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besanii · 4 years

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Hi! Am rereading your shattered mirrors verse and I love it so much. Are we going to get the scene in which WWX explains everything that’s happened to him (with the poison) etc to LWJ after they meet wen yuan?? I’m dying for the angst but also fluff and comfort 🥺🥺🥺

@lurkingscientist asked:

I can’t wait to hear about all the sad things wwx experienced!!! :D my “stabby stabby stab stab stab” is feeling slightly neglected

Shattered Mirrors #61

“I haven’t told you everything.”

In the thirteen years Wei Wuxian had been gone, Lan Wangji searched desperately for every scrap of information he could get his hands on, from every channel he could access, in hopes of finding him. Or finding out what had happened to him. What he could find was piecemeal at best and unreliable at worst, often conflicting depending on the source. The result was him, driven mad by desperation and grief, chasing ghosts in the shadows until he could no longer tell what was real.

Even now, with Wei Wuxian back at his side these last two years, happy and content and safe, he still does not have a clear picture of what had happened during the war. If he’s being honest, he’s afraid to ask, and even more afraid to know. He tells himself it’s enough just to have Wei Wuxian by his side again. He doesn’t need to know, if Wei Wuxian does not want to share.

So Wei Wuxian’s confession punches the air from his lungs and he feels in its wake, his hands trembling where they’re entwined. Wei Wuxian watches him with the same care one would give to a startled animal ready to flee.

“That is,” he amends hesitantly, “if you wish to know.”

Lan Wangji inhales, and exhales again, with a shudder. Squares his shoulders. Looks him in the eye.

“Yes,” he says. “I do.”

It is Wei Wuxian’s turn to take a deep breath, the tentative little smile on his lips giving way to steely resolve. On his other side, Wen Yuan kneels by the bed, wordlessly offering his unwavering support. Despite all this, it takes Wei Wuxian some time to find the right words to convey the enormity of what he is about to disclose.

“I don’t know where to begin,” he admits with a shaky laugh, looking down at their joined hands. “I suppose you already know how Yunmeng fell.”

Lan Wangji nods. He has heard scattered details, enough to know that there had been a traitor in their midst, someone who had fed false information through their intelligence network while Wei Wuxian had been in Gusu. They had managed to secure Yunping, but sustained heavy losses that severely weakened their defences. The traitor had been found, but by then the Qishan Wen army was already at their doorstep, ten thousand strong, and they had no way out.

“We evacuated as many civilians as we could. Jiang Cheng, Jiang-wang and Yu-wanghou stayed behind to defend the city,” he says. His eyes and voice are distant, lost in his memories. “I took Shijie and we escaped via the lakes, with the rest of the civilians. Our priority was to get to Yunping, and then to Lanling. Shijie was engaged to Jin Zixuan, so they would definitely come to our aid—or at the very least, they would keep her safe while I gathered reinforcements.

“They were there,” he continues, still in that far-off voice. “Wen Chao and his men. They had split their forces to ambush us while we were defenceless. Our boats were burned, our people drowned—we in Yunmeng are strong swimmers, but even the strongest swimmers cannot survive when arrows rain down from the sky.”

He shivers with his next breath, but his voice is steady.

“I entrusted Shijie to my lieutenant, instructed them to use one of the overturned boats to cover their escape, while I distracted Wen Chao.” He smiles, but it’s stark and without humour. “We’ve had…altercations in the past, so I knew I would be an adequate distraction. I held him off for as long as I could, kept his attention on me. But I was only one person, and he had an army.”

The reports that had come out of Yunmeng around that time—the ones Lan Xichen had allowed him to read while recovering from his punishment, at least—had painted a picture so bleak, so devastating that he had wept. The lakes of Yunmeng, once teeming with colour and life, stained red with blood over the course of one night; and Lotus Pier, its seat of power, that had once risen from the depths of the lakes like a mirage, burned to ash. He had been back to the ruins of Lotus Pier in the intervening years as it was slowly rebuilt after the war—Gusu had offered aid wherever possible, in both money and manpower, as well as political support for the Yu family of Meishan, the maiden family of Queen Yu Ziyuan, who had been installed as stewards in the absence of the ruling family—but the shadows of war still haunts its streets and darkens its waters even now.

Wei Wuxian’s eyes fall closed and his fingers tighten around Lan Wangji’s.

“There’s a stronghold in Yiling,” he says. “Some call it the Burial Mounds, or the Mass Grave. Beneath the fortress, there’s an extensive network of cells that run beneath the mountains. That’s where they keep their highest security prisoners, the ones who get…special treatment.”

There is no need to ask what ‘special’ means, so Lan Wangji stays silent. His blood, however, runs cold—as cold as Wei Wuxian’s voice as he continues his narrative, detached.

“Wen Chao had a special—” that word again, spoken with such venom that it curdles in Lan Wangji’s stomach and burns his throat, “cell prepared. More a cage, really. Every second shichen, it would be submerged in water up to the neck, and stay there for another shichen until it was raised again. In the interim, the prisoner would be left soaking wet in the cold, damp cell.”

The memory of Wei Wuxian at the water’s edge, the frantic terror on his face as he struggles to breathe despite not having come into contact with it, the frailty, the susceptibility to cold and illness—it is all starting to fall into place, one horrifying piece at a time. But Wei Wuxian is not finished.

“There were beatings, of course.” A sudden, fierce anger wraps around Lan Wangji’s heart at the matter-of-fact way in which he says it. “Wen Chao always did have a sadistic streak. He liked to hang people up by the arms and have them whipped, or burned, or flogged. Sometimes he’d leave them there for more than a day, weighed down at the ankles, blindfolded, while they tortured others around them.”

A hand extricates itself from Lan Wangji’s death grip and peels back the edge of a sleeve to reveal the scars along his arms. Dozens of them, some longer and thicker, others as thin and fine as thread, criss-cross along the pale flesh. As he traces quivering fingers along the skin, Lan Wangji feels each cut, each slice, on his heart. Then Wei Wuxian turns his hand over, revealing a large, pale scar on the inside of his wrist, and a matching on on the other, too precise to be self-inflicted. He inhales sharply in realisation.

“Your hands—” he chokes, eyes wide as he stares at the scars. “He didn’t—”

Wei Wuxian lets the sleeves fall back down to cover the scars.

“If you fight back,” he explains woodenly, “they cut the tendons in your wrists and ankles. They’ll send a doctor to look over your injuries, of course. There is no benefit, no value, in a dead prisoner of war. That’s how I met Wen Qing and her brother, Wen Ning.”

“My aunt and uncle,” Wen Yuan, who has been silent until now, explains. Lan Wangji had almost forgotten his presence. He smiles sadly. “They were taken by my great-uncle as hostages to ensure our branch of the family supported the war effort, and served as doctors on the front lines.”

Wei Wuxian’s lips curl into a smile—not the harsh, bitter ones from before, but softer, tinged with grief.

“They took care of me,” he says. “Wen Qing was the best doctor in all of Qishan. There was no illness she could not cure, no injury she could not fix. And Wen Ning…Wen Ning was the kindest person I have ever met. Too kind, too gentle for war. They did their best to help me—slipped me medicines and food whenever they could, diverted Wen Chao’s attentions away from me when it got too much.”

His voice wavers and breaks.

“They died trying to get me out,” he says hoarsely. “First Wen Ning, then Wen Qing. And I couldn’t—I couldn’t do anything to save them—”

Lan Wangji gathers him into his arms, crushes him against his chest as he cries out in anguish, his body wracked with sobs. His own eyes are hot, and he sees Wen Yuan’s are also bright with unshed tears when their gazes meet over Wei Wuxian’s head. They stay like this until he quietens, curled in Lan Wangji’s embrace, eyes hollow and wrung out. Lan Wangji is about to suggest that they continue this another day when Wei Wuxian rouses himself with a shaky breath, and continues.

“They killed Wen Ning in front of me,” he says. “And then they forced Wen Qing to take the same deadly poison they had been using to experiment with on us—”

“Qianji poison,” Lan Wangji says before he can stop himself. Both Wen Yuan and Wei Wuxian turn to him in shock. He lowers his eyes. “You fell ill after your performance at Caiyun Pavilion,” he tells Wei Wuxian. “I had a physician brought in to see you.”

He is careful to leave out Mo Xuanyu and Madam Zhang’s involvement, but Wei Wuxian is not fooled. But rather than get angry, as they had feared, he only shakes his head and laughs.

“I should have guessed,” he says. “They always liked to make a fuss.”

“They care about you,” Lan Wangji chides him gently. “And I am glad they told me, so I was better prepared to take care of you like I promised.”

This time when Wei Wuxian turns into the cradle of his arms, it is out of exhaustion, as if a great weight has been lifted from his chest, and his eyes drift closed as Lan Wangji strokes his hair with gentle motions. There is still more to the story, Lan Wangji knows—and there are questions burning in his mind. But he feels the sag of Wei Wuxian’s body against his, the heaviness of his breath, and cannot bring himself to press him further. They have time. After a moment of silence, when Lan Wangji thinks him asleep, he stirs.

“I’m tired,” he murmurs. “So tired.”

“You’ve done well, Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji reminds him. “Get some rest.”

Wen Yuan excuses himself as Wei Wuxian hums and nestles deeper into his arms. Lan Wangji nods at him gratefully and watches him leave, keeping his movements quiet so as to not disturb Wei Wuxian’s rest.

“I think I’ll close my eyes for a while,” Wei Wuxian agrees, his words already starting to slur. “I just need…a little break.”

Lan Wangji presses a light kiss on his forehead.

“Take all the time you need,” he says. “I’ll be here when you wake.”

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wkemeup · 4 years

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By Any Other Name (18)

series summary: When Special Agent Bucky Barnes is tasked with infiltrating the notorious gang Hydra and gathering evidence against its leader, Brock Rumlow, Bucky finds himself drawn to the woman who doesn’t seem to belong in this world of violence, the wife of the head of Hydra… you. pairing: bucky x reader chapter word count: 6.1k warnings: arson (in flashback), reunions, love and fluff, the second to last chapter 🌹series masterlist 🌹

The voices around you were distant, like a memory. You couldn’t quite make out what they were saying and the act of opening your eyes felt almost impossible. Your lids were too heavy, your head lulled comfortably against solid muscle, somewhere safe. You swallowed back the dryness in your throat, curling against the warmth enveloping you as tremors ran up your spine like shivers.

But something wasn’t right.

The scent on the collar wasn’t one you knew. It was covered by the heavy smog of smoke but you could still detect something that smelled of vanilla, could feel broader shoulders than you were familiar with. You shifted in his arms, feeling restless with every step he took – no, ran – away from the scorching heat.

It was then, you realized, his voice was wrong, too.

“Move out of the way!”

He wasn’t James.

You were being placed on a surface, something hard with the pretense of a thin layer of cushioning. Arms slowly left from around you as a mask was placed over your nose and mouth, a blanket draped over your body. Before the hand could slip away, you grabbed onto it, clenching at it, sharp and unyielding, until the man stopped.

Breaths a little deeper now, the dizziness in your head starting to clear, you opened your eyes. Steve Rogers was staring back at you; his face covered in soot, grey and black embers coating his clothes, some angry red marks along exposed skin.

“Where is he?” you gasped, voice muffled by the mask, but he heard you well enough.

He held your gaze for a moment, features of his expression unreadable and whether that was because of the faintness trying to pull you under again or his training as a fed, you didn’t know. Eventually, his eyes flickered back to the house and you followed his gaze to burning flames rising like demons from the window. You realized then it was the roar of their screams ringing in your ears.

You shook your head, breaths picking up too fast.

“Where is he?” you asked again, unwilling to believe what you already knew.

“Y/n, I need you to calm down,” Steve urged gently, reaching out to you, but you flinched way.

You started to push the blanket from your body, clawing at the mask, trying to remove yourself from the gurney, but then there were arms on you, holding you down.

“You’re going to hurt yourself, kid. Stay still, will you?” Sam was behind you, gingerly swatting your hands from your mask to keep it in place.

It felt like you were underwater. Every movement took tenfold the effort and it winded you, your arms moving almost in slow motion, incredibly weakened. Skin seared and hot, raw and exposed, singed nerve endings coating your body. Steve and Sam didn’t need to do much to keep you restrained.

“James,” you whimpered, calling for him under whispered tones. The fires were uncontrollable. You could hear the sirens down the street though they felt miles away. “James, please… James…”

“He’ll be okay, Y/n,” Steve soothed, pulling the blanket back onto you while the EMTs started to check for your vitals. You nodded, feeling faint, like darkness was covering you.

But then –

BANG!

BANG! BANG!

BANG!

You jolted up, wide eyed, alert, as everyone around you froze. Steve’s hands slacked, Sam stepped back, both staring up at the house in a moment of utter silence and dread. In their distraction, you bolted.

You flung away the blanket, ripped off the mask, and threw yourself from the gurney. You were unsteady on your feet as you sprinted towards the house, stumbling over pavement.

“Y/n!” Steve voice boomed from behind you, and before you could make it anywhere near the steps, his arms caged around your waist, pulling you back.

“No!” you screamed out, cried, voice broken and raw. “James! James!”

You thrashed against him, desperate to jump from his hold and race right back into the flames of hell, but you were too weak and he was too strong and you were almost losing energy with every passing second.

“Shh, I’ve got you. I’ve got you,” Steve whispered repeatedly, trying to calm you but you fought him with every step, even as he hulled you into his arms and you got a good hit to his jawline. He didn’t back down. He held you as you screamed, as you cried James’ name on an endless loop, until the effort drained you completely and you were met by the cool embrace of darkness.

***

You woke suddenly with a sharp gasp.

The first thing you noticed was that the air was clean, that you could breathe unfiltered and your lungs filled with a steady inhale. It didn’t take much effort and the dizziness had left your head. The room was white, machines beeping softly to your left.

In the top corner of the room, a television was bolted to the wall. On the screen, a woman in a red blazer was reading from a prompter, though you could hardly make out what she was saying. The image to her left displayed an emblem you recognized well with a skull at the center and tentacles emerging from its base. The chyron below read, ‘HYDRA EXPOSED: HUNDREDS ARRESTED IN CONNECTION TO ORGANIZED CRIME.’

A sudden, high pitched beeping began to fill the room, picking up in pace. You felt it deep into your chest, too, and it only seemed to worsen as the image upon the television turned to a burning building with flames screaming high up into the night sky, smoke pillaring out from the windows, and foundation cracking to ash.

You tore your eyes from the screen to find a red-haired woman sitting in the chair beside you, legs crossed, nose deep in a file shielded by a manila envelope.

Slowly, you pulled the oxygen support tubing from your nose.

“Where is he?” Your voice was still barely a whisper, trembling, and Natasha’s eyes shot up at you, almost stunned, relieved, before she softened.

“In the next room,” she replied steadily, nodding towards the wall behind her. “He refused to leave for your side for nearly six hours. I had to pry him out of here myself just to get some decent treatment to his burns and that hole in his shoulder. Nice shot by the way.”

She winked at you but your chest was still wrapped up in knots. You stared blankly back at her and she must have noticed the panic etched into your features, how your eyes keep glancing back up at the television and your hands clenched so tightly to your sheets it looked as though you could have ripped them to pieces between your fingers.

Natasha set down the file. “How much do you remember?”

Flashes of dim red lighting in the cargo hold of a ship. A painful grip to your wrist and a hand pressed over your lips. The cold concrete of a factory office under bare feet. James on his knees. Blood. So much blood. Pain. The wretched stench of gasoline. Heat. Smoke. Burning.

“I don’t—” you started, tears forming in your eyes as you tried to shake the images from your head. “I don’t know. It’s in pieces and none of it makes sense. I can’t—I can’t—”

“Maybe I can help,” she offered kindly. Always calm, always collected.

You nodded, staring into the gentle aura of green within her eyes, trying to find the words to begin. You exhaled a heavy breath, trying to alleviate the stone in your lungs.

“Before the house, before the fire, when Brock took me to that factory,” you started, hand curling to stop the shaking, nails digging into your palms, “he found out about James… that he was a fed. He made me… He made me shoot him and—and there was so much blood. He just kept bleeding and there—there shouldn’t have been that much blood—it doesn’t—it doesn’t make—”

Natasha’s hand circled yours, encasing it gently, pulling your attention to her. “It was a prop; part of the plan to kill off James Karpov on the way to the station. He activated it when you shot him to make it look fatal, thinking that if Rumlow thought you killed him, he might still preserve your allegiance to Hydra. Otherwise, your husband might have killed you then, too.”

She squeezed your hand. It hurt a little but it centered you enough to bring your breathing back down to an even pace. The machine beside you started to beat slower, the dizziness in your head released, and you focused on kind green.

“Brock already knew,” you whispered defeatedly. “He made me shoot James because he figured out that I— that we’ve been—” You closed your eyes, clenching your jaw.

Another squeeze. Gentler this time, but enough. “James gave you more time. He gave us the time we needed to find you.”

“He was in the house with me, wasn’t he?” you asked slowly. “He pulled me from the library. I remember—I remember him there… until he wasn’t.”

She nodded. “Yes. Steve was with him, too. I don’t know much of the details. All I know was the two of them went rushing in and Steve came out of that house a few minutes later with you in his arms. James was still inside.”

“The gunshots,” you gasped, the piercing echoes coming back to you suddenly, the beeping of your heart rate monitor quickly rising. “What happened? Is James—”

Natasha squeezed your hand again, stilling the words on your tongue as her eyes darted to the policeman stationed outside the room, his shoulder visible through the opening, his head tilted just slightly as if he was listening in.

“Why don’t I go let him know you’re awake?” she offered, smile pulling at her lips as she glanced hesitantly back at the guard. “I’m sure he can answer more than I can and I suspect he’s going to want to know you’re up.”

You nodded slowly, wiping tears from your eyes, though you clung to her hand. Cautious eyes glanced over her shoulder to the officer at the edge of your room.

“You’re safe, Y/n,” Natasha promised. “It’s over now.”

There was just something about Natasha that you believed every word she said. It could have been her exceptional training, her years of lying for a living, but you chose to believe it was her eyes. The kindness within gentle shades of green.

“Thank you,” you muttered out, clenching your jaw. You pushed out a smile for her, needing her to know that you meant it, even with the pulse of anxiety heavy in your veins. She understood, and with a final squeeze to your hand, she disappeared from the room.

You sighed; deep inhale, full on the exhale, and you let yourself glance down at your own wounds. The white bandages wrapped around your wrists where exposed wires had dug deep into skin and cut through flesh, patches of charred skin along your forearms, gauze attached by tape to the worst of it along your collarbone. Scrapes and cuts along your legs from the tree branches and roots behind the warehouse and a patch on your forehead from where you’d hit the dashboard. Battle wounds.

A sudden clanging from the room over pulled your attention to the wall; the rustle of metal tools falling to the floor, the grunts of someone pushed to the side, the low grumble of aggravated nurses, and when you looked up to the doorway to your room, James was standing in the center, leaning against the frame, panting.

You froze, staring at one another. You couldn’t quite tell if it was disbelief or maybe shock in his eyes, but you imagined yours reflected more of the same.

The last you saw him, he was bleeding out on the concrete, eyes glazing over, and though you knew now that it was part of the act, it still felt real; the memories of it, the way Brock had taunted you in your library, the fear. That was all real. You still shot the man you loved, still held a gun to him as he was forced to his knees. You still did that.

It tore at you. Ripped you to pieces. But it all faded away the moment his lips parted.

“Y/n?”

His voice was barely a whisper, broken, like maybe he was wondering if this was a dream.

You nodded, chewing on the dried edges of your lips.

And then, something wonderful happened.

A smile grew along his face, relief pouring through every ounce him, and he rushed into the room. His hands hovered over you, at your hands, then your elbows, up to your shoulders, before they finally landed on the sides of your face. Cupping at your cheeks ever so slightly, thumbs brushing delicately along your jawline, he choked back a laugh, tears slipping past his eyes.

“Hi,” you whispered, the smile in your cheeks touching the palms of his hands and he sat on the edge of your bed, leaning in to touch his forehead to yours.

“Hi, sweetheart.”

Then, you leaned up into him, closed the distance between you, and kissed him.

It was slow, like you’d hadn’t kissed him in centuries, and maybe you hadn’t, because every move of his lips, the taste of his touch, the light brush of his tongue, was heaven unlike you’d known. Your hands bunched into the fabric of his shirt, tugging him closer, because his lower lip caged between your own simply wasn’t enough.

You grinned against him in the freedom of kissing him the bright daylight of the window casting in behind you, the nurses and police officers walking by outside without a thought to the two people intertwined just a few feet away. No cliff to slip over the edge, no carpet to be pulled out from under your feet; just you and the man you loved, his lips on yours, and the glow of sun kissed light on your skin.

But then, he groaned, pulling back sharply as his hand rose to his left shoulder. He gritted his teeth, exhaling through a clenched jaw as he pressed into the tender muscle.

Worried eyes darted to the rise of a bandage hidden under his shirt. “Are you okay?”

He nodded, chuckling as he pushed down the pain, trying to pull you back to his lips. “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. Let me kiss you some more.”

“James!” you laughed, turning away so his lips kissed at your cheek and he let out a low playful groan. He sat back on the cot, tenderly sweeping back a strand of hair behind your ear, just studying you, like he was staring at one of the paintings hung in the Louvre. A loving mixture of awe and adoration marked in the blue of his eyes.

