eyes a slit, his bleary, pain-filled gaze skating slowly up Aziraphale’s face to rest on his eyes.  And Aziraphale wants to close them, wants to keep Crowley from seeing those hateful soulless pools of black he knows are looking back down at him.  

 But Crowley doesn’t flinch away.  Stares mutely into Aziraphale’s eyes for a long breathless moment, and then, inexplicably, smiles.  “Angel,” he exhales, his eyes slipping closed once more as his head rolls, his battered face nestling trustingly into the stained smelly material of Hastur’s coat.

 It takes Aziraphale another interminably long moment before he can breathe again.  Before he can blink away a veil of tears that washes out Crowley’s dear features and get his hopelessly rattled emotions under some modicum of control to snap the two of them back to the Jasmine Cottage, miracling the flaming sword away onto the hidden plane as an afterthought.  

[a-damson-in-distress]

The Protégé 4

Pairing: MadaSaku

Plot: In search of a new cellist for his prestigious orchestra, an infamously feared maestro stumbles upon a young rising star.

The Protégé 1

The Protégé 2

The Protégé 3

Edit: I almost forgot to add this super important note: A thousand thank yous to my regulars who have followed this story from the get-go. There are a few of you who never fail to show their appreciation and never forget to leave an encouraging comment. Don’t think I don’t notice you, you stalkers ;). I am immensly thankful for your feedback and your comments, they keep me so motivated and give me a sense of validation, like this isn’t just some sort of private thing that I only create for myself and nobody else gives a shit about it. If five hundred people read my story without leaving a comment or anything and I’ve only got the few reviews from you guys, it’s still enough to show me that my work is appreciated. So thank you!

Note: For those of you who are as confused about orchestral stage etiquette as I am and have no idea what’s going on with the whole handshake thing in this chapter, here’s what I found out about it while doing research for chapter four: The first violinist in an orchestra is also called the concert master, he represents the entire orchestra and functions as a sort of “team captain” if you will. So whenever the maestro invites a soloist, the soloist is supposed to shake hands with the maestro (thanking him for the invitation basically) as well as the concert master (though there are variations to this, some only shake hands before the performance, some before and after, etc.). By shaking the CM’s hand, the soloist essentially thanks all of the other musicians for their collaboration as solo concertos are usually a group effort, and you know the soloist can’t go around shaking the hands of a hundred people so they usually only shake hands with the CM *gasp* wow that was a long explanation. Aaaaaaanyway, here’s a video of the concerto Sakura is performing in this chapter: Camille Saint-Saën’s Cello Concerto No.1 in A minor. 

Enjoy, have fun reading, let me know if you liked it, leave a comment, send a carrier pigeon, send a smoke signal, you know whatever floats your boat. You know the drill. 

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“A little to the left. Chin up. Perfect, stay that way.”

Sakura had trouble not squinting her eyes when the photographer unleashed another onslaught of camera flashes upon her. She was currently in his studio doing a photo shoot for the orchestra’s and the theatre’s official websites. Her probation period was over, and they were only a week away from kicking off their tour after their first performance at home, so now the New National Theatre was going to officially announce her as the principal cellist of Maestro Uchiha’s ensemble complete with interviews, articles, videos of her rehearsals, and ridiculously over-the-top photographs.

The nickname the press had given her after her solo in Sapporo spread like wildfire, and the orchestra’s publicist decided to capitalise on her image as the Imperatrix Furiosa. So they put her in a majestic velvet evening gown dyed in a scandalous scarlet with a skirt wide enough to allow her to spread her legs to accommodate her cello on the throne-like chair she was currently sitting in. Her hair was tied up into an overly dramatic and intricate updo and fastened with fancy kanzashi hair pins that were sticking out in such a manner they made it look like she was wearing a crown.

The dress and accessories paired with the red lipstick and dramatic eye make-up made her look every bit the Furious Empress and the enticing femme fatale of Japan’s classical music scene the publicist wanted her to portray.

And Sakura hated every second of it.

“Do you think you have enough pictures now?” the young cellist asked tentatively while trying to hold her unnatural pose.

Deidara, the orchestra’s publicist, looked up from the laptop where her photographs appeared right after being snapped. “Just a few more, sweety. You’re doing great, though.” He gave her an encouraging thumbs-up and shot her an apologetic smile. Great, Sakura mused silently, she must have looked more uncomfortable than she thought. And here she was thinking she was good at hiding it.

“Seriously, though, we need to wrap this up. She’s got rehearsal in an hour, and Madara will chop off my head if his MVP is late,” Sakura heard the blonde publicist explain to the photographer. She sincerely hoped the heavy make-up was covering the deep blush she could feel spreading across her cheeks at his remark. Did her Maestro really tell the publicist she was his most valuable musician?

“No grinning, please,” came the photographer’s command from behind his lens.

Right. Stop daydreaming, Sakura reminded herself.

Straightening her back and schooling her features, the pink-haired cellist remained motionless on her make-shift throne. After a few more minutes of clicking, snapping, repositioning, and flashing, Sakura was finally free to get out of her dress and wash off all that make-up. She undid her complicated updo and gathered her hair into a high puffy ponytail. Putting on her pastel green boat neck dress with box pleats and slipping into her simple white ballerinas, she immediately felt more comfortable, like her young and goofy self and not the mature and seductive diva the photographer wanted her to be.

“Chop-chop, darling. Maestro Menacing is waiting for you.” Sakura was torn from her thoughts at the sound of Deidara calling out from the other side of the closed door. The young musician had to supress a smirk at the sound of the nickname she knew the publicist secretly used for her Maestro. He wasn’t entirely wrong, Mr Uchiha really could come across as menacing and unapproachable. But Sakura had gotten to know another side of him over the last weeks as well. There was a gentleness to him he only rarely showed, tiny little smiles of satisfaction and subtle gestures of encouragement. As much as she appreciated his constructive criticism, she loved his nods of approval and his well done, Ms Haruno’s even more.

And she couldn’t wait to prove herself to her Maestro during the upcoming tour and hope for a bit more of his praise she so selfishly craved.

After Deidara and Sakura left the photographer’s studio, they immediately headed back to the theatre where the rest of Maestro Uchiha’s ensemble was already preparing themselves for one of their last rehearsals before kicking off their tour. Sakura took her usual seat to the right of the conductor’s music stand. She was so busy tuning her cello, she didn’t even notice her Maestro approach his podium.

“Ms Haruno.” A deep voice made her look up in surprise and she was met with the sight of the raven-haired conductor casually leaning on the rail of his podium with his strong arms crossed in front of his broad chest, clad in a meticulous three-piece suit sans the jacket.

The young cellist prayed to God her blush wasn’t as visible as she thought it was.

“Yes, Maestro?” she answered in a small voice.

“How was the photoshoot?”

Sakura gave him a weak smile and chuckled softly. “Honestly? It was horrible. They dressed me up in this heavy, floor-length gown and backcombed my hair so much it looked like I had a bird’s nest on my head in the end. And I had so much make-up on I could literally feel my pores dying a horrible death by asphyxiation. Please don’t look at the photos once they upload them.”

“I’m sure it wasn’t that bad. But if it makes you feel any better, I will not go actively looking for your pictures. Though I have to admit, I would love to see a pink bird’s nest.” Her Maestro’s teasing grin made her giggle, and Sakura looked up at the raven-haired conductor with a huge smile on her face.

Just in that moment, she could hear the sound of a camera shutter from her left. Both her Maestro and Sakura turned around in surprise and spotted Deidara standing in the middle of the countless rows of seats with a camera in his hand.

“Finally. Do you know how difficult it is to get a photo of two people together who both hate to pose for pictures? You two are a publicist’s nightmare, but you’re lucky you’re so goddamn photogenic.”

Sakura turned to Maestro Uchiha and looked at him questioningly. With an annoyed eye roll, he explained, “Deidara said he needed a picture of the two of us together for our countless social media profiles. He wants to make a post about me welcoming you to the ensemble or whatever, and apparently, I cannot officially welcome you without a picture.”

His obvious annoyance with the blonde publicist elicited another laugh from the young cellist. Sakura watched her conductor narrow his eyes at her before his own lips spread into a tiny amused grin.

“Alright, that’s enough giggling now, Ms Haruno. If you keep enjoying my jokes like that, the other members of my orchestra might start to think I actually have a heart.”

Biting on her bottom lip to keep herself from chuckling at his quip and again hoping that her blush wouldn’t betray her, the young cellist focused her gaze on her sheet music and readied her instrument for the rehearsal. The other musicians took their seats as well, filling up the vacant space around Sakura, and fixed their eyes on the conductor.

Maestro Uchiha gave his final orders, raised his baton, and the musicians started playing.

                                                            ---------

“I finally got Naruto to accept my karaoke challenge. He’s going to do Leona Lewis’ Bleeding Love at the bar tonight, you gotta come with us!”  

The pink-haired cellist looked up from her sheet music and was met with the face of her new roommate Ino, the principal clarinet of their ensemble. After her first rehearsal with the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, Temari had introduced her to some people she claimed were the only tolerable ones, and Sakura immediately hit it off with the blonde musician. Not long after getting to know each other, Ino offered her to move in with her after her previous roommate accepted another job in a different city. Though some of her newly found friends in the orchestra, who had all known Ino for a long time now, jokingly advised her against it with the explanation that she’s bi and you’re annoyingly adorable and totally her type, she’ll eat you up and spit you out, Sakura hadn’t regretted a single second of being the roommate of the exuberant and feisty clarinet player.

“Sure, I’ll be there. I just need a minute to talk to the Maestro,” Sakura answered with an amused grin.

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Ino bounce up and down with excitement. “Yay, it’s gonna be so great. We always go out the night before our first performance, without any alcohol of course,” the blonde musician added in a loud voice, pointedly looking in Maestro Uchiha’s direction before continuing, “but still, you’re gonna have so much fun with us. I’ll see you at home. And don’t be late, missy, I still need to do your makeup.”

Sakura was met with the end of Ino’s perfectly manicured index finger pointed accusingly at her face before the blonde turned on her heel and strutted off the stage as if it were her own personal catwalk.

Gathering her things, the pink-haired cellist made her way to the Maestro, who was currently busy berating his principal percussionist Naruto for goofing around with his timpani sticks during a break and pretending to have a swordfight with his fellow players. She decided to wait for them to finish and came to a halt in the middle of the string section when she realised that their orchestra’s concert master Kabuto was seemingly also waiting for a word with their conductor.

The grey-haired violinist was one of the musicians who hadn’t even spared her a glance on her first day. But while most of them seemed to have come around in the meantime or have at least started greeting their newest member, Kabuto was still adamantly giving her the cold shoulder. Whenever she tried talking to him, Sakura was met with nothing but haughty looks and condescending remarks. Though she had to admit, the moments of interaction between them were few and far between, because Sakura tried to keep them to a minimum. Their concert master was clearly of the highly competitive sort, and Sakura had no intention of letting him drag her into a musical pissing contest.

And still, manners were manners, so the cellist forced a tight smile and greeted him.

“Hey, Kabuto. Excited for our first concert tomorrow?”

The grey-haired violinist slowly turned his head and looked down his nose at her. He studied her for a second with narrowed eyes, as if trying to discern whether or not she was worthy of an answer, before opening his mouth, “I’m sure you are.”

Supressing the urge to roll her eyes at his usual cryptic answer, Sakura instead ignored his remark and cleared her throat. “So um, every CM seems to be handling stage etiquette a bit differently, so I wanted to ask you how you want to do the handshake tomorrow? Before and after, or just after or do you –“

“Honestly, Haruno, I couldn’t care less about the handshake or your solo. But if this really is so confusing to you, why don’t you go ask Daddy for help? It’s not like our Maestro has anything better to do than take his new little girl by the hand and show her how things work around here.”

