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mihidecet · 4 years

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SBI d&d AU: Ph1lza

First of all, I want to thank each and everyone of you who's liked, reblogged and left a comment (even in private) on my last story! I'd never received such positive feedback and it absolutely made my day (and my week)! So thank you all so so much! <33

A special thank you goes to @whatimevendoinhere , who is an endless source of inspiration and honestly such a cool person to just hang out with akdgaha

Go check out their drawings! They made so much art for this au, and a stunning animatic!! Go show them all the love! <3

Despite what most would think, His Majesty, King Philza of the Greenwoods, does not miss the commodities that come from being royalty. He does not miss them at all, but it would be better to specify why.

He did enjoy sleeping in his wonderfully big bed, with as many soft as cloud pillows as he wished, with sheets made of the finest silks in the summer and of the warmest wool in the winter. But he very much prefers the current warmth of the campfire in front of him, as he moves around a log and watches sparks fly off into the night, and the familiar weight of the head resting on his lap - Tommy had insisted on listening to stories of his time back at the castle, and then he'd promptly fell asleep halfway through him talking about his horseback riding classes.

He did like taking care of his horses, endless stables with elven bred mares and elks. He remembers Roheryn, his first pony, a docile animal that grew up with him, and Firefoot, a fiery mare whose temper he could hardly match.

Still, they are no match for Milo, Barnaby, Peter and Fraiser, the four horses they managed to buy after successfully freeing a nobleman's son. Sometimes Phil catches Wilbur talking to his own as if he could respond; one of these days he'll tell the young bard that, being a druid, he'd be able to translate sweet Milo's answers.

Phil loved the food they would cook in the kitchens, how his nanny would sneak him sweets when he was a child, or how the head chef had caved in and started teaching him how to bake bread after years of insisting it wouldn't be proper for a king to spend his day in the kitchens.

These days he's especially thankful for all the recipes he'd been taught, as food is not that easy to find when you're travelling through endless enchanted woods. And nothing beats the joyful expressions colouring the faces of his companions every time he announces he'll be making his special soup.

The one thing he misses are his friends back home, the people he grew up with. His travels have brought him far away, but they still hold a special place in his mind. Under his linen shirt - once a pristine, perfectly clean thing, now stitched up with different coloured threads and forever stained on his right side where a wolf managed to bite him - rests a thin chain of mythrill, where he keeps what he holds most sacred: his wedding ring, the one he will wear once he'll come back, once his travels and trials have ended.

He never fiddles with it, never exposes it to the light in hope time and weather won't ruin its beauty. Not that its meaning would be lost, even in the hundreds of years Phil will hopefully live, but he did spend two whole years crafting each and every silvery strand - he's not about to let his hard work go to waste. Still, its weight is a constant source of comfort, and even in the worst moments it gives him strength.

A quiet huff of breath next to him catches his attention and, a moment later, Techno lets himself fall down at his side.

While it's good to see him so relaxed, less careful with every move - hands no longer constantly busy in order to keep his mind at bay - he can sense that the thief is anxious: his shoulders are set in a tense line and he seems to be trying to sneak glances at him before quickly looking back towards the rest of the camp. So, Phil waits. He can give him the time he needs, after all he's already slept the four hours he needs to survive.

A couple of minutes later, Techno's rough voice pierces the comfortable silence they'd fallen into.

"Give me your hand." Is not exactly what the druid had expected, but he extends his hand nevertheless, raising an eyebrow curiously. Not even a second later, there's a small green and golden bracelet in his palm.

"Listen, you've saved my bacon more time than I can count, and we've worked together a long ass time, so now we're friends. I just decided it, there's no take backs." Techno states, adopting what Phil has now learnt to know is the tone of voice he uses when he's trying to be intimidating due to his own nerves.

Phil looks down at the bracelet in his hand, picking it up in order to better study it. It's objectively beautiful, the multiple threads of coloured material having been woven by hand, with an added string of gold-like material and a handful of deep red beads.

But most of all- the most stunning thing is that he's holding something Techno made, for him, as proof of their friendship. It tugs at Phil's heartstrings, making his throat squeeze around his words.

"Techno, mate, this is stunning. I- I will keep it forever. Thank you."

One of the thief's eyebrows raises as he looks back at him, staring quietly as if expecting a joke or a quick negation - as if, Phil thinks to himself.

For a moment they're both silent as Phil tries to convince the man sitting next to him of how much he appreciates this token of friendship, after months of fighting side by side.

Techno's mask of impassibility breaks first. He huffs out and turns back towards the fire, but Phil's an elf: he can clearly see the crinkle in his eyes and the smile that breaks open his face, from how it glints in the feeble light, to how one of his tusks pushes up into his cheek.

"Alright, enough with the sappiness. Go to sleep or something, you're distracting me from keeping watch." Techno grumbles, using a stick to move around the embers in the campfire.

With a small chuckle, Phil nods and doesn't point out that he's the one who's supposed to be keeping watch, opting instead to figure out where to keep this precious gift.

While it takes him a while to make up his mind, once he's made his choice he knows it's the right one. It's almost surreal taking hold of the mythrill chain, because he's so used to it resting over his heart, but that is also why he's chosen to tie the bracelet there.

Phil has been travelling for a while - some years now. He has met many people, fought many fights and visited many places, but he knows this is it.

The brilliant thief next to him, the wonderfully talented bard sleeping on the other side of the fire, and the little maniac sleeping with his head in his lap.

These are the companions he will spend the rest of his travels with, for as long as they'll have him.

Next to him, Techno chokes on seemingly nothing.

"You alright?" Phil asks, turning a concerned eye towards him: the thief is a couple of shades lighter than usual and is waving a hand towards his chain.

"You're *married*?!" He yells under his breath, voice reaching a pitch that Phil didn't expect he could.

Tommy grumbles in his sleep, apparently disturbed by the sound of Techno's protest, but he seems to fall back asleep rather quickly once Phil places a reassuring hand over his curls. The boy mumbles something about bees before rolling on his side, head tilting up into his hand, and Phil has to quickly dodge one of his horns - still growing, but nevertheless rather sharp and definitely solid.

Once his movement has stopped, Phil turns to Techno with a small smile.

"Not yet. It is tradition in my family, that one must prove their worth before taking their spouse's hand in marriage." He explains, Techno's expression turning from confusion to understanding.

"And that's why you're travelling. Is it an arranged marriage?"

Phil can't help but laugh a little, despite the ache that burns deep into his chest, shaking his head as he clutches the ring in his hand.

"She is the love of my life. My light, my sun and my moon. I'll spend the rest of eternity with her, for as long as she'll have me. My heart is hers, as is my whole being."

A beat of silence passes, as Phil stares into the moonlight, looking into the same sky that hopefully his love is seeing too, feeling the weight of his affection lift him up towards her. One day, one day they'll meet again, and they'll be able to finally officiate in front of the whole world what is already true. And then, they'll be able to travel together - oh, how his companions will love her, how she will care about them.

King Philza does not miss anything but he does miss her.

"I- I'll take it as a no on the arranged thing, then. I guess."

This time, when Phil bursts out laughing, it's loud, joyous and brings tears to his eyes.

It also makes Tommy wake up with a yell and Wilbur throw his pack at him - a cursed protest for him to *shut the hell up, we're trying to sleep* - but that is absolutely worth it.

________

Thank you so much for reading, I really hope you enjoyed!<3

I have plans for a Tommy part, once again regarding the friendship bracelets, which will hopefully arrive in the near future!

If anyone would like to see any particular scene or character, let me know! Even in private messages, or anon asks, I will absolutely not mind (I'm just an awkward nerd)!!!

#sbi dnd au #dnd au #ph1lza #philza #technoblade #tommyinnit #wilbur soot #my writing

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puddygeeks · 3 years

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𝑊𝑎𝑟 𝑂𝑓 𝐻𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑡𝑠 - 𝐶𝑟𝑖𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑎𝑙 𝑀𝑖𝑛𝑑𝑠, 𝑆𝑝𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑒𝑟 𝑅𝑒𝑖𝑑 𝑥 𝑂𝐶 - 𝐶ℎ𝑎𝑝𝑡𝑒𝑟 6: 𝑅𝑒𝑎𝑑 𝐵𝑒𝑡𝑤𝑒𝑒𝑛 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝐿𝑖𝑛𝑒𝑠

Masterlist

Rating: Mature

Summary: 𝐴𝑙𝑖𝑐𝑒 𝑛𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟 𝑖𝑚𝑎𝑔𝑖𝑛𝑒𝑑 ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑠𝑒𝑙𝑓 𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑘𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑖𝑛 𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑙𝑙𝑖𝑔𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑒, 𝑏𝑢𝑡 ℎ𝑒𝑟 𝑑𝑒𝑠𝑖𝑟𝑒 𝑡𝑜 ℎ𝑒𝑙𝑝 𝑜𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑠 𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑢𝑙𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑖𝑛 𝑡𝑟𝑜𝑢𝑏𝑙𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑙𝑒𝑓𝑡 ℎ𝑒𝑟 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑡𝑙𝑒 𝑜𝑝𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠. 𝑊𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑠𝑢𝑝𝑝𝑜𝑟𝑡 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝐵𝐴𝑈 𝑓𝑎𝑚𝑖𝑙𝑦, 𝑚𝑎𝑦𝑏𝑒 𝑠ℎ𝑒 𝑐𝑎𝑛 𝑓𝑖𝑛𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑦 𝑏𝑒𝑔𝑖𝑛 𝑡𝑜 ℎ𝑒𝑎𝑙 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑤𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑑𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑝𝑎𝑠𝑡.

Fandom: Criminal Minds

Pairing: Spencer Reid x OC

Status: Ongoing

LONG TERM ONGOING PROJECT :)

My writing is entirely fuelled by coffee! If you enjoy my work, feel free to donate toward my caffeine dependency: will work for coffee

𝑾𝒂𝒓𝒏𝒊𝒏𝒈𝒔: 𝐺𝑒𝑛𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑦 𝑎𝑑𝑢𝑙𝑡 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑛𝑡, 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑠𝑜𝑚𝑒 𝑡𝑟𝑖𝑔𝑔𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑚𝑒𝑠 𝑎𝑠 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑠ℎ𝑜𝑤. 𝑃𝑙𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑒 𝑏𝑒 𝑎𝑤𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑑𝑜𝑒𝑠 𝑚𝑒𝑎𝑛 𝑐𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑐𝑎𝑠𝑒𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑚𝑢𝑟𝑑𝑒𝑟, 𝑐ℎ𝑖𝑙𝑑 𝑎𝑏𝑑𝑢𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 & 𝑠𝑒𝑥𝑢𝑎𝑙 𝑎𝑏𝑢𝑠𝑒 𝑎𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑖𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑛𝑎𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝐵𝐴𝑈'𝑠 𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑘. 𝐼𝑡 𝑖𝑠 𝑚𝑦 𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑡𝑜 ℎ𝑎𝑛𝑑𝑙𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑠𝑒 𝑖𝑠𝑠𝑢𝑒𝑠 𝑎𝑠 𝑐𝑎𝑟𝑒𝑓𝑢𝑙𝑙𝑦 𝑎𝑠 𝑝𝑜𝑠𝑠𝑖𝑏𝑙𝑒, 𝑏𝑢𝑡 𝑖𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑖𝑠 𝑎𝑛𝑦𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑓𝑒𝑒𝑙 𝑐𝑜𝑢𝑙𝑑 𝑏𝑒 𝑖𝑚𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑑 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ ℎ𝑜𝑤 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑠𝑒 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑚𝑎𝑛𝑎𝑔𝑒𝑑, 𝑝𝑙𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑒 𝑙𝑒𝑡 𝑚𝑒 𝑘𝑛𝑜𝑤.

Eᴘɪsᴏᴅᴇ: Pʀᴇ Sᴇᴀsᴏɴ 1

Chapter Six

“We’re missing something.” I muttered to myself, as Reid and I examined the small room in the house that had been locked. I’d lost track of how many times we had checked this room already, but as we’d been left to finish investigating here, we were both drawn back to this room as if it were the key to the mystery. “I can see how Logan took Amanda, how he held her and we know that he took her for revenge. So, why move her now and then just lie in wait for us? If he knew we were coming, you would think that he’d try to avoid us, but he didn’t. He just hid her from us. Why?”

“Some part of his revenge fantasy isn’t complete yet. He might be confident that he can clear his name and return to collect her later. Or he has factored his arrest into his plans somehow. The time with us serves some kind of purpose for his fantasy.” Reid thought aloud and I rubbed at my temples.

“It doesn’t make sense. She’s literally right under our noses. Why can’t I find her?” I hissed irritably, the pressure that hung over me only growing with every hour that passed and Reid glanced up at me with his brows furrowed in concern.

“It’s not just your responsibility, Alice. We’re a team.” He advised, a self conscious smile filling his face and I ran my fingers through my hair in a gesture of stress.

“I know, but Agent Hotchner-” I paused abruptly, reminding myself of our earlier conversation about dropping the formalities and attempted to respect his wishes. “Hotch pulled a lot of strings to get me on this case. I don’t want to disappoint him.”

“You won’t.” Reid assured me, flashing me a smile before he moved off to examine the rest of the house again.

I made my way outside to get some air, feeling shaken by the unusual reality of being physically present in the place where our victim had been held and busied myself with investigating the external elements of the property for clues. Hotch and Morgan had returned to the main building with our suspect for questioning, but my instinct told me that they would be unlikely to pry anything from Logan that he wasn’t willing to share, due to the careful control that we’d seen in his actions so far.

The sharp ringtone of my mobile pulled me from my thoughts and I glanced at the screen to find Penelope calling.

“Greetings, my fine British scone! I have dug into all blueprints for the home as you asked and at least officially, there is no basement, no extra building permits and no small spaces that you and Reid haven’t already searched.” She explained, attempting to use her bright attitude to soften the impact of the information and I sighed in disappointment.

“Are they getting anywhere with the interview?” I asked hopefully, beginning to pace in the garden of the property impatiently. We had little to work with at this point and I remained conscious of the clock for child abductions, which had been against us since we arrived.

“Nada, I’m afraid. It seems that this Bo Peep is keeping very secretive track of his sheep.” She answered and I cursed under my breath in annoyance. “This team knows what they’re doing, Ally. They’ll crack him, eventually.”

“Amanda doesn’t have time to wait for that.” I groaned, the helplessness of the situation already grating at me. “We must have missed something in this guy's history. Maybe there’s a link to the Sweeney Todd stuff that we haven’t noticed. Have you found any more files on Logan in the military system?”

“Honey, you would be shocked at how little the military has modernised. Not only am I having to battle against heavy encryption, but a whole bunch of information hasn’t been digitised yet. They’re still recording an awful lot of their logs with pen and paper.” She divulged with an obvious sense of disgust and I felt my interest peak.

“Do they keep the paper records on site? And if so, can you get me access to them?” I suggested, waiting with baited breath for her answer and Penelope simply chuckled confidently.

“Of course I can. I’ll get hold of the Colonel now. Head over to office 4A, that’s where they store it all. I’ll have one of those charming soldier boys bring your laptop and an access code for you.” She instructed proudly and I had to smile as I hung up the phone to search for Reid.

Once back inside the house, I found him staring intently at a picture on the wall in the master bedroom and seeming as if he was lost in thought. I cleared my throat as I approached to keep from startling him, but he didn’t move at all to acknowledge me.

“Penelope might have a lead for us. She’s arranging access to the paper files in 4A. I’m thinking some of the details about Logan’s past might be buried in there. Want to ride along?” I offered, causing him to finally turn to face me with interest and I couldn’t help noticing how handsome he looked when he was concentrating.

“That’s a good idea. Perhaps something was omitted from the original report when it was added to the system.” He agreed, causing me to smile at the support for my suggestion. I wasn’t used to having colleagues appreciate my input and it still gave me a warm, fuzzy feeling every time that this team trusted me. “I’m gonna stay here, if you’re okay going alone? I think I’m close to something.” He checked, examining my face closely for any signs of discomfort, until I nodded in confirmation.

“Sure. I can fly solo. I’ve got my phone on me, so just call if there’s anything I can do to help out.”

--⥈--

When Penelope described the base as behind the times, I hadn’t ever imagined a level of disorganisation this extreme to be possible amongst military personnel. I’d set up my laptop at the small desk in the room, before sitting cross legged on the floor amongst the stacks of boxes that almost reached the ceiling in places.

Even the soldier who had granted me access seemed too daunted by the task ahead of me to be able to cope with remaining in the cramped room and after many reassurances that I was quite capable of sitting here alone, he’d returned to his post. Time had already lost meaning and I was growing bleary eyed from the onslaught of information.

Fortunately, Penelope broke up the task by giving me regular updates on the team, who were still having little success in their interrogation of the suspect and were now highly relying on Reid and I to find something that they could use to pressure him.

There were countless reports of Logan’s antisocial behaviour amongst the boxes and it became clear that his friendship with Franklin as he rose to power allowed him far more leniency than any other member of staff would have received in similar circumstances. There was very little information on his wife Stacey, who seemed to have joined the military later in life and met her husband there. She was an otherwise painfully ordinary soldier, serving her time with little distinction and a simple life right up until her death.

I sighed as I got to my feet and stretched out my limbs, desperation creeping up on me. There was nothing here that bought us any closer to finding Amanda and at this point, I was losing faith that we would ever recover her alive. I pulled out my phone to contact Reid in the hope that he might have had some success, but realised that I had no service. With a dramatic groan, I navigated my way through the maze of paperwork that I’d created to reach the door, only to find that it wouldn’t open.

A cold chill ran down my spine, causing my stomach to flip and I couldn’t deny a feeling of severe dread pooling in my stomach. Instinctively, I pulled the handle a few more times, but after my earlier performance with a simple wooden door, I knew that I wasn’t getting out of this steel, electronic locked door without help. Holding my phone up in the air, I paced the room in an effort to catch a signal to little success, before I was interrupted by a loud sound in the distance that caused the ground to shake.

“Shit!” I hissed, grabbing a nearby shelf for balance and noticing that my heartbeat had already quickened in my chest. I hit my phone in a panic, desperate to get through to someone and just as I felt myself losing control, my gaze fell onto my laptop.

Dropping into the seat heavily, my fingers grazed over the keys with an urgent desire to seek help. I first confirmed that the base’s systems were all locked out, meaning that I couldn’t contact any of the team or any military support, but was blessed to discover that my connection to the FBI system was still live. Immediately, I utilised this to get in touch with Penelope and the moment that her face filled my screen, I sighed with relief.

“Oh, Alice! Thank god you’re okay!” She gasped before I could even get a word out and the flustered expression that she wore only intensified my fear. It was clear that whatever had happened was unexpected for her too and I knew that whatever piece of the puzzle that we were missing was likely about to complicate our situation.

“What the hell is going on?” I breathed, noticing that something was flashing in the background of her video and as I concentrated harder, I realised that I could hear alarms.

“There was an explosion in the main building. We think that it came from Colonel Franklin’s office, but I can’t tell. The security systems have kicked in. We’re trapped in this room.” She answered hurriedly, her eyes wide with panic and as I opened my mouth to ask if the Colonel had made it, he appeared behind her. “I think there’s been a couple of other targets too, as the base system has gone down. This is not the work of a hacker, or you and I would definitely have been targeted. Whoever it is likely blew up the actual server rooms themselves just to kick us out. I was terrified that there might have been one in your room too.” She admitted, seeming shaken by the idea and I quickly caught up to what she was implying.

“To get rid of the paper trail, too. Colonel, how many people know about this backlog of paperwork here?” I enquired nervously, attempting to quash the fear that I might meet a fiery death at any moment and he moved to take a seat beside Penelope.

“We had an administrator a while ago who was responsible for amalgamating all of the paperwork onto the system, but other than that it’s only top ranking staff.” He explained in confusion and I released a long breath in relief.

“Alright. So, other than the soldier that you just had in here, there’s hardly anyone on this base who knows that you are still holding paper documentation. We can assume that if I haven’t been blown up already, I’m probably safe. Unfortunately, I’m also locked in, so I have no choice but to test that theory.” I reported, causing Penelope to frown in terror and I fidgeted awkwardly in my seat at the thought. “What about the rest of the team? Are they okay?”

“I can’t get hold of them. It’s possible that the cell towers have also been blown out.” Penelope revealed, tears beginning to fill her eyes and I found myself holding my head in my hands as I considered our predicament. The faces of each of our team members flashed through my mind and I said a quick prayer in my mind for each of them to calm my anxiety.

“The lockdown protocol would only affect high priority areas. This room houses all of our main access to the base systems, the room that Hawthorne is in has our physical records and the cell block where your agents are interviewing closes to contain prisoners. The rest of the base will already be proceeding with evacuation.” The colonel explained, his demeanour significantly calmer than either of us and I strained to come up with a plan.

“If this evacuation procedure is known by the whole base, there’s a chance that a bomb could already be in place to inflict more casualties. They’d be sitting ducks.” I analysed, looking back up at the screen with severity as I realised that everyone but Reid was trapped behind locked doors somewhere. “We need to override the locks somehow. Where is your security system housed?”

“Right where you are, Agent. There should be a large metal container in the corner.”

Wasting no time, I jumped to my feet to rush to the cupboard and entered the code that the Colonel provided to open it. Behind the innocuous looking metal doors was a spaghetti junction display of wires to an ancient security system and I could hardly believe that anyone would still be using such antiquated technology.

“You have got to be kidding me!” I exclaimed as I marched over to grab my laptop and placed it on a box with a clear view of the cupboard’s contents. “I hope you’re up to date with your caveman technology, Nels. This is like Jurassic Park in here.” I announced, hearing a dissatisfied groan from her over the speakers.

“This is absolutely criminal. Fortunately, I toyed with robotics for a while before computer science, so I might be able to crack this.” She calculated as she began drawing out the pattern of the wiring on a piece of paper. “It looks like there’s a simple enough bypass here, but it’s going to take me a few minutes to figure it out.”

“Colonel, I’ve looked at everything that you have on Logan and nothing here is giving us the answers that we need to find your daughter. I can’t find a connection to Sweeney Todd at all. Sure, there’s a similar feeling that he could be inspired by, but plenty of stories could say the same. There has to be a reason why he chose that particular one. Did the Logan’s have a love of musicals as a couple?” I asked, deciding to utilise our waiting time to keep the focus on Amanda, instead of obsessing over the safety of our colleagues.

“Not that I remember. They were average soldiers, into sports and barbecues. They weren’t the type to read often, so I can’t understand why he would be this obsessed with some story?” The Colonel answered, his frustration evident as he struggled to comprehend the relevance of this conversation.

“What about Stacey? She joined service late. From the limited background information in her file, it doesn’t seem like she was military bred. Was there anything in particular that led her to enlist?” I probed, desperately trying to find the missing piece of the puzzle and he sighed deeply at me.

“I don’t know what it is that you’re trying to say about her, Agent Hawthorne, but she was a good soldier. Her unit was everything to her. She treated them like a family. Even gave them haircuts when they were on tour.” He growled, seeming thoroughly offended by my questions and I quirked a brow at him in interest. “She was a barber before she enlisted. It was her fathers trade and she followed in his footsteps. I can tell you that came in incredibly handy when you’re living in the middle of the desert.” He added defensively and I jumped to my feet to scatter around paperwork in search of something specific. A theory clicked in my mind at this revelation and I knew that it had to be the connection that we needed.

“Sir, we believe that your daughter is still on this base. We’ve been looking for places that relate to you, or your wife, but I suspect that it may have more relevance to Stacey. Is there anywhere on this base that she would offer haircuts? Or did you have a specific barber shop here at any point?” I pelted out the questions in quick succession as I laid the blueprint of the base out on the floor and busied myself with examining it again.

“I already told your agents that. The people here go to a family business in the next town. It’s owned by a grandparent of one of the troops. We support each other in the military.” He answered aggressively and I scanned the document before me with confusion. Something seemed out of place, a structure that I didn’t recognise and as I grabbed a current map to compare it, I noticed that it wasn’t marked.

“This building here is on the blueprint, but not the map. What is it?” I interrogated, holding up the document accusingly and he rolled his eyes at me.

“It’s marked for demolition, but the project has been put on hold. We decided not to list it on the new maps as it was supposed to be gone by now. It’s a world war 2 relic, structurally unsound and not fit for purpose. We already had troops search it before we even called your team.” He elaborated impatiently, glancing over at Penelope as if it were her fault that I was wasting his time.

“That was before he moved her.” I argued, drawing his attention back to me instantly. “What was it used for? The building?”

“Storage mostly. For a long time it was considered a historical landmark, because many of the soldiers that were stationed here in the war wrote about it in their letters home. They would creep in there at night to smoke cigars and drink moonshine.” He began to describe in a bored tone, before pausing abruptly in a chilling manner that allowed all of the colour to drain from his face. “They...they used to call it the barber club.”

“That’s it! That’s where he’s holding her. Penelope, I need these doors open!” I ordered frantically, hardly able to contain the energy that pulsed through my body and she nodded back resolutely.

“I know, my love. I think I’ve got it. Follow my instructions very clearly.” She demanded as I placed myself in front of the cupboard and felt my hands shaking from the pressure.

Step by step, she guided me through the process, disconnecting wires and rerouting things that I barely understood for myself like a pro. Were the circumstances less dire, I would have littered her with praise for her efforts, but I didn’t have the space in my mind for that now. Finally, there was one switch left to flip and the moment that I did, I heard the door click open from across the room.

Before I could even begin to celebrate our success, the sound of an explosion rocketed from nearby and the entire room shook hard enough to knock me from my feet, causing even the Colonel to freeze in shock.

“I...I think that might have come from the barber club.” Penelope mumbled regretfully, whilst the Colonel fought back tears, seeming as if he were in shock. It seemed that even powerful leaders were not immune to the emotion of losing a child and I had to channel my own determination to keep things moving.