He paused, letting his hand fall to his side, the smile slowly creeping down along his lips. You watched him carefully as he took your hand into his own and began to play delicately with the lifeline running along your palm, careful to avoid the bandages at your wrists. He took a deep breath.

“Bucky.”

You narrowed your eyes. “Sorry, what?”

“My name,” he said slowly, nervously. “Bucky. It’s, uh, it’s short for—”

“Buchanan,” you finished as the memory of the name first spoken in the office of that factory where his arms were tied behind his back and forced down to his knees echoed to the forefront of your mind. He froze, swallowing thickly before he nodded.

“James Buchanan Barnes,” you said, testing it on your tongue, enjoying the way it felt. Mostly, that it felt right.

Still, his muscles were tense as he watched you, listening as you said his full name again, like you were practicing, instilling it to your memory, to his identity in your mind.

He chewed on his lip, unsure, because you’d only ever known him as James, he wasn’t sure if you were ready to know Bucky, too, if you were interested in taking on life beside Bucky Barnes, special agent to the FBI, after years of being trapped behind Hydra.

“Bucky,” you called gently, noticing how he started to retreat into himself.

A shiver swept up his spine at the sound of his name in your voice, his eyes darting to the blankets at your waist.

“Bucky, look at me.” You slid your hand up his arm, letting it rest on his neck as you slowly guided his eyes to you. He sighed against your touch, leaning into it. “You are still my James. You will always be him to me. I will call you whatever you want me to and I know James is still technically your name but, I don’t know, Bucky has a nice ring to it. It suits you.”

He chuckled sweetly, nodding. “Just wasn’t sure if you were still gonna want Bucky Barnes when James Karpov was gone.”

“It’s just a name,” you replied sincerely. “You were always Bucky Barnes. A different name, a different job, but you were always good. You were always this man.”

Your hand settled in on his chest, touching fingertips to the quick thumping of his heartbeat until it began to even. He nodded, taking in what you said before he let himself smile again. “I tell you I love you lately?”

You laughed, pouting as you shook your head. “No, I don’t believe you have. Might want to fix that, Agent Barnes.”

“Well, I love you, sweetheart,” he said simply, confidently, because he knew it to be true above all else.

“I love you, too, Bucky Barnes.”

***

Hours later, your room had become a hub for Bucky’s team.

Steve leaned against the wall back the door, arms folded over his chest, leg propped up against the wall behind him, laughing as his chin dropped to his chest.

Sam sat on the windowsill, tossing a stress ball in the air and bouncing it off the glass, recalling an old story of their days in the academy when he would give Bucky a run for his money on the obstacle course, though Bucky adamantly denied it. You were grateful for the glimpse into his past, of the man you always knew him to be, but with different stories, different memories than the one who grew up in a life of crime.

Natasha was curled up in the chair beside your bed, knees to her chest, pretending to read through the file she’d been glancing through earlier, though you could tell from the smirk on her face that she was listening rather intently. She chuckled a little under her breath as Bucky and Sam started to bicker and she sent a wink in your direction when she caught you staring.

And Bucky – your James – was sitting beside you on the small, twin sized cot. One leg hanging off the end as he propped you up to rest against his chest, his arm draped around you, a kiss to your crown every so often to remind you he was there.

It was perfect. It was exactly as it should be.

Bucky was in the middle of explaining exactly why Sam’s account of the events of their final physical testing course was wildly inaccurate when two men in suits stepped into the room, silencing him mid-sentence. Sam jumped up from the window, hand darting to the gun at his hip.

“Relax, Agent Wilson,” the man standing in front said as he removed the yellow lensed sunglasses. “My name is Supervisory Special Agent Clint Barton, and this here is my partner, SSA Pietro Maximoff.”

“What do you want?” Bucky replied flatly, his grip on you a little tighter. Steve held a hand up, easing him down.

“What can we do for you?” Steve said, standing out in front of Bucky.

Clint nodded, seemingly unsurprised. He clipped his sunglasses through the v of his button up, handing sliding into his pockets. “We need to collect a statement from Agent Barnes regarding the death of Brock Rumlow.”

You held onto Bucky’s hand, gripping it impossibly tight, and he encased his free hand over yours. No one said it aloud, but you knew. You had to. There were four gunshots inside your home as it burned to ash and only one of the two men inside walked out. It wasn’t hard to put the pieces together, but that didn’t make the tension in the room any lighter.

“Can’t this wait?” Bucky asked tensely.

“No, I’m afraid it can’t,” Clint stepped forward as Maximoff closed the door behind them, pen and pencil in hand. “A criminal that the Bureau been trying to apprehend for nearly a decade is dead and more than a years’ worth of federal funding has been wasted.”

“Hydra is in shambles. I wouldn’t call that wasted,” Sam grumbled from his place at the back of the room, a little too loudly under his breath for it to be anything but intentional. You glanced back at him with a short smirk and he winked at you.

“Things don’t always go as planned,” Bucky added, glaring down the unfamiliar agents. “You’d know that if you were on the front lines in the field and not behind a desk all day.”

Clint chuckled, exchanging a glance with his partner who remain stone faced, before he straightened his back. “It doesn’t give you a license to kill, Agent Barnes, even the likes of Brock Rumlow.”

The room was tense and you could feel it in Bucky’s body against you.

“Fine, but not here,” Bucky conceded, slowly beginning to pry himself out from your grip.

“Bucky, wait,” you gasped, panicked. Your eyes shot over to Clint and Maximoff, two men in suits you didn’t know, didn’t trust, who seemed to have it out for Bucky the moment they stepped into the room. You’d just found him again, finally got to hold him free of the chains that had been binding you for years, you couldn’t lose him now. You couldn’t.

“Hey,” Bucky cooed sweetly, noticing the quick increase of the heart rate monitor beeping through the room. He leaned forward, pushing back your hair before he pressed a kiss to your forehead. “I’ll be right back, okay? I promise.”

He shot a glare to the agents by the door, a warning, and he pulled away. Clint and Maximoff exited quietly, waiting by the door to escort him like they though he might make a run for it. Bucky shared a look with Steve, who nodded in return, a silent conversation between them.

Then, he was gone.

“Will someone tell me what’s happening?” Your hands were curled to fists in the blankets draped over your lap. You were shaking, struggling to find your breath. Tear welled in your eyes, the lump of it muffled in your voice. “Where are they taking him?”

“No one’s taking him anywhere,” Steve replied steadily. “They’re just going to ask him a few questions.”

“They can’t prove shit anyway,” Sam scoffed, rolling his eyes as he waved his hand dismissively towards the door. “That whole place went up in flames, along with whatever evidence they think they might have against him. The only people who will ever know what went down in there are Barnes and Rumlow, and it looks like we’ve only got one left to tell the tale so—”

“Sam, cool it,” Steve warned, gesturing to you as you tucked your knees to your chest, wrapping your arms around your legs. Sam grimaced.

“He didn’t do anything wrong, Y/n,” Natasha said quietly, setting down the file. She scooted to the edge of the seat, leaning towards you. “I know Barnes and he doesn’t take the shot unless he absolutely has to. He’s not a killer, not even when it comes to Rumlow. He pulled the trigger for a reason and it was a damn good one. We have to believe that.”

You nodded, though your head was numb, pulsing, and you pressed your thumbs to your temples. “Do any of you know what actually happened?”

The room was silent, save for the high-pitched beeping of the heart monitor beside you and you quickly removed the sensor and threw it to the wall, tired of the painful pulsing it created in your head.

“There’s only his word,” Steve said, “and his word means a lot in the Bureau. He did what had to be done. I believe that. Besides, I don’t think Rumlow gave him much of a choice.” Steve took a deep breath, extending a hand out to the edge of your cot. “I know this must be hard for you, losing your—”

“I do not mourn for my husband,” you spat back, harsher than you meant to and Steve quickly nodded, pressing his lips to a thin line. He pulled his hand back to his side.

You sighed, trying to push the sudden anger from your chest, tight and hot, and you felt for the grooves in the plastic of the bed frame; each small tick and indent grounded you, reminded you to pull yourself down from the clouds and back into your body.

“Brock Rumlow was a monster. He deserved what he got.” You swallowed back a sharp burn of bile in your throat, releasing the sheets from between your fingers. “My only regret is that I didn’t pull the trigger myself.”

Steve bowed his head, hands in his pockets. “It’s not a burden you should have to carry.”

“Well, neither should Bucky,” you grumbled, shaking your head as tears burned on your cheeks. “I should have done more. I could have… I could have done something! He put his life on the line again and again for me, for Peter, and all I did is shoot him point blank for his troubles and get him in trouble with interal affairs…”

“Bucky makes his own decisions,” Steve stated sternly. He exchanged a short glance with Natasha and slowly crossed the room to pull up a chair beside your bed. “He’d make them again, too, I’m sure of it. Besides, we wouldn’t be where we are without you, Y/n. It’s your intel that dismantled Hydra. You gave us information that would have taken Bucky years to collect.” He pointed up at the television where images flashed of men in suits being escorted into the backs of police cars by the dozens. “You did that, Y/n. You’re the reason Bucky can finally come home. You brought down Hydra.”

“And you survived,” Natasha added warmly, though it carried a heaviness with it. She sat on the edge of your bed, a soft kind of smile resting on her lips. “It was all you needed to do. Survive. That within itself takes extraordinary strength. Forget all the files you brought us, all the testimony you wrote, all the names you exposed. You survived, Y/n. Let that be enough.”

Your lips were agape. Tear marks slipping down over your cheeks as you stared at the two of them. There were no words that could quite explain the lifting of a stone straight from the center of your chest, so you grabbed their hands, squeezed them in your own and nodded. They understood.

A ding suddenly chimed out from behind you, startling you, and you turned to find Sam jumping down from the window, phone in hand. He waved it up in the air.

“Package just arrived downstairs!” He grinned, instantly pulling every thread of tension from the room with his smile and the bounce of his step. “I better go pick it up!”

“Package?” you questioned exchanging a look with Natasha who only shrugged, though you suspected she knew more. You wiped your cheeks surprised to find yourself smiling as you watched Sam scurry around the room in search of his ID. “Why did you get something delivered to the hospital?”

“Special request from Barnes,” Sam replied cheekily before quickly slipping from the room.

“Do you know what he’s talking about?” You turned to Steve.

He chuckled a bit under his breath and nodded. “It’s a good surprise. I promise.”

Once Sam was gone, the room fell into a slated silence again. You leaned back against the propped-up cot, settling in though it felt impossibly empty without Bucky. Natasha was back to her file, skimming over the endless pages as Steve settled into the chair beside you, glancing down at his phone.

To settle the anticipation in your stomach, you found yourself staring up at the television, surprised to see a familiar face walk behind the reporter in handcuffs, tie disheveled as he argued with the woman pushing him towards the car. Councilman Ward. He sat at your kitchen table with your husband in the early hours of the morning twice a month, whispering amongst themselves of campaign money and laundering schemes. You smiled.

A map appeared on the screen next, filled with small red dots littered across the country. The subtitles told you it was a mark for every Hydra affiliate who had been arrested in the last twenty-four hours. You shouldn’t have been surprised by the scale of it, how there was nearly as much red as there was land, but it still managed to startle you. You had thought it was a stone you could not crawl out from under. No— it was a boulder. It was a mountain.

Then suddenly, you heard a storm of footsteps rushing down the hallway; commotion of papers flying, people yelping, and a quick ‘sorry!’ and a blur of blue and red zipped straight past your room. You narrowed your eyes, looking to Steve who only shrugged.

“Will you chill out, kid?! You passed it!” Sam shouted, standing outside your room, gesturing rather dramatically inside. He rolled his eyes, laughing as he made his way inside. He must have noticed the confusion on your face, because he winked at you before slipping back to his place on the windowsill.

Then that same blur of blue of red appeared in the doorway, panting, and your heart lurched.

“Peter?” you gaped, jolting up in the bed.

“Y/n!” Peter rushed into the room, throwing his backpack to the ground, and jumping up onto the bed. The bounce of it ached in your ribs from the sudden movement, but you couldn’t find it in you to care, not with how wide you were smiling.

“Peter, how did you get here?!”

“Oh man, you won’t even believe it!” he exhaled, scratching at the back of his head. “A police car rolled up at the house and these officers came knocking on my door saying they were there to escort me to the hospital and I was freaking out for… you know… Hydra reasons,” he glanced suspiciously at Steve, Sam, and Natasha, as they made themselves appear busy, though Sam didn’t attempt to hide his smirk, “but anyway, they said James sent for me and you know I trust that guy with my life, clearly, so I jumped in the back and here I am!”

He was a little out of breath, nodding like he was making sure he remembered everything.

“Oh!” He exclaimed suddenly, forcing out a fit of laughter from you. “They said your house burnt down?!”

“Yeah,” you chuckled. “It’s a bit of a story, actually.”

“Aunt May won’t be home until late,” Peter shrugged, settling in at the foot of your bed. He pulled a granola bar from his pocket and began to unwrap it. “I’ve got time.”

***

By the time you were finished, Peter was sitting in stunned silence; mouth agape, half eaten bar hanging from his fingertips into his lap. Sam seemed to find the whole thing rather amusing as he was snickering to himself over your shoulder as Steve sent him a warning glare from across the room.

“Wait,” Peter started, holding his hand up, “you’re saying James has been a cop this whole time?!”

“Federal agent, actually.” Bucky appeared in the doorway, hands in his pockets, leaning against the frame as if he’d been standing there listening for a while and he grinned in your direction before he turned to Peter.

“James!” Peter jumped up from the bed, rushing towards him like he might give him a hug before he abruptly stopped himself. He awkwardly ran his hands through his hair, shuffling his feet. “Er, uh, not-James...”

Bucky laughed at that, grabbed a hold of Peter’s shoulder and shaking him playfully. “Still James, technically. James Barnes. Friends call me Bucky.”

“R-Right,” Peter nodded nervously. “Mr. Barnes, I—”

“Pete.”

“Yeah?”

“We’re friends, aren’t we?”

A slow smile started to grow on Peter’s face as he nodded, his cheeks a little pink. “Yeah.”

“Ok then,” Bucky grinned, sliding by Peter to make his way back to you. “Call me Bucky, won’t you?”

“Yeah, okay,” Peter chuckled nervously as he sat back down at the foot of your bed. “Thanks, Bucky. I’m, uh, glad you’re not a cold-blooded serial killer.”

You burst into laughter as Sam nearly lost his footing against the window, doubling over in hysterics. You leaned forward despite the pain in your ribs and ruffled Peter’s hair until he was laughing, too.

“Anytime, kid,” Bucky chuckled, shaking his head as he started to gently rake his fingers along your scalp, letting you lean into him as his hip dipped the edge of the bed. He nestled in beside you, wrapped an around your shoulders, a short kiss to your temple, curled against you where he belonged.

It didn’t take long for Peter to lighten the room. He was off in conversation with Sam and Steve, asking about a thousand questions that would have made just about anyone else want to pull their hair out, but those two seemed to enjoy it. Even Natasha was smirking from behind the shield of her file. Peter just had that kind of energy about him.

“So,” you started, quietly turning to Bucky as he drew his fingers in patterns along your arm, careful of the bandages on your wrists, “how did it go? Is everything okay?”

Bucky nodded, a soft sort of smile on his face. Something like hope. “It will be.”

“You’d tell me even if it wasn’t?”

“Of course,” he said simply. You felt the press of his lips to your forehead, a gentle touch in the warmth of his breath. “I swear to you Y/n, everything from here on out is nothing compared to what’s behind us.” He must have felt the tension still present within your shoulders because he added quietly, “no one is taking me from you again, okay? It’s over. He can’t hurt you anymore.”

Bucky knew why you were asking. It was the fear woven through the back of your chest, waiting for the rug to slip out from under you. You’d spent years living under the threat of a man who left eggshells under the bare of your feet. You’d learned that your safety came at a price and there were shadows lurking in every corner to snatch the relief straight from your chest. You were waiting for the shoe to drop.

“Promise me,” you whispered, curling up against him.

“On my life.” No hesitancy. Not a single beat had passed. Bucky wrapped his arms tighter around you, pulling you gently to rest against his chest.

You nodded, letting yourself sit back against him as you played gently with the palms of his hands. To your left, Sam was telling Peter old stories of their adventures over the years in the academy and traveling the world under assumed names and identities. Peter just stared at him, wide eyed and transfixed, hanging on every word. It was in moments like these that you remembered how young he was; a boy, a teenager, caught up in a world of violence at the hands of your husband.

You squeezed Bucky’s hand, safe in the knowledge that he secured Peter’s immunity from what you were sure would be the most publicized trial of the decade. Even with Brock dead, there were still dozens, if not hundreds, of Hydra players being arrested across the country now that their payrolls have been exposed; everyone from city board members, CEOs and businessmen, to shifty underground dealers and professional criminals.

This man who walked into your life as one of your husband's enforcers, a man of violence and crime, who took you from the shadows of that home and reminded you of who you used to be before your husband muted and muffled every piece of you.

This wonderful man who made you smile again, who left butterflies in your stomach, who just by a simple look across the room could make you melt.

A light kiss to the crown of your head, a warm brush of lips, his breath upon your skin and his heart beating soundly against your back.

It was in his arms that you remembered what it was like to be held by something gentle and kind, to know affection within the smallest of moments, to love and be loved in return. It was in his arms, you could finally rest.

#bucky x reader #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes x y/n

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cicada-bones · 4 years

Text

The Warrior and the Embers

Chapter 34: Celebration

Just a warning, this one got wayyyy more angsty than I was originally expecting.

Masterlist / Ao3 / Previous Chapter / Next Chapter

Rowan’s footsteps were light as he padded through the mist-shrouded trees, Aelin by his side. The winds told him that Gavriel was now long gone, having shifted into his lion and headed off back to Doranelle.

Rowan had heard Gavriel’s last words, though they had barely been a brush at his back. “Good luck Rowan.” And he knew that he should’ve said something in return, should’ve said goodbye. But he hadn’t. Gavriel had nearly let Aelin die for them, and that wasn’t something Rowan could soon overlook.

That morning, he had asked Aelin about what happened. Actually, he had practically forced the information out of her. Eventually, she told him that only Gavriel had hesitated before running into the castle. That everyone else had just ran past her.

Then, Aelin had insisted on leaving Mistward, even though she should definitely still be in bed. Her muscles seemed strong, but her breaths were uneven, and every now and then, her hands seemed to tremble slightly.

Rowan cast Aelin a sidelong look as she hesitated before mounting a fallen tree. She stuck her tongue out at him.

Rowan just sighed, and continued to lead her through the undergrowth. He probably couldn’t have kept her inside even if she had been falling over her own feet.

Though this diversion was against his wishes, he was just a little bit excited to show Aelin this place. He had come across it on one of his many flights through the mountains – a secluded pool, fed by a small waterfall, surrounded by flat, sun-warmed rocks.

He heard a small sigh dance through Aelin’s lips as they breached through the final line of trees and the pool came into view. The corners of his mouth twitched. The pool was even more beautiful than he remembered – it was lit up with shafts of golden light, and the sounds of bird calls echoed in the trees above, joining the tumble of the waterfall.

Rowan sat on a warm, flat stone, pulled off his boots, and rolled up his pants to dip his feet in the water. The mountain stream-fed pool was delectably cool in the summer sun.

Aelin moved to sit beside him, her face scrunched tight to hold in the groans she obviously wanted to set loose.

Rowan was frowning, but once Aelin spotted the disapproval written on his face, she just gave him a look that clearly was daring him to order her back to bedrest. Rowan had to hold in another sigh.

A few moments passed as Aelin rolled up her own clothes and dipped her feet into the water, her gaze searching up through the oaks to find the source of the birdsong.

Pain lined her face, exhaustion darkening the bags underneath her eyes. Aelin was hurting, no matter how much she wanted to hide it from him. She was hurting because of the King of Adarlan.

Rowan’s voice was quiet, but clear. “There is no undoing what happened with Narrok. Once the world hears that Aelin Galathynius fought against Adarlan, they will know you are alive. He will know you are alive, and where you are, and that you do not plan to cower. He will hunt you for the rest of your life.”

Aelin’s face didn’t change. “I accepted that fate from the moment I stepped outside the barrier.” She kicked at the water, causing an avalanche of ripples to echo across the pool. But the small movement also made her hiss in discomfort, her jaw tight with pain.

Rowan silently handed her the skein of pain-killing tonic, knowing that it was useless to ask her to head back to Mistward to rest. As she drank, Rowan could see her muscles relaxing, her soul seeming to sigh in relief.

They sat in silence for a time, letting the forest pool calm their whirring thoughts. It was nice to let go of the worry that had been so all-consuming these past days, to have a moment of peace together, where the past and the future didn’t feel so close.

But then, Aelin gasped.

Her eyes turned inward, and she no longer seemed entirely present. No longer aware of anything other than whatever revelation she was experiencing.

Rowan waited, hoping for explanations to spring unprompted from her lips. But as the seconds passed and she remained silent and unseeing, fear began to course through Rowan.

“What is it?” he asked.

“The third Wyrdkey – ” Aelin swore, breaking off.

“Aelin.” Rowan could hear the fear and hurt in his own voice. “Tell me what you learned.”

Her lips tightened. “Not while you are bound to her.”

“I am bound to her forever.”

“I know.” With that small phrase, Aelin shrouded the bright pool in gray, pulling the future back into their small moment of peace.

Rowan leaned over his knees, dipping his hands into the pool. “You’re right. I don’t want you to tell me. Any of it.”

“I hate that,” she breathed. “I hate her.”