What the hell was that supposed to mean?

Sakura could feel her cheeks heating up at his embarrassing remark, and she stared at him open-mouthed, stunned into silence. Luckily, she didn’t have to come up with an answer, since Kabuto was approached by another violinist in that moment, asking him whether he wanted to go out tonight.

“No thanks, I’ll be staying at the theatre for a while longer. I’ve got other plans for later,” the concert master explained with a devious grin.

After the violinist left, Kabuto made no attempt to address Sakura again, and Maestro Uchiha was still not done chewing out Naruto. Since she felt so incredibly uncomfortable in Kabuto’s presence, the young musician decided to grab her cello case and leave. Not even the prospect of talking to Maestro Uchiha for a few minutes was worth it, if it meant she had to spend another second in awkward silence with the concert master who seemed to hate her guts.

                                                              ---------

There was a ritual Madara had long formed a habit of going through before every concert he was going to conduct. It consisted of him mumbling every single articulation in chronological order of every piece of that night’s programme while he re-arranged the seats of his musicians on stage. Even though the stage crew of every theatre he ever worked at never failed to position everything correctly, the conductor still felt more at east when he could move every chair and every music stand to just the perfect spot.

Madara was currently contemplating whether to push a sax player’s seat half a centimetre to the left or to the right when he heard a commotion from backstage. He followed the noise to the labyrinth of dressing rooms where his eyes caught sight of three blonde musicians rushing from one room to the next, frantically looking for something.

“What do you mean, she can’t find it. It must be there!” Temari came rushing past him with a handbag before she promptly dumped its content on a table and started digging through it.

“I don’t know. When we got home last night, I asked her if all of her stuff was ready in the dressing room. She told me she checked everything three times, even tried on the shoes just to be safe, because she was afraid they gave her the wrong size.”

Madara watched his principal clarinet go through the countless makeup bags before she turned to another person in the hall. “Naruto, did you check the clothing racks in all the dressing rooms?” Madara’s gaze landed on the blonde percussionist who just entered the room with an apologetic shake of his head.

Clearing his throat to get their attention, the raven-haired conductor leaned against the door frame and let his gaze wander around the dressing room in which the three musicians were currently bustling about.

“Our concert starts in half an hour. I sincerely hope you’ll find whatever you’re so desperately looking for.”

Madara’s accusatory gaze met the desperate look of the blonde clarinet player before she approached him, grabbing his arm and tugging him down the hall.

“Maestro, you need to help us. It’s an emergency.”

Ino came to a halt in front of the closed door of another dressing room and knocked twice before letting herself in. Madara stayed behind, still unsure of what was really going on.

“Oh God, Ino, please tell me you have it, please! I need to be ready before anyone finds out, or before he finds out. Please, we need to hurry, Maestro Uchiha absolutely can’t know about this, or I’m screwed!”

Madara’s heart suddenly lurched in his chest at the sound of Sakura’s distraught voice so close to tears. He took a step forward and entered the room where he was met with the sight of his principal cellist dressed up in her concert outfit, a dark-green fitted pant suit, black patent leather Oxford’s, and a white blouse fully buttoned up – and missing a bow tie.

“Ms Haruno, what’s going on?”

She fixed her scared, wide eyes on him, and Madara was immediately hit with the urge to envelop her in his arms and assure her he’ll make everything right for her again.

The conductor couldn’t help but let his gaze be drawn to her beautiful mouth, invited by the sight of her teeth chewing on her bottom lip before releasing it to speak.

“Maestro, I’m so so sorry, but I … I can’t seem to find my bow tie. But I swear to God it was here. After the rehearsal and before I left the theatre yesterday, I checked if all of my stuff was ready like you told us and I swear to God my outfit was complete, I know I saw the bow tie with the rest of my clothes. But now it’s gone and we looked everywhere and I don’t know what to do. God, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry to disappoint you.” Her voice was shaky and on the verge of tears and Madara had to consciously restrain the urge in his feet to run to her.

He was just about to say something to comfort the distraught young cellist when he heard more voices approaching the dressing room. The maestro turned around to see a small crowd gathered outside the door, all asking and wondering what was going on with their youngest member.

“Nothing to see here, alright? Just looking for a lost bow tie. We’ll be ready any second now, so scram, got it?” The blonde clarinet player fixed the crowd with a stern gaze and waved her hands in front of her to signal the other musicians to disperse.

“Maybe we should help look? I’m sure we’ll find it faster that way. Then we can all get back to our preparations in peace.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Madara could see Sakura’s head shoot up and her eyes widen in surprise at the sound of his concert master’s suggestion. But before anybody could say anything, Kabuto had already turned around and left.

“I’m sorry for troubling you with this, Maestro. We actually promised Sakura not to tell you anything, but we really couldn’t find it anywhere after looking for so long, and now we’re kind of lost.” Ino’s apologetic gaze was shooting back and forth between the conductor and his principal cellist.

“It’s quite alright, Ms Yamanaka. I’m glad you told me. Now I can get to the bottom of this myself.”

When he saw Sakura’s worried expression turn even more desperate, Madara felt like slapping himself. That came out way more threatening than he intended it to. He was just about to clarify his statement when he heard a knock on the open door which made all their heads turn around.

Kabuto was standing in the doorway with his right hand raised, a bow tie dangling from the edge of his middle finger. “You’ll never guess where I found this,” he said in a casual tone, a barely visible smirk gracing his features.

Madara watched his principal clarinet cross her arms in front of her chest. “Oh I’m sure I will.”

Kabuto ignored her, instead stepping into the dressing room and approaching Sakura. “Somehow, it landed in a drawer of one of the dressing tables.” He slipped the bow tie off his middle finger, and Sakura barely had enough time to catch it. “Lucky for you I’m so thorough at everything I do.” He gave her what was probably meant to be a half-baked attempt at a sincere smile and then turned to face Madara, his fake grin widening, before he left the room.

The maestro’s eyes landed on the young cellist in front of him again, who was still staring after the concert master with a look of confusion. He glanced at his watch and cleared his throat.

“Everybody out. I need a minute with Ms Haruno.”

After her friends hesitantly left the room and closed the door behind them, Madara let his gaze rest on Sakura’s downcast head. It was then the maestro realised she was playing with the bow tie in her hand, tugging at it and turning it around between her fingers. She was nervous.

“Ms Haruno, look at me.”

At the sound of his soft command, Sakura slowly raised her head to meet his gaze. Madara had to supress a groan at the sight of her teeth chewing on her bottom lip again.

“Please don’t be mad at me,” her whispering voice pleaded with him.

“I’m not mad, Ms Haruno. I know none of this was your fault, trust me.” He closed his hands over her fidgeting ones and took the bow tie.

“Chin up.”

The young cellist just stared at him for a second, jade-green eyes wide with confusion.

Madara took a step closer to her, put a finger beneath her chin and forced her head up. He then proceeded to turn up her collar and fasten the bow tie around her neck.

“You’re not going to allow this incident to rattle you, you’re better than this and we both know it. Once I call you up on stage, you’re going to walk up there like you own the place, play your solo to perfection, and blow everyone away.” He gave her bow tie a final tug.

“Have I made myself understood, Ms Haruno?” Madara looked down at her with a strict gaze and a tiny amused smirk gracing his lips.

“Yes, Maestro,” Sakura nodded enthusiastically while smiling up at him with a look of pure determination.

“Good.” Madara grabbed her chin between his fingers and leaned closer to her face before murmuring, “I wouldn’t expect anything less form my protégé.”

He watched with satisfaction as a deep blush spread across her cheeks and her jade-green eyes widened in surprise, staring up at him with that look of wonder, reverence, and gratification she only seemed to have reserved for him, as if his praise was the only thing in the world giving her life meaning.

Unable to resist, Madara allowed his gaze to rest on her inviting lips for a split second before letting go off her chin and forcing himself to leave her dressing room.

His thoughts kept swirling around the young cellist even as he stepped onto the stage amidst tumultuous applause. The conductor had to admit that it was a good decision not to have Sakura join the ensemble for the entire programme but only for her solo in the last half hour; he probably wouldn’t have been able to keep his eyes from her. Though that wasn’t the original reason for not having her on stage for the entire performance. What Madara was really hoping to achieve with the late entrance of his principal cellist was to give her the grand introduction deserving of a musician of her calibre. After all, the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra was one of the most prestigious ensembles in the world of classical music, and Sakura Haruno wasn’t just anybody. And a good maestro knows to save the best for last.

Despite his mind being distracted with the image of her inviting lips only centimetres away from his own, Madara was still able to focus on the musicians in front of him as he led his orchestra through the concert’s programme. After they finished their second to last piece and when it was time for Sakura’s solo, he signalled his ensemble to quiet down, turned around on his podium to face the audience and grabbed a microphone.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, as you may have heard the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra has signed on a new member. As of this April, our vacant spot of principal cellist was filled with an immensely talented young musician from Kyoto. Though she doesn’t need an introduction, she’s going to get one anyway. She is an award-winning cello prodigy who was the youngest ever recipient of the first Grand Prize at the Rostropovitch Cello Competition at the age of sixteen. She studied under Takanori Nakano, Stjepan Hauser, and Steven Isserlis, to mention but a few. After establishing herself as a world-renowned cellist in her previous orchestras, she will now join us for our tour as the newest and youngest member of my ensemble. Ladies and Gentlemen, you will now hear Camille Saint-Saëns’ Cello Concerto number 1 in A minor with our new principal cellist Sakura Haruno as the soloist.”

Madara put down the microphone, stepped off his podium, and walked off the stage to where Sakura was waiting for him.

“Ready?” he asked with an encouraging smile.

She answered with a determined nod as her lips spread into an excited grin. “As I’ll ever be.”

The maestro signalled her to lead the way. As the cellist stepped onto the stage with her instrument in hand, the audience erupted into thunderous applause. Madara followed after her, clapping his hands like the rest of the guests and the musicians of his ensemble. He watched her bow deeply to the audience before turning to Kabuto and shaking his hand with a smug grin plastered on her face. She waited for Madara to step onto his podium before shaking his hand as well.

“Give ‘em hell, Ms Haruno.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see another one of her blushes he liked so much taint her cheeks as she took a seat and readied herself with a subtle, sincere smile gracing her lips.

Madara raised his baton while Sakura steadied her bow above the strings of her cello. They shared one last look, the cellist looking up at her maestro for guidance and the maestro giving her a tiny smile of approval. He nodded to his entire ensemble.

As the music enveloped the large concert hall, Madara could see Sakura sway in her seat, eyes closed and completely surrendering herself to her instrument. He knew in that moment that she was gone now, transporting her mind into whatever utopia she conjured up whenever she let go and allowed her music to simply take her away.

As easy as it was for him to get and hold her attention, the maestro had to begrudgingly admit that music still seemed to be the only thing able to ensnare her in a way he could not. He was going to have to change that soon enough, he decided.

But for the time being, Madara let her be. His protégé was lost to the world now, anyway.

[vee-angel]

Talynn’s Edge (Part 2)

(Just reposted the first part of this story with the corresponding illustration. This section will have a pretty significant amount of blood and violence, both sexual and non-sexual. And just an FYI, this part is not a stand-alone story by any means. If you want to understand what’s going on, I recommend reading the first part, and if you want to understand what’s going on well, I recommend reading the first part, and watching “Sonnie’s Edge” from the Love, Death + Robots anthology series on Netflix. If you want to completely understand, than do all that, and also read the short story by Peter F. Hamilton.)

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Something was different about the vibes tonight. Me and the rest of Sonnie’s Predators had seen plenty of fight nights, but this was the fight night. Khanivore vs. Hellcat. Me vs…. her.

