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kyyuri · 3 years

Text

silent cries || hwang hyunjin

a series: reasons why skz broke the relationship off

lower caps intended ! taglist open for this series !

warnings: some profanities

word count: 1.4k

genre: angst

a/n: all the bolded with italic parts are her memory. also im so sorry for being inactive >< i had major writers block. and i would like to apologise in advance if this seems rushed :”)

when he chooses his ex over you

[series masterlist ] [masterlist]

(all the bolded with italics parts are y/ns memories)

“hyun ? where are you ?” you nervously paced around as you spoke into the phone. “i’ll be home soon. i promise. im at school right now. “hyun… its almost 6pm… did you… nevermind. i’ll see you at home.” you hung up before he could utter anything else. kicking off your heels, you threw your handbag onto the couch. it was your anniversary today and this is the fourth time this week he had bailed on you. the reason ? his ex, hyejin.

the two have grown unbelievably close within the month. it didn’t sit well with you at all, but hyunjin managed to reassure you that his feelings for her are gone and he’s over her, head over feels for you instead. at the start, he stayed true to his words. it was so blissful. but as days go by, hyejin seemed to have grown on hyunjin again. it’s starting to get on your nerves, and with your insecurities, it wasnt helping at all. hyunjin was not doing you a favour either, every time you tried to bring up this topic, it seemed to piss him off a lot. arguments were inevitably increasing with each passing day and gradually, you began seeing him lesser because he is always busy with her.

hot tears streamed down your face, ruining your mascara in the process, but you didnt care anyways. 3 years together and he still chooses her over you. did it mean nothing to him ? all those precious time wasted. picking yourself up, you dragged yourself up into your room. you were so foolish and turned a blind eye on all the red flags hyunjin showed.

you started packing all your stuff.

“hyun ! can you help me with this ?” you pointed to one of the logarithm questions on your graded assignment. “give me a minute, y/n. hyejin’s calling me.” you watched as he picked the phone up. you told yourself you werent interested in whatever they were talking about as you trusted hyunjin with all your heart but the moment you heard his laughter, your heart dropped. you gave in and decided to eavesdrop a little. although now you wished you didnt. “cmon hyejin, we both know you look the best in black. you should wear that dress- the black one !” he continued rambling “nono the one with the bare back and v cut. i think it would look better as your prom outfit.” right. prom was coming. and hyunjin still hasn’t asked you to be his date yet. or did he think it was unnecessary because you were in a relationship with him ? you thought he was aware of it since he always asked you to every dance. you snapped out of your thoughts as you watch him end the call with a smile on his face. “hyun…? are you done …? i still need help.” the smile faded almost instantly. “just use the textbook.” he sounded like a completely different person but you didn’t feel like questioning him.

a “ping !” came from your phone. it was felix. you opened it just to see a picture of hyejin making out with hyunjin by his locker. your heart sank even deeper.

“hyun. im not feeling… very well to-today.” you felt very weak as your fever burned up. “y/n, babe im so sorry. hyejin has a major dance exam tomorrow and im trying to help her pass it. i’ll come over after we are done ok?” you hummed in reply and ended the call. it didnt take you a while before you passed out from the lethargic feeling caused by your fever. when you woke up again, it was already 8pm but hyunjin was still nowhere in sight. you still felt horrible and maybe even worse now, knowing he probably forgot about you. you gradually grew bored waiting for hyunjin and started to scroll through instagram when you accidentally clicked on his insta story. “with the gal.” it said. it was a picture of two meals at the place youve been wanting to visit with hyunjin and you could easily make out the figure of the other person. hyejin. you clicked on the left once. “thanks for today jinnie <3” it read. hyejin had tagged him and he reposted it. it was a picture of them hugging. you were lying if you said you were completely ok with it. but you couldnt find it in you to bring it up to hyunjin. at least not yet.

“you mind picking me up later and letting me crash at yours?” you texted felix and he agreed almost instantly .

you remember blowing out the candles on your birthday. “happy birthday baby, i love you.” hyunjin pressed his lips against your forehead as he enveloped you in a hug. it was such a perfect moment. a perfect moment that was ruined by none other then hyejin. “j-jinnie… can you come over…?” it sounded like she was crying. hyunjin dropped you immediately. he grabbed his coat and car keys and made a beeline for the door. “h-hyun! where are you g-going ?” you were in disbelief. he wouldn’t ditch you like this, now would he ? on your special day ? “she needs me, y/n” and without even uttering another word, he ran to comfort another woman in his arms. your knees gave in as you collapsed to the ground. the love of your life had left you again. and what hurts even more was the fact that he did not even hesitate. not even for a second. while she was crying in his arms, you on the other hand was crying on the cold hard kitchen floor, with the nicely decorated cake left untouched.

you dragged the luggage down the stairs. you made a mental note to leave before he returned and to come collect the rest of your stuff another day.

before you could even reach the front door, it swung open. “what the fuck y/n? where are you going?” hyunjin sounded pissed the moment his eyes landed on the luggage. you were dumbfounded, he had the audacity to be mad ? “leaving. if that isn’t obvious enough.” you rolled your eyes. “why ?!” he shouted in frustration. “why ?! YOU HAVE THE NERVE TO ASK ME WHY ?? do you know what day it is today ?! ITS OUR FUCKING ANNIVERSARY FOR FUCK SAKE. IS THIS ALL A JOKE TO YOU ?!” he grew silent as you continued with your outburst. “this is the fourth time you bailed on me this week and im sick of it! im not going to stay by your side like some lovesick puppy and watch you choose hyejin over me OVER AND OVER AGAIN!” he laughed sarcastically. “ME?! choose her ? what a sick joke. i had every chance to get her back if i wanted to, and now hell i think about it, i really rather do that then be here with you. TIME AND TIME AGAIN, I RUSH TO YOUR SIDE TO HELP YOU OUT AND THIS IS HOW YOU REPAY ME ? by making me look like some cheating asshole ?”

this time, it was your turn to scoff. “oh fuck off hyunjin. you rushing to help me ? yeah i admit you did but that was before that bitch came and stole you away from me constantly. have you ever wondered who the fuck is your real girlfriend? hyejin ? NO. ITS ME. and yet im being treated like anything BUT THAT. fuck, you wanna be with her so bad ? GO AHEAD ! SHES SO MUCH BETTER THAN ME ACCORDING TO YOU ANYWAYS. im done.” you grabbed your luggage once again and made your way towards the door. “you dont even have a place to stay you loser.” he retorted. “oh hell yea i do. because unlike you, felix cares about me and cares enough to actually BE THERE FOR ME.” you heard a loud honk outside, signalling his arrival. you made sure to say one last thing to hyunjin before you leave. “ill be back to collect the rest of my stuff. enjoy your fucking life.” and with that, you slammed the door behind you shut.

and just that easily, your first love ended. how unfortunate it was to see it end on a bad note. but maybe it was a blessing in disguise…

all works here are strictly mine. please do not translate or steal them without permission. © kyyuri

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effeminateboyninja · 3 years

Note

I had a dream last night that I had an unrequited crush on Shikamaru since forever but he and Temari had started dating.

(In the dream I had me and Shiki we’re walking and joking then Temari came over and then they went for dinner together. As Shikamaru’s friend I was like -arm punch- go on bro, have fun. And they walked away together leaving me feeling heartbroken, inadequate and inferior.)

You can do any scenario you want. I literally have an unrequited love playlist lol 😂❤️

oh anon, i've been there 😭 let us wallow in our unrequited love for Shikamaru together

~ Almost enough ~

(Shikamaru x fem!reader) angst // 1.7k words

Ten years. An entire decade with Shikamaru by your side, getting into the carefree mischief that defined such childhood friendships and growing so close people were surprised to see one of you without the other. More than half of it spent trying to ignore the butterflies and daydreams that would force you to admit you wanted him to be more. In hindsight it seemed inevitable, the way he’d snuck into your heart before you could even notice. With his striking intelligence and those penetrating eyes, the way he so readily discarded his lazy demeanor and replaced it with hardened determination when his friends needed him — how could you not love him?

You accepted it too late though, spent too many months agonizing over how to tell your best friend that you were head over heels for him, and by the time you were finally brave enough to take the plunge and make your confession he had one of his own. That day was cemented in your mind now, a stinging reminder of your own inaction. Against your better judgement you drifted back into the memory...

It was beautiful out, the warm air offset by a gentle breeze that carried the spring blossoms through the wind as he sat across the shogi board from you, his sharp brow furrowed in concentration as he analyzed the pieces to determine his next move. One of the petals caught in his dark hair and your hand moved to brush it away, but before you could he sat back with a sigh, “Do you wanna do something else? I’m not really into the game.”

“Why? Because I’m winning?” you teased.

He rolled his eyes and cracked a small grin. “You’re only winning because I’m not giving it my all,” he objected.

“Sure, sure,” you threw a light punch at his shoulder and you both laughed. He looked so pretty when he laughed. Not the snarky chuckle he used so often in public, but this unapologetically cheerful one accompanied by a toothy smile that was so carefree and genuine it transformed his serious face into something softer, more innocent. The words never seemed easier to say than it that moment, and without your permission they slipped through your lips as the laughter died out.

“I love you.”

He didn’t even skip a beat, returning your confession with an eye roll and a gentle shove. “Shut up dude, I love you too. You’re my best friend, I don’t know what I would do without you.”

Your heart sunk a bit at his misinterpretation and you parted your lips to explain that yes, he’s your best friend too but he’s also so much more, but before you could he went on, “Speaking of love, I wanted to ask for some advice... about Temari.”

His eyes darted to his hands and a soft blush crept across his cheeks. You’d have thought he punched you in the stomach, not timidly asked for your help by the way your body tensed at his words. You didn’t know disappointment could feel so tangible until that moment, the way your stomach dropped to your feet and your hands went cold. “Temari?” you questioned, clearing your throat to rid it of the lump that had formed, “you love her?”

He jolted up and the red in his cheeks deepened. “Nono of course not!” he stammered, “I just… I like her a lot and like, you’re a girl right? How do I win her over?”

For the first time in your life you regretted being so close to him. Couldn’t he have gone to literally anyone else for help with this? Why did it have to be you? To him you were the only one he could approach about such an important topic. It wasn’t just because you were a girl that he asked, but because he valued your opinion above anyone else's. It was because even if it wasn’t the way you wanted, he wasn’t lying when he said he loved you too. So you pushed it all aside — all the heartbreak and sadness that threatened to overwhelm you — you buried it deep down inside for the sake of your friend, looking so nervous and vulnerable as he sat in front of you and put on a fake smile as you did your best to be what he needed in that moment.

“Well you’re a catch so it should be easy, but if you really want to impress her you should…”

“Hey! Are you even listening to me?” Shikamaru waved his hand in front of your eyes, pulling you out of your recollection and back to the present where you walked easily beside him through the streets, no real destination in mind.

You blinked a few times to reorient yourself and apologized with what you hoped was a reassuring smile, “Sorry, I’m just a little distracted today.”

He snickered, “Who has their head in the clouds now, huh?”

“You’ve been a bad influence on me,” you retorted with a smirk and he laughed.

“You’re probably right,” he conceded. “Hey, do you remember when we were kids and we would skip class to go cloud watching?”

He wore a thoughtful smile as he posed the question, his eyes lost in a content nostalgia. God, why did he have to look so damn perfect when he smiled?

You cleared your head and scoffed, “Of course. I still get grief from my mother about all the absence notes Iruka sensei sent home.”

He snorted, “You actually gave her those?! I always ripped mine up before she could see them,” his sentence trailed off into a laugh, one of those real ones that you lived for the sound of and you joined him, forgetting momentarily about your unrequited feelings.

But of course the moment ended much too soon. You noticed her at the same time he did, and you were glad the Nara man’s intense gaze was so singularly focused on the blonde woman ahead that he wouldn’t notice the way your face fell as your laughter cut off abruptly. She waved excitedly from her position a few blocks down and rushed towards you guys, her short pigtails bouncing behind her as she ran.

“Hey you guys!” she greeted the two of you excitedly as she arrived, giving Shikamaru a quick peck on the cheek, causing a small wince you hoped went unnoticed. “Ready for our date?”

“Shit! I almost forgot,” he palmed his forehead and turned to you apologetically, “we’re supposed to get dinner tonight, we have a reservation and everything. Sorry to leave you like this but we’ve gotta go.”

“No worries!” you flashed them a bright smile, one that was uncharacteristically wide in an attempt to compensate for your disappointment. “Go on and take your girl out. Have fun.”

You shoved him towards her lightly and Temari smiled, “Yeah! Listen to (y/n), she’s got the right idea.”

He looked at her the way you’d dreamed he would look at you and laced his fingers through hers, moving to lead her away in the direction of the restaurant. He looked over his shoulder and called back, “See ya tomorrow!” They both waved before turning back ahead, swaying gently as they matched each other’s steps.

“See ya…” you whispered to yourself, their shared giggles echoing off the buildings as they turned the corner and disappeared from your sight.

Nowhere else to go and not wanting to return to your empty apartment you turned to continue walking the sandy streets of the village and ponder. After a while you found yourself at a small pond, where you sat at the edge and peered into the calm water that reflected the crescent of the rising moon in it’s glossy reflection.

What was it about her? Why her and not you? Maybe it’s because she’s so beautiful, you thought forlornly as you traced the lines of your own plain features in the watery mirror below. You hit your hand over the surface to disturb the picture of yourself, water splashing back and mixing with tears that had started to fall on your cheeks.

That wasn’t it and you knew it. Shikamaru wasn’t that shallow. If he was this might be easier. He was with her and not you because she was perfect for him. Even you could admit that in spite of your own feelings she was his ideal match. He just lit up around her in a way that he never did when you were together, and as painful as that was there was an unselfish part of you that appreciated her for it.

You’d spent a lot of time trying to hate her. Trying to find a reason, any reason that they shouldn’t be together to justify telling him your truth and ruining it all — but you couldn’t bring yourself to do it. Underneath the hard exterior she really was kind, extremely so. She was more perceptive about matters of the heart than he was, and you suspected she knew of your true feelings for her boyfriend… but she never once made you feel bad about it or told him. Not that she needed to try to make you feel guilty, the feeling overwhelmed you everytime they were around, and even more so when it was just the two of you.

The small part that was left of you still concerned with self-preservation told you to cut them both off. To just stop answering his calls and disappear from their lives before you could slip up and lean in for the kiss you imagined millions of times. But he was addicting. No one else made you feel so at ease, made you laugh so joyfully except him. So you’d wade through the guilt and the knowledge that you were only hurting yourself just to spend a few minutes with him whenever you could, even if it meant watching him fall in love with someone else. Being his friend was enough. Almost.

#shikamaru nara #shikamaru x reader #shikamaru x y/n #shikamaru angst #shikamaru oneshot #shikamaru fanfiction #shikamaru imagine #nara shikamaru #naruto imagines #naruto x reader #naruto oneshot

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plus-size-reader · 4 years

Text

Feelings

Warren Peace x Plus size!reader

Word Count: 1509 words

Warnings: none

Summary: The reader, Warren’s best friend, wears a dress for the first time to the homecoming dance, catching everyone off guard

——————————————————————————————————

You and Warren had been best friends all your lives.

In a place like Sky High where everything was so black and white, it was only natural you bonded more closely with those like you. It was survival of the fittest, or in your case, the more intimidating.

You had a power most commonly known as suggestion, though it was a bit more complicated than that. You could influence the actions of others with nothing more than a few spoken words, something that didn't exactly make you the most popular.

People were afraid of you, and afraid of what you could do.

It was only natural, seeing as you possessed a power that they couldn't understand. They created this narrative in their heads that you were dangerous or bad. Once that kind of entered the picture, they didn't want anything to do with you.

...And from there, it was a natural progression.

Warren didn't have any friends when you met. The other students avoided him like the plaque and seeing as they didn't want to spend any time with you either, you just gravitated toward one another.

It didn't really happen overnight of course, but eventually Warren couldn't avoid it any longer. The two of you just had too much in common to not be friends, even if you didn't necessarily want to be.

At the start of it all, that was a huge conflict in your life.

Your parents were both heroes and expected the same thing from you. They wanted you to make them proud, and to bring glory to their name, once again. Seeing as they were both inactive, you were the only hope they had of that.

However, by this point in your life, they had given up on you becoming anything other than who you were. You had made it abundantly clear that you had no interest in being a hero or a villain.

You just wanted to be who you were.

That was part of why Warren and you managed to mesh the way you did. You didn't expect anything from him, and he didn't expect anything from you. You were perfectly content with just letting the dark haired male live his life.

...And that was never going to change.

You knew that there was nothing for you or Warren as anything other than friends. After all, he had never showed any kind of interest in you in that way. You didn't really expect him to, but it definitely would have been nice.

The two of you were friends, and that was it.

It would have been a lie to say that at some point in the last few months you hadn't started looking at him differently, but that didn't mean anything. Just because you realized that you had feelings for him, didn't mean that he saw you as anything other than a buddy.

That was all you would ever be.

You had come to terms with that.

That was why you didn't say anything when he agreed to go to homecoming with Layla, and why you didn't bother to meet up with him for your usual Chinese food night that following day. You assumed that he wanted her, and didn't want to interfere with that.

The last thing you wanted to do was be a bother when he was trying to just have a good time.

It bothered him, of course, that you didn't show up. He worried that there had been some kind of problem or you were upset with him but he didn't have time to confront you about it before homecoming, which you were also late for.

You showed up an hour or so after the dance started, going back and forth with yourself over whether or not you were making a fool of yourself by going alone. Lash had asked if maybe you'd want to go with him but called to cancel a few hours before it was time.

You hated the idea of showing up late with no date, but not any more than you hated the idea of not showing up at all. If nothing else, homecoming was a party and a rite of passage and you didn't want to skip it.

That would be arguably more embarrassing. So, you did your best to get yourself together and made your way into the auditorium, where anything could have been waiting for you.

...and it was.

For the last hour, Warren had been asking around, trying to find out if anyone had seen you since arriving and though he didn't have anything yet, that all changed as soon as Layla spotted you across the gym.

You looked incredible.

The dress you were wearing was quite the change from what you normally wore, considering the fact that it wasn't jeans and a sweatshirt. It was form fitting and black, showing off the curves of your body that you usually kept hidden away.

Really, you hated it but you mother hadn't really given you a choice in the matter before dropping you off. She had a great time at her homecoming and wasn't going to have any of your dramatics. She certainly wasn't going to let you show up in sneakers, like you'd begged her to do.

You had just walked in and were clearly trying to find a single familiar face in the sea of people when Warren turned around, greeted by a sight that he could have never expected. You looked amazing, of course, but he was in shock.

So in shock, apparently, that even when you found him in the crowd and made your way over, he didn't have a single thing to say. It was as if his mind was entirely blank and the wasn't altogether an exaggeration.

He had never seen you like that.

"Hey, sorry I'm late. This kind of isn't really my thing" you shrugged, as if that was somehow the reason you'd been so late. It wasn't like you could just admit to them all that you'd been anxiously pacing in the bathroom for the last thirty minutes.

Your stomach was tied in knots to begin with, and the blank look on all their faces wasn't doing much to make that better. If nothing else, the silence was only further enforcing the fact that you shouldn't have come here in the first place.

They probably thought you were a joke.

"You look nice Y/N" Layla spoke first, shocking you. As best you could tell, she didn't like you very much, just like the rest of them, though clearly something had changed since the last you knew.

You smiled at her in thanks, doing your best to show her how grateful you to her for breaking the silence. Then, after you couldn't avoid it anymore, you turned to Warren, your best friend in the world-who still had no words.

He was just looking at you, trying to figure out how you were the same person he'd spend every day with since the beginning of high school. It didn't make any sense at all, but that wasn't a bad thing.

It definitely wasn't a bad thing.

"Are you okay?" you asked him finally, after his staring went on for so long that you really had to rethink everything. Warren was definitely being really weird, but thankfully, that wasn't altogether out of character for him.

He didn't say anything for another moment or two, thinking about what he wanted to say but once he'd done so, it didn't really clear it up.