Rowan’s jaw clenched, and he tried to not hear those words, or at least, tried not to remember them. They would only be another weapon Maeve could use against her. Instead he looked over at Goldryn, at the only weapon he could give her to help her. At the only thing that might keep her safe.

That morning, over breakfast, Aelin had explained the sword’s history to him. She had figured it out, had found the ring, and knew who it belonged to. She had pieced together the truth hidden in Emrys’ stories.

What was yet to be known was whether or not she would be able to use it to her advantage.

Silence built between them, like sheets of water, or clouds of mist. But then, Aelin broke it. “I have never told anyone this story. No one in the world knows it. But it’s mine,” she blinked furiously, sadness filling her scent, “and it’s time for me to tell it.”

Rowan leaned back on the rock, bracing his palms behind him. She couldn’t tell him whatever she had learned about the Wyrdkey, and though it hurt, he understood. So instead, she was giving him what she could – her story. The truth of her.

“Once upon a time,” Aelin said softly, her voice as light as the wind itself, “in a land long since burned to ash, there lived a young princess who loved her kingdom…very much.”

She told him everything. Everything that she had withheld, all the things in her past that she had not been able to face. And how the creatures, the Valg demons, had forced her to confront them.

Aelin told him of growing up in Terrasen, held fast in the wings of a mighty kingdom. Told him of a heart that was told to burn more softly. She told him of loneliness, and fear. But also of love.

And then, the pain of losing it all. Of waking up soaking wet in the blood of her parents. Of running, of hiding, and the indescribable horror of being found.

Aelin told him of the sacrifice of Lady Marion.

Of running through the snow and diving into the icy river. And of being saved, by the most unlikely person imaginable.

Aelin’s words were a gift given on golden hands. She gave Rowan her story freely and openly, without hesitation or any misgivings. She smiled, and laughed, and cried. And when the tears began to overflow, Rowan wiped them off her cheeks.

When she finished, Rowan merely passed Aelin more of the tonic. She smiled at him, sad but true. And Rowan felt those final whispers of that iron cage fall away into mist. Her magic swirled around them, tendrils of power pulsing in the sun-warmed air.

Rowan had kept his vow; Aelin was finally free.

He smiled back at her.

After a moment, Aelin held out her hand, her palm open over the still pool. And slowly, a droplet of water the size of a marble rose from the surface and into her waiting fingers.

Rowan smiled wider. “No wonder your sense of self-preservation is so pathetic, if that’s all the water you can conjure.”

He flicked her chin, and she grinned at him through her falling tears, sending the droplet splashing onto his face.

Rowan tossed her into the pool. A moment later, laughing, he jumped in himself.

···

A week passed, in toil and in celebration, and during that time, Aelin began to heal. But it was more than that – a weight was taken off of her shoulders. Her eyes were brighter, her limbs quicker, her steps lighter. And she was more beautiful than ever before.

That night, now that most of the demi-Fae had recovered, and grieved for their dead, Emrys was hosting a celebration. There would be food, drinks, fire, and dancing, and while Rowan wasn’t particularly thrilled about going himself, it was nice to see everyone in Mistward looking forwards to something. Especially Aelin.

What it really revealed to him was just how fond he had become of the small fortress and all of its residents. People for whom he had been indifferent to at best, had suddenly become as dear to him as the Fae he was closest to in Doranelle. Closer, even.

Emrys and Malakai and Luca had become significant figures in his life, no matter how strange that was to admit to himself. And seeing the three of them look at each other with joy in their eyes again, a family once more, warmed Rowan’s icy heart.

Emrys placed the feast on rickety wooden tables in the field where they had celebrated Beltane, those short weeks ago, and demi-Fae got to work arranging bonfires, ale, and music for the coming festivities.

Rowan and Aelin walked together up to the meadow, in companionable silence. Aelin was wearing a loose cotton dress that Rowan had never seen her in before. It didn’t fit her particularly well – loose in places and tight in others, probably borrowed. But it looked like it had been spun by pure sunlight.

The gown was simple, everyday. As she walked, the fabric shifted to reveal her common leather boots. But it also was cut to reveal the whole spread of her shoulders, framing her delicate collarbones beautifully. She looked like a shaft of gold hidden beneath the green tree boughs.

Rowan knew that Aelin had less than no interest in him in that way. But it was almost as though she had worn the dress to torment him specifically.

As they approached the field, music wafted to them on the air, and Aelin began to speed up her pace, until she was almost running through the trees, her golden hair wild and loose on the wind. She laughed, the sound wrapped in delight.

Aelin danced that night, and for the first time, Rowan felt he truly understood why she had been chosen as the Heir of Fire. It was because she was flame itself –bright and twisting and whirling and free. Wildness incarnate, touched by Mala herself.

She danced all through the darkness, her feet lighter than air as they floated over the ground. Often she had partners, but most of the time she was alone, spinning before fires of her own making. Flames filled with colors that Rowan wasn’t sure he’d ever seen before.

And then, late into the night, Aelin looked over to where he stood in the shadows, and their eyes met. And all of a sudden he knew. Her face was filled with that wild joy, her turquoise eyes framed with liquid gold, and he just knew.

Rowan loved her.

He had run into the Valg darkness because he was in love with her.

The newly-formed bond in his chest almost seemed to breathe a sigh of relief, relaxing into that love. But what immediately followed after was grief. Grief, and a fear so strong that Rowan found himself turning away from Aelin and walking back over to the other side of the clearing.

Soon though, very soon, Rowan found himself wishing that he had stayed where he was. For through the sleepy crowd, Rowan could just hear the voices of Emrys and Malakai having a quiet, though strained, discussion about…him.

“I talked with the sentries who were atop the battlements that night, and they told me that it was all true, they are carranam.” Malakai said.

Emrys’ voice was so soft as to be almost unintelligible. “Really? Even now, it’s so hard to believe…”

“It is the only way they could have defeated those creatures.”

“And Elentiya, a fire-user. I knew that she had to be powerful, what with the Queen coming to see her and all. But her mother had water magic, so I never thought – ”

“I know.” Malakai turned to look at the princess, who was currently hand in hand with a young female, as they laughed and twirled around a bonfire that was pulsing bright blue. “We owe her all our lives.”

“We owe both of them our lives. The Prince also.”

The old commander nodded. “Yes, and not only for destroying those demons. If his friends had not come…I’m not sure we would have survived the soldiers’ onslaught.”

Emrys nodded, his eyes downcast. “Still, I am worried, love. It almost feels as though ever since the second those two came to Mistward I’ve been worried for them.”

“They will likely leave soon, and then your worries can cease.”

Emrys’ jaw clenched. “If only. I can only imagine what they will be walking into when they leave here for Doranelle.”

“There’s nothing you can do about it, love.”

Emrys shook his head, his eyes far away. “She’s so young. And he is old.”

Malakai nodded, his eyes tight.

“And he is bound to her.”

Another nod.

“And I can’t help but think…that those soldiers were sent here for more than just an attack on the fortress. It can’t be a coincidence that she was here, Adarlan’s greatest enemy, when Adarlan attacked.”

Malakai pursed his lips, but remained quiet. Emrys sighed.

“Alright, alright. I’ll stop. Would you like…”

Rowan stopped listening, heading deeper into the crowd. Unable to stop the falling sensation that nearly rendered him dizzy.

They were right. Though this time, the reminder cut into him like a knife. There was nothing he could offer her, nothing but more chains. And never before had that felt like such a tragedy.

Rowan loved her, and she would never know. And even if they lived through the next few days, he would never see her again. He loved her, but it was a love doomed to loss. Perhaps it was no more than he deserved, to love again, only for it to be taken away. No more than he deserved for allowing his mate to die.

Rowan walked out into the trees, turning away from the golden festival behind him, his vision just beginning to blur. He shifted, then flew out into the night, his tears becoming streaks of silver in the moonlight. His hawk wheeled around, heading back towards the meadow. Where Rowan caught one last glimpse of the golden princess, dancing wild and free, before soaring off into the mountains beyond.

···

Fenrys knelt. Beside his brother and fellow commanders. Before the queen who held his heart in her iron fist. He bowed his wolf’s head, his nose brushing the stones. Maeve smiled.

“I see you have returned from your ill-begotten journey.” The smile twisted, becoming a blade. “And you have brought Lorcan and Vaughan back with you. All the better.”

Her midnight gown shifted as she re-crossed her legs, delicate ankles peeking below the layers of chiffon. For a moment, Maeve just looked at them, and the air crackled with invisible tension. The desperation of the last breath beneath the guillotine blade.

Even from across the throne room, Fenrys could feel the dark Queen’s excitement. She reveled in her power over them. And for her, the anticipation was every bit as delectable as the feast.

“Of course, the sentries who were on duty that afternoon have all been disposed of.” Maeve studied her nails, casual as anything. “I would be unable to trust them to carry out their duties after such an egregious lapse.” Fenrys could have sworn her eyes flicked over to Gavriel and back again, her lips twitching.

The male was rigid. His every muscle taut. The waves of grief and guilt that pulsed from him were almost overpowering.

The weight in Fenrys’ gut solidified. Something was different this time around – something was sharper. More immediate, and intense. Maeve wasn’t reacting the way he had expected.

Fenrys’ paws slid over the stone as he shifted slightly, his wolf’s nails clacking lightly on the granite.

Maeve’s eyes met his. “I might have expected as much from you, Fenrys. Always pulling at the leash. You would leap at the chance to leave Doranelle. Even if it were only to escape my clutches for a few hours.” She leaned forwards, a cold laugh twisting her cheeks. “Betraying me was just a convenient bonus.”

Lorcan flinched. Though still, none of them spoke a word.

“But you, Connall. You, I was surprised about.” Maeve’s voice lilted in all the right places, her eyes promising violence. And delighting in that promise. Fenrys’ hackles began to rise, fury pooling in his gut. Fury at his own inability to do anything to prevent whatever was coming for them.

“I knew you cared for Rowan, knew you looked up to him. But to choose him, over me? Over your Queen?” A careful pause. “Obviously, I miscalculated.”

Then her gaze landed on Lorcan. And it was like she dealt him a physical blow, solely with the tilt of her head, the flicker of a frown. Lorcan nearly crumpled to his knees. His black eyes swum with pleading, with prayers, with that dark love of his.

Bile rose in Fenrys’ throat.

“And you. My second.” A pause where she carefully looked Lorcan up and down. Pure malice, undiluted and visceral, smearing over him in that look. “Lorcan Salvaterre.” The male tensed, and his silent pleas dropped from his lips with a nearly audible clink.

“Stand. And explain yourself.”

His commander got slowly to his feet, carefully putting one foot in front of the other. His gaze was fixed on the pale white stone of Maeve’s throne as he began to speak.

“We were halfway between the sea and the mountains when the letter reached us. I had caught up with Vaughn earlier that day, and we decided to stay at an inn for the night.” A jut of his chin. “Rowan made it clear in his letter that if we did not come to his aid, he, and everyone within Mistward, was going to die. So we went.”

“Just like that?” An arch of a sculpted brow.

Lorcan slowly nodded.

“Did you not consider, that had I deemed it necessary to assist the demi-Fae, I would have dispatched you myself?” Feigned innocence dripped from her words like poisoned honey. “Or did you in fact think me unaware of their plight?”

Lorcan only breathed, slow and steady, his lips tightly pursed.

Maeve’s eyes narrowed as she read the defiance there. “Evidently not. What happened once you arrived?”

A short swallow. “It took us all night to reach Mistward. At some point, we met up with Gavriel, Fenrys, and Connall. But once we got to the valley on the mountainside, it was already swathed in shadow. Four creatures were guarding the entrance, and attacking the fortress’ wards with dark magic. I attacked it with my own, but it did nothing. Whatever those creatures are, they are not of this world.”

Fenrys watched Maeve’s face closely, searching for any indication of recognition there. He found none, though her features were carefully schooled into blankness. He felt his own eyes narrow.

“Then, a golden light pierced through the veil of black, creating a bridge to let us through. A bridge made by Aelin Galathynius.”

This time, Fenrys saw a flicker of something akin to fear flash in the dark Queen’s eyes. Fear, and desire. What did the princess really mean to his Queen?

Still, Maeve kept silent, waiting for some unknown cue.

Lorcan swallowed once again, his face darkening. “We easily overpowered the soldiers in the tunnels, and Rowan ran back to join Aelin before the front gates. And together, they destroyed the creatures.”

Maeve’s eyes narrowed into deadly slits. “How?”

A shallow breath. Fenrys felt as the blood oath pulled at Lorcan’s soul, putting it under the edge of a knife-blade. “They – they are carranam.” Another breath. “Rowan gave Aelin his power, and she used it to melt the creatures from the inside out.”

Maeve leaned back into her throne, her features becoming contemplative. “Carranam. I see…” Her gaze danced over the ceiling, seemingly piecing together bits of information. “Hmm. And after?”

Lorcan’s words came easier now. “Only fifteen demi-Fae were lost. We put the surviving Adarlanian soldiers in the dungeons, but they took poison rather than risk being interrogated. Both Aelin Galathynius and Rowan survived without undue injuries.”

“And soon, they will return to Doranelle?”

Lorcan nodded.

“Good. Well then!” Maeve clapped her hands sharply, and a dark figure appeared from the hallway behind her throne. “Time to get on with it. Cairn – ” Fenrys’ stomach twisted violently, “ – why don’t you hand those over to Fenrys and Gavriel. Fenrys, shift.”

Fenrys felt as his body transformed without him asking it to, obeying his Queen’s every wish. He watched his paws become hands, felt clothes wrap over skin, all the while feeling very far away.

Cairn handed him an iron tipped whip with a smile, and Fenrys took it.

Maeve’s eyes met his, and Fenrys felt dread coating every one of his nerve endings. That was a look he understood. He knew it as intimately as anything. That face graced every one of his nightmares.

“Fenrys,” Maeve said delicately, “Stand behind Connall.”

There was an agony-filled second where Fenrys locked his muscles. Where he refused to move a single inch. It felt as though his soul was being slowly shredded by a grater.

Maeve’s smile widened, and the grating becoming a searing, ripping, furious agony – and he was walking, foot over foot, to stand behind his brother. But the pain did not go away.

Fenrys wasn’t really listening, but he sensed as Gavriel moved to stand behind Vaughn, and Cairn behind Lorcan. Watched as three silver tunics dropped onto the stones, one by one by one. Watched the bare flesh of their arched backs pebble in the chill air.

Fenrys knew what was coming. But that did not make it any easier to do. Only easier to keep silent, and still. As if the quiet could make it not real. As if it could help them all pretend it wasn’t happening.

There was a ruffle of silk as Maeve leaned back into her throne. “I command you all to continue until I say otherwise. Cairn – count the lashes.”

Fenrys retreated into the darkest, quietest part of his mind as his right arm raised automatically, preparing to strike. Preparing for the iron tipped whip to rent the flesh of his brother. The only person he truly cared for in all the world.

Connall was stiller than death.

Fenrys sensed, rather than saw, the vile sneer on Cairn’s face as he raised his own whip, and said, “One.”

Fenrys’ last thought before the iron descended was of the princess. And of the horrors that awaited her in the City of the Rivers.

···

Masterlist / Ao3 / Previous Chapter / Next Chapter

···

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crystalessenceswrites · 3 years

Text

Shadows- Chapter Four

Shadows

A modern monster AU Pairings: Din Djarin x fem!reader Rating: T (at the moment- subject to change) Warnings: swearing, canon-typical violence, dark themes, death of unnamed and background characters, descriptions of blood, descriptions of a dead body Summary: Crypto- concealed; secret. You have always lived your life in the shadows; after all, you’re one of the creatures who go bump in the night. He has sworn his life to a creed that aims to protect the world from monsters like you.

[Masterlist] [Chapter Three] [Chapter Four] [Chapter Five] Cross-posted to AO3

Why was it always vampires?

It seemed like the bounty lists were chalk full of them these days, more so than normal. Which was not awful for slayers. They were generally high paying jobs, considering most of them were wanted for the murder of the humans or cryptos they’d been feeding on. You just preferred to stay away from the fangs. The superhuman abilities of a well-fed vampire were difficult to match in a fight, even for seasoned slayers. While you had the training and equipment to deal with them, the bounty was not always worth the medical bills after the fact. You specialized in the kinds of bounties that were more brains than brawn. Preferring the chase over the actual fight. Today you did not have much of a choice, apparently. You’d come into the office later in the morning and arrived to find all the new non-vampiric bounties had been promptly snatched up by the early birds. Leaving you stuck with the fangs. Great.

Your target was a vampire named Qin. He was active and was not doing much of anything to cover it up. A serious threat to everyone if left unattended to. The urgency in needing to deal with someone like him had bumped his bounty up fairly high, even for the usual vampire fair. There were plenty of breadcrumbs to follow, making your afternoon much easier. He was holed up in the old industrial district during the day. Most of the old neighborhood was being retrofitted for industrial lofts and modern condos, so there would be plenty of construction sites and condemned buildings for him to hide in and a steady stream of workers to pick off for food. Sightings and intelligence had his location narrowed down to a three-block radius. The was all easy enough. Killing him would be another story.

Vampires did not have any one magic bullet weakness- they aren’t susceptible to iron or silver- making them harder to handle. Staking one through the head or heart was usually the best way to incapacitate one, until their body was burned and ashes were scattered. That required getting closer than you were comfortable with. The last thing you wanted was a fanged creature with arms reach of your neck. You really should have just taken the day off. Too bad your landlord never took a day off when it came time to collect your rent.

Starting with the largest warehouse on the southside and moving north until you got lucky, or rather unlucky, enough to run into your bounty, seemed the best course of action. And today kept proving to be an unlucky day for you. You’d barely broken into the first building when you came across two completely drained corpses left out in the open, bodies still cooling. Your bounty was here and full of fresh blood.

Well shit.

Sword drawn you continue to sneak through the abounded building. Vampires were natural predators; their sense of smell was leagues above your own. It was more than likely he already knew you were here-unless he was occupied with another victim. That must have been the case, considering he hadn’t jumped out at you yet. On high alert you continue farther into the warehouse with a white-knuckle grip on your weapon. The main body of the building is split into two storage areas, the first dark in the overcast afternoon and empty. There are signs someone’s been around, a mattress and blankets in a corner, duffle bags and a pile of dark clothes next to a tower of take-out boxes. Odd.

You drop to the floor as the crack of a gunshot splits the silence. Mind reeling you wonder what vampire needs a fucking gun. Another scan of the space confirms you’re still alone, no shooter in sight. It must have come from the next room, too loud to have been outside the building. As you approach the partition the familiar metallic sting of fresh blood reaches your nose. Vampires don’t bleed.

Three more shots ring out, definitely from the other side of the partition.

Vampire’s don’t use guns.

Another deep breath draws more of the scents in, the dust and mildew of the building, the spark of gun powder and the overwhelming musk of human. Your bounty was not alone and wasn’t with anyone friendly. It wasn’t another slayer- once a bounty gets picked up its pulled off the lists- and most slayers didn’t smell so strongly of human, so the next logical assumption was a lone hunter. Not that it would have been hard for any human to pick up on this vampire’s trail, but if it had been law enforcement to find him the building would be flooded with cops.

You truly had the worst luck today.

Odds were probably one to four against the hunter. Humans rarely stood a chance against vampires unless they caught one out in sunlight.

A loud crash, like something heavy collapsing, shakes the silence. As a slayer you’re obligated to help the human but considering all that’s gone on in the last few weeks you’re feeling much less inclined to do so.

“Come on Mando! I thought you freaks were proud warriors and all!”

Fucking hell. Kira was right, you are a Mando magnet. The vampire’s taunt is not reassuring in the slightest. You did not need a dead Mando on your hands. Creeping into the next room you’re quick to find cover behind some dust covered work benches. Surveying the space leads you to believe the Mando and Qin have been at a while. The space is trashed, boxes toppled over and crushed, shelves up ended, and bullet holes are scattered throughout the space.

The Mando’s back is to you at the moment while he and the vampire stare each other down. You don’t need to see his face to know who you’re dealing with; you’d been on the look out for this particular mop of curls since your last run-in. How was he everywhere you needed to be? Why couldn’t you shake him?

He suddenly springs into action again, drawing the spear he’d been carrying on his back, swinging it in a wide arch at the vampire. Qin’s too fast and easily dodges the attack before going in for his own, trying to get within arm’s reach. Mando doesn’t let him, blocking each attack with deadly precision. Neither gives in, pushing back against the other, jumping around the other in attempt to land a hit.

You’re hesitant to say you’re impressed by Mando, but only out of spite. He moves like a well-oiled machine, despite not having the upper hand he does not give up control of the fight to his undead opponent. This is the most dressed down you’ve seen him, baring the silver tac vest over a dark colored shirt. You can safely assume its beskar, the metal harnessed solely by the Mandalorians. Just one of the things that made then unique to other hunters. As he circles around Qin you catch sight of blood dripping down his sharp jaw, the hair just above his ear dark and matted with it. He’d taken a pretty serious hit already.

Now you really had to help him.

This was the kind of opportunity you never had when dealing with vampires. Qin’s attention was solely focused on the hunter. There was no indication from either that they’d noticed your silent arrival. You had one shot with the element of surprise, and you needed to make it count. If you could incapacitate Qin, stun him long enough for you and Mando to finish the job you could make it out of here in one piece. Mando in close to one piece.