“I’m the closest to that building right now. Penelope, find the team and send them to meet me there. We’re gonna need medics, too.” I blurted as I got to my feet with determination, prompting the Colonel to launch into action too as he charged through the door to her side and left her looking flustered.

“Alice, the building is probably already on fire! Just wait for backup.” She pleaded, her eyes filling with tears as she stared into the camera. I stepped away from the laptop to grab a rag to cover my face, planning to protect myself from the smoke that was likely and turned back to face her with fire in my eyes.

“I can’t. Send the team and stay safe, Nels.” I ordered, before rushing out of the room and into the chaos of outside.

As expected, the air was heavy with smoke from multiple directions and people were running around in panic all around me. Now that I had left the well protected room, I was overwhelmed by the blaring sound of sirens and lights flashing from overhead. It was clear that things had already spiralled out of control and I tried to prevent myself from being sucked into the mania. Mentally following the blueprints, I ran in the direction of the unmarked building, being passed by numerous scared civilians who simply lived here due to their partners enlistment and were not equipped for these circumstances.

As I turned the corner to the large old storage unit, I found that Penelope had been correct in placing the most recent explosion and there was already fire spreading within. For a moment, I couldn’t bring myself to move as I stared up at it with a crushing feeling of defeat, but following a bolt of rebellion, I launched myself inside to search for Amanda.

Fortunately, I thought to tie the rag around my face for protection and instead of struggling to breathe, I was taken aback by how little I could see once inside. I placed my hand on the nearest wall and used it to navigate my way as I strained to remember the building’s layout.

The air was agonisingly hot, worse than I had even imagined that it would be and every step that I took felt impossibly hotter. I had no idea how far I would be able to go, as I knew from the plans that this was a vast space and it was impossible to know where exactly Amanda would be hidden, if she hadn’t already died in the blast.

Smoke filled my lungs, causing me to cough heavily and burned at my eyes. I could feel myself growing weaker and though I considered whether I would be able to make it out, I wasn’t willing to turn back yet. My posture shrivelled under the strain, crouching down to avoid the oppressive heat and without warning, I tripped over something very solid.

Somehow I managed to land on my hands and knees to avoid any serious injury and turned to investigate the cause of my fall. From feeling alone, I quickly realised that the object I was touching was, in fact, a person and judging from the size, it was highly likely to be a child. I wished that I could see enough to identify them, before remembering that Amanda had very short, almost graded hair and a quick feel of her head left me feeling confident that I had found her.

Coughing burned at my chest and I knew that I didn’t have much time, so I began to drag her in the direction that I’d come from. It was even harder now to tell where I was going as the fire rapidly spread through the unstable building and it took every ounce of my strength to keep moving with Amanda in tow.

The rag around my face only seemed to be making it harder to breathe now and I ripped it off as I could tell that I was nearing the exit. Unfortunately, my bulletproof vest that I was still wearing constricted my chest uncomfortably, but I couldn’t wiggle out of it without wasting precious moments that I needed to escape. Some of the structure began to collapse behind me and I yelped in panic, hoisting Amanda’s limp form into my arms for protection.

With one final burst of defiance, I stumbled out into the open air, gripping onto her tightly and continued walking into the chaos that stretched in every direction in search of help. Unfortunately, no one was waiting for me outside as I’d hoped and the various explosions were still causing panic as people ran around me in a fluster.

My entire body ached as I fought to drag myself onward, glancing around frantically for someone who could assist us and as I finally ran out of energy, I stopped to look down at the girl that I was carrying. Despite all of the soot and sweat that covered her young features, I still easily recognised her and squeezed her to me warily.

“Don’t give up, kid.” I wheezed, hardly able to get the words out from my burned throat.

Finally, an ambulance skidded into view and I sighed in relief. Closely behind them were my team, including even Penelope, who ran toward me in desperation and I thanked every force I could think of for providing me with colleagues who cared enough to seek me out. I almost burst into tears as two paramedics rushed over to meet me and I assisted in lowering Amanda to the ground so that they could work on her.

“Is she alive? Is she gonna be okay?” I whispered, my voice hoarse and dry despite the power of my emotions and the medics ignored me as they frantically prepared an oxygen tank and mask for her. I watched them impatiently, unable to tear my eyes off the little girl’s delicate form, even as Penelope charged up to examine me.

“Are you hurt? Oh my god, I can’t believe that you went in there! You’re insane!” She scolded, fussing over me with teary eyes as she reached to take my face in her hands, but I batted her off with annoyance.

“Is she alive?!” I repeated, much louder this time despite the pain that it caused me and one of the paramedics looked up at me with annoyance.

Before they could get a single word of explanation, or scolding out, Amanda gasped loudly, spluttering for air and it took the full attention of both paramedics to calm her enough to benefit from the mask. Almost immediately after, Colonel Franklin arrived and dropped by her side in relief, holding her to him whilst she refilled her lungs.

My knees gave way from the weight of my own relief, but fortunately Morgan was quick to catch me as the rest of my team surrounded us and he swept me off my feet, leaving Hotch to wave down another ambulance for me. Though I fought to tell them that I was fine, the only sound that I could manage to make was coughing as my lungs finally gave in to the effects of smoke inhalation and Morgan carried me protectively straight to the back of the second ambulance that parked beside us.

In order to save time, Morgan simply sat me on the back of the open vehicle instead of allowing the medics to take me fully inside and they strapped an oxygen mask to my face before I could protest. Reid pushed past the staff with a determined expression and ripped off the bulletproof vest that I wore in an efficient manner, quickly calculating that it was restricting me and I felt an immediate improvement in my breathing the moment that it was released.

As he stepped back out of my space with a sly smile, I gripped the oxygen mask as if it were the most important thing in my world and allowed myself a few moments to catch my breath, whilst Penelope took a seat beside me to hold my free hand soothingly.

“Reid, Morgan. Keep an eye on Alice. I’ll talk to the Colonel.” Hotch ordered, nodding at me to check that I was okay with him leaving, before he strode over to the first ambulance where Amanda had now been situated for further treatment.

I felt too exhausted to even argue as the two boys took their places in front of me, guarding the entrance to the ambulance and staring down at me with amazement in their faces. Though it was subtle, I caught a brief smirk in Morgan’s face as he peeked at Reid, raising his brows at the vest that he held as if implying something, but I couldn’t bring myself to address it at the moment.

“What were you thinking running in there alone, kid? You have a whole team here. You don’t have to be the big hero.” Morgan scolded, though his tone was still light enough to reveal his amusement at this outcome.

Behind them, a fire truck arrived to begin battling the blaze and it seemed that the military had finally regained control of the situation as they set to work evacuating the alarmed residents that still remained in the area. I watched them with interest, hoping that they had realised the danger of following their usual plan and Reid cleared his throat, catching my eye.

“They’re evacuating to a completely different spot than the agreed plan. Whilst you were locked away, I found the nearest officer and advised them of the risk that the unsub would target the evacuation zone.” He explained, as if reading my mind and when I furrowed my brows in confusion, he chuckled shyly. “Garcia told us that you were worried about it and I noticed that you were watching them. I’m just...I’m sorry that I didn’t come with you.” He added, staring down at his feet guiltily and I removed my mask to address him.

“Reid, you have nothing to apologise for.” I wheezed, cringing immediately at how awful my voice sounded and though Penelope tried to force the mask straight back on, I pushed it away again. “I’m serious. All of these people are safe because you didn’t get trapped with me. You did your job and I’m fine. No harm done.” I insisted, prompting him to drag his gaze back up to me with a smile, which was painfully addictive for me, until we were interrupted by Hotch.

“I’d like a moment to speak to Alice alone.” He announced, his expression as stern as ever.

Reid and Morgan made an excuse about needing to check on Amanda, quickly excusing themselves from the conversation, but Penelope hesitated for a few moments longer, before finally caving to his intense stare. Once we were alone, Hotch crossed his arms in a gesture that indicated I was about to receive a lecture and I gulped in dread.

“Going into that building was reckless. It was a risk with no guaranteed reward, especially for someone who is not a trained field agent.” He began, his tone scolding and I nodded slowly in acceptance, feeling any future opportunities to work with the FBI slipping through my fingers.

“However, you took action despite great personal risk and even considering your lack of experience, you did what needed to be done. You were honest with Garcia about where you were going and what you needed, showing that you trusted your team to have your back. These are not qualities that can be taught. If you had waited, Amanda would likely be dead. You have an enormous amount of potential, Alice and that saved a girl's life today. “

“Thank you, Sir.” I wheezed, coughing from the strain of my words and he softened his expression slightly as he viewed me.

“As you played such a large role in this case, I would appreciate it if you could return to Quantico with the team to complete your reports, so that I can oversee them.” He requested and I nodded without hesitation. “We’ll arrange for someone to take you back to your hotel for the night. I imagine you could do with some rest. You’ll join us on the jet first thing tomorrow.”

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neverendingstories00 · 4 years

Text

Past The Point Of No Return (Ch.2)

Summary: You meet the infamous Safin, who takes a strong liking to you. He invites you for dinner, and you refuse to go.

Word Count: 4.4K

Warnings: n/a

A/n: Hope you guys enjoy chappie two. I promise the pace is going to pick up very soon. ;-)

Previous Chapter | Masterlist

Opening your eyes, you grumble as your body shifts. Your head ached and your ankle burned. As your vision unblurred, you noticed the only light in the large dark room you resided in was coming from a fireplace. The small ambers danced around as the wood crackled underneath the fire. A blanket had been draped over you to protect you from the chill that surrounded the room. Everything seemed normal at first until it wasn’t. This room, the chill, everything was not normal. Your head hurt too much to think. Even if you had blackouted for hours, your memory refused to work. The clothes you were once in had changed. Instead of slacks and a sweater, you donned a bulky gray robe that was too big for your frame and smelt of expensive cologne. Noticing the sleeve kept falling off of your arm, you pushed it back up. The only thing that mattered to you right now was finding out what the hell was going on. As your arms attempted to push you back up, a silky and all too familiar voice spoke.

“Be careful, y/n. You wouldn’t want to hurt yourself now.”

Gritting your teeth, you clenched your fists in pure anger. Nobody knew your real name. Working for M16 for the past four years, C had become your official name. Of course, it was Safin, it had to be. Thanks to him, you were responsible for possibly killing all of the double oh’s. Bond was right, Safin was a true sadist. His voice came from behind you. You knew he wanted your attention, but you weren’t going to give him what he wanted.

“You.” You fumed, looking at the fireplace. The logs had shifted, causing the fire to burn more violently and brighter. It represented your burning hate for the anarchist. The clicks of Safin’s boots became louder and louder. “Killed them...Overthrow the agents, then the analysts, the engineers..and eventually M.”

“Thanks to you, y/n. Without your help, I would have never been able to take the agents down.” Safin jested. He wanted to make you feel guilty for his actions. Try and turn you into something that you despise to be. “The double oh’s are down, and then everyone falls one by one. The oppressed will soon be free…”

The way your name curled off of Safin’s lips made your blood boil. You ignored his rambles and looked straight into the fire as your nails dug into the sofa. Ignoring Safin’s rambles about freedom from the government, you thought about Nomi and Bond. Bond had danced with death many times before. They could have jumped out of a window or hidden under rubble. It seemed too good to be true. You were an optimist or a pessimist, more in the middle. But knowing that the blood was on your hands, and it had been planned, sent chills down your spin.

Feeling a hand in your hair, it was none other than Safin.

His fingers combed through her [y/h/c], admiring how soft it felt. When whisking y/n away, she had looked more disheveled and panicked. It had been twenty-four hours since he had last seen you. The maids had tended to your wounds and cleaned you up. He had thought they had done a good job as they had made you look natural, yet still ever so gorgeous. Safin, being the “gentlemen” he was, wanted to you feel comfortable in the submarine pen, your new home. It was going to take time for someone such as y/n to adjust to a new lifestyle, but Safin wasn’t a man to give up so easily. He knew what state she was in and that she wasn’t going to attack him with her injury. Y/n was in Safin’s lair now, with nobody to come to save her. Her hair smelt like cherry blossoms and felt silkier than it usually was. You happened to be wearing one of Safin’s robes, which had been sliding off of your shoulder. Seeing you wear his clothes made his thoughts race. He wanted Y/n more than anything in the world. But even Safin, a feared anarchist, couldn’t simply force himself onto someone such as y/n. She were a guest in his house, not some toy for him to use.

All you could do is stand your ground and not let him bother you. After all, he was an anarchist, and agitating was something he knew he was good at. Of course, you weren’t the person to squeal or cry so easily.

“Y/n, Y/n, Y/n…” He cooed as he still played with your hair. The sleeve was becoming dangerously low on your shoulder. Safin felt his cock twitch at seeing such a stubborn and strong woman be so vulnerable. Not wanting you to be embarrassed, his hand grabbed the falling collar and raised it back up to your shoulder. He couldn’t see that you were burning red as his hand slowly finessed your skin. “Such a unique and graceful name…”

“It’s a common name, I’m nothing special.” You spit as you tried to scare him away. Y/n and Safin seemed like two different people. Safin was like a lost dog begging for attention. But Safin knew that they were similar in one way; you were both very determined people.

“I must be blind. You are a very special girl, y/n.” Safin explained. He walked beside the couch has your hair disappeared from his fingers and fell back down. It was too dark to see him, but you noticed the mask he had been wearing was off. You noticed the outline of a man walk in front of you, getting closer. “A trained Markswoman for the British Armed Forces. You spent years oversea and speak fluently in seven languages. Graduated top of your male peers and studied in Edinburgh with high honors. During your time in Siberia, your kill count was over a hundred men as you survived in the cold wilderness, alone. Even for all your kills, you were never awarded any medals of honor. Then, a cyrptographer for M16, bringing down organizations and stopping mass murder by decrypting a mere code. Or should I say was.”

“I don’t need to be saved, I can wipe that mask off of your hideous face.” You protest, refusing to look at him. “You want me to be afraid of you and think your some mighty god. All I see is a man cowering behind a mask.”

Safin grabbed your chin, making you look right at his face. Y/n protested, but Safin made sure he held her still. His index finger caressed her skin, noticing how soft and glossy it was. Your [y/e/c] shined as your thick eyebrows furrowed at him in disgust. It was too hard to decipher his face in the darkness. The hands that held your face were calloused and cold, the opposite of your skin.

“Your not wearing the mask...Step into the light.” You demand.

“No.” He replied. “You wouldn’t want to see me.”

“Didn’t you stalk me for months on end and won’t reveal your own face?” You chuckle at his face. This man was absolutely baffling. “Pathetic, I do say. I don’t care what you are, your still a sick monster.”

His grasp tightened as your chin, pulling you closer. “Watch your mouth, my dear. You are still quite young. Putting on a facade hiding a scared, little girl. Admit your afraid of me. Say it.”

You catch a small glimpse of his eyes. There multichromatic, ranging in brown or green. Regardless, you won’t budge for Safin. It was entertaining to see him become slowly annoyed with how stubborn you were. “You know I live up to my stubbornness, Safin.”

Realizing how rough he was being with you, Safin loosened his grip on her jaw and moved backwards, his hand behind his back.

“A smart, but foolish girl. I thought M16 had nothing to offer until I saw you. You were more essential than Bond ever was, you could never see it. A history of military experience and language, you were the perfect woman for the job. Bringing down whomever M16 saw as a threat, following there orders like a foolish slave. Too foolish to see through the lies of old men. Too foolish to see right through a trap and lead thousands of spies to there downfall..” Safin enunciated. “It is truly there lost. SPECTRE couldn’t get your hands on you, there just as underhanded as M16. So I claimed you.”

“I am not a toy.” Pushing yourself from a chair, you limp forward (despite the pain). “You want me because I can help you? I will never help someone such as yourself. Try all you want, but I won’t fall.”

Safin chuckled as he walked up to you, looking down at your furrowed eyebrows and pouted lip. It was so adorable to see you upset. “Y/n, I told you it was going to be an adjustment. You would say mindless things such as this. But I assure you with time, you will learn your place here. You will come to respect me and learn to l-”

“I will never to support someone such as yourself. I rather have you kill me than have to waste my breath on you.” You say. “Oh right, you keep saying your going to hurt me, but you never do. Stop saying it and actually do it, Safin.”

You were only a few inches away from his face as your eyes burned into him. Just because he was trying to bring you down with him didn’t mean you were going to fall so easily. From being held at gunpoint to nearly sold to a terrorist organization, Safin was just like all of them. He implanted fear into thousands just for his pleasure. The Anarchist walked past you, brushing his shoulder against you.

“You will join me for dinner at six o clock.” He demanded, sounding annoyed as he walked towards the door. “And that is not a request.”

Hearing the door slam shut, all your body can do is fall to the floor and cry into a pillow. You acted stern on the outside, but when alone you broke down. It’s not that you were scared of Safin but simply desired to go home. Because of your actions, you had started M16’s downfall. All because of a little cyprotrgapher falling into an anarchist’s trap. Sitting in front of the fire, you curled into a ball and held in your sobs as warm tears sped down your cheeks. For however long you were to stay in Safin’s lair, you were not going to give him the satisfaction he desired from you.

Y/n was not going to join Safin for dinner.

-----

“Where is she?” Safin groaned as he paced around the dining hall. The maids had arranged for an intimate dinner set up deep in the gardens. There was a low rise wooden table with two cushions with lit wax candles and bushes surrounding you. The table had all kinds of tea and an array of foods that Safin knew y/n enjoyed (from stalking).

Serrano noticed Safin’s obsession with y/n. He saw it grow day by day. Even if he was his closest ally, Serrano knew not to ever question Safin’s motives. Not only had Safin stalked her work, but her personal life. He knew she had enjoyed certain types of tea, loved candles, and all types of plants. It seemed over the top, but that was Safin. Serrano had guessed Sadin was trying to win y/n to work for him and nothing more.

“The girl might need help, since her leg…” Serrano said to Safin. Safin looked at him, displeased.

“One of your foolish men had shot her.” He replied. Noticing a few strands of black hair fall into his face, Safin smoothed them out. Serrano was probably right; you most likely needed help walking to dinner. He wouldn’t be a gentleman if he didn’t help you to dinner. One of his henchmen came into the room. Safin turned around, praying for it to be you. To see the way his robe fit onto her body; the large gray sleeve slowly falling from your shoulder, but it wasn’t.

“Go fetch Y/n for dinner, please.” He requested. The soldier nodded and went to your quarters to pick you up. Twenty minutes later, the same soldier returned with a bloody nose.

Serrano and Safin had both noticed. The solider’s nose was dripping with blood.

“What happened?” Serrano asked.

“That little bitch-she fucking kicked me!” The soldier heaved. “She told me to fuck off, so I went into her room to drag her down, and then she bloody puts her foot in my face. That woman picked a fuckin’ fight. Just as I grabbed her, she kicked me in my balls. Told me that she won’t be coming to dinner and told me to tell for you to fuck off. ”

Safin furrowed her eyebrows not only in shock but anger. “You wanted to drag her to dinner?”

The soldier nodded, wiping his nose. “I only did as I co-”

“Once again, the INCOMPETENCE with you soldiers!” He boomed. No wonder Y/n didn’t want to come, this solider had tried to drag her out of her room. For someone who was injured, Safin was shocked you managed to attack them. “That woman had every right to hit you. All of you treat my guest, my y/n, as a prisoner. It’s ridiculous.”

Serrano tried to stop him, but Safin stormed out of the room to your chambers. He knew it was going to be a challenge to get you to come, but he wasn’t going to give up so easily on someone such as yourself. No matter how much he stalked, there was something so intriguing about y/n to him. Out of all of the women he’s worked with throughout the years, she stuck out. He remembers first seeing you a year ago with Bond in Greece. A fellow ally of Safin planned to blow up the Acropolis Museum as a political statement to the president of Greece. Safin had aided him with men who successfully killed the president as Athens slowly unfolded into civil unrest. The spy agency in Greece had called upon M16 to aid them in killing the men who were responsible for the assassination. It was a mission and she and a few desk agents had flown out to help the double oh’s. Instead of Bond saving the day as he usually would, it was Y/n that did. Seeing her slide over cars in her short polka dot dress and jump across rooftops, you had singlehandedly shot and killed the bomber. He remembers your hair being in a loose ponytail, held up by a small, scarlet ribbon. Not only did you kill him, but Q and you had dismantled a nuclear bomb that was meant to wipe out half of Athens. M and Bond wanted y/n as a field agent, but she always turned it down, more comfortable with being an introverted cyrotpotgether. Upon seeing y/n, Safin knew he had to make her his. Not only as she talented and smart, but striking to the eyes of many. Seeing Bond playfully flirt with you drove Safin mad, but you could shrug it off as nothing more. The only piece of you Safin had of y/n was the sweet-smelling ribbon, but having you in his lair and touching your skin gave him his serotonin. Whatever it took to win y/n over, Safin was willing to go to the full length.

Instead of being uncivilized, Safin decided to have a more civil approach with y/n, even if on the inside he was annoyed and pissy. Approaching y/n’s door, he knocked. “Y/n? I-”

“Fuck.Off.” You spit, curled by the fire.

Safin clenched a fist. He was expecting you to say something vulgar, but he had to keep his temper down to not scare you. “I’ve been patient with you, my dear. You can’t stay in there forever.”

“If I can survive in the Siberian wilderness for a month then I’ll be more than happy to isolate myself in this little shithole.” You snap back. Safin was like all of the other men you had dealt with other the years. They tried to intimidate you because of there gender, but you weren’t one to be bossed around.

Serrano and some of the soldiers decided to eavesdrop from the corner, seeing Safin become visibly angry. His fists were clenched as he huffed, trying to keep his composure around the stubborn cryptographer. “You don’t want to see me mad.”

Hearing this statement, a snark chuckle escaped your lips. If Safin was trying to scare you than he was simply failing at it. “Mad? Oh please. Your a small, cowardly man who hides behind a mask. Instead of going into the public, you sit in your lair and corrupt mindless protestors into doing your dirty work for you. All you are is bronze, no brain. Out of all the people you decide to kidnap, you kidnap me, a cryptographer? Not the infamous Bond or even a double oh? Oh right, how could I forget! Your men are such imbeciles that they can barley follow basic orders, so you decide to kidnap the weakest target for a bargaining chip. No matter how much you bribe or interrogate me, I won’t go down without a fight with a coward.”

Safin could hear his men eavesdropping him. The “oh’s” and chuckles that came from his mouth made his blood boil. No one had ever talked back to Safin before, fearing him. But y/n was different, teasing and humiliating him. Who did y/n think she was? If she had been a soldier, Safin would have killed her right on spot. But no matter how tempting, he couldn’t hurt her. Safin was so close to you, yet so far. In frustration, Safin grabbed an ancient Japanese vase and threw it to the ground. It cracked all over the ground, sending small pieces into Safin’s fingers.

Hearing his grunt and the shatter of the base, you jumped in place. That was the most violence and emotion you had seen come out of that man. Regardless, you weren’t afraid of Safin. It was ridiculous that he was having a little temper tantrum because you didn’t give him what he wanted. Safin was a spoiled child or a spoiled man for the matter.

Safin saw what he was becoming; a monster. He was one, but for y/n, he had be a gentlemen. Knocking gently on the door, he growled. “Will you join me?”

“No!”

“Will you join me, please?”

“No thank you!”

“COME OUT HERE THIS INSTANT!” Safin bombed, slamming his fist against the door.

You roll your eyes, yelling back. “I WON’T! YOU CAN’T MAKE ME!”

Safin had enough of y/n’s stubbornness. Kicking the door open, he stormed over to you and grabbed your wrist. A small yelp escaped from your lips, trying to back away, but his grip held you down.

“You are HERE, in MY lair, and YOU are going to listen to ME and be MINE.” He orders as his grasp on your wrist tightened. You hiss in his face as you place your hand on his chest to push him back.

“Like I said.” You hiss, getting right into his face. Just like Safin, you were furious. His little temper tantrum was ridiculous. “I will NEVER listen to your commands.”

Safin didn't respond to y/n, but looks into her [y/e/c]. They were big as the fire glistened inside of them. A few pieces of [y/h/c] hair had fallen into her face as her breathing was heavy. She wasn’t controlled and content, but frantic and shaky. Being close to her oddly calmed the anarchist down. His grip on her softened as he let go of you, turning down to think. Then it hit him.

“[Y/m/n] and you look eerily similar..” He calmly explained, walking around your chambers.

Your mother’s name had come out of his mouth. The woman that you cared about the most was mentioned by that monster. A small gasp escapes your mouth as you feel your heart drop. “Leave her out of this.”

“Same hair and same eyes. She is the older version of you, still beautiful even after years of so much loss..” He maintained his dominance, trying to aggravate you into submission. “On the other hand, your sister…[y/s/m] looks more like your dead father..”

“M16 knows.” You stutter, trying to stay strong. Your strong facade began to break. Your emotional side stayed contained, even on top missions. But in Safin’s lair, it felt different. Not even enemies you had faced in the past would mention your family. “If you hurt my mother or [y/s/n], they’ll put you and your men six feet u-”

“Uup,” He spun on his heel, making direct eye contact with you. Y/n’s emotions, her true weakness, were breaking out. He could see your tears prick with tears as your hands shook. “M16 won’t be there to save you, your mother, or your little sister.”

Walking over to you, he leaned into your ear, cooing, “Because their greatest warrior was there greatest downfall. That warrior is you, my sweet.”

Tears streamed down your cheeks as you bit your lip. Your mother and sister were the only people that were left in your life. They had supported you through years of therapy and discharge from the military. Safin didn’t scare you until he had mentioned them and M16. You didn’t like that he was painfully right. Because of a dumb girl, yourself, M16 was crumbling to pieces.