Seems like a pair of woman beastie baiters going head to head was a bigger draw than I’d thought. Traffic is shit in the cities anyway, but the sludge of vehicles and bodies round the arena made it so the old twenty-wheeler’s cab had to slog inch by inch before we could unload Khanivore’s pod.

Hadn’t seen Talynn since that night months ago in the shitty spunk-stained hotel room. Fight promoters had set everything up. Closest thing we’d got to talking was signing the same fight contract. Still, she’d been in my head more than I’d have liked.

I felt ready, though. Near half a thousand dead rabbits made sure of that. Gotten to the point Khanivore had the muscle memory to spear a frantic hare running full clip near a hundred-percent of the time. Her bone-blade tentacles should make quick work of Hellcat even with its ungodly speed.

Wondered if Talynn still remembered the agreement we made that night. Winner gets to have their way with the loser. Ain’t exactly any way I’d have to pay up if I lose, but if I win, I wouldn’t mind a good shag. Honestly, I’d got a bit obsessive as of late, and needed the release.

I’d scouted the set-up a couple weeks before. Arena was bigger than the last one, but same basic set-up. Fight-pit dropped into the floor with rows and rows of people packed like sardines. Pit was the biggest one I’d seen so far, made room to maneuver, also meant her beastie had room to pick up speed.

After we finally got unloaded and took care of pre-fight business, we waited for the ring-master to start talking me up so I could make my entrance. Heard the clamor of the crowd before taking a step out into the open with Wes and Ivrina on either side. The Sonnie’s Predators fans jumped to their feet and went wild. My fans, I was the one putting it all on the line after all. God it felt good. I was the champion, and I wasn’t about to let some yankee cunt take that away from me.

Announcer kept on with peppy hyperbolic fanfare as I settled down in my signature zen pose at the edge of the pit. They could pretend they was excited because we were both undefeated, but really it was just that both pilots had tits for the first time.

Finally saw Talynn walking out from the other side of the arena. My heart beat a little faster and I couldn’t tell if it was because I still fancied her a bit or because the psychotic twat scared me a little. Honestly, probably a bit of both.

“Fuckin’ Hell, do you suppose that’s real?” Wes asked

“Fake stuff don’t clot like that.” Ivrina said back.

For half a second I wasn’t sure what they was talking about. Then I saw it. I mistook her for wearin that same shiny red skin-suit I’d seen her in last time, but it wasn’t that. It was blood.

Fuckin’ perfect outfit to intimidate, I figure. Ain’t nothing gonna scare the shit out of somebody quite like walking out naked smeared with gore. Her face was different, too. No babydoll grin, just this death scowl pointed right in my direction. Whole affair gave her this look like some kinda Aztek deity you could summon if you knifed out enough living people’s hearts as tribute.

She was taking this one serious, I figure. Ain’t no point in going the whole nine to intimidate unless you’re scared yourself. She didn’t think this up last minute.  Maybe over this last stretch this fight had been running through my head more times than it ought to, but now I knew. I’d gotten into her brain-space, too.

“You ready, Sonnie?” Ivrina’s voice came real gentle from the side. She didn’t want to fuck my concentration. I didn’t even look at her or Wes, just gave a quick nod staring straight ahead. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes.

“A’right, booting the Affinity Link… Now.”

There was a brief flash where I was falling through a thick ocean of pitch black, but my brain did quick work making sense of the sensorium coming through my body... Khanivore’s body. My eyes opened to the sight of the pod freshly opened and I stepped out on freakish strong thighs.

I heard the announcer saying my name and dashed out into the fight-pit. I moved quick, but not too quick. Didn’t want to telegraph how fast I’d become.

Hellcat got announced then. The black beast stalked out slow and confident-like. Didn’t make any fancy display like the first time I saw. She wanted to save all its energy for ripping limb from limb and then fucking the dead, bloody stumps.

This is when fear kicked in; locked in a pit with nothing between me and this prickly murderbeast that wanted nothing more than to kill me. This is when it got real. My survival instincts start screaming at me and I became primality incarnate. My body tensed, bone blades poised to strike, legs ready to dodge. This was it.

The fight lights went on.  

Nothing.

Hellcat stared, quiet menace rising off it like smoke. Didn’t strike, didn’t lunge.

It started to move, real slow like. Tense steps around the edge of the pit like it was circling prey. I did the same; wasn’t about to let it flank me. I couldn’t let my guard down. I’d seen how fast it was. Talynn wasn’t going to let me survive a mis-step.

We’d gone around a full three-sixty with careful slow steps, staring one another down. The crowd had gone quiet, too; just waiting. Was this her strategy? Wear out my patience, wait for a mistake? A reckless move? Not gonna happen. She can take as many moments as she likes, and I’ll savor every one. Because if I fuck up, I won’t be having any moments ever again.

I kept my nerves steady, If anyone was going to be reckless it’d be her. . . and she was. She kept on going round, but she was moving farther from the edge. She had her eyes locked on and couldn’t help but get closer. She may have been fast, but I still had murderous tentacular range. The spiny hyaenodon was inching dangerous close to the point where I could hit it before it could attack me.

Few more steps and the fucker’d be just within my attack radius. Decided to let it get a hair closer just to make sure…

By the time the crowd gasped, I had two bone-tipped tentacles buried near half a meter into the side of Hellcat’s neck. With two more vipering straight into a spot behind its shoulder.

Couldn’t have been more than a third of a second it took to get all four blades embedded in its flesh, and I wasn’t lettin go easy.

Turns out Hellcat didn’t plan on letting go either. Fuckin beastie rolled toward me, wrapping my tendril arms around itself and aerating them with hundreds of jagged porcupine quills. It near pulled itself close enough to start ripping and gashing with claws and teeth when I whipped it across the pit with a sickening velcro sound of spines ripping out of its back.

Hellcat hit the wall hard but made a quick recovery. Blood from its wounds had already stopped flowing. It felt like it left a couple of kilos worth of needles in each one of my bone-blade tentacle arms. That was going to slow me down. I shouldn’t have thrown it; I’d panicked. Fuck!

The beastie gathered its footing then rocketed straight across the pit. I tried spearing it, but I was too slow with the shredded muscles. I felt those diamond hard shark teeth clamp into my thigh and rip through a chunk of armor and flesh before dodging back to the far side of the pit.

I’d seen this before when it fought Minogore. Now that Talynn had relieved me of my best weapon, it was back to typical strategy. Hellcat was going to rip off little bits of me until there was too little left to fight back when it went in for the kill. Shit!!

I wasn’t gonna go out that way, couldn’t let it happen. Had to stay calm, strategize. Hellcat was digging in its feet for another rush. Just as it took off I speared the floor between me and it. The appendages might have been too slow to attack, but I could use them as a barrier. And stuck full of needles as they were, they’d be too nasty to bite through. Hellcat veered off and spun around looking damn near offended that I wouldn’t just lay down and die.

I stayed low and kept on with the same strategy. I was fighting defensive now, putting thorny tentacle arms between me and the beastie every time it lunged. A couple cycles in of this and I learned I could direct the fucker left or right as I pleased. Started using this to my advantage and swiped off a good few chunks of its back legs with clawed fingers.

For a minute I thought I was getting the upper hand, but then the little beastie got around the tentacular cage I’d been keeping myself in and nipped off a good bit of shin. Told myself I wouldn’t let it happen again. But then... it did happen again. And again. And again.

What the fuck was going on! I had a good strategy, but then it seemed like Hellcat somehow managed to get even faster. I got this sick feeling when it dawned on me. It wasn’t faster… I was slower. Why!? Khanivore had enough oxygenated blood to fight for an hour at least. It wasn’t near that long, yet. I’d barely lost a drop of blood. There was no goddamn reason I should be fatiguing just now! Did the team miss something after the last fight? Did Wes or Ivrina fuck something up in Khanivore’s pod?!?

Not now, survive first, kick their arses later. It wasn’t time for thinking or clever strategies no more. This was time to not die; to go for full berzerk primality!

Enemy was readying its footing for a death-blow. My thoughts had all collapsed into a single brutal directive: Kill.

Hellcat lunged, I lunged straight back at it. Clawed fingers shoved straight down its gullet as I tackled the fucker to the ground. Serrated shark teeth crunched my right hand straight off while my left was carving out its eye. I yanked the mutilated limb from its maw and put the beastie in a headlock with the stump. I felt every remaining spine it had digging into my guts, but I didn’t give the tiniest fuck. I was going to rip this cunt apart!

The beast thrashed about as the claws of my left hand ripped through its gut, yanking out bones and ribs before frantically scooping out every bit of meat and organ I could reach at through its soft underbelly. It kept thrashing about in a panic way longer than most, a testament to Talynn’s bioengineering prowess. But I could feel the life draining on account of my savage evisceration.

I had won. Hellcat was dying.

I dropped the scooped-out fiend to the floor of the pit to let it make it’s death-rattle before finally going limp.

I heard Talynn shriek as her Affinity link to Hellcat died. The blood-clad beauty wasn’t intimidating anymore. I saw her eyes filled with terror and hands shaking as she rushed forward. Look on her face actually made me feel bad for her.

The girl actually continued forward, making this panicked climb into the fight pit. Just kept repeating, “No, no, no, please no.” in this hysterical, teary voice. The drop into the pit was a good three meters, even from hanging. Looked like she cracked an ankle the way she limped over to Hellcat’s side.

She went prostrate next to her dead monster, face a mess of tears and snot, and started doing these great big heaving sobs as she laid her hand on its face. Whole thing was fucking tragic.

I had just enough strength to raise a bloodied arm in triumph, but the crowd wasn’t quite as thrilled as it should have been. The bloody crying girl really fucked the vibe. Couldn’t worry about it now; Khanivore needed to get back to her pod, and fast.

I hobbled back down the corridor on half-eaten legs and felt a relief when the pod sealed. Now that I was animating a human body again, I could appreciate the fight I’d just had and won. There was times I worried I was over-preparing for this one bought, but now I knew she was everything I was expecting her to be. Talynn was batshit, but fucking brilliant as a baiter.

I remembered our deal about winner fucks the loser, but by the look on her face out there, figured I ought to give her some time. I headed backstage and we opened up a nice expensive bottle we got just for this particular win. Had a toast to no more fucking rabbit stew.

Then something happened. Wes poured a shot and slid it over to me, but the glass shattered on the floor before I’d even raised my hand to catch it. It was the same feeling I’d had out in the pit…. I was getting slower. Wasn’t a problem with Khanivore’s body… problem was the brain inside it.

“Somethin’s wrong.” I told them. “It was like this out in the pit. My reflexes was getting slower right near the end. Still getting slower now. She did something to Khanivore, something that’s fucking up my brain.”

The team rushed to the pod. Wes hooked up the interface and checked some measurements and data I didn’t quite understand. Started looking real panicked. Came back to tell us something about something was wrong with the nervous system.

“Cheatin’ fucking cunt.” Ivrina said. “I’ll bet her beastie’s got some kinda neurotoxin on those goddamn spines.”

“And Khanivore ain’t got no filter organs; the pod can do the basic stuff but it wasn’t meant to contend with poison.” I was pissed off. Talynn meant to kill my beastie even though she’d lost. Only she didn’t know it was my brain inside of her. I pounded a fist on Khanivore’s pod. “She’s gonna tell me how to fix this, even if I have to beat it out of her.” I stormed out headin straight for the opposing team’s green room. The team called something after me about saying they was going to keep trying to see what they could do. They seemed shaken. I couldn’t blame them. I was too.

Made my way through the under-halls to the sound of spectators filing out above me, eventually burst in on Talynn sitting in the dark staring at the empty pod, knees hugged up to her chest.