Although there was no magic bullet for vampires, a bullet wound did still require time and energy to heal. Even though vampires and the like were technically “undead,” they still felt and registered pain to some degree, meaning bullets also provided a certain shock factor. You lose the sword, reaching for your thigh holster instead. While you were not a fan of guns, you weren’t willing to risk a fight with a vampire for your pride. You always came prepared when dealing with a bloodsucker.

Qin and Mando continue to circle each other in their tense dance. Despite the dark look in both their eyes, Qin has a smug smirk plastered across his face, probably under the impression he was going to be having a Mandalorian for lunch. Too bad you couldn’t allow it. All you needed was a clear shot. You mentally will Mando to put some distance between him and the bloodsucker, as if that would actually work.

Your breath catches in your throat as Mando sweeps his spear in another wide arc, forcing Qin back. Maybe you were lucky today after all. The moment Qin lands back on his feet, far enough away from the hunter, you jump out from your cover and take the shot, tagging Qin in the temple.

Damn good shot.

Mando jumps as Qin’s body crumples to the ground, face drawing together in confusion. That feeling akin to satisfaction returns. You could get the jump on him and a vampire. Third time would not be his charm, you are sure of it. You would not let it.

His brain catches up with the situation and he swings around, staff pointed at you as you vault over the workbench. Next comes the recognition, his jaw dropping just a bit at your sudden materialization. You’re thankful his first reaction isn’t to attack as you’re quick to re-holster your gun.

“Focus Mando,” you quip, directing your attention back to the vampire beginning to move on the floor.

“Fuck!” Qin curses, already starting to come back to it. That seemed too quick, even for a recently fed vampire.

Mando snaps into action, kicking Qin down before his spear finds its way through the vampire’s rib cage. Judging by the ear-splitting screech Qin let’s out, Mando found his mark, staking Qin where he lays. Mando does not move as you approach with sword in hand. He does not move as you bring your blade to rest on the bounty’s neck.

“You have one chance to surrender or I collect the bounty on your head, Qin.”

“You bitch!” He snarls, thrashing around the pole shoved through his torso. “Working with a Mando, that’s low- even for a slayer!”

You roll your eyes. “I’ll take that as a no.”

“See you in hell one day, bitch.”

Smug even in death. Ugh. You don’t feel much as you chop his off with one swift swing. Not after you saw those two innocents on your way in. People like him were the exact reason humans called your kind monsters.

“Sunny disposition on that one,” you grumble, stepping back from Mando and the decapitated bounty. The hunter doesn’t even offer you a curtesy laugh. Stick in the mud.

“Why are you here?”

He doesn’t bother to hide the suspicion. Did he think you were following him now? That was rich.

“Doing my job. I took on the bounty for this one.” Pulling your messenger bag off, you begin to organize your supplies, “which I’d like to finish up if you have no objections.”

Mando just steps back, leaning against his staff. You can feel the weight of his gaze boring into you while you work. His eyes tracking your every move, detailing each item you pull from your clean up kit. You didn’t spot any bag of his lying around, you wonder how he had been planning on dealing with the body.

“You’re welcome, by the way.”

“Why did you help me?”

Questions, questions.

“You let us go last time- I owed you for that at least,” you shrug. Now you were even. Well, as even as you could be with a human Mandalorian.

He’s silent for a moment, watching as you pull a few jars and a water bottle out of the bag. One contains a small collection of thistle bulbs. Mando doesn’t ask but you can see the curiosity growing as you stick the sharp plants into the vampire’s wounds.

“Vampires are weak to thistle, introduce it into the body and it halts their healing abilities. Aloe vera works too, it’s just not as flammable.

“Aloe vera and thistles?”

You chuckle, “what, did you think garlic would work?”

Mando scoffs, his sharp eye still following your hands. Next comes the burning of the body. You want to get that done as quick as possible. Thistle was not an end all weakness and even decapitated vampires could regenerate. You douse the body and head in gasoline from the water bottle.

“Light?”

Eyebrows raised you gingerly take the lighter he offers, catching the edge of Qin’s shirt with the flame. It doesn’t take long for the rest of the corpse to catch. The flames cast shadows over the Mandalorian’s face as you watch him from the corner of your eye. The air is heavy between you and not with the smell of burning flesh.

“Wouldn’t it have been easier to let him kill me?”

“Why would I want that?” Had he not come to the realization that you couldn’t kill him?

“You get rid of nuisances, right? So one of you will have to kill me eventually.”

It takes all your will power to not burst out laughing. There was no way he was getting anything from an inside informant if that’s what he thought slayers did. You had this Mando pinned down about as wrong as he had you figured out. No wonder no one had been able to find a turn coat when one didn’t exist to begin with.

“I don’t know where you’re getting your info, but you need to find a different source. Trust me. As much as most slayers want to get rid of hunters, we can’t without very good reasons. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be any better than the ones we hunt.”

He quirks an eyebrow, arms crossed over his chest, “so what? You’re just monsters hunting other monsters?”

“One,” you hold up a finger, “we use the term crypto.”

“Crypto? Like cryptid?”

“Where do you think humans got the word from?”

Mando scoffs at that but doesn’t press.

“Two, most of us don’t actually qualify as cryptos. Slayers are primarily half-bloods.”

You revel in the confusion on his face. Never did you think you would find yourself completely altering a Mandalorian’s understanding of the world. This was priceless.

Why were you telling him all this?

“Half-bloods?”

“You know, half human?”

“That’s possible?”

Now you cannot hold back the laugh this time, “human genetics are surprisingly adaptable.”

A look of disgust washes over his face and your heart drops.

“I just want you to know we’re not so different… our job is to stop those who hurt or take advantage of humans, to stop those who threaten to expose us. I imagine that’s not so different from what Mandalorians want…” after all, they couldn’t want to kill you all, could they?

#fic: Shadows #the mandalorian x reader #the mandalorian x f!reader #din dijarin x reader #din djarin x f!reader #din djarin #reader #the mandalorian #the mandalorian fanfiction #the mandalorian au #modern au #enemies to lovers #monsters and monster hunters #fanfiction #chapter four #crystalessences writes

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inkribbon796 · 3 years

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The Marvelous Misadventures of One: S. Marvin Argentum Ch. 4: Unsettled

Summary: Marvin and his team go to take on the hunters, and to hopefully get back to Egoton in time.

Post A/N: *Host glares at me* Why is he back so early?

Me: *throws hands up* I tried! Okay!

Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4

It took a couple days for them to get all the supplies they needed, Techno insisting that a war could not be won without supplies. But when they did and Ghostbur was hanging at some hideout with Techno’s sister, they went up to the hunter’s base and waited a safe distance away from it. Philza sent a couple of his crow familiars to scout ahead.

Marvin dared to hope that it wouldn’t come to anything too severe, like wiping out the entire Guild. He didn’t think they deserved that. After all, everyone on Spade’s list of “people willing to burn an entire city of innocent people” were already dead so he hoped that meant everyone else was fine.

Although he didn’t like the idea of justifying a barely human glitch demon’s murder spree. Especially if that person was an evil Logan.

“So if Plan A an’[1] B don’t work,” Marvin told Techno and Quackity.

“Trust me, these assholes are going to go with the third option,” Quackity smiled, tossing Marvin a potion and the underhanded a second one. “They’re hunters, being dumb and violent is in their blood. I’ve never met a hunter that hasn’t been like Dream.”

“I’ve met a couple of decent ones, Dream’s not so bad,” Techno disagreed.

“Are you fuckin’ serious right now?” Quackity demanded angrily.

“Oi![2] Quit being children, yer[3] gonna[4] give us away!” Phil yelled at them. He glanced at Taylor and Marvin. “Get goin’ an’ we’ll be waitin’ fer the signal.”[5]

“Thank you,” the hunter told him.

“Just don’t blame yerself[6] when it ends violently,” Phil warned, both him and Techno down some invisibility potions and then disappearing.

Marvin and Taylor then walked up to the base and a couple hunters were already waiting for them.

“Bout[7] time you showed back up,” one of the hunters said, the Guildmaster quickly coming out.

“Guildmaster, I challenge you—” Taylor began but the Guildmaster just fired at them. Marvin immediately summoned his cards to deflect the shot but Techno dived in front with a massive tower shield appearing to tank the hit.

A cloud of black began to head towards them as the squawking of hundreds of crowds began to descend on them.

Techno pulled some ash-greyed skulls and his blood red aura curled around them and bones began to construct around them. The human skeletal figures had three heads a piece and gore hanging off the bones, they were just a spinal column with massive rib cages and they were three times the size of a normal human. Instantly they began spitting napalm-like fire and began attacking everything around him. Some of the bursts of fire almost hit Marvin.

Chaos erupted immediately, and Techno flung himself into the fray, his axe gleaming in the sunlight.

“Fucking demons!” Taylor shouted in anger as they raced towards the Guildmaster, both them and Marvin throwing magic at the Guildmaster.

The fight itself was relatively quick, Taylor trying to get a duel with the Guildmaster, and more and more hunters were quickly turning to side with Taylor for multiple reasons. But right before Taylor could fire on the Guildmaster, who was weakened by all the fights and skirmishes she’d been in since May, a single poker chip flew towards her.

It was coated with potent magic and sliced through her skull. The smiley face on it was coated with blood.

The fight switched on a dime as all the hunters looked at Quackity. The skeletal abomination that Techno had summoned was finally killed, bodies strewn around him. Phil was summoning some little configurations of magic to keep Techno fighting something until his bloodlust calmed down.

“What the hell!?” Taylor shouted at Quackity.

Quackity shrugged, “Hey, she was going to kill you, you should be thanking me.”

“She was defeated,” Taylor spat.

“Apparently not if she almost took your fucking head off,” Quackity dismissed.

“I should take your head off,” Taylor spat.

“Quackity, take Slime an’[1] Fundy an’[1] go,” Phil ordered sternly.

“Fine,” Quackity shrugged. “Got shit ta[8] do anyways.”

Taylor was already summoning up magic and Slime turned into a mass of green gloop that Quackity took with him, throwing down some potions to make him and Fundy faster as they left.

Taylor sent some hunters after them, but they would lose them. Quackity too ruthless to let them take or capture him or Fundy. The new Guildmaster turned to Marvin. “We’ll meet you at Egoton, I just have to take care of this mess first.”

“Deal, don’t be late,” Marvin ordered.

“We’ll follow, maybe we can keep the feds off the party,” Taylor promised him.

“I’ll tell e’eryone ta expect yah then,”[9] Marvin warned.

“Good,” Taylor yelled as they raced off after Quackity.

That left Marvin to tell Chase the good news to the other heroes . . . or he would have. His calls and messages weren’t getting through to anyone, even if he used Phil’s phone. It made Marvin uneasy.

So they were forced to hitch a ride in Thompson’s jeep when they had issues getting a train ride. It let Marvin talk to the two very battle experienced demons and desperately hope they weren’t already too late. They were running out of time. There were only four days left and Marvin knew they needed all the time they could get.

Marvin was currently driving with Techno and Ghostbur currently napping in the back of the car. Ghostbur was leaning up against Techno.

“Like I said,” Philza smiled. “If yer[3] ever in the area when we are, yer[3] welcome ta[8] a couple rounds.”

“Ain’t[10] that a death pit?” Marvin asked.

“Yeah, maybe yeh wanna wait until yer one ‘a us,”[11] Philza smiled. “Yeh look like yer one life away from turnin’.”[12]

“I hope I die then, doesn’t seem that good ta[8] be a demon,” Marvin told him.

“Sometimes it sucks,” Phil admitted. “Yer never full, never content. Yeh always feel like yeh should be doin’ something. But it has its perks sometimes.”[13]

The avian demon looked back at Ghostbur and Techno, smiling a bit. “How’s Tommy doin’[14] these days?”

“He was alright last time I saw him,” Marvin reported. “He’s a good kid.”

Phil smiled, “Yeah he’s a lil’[15] shit but he’s got his moments. Glad him an’[1] Tubbo are back on good terms.”

“So what happened ta[8] him ta[8] make him move out?” Marvin asked. “If I’m allowed ta[8] ask.”

“Tommy was in a rough place an’ he need ta get away from Dream, he lived with Techno fer a while an’ then,”[16] Phil trailed off, waving off with his hand. “Tommy needs ta[8] stay away from Dream. It’s not my business ta[8] talk about something he doesn’t wanna[17] talk about. Ask Tommy.”

Marvin left the topic at that and after switching off between Phil and then Techno they made it back to Egoton in almost record time.

After a nap in a very uncomfortable car, Marvin realized a lot of hours too late that Host could have cut their travel time down to minutes and he was just a little bit pissed about that. But they were here, and everything was going to be alright.

Phil stopped at a gas station right outside Egoton’s city limits, after finally receiving a text from Ethan. The young hero was confused at the urgency, but he promised everything was alright. So Marvin was finally feeling less anxious and stressed.

“We got a couple days,” Marvin smiled, feeling victorious, a coffee in his hands. “We’ll prepare an’[1] then we’ll—”

Marvin’s proclamation cut off when he slammed into an almost invisible barrier, his mask protecting him from breaking his nose.

“The fook[18]?” Marvin spat.

Techno walked up and braced his hand on the barrier. “That’s not good.”

Then he took out an axe and tried to cut his way in but the barrier held.

“Bruh,” Techno looked back at Phil, who was already summoning some crows.

Ghostbur tried to phase through the barrier, but he only slammed against it. “What, why can’t I—”

“Pardon the Host, he thought that Marvin would take longer.”

Marvin glanced around, trying to find the Host, but the four of them were pushed back as the Host almost seemed to emerge from the barrier in a flurry of words.

“Host, what the fook[18],” Marvin spat, only frustrated instead of furiously angry.

“Oh, Host, can you let us in?” Ghost asked politely. “Are people already fighting?”

“No, Marvin and the others are early,” the Host dismissed.

“Then let us in,” Marvin felt an ugly weight settling in his gut.

“Oh Marvin,” the Host smiled. “The Host cannot have Marvin arrive too soon. All his hard work would go to waste.”

“Yeh[19] bastard!” Marvin spat. “We’re supposed ta[8] take this on ta’gether[20]!”

“No,” the Host corrected with an eerie smile. “The Host’s sole mission is to protect his family. Regardless of the goals of the other heroes or villains. The Host has put too much effort and correction to do anything less. Marvin should not worry, the Host will ensure he does not remember this altercation.”

“People are gonna[4] die!” Marvin spat, starting to throw his magic against the Host, his aura wiping it away as if Marvin had merely sneezed at him.

“Marvin does not know what the Host has sacrificed to protect people, he has done everything in his power to protect those close to him,” the Host’s aura wiped around him, words and narrations charging the air. “And the Host will not allow Marvin to ruin it.”

The Host snapped his fingers and his narrations wrapped around the group as Marvin and the others were almost pushed into another space as time began to tick on.

After all, the Host had a wedding to prepare for.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Accessibility Translations:

1. and

2. Hey! (or: Wait a second!)

3. you’re

4. going to

5. Get going and we’ll be waiting for the signal.

6. yourself

7. About

8. to

9. I’ll tell everyone to expect you then

10. Isn’t

11. Yeah, maybe you want to wait until you’re one of us

12. You look like you’re one life away from turning.

13. You’re never full, never content. You always feel like you should be doing something. But it has its perks sometimes.

14. doing

15. little

16. Tommy was in a rough place and he need to get away from Dream, he lived with Techno for a while and then

17. want to

18. fuck

19. You

20. together

#superhero au #masks and maladies #Dream smp #tales of the smp #footnotes #marvin the magnificent #technoblade #ghostbur #philza #quackity #Fundy #slime dsmp #the Host #magic #Quackity causes problems on purpose #murder #manipulation #Marvin's never ending trust issues

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nicocoooo · 3 years

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Obey Me: Part 9: A Ferocious Battle

Disclaimer: I haven't written in a while so I'm terribly sorry if these turn out horribly written or short.

—

Knock, knock.

The gentle knocks suddenly become more aggressive as each second passes by. The anonymous figure spoke up sharply, screaming almost, "OPEN UP BITCHES!" For someone who just happened to go for a small 'visit', they sure are rude. Their raised voice immediately turned into shouting, "GIVE ME MY CHILD, YOU SHITS!"

The voice appeared to be feminine. She muttered 'fuck it' under her breath and blasted the door open, walking in as if she owned the place. Obviously, someone in the castle heard the loud blast and rushed out of their room to see it. Kauffee.

Kauffee scrambled to the main hall and stopped in his tracks once he saw the witch, standing in front of them like it's so sweet. "Wh-Who the fuck?!" He exclaimed. Ah, great. A witch, here in the House of Lamentation. Could it get any worse? Unfortunately, the answer is yes.

The witch walked in and glared at the human, "Kauffee! Oh, how you've grown!" She said with a sweet smile. There's something off about her. She gives off such a rotten aura that it nearly triggers your gag reflexes.

Kauffee was very uncomfortable but he kept a strained smile to be polite, "Oh, hiiii bitch... how you doin', girl? Uhm, so yeah, did you really need to break in? Also, it's Allyson for you, thanks girllll." The tension between the two only added to the dense atmosphere. He had no clue what the witch was talking about. He wasn't terrified, just weirded out.

The witch was sick and tired of having to deal with this troublesome human and snapped at him, "Oh, shut the fuck up and get your brother. Your brother and sister AND you are leaving with ME."

Kauffee made a face towards her, "Yeaahhh, I don't think so," he was somewhat bored by all of this. He was unamused by the witch's attempts to try and take everything away from his father, Daniel. This was so boring, extremely boring. So boring he might fall asleep.

The witch raised a fist, making a desperate attempt to assert her dominance, "Young man, you BETTER grab your older brother and little sister, RIGHT NOW."

Leviathan yawned as he walked into the main hall, "I thought Kauffee only had one sibling..." he said with a pinch of doubt in his tone.

Kauffee shrugged, "I thought so too but I don't even listen to her anymore, she's kinda crazy. Yeah, anyway, I'm not getting him and what sister you talkin' 'bout, girl?"

The witch grew annoyed by Kauffee's artificial ignorance and began screaming... again, "THE SISTER YOUR DAD JUST HAD IS MINE!"

Daniel raised a skeptical brow, "I ain't had no baby, what the fuck?"

Kauffee rolled his eyes and sighed, "Yeah, she's crazy. I really should have stayed upstairs, this isn't worth any of my time."

The witch screamed, "I KNOW YOU HAVE A GIRL SOMEWHERE!"

Daniel yelled in return, "BITCH, NO!"

The witch's lips curled into a irritated frown as she spoke with cold, condescending words, "Then you're pregnant with one because my spells never lie. THAT WOULD BE MY CHILD THEN!" What? What was she on about? Just like Kauffee stated, she's probably insane.

Kauffee had his nonexistent popcorn in his lap, chewing away at his fictional popcorn. Now, things were getting interesting. However, this is only a mere appetizer. Things were just getting started. He knew this heated argument was going to escalate into something even more powerful than just a simple disagreement.

Daniel was still baffled over what he was currently hearing but he decides to move past it, "How in the fuck... MAMMON, I HAVE SOME NEWS!"

Though, Mammon was still in his private, little thinking bubble, he replied, "Huh?" Shortly after, he zones back in after his brain takes a moment to register his surroundings, "What?"

Daniel awkwardly gestured towards his stomach, "Congratulations, my stalker ex used a spell, you got me pregnant, and now this lunatic thinks its belongs to her," he said with a irritated groan.

Mammon had too much to think about and comprehend, his brain still hasn't finished loading so he doesn't understand at all what's happening.

Kauffee nodded, clasping his hands together, "Oh, so I DO have a sister now, that makes much more sense," he was happy for the endearing couple, completely ignoring the fact that there was still a furious witch in the House of Lamentation.

All of a sudden, Daniel became tired and sighed. He muttered, "I hate labor..."

The witch smirked and grabbed Daniel's stomach, "So, it's mine! You don't want it, so its mine!" She seemed way too confident over this wild claim she made.

Daniel slapped her. Hard. He glared at her, "Touch me again and your uterus won't be the only thing I cut out. I'll gut you like a fish," he growled.

Mammon's instincts kicked in, causing him to fully have a grasp on the entire situation. He slipped in between Daniel and the witch (who is also a bitch), grabbing her by the neck, "Touch him again, I DARE you."

Kauffee conveniently pulled a knife out of his stockings, prepared to defend himself. He wasn't messing around. He was ready.

Leviathan blinked, "Was that the thing that kept poking me?"

Daniel glared, crossing his arms, "Fucking bitch."

The witch coughed, managing to sputter out a full sentence, "It's my baby! Sure, we haven't dated in months, but I KNOW IT'S MY BABY!"

Daniel scoffed, "You're infertile and I've had my period 4 times after I left you."

Kauffee shrugged, "I'm not running around here without a knife, and yeah, it was, Levi. How does crazy does she have to be?"

"Let's see how long I have to choke you for until you can't talk such smack anymore," he growled, deepening the pressure of his fingers against her neck. Before he even realized it, he was in his demon form, with small sparks of fire shooting out of his eyes.

The witch glared and coughed, then blasted Mammon with a fire spell. She smiles as she watches Mammon struggling to keep her in submission. She was confident she was going to win, without a doubt. Then, she will get her baby!

Mammon was almost burned to a crisp. He groaned, but, he could not care less. The audacity of this witch made his blood boil. He was filled with rage. He was like a wild tiger, forcefully pinning her to the wall. He was being so rough with his pinning that the wall nearly crumbled. He didn't want to kill her, he was avoiding pushing her into the brink of death. All he wanted was to weaken her. He suffocated her as hard he could.