"She's right. You look good" he shrugged, immediately regretting everything. For as long as it had taken him to come up with that, it should have been better but he couldn't help it. Right now, Warren was facing something he had never noticed before.

What was going on with him?

Every single thing he thought about you before today was already amplified but for some reason, when you laughed his stomach flipped. It was odd. He felt like there were butterflies fluttering around in his stomach, something he'd never really experienced before.

"Thanks" you tried, incorrectly reading his strange reaction as upset toward you. Instead of assuming that he was wrestling with his new feelings for you, you assumed that he was angry with you for interrupting his date with Layla.

If only you knew.

Warren was almost weirded out, completely unsure what he was supposed to be doing about this. There was no way these sorts of feelings really came out of nowhere right? If he had feelings for you, wouldn't he have realized before now?

It seemed like he would have but maybe it had just never occurred to him why he cared about you so much more than everyone else he was around. The fact that he could tolerate you was the biggest tell of them all.

In any case, Warren had to be honest with himself, he clearly had feelings for you. Now he just had to figure out what he was going to do about that.

#warren peace #sky high #warren peace x reader #warren peace x ps reader #warren peace x plus size reader #warren peace imagine #sky high x reader #sky high x ps reader #sky high x plus size reader #sky high imagine #sky high movie #sky high movie imagine #sky high movie x reader #sky high movie x ps reader #sky high movie x plus size reader

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captainrexisboo · 4 years

Text

Ice

-DJ Khaled voice- Another one.

What the fuck?? Four fics in just one weekend?? After two whole months of inactivity?? Aha, I am in no way as productive as you think I am. I’ve been sitting on all of these projects for almost three months now lmao- but they’re here now for your viewing pleasure, babes! This is a one shot Rex x Jedi!Reader, but they are not together. They do not get together. This is just Rex, pining for some oblivious Jedi General (you) and dealing with it by being grumpy and thinking he has the upper hand in teasing the reader. I left the gender of the reader pretty ambiguous I think? I hope?

No warnings apply, except I guess foul language if you don’t like that. And vague imaginings of semi steamy scenarios. Some angst if you squint. But really, it’s just fluffy pining, with a needy (and in denial) Rex. Comments, questions, reblogs and replies absolutely welcome and encouraged!

“T-take off the a-a-armor.”

The jaig eyes turned to you, the blue and white blending into the Pantoran ice and snow effortlessly. This would be the only environment suitable for their stark white armor as camouflage, and here you were demanding him stripped. Knowing you couldn’t read his bewildered expression, Rex tilted his head to you in a curious motion, “Why?”

“It’s fekkin’ f-freezin’ Cap,” you spoke through chattering teeth, pulling your robes tighter around you. He chuckled at your cursing, no other Jedi talked so blunt like you did, so casual. It was even worse when you were outside the temple, falling out of regulations and decorum the moment it was just you and your troopers. Hell, they didn’t even have to be your troopers. Force knows how often you’ve snuck around the barracks on Coruscant, going from battalion to battalion, whoever had furlough, making sure every clone gets at least a moment's worth of normalcy in their too-short life. Rex would be lying if he said it wasn’t endearing, and he may have felt a slight smidgen of pride that, aside from your own men, you seemed to find yourself in the 501st bunks the most.

“So? I’m perfectly toasty in this specialized insulated armor. You’re the one that decided not to wear your cold-assault gear until we got to the surface, General L/N,” Rex teased, drawing out your name and title nice and slow, biting back a bit of laughter at the way you scrunch your nose whenever you got annoyed, “Why would you want me to de-kit? To be cold with you?”

“Don’t c-call me that, Rex,” you bit out, groaning at the formality, and the chill going down your spine, “Y-you know I’m just Y/N.”

“I’ll stop calling you proper, when you stop being a Jedi,” he chided, prodding some more at the fire in the dim cavern, the only light being the glowing embers in front of you and whatever was being illuminated off the snow right at the mouth of the cave. Your ship had crashed into the freezing moon in the midst of a brutal blizzard, luckily right next to the base of a mountain with accessible caves. Unluckily, you were also 15 klicks west of your rendezvous point, with the wind and snow causing major damage to your transmitters and interfering with the signal in your commlinks. You weren’t going anywhere, or talking to anyone, until the storm let up.

You huffed at his strict persona, you know Rex only acted so dogmatic to rile you up. You saw how nonchalantly he acted around Anakin and Ahsoka, even Obi-Wan at times. No, with you it was entertainment, a game to see how much you could take before breaking, and he loved it. Even without the Force, you could see it in the shake of his shoulders at his quiet laughter, hear the coy smirk in the dip of his drawl, watching the extra swing in his stride as he walked away triumphant every time, so sure he had succeeded in driving you crazy. This time, he had nowhere to run.

Ignoring his baiting taunt, you crawled around the fire to sit right next to him, “P-please, Captain? I’m r-r-really kriffin’ c-cold, and while the fire is so delightful, I think i-it’d be in both o-our best interests to h-have a second source of heat.”

Rex nearly dropped his stick he was using to poke at the kindles, tensing slightly before clearing his throat, “Oh? And what ‘source of heat’ did you have in mind?”

“D-don’t play dumb,” you shivered again, pouting at how you stuttered while he sat a little too well composed for your liking, “I know the K-Kaminoans t-taught you all about s-s-survival tactics. I d-do it with my boys a-all the time. Strip to your b-blacks, m-me to my t-t-tunic, then I’ll wrap my robes around the two of us. B-body heat, Rex.”

Your boys. Your affectionate term for your ever-faithful battalion, that apparently frequently slept and cuddled with you in the most innocent and familiar of ways. Still, something about it made Rex’s stomach stir, his mouth twisting from a smirk into a silent snarl under his helmet. He wasn’t against ‘cuddle puddles’ with the vode, every single brother took part in them, and it wasn’t unusual to find a stray jedi or padawan compacted in the very middle of the pile. He knew for a fact that the 212th had regular arguments as to who’s turn it was to use General Kenobi as a pillow (and that Cody never partook in those bouts- no, he was always the General’s pillow). In theory, he knows it's more than a possibility for you to be a part of them, especially with your extremely relaxed extroverted personality, but actually hearing you say it out loud had something ugly rear its head to sour the Captain’s mood. He attempted to shoo the little creature away, trying to scare it off with a forced cough to make it scurry back into hiding and leave his inner peace alone. His mind clear again, he peered into your pleading doe eyes through his visor, seeing the flames flickering reflections off your irises in a whimsical dance. His gaze went lower, following the slope of your nose, before tracing the shape of your full pout, lips trembling and reddened from the cold, nearly beginning to chap. The slight clicking of your teeth as he watched you shiver under your robes made him resign to your request, sighing as he removed the cowled helmet, “Fine. Why you didn’t just wear your own cold-assault gear is beyond me, but I’ll help you stay warm this time.”

“Oh, thank the force,” you whimpered, immediately dropping the outermost robe from your shoulders, staying on your knees as he stood up to remove his layers. Rex nearly dropped his cuirass, watching you unwrap your tan-colored linen underneath to reveal a gripping white tunic, clinging to your every curve and muscle, no part of you left to the imagination except the actual flesh itself. You even discarded your boots and breeches, leaving you in opaque black tights. Without the safety of his helmet, Rex tore his eyes from you, desperate to hold onto some semblance of rectitude, taking a deep inhale through his nose before continuing his own removal. Rex could feel the tip of his nose numbing just slightly, shaking his head at what the hell was he doing-

“You know, if we get found like this-”

“We’ll s-say I got hypothermia and you were ‘d-doing your duty t-to protect the Jedi’,” you giggled, a little forced, hands coming up to rub at your shoulders, attempting to create some friction, but wincing at the iciness of your fingers, “Rex, hurry!”

Your whine of his name had him hesitant to remove the bottom half of his armor, already starting to feel something forbidden gathering in the depths of his stomach. He tried to fend off the feeling by turning his head to the stone wall and talking- though whether that was an effective decision remained to be seen. “I’m just saying, can’t you use the Force or whatever to warm yourself up? Isn’t that something you can do? I know you can use the Force for healing purposes, this’d be like that, right?”

“If I had f-followed the path of m-m-medical practice, sure,” your breath came out in little clouds as you puffed through another tremor, wrapping your dark robe around your shoulders as you waited for Rex to finish, “But, I didn’t, I chose the kn-n-nights, and so I’m here, and n-now I’m your problem.”

“My problem,” Rex grumbled under his breath as he sat back down, tugging at the final parts of his boots, not caring that you could actually hear him, “Skywalker is my problem. Tano is my problem. Kenobi can even be considered my problem at times, but you, General? No, no, no. You’re not my problem, you’re-”

Turning back around to face you, he nearly choked on his own spit. He hadn’t realized how close you were, and without his helmet, his nose brushed against yours in an innocent bunny kiss, the brief friction making him jump back nearly a foot away. A teasing chuckle left you at his skittish reaction, cocking your head to the side as you opened your robe back up and beckoned him closer, “Wrong way, Captain. C’mere.”

His throat felt tight, closing off almost everything, even air, and despite his discarded layers he was certain the back of his neck was beginning to sweat. The way you so carefully had folded your legs, thighs pillowing together in such an enticing way, leaning on your elbow to pronounce the slope of your hips and curve of your waist...he could so easily wrap his arms around you perfectly, before settling his head to rest on your chest and memorize the beat of your heart- the pinch of his nails digging into the meat of his palm drew him out of his mind before he could fall any further down that rabbit hole. He cleared his throat, throwing his gaze to the floor as his entire being tensed, “This…i-is not regulation, General.”

“Oh my maker you’ve been hanging out with Echo too much,” you groaned, throwing your head back dramatically, “Rex, please?”

He swallowed down a hard gulp of air, inching his way over to you, without looking up from the floor. You met him halfway, dragging your thickest robe behind you, and sighed in relief at the natural waves of heat coming off of him. Every single clone ran hot, and you trapped that heat by throwing the robes over the two of you, wrapping your hands around the back of Rex’s head and pulling him into your neck as you leaned against a standing rock.

One minute his eyes were counting cracks and jagged holes scattered over the cave floor, and the next they were gifted with a gracious view of your form, so close he could smell your clean body wash, a soft mint that tickled his nose, and he had to count to ten to control his breath so he didn’t just inhale you instead of oxygen. It was a concentrated effort made extremely difficult due to the delightfully sharp pressure of your nails against his scalp. You already felt like heaven, he had to tense himself from wanting to grab for more of you- which he didn’t have to do anyways. You had pulled him into you, his nose brushing over your neck, the tip still chilled, making a breathless giggle leave you, “Oh, your nose is s-so icy!”

“Who's fault is that,” Rex grumbled into you, mumbling to try to keep his lips from mouthing over your exposed collarbone. What he couldn’t stop was the delighted shiver that ran through him as your hands started massaging the tired planes of muscle in his back, making him lose a bit of discipline and dropping flush against you. He made a horrified sound, the breath strangled in his throat as he felt a nervous sweat thickly dripping over the back of his neck, before that sweet amused sound left you once again.

“Rex, you're so tense! Here, lemme just-”

Your hands worked in smooth motions, rubbing deep into his tired tissue. He could feel his eyes roll back into his head, biting the swell of his lip to keep any lewd sounds from leaving him, focusing on syncing his breath with the flow of your touches. His form was finally slack, keeping you trapped underneath him as his arms tentatively found their way around your waist, holding you to him, his face buried in the crook of your neck. You hummed at the coverage of him over you, leaning to nuzzle against the side of his head, the prick of his blond tickling the tip of your numbed nose. You whispered to him, eyelids growing heavy as you curled into him, “Thank you, Captain.”

Your breathing evened out, deep and slow, your hands coming to a rest, stopping on the small of his back and between his shoulder blades. Rex couldn’t believe it; you had fallen asleep in his arms. His eyes slowly peeked open, and he wiggled a bit, getting to a place where he faced you instead of the rock you were both leaning on. His eyes were nearly level with your jawline, he could trace the profile of your parted lips, still threatening to chap in the cold air, but your breath didn’t stutter anymore from the chill. He really was helping keep you warm.

He had dreamt about those lips, memorized the way they shaped his name, watched the direction you preferred to run your tongue over them while you were deep in thought. He licked his own lips in just that way, thinking about how maybe it’d feel if he were to do that to yours.

Maker, he was awful. Thinking about his wretched togue playing at your perfect lips, while you laid so peaceful and trusting underneath him.

Rex prided himself as a man of honor, he wasn’t so foolish as to attempt anything, but even just thinking about you in this vulnerable way as you let him hold you… he felt slimy, unworthy to be in your good graces. He let out a shuddering breath, not in the cold but in longing, exhaling your name as his arms brought you impossibly closer to him. For however long the two of you had, however long the storm lasted, he would treasure this. He would treasure you.

He was a fool for fighting you on this. Being lulled by your breath to join you into rest as the blizzard raged on, the only thing he would change would be how late he was in agreeing to your conditions. When you both awoke, with the snow settled and communications running, when you were both with your respective teams, and yourself in proper gear, Rex would still have tonight in his memory. He would still be holding you in his arms, breathing you in, and playing the memory of your heartbeat, the soft thumping tempo so soothing, on repeat in his mind.

#captain rex #captain rex x reader #captain rex imagine #captain rex x y/n #captain rex x you #pining #cuddling for warmth #oblivious reader #grumpy captain #hes done with your shit but fucking hells youre so damn cute #swtcw fanfic #commander rex #the clone wars #star wars the clone wars #star wars #my writing #liz speaks #jedi!reader #oblivious!reader

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neovisioned · 4 years

Text

♡ꜜ 0 miles away﹫jeno lee

pairing : jeno x reader (f)

genre : smut with some plot, fluff if you squint, established relationship.

warnings : mainly smut, dom!jeno gets tied, uses of a sex toy, edging, oral (f receiving), choking, manhandling.

word count : +4k

synopsis : where you finally see your boyfriend after months away due to quarantine and things get heated. you quickly find Jeno got a little toy to take care of himself and forgot to inform you beforehand.

a/n : here's to 1 000 followers ! thank you so so much to my og followers for sticking around even when i was inactive and thank you to every new follower and welcome ♡

There’s a slight touch on your naked arm, one you know very well by now, even in your highly concentrated state. Lukewarm fingertip drawing random shapes on your skin, you hum as your boyfriend takes his eyes away from the screen, though you suspect he never really payed that much attention.

“Are you really watching ?”, the black-haired asks, nose dipping into your hair and oh, you know him too well. You know this very pattern too well, the one where you’re doing something, focused and yet, Jeno thinks you can not feel his hard on against your backside. This very behavior where he tried his best to stay calm and yet, the slight alteration in his breathing doesn’t go unnoticed, the way he shifts while cuddling you doesn’t either.

You have to say, you’re quite surprised it didn’t happen earlier. See, after months away from each other, only having your phones to communicate, you finally, finally reunited with your boyfriend.

You remember joking about being shy around him now that you spend weeks without his presence beside you but you almost think he got shy after so long, it’s funny.

A simple date was set up in his apartment, a movie and some things to eat and Jeno didn’t make a move until now, a third into the second movie.

“Yeah. Are you not ?”, you ask, voice slightly teasing.

“I don't even know what the fuck this movie is about.”, and there it is, the deep in his voice. It sends shivers down your spine, almost inaudible sigh escaping your lips when his ghost over the skin of your nape.

Your boyfriend peppers kisses on your skin and oh, how you missed it. You missed his mouth exploring every parcel of your body, you missed his firm grip, the same he uses to turn your body around.

“I was watching.”, you whine and yet, your body follows his hand, chest to chest, movie long forgotten behind you.

Jeno can not be fooled, small smile tugs at his lips, right hand cupping your jaw.

“You were ?”, he asks but barely lets you answer before his lips crash against yours, thumb lovingly stroking your cheek.

It's not like your boyfriend did not kiss you the moment you stepped into his apartment, but you still melt against his mouth like you want to get back all the months away from him.

When the first kiss he gave you when you entered his place was soft, this one is a lot more eager. Slow, sensual, bruising, no matter how long went by without seeing each other, Jeno still knows your body like the back of his hand.

Fingers lay behind your head, tilting it like he pleases, fingernails lightly scratching your skin.

A grown gets muffled against your mouth when you lightly bite down on his bottom lip, slightly tugging at it.

“I missed you.”, your boyfriend breathes, and you can only breathlessly return the sentence when his strong arms sneak around your waist to push you under him.

The golden necklace you gave him for your anniversary slips out of the black shirt he's wearing, dangling between your bodies. Such a simple thing but it has the power to grow butterflies in your stomach, flapping their wings when it moves left and right. Fingers wrap around the small charm and you use the light grip to tug him closer, closer, closer.

Lips crash for a second time. Sloppy, wet, hungry. Jeno cages you between his arms, using his forearms on each side of your head for leverage while you cling onto him, legs wrapping around his hips.

“Missed you so fucking much—. Ah, fuck.”, you're about to tell him your fingers weren't enough for the long time period, right after painting an innocent kiss on his cheek but your boyfriend decides this very moment is the best to roll his hips against your core, hard and slow, lips diving into your neck.

The moan that tumbles from your lips seems to do it for Jeno, poor boy is already hard as a rock against his jeans and you wonder how long he's been like that. Desperate, cold ring-clapped hands grip at your waist under your shirt and you get the hint, legs tightening around him, arms wrapping behind his neck.

“I can't believe we managed to go so long without seeing each other.”, the tallest giggles against your throat, hands shamelessly gripping at the flesh of your ass as he lifts you up, away from the sofa.

“Yeah ? We made it work, though.”

“Phone sex is great once in a while.”, in another situation, you'd laugh at how desperate he's being. Can you really make fun of him when you're in the exact same situation ? Fingers slide between his dark locks, you notice how long they've grew these past mouths but, you don't complain at all.

Jeno is quick to walk to his bedroom. His back pushed the door open before he kicks it close with the back of his heel, as if anyone could walk in. But after all, Jeno is a possessive boyfriend, you’re his and he’s yours.

It happened countless times, the walls and pictures hanging in your boyfriend’s room a blur as he easily moves you around, mind and body hyper-focusing on the black haired. It’s something Jeno seems to love, the way you still gasp when he throws you on his bed, back hitting the soft mattress.

“Fuck, missed having you like this.”, he has always been a passionate man, but it seems tonight, he is even more. The tallest crawls on his bed right after taking his shirt off and, you have to say, the hunger in his eyes makes a wave of heat crash against your body. You really missed it, the anticipation, not knowing his next move, slowly going putty in his hands, melting under his touch.

Pearly teeth bite down on your lower lip, you unconsciously crawl back until your hands touch his soft pillows. Nowhere to run and yet, you smile back at Jeno’s carnal smile when he gets closer and closer until he follows your head slowly resting on his pillow. Or rather, the one he bought for the nights you stay at his place.

You’re about to rest your head on the soft-.

“What’s-.”, when you think the back of your head is going to hit the fluffy pillow, the top hits something hard, a shape you can’t make on the spot but the object hits the bed’s headboard and it doesn’t sound shallow.

Oh, to be Jeno in this very moment. Confusion takes over his pretty features and vanish away in a millisecond, it’s funny how the mechanism in his brain seems to work full speed when he understands.

Fuck, fuck, FUCK. He thinks at this very moment, he’s an idiot.

“Y/N-”, he starts but, it’s too late. Your curious hand taps away on his mattress, quickly lifting his pillow up to see what exactly knocked the back of your head.

It’s not like nothing ever came between you and Jeno, you expect to see his laptop, even if the shape doesn’t correspond, his PlayStation’s controller maybe, even. But this, this you did not expect.

The same confusion twist your features, it’s funny how easily you take other people’s habits when you stay with them for so long. But, your confusion turns into shock in a few seconds. Finger wrap around the black, circular object. You even think it’s a flashlight at first, silly you. Lo and behold, you’re wrong by a letter.

Slightly wider to a side, skin like color on a rubber material and instead of dropping the thing you quickly understand is a fleshlight and not, a flashlight, you tighten your grip on it.

Your grip tightens as Jeno’s hand flies to grab the object, body slightly dropping against yours. He desperately tried to put his hand on the toy he now see as shameful, even if he used it without a second thought for some time now.

