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drabsyo · 3 years

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Drabs, I know that you usually draw Fleur with slightly darker blonde hair than Narcissa. Was it a choice so that it’s easier to distinguish them from each other or was your Fleur maybe slightly influenced by the actress from the movie who had darker hair?

In the books Fleur didn’t seem to have much description other than having long silvery hair (waist length?) and having this glow around her. So like with Narcissa, what works have influenced your design of Fleur?

It’s fascinating sometimes to read the artist’s perspective and your previous reply to the anon about Narcissa has been very interesting.

Thank you!!! 🥺

I was actually pretty embarrassed over how enthusiastic I got over the whole hair thing, but I'm glad it made some sense at least 😂 And now that I've been given even more reason to talk about it... (Let's face it, I shouldn't even be allowed on this website to begin with, ya'll have been way too nice to me.)

Only click on keep reading if you want to read Some Nonsense.

I did consider Fleur's actress when I thought about her hair color. Though I pictured it to be something of a mix between movie Fleur and Elsa’s (from Frozen) hair. But the way I drew Fleur's hair, the way it falls across her shoulders, that was more of... well, I imagined Fleur to have effortlessly perfect hair, like she doesn't seem to need to style it so much because it's already whimsical as it is, what with her being part-Veela. There were a lot of fanfictions that helped me to sort of see a better image of Fleur in my head so really, I owe it to all the talented writers out there!

It's also the same with Narcissa's case. Though I decided to give her paler hair, compared to Fleur's, because I wanted to emphasize that air of vulnerability Narcissa has—this image she conjures, like she's this fragile thing made of glass, which typically in fanfiction is what Narcissa uses so that Voldemort would overlook her a lot, hence why she wasn't given any "missions" or "tasks" while Voldemort was in Malfoy Manor. Slytherin preservation. This "fragile" image was something Narcissa capitalized on and maintained perfectly, but in post-war Cissamione fanfictions, she no longer has to put on that façade—she starts living for herself, but the quiet sadness about her never really goes away.

I really did struggle at first, I had to find a way where I could draw them without confusing people and myself.

So, again, I sifted through a lot of canon and non canon material about these two characters which funnily enough made me see some kind of parallel going on between them. I know. Fleur Delacour and Narcissa Black. Parallels?! It's nuts. But again, this is only within Fleurmione and Cissamione fanfiction, and it really helped me to draw them better. (At least in a way that made them distinguishable from one other at first glance, I’d like to think.)

These 'hair scenes' are mostly the bits where Hermione "first" sees Fleur. Hermione is entranced, a little curious, sometimes she feels indifferent, but the general theme is Hermione immediately finds Fleur beautiful—which probably explains why Hermione in fanfiction sometimes thinks Narcissa could be part-Veela like Fleur. And as you can imagine, that's where my struggle began.

You'll see what I mean in a minute. And just like last time, remember that this part comes with spoilers.

🔹 In Fighting is our form of Flirting by InsomniacAndBi in Chapter 2 Hermione sees Fleur for the first time. This is the first Fleurmione fanfiction I've ever read, and also the first time I've encountered Fleur's character. Tall, bright blonde hair, won the genetic lottery, aristocratic features, face held in a scowl, floats into the room with effortless poise, immediately starts demanding things out of people... Sounds vaguely familiar, doesn't it. Like some other blonde we know.

"Non!" A voice from the doorway said. "This is not what was agreed."

For a moment, Hermione thought about ignoring it but turned to glance over there if only to quell her curiosity. A girl stepped into the room and Hermione's phone call was forgotten in a moment. She knew that it wasn't nice to stare but Hermione couldn't help but do it because, in all honesty, this was the prettiest girl she had ever seen. She was definitely taller than Hermione was, with bright blonde hair and...clearly she had won the genetic lottery.

Her skin practically glowed and it looked so smooth and soft. It made Hermione wonder if she used those fancy beautification charms or had a very lengthy skincare routine. Or maybe, just maybe, this is what being rich did to people's faces. There was no doubt in Hermione's mind that this girl was rich - like extremely rich, like even rich people thought she was rich. That kind of rich. That was the type of rich that this girl was.

Also, only super rich people curled up their lip like this girl was doing.

She breezed into the room like she was floating and Hermione hastily ended her phone call and promised to call back later.

"This is not what was agreed," The girl said again and Hermione felt incredibly small sitting in front of her. Not to mention, the girl's clothes screamed 'I'm rich and I know it' and Hermione's screamed 'I'm so out of place that I might as well be a bull in a China shop'.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Hermione managed to get out when it became apparent that the girl was waiting for her response.

"You are English." The girl looked shock for a moment at Hermione's accent before shaking her head angrily. "This is not what was agreed."