The witch coughed and grunted, raising a hand. A circle appeared before Mammon was forcibly pushed away by a great wind. She continued to keep her hand in the air as she collapsed on the ground. She burst out in maniacal laughter, "Holy cage!" She shouted while lights emerged from the floor, trapping Mammon in a cage, made of pure holy light. "Filthy creature... you don't get to touch me.. I am stronger than you'll ever be..."

Daniel ran forward and placed his hands on the bars. He flinches and immediately pulled away. The bars seemed to have burned his palms. He yelled out in pain, "Fuck!" He glared at the woman, then stopped at a certain spot on the ground. He dragged his heel against the ground, making a perfect, magical circle of light. He incoherently whispered to himself and summoned a large, Golem creature with red eyes. He was made from his exact environment. The creature unleashed a loud roar which shook the ground.

The witch raised a hand and blasted the large, fearsome Golem with fire. She watches as the flames consume the monster as it ran forward at Danny. She laughed, holding the ashes that belong to the Golem before making her hands collide, mashing them together. She giggles manically as lightning rose from her finger tips, "I am too strong and disciplined, Daniel. You have NEVER taken any other class other than basic meditation. All of your spells are just the basics CHILDREN learn!"

In the midst of panic, Mammon grasped the bars of the cage he was concealed in. That was a rather stupid move to make. Of course, he immediately flinched and let out an agonizing groan. The only thing he could do was helplessly watch the fight. He was terrified. He was worried about his human. What if he gets hurt? He felt so.. so.. stupid! He was incapable of doing anything to save his beloved!

Daniel glared and sighed as he bitch slapped a fireball that was headed towards him, his hand left spotless, "Let him go..." He was so fed up with her bullshit. He wanted to end this, once and for all.

The witch flinches in surprise, her eyes widened. She brushes off her astonishment and forces her hand forward, casting another bolt of lightning upon Danny.

Danny, once again, being the badass father he was, smacked the flash of lightning out of his way. In less than a second, the bolt of lightning fell to the ground and suddenly became a beautiful pile of golden roses... or rather, roses made precisely out of gold.

Danny took a step forward, continuing to glare at the poor excuse of a witch. The witch stepped back and tried to blast him again. But, instead, her blast was... deflected? Wait, her own spell transformed into something else before her very eyes. A river of man eating pirannhas? Hm, no, try a soothing stream that only contained of koi. Oh, another blast of lightning? How about a shimmer bouquet of flowers made out of gold? Fire? An adorable yet gorgeous, orange bird. A skeleton wielding a sword made out of a magical, spiteful energy? What about a simple, marble statue with golden streaks?

The witch only glared while panting and panting. She was clearly running out of magic. Daniel, however, has an infinite amount of energy. It's time to end this for good.

Mammon doesn't even know what he was doing anymore. He had nothing else to do except spectate the fight... and maybe punch the bars. Yes, that's what this moron was doing. He was punching the bars.

As Daniel continued to glare at the weakened witch, the bars began to fizzle and grew weaker and weaker by the minute. Ah, so that's what he was doing. He was running the witch's energy dry so that she wouldn't be able to keep up with him anymore. She would be too weak, thus, weakening the power of the cage.

Mammon's lips curled into a devilish smirk. He kept on going and going, punching the bars with all his might. He could sense the bars slowly cracking with each solid punch.

The cage shattered like glass as Daniel blasted the witch. This chaos was finally about to end permanently.

Mammon has already reached his breaking point. He pushed himself into the air and let himself fall forward, flying towards the witch at an unbelievable speed. His speed wasn't any different to the bullet of a gun. He gathered up the right amount of speed and then... gave her one good punch to the face — it caused her stiffened body to fall to the floor with a thud.

Mammon stood in front of the fallen witch's body with a malevolent smile on his face. He seemed so powerful. Well, that's not much of a surprise. After all, he IS the Great Mammon. His eyes, which were once a gradient pool of blue and yellow, was now filled with a burning rage that stood inside him.

. . .

It was over...

#obey me #obey me shall we date #fanfic #fanfiction #obey me fanfic #obey me fanfiction

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diyunho · 4 years

Text

The Joker x Reader - “Incubus”

Incubus is a special type of metahuman that can enter people’s mind and the only one known to possess such abilities is Y/N. Captured by an underground agency and forced to obey orders, she has a new task today: to get inside The Joker’s head and find out where he stashed half a billion dollars after he pulled what everybody calls “the heist of the century”.

“Regression will begin shortly,” one of the doctors announces on the intercom. “Prepare for countdown.”

You lay on the cold metal table next to the Joker’s body: he’s medicated into a dreamless sleep, ready to have you purge his mind for the answer to the burning question: where did he stash half a billion dollars?

After being arrested two weeks ago, The King of Gotham refused to speak and disclose any information to the authorities; they tried everything: drugs, blackmail, best intimidation tactics and psychologists without success.

J didn’t crack.

Fed up with the puzzling mystery, CIA decided to use the top secret research facility operating under the grid where the infamous Incubus is held prisoner.

“A few reminders,” the flat voice echoes in the sealed laboratory. “Do not attempt to elude us, we have your little girl! If you aim to play us we’ll revoke visiting time.”

You blankly stare at the ceiling, upset they repeat the same rules when you’re forced to use your powers; the 15 minutes you’re allowed to spend with Mia on Saturdays is all you live for since they incarcerated both of you six months ago.

How you wish you could kill them but they found a solution to prevent you from rebelling.

“Please note that in case you plan to get inside our brains and compel us to stop breathing, your daughter will die. Confirm acknowledgement.”

“Confirm,” you bitterly reply because it hurts to have your child endangered; you could end them right this moment if it wasn’t for her.

Unfortunately, they found a way to subdue your terrific ability: the crew assigned to project Incubus carries portable heart monitoring devices 24/7; they resemble wrist watches and if just one individual’s pulse deactivates, it will set of the explosive in Mia’s collar. The 5 years old has no clue that what she believes to be a cute necklace is actually a device meant to eradicate her.

“Countdown to regression,” the clinician reports and the speakers carry his words around the room. “Five, four, three, two, one. Initiate!”

**************

You walk in the darkness, surprised you didn’t bump into memories yet: usually that’s the first thing you stumble upon when invading a person’s subconscious. He’s been under your spell for 10 minutes now and the void proves his twisted mind is probably worse than anyone thinks: The Clown is lost in the maze of his own insanity.

A couple more steps and you finally distinguish four doors ahead which means you’ll be able to analyze The Joker’s recollections.

First Door

The little boy cries in the middle of the room and you slowly approach, wondering if you should interfere or just observe. But tears fall from those innocent blue eyes and the fact that he’s maybe your daughter’s age makes you decide.

“Why are you crying?” you kneel by the young Joker and he wipes his face with the sleeves of his raggedy shirt:

“My mommy died.”

“Did she? I’m sorry… Do you miss her?” you manipulate the conversation since warping his thoughts might lead to your quest: discovering where the money is.

“U-hum,” he nods and asks. “I don’t like it at the orphanage, I want to go home…”

“Perhaps I can help,” you pull him in your arms and he whispers:

“Who are you?”

“Your worst nightmare,” Y/N sadly concludes because it doesn’t bring her joy to distort an already broken mind, nevertheless she‘s here bearing a clear purpose. “It’s ok,” you hold the child and soothe him. “I’m sorry this happened to you.”

The little boy whimpers, clinging to the stranger showing him kindness then vanishes in thin air: you got rid of a painful memory and replaced it with a nicer one.

Now The Joker will remember that someone comforted him when in reality it never happened.

Second Door

The young man is standing in front of the burning cottage while the firefighters are struggling to put out the blaze. He’s covered in ashes and his lips are barely moving; you can hardly discern what he keeps on repeating:

“They’re still inside… they’re still inside…”

The 24 years old Joker is numb and all you can conclude he seemed so different back in the day.

“Who’s inside?” you inquire and he glimpses your way without realizes he’s in shock.

“My wife and son. I couldn’t save them… I didn’t make it to the second level, the flames were too strong…”

You bend over and grab the blanket resting at his feet, placing it around his shoulders.

“I’m sorry they’re gone, you did everything you could.”

He glares at the Incubus for a split moment before disappearing: you just lift the burden of a horrifying experience and now The Joker will remember that someone offered consolation when in reality it never happened.

Third Door

The man is sitting on the floor with his back against the padded wall, tightly confined inside his straight jacket. He keeps screaming, then maniacally laughing and sobbing in the same time while straining to escape the garment.

“Calm down,” you slide near him. “You’ll hurt yourself if you continue.”

The 27 years old tries to articulate a couple of coherent sounds before reprising his yelling.

“Stop squirming,” you cup his face and make him pay attention. “Look at me. Relax,” you caress his cheeks. “Deep breaths, ok?” you plead with the madman. “Sssttt, it’s fine…” Y/N stares in his eyes and the shouting gradually dies out. “There you go,” you brush your forehead on J’s prior to him fading away: you switched a terrible incident into better conclusion by mimicking sympathy when in reality it never happened.

Fourth Door

You’re surprised to notice The Joker talking to shadows: a woman and a little girl judging by their silhouettes; he resembles the most wanted criminal lying 10 inches apart from you in the secured establishment pushing you to accomplish their instructions.

A recent memory? Does it mean he has another family?...

You want to come closer and the sight of the contours disappearing is intriguing; The Clown rubs his temples and you can tell he’s distressed.

“What’s going on?” you dig in his brain for responses.

“They took my Queen and my Princess!” he grinds his teeth with resentment.

“Do you know where they are?”

“Yes,” J grumbles and evaporates saying a baffling phrase: ”I have to find the perfect plan in order to reclaim what’s mine!”

So weird the memory dispersed before you misled the truth in your favor … What the heck is going on?!...

The Cell

No rooms left and you stroll in the murkiness again, angry your scheme didn’t lead towards a better result: oddly enough The King of Gotham failed to unveil extra hints that could have aid you in discovering where the fortune he snatched is.

“Hello sugar,” the raspy intonation halts you in your tracks.

Y/N detects the heavy bars forming this square shaped cell containing what she suspects to be a version of The Joker; it’s difficult to restrain her astonishment since she’s witnessing a rare phenomenon: nothing less than a mind prison.

Jackpot! If he buried something deep inside and locked it even from himself it could mean you reached your destination.

“It’s nice to have visitors,” the eerie apparition chuckles. “It gets lonely.”

“I bet,” you pout. “Why don’t you break free?”

He kicks the bars, enraged he has to explain:

“I’m sure a superior creature such as the lady joining me knows a mind prison can only be opened from the outside!”

He’s self-aware! This is absolutely unbelievable: humans are never conscious within the deepest layers of their psyche.

“You are correct: you can only open it from the outside,” you agree. “What’s your name?”

“Joker. What’s yours?”

“Y/N.”

“Duh, I know,” he snickers and lets his tattooed arms hang loose outside the bars. “You have a kid, right?”

He sees your doubt and his gratification builds up to new highs.

“Yes.”

“What’s her name?”

“How do you know it’s a she?!” you counterattack with a quiz.

Damn, this whole charade is getting more and more fascinating by the second!

“I know soooooo many things,” the entity yawns. “For example I’m sure you wonder how I ended up in here.”

No sign you would deny his rambling thus he enlightens the riddle:

“Some are born with certain “gifts”, some develop them after a traumatic experience. I’m the lucky recipient of the latest, although I was locked in here from day one. If I had someone shatter the seal and by someone I mean you,” he points his finger at the smirking Y/N, “I could help you run from the place you hate. Tell me I’m wrong, but aren’t you trapped also?”

“You’re sneaky, I’ll give you that,” you laugh at his attempts to influence your actions.

“And you’re too powerful not to realize what’s going on! Snap out of it!!!” he hisses. “Are you single sugar?” the anger building up makes Y/N frown.

“None of your business!”

“Humor me, I beg,” he emphasizes the words.

“Yes,” you scoff and his demeanor doesn’t lower your guard.

“Are you 100% certain you’re not married?”

“What’s this nonsense?!” you sneer at the stupid conversation.

“Maybe you don’t remember because you created your own mind prison where you chained crucial data in order to protect the ones you love after you were captured. What’s your daughter’s name?” he sulks and you grumble.

“Mia.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course I am; do you think I don’t know my child’s name?”

“And you think I don’t recognize my own wife standing in front of me??!!!!” he snaps at your hesitation. “Set me free! Set me free and I’ll show you! I can get inside your mind and unlock your cage: you’ll remember everything!”

“Who do you think you’re talking to?!” you growl at the absurd sentences: like his devious tactic would work on you!

“I’m talking to the Incubus, am I not?”

Your mouth opens in amazement since there is no way in hell he could know that.

“Do I have your attention now?” the beast reprimands. “Good! Here’s what you deliberately forgot: nobody knows that we’re married, it’s better that way; yet a woman with your capabilities is bound to attract unwanted attention anyway. When we got together, we had a deal: you’ll never get inside my head and you consented. No? Doesn’t ring a bell?...” he cracks his joints. “After they took you and Emma from me…”

“Who’s Emma?” you interrupt, more and more convinced there’s something fishy happening inside The Joker’s subconscious.

“Our daughter, her name is not Mia, you just replaced it after you were both kidnapped in order to sever all connections with the past. Can’t blame you: it’s a great strategy given the circumstances: create a mind prison, hide everything connected to protect me and her. Last thing you needed was for them to find out we are actually acquainted in the most intimate way. That would have been a disaster! Do you know why I stole half a billion dollars and let them catch me? I knew that if I do that they’ll use everything possible under the sun to make me spill the beans. When all fails, won’t they flaunt the last ace in their sleeve? That’s how I got here sugar, it was the ultimate goal. I can’t function without my girls so I came to get them!”

“Listen here,” your menacing attitude takes over. “Who do you take me for?! Your fictional tale is starting to piss me off so I advise you to quit before I make your neurons crumble to pieces!”

“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear it,” the feral beast sniffs the air. “You always kept your end of the bargain and never got in here before to poke the past. I respect that, sugar. Now I had no choice besides letting you in.”

“Stop it! Stop your lies!! You’re nothing more than a projection of The Joker’s mind!”

“Ahhhh,” the evil grin flourishes behind the silver teeth. “I am so much more than that. Do you want to get out of this facility? I suggest you set me free and I will prove I’m telling the truth!”

“Bullshit! What can you do anyway?! I can kill everyone and run, but my daughter will die!”

“Not if I help: you can make them stop breathing and I could keep the hearts beating until we get the key that unlocks Emma’s collar! It’s a dual team mission.”

“Her name is Mia! How do you know about the collar?!” the dumbfounded Y/N mumbles.

“Weren’t you listening? I know a lot of things!”

“Even if we assume you aren’t lying, how will you keep their hearts beating?!”

“Set me free and I’ll show you! SET. ME. FREE!!!!!! Or we are fucking doomed! Set me free!” he punches the bars. “Set me free and I’ll open your mind prison! You’ll realize each word I uttered is genuine! You’ll remember all of it! SET! ME! FREE!!! What do you have to lose, huh? Nothing! Do it!! Do it!!!!”

“How could you get inside my mind?! I’m a metahuman!”

“Goddamnit! SET ME FREE AND I’ll SHOW YOU!!!!! Do you want your daughter to perish in this place?! Do you???!!!”

You definitely are beyond skeptical; still… at least he’s correct about this: you have nothing to lose; you approach with caution and part the bars enough for the trapped entity to squeeze outside.

“Thank you honey,” he clumsily bows and before you can react he snatches in his arms and kisses you.

Y/N feels this electrifying sensation taking over, stupefied to understand what it means: she just unleashed another Incubus. And she always thought she was the only one!

You gasp for air and open your eyes, processing all the recovered memories rushing through your brain: your own mind prison was opened as promised.

You tilt your head to look at The Clown and he grabs your hand, panting:

“Are you ready sugar?”

**************

People keep falling to the ground, each step bringing you closer to your freedom. Emma’s face is buried in your neck as you jump over corpses on the way out of the underground laboratory:

“No peeking!” The Joker scolds and her little hands hold you tighter while obeying.

“Ok daddy.”

“Don’t be scared,” you kiss her cheek and continue the rampage towards the exit.

Screams intensify around the three detainees escaping their faith: the adults can’t afford any weakness or grant mercy to the ones that showed them none.

In the end, what is more terrifying than one Incubus that could plunge the world into complete darkness?

The answer is simple: two of them.

Also read: MASTERLIST

You can also follow me on Wattpad and AO3 under the same blog name: DiYunho.

#the joker x reader #the joker fanfiction #the joker imagine #the joker jared leto #the joker suicide squad #the joker #joker #joker fanfiction #joker imagines #joker leto #joker suicide squad #mister j #dc #dcu

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anteroom-of-death · 4 years

Text

Life, For Dummies p2

a/n: quarentine’s brought out the worst in me, does anyone know anything anymore? idk... i hope you all enjoy part 2! part 3′s got the spice in my mind’s plotting... slow burn anyone???

It had been roughly a week since you’d join the Master on his TARDIS. It was cozier and the console room was an actual room, like a living room. Sure it had all the little knobs and a control center, but it had a mini kitchen and couches and soft chairs. As well as whatever books he had been reading at the moment.

Homey. Comforting even.

Today’s adventure was less relaxing than his first he brought you on: A spa planet. Three whole days of being rubbed down, being fed gorgeous tasting health foods and relaxation. Closest to being a dog that chills in a rich socalite’s handbag all day. He of course, joined you in these revelries, and you even joined him as he made little jokes about other species' appearances and gossip.

This time was him killing off an entire planet for a Empress’s cheek. He offered you pour over coffee and a Danish as he giggled over the ash filling the air from an Adirondack chair as you tried to mentally stop yourself from crying over this. You, Y/N, were here with a genocidal maniac and you should really get a grip. You signed up for this. Anything you saw was your own fault, you told yourself as you cautiously took the coffee from the man and sat next to him.

“I can tell you’re thinking, love.” He said, “Why don’t say what’s on your mind? Hmm?”

“Why me?” You tore your eyes away from the sight of a giant building falling downwards on itself. “You could have taken Yaz or Ryan or hell, even pick some schlub off the streets!”

He raised his hand and raised his voice. “So the Doctor’s the only one who can take a pet or two or more?” His eyebrows raised, there he was, always sprinkling in the word “pet” usually it brought a shiver down your spine. But not today. Not now.

You huffed and groaned, rubbing your finger into your eye, “No, Master-” you said the word as if it wasn’t your kink, but a derogatory term. “Why me? What do you expect? Huh? You’re gonna go after her one day and I will be there, looking like a traitor or a double agent or what the fuck ever, and here I am, getting attached to you and I’ve just seen you nuke a fucking civilization? I’ve never seen that happen besides like, footage of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.” You manually stopped him with a raised hand and all the venom you could shoot from your eyes. “I can’t yet reconcile friendships! It’s like eighth grade all over again and Tammy doesn’t like Britney and Britney is friends with Joe but Joe like likes Tammy and Joe’s just over here wanting to blow his brains out!” You gesticulated this flowchart of emotional entanglement before slamming down the coffee and deciding to slam the TARDIS door shut. You didn’t want an answer anymore. You accidentally revealed too much.

You didn’t know what you felt anymore.

Sure, the man was hotter than your wildest fantasies of what a hot person could look like, and the name was enough to bring out any other types of fantasies you could have. It’s not like you weren’t already shaking off dirty thoughts about him and various pieces of furniture in here.

The Master frequented between slightly soft and vulnerable to ready to kill off anyone. That wasn’t the most stable of mindsets.

You began shaking where you stood. What if he was now going to kill you? You were a lot more disrespectful than the Empress was. Your breathing became erratic and there was a definite lump in your throat forming. This, out of all the ways you thought death would come to you, especially since Time Lords entered your life, wasn’t how you expected to die.

He slammed open the door and you let out a scream before dissolving into hysterics. The scrap of dignity you had left told you not to beg for your life.

For a split minute you tried to gather yourself up and over before getting back up and spitting through your tears, “Kill me, go ahead, I dare you to!” Your breathing sped up as your heart slammed, threatening to break your rib cage. You were so close to pissing yourself as you scrunched up your eyes, you didn’t want to see your death or the man before you shrinking you to dinky size.

Would it hurt? You thought as you mentally started internerising all you hadn’t accomplished in life and the pile of dirty clothes you left at home.

“Well,” Trying to sound braver than you were, “Get on with it!”

Mirthful laughter started and got louder as you closed your eyes tighter and evened out your breathing. “Kill me!” It came out half begging at this point, the coffee stirring up the acid in your stomach

It was a second later that a sarcastic sounding applause started and you opened up your eye, only one. For caution.

“You think I’m going to kill you because you talked back once?” He purred. “Is your opinion of me that warped?”

Pointing outside, “I have my rights to think that!”

“Oh please, she thinks she can speak to anyone in any tone all her life and doesn’t like when people tell her no once, so I had to. The rest of the people are just a perk to add to her little lesson in decorum…”

“Not fucking funny!” Hauling out and hitting him in the arm, “You really had me going! I aged more in the past minute than I have all my life!” You sat down and moaned in pain as you massaged your forehead and worked on breathing.

“It was fun, loads of it. You gotta admit it.”

You groaned and leaned backwards on the couch pulling the thick afghan over your face. “Sadist.” You muttered into the thick weave.

It could have been your imagination, but you for a split second thought you heard from the other side of the room, “And don’t you love me for it.”