“Y/N, I-.”, he tries to grab it a second time, but your boyfriend has to lean back when you sit up on his bed. Are you angry ? Disappointed ? Disgusted even, maybe ?

After dating for a year and a half, Jeno can read your eyes, but not right now.

“What it this ?”, you ask him, even if you know. There’s a need to hear him say it. See, toys were never a no in your relationship with the black haired but, you thought it was a silent agreement to inform each other maybe. Jeno knows you have some, most he uses on you, but the thought of your boyfriend having to use one when you’re not around lightens something in the deepest of your core.

Jeno’s lips part for a second, a single syllable coming out.

“A- Ahm…A fleshlight ?”, he says, tone unsure. Pearly teeth bite down on his bottom lip, bruising until iron coats his tongue.

“You never told me you had one.”, you say, curious eyes detailing the object and fuck, maybe if your mind wouldn’t picture the men on top of you using the very toy you’re holding, you wouldn’t be so turned on.

“I-, I just got it a month into quarantine. Let’s just-.”, forget about it, put it aside, there’s so much Jeno could’ve said at this very moment but it seems you’re a lot faster than he is.

See, Jeno losing his words is something you rarely see. Your boyfriend’s a confident men, he knew what to say when he asked you out, he never hesitated to whisper the dirtiest things in your ear. Seeing him almost shy, breaking eye contact every now and then, almost submissive makes something else grow in your eyes.

“Does it feel better than me ?”, you ask, voice sultry. It drops, it’s quieter and visibly, it takes Jeno back. You didn’t seem upset and…he knows this long in your eyes, the one you have when you tease him in public, the one you have when he just discovered the new lingerie you bought.

It’s comical, how his eyes grow wide for a second, right before letting out a sigh as he understands.

“No, no she doe- It doesn’t mean anything !”, your boyfriend starts, voice slightly panicked but, your hand mimicking his previous move and cups his cheek.

“Oh, shit.”, the touch turn teasing in second when you drop your hand to his crotch, the fabric of his jeans tense around his hard on.

“Yeah ? Sure ?”, you continue, setting the object to the side. If Jeno lets his guard down for a moment, you sure will take advantage of it. Plus, the idea of using a toy on your boyfriend is way too appealing to let go.

“Baby, yes. So much better, I swear.”, finally, the black haired seems to find his words again. Your hands find his belt, leather fabric and you tug at until it is out of his belt loops, “Lets find out, yeah ?”

Jeno decides he loves this side of you when you crash your lips against his, it’s heated, rushed, his hand grip your hips before you stop him.

“Give me your hands.”, you breathe out against his lips. He obliges before even understanding the meaning.

“Oh…Oh, tying your man up, hm ?”, the slight pride in his chest makes you smile up at him when you use his own belt to tie his hands together, leather fabric tightening around his wrists.

“Hm hm, lay back for him.”

Four words he gets hypnotized by, laying back on his bed when you use your leg against his hip.

“Shit, you’re so fucking hot.”, your boyfriend moans out the moment you sit on his lap to work on the buttons of his jeans. Quickly, you get rid of the piece of clothing until it stops mid-way around his thighs. Grey boxers you know very well, the dark, wet spot on the fabric adds to the outline of his hard cock.

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.”, you hum, a hand teasingly caressing his member before sliding your fingers under the thin fabric.

“I didn’t know how to. Bab- shit.”, Jeno’s sensitive, so fucking sensitive. Your thumb runs over his head – you don’t even need to see it to know how red it is – and your boyfriend moans. A broken moan ringing in your ears, you free his shaft from the last piece of clothing.

“Maybe just, hey babe, I bought something today !”, you let out sarcastically, right hand grabbing onto the object in the center of it all. The black haired sighed, or maybe he groans but he doesn’t answer, you don’t let him either.

Curious eyes detail the fleshlight a second time, a small smile creeping on your lips.

“Come on, let me see how use it.”

Jeno thinks he might come right then and there. His lips part, heavy eyes traveling from yours to the said toy. The very toy you bring to his wet, angry tip.

Your boyfriend felt this too many times during the quarantine and yet, it feels different when you do it.

“Y/N, oh, fuck.”, it's hypnotising, how sensitive he is. You twist your wrist just the right way so his head enters the toy and, his hips raise from his bed.

“Feels good ?”, you hum and, you don't let him answer. In a swift motion, you bring the fleshlight to his base and the moan has rips from his mouth sounds oh so beautiful.

The black haired's hands tighten around the leather fabric of his belt and it is at this very moment that he understands how you feel when he ties you up.

“Not as good as you.”, he rasps out, fucking up into his toy before you even need to say it. You move it, slowly, up and down regardless.

Your boyfriend looks breath-taking at this very moment, chest red, irregularly raising up and down. A thin sheet of sweat under his hairline, knuckles white. You ask him to tell you more, you want to hear him, hear his voice crack under your touch.

A hand pressed on his hip, enough for him to understand not to move but he does it anyways, your hand isn't that strong.

“It's not as tight.”, a snap of his hips.

“Not as wet.”, another. His voice cracks, he struggles around his restraints.

“Not as hot.”, it's your turn to start moving the toy faster, find the right angle.

The sigh is herotic, he gets lost in pleasure, his hips lose rhythm. You probably will have to excuse yourself to his neighbors, his moans get louder, louder, louder. He doesn't even try to hide his sounds, and you think you never heard so many moans coming from your boyfriend.

“God, I'm gonna come.”, he warns and, when you abruptly stop, you think you might cum at the long groan he lets out.

Your panties are ruined, you're sure of it, any mouvement makes the the fabric stick to your body and you decide there's no way you're staying any longer like this.

“Fuck, baby, why did you ?”, poor boy struggles around his ties again, and thankfully for you, it isn't moving a bit for now. The look he gives you when you set the toy aside almost makes you laugh. His cock rests hard and angry against his stomach, you don't doubt your poor boyfriend may now more than ever understand the struggle he puts you through whenever he edges you.

You don't answer, you'd rather show him. You quickly get rid of your jeans and you're thankful that they aren't as tight as your boyfriend, letting your shirt fall somewhere alongside.

“Fuck, you're so fucking wet. Can see it from here.”

Just like you thought, you soaked your panties. A hand dips into the piece of clothing, index and pointer gathering your wetness.

“Open up.”

Ah, if your boyfriend was like this everyday. Such a good boy, he opens his mouth on cue, lips wrapping around your digits. He hums, so gratefully like someone finally giving him his meal. His tongue swirls around your fingers, getting every last drop of your wetness.

“Sit on my face.”, he growls, teeth playfully biting down on your fingers.

The proposition takes a moan out of you, and you don't hesitate. God, you sure love your boyfriend's fingers, you also fucking love his tongue.

Your panties are thrown beside his bed, and it's not long before you plant your knees on each side of his head.

“Untie me.”, your boyfriend might be good at sweet talking, he doesn't get through your head this time.

“Nu-uh.”, big puppy eyes look up at you when you shake your head left to right, lowering yourself.

Your hear him mumble something about getting back at you before his tongue laps at your core, eagerly gathering any wetness pooling on his tongue. He's sloppy, noisy, eating you out line a starved men.

He makes up for the lack of fingers by moving his face, left to right. You have to support yourself on his headboard, forehead against the cold wood.

Your moans flow freely, there's no need to hide them, you don't even think about doing so when his lips wrap around your bud of nerves and he sucks.

He does again, again and again, groans sending vibrations up your spine until you have to stop him, shaky hand planting itself in his locks when you feel your stomach tightening.

“Wanna come around you.”

“Fuck, please.”, and he whines, a whine you'll probably keep in head for a while. Lips, wet and red shine when you crawl backgrounds, seating on his lap again.

It is torture at this point, for the both of you, when you roll your hips against his, bare core against his cock.

A whispered “please”, tumbles from his lips and you oblige, how can you say no when he looks like the most the most sinful angel, pretty face wet by your essence. Or maybe he looks like the most angelic demon, hungry stare in his puppy eyes.

Finally, after months, you sink down on Jeno's member, ever so slowly. The stretch is familiar and yet, you need some time to get used to it again. How good it feels to be complete again, feel every ridge and every vein, every pulse and every snap.

Hands plant itself on his lower torso when you reach the base, head lolling forward as you breath in. It's overwhelming, how the craving finally gets filled.

Your ears buzz, it's hot, too much and not enough at the same time. In the background, you hear Jeno breathing deeply, the slight noise of metal hitting metal.

And, before you understand, cold ring clapped hands grip your hips.

Your eyes snap open, head looking up and as you do so, your boyfriend flips you over, hovering over you in seconds.

Your mouth falls open like a fish out of water, you need seconds to understand what just happened. Somehow, he got out of his ties, and didn't hesitate to reverse roles.

Apparently, the black haired finds it very funny, smirk tugging one side of his lips as his dark locks fall in front of his eyes, anything puppy like long gone for the wolf like stars you know so well.

Abruptly, his right hand wraps around your throat, your head lolling back against a cushion.

“Told you I'd make you pay.”, you can only moan at that, Jeno quickly finds the right position between your legs and his hips start snapping against yours.

Barely any time to adjust to the rhythm he imposes, you twist under his body, a sigh your boyfriend loves.

He love how your body reacts, how it turns and archs but, with a hand, he can stop it all. Just like you did, his right hand falls to your hips to push them down.

“Definitely. So much better.”, the growl again, his lips find your neck again but long gone are the sweet kisses, he bites down on the skin just to mark you, leave purple bruises for everyone to see.

There's a snap, harsh, deep, punishing, one that rips a moan of his name and Jeno breathlessly laughs at that, sadisticly copying the same mouvement.

“Look at you. Weren't you all fierce moments ago ? Where did my girl go ?”, he asks, hand grabs your jaw to force you to look at him, his thumb sneaks between your lips when you try and muffle your moans.

“There she is, my good little girl.”

Somewhere, in the middle of his mumbled words, you breath out how close you are and, thankfully, it seems your boyfriend isn't taking full revenge on you tonight.

The golden necklace drags against your skin and your grab onto it a second time when your walls tighten, knot grows so he can kiss you again.

It's all tongue and teeth, messy and broken, but you moan out against his lips when he hits this one spot just like you love and he makes you see stars under your eyelids.

That's also all the black haired needs, left hand leaves croissant shapes on the skin of your hip when his shutter and come to a stop, long stained groan coming out of his lips. Jeno come inside of you in drawn out pauses until his hips slow down, gently fucking you through your orgasm.

“Holy fuck.”, the black haired concludes once he pulls out, wrapping his sheet around the both of you. It's crazy how his features change so easily, you notice again in your slightly distant state.

An arm wraps around while the other massaged the skin of your hip he knows he bruised, a single kiss is placed on your head.

“If I knew you'd react like this.”, he giggles out and your only response at the moment is to hit his shoulder has you curl up against his chest, meaning to enjoy the silence and dusk falling outside.

But apparently, Jeno doesn't have the same in mind. Blue light of his phone annoyingly flashes on your face and you have to whine. The screen's hidden, but your boyfriend's checking the uber eats order you two placed and completely forgot about, order that has been left in front of his door for so long now the food is probably ice cold.

“What are you doing ?”, you groan out, desperately trying to take his phone but, Jeno quickly stretches his arm away.

“Ordering new toys I can buy and hide for you to find, duh ?”

#NCT-WRITERS #neovisioned #nct smut #nct dream smut #jeno smut #jeno #nct #nct dream

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whump-town · 3 years

Text

God’s Gonna Cut You Down

Part 2!! (you can find part 1 here)

Warning: threat of domestic abuse and you know bad words

January 1972

It had been mortifying when Richard was caught with another woman and his prideful smile and easy shrug of the situation had only hurt Mary that much more. Through everything else, the drinking and the yelling and the hitting, Mary had still been able to tell herself that Richard did these things because he loved her. Extra whiskey washed down his stress, made him smile easier, and touch her like he meant it. When he raised his voice she’d already left him no other options, she just can be so forgetful. And… he’d only hit her a few times. Always when he was drunk and she’d messed something up. Anyone could forgive that.

The affairs… that was the first time Richard had done something with the explicit intent of hurting her. He hadn’t even cared when she’d cried. Had smiled when she told him about her friends, the way they meet her with high noses and expressions of disgust. He’d spun her into a pit of isolation, her own mother didn’t even want anything to do with her.

Persistently, desperately, Mary kept going back to her mother. She knew about her father, the affairs he had with his students over the years. Praying on the young university girls, the very reason they had hesitated to send her to Mary Baldwin. In the end, money and her pleading won through and she went to get a degree in English her eyes on being a teacher. That’s where she met Richard, five years older and making his way through law school.

Her mother might snuff her now but she is no different, neither are any of the women who treat her so differently now.

Her mother had caved after a few months, grew afraid of the way that weight seemed to melt off of Mary. It was unhealthy and fearing her daughter’s life she’d succumbed to her and offered her the advice that had been given to her: a child. Unfaithful men are just confused but this is not beyond Mary’s control, she just has to give him something to have. Men just need a little extra help, they’re just confused. They understand possession, though, and while they might not be afraid to hurt the lives they've made with wives give him a child and he’ll change.

That’s all it takes.

Having a baby was supposed to fix everything. Mary’s mother told her that babies make men happy and that if she wanted to settle Richard to settle down then a baby would do just that.

But she kept losing the babies. A little girl who they hadn’t named, blindsided by their grief. Two miscarriages far too soon in the pregnancy. Another when Richard pushed her into the stairs-- she’d told him it was for another reason and they didn’t tell a soul they even pregnant. After that, they stopped keeping track and she stopped telling him when one kept or when one didn’t.

Mary Hotchner might not make good on a lot of her promises but this time, she tells herself, this time is different. He’s just so little, hardly the size of her forearm. He’s their second chance, this tiny little baby is going to save their marriage. How wouldn’t he? Always watching the world around him, hardly ever cries, and always content just to be placed in the swing so long as he can see everyone.

She’s just changed him when Richard gets in. “Do you want to hold him?” she asks with a hopeful smile. He’s swaddled in his blankets, arms tucked to his sides, and sleepy drunk on milk. “He’ll probably go right to sleep.” Richard only held him in the hospital, only when a nurse made him.

Richard looks at the baby in her arms, up to Mary’s dark brown eyes and back down to his son’s soft blue eyes. He scoffs, “I don’t want to touch that little bastard.” He throws his briefcase down on the floor, kicking his shoes off in the same general direction. Carelessly, he brushes past them. “Why don’t you go give him to the bastard you had to have fucked to make him?”

Mary scrambles, unsure what to do. “Rich--”

He turns, blind with rage and she can feel the force of his words hit her sternum. Feels the baby in her arms jolt at the impact, whimpering as he squirms in his confines. “Don’t!” Richard demands leveling his finger at her. His eyes flick to Aaron and she holds him closer, turning her body so that she’s between them. Aaron cries out, kicking at the blankets wrapped snuggly around him. Richard lurches forward. “Shut him up!” Mary steps back. “I said shut him up before I--”

This baby is a second chance to their marriage, it’s going to change everything she just knows it.

----------

March 1973

Toddling on baby fat legs and clutching the sippy cup in his left hand, Aaron follows his mother across the lawn. Occasionally, he stumbles but is quick to right himself clutching at his mother’s freely billowing dress and going on. He’s much smaller than the other babies, underweight and not very tall, but he’s only a year and three or four months so he’s got time to blow them away. Mary’s positive her bright boy will manage it. He’s smart, they’ll see, small but he’s so very smart. Just like his daddy.

“Come here,” Mary beacons the baby from the edge of the backyard. His back is turned to her but she knows the look that has taken over his features. Those dark eyebrows knitting together as he dances his little fingers across his sippy cup-- brain working a mile a minute to figure out what it is that he’s discovered now. He makes a little sound, more to himself than to her, before turning to face her. She gets a glimpse of that confused look before a bright smile breaks across his face and he squeals happily before running to her.

She’s not sure what it is but she doesn’t like it when he gets that close to the woods. The thick trees line the property and every chance he gets, if he’s not rolling in the mulch of her flower garden, he’s standing at the trees watching. Aaron’s always watching. It scares her just how silent he is, the way he makes nearly no sound when approaching and will stand forever just content taking in the world around him. She thinks that’s why she wants him nowhere near those woods.

The woods are full of death and she wants all of his life and his curiosity to stay away from it. She knows what it is, knows what the woods do to men. To little boys with a little too much curiosity.

“Come to mommy,” she praises, opening her arms and enveloping him. Wiggling about in her arms but not to get away just to make her hold tighter. So she does, groaning and squeezing him until he’s breathlessly giggling. Enthralled by the pressure of her arms and perfectly content with the warmth of the day and her love.

----------

December 1974

He’s been sick all week, succumbing to a fever ravishing his tiny body. Outside snow pours down in thick clumps, the other children howling with joy every few hours as their parents let them back out in it. Snowmen pop up in lawns and footprints betray every hiding spot they run to but there is a clear, unabashed joy eating through the neighborhood. Aaron can only listen for it, falling in and out of naps on the sofa. Sniffling miserably and basking in his mother’s attention when she comes with a thermometer and whatever remedy her mother had called to inform her of now.

Richard gets home early, taking the time to knock the snow off his work shoes before seeing the mop of dark hair that betrays his son’s inactivity for today. He drops his briefcase by the door, scowling as he glances in the kitchen and finds Mary frowning into a pot. “What’s the boy doing inside?”

Mary jumps, not expecting her husband to suddenly appear like that, not having heard him pull into the driveway. She puts the lid over the soup and wipes her hands on her apron. “Sick,” she answers quickly, not sure how Richard is expecting her to answer. Not sure which of his personalities she’s playing with. Afraid an answer of such quick, unapologetic truth will sour quickly but blindly hopeful for the man she married. The man so eager to have children.

Richard hums, turning on his heel, and Mary’s heart stops as she realizes he’s going right for her Aaron. She fists her apron in her hands waiting in fear of what he intends to do.

He squats down by the sofa. “Aaron,” Richard calls softly. He brushes a thick strand of his son’s hair from his face, the lock heavy with his sweat. His hand swallows the cheek he strokes softly, Richard never really thinks about how small his son is. Now, as he sees Aaron’s body curled in on itself, fingers clutching his blanket to his face, and he can’t deny just how small the boy is. “Hey buddy,” he whispers when Aaron’s eyes start to flutter.

Aaron looks up at his father but does not utter a word.

“Come here,” Richard picks him up. Moving him so Aaron can wrap his arms around his father’s neck before Richard tucks his blanket snuggly around him.

“Where are you going?” Mary asks, stepping back when Richard stands and moves from the living room. She has no idea what his intentions are. To take Aaron up to his room? The poor boy could hardly make it down them this morning. She’d had to carry him to the couch in fear of the way his little legs had shaken under him. Is he silently boiling over with rage? Going to throw her baby out into the snow, command that he acts like a child. Go play with the others?

Richard presses a kiss to Aaron’s forehead, rubbing his back when he rises, soothing Aaron’s mindless whimper. “He hasn’t been able to see the snow,” Richard whispers, mindful of the boy tucked against his neck. He can feel his raging fever against his own skin, too hot to the touch. “Gonna cool him off,” Richard explains with a smile.

He steps out on the porch, smiling back at his wife as he shuts the door. Aaron shifts uncomfortably against his chest but Richard settles on one of the porch chairs and brings the edges of his coat up over him. The world is softened by the snow and the old groan of the chair Richard rocks them back and forth on. Aaron’s breathing becomes laborious, his little chest heaving as he rasps on each breath. The silence makes the awful sound deafening.

“You with me, buddy?” Richard asks, pressing his cold hand back to Aaron’s face. His son isn’t much of a talker, not even at three or in the rage of his terrible twos. He’s always just been much more content to watch and hum out his little replies. Odd behavior for people of most ages but it’s nearly alarming from a three-year-old. The way he cocks his head to the side when asked a question, a little hum before he conjures up a one 0r two-word response.

Today Aaron writhes against Richard, whimpering at the weight across his chest. The way his lungs feel as if they’re swelling but he’s too young to know the words. “Hurts,” he whispers. “Hard.” Each breath is hard to pull in as if his lungs are trying to squeeze shut around it. They ache deeply, all over.