“Talynn,” she cringed a bit hearing my voice, but didn’t turn around. Seeing her look so defeated drained the anger right out of me. Probably a good thing, too. I had to speak gentle. Ten seconds ago, I’d planned to go all fire and intimidation, but antagonizing her wouldn’t do any good. “Hey… I’m sorry about your beastie, but I got to talk to you. Something’s wrong with Khanivore, she’s still dying even in the pod. We got to thinking it might of been your Hellcat. Those spines got poison on ‘em, don’t they?”

There was a long pause, “Venom.” Talynn corrected in this little sotto voice.

“Yeah, all right. Go to admit, I never would have thought to do that.” I felt like a damn hostage negotiator, and come to think of it, I kinda was, “But the fight’s over now, so I need you to fix it. Give me the antidote or tell me what I got to do so Khanivore doesn’t die.”

“Why the fuck should I?” Talynn snarled all sudden-like, finally turning to face me. She stood, limping forward angrily and got right up in front of me. Olfactory presence almost made me wretch; drenched in rotted blood made her smell like a mass grave. “Hellcat died! You killed her! Why shouldn’t you have to watch your own precious Khanivore fade away?? Maybe then you can know what you did to me!”

“I won’t know anything! I’ll be fuckin’ dead!” I paused to steady myself. Talynn gave this narrowed eyed look of suspicious incomprehension. Fuck, I had to tell her. “I ain’t in here, not anymore.” I poked a finger aggressive at my temple, “This body’s just animated by a bioware processor stuck on top of a spine. My real brain’s getting rotted away by your fuckin venom right now. If Khanivore dies, I die.”

Talynn took a step back in stupefaction. She just stared for a moment like she was trying to figure out whether to take me serious or not. I didn’t even see her hand reach back to grab the three kilo wrench that’d been set down next to the pod. Not until she whipped it around and cracked open the side of my head with it.

“Fuckin’ hell!!!” My hand went to my temple, which was several centimeters sunken in now. For a second, my thoughts flashed that she was crazy, then I realized why she’d done it. If I was lying, she figured I deserved to be killed, and if I wasn’t, she wanted proof.

I guessed that one side of my skull looked like a Jack-O-Lantern left out ‘til July, so the fact that I was still standing there glaring at her should be proof enough that there wasn’t anything neurologically essential inside my skull.

Talynn looked wide eyed for a moment, “You’re… that’s fucking insane.” was all she said. Thought I saw a flash of a smile for a second as she turned around and rushed toward a big trunk. Yanked out a big handful of hypodermic syringes full up with some amber liquid. She handed some of them to me. “Three should be enough for Khanivore. I need to keep a couple as a backup in case one of my team pricks themselves while they’re...” she just trailed off, not wanting to say ‘handling Hellcat’s corpse.’

I rushed back without a word, and near crashed into Ivrina halfway. She came to look for me, worried that I’d collapsed or something. And honestly, I was feeling like my ability to control equilibrium was fading fast. I ended up handing the syringes to her while she told me just sit down on this grimy wooden bench in the hall.

My heart was pounding, for the next few minutes I sat there doing mental exercises and seeing how well I could touch my fingers to one another. Not that well, it was seeming. But after about ten minutes, my thoughts seemed to settle down, I felt like my brain was doing a proper job animating my body through Affinity again. The antidote worked.

For a while I sat there thinking about what if Talynn was right about me being the crazy one. She at least had the good sense not to get into the pit herself; except she did just that after her beastie died. Maybe the two of us were psychotic. Maybe that’s how come I didn’t feel mad at her no more. I didn’t just fancy her cuz she was pretty, maybe I like that she’s the only one I’d met who’s just as fuckin’ mental as I was.

Barely noticed the man walking up on me until he’d sat on the rotted wooden bench next to me. I recognized him as one of Talynn’s crew, older than the rest. Had this way about him like he was some detective from a noir style American film. Tough as nails type who’s been too jaded to care about rules no more.

I pulled my hood farther to hide the shattered skull, but he didn’t look in my direction, just stared straight ahead as he lit up a cigarette and started talking at me.

“I want to tell you a story.” His voice was deep and dark, full of gravel and gravitas. “Once upon a time there was a little girl named Tara-Lynn. She ended up in the care of the state at a young age. Parents abandoned her, or maybe they got themselves killed. Doesn’t really matter.” He paused to take a draw at the crackling ciggie.

“One day a couple comes along and decides that they’d like little Tara-Lynn to join their happy little family.” he continues, “Except she finds out it’s not so happy. Her new mommy and daddy expect her to pay back the adoption fees with interest. What’s little Tara-Lynn to do? Well… mommy and daddy thought of that, too. It seems they knew some men who’d pay them a lot of money for some time with little Tara-Lynn. You know the type of things men pay to do with little girls?” he paused to take another drag, “Yeah, I hear you know a little about that.”

Sitting there listening, I felt a sick bit of bile boiling up in my gut. Felt like I should say something, but he kept on before I had a chance.

“Story doesn’t end there. One night the police were called to Tara-Lynn’s house after a neighbor complained about a smell like a dead animal coming from the premises. Cops got inside to find mommy and daddy stabbed to death in their bed and little Tara-Lynn still clutching a bloody kitchen knife. Dried blood caked onto her pink pajamas. “Little girl went into custody, mommy and daddy went to the morgue. She said she didn’t do it, and for a while, they believed her. Medical examiner said there was no way a ten-year-old could have committed such a beastly crime. They were stabbed so many times, he stopped counting wounds after two hundred… each. “When they asked little Tara-Lynn what happened, she told them that an angel had come to rescue her. An angel named Talynn. After a few months visiting with a shrink, they finally got it figured out. She told them what they were doing to her, and she got a diagnosis. Split personality.”

“Jesus fuck...” the words came from my mouth an awed whisper.

“Talynn,” he ploughed on, “isn’t a person. And she’s definitely no angel. Closer to a demon. And demons don’t just sit quietly and wait when there’s nothing to do. Tara-Lynn may have escaped mommy and daddy, but she ended up with a new monster; one that lives inside of her.”

My mind flashed back to that night with her naked body across the motel room mattress. I remembered seeing all the scars that looked self-inflicted. It made sense now, Talynn had been hurting her. Wheels in my head turned, before things finally clicked into place, “That’s why she does it, then” I interrupt the man before he has a chance to keep talking, “She had a beastie livin’ in her head her whole life, then finds out she can just custom make a suit for the monster inside, then stick it in a pit an’ let it do what it does best.”

Man took a final puff on the cancer stick then stood up to snuff it under a cracked leather boot. “Except you killed the suit, broke the cage. And now the monster is pissed off.”

I took his meaning that he was frightened that with Hellcat dead, Talynn’s demon was going to go back to hurting her to get its jollies. Maybe even hurting others. “Ay!” I called after him as he started walking away, “the fuck you want me to do about it?”

* * *

I spent half a week giving the situation a good thinking over before I got around to calling Talynn. Normally I wouldn’t give a rat-shit about anybody, but something bout her story made me want to be helpful like. Maybe it was because I felt responsible on account of I killed her beastie. Maybe it was because she’d really been raped and brutalized while I was going round lying about it. Maybe I was just randy for her, I don’t fuckin’ know.

Anyway, I’d come up with this plan, right? If Talynn had this demon living in her head that might end up on a killer rampage unless it had somewhere to focus its hate, I was gonna give it something to focus on. A bit of tough love is what she needed, I figure.  

I rang her up, half expecting her to back out of the arrangement we had, due to I would have been dead if she’d won. She sounded downtrodden still, but also seemed eager for a bit of distraction and self-destruction.

I had her show up at the shit-hole warehouse that served as the home-base for Sonnie’s Predators. A good half the team lived there, but I threw them a few quid and told them to find someplace else to be for the night.

Khanivore was in her pod at the far side of the big room. She wasn’t terribly visible, since I’d turned out all the lights except for the big one over the training ring that clicks on with a big, dramatic snap. The circle we had laid out in the middle was roughly the size of a fight-pit, and used primarily for training and testing. Could still get a whiff of old rabbit’s blood if you was paying attention. Outside the ring was a few bits of machinery, but mostly some big crates filled with jugs of intravenous nutrient juice, and a few tanks of preservative fluid for when she needs her pod re-filled with fresh stuff. There was one big box with biohazard stickers all over it that had Khanivore’s excreta inside it.

I paced around a bit, half nervous, half excited. Then I hear a knock at the big metal door. I click the button that loudly rattles the huge metal warehouse door up. I see Talynn standing there; she hadn’t bothered to dress up for our ‘date’ by the look of it. She had this ragged sweater on, and even defeated as she looked, there was still a spark of fire in her eyes. She stepped inside and I clicked the door motors to put the door closed again.

“Welcome to the HQ.” I said with a flourish of my arms that was maybe I bit more smug than it had to be. Her eyes stayed locked on me.

“If you’re going to fuck me, just get on with it.” she said. I could tell it was Tara-Lynn speaking. The voice was little, and a bit scared. It wasn’t the big, bad beastie that lived in her head.

“I got a question for you.” she didn’t react. “When I made that deal with you. About the winner gets to have their way with the loser. Which one of you was I talking to?” ‘

Her face flashed a snarl for just a moment when she realized somebody told me about her bisected psyche. She took a few seconds to turn it over in her mind, “What’s it matter?”

“Matters ‘cuz I think that big, bad Talynn made a bet, and is here expecting little Tara-Lynn to pay up since she lost. So I got a new idea.” I toss her over a pair of those old fighting gloves they used in caged MMA matches. “Double or nothing. You and me, nothing lab-grown. If I win, I get to have my way with Talynn. I ain’t got no interest in bullying a crying, little victim; but a hard bitch who carves up pedos… that’s something that’ll hold my interest.”

She looked down at the floor, worried like. Then in an instant all the worry drained away and these inferno-hot eyes shot up to meet with mine. “And if I win, you’ll submit to me?” She growled the words as she stalked forward at me with these slow, menacing panther steps. A little grin formed at the side of my mouth as I saw the beast I faced in the pit a few days ago appear in front of me in human form.

“That’s the way of it, yeah.” The night was lookin like it’d shape up to be my own private carnival of depravity.

A few rips of velco had our fighting gloves on. I popped off my shoes so I was down to just the threadbare wife-beater and my capris. Talynn had a few more layers to get down to an appropriate amount of covering. Yank wasn’t acclimated to the London chill.

It’d been a good few years since I’d been in a proper scrap using the body I was in now. Last time was in my teen years when this little twat and her friend jumped me calling me a slut and saying I’d fucked her boyfriend. Had her in a solid ground-and-pound position when the friend glassed me in the side of the head with a bottle she’d hidden in her backpack. Probably still have the scar on my cheek from it, but nowadays it’s blended in with the mess of mutilation my face has become.

Talynn steps inside the taped off area that served as our make-shift pit. She starts circling real careful the way she did in her beastie form. I wasn’t having none of that bullshit, so I charge straight in stabbing and elbow into her left tit. She tries to grab on but loses her balance.

She’s on the ground and I start putting some kicks on her. One of her lips splits open pretty good before she sinks her teeth into one of my toes with this feral little-girl growl. I can’t get it dislodged even when she starts coiling the rest of her limbs around my leg. A couple good jerks and thrashes got me off my feet crashing onto the cement. She twists around and drives her heel straight up into my cunt a couple times.

Don’t rightly know how, but somehow I grappled her around until I had her under me, face down. That hair-glue she puts in her mohawk let me get a good grip on it even though there wasn’t much to grab. I said to her that she better admit defeat or I’d bash her face right open here and now on the rock floor. She says “Eat shit” and I bash her face a couple times so as to let her know I ain’t joking. She gets angry-quiet and doesn’t say anything for a while. Too long for my liking so I collide her face with the cement once more. Finally she admits that I’d won.