🔹 In Oath of Silver by i_shall_wear_midnight immediately in the first chapter, when Witcher Hermione first meets Fleur, it's something Hermione quickly notices. Vivid sapphire eyes. Silvery blonde hair that shimmered in the torchlight. And once again, right off the bat, Fleur is pushy. She wants things done her way. It’s just so cute how she doesn’t even let the fact that Hermione is a Witcher, an extremely dangerous outcast in society, get in the way of that.

(I'm sorry for this but I just have to gush about Oath of Silver. Hermione as a witcher is just so fitting for her character; she possesses that natural eye for detail that remarkable witchers have, witchers like Geralt and Vesimir (a skill that gets even more honed through the Witcher Trials). Hermione even has Geralt's dry sense of humor, a bit rough around the edges, brilliant, snippy without really meaning to (because she asks a lot of questions and would rather get to the point), but has a good heart.)

The witcher figured that would be the end of her human interactions for the evening, but only a few minutes later, the stunning newcomer from before appeared before her. Upon closer inspection, Hermione couldn’t imagine she wouldn’t be conspicuous in any group of people she happened to find herself immersed in. The woman was looking back at her with vivid sapphire eyes, and silvery blonde hair that shimmered even in torchlight. Her attire was travel-ready, but elegant.

“Bonsoir. You are a witcher, oui? Or perhaps a ‘witcheress’ is more accurate? I am not familiar with all the terms…” She watched the beautiful stranger patiently while she fumbled through Hermione’s professional title. As if the distinctive, amber colored cat-eyes hadn’t given her away, the brunette mused wryly. Eventually, the blonde gave up and sat herself down at Hermione’s table, her medallion twitching faintly as the stranger got settled. Hermione filed that away for later. Her new dinner buddy seemed to be oblivious to the curious and concerned looks now being thrown her way at boldly taking a seat at a mutant’s table.

“I came from Ellander,” she began in a non sequitur. “The temple, and spoke to the priestess Nenneke, who told me about you.” Hermione continued eating her second serving of stew and waited for her to get to the point. “I would like to hire you as an escort as I travel back to Toussaint.” The witcher finally put her spoon down.

“Sounds like you ought to be asking some mercenaries to be your bodyguards,” she responded, eyeing the bow the woman was carrying on her pack meaningfully.

“A pair seems doable, and I’d prefer you.”

“I’m not a bodyguard.”

“Yes, technically, I am aware,” she replied, beginning to show signs of impatience.

“Then why are you soliciting a monster-slayer?”

🔹 Witnessed here in Time and Blood by whistle.the.silver is probably the most interesting one because it uses the concept of Veela hair as a wand core brilliantly. Again, this comes with huge 🛑spoilers🛑. Read the italicized words at your own risk. I can't add the entire clip here, as the topic of Fleur's hair is littered throughout several other chapters. But this story shows us a Fleur who is willing to do anything in order to protect Hermione during the course of the war.

My memory is a bit foggy, I haven't read this story in months, but here's what I remember:

This takes place during the time of Shell Cottage, where Fleur is married to Bill and takes care of Hermione. Fleur didn't expect to fall in love with the young brunette and, as the Golden Trio's time in Shell Cottage comes to an end, she worries over Hermione's safety. Fleur, using magic only known to the Veela tribes, does her best to offer Hermione protection in any way that she can--even going as far as to study what Lily Potter did so Harry could live. At one point, Fleur cuts her own hair with a length now roughly above her shoulders to give Hermione a new wand. But this isn't the only bridge Fleur is willing to cross to make sure Hermione survives the incoming battle. Fleur's grandmother, Ron, and even Bill himself, is a little sceptic over the propriety of Fleur's actions, but Fleur is determined to do whatever it takes to make sure Hermione makes it out of the war safe and alive.

So that was a lot to wade through, I know.

But if you've skipped all those parts for the sake of missing spoilers then let me go ahead and explain why the parallel between Fleur and Narcissa are there. Sure, it's plain to see that they have similar physical characteristics, but they're also similar in other ways.

In Witnessed here in Time and Blood, Fleur is willing to do whatever it takes to protect Hermione during the war: sacrifice the secrets of the Veela, make Hermione a wand, make her marriage and friendship with Bill suffer, be scrutinized by her Veela tribe, etc. And didn't Narcissa do the exact same thing during the war to make sure Draco made it out alive? They both chose to 'betray' everyone else for the sake of this one person. Not to mention, in Extinction by rubikanon Narcissa even makes Hermione a wand. (I’m telling you, there are so many parallels between these two ships and I can probably list more but I'd rather not make this post longer.)

Here, I’m just going to go ahead and say it—it’s almost like Fleur and Narcissa in fanfiction have the same love language.

A glaringly obvious difference between them is their upbringing, and we could argue that this why Fleur tends to be more open with her emotions while Narcissa tends to be more carefully guarded with hers. And I don't know if writers realize these parallels but as someone who's a huge fan of both characters and as someone who makes the occasional fanart of them, it's a pretty difficult detail to ignore. This crazy conspiracy all started because I had to find a way to make both characters look distinct from