Richard keeps rocking. Rubbing Aaron’s back and humming the faint tunes of songs under his breath until, eventually, Aaron falls back to sleep. He doesn’t carry the boy back inside until Mary calls them in for dinner. Richard holds his son through dinner, cherishing the way Aaron clings to him.

There will be very few moments like this ever again between father and son.

#aaron hotchner #criminal minds #criminal minds fanfiction

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katehuntington · 4 years

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Title: Black Dog - part three Word count: ±2700 words Episode summary: When Sam gets an anonymous phone call with information about his father, Dean receives a text message with coordinates to different location. The brothers clash and split up, one following orders, the other trusting his instincts. Meanwhile, in the wilderness of Cascade Range, Washington State, Zoë loses grip on a personal case and is forced to confront her demons. Without back up, this might very well turn out to be her final hunt. Part three summary: Two leads point into different directions. Which one are the Winchester brothers going to follow? Episode warnings: Dark! NSFW, 18+ only! Angst, gore, violence, character death. Description of blood, injury and medical procedures. Supernatural creatures/entities, mentions of demon possession. Swearing, smoking, weaponry. Descriptions of torture and murder. Illegal/criminal practices. Mentions of nightmares and flashbacks. Descriptions of suicidal thoughts and tendencies, depression, panic attacks, hallucinations. Author’s note: Beta’d by @winchest09 & @deanwanddamons. Thanks, girls!

Supernatural: The Sullivan Series Masterlist

S1E03 “Black Dog” Masterlist

Dean gives his Chevrolet Impala a final clean up and looks at the end result. Ronny nods satisfied, too. “Good as new.” They mechanics carefully beat out the small dent in the lid and restored the paint with a polisher. The lock of the trunk took some time to replace, but now it closes perfectly.

“Thanks, man,” Dean says gratefully, offering him some money for the work. “Any time. Put that away. I owe you Winchesters more than that,” Ronny reminds him. “Sure you guys don’t want a beer?” Dean hesitates, but then shakes his head. “I’d love to catch up, but we should get going. The world isn’t rid of all evil motherfuckers just yet.” Ronny chuckles at that. “Fair enough. Good to see you again, though.” “You too. Take care, Ron,” the oldest Winchester brother returns.

The ex-hunter retreats back into his garage, and Dean glances at the trunk for the second time and smiles satisfied. He’s glad he got it fixed. The clunking sound every time they hit a pothole was driving him crazy, and with enough arsenal for a small military operation inside, he wasn’t really keen on leaving it unlocked either.

As he takes a look around the abandoned street, he realizes he’s missing the tall individual that usually occupies the passenger’s seat. Where the hell did Sam go? Instinctively, Dean scans the area, uneasiness evident in his stomach, a sensation which arises ever since he was a kid, whenever he loses sight of his little brother. Then he spots him a bit further down the road. He’s on the phone with someone, and for a second he wonders if it’s Zoë he’s having a conversation with.

Waiting for his brother to return, he leans against his car, shoving his hands in his pockets. The sun feels nice and warm on his back as it burns away the coolness of the night. Now that he has nothing to do for a moment, his thoughts sneak off. He doesn’t like it one bit, but he can’t help but think of the huntress they crossed paths with a little under a week ago. He may pretend that he doesn’t give a shit, but he has to admit that she has been on his mind more than a couple of times. Not that he likes her, fuck no, but Sullivan left an impression that has him wondering. She has been through more in the twenty-five years that she has walked this earth than most endure in an entire lifetime. Maybe that is why he deep down cares; he can relate to her.

Dean exhales, not dwelling too long on the reason behind the intrigue. Instead, he wonders if Sam’s presumption is actually true. The fierce Zoë Sullivan being in deep shit; he can barely picture it. She always seems in control, even when things don't go as planned. She caught him off guard. He, Dean Winchester, can you fuckin’ believe that? The older Winchester sibling rolls his harmed shoulder, testing its mobility. She shot me, for fuck’s sake.

Even though he has been in the field longer than she has, Zoë seems to expertly know her way around the world of monsters that is their reality. She’s a bright girl, skilled, fast, fearless. She has every aspect of a perfect hunter. But after those last words back in Paragould, he was left with the impression that the battle she was going towards, is one she didn’t expect to win. It truly felt like a final goodbye. A disturbing question pops up in his head; did he make a mistake not going after her? The two guys they saved from a werewolf in Waco probably don’t think so.

Dean stares ahead, pulling at his bottom lip with his teeth while contemplating his choices. Maybe they should go after her anyway, see if they can pick up her trail. North is indeed a big place, but then again, a hot chick on a Harley Davidson would stand out. It’s a long shot, but if they play this right, they may be able to find her.

The matter escapes his mind when he feels his phone vibrating, the buzzing device startling him slightly. Somewhat annoyed by his own reflex, the hunter takes his Motorola and notices the small icon of an envelope in the right upper corner; he has received a text message. It’s probably Erin, his hook up back in Waco, who had to wake up alone this morning. She must be wondering where the man she met in a bar three days prior has gone. But when Dean opens his inbox, his eyes widen in shock.

At the top of the list of incoming messages, it says ‘Dad’.

Dean’s heart has picked up speed, now pounding twice as fast than it was seconds ago. Last time he checked, his father’s phone was inactive, and now there’s a message coming in from that number? Different scenarios flash through his mind, not sure if he should prepare for good or bad news. With shaky fingers, he opens the text.

Job: 48°13’11.00”N 121°41’4045”W

Dean exhales, still staring at his cell. He can’t fucking believe it. John disappeared from the face of the earth, nowhere to be found, and after all this time he sent a few numbers and letters. The older Winchester brother huffs out a laugh. It doesn’t matter, though. Relief frees Dean from the crippling worry that he has tried to stuff down for over a month now, but kept him up at night nonetheless. This text confirms what he’s been hoping for; Dad is alive.

Thrilled, Dean turns around and glances down the street, noticing Sam, who hastens towards the car. He can’t wait to share the news, knowing they have both been so desperate for a breakthrough.

“We’ve gotta go,” they both say at the same time. “Me first,” Dean demands, childish. “What are you? Seven?” Sam huffs, raising an eyebrow to match with the sass. Despite his accusation, he counters in the same manner. “What I’ve just heard is bigger.” “Bigger than this?” Dean brags while flashing a grin, victoriously handing his brother the Motorola.

Curiosity wins and Sam takes it, attentively reading the message. His eyes narrow, but then his jaw falls open when he realizes who the sender is. John’s youngest son isn’t impressed, though. In fact, what shows on the display infuriates him.

“That’s it?” he scoffs, agitated, giving the phone back to his brother. “After a month of silence, that’s what he gives us?” “Sam, don’t you realize what this means? He’s okay!” Dean brings to mind. “Don’t bitch about this.” “Just because he’s able to send us a text message, doesn’t mean that he’s okay. We’re not even sure it’s him!” Sam returns bitterly. “Oh, come on. This is so Dad. One word and coordinates, that’s straight up Marine Corps right there. It’s more convincing than his fuckin’ signature,” the older brother argues.

“And what the hell are we supposed to do with this? Trust him blindly and do a job he can’t find the time for because he’s hunting whatever the thing is that killed Mom?” Sam assumes, his arms flying up before he lets them come down to his sides again. “Exactly,” Dean states, matter of factly. “Don’t you see, Sam? This is what I’ve been telling you. He doesn’t want to be found, he wants us to hunt.”

Dean opens the passenger side door and rummages in the dashboard locker. When he straightens his back, he pulls out a brown notebook; it’s John’s journal. “This book. This is dad’s single most valuable possession. Everything he knows about every evil thing is in here. He could’ve taken it with him, but he didn’t. He’s passed it on to us.” Dean looks deep into his brother's eyes while he points at the leather bound book that is the representation of the Bible to the Winchesters. “Dad’s journal, the text... Dad is telling us he wants us to do what we were trained for.”

“You know what I want? I want to find him,” Sam returns determined, handing back the phone. “And how the fuck were you planning to achieve that, huh?” Dean returns. “I don’t need a plan, I already know where he is,” the younger brother states.

Puzzled, Dean stares at him, waiting for an explanation. There has been zero contact between their old man and Sam for years, and now all of a sudden he has figured out where John is at? “How?” he questions, suspicion rising. “I just received a call. He’s in Tennessee. In Nashville to be precise,” his sibling states. Dean frowns. “A call? From who?”

The shrug of Sam’s shoulders is nonchalant. “I think she might be a hunter or something.” “She? Does this mystery lady have a name?” Dean questions further, trying to get details while frustration bubbles in his chest, triggered by his brother’s short answers. “She didn’t give it, but it doesn’t matter. We’re going to Tennessee,” Sam decides.

Dean laughs out loud, dropping the journal on the passenger’s seat before he turns away. Then he returns to glare at Sam as if he just made a joke. “You wanna go to fucking Nashville based on an anonymous call? Did the sun fry your brain or something? This could be a fucking trap, Sam!” Dean shouts, indignant. But his sibling is determined. “I don’t care. If he’s there, I’m going.”

Dean steps closer and halts right in front of him. He has to look up to stare into the eyes of his taller brother, but that doesn’t make him any less intimidating.

“Dad has given us an order,” he growls, his words spoken in a low tone. “I said: I. don’t. care,” Sam battles him. “Well I do, you stubborn dumbass!” Dean counters with a raised voice. “What you are planning to do is fucking dangerous! Dad doesn’t want you on his tail, you’ll blow his cover!”

“You’re calling me a dumbass?! Dad is after an incredibly powerful monster by himself, alone! He’s the dumbass for not accepting our help! We already lost Mom, I lost Jess, I’m not going to lose him too. I want answers, I want a piece of that son of a bitch that ruined our lives and I want it right fucking now! If Dad doesn’t want me there, that’s his problem!” Sam shouts angrily.

“You’re going against him?” Dean isn’t impressed with the outbreak, and slightly shakes his head. “Oh right, I forgot. That’s what you always do; the exact opposite of what he asks!” he continues cynically. “He doesn’t ask. He orders,” his brother corrects. “And you follow those orders like a fucking lapdog.” “It doesn’t matter how he tells us what to do, Sam! He’s our God damn father, so you better suck it up and fucking LISTEN!!!”

Dean is sure one of Ronny’s neighbors is going to emerge from one of the houses, telling them to shut up and take this argument elsewhere, instead of fighting it out in the middle of the street. He doesn’t care, however. His little brother has forgotten his place, and he needs to set him straight.

“I do whatever the hell he tells me to do because I trust him, because I respect him, which is something I’m gonna strongly advise you to do as well, because your attitude fucking stinks,” Dean lectures, his moss green eyes penetrating, fire burning in his irises. “Now get in the fucking car, because we’re going to drive to wherever those coordinates lead us to.”

Puffing his chest while straightening his back to make himself seem even taller, Sam crosses his arms. His older sibling might think he has all the authority, but he’s not a little kid anymore who he can boss around. Those days are long gone. He thought his departure to Stanford taught Dean a lesson or two, but apparently he needs to remind his brother that he plays by his own rules, and no one else's. “I’m not going with you,” he decides, standing his ground.

For a moment, Dean just stares at him, giving him a second to reconsider that conclusion, but Sam doesn’t even blink. Their gazes battle, the air between them almost too thick to breathe, rivalry carving a deep canyon between the two. “I’m gonna give you a choice,” Dean snarls. “You can come with me and solve that case, or you can go fuck yourself.”

Sam gulps, but stands his ground. His facial expression doesn’t change as he steps back, away from his brother, and heads over to the back of the Impala without breaking eye contact, until he opens the trunk to grab his duffel. The glare Dean receives when he slams the lid closed says enough; he’s not coming along for the ride.

Stunned, Dean stares at him and huffs in disbelief. Un-fucking-believable. He has always known Sam was stubborn, but now he takes the cake. Disappointed, the older brother shakes his head. This is the second time Sam has chosen a different path and leaves him without even batting an eye, but it scares Dean just as much as when he left and went to college. He’s not alright with what he’s about to do, but he can’t give in. He has to listen to his father. Frustratingly, he pulls open the door of the Impala. “Goodbye, Sam.”

Trying to hide his unpleasant surprise, the man left in the road watches him. He didn’t expect this, Dean taking off without him, but then again, how could he not expect a soldier to follow orders from his general? It doesn’t change anything, though. He is dead set on investigating this lead and finding his father.

The man who is about to put a distance between himself and the one person he swore to never part with again, glances in the rearview mirror. He wishes he hadn’t, because the coldness in Sam’s hazel eyes seems foreign, yet familiar. As Dean starts the engine, he realizes he is either having a major deja-vu, or is reliving one of the worst days of his life. Despite the painful pressure that’s building in his chest and the panic that floods his brain, he lowers his right foot on the gas pedal, and the car rolls away. He doesn’t drive off as fast as he normally would, because he’s fighting the urge to turn around. Pained, he glances in his mirror again. “C’mon, Sam. Move,” he begs.

But Sam doesn’t even lift a finger, and he remains in the exact same spot. Then he does move, but not in the way Dean hoped. His little brother turns his back on him and heads towards downtown Hillsboro, in the opposite direction.

With a deep sigh, Dean shakes his head, clamping his left hand around the wheel until his knuckles turn white. “Stubborn bastard,” he sighs.

His jaw clenches, as West Elm Street flows over in Route 22 and the landscape around him changes. Small homes and sheds make room for stretched out farmlands. But he doesn’t notice the scenery. His conscience is fighting his heart. He wants to hit the brakes and pull the car into a 180° so badly, but he has to listen to his father. Never in his life has Dean done anything else than that, disobedience not being a word one could find in his dictionary. Yet in this situation, both of the options are pitfalls. It doesn’t matter which way he goes, he will make a mistake either way. Because the one line that his father drilled in his mind over and over again keeps haunting him.

Take care of Sammy.

He grinds his teeth, but continues to drive further and further away, his upbringing leaving him no choice. The hunter has made his decision; he’s going to find the location of those coordinates and do the job his Dad has given him. He knows what he’s doing, he’s just hoping Sam does too, because if something happens to his little brother, Dean knows he will never be able to forgive himself.

Well, shit. The boys have gone separate ways. Who do you think will find what he’s looking for?

Thank you so much for reading. I appreciate every single one of you, but if you do want to give me some extra love, you are free to reblog my work or buy me coffee (Link in bio at the top of the page)

Read part four here

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tonystarktogo · 4 years

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(this could’ve been) a villain’s origin story -- KHR remix

[this fic is my first attempt to write in the KHR fandom. i apologize in advance.]

II.

The first time it happens, Tsuna doesn’t see it coming at all. It’s not the kind of thing one sees coming.

He’s following up on one of the many, many anonymous tips they receive daily, about villain movements, suspicious sightings, potential collaborations, the works. Nowhere in the official Vongola Inc. recruitement speech do they tell you that working for the world’s largest superhero organization mostly means digging through trash and interviewing witnesses, rather than bashing a supervillain’s head in.

Granted, most teams go out and get at least some action and technically Tsuna’s team is no exception. Tsuna is, though.

“You’re more likely to get one of us killed than be of any help!” Mochida had snapped when he’d seen Tsuna trott after the others on their way to the briefing room. “Make yourself useful for once and stay out of the way.”

[continues under the cut]

[In all honesty, Tsuna can’t blame his squad leader. He never thought he, Dame-Tsuna, always too slow, too clumsy, too useless, would get recruited by Vongola Inc. The best, most powerful, most feared superhero organization the world has to offer and they wanted Tsuna.

Of course that turned out to be bullshit. Tsuna should’ve expected nothing less. Should’ve seen it coming. Why doesn’t he ever learn? But he’d been so shocked, so gratefulrelievedelated to know that someone saw something in him. That someone wanted him.

If he’d known all Vongola wanted was Sawada Iemitsu’s son -- his bloodline -- well. Tsuna knows himself well enough to realize that it probably wouldn’t have changed a thing.

But that doesn’t stop him from wishing it had.]

Mochida is cold and cutting and often cruel, but he’s not a terrible team leader. He takes his responsibilities seriously. And even though Tsuna knows the man doesn’t like him, sees being saddled with Tsuna as some kind of creative punishment by his superiors, Mochida doesn’t let Tsuna’s inability to walk a straight line without running into a a door and his utter lack of super abilities get in the way of their job. It usually ends with Tsuna being sidelined and manning the coffee maschine or the phonelines -- wherever he can cause the least damage -- but Tsuna doesn’t mind much.

Sure, it’s not glamourous, but it’s still little things that need to be done and Tsuna is glad he can be of help, even if his co-workers rarely appreciate it. Mochida doesn’t expect much of anything from him and sometimes that hurts, but he never sets Tsuna up for failure just to have something to laugh at either -- and that means more to Tsuna than it probably should.

Besides it’s not like spending yet another endless day at work, following up on various anonymous tips, 98 percent of which always turn out to be a useless waste of time, is a bad price to pay for a steady job in a respected profession.

It’s only in retrospect that it occurs to Tsuna that what happens next is not at all surprising. That it is almost inevitable. Because no matter how many crazy, paranoid or joking people call the Vongola Emergency line, sooner or later Tsuna was bound to stumble over a nugget of valuable information. That this was why they kept a tip line in the first place -- because it occasionally proves to be useful.

In Tsuna’s defense, he’s pretty sure none of the others expected today’s calls to be real either. They sure wouldn’t have sent him out otherwise.

But here he is. Searching -- read: stumbling through -- a long abandoned warehouse that Tsuna just knows would have Hana sniff in disgust at the utter cliché of it all. Without back-up or any particularly useful weapon.

[His team learned in their first month together not to arm Tsuna with anything he could use to hurt himself with. Or them.]

Staring in horror at the supervillain staring at Tsuna with equal surprise.

At least I’m not the only one caught off-guard, Tsuna thinks hysterically. And he’s allowed to be hysterical when he finds himself trapped alone and unarmed in an abandoned warehouse with Skull De Mort of all people.

[Tsuna doesn’t have many hero-like qualities, but he’s got a lot of free time on his hands when manning the phone lines and pulling graveyard shifts on days where even villains prefer to catch a break and sleep in. Tsuna also, by virtue of his heritage, has access to the kind of high-level intel most field agents can only dream of.

As such, Tsuna has a better understanding on the recently active and inactive supervillains than most.

Whereas the average newsreporter likes to scoff and sniff derisively when Skull De Mort pulls one of his outrageous attacks that always mean impressive amounts of property damage and no civilian deaths because Skull is just an ambitious, loud-mouthed thug with ideas above his station as far as the general public is concerned, Tsuna knows better.

Skull De Mort is an Arcobaleno. As in one of the seven most powerful villains in the entire world. He might not drown the city in blood, but it’s sure as hell not because he can’t do it.

Sure, Skull baffles Vongola Inc. regularly with his antics, but his name is spoken in the same breath as Reborn, Fon or Viper and the point is oh god, Tsuna is gonna die here.]

With perfectly reasonable, if unhealthy amounts of panic and horror fighting for dominance within him, it takes Tsuna several long seconds to realize that Skull isn’t launching into one of his infamous supervillain speeches. Isn’t even throwing glitter bombs at Tsuna -- and those glitter bombs might not kill anyone, but walking into Vongola HQ and leaving a trail of glitter everywhere just might.

Hibari-senpai -- who isn’t even Vongola, is the definition of unaffiliated asset everyone is too afraid to alienate -- hates glitter.

Tsuna is so dead.

Except he still isn’t. He’s been standing here, gaping and panicking for close to five minutes and Skull still hasn’t made his move. In fact, now that Tsuna pays attention, it’s not just his breathing that’s unnaturally loud and heavy in the empty hall. And-- Tsuna squints. Skull doesn’t seem to be leaning against the wall so much as clinging to it and he’s watching Tsuna with a look that no one has ever directed at Tsuna in his life, something that almost looks like, like wariness and--

“Are you okay?” Tsuna blurts out before he can think of all the reasons why starting a conversation with an Arcobaleno is a terrible idea.

It’s just— this is a supervillain and that’s terrifying and Tsuna should probably call someone more qualified to deal with this situation, but also this is an injured supervillain and somehow that makes all the difference.