Safin looked over at you and saw your melancholic (and afraid) face. A sympathetic sigh came from his lips as he walked over, wiping a falling cheek from your week. “Don’t cry, my little dove. I’m sorry if I upset you.”

You felt strong arms wrap around your lower back and hair. Safin pulled y/n close, stroking her [y/h/c]. Her shaking was quite obvious as tears stained his vest. Y/n try to squirm out of his hold, but Safin needed to enjoy this moment. After waiting for so long, he could no longer hold back. Y/n was finally in his arms. Those long nights of looking at her old military photos or the red ribbon were over. Y/n was no longer a fantasy, but a reality. He hated seeing her so shaken and upset. The poor girl’s shaking had calmed down. It was best if Safin had left her alone, for now at least.

Releasing her from the hug, Safin patted her shoulders as y/n looked down. His fingers traced under her cheek, tilting y/n’s head up towards Safin. No longer was she her fiery self, but a scared little girl. Her lips quivered as spare tears fell from her face. Months of stalking, Safin knew that one of her many weaknesses was her own family. She had lost so much over the years and losing them would be her tipping point. Safin was cruel, but not to his y/n.

“Over time, you will adjust over time. One day, you will see,” He cooed, moving small strands to clearly see your face. His hand rested on your cheek as his thumb caressed your soft skin. “All of there ignorance. I saved you from them for a reason. When I eradicate tyranny, you will be grateful.”

You saw his face more clearly in the fire. From a distance, his skin looked olive bronzed and normal. But up close, it was different. It was burned and scarred, the man was horribly disfigured. No wonder he wore a mask, to conceal his identity and frightening face. Safin looked like the monster in a child’s nightmare, in which he was. He stood up and walked to the door, acting as if he hadn’t threatened to kill your family if you didn’t do as he pleased.

“Oh, and y/n,” He stated, turning to you. “Get some rest please, you look very debilitated. The maids are near if you request anything. Good night, my dear.”

Gently shutting the door, Safin stayed in front of it. He heard y/n’s concealed cries. His hand wanted to knock and comfort her, but he knew that she truly didn’t want to see him. It pained him to see you upset, but he was confident you would overcome it, work with him, and possibly love him. Safin yearned for the touch of a woman who truly desired him. He knew he couldn’t force a woman to love him no matter how much he desired her. For who could ever love someone such as himself?

You saw his footsteps under the door. He thankfully began to walk away. When you heard his footsteps out of hearing distance, a loud cry escaped your mouth. You tried to stay strong, but you were slowly breaking apart. Within the past forty eight hours, your life had been turned upside. Now you were a prisoner of Safin for his sick, twisted reasons. Did he want you to work for him or did he want your body? Or both? It was all too much to handle. Safin was a wildcard. The way he held you close, played with your hair, grabbed you all pulled at your heartstrings. His deep and oddly soothing voice telling you that M16’s downfall was your fault, in which it was. The pain of not knowing the agents you were meant to keep alive’s fates made your eyes prick with tears. Safin’s plan had truly worked.

The bedroom Safin had placed you in was lavish, yet dismal. It was large with two connecting rooms. The room you were in was full of books, candles, plants, and a couch that stared at a fireplace. The other room led to a large-sized bed and a bathroom that was bigger than your tiny flat. Safin was trying to impress you with materialistic gifts, but you thought of it as an undesirable hellhole. The robe you wore was too big and chunky for you. Walking into the other room, you threw the robe off and dived into the large-sized bed. It looked too neat to be comfortable, but upon laying on it, it sucked you in. Throwing a blanket onto your exposed body, you buried your face into the nearest pillow and cried. Cried not because you were stuck with the monster known as Safin, but knowing that you were the reason millions were going to die. All because of an arrogant, stubborn girl.

#rami malek x reader #safin x reader #safin #no time to die #james bond #rami malek #rami malek headcanons #my writing

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mdzsgildedfate · 4 years

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Gilded Fate - Chapter 6

Reincarnation AU [Chapter 6/?] Characters: Xue Yang, Xiao Xingchen, Song Lan, Lan Sizhui, Lan Jingyi, Jin Ling, Original Characters. Pairings: Xue Yang/Xiao Xingchen, Song Lan/Xiao Xingchen, Lan Sizhui/Lan Jingyi

It was a bitterly restless night in the house. The kind where, no matter what they did, no one could warm up, no one could get comfortable, and no one could sleep. For all their efforts, the house had still not been repaired enough to fare them through the winter. A-Qing hadn’t been shy at all about crawling into bed next to Xiao Xingchen as soon as it got too cold to bear, and if he was being completely honest, Xingchen was actually relieved when she started doing it. The shared body heat made it possible to sleep, even if only for a few hours.

It seemed, however, that their newest addition to the household was used to staying awake at night. Xingchen could hear him getting up all throughout the night, sleeping perhaps only three or four hours every night. Tonight was no different, except that his restlessness involved disappearing from the house for probably close to two hours before returning to fuss with the fireplace. Since the snow had come early this season, their ability to collect firewood had ended early, so Xingchen could only assume he’d gone out to scrounge out of desperation.

Anything the man could have found outside would have been too wet to work with, but that hadn’t stopped him from trying. At one point, he actually did get a small fire going, but the few sticks he’d managed to pull out of the snow weren’t enough to even warm the hearth, let alone the room they slept in. Once the last of the sticks were used up, he let out a string of swears Xingchen had never even heard before, seeming to reach a point of desperation with his battle against the cold. Finally, the man yanked his blanket off his bed, laid it over Xingchen and A-Qing, and crawled in next to them.

Now having the warmth of a body on either side of him, the ache in Xingchen’s joints finally ebbed away. Despite the man being a stranger, he felt at ease sleeping next to him. Something about him was familiar, reminding him of all of the times he’d shared a room with Song Lan and yearned to share a bed as well. Intimacy wasn’t something Xiao Xingchen had ever cared about, but meeting Song Lan had made him realize it was just that he didn’t care about intimacy with women. Having this man beside him was another bitter reminder of that.

When morning came, the house guest had already vacated the bed. He always rose earlier than Xingchen or A-Qing and had taken over the responsibility of cooking breakfast as soon as he’d regained the ability to walk. It was a welcome comfort. Taking up a seat beside him as he prepared their breakfast, Xingchen could feel warmth rolling off of him. With everything the man did around the house to take care of them, he couldn’t understand A-Qing’s determined hatred of the man.

“Did you sleep?”

Xingchen smiled. “A little. Did you?”

“Of course not. You’re very grabby in your sleep, I had to defend myself against you all night.”

Xingchen’s smile dropped, his heart dropping. “O-oh- I’m sorry, I-”

The man burst out laughing. “I didn’t expect you to take that so seriously! I never imagined I’d see such a fearless cultivator look so terrified!”

His muscles softened, a wave of relief coming over him. “I had no reason not to believe you. I’d never slept beside anyone until this winter.”

“What, never? Not even for… Nevermind, I guess you probably haven’t.”

“For what?”

The man burst out laughing again. “You’re really too innocent! Forget I said anything.”

“You’re both too noisy.” A-Qing grumbled, crawling across the floor to sit beside Xingchen, dragging all three blankets along with her.

After the utter failure that was bringing Xue Yang to justice, Xiao Xingchen had stopped chasing over-ambitious targets. With his new friend, he stuck to dealing with ghosts and yao and walking corpses in the area. With A-Qing, they built a family in the coffin house. He felt content with the small amount of good they were able to do for the townspeople nearby and never strayed far from Yi City.

Even moreso, he felt content with this new friend and never strayed far from him. As well as Xiao Xingchen managed with his blindness, there was a degree of fear that came with losing a major sense and the man's presence brought a sense of comfort. After a year of living with him and sharing in night-hunts together, he trusted him. And unlike Song Lan, this new confidant never shied away from physical touch.

In stark contrast, the man was extremely tactile. He never shied from Xingchen walking close to him. He grabbed at Xingchen's arms and dragged him around. When they went up to the roof for repairs or climbed trees during night-hunts, there was always a stabilizing hand on his back. When the second winter came, he once again joined Xingchen and A-Qing in their bed at night. Every touch made the question burning in Xingchen’s mind grow brighter. He’d vowed not to ask, knowing if the man wanted him to know he’d tell him, but his curiosity was becoming unbearable.

“The sky is so pretty this time of year.” The man said, his presence beside Xingchen warm against the winter’s biting breeze.

“Tell me.”

“The sun is low. Everything’s all pink and orange. The moon is already out, in a crescent shape. There’s no clouds, so you can see everything clearly.”

Xingchen smiled, imagining the scene in his mind. “I used to hate this time of year. You make it sound so nice.”

The man laughed, bright and cheerfully. “I can’t imagine you hating anything.”

“Maybe hate is a strong word. I do like the snow, it’s just that there’s no songbirds out during the winter.”

“That’s true.” The man paused, tapping his finger atop the log they were sitting on. “I like it. The silence. The snow muffles everything and makes it extra quiet.”

Xingchen raised his eyebrows. “Is that so? I wouldn’t have taken you for someone that likes silence.”

“Silence is like water. When you’re content, you’d rather have tea or wine, but when you need it, nothing comes close.”

Xingchen’s heart skipped in his chest. For someone whose words were usually playful and crude, the sentiment was surprisingly philosophical. He nodded, smiling softly, letting the words ruminate in his mind.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Why not? We’re friends, aren’t we?”

“I know I initially said I wouldn’t, but it seems strange that we’ve lived together for so long, and we’re- well, we are friends, and…”

The man chuckled. “We still don’t know each other's names?”

Xingchen smiled. “Right.”

The man moved closer to him on the log, their hands brushing together. “Tell me yours, I’ll tell you mine.”

His heart skipped. “Xiao Xingchen.”

He could feel the man’s face lean in closer. “Chengmei.”

He turned his face towards Chengmei, as though momentarily forgetting he couldn’t look at him.

“It’s nice to officially meet you.”

Chengmei burst into laughter again and put his hand on top of Xingchen’s, his index finger tapping a slow, rhythmic pattern. The touch sent a shiver down Xingchen’s spine, feeling the other man press closer to him. He turned his hand up and laced their fingers together, searching his muddled brain for something to say.

“Can I ask you another question?”

“Ask away.”

“A-Qing and I were strangers to you and we live in a coffin house with a caved-in roof. Why did you stay with us after you healed from your injuries?”

Chengmei fell quiet, rubbing circles over Xingchen’s hand with his thumb. “...I guess… I was bored, at first. I had nowhere else to go, no one waiting for me to come home... “

“At first… Did something change then?”

The other man laughed softly and gave Xingchen’s hand a small squeeze. “Perhaps. It’s no matter though.”

“No matter?”

“Xiao Xingchen. Some things are best left unsaid.” Chengmei released his hand and stood.

Furrowing his brow in confusion, Xingchen followed, having to take a few steps to catch up to the other man. He grabbed the sleeve of his robe and held on firmly, not letting him move any further away.

“Aren’t we familiar enough? Why should things be left unsaid between us?”

Chengmei turned back to face Xingchen, grabbing his wrist and pulling his sleeve free. After a moment, he pulled him close enough from Xingchen to feel his breath on his face. His heart thudded in his chest.

“What should I do then? What if I tell you and you hate me?”

Xingchen gripped the man’s lapel, his face practically burning from how close they stood. Still trying to determine if the man was truly implying romantic feelings or just playing at some elaborate prank, his attention snapped back as Chengmei closed the gap between them and pressed his lips hard against Xingchen’s. The kiss sent a painful spark shooting through his stomach and drained his mind of all prior thoughts of doubt. All that existed for him now was the soft lips and warm breath against his face.

A soft moan escaped his throat at the feeling of tongue brushing against his bottom lip. Xingchen brought his arms up and wrapped them around Chengmei’s shoulders to brace him against the man’s body. With no space left between them, Chengmei breathed out a raspy moan, slipping his tongue into Xingchen’s mouth, lingering for an aching moment. After several slow, deep kisses he pulled away, sucking Xingchen’s bottom lip with a light bite.

Xingchen was speechless. And breathless. With no way of knowing what expression Chengmei wore, a knot of nerves found its way into his stomach, waiting for the other man to end the silence first.

“I’m so glad you pulled me out of that ditch.”

Xingchen melted into laughter and pulled Chengmei into a tight hug. “I’m glad too.”

When the sun set on the coffin house that night, sharing the bed with Chengmei had a different feeling. The man pressed closer to Xingchen than he ever had in the past, his fingers fidgeting with the hems of his clothes, tracing circles over his skin, and tangling in his hair. It was the first time Chengmei didn’t wake up at least six times throughout the night, and in the morning, he didn’t wake up earlier than the other two. Without breakfast already prepared, A-Qing impatiently set out to head into town for the day.

Xingchen and Chengmei used a fire sigil to heat a pot of tea and then set to cleaning the house. Once their few belongings were tidied, the dust was swept out, and the tea was brewed, the two sat down side-by-side, simply enjoying the other’s presence in silence for a while. After their cups were emptied, Xingchen was the first to speak.

“Chengmei?”

“Hm?”

“I’ve been meaning to ask you… what is that tapping thing you do?”

Chengmei chuckled and tapped his finger to the top of Xingchen’s hand. “It’s a code.”

“Oh?”

“I made it up when I was a kid.” Chengmei tapped a different pattern. “I thought it’d be useful to have a way to communicate in front of other people without them knowing what I was saying. I practiced it so much it became a habit.”

“That’s clever!” Xingchen thought back to the times something like that would have been useful for him and Song Lan, quickly feeling a twinge of pain at the thought of the other man.

“Mm. It didn’t really wind up being that useful.” He said, shrugging. “A secret language is pretty pointless if you’re the only one that knows it.”

Xingchen laughed. “That’s true… Teach me, then.”

“...Teach you?”

“Seems a shame to let it go to waste.”

“Hm.” Chengmei flattened his hand over Xingchen’s, letting his fingers trace over the ridges for a moment before tapping a few times. “I agree.”

Two slow taps. “Yes.”

Three quick taps. “No.”

Two quick taps. Pause. Two quick taps. “Danger.”

Two slow taps. Three quick taps. Two slow taps.

Xingchen waited, but no translation for that one came. He turned his hand over to lace his fingers with Chengmei’s and tapped it back. “What’s that one mean?”

Chengmei pressed his face against Xingchen’s cheek, kissing him softly. “I just made that one up.”

Xingchen turned his face towards Chengmei and tapped the pattern again.

“I love you.”

He paused, not sure that he heard the man right. His finger stayed frozen, hovering hesitantly over Chengmei’s hand. In his silence, he could feel Chengmei grow rigid and pull his hand away. He quickly reached out and pulled it back.

“I’m sorry, you just caught me off guard.” With his free hand, he cupped Chengmei’s face and kissed him. “I love you too.”

~X~

If the world was always this bright, he couldn’t fathom how he was ever alive to begin with. No wonder every fiber of his being told him he wanted to be dead. Daylight hurt his eyes, this Song Lan person’s voice hurt his ears, his body ached whenever he tried to move- it was unbearable.

“Xiao Xingchen. I made tea.”

He frowned. Fuck your tea.

“I… don’t know how much you remember right now…”

So far, nothing had really resurfaced. All he knew was that existence was a prison and he really wanted the eyes in Song Lan’s head.

“I’m sorry… For how things ended between us. Before Yi City, I mean.”

He looked at Song Lan, tapping his teacup against the table irritably.

“I never should have blamed you for what happened to Baixue temple. I never should have abandoned you.”

He poured the contents of his cup out onto the table and stared down at the mess, as though it was incredibly thought-provoking.

Song Lan sighed. “I’m sorry. This was a mistake.”

The man stood and left the room, leaving Xingchen alone at last. Once the door closed between them, he looked back down at the tea streaming across the top of his table. After thousands of years in an unconscious void, days could pass without his notice. He sat motionless for nearly a week after Song Lan’s last attempt to talk to him, unresponsive to the change in light in his room as the sun rose and fell in the sky outside.

On the seventh day, Xingchen tried out standing on his own for the first time. His limbs felt shaky, but continuing to sit in front of a sticky table wasn’t going to improve his situation at all. After a few days of practicing intermittently, he finally felt confident in walking around. By the time he finally decided to leave the room, he’d recovered a few vague memories of growing up in BaoShan SanRen’s care. Passing Song Lan in the hall, he didn’t bother to even glance at him, still finding the man utterly unfamiliar.

Unfortunately, the man was overjoyed at the sight of Xingchen up and about and immediately turned to follow him. They carried down the hall in silence, following Xingchen’s aimless lead through the temple. Finally arriving in the courtyard, he felt a small sense of contentment. It was spring, the valley was full of the chatter of birds, and a crop of white clouds filled the sky just enough to keep the sun from hurting his eyes too much. Too bad Song Lan was creeping into his line of sight, ruining the otherwise beautiful view. Before the man had a chance to say anything, Yin energy exploded in his gut and Xingchen lunged at Song Lan.

They hit the ground with a heavy thud, instantly grappling against each other. Black veins shot up Xingchen’s neck, snaking out over half his face. The pupils in his eyes vanished and all that remained was a mindless urge to spear his fingers into Song Lan’s skull.

“Xiao Xingchen- Please-!” Song Lan had Xingchen by the wrists, using all his strength to keep the man’s hands at bay. “You need to control your yin energy, don’t let it turn you into a-”

Xingchen let out a snarl.

“Xingchen…”

Song Lan shifted their weight briskly to the side and rolled on top of the other man, quickly drawing a sigil over his chest and pouring qi into it. The yin energy suddenly dissipated and Xingchen slumped back, all strength leaving his body again. His fingers still twitched, but he stayed where he lay on his back. Song Lan knelt beside him, his head hung lower, shaking slowly from side to side. He let out a heavy, stuttered sigh.

“I’m such a fool.” A tear dropped from his face. “It’s my fault you’re like this.”

Months passed and memories slowly returned to Xingchen’s mind. Finally recalling that he gave his eyes to Song Lan, he was able to reconcile with the resentful urge to reclaim them. He felt no less resentful towards Song Lan though.

Why couldn’t you let me stay dead?

Why couldn’t you let me reincarnate and forget this dreadful existence?

How could you condemn me to life as a Fierce Corpse?

He couldn’t stand staying at the temple for long. Even if it was just to wander the mountainside for a few days, he had to leave every so often and get away from Song Lan. Knowing now how he died, he couldn’t stand being around the man’s guilty doting. It was impossible to process his feelings about Chengmei with Song Lan around as a reminder- that Chengmei had never existed and those three years were spent with Xue Yang. He needed to come to terms with that on his own, but Song Lan’s presence complicated the process.

How could Xue Yang act in love with me so… seamlessly?

What was the point in pretending for so long?

What was he trying to gain in feigning a relationship with me?

If Song Lan hadn’t come, how long would he have continued?

“Are you ok?”

Xingchen looked up from his tea to see Song Lan staring at him, wearing the same worried look he always had. He tapped two slow clacks against his teacup.

Song Lan paused, his eyes lowering to Xingchen’s fingers. “It’s getting late… Do you want to lay down for the night?”

Two slow taps.

The faintest smile appeared on Song Lan’s face. He stood up and waited, his smile widening when Xingchen stood to follow him. They put away the rest of the tea and retreated to a shared bedroom. Extinguishing the flame of the lamp, they shed the outer layers of their robes and laid down side by side. Song Lan’s arm laid across Xingchen’s chest and pulled him close, burying his face into Xingchen’s neck.

“Xiao Xingchen. I know I’ve put you through so much pain with my selfishness. I don’t know what I can do to make it up to you, but I…” Song Lan paused, fussing with Xingchen’s hair. “Xingchen, I love you.”

Xingchen’s heart fell. His younger self had ached to hear those words- would’ve begged Song Lan to say them to him, but now they just made things so much worse. Song Lan’s lips against his cheek just reminded him of Chengmei, which just reminded him of how alone he felt without his presence. Song Lan’s lips found his and he tried to push those thoughts from his mind. He didn’t want to consider what the future entailed if he kissed him back, or if he was doing it for Song Lan’s benefit or out of a growing sense of loneliness.

Rather than dwelling on the past or what the future would bring, Xingchen tried to summon the part of him that was still in love with Song Lan and kissed him back. Song Lan’s whole body relaxed against him, as though he was holding his breath in anticipation, and leaned hard into the kiss. He disentangled his fingers from Xingchen’s hair and brought his hand down to grip the man’s hip. Xingchen wrapped his arms around Song Lan’s shoulders and opened his mouth to swipe his tongue across the man’s lips.

Song Lan let out a moan and put his hips flush against Xingchen’s, grinding against him with a tightening grip. Every kiss and touch and heavy breath from Xingchen was taken as further permission to continue, urging Song Lan to respond to every one with doubled enthusiasm, seeming desperate for his touch. Releasing his grip on Xingchen’s hip, he repositioned himself on his knees over the man, freeing up both hands to run freely under his shirt. After a few more needy kisses, Song Lan pulled back, pausing just long enough to pull Xingchen’s shirt off completely. His own shirt followed soon after.

Without the fabric creating a barrier between them, Song Lan pressed their bare chests together as he put his lips back against Xingchen’s. One of Song Lan’s hands came up to grip Xingchen’s shoulder while the other snaked past his waistband to grasp at his hip again. One of Xingchen’s knees drew up, pushing his thigh up against the growing warmth between Song Lan’s legs. He rolled his hips down, pressing his hard cock into Xingchen’s hip with another heavy-breathed sigh. Another moment later, Song Lan sat up again and repositioned himself between Xingchen’s legs.

Their pants were discarded along the side of the bed, and, in the dark, Xingchen could feel the man’s erection press against him, sliding across his inner thigh. Fingers trailed down his stomach and his mind told him they were Chengmei’s. As the first finger pushed into him, he almost forgot it was Song Lan positioned between his legs. Even as Song Lan bent over him, trailing his tongue up Xingchen’s neck with his cock pushing into him, thoughts of Chengmei drifted in and out of his mind.

As soon as morning came, Xingchen got up from the bed, pulled his robes back on, and disappeared from the room without another glance at Song Lan. The encounter stayed in Xingchen’s mind for nearly a week, making his fixation on the events in Yi City grow even stronger. He couldn’t bear it anymore. Determined to find out what happened to Xue Yang after he killed himself, he left the temple, but even after a dozen hunts, he still came back empty handed. Nearly a year passed before he finally managed to track down Wei Wuxian, who was able to fill in some gaps, but had really only created more questions in Xingchen’s mind.

According to the demonic cultivator, Xue Yang had kept his corpse, and shattered soul, in Yi City for several years before he fell to HanGuang-Jun’s blade. After that, his body was taken by an accomplice of Jin Guangyao, but Wuxian had no idea what became of it from there. After years of chasing leads in the brief windows of time he could escape the temple without suspicion, all Xingchen had to show for it was Xue Yang’s hair ornament. Ultimately, he couldn’t keep limiting his hunts to week-long segments.

Leaving Song Lan in Yi City without explanation, Xingchen scoured the world for five years before finding JiangZai in an antique sword shop. The owner sold it to Xingchen, along with the name of who she’d bought it from, but didn’t seem to know anything else about the sword. Another five years passed as Xingchen tracked down every living person the sword had been passed to, with his search finally coming to an end at the remnants of an old cultivator family.

“Xue Yang? That’s a bone-chilling name…”

“Do you know him?”

The man shook his head. “Know of him. I thought he was a myth, something you tell your kids about to make them cautious of strangers.”

“Do you know how he died? Supposedly?”

The man was quiet for a long time, trying to recall if he’d heard anything. “I think that Lan Cultivator killed him.”

“And his body?”

“His body?” The man looked at him, shocked by the inquiry. “I suppose he was probably burned. That was pretty standard for the Jin clan back then.”

“You don’t recall anything about a special burial to keep him from coming back as a fierce corpse or vengeful spirit?”

The man shrugged again. “Not that I ever heard. The stories of him focused more on the crimes he committed than on his death, though, you know.”

“What of his feud with the Cultivators Song Lan and Xiao Xingchen?”

“Every story’s a little different, but from the one I know, he killed them both.”

Hm. So that’s the legacy I left behind. I suppose it’s better than the truth that I killed myself. “Do you know any other variations of the story?”

“I know one… but it’s pretty crude. If the people from the story are real, I’m sure they’d return from the grave if they heard it.”

“Tell me.”

“The story was that Xiao Xingchen and Song Lan were cut-sleeve lovers. Xue Yang had fallen in love with one of them, killed them in a jealous rage, and kept their corpses as trophies.”

Xingchen frowned, crinkling his nose slightly. It was crude, but it was right about the presence of a romance and about Xue Yang keeping their bodies, it wasn’t a jealous rage that became their demise. Clearing the mess of thoughts from his mind, he thanked the man and left. Having exhausted every last lead, there was nothing left but to be content with having found JiangZai and to return to the temple. In all honesty, he wasn’t sure what he was expecting. Based on what he’d gathered from Song Lan, Xingchen had been dead for about 5,000 years. Even if Xue Yang had been buried in a proper grave, it’d be impossible to find after all this time.

Despite the heartache he’d suffered at his hand and in spite of how much hatred he still harboured for Xue Yang, the thought of his corpse being burned and forgotten darkened Xingchen’s heart. Still several dozen kilometers away from the temple, he settled down at the base of a tree and set up two shrines; one for Xue Yang and one for Chengmei. Sitting in front of the shrines, he burned paper money late into the night, giving himself space to properly mourn the loss of who he thought he knew in Yi City. Dawn broke and Xingchen finally pulled himself to his feet and finished his journey back to the temple.

~X~

“Xiao Xingchen. Do you want to go with me to town?”