I take a minute to catch my breath. This fight went quick but I had to admit that Talynn had this brutal ferality that got me good and randy. She kept glaring at me as I chained her wrists strappado style up to this overhead winch that ran on a track the length of the warehouse. I gave her enough slack that she could kneel down without her shoulders coming dislocated, but not much more than that.  

I fade into the shade round the edges of the room for a minute to grab some of what I’d gathered in pre-planning. I stuck a good sharp straight razor in my pocket and picked up this novelty camera I’d gotten a few years back. It was supposed to look like one of them old nineteen hundreds ones that print out the pictures as you take them.  

I clicked off a few piccies and tossed the print-outs on the floor in front of her. Her face looked venomous at me as she realized her private humiliation was gonna be saved for posterity. I hang the insta-camera from my belt and got to work with the razor. I made a real show of turning her outfit into garbage.

I take a few more images of her naked body, making sure to get some real nice close ups of the intimate bits. Then I got to examining her real close, like she was a piece of meat. I figured neither of us put any time limit on things, so I didn’t have no need to be expedient.

Talynn didn’t resist, but she wasn’t really cooperating neither. Took a solid kick in the calf-meat to get her to put her legs apart. “You’re 0 for 2, beastie.” I whisper to her as I stand behind her and run my fingers from her cunt up over her arsehole.

“Ain’t so tough without a half-tonne of claws and teeth to slip in to, yeah?” She stood still just glaring off into the distance. I got up real close behind her and yanked her arse back against my hips. Put my arm around her waist and bend forward real close, so I was talking into her ear. “Tell me what it felt like when I was ripping your guts out.” Her teeth clenched so hard, I’m surprised she didn’t crack one.

“Staying quiet, eh? Maybe you need a reminder.” I put her in a headlock just the way I did in the ring, shoulders twisted to just near popping. I press the straight edge to her chest and slide it down between her tits, just hard enough to let out some drops of ruby red, but not so deep that she’d need more than a few stitches to patch her up. Carved a ragged line almost all the way down to her cunt hair.  

I hold her close as I whip out the insta-cam and flash a pic of us cheek to cheek. I see she’s got this look of sick disbelief in her eyes. The polaroid falls to the floor to stain with the drippies of blood slowly hanging out her torso.

I walk around real slow to get right in front of her. Her eyes was all fury and fear and fuck-yous. “You still with me, beastie?” I asked her. The carnal hate was my answer, it was still Talynn I was talking to. “Good, wouldn’t want you to miss anything.” I took her chin in my hand and hold up the straight-edge, “You remember the night we met? When you said about my scars that they was ‘love-letters written in flesh’ and asked if I get wet when I look at them. I’ll give you a chance to find out yourself.” I leaned in to kiss her lips real gentle, then I pulled back just far enough that I could see her eyes as I gashed one half of a Chelsea smile into the meat of her cheek. She started whimpering and her eyes filled up before angry tears started streaming down and mixing in with the blood.

I kept hold of her chin as I sliced the other cheek to match, a big red grin carved from the edges of her mouth more than halfway to her ears. I had this twinge of guilt, chopping up her face the way I was. Maybe I was going too far; then again, scars didn’t need to be permanent these days. Hell, I couldn’t go half a week without some twat telling me about a plastic surgeon that could make my face baby-smooth with the newest laser treatment. This bitch could afford it, anyway.

That was the agreement anyway, right? I won, so I get to do whatever gets my jollies. And seeing her here, helpless, crying, bleeding; fuck that gets me off. Best to keep going then.

A sort of artistry took over me, I didn’t want to randomly slice her up like some street-tough. I took my time; smooth, clean incisions all across her skin. Pretty red lines organized aesthetically across her light-tan flesh. I got caught up in myself, and all her screaming and crying turned into background noise, couldn’t even have guessed how much time had passed.

I finally came back to my senses when I took a step back to admire. I caught Talynn’s eye and slowly felt the reality that my canvas was a living person who’d been suffering the torments of Hell this whole time. Something about this felt like being in the fight pit again, yet different. Smell of blood, struggle of mortal fear, but this was quieter, meditative; almost loving in a way. I’d always been the fury and fire type, but I was beginning to see why serial killers who snatched women off the street and take them out slow did it that way. Except Talynn would be walking away tonight.

I almost forgot to take a few more pictures. She was dripping with so much blood, it brought me back to the way she walked out on fight-night. Except she wasn't full of menace any longer. She just looked… pathetic, defeated. Couldn’t let what little sliver of conscience I had left get in the way of the job I had to do. That beastie in her head needed a purpose, prey to obsess on; I was gonna make sure that was me.

“I’m… sorry.”

It came out in this little mouse voice that was so small I wasn’t sure if I’d heard anything. “You say something?” I shot back at her.

“I’m sorry!” She heaved it out through weepy sighs. “Whatever I did, I’m sorry, please just let me go. You win! You’re better than me! I’ve learned my lesson!”

I just stare at her for a good long second. “That what you think this is? I’m teaching you a lesson on account of I’m just a cunt who doesn’t like to be challenged?” She looked confused and fearful, I give her this real arrogant grin back. “Nah, it’s just the opposite, mate. I want you coming for me. See, I been winning so many times in a row now that I’m starting to lose the fear.” I get real up to her face and whisper the next bit, “I can’t have that, beastie. Fear is what gives me my edge. You gave it back to me fresh in our battle… I ain’t ready to let that go yet.”

She hung there from her wrists, heaving and wheezing and bloodied. Then all of a sudden she got grave-quiet, her head raised up to face me. Her gaze impacted me in a way that made my skin to ice. There was that babydoll grin again, “I should have known I couldn’t manipulate you. You’re just like me, aren’t you?” Her voice was rock-steady and psychopath calm, “That’s why it has to be me. I have to be the one to kill you, Sonnie.” I could tell soon as the words left her mouth that there wasn’t one molecule of bluff in them. Fuck, even like this, she had moments where she could still be absolutely terrifying; the fear elates me as the goosebumps on my skin start to smooth out.

“You want to do me in? I’ll give you a chance right here.” I toss the straight-edge to her feet amidst a pile of bloodied photo-prints and then stick the key to the cuffs into her hand. I start walking into the darkness round the edges of the warehouse, and make a show of tapping the side of my head and saying, “Case you’d forgotten, I ain’t in here.”

Wish I’d seen the look on her face, but I was busy starting up the automated protocol to shut down the Affinity link without a handler. Countdown started and I quick got into meditative pose so as I wouldn’t crack my skull open once motor control shut down. I felt that familiar sense of falling through darkness before the world faded in around me.

My pod was already opening. Khanivore’s muscles felt insane-strong. This body wasn’t fully repaired yet, but new pieces were in place. The replacement for the hand that Hellcat bit off felt like I had to concentrate real hard to get it to move; nerves grafts must not have taken full hold yet. My bone-blade tentacles had to be scrapped outright after what she did to them. Just as well, we’d been talking about an upgrade anyway. New set-up had five instead of four, and this was the first time I’d gotten to feel them. Put in more specialization, too, but they were still too fresh to really get a sense of that yet. With only the base muscle-structure implanted, my tentacular glory was blunt and unarmored. In fact, all five were still foetal soft.

Even so, I’d have to be careful. Last time I’d done this sort of thing was when Khanovire was turning Dicko and his Spetsnaz girl to mincemeat. Was the first time I’d felt what Khanivore’s body could do against human flesh; it was like a child manipulating this wet, cracking bit of playdough.

I saw Talynn in the light. She’d gotten her wristlocks undone and she had picked up the razor. She held it in two shaking hands in front of her in this defensive pose as I came into the light. She did this quick back and forth glance between the ten-centimeter hunk of metal in her hands, and the towering three-meters tall death-beast approaching her. She throws the blade to the floor with an echoing clatter and dashes fast toward the warehouse controls. Her feet slip on her own slick blood for a few steps before she can get traction, but that’s enough. I’d have laughed if I could, half a minute ago she was thinking she’d seize control of the situation, and now here she was practically shittin’ herself with mortal fear.

One powerful bound and a couple of steps puts me between Talynn and the door.  A tentacle lashed out faster than even I expected and had her constricted round the waist and pulled off the floor. I take a moment, and ease off; a firm twitch and I could turn her torso into something looks like a used up tube of toothpaste.

I take my time walking her back into the light, I was going to need it for this. Khanivore didn’t have the best fine-touch pressure nerves, so I’d have to do a lot of this by sight. Talynn kept looking up at me, convinced she was about to die. I figured I best let her know my intentions. Two more tentacles coiled around her bloodied ankles and slowly pulled them apart ‘til she was about two thirds to a full split. Look on her face was distress as she realized her imminant rape, but not so much agony as to make me think I’d dislocated a leg on accident. And my grip on her waist left her enough room to breathe, though not too deeply it looked like.

I lifted her up and the last two foetal tentacles lined up ready to go inside her, each of them thicker than the fists she was using to pound and flail helplessly against me. The way she screeched when I violated my way into her arse and cunt holes made me think I’d ripped my way in. The trickle of blood from her shitter said I was right. Kept a careful eye on the depth, even blunted, my tentacles were strong enough to rip their way well into her ribcage.

Suddenly I understand why Talynn gave her beastie a cock all full of nerve endings. I wanted to feel this; the clenching and thrashing as I raped my way into her. I wished I could feel every twitch, every weeping heave from inside of her body. I wanted to milk every ounce of divine pleasure from her torment and humiliation. Too bad Khanivore wasn’t built with the pleasure nerves for that sort of thing. Tearful screams came like music one after another as I thrust in and out of her.

It was beauty, pure and simple. A naked girl, ruby droplets still gently streaming from my cold steel artistry. Her expression spoke of equal parts shame and agony. It was so gorgeous I wanted to weep right then and there from the sheer resplendence. I want her to feel this, I want her to remember this always.

A few minutes of thrusting in and out of her tiny little body; then it seemed like something in her mind broke. The crying subsided, and she just got this look on her face like she wasn’t there anymore. I got a flash in my head of what this must have looked like, felt like. A monster, towering over her, raping it’s way into her with no regard for what it was doing to her. Christ, I’d taken it too far. I was making her re-live the way those pedo fucks had treated her when she was little. Part of me felt a bit sick with what I’d done. I decide to let her go and place her gently on the floor. I climb back into the pod and the A.I. program I rigged up knew to put Khanivore back in storage and put me back in human form.

I took a quick few seconds to collect myself. A part of me wanted to apologize, say I got carried away, but then that’d negate the entirety of what I was trying to do. If I wanted that psychological tumor laser-focused on me, I’d have to make sure it thinks I’m really that heartless.

Talynn just laid there panting. Seemed like the trauma left her in a state just before catatonic. I take a few last photo print-outs for posterity and then I tell her to get up. Had to repeat it a few times before she climbed shaking up to her feet. I grab the back of her neck and guide her to the big, rattling service door. I punch the button and the big slab of corrugated sheet metal starts curling up to the ceiling.

I push her out onto the asphalt, and the polluted, icy breeze of outdoors needles its way into her open wounds and gaping nethers. She gasps and seems shook out of her thousand-yard-stare. She moves her hands like she’s ashamed of being naked out in the open. She blinks a few times before her blue eyes point in my direction. She speaks quiet at me; not threatening or boasting, just meditative calm like she was making an oath, “I’m going to kill you, Sonnie.”

I hit the door-close and the big metal wall begins to inch its way down between us.

“You’ll have your shot.” I say it with this smug look right before the door makes us lose sight of each other.