Skull scoffs, ironically putting Tsuna a little more at ease. People always scoff or scowl when he reminds them of his existence, this is no different. Besides it’s hard to take the villain’s derision seriously when he promptly sways on his feet. He’s not wearing his helmet, either, and despite being dressed in the usual black motorcycle suit, Tsuna is pretty sure his violett hair is matted with blood.

“You’re hurt!” he exclaims, horrified. Promptly drops the taser he’s been trying to pull out of his overstuffed bag with shaking hands and rushes towards the villain’s side, who’s eyes widen in alarm as Tsuna approaches.

Somehow that makes it easier to breathe, but it’s not enough to distract Tsuna from the long cut along the man’s temple and the dark bruises on his jaw.

“The Great Skull-sama is fine!” Skull protests frantically.

He’s clearly not, considering he promptly loses his balance when he tries to take a step back. Instinctively, Tsuna reaches out to catch him, realizing a second too late that one, he doesn’t have the strenth to keep the taller man upright and two, Tusna is a walking, talking disaster who inevitably trips and brings Skull down with him. They hit the ground hard enough to knock all the air out of his lungs and land in a graceless heap on the floor.

“Sorry!” Tsuna squeaks, breathless from where his face is smushed against Skull’s padded shoulder. “I’m so sorry, please forgive me, Skull-sama!”

Kami-sama, he’s knocked the poor, already injured man over! Trying to untangle them immediately, Tsuna accidentally rams his elbow into Skull’s side, which earns him a pained groan and Skull another flustered apology.

This is why his team doesn’t take Tsuna on missions. He’s a hazard not just for himself but everyone around him.

Scrambling away from Skull before he manages to kill the guy through sheer clumsiness, Tsuna forces himself to take one deep, steady breath — only one, though, else he’ll have time to think about how stupid what he’s gonna do in a moment really is — and starts to unpack his bag. Tsuna might not carry as many weapons as a Vongola Superhero on duty technically should, but his emergency kit would make any aspiring doctor proud. And Nana too, but that’s because Tsuna’s mom thinks he’s healing the innocent bystanders — "My Tsu-kun has such a gentle heart!" — not himself.

"What are you doing?!" Skull asks while slowly pushing himself off the floor and into a sitting position.

"I’m just looking for the— there!" Tsuna knew he still has one of Irie’s newest ice packs. He kneads the white package for a few moments to activate it, then holds it out to Skull. "Here. Hold this to your jaw for at least ten minutes, but no longer than thirty. Ichi’s still working on some issues long-term use has on human skin."

Tsuna babbles like he always does when he’s scared. [It drives Mochida crazy sometimes because Tsuna is scared most of the time and Mochida hates babbling.] It doesn’t stop him from noticing the odd look Skull shoots him, a bit like he’s measuring Tsuna’s worth. Except that’s a look he’s intimately familiar with and would recognize anyone, so it’s something close, but not exactly that.

"Please take it, Skull-sama." Tsuna shakes the ice pack lightly, pretends like his hands aren’t trembling when those bright, violett eyes fixate on him. "That looks like it really hurts."

[He’s not sure if all Arcobaleno carry their superpowers on the outside. If it’s part of the costume, colored contacts and all, or if their bodies are brimming with power to the point where they’re overflowing, where it pours out of them in any shape it can.]

Slowly Skull takes the ice pack. Looks at it as though he doesn’t know what to do with it.

"H-Hold it against your chin, please, Skull-sama." Tsuna busies himself with sorting through his various bandages and tries very hard to pretend his voice isn’t shaking and squeaky like a frightened mouse. "It’ll help keep the swelling down."

"…The immortal Skull-sama heals fast." Skull says the words like a question. Tsuna doesn’t look up, but he can feel the weight of the man’s stare.

Hunching his shoulders, Tsuna pulls what little courage he has together, and stutters, "That doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt, Skull-sama. Please, can you just take it? I— I don’t like seeing people hurt."

Skull is still staring, Tsuna can tell, but it feels less like he wants to lean over and rip Tsuna open to figure out what’s inside, and more like he’s just watching Tsuna drop the disinfect spray for the third time. After a moment, he presses the ice pack to his face and even though Tsuna’s still trembling a bit, he smiles.

"Thank you."

Skull doesn’t reply, but he doesn’t protest when Tsuna tells him to disinfect the gash above his eyebrow — not deep enough to need stitches, thankfully. He draws the line at more bandages, though, which is worrisome. Tsuna is pretty sure the man has at the very least bruised his rips, but Skull is a supervillain, not runaway kitten, and maybe that means he knows what he’s doing.

That would at least make one of them.

Finally convinced that there’s no other injury Skull will let him help with, Tsuna carefully packs up his things again and bids the villain a hesitant goodbye. Which brings up a somewhat awkward point.

"I have to go back to work now and someone might ask where I’ve been." Eventually. Maybe. Tsuna rocks back on his heels, not sure how to put this. "If they ask, they might come here. And you— might not want to be there when they come," is what he settles on.

Skull’s watching him with another strange expression, both eyebrows raised as he watches Tsuna make a fool of himself. "Why?"

Tsuna eeps. [It’s not a full-on shriek, thankfully, but it’s far too close for his comfort.] There’s an intensity to Skull just now that has the hairs of the back of his neck stand up and reminds Tsuna rather violently that he’s talking to an Arcobaleno. That he’s been treating an Arcobaleno’s wounds. For a moment, Tsuna sways on his feet, as though his body wonders whether it should just give up on him completely.

"Ireallyneedtogonow!" Tsuna rushes the words out so fast, they trip over themselves, grabs his bag and high-tails it out of there. "Please take care of yourself, Skull-sama!" he adds over his shoulder, almost walking into the door as he does so.

It’s not until Tsuna is sitting in his comfortingly safe work chair that it occurs to him that not once during the entire, surreal encounter [he still can’t believe he was in the same room as an Arcobaleno and survived] did it occur to him to call Vongola. Even now Tsuna is hesitating to speak up, to tell one of his co-workers. Because while his gut feeling tells him that Skull got out of that warehouse as soon as Tsuna turned his back on him, he isn’t one hundred percent sure and what if they catch Skull because of him?

Tsuna resolves to spill the whole story as soon as someone asks — he’s a terrible liar and he never promised Skull he wouldn’t tell, not that the man asked himto — and tries not to think too much about the many crimes he committed by letting the chance of catching a supervillain of Skull’s calibre go to waste. Not that anyone would expect Tsuna to catch a supervillain, but still.

[His team returns two hours later, bright-eyed, bruised and breathless with the enthusiasm of a successful mission tangible in the air around them. Mochida even greets Tsuna with a smile and doesn’t scold him when Tsuna drops his tea cup in response and Haru tells him all about the exciting and ultimately successful arrest they’ve pulled off.

No one asks Tsuna where he’s been or if anything interesting happened while they were gone.

Tsuna tells himself he’s relieved, for Skull’s sake if nothing else, because the pang he feels at the thought that no one would miss me if I was gone has gone beyond pathetic a long time ago.]

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theuniversitychallengereview · 4 years

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UC 50.35 - Imperial vs Warwick

This is episode thirty five of this years University Challenge. Almost exactly one year ago, on 23rd March 2020, the UK was plunged into what we thought would be its only lockdown. Instead it was the first of going on three, four? Where does a lockdown end and a Tier 4 start? Manchester, where I live, has basically been in lockdown for most of the twelve months since then, and who knows how much longer this one is going to actually last.

There is a peculiar magic to a revolution of the sun, with the circularity giving meaning to the meaningless marker of three hundred and sixty five days. Somehow it feels so much more momentous that a year will have passed than that a day less than a year has passed. You remember what you were doing as the lockdown was announced, where you watched Boris make his serious address from. The tingles of fear, and maybe even guilty nervous excitement made me restless. No one knew what any of it meant. So many things have changed since then, but in some ways we are exactly where we were. Stuck inside, nowhere to go, with no concept of when life will return to normal.

There was also a University Challenge match on the 23rd March. I don’t know if I watched it on the day. Probably not. I wrote about it six days later, by which point I was working from home with a pile of books stacked underneath my laptop acting as a makeshift stand. There is something strange about being able to read exactly what I was thinking at the time everything was starting. The following paragraphs are taken directly from that blog, and it still feels like we are in the same limbo state.

What is going on? When I wrote the last blog it was pretty clear that we were in a dire situation, but the inaction of the Government left it feeling like we were in some kind of limbo state, just waiting for the disaster to hit us. But then action was taken. Lockdown.

We now know exactly what we have to do (I was going to list the ‘Stay Home’ instructions here, but if you’re getting your lockdown lowdown from a University Challenge blog then frankly there’s no hope for you anyway), but it still feels really surreal. You’ve never done a home workout in your life, but you’ve done two in the past three days. People say ‘social distancing’ as if its always been a well-known term that was commonly used in daily life. There are never any beans (screw your toilet paper shortages, its the beans that really matter).

We’re still in limbo, really, because we have no idea how long this is going to last. And we’re still waiting for the disaster to hit, because the worst of it hasn’t yet, and the lockdown won’t start properly helping for a few weeks. So what do we do? What can we do? You feel like you want to be distracted from all that is going on, but also to be clued up to the eyeballs with the latest news.

So we do what we can. We stay inside. We call our friends and family and play that stupid ‘chips and guac’ game on Houseparty. We take solace in books, or films, or TV…

As I did a year ago, I’ll try and distract you all (and myself too), with some words about a television quiz show. Let’s not bother with the rules, here’s your first starter for ten...

Imperial and Warwick have already played each other in this years tournament, with the Avonsiders coming out convincing winners, 200 to 120. They then beat another of the semi finalists, Magdalene, Cambridge, by 200 to 160. Fans of a nice round number, it seems.

But I wouldn’t write Imperial off. They followed up their loss to Warwick with magnificent wins over King’s and Durham. Their skipper Kohn is the most in-form player left in the competition, and has averaged more than six starters a game.

Having lost their first round match to Strathclyde, Imperial were given a reprieve via the high-scoring loser play-offs, and boy did they take advantage of it. This coincided with the gap in filming caused by Covid, and Kohn used the extra time to train intensely - think Stallone in Rocky but its just a guy furiously reading (with the same music playing, obviously).

Warwick, meanwhile, have had a relatively smooth path to the last four, winning by an average of 92.5 points. However, if you dive a bit deeper into those statistics, the margin has been decreasing each time (150, 100, 80, 40...), so if Imperial could get stuck into them early on then we’d have a real match on our hands.

Kohn is quickest on the buzzer for the first starter, and they take three bonuses, with Kohn saying that ‘this is giving me strong Dr Faustus vibes’, before giving Dr Faustus as the correct answer for the third. His speed is his downfall on the next starter though, and he loses five points with a neg, allowing his opposite number Rout to pick up the scraps.

A very long-winded biology question falls to no one, before another Imperial neg, this time from Wong, let Braid in to take the lead for Warwick. An incredibly easy bonuse set on Shakespeare extended this for them, though they didn’t recognise ‘Night of the Living Dead’ from its description.

Marrow, Imperial’s resident smiler, took the first picture starter to her evident delight, and a couple of bonuses tied the game at thirty fives. Braid is unlucky with his guess of ‘suffer no fools’ on the next starter - the answer is ‘suffer fools gladly’.

A trademark rapid-buzz from Kohn took the lead back to London, before a second neg from Wong allowed Braid to level the game again. Imperial’s tactic seems to be to win the buzzer race, regardless of whether or not they know the answer. So far they have three negs to three correct starters. An inspired guess of semi-colon from Marrow stole back the initiative. Neither side could string together a run of starters yet.

Not wanting to let Kohn have all the credit, Rout comes in super early on the next starter with Hamiltonian Operator. By now we have reached the music round, in a riveting but so-far low-scoring match. Kohn takes us to seventy apiece with the musical starter, giving Miles Davis and Dave Brubeck as his answer, even though the question had only asked for one person (to be fair to him, the question asked for ‘a bandleader and soloist’, making it seem as though they were two different people, but anyway, Paxman lets him off).

Both teams are making a dangerous habit of dropping bonuses, and six pass in succession with no correct answers. A pair of starters from Burrell, along with a few made five pointers, including some on Bulgarian football teams, gave Warwick the biggest lead of the match so far - fifty.

Kohn isn’t content to give up so easily, and takes the second picture starter, along with a pair of bonuses. Braid stumbles on a chemical elements question, and again Kohn takes advantage. Dismissing some of the bonuses as too easy, Imperial close to within ten.

Pollard gets his first starter of the evening with Yuri Gagarin, and a rare full set from Warwick gave them a thirty five point lead. A supremely clutch buzz from Kohn keeps Imperial in it, but Braid is quickest to identify/guess that a million seconds is two weeks (to the closest week), possibly putting the game beyond the reach of the Londoners. Paxman wastes some time by going on about how stupid it is to know that fact, and Warwick waste some more time with a lengthy conference on the bonuses. They are forty points clear, and probably heading to the final.

But HANG ON!

Braid negs. Thirty five points.

Kohn trips over his tongue, but gets the answer out in the end. Twenty five points. Could they do it?

No (sorry to have built up your hopes, if I did). The gong follows soon after, with Imperial still twenty five points adrift.

Final Score: Imperial 135 - 160 Warwick

Probably a deserved win for Warwick that, but Imperial were an absolute delight and it was a pleasure to watch their evolution over the course of the tournament, especially Kohn’s performances on the buzzer.

I’m looking forward to the second semi-final next week, which also promises to be a barnstormer. See you then.

If you’ve enjoyed this, but can’t wait until next week for another fix of University Challenge, then you can check out my Patreon, where I’ve been reviewing the 2015/16 series.

#university challenge #bbc2 #warwick #imperial #jeremy paxman

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chroniclackofselfpreservation · 4 years

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Creatures of the Night

Chapter 12 - once you say it out loud it can’t be undone

Back to the Beginning < Previous chapter / Next chapter >

AO3

Masterlist

(TW: mild graphic imagery)

(The title for this chapter comes from "the fall" by half alive.)

Patton’s throat constricted and his chest felt like someone had wrapped it in barbed wire. He knelt in the middle of a clearing, the tall grass tickling his arms. His eyes were blurry with tears.

Virgil knelt across from him, his face limp with dread. Logan stood a few paces away, something shiny dangling from his clenched, trembling fist. He radiated anger.

Roman lay asleep at his feet.

No… his chest was still; his skin, usually golden tan and vibrant, was pale; his hand, clutched in Patton’s own, was cold and…

And lifeless.

Patton came awake suddenly, but didn’t jolt. He looked around, gradually grounding himself and calming his breathing. Logan was sandwiched between him and the back of the couch, his mouth slightly open and his face pressed into the crook of Patton’s shoulder.

They’d begun the night sitting side by side, watching animal documentaries and eating the pasta they’d made together. Now, the television had shut off after being inactive for too long, and their dishes sat empty on the coffee table.

Patton’s neck was stiff and his arm was going numb, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to move. His dream was a little more than disturbing—Roman was dead, for crying out loud—but Logan’s slow puffs of breath hitting his neck did a good job distracting him.

Logan’s forehead creased and his eyes, though closed, grew troubled. He made soft, whimpering noises of concern, turning his head into Patton’s shirt.

“Looks like we’re both having bad dreams,” he muttered, leaning his head back on the arm of the couch and looking up at the ceiling.

It was torture, lying here with Logan and not doing anything about it. He wished he could run his hands through his hair and kiss his forehead and lie huddled together—not by accident but by choice.

He wished for a lot of things—not only with Logan, but with Roman and Virgil as well. They’d been so close ever since they were young, but never close enough for his liking. He wanted to take all their pain and make them feel wanted.

But he didn’t.

He wouldn’t cross that boundary for fear they’d feel some sort of obligation to make him happy.

As long as they were happy.

But they weren’t. Logan was overstressed, Roman wouldn’t talk to him about whatever strange thing he was going through, and Virgil—

Logan jerked awake, inhaling sharply and clenching Patton’s shirt in his fist. He looked around, confused, then, upon seeing himself lying nearly on top of Patton, sat up quickly.

He cleared his throat. “Apologies, Patton. It was not my intention to, er… fall asleep.”

“Don’t apologize, kiddo. I think we both needed a little cat nap.” He flipped up the hood of his jacket depicting a cat face and ears.

Logan rolled his eyes and opened his mouth to chastise Patton’s choice of pun when his eyes fell on the window to their left, the morning light reflecting in his eyes. His face went slack with a look of fear.

“What time is it?”

Patton craned his head back to glance at the clock on the oven. “Seven-thirty. Wowie, we really zonked out, didn’t—“

Logan shot to his feet. “Roman?” he called, flying up the stairs two at a time. Patton followed, a pit of nerves forming in the bottom of his gut.

“They’re not here. Roman and Virgil aren’t back yet.”

“I don’t know, Logan. We can’t assume the worst. They might’ve been held up—”

“Patton, I—” Logan snapped, but stopped himself, pressing a fist against his mouth. He began again, “Patton, I can assure you, they are not. This is an incredibly complicated situation with an innumerable amount of unknown variables, and I know you must be confused. Believe me, I understand, but there’s just—Patton I’m sorry, I—I can’t—”

Patton rushed forward, cupping Logan’s face in his hands. “Hey, hey, take a breather, Lo. It’s gonna be okay, yeah?” he said, smiling though he felt as if he’d swallowed glass. Logan knew what was going on. So, did Virgil. Why did everyone know but him?

But he did know—kind of, anyway. Right? The dreams…

He opened his mouth, closed it, then tried again. “This wouldn’t happen to involve a, uh… giant… talking snake… would it?”

Patton felt Logan grow deathly still beneath his hands.

“What did you say?”

Patton lowered his hands, suddenly self-conscious. He shook his head, “Sorry, it’s ridiculous, I know—”

“No! No, Patton, what did you—how did you know?” he breathed.

Patton’s heart stopped in his chest. “I was right?” He tried to swallow past the lump in his throat but he couldn’t. The dreams were true. They always were. But what Roman was dealing with… it wasn’t possible. Was it?

Logan sat down hard on the stairs and put his face in his hands. Patton held out a tentative hand, recoiling a bit when Logan burst into a fit of hysterical laughter.

“Logan?”

He looked up with eyes now red, pressing his hands against his lips and sniffing. “Patton, you have absolutely no idea how relieved I am right now. I’ve been carrying this for Roman on my own for months and I wanted to tell you so bad, but...” his voice broke.

Patton felt everything inside him shatter and it took every ounce of self-control he had to keep from grabbing Logan’s face again, holding his hand, and kissing away all of his pain.

He took a breath, putting on a strong smile. “I don’t know all the details, Lo, but we’re going to figure this out. Okay? Do you know where they are?”

Logan nodded, taking a breath.

“I have a general idea.”

* * * * * * * * * *

...gil…

Virgil…?

What’s going on? Are you dead?

Virgil’s eyes opened slowly. He squinted a little, some sort of bright light shining on his face. His head was pounding. After a few moments, his eyes adjusted and…

He was outside? Why was he…? Looking up, he found Roman asleep against a tree, his head lolling to the side, and Virgil’s head was in his lap.

Virgil shot upright, ears burning. The quick movement sent his head spinning and the throbbing grew worse. He groaned and pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes.

Hello? Answer me, Virgil.

Virgil stiffened. It was Ursula. No wonder his head felt like it had gone through a meat grinder.

What do you want? he thought back venomously.

He could practically sense her eye roll. Nothing. Our connection wavered a bit and I thought you were dead, or something. I was worried for my little minion.

Why’d you… Virgil trailed off. They were in the forest. The memories of last night came rushing back, hitting him like a tidal wave. Terror ripped through him and he launched to his feet. His head felt like someone was chiseling into it with a pickaxe, but he didn’t care. He turned in circles, scanning the trees for Dorian.

They were alone.

What happened? Did my champion figure you out yet? She laughed through their connection, a strangely melodic sound. Did he try to kill you or something?

No, Virgil seethed. Go away. He prayed she wouldn’t take his dismissal as a challenge. Virgil wasn’t sure he had the strength to resist her at the moment.

I have better things to do anyway. Paco’s teaching me how to make sangria, ciao!

Their connection faded.

Roman stirred, and Virgil’s unease piqued. He’d have to explain everything now, wouldn’t he? Roman was going to hate him. Then he’d tell Logan and Patton and—and Virgil wasn’t sure if he could handle any one of them hating him.

But he had to own up to what he’d done. It was time.

“Roman, wake up,” Virgil said, softly shaking his shoulder. His friend blinked a few times, looking around.

“Where are… wait are we still in the forest?!” he cried, shooting to his feet. He looked down at his arms and felt his face with growing horror, spattered head-to-toe with the tar-like blood, and groaned.

“Uh, yeah. I’m guessing you fell asleep after…” Virgil paused, recalling as much of last night as he could. “Wait, how am I not dead? Dorian bit me. I should be dead right now.”

“I gave you the antidote, and—hold up, look at your chest!" Roman blurted, rushing forward. Virgil looked down. His shirt was ripped almost completely open, revealing his chest. There was no wound. Not even a scar.

"How...?"

Roman laughed, "Must be some of that power beyond description Dorian's always going on about."

Virgil's stomach dropped. "Uh, yeah. About that. We probably need to talk. Right?"

Roman looked confused for only a few seconds. His face fell ever so slightly. "Yeah. We do, but not right now."

"What?"

Roman smiled a little guiltily, "I think we should wait until we're all together. I've got some things I need to tell them, too. Besides, Logan's going to murder me himself if we don't get home soon." He started walking, and Virgil followed, trying to decide whether he was relieved or more nervous. It seemed like Roman was in denial instead of actually being fine with the situation.

"Do they know?"

"Logan does. Patton… I haven’t told him anything. I couldn’t bring myself to. You know how he gets. He’d want to fix everything, lose sleep over it, all that,” Roman said. Virgil could tell he was trying to sound unaffected. He wasn’t doing a very good job.

Virgil followed Roman through the woods. He didn’t look like he was even paying attention to where he was going, and yet their course never wavered. A product of spending every night in these trees for over a year, now, Virgil surmised. Despite his confidence in his sense of direction, Virgil couldn't get over how unconcerned Roman was out gallivanting around a forest that housed a considerably large demon serpent that, not six hours ago, had nearly killed them both.

“Aren’t you worried?” he asked.

Roman stepped over a fallen tree, considering for a moment. “About what?”

Virgil gestured to the emptiness of the woods. “I don’t know, a giant snake popping up out of nowhere and trying to kill us?”

He snorted. “Not particularly. He sleeps during the day.”

“How do you know that?”

“...I don’t,” he said slowly. “I mean, I’ve never seen him during the day, but it isn’t like I spend a lot of time in the forest outside of when I have to. I just sort of figured he hid away somewhere and slept, seeing as we haven’t heard reports of a giant snake eating hikers or terrorizing campsites. When all of this started, I’d hide so deep in the forest I couldn’t find my way back out even after the curse ended. I didn’t find my way out until well past sunrise, and never once saw Dorian slithering around, so we should be safe.”

He sounds so used to it by now, Virgil thought miserably.

A voice echoed faintly through the trees. It sounded quite a ways away, and Virgil couldn’t quite make out what they’d shouted. Roman instantly went still as a statue and Virgil nearly tripped bumping into him.

“Did you hear that?” Roman whispered so softly Virgil almost didn’t hear it.

“Uh, yeah, I heard it.”

“Just checking. Follow me. Watch where you put your feet,” he said, making his way toward a cluster of bushes. Virgil followed, nerves popping like firecrackers inside of him. They crouched behind the bush and waited. He couldn’t hear Roman breathing beside him despite his back definitely rising and falling. How was he so calm?

“Roman! Virgil!” the voice called again, and Virgil outright gasped. Roman slapped a hand over Virgil’s mouth, his eyes hard and dark, and markedly more wary than before. He held a finger to his lips as he slowly rose to his feet.

Stay here, Roman mouthed.

Before Virgil could do anything more, Roman leaped up, grabbed a branch of the tree beside them, and hauled himself up it in less time than it took Virgil to hiss, “What are you doing?!” The trees were sparse enough that he might be able to see who was coming, but it was definitely human. Right? Going by Roman’s reaction, it may not be.

Was Dorian messing with them? But Roman had said that the snake slept during the day…

Luckily, Virgil didn’t have to wait long for his answer.

“Logan! Patton! Over here!” Roman shouted and Virgil nearly had a heart attack. He dropped to the ground at Virgil’s side, a grin stretched across his face. “Come on. They’re not too far.”

“Are you su—” Virgil started, but Roman grabbed his hand and began running. Virgil nearly fell on his face several times trying to keep up. He was far more agile as a cat, that was for sure. Bipeds were so top-heavy it had taken him several days after he first discovered his human form to figure out the whole walking-thing.

They didn’t have to run far—and Roman ran the whole way— before Virgil spotted them: Logan, who looked so angry his face was red, and Patton, beaming with excitement at seeing his friends.

Roman let go of Virgil’s hand and slowed to a stop, grabbing the back of his neck. “Now, Logan, don’t be—”

“Roman Nicholas Kingsley, what were you thinking?!” Logan spat, fuming. Virgil noticed Roman looked considerably more scared of the elementary school teacher before him than the demon he’d fought last night. Before Roman could say anything more in his defense, Logan wrapped him in a hug so tight Virgil thought he’d break his ribs.

“What’s all over you?” Patton asked.

“That’d be demon blood, Padre,” Roman laughed through Logan’s embrace, having the decency to look at least a little bit chastised. Patton paled. “Demon blood that Logan is going to have a hay-day getting out of his shirt.”

“Shut up,” Logan muttered, releasing him. Dark splotches indeed adorned his button up, but he didn’t seem to care.

“Never thought I’d say a sentence like that in the light of day,” Roman chuckled.

Logan rounded on Virgil. “And you! You think you can pull a stunt like this after what I went through to save you yesterday?”

Patton and Roman exchanged looks, falling silent. Virgil shrank back. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Logan sighed, stepping toward him. Virgil flinched, but was met with a warm embrace instead.

“One of these days, you three will give me a heart attack,” he muttered.

Roman laughed forcibly. “Wow, Specs, never thought I’d see the day you’d be handing out hugs.”

Logan released Virgil, who didn’t feel any less nervous, and straightened his tie.

“We,” he said, looking pointedly at everyone, “have a lot to talk about.”

* * * * * * * * * *

“Who wants to go first?” Logan asked after they’d all sat through several minutes of awkward silence in the living room.

Virgil wrung his hands, taking a few shallow breaths before saying, “I should start. This is my fault, anyway.”

Logan sighed, “Virgil, whatever it is, I’m sure—”

“I’m not exaggerating, Logan,” he said, not meeting any of their eyes. “I’ll tell my story, then if… if you want me to leave I—I’ll go, but just let me get it all out, okay?”

“Kiddo, we’d never ask you to leave.” Patton reached toward him, but Virgil recoiled ever so slightly. Logan glanced at Roman, who had grown uncharacteristically quiet the closer they’d drawn to their house. Now, he just stared at his hands and picked at the sticky blood spots he still hadn’t washed off.

Virgil took a breath, then began. “I’m not human.”

Patton made a noise of confusion and Logan’s brow knit together. “What do you mean?” he asked. “You’re sitting right there; I can see that you are.”

“No—I mean, I can take the form of a human if I want to, but I wasn’t born a human. I was born a cat.”

“A cat,” Logan echoed skeptically and looked around. Patton seemed as confused as he was, and Roman had grown still as he listened.

“I know it sounds weird, but trust me, that isn’t the worst of it. There are parts of your world that you couldn’t even imagine existing, so just… trust me, okay? I won’t lie to you.”

“Promise?” Roman muttered softly and Virgil looked like he’d been punched.

Patton looked between them with concern. “Keep going, bud. We’ll stop interrupting.”

Virgil swallowed. “I’m not just a cat. I mean, that’s kinda obvious. Cats don’t normally turn into people, but, uh—I’m what you’d call a familiar. It means I’m bonded to a witch—we can communicate telepathically, and she can, uh, see through my eyes and stuff like that.”

A muscle in Roman’s jaw tightened. “So what, you’ve been spying on us, then?”

Virgil’s hands shook. “Not anymore, but initially… yeah. She—I wasn’t trying to—” he said, his voice wavering. He stopped, fidgeting endlessly with his jacket sleeves. “It's complicated, I know, but if you just let me explain, it’ll all make sense—”

“Then will you just get on with it?” Roman snapped.

“Roman, please,” Logan sighed. “We’re all trying to figure out what’s going on together.”

Roman chewed on the inside of his cheek, folding his arms and falling silent once more. Logan looked again to Virgil, who appeared more and more like he was about to bolt.

“Keep going, Virgil,” he prompted softly.

He inhaled slowly, closing his eyes for a moment before continuing. “I’m roughly four hundred years old. I’m not entirely sure, but somewhere around there. You stop counting after a while. As a familiar, I’m able to control the age of my human form to meet my needs, which is how I was able to attend school with you all.” Virgil paused and met all their eyes briefly. Logan was having a hard time wrapping his mind around all of this, and frankly, if he hadn’t seen whatever sort of magic Virgil had been attempting yesterday, he would have thought his roommate delusional.

To further solidify his claim, Virgil stood and—

Logan blinked. Virgil disappeared, clothes and all, replaced by an ordinary black cat.

Patton made an inarticulate noise and squealed, “Virgil, you’re adorable!”

Before Logan’s brain could register what had actually happened before his eyes, a thirteen-year-old version of Virgil appeared in place of the cat. It was mind-boggling, seeing Virgil as a child, no different from when they’d all been that age.

Another blink, and Virgil was back to normal. Up until yesterday, Logan had only ever heard about all of this magic stuff. He only saw Roman in the aftermath of his battles. When he saved Virgil, he’d been considerably distracted from taking in all of the abnormalities around him. Now, it had just happened. Right there. In plain view.

Virgil lowered back into his seat, his fear mingled with a sort of sad, apathetic acceptance. He didn’t tremble as he began, “In the beginning, Ursula sent me to find Roman after his mom died. I found him, but the longer I spent with you guys, I started actually liking it. I’d never had real friends before. Halfway through sophomore year, I told Ursula to shove it. I wasn’t going to be her puppet anymore.”

“That’s when your headaches started,” Logan muttered, his mind churning as he worked out the timeline like a puzzle.

“Yeah. That happens whenever I have to resist our connection.”

Logan looked to Roman. Virgil had mentioned his mother’s death, but his eyes had only grown slightly sadder than before. Quite the tempered reaction, in Logan’s opinion, but he still had several more questions he needed answered.

“So, how are you related to Roman’s curse?”

“Curse?” Patton echoed, looking Roman over with a pained expression. Roman didn’t look up.

“Roman can explain it better than I can,” Virgil admitted, shoulders hunching. “But, I was the one who took him to Ursula in the first place.”

“What happened to not being her puppet?” Roman asked.

Virgil folded his arms, balling his jacket sleeves in his fists. “Every summer, Ursula made me return to her. She’d attack my mind relentlessly until I did, so it wasn’t much of a choice. She… managed to convince me otherwise, at least for the first few months I was back.” He looked to Logan and Patton. “Do you remember when Roman and I were in that accident on the highway last year?”

Logan nodded. Roman’s shoulder’s tensed.

“It didn’t happen like you remember, Roman. Ursula wanted me to continue keeping tabs on you even after the curse was in place and... I was scared of you hating me. I erased your memory of what happened and replaced it so I wasn’t part of any of it.”

“You messed with my head?” Roman growled, finally looking up and meeting Virgil’s eye. “You cared more about saving your own skin than keeping me from the literal hell I’ve been living for a year?” He didn’t shout, but he didn’t really have to. Logan had only ever witnessed Roman’s “quiet anger”, as he dubbed it, once before—when his father had made Patton cry during his last attempt to establish any sort of relationship.

It was terrifying.

“Yes, I did,” Virgil said, staring into nothing, his face slack with heartache, “and I regret it every single day. I know I’m a coward and a sad excuse for a friend.”

“Vir—” Patton started.

“I am, Patt,” Virgil cut him off. “I’m not going to pretend that I’m a better person than I am.”

Roman pressed his lips into a thin line, inhaling slowly. “Can you bring my memories back?”

Virgil nodded, then reached out and placed his hand across Roman’s forehead. “Mind and matter fuse and mend, let the memory’s slumber end.”

Roman sucked in a sharp breath, going rigid as a board for a moment. As quickly as it had happened, it ended. Roman pulled away, his eyebrows drawn together in what Logan could only assume was a mixture of confusion and frustration.

Virgil looked markedly paler, almost sickly. He wiped his face with a trembling hand.

“Virgil? Are you okay?”

“I’ll be good in a few minutes,” he said, taking a breath. “There was a, uh, incident a few hundred years ago that left me magically broken.”

“Broken?” Logan asked.

Virgil smiled, though it looked more like a grimace. “Plainly speaking, yes. When magical beings experience really traumatic events, sometimes their powers can just… disappear. It took Ursula years to finally take me to another witch who could make me a talisman that would help me use magic again. A few days ago, someone stole it. That’s why the spell yesterday almost killed me.”

Patton clasped his hands in his lap, taking this far better than Logan would have thought. He still wanted to ask about how Patton had found out about Roman’s situation.

“Why did you try to do it, if you didn’t know it would work?” Patton asked.

“I decided to stop running away from my problems and actually try to help Roman. I was trying to locate the person who stole my talisman. When that failed, I figured I’d at least try and give the demon a run for his money, but I ended up making things worse.” He opened his eyes, looking at them all in turn, indescribably miserable. He spread his hands dejectedly. “That’s all of it.”

Once again, they sat in silence, though this time it wasn’t nearly as awkward as it was a silence of utter disbelief.

Patton sniffed. “Okay,” he said shakily, “Does someone want to explain what this curse is to me?”

Roman nodded, then stood and walked away without a word. Logan was about to grab his arm and tell him that if they didn’t get everything out right now, it never would, but Roman stopped him with a look. A look that both reassured him that he was coming back and conveyed such complete exhaustion with life Logan physically recoiled.

Patton gave Logan a questioning look, and Logan tried to put on a comforting smile, but he was pretty sure all that happened was a quick twitch of the sides of his mouth.

Roman returned a moment later, a tri-folded piece of paper in his hands. A thumbprint of dried blood stained the paper where a seal would usually go.

“The witch Ursula gave me this,” Roman started, staring at it, “the night she cursed me. A description of the curse and instructions on how to fulfill it, and this amulet.” He reached inside the neck of his shirt and, after a moment of fiddling, pulled out the ruby pendant. “Every night, I have to go to the forest outside town and battle a demon. This amulet heals any injury or fatigue I sustain, as long as I’m wearing it. It’s been going on for a little over a year now.”

Logan glanced at Patton. He looked like Roman had ripped his heart out of his chest, but he didn’t look surprised. Roman went on to explain his heritage, this so-called Witch’s Inheritance… and what happened to his mother.

He finished softly, his voice simply going out.

“So, that’s it?” he asked, looking like he needed to sleep for a week straight. “It’s all out in the open, now? No more secrets?”

“Ah, not quite,” Patton said, lifting a finger.

Logan leaned back in his chair. “I’ve been wondering how you figured out Roman’s predicament without any of us telling you.”

Roman choked. “You knew?”

Patton flushed, holding up his hands. “Not until very recently, and I didn’t know a lot of the details, but yes. So, I… uh,” he said, suddenly looking as nervous as Virgil had been when this whole conversation started. Patton didn’t speak for a moment, his brow creasing as if trying to work something out in his head.

“Is something wrong, Patton?” Logan asked.

He swallowed. “No, it’s just… the last person who knew about… me… left and—and didn’t come back, so...” He took a rattling breath, but put on a smile, shaking his head and squeezing his eyes shut as if trying to get rid of whatever was filling his head.

“Patton, we,” Logan said, looking pointedly at both Roman and Virgil, “would never abandon you, regardless of whatever it is you need to tell us. In fact,” he said, sitting up straighter and addressing them all, “no one is going to be abandoning anyone today. If you all think that I’m going to sit back and let this family fall apart—because that is what we are—you are gravely mistaken. I shall be the metaphorical duct tape, if you will. A figurative repair man, or a, uh…” he paused, racking his brain for some other analogy he could use to adequately describe his feelings at the moment.

Roman put a hand on his arm, a soft smile on his lips. “We get it, teach. None of us are going anywhere any time soon.” He met Virgil’s gaze and Logan could sense some sort of silent exchange between them.

Patton’s shoulders loosened, and a genuine smile of gratitude graced his face. He took a breath. “For as long as I can remember, I’ve had these dreams. I… see things that haven’t happened yet. Sometimes I’m in them, sometimes I see things happening to other people, like Roman. I saw you being chased by that horrible monster, and—and I didn’t believe it at first, but then I heard you and Logan talking about some sort of compromise downstairs.”

Roman ran a hand down his face. “And here I was thinking I was subtle.”

“You were rather excited about your agreement with the serpent,” Logan said.

“So, you’re a sibyl, then?” Virgil said.

“What?” Patton breathed.

Roman threw his hands up. “Is no one in this house normal aside from Logan?”

Logan held up a hand, “The concept of normality is quite subjective, I’ll have you know—”

“What’s a sibyl?” Patton asked desperately, grabbing Virgil’s sleeve. He looked on the verge of either relief or horror.

Logan interjected, unable to constrain himself. “It’s actually quite fascinating. In ancient Greece, women who were believed to receive prophecies and messages from the gods were called sibyls or oracles.”

Roman perked up, “Oh! So, Patton’s like the Oracle of Daphne!”

“It’s the Oracle of Delphi,” Virgil corrected—Logan couldn’t help the flutter of pride that skipped through his chest— “and Patton’s similar, but not exactly the same. He’s probably just descended from an oracle, or something. Did either of your parents have these abilities?”

They all looked at Patton, who suddenly appeared far less intrigued by the conversation.

“I’m not sure.”

Roman scoffed, “That would explain how your mom always knew when I tried to get you to skip class.”

“We should consult with your mother Patton, she may have some answers or at least a way to help Roman with finding Ursu—”

“She isn’t like me,” Patton said.

“Are you sure? I mean, you were able to hide this ability from us for years. I don’t doubt your relationship, Patton, but I’m merely trying to explore every avenue, here,” Logan said gently.

Patton shook his head. “No, I mean, I know that she isn’t because—well, she isn’t my biological mother.”

The room went silent for a beat.

Roman’s eyebrows came together in confusion. “Wait, you’re adopted? How did I not know that? Did you guys know that?”

Patton’s smile stretched as he nodded. “Yep, so now that that’s out of the way, we can move on. Right? Besides, I had a pretty spooky dream last night about all of us, except Roman was dead and we were in the forest, and—”

Virgil shot to his feet. “Roman was dead?!”

“Chill, Hot Topic, I think I know what he means,” Roman said.

Virgil sat slowly, muttering, “What’s Hot Topic?” to himself as he did.

Roman held up the amulet still held in his fist.

“We’ve got a little something to take care of tonight.”

#tw graphic imagery #graphic imagery tw #graphic imagery #sanders sides #sanderssides #thomas sanders sides #sanders sides fic #sanders sides fanfic #sanders sides fanfcition #fic #fanfic #fanficition #roman sanders #patton sanders #logan sanders

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real-jaune-isms · 4 years

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RWBY Volume 8 Chapter 8 Review/Remix

RWBY finally comes back from a 2 month break, and what does it do? It scares us all half to death and then obliterates the other half with insane new story concepts and body horror imagery. Gods I missed this show~...

We return to this chaotic mess with the scene you might be expecting the least, Qrow and Robyn in their prison cells. Qrow is awoken by the sound of ships and explosions outside, and find that his three block mates are similarly left sleepless. Jacques is particularly nervous, probably because he assumed Whitley would be here to bail him out by now. Qrow picks up on an incoming sound that sounds... different, and indeed a wall is blown down in a fiery explosions that starts sending down rubble. One section of the Hard Light cell walls have been taken down, but before anyone has time to act Robyn notices a crow vehemently cawing at her before some rubble comes down above her. And... that’s the last we see of Robyn or Qrow this episode. He transformed to be a smaller target for debris and she might not have made it out quickly enough even with his disguised possible warnings.

Back to more pressing matters, we take the perspective of... the Dragonborn in the opening of Skyrim?? Wait, no, it’s just Nora regaining consciousness to see Klein has given her an IV and is saying she’ll be on the mend real quick. So that’s some good news after a few months of worry, and hey! The fan theory was wrong, she didn’t go blind from the lightning! Before we can even dwell on her wellbeing for too long, Blake opens the door for Ruby Weiss and Whitley to carry in Penny’s unconscious body. As Blake points out, Penny is leaking a green fluid most likely comparable to blood. They set her down on a cot near Nora, and Whitley is pissed about getting his clothes stained again in the span of 48 hours. But I think robot fuel/blood is at least easier to wash out than red wine. Ruby of course wants to know if Klein can help Penny as well as he has Nora, but his wheelhouse of expertise does not cover advanced robotics. The saving grace is that Pietro made her so close to human so Klein has some idea what can actually be fixed, starting with sewing up the gash in her abdomen. A thunderous rumble is heard in the distance, and suddenly the lights go out. Whitely complains about this too, but it is rather valid. Nothing quite seems to be going right, even Atlas’ power grid is against them... Ruby gets a call from May, and we learn they parted ways so May could go regroup with the Happy Huntresses and save her city. They compare notes and it’s made clear a bombing run took out part of the city’s power, though less clear is who was doing that bombing, Atlas or the Grimm? Ruby apologizes for their current inaction while they tend to Penny, but May reassures her that this may end up being more productive than trying to find something worth doing outside the city. Great googly moogly, it’s all gone to shit, and there’s very little difference a few more huntresses can make to the Mantle efforts. Ruby is left in overwhelmed despair, there’s so many problems and she doesn’t know how to solve all of them. Klein butts in with a sneeze to say she should take it one problem at a time, focus on the most immediate and possible to achieve and work outwards. For one thing, it’d help a lot of they had lights and power.

Willow surprises everyone by showing up in the doorway to let them know about a backup generator on the edge of the estate property. She’s still the lady of this house, and she has enough self respect to not lie around getting drunk in the dark. Whitley greets her with a mix of disinterest and distain, and she notices Klein has returned to the manor and offers an off guard greeting. Weiss backs up her mom’s info drop with the fact that SDC executive members indeed have access to backup power sources if the city ever suffered a power outage like this. She doesn’t like that they have that kind of privilege while other folks suffer, but it’s for the greater good this time. This gets Whitley thinking, and my boy has a full Jimmy Neutron BRAIN BLAST! Since Jacques made him heir to the company, and the man himself is possibly dead under rubble, Whitely has full access to the Schnee Dust Company and all its resources. Since Ironwood put down the Dust embargo in Volume 4, their fleet of cargo ships are sitting empty and ready for use in a hangar. As we saw earlier this very chapter, there are automated drones that answer to the SDC rather than the Atlas military. They can use those ships and drone soldiers to give all the people stuck in Mantle a way out to fly away safely. Fantastic work, young man! You make your family proud... well, the family members who don’t commit war crimes for profit. But to do that they need the power back on so he can use Jacques’ computer, so that’s what Ruby and Blake set out to do. Getting inside the small building outside of the mansion is easy enough, and its just the flip of a switch to get the generator booting back up. In the meantime, the two share a genuinely sweet conversation. Blake reassures Ruby that the fact she’s trying to make things happen is all the world could ask of her, and an optimistic attitude like that is hard to stick with for long in this harsh world. Life in the White Fang and with Adam robbed Blake of her own similar mindset, but she truly admires and looks up to Ruby for how great a woman she is. Sadly, like most things, this moment is ruined by a Grimm. While all the lights are coming back on and Whitley gets to work, a bolt of lightning reveals that the Hound is just outside the window behind Ruby... Willow and Klein are casually sitting around waiting I guess, when they hear the loud crash of glass breaking and Willow reflexively reaches for her bottle of vodka. Weiss checks in on her teammates over comms and they tell her they need some help so she makes sure Whitley will have the business handled before she rushes out to save her friends. Ruby is getting tossed through a fresh hole in the wall, and Blake’s attempt to attack it while she regains her footing is just batted away. Blake assures Ruby that it’s just a Grimm, they can handle it as long as she can stay focused. Blake goes on the offensive again while Ruby tries to get her Silver Eyes going, but the Hound swats the Faunus girl away and tackles Ruby before sprouting its wings again with her in its clutches Blake uses the ribbon on her weapon to do what Ren had earlier in the Volume, though she anchors the other end in the ground as a tether rather than ride along as it leaves.

Weiss finally arrives at the scene of this chaos and reports the Grimm sighting back to Klein. Hearing the news of this beastly intruder leaves Willow so shaken she drops the bottle and glass she was pouring herself. Klein tries to reassure and calm her, but she’s too overwhelmed and runs out of the room... just as Penny reactivates with red eyes. Full on hacked now, and Klein gets shoved to the floor for all his concerns about her being on her feet again. But she barely takes two steps before the real Penny resurfaces and tries to fight back for control of her own body. The struggle is deep enough to summon a whirling wind around her much like Fria had last Volume, but this one is green because Penny. Back outside, Weiss is about to summon something when a couple Centinels burrow up behind her and tear through it. From the looks of it, I think it was going to be the Nevermore from all the way back in Volume 1, so that’s a pretty cool callback to how important that fight was, and the imagery of glowing wings behind her was beautiful while it lasted. The Hound breaks free of Blake’s tether and is about to soar away, much to her dismay, when it sees a bright green glow coming from in the manor, clearly Penny going through her identity crisis. Ruby puts two and two together and realizes why the Hound has been saying “Take the Girl.” The girl is Penny, whose blood is still on Ruby’s clothes so it got a little confused while tracking. She warns her teammates, but the Hound chooses that time to drop her like a sack of potatoes and there goes the last of her Aura. Blake tells Weiss to go back inside and stop the Hound while she handles the Centinels out here, and they split up, but before Blake can reach her leader a new creature erupts from the ground and it’s bigger and more gross than the last bugs. It spits acid that comes up through a tube along its belly, and I’m confident in calling it an Alpha Centinel. Back in the eye of the storm, Klein tries to reassure Penny that she’s okay, which is phrased a little but I assume he means as “you’re in a safe place and your injuries have been treated, you don’t need to defend yourself like this”. The man is just a butler, he doesn’t know what we do about her internal struggle against antagonistic programming and her wrestling with her sense of self. Whatever new orders Watts has given her, she really doesn’t want to follow them. Luckily, there’s someone at her side to comfort her and hold her hand, and that’s Nora. Passing along the comforting words she got from Blake earlier this Volume, she tells Penny she doesn’t have to just be and do what other people expect of her. She may feel like a part of her is making her do what she doesn’t want to, but don’t forget about the rest. She’s more than just that one part of her mind or persona. It’s nowhere near the same situation as Nora’s own identity crisis earlier, but the words have the same positive effect. Penny gains control again and the wind barrier subsides. Weiss reports in that the Hound is heading inside and she’s on her way to intercept, and gets the bad news that Willow fled the room to go who knows where. Well, we know now cuz we see it, she went to what I assume is her own bedroom (god forbid she and Jacques still share a bed after 8 years of the most sour their marriage has been). On her vanity there’s another bottle or two of booze, and her Scroll. She wants to retreat to what she knows best, but hesitates and then gets spooked by the shattering sound of the Hound breaking in through the window above the front door.

It picks up on Penny’s scent from the blood stained on the floor, but by the time Weiss charges in through the front door it’s gone. The next five minutes of the episode have major horror movie vibes, and I love it. Weiss slowly looks around the foyer for any sign of the beast, when Willow screams over her Scroll to look out above her and indeed the Hound drops down to backhand her into a piano. Instead of staying to attack her, it goes to follow Penny’s scent again and leaves Weiss to check in with her mom after that sudden warning. Biggest triumph thus far, Willow threw her bottle against a wall and instead pulled up the feed from her series of surveillance cameras around the manor on her Scroll to track the Hound. It’s near Winter’s old bedroom, and Willow doesn’t seem to understand that it’s tracking a scent like a bloodhound. Maybe she just doesn’t encounter Grimm a lot or they’re just usually not this competent and singularly focused. She recognizes the direction it’s heading next with great horror, and what we see next gives us that same dread. Whitley still has blood on his clothes, and he dismisses Willow’s warning cuz he probably doesn’t think she has anything to say worth hearing after his years of dealing with her drunken state. He’s almost done setting up the automated orders, when he hears the door starting to open and angrily snaps at what he assumes is Willow coming to check on him since he didn’t answer the call. But he is dead wrong and hides behind the desk immediately, because it is indeed the Hound come to potentially kill him. He’s doing his best to hide, but it expands its vocabulary to tell him it knows he’s here. Just as it’s about to round the corner, an Alpha Boarbatusk charges in and pins it to the wall. Weiss isn’t the only Schnee in the house who can summon, and Willow will not let her son die this day. He’s about to bolt out of the room while it’s preoccupied with the summon, but turns back to hit Yes on the computer and get the evacuation plans started. Good job kid, you did more to save Mantle than your father and Ironwood combined. The two sprint down the hall with the Hound in hot pursuit, but get some respite from an ice wall forming between them and the Grimm thanks to Weiss arriving from the opposite direction. She’s out of breath, but assures them she didn’t forget about either of them, most likely as a callback to the conversation she and Willow had last Volume about Whitley being left behind when Weiss and Winter sought independence. The unarmed Schnees express their gratitude and retreat from that wing of the house, and Weiss prepares her summons for combat with the beast breaking through the ice.

Back outside, Blake is struggling with the Alpha Centinel and complains about how gross it is. She avoids its scythe blade-like arms with some clever use of elementally charged shadow clones and begs for Ruby to wake up and give her some backup. But that can’t last forever and eventually it holds her by the neck ready to slice. Before it can, though, Ruby wakes up and bisects it first. She laughs weakly and tells Blake she heard what she was saying. They hear a scream coming from inside the mansion and head inside to meet up with the others. Weiss and the Hound hear it too, and the Hound stops doing its best “Here’s Johnny” impression through the hole in the ice to go chase down this new sound. We see the source of it, and it is in fact Penny losing control of herself again to the new programming. The red eyes stay this time, and she shoves Klein aside once again to stiffly and mechanically walk out to the foyer. As fate would have it, Willow and Whitely are there too, and they naturally question the fact that she’s emotionlessly walking past them when last they saw she was bleeding and unconscious. She responds that she’s going to open the vault, and then apparently self destruct. Not to state the obvious, but we really can’t let that happen so lets hope the power of love will break through to her. Before Penny can even get down the stairs, the Hound arrives to try and grab her and she catches his hand effortlessly, and then the other, so they’re stuck in a shoving match stalemate. The Hound solves this problem by growing a new arm out of its back and using it to grab Penny by the head. It slams her around like a ragdoll, still repeating “Take the Girl”, and holds a claw up to her throat when RWB arrive at the bottom of the stairs. Blake and Weiss are unsure how to intervene, but Ruby goes stone cold serious telling it that’s enough. In the literal blink of her eye, a Silver Eyed blast blinds it and sends it falling out the window behind it leaving Penny to tumble down the stairs unconscious again. They hope and pray the threat is over as they check her body, but the real horror starts now.

The Hound claws his way back up through the window, and part of his head has been blasted away to reveal a dog faunus with one intact silver eye. In a voice likely not used in a long time, he continues to repeat his orders to “Take the Girl...” Ruby is mortified and shell shocked to see a living person within the frame of this beast unlike any she’s known prior, and I’m sure the wheels in her mind are turning to wonder if Summer Rose suffered a similar undying fate at Salem’s hands... and if that’s what will happen to her if she is captured? He begins shambling towards them and they try to carry Penny away from him but end up cornered. Whitley gets an idea and he and Willow start pushing on the knight statue nearest to them. Just as the Hound, whose human portion I have been inspired by a podcast to call Johnny, is about to grab the girls the statue falls down and crushes him to death. A choir chants in Latin as the Grimm fades away... and for the first time leaves behind a skeleton. Ruby seems shaken to her core as she confirms to the others that that was in fact a person they saw in there.

Ending that side of the story entirely for the week, we go back to the rubble in the jail cell to see Cinder has found Watts and the two make a flying get away. So that’s fun, we’ll have to see if they make it back in time to intercept JRY trying to sneak through Monstra. Until then, I’m gonna sleep like the dead. Ciao!

#rwby reviews #qrow branwen #robyn hill #arthur watts #jacques schnee #nora valkyrie #ruby rose #weiss schnee #blake belladonna #penny polendina #klein sieben #whitley schnee #willow schnee #the hound #tw: body horror #horror elements

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gengarprotectionsquad · 4 years

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bad horror movie ideas i've been compiling b/c @fleetwoodmurk is an enabler:

thankskilling: the family connections of a 19 year old college student allow him to skirt by any substantial sentencing for violent anti-indigenous hate crimes, just in time for him to make it home by thanksgiving. the soothing whispers of how he “shouldn’t have his life ruined for making a mistake” on property staked in stolen indigenous land invite the wrathful presence of autumn’s bounty-- a ghastly, therizinosaurus-like approximation of a turkey powered solely by the anguish of lives taken in the name of american colonialism. after all, if that family wants their son to have some turkey, then he’ll get his eight foot-tall, blade-handed, undying turkey.

homebody: forced to pull into a run-down motel by a freak storm, a group of friends initially find themselves faced with nothing more harrowing than the occasional cobweb and staff who never meet visitors face-to-face, even finding a note on the front counter that there’s no fee for staying--so long as they “spread the word” if they find their stay satisfactory. but, after waking up each morning to find that they’ve lost clumps of hair, individual teeth, and even a toe among other body parts, they discover the motel’s one and only employee--a colossal, man-like harvestman that severs human tissue with surgical precision (thanks to its spindly, 15 meter arms) in a misguided attempt to better fool human prey by grafting the fruits of its labor onto its own body.

goliath’s revenge: a japanese kaiju film director finally pushes his luck just a tad too far, killing the suit actress for the lead “goliath” monster as a direct result of the director’s penchant for strenuous, dangerous stuntwork. when his connections allow him to wriggle his way out of the tragedy scot-free, the suit actress’ furious spirit reanimates in her signature costume--now made flesh and blood--in order to exact a vengeful rampage of monstrous proportions that her former boss could only have hoped to have filmed.

more under the cut!!!

hivemind: a single mother reeling from a devastating divorce seems to find new purpose in her life thanks to a california-based branch of a yoga group that emphasizes the value of both diligence and mindfulness. as the months go by, however, she realizes that she’s so deeply invested her time with the group that she doesn’t even know the names of anyone in her neighborhood that isn’t involved with them. just as she’s having doubts, she’s invited on a week-long retreat to experience what will hopefully become an outdoor facility of theirs, and that even their founder will be in attendance. she and her daughter do indeed meet the group’s founder--a colossal, humanoid queen ant who is rendered inert by her size, subsequently relying on her psychic abilities to indoctrinate human followers to her side and transform them into “suitable workers” that would happily give their lives for her sake

children of the night: an exorcist, a private investigator, a trio of true crime podcasters, the local sheriff w/ top suspect in tow, a self-proclaimed “vampire hunter”, and a humble gravedigger all converge on the same cemetery when it becomes host to a series of unspeakably gruesome murders--the site being deemed the “vampires’ playground” for the crimes’ bloody nature. but when the self-confessed suspect winds up cleaved in twain at the scene, it turns out they’ll all have to deal with actual vampires--hulking, gorilla-like, hairless bats with the intelligence of a toddler and a permanent, gummy grin filled with teeth far too dull to consume flesh that hasn’t been playfully beaten to a fine pulp beforehand

think tank: with the untimely death of a silicon valley tech giant who’d racked up a reputation for being as antisocial as he was exploitative, a documentary crew visits his main offices in hopes of interviewing any available employees in order to determine whether or not that open secret had any truth to it. though cooperative enough, the surly defensiveness that seems to increase in prevalence as the crew makes their way up the corporate ladder leads one particularly-intrepid camerawoman to sneak the crew far further into the building than originally intended and into a hidden basement. this brings them face-to-face with the deceased entrepreneur’s dirty little secret, known as the think tank: a captive “psychic existence” brought into being using the harvested, collective brainpower of every employee who refused to take their boss’s shit but was just too talented to let go

whalefall: the 300 ft tall, walking corpse of a whale dredges its way up from the ocean floor and onto american shorelines, bringing with it tidal waves of pestilence and plague. when japanese fishermen identify the creature as a bake-kujira--a ghostly whale that harbors only misfortune and undead sealife in the wake of maritime disaster--the federal government opts to not only ignore their insight, but outright blame japan and their whaling industry for its presence. their relative inaction in the name of xenophobia and saving face will serve only to prolong the creature’s attack, with entire coastal towns left to deal with the flooding and zombified deep-sea organisms themselves.

study skin: a group of hunters grow too impatient to wait for their county’s deer season and set out under the cover of nightfall in hopes of snagging a trophy or two. though met with a highway lined with bizarre amounts of roadkill and a totally silent forest, they disregard their unease and set up for the night. they soon discover the true reason for the minimal duration of the local hunting season when they catch a glimpse of an old friend long-thought to have vanished on a hunting trip, bringing them face-to-face with the hidewinder--a mysterious creature that inhabits the skins of deceased animals in search of larger and more complex bodies to call its own, with absolutely no idea how to look or behave “right” in any of its disguises, and a tendency to become enraged once it becomes clear that it doesnt fit in.

calling card: a freelance musician struggling with being sincere and vulnerable in their own work decides to move to a small, quiet town in southern bumblefuck-nowhere to try and clear their head. to their surprise, they’ve practically moved onto the set of a musical--the town’s residents bursting into song at the drop of a hat out of what seems to be the sheer, earnest passion of their feelings. this pleasant novelty soon turns out to be a town tradition established to cope with the presence of lonesome harvey--an upright cicada-man who emerges from underground hibernation every 18 years to rip select peoples’ vocal chords right out of their throats, crudely tying them together in order to fashion a set powerful enough to function as his own (which he uses to shriek out his signature mating call every summers’ night, in hopes of attracting a partner who’ll never arrive). thus, the townsfolk sing their hearts out so that harvey can gauge whose voice he’ll claim for himself (as opposed to having him mutilate everyone in the name of trial-and-error), and the musician has moved into town just in time for ol’ harvey to make his return.

back of your mind: following the very-much-timely (if a tad mysterious) death of their verbally-abusive mother, her only child returns to their childhood home in order to collect any wayward belongings and maybe find some sort of closure in setting foot on the premises one last time. a patch of black mold on the wall that they spot on their way in seems to...change location, somehow. further investigation and attempts to simply wipe away the mold leave it in the blurred image of a gummy, toothy maw--one that begins to whisper to the visitor, claiming to have missed them oh-so-very-much from the day that they left. the strangeness of the situation keeps them coming back everyday, where the mold’s whispers begin to take a familiarly-cruel edge--at first pleading for the visitor to stay, only to take to yelling at them that no-one but the mold will accept them as the “broken, useless husk” of a person that they are.

miasma: a long line of charlatans and conmen have managed to convince a small backwoods town over generations that their collection of plastic gems and false talismans will heal them better than any medical professional could ever hope to accomplish. with most of the towns residents now being old, grey, and complacently vulnerable to disease, a new con artist moving in with a case of the stomach flu compromises the health of the entire community. and with the enticing smell of illness, comes the arrival of the scavenger--a black-feathered “vulture man” who knocks three times upon the door of his intended target, before politely entering their residence and leaving within the hour, leaving behind a bloated corpse whose orifices are stuffed with posies laying otherwise peacefully on their bed.

killing stroke: a promising rising star in the fencing scene is tragically slain in the middle of a prestigious tournament, with the cause of death being attributed to a recklessly-modified underplastron. in actuality, the poor youth’s equipment was sabotaged in order to maintain the career of a legendary fencer. on the anniversary of his death, he rises from the grave and dons his old suit in order to infiltrate that year’s iteration of the tournament--his mission being to cut down not only his rival, but anyone who upholds the same kind of narcissistic greed that claimed his life.

disassembly line: an upton sinclair-adjacent investigative journalist finds herself looking into the inner workings of a 1900s meat-packing factory in chicago, beholding the full disgusting scope of its exploitative, unsanitary working conditions. managing to acquaint herself with a few of the workers, the lunchtime whispers of one particularly-attractive lady butcher point her in the direction of a devious cover-up involving a nameless employee who “accidentally” wound up in the machinery after making too much of a ruckus about his wages. a nameless employee whose steaming, ground-up remains have now crawled out of the rickety equipment in search of postmortem vigilante justice.

catch of the day: in spite of the sustainability concerns their operation has racked up over the years, a deep-sea fishing company delves into nigh-uncontested territory--a patch of ocean deemed “dead waters” in reference to the sparse results of other companies’ attempts. their first day dredges up only a single pacific halibut, titanic even by the standards of the species. upon further inspection, the flatfish splits open in a mess of bodily fluids and blackened, inedible meat--as if the fish had already been torn apart and had decayed from the inside out. lost in the shuffle was an amniotic sac containing rapidly-growing, amphibious hagfish “mermaids” that had parasitized the halibut as they had almost all of the other fish in those waters, and that have now been unleashed on a lonely fishing boat sitting miles away from shore.

razorback bridge: a group of teenaged, amateur paranormal enthusiasts livestream their first “investigation” into a local landmark--razorback bridge, rumored to be haunted by the murderous ghost of a local farmer whose crops were so frequently ruined by invasive wild boar that he snapped and devoted the rest of his natural life to slaying the hogs, eventually losing his life to a boar that proceeded to gobble up his remains without leaving a trace. although officials have long restricted access to that part of the woods due to the aggressive nature of the wild boar inhabiting the area, the teens manage to sneak their way onto the bridge and come face-to-face with ol’ rawhide himself--a ravenous, nigh-unstoppable half-man/half-boar that came to be when the hog that consumed the old farmer had its body possessed and warped by the man’s furious ghost, far too angry to accept even the prospect of his own death.

vigor mortis: a kindly old mortician prides herself on her ability to restore bodies to exactly how they looked in life, enabling their families to have at least one source of comfort during the difficult coping process of loss. one day, however, she is presented with a body so badly mangled in an accident that she almost suggests to forgo embalming altogether and to simply refrigerate the corpse until the burial service, though she ultimately doesn’t when the distraught client begs for the process to be open-casket. try as she might, the mortician finds herself unable to make any substantial restoration on the body. in the few minutes that she steps away from the body in order to think of what else she could do, she turns back to find that it’s...vanished. she soon finds herself being pursued at every turn by the shambling corpse, now enshrouded in a body bag, and is forced to confront both a mangled revenant and a debilitating case of impostor syndrome.

making up for lost time: a conspiracy theory-themed convention is having its first go in philadelphia, pennsylvania--even hosting an artists’ alley selling everything from “ayyy lmao” keychains to collapsible foam JFK heads. when mysterious burn damage begins to show up on the property, however, the inflated egos of the guest panel speakers representing various “unorthodox investigation” groups not only refuse to give up on the convention, but are so prone to bickering amongst themselves and attempting to assume leadership that they only make it harder for the other attendees to respond to the threat of what seems to be a time traveler. that is, the victim of a first attempt at time travel so badly botched that she’s received what is mostly simply put as “space-time carpet burn”: not only is she burning, but her mind, her soul, and the very concept of her throughout space and time are burning, leaving the unreachable chrononaut in a frenzied panic that threatens to scorch everything she touches right out of existence along with her.

pearly gates: in the midst of a national emergency, a group of local landlords manage to bully their recently-unemployed tenants into coughing up just enough rent to host a get-together at their luxurious gated community. following a constant sensation of being watched and drowsy recollections of blinding light shining through their windows that first evening, the group awakens the next day to find one of them dead--groveling on her hands and knees with her entire skull seeming to have somehow...inverted. they soon realize that they’re being picked off by an angel--one so enraged by their inhuman greed that it wrenched itself free from the heavens in order to exact furious retribution.

frontera sangrienta: a softspoken chicanx youth sneaks across the american border on a nightly basis under the noses of both his immigrant parents and border patrol agents, for the express purpose of helping mexican migrants safely make their way over. one night, he is met with a family so terrified that he can make out only one word from their panic--”chupacabra”. the legendary mosquito has developed a taste for american blood after devouring careless tourists and escaped goats, and is in hot pursuit of the family considering that the mother is an american herself. the young man--a “mixed signal” to the chupacabra due to his conflicted feelings over thinking of himself as strictly american or mexican--is now the only thing standing between the family and a pitiful, bloody demise.

52: after a saturation diver is violently wrenched from their diving bell in a freak accident and their remains are presumed lost at sea, a marine salvage team is sent in by the chamber’s manufacturers under the surface-level orders to retrieve evidence for the investigation, but with the underlying message really being to “pick all that shit up so we can just sweep it under the rug quickly and quietly”. upon arrival, the crew begins picking up a bizarre frequency that would otherwise be regarded as whalesong...if not for the fact that it is much higher than the calls of any whales known to inhabit the area. the salvage team then finds themselves being picked off one by one by the source of the noise--it turns out that the saturation diver’s sheer will to live allowed their broken body to adapt to the ocean depths, taking on a warped form not too dissimilar to a beluga whale. now the former diver is left to lash out in frenzied desperation, screaming out a cry for help that falls deaf on the ears of both humans and sealife

i am but a teenage fool who knows nothing about nothing so please do not dunk on me if nothing i wrote here has any accurate basis in real-world experiences or logic. also i’ll update with more if/whenever i think of any

#horror #bogleech #monster #monsters #horror movies

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tfw-needs-baby · 4 years

Text

sam winchester | internet personas

based on my own experience.

read on ao3?

Sam Winchester and his brother stumbled upon fanfiction and the fandom a while ago. He swore to himself that he would never, ever go back and visit the crazy people that existed there.

Well, sitting in his room in the bunker, he was bored and had nothing much to do because the supernatural had been pretty quiet for the past month or so and he was scrolling aimlessly through new articles and finding nothing. He doesn’t know how or why the idea popped into his head, but it came and he was curious at the time, so why not?

‘Best places to’ Nope, delete that.

‘Where to join a fandom’ Delete that too. That just sounded stupid.

‘Fandom friendly sites.’ Yeah, that sounded about right. He clicked onto the first link, and it immediately brought him to a site called ‘Fandom.’

How ironic. Although it didn’t exactly help him much, it was just an explanation guide to their platform and what it had to offer. The rest of the links weren’t much help either, and he sighed. Alright, how to find the fans...wasn’t there something called livejournal?

According to a couple of articles, old and inactive journals had been purged, but were still doing pretty well. And then, the Winchester searched up ‘best places to read fanfiction.’

A couple of suggestions appeared underneath ‘Popular on the web.’

‘Wattpad - tumblr - kindle words - deviantart - archive of our own - asianfanfics’

Huh. Visiting a couple of sites, Wattpad and Fanfiction.net and Archive Of Our Own popped up frequently, so he decided to visit Wattpad first. He went to browse works and choose fanfiction, and it brought him to a selection of hot and trendy stories with millions of views on them. Woah. It ranged from k-pop to a selection of animes to CBS shows and weird crossovers. The ‘x reader’ tag seemed very popular and he shivered, reminding him of Becky.

Signing up wasn’t hard either. It had only taken him a couple of minutes. But when he was reading a selected few from the hot section, they didn’t exactly grab his attention. A lot of them seemed to be written by younger ten to fifteen year olds. They did have a large amount of potential and amazing storylines, he’ll give them that.

Then he wandered over to Fanfiction.net. The sign up process was easy, but the site was a bit more historical and a bit more him. There were multiple forums, and he scrolled down and viewed a couple of them. Oh. They were similar to roleplay, but just - more building along a storyline with it, if that made any sense. The sign up was pretty easy here too, and he smiled as two notifications popped up in his gmail for both sites.

Backtracking now, he went off to ‘archive of our own,’ nicknamed ‘ao3’ for short and a paragraph popped up and he skimmed through it quickly. It was just a warning that everything could be viewed by whoever and whatnot. The writing here definitely seems way more advanced, way more complex and interesting, with canon divergences going all out and unheard au’s. And the cliche plots we’re simply adorable.

He went over to sign up, and raised an eyebrow when it stated that you needed to get an invitation, and all you had to do was enter in an email. And wait a day for an invitation.

Hopping onto tumblr, he made an account quickly and started scrolling through it, and everything seemed different somehow. Like, more modern day than the last time he came to the page. The fandom had definitely become smaller due to a ‘nsfw ban’ and he couldn’t decide whether that was a good or bad thing. They had gifsets of memories that had happened about three years ago, with their final stand against Chuck, and he smiled as he went through year’s old blogs that never updated anymore, reblogging everything ‘Supernatural’ underneath the username ‘babytrenchcoatnougat’ and he started to tear up when he stumbled upon a post where they had created a small art of playing the rainbow slinky with Dean based on a gifset of a memory. He still remembers how happy Dean had been when he got it just for him, he played with it for the next week.

A couple of week’s later, Sam want’s to do more than reblog and comment on content. Sam does have artistic potential, and he could definitely look into that. Although, writing seems easier at the moment, and he scrolls through an endless amount of fanfiction on archive of our own - ranging from major character death to general fanfiction - from his brother and best friend sleeping together to him turning into the boyking to high school universes to Apocalyptic worlds where they have failed.

He wants to write his own world, where they’re all happy and care-free and able to actually live happily, where no one he’s loved has died. Making a post on tumblr he states: By any chance, is there anyone on this platform that can help me with a non-romantic general Supernatural fanfiction?

He places a couple of normal tags that fit into the category, then presses post. About an hour later, he gets a reblog from someone called @ misha-moose-dean-burger-lover [and wow, that sounds like a handful] offering to help.

I’m available if you need me to, @ babytrenchcoatnougat ; what’s the plot? We can discuss more in DM’s if you’d like! Besides, I’m free for the week, but if you need a beta reader I can offer a couple of people that I know.

Sam sends her a message.

babytrenchcoatnougat: can you give me some advice or writing tips if you have any? i'm not looking to make any implied romantic pairings in the fic

misha-moose-dean-burger-lover: well, that depends, what’s the fic going to be about?

babytrenchcoatnougat: i don't know yet, maybe team free will 2.0 just taking a roadtrip to nowhere without a destination in sight after defeating chuck?

misha-moose-dean-burger-lover: eeeeee

misha-moose-dean-burger-lover: that sounds like a awesome idea misha-moose-dean-burger-lover: you're definitely going to want to have specific destinations in mind, and only a hint of angst, and what they’re going to do at these locations

misha-moose-dean-burger-lover: use transition words and make sure it doesn’t repeat often, descriptive details but don’t use it in every scene, and make sure there are frequent movements in the characters so they don’t sound so stiff, and make sure to slowly transition into the next scene, as time skipping to every scene will make the story seem boring. misha-moose-dean-burger-lover: make sure the characters aren’t ooc either!

And so, Sam writes. He writes until his eyes hurt and he definitely needs some sleep, so he sends a quick message to a beta to read it over for him and they do, gushing about how the plot was wonderful and badly needed after all the terrible angst that occurred this season. He smiles, giving his thanks before uploading the first chapter out of 15, 13k words, onto ao3.

[He checks over the grammar and tags over fifteen times.]

He can hardly contain his excitement, jumping around happily all day, even baking Dean a pie which makes him get sprayed with holy water and go through every test just to make sure he isn’t some supernatural creature.

Later that afternoon, he checks his ao3 underneath the same username and finds out it’s gotten about 150 hits, and 38 kudos, which makes his heart swell. He’s also gotten a comment, and he presses comments eagerly.

‘Kill yourself, psycho virgin fag.’

He re-reads the comment a couple of times, eyes tearing up and dropping his phone onto the kitchen table recklessly. What the fuck. Was his story really that bad? Did those people who didn’t leave a kudo really hate his story that much? Did the fans think his story was too child-like? Badly written? OOC? Do they really hate him that bad that he actually should commit-

Sam breaks down right then and there, pushing his computer aside, placing his head down and crying softly. Castiel and Dean don’t find him until an hour later, and he’s still softly crying. They rush over to him, Dean quickly sitting to the right while Castiel sits to the left. “Sammy? What happened?” Dean asks, and the younger Winchester shakes his head.

“N’thing.” He mumbles, and the older Winchester sighs. He’s just being stubborn, when he doesn’t want other people to worry about him, afraid that he’ll give them his problems. “Sam, please, if you talk to us, then we may fix the problem together. Remember, we made that promise two years ago, to be more open with each other.” The former-angel now archangel says, pushing Sam’s hair out of his face. Sam takes a shaky breath, pushing himself off the desk and grabs the laptop, opening it up to the recent fanfiction he had written, and Castiel and Dean both skim through it before Dean snatches the laptop. “Is this a fanfiction?” He looks at him as if he’s crazy, and Sam slowly shakes his head in agreement. Castiel walks over to Dean, both of them reading the first chapter silently, and everytime he glances over to see their reactions it seems unchanged. His brother probably thinks he’s weird, and Castiel is going to find him crazy-

“Damn, Sammy, you’ve got talent.” Dean says, and he actually sounds impressed. “W- what?”

“That is incredibly written and a wonderful idea, I think we should go on a roadtrip ourselves,” Dean nodded in agreement. “Is this why you’re crying? I think this is perfect.”

“Wait - you two do find it weird or anything?”

Castiel and Dean look confused. “Why would you think that Sammy? I like it.”

“You should uh - read the comment.” He says, and it takes the angel and older hunter a moment to find the comment section at the bottom, Castiel pointing at the button. Their faces turn into pure fury.

“I’m going to smite them.” Castiel all but growls out, and Dean shuts the laptop closed. “Don’t listen to ‘em, this is fucking amazing, got it? I want the second chapter. Don’t listen to what anyone else says, they're probably jealous that we’ve got a New York bestseller writer and all they can do is write the abc’s.” Dean hugs his brother, Castiel immediately joining right in and Sam sighs happily. They stay there for a bit, muttering out a ‘thank you’ before jumping up slightly, seeing that he’s gotten two more comments on his fanfiction, and nervously opens up the comment section to see that a user called ‘quicksilvermalec’ writing on how much they enjoyed the fic and can’t wait to read the second chapter while an anonymous user has attacked the one that insulted him, throwing a whole truckload of insults and Castiel smiles. “They got what they deserved.” The archangel says, and Dean shouts ‘damn straight’ joyfully. “Would the two of you want to write fanfiction with me, then?” Sam asks while writing the second chapter about an hour later, and the unison ‘yes’ gives him a warm feeling in his chest.

#sam winchester #dean winchester #castiel #jack kline #archangel!castiel #ficlet #gen fic #genfic #supernatural #fluff #representation week

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sebastianshaw · 4 years

Text

@cadreformed here are some pros and cons of RP boards! Posted in case it’s helpful to others or they have something to add: CONS - Picking a board in the first place. With Tumblr you don’t need to choose what kind of place is going to be a good fit or looks promising, you just make a damn blog. With boards, you might care about how it’s organized, what the plot is, what the rules are, and if it’s a newer or older board. Some people prefer newer boards because they don’t like having to be the new person amidst a bunch of people who have a ton of established stuff between them. Some people like older boards because they know they won’t close in a week due to inactivity or people losing interest. I prefer newer boards myself. - Committing. You theoretically can just board-hop and drop boards but it’s like...kinda rude, imo? Also there are activity requirements at most about how much you have to post per month to keep your characters. You can take breaks of course but you have to give notice, not just disappear, or your characters might be deleted or go up for grabs, and you will miss stuff (plot events, etc) and risk getting left behind if you’re gone long enough. The boards I’m at just require two posts a month per character but many are more stringent. - Everything takes place in one shared universe. It’s not like Tumblr where every interaction is in its own verse. So like you can’t have a Brotherhood, X-Men, and Hellfire verse, you gotta pick a faction, your stuff will all take place in a linear timeline, etc. - You also generally need more justification for interaction on board threads, it’s not like Tumblr where you can just have your two characters randomly in the same space like with asks and one-liners. So the posts are typically longer and take more thought/commitment to throw two people together if they’re not, say, living in the same base or something. -Everyone who is at the board, is at the board. So if you don’t like someone you just have to put up with them being there, no just unfollowing like with Tumblr. If they’re actually awful/do something that breaks the rules (boards always have rules against harassment, bigotry, etc) of course you can report them but if they just like bug you or you don’t like how they write...unfortunately you just gotta endure it. You don’t HAVE to thread with anyone you don’t want to, but you do take the chance that they will respond to your opens if you make them and that you may have to put up with them during group threads (which are common during board plot events that everyone joins in on) - You need to apply to play, they have an application form for your character. Some are longer and more intense than others, some are almost just writing their names and grabbing an FC. Your character will need to fit the setting, timeline, etc of the board, but most admins in my experience are glad to help with that. You will usually need to be fairly specific about the abilities and limitations your character’s powers have, make sure the character makes sense to the admin’s standards, and some sites will have banned characters or banned concepts. Banned characters usually include “god” type characters (ex: Galactacus) or other “board-breakers” who are just too OP, reality warpers, and banned concepts are typically things like, sorry, OC children of canons. - You can’t always just...do what you want. Like if I wanted to say “Anne Marie is in space this week” I would have to justify it to the admins of how the fuck this happened, why it is happening, etc. You don’t just get to do anything crazy you want like with Tumblr, where you answer only to you. On the plus side though, no one else gets to pull off ridiculous shit out of nowhere on you either like “oh my character is ACTUALLY the god emperor of the universe” PROS - Plots provided! Most boards have an overarching plot and many will do new miniplots per month. Both the X-Men boards I’m at do that and it’s good fun, always something fresh! It also means you don’t always have to think up shit that’s happening because the admins have done it for you, all you have to do is have your muse participate and react to what they throw at you. It can make for some really fun unexpected situations that bring out stuff in your muse you never accounted for! - No hunting for partners, they’re all right there! You instantly have an RP group upon being accepted. There may still be people who just choose not to thread with you, hell there are people at the boards I’m at who I prefer not to write with and people I absolutely LOVE writing with, but it’s not like Tumblr where you have to LOOK for folks and hope your little blog gets noticed, everyone at the board knows you are there. Most will be happy to do stuff with you too. You will often make friends this way and it’s pretty great, much like with Tumblr friendships <3 - Linear progression can make for more clear character development? Like because most boards move in real time (like from month to month) and have dated threads (ex: “Sept 13, 2020, 6 PM”) you can have much more clear character arcs, and because it all takes place in one universe, what’s going on in ALL your threads will affect your character, unlike on Tumblr where the multiversal nature means that like...if Shaw gets a ton of development but just with ONE person in ONE verse, it doesn’t affect him with anyone else. Admittedly this can also be a con cuz like, if you want Tova to be grievously injured in a thread, that means all her threads AFTER that will have her in recovery until she heals. Stuff like that. - Because everything is in one universe with established rules and admins to moderate things, everyone’s canon lines up with each other. There’s no hassle with trying to make an X-Men universe character mesh with a DnD universe character. It also means everyone is running on the same power system (like, Sailor Moon and DBZ have very different systems) and it’s clear who is at what level. Admins will also try to mitigate to make sure no one is too OP, and will have your back if someone godmods. - Admins in general are a good thing to have because they are who steps in if someone is metagaming, harassing you, etc. It’s not just you on your own. You shouldn’t call on them to work out every personal issue you have with someone, but most have a zero tolerance policy for bullying, bigotry, etc. TL;DR There are more rules and less freedom, and you are making a bigger commitment. The payoff is you get a lot of things provided to you---plots to participate in, a pre-made setting, a pool of waiting partners---that you would have to make/find yourself on Tumblr. I personally have very much enjoyed the structure and plots of boards, but also recommend being very choosy too.

#out of shirt

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