It could have been your dirty imagination creeping up again. Maybe…

It was like he could read your mind, and it was his own monkey bars to swing around on.Testing you out and seeing how you’d react.

Not that you’d expect someone who’s name was The Master to do anything differently…

Not that when you saw him and learned what his name was that you weren’t gunning to board the plane into subspace from dipshit-ville.

Hearing him start the TARDIS up and go for another destination, you pulled it off your face and around you like a shawl, “So why does yours change shape all the time and seem like you don’t have to run around the console?”

“Hers is meant for multiple people to fly and it’s very, very broken.”

Of course, you rolled your eyes.

“It’s supposed to blend in, do what it’s pilot says. You know, rather like a car. You wouldn’t bring a dinky muddy Jeep Wrangler to a proper black tie event? Would you.” He flipped a switch and started entering coordinates into the touch screen.

“If you ain’t a pussy.” You muttered again. The statement smacked of classism you felt.

He elected to ignore that. Thank G-d.

“So what are you in the mood for, Y/N? The best traditional Earth food the 34th century can offer or a nice shallow grave I can chuck your willing corpse into.” He smirked and wrinkled his nose at you.

“Woah. King of the non-sequitur.”

“What even is ‘traditional’ Earth food?” Last time you checked, there were hundreds of what could be argued as “traditional” Earth foods. Your curiosity was genuinely piqued. “Yeah…” you nasalled, “Gimmie the best Earth food the 34th century can offer!” You leaned back down on the couch.

“Get dressed better.” He ordered.

You slumped off to the massive wardrobe and got something comfy yet nice looking. Just in case you had to run away from an explosion or something.

Schlepping out of the depths, you twirled around, “I’m decent.”

He made a noise like the Jeopardy buzzer. “Utterly not. Try again.”

You did.

Another buzzer noise.

Third times a charm, you even put on a nice corset dress and a slide-on pair of sneakers.

He marched you up in yourself ranting about how humans couldn’t be half-arsed to make their own decisions and he should just start picking your clothing out for you.

You held your tongue and just waited for it to be over.

“Get undressed.” He flipped a hand at you.

Of all the places to strip down, in front of an alien was not on the list. It wasn’t like it was the person at the lingerie store sizing you up for a bra and panties. It was a man, alien albeit, and he was seeing you in your Hello Kitty underwear and tattered nude bra. Humiliating.

“What do I even wear? You couldn’t even whip out the Space-Zagat or tell me how many Space Michelin Stars this place has!” You covered your stomach with your hands in an attempt at modesty.

He went over to the hanger next to the door and seemingly manifested a shimmery purple ombre tulle gown and some glitzy silver strap heels.

He hastily unzipped it and said, “Pop in.” and you slid in as he zipped it up, you felt the warmth of his hands linger on the small of your back and the nape of your neck. He took his index finger and slid it up, the corner of the nail slightly catching on the soft baby hairs at the bottom of your scalp. You shivered and had a sharp intake of breath. You nearly felt more tears spring up for today. That felt good.

Suddenly, you felt a clink of a thick chain lock around your neck. “Turn around…” He ordered again, softly. He pointed towards a mirror. The sight of yourself was bewildering. It was off the shoulder and flattered you a little too much. It, paired with the solid gold chainmail necklace made you look almost regal? Queenly. All the big words.

“Oh wow…” The words almost came out a choked garble, and yet barely above a whisper. The image before you was beautiful, and he was looming in the background, dressed to the nines to match in purple and gold.

Then you exhaled.

You looked like a power couple, like Bradjelina before the split, or Michelle and Barack Obama. You were sad how well you looked together. Though, how can an alien, especially when you saw what the females of the species did- eat a bar of soap and act like a racoon on trash night.

You shook the lovely thoughts of that away. Tonight and the sensation of his slightly calloused, warm hands on your body were enough lust for one lifetime.

“We’ve arrived.” He noted, drawing you out of yet another blank faced reverie.

You and your damn reveries.

That’d be your death.

Sashaying out as he took your hand and led you into this obviously very fancy and very expensive restaurant’s coat room from what looked like a small cupboard he led you to the reception where a humanoid with grey skin and spikes on their nose sat, “Name?” They drew lazily, a curious brow spike raised at the pair of you.

“You will give us the best table and give us the best recreation-vintage.” He stated as if he was asking the weather. The creature looked dumbstruck and walked you to the table at the end of the dining hall, looking out on the vastness of space with planets twinkling and stars churning out light in the distance. The darkness contrasted well with the silver and whites of the place.

As if by meaning, the pair of you stood out. Everyone else was in muted silver tones and you were specks of color demanding attention and respect. The center of a very odd universe.

“Cotes du Rhone Red…” The waitstaff converged to you, “Sir, the finest of the Spiced Cheese Triangles...made this morning.” “Madame…” They all started simping postulating towards you.

Once you got your orders taken, you bit into one of the so called “Spiced Cheese Triangles”, it was a Dorito.

“These are Doritos.” You whispered scandalised. “Do-rit-os.” He laughed, “Classic Earth food. You know how it is. The poor people love the food, the rich come in, spruce up the area, paint over the color, then charge a dozen times more for the same food. Don’t you know gentrification when you see it?”

You guwaffed before taking a sip of your wine. The place was quiet except for the hushed chatter and soft sounds of eating. No music. Just the chasm of looking out into space. You rested your chin on your wrists and looked out. Where were you? Where was this place? So many questions scraped around your brain.

“You’re in the Black Eye Galaxy…” He responded quietly, “At the corner of it that looks into the mighty center…”

You poked at your temple then towards his face. “I knew it!” You accused in a breath. “You can read my mind!” You leaned back and crossed your arms, “And you have me scrambling to find words every second of every day.”

He winked. “A little. Human brains are very easy to rifle around in. I try not to read yours. Out of respect. I don’t mean to, all Time Lords are sensitive to the psychic vibrations of others. I was just a little more good at that when I was child. I use it to my advantage. Especially all things…” He trailed off, eyes growing dark. You made a mental note to pry later. Then tried to hide that and wipe it. He could read your mind, and you had to wrap your mind around that and compartmentalize that for another day. You didn’t want to ruin this lovely moment. Or a lovely half of a moment since it suddenly got dark. Your food got served and you continued to stare off into the great abyss of space.

“Y/N?” Asked the Master.

“Yes, Master?” You looked at him. His eyes were impossibly large and impossibly soft, framed by the longest and softest black lashes. It was strange how a man so universally feared and prone to fire-starting was capable of such a baby face.

“I want you to tell me what you’re thinking. I’d rather not read your mind.”

You felt yourself swallow a sudden lump in your throat.

“I’ll work on it.” You promised.

Were you falling in love with him? Was this love? More confusion ebbed at your head. You scraped at your eyebrow with your pinky nail.

You shoved that down deep into the caverns of your brain, where you kept your ballerina dreams and daddy issues.

You ate quietly. He barely seemed to touch a thing however. The evening drew on in a realm between too comfortable and oddly disheartening.

As the evening drew to a close, he didn’t even pay. He just said to the waitress, “We’re finished.” And walked back to the TARDIS. This time not holding your hand. You didn’t know if that was a sign for you to grow up and stop fantasizing. You could take a hint. You weren’t as dumb as you looked.

You marched to your room and couldn’t yet bear to rip your beautiful outfit from yourself. Especially the necklace, it felt oddly right. Like a collar or a letterman jacket. Something definitive of a bond. You sniffled. No more tears.

Wall of emotional protection, back up. Time to protect yourself. There’s no condom for your heart- you told yourself.

You went out back to the small kitchenette in the console room and made yourself a cup of tea to settle your stomach and saw him leaning over the counter of his little planning station, papers askew, hair mussed. It was sinful for one man to look insanely good while plotting something.

“You’re still dressed?” He asked. Of course he’d stripped into something more comfortable, an unbuttoned waistcoat and jeans, a simple light purple button up. Did he sleep? You were contemplating PJs.

“Yeah. Problem?” You shrugged.

The look given was indescribable.

“Utterly indecent.” He shook his head. He turned away for a second to bookmark the thick book he had. The way his jeans- midrise- shift around his bum was something funky. His hips were a bit wide so they slung over his body lavisciously. You caught yourself staring at it

“Oh for fucks sake.” He said looking at you, your mouth sideways gaped, like you were some truck driver eyeing up a dime a ride whore at the stop. For all the rollercoaster of the day, the Master was breathtaking to look at.

He was in your mind again, and you were too tired and emotionally strung out to care.

“I just want tea.”...and you, you mentally added, hoping that he’d get the subtext and either kill you to stop you from humiliating yourself further or make a move. Either or, it was something.

He made a tutting noise and said, “Oh, you’d have to give me something in return.” A grin that was thoroughly wicked and possibly evil crept up and warmth flooded his eyes. His perfectly white teeth flashing dangerously in the ambient lighting.

“What’s that?” You opened the line for bartering. You slid onto the table he was working at. Tea could wait for a second. Things just got interesting.

He put one of those larger than life hangs on your neck and rested the crook of his thumb on your jaw, and petted it slightly. The rest of his fingers slightly applied a pressure to the base of your skull. His eyes traced over your face as he contemplated. He licked his lips slightly before speaking.

“I want you, fully. No more thoughts of ‘Oh, what if the Doctor catches us?’ or if you’re a traitor to her just because you are mine now. If she was truly a friend to you, and not just a preoccupation…”He cocked his head and focused his eyes on your lips. “She’d grant you this…” He moved his thumb down to the hollow of your jaw and pressed it. “She’d let you.” You closed your eyes and fluttered your eyelashes flipping around the millions of pro’s and con’s. You felt yourself relax and your body made your choices for you, you weren’t fighting it anymore.

“What do you say, love?” He breathed in a husky tone.

“Yes.”

“Yes, who?” He chided in a guiding tone.

“Yes, Master.”

“Good girl.” He laughed and dipped you down on the table inhaling your lips inward and pressed down with his free hand on your hip.

Giving up never would feel so good...

#personal #i wrote this #fanfic #doctor who self insert fiction #dhawan!master x reader #dhawan!master #sacha dhawan #thirst be real #reader insert #master x reader

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greenninjagal-blog · 4 years

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currently vibing in a two-week lockdown, can you share some of your favorite fics? i need some new things to read, and I've got too much time on my hands-

Aw man, same! The rest of my actual Spring Semester got turned online… Let’s see…..Fic recs for the pseudo End of the World (Courtesy of AO3, arranged by most prominent ship!) Keep in mind that my descriptions are shorter and written mostly for comedic effect than the actual fics, so if something looks interesting Click it! Get more info about it! Don’t just take my word! I tried my best to get a lot of variety of fics and topics and tropes, as well as authors that might not be as well known! Uhhh here are the links to lists I’ve already made for various other reasons check out my Fic Rec Masterlist!

I also am including various of my fav authors masterlists for funsies!

jungle321jungle’s || Max-isTired’s || TrashficParlour’s || Lefaystrent’s || Mine!

Completed Fics

A Deal in which Virgil tries to summon a familiar and gets a Circle King instead. And he’s really pretty. (Anxceit)

Love Like You in which Virgil decides to give up looking for a romantic partner and considers adopting instead. He finds more than he’s looking for with a set of twins and the man who watches over them (Anxceit)

A Dragon’s Tail in which Logan is cursed to be a Dragon by his best friends stepmother, Virgil is struggling to learn a power he can’t control, Patton who’d rather marry a servant than the Prince, and Roman has no clue what is going on but the Prince he’s supposed to be saving can probably kick his ass. (Logicality, Prinxiety)

A Game of Vice in which Remus kidnaps Roman and turns it into a game of who can come save him from his lonely tower. (Logicality, Prinxeity)

double down with the paradigms in which Logan tries to explain away his own OCD while dealing with the emotions he has for a certain Pre-Vet. Excellent depiction of OCD, made me cry, 300/10 would read again. (Logicality, Prinxiety)

It Takes Two to Tango in which Roman begs his brother, Logan, to let him go back in time to meet a famous dancer. Falling in Love was not part of the plan. (Prinxiety, Logicality)

A favorite star in the heavens in which everyone has at least one soulmate. They’re luckily enough to have three each. (LAMP)

Forgotten Forests and Magnified Myths in which Logan finds out very suddenly that he has the passive ability to talk to dragons. (DAMP, Remilie)

Sense5 in which five people in different countries are suddenly psychically linked together and uh…yeah fun times. (DLAMP)

Stray Hearts Are Subject To Change in which black cat hybrid Virgil plans to die very heroically in an alley and Roman completely messes up that plan by being a decent human being. (Prinxiety, Logicality)

Hidden In Shadows in which Virgil is the boogieman every adult warned you about but he doesn’t actually enjoy being scary. Good thing the three Sanders kids aren’t scared of anything. (Not so good for their very confused Dad who isn’t sure what to do about their new imaginary friend)

Paved with Good Intentions in which the dark sides agree to send Virgil to the light sides as a way to get Thomas to listen to them more. Now if Virgil can just get along with the Light sides enough to actually start making some progress…

Absent Gods and Silent Tyranny or: How Logan Learned to Stop Over Thinking and Love Everyone in which Logan is a morally grey scientist who just works for supervillains because they pay well. He doesn’t expect someone like Virgil to change that.

Series

Clouds and Moss AU in which the sides are gods and its very gay and very good. (Intrulogical, Roceit)

Colors in which Logan is an excellent Dad, Virgil is an amazing son, and the world is very colorful. (Logicality)

Labeled in which Logan is a famous superhero, Patton is a doctor, and they adopt the would-be super villain and everything is soft and lovely and I cry at the purity. (Logicality, Remilie)

Fbi!au in which the sides work for the fbi and I diligently reread these series of oneshots for a daily dose of serotonin! (Logince, Moxiety)

Growing Old is More Fun with You in which Patton is a PTA dad and so is Deceit and they have a “rivalry”. (Mociet)

Gilded Cage in which Roman is forced to dance for the fairy queen whenever she wants it. (Prinxiety)

Renegades! in which the sides live in a dystopia and fight the government while being completely in love with each other. (Prinxiety, Logiciality)

Love and Other Fairytales in which a couple decides to keep their changling and their actual son, a child is cursed gifted a voice that makes people do whatever he says, a boy makes a rotten deal for the sake of his friend, and centuries before any of this, a fae prince is tricked into an endless sleep by his brother.

The Vampire Hunting Vampire in which Virgil was turned into a monster and LPR slowly convince him he’s not as bad as he thinks he is. Through cuddles. (LAMP, DLAMP)

Wasteland, Baby! in which there are things in the woods and Patton gets,,, intimate with them. On purpose! (LAMP)

Destined in which Damian has successfully ignored his Soulmates for five years and he planned on doing it for much longer but on his twentieth birthday fate intervenes with a second soultrait that forces him to come face to face with all of them. (DLAMP)

Old Gods in which Gods sometimes walk the earth and Remus is pleased to hear that people are still making offerings to him– wait that is not a goat. And other fun stories!

Sit back and watch the world go by in which Virgil is a human abducted by alien smugglers, befriends Patton, breaks out, and everyone fears humans as space orcs, almost as much as Virgil is afraid of them.

Teaming the Pieces Together in which Thomas is a pokemon trainer and eevees just…click with him.

Tales from the Dark Sides in which the author provides a lovely hub of works where Virgil is abused by OC dark sides and DLMPR are there to help patch him up.

Uncle Emile and the Super Nephews in which Emile gets custody of his six nephews and tries to bond with them. They in turn try very hard not to tell him they have superpowers.

Cuffed Universe in which Remus is a cop chasing after a hacker, Logan breaks the laws and Virgil would just like tO KEEP ONE JOB WITHOUT ONE OR BOTH OF THE OTHERS DRAGGING HIM INTO THEIR SHIT. (Analomus)

Ongoing Fics

The Origin in which space travel via Thomas Sanders’s ship SS Revelation gets more complicated when the Planets themselves turn out to be entities who aren’t all on board with humanity spreading to the rest of the solar system. (Remile)

Delicato in which Logan and Patton are music professors with very different conceptions of music, and Virgil and Roman are students in both their classes who just want them to kiss already. (Logicality, Prinxiety)

Coming out of The Shadows in which a small mutant child Virgil is treated as subhuman because of his uncontrolled ability to manipulate shadows up until a scientist buys him. (Royality)

Falling Stars At My Command in which Roman wishes on a star and Patton reaps the benefits while Logan unfortunately gets dragged along for the ride. (Royality)

Sugar in which Patton has three sons and no free time to bother with a relationship while he’s trying to manage bills. At least until Roman walks into his life. Sugar Daddy anyone? (Royality)

A Man, a Snake, and a Rat in which Logan, Deceit, and Remus become college roomates (Intruloceit)

a.s.h.es, ashes (We all fall down) in which after Logan almost dies during one of his recuse missions, him and his partner start to dig into the superhero agency they’re employed by and stumble into something far bigger than they expected. (Logicality, Prinxiety, LAMP? LAMP)

Keep him safe in which Detective Logan falls for the owner of his new favorite bakery while his partner Roman falls for the gang member they’re chasing. Ft: emotions, a pet rat, dealing with delusions 101, trauma, and family so gooey it literally makes me melt whenever it updates. I love this fic so much. (Advertises as Logicality and Prinxiety but theres so much LAMP I can’t not put it down here)

Multitudes in which Virgil works at a coffeeshop, pines over the customers that come in, and wonders why they all tip him so well. (LAMP)

Songbird in which the only thing keeping Virgil’s parents alive is his voice: the moment the (new) King gets tired of listening to him its off with all their heads. And Virgil’s okay with that, he is…. Until three visiting nobles leaving him wishing for his freedom for the first time since he was ten. (LAMP)

Shatter in which Logan gets fed up with not being listened to, and takes some poor advice from Rage, which ends with the entire Mindscape being turned upside down and inside out. Now its up to Deceit fix it all. (aka the author decided it was about high time Deceit got some love and appreciation and I’m out here living for it.) (DAMP)

Incredible Cosmic Power in which Virgil awakens some genies by accident and they refuse to let him go back to living a relatively normal peaceful life. (DLAMP)

Plea for my New Self in which Vampire Virgil decides he wants to start over again, and goes back to college to work on coding. There he proceeds to do reckless good with his absurd amount of wealth and a “fuck it” attitude. Actually one of my favorite things ever okay. I love this one so much. (DLAMP)

Your Wish Is My Command in which Thomas accidentally rubs six lamps and becomes the glorified babysitter to six jinn who definitely don’t trust him. But its fineeee. (DLAMP)

6 Dads in which Deceit, Emile, Remus, Roman, Thomas, and Remy make a relationship work and their children aren’t sure how but go along with it anyway.

Rebel Rebel in which Thomas, a well respected man, visits the Imagination, for some pleasure business as a one time thing. Except that he keeps coming back. Maybe maybe falls in love with one, two, thr– all of the men who work there.

A New Kind of Experiment in which Virgil runs away from home, and ends up kidnapped by merman, and somehow he doesn’t mind that much.

Becoming His Own Hero in which everyone has to juggle their superhero lives with their regular lives and sometimes…its just hard.

don’t wanna be a tragedy in which brothers Roman and Remus get a house and subsequently find out its totally, completely, 100% haunted.

Don’t You, Forget About Me in which the author recreates Breakfast club and does it spectacularly.

Heart’s Heroes in which Patton may be a villain but that does not mean he wants to see the child heroes of the city dead.

Mortals and Fae in which Deceit barely escapes the wrath of his town when they all turn against him. Dying, he stumbles into a fairy circle hoping that with his name the fae make his death short and sweet. Big Shock for him when he wakes up with a Fairy Prince swearing to protect him.

Sanders Family in which Thomas adopts six kids and has no regrets about it.

How Not to Go About an Important Inspection in which after a devastating betrayal the crew of the USS Bifrost is docked for repairs and the crew just wants to go back to being a normal family but Command is insisting on an inspection to ensure nothing so…drastic occurs again.

Symbiotic in which certain Vampires have a vemon that leaves with victims craving getting their blood drunken. Deceit, one of these Victims, continues to burn bridges because that’s easier than admitting he might need help dealing with this.

#greengabs #fic recs #Lockdown 2020 list #god this took me like eight hours to put together #I hope this helps

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fanfic-idea-factory · 4 years

Text

Naruto: Hyuuga Uchiha Child

According to the creator of Naruto, if a Hyuuga and an Uchiha had a kid, the kid would have the dojutsu of both clans, one in each eye. This would be an interesting story to explore, especially since faking one’s death in the Naruto universe is definitely not impossible when one has Ninja-grade disguise and misdirection skills in combination with high-grade genjutsu via Sharingan; the only thing you’d have to look out for would be other people with Ninja-grade disguise and misdirection detection skills, of course, but staying in small civilian villages away from Hidden Villages, strategic points of interest, and high trade or highly travelled areas could leave someone pretty invisible as long as they don’t go blowing up half the country-side while they train.

So, picture this. Two women are rivals from different clans since their academy days. They graduated at the same time, got promoted at the same time, entered Anbu at the same time, got married at the same time, and had kids about the same time. Everything was a not-so-friendly competition, but these high-born ladies won’t admit to anything. They meet up every week at a small playground so that their kids can socialize with other clan children their age (and so they can subtly not-so-subtly brag about their kids’ skill levels or about clan success). So, while these two lovely ladies are passive-aggressively complementing each other in the most insulting ways possible without being outright hostile, their kids are becoming pretty good friends right under their noses. Once they’re old enough to walk around on their own, they regularly meet up to play and explore different areas of Konoha.