I walk off into the warehouse and tell myself I did a good thing. I got the monster in her head obsessed on me so it wasn’t gonna be hurting anybody else. A deep down part of me knows that’s just horseshit. I liked hurting her, I liked raping her; I wanted her to know that I was better than her, stronger. And if next time I face her in the fight pit, it ends up being my last time, than a broken little girl gets to have justice. And that ain’t so bad, is it?

* * *

“Everyone out.” I dismiss the team calmly. This is a sacred moment. I need to commune with the new body I’d made for Talynn. Our own body still pains us from what Sonnie did. The scars still ache and itch even after all these months. I could have them removed; two, three treatments at most. But it wouldn’t matter. The pain of knowing that Sonnie is still alive after what she did to me is worse than any of the slings and arrows that could befall my mortal flesh.

We worked tirelessly, we needed a new body, a better vessel. We were too confident last time and Sonnie destroyed us. My avenging angel was trapped without a body of her own. How could she do this to my champion, to my love??

It didn’t matter now, her new body was finally finished. It had been so crowded in here with both of us. But now my white knight would finally get to put on her new armor.

I lowered the lights to a few lumens above pure blackness. Talynn would need time for her new senses to all properly synergize with one another, and with the bioware processor; it’s best not to overwhelm the senses right away.

I press a few buttons and the Affinity Link is active. I take a deep breath as I feel the pod open. Heavy footsteps thud against the cement hard enough to rattle the walls of the building.

She’s moving slowly on all fours, this arrangement of anatomy would take some getting used to. I felt her moving toward me slowly through the darkness.

A glint in the darkness catches my eye a foot or so in front of my face, her smooth, diamond-hard teeth. I blink a few times as my eyes adjust to the darkness, and I smile as the obsidian hide of her head comes into view. I reach up to caress her neck as her other two heads slowly begin to appear in the darkness.

“Welcome back, precious.”

[motleyfuckingcruee]

The Outsider (Nikki Sixx x Reader)

Chapter 5

Summary:

It's your first night on the streets of LA. You have just arrived and you have nowhere to sleep. You meet Nikki at a bar and he offers to let you stay with him. You are the outsider.

Warnings:

Language, fluff, abuse, considering smut

THE SONG THIS IS BASED OFF OF:

The Outsider

REQUESTS ARE OPEN!!!!

YOU CAN READ CHAPTER FOUR HERE

COMMENT IF YOU WANT TO BE ON A TAGLIST! OR GO TO MY BIO TO ADD YOURSELF TO ONE!

//

It's been two months since the band fully formed. Vince has been great! His voice fits what Nikki is going for perfectly. You've grown close with all of them. Even Mick.

It took a bit longer to break Mick's walls down, but you managed to do it. Underneath that scary demeanor, Mick is actually an insanely sweet guy. You think of him as your brother.

Usually when Tommy and Vince would go out drinking or go to strip clubs, You, Mick, and Nikki would stay at the apartment. You would drink and just talk. You love those nights. They're the most calming.

About a month ago they decided on the name Mötley Crüe for the band. It fits them well. Four people from different backgrounds coming together to make something fucking awesome. You couldn't be more proud.

Nikki wants to have elaborate shows in the clubs, almost as if they were playing at a stadium. You're not sure how that's going to work out, but as long as they're happy.

Tonight is their first show. Nikki has been freaking out all day. He's been pacing throughout the apartment all day.

You're sitting on the couch. Your eyes follow Nikki as he paces in the living room.

"Nik." No answer. His eyes are narrowed in thought. "Nikki." Still nothing. He doesn't even glance in your direction. "NIKKI SIXX!" You yell.

His eyes finally snap up to meet yours. He raises his eyebrows, seeming annoyed that you interrupted him.

"Why are you acting like this?" You laugh. "It's not like you've never been on stage before."

He walks over and flops down on the couch. He rests his head in your lap. He stretches out his legs, causing them to hang over the side of the couch. You start running your fingers through his soft black hair.

He sighs. "I just know that this band is going to do great. We've rehearsed a lot and it sounds good, but a band has to sound good together up on stage in front of people that aren't you and Vince's chick. Otherwise, it just won't work out."

You smile reassuringly. "You guys will do great. Quit your worrying and watch a movie with me. There's still like five hours before we have to go."

He smiles. "Or we could do something else."

"Don't make me push you off this couch."

"But we haven't had sex since last night!" Nikki whines.

You laugh. "Then you can wait until after the show."

He frowns, groaning. "Alright. What movie are we watching?"

-------

Multiple hours later, you sit backstage helping all the boys with their hair and makeup. You stand in front of Tommy, teasing his hair the best you can. He said he wanted it to be big. You're trying the best you can, but Tommy's hair isn't the most cooperative. And neither is Tommy.

"Tommy, sit still or I will duct tape you to the chair," You growl, gettimg more and more frustrated at him.

You move down to do his makeup.

He smirks at you. "Sounds kinky."

"Don't hit on my girlfriend, T-Bone," Nikki nearly yells from next to you.

You don't jump. You're used to his sudden outbursts. If he hadn't have yelled at Tommy you'd think he's sick.

"Nikki calm down. Go put on your fabulous outfit," You giggle, applying Tommy's lipstick.

"How long are you going to tease me about that?" Nikki groans, walking over to his bag. He pulls out a stripped singlet, his leather pants, and these red leather thigh high boots that are absolutely gorgeous.

"You made me go buy those boots for you because you didn't want too. I'm going to tease you about it for a long time," You pause, taking step back to observe your handiwork. You grab the stuff that Nikki gave you to apply the signature marks that Nikki came up with. "And the bad part is you won't let me wear the goddamn boots." You put two lines on Tommy's left cheek. "All done," You say, leaving Tommy and walking over to your overprotective boyfriend. You wrap your arms around his neck. In return he rests his hands on your hips. You kiss him on the cheek, not wanting to smudge his lipstick. "I love you."

This causes his frown to break into a smile. "I love you too."

He leans forward to press his lips against yours. You stop him with a grin on your face. He looks at you with a sad, confused expression.

"You're going to smudge your lipstick," You say. "And I'm not going to fix it."

"Damn it!" Nikki exclaims, turning around so that he can change his clothes.

You giggle at him. Vince walks over to you, grinning deviously.

"Does that mean I can get a kiss? I don't have any makeup on yet," He says.

You only roll your eyes. "In your dreams, Neil. I'll stick to kissing my boyfriend."

"One day," Vince says. "You'll kiss me."

"I highly doubt that, Vinny."

Just then some guy sticks his head through the door. "You guys need to get on the stage now."

They all nod, rushing out the door. Tommy gives you a kiss on the cheek. Nikki glares at him for a few moments, then walks over to kiss you.

"Have fun," You say.

You can still see the nervousness in his eyes. You don't understand why. He's been on stage before. It's nothing new. You know he explained it, but it still didn't make sense.

"I will," He responds, resting his forehead against yours. "Will you be front row?"

You nod, pecking his lips. "Aren't I always? I'm your biggest fan, Sixx. I always will be."

"Is that a promise?"

You nod. You pull away from him, even though you don't want to. You start pushing him out the door.

"Get your ass out on stage."

As he looks at you, you realize that he smudged his lipstick by kissing you. Goddamn it. You totally forgot in the heat of the moment.

You walk out from backstage. You make your way to the front row, smiling when you see that you're directly in front of Nikki. Vince introduces them, looking full of energy. Tommy starts the beat, Mick and Nikki quickly following not a second later. Vince's voice reverberates off of the bar's walls.

They sound fucking epic.

About an hour later they finish up their set. Nikki came off the stage, lifting you up in his arms and spinning you around.

"How'd we do?" He asks, breathless.

"Fucking amazing!" You exclaim, kissing him.

He smiled into the kiss, putting you back down on your feet.

"Man, the girl I remember never cussed," A familiar male voice says from behind you.

You turn, meet with the same blue eyes you've been avoiding. Fucking Jared.

"What do you want?" You nearly growl.

Jared holds his hands up innocently. "I just want to talk."

You bite your lip, looking at Nikki who is on edge. He looks like if Jared even takes another step towards you, he'll rip him to pieces.

"Alright," You sigh. "Nik, you can go ahead and go to our usual table. I'll meet you and the boys in a bit."

"Bu-," He tries, but you cut him off.

"I'll be fine," You say. "Go on."

He leans down and kisses you again. You know his lipstick got on your lips again, but you didn't really care.

You smile as he says, "Yell if you need me."

You nod, watching him give one last glare to Jared, then walking off.

You let Jared lead you outside. He leans against the brick wall of the bar. You pull your cigarettes out of pocket. Jared's eyes widen as you put the stick between your lips and light it. You take a drag, waiting for him to tell you the reason he dragged you out here.

"What do you want?" You repeat.

"I wanted to know why you left," He responds, watching you smoke with an odd expression on his face. It makes you feel uncomfortable.

"I was suffocating in that town. I needed to get out, and I did," You say simply.

Jared sighs. "When did he become apart of your life?"

"The day I got here," You answer, not really wanting to give him the full story. He doesn't deserve it.

You both stand quietly as you finish your cigarette. He watched you the entire time. That suffocating feeling you felt where you were raised comes washing over you once again. Fuck.

You stomp the cigarette out. You turn to back in the bar. "Well if that's it-."

You're cut off by Jared gripping your upper arm hard. So hard you're sure it'll leave bruises.

"What the fu-."

"You're not going anywhere," Jared growls, a familiar menacing glow in his eyes.

It's something you're used to. Something you endured for years. You thought you escaped it. With Jared back, you're prepared to take the beatings once again.

Tags:

All fics: @the--blackdahlia @sugar-content @sharon6713 @siliwanoel @charlyallise

Nikki: @moon-beame @slutfor-sixx @2dead2function @horrorpxnk

This fic: @celestica-1988 @miriampraez @scarecrowmax @fandomshit6000 @freddiessmallnipples

[chuckling-chemist]

Pitch Perigee (8/14)

Valeba couldn’t say she didn’t expect this to happen. Even if the ball had restrictions on the level of blatant hemospectrum supremacy, to assume every name-calling, obviously hemoist, stuck-up-their-own-ass high and midblood avoided the ball was ridiculous. Even Sandyhorn -- a city almost wholly composed of low and midbloods -- had major issues. She walked in anticipating the weird looks and hushed whispers she got walking alongside Mayola toward the VIP area. And if she were being honest with herself, they seemed more respectful here. Back in her first village, she had to deal with accusations of pailing up the hemospectrum due to her choice of quadrants - first Dontoc for a moirail, who gave the immediate impression of a stuffy highblood; then Ardeen, who barely counted if you ignored his access to normal cooking ingredients. The insults darkened her outlook on others, but it did also thicken her skin.

That all being said, the douche hadn’t called her rust, or gutter, or fudge, or dirt or even mud. No, they went for shitblood. They yelled shitblood down a ballroom, over top the music, overtop everything. If her bow were readily available, there wouldn’t even be a pretense of civility at this point. Dontoc may hold the idea of do no harm, but Valeba stood by the idea of take no shit first and foremost.

But she didn’t. Valeba settled for spinning rapidly on her heel toward the sound of the voice. One fist balled itself, but the other held steady right at her waist, ready to grab a knife if the moment called for it.

She found herself standing face to face with a smaller seadweller with equally small, basic looking fins and impossibly spiky horns. All her long, shaggy hair parted off to one side to give that shaved look on the other and only kept out of her eyes by virtue of the star clip in her hair. Her dress was portioned off into two sections thanks to an absolutely gaudy amount of garland around the waist: the top being relatively normal with a plunging, v-neckline held only together by yet more golden plastic-looking beads, and the bottom being a complete mess of what Valeba swore were real tree branches to make a spiky, painful-looking asymmetrical skirt.

“Oh goddamn, I cannot believe.” Valeba raked her eyes up and down the monstrosity of a dress. “I honestly thought a living tree was walking my direction, but no. Trees don’t have fins.”