Two slow taps.

“There’s a new tea shop, I think you’ll like it.”

Two slow taps.

Over time, Song Lan caught on to the tap language Xue Yang had taught Xingchen so many years ago. It really had been a useful technique, but he was sure Xue Yang was rolling in his grave somewhere at the knowledge of Xingchen using it to communicate with Song Lan of all people. He didn’t mean for Song Lan to learn it- he hadn’t even realized he was still doing it until the man had already figured out a few words from it.

It made things easier though. It gave him a way to maintain the peace with Song Lan. With no communication at all, the man would've grown restless, but if Xingchen revealed that he'd regained his voice, he'd be expected to give an explanation for bringing back JiangZai. It would have led to conversations about Xue Yang he couldn't have with Song Lan.

And he'd have to explain why he couldn't say 'I love you' when Song Lan said it.

"Do you want to eat?”

Three quick taps.

Tea was one thing, but Xingchen still couldn’t bring himself to eat. Fierce Corpses didn’t need to and, for some reason, food upset his stomach. Food in tea shops was even worse. The softs pastries, sugar-dusted cakes, jelly fillings and chocolate crusts, every sweet treat brought back memories of Chengmei and A-Qing. They’d been too poor to afford more than a few pieces of cheap candy at a time, so he felt guilty at the idea of indulging in something as rich as the pastries served in the tea shops.

“If you’re tired, you should go rest. I’ll stay to check the talismans.”

Two taps, pause, two taps. Danger.

“I’ll be fine. There’s nothing dangerous out here.”

Be quick.

“I will.”

Although Xingchen had taken a room separate from Song Lan, and preferred to meditate there alone, there were still nights that they shared a bed. When Song Lan was seeming especially restless about Xingchen’s distant demeanor or when Xingchen himself was feeling the need for physical contact, he’d follow Song Lan back to his room and lay on the bed beside him. After a thousand years or so, he’d stopped imaging Chengmei’s hands on him when Song Lan held him. After two thousand years or so, he remembered what it felt like to crave Song Lan’s touch.

People. Following. Danger.

“I know, I saw them.”

Danger. Caution.

“I don’t think they’re dangerous. The man seemed familiar.”

Explain.

Jin Ling’s appearance at their temple had ignited a flame of excitement in Xingchen’s gut. For three thousand years, he’d had only Song Lan for company, but now another cultivator was here, living and breathing and here. Even though he’d never met the Jin cultivator, knowing there were other immortals in the world, more than just himself, Song Lan, and Wei Wuxian- he felt freer somehow.

“By the way, two others from the Lan clan are still around.”

“Is that so?”

“Actually, you would have met them too, in Yi-”

“Right, of course.”

Explain.

“I’m sure they’d love the opportunity to come here as well.”

Stop. Repeat. Explain.

Song Lan put a hand on Xingchen’s, obstructing the erratic tapping. “Of course, they’re more than welcome.”

Xingchen could tell his companion was apprehensive of the idea of the Lan immortals bringing regular people to their temple, but they could only live in solitude for so long. He did his best to reassure Song Lan and as the time drew nearer, he could tell the man was just as excited as he was. Watching from a window, he could see Song Lan stand straighter at the arrival of young students. All dressed in white robes, it felt like receiving a group of their own clan disciples, feeling reminiscent of when the two Daozhang had dreamt of building a sect together.

On top of that, it was a beautiful day. The temperature was perfect and birdsong could be heard on the gentle breeze. It was the first time in 3,000 years that Xingchen felt that spark of happiness in his chest, but it quickly diminished when his eyes fell on Wang Xinyi. He could already see Song Lan tensing up, quickly pulling the immortals aside and out of the students’, and his, line of sight. Looking back at this boy, he was thrown into a turmoil of emotions.

This boy, who had shoulder-length black hair, big eyes, and a bright smile that showed off a pair of sharp canines- he looked almost exactly the same, the only major difference being an overall smaller stature. That, and the complete absence of Xue Yang’s overwhelmingly dangerous aura. It was safe to say he hadn’t awakened yet and, without those memories of murderous intent, was probably Xingchen’s only chance to feel close to Chengmei one last time.

#mdzs #mdzs fic #the untamed #the untamed fic #xue yang #xiao xingchen #song lan #junior disciples #xuexiao #songxiao

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ejzah · 4 years

Text

A/N: And we’re back once again with another chapter, based off of Deliverance. The drama continues.

***

The Agent and the Lawyer, Part 18

“Hey Deeks, this is Kensi,” Kensi said, pausing to rub her lower lip. No one was in the bullpen, but she lowered her voice all the same. “Um, if you get this message, give me a call back.”

She’d never had to ask him to call her back before, but she wasn’t sure after last night. Despite claiming that he was fine, Deeks had remained quiet for the rest of the night.

Kensi knew she’d hurt him with her rebuff. She knew that she probably could have handled it better, but she hadn’t expected him to take it so hard. A little part of her was angry that he was. From the beginning, Kensi made it clear that she wanted their relationship to be out of the office and he’d agreed.

Mostly though, she was worried. They’d parted ways in the parking lot, even though it was still fairly early and they usually spent most evenings together. It felt strange to go home without him, especially without resolving their differences.

“I totally won,” Callen said, interrupting her contemplation as they came back from the gym. She grabbed a random stack of files and opened her laptop. Fortunately, they were to focused on their debate to notice her preoccupation.

“It wasn’t a fair throw. Eric distracted me,” Sam disagreed.

“You just don’t want to admit that I’m Champion of the World.”

“Damn right. I want a rematch.”

Deeks walked in then, his thumbs tucked in the pockets of his jeans. Kensi straightened, her attention laser focused on his every move. She saw his eyes flick her way before he looked away, and made a beeline for his desk.

Sam and Callen were still bickering and didn’t noticed the unusual tension between them. Or that Deeks was being uncharacteristically quiet.

Kensi tried to catch his eye again, but he purposely busied himself with logging into his laptop and fiddling with pens and paper until Callen turned to him, pulling him into his and Sam’s conversation.

“Deeks, you’re a lawyer,” he said unexpectedly. Deeks raised a wary eyebrow.

“Yes...”

“When playing for Champion of the World, would you say that a distraction is grounds for a free throw?” Deeks pursed his lips at Callen’s questions, his eyes narrowing consideringly.

“Is there anything in the rulebook?” he asked.

“We don’t have a rulebook,” Sam said, sounding annoyed.

“And therein lies your problem.” Deeks grinned. “Always have a rulebook.”

“The rules are verbal,” Callen explained, nodding in Sam’s directions. “Which you agreed upon.”

“Then that settles it,” Deeks decided. “Callen is officially the Champion of the World. Between the two of you.”

“Wait, you’re not implying that you could beat us, are you?” Sam asked incredulously.

“I played in high school and I was pretty good.”

“Oh, you’re on. I definitely am looking forward to whooping your ass.”

“I’m afraid any ass whooping will have to wait,” Eric interrupted, his expression grim. “Hetty just called. Branston Cole and his nurse were murdered.”

As they rushed upstairs, it didn’t escape Kensi’s notice that Deeks had successfully avoided speaking to her completely.

***

“You didn’t text me this morning,” Kensi said quietly as they drove to Cole’s nursing home.

“Yeah, I uh, I got busy,” he said, shaking his hair into his eyes. “Sorry.” He had been busy, but he’d let it consume him more than usual. He’d wanted and needed the distraction of work.

“I know you’re annoyed with me-“

“I’m not annoyed.”

“Ok, then hurt,” Kensi amended. He couldn’t deny than and chose to look out the window instead. Usually he preferred to approach issues head on rather than letting them fester, but this time he didn’t know if talking would help.

“I know we agreed to keep our relationship quiet, but it feels like we’re doing something wrong. And I hate that. I want to be able to go places without worrying that the wrong people will see us,” he explained. “I don’t like hiding.”

“You knew this wouldn’t be easy.”

“I did. But I didn’t realize it would be this hard.” He saw Kensi’s eyes flick his way before she focused on the road, her mouth set. “I didn’t think I’d care about you this much so quickly.”

Kensi made a noise at his quiet admission. It should have be a joyful moment, but all he felt was dread.

“So what are you saying?” Kensi asked in a small, tight voice that sounded nothing like her. He hesitated, unsure if he should keep his thoughts to himself. But he’d stayed up to the wee hours contemplating what he should do.

“I think I, we, should take some time to re-evaluate what we really want,” he said, glancing over at Kensi. She was looking forward, her jaw set.

“Fine,” she said tightly.

“Kens-“

“I think we should focus on the case now.” He sighed again, wondering how he had screwed everything up so completely in just a few hours.

***

“Go! Go!” Kensi shouted as she ran to the SUV and climbed in. He had no idea where he was supposed to go exactly, but Callen’s instructions had been to escape and evade.

He floored the gas pedal as one of the vehicles made a hasty turn and sped after them.

“You ok?” he asked Kensi, glancing at her briefly while he made a rushed and poorly executed turn from the wrong lane, nearly missing a taxi.

“I’m fine.” He made another hairpin turn and Kensi hastily put on her seatbelt. “Just don’t get us killed.”

“You’re lack of faith in me hurts,” he joked, smirking. For the first time that day, the tension between them was noticeably absent. It was just too bad that it took a car chase and possible death to do it.

The car chasing them swerved around, trying to cut him off, but Deeks managed force them into a parked garbage truck.

“Oh! That looked painful!” he said as Kensi stared at him in shock.

“Deeks! Look out!” she shouted as a second vehicle appeared in front of them out of nowhere. He just barely stopped in time to avoid crashing. Kensi yanked the glove compartment open and tossed her spare gun at him, climbing out of the SUV. Deeks got out on the other side, the gun weighing heavily in his hand. They used the doors as cover as three armed Russian men exited the other vehicle.

“Give us the book,” one of the men said unceremoniously. Deeks glanced at Kensi over the top of the SUV, wondering what her plan was. If it came down to a shoot-out, he wouldn’t be able to hold his own. And they both knew it.

“We don't have it.” Kensi told him.

“Purse.” She threw it across to the blonde Russian and he quickly dumped it out.

“Told you,” she said when only her personal items fell out.

“Then get in the car,” the first man said.

“Uh-uh,” Deeks said without even thinking. He saw Kensi’s head turn his way out of the corner of his eye before she caught herself. “She's not going anywhere.”

“Deeks.” Her voice was quiet enough that he didn’t think they could hear her, but Deeks definitely caught the note of warning.

He didn’t really care. He wasn’t about to let her go off with some guys who would kill her in the blink of an eye. Especially once they found out there wasn’t a stupid black book.

“Then four of us die, and one of us lives,” the first man said, not sounding overly concerned. That probably had something to do with them being outnumbered.

“He's got a point. All right. Take me.” Kensi did turn to him then, apparently astonished by his suggestion.

“Deeks.” There was a wealth of meaning in her voice and Deeks noticed the first gunman follow the exchange eagerly.

“She's just a cop. You know? She's not even an agent,” he said flippantly. “Tell you the truth, no one really even likes her that much. You know, too pretty for her own good. Kind of a snob.”

“Get in the car.” His heart hammered in his chest at the Russian’s instructions, his fingers sweaty as they clamped uselessly around Kensi’s gun.

“Kensi, don't move,” he ordered her, knowing deep down that she wouldn’t listen to him.

“Nice try, Deeks.” She lowered her weapon, disarmed, and tossed it in the passenger seat of the car.

“Kensi.” He was pleading with her not to go, even though he knew there was little choice. If she didn’t, they’d both be shot. He glanced at her and she managed a tiny smile.

“It's okay. You'll get me back,” she said, locking eyes with him. It was just for a moment, but the faith he saw there nearly made him gasp. What if he couldn’t?

She didn’t give him time to protest anymore, joining the Russians.

“Tell your superior, her life for the book,” the Russian said.

“I’ll figure out a way to get you back, Kensi,” he promised as they roughly shoved her into the vehicle. “Kensi!” One of the Russians shout out the tires in the SUV and he swore as they took off.

He felt nauseous and had to swallow harshly to stop himself from throwing up. Leaning against the now useless vehicle, he pulled out his phone with shaky fingers and dialed Eric’s direct line.

He didn’t even let Eric finished his greeting before he started speaking.

“Eric, I got a license plate for you. It's Nine-Queen-John-Item, Nine-Zero-Five.” His voice shook at the end and his knees felt ready to collapse. “They got her. I let them take Kensi.”

***

A/N: I think this is part 18, but I might be wrong.

#ncis la fanfiction #the agent and the lawyer #marty deeks #kensi blye #densi #au #part 18 #ejzah fanfiction

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ladykatibeth · 4 years

Text

“Missing”

Fandom: Sander Sides

Rating: Teen for swearing

Summary:The crown prince of the kingdoms goes on a quest to find his brother, meanwhile a famers kid meets up with a friend.

A/N: Will be continued,if you want to feel free to ask questions about the characters! I have my inbox open. Feel free to reblog.

Remus was Missing.

Remus was missing and Roman didn’t know where he was. Remus was missing, and he was gone for good this time, and Roman didn’t know what to do.

Remus was missing--his twin was missing. His twin was missing, Remus was--

Roman should have done something, noticed sooner. Or even noticed at all. Remus had always been loud, obnoxiously loud, Roman had remarked a couple of times. Remus had been a bit quieter than usual, the past week. But Remus had always had his ups and downs, despite what it might have seemed Remus couldn’t keep up his high energy forever. Every once in a while he ended up crashing.

Roman should have known though. Should have picked it out. Should have noticed. But he had been so busy last week. Well, busier than usual. There's always lessons, boring parties where adults talked about stupid things, and other such duties. But that week he had been preparing to do a speech, anxiously prepping and preparing. He had been so stressed, being crown prince was no easy task, honestly sometimes he just wanted to get away.

Maybe that's why Remus left.

Maybe--

Roman could feel his breath hitch in his throat, his eyes were wet, why was he crying? Why couldn’t he breathe?

Roman felt a hand on his shoulder. He tensed as he suddenly remembered where he was. His hands were gripping the bed. The breath slowly returned to his lungs, maybe he had been cursed. Cursed by some breath stealing fairy. That would actually be a good idea for a story, he’d have to return to that later.

“Roman?” Right. Later. He looked up to see Logan looking down at him with a concerned expression on his face. Roman could almost find it in himself to smile. Logan would know what to do. Logan always knew what to do.

“Are you okay?”

“Do I look like I'm okay?” Roman threw his arms around, nearly hitting Logan, who had started to sit down next to Roman.

Logan frowned. “I don't understand, you and I both know disappearing is not out of the realm of your brother's usual behavior. He runs off somewhere, every third week.” His frown deepened. “You both do, actually, no matter how hard I try to stop you.”

Logan had become Roman and Remus’s court companion, by nature of being literally the only other child that lived in the castle. The title wasn't exactly official, but that's what everyone had taken to calling him, almost affectionately. And Logan did the job as best as he could. Making sure neither one of them got themselves killed.

Logan also happened to be the son of Roman and Remus’s tutor. He excelled in almost everything, math, science, geography even English, though he struggled with the metaphors. Out of the three of them, Logan had always gotten the best scores. Roman might have called it favoritism if he didn’t know Logan so well.

Roman passed Logan the note he held crumpled up in his hand. In his despair he had almost forgotten it had been there. Logan carefully read over the material, his face changing only slightly, so slightly Roman wouldn't have caught it if he hadn't known what to look for. He squinted adjusting his glasses.

Of course, knowing what was in the letter himself helped. Roman had reread it over and over again, after finding it on his nightstand that morning.

Ro,

I'm leaving. For good this time. Don’t blame yourself, don't try to come after me, because I don’t want to come back. I don't know what I'll do next, maybe become a pirate? Or live in the woods in a cave,like a bear, and run around naked and eat wild plants! Who knows. I’ll decide later. Anyway, I’ll write to you if I find a way to from wherever I’m going. Say goodbye to Lo for me.

Ps. Don't show this to Mom.You know she’ll come after me.

Pps. If you show this to Mom I'll come back to the castle and bludgeon you. I am not above fratricide.

Roman had quickly hid that note under his pillow. And then he pulled it out to read it again, before sticking it back. He had been doing that all morning. He had at first felt angry, how dare he leave him to do this by himself, that hadn’t been the plan! That's what twins were for! So you didn't have to do things like stealing cookies from cooks, or running kingdoms, alone!

So that was that then. His brother was gone, he left, purposefully disappeared. Roman was going to tackle him if he found him. When he found him. Determination flooded into him.

Logan looked up at him. Probably seeing something in his eyes, he said “You’re going to go try to find him.” He looked at him disapprovingly.

Shit.

“I have to--!” Roman said. Roman drew short, and quickly looked around. He lowered his voice, “I'm going, and you can’t stop me!” Logan glared at him.

Roman glared back, harder. Logan maintained his gaze for a second then looked away, sighing. “Fine, then, I will accompany you.”

“You don't have to-” Roman said. Logan raised an eyebrow.

“I know I don't have to.” He walked over to Roman’s closet and grabbed a bag. “Pack some clothes, I’ll make a list of things we need, and draft a plan.” He placed the bag down next to Roman.

For the first time today Roman smiled. He could almost taste the adventure coming up on the horizon.

-----

Patton couldn’t wait to see his friend! He had said they could meet up today. Patton was so excited he sped through his chores. And boy, there were a lot!

Not that Patton ever really minded that much. He loved the animals on the farm. And he liked getting up early, and getting to watch the sun rise. The only problem was that he had finished too early. By the time he had gotten back it was already twelve O’clock and he still had two more hours to wait.

It was currently 1:30. He still had thirty minutes to wait, but his friend was rarely on time. Sometimes he came early, but mostly he came “fashionably” late as he had called it once. Patton had laughed.

Patton was sitting by the edge of the forest, near his house. The grass underneath Patton's hands was soft, and the sun shone brightly through the trees. The wind felt breezy, tousling through his hair. Patton giggled.

Patton's thoughts wandered to when he met his friend. It was almost a year ago, Patton had been playing around near the woods. His mama had told him to never to go in them. So Patton stayed around them, sure to never get too close to the trees. But Patton had thought he heard crying.

At first he was able to convince himself it was nothing, just the wind rustling through the trees, but the sound grew louder until it could not be classified as anything but sobbing. All thoughts of getting in trouble fled him. Someone was hurting, he needed to help them.

He had wandered slowly into the woods, holding his breath. Barely making a sound. He walked on the path, trying to listen from where he thought he had heard the sound. If somebody was hurt he had to help. Nevermind the fear slowly creeping up his spine.

As he journeyed farther and farther into the woods, the volume of the crying would cycle. Just as he thought he was about to reach the person, it would decrease again. Patton was just starting to think that he’d been tricked when he heard movement in the trees.

He turned around.

Nobody was there.

He slowly turned forward.

A snake was hanging down from the tree, right by him. Patton screamed. He fell backwards and froze. The black and yellow snake drew up close to him. So close he could see the wrinkly outline of its scales. Its eyes were cat-like. The snake's head nodded to the side, an expression that, on a human, would certainly be read as amused curiosity.

Patton got up and ran.

He could feel air rushing past him. He was running on autopilot, passing through trees and ducking under vines. Low hanging branches and thorny bushes nicked at his skin. He nearly avoided tripping over a couple of twigs and branches. He slowed down to a light jog, before stopping and sitting on a log to catch his breath. Patton looked around.

Nothing looked familiar. Patton thought he had come out from his left side. He walked back that way. Trying to go the way he remembered coming from, turning left and right. Just as he thought he would never make it out of these woods, he saw light. Light! Patton ran toward it.

Only to find himself back in the same place he started.

He tried again, and again, changing directions, taking lefts where last time he took rights. But every time he found himself in the same place. It didn't help that the tree markers seemed to flip and change randomly. And Patton couldn't shake the feeling that he was being watched. “Why cant you just leaf me alone?” He tried to joke, but his punning fell flat.

He sat back down on his log, and started to cry.

He heard something move in the trees. His breath hitched, and he looked up. A boy about his age was sitting on a branch and looking down at him, lazily dangling a leg off the side of the tree.

His clothes were dark. Pretty fancy for the woods, Patton thought. The boy had a button down shirt, and a cloak wrapped around him. He had yellow gloves, and a hat Patton had never seen before. Patton thought he looked like a storybook villain.

“Crying is, absolutely, one of the best, most productive, responses one could have to getting lost in the woods.” Patton whipped his face with his sleeve. That was kind of a mean thing for him to say.

“Hello!” Patton said, trying to make himself seem happier than he felt. “My name is Patton!”

The boy looked sharply down at him and hissed a half-whisper, “Could you be any louder? I’d love for you to make it known to the whole world that I’m up here!”

Patton frowned. This convo wasn’t going well at all. He pushed forward, and half-whispered “Sorry, it's nice to meet you, what's your name?”

The boy tipped his hat. “You can call me Deceit.” They sat in silence for a minute.

“Well…” Patton began.

“Well?” Deceit said.

“Well, It's just, I'm kinda lost….”Patton trailed off.

“Clearly.”

“And you seem to know these woods a bit…..” Deceit’s expression didn’t change.

“So maybe,” Patton paused, “Maybe you could help me out?” The end of his statement went high.

Deceit must have seen the desperation on his face. Because he said, “Look, I'm not in the habit of doing favors for people, but I am willing to make an exchange.”

Patton gasped. A snake had appeared where Deceit once was. It slithered up the branch and down the tree. As soon as the snake hit the ground, Deceit reappeared.

So he was the one that scared him earlier!

“Here's the deal, I will help you home, if you agree to do me a favor.” Deceit held out his hand to shake it. Patton reached for it, automatically. Stopping just short of shaking it.

“Wait.” Patton had said tilting his head curiously “What favor?”

“You’ll know it when the time comes.” Patton hesitated for a moment, and then stood up and shook Deceits hand.

And in the end that had turned out to be a great decision! Patton had gotten a new friend! A friend that was running towards him right now. Now that’s a bit weird. Deceit doesn't runs, he just slithers all over the place. Patton giggled a bit at the joke.

His smile became tented with concern when he noticed Deceit had a look of panic on his face. Patton grabbed him by the arms. “Hey, hey, what's the matter, kiddo?”

“Patton, you have to hide me!” Deceit said.

#sander sides #deceit sanders #roman sanders #patton sanders #logan sanders #remus sanders #missing #fanfic

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sunlightdances · 5 years

Text

Focal Point

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Female Reader Prompt: “What’s with this…sassy lost child?” Rating/warnings: PG. Warnings for Bucky being a cocky idiot. Summary: You take PR photos for Pepper Potts and are semi-successfully navigating your giant, unavoidable crush on one James Buchanan Barnes. Author’s Note: This is for @kentuckybarnes’ 3k writing challenge! Congrats, Hannah, and thanks for hosting! As always, please don’t repost my work on any other sites (wattpad, ao3, etc.) without my permission. Reblogs are gold!

Links are broken - you can find my full Bucky master list on my blog! May not work for some mobile users. Sorry!

You’re standing off to one side as Bucky and Sam answer a few questions from the small crowd gathered, mostly kids and their parents. Sam, as always, is re-telling the PG events from their last mission with blistering enthusiasm, leaving Bucky shaking his head.

It doesn’t matter - the kids are eating it up. It’s times like this you really love your job. You’re… you don’t know what your official job title is, actually. There are days when you’re not even sure if you’re technically employed by Stark Industries, or The Avengers, or some other secret organization. All you know is that one day you showed up to volunteer at an event for Pepper Potts, and the next thing you know, you’re at all the events. You take photos, you help make sure they stick to schedule, and essentially make sure they’re in the right place at the right time. It’s public relations, but it doesn’t feel like that a lot of the time. They make you feel like you fit in, like you’re a friend.

This event in particular is your favorite - at a local children’s hospital, shaking hands and spending time with the kids. Pepper arranges it so the team can do it a few times a year if they can, and their visit is always anticipated by kids and their parents.

It’s anticipated by you, too, because-- you’re not dumb, these superheroes are somehow more attractive when they’re accompanied by small children.

Now, Bucky is crouched down next to a little girl, his eyes lighting up as she tells him a story, her arms flailing as she goes, and he nods and oohs and ahhs at all the appropriate points. It’s adorable, and you feel yourself blushing when he glances over and catches you staring. But really-- how else are you supposed to react? He winks, like he’s conspiring with you somehow, and it makes you feel… things. You turn away quickly before you look like an even bigger idiot.

You snap a few photos for parents and a few shots to send to Pepper, and then you’re all piling in the van to go back home, and you back to work. You have an office in the Avengers compound, which doubles as Stark Industries these days.

“Make sure you send me those photos of my good side,” Sam says from the backseat, and you smirk.

“Which side is that?” You ask, laughing when you hear Bucky and Steve’s reaction - a loud laugh from Steve and a surprised noise from Bucky.

“That was harsh. I don’t think I’ll ever recover.”

“Lucky for you, you don’t have a bad side, Sam.” The three of you are stupidly handsome, you think.

The rest of the ride back upstate is quiet. Bucky’s reading, Steve is scribbling in a well-worn journal, and Sam’s asleep. You flick through your camera, making mental notes about which photos to delete and which ones to edit and get back to Pepper.

Your thumb hovers over the delete button on a photo of Bucky and Sam, the two of them laughing about something. Bucky’s looking straight into the lens. It’s not something you’d use, normally, but you find yourself hesitating. It’s like he’s looking right at you.

Bucky clears his throat in the backseat, and when you look in the rearview mirror, he’s already looking at you. Shit. You fumble with your camera. Did he just see you staring at his photo like some lovesick teenager? You feel your face flushing with embarrassment.

Luckily, you’re saved by the arrival at the compound, and you practically leap out of the van and high tail it to your office.