Eventually, their respective clans get involved and start warning them away from each other and they drift apart. Later on, when they enter into the academy, they’re almost as competitive as their mothers and more direct about their dislike. But they still remember being friends.

Eventually, Baby Uchiha gets fed up with everything and decides to be rebellious. They invite Baby Hyuuga to a public training ground for a spar. Baby Hyuuga wins the first round because Gentle Fist. Baby Uchiha demands a rematch and wins (keep in mind, their taijutsu is not very practiced for all that they’ve learned. They’re still kids without their respective dojutsu and growth spurts definitely don’t help with becoming familiar with their own bodies and fighting forms). The point is, they learn to respect each other and enjoy each other’s company again.

The Hyuuga activates their dojutsu first. Maybe they’re ambushed during one of their training trips by spying Ninja from another village that think it’ll be easy to nab two clan kids. Whatever is going on, Hyuuga pulls something like a Sasuke on the bridge in Wave and little Uchiha activates their Sharingan for the first time before help arrives. They grow a bit closer after that.

Through circumstances beyond their control - missions, sudden sickness, random accidents, maybe even clan-enacted justice for committed crimes - both kids lose or are separated from their direct family members. Their clans are also aware of their regular meet-ups and express their disapproval in tense group dinners and midnight ‘you’d best think about where your loyalties lie’ talks in the hallways of their compounds. The kids get sick of it, constantly talking with one another about how their clans care about nothing but clan politics and preserving their reputations. The bonds that both hold with members the village are either gone or incredibly weak. Except with each other. At this point, I assume that they’ve graduated the academy and have been on their respective teams for a while now.

Funny enough, in a reversal of the whole dynamic of the Uchiha as the instigator (like how they forced the circumstances needed to rekindle their friendship), Baby Hyuuga convinces their friend to leave with them. They bide their time and end up finding a way to manufacture the idea in the perfect peoples’ heads that their two teams should take a mission together in a town regularly visited by many Hidden Village Ninja from all over. They play traitor, anonymously organizing an ambush on their group (Their clans are well off. Did they save their pay from many different C and D-rank missions? Did they use family funds? Did they forge grand bounties for their Jonin Sensei? Something along those lines). The important end result of their meddling is a convincing double-death, where the Uchiha and Hyuuga fight back-to back before the Uchiha lights up the surrounding area with a Fireball Jutsu hot enough to turn flesh to ash and violent enough to scatter remains. The kids, a bit burned, disappear without being seen - except maybe by one of the missing nin that showed up to watch the fight, who finds the whole situation funny and doesn’t plan to interfere in any way - and they’re considered KIA.

Now free from their village, Ex-Hyuuga and Ex-Uchiha settle in an out-of-the-way hamlet in Whirlpool country, because they know that ninja from Konoha usually avoid the area because the destruction of Uzushio is still a fresh wound for all that it’s several years in the past. They are careful and paranoid because they’ve been raised on stories of missing nin being heroically hunted down and on dastardly things other villages have done in an attempt to get their hands on the Byakugan and Sharingan.

But they’re free. They sometimes fight, and they stumble their way through clan techniques they haven’t quite mastered and can’t really help each other with. They miss having the protection of more than just a small group of civilians, sure, but they’re not eager to return to that sort of life. They have a few close-calls with enemy ninja, especially after the Third Shinobi War picks up, but they live in relative peace.

They become traders for a time, and one of them becomes very proficient in Herbology. They go around selling medical concoctions to all and poisons to those who know to ask for it.

Then they have a child of their own, who they raise to be just as medically and financially savvy.

The kid is street-smart, and they manage to activate their dojutsu fairly early, but not early enough to be labeled a prodigy like Itatchi was. Their parents’ clan training was hindered by their leaving the village, but they teach the kid what they can and they end up developing a strange mix of Uchiha and Hyuuga fighting styles that wouldn’t work with anyone but them ( anyone without the near-omniscient pattern recognition capabilities of the Sharingan and the precision and all-seeing nature of the Byakugan). The Hyuuchiha learns what it means to fight for survival and that there is no honor or pride worth keeping on the battlefield; dirty tactics are acceptable always when your life or your way of life is at stake.

The kid is an absolute demon on the battlefield. There is nothing they won’t resort to in a fight. I like the idea of them being a bit demure in personality, quiet and reserved, but 100% willing to interact and bargain with a potential customer while smiling sweetly. That is, until someone makes them angry. Then, it’s all glaring Uchiha whose ‘god-is-dead’ customer service smile could crack glass.

Obviously, I haven’t really considered most details. The Caged Bird Seal is a problem that needs to be addressed unless the Hyuuga parent was a part of the Main Family. That could also be one of the reasons Hyuuga convinced Uchiha to leave the village; maybe the loss of their direct family members put them in the care of the Branch Family and the elders were planning on having them marked. Someone is also technically an adult once they reach Genin, though, so I’m not sure if that would work. And how would they interact at all with the canon characters of Naruto and Naruto: Shippuden? Are they simply a background character that bares witness to a few shenanigans here and there, one that anonymously solves a problem or two for the main characters before they have a chance to deal with it but otherwise has no real importance? Or are they dragged into the main storyline and have a direct impact on the events of the series?

Take my idea. Make it yours. Have fun.

#Naruto #Uchiha #Hyuuga #fanfic ideas #fanfiction ideas #Naruto clans #Sharingan #Byakugan #Uzushio #Uzushiogakure #Kishimoto #Naruto Shippuden #Missing Nin

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mysecondcarisa67chevyimpala · 4 years

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Exactly!!!! They 100% act like they're self righteous but like hello??? There's like a bunch of people who would also literally die for them and they're just like "oh cool!! It's whatever- they can die cause it won't be us right? And let's not bring them back but holy shit Sam died guess we gotta destroy the world to bring him back" - friend nonnie. (I'm in complete belief that Case deserved better. Cause the inches years are stupid and he does everything for them)

I love Cas so much and I have this conversation with my little brother a lot, as much as I love this show and will until I die, the writers only care about Sam and Dean and they only care about each other (since you said current watch I’m assuming you have seen farther than six if not sorry I don’t want to spoil anything for anyone!) Ash, Ellen, and Jo: ash died in the fire and jo was hunting and Ellen was out at the store okay so we got to “fake deaths” idk what to call them we learn they aren’t dead but ash is dead and no one ever says anything! Until they need him in heaven and while they are there they talk to Pamela which we never hear about after she dies and then she’s gone, then when Ellen and jo die we never hear about them again until the titanic episode with Balthazar (and maybe some other visions or something I think?) and then they are gone again. I was gutted when Charlie died as a queer female I loved her she was a very relatable loved character and she died in a bathtub, after running from people on her own she died when she’s needed to die for them, Dean blanes himself but then the show moved on and it’s like she never mattered again. Bella: I loved her actually she was a very honest character she deserved to have her parents killed (like really they were gross) and she decided to make the best of what she got and then because she was a little girl and tried to fix it, she made a deal then she tried to compromise to save herself and Dean let he die. Dean also killed the mom (I can’t remember her name she was a monster and when her son got sick she fed her kid fresher stuff but then Dean killed her because she was a monster) but said he wouldn’t and that had no consequences he killed someone because they “might do something again”, then the whole thing with Jesse! He decided to disappear and now that Lucifer is dead he doesn’t have powers and now he’s alone in Australia (unless he talked to his parents but how does he explain getting there or what happened all those years!) they don’t care. Bobby is one of my favorite characters he’s a father figure to me and no one cares about him. There’s an episode on it where he tries to eat something (pie maybe? Or cobbler idk) from his neighbor and he can’t because everyone is asking for something from him and it’s like very relatable that everyone wants something from you without giving something or even checking in without needing something (which is why I loved the poker game aging episode because we see Dean and Bobby talking bitch that was the only time I really remember someone talking to him without it being hunting related. Another thing is when Bobby died and Garth tried to help people Dean yelled at him to stop being Bobby and said that other people knew Bobby too (or something similar to the extent of other people needed Bobby not just you) and I sorta was like man I hope Dean had realized that before hand but idk if he did.

All of the angels got fucked over: Samandriel, Castiel was brainwashed and he wasn’t helping after the artifact was sold, Gadreel, sacrificed because his ark to help Dean was done which sucked because he just wanted to prove himself, Balthazar, man I like him and I was sad he died just like personally sad he wasn’t just a helper and was a very dynamic and loud character and I feel like he got shot down because they couldn’t use him, Castiel, he was introduced and was supposed to “fly away” and leave but then they kept misha around had the whole ark with the Claire getting possessed by him and then jimmys whole thing and then they realized they made him too powerful because they thought it was a little time ark and then had to nuke him because he could have just fixed everything, Gabriel, where do I even start with him I love him so much, as a person with an older brother (and older cousins who acted like siblings due to how we grew up) I was always picked on my cousin is two or three years older than me but acts like she’s amazing at everything (even though she didn’t graduate) and was used to hearing everyone argue all the time to each other, about other stuff, about family stuff, literally anything. So I really related to Gabriel and I was so sad when he had everything happen to him like I can’t even go into it right now because I’ll be sad, Michael, Michael really does reflect Dean, self righteous and feeling the need to do everything (they found a way to put Lucifer in the cage and he said he needs to fight him because god said if that’s not Dean Sam and john idk what is) and honestly I felt for him and I wished we got more of him, and I know no one wants this but Lucifer, I love how he plays by his rules and doesn’t let anyone tell him that’s wrong or anything, so the opposite of Dean and sorta like Sam (with the demon blood being the exact opposite of what he was told to do by Dean and he did it anyway) and I feel like if the show worried more about better character than only on Sam and Dean it would have been better.

Idk I love the show but sometimes I’m like that’s out of character for them (like Adam wasn’t even a thought for them ever they forgot until the fucking play) and then I’m just like I don’t know what they change so much to fit the episode and I’m just tired of getting sad every time someone dies and happy (then sad) when ever someone that I love *might* come back, then probably die again but whatever l. I could write more but idk I have more characters that deserved better but whatever.

#graphic #horror #supernatural #ask #answer #friend nonnie

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anthelid-day · 4 years

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A holiday and birthday I’ll never forget.

We went to the coast to visit family despite warnings that we should reconsider our travel plans. There was a free highway with no fires in the area and, as it was Christmas and our families were on the coast, we found our way down the alternative and long route, meeting friends in Cooma along the way. The usual route was closed due to bushfires.

Christmas was a success and we were all having a great time! There was some smoke from the bushfires up north so we stayed inside but anticipated clearer weather to take the kids swimming for new year.

The night before New Year’s Eve, we noticed an orange glow in the sky and smoke. The RFS app showed a fire had started at Badja outside of Numeralla. It looked so far away at the time. We went to bed with the thought of swimming the next day. My birthday was on New Years Day. After we’d go for a swim we’d bake the cake and prepare the food and board games and get ready to do the tradition we do every year. We were to go outside, watch the new year end and the new year begin, start my birthday cheers and a dark male is to walk through the house before we re-enter. So when we went to bed, we imagined that that was going to be our New Years Eve.

The fire looked so far away.

I woke up at about 5am or 5:30am and looked at my phone. The RSF app told everyone in Cobargo and Coolagolite to evacuate towards Bermagui. We had my mums partner in Coolagolite and so I immediately called them to wake them and told them to get out of there. They raced right over to ours. I went to wake my mum to let her know what was happening. Just then a knock was heard on the door. I go outside to find a woman with a hose, she’s frantically waking everyone. “Cobargo is on fire right now. People are coming here. We might have to run next. We just need to wake everyone up.” I looked up to the sky and there was nothing but darkness with a deep, red glow. Burnt leaves and ash fell from its darkness. I open my RFS app to look and the fire had actually grown so much in a few short hours, it was practically at our doorstep.

A new notification comes in at that moment instructing Bermagui to evacuate to the beach. The Surf Life Saving Club was the evacuation centre so we decide to make our way there. We pack up the car and wake the kids. We tell our oldest that we are off to watch a sunrise and that worked well because skies are also shades of red and orange during a sunrise. We didn’t want to freak her out yet. Our son is a baby so his only concern was his bottle. We’d eventually have to tell our daughter the truth when the daylight doesn’t come after the sunrise but for now we had to get them out as calmly as possible.

The streets were lined with cars and people. Emergency vehicles passed by us occasionally. “Look at all the people here to view the last sunrise of the year!” I said. “Why are there nee-naws, mummy?” “Well even emergency services enjoy a sunrise!” I countered. She seemed happy with that answer.

We’d also come to the coast with our guinea pigs as we had no one to babysit them in Canberra at the time. So we were carrying a baby, our bags with the things we needed, a tired toddler, the toys she wanted to bring to view the sunrise with, blankets to keep warm (we had learned that it can actually get very cold when the smoke is so thick it blocks out the sun and it’s warmth like it’s midnight), food for the kids and a giant carry-cage with three guinea pigs. We checked ourselves in with the volunteers and then collapsed on some grass outside, still maintaining that we were “watching the sunrise”. When I told her the truth later, she calmly asked her questions and then went off to play with her new Barbie Ambulance. She dreams of being a doctor one day and the thing folds out into a doctors office. It’s a real hit.

Sitting on the lawn and trying to feed a baby who was suddenly aware that he was in a loud space, he cried while my daughter tried to calm him and my husband and I silently fretted, wondering if other family members were safe. My husbands grandparents live near Batemans Bay and the fires were escalating there. My mother sat in the grass with her partner at another location convinced things would be fine while I’d occasionally yelled at her via text to get up to the SLSC to check in. I just wanted to be sure that everyone could be accounted for. She’d tell me not to worry and we’d see each other later. It had begun to rain lots of ash and leaves so we took the kids, the guinea pigs and all of our stuff inside.

Finding and collapsing on a miraculously free couch inside the centre, my husband settles the kids while I go out to get some space. Crowds in these situations make me feel like I’m in a small space and I had to step out periodically to calm down. On one of my excursions out I took a video of the evacuation that’s blowing up on my TikTok and some photos that ended up being in a news article later that morning. People on TikTok who had family in the area wanted to know the situation and I’d spend the rest of the day informing them of what was going on. There’s something about being on the scene and letting people know the situation that makes me feel like I should have possibly been a reporter. So begins a moment of existential crisis before I notice I’ve got ash and burnt leaves in my hair and I head back in.

We remained at the centre until mid afternoon when we were told that those with residences and accommodation within the town were cleared to go home. We were relieved! So on New Years Eve, mid afternoon, we went home, settled the baby down for a nap and started planning the next day. The baking we could do while we wait this thing out. I plugged my phone in to charge and the power went out moments later. Baking was suddenly off the table.

The fires had knocked out the electricity. But we still had reception. I sat in the car to charge my phone there and was responding to comments to let people know the situation. The sky turned this incredibly dark red and then went black. It was about 5:15pm and we lost reception. That meant no internet as well. I go back into the house. “We have no power and no communications. We have no way to let those worrying about us in the outside world know that we are okay and we can’t check on those who we are worried about in Batemans Bay.” I said. The word at the time was that they may not be able to restore power until the weekend but they actually couldn’t for an entire week.

On top of that, the petrol stations were all closed and our tank didn’t have enough to get to a town an hour away that had no guarantee of petrol. The radio repeatedly told people to leave despite no guarantee of petrol and that wasn’t realistic for us. We were to stay put until the petrol stations open and do our best.

We sat in darkness with some torches, playing scrabble, watching the world outside get darker. The quiet was very unusual. There were no birds singing, no crickets or frogs and the town was closed off. No one could travel so there were no cars. There was nothing. Just silence with an apocalyptic view. When the smoke accumulated enough to create its own thunder storm, it felt like we were dropped right in the radioactive badlands of Fallout 4 with a more reddish hue. The blue skies and turquoise waters we paddleboarded on were a distant memory all of a sudden. It was freezing. Of course, I only packed summer clothes.

New Years Day arrived and my family was trying to celebrate my birthday the best we could but with such wide windows built for a view, the apocalyptic view outside and the reminder that a fire was by our doorstep drowned any feeling of joy. We were scared. I kept thinking about a week earlier, looking at the map and seeing nothing of concern and racing down to see our families. How could we stay away from our families for Christmas? But here we were a week later. There was a road briefly open to Tathra and it was nose-to-nose for hours. Cars slowly lined the main road as frightened tourists and residents fled with their things. Destination - Bega, Cooma, Canberra. And we stayed and watched with our nearly empty tank. “You wouldn’t want to be in that with a baby.” Mum said. She was right.

Our baby is bottle fed and so we’d make the trips up to the SLSC to get boiled water to make bottles with and for some coffee. I found a spot of reception and quickly let my friends know we were okay via Facebook before it dropped out again. They had been worried. Without communication, no one knew the full extent of the situation. Night time was hard because the baby wakes and the bottles had to be heated with whatever hot water was left in the hot water system and it barely warmed a bottle. We couldn’t shower or only jumped in for 30 seconds so we could save the hot water.

Without power we couldn’t cook and our fridge wasn’t going to refrigerate anything. We kept cool some milk the best we could and stocked up on canned goods. We ate baby corn and sardines, fruit and anything else we could get from the supermarket. The supermarket remained open with shelves that were emptying fast. It reminded me of abandoned supermarkets in Fallout. A lot of Fallout happening, I thought to myself. The staff worked while not knowing if their houses were still there. In a neighbouring town they had to close the supermarket as people began walking off with trolleys full of stuff and looting upon hearing that there was a problem with transaction processes. “People have got to eat” a friend later would say. People were trapped and scared with limited food to give their families. Things were bound to take a turn. Some days later the supermarket in Bermagui would be closed due to being understaffed as people fled or staff defending their homes. Thankfully the SLSC has donated food to give out.

The day after New Year we were all on edge. The smoke stayed thick, the kids were scared, the toddler hated being stuck inside and the baby was scared from the smell of smoke. Our throats and eyes hurt. Coffee was limited. My husband and I went to get some hot water when a neighbour said there’s a line at a petrol station. As we went past we saw the tanker. Oh my gosh there’s a tanker!! We got some hot water, I passed a bird in a cage, dropped the hot water off at home and raced to the line.

We were around the 100th car in line. My husband waited in the car while I went up to grab us coffee while we waited. I passed by the bird again. It had a note that it belonged to a Cobargo resident and the person who had dropped it off couldn’t find the owner and couldn’t fit it in her car so begged that someone feed it and give it water at the centre. It sat there with it’s cover and a box of its food, tweeting at anyone who passed it. I took the coffee back to the car and raced up to the centre a final time. I was going to evacuate with that bird. The volunteers didn’t really know how to look after it and, with everything going on, couldn’t have the time to give it what it needed.

A news station had found its way into Bermagui to show the line to the petrol station in their segment and had reported that the petrol was free. People began getting news that they had free petrol as those who overheard the report started to tell the line of cars. It wasn’t free though, and you had to pay in cash. Thankfully we did have cash on us, a rare thing for us. We wondered about those who had none, what they’d do if they were told they had free fuel only to find that they had to pay - and had no cash on them. I later corrected the news channel on my Twitter, disgusted at the irresponsible reporting.

It took 3 hours to get fuel while we waited for the generator to work at the station, then raced home to grab the kids, who mum was watching. There was a window of opportunity to escape and we were taking it. Mum took the opportunity too. She grabbed petrol before the pumps ran out and then fled to my brothers place in Bega. She’d stay there several days until she was allowed to go home.

Our drive home was slow. There were jams at several points and the smoke was so thick we had to close the aircon entirely. We watched as small fires still burnt so actively under trees and people cried outside the smouldering rubble that used to be their home. Animals sat in paddocks with burnt legs and we knew they’d likely be shot later. A lone alpaca sat on blackened paddocks and I hoped it wasn’t burnt, it’s fluffy face looking on to the distance as if it already knew its fate. Our baby cried for his bottle but they went cold in the traffic jams. There was nowhere to heat it until we met up with our friends in Cooma, the ones we met on the way down a week earlier. We fell through their doors looking worse for wear as they made us coffee and gifted us shortbread. We fed the kids and stretched our legs. We got home after 9 hours. My husbands family didn’t want us to worry and filled our shelves and cupboards with food and turned the aircon on to give the house clean air. We sat on our bed in an unchaotic house and wondered if we really did just go through all of that.

Mum was able to go home this past Wednesday and they switched the power back on. Mum was glad the place wasn’t looted as there were looters in the area. The fires brought out the best and the worst in people. While we were raising money and donating, others looted the cars of those who had already lost everything. When in Bega my mum, at one point, hid under a bridge with my brother for hours while it rained live embers. An old colleague of my brothers took them in until they could go back to my brothers place.

When we got back home to Canberra, I started the search for the birds owner and found her after a big community effort. She had gone to Melbourne for Christmas to see her daughter and her neighbour looked after the bird. The owner had lost everything. Her house and all her belongings and important documents. It would take a while to get back on her feet and so I’m watching her bird for her while she does so. I felt so sad to hear that she lost everything. What we went through was so small in comparison. We had a home to run away to and my mum got to go home to her house. But this bird and his owner have lost everything but each other and their dog. The bird gets along with our guinea pigs. They all chirp together while sitting inside waiting for the smoke in Canberra to die down. It’s really very cute.

It’s been very emotional. I have been crying at odd moments. We’ve seen a lot. This past week my husband and I have been struggling with how everything was supposed to be normal again. He’d go to work and I’d look after the kids and do my hobbies except it’s smokey outside and we have P2 masks on whenever we went out and the house is taped up to keep smoke out.

We are still processing a lot but I think typing it here helps in that process. Thank you if you read all of this. I will be resuming the bug photography soon. There’s no real conclusion yet and that’s because the fires rage on. There won’t be a real conclusion for a while yet. I guarantee it’ll remain devastating. We’ve lost lives and wildlife. We’ve lost treasured places and homes. Pets die from respiratory distress from being left outside. Stock are being put down from being injured in the fires. So we all cry from time to time while trying to do our best daily.

Much love,

Anthelid-Day

#nsw bushfires #bermagui #cobargo #evacuation #australia #australian bushfires #nsw #south coast #fires

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contrariian-archive · 5 years

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HOZIER’S “WASTELAND, BABY!” SENTENCE STARTERS

feel free to change pronouns, etc!

NINA CRIED POWER

‘ it’s not the waking, it’s the rising. ’ ‘ it is the grounding of a foot uncompromising. ’ ‘ it’s not forgoing of the lie, it’s not the opening of eyes. ’ ‘ it’s not the shade; we should be past it. it’s the light, and it’s the obstacle that casts it. ’ ‘ it’s the heat that drives the light. ’ ‘ it’s the heaven of a human spirit ringing. ’ ‘ and i could cry power. ’ ‘ it’s not the wall, but what’s behind it. ’ ‘ power has been cried by those stronger than me, straight into the face that tells you to rattle your chains if you love being free. ’

ALMOST (SWEET MUSIC)

‘ i came in from the outside, burned out from a joyride. ’ ‘ the same kind of music haunts her bedroom. ’ ‘ i’m almost me again. ’ ‘ i’m almost me again. she’s almost you. ’ ‘ i wouldn’t know where to start. ’ ‘ be still my foolish heart. ’ ‘ don’t ruin this on me. ’ ‘ let’s get lost and let the good times roll. ’ ‘ let’s smoke rings from this paper doll. ’ ‘ i got some color back. ’ ‘ i laugh like me again, she laughs like you. ’ ‘ the very thought of you, and i am blue. ’ ‘ i get along without you very well some other nights. ’

MOVEMENT

‘ i still watch you when you’re grooving. ’ ‘ you’re moving without moving. ’ ‘ when you move, i’m moved. ’ ‘ you are a call to motion. ’ ‘ when you move, i’m put to mind of all that i wanna be. ’ ‘ i could never define all that you are to me. ’ ‘ move me, baby. ’ ‘ you do it naturally. ’ ‘ honey, you’re atlas in his sleeping. ’ ‘ i recall something that’s gone from me. ’ ‘ when you move, i’m put in awe of something so flawed and free. ’

NO PLAN

‘ what a waste to say the heart could feel apart, or feel complete. ’ ‘ why would you make out of words a cage for your own bird, when it sings so sweet the screaming, heaving fuckery of the world? ’ ‘ why would you offer a name to the same old tired pain? ’ ‘ all things come from nothing. ’ ‘ my heart is thrilled by the still of your hand. ’ ‘ i know now that you understand. ’ ‘ there’s no plan. ’ ‘ there’s no race to be run. ’ ‘ the harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun. ’ ‘ there’s no kingdom to come. ’ ‘ i’ll be your man if you got love to get done. ’ ‘ sit in and watch the sunlight fade. ’ ‘ it’s getting late. ’ ‘ there’s no hand on the rein. ’ ‘ as mack explained, there will be darkness again. ’ ‘ let the awful song be heard. ’ ‘ i know your beat, baby. ’ ‘ your secret is safe with me. ’ ‘ if secrets were like seeds, keep my body from the fire, hire a gardener for my grave. ’ ‘ if secrets were like seeds, when i’m lying under marble, marvel at flowers you’ll have made. ’

NOBODY

‘ it’s gin o’clock. ’ ‘ i think about you everywhere i go. ’ ‘ i’ve done everything and i’ve been everywhere. ’ ‘ i’ve been fed gold by sweet fools. ’ ‘ i’ve had no love like your love from nobody. ’ ‘ i’d be appalled if i saw you ever try to be a saint. ’ ‘ i wouldn’t fall for someone i thought couldn’t misbehave. ’ ‘ i once warmed my hands over a burning maserati. ’ ‘ why should we deny the truth? ’ ‘ we could have less to worry about — i won’t lie to you. ’

TO NOISE MAKING (SING)

‘ remember when you’d sing just for the fuck of it? ’ ‘ the look of it was as sweet as the sound. ’ ‘ i couldn’t name that feeling carried in that voice — was it that, or just the act of making noise that brought you joy? ’ ‘ you don’t have to sing it right, but who could call you wrong? ’ ‘ put your emptiness to melody, your awful heart to song. ’ ‘ you don’t have to sing it right. ’ ‘ you don’t have to sing it right, but sing it strong. ’ ‘ at best, you’ll find a little remedy. ’ ‘ at worst, the world will sing along. ’ ‘ we’d scuff up our shoes. ’ ‘ you didn’t always sing it right. ’ ‘ who could ask you to be unbroken or be brave again? ’ ‘ be unbroken. ’ ‘ be brave again. ’ ‘ who could ask you to be sound or to feel saved again? ’ ‘ stick around until you hear that music play again. ’ ‘ so honey, sing. ’ ‘ sing. ’ ‘ remember when you’d sing just for the love of it? and any joy it would bring? ’

AS IT WAS

‘ there is a roadway, muddy and foxgloved, whenever i’d have life enough, my heart is screaming of. ’ ‘ and in a few days, i would be there, love. ’ ‘ whatever here that’s left of me is yours. ’ ‘ the highs hit the heights of my baby, and its hold had the fight of my baby. ’ ‘ the lights were as bright as my baby, ’ ‘ your love was unmoved. ’ ‘ tell me if, somehow, some of it remains, how long you would wait for me. ’ ‘ make your good love known to me. ’ ‘ tell me about your day. ’ ‘ and the nights were as dark as my baby, and half as beautiful too. ’

SHRIKE

‘ i couldn’t utter my love when it counted. ’ ‘ i couldn’t utter my love when it counted, but i’m singing like a bird about it now. ’ ‘ i’m singing like a bird about it now. ’ ‘ i couldn’t whisper when you needed it shouted. ’ ‘ words hung above, but never would form — like a cry at the final breath that is drawn. ’ ‘ remember me. ’ ‘ remember me, love. ’ ‘ remember me, love, when i’m reborn as a shrike to your sharp and glorious thorn. ’ ‘ i’d no idea on what ground i was founded. ’ ‘ all of that goodness is going with you now. ’ ‘ then, when i met you, my virtues uncounted — all of my goodness is going with you now. ’ ‘ all of my goodness is going with you now. ’ ‘ dragging along, following your form, hung like the pelt of some prey you had won. ’ ‘ i’m hung like the pelt of some prey you had one. ’ ‘ remember me when i’m reborn as a shrike to your sharp and glorious thorn. ’ ‘ i fled to the city with so much discounted. ’ ‘ i fled to the city with so much discounted, but i’m flying like a bird to you now. ’ ‘ i’m flying like a bird to you now. ’ ‘ i’m flying like a bird to you now, back to the hedgerows where bodies are mounted. ’ ‘ i was housed by your warmth. ’ ‘ i was thus transformed by your grounded and giving and darkening scorn. ’

TALK

‘ i’d be the voice that urged orpheus when her body was found. i’d be the choiceless hope in grief that drove him underground. ’ ‘ i’d be the dreadful need in the devotee. ’ ‘ i’d be the immediate forgiveness in eurydice. ’ ‘ imagine being loved by me. ’ ‘ i won’t deny — i’ve got in my mind now all the things i would do. ’ ‘ i try to talk refined for fear that you find out how i’m imagining you. ’ ‘ i’d be the last shred of truth in the lost myth of true love. ’ ‘ i’d be the sweet feeling of release. ’

‘ be as you’ve always been. ’ ‘ lover, be good to me. ’ ‘ be like the love that discovered the sin, that freed the first man and will do so again. ’ ‘ be that hopeful feeling when eden was lost. ’ ‘ it’s been deaf to our laughter since the master was crossed. ’ ‘ which side of the wall really suffers that cost? ’ ‘ be love in its disrepute. ’ ‘ love, in its disrepute, scorches the hillside and salts every root. ’ ‘ watch the slowing and starving of troops. ’ ‘ be like the rose that you hold in your hand, that will grow bold in a barren and desolate land. ’ ‘ love, won’t you be as you’ve always been? ’

DINNER & DIATRIBES

‘ this club here is stuck up. ’ ‘ i knew well from our first hookup the look of mischief in your eyes. ’ ‘ your friends are a fate that befell me. ’ ‘ hell is the talking type. ’ ‘ i’d suffer hell if you’d tell me what you’d do to me tonight. ’ ‘ that’s the kind of love i’ve been dreaming of. ’ ‘ honey, i laugh when it sinks in. ’ ‘ the evening is slowing. ’ ‘ the end is in sight. ’ ‘ it’s easier knowing what you’d do to me tonight. ’ ‘ let there be hotel complaints and grievances raised. ’ ‘ let there be damage ensued and tabloid news. ’

WOULD THAT I

‘ i saw your hair like the branch of a tree — a willow dancing on air before covering me. ’ ‘ that love in withdrawal was the weeping of me. ’ ‘ the sound of the saw must be known by the tree. ’ ‘ i fretted fire, but that was long ago. ’ ‘ i blink in sight of your blinding light. ’ ‘ it’s not tonight where you hold me tight. ’ ‘ you’re good to me. ’ ‘ with the roar of the fire, my heart rose to its feet. ’ ‘ like the ashes of ash, i saw rise in the heat. ’ ‘ i fell in love with the fire long ago. ’ ‘ with each love i cut loose, i was never the same. ’ ‘ i’m watching still-living roots be consumed by the flame. ’ ‘ i was fixed on your hand of gold laying waste to my loving long ago. ’ ‘ in awe, there i stood. ’ ‘ though i’ve handled the wood, i still worship the flame. ’ ‘ as long as the amber of ember glows, all the would that i’d loved is long ago. ’

SUNLIGHT

‘ i would shun the light. ’ ‘ share in evening’s cool and quiet. ’ ‘ who would trade that hum of night for sunlight? ’ ‘ but whose heart would not take flight? ’ ‘ but whose heart would not take flight, betray the moon as acolyte, on first and fierce affirming sight of sunlight? ’ ‘ i’d been lost to you. ’ ‘ i flew like a moth to you. ’ ‘ oh, your love is sunlight. ’ ‘ all the tales the same, told before and told again. ’ ‘ a soul that’s born in cold and rain knows sunlight. ’ ‘ oh, my sunlight. ’ ‘ all that was shown to me, sunlight, was something foreknown to me. ’ ‘ all these colors fade for you only. ’ ‘ hold me. ’ ‘ carry me slowly. ’ ‘ each day, you’d rise with me. ’ ‘ know that i would gladly be the icarus to your certainty. ’ ‘ strap the wing to me. death trap-clad, happily, with wax melted, i’d meet the sea. ’

WASTELAND, BABY!

‘ all the fear and the fire of the end of the world happens each time a boy falls in love with a girl. happens great, happens sweet. ’ ‘ happily, i’m unfazed here, too. ’ ‘ wasteland baby, i’m in love with you. ’ ‘ baby, i’m in love with you. ’ ‘ all the things yet to come are the things that have passed: like the holding of hands, like the breaking of glass. ’ ‘ i’m in love with you. ’ ‘ and i love too that love soon might end. ’ ‘ be still, my indelible friend. you are unbreaking. ’ ‘ you are unbreaking, though quaking. ’ ‘ that day that we watch the death of the sun; the cloud and the cold and those jeans you have on. ’ ‘ you gaze unafraid as they sob from the city ruins. ’ ‘ the stench of the sea and the absence of green are the death of all things that are seen and unseen. ’ ‘ not an end, but the start of all things that are left to do. ’ ‘ that’s it. ’

#sentence starters #hozier sentence starters #wasteland baby starters #askbox memes #long post #long post for ts #the answer is blowing in the wind || memes.

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whumpywhumper · 5 years

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Christine and Markus Part-3

Thank you @0idril0 as usual for cheering me on and putting up with the fact that I took a break from our collab project to work on this 😅

Catch Part One and Two at the respective links--TW for those since non-con touching occurs

Edit for Masterpost

***

Christine’s hand moved from his shoulder in a soft sweep of dainty fingers against hot flesh as she walked behind him. Her cold skin was a dramatic contrast to the fevered feeling he experienced throughout his body, and Markus shivered, unsuccessfully swallowing a whimper when he felt the energies being collected in the air. A hand settled on the back of his neck, the vampire’s thumb rubbing small circles into his hyperaware skin, just under his ear.

“Duh..Nnn. . .mmn…” Don’t! Nonono! The half-worded pleas unconsciously fell from Markus’s lips before he got himself back under control, shaking his head, trying to pull away from Christine’s hand.

His breathing hitched in his throat when she chuckled, leaning forward so that her breath tickled his ear, “Were you going to beg, darling?”

Tears leaked out of the corners of his eyes as they fluttered open, trying to catch onto something to take his attention away from the impending pain, clenching his teeth together. F-fuck you. He shook his head, again, and shuddered in a sob before her hand clenched on his neck. His entire body ignited like a lightning strike.

Markus screamed.

He couldn’t help the raw, blood-curdling note of devastation that thundered from him, echoing out of his mouth and around the concrete walls of the warehouse. Every muscle screwed up tight, taught as a bowstring on the precipice of snapping, his chest contracting with the air that was driven out of him. Something fractured in him, his vision sparking and fading as black spots swam in front of his vision, the last of his air wisping into the room. Oxygen deprivation sank into his brain, his body slumping and jittering at the assault, unable to draw another breath in past the screeching jangle of nerves being shredded up and down his spine.

The pain was gone a moment later, Markus slumping as Christine removed her hand from the back of his neck, pushing his head forward so that his chin rested on his chest. Echoes of that shattering, rendering torture traveled up and down his spine as he swung there by his manacles. His wrists squalled at him with the amount of pressure on the delicate bones, and his chest spasmed as he tried to draw in a breath. He coughed, the copper taste of blood from the busted blood vessels in his throat coating his tongue as a broken cry poured out of his mouth when something popped and gave way in his wrist. Spittle coated his lips, and he drew another gasp in over the cool liquid, his lips stinging from the dry cracking.

“Markus,” a low voice murmured to him, “Markus, look at me, darling.” He whined, high and brittle, drawing in reedy gasps of air as his eyelids flickered, half-open, eyes dazed and barely tracking. Entire body shuddering, Markus moaned when a hand carded into his hair, drawing his face up with a tightening fist on the sweat-damp locks. “Markus, look at me.”

He tried, he really did, his eyes rolling in his head to find the source of the voice. Everything was blurry, dark and too bright at the same time, his eyes not listening to his frantic begging to focus. I’m trying, I’m trying, please . . . He sucked in another breath into his dry throat, tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth, throat clicking. A hand came up under his chin, around his jaw, and he fought for a sip of air past his panic.

The hand carded through his hair in gentle, sweeping strokes. “Shhh, I can see you trying, darling,” a choked sob stuck in his throat when her fingers dug back into those same places in the sides of his jaw, “you’re scared I’ll hurt you again. You should be scared, little witch. This nerve here that I accessed—“ she tapped the side of his face ”— it’s called the trigeminal nerve. It is the most pain receptive nerve in your entire body.” The dark shape that was lingering over his face came closer, and Markus’s eyelashes dusted his cheeks when he blinked, unsteadily focusing on Christine’s face. “There you are.”

Her face came ever closer, and Markus shook in his chains, a strangled note of surprise and fear pushing out of his throat when Christine’s lips met his. What-? The kiss didn’t last long, no more than a pressing of soft lips against his own, but when the vampire leaned back she smiled, lips speckled red from Markus’s coughed up blood. She licked them clean, a wanton noise coming from her throat, “You’re right, Lucien, he’s like ambrosia.” She tightened her hand in the top of his hair, and forced his head back, other hand leaving his jaw to trace the column of his throat.

Oh god, no, please. Markus tried to struggle, an exposed and vulnerable feeling echoing in his chest at the revealing of the arteries in his neck making the animal part of his brain want to fight and get away from her hold, but it was useless.

“Do you want to beg for Lucien yet, Markus? Do you want to go back to him?”

Yes, yes he wanted to beg but he bit his lip, hard enough to pierce the skin, not allowing the pathetic mewling to fall any farther than his throat, the words exploding in his chest with the dull pounding of his heart against his ribcage. He shut his eyes tight, decidedly not looking for the other vampire. He wasn’t a rescuer, he wasn’t!

Christine laughed, full and throaty, “He really is stubborn, Lucien.”

“Yes, he is, beloved.” Markus jumped when another hand brushed against his arm, the slipping slide of a thicker, rougher palm eased by the still dripping blood from his wrists. The hand came to settle on the back of Markus’s head, cradling it, taking over for Christine as her hand moved to rest over the curve of his ribs. Markus’s eyes fluttered open when Lucien’s hand moved his head to the side by the grip on his hair, facilitating the exposure of the side of his neck.

His eyes were huge, he knew they were, as they looked up at Lucien. The angle was awkward and, even though he was able to keep the begging from leaving his lips, he knew his desperation and terror was etched into his face, screaming from his eyes. Lucien only smiled, black eyes watching Christine lower her head to Markus’s neck.

Markus thought he knew what to expect from Christine’s bite. The sharp sting of fangs piercing his skin, the cool drag of lips and tongue over ripped and sensitive flesh, the anxiety-inducing feeling of being drained and fed upon by something much stronger than him, until the pulse of venom took everything away in a wash of overwhelming pain and drugged stupefaction.

This was nothing like that.

Her teeth felt like daggers through his neck, spearing through and tearing the skin and muscle away. Markus jerked, a ragged sound popping out of his mouth as her teeth punctured through his skin. The witch tried to draw back, chest heaving, legs tensing and threatening to try to find purchase underneath him, but Lucien and Christine didn’t let him move. They held him in place easily, like one would a kitten or babe who squirmed in their arms. Lucien was a wall behind him, holding his head steady, not letting his jerk backward take him more than a few centimeters. Christine’s hand brushed up and down his rib cage, the other working its way around to hold his neck closer to her mouth, ensuring he couldn’t get away.

Christine’s jaw clenched on his throat, and she growled as he arched up into her involuntarily, an agonized scream building up in his chest, unable to force its way through this throat. Black swam in front of his eyes, but, disconcertingly, he felt Lucien gently caress his cheek as Christine fed. Markus was allowed a gasp of air into his panting mouth when the female vampire swallowed, tongue and jaw moving with a shuddering moan.

Markus moaned himself when she kept feeding, already weak from blood loss, he felt a shuddering chill run down his spine as he trembled against Lucien before going limp. Tears streaked down his temples. He couldn’t see Lucien for the blurriness to his sight. I can’t, can’t, please. . .

“Christine... “ Lucien said, warning clear in his tone.

Markus cried out when a second piercing pain lanced through his throat, his chains rattling overhead as he attempted to yank away from Christine, but then his blood was replaced by lava, and he couldn’t struggle anymore. He seized when her venom entered his bloodstream in a pulsing spurt, entire body clenching and quaking as his muscles jerked and snatched against his bones. He screamed, mindlessly, the sound tumbling into a begging wail as her teeth left his throat and the pain didn’t stop. He could feel her sealing the puncture marks with her tongue, the cold sensation not alleviating the fire that roared under his skin. He was burning alive.

Christine stepped away from him as his wail turned into keening open-mouthed sobs, tears pouring endlessly down his face as his body shuddered and jerked as the fire rendered his bones to ash. Lucien’s lips brushed against his ear as Markus cried, his voice barely clear through the encompassing agony, “Is there something you want to say to me, Markus?”

“Ple-ple-ase!” he begged. Pleasepleasepleaseplease, oh god, please, make it stop!

“Please what, darling?” The witch continued to cry, shaking and bawling with the pain that overwhelmed his exhausted mind. “Shhh, Markus, I know you can do it.” Lucien brushed a hand through his hair in a facsimile of comfort, “It’s just two words, you can do it.”

He swallowed, breath hitching and sticking in his throat “P-p-lease, Luc-Lucien,” he hiccuped, sniveling and limp in his chains. I can’t, I can’t, pleaseplease.

“There you go, darling,” Lucien cooed, arm coming to wrap around Markus’s heaving chest, taking the weight off of his wrists. The manacles snicked against Markus’s wrists as they were unlocked, his arms gently lowered to his sides as Lucien laid him out on the cold concrete.

Markus groaned, deep in his throat, as the pain continued to roll through him. His heart was pounding fitfully in his chest, breaths starting to come quick and shallow as darkness encroached on his tear blurred vision. “Please, Lucien, please,” he begged, silently, “Make it stop. I can’t.”

He felt the vampires moving around him but the thundering of blood rushing through his ears drowned them out until Lucien knelt in front of him, fingers at his throat. He whined, shaking his head, shuddering. “Easy, Markus,” Lucien murmured, “this will make it stop.”

A soft prick against his neck, so much gentler than Christine’s bite, and a cold sensation had him twitching. The knobs of his spine digging into the concrete. But Lucien’s hand rested against his hair, thumb brushing soothingly on his forehead, and his eyelids fluttered. He didn’t struggle when blackness took everything away.

#begging #vampire whump #vampire #Lucien #Markus #Christine #Markus/Lucien series #pain

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