The pointy thing crossed her arms around a barely covered chest, upper lip curled in a distinct sneer to show off a full row of miniature fangs. Her fins flexed in rhythm. An intimidation tactic, and not even a good one at that. “Yeah, says the troll wearing what? Black and brown? You know the rest of the rainbow exists for a reason, right?”

Valeba drummed her fingers on her belt. “Last I remember, your kind doesn’t exactly appreciate me wearing colors outside the my caste, but sure. Let’s assume it’s my lack of fashion sense. Now, are you just here to test my patience or are do you actually have something…” she paused, freeing up the balled fist only to gesture into the air “...worth what little time I have on this planet?”

“Yeah, I do.” She stepped closer to Valeba, making the brownblood reflexively step back. “I don’t appreciate the gutters like you being so up close and personal with the rest of us.”

Valeba narrowed her eyes. God, did she wish for something to tie her loose hair back in. Her own wasn’t down by any means, but despite being pulled up in a tight bun and held with bladed hair chopsticks, Valeba still felt loose strands tickle the side of her face. It meant in the event of altercation, this troll held the apparent advantages: sharp claws and short hair. Valeba wasn’t planning on pulling the knife out unless this troll touched her. She was going as the Heiress’ kismesis. The last thing she needed to do was reinforce negative stereotypes right now. “Then step away,” she said. “Or is that too hard for you?”

The seadweller pointed a sharp, noxiously pink claw in Valeba’s direction. “You’re the one who should be leaving,” she said.

She almost couldn’t believe it. She’d ran into plenty of true hemoists in her time. She’d pailed a hemoist or two in acts of desperation to avoid the drones, played dumb and submissive to get them to take her in for a day. They generally had a smug aura about them that set them apart from your regular trolls who just listened to what was spoon-fed to them or straight up lied and said they went with it, despite privately following their own system. Some, she’d venture to say, might even get this dramatic. But this? Valeba may as well be in a cartoon.

“And you’re going to, what? Cull me?” Valeba let out a harsh laugh. “Seadweller or not, that’s gonna be a harder one to do quietly with no weapons.”

The seadweller took another step closer, curled lip giving way to an increasing amount of menace and teeth. Valeba took another step back. Was anyone paying attention to them? It was hard to tell. Probably not. Trolls already get wrapped in themselves pretty easily without their quadrants and decadent food nearby. “I don’t need weapons to get you thrown the hell out like you should be,” she said. “I just need to remind everyone here of the gutterblood’s barbaric nature--”

“Barbaric nature?” she snapped. “It’s not lowbloods who have violent tempers, last I fucking recall. And it’s certainly not a fucking lowblood who yelled a slur across the room.”

The seadweller leaned in close, pointing that stupid claw closer to Valeba. Valeba balled her fist tighter, her own claws digging into her skin. “Don’t you compare us to those filthy Faygo drinkers. We’re far more pure and like, way more sane than any air breather.”

“Then if you’re so sane, I suggest leaving me the fuck alone,” she snarled. “There are plenty of other fucking lowbloods to pick on.”

“Yeah, but like, not all of them just give off that feel of trouble like you do.” She put her claw down, but came closer to get up in Valeba’s face. Valeba could smell the distinct fishy smell from the troll’s dinner as she breathed cold air up. “Who tips their hair mutant red for a highblood ball? Filthy hemorebel extremists looking to bomb a place she doesn’t belong in, that’s who.”

“I suggest you get out of my face now before you do something you regret,” she growled. A flash of brightly colored movement caught in the upper corner of her vision and she flitted her gaze for the briefest second up, but it was gone by the time she looked.

“Oh yeah, like what? You can’t even look at me when you threaten me. Bet you’re all talk and no actual game like the rest of you filthy rusties. Bet I could just…” The seadweller’s gaze went up and down, studying Valeba like a piece of meat on display. She slipped a hand underneath the waistline, tightening the grip around the nearest knife. She let out a slow, silent exhale. Only a matter of time now.

It never came. That flash of color returned to her vision, closer now. It wasn’t a flash anymore, but a tall man in a patchwork suit and dark sunglasses looming over the seadweller. He had an odd set of horns: one curled tightly around his ear like Vodnik’s, but the other hooked up and appeared broken off right where it would have curved downward. He gave the two of them a wide grin as he fished around his upper pocket to pull out a white case.

“You must be Siroet,” he said pleasantly. Before she had the chance to say something nasty, he opened up the case and hastily pulled out a small card out. One of them he handed out to the seadweller. Another one fell right on the floor. “Gonzor Tenerg, Trolling Stone. I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

Siroet’s face melted into calm passivity. She gave Gonzor a dainty-looking hand to shake. “Oh yeah, Careen mentioned you. You were the one looking to talk to her,” she said sweetly.

Valeba scowled. Figures this troll seadweller was somehow wrapped up in the Heiress. It certainly explained the outfit, anyway. She’d seen more than enough of some of the outfits, between the pictures on her Chittr she posted nonstop and the photos Dontoc texted her when they stopped paying attention to him.

He gave Siroet a pleasant, if empty, smile. “You could say that, yes. I’m looking to write a story on the Heiress. Really get a feel for not just her, but the people she keeps around. Helps give the people a whole sense of who may one day take down the Empress.”

She nodded vigorously. She took her free hand in his, delicately clasping it.  “Oh, yes. Yes. I understand completely Mr. Tenrig. Please, come with me. Let’s sit! I’ll give you everything you need to know.”

“Oh yes, oh yes.” He glanced at Valeba to give her a quick nod before sliding his hand out from Siroet. Right when he tipped her head up to look at him better, she slinked silently back into the crowd. She only just caught the oliveblood looking back toward her direction with a knowing grin as the crowd engulfed her.

Time to go find her kismesis.

[strangesmallbard]

parks and rec sq au!!

1. 

emma has based an alarming number of Big Life Decisions on impulse and another thing called well, what the hell? but this is pushing it. especially coming from her roommate, who double ordered their welcome mat five years ago. just in case. for what, mary margaret? in case, emma. so i can’t regift it? no.

“emma. come one! just yesterday you were complaining about your bounty hunter career’s lack of stability.” 

“bailsbondsperson.” emma takes a long swig of yesterday’s orange juice, which is warm. “and it was a figure of speech! sort of. i get work. just last week i collared a guy. the one who wore that top hat.”

she gives emma her most placating, earnest smile. the one that makes neighbors and birds alike swarm them in central park. “but do you enjoy it?”

“hey, i got to keep the top hat! pawn shop took it for thirty bucks. i bought an extra-large pepperoni. you had four slices. traitor.”

mary margaret hands her a brochure filled with smiling families, promises of the best burgers on the east coast, and scenic views. “this town has something for both of us and i don’t want to move to a new state without my best friend at my side. and besides, its perfect! city hall is looking for…”

2.

and that’s how emma moves to storybrooke, maine, and becomes the official city hall day-time security guard.

“fuck,” emma says at the large metal door. it’s the only part of the whole building made this decade, and so it’s the only part with a key code. which keeps angrily beeping at her. 

she balances her coffee in the crook of her arm, and rustles around her phone notes for the lock combination. 1983. which she tried four times. she tries it a fifth and it not only beeps at her, it also says CALL SECURITY.

“that’s me, you shit burger piece of–”

“it’s six fifty-eight. it doesn’t work before seven am.”

she whips around so fast her coffee sloshes out of the lid. it’s the lady from the parks department. the one with the nice pantsuit who yelled at jones at emma’s first staff meeting yesterday. today she’s wearing another nice pantsuit. and she’s also holding coffee. and her eyes are kind of startling in the morning. in a good way. and she’s tapping her foot with her arms crossed. wait.  “that’s ridiculous. how does the night time guard get in?”

parks department–mills! rolls her eyes. “he has a different code. i don’t know where you come from, ms. swan, but we take safety very seriously here.”

“okay, that’s–this is a town with less than five thousand people. i saw a moose this morning. the entire fourth floor of this building is abandoned, and probably haunted. why the fanfare? did nicholas cage hide another national fucking treasure in the basement next to the records of the best berry jam winners in the last century?”

regina narrows her eyes and lets out the longest, most murderous breath. “it’s seven now. will you please–oh, never mind. the imbeciles nolan hires.” mills nudges past her and puts the code in so fast that emma only processes it once mills fixes her with one last glare. “have a wonderful day, ms. swan.”

she closes the door. it locks behind her. nice.

3.

here’s how it goes:

there’s a great big pit of dirt in the center of town and no one will explain the intricately engraved sign spelling out storybrooke commons. even ruby from granny’s, who practically runs the town’s social media. because she hacked every single social media account.

the mayor is evil. kind of like miranda priestly, but like, actually evil. 

emma buys regina a let’s start over coffee with three sugars (she asked ruby) and bearclaw (can’t go wrong with a bearclaw!) and her eyes kind of shined and she said thank you, genuinely. she also said i hate bearclaws. 

town hall meetings can and will run for three hours straight through lunch and no one will judge you too hard for whipping out a gogurt at hour two.

(except regina. and everyone. then regina will start bringing you “real yogurt” which is yoplait, but whatever, and then you’ll bring her a box of gogurts in retaliation, and that’s a whole thing.)

hot chocolate with cinnamon from granny’s who has okay burgers. (don’t tell granny.) 

regina’s son is filming a documentary for an art project, so there’s a lot of footage of emma tripping at that one tricky spot on the third floor.

smalltown squirrels will outsmart you, and it’s. fine to let that go.

4.

(”i mean, i don’t mind the squirrels. per-say. they’re fine. they’re doing fine. they’re doing what they’re meant to be doing. but do they have to climb into the air vents? do they have to drop acorns into the gutter pipes? do they–”

“emma, i was asking you about town infrastructure. what do you know about budgeting?”

“still just the security guard, kid. i know less than the squirrels.”

“but you could–”

“i am not letting you break into your grandmother’s office.”

“worth another try!”)

5.

three days before halloween, regina pages (actually pages) her to the park’s department, which is covered inspirational poster to inspirational poster with toilet paper. and silly string that spells PAN.

“pan,” regina says, hands on her hips and teeth gritted. “every goddamn year!”

“uh,” emma says, and puts her hands on her hips too. “so, who’s pan?”

“in class yesterday he said that ophelia got what she deserved at the end of hamlet,” ava, one of the interns, says, shaking her head. grace, another intern, pats her clenched fist on the table.

“alright, yowch, i hope your teacher took off points,” emma says in her direction, “but is anyone gonna answer my question?”

regina gives a frustrated noise and puts a hand on her forehead. she narrows her eyes in emma’s direction. “i will destroy him if it’s the last thing i’ll do.”

ava nods emphatically. grace gives a very concerned frown.

“he’s the grandson of rupert gold, the town mega capitalist,” zelena says, eyes rolling on the vowel. she leans back in her chair. “so he can antagonize everyone with absolutely zero legal consequence. and he’s my dear little sister’s arch nemesis.”

“he is not.”

emma can’t suppress a grin. “a fourteen year old is your arch nemesis?”

regina throws her arms up, abruptly goes to her office, and slams the door shut.

more silly string falls from the ceiling.

6.

“leroy, for the last time, we will try to find your pickaxe.”

“that’s what you said last year, mills! i’m not buying a new pickaxe when there’s a perfectly good one still out there! waiting!”

regina pinches the bridge of her nose. “this meeting is adjourned. please place all suggestions and further questions in the box currently being held by…” regina looks at emma with an odd sort of stare. “officer swan, apparently. enjoy the rest of your days, and don’t forget to donate to the fund for the storybrooke commons.”

there’s a single, solitary clap. from marian, in the first row. regina manages a smile in her direction. she gives regina a thumbs up and mouths something that could be have a shift, call you later. once the citizens start begrudgingly filing out, regina turns back to emma. “where’s ava?”

emma shrugs. “she said she had an emergency.”

regina sighs. “she’s reading on the fourth floor again.”