“No goodbyes? Cold!” Sam calls, but you ignore him.

Safely inside, you shut the door behind you and sit back in your chair, eyes closing. “Jesus Christ,” you mutter to yourself, trying to regain your composure.

“Is everything alright? Your pulse is elevated.” F.R.I.D.A.Y.’s voice rings out. Called out by the AI? Great. Not to mention if she realizes your pulse is elevated, there’s no way Bucky and Steve didn’t notice too.

“I’m fine, F.R.I.D.A.Y., thank you.”

Trying to relax, you log on to your computer and scroll through a few emails that came in while you were out, responding to a few, but deciding ultimately to start editing those photos.

When you get to the one of Bucky and Sam, you upload it, but delete it off the camera. Fidgeting, you open a new email.

Subject: Photos from Hospital Trip - attached Sergeant Barnes, Thought you might want this photo from the trip today. Won’t be using it for PR, so I attached a copy. I’ll send one to Sam, as well.

You hit ‘send’ before you can talk yourself out of it, and get busy editing so you’re not tempted to stare at your inbox all day.

The next day, a knock at your office door breaks your concentration, and you peer at the door overtop your reading glasses.

“Is this a bad time?”

Bucky.

“Oh, no, it’s fine, come in.” You stand and start to clear some paperwork from your desk, shoving everything in a drawer in an attempt to look like you’ve got it together. “What can I do for you?”

“I wanted to see the other pictures from the hospital trip, if that’s okay.” He scratches the back of his neck, smiling. “The one you sent was… good. You mentioned if I wanted copies…”

“Sure, yeah. I can pull them up…” you slide back into your desk chair, fingers flying over your keyboard. “I just finished editing them this morning. Any in particular?”

“Just want to see whatever you’ve got, if that’s okay.”

You realize what a predicament you’re in when he comes around your desk to peer at the screen, his large frame taking up more space than you’re prepared for. He’s close. He also smells really good, like clean laundry, and something woodsy… you clear your throat, pulling up the photos he wants to see.

“These are really good,” he murmurs, and you can just tell that he’s smiling.

You open your mouth to say something flirty, you hope, but you’re interrupted by F.R.I.D.A.Y.

“Sergeant Barnes? There’s a visitor waiting for you in the lobby.”

You can practically feel him tense up. Everyone he knows lives here.

“Who is it?”

“She says you met at the hospital, sir. Allison Smith?”

Bucky’s face screws up in confusion. He looks down at you. “I better go see what this is about.” He pauses, halfway to the door. “Thanks again,” he says, a slow, devastating smile stretching across his face. You feel your heart rate speed up again, and curse him under your breath when he leaves.

He’s definitely under your skin, and you just wish he wasn’t so… stupidly handsome. Maybe then you’d be able to just treat him like another coworker.

A few hours later, you’re in the common area looking for Pepper. You need her to sign off on a few marketing proposals, and want to ask her about the photos from the hospital trip. When you get to the sitting area, you’re struck by the sight of a small girl sitting there, a stuffed animal in her lap.

“Um.” You say out loud, not really expecting an answer.

“Who are you?” She asks loudly.

“Who am I?” You sputter, “I should be asking you that.”

“Do you have super powers?”

You blink. “What? No. I’m--”

“You’re just normal, then?” She asks, deadpan.

You open your mouth to reply but then Bucky and Steve come into the room, both with furrowed brows and slightly wide eyes. They look a little shell shocked. You’d laugh if you weren’t so confused.

“What’s with this…sassy lost child?”

“She ran away from home. I guess she hit it off with Bucky yesterday while we visited with her sister at the hospital, and wanted to come see him.” Steve says, and you watch as Bucky goes to sit next to the small girl, asking her something in a low, gentle voice.

“How did she get here?”

“Stole some money from her Mom’s purse and took a cab,” Steve scowls, but there’s a hint of amusement in his eyes. “Gotta give it to her, she’s got guts.”

Bucky, meanwhile, is showing the girl something on his tablet, the sound turned down but whatever it is makes her laugh. You can’t help but smile. Honestly… it’s like the universe is engineering these moments to force you to realize how attractive you find him.

“Her name is Allison.” Steve smiles, despite himself. “Her parents are on their way, but they live in the city. It’s going to be a little while. Any chance you can help keep her occupied?”

You snort. “I don’t know, she wasn’t very impressed with me.

Almost as if on cue, you feel someone tugging on your pant leg. “Excuse me? Mr. Bucky says you have a camera. A big one. Can I see it?”

You look over at Bucky, who shrugs.

“Sure thing,” You crouch down, “I might even know where we can get some candy, too.”

Allison’s eyes light up, her small hand gripping yours. You straighten up, deciding to throw caution to the wind. “Coming, Sergeant?” You ask, and Bucky’s eyes flash with… something, before he nods.

“Sure. Can’t leave my best girl alone, can I?” He asks, coming over to take Allison’s other hand.

You swallow hard, and the three of you start walking towards the elevators.

“F.R.I.D.A.Y. will let you know when her parents are here,” Steve calls, and Bucky waves his free hand over his head in acknowledgement.

The three of you make quite the sight walking through the halls of the compound, both holding hands with the small girl, who keeps chattering away, telling you both about her class at school.

You meet Bucky’s eyes over top of Allison’s head, and he raises his eyebrows as he smiles. You smile and duck your head, trying to figure out how you’re supposed to get through this day without turning into a literal puddle on the floor at Bucky’s feet.

In your office, Bucky takes up his spot by the door, sitting on the arm of a chair, arms crossed over his chest. Allison practically drags you to your desk, where your camera is sitting out.

You stand behind her to help her put the strap around her neck and show her how to look through the viewfinder. She giggles when Bucky makes a face at her when she aims the camera in his direction before snapping a photo. The sound is apparently satisfying, because she takes five more, and you step back, letting her do it on her own.

After an hour or so, she gets bored, and starts asking Bucky about his arm. At first you’re worried he might shut down, but he does the opposite. He gets down to her level and starts making up some grand story about how he got it, winking at you when he conveniently glosses over a lot of the details you know to be true.

F.R.I.D.A.Y. interrupts after a bit, letting you know that Allison’s parents are downstairs. The girl looks distraught.

“I’m gonna be in trouble!” She says, eyes welling up.

“I think we can work something out,” Bucky assures her, sweeping her up in his arms and tickling her sides as he pulls her over his shoulder. Her laugh is loud and bright, and you grin as you follow them out of the room and down to the elevator.

Steve is already there talking to Allison’s parents when you get to the lobby, Bucky holding Allison’s hand as you follow behind.

“I don’t want to go home,” She says sadly.

Bucky kneels down in front of her. “You can come visit whenever you want, okay? Just make sure your parents come with you next time.”

She nods. “Okay. Thank you, Mr. Bucky.” She looks up at you. “Will you be here next time I come, too?”

You’re a little surprised she even cares, considering what a big crush on Bucky she has. “If you want me to be, sure. I’ll let you help me take more pictures.”

She grins, giving Bucky one last hug before scampering over to her parents, who look equal parts upset and relieved to see her. After they leave, Steve heads off to who knows where, and you find yourself back in the elevator with Bucky.

You feel fidgety, like you don’t know what to say. You also feel like the air between you is charged, and it’s making you nervous.

“You were good with her,” you say finally, not able to stand the silence anymore.

He smiles softly. “I like her. She reminds me…” he trails off, shaking his head. “She reminds me of my kid sister.”

The smile on your face fades. He notices, and reassures you. “It’s okay.” He swallows, looks away for a moment. “You were good with her too. She liked you.”

You blush, “It helps when you have a camera.”

He scratches his beard. “She’s not the only one who likes you, you know?”

Before you can even formulate a response other than what is happening right now, the doors open, signalling your floor. He gestures for you to walk out ahead of him, and the rest of the walk to your office is silent. You think he can’t possibly have meant what you want him to mean. What reason would he have for liking you?

You’re moving around your desk trying desperately to put space between the two of you before he can say anything. “So, I’ll send you copies of those photos, and some of the ones Allison took today, if you want. If not, I’ll just--”

“Hey,” he says gently, coming up closer to you. “Hang on. If I was out of line back there, I’m sorry.”

Your brain is short circuiting. “No! No, you werent, I--” You’re flustered, unable to get your words out. All you know is you can’t let him leave. You stop yourself, briefly closing your eyes and taking a deep breath. “I like you. I do, but you make me so nervous.”

Bucky has the most smug smile on his face when you open your eyes. “Yeah?”

You roll your eyes. “Oh, god. Don’t let it go to your head.”

“I’ll try not to,” he says, smiling, his eyes intense on yours. “Any chance you’re free for dinner tonight?”

“I could probably pencil you in somewhere.”

A surprised laugh escapes him as he takes a few steps backwards out of your office, pointing at you. “Oh, you’re good. Yeah, see if you can make room for a recovering amnesiac to go out to dinner with a pretty girl, will you?”

Your mouth falls open. “Bucky! That’s not funny!”

He’s still grinning. “It was a little funny.”

“You’re… you’re so…”

He changes course, coming a few steps closer to you. “Go on…” His eyes are practically smoldering.

You blush furiously, trying not to keep smiling like a total idiot. This man just… god, he has a way of making you feel like a teenager again.

“I don’t have plans tonight.” You tell him.

Triumphantly, he claps his hands together. “Perfect how that worked out.”

“Uh huh.”

One more step closer.

“For the record, I’ve been trying to ask you out for weeks. You make me a little nervous, too.”

His voice is like honey poured over gravel. Smooth but rough at the same time. You think you’d listen to him read the phone book.

“Glad we’re on the same page, then.”

He hums in agreement, but whatever he was about to say next is interrupted by F.R.I.D.A.Y. saying he’s late for training with Natasha.

“Does seven work for you?” He asks.

“I suppose it does.”

He laughs again, the sound music to your ears. “Trouble. I should have known you’d be trouble.” He backs out of the room again. “I’ll see you at seven.”

You almost collapse into your desk chair when he leaves, struggling to keep your heart from beating its way right out of your chest. God. You have a date tonight. A date with Bucky Barnes.

Your computer still has that shot of Bucky and Sam pulled up, the one where he’s looking straight into the lens, and you can’t help the butterflies that start up in your stomach. You glance at your watch and suddenly can’t wait for seven o’clock to arrive.

#hannahs3kwritingchallenge #bucky barnes x reader #bucky x reader #bucky barnes imagine

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alexseanchai · 5 years

Note

Saw your posts about unofficial and official work rules, and also people never explaining what the rules were, so, well, here is my take on some of the internet usage rules as I've seen them? I don't have a tumblr, so dropping this in your anon is the only way I know to get it to you. I'm not sure if this might be useful, or if it's a completely useless (hopefully not offensive or rude?) mishmash of gibberish, but frankly, 1/15

Not rude! (Though for future reference, I have a Dreamwidth under the same handle, linked in my Tumblr bio, and you can fit a lot more text in a logged-out Dreamwidth comment than an anon Tumblr ask.)

So some of what you’re describing in this series of asks (and I’m gonna paste all those in below) involves context not applicable to the job I mentioned. Case in point, no customer was ever going to see me using the internet on the clock, because with rare exceptions no customer was ever going to see me, and zero of those exceptions would involve the customer laying eyes on either my work computer or my personal phone.

Also I kind of figured that if I worked fast enough and made few enough mistakes, nobody would want to get me in trouble. FREE ADVICE, KIDS: do not attempt to do two typical-coworkers’ worth of work when you know damn well it will not earn you two employees’ worth of paycheck. Also, the day you walk out of that office for the last time is the day your boss stops caring altogether about any health conditions your work caused or worsened. (This job was largely data entry. I did in fact consistently do one and a half to two times as much work as most of my coworkers. I was there for seven years. My hands are kinda fucked now.)

And part of the reason I posted was, this is a specific and pretty non-identifying example of an ableist pattern I wanted to illustrate and then yell about. So while I am really pleased you laid all this out, I am also pretty surprised!

Anyway, this sounds like useful stuff to keep in mind. Thank you 😸

The rest of the ask series follows the read-more:

my ADHD brain would have caused me to go nuts if I hadn’t figured out the rules at my workplaces, because I can’t handle lack of stimulation. That said, I’m ADHD, so take my understanding with a grain of salt, but I’m trying here. In regards to the “official” rules vs the “real” rules of personal internet usage at work, I’ve found there are three broad umbrella rules. 2/15

1. It actually matches, and there is no personal internet usage at work. This is the least common, but is the one you should assume is being used until you catch someone following one of the other versions. This is the one people will claim is in effect though, especially when you are new to the job and trying to figure out the real rules, which can be very frustrating. 3/15

2. Don’t get caught using the internet for personal reasons at work. This is more common.If you catch coworkers using the internet, pretend not to notice. See how many coworkers use the internet for personal things. If it widespread, it may be this rule. If it is just one or two coworkers, or just the boss’s favorites or the people who have been there longest, or the highest ranking ones, it may be that you have to “earn” moving from umbrella rule type 1 to type 2 somehow, 4/15

which can be very, very confusing. Subtly watch coworkers to see which variant of the don’t get caught rule this workplace follows. Common variants are Don’t get caught by anyone, Don’t get caught by the boss, Don’t make the boss OFFICIALLY catch you, Don’t let the customers catch you, and Don’t let boss OR customers catch you. 5/15

(sorry, asks made me wait for flooding, rest is coming!) 3. Give the boss plausible deniability/don’t make them catch you, UNLESS they initiate the personal internet usage. If THEY instigate it, or catch someone and choose to engage in the activity with you, it is sort of mentally classified as sanctioned team building or morale boosting, just as long as you don’t mention it to outsiders or people above boss. In a relaxed enough workplace, this last option may well look like 6/15

“as long as you get your actual work done, and no outsiders are present, go ahead and use the internet for personal stuff, just make sure to parrot the official rule if asked.” In all cases, it is expected that when asked, you parrot the Official Rule, as being caught sharing the real rule can get the boss in trouble and lead to them having to enforce the official rule. 7/15

Very few workplaces actually have the official rule as the real rule, but it is expected you will pretend it is the real rule. If you have to clue someone in to the real rule vs official rule, you must never leave any evidence such as writing, texts, or emails, the real rule can only be shared verbally and away from anyone who might overhear, and should only be shared if you trust the person you are telling not to tell the boss. 8/15

As an example, my previous boss had Official Rule no personal internet usage, but the real rule was “Have a plausible sounding excuse for any personal internet usage so the boss doesn’t officially have to notice your personal internet usage and has a reason to assume any glimpses of personal use are actually somehow related to work. Do not allow any customers to catch you using personal internet. Do not leave record of personal internet usage, as boss could be forced to notice this. 9/15

During last hour of work, IF all other tasks for the day are completed and no new tasks are short enough to be started, you may check personal emails and look up dinner recipes semi-openly, so long as customers are not ever left waiting and periodical ‘we are closing soon’ tasks are carried out on time. Additionally, if you have just completed a mentally demanding major task and no customers need help, it is permissible to spend 5-15 minutes on personal internet usage, 10/15

so long as customers don’t notice. This personal internet usage is meant to clear the mind of the stress of the last task, and should be followed by starting another mentally taxing task, especially if you are caught by boss. The correct response if caught during this personal internet break is 'I just finished X task, just watching the desk for a bit and resetting my brain before I start on Y task, unless you wanted me to do something else next.’” 11/15

Fairly complex rule, honestly. Among ourselves, we shortened it to “Keep personal usage to the private browser, close it if you leave the desk, don’t do it in front of the boss unless you have a plausible excuse, never EVER let a customer catch you, one of them is a snitch and tells boss’s boss on us, and he feels bad whenever he is forced to tell us off for getting caught even though he personally doesn’t care.” He was an option 3 variety, 12/15

as he sometimes would share not-work internet stuff during slow times, or ask about co-worker’s dinner recipe searches at the end of the day, or very rarely mention if we needed to check our personal email for some reason, to use the private browser. If he hadn’t occasionally given the go ahead for personal usage in his presence, it would have been an option 2 of the “don’t make the boss official notice or let the customers catch you” rule situation. 13/15

Wow, rereading that is kind of daunting, to be honest. I hadn’t really realized how nuanced some of that was, and I know I’m probably leaving some stuff out. Boss recently changed, so I’ve been having to slowly test the waters with new boss, otherwise I probably wouldn’t have been able to articulate even this much. 14/15

I thought the comments about people not being willing to share the real rules sounded frustrated, and like trying to explain might not be taboo, so I tried to explain what I could, but if this isn’t welcome, I’m sorry for offending. Good luck trying to navigate this nonsense of unspoken rules. 15/15

#actually autistic #actually adhd #chronic pain #cn capitalists #Anonymous

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punkscowardschampions · 4 years

Text

Sick Kids Group Chat

sonmychest: 🤗 tigerbalm: 👋🧡 tigerbalm: it's been so long! 🙀 how are you?? sonmychest: I know! I suck sonmychest: don't want to be the youtuber spending ten minutes apologizing for not being here though sonmychest: I'm doing pretty good right now, how are you? 😚 tigerbalm: it's a bad day, not a bad life...is what I would caption if I was an instagram influencer or something 😸😸 brainpain: 🦸 speaking for me when I haven't streamed in days LOL sonmychest: 🤭🤭 sonmychest: at least we have reasons for being that #extra that aren't the vague notion of NEEDING a break from taking pictures of our ☕ brainpain: I do spend LOTS of time in a dark room but not for 📸 no flash photography PLEASE 😵 inandout: your feed just updated, Lo brainpain: 👮🚓🚨 sonmychest: stalking or hacking? sonmychest: either way I might need those expertise brainpain: I had a 🌈✨🧁 FIGHT ME, Zachary tigerbalm: it is pretty tbh inandout: friend request, but it's not as if I don't have zero hacking or stalking skills sonmychest: wait, what happened to the anonymity rules??? sonmychest: where's @gotspoons and what have you done with her?! inandout: you missed the overthrowing of a tyrant inandout: not really, but the rule book is gone gotspoons: going to pretend I was summoned by mention, not notification gotspoons: say how you really feel, Zach! 😔 inandout: I said not really, rowboat gotspoons: I have 👀 and 👂 everywhere so you better be nice 😏🤭 gotspoons: but no, hi again, @sonmychest! we missed you! gotspoons: it seemed the whole no names no real life details thing was more of a hindrance than a help to the whole goal of this group, so we came to the conclusion by majority, and the higher ups were all okay with it, providing everyone under a certain age got their parents to sign off and we all used the same common sense we use on other areas of the web gotspoons: so feel free to introduce yourself by real name if you would like, but it's not necessary if you would not 😊 gotspoons: reintroduce, I should say tigerbalm: we shared selfies & everyone was 😻😻😻 brainpain: learned what a sex god @tooexhaustedtolivevicariously aka Rich is sonmychest: 😱😱😱 sonmychest: can't believe I've missed so much sonmychest: need to get better at socialization, my mammy is right 😂 brainpain: an unrivalled love story brainpain: not that he's here to back me up on that inandout: Paris and Helen who? Romeo and Juliet who? Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII who? tigerbalm: wait, those are all 💔😿!! brainpain: he's being a brainpain: insert a swear word of your choice sonmychest: *stage whispers* it's not jealousy though, is it? sonmychest: clearly, fill me in on all the nuances whilst I frantically try to find a picture of myself that's even one 😻 brainpain: he's a 👶 you already know brainpain: but Rich will be leaving me for some uni girl 🤓 so he's not wrong about the doomed part sonmychest: face that launched a thousand ships is a really great insta bio though sonmychest: right, so we have Rich, Zach...who else? gotspoons: Rosie here 🤗 brainpain: Lauren tigerbalm: & me, Robyn inandout: the new girl who started the revolution is Zelda inandout: @ihatemyguts sonmychest: no way sonmychest: a fellow nerd, or at least child-of-a-nerd sonmychest: 'cos I'm Kara and I don't totally hate this photo [selfie] tigerbalm: 😻😻 tigerbalm: you look so like I imagined you, except I thought maybe you'd be 👼 tigerbalm: should we all send new pics? brainpain: [does because any excuse] brainpain: they'll be buried tigerbalm: [a selfie that's even shyer than the first one she sent] gotspoons: [the same photo as before] inandout: if I must [some ridiculous selfie] tooexhaustedtolivevicariously: This is a nice welcome back tooexhaustedtolivevicariously: and I've only been to physio brainpain: NOT ready for another selfie drop from you, boy brainpain: I'll be on my fainting couch brainpain: also hi tooexhaustedtolivevicariously: Perhaps I should save your 🦴s and my pride when poor Kara, hello again btw, has to pretend to swoon too brainpain: 🦸 has great taste brainpain: we all love a shy boy tooexhaustedtolivevicariously: My teachers undoubtedly wish I were shy, make their lives a lot easier tooexhaustedtolivevicariously: [a photo] here we are anyway, I hope you found a soft surface suitable for you, Lauren brainpain: ☁ tooexhaustedtolivevicariously: Ah, so you're the 👼 brainpain: LMAO 😈 brainpain: but you're looking angelic sir sonmychest: how are you ALL so cute sonmychest: this keeps happening, omg tooexhaustedtolivevicariously: 👼 face hides a multitude of 😈 sins apparently inandout: but reading between the lines, who else is making you swoon/stalk/hack inandout: that's my question tooexhaustedtolivevicariously: Well spotted, Zachary 🔎 sonmychest: 🙈 ugh, I'm so embarrassing sonmychest: but we can pretend it's all spilling out now because I played it SO cool in the actual conversation, right 😬😅 inandout: that's the official story, everyone'll confirm sonmychest: thanks, I need the backup so I can also pretend I have lots of friends and a normal social life gotspoons: we are your friends, Kara! gotspoons: though are normal is different from most tigerbalm: & you're coming to my birthday party & even though you have to stand on the other side of the room to Zach, it's still social tigerbalm: OH & we were talking about potentially meeting up!! All of us brainpain: keep it 6ft, children inandout: I'll be in the garden with my date, you can have the indoors with yours inandout: collectively, because we're all speed dating here now inandout: proud of you for picking someone outside this circle sonmychest: GAH so much exciting information today!!! sonmychest: 😁 sonmychest: obviously, I figured no one needed the drama of me falling for you, Zach sonmychest: 💀 not cute inandout: there's already a book and film about it, the chance has been thoroughly missed brainpain: Ignore him, Zelda's nothing but thrilled to find someone else in her age bracket brainpain: 👶👶 brainpain: hit us with your 💞 please sonmychest: well, I didn't just re-log into this chat today, I went on all my old forums because well, boredom, we can all relate, right? sonmychest: what I thought would be the least promising one was the sonmychest: not a dating site, I'm not 100 but you know the kind sonmychest: anyway, the CUTEST boy starts talking to me and he's also really funny and nice ??? tigerbalm: OMG! Did you swap selfies there too? sonmychest: not yet sonmychest: because he sounds so 😻😻 sonmychest: and he wants to talk to me again and he might not if we do tigerbalm: you're 😻😻😻 Kara brainpain: what she said brainpain: + if he's as funny, nice, all of that, as you said brainpain: I doubt he's a shallow jerk inandout: are you a good judge of character or not? inandout: what it comes down to sonmychest: oh, thank you guys! sonmychest: I don't know sonmychest: I think I am sonmychest: he didn't immediately come out with weird requests or weird 📸 of his own and that's a massive start on that site, I was honestly there to 🗑 my account but he changed my mind brainpain: I'll PM you the spooky stories my sister sends me about guys, it'll make you feel better brainpain: you'd know if he was one sonmychest: 🤭 do, can compare notes sonmychest: we honestly just talked about totally normal, nerdy things, it wasn't even a little sketch brainpain: ✉️ + 100000000s brainpain: hold up tigerbalm: that sounds 🧡 & so does this boy tigerbalm: awwhhh sonmychest: [sends the description he sent her slow your roll gal lol] sonmychest: assuming he isn't the archetypal internet weirdo from the 90s scare tactics tigerbalm: WOW inandout: tall, dark and handsome inandout: original sonmychest: okay, I know that covers a lot of bases sonmychest: but someone has to be brainpain: continuing to ignore you, Zach sonmychest: I get it though sonmychest: it's not like I even care what he looks like though, so even if the pics aren't exactly that description brainpain: not every man can be my Rich but doesn't make them 👹/🤡/👻/👽/👥 brainpain: trust your gut, it's not that body part that's failing you tooexhaustedtolivevicariously: 👹 is a solid representation but the hair needs to be longer tooexhaustedtolivevicariously: at the risk of making myself or Zachary appear like overly protective boys, I think as long as you're as sensible as you surely are with this, then there's no harm in the back and forth tooexhaustedtolivevicariously: so if you were going to meet this person IRL, he could perhaps come to the group meet-up, that would be a good way to do it? brainpain: *🧝🏻 that's what needs to be said about your representation tigerbalm: Great idea, Rich! 😺 tooexhaustedtolivevicariously: when the beard comes in I'll look more Gimli than Elrond but I'll take the compliment 👽 babe from outerspace brainpain: who's watching the LoTRs with me? gotspoons: count me out, I'm the worst film buddy ever 😴 ihatemyguts: how many naps could you have in 20hr28mins assuming we're watching everything extended release 'cos duh ihatemyguts: 🥳 go hard or go home 🥳 brainpain: that's you in ihatemyguts: of course ihatemyguts: long since stopped asking for a pause every time I gotta 💩 ihatemyguts: adept at catching up with the plot is a life skill I didn't expect to gain like this but 🙌 gotspoons: 😅 I could do the whole 20hr28mins and that not be a record for how many hours I've slept consecutively brainpain: I'll act it out for you, I can get the 🧝🏼🏹 costume together during the pauses brainpain: dressing up box runneth over sonmychest: 🙋 dibs Arwen sonmychest: my old Katniss cosplay can be repurposed with some bedsheets and a 👸 vibe to it brainpain: that makes Rich your daddy 👀 you, babe sonmychest: 😖😳 nooooooooooo brainpain: I'll be Galadriel if only so I can speak to my man telepathically 💕 brainpain: swerving off book for that love connection ihatemyguts: obviously eye of sauron ihatemyguts: jokes write themselves inandout: hair of a hobbit wig so likewise inandout: and you know, a jew, gonna be the one to handle the 💎 tooexhaustedtolivevicariously: How hairy are your feet, a pickup line that doesn't get thrown about enough inandout: not sending you free feet pics inandout: PM for prices though tooexhaustedtolivevicariously: Respect the hustle, Zachary tooexhaustedtolivevicariously: but I have clearly pledged myself and my allegiance to an e-girl already 🧝🏼🏹 brainpain: changed my Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim name to Galadriel for you, Richard, you've officially made me basic brainpain: will cite it in the divorce tooexhaustedtolivevicariously: as long as I can proudly produce said divorce to every mouthbreather that calls me a freak, I am okay with that tooexhaustedtolivevicariously: devastated, naturally 💔 but okay brainpain: hit me up for multiple re-marriages at your convenience, I like that for us tooexhaustedtolivevicariously: Make a solid livestream 👰💒🤵 gotspoons: I'll get officiated! tigerbalm: imagine if any of us actually did get together cos of this forum gotspoons: You never know, Robyn gotspoons: it would be so adorable 😊 tigerbalm: Kara is giving me hope that online dating doesn't have to be a minefield sonmychest: don't give up yet! sonmychest: you're so lovely, a total catch tigerbalm: there still isn't a blushing 😸 emoji & I NEED it ihatemyguts: a travesty ihatemyguts: who do we need to @ for that brainpain: @fibrofog brainpain: he was a BIG DEAL ihatemyguts: 😏 hoping he comes back and I can 👰💒🤵 him obvs brainpain: 🔺 between me/him/Rich was prime in my life ihatemyguts: glory dayz brainpain: if he doesn't show up to stop our first wedding ihatemyguts: Zach won't even properly date me until we're confirmed #foreveralone at 18 inandout: you don't call this properly dating? inandout: @Kara you've got yourself a hater before your romance has fully taken off ihatemyguts: oi, don't drag me in to your 🧂 behaviour ihatemyguts: I'm very nice, I swear inandout: that's just how I taste inandout: she knows brainpain: if I didn't know my CF facts I'd be calling for a ban brainpain: that sounds filthy sonmychest: first declaring Rich my daddy, now 👅 Zach 😲😲😲 sonmychest: I'm also quite nice but not that kind of nice, I 🤞 tigerbalm: I don't think I wanna know.... inandout: But I'll tell you inandout: when we sweat, we lose too much salt, one of our many flaws inandout: on a hot day, you could lick us and taste it, if we like you enough to let you sonmychest: maybe that can be enough of a selling point? sonmychest: if crush boy talks to me again and it invariably comes up inandout: he might get to see it crystallise on your skin, not 💎 or ✨ but hey sonmychest: such a sexy condition, when you leave out all the mucus inandout: ZZ top is feeling it, she wants to properly date me ihatemyguts: 🧂 is a flavour I can enjoy pretty unrestricted ihatemyguts: let me have some pleasure tigerbalm: do the normies flirt like this too? tigerbalm: Kara you'll have to tell us, when you go further undercover ihatemyguts: don't know how lucky you are to have that pickup line in your back pocket ihatemyguts: just add tequila and a lemon and you've got a good time sonmychest: I'll 100% report back, providing he doesn't go 👻 brainpain: you need a drink when a boy lovingly strokes your hair only to feel the dent in your 💀 sonmychest: but also, to work out if your amazing hair is real or nah brainpain: I have too many split ends to be asked if it's a wig sonmychest: I ✂ my own sonmychest: and not often enough 😅 brainpain: don't reach for the bleach cos Robbie sees you as a blonde, there's my sisterly/old lady advice sonmychest: oh God, with these brows? sonmychest: I can swear I won't do that, along with meet up with internet randos alone brainpain: I'd volunteer to come along but I don't do disappearing into the background brainpain: would wear a trenchcoat for the right 💸💸 gotspoons: Normies definitely TRY to use our disabilities as a way to flirt with us, with varying success gotspoons: the amount of time I spend in bed is nothing to be 😏 about, honestly gotspoons: even if I was also chiming in to confirm blondes do have more fun, when they've had all their vitamins, a perfect amount of sleep, the stars have aligned JUST right... 🤭 tooexhaustedtolivevicariously: as resident ♿ user, they most ask if IT 'works', which is a bizarre level of care for people who aren't concerned about how me getting into their establishment really 'works' tooexhaustedtolivevicariously: and, my dear, you are a terrible third wheel tooexhaustedtolivevicariously: 🔻 suits you better than obscurity 😎 brainpain: but I am a fun time with the TBI having increased the impulsiveness + removing the few inhibitions I did have 😉 brainpain: inappropriate sexual activity is a listed symptom 🤞 boys ihatemyguts: definitely a case of 'okay when I point it out to embolden myself, creepy if you do it' ihatemyguts: think some normies point out their flaws to be endearing but idk, is low-key a disability superpower guys, + 1 for us brainpain: like, what does that mean? Inappropriate for who? Answers on a ✉️ please ihatemyguts: could range from, science, you're being a prude to calling you a master criminal on the low brainpain: so many of my symptoms could describe anyone in their teens or early 20s brainpain: Rich, write a smart boy uni essay on it tooexhaustedtolivevicariously: depending on the bit that gets damaged, could be the same part that isn't yet fully developed in young people tooexhaustedtolivevicariously: checks out 🧠 brainpain: you're SO clever brainpain: you'll be fighting off more than one 🤓 girl tooexhaustedtolivevicariously: I'm not sure about that, on either count tooexhaustedtolivevicariously: though the chair is a useful battering ram when it needs to be brainpain: I'm into it tooexhaustedtolivevicariously: then you can hitch a ride, of course brainpain: reserved™ tooexhaustedtolivevicariously: the parking is unparalleled brainpain: not allowed to drive, you are my transport now, no pressure gotspoons: Me either, who can? gotspoons: need to work out the carpool situation brainpain: my housemate will, she owes me 10000s of favours inandout: + my parents tigerbalm: mine too but they're a lot to inflict upon anyone sonmychest: ^^hard same tigerbalm: maybe we get ourselves there unless someone can't? tigerbalm: & those people speak up sonmychest: That makes sense to me brainpain: ok, is there anyone who needs a lift? ihatemyguts: I'm good tooexhaustedtolivevicariously: likewise gotspoons: I'll make a permanent post where people can register interest in the meet-up, as well as need for a lift gotspoons: so anyone who can offer a lift, can respond there too, sound good guys? 😊 inandout: cool inandout: very un-tyrant like gotspoons: thank you, Zach 😏

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momentofmemory · 5 years

Text

fictober - day four

Prompt #4: “I know you didn’t ask for this.”

Fandom: Spider-Man (All Media Types/Tom Holland Movies)

Warnings: None

Rating: G

Characters: May & Peter Parker

Words: 2269

Author’s Note: part iii of a may & peter series, but can be read as a standalone.

>>The Mary Month of May

Peter is five years old, and May’s going to be late picking him up from kindergarten (again).

This time she has a good excuse, however, as after eight long months of Peter living with them, she’s finally holding a manilla folder with an official-looking seal from the New York Office of Child and Family Services. The OCFS logo stares up at her, and May feels a mixture of joy and heartache as she runs her hand over the folder. Joy, because it means she can keep the promise of forever she made to Peter; sorrow, because she wishes she didn’t have to.

She still catches Ben starting to text Richard sometimes, when something Peter says or a random science joke reminds him of his brother, before he remembers.

May shoves down her feelings and slips the folder into her purse without opening it—she doesn’t want to run the risk of losing any of the long-awaited papers in the crowded, jostling mailroom—but also because it’s 2:40, and she needs to catch the E train in time to pick Peter up from kindergarten.

Fortunately for May and Ben’s sake, Mary had already enrolled Peter in a fairly prestigious school long before that night. While updating all the paperwork to show the change in guardianship had been a nightmare, not having to find a place for Peter during the day had been a small godsend. The first few weeks of adjusting to their new lives had been tough on all of them, especially Peter, but time has a way of smoothing things over and by the spring semester they had all settled into a routine that while still not quite comfortable, at least feels familiar.

Which is why, when May finally reaches the pickup area—3:06, not really late—and finds Peter sitting by himself with a laser focus on the ground, she immediately knows something is wrong. It doesn’t help that the remaining kids, though there aren’t many at this point, seem to be giving Peter a wide berth, too.

She worries at her lower lip and keeps an eye on him as she signs them out, exchanging halfhearted pleasantries with the secretary. Finally, she’s free to make her way over to him—he still doesn’t seem to have noticed she’s here—and the weight of the folder in her purse feels like it grows heavier with every step she takes.

“Find a new species on the tips of your shoelaces, Tiger?”

Peter’s head rockets up in confusion, and then when he sees who it is, lets his head fall back down and resumes his staring contest with the floor. “They’re called aglets.”

“…What?”

“The tips of shoelaces,” Peter says, though the explanation sounds more route than his usual levels of exuberance. “They’re called aglets. There’s a song for it.”

“There’s a song for everything,” May agrees. “Including ones for getting out of school.”

She holds out her hand. “You ready?”

Peter’s gaze remains downcast for a moment longer, then he shifts his backpack onto his shoulders and stands up, slipping his hand into hers. May doesn’t ask him how his day went. She’s learned that he’ll tell her when he’s ready.

“Come on,” she says instead, squeezing his hand. “I need to tell you about the ridiculous buskers on the subway this morning.”

It takes three stories, slightly embellished, one mad dash to the market before closing, and two uneventful train stops before Peter rouses out of his stupor enough to start giggling at May’s bad jokes again.

He doesn’t mention what was bothering him, which May finds a little disconcerting since Peter normally fesses up pretty quickly, but by the time dinner is over he’s laughing with Ben and making a mess with his Lincoln Logs, and she wonders if maybe it was nothing in particular after all.

The folder is still waiting in her purse, so May wipes dry the last plate and walks over to the counter to retrieve it. Her phone is sitting on top, and she notes that she has an email waiting from Peter’s homeroom teacher. She unlocks the phone as she pulls the folder out, intending to show it to Peter.

“Ben, can you and Peter—”

The email opens and May’s heart lodges in her throat, preventing anything else from getting out.

—regret to inform you that, as it’s nearing the end of April, Peter’s class has started allotting time to make gifts for parents. Some of the children may have been insensitive to Peter with some of their remarks, and I hope that—

May swallows her heart back down into her chest, and twists the folder under her hands.

“You okay, May?” Ben calls from the living room.

“Yeah,” she says, hoping her voice doesn’t sound as strangled as it feels.

May isn’t as smart as Peter, but she’s not dumb, either. The teacher could dance around the topic as much as she wanted. There’s only one holiday in May that kindergarteners pay attention to: Mother’s Day.

And Peter doesn’t have one.

“What’s that?”

May whirls around at the sound of Peter’s voice. His eyes are glued to the folder, slightly warped as it is from May’s fretting, and she instantly knows that she can’t lie to him.

May sits down at the kitchen table and Peter follows suit, his hands clasping in front of him even though the table’s too tall for him to do so comfortably.

“I got a very important letter from the government today,” she begins, unsure if she’s delivering good news or bad news, considering.

“They’re taking me away?” Peter gasps, his eyes filling with tears.

May all but leaps out of her chair to wrap Peter in a hug. “No! No no no, honey, of course not, I wouldn’t let them even if they were. I promised, remember?”

Ben skids into the room, having heard Peter’s outburst. His eyes fall on the distraught boy, then May’s frazzled appearance, then the folder. He softens in understanding. “Why don’t you have Peter open the file, May.”

Peter sniffs, clearly still distraught, but accepts the folder from May. She winds up having to help him with the fastener, but eventually they manage to pry it open and a very official-looking document slides out onto the table.

Peter carefully reads out things he recognizes, like Secretary of State and May Parker and Benjamin Parker (“That’s Uncle Ben, honey”), and phrases he doesn’t quite know like permanent legal custody, before he gets to the most important name on the list:

Peter Parker.

May watches as Peter’s brow furrows, and then his mouth drops into an “Oh.” The tension on his face doesn’t fully leave.

May’s smile wobbles.

“Is this okay?” She has no idea what to do if he says no.

“I…” Peter looks down at his hands, and Ben slides quietly into the chair next to him. “Does that mean I should call you Mom now?”

May’s brain freezes, because she... she can��t. She loves him and he’s her kid now, but she loved Mary, too, and the idea of replacing her feels impossible.

Ben picks up the conversation. “Do you want to, Peter?”

Peter bites his lip and looks down. Safe in the view of his shoelaces, he shakes his head. No.

“Then you don’t have to,” Ben says, and May sighs in relief because Ben’s so good at making big things feel so simple.

“But Taylor says that means you’re going to leave me.”

“Taylor said what—”

Before May can finish her sentence, the dam that Peter’s been holding back all day breaks. Peter explains how he was going to make a card for Aunt May for school, but then Taylor had said the projects were only for people’s mothers and aunts didn’t really count anyway, and that because an aunt could leave him at any time, she’ll just get bored of him and then he’ll be all alone and—and—

Peter’s monologue is cut short when both May and Ben pull him into a hug.

“Peter Parker,” May says, suddenly sure of exactly what she needs to say. “We are not leaving you. Okay? I told you forever. And I meant it.”

“We love you, Peter,” Ben adds. “That’s what this document is about, and even if we didn’t have it, that wouldn’t change how we feel. What the government calls us or other people call us doesn’t matter. We’re family.”

May tilts back so she can see him better, her hand firmly wrapped around his shoulder.

“You don’t have to call me Mom or give me things or celebrate holidays or whatever. I wouldn’t ask you to, not unless you wanted to. I would never want to replace your mom, who I also loved dearly.” May pauses as she tries to figure out how to give a five year old a sense of permanence. She glances at the names on the document, and it clicks.

“It’s also okay if you don’t want to call me Aunt,” she says, watching his reaction. “Aunt or Uncle or Mom or whatever, they’re just titles. And they can change—but I’m me either way. Just me. So you can call me just May, if you want.”

Peter’s brows knit together, trying to determine how he feels about this new idea. He looks from May to the document, and then back to May again.

“Just May?” he asks.

“Yeah,” May says, fondness washing over her as she sees light sparking in Peter’s eyes. “Just May and just Peter, and just Ben, if you want.”

Peter picks at his shoelaces, and then nods once, decisively.

“Okay, May.”

_____________________________

On Mother’s Day, Peter doesn’t go to school.

Instead, May takes the day off work and they both wake up whenever they want to, and May tries (and fails) to make chocolate chip pancakes. They watch Peter’s favourite Disney movie and play with his train set and get lunch at the bodega down the street, and then finally, when Peter is ready, they carefully roll up his Mother’s Day letter and place it in a bottle, and take the train to the stop by 69th and Metropolitan Ave.

It’s after the lunch hour but before most kids are out of school, which means there’s no one around when they make it to the imposing iron gates surrounding the public cemetery. Peter hesitates and May moves forward to open the gate for him.

“It’s okay,” she says, giving his hand a squeeze. “Just follow me.”

Peter does, and they wind their way through the stones and flowers until they reach the one marked Richard and Mary Parker.

It’s a simple affair: Peter places the bottle carefully next to the stone, and they both stand in silence for a moment.

Peter sniffles and drags his sleeve across his nose. “May?”

May hums, caught up in her own memories.

“Can we go to the park?”

May is startled by his request, but warmth steals back into her chest as she nods. “And ice cream after, I think.”

Peter all but vibrates next to her the entire walk to the park, chattering endlessly about different ice cream flavors and which store has the best in New York and how he’s heard that ice cream in Wisconsin is really good, too, but he bets New York’s is better anyway.

He doesn’t let up his one-man argument until they reach the park, at which point he becomes suddenly reticent again.

“Um… May?”

May turns to look at him, and is surprised to see he’s not looking at her, but at a rock he’s toying at with his foot. “Change your mind on the park?”

“No, I just—” Peter kicks the rock away, and reaches into his backpack. He pulls out a letter, smaller than the one he’d left with his parents, but decorated with every bit as much gusto.

May frowns. “Did you mean to leave that one too? We can go back—”

“No,” Peter interrupts, shifting nervously from foot to foot. “I—you said I could make a card for mama so I know you didn’t ask for this, but I—I mean—”

Peter gives up on whatever he was trying to say and sticks out his hand towards May instead, the letter held tightly in his grasp.

May blinks in stunned silence, and then hesitantly takes the note from his hand. He waits just long enough to make sure she’s going to open it, an embarrassed blush creeping up his neck, and then rockets off towards the playground the second she breaks the seal (a yellow smilie face sticker) on the envelope.

May suppresses the urge to roll her eyes and carefully unfolds the piece of paper.

It’s been painstakingly decorated with flowers, records, and chocolates—the things Ben always buys her for Valentine’s—and there’s a message down the center written in blocky, childish letters that must have taken Peter ages to look this presentable.

Happy May’s Month of May! Your so cool one day wasnt enough, so they had to gave you all of them.

Love you forever,

Just Peter Parker

May reads it slowly, once, then twice; the words blurring near the end each time. She folds it carefully away in her bag for safekeeping, right next to the copy of Peter’s adoption certificate.

Today was hard, and days like this probably always will be. But Peter is tough, and so is she. And more importantly, they have each other—forever.

May sits on one of the benches and looks around until she spots Peter, who seems to have made friends with a Filipino boy about his age. She smiles.

They’re going to be all right.

#fictober19 #peter parker fic #peter parker #may parker #mcu fic #fanfiction #may&peter #memsfic

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diningpageantry · 5 years

Text

Drinking

Archive Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18672919/chapters/45163501

Chapter 6/13 of Proximity (The Collision of Lonely Men)

Word Count: 4483

Chapter Summary: Excuses, longing, and the bitter bite of impulsive actions can turn a happy night sour.

By now, I think I've finally got my daily schedule down. Sure, it's the middle of December, but at least it's done.

I wake up, grab breakfast from the kitchen, eat in my office, fuck around on my computer, maybe see a student or two (if needed), eat lunch, fuck around more, then go grab dinner. Easy. Work day complete.

What's odd today, though, is the unusual knock at my door around 12:30. Typically, students avoid the office like the plague in their study hour, but not long after I'd sat back in my seat did I hear footsteps. They've stopped now, and the soft rap at my door gives me a somewhat pleasant surprise. It isn't often people are personable enough to not barge in.

“Come in,” I call, clicking out of Solitaire.

A student steps in. They're maybe 10th year, a little on the shorter side, and with shaggy hair down to their shoulders. Immediately, there's a wave of discomfort--more than that of a typical young teen. Awkward. Out of place. “Hello, um. Mr… Mr. Snow? Is it?”

“Yes, it is,” I hum, swiveling my chair around and gesturing towards the couch. I reach around as they walk, grabbing for my notepad and pen. “What can I do for you?”

They sit for a minute, eyes towards the now-closed door as they just think distantly. Something in it makes me swallow back my expectations, settling down my stuff and folding my hands. I inhale slowly, exhaling as I follow their attention.

Their eyes are laying on my Safe Spaces sign. A printed, colourful paper that Baz had offered me when I'd asked why some teachers had it hanging. It isn't much--not really grand or showy, just simple. Thoughtful.

By the time I'm looking back, they're already crying. Their lip trembles as their hands clench. “I, uh,” they start, nearly silent. “I think I might be, uhm… a… well... I want my gender and name changed in the books.”

It’s a shock at first, and I try to think over how to react beyond nodding and completely setting aside my notepad and pen as I lean back in my seat. I wave a hand, letting them nervously stare at me before continuing, exhaling.

“I'm sorry. I… I didn't know where else to start with this. It all started really coming to me over the summer and hearing my name all year has just been a kick in the face, a-and with winter break coming up, I don't know what will happen when I get back. My mum and dad know, and they booked an appointment with a gender therapist when I'm home, but, I, well… I don't want to come back and be seen as… you know… a boy.”

It takes me a second to think of the proper answer, head nodding. Where do I start? Dress code questions? Name change? Then, I figure that it’s really the student's call. “What do you want me to help you with? I'm here to help as much as you want me to.”

The student exhales, chewing on her lip as she looks down. “Can you change my birth name in my books to Amanda?” She gives me her name, letting me pick up my notes and jot it down. “I'll be emailing teacher during break, it's just in case, but it’d be great if they got an official-looking email. And, erm, what can I wear?”

I bite my lip, exhaling. “Given it's a historically ‘all boys’ school, there's no assigned skirts or dresses, if that's what you're referring to.”

She nods, shifting in her seat as the leather squeaks below her.

“Right, well. I can talk to the dean about an exemption case. There's a few trans and gender nonconforming students who have gotten permission, which is sadly needed, but they're relatively liberal when it comes to the clothing change. With that said, there's no guarantee there won't be backlash from your peers.”

She pushes her hair away, eyes not moving from the ground as she goes silent for a minute.

I purse my lips, thinking over the situation. “Can I get you in contact with an adult who can really help you there? I can't promise he's the most cheery of blokes, but he's nicer than you'd think when it comes to this.”

She seems a bit confused, but nods anyway.

After giving her a quick, (hopefully) promising smile, I swivel back around and glance at my phone. The number log takes me a second, but I eventually find the right room.

It rings once before an answer comes through, clear as day.

“Professor Pitch speaking.”

“Hi, Baz? It's Simon. I have a student who might need a little help, do you have a minute to spare?”

He goes silent for a second. “I'm not teaching a student how to use proper grammar, Snow. If anyone needs a lesson on their elocution and voice, it's you.”

“Not that sort of help, you tit. A different kind of help.”

He's silent again before I can practically feel it click. “Send the student down, then.”

I thank him (with no reply) before hanging up and writing out a paper pass for Baz's room, handing it over and telling her the room.

“Of course we of can meet again after break to finalize everything and make sure we have the proper paperwork after we've contacted your teachers, but this is what we can do as of right now. Oh, and don't let Professor Pitch scare you. His bark is much worse than his bite.”

She nods hesitantly, looking confused as she thanks me nonetheless and leaves, closing the door softly behind her.

I study the wood grain of it for a minute, exhaling slowly before going back to working. Our conversation keeps in the back of my mind as I type away. I don’t think about it much beyond making the note and starting the permission form, not expecting another knock at my door just over half an hour later.

This time, it's Baz at my door, letting himself in before I get an opportunity to tell him to come in.

He stops at the doorway, glancing around for what must be the first time. I listen to the soft clank of the rattling door knob being let go as he drops it, focusing on holding the wood of the door. My lips loosely smile, heart feeling full as I exhale. “You alright, mate?

His head shakes as he snaps back, looking at me with wide eyes and a hesitantly hanging mouth. I want to do his eyebrow thing, but I don't quite know how.

“Yes?”

“I… do you want to go get drinks later? My treat.”

I'm stunned by his sudden offer, blinking curiously as my mouth turns to an unsure frown. He continues, trying to cover his words.

“No. I--fuck off. it's to thank you for that. You handled that really well, for someone who hasn’t quite been trained, and I wanted to say something for that.”

My chair swivels a bit as I turn my hips, looking up at him. “Sounds like you just want an opportunity to get off campus.”

He smirks an odd, mischievous smirk. One that seems like it’d get us into trouble if it was verbalized. “Maybe it's just to go out and get a little drunk.” I can’t quite argue with that logic (especially if it includes free booze).

I stare at his ridiculous face, clicking my pen a few times as I think it over. Sort of want to mock him like he’s an alcoholic, but it also seems like he’s only truly personable when he’s drinking. “Fuck it, yeah let’s do drinks. Six-ish?”

“What, so you can eat the shitty cafeteria foods?”

“Maybe.”

He scoffs, rolling his eyes and over-exaggeratedly setting his shoulders. “Fine then, six works.”

I grin, sweetly telling him to close the fucking door behind him as he leaves, ignoring the gentle thrum of that re-occurring odd feeling pressed to my rib cage. In so many ways, it hasn’t truly left. Not since that night we’d held hands. It’s a catching, curiosity feeling, making me numbed any time that we don’t have that contact (which, now, is almost always, except for the occasional mistaken brush of our passing arms).

I wish I could tell him I want it. It feels too needy, too out of character for us to be blunt of our feelings. I’m cautious, and he’s not too caring. Far too bitter, far too rough. We’re mild turbulence on an unwanted jet ride, at best.

After that encounter, I can’t quite focus. I’ve been scraping by at the minimum of getting a few things wrapped up, and managing through menial, thoughtless work. Still, it all falls into a blur. A Baz-centric, ever-losing blur. Even through dinner, that weird enthusiasm from before sort of falls flat in my own mind. Like I’m trying to compensate for my own excitement.

What does keep me afloat is Penny’s rambling commentary as I shove bread into my mouth. I really do adore the fact that I almost never need to talk, she just keeps the conversation afloat herself. Long, winding stories of class, or telling me about the book she’s reading (and whether she likes it or not, judging by her women’s empowerment scale). All I’ve ever got to give is quick answers, nodding my head as she goes along.

During dinner, we agree to go do something before winter break, since she’s going off to see her fiancé over the few weeks.

I can’t help but steal quick glances across to Baz’s lone table. It’s starkly empty in contrast to everyone else, and I can’t help but wonder how lonely he truly is.

Penny and I finish up a little bit after him, cleaning up and walking side-by-side back to the dorms before parting ways. I struggle with the keys, as always, and while I don’t see him in the living room right away, I hear the running of the sink from our bathroom. It leaves my cheeks a light pink for no good reason besides knowing he’s in there getting ready for a night.

Looking in my closet, it dawns on me that I don’t really have anything “nice” to wear. While yes, sure it’s just drinks, but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t look any less plain than I usually do. I manage to find one good button down in a dark grey, and decent black trousers, and nothing like a blazer to compliment so this is as good as it’s going to get.

I don’t need to check my mobile’s weather to figure that it’s going to be an absolute fucking freezing nightmare tonight.

Digging around a bit, I find my old leather coat and my least-scuffed up shoes to really tie together the “I’m not exactly shitty looking, but I’m damn well not anything good”. Hell, to make it a little better, I even fix my hair before stepping out into the living room.

Baz is already in there, fixing the cuffs to his sleeves.

I don’t want to say this lightly, but he looks bloody fucking stunning (not in some odd “rip off my clothes now” way, but in a magazine cover way). A lavender shirt, tucked into deep blue trousers and a black floral embroidered jacket. The white, light pink, and purple stitching hike up his breast pocket and wrists, traveling across his width and barely letting my attention slowly track back up to his face. It’s nearly buffed from being washed, and his hair’s pushed back without being fully slicked. I can already see the slight wave in it, pushing into the nape of his neck as he turns and looks towards me.

We catch each other’s shocked stares, and I try to desperately ignore the grin on my own mug as we gawk openly towards one another. Lingering for the moment, we awkwardly wait out the moment before one of us turns our attention away. I shuffle a bit, weight shifting from here to there as he keeps rim-rod straight. It’s hard to find the words, but I finally speak out into the distant space between us. (Far too distant. We’re always so far apart). “Are we off, then?”

He blinks at first, looking me up and down before pulling back at his sleeve for a time check. “Yes.” It comes out forced, dropping an octave from his usual voice. Makes my heart jump.

On the walk out, we aren’t looking at one another anymore. In fact, if feels like we’re looking anywhere but. The ground, our feet, our hands, the sky. Buildings passing, sidewalks curving. The world around us, leaving us to feel so distant from one another at just an arm’s reach away.

“Are you against walking?” I ask, halfway down the pavement and towards the employee parking lot. “I’d rather not drive if we’re drinking.”

He nods, biting off any snippy comments as we stroll. We’re always this space between our steps--our shoes almost brushing each end of the walkway squares. An empty reach between us.

It’s awkward. I’m awkward. I am seethingly awkward, uncomfortably trying to make gentle comments between us in efforts to resuscitate the moment we could be have. “Thank fuck it isn’t snowing, huh?”

He looks at me, eyes shining lighter in the harsh street lights as they flicker overhead. No comment.

“I mean, icy roads and shit. I’d always be worried I’d slip and fall on my bum as a kid, so I’d shuffle my feet while leaning forward to get around, like a penguin.”

Finally, I get a snort out of him.

“You’re ridiculous.”

It’s not harsh. It’s actually borderline soft--a child’s scissors sort of comment. It makes my lips start to part into a smile, unconsciously walking a bit closer. He doesn’t even do as much as pull his arms into himself, walking with the same outward rigidity as before (a step up, perhaps).

“Suppose I was. Maybe that’s why the other kids would push me into the ice anyway.”

He laughs at that, eyes forward as his elbows lift outward from his pockets. I hadn’t realized how close I’d drifted, since his arm bumps into my side harmlessly. I smile, joining him in a simple, quiet laugh beside him.

The town isn’t incredibly far off the school, and the bar isn’t ridiculously busy either. Granted, we’re a bit before the usual work let out on a Friday. The benefits of the schedule, I assume.

At first, I don’t know what I’m expecting. I knew there was a decent place in town with live music, and then a cheap pub nearby. But Baz has never seemed to be one for the easier, quicker option, which is probably what wound us up sitting by a live jazz performance. He’s sipping scotch and I’m practically tossing back a gin and tonic as we lean across a table that’s no bigger than our combined laps, trying to hear one another speak.

“My half sister’s still a nightmare to shop for,” Baz’s thought finishes between songs, the music calming enough that we don’t shout. The story of his youth drifts between the long sip of his drink, phasing him into a new conversation. “It took me months to find the proper Christmas gift for her. Granted, she’s a teen now, so it was easier to narrow down rather than the thousands of things she absolutely ‘needed’ when she was younger.”

I nod along, clueless to the dynamic in personal experience, but engaged to hear how it works. As the music starts picking back up, I lean in closer to hear, my hand brushing his arm.

It doesn’t move.

“Are you visiting your family this holiday? Or someone special?”

He dismissed the latter, nodding his head casually while his drink settles down. My hand’s still there, resting warmly on his arm. “I’m going back to my family’s estate further south. My siblings threw a fit the last time I couldn’t make it, and they’d have my head if I didn’t come this year. It’s awfully lonesome down there, though--empty halls, echoing rooms. I feel bloody Victorian in that house. As if I should be having a dramatic, Wilde-esque affair.”

I watch as he trails off, eyes drifting to the wood floors of the stage. They’re worn in--timeless. His childhood seems to have the same impact on him as history does on the floorboards.

Between the distracting brush of his leg against my calf, and the second drink I’m nursing, it takes me a shrug and a half second thought to remember what my actual plans are. “‘M planning staying here,” I mumble, sipping away. His foot stops moving up, pausing right near my knee as his attention flicks back at my hand, tracing my knuckles tentatively.

“What, at school?”

I nod, bottom lip pressing wetly against the glass. My breath fills out around the rim, making it all foggy as I drink. “Nowhere else, really. Don’t really have anywhere to stay in London, or anyone to see. ‘M much happier alone here than alone somewhere crowded.”

If I didn’t know him better, I’d say he looks sad. But, I do know him. I know him too well.

I know him well enough that a quick steer away conversation will clear it all, as much as it breaks my heart to change where we’re going with this.

“Tell me more about the estate,” I mock, lips turning up as I tease happily. He takes it in stride, tongue running over his bottom lip before he speaks again.

We stay like that--mindless conversation. He keeps the drinks flowing, and I keep my hand on his arm. It’s cozy there, and when I move to his fingers, I find that they’re bitterly cold. The only real answer here is to warm them with my own, pressing out hands together and holding his to my skin. No protests from him, only a compliant raise of his eyebrows towards me.

Still, I make no move to look back.

It’s a good bit of night later before I start feeling too dizzy to safely go on without getting completely wrecked. It’s never good to walk back to your work’s campus while you’re piss drunk, even if it’s not a school night. “How’re you feeling?”

“Probably better than you, Snow.”

“Are you?”

He grins, and in the diluted bar-light, it looks like he’s happy for once in his life. His eyes droop, his cheeks press outwards and glow in the deepest of pink lights. I want to see if they’re really a smooth as I think they are.

“Not quite sober, sure,” he mumbles, the grey in his eyes standing out in the glossy light. “But I feel like you’re gonna need some help getting up.”

I want to protest, but I know my knees will be a bit wobbly (and so will my legs. And arms. Fuck it, a lot of me). I shrug shamefully, biting back my pride with a quiet “I won’t let go if you won’t.”

His fingers curl tighter around my wrist, the few resting on the flat of my skin and rubbing up and down the protruding vein. It’s familiarly soft in such a new, exciting way.

He picks up the tab, sliding his card in carelessly and waiting for second that he gets it back before we head off. He helps me with my jacket, and I help him with his, thoughtfully sliding my hand back down against his. His skin’s much warmer now, and I can’t help but slot my fingers around his and press against the sparse hair on the back of his hand.

We walk side by side now, arms twisted around each other to hold our hands as closely as possible. It isn’t long, though, before I nearly trip over uneven ground and he lets go of my hand. I almost protest, missing the feeling of his body against mine until the weight of his arm pulls around my back and side, palm slipping under my jacket and pressing to the side of my shirt. I turn into him, shoulder slipping under his as my hand finds its place snugly against the curve of his back. He leans, head unwavering but body falling into place with mine. It’s almost like hugging while standing; walking while sharing space.

As if it makes up for all the distance since last month.

We stay stuck to one another all the way to the dorms. He even reaches around himself for the key, leaned up against me as his keys scrape into the lock. It turns quietly as a slow winding click lets us in.

I don’t let go until we’re outside our rooms, sides pressed to the wall like we were all those weeks ago. The time between then and now both feels like an eternity and like we’d never left.

Something it that time’s changed. He’s even more smoothed out than before. The gentle slope of his lips, the heavy blinks in his eyes, the lack of crease brows. Even his hair is falling into his face, coming down in soft, waving piece and covering his eyes. Makes it difficult to see him clearly.

I don’t think before reaching up, looping my finger around it before carefully tucking it behind his ear. His face gets all funny, and I take a second to process that the reaction is a smile.

Is this where I thank him for the night? Our extended moment of closeness before it’s all rushed away again? In our moment of weakness, how do I allow myself to be that of less composure?

I wonder whether or not it’s the smile that’s getting me more drunk than the liquor, because it’s giving me a ton of funny ideas that all boil down to my lips going somewhere on his skin. The first reasonable place being the cheek I’d just exposed.

So, I lean up, filling the gap between us and pressing a lightly open-mouthed kiss to the curve of his cheek. He stiffens slightly, arms leaving his sides as I linger against him. His skin’s as smooth as I’d imagined, smelling faintly of aftershave and booze. As my mouth drags away, barely parting from him, I exhale a sigh of relief as his hands find themselves on each side of my torso. I grin, eyes falling onto the corner bit of his lip. It’s so close, and incredibly welcoming.

It doesn’t take me any thinking before my lips are there, too. They stay, feeling his head turn with mine as I part back away. I can’t bring myself to look into his eyes, scared of literally any reaction he could have. But he’s turned into me, head tilted at just the right angle that I can brush my lips onto his.

The moment I see his mouth part, my eyelashes flutter shut and I settle our lips together. Almost instantly goes he breathe out onto my cheek, arms winding around my waist.

We keep like that. He’s cooler and sweeter than I’d expected, and I feel like every movement of his is a hesitant, unsure motions. Our noses brush, and our mouths don’t exactly fit like building blocks at first, but when I finally steady my hands onto his chest, he relinquishes all his built up tightness and kisses me like I’m the most precious thing he’s ever held.

I easily get lost in the moment, taking no time to worry about the consequences while we let this go on.

He’s much smarter than me, as per-usual, and stops us once I take a tiny step forward.

“Do you know what you’re doing?” he murmurs against my open lips. I can’t open my eyes. The spinning of the room will make me want to puke.

“I’m pretty damn well sure that I’m kissing you,” I whisper, head dropping slowly and settling against his forehead. I try to will for the touch to give him back to me, but he doesn’t give up whatever it is stopping him.

“Are you really sure you want to be doing that?”

That’s what I break with, a hand racing up and curling into the bottom of his hair. “I’m mostly confident,” I mumble dumbly, pulling him back in.

He takes a second longer to respond, kissing me back carefully. I feel like I’m unreal, and if he jostles me too hard, I’ll disappear.

My hands curl around his jacket, starting to peel it off his shoulders before he stops me, head shaking and mouth pulling away.

“You’re making a mistake,” he says quietly, making me really open my eyes. He’s going on like he’s pleading with me, swallowing back anything that would get me to stay. “You’ve been drinking, and you’re clearly straight.”

I shrug at the last part. At this point, who knows if I actually am.

Baz scoffs, brows knitting together as it turns to a disgusted sound. There he goes again, closing himself away right before my very eyes. I back up towards my door, frowning and raising my hands up as his arms drop from my sides. Taking another step, I make it very clear that I don’t want him to step closer.

My throat goes tight. My vision spins then shuffles from dark to light. It isn’t the alcohol--it’s the anger. It builds up, making my hands shake and head weave a bit as I mumble an unclear “Fuck you”.

He does nothing to stop me, staring forward with his hands dangling at his sides. It makes it worse, my stomach churning as I fumble and reach for my doorknob, slamming myself inside without another word.

I don’t know how I’m feeling anymore. Am I sobering up on rage? Am I too drunk to actually know what just happened?

My first move is to sit, and then to lay. Then to bite a pillow, fully clothed and fighting off any other reaction including crying, because the walls are surely too thin and Baz doesn’t deserve the satisfaction of knowing I’m crying over his rejection. Fuck it, he isn’t even worth the tears I’d cry nonetheless.

I all culminates to me, breaking, breath sputtering out and making my chest ache until I’m finally asleep.

I wake up mildly hungover, in the clothes I went out in, and missing the feeling of his lips against mine.

In desperate efforts, I step out of my room. I’m disheveled, broken, and ready to be used by a man who already pushed me away before. But instead of my hopeful ending, I step out to an empty flat. His bedroom door hangs open, the bathroom’s silent, and nothing comes from the kitchen and living room. Not even a note.

He’s left me.

#carry on #snowbaz #fanfiction #fanfic #fic #mine #simon snow #tyrannus basilton grimm pitch #tyrannus basilton grimm-pitch #baz pitch #simon #baz #proximity (the collision of lonely men)#p(tcolm)#update #wow would you look at me pulling a cliffhanger #sorry but absolutely not sorry

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celeztialstudies · 6 years

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Being a Student With A Mental Illness: A Masterpost

Hey! As some of you may recall, I made a masterpost a little while ago about helping your mentally ill friends through exam periods. I thought I’d make a follow-up masterpost of sorts about helping yourself as well as your friends, because self-care is incredibly important! I hope these tips help!

1: Track your food and water

There’s no point in me going into much detail with this, but it’s always a brilliant place to start. Put simply, your body functions best when it’s well fed and watered, but if you’re ill then that can be hard to do, let alone remember. There are millions of methods out there to help you remember to eat and drink, many of which I’ve experimented with, but here are my favourites:

- Logging it in a bullet journal habits tracker- when I’ve been struggling I find it helpful to write down my tasks and activities because my memory tends to be the first thing to go. Using a habit tracker in my weekly spreads meant that I was able to tick or colour a box once I’d had at least one bottle of water, and do the same once I’d eaten a solid meal or two in a day. It means you know if you’ve looked after the basics that day at a glance and can be a gentle reminder if you use your bullet journal a lot.

- An app, such as Aloe Bud- by no means is this the only app to do this, but @aloebud is definitely one of the cutest. It works by you setting up different little tasks to accomplish and you can add in little reminders periodically as well, which works great if you want to set up a slightly more rigid eating pattern or forget to drink water during the day! This post explains it pretty well but if you’d like a more detailed guide then drop me an ask! (Disclaimer: I believe this app is only available on iOS at the moment but hopefully an Android one will be released soon, too!)

2: Set out time for yourself

This is one I have yet to implement fully, but I intend to! It’s great if you already have your self-care routines nailed, but if you end up running out of time to do said routine then you’re inevitably going to feel rushed off of your feet and stressed, procrastinating on looking after yourself. A solution to this is scheduling that routine in: if your head to toe self-care routine takes two hours, then put it on your timetable, in your iCalendar, or wherever else you stay organised, as if it were a two hour class. The same also goes for hobbies you want to pick up or skills you want to learn- if you have time specifically set out for those things, then it means that you’re more likely to do them, and less likely to procrastinate on your final paper by racking up the highest daily score DuoLingo has ever seen.

3: Set earlier deadlines

I started doing this in my first semester of university and it’s changed my life. Luckily, with some self-discipline, it’s not too hard to pull off, either! Let’s say the deadline for your Super Important Terrifying Paper is March 18th. Note that deadline down somewhere, but when you’re writing down the deadline in a bullet journal or a note on your phone, write the date 5 days earlier- for example, March 13th. This gives you time to finish the assignment earlier and get it proofread, and you’re considerably less likely to be submitting it on 11:59PM if the deadline is 12:00AM. Plus, anyone with any type of mental illness is likely to agree that working under pressure absolutely sucks and can worsen your symptoms. Just make sure you also keep a note of the real deadline so you submit it!

4: Plan out work in detail

This is actually just a good tip for life, but it’s especially applicable to mentally ill students. Once you have your assignment brief, it’s pretty good practice to map out what you need to do to complete the assignment within the first week or two. But instead of jotting down “write section A”, “write section B”, “write bibliography”, try to break it down even further. Try and do it as small as possible, or as small as is helpful: in my worst moments, it’s helpful to look at my to do list for an assignment and find it broken down into the six or seven things I need to do to write section A. The to-do list may be longer, but it stops me from being confused and makes me feel like I’ve accomplished even more than I already have!

5: Make a study timetable

This tip is, by far, the scariest, but I found that it really helped during my A Levels! It’s all too easy to fall into the trap of saying you’ll study for an exam tomorrow, and by the time tomorrow comes it’s the day before the exam. That’s the worst, even if you’re completely mentally healthy, and it’s so common because exam seasons are overwhelming. However, if you divide your subject content up into smaller sections and set out a plan to study a little bit every day, with some time to review in the last few days before the exam, then it can feel a lot less terrifying. Be warned that if you’re doing this for more than a month or two it can be easy to burn out, but if you take it at your own pace and give yourself three or four weeks then you should be okay!

6: Talk to your institution’s mental health team

Throughout my academic career I’ve been incredibly lucky to get some really great support from my school/college etc’s mental health team. This does not necessarily mean a referral to counselling or psychiatric help (but those are both brilliant options if you want to try them!), but for me at least it has meant that I was able to get some leeway surrounding exams and assessed work. For both GCSE and A Level I sat in a smaller room to do my exams due to anxiety, and if I am unable to meet a deadline for reasons related to my mental health, I can email my university’s mental health team who can help me to officially ask for an extension, and appeal if my application is overturned. Even if you are not as lucky as I’ve been, there is absolutely no harm in you asking your institution for some help. This is especially true in larger places like universities! Your lecturers are likely to not know you as well as previous teachers may have and will not be able to tell that you are struggling unless you tell them. They mostly don’t bite and are usually more than willing to help you catch up or give you extensions or pointers for assignments. And for the record, it’s not weak to ask for help: it’s one of the strongest things you can do!

Thank you for reading these tips, I really hope they’ve helped at least a little bit! Please feel free to drop me an ask or a message if you want to talk, and I would love to hear any of your tips!

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instakpop · 6 years

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JB scenario - Snowed in

Requested by @catou1305

Genre: angst, smut

Summary: After a heated argument about your living arrangements, JB thinks it a good time to let you have your space, but Mother Nature says differently.

We've been at this for hours. My lease ends in a few months and I asked the inevitable question: "Should we just find a place together?" then JB got all weirded out.

"Just tell me now, are you committed to me?"

"Yes, of course, I am. Y/n, I love you more than anything. I just don't think we should rush into living together." He said.

"Jae, I am about to enter a year-long lease with this place. You and I have been together for almost three years. What are you afraid of?"

JB thought to himself for a moment, trying to come up with a way to express his thoughts. I took a deep breath and gave up. There was no point in changing his mind about this. I just thought we were ready for the next step.

"Baby, please don't be mad. I just think we should both have our own space for a while." His words send a shock through my system. Space?! He wants space?

"Maybe you should just go. You win, alright. I'll just stay in this apartment alone and you can do the same." I crossed my arms, shutting off all communication, but it wasn't over just yet.

"Y/n. I don't want to leave you like this. I can tell you're still mad. You and I will stay right here until we figure this out."

"There's nothing to figure out. Just go. You got your wish. I'll give you space." I hissed.

JBs expression went from guilty to outright irritated. "You know that's not what I meant. That just gives me even more reason to stay right here with you."

"Funny how you want to stay here when things are ugly, yet you can't even stomach the thought of living with me full-time."

"Y/n, will you stop with this. Fine! I will live with you. Are you happy?"

"No. I want you to want this. I'm not about to keep you here against your will."

It was clear that there was no good ending to this argument. At least not today. JB sat across from me, pulling out his phone when he received an alert.

"Oh, shit." He muttered.

"What?" I asked.

"Looks like I'm going to be here a while. The snowstorm rolled in early." He got up, walked over to the windows to check outside.

The moment he opened the shades, my eyes went wide. It was a complete whiteout! Nothing but falling snow as far as the eye can see. I stood next to JB watching his car get pummeled in the snow.

"That's just great." He walked away from the window, laid out on my couch and turned on the TV.

"How long will this last?" I asked him.

"Not sure. The alert said a day or two. I'll just stay on the couch tonight." He fluffed a pillow, placing it under his head and draped a blanket over himself.

I knew he was mad, but damn it if he didn't look cute all snuggled up. Normally I would invite myself into his arms, but odds are he wouldn't even let me in after what I said. I just walked back to my spot on the chair, curling up and watching him surf through channels.

"So what now?" I asked him.

"You're looking at it." He snapped back.

"Jae, you're not being very fair. That blanket is yours. You bought it last year at the store down the street but you forget to take it home with you so you just kept it here. That shirt you're wearing has been in my closet for six months before you finally took it with you after your last overnight stay. A third of the things in here are technically yours. I know it for a fact that a lot of my things are at your place too. Including my backup toothbrush and extra clothes." JB wouldn't look me in the eye, but I knew he was listening. After a brief pause, he turned off the TV and sat up to look me in the eye. "We're pretty much already living together, we've just never made it official in one place." I finished.

It was a lot to process, but he knew I was right. He took a look around my apartment, taking notice off all the things that were actually his.

"I guess you're right, but I just don't know." He said rubbing his neck.

"Well, why don't we turn this snow storm into a test. I have plenty of food to last the whole weekend and then some. We're gonna stay right here for two days and by the end of it, if we decide we shouldn't live together, then that'll be that." I extended my hand for him to shake in order to seal the deal. He hesitated but still took my hand, shaking it firmly before laying back down.

He looked over at me with his soft brown eyes and opened his arms for me to lay with him. I smiled at his cuteness and accepted. He wrapped me in a warm embrace, covering us both with the blanket and nuzzling his head in the crook of my neck. I grabbed the remote, turning the TV back on and we decided on a movie.

The tension quickly faded and everything went back to normal. JB and I got a little hungry after a couple of hours and cooked up some dinner together. We soon forgot about the weather outside and enjoyed each other's company. But I needed to do more. I had to prove to him that living together would be the perfect set up.

"Ooh! I wish we had those nice cups from the china shop we went to." I whined.

"They're at my place..." He said, not catching on to my mind game.

"That's alright, we can use mine. Could you hand me the oregano?" I asked, knowing full well it wasn't there.

"I don't see it." He said, looking around my spice cabinet.

"I could have sworn I bought some the last time we had spaghetti."

"Oh, I think it's at my-... What are you doing?" Uh-oh. He caught me.

"What am I doing?" I questioned innocently.

"You're tricking me into just moving the rest of my stuff over here, that won't work, Y/n."

"Relax. I just asked you two questions. The fact that those things just happen to be at your apartment is out of my control." I said with a shrug.

"...Okay. No more traps though." He warned.

"Okay."

We finished making dinner and sat at the table, making small talk and occasionally looking out the window. The weather went from bad to worse quickly. With just a flicker of the lights, the power went out. I looked to JB in a panic.

"Oh, god." I murmured.

Before JB could say anything, I jumped up and headed right for my fireplace. We're technically not supposed to use anything but gas, but desperate times call for desperate measures. JB came right over with a lighter and a scrap of paper to get things started and I laid down a couple of logs to keep us warm. JB started the fire and I grabbed some candles and flashlights to brighten the rest of the room.

"It's worse than I thought," JB said.

"It's okay though. We already ate and there plenty of snacks that don't need to be cooked for tomorrow." I tried to reassure him, earning a little smile.

"No worries, love. We'll just continue in the dark." He took my hand, guiding me to the kitchen and lit a few more candles.

We both started on the dishes, thankfully the pipes were still working fine. I was nearly finished on the last plate when I felt JB's body heat on my back. Normally washing dishes by candlelight isn't the most romantic thing ever, but with JB's hands on my waist, my mind travels to a whole other dimension. A place where there are no arguments or disagreements of any kind. Just the two of us in perfect harmony.

I set the plate on the drying rack and leaned back, letting his touch take over. His soft lips kissed along my neck, stopping for a few nibbles along the way. His arms coiled around my waist, making me walk backward with him through the living room and to my bedroom.

"Is sex the first thing on your mind after washing dishes?" I asked him flirtatiously.

He just shrugged and turned me around to face him. "I'm a creature of habit."

He laid me down on my bed, pulling my pants down which caused me to instantly shiver from the cold. JB covered me up in the blankets to get rid of the rest of my clothes on my own while he stripped down himself. He joined me under the covers, kissing me deeply and letting his hands roam all over my body.

"Mmm~ You're so warm." I purred.

"I can't get enough of you, baby." His hot kisses moved down my shoulders, covering my skin with his love.

I spread my legs a little more, reaching down to massage his tip against my wetness. JB's mouth opened just a bit, holding back a moan. Involuntarily, I bucked my hips, trying to take him inside me. He smirked at me and squeezed my thigh. I needed to feel his thrusts, slow, rough, never-ending. He had me drenched and ready. I cupped his face with my free hand, whispering "please" before feeling his tip push past my folds.

My hand came around to his hips, slowly pulling him in closer as he pushed his member deeper inside me. His eyes closed as the base of his cock met my pelvis. I moaned at the feeling of him pulling back out only to thrust back into me. His skin was burning with desire, warming me up faster than I thought possible.

"Faster." I moaned.

His rhythm quickened, satisfying my every need. I latched onto him while he rode me closer and closer to the edge. His strong muscles flexed beneath my palms. I dug my nails into his back, allowing my sweet release to fully take control of me.

"Don't stop." I clenched around his manhood, milking every last drop of his warm cum.

JB grunted and groaned as we finished our orgasms. Our sweaty bodies piled together, cooling down for a while. I kissed his temple and he rolled over onto his side of my bed.

"We'll have to do this lights out thing at your place sometime," I said.

"No need. I'm moving in." He said casually.

I jumped out of the afterglow and into what must be a dream. "Wait, what?"

"I'm moving in." He repeated, looking me deep in the eyes. "Think about it. Just a few hours ago we had a fight, usually one of us would leave to cool off, but this time we were bound together and here we are, closer than ever." He took my hand, smiling at me.

"You have no idea how happy you've made me!" I climbed on top of him, bringing him in for a hug.

He kissed the top of my head and held me close. "I'll do anything to make you happy."

Maybe the storm wasn't so bad after all...

THE END

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zombiescantfly · 6 years

Text

Words About Games: Unreal (Epic Megagames, 1998)

Unreal Tournament 2004 is my favorite videogame ever. It's always a close match between it and the first Unreal Tournament, but 2k4 always manages to win out, if just barely. However, I am of the firm, unyielding belief that UT2004, when played with both the ‘No Adrenaline’ and ‘UT Classic’ mutators, is far and away the best multiplayer fps experience anyone could ever ask for. We'll get into that a bit later, because it's time for a bit of an explanation.

Unreal Tournament 2004 turns 15 this year, and I wanted to do something special to celebrate the release of a game I have such an unreasonably high appreciation for. Up until the day of its official release 15 years ago, I'm going to be putting out one of my infrequent essays on the games in the series I have experience with, starting now with 1998’s Unreal. I'll warn you, this one gets a bit rambly, but if you reach the end and still want more, take a look at the cooperative non-coop playthrough I did with a friend, where we each played a singleplayer campaign while discussing our experiences and thoughts on all aspects of the game.

But first, a little background.

I was born in 1992. Wolfenstein 3D, the game commonly attributed as the progenitor of the entire FPS genre (yes I know about Maze and Battlezone and all the various first-person dungeon crawlers) was released three months later. This makes me just barely older than the modern first -person shooter.

My dad has worked in the business end of the tech industry since the 80s. As a result, he was always very close to the then-rising PC gaming scene, and even dabbled in game dev for a few years. His position in various companies made him a very early adopter of the ‘home pc,’ something still rare up until like the mid 90s, seriously. He had free reign to take old hardware his workplace was replacing or to buy it for cheap, and by the time I was old enough to start forming memories that actually stuck around, there were two computers in the house.

In 1994, id Software released Doom 2, and my dad bought a copy. Thus began the long tradition of young me standing behind his chair to watch whatever he was playing, starting with Doom 2 LAN deathmatch with my older brother, progressing to his playthrough of Quake 1 and 2, and the first stop in this extended flashback, Quake 2’s online deathmatch.

Young me knew what a marvel online deathmatch was, because my dad told me. It's also just kind of a hard concept for a 5 year old to grasp, especially back then before the internet was in the public consciousness. Nowadays I doubt there's any lack of understanding, and that's cool.

(And yes, I know Q1 had online play but I never managed to catch any of it. Both my dad and brother liked its singleplayer more.)

So where does Unreal come in? Actually, not until about 2009. Bear with me.

In 2000, when I was 8 years old, my dad and brother had gone to spend the day at a local tech trade show. This was a common enough occurrence since we lived less than an hour away from Philly and that attracted a lot of businessy types. They'd usually come back with a new game or two, and I'd have something new to watch over one of their shoulders.

That day, my brother brought this home.

And said to me, “Hey, you should try this one out. It's from Epic.”

Or at least something to that effect.

Now, at this point in my life, I wasn't as avid a videogame connoisseur. The first game I ever truly felt grab me was Starcraft, which I played way more than I probably should have. But also at that time was a growing collection of titles from Epic Megagames. Epic Pinball is one of the first things I remember playing by myself, followed by Jazz Jackrabbit 2 and One Must Fall: 2097.

So I'd been with Epic for a while at that point.

So, Unreal Tournament. Spoilers for the next post, but I loved it, and I still love it. It capped off my experiences with shooters from the mid to late 90s with the first taste I was allowed myself, no longer stolen from over a shoulder while hoping my mother wouldn't choose then to come down the stairs and yell at me for watching and at my dad for letting me. It gave me a love for arena shooters, for the chunky, harshly and gaudily lit 3d graphics, for imaginative weapons, for tightly designed maps, and for a special sort of way to deliver a story buried in map and item descriptions…

But I'd never played Unreal.

Once, at a thrift store, I found a big-box copy of Unreal Gold, still in the shrink wrap, for five bucks. “Oh, I think your dad has that one,” my mother said, turning me away from it.

He did not.

So in 2009, I finally bought Unreal for myself off Steam and promptly returned to the chunky 3d I had probably just been seeing a day prior because I put UT99 on my school laptop.

Enough digressions, let's finally move into it.

Unreal is a strange game, and more than a little unlike its contemporaries. See, from 1993 to 1998, shooters were kind of a one-note experience. You, bad guys, big maps, many guns. From Doom to Quake to Heretic to Blood to Rise of the Triad to Shadow Warrior to Duke Nukem to Dark Forces to anything else you could find in a magazine for mail-order, the shooter was a pretty standard experience. Sure, this or that game had this or that thing that set it apart, some were more advanced than others for the time, but the general idea never really wavered: Click on men from point A to B until you find all the keys and reach the exit.

That gameplay loop made the genre successful, and it's not exactly different now. Keys could be anything, of course. They were literal keys, sometimes they were gas for a generator, now they're mostly cutscene triggers, but the point is that you must locate them to progress. Along the way, there wasn't much other than bloody slaughter to distract you, and that was fine.

It was fine. For those 5 years.

Then, in 1998, a very special sort of game came out that changed the way not just shooters but videogames in general were presented. A game that made expectations higher, products examined more critically. I'm talking, of course, about Half-Life.

On November 19, 1998, Half-Life released and literally changed the course of game development. It offered players a brilliantly constructed narrative delivered naturally by characters speaking in the moment rather than the then-common blocks of text before or after a level. The setting, the Black Mesa research facility, was a meticulously planned space made to feel like a real location and not a jumble of corridors whose first concerns were how many monsters could fit in them. Structured plot points replaced red and blue keycards, well-designed enemy encounters replaced rooms full of cannon fodder, and a new mentality replaced the old.

Which is a shame, because Unreal did something different, too.

Released earlier the same year on May 22, Unreal was the end result of a project always too ambitious for the four years it bounced around development. Conceived first as a medieval RPG of sorts, Unreal eventually morphed into a sci-fi shooter set amid echoes of that original idea.

In Unreal, there is no opening cutscene. There is no opening text crawl or long train ride to prepare you. The title screen is a looping fly-through of a location in the game made to show off various engine effects like reflective surfaces, particle emitters, real-time colored lighting, animated skyboxes, and volumetric fog. Selecting New Game sends you to a loading screen where you quickly fade in from black, staring at the wrecked interior of . . . somewhere. You start low on health and walled in on three sides. As you step forward towards the only path available, a pleasant, computery voice calls out “Prisoner 849 escaping.”

You are Prisoner 849, you are on a prison ship, and it has crashed. This is all evident within the first few seconds of the game. As you progress through the first level, you can see half-broken displays showing the sudden path the ship took, read status logs of engines and ship components, and even get a little taste of some daily life among the prisoners and crew alike. Yes, Unreal has text logs, but they're the good kind, used to inform the world rather than exposit at the player.

Very quickly you learn that something else is aboard the ship. Growls and snarls appear in the distance and screams of terror can be heard through the walls. Every so often, the same calm robot voice calls out another number, another prisoner escaping. This all tells us a good deal of the game’s primary theme. You're just someone.

You are Prisoner 849. You are not the captain of the ship, you are not the high profile super prisoner, you are not a space marine guarding the ship. You are Prisoner 849, one of many to board the Vortex Rikers, and one of many to leave.

There are no friendly human NPCs in the game. Two crewmembers aboard the ship live long enough for you to get close, but one bleeds out as you approach him and the other is slaughtered behind a door stuck partway open so that you can only see a mysterious pair of legs sprint away amid a shower of gore. Shortly after, you catch a fleeting glimpse of a strange figure at the other end of a ventilation shaft, obscured by fog.

Unreal slowrolls its opening. It's reminiscent of Quake 2’s opening level, though with no combat. You're free to wander the small area of the ship, reading various inconsequential text logs and looking at various readouts. Words like “unknown moon” and “sudden course alterations” pop up, telling - but not explicitly - that coming to wherever this is was unintended.

Eventually you leave, exiting through an emergency hatch somewhere on the side of the ship. A few steps forward brings you to a somewhat common looking grass expanse, not too unheard of at the time. You're closer to the ship’s bow, and a short walk around it and through the furrow it plowed in the ground leads to a small rise that still obscures the level until depositing you at just the right angle.

You stand close to the lip of a tall cliff overlooking a shimmering lake. On the other side, a waterfall crashes over the cliff. Trees dot the landscape, birds fly overhead, and small critters scurry away from you.

In truth, it looks more than a bit quaint today, but in 1998 it was without equal. Unreal is a game that put an intense focus on its world, Na Pali. This is a world inhabited for centuries or even millennia by the Nali, a race of four-armed pacifist aliens with a little bit of magic to their claim. Some unknown time before you begin playing, another race known as the Skaarj arrive to exploit the planet for a resource called Tarydium, enslaving the Nali in the process.

Here's where another game might set you up as the Big Badass Hero. You, the lone survivor of this crash; them, the downtrodden alien race; the other them, the evil tyrants. But Unreal never does that, because you're just someone.

Remember hearing those other prisoners escaping? More did even before you woke up. There's a small collection of Nali huts not far from the crash site where you can find the corpses of a few other prisoners and crewmembers from the Rikers next to some healing pickups - the Nali tried to care for them. Small bits of visual storytelling like that appear all throughout the game coupled with its smart use of text logs, and it starts strong and stays strong. A quick swim through a lake infested with carnivorous fish can lead you to a small secret where two dead escapees can be found next to a half-eaten fish. Further in, a dead human sits in a corner of a room, a dead Nali in the center, a flak cannon pickup on top of the latter showing their frantic last stand as the Nali abandons its pacifistic ways to protect its companion. Much later, you’re in a Skaarj warehouse where you can see stacks of boxes bearing the same logo from the Vortex Rikers - as you’ve been doing your thing, the Skaarj have gone back and started looting the ship.

Unreal is a game where things have been happening before you the player show up, and continue to happen while you the player are playing. The plot does not start with you and it does not wait for you. You’re just someone who’s been thrown into this whole situation as it unfolds, from a centuries-old conflict on Na Pali itself to the more immediate conflict of the crashed Vortex Rikers and what happened to its crew. Around almost every corner is another story just like yours, and the fact that we’re playing Prisoner 849 and not Prisoner 521 or Ensign Burt Masterson or whoever else feels like a roll of the dice.

Half-Life gets a lot of praise for finally putting the player behind just a regular guy. Gordon Freeman has been made to become something of videogaming’s first everyman in the way that John McClane of Die Hard ushered in the everyman action hero. But honestly, Half-Life wouldn’t happen without Gordon. A scientist tells you right away that they’ve been waiting for you so they could start the test. Without Gordon Freeman, the plot would never have progressed, and that makes it distinct from Unreal. Half-Life’s various expansions actually do this better; Opposing Force, Blue Shift, and Decay all put you in control of someone who is distinctly more Just Someone than Gordon Freeman.

But Unreal, man, Unreal just does it so well. Occupied Na Pali is a world that does not care about you as a singular entity. The Skaarj don’t turn and attack you because you’re The Player On A Mission, they attack you because you’re some dumb human who goes places they’re not supposed to and shoots all their friends (yes, Skaarj have friends, read the text logs). Hell, your mission isn’t even anything particularly grand! From the beginning, nobody tells you to do anything, you just wander out of the ship and start trying to find a way to leave. Obviously from a game standpoint, there’s always going to be a level start and a level end, and you will go towards the end because it’s a videogame, but in the context of that game, the story is “just find a way out.”

There is a thread you pick up on early, though it might be a bit strange and requires some minor explaining here real quick: in Unreal, you have the option when starting a new game to choose your player model. You can see yourself a few times throughout the game - Unreal has reflective surfaces in a few spots - so it’s not totally useless. By default, Prisoner 849 is a woman. Canonically, Prisoner 849 is a woman.

Early on, past the first level, you enter an ancient Nali temple, ruined and defaced by the Skaarj over the years, but not without its still-devout followers. It’s here that you get the first hints of what seems like it might be a story more appropriate for a 90s shooter. You see a carving on a wall that talks about “the Princess from the Stars” coming to deliver retribution to “the Demons from the Sky.” Now, if you’ve changed your player model to male, this doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. But obviously the intent is to key you the player into the mentality that “oh, I’m some prophesied Chosen One, right?” Yes and no. We'll get back to it.

See, about a third of the way into the game you come across another crashed human ship, the ISV Kran. The Kran, gameplay-wise, is a mixed bag of levels ranging from good to meh, the worst of it stemming from symmetrical layouts and a lack of texture variety. But in the narrative as it unfolds, the Kran is very important.

So far, you've passed through a dozen unique and varied environments ranging from the cliffs at the start to the ancient temple, to a Tarydium mine near a small village, a high-tech processing plant nearby, and even an old coliseum or sports arena converted by the Skaarj into a torture chamber. The Kran is your first look at anything human-built since leaving the Rikers.

I'm not going to go through the game bit by bit, but the leadup to the Kran is important. Throughout that first third of the game, you find escaped crew and prisoners from the Vortex Rikers fairly frequently. The events of the game are happening without you, and things aren't going well.

Once inside the Kran, things change a little. Amid the text logs of status readouts and final words before the Skaarj broke in, there's a tiny narrative being constructed about a crewmember by the name of Kira. Kira had managed to do much of what you have - she's armed herself and set off in search of a way off Na Pali with a small group of other crew, some of who you find, once again already dead. One of Unreal’s longest maps comes in around this point, and Kira is a large focus. She was captured, made contact with a group of Nali also held prisoner in the temple (lots of temples in Unreal, the Nali are very religious), mounted her escape, and had to leave her last remaining crewmember behind, his final log suggesting she headed for something she heard was held in the nearby belltower…

This small aside is a brilliant piece of the game, it really is. When I said there was another game or another story behind every corner, I meant it. Kira’s journey from the Kran to Bluff Eversmoking is a full story on its own, and it lends some interesting insight towards a lot of the various prophecies and Nali beliefs you've run into along the way. From the Kran to the Bluff, you find more mentions of the Messiah, of the Sky Princess. You, right? Right?

Or was it Kira?

Kira followed the same path you did. Less of it, sure, but she fought the Skaarj infesting sacred Nali temples. She, an alien warrior, cleansed their holy places of demons who had enslaved them. A small group of Nali risked their own lives to break her out when she was captured, based only on their horror that she would be executed.

This is why keeping 849 as the default lady playermodel is important. The text logs were written with that in mind in order to muddle things. Are you the Messiah? Is Kira? Presumably both of you just want to go home, and maybe falling into a vaguely defined prophecy with incredibly generous qualifications (not Nali or Skaarj, girl, can kill Skaarj) was just an accident.

It certainly seems that way, because when you finally find Kira, she's dead. Your hopes of finding another living human, the Nali’s hopes in an alien warrior, lie dead on the ground with an empty pistol beside her.

Unreal, and Na Pali within it, does not care about Prisoner 849. The story does not revolve around you nor does it even stop to make room for you. Any one of those human bodies you pass throughout the entire game was another escapee. Between the Vortex Rikers and the Kran, you follow a trail of bodies almost up until the end of the game. Except for a very small stretch at the end, someone has beaten you to where you are. But you go further. You encounter things no human has. You escape Na Pali.

Eventually.

If it sounds like I'm taking Unreal a bit too seriously, it's because I most likely am. I admit that. But Unreal just creates such a unique atmosphere among games that I can't help it. Videogames are inherently power fantasies, and most facilitate this by making you play as someone obviously powerful. BJ Blazinsky. Doomguy. Lo Wang. Duke Nukem. A jedi. Even in Call of Duty, where you often just play as some grunt, you get to be the special grunt who sees all the coolest stuff first. And yes, again, even Half-Life doesn't start without you. Gordon becomes mythologized even in the first game, to say nothing of Half-Life 2. In Unreal, there's nobody to put you on a pedestal. Na Pali has its own problems and you're just plopped down in the middle of them while trying to solve your own. It isn't your fault that they intersect.

So it shouldn't be that big of a surprise that one of my other favorite games ever is another hero-by-random-circumstance romp through an uncaring world, Dark Souls. If you like the narrative themes Dark Souls has going on, you'll like Unreal, end of story.

Wait, no, not end of story, because all I did was wax philosophical about the theme for like 8 pages. I gotta talk about design now, ‘cause hot damn does my love of Unreal not stop with flowery prose.

The Skaarj are the primary antagonistic force in the game, but they're some kind of powerful empire with other races on their payroll. After escaping the Vortex Rikers, gaping in awe at the waterfall, and spending some time chasing harmless wildlife around the field, the first actual enemy you fight is a Brute.

Brutes are big lumps of meat with two rocket pistols and a permanent scowl. They move slow, they turn slow, and they fire slow. The first one you fight is really close to the exit of an indoor area. What Epic have done here is create an excellent enemy encounter.

Nothing in Unreal has hitscan weapons. Ignore Legend Entertainment’s Return to Na Pali, I'm gonna. That means that everything coming your way can be dodged. Two rocket pistols sounds scary, but you're in an open area and you have the ability to strafe. If you're somehow not comfortable doing that while shooting, that's why the Brute’s so big, he's hard to miss.

From there, you get exposed to the tentacle and the Razorfly. The Tentacle is essentially a stationary, ceiling-mounted autoturret that fires a single projectile at you every half second or so, and the Razorfly is a big bug that hits you with melee attacks. Neither are particularly challenging, but all three so far get you ready for your first encounter with a Skaarj.

You're in a small facility and have just shut off a force field. Coming back through the hallway, bars suddenly slam out from the wall, blocking your progress. The music fades out. And one by one, the lights turn off until you're sitting in pure darkness. You get a few seconds to sweat before the music kicks back in, the wall beside you slides open, flashing red emergency lights appear, and a large shape leaps out at you.

The first encounter with a Skaarj is cramped and claustrophobic, and intended to have you miss a lot of its capabilities. It runs around, does a forward leaping melee attack, and can shoot little bolts of energy at you. At the time, you only have two weapons: the Automag, a hitscan pistol with a decent fire rate, and the Dispersion Pistol, a projectile energy weapon you can charge up that acts in the same capacity as Doom’s fist or Quake’s axe as a holdout weapon. You'll most likely take out the Skaarj with the Automag because there isn't a way to run out of ammo with it unless you try, so you most likely won't see how this type of enemy reacts to projectiles.

Because, see, Unreal has very smart AI, and the people who made these enemies took great advantage of that fact. The Brutes and Razorflies of the level so far are pretty simple cannon fodder type stuff, they amble around and attack towards you. Once you're away from that first encounter, the Skaarj enemies have a few tricks.

A Skaarj will try to circlestrafe you. If you're using a projectile weapon, a Skaarj will dodge your attacks with a pretty damn high success rate (deviously, the very next weapon you get after the Automag is the Tarydium Stinger, a projectile-based minigun, and you start seeing Skaarj commonly around the same time). If a Skaarj is getting near death and has allies close by, it'll try to run away towards them. Sometimes a Skaarj will fake its death to try to catch you by surprise. It won't ever get back up while you're looking or within a certain range, and you can take the time to see if flies start buzzing around the supposed corpse or just gib it to make sure. A Skaarj will intuitively use cover, as well, thanks to a dead-simple pathfinding mechanism inside the level editor.

A Skaarj is a really cool enemy today, let alone in 1998, half a year before everyone lost their shit over Half-Life’s stilted Marine encounters.

Unreal keeps a pretty steady flow of enemy varieties coming your way, as well. Various types of Skaarj show up, often with ranks padded out by the Krall, another race they employ or enslave, and they have plenty of variety among them as well.

But Na Pali isn't just a collection of levels stuffed full of bad guys to click on. Most levels actually don't have all that many enemies to them, instead relying on strong encounter design over sheer overwhelming odds. . . . Most.

No, Na Pali is a world, and Unreal wants you to believe that. The game bounces you between open outdoor areas and various structures at a healthy pace, and it always manages to give it all a fresh coat of paint. Harmless critters hop around or soar high above, schools of fish scatter when you explore a lake, beasts of burden grumble at you as you charge past their pens, flak cannon in hand. And better yet, enemies aren't often just waiting around for you to show up. They have things to do or time to waste, and may very well be doing that when you come across them. In areas controlled by the Skaarj, you can often see them tapping away at computers or just staring out a window before you alert them, and Krall mercenaries are fond of drinking or playing dice. Brutes amble around on patrol patterns, stopping every now and then to scratch themselves. The more feral Slith enemies found near water tend to just be swimming around until they're alerted.

These tiny details make Na Pali feel like a place, and the levels you play through are no different. From the wrecked Vortex Rikers to the various Nali temples to the Kran and even up to the final levels set on the Skaarj mothership, the levels make room for details like bedrooms, kitchens, and even bathrooms in a way that shooters just sort of didn't usually do at that point. Sure, you'd have a bathroom in another game every so often, but it was usually there for a gag or some sort of reference. Unreal makes a concentrated effort to really sell you on these levels, and it works. There's so much variety in the maps that not a lot has a chance to get boring, though sometimes, as I mentioned before, things can get a bit muddy. The map Terraniux and the middle levels of the Kran are a bit less navigationally-friendly than they could have been, but there's nothing as egregious as the later levels of Doom or any of the other maps from various games that are mazes first and gameplay sections second. There are no out-of-place platforming sections or agonizing breaks for switch puzzles. There's just a world as you might find it in real life.

Another strength of Unreal’s level design is that sometimes it just lets you take a break. You might go minutes without seeing an enemy, leaving you free to explore your surroundings. There's even a level that has an entire segment dedicated to calmly floating down a river on a small boat, with no combat at all. It comes after a challenging combat section and acts as a nice little breather with great visuals and fantastic music.

Oh man, Unreal’s music. Never before or again have I heard a more distinct soundtrack in a game. Unreal has its fair share of late-90s electronic tracks, but the majority of its music is a very chill mix of unusual instruments. I know next to nothing about music, so let me just drop some links real quick.

Dusk Horizon

Nali Chant

War Gate

Surfacing

It's such an intriguing mix of styles, and it's all perfectly suited for the environments you hear them in. All of the levels are colored very deliberately, and the music matches the mood that texturing and lighting creates. Coupled with how each track has an ambient and battle section and how it seamlessly slides between them as you enter and leave combat, the levels in Unreal are all a treat to explore, and I really do urge people to look up the soundtrack because it's really just that good.

The music in this game created a precedent of quality that the series kept up easily, and is just more evidence of how committed Epic at the time were to making as immersive and vibrant a world as they could. It's just another part of a beautifully crafted experience that created a game so unlike any other at the time or since.

Unreal is a game that is still incredibly playable today. On a technical level, it's the Unreal Engine so you can pop it onto anything and get it working without any real trouble. The unofficial OldUnreal patch is easy to find, and is just a single .dll file that gets dropped in the system folder. But that's not the only thing playable means. Design philosophies and public reception to various systems and elements of gameplay change over time, and it renders a large number of games either too obtuse or too clunky to really get into. But there are always games that are timeless. Doom is still a treat because the only thing in it is shooting, there's nothing particularly experimental to have been done better over repeated iterations. Unreal is simple in that way, too. Its weapons are varied, unique, and famous. Man, I didn't even get into the weapons, but I'll save that for the Unreal Tournament essay.

My point is, Unreal did a lot, and it did it very well. It and every other game from 1998 was overshadowed by Half-Life, unfortunately, and that became the game to beat. Half-Life isn't the reason we never saw another Unreal in the same vein as the first, but I do think that a desire to be the next Half-Life is why the industry moved to such a narratively-focused philosophy. There was another game three years later that also focused on sprawling outdoor areas mixed with indoor structures, but it didn't have the same lonesome exploration, living world, or details that suggested hundreds of years of mythology. This game would go on to affect the industry just as much or even more than Half-Life, and was in fact Bungie’s Halo.

Halo had cutscenes and voiced NPCs and all the things Half-Life made people want. Halo is another beast, but its success was all but the final nail in the coffin for any hope Unreal had of spawning any imitators. The era of frantic slaughterfests in key-locked mazes was over, and Unreal’s attempt at carving out a spot for contemplative exploration in living worlds was ignored.

That style of game would come back, but not in shooter form. Both Dark Souls and Shadow of Colossus have similar feels to them, and I'm sure there are others out there. Other Team ICO titles, Journey, there have to be others, there are too many videogames for there not to be. But as it stands, Unreal is all but alone, and even now, in this wave of 90s revival indie shooters, they aim more for Doom and Quake. Even Epic would step away from Unreal’s distinctive style with its very next release.

See, Unreal was popular, but at the time, released into an audience high off of Quake 2, those same people wanted to dive into its multiplayer. And when it worked, it was incredible. But it often didn't work. Epic set to fervent work patching it to fix poor netcode and a variety of other issues, but that project turned into something far, far larger, prompting them to release an entirely new game running on an updated version of the Unreal engine. New maps, optimized and redone versions of existing maps, remodeled and rebalanced weapons, new music, new gamemodes, everything.

Unreal Tournament would come out a year later, setting the industry alight in its own ways. We'll take a look at that next month, so until then, take a day or two to play through Unreal. I played it and loved it a decade after its release, and another decade won't have changed much.

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