“damn. that’s a good idea.”

regina glares. 

“i mean, you know, it’s haunted, so there are better places. hey, do you want to get lunch?”

regina tilts her head. “lunch?” 

emma shrugs and it’s weird still holding the box. regina stands up and stretches, grabs her folders and straightens them out on the government-issued plastic table. “you know. lunch. that thing with the food and the talking. or not talking if that’s more your thing.”

regina rolls her eyes, but she’s smiling. “talking’s fine if it’s not about squirrels.”

“they’re a menace, regina. a danger.”

regina steps towards her and grabs the box. she’s suddenly standing close. “i know a place along the highway. don’t tell granny.”

7.

(“storybrooke commons is how marian and i met. her now very ex-boyfriend fell into the pit and i told her we’d build a park.”

“how long ago was that?”

“ten years.”

“oh damn.”

“yes. damn is right. according to my mother, it’s just never in the budgets.”

“you know, henry was asking about that.”

“henry?”

“hey! emma! i told you that was top secret!”

“henry, what did i say about video-taping without permission?”

“it’s a documentary, mom! i need candids!”)

8.

marian is regina’s best friend. and she’s a nurse. and she’s terrifying. and she’s the nicest person emma’s ever met.

and now she’s in emma’s living room. talking to her roommate. emma blinks away the dream, but it’s definitely not a dream.

“morning, emma!” mary margaret says, clasping her hands together. “marian here, your friend–i am so glad you’re making friends!–says you two are going to campaign today? for regina?” 

emma stretches her arm behind her back. “what now?”

marian, still in her scrubs and holding one of mary margaret’s prized humming bird themed tea cups, raises a brow at her. “do you want hook to win a seat on the city council?”

emma wakes the fuck up. “hell no.”

they go around house to house and it’s grueling because it’s humid as hell and the people of storybrooke fucking suck. emma leans against the bug and wills all the sweat on her back to evaporate. “do they really hate regina that much because of cora? didn’t they elect her mayor?”

marian heaves a box of campaign materials into the car and steps back, arms crossed. “not exactly. back in the day there was a neighboring town called applewood. it was full of vacationing republican senators and their shitty kids. cora was the reigning mayor. long story short it went broke, and it was regina’s idea to do a merger. which saved both towns, but you know. because of the Rich and Famous, cora won the election again. so everyone actually hates her for that. stupid.”

emma blinks. “this small-town dish keeps getting deeper.”

“what?”

“do you think i’d get arrested for tee-peeing cora’s office?”

marian barks out a laugh. “only if you promise not to arrest me either, officer swan.”

9.

(”do you like my mom?”

“what? i mean, yeah of course. but, what does that–”

“do you think she’s a good public city official, i mean. do you think she’s a good candidate for the city council?”

“kid, you’re the one who read the entire storybrooke-applewood constitution.”

“she’s my mom. i’m biased.”

“i mean, so am i.”

“what?”

“what?”

“i mean, you know. we hang out. i think she’s cool in like, a person way.”

“i know. you were at my house yesterday. you ate all my lucky charms.”

“oh sh–shoot. shoot.”)

10.

ten days after regina wins the election–by a margin because storybrooke is full of assholes–she invites emma to storybrooke commons.

“the pit?”

“just come, swan,” regina says, oddly soft. “henry’s at a friend’s house tonight.”

emma drives up to the pit. the dirt is all orange because of the waning sun and bright pink spilling over the tops of houses. regina stands in the middle next to one of those fold-out camp couches with the cup holders. she started an actual campfire too, and hands emma a marshmallow stick when she makes it over.

emma un-buries her hands from her pockets. “metal. fancy.”

“no one’s eating bark on my watch.”

emma watches the fire catch her. she’s wearing a track suit and a visor and her hair is in a ponytail. “what’s up? bureaucracy got you down?”

regina takes a breath. “what if i ran for mayor this year?”

emma spits out her proverbial drink, which really means she accidentally shakes one of her marshmallows into the fire. “you…”

regina hands her a hershey bar and two graham crackers. “gold approached me today. he said he’d run my campaign.”

emma manages to salvage one measly marshmallow. “okay, but isn’t gold the shadiest man alive?”

“dead too,” regina deadpans. “and i’d sooner let zelena run my campaign, but i have been thinking about it for a very long time.” meticulously, she slides her marshmallows between her graham crackers and hershey’s bar. she sits down and looks up at the sky. “running against my mother would be…”

“yeah, but you could do it.” emma shrugs, and sits down next to her. she balances her mess of a smores on her cupholder.  “you’ve proven over and over again how dedicated you are to this town.”

regina rubs the back of her neck and looks over at her, really looks. her eyes so startling in the sunset, and still in a good way. the best way. now emma notices the crinkles by her eyes too. “you have too, you know.”

emma snorts. “one squirrel at a time?”

regina doesn’t laugh. she keeps looking. she visibly swallows. emma leans in closer and regina tilts her head and says, “are you…going to eat your smores?”

emma’s head is swirling. she’s about to do another Big Thing on impulse. “can i kiss you?”

regina nods and suddenly her fingertips are on her cheeks, soft as anything, and her lips are warm in the cooling night, and emma runs her hand through regina’s hair, holds the back of her neck, and maybe this town isn’t going to be one of hundreds, maybe this isn’t another in-between-home, and the park is only a pit but not forever, some day there’s going to be greenery and fountains you can wish on and shit, and fuck the squirrels but she’s staying, maybe. maybe. yes.

11.

(”so, sheriff swan, how does it feel to be married to the mayor?”

“kid, you were our ring-bearer.”

“yeah, but i’m biased.”

“when does this video project end again?”

“that’s classified, ma.”)

[trade-baby-blues]

Looking Up

Pairing: Bones x Reader

Word Count: 1160

Warnings: Angsty, swearing

A/N: Requested by @brooke-taylor0323 for my 300 followers AU Celebration! :D In doing this I’ve figured out that meet messy AUs are my fave. Prompt was:  i’ve had a really awful day so i started kicking a car out of frustration and it turned out to be your car i’m so sorry.”  Hope you enjoy!!

The air was too thick in the office, choking you as you swallowed back tears. The once gentle hum of the air conditioner sounded like a wordless scream falling on the deaf ears of your supervisor as he sat across the desk from you, looking awkwardly at his hands.

“Fired,” you whispered again. You thought repeating the word would make it sound less foreign, but it felt just as strange on your tongue.

“Not fired,” he said, voice oozing the faux happiness you’d only experienced directed at customers, “Let go.” You were still trying to process what he said when he was ushering you back to your office, which had already been packed up. Four years of college, five years of work, and one fading dream all stuffed into two cardboard boxes propped on top of your now empty desk.

You struggled to balance both boxes under your chin as you made your way to the elevator, mind still racing with thoughts of what you were going to do now. This had been your dream job, the vision that kept you going through college when the stress from tests got too much, when you sacrificed social time to work at internship after internship. You reached forward to press the call button when you saw the sign on the elevator. Under maintenance. Your throat burned and you had to pinch your eyes shut to keep yourself from crying. You could feel your shirt clinging to you as sweat began sliding down your spine. Your arms were shaking lightly already from the strain of carrying the boxes. With a sigh, you went to the stairwell, hoping your arms would hold up until you got to your bike.

The stairwell light flickered, making the way down more ominous. Your footsteps echoed in the hallway, and you tried to commit the sound to memory. The droning of the fluorescent lights and the distant smell of toner. You didn't realize how much you'd miss. You were rounding the corner to the second floor when someone came flying out of the stairwell exit, crashing into you and almost sending you careening down the stairs. You latched onto the railing, dropping your boxes but managing to stay standing.

“Sorry,” the person said, bolting down the stairs without stopping to help you up. You watched your belongings tumble down, echoing in the hall and in your head, reminding you how hollow you felt now. A picture frame hit the floor and shattered. Your Christmas office party two years ago. The year Jim told you you were getting a promotion. You collected your things as you went down the stairs, stopping at the picture with a heavy heart, walking past to leave it for the spiders. Clearly, you didn't matter to the company so they shouldn't matter to you.

The brightness of the sun lit up the shadows of your face, and you walked out of the office head held high, a plan forming (if you could call a date with a bottle of vodka a plan). You still had an apartment. You still had your bike. You were going to get through this. You’d take a couple days off and really enjoy your newfound freedom before hitting a few local places that were always hiring. You opened your eyes, ready to take on the rest of the day, and your heart shattered.

Your bike was stuck under a car, tire rim twisted into a menacing metal smile. The pink wicker basket that normally sat on your handlebars was cracked in half across the sidewalk. The boxes slipped from you grasp again, contents hitting the ground and scattering. A few papers got caught up in the wind and blew away along with any shred of self-preservation you had left. You pushed your sleeves up slowly, methodically, as your mind went into autopilot. As you walked towards the offending car, blissfully unaware of what was to come, a smile spread across your face. You were definitely losing it.

Your boot bounced straight off the tire the first time you kicked. You swung your foot again, hitting the rim this time. Pain shot through your foot but you swung again mercilessly. The pain kept you grounded, helped you fight against the haziness that tore at your vision and the tightness building in your chest. You kicked again, hitting the bumper. Tears began to fall freely now as you kicked the bumper again, this time leave a small dent. You lifted your foot to swing again when a strong hand grabbed your arm and pulled you away from the car.

“Are you out of your goddamn mind? That’s my fucking car.”

“And that’s my fucking bike you ran over,” you screamed. People on the streets were turning to look, but you couldn’t find the energy to be embarrassed. Why not let them get first row seats to watch your life fall apart? You balled up your fist and hit him weakly against the chest. “It was all I had.” Another swat, another sob. “And you b-broke it.” You staggered back against his car, letting the despair wash over you.

The man stood dumbfounded, not quite sure if you would hit him again or keep crying. Although, he probably deserved another smack for making such an angel hurt so deeply. God, he can’t remember the last time he saw a face as perfect as yours, hair tumbling down and framing it. He wasn’t exactly a religious man, but damn if Leonard McCoy wasn’t having a spiritual moment right now. “I’m sorry, ma’am,” he said gently, reaching to put a hand on your arm. When you didn’t pull away, he started to rub small circles on your skin. “I’ll buy you a new bike, I promise.”

“No,” you said, choking back another sob, “No, I’m sorry it’s just been a really shitty day. I got fired and then the elevator was broken and I fell down the stairs and then I found out my bike was broken and now I’m spilling my guts to a really hot stranger on the street and I just can’t stop talking I just can’t sto-”

Luckily, another sob cut you off before you could keep rambling on. The man in front of you only laughed, pulling you into a hug. You wrapped your arms around his waist, feeling his broad chest pressed against yours, feeling protected. “How about you let me buy you lunch, sugar? I know a restaurant close by with a pecan pie so good I think my mama must’ve sold them the recipe.”

“I’m allergic to pecans,” you muttered into his chest. He chuckled again as he reached past you to open the passenger door. You shamelessly ran your hands across his chest and down to his waist, feeling every dip and curve of his muscles through his white dress shirt. “I’m Y/N, by the way,” you muttered as you slipped into the car.

Tags: 

@outside-the-government @martinawalker @thevalesofanduin @goingknowherewastaken @yourtropegirl @trekken81 @feelmyroarrrr @yukki-art @atari-writes @pabegay1 @bolontiku

@daybreak96 @8bit-arc-reactor @jimtkirkisabitch

This is the Bones I pictured for this bc blue suit beardy Karl Urban is my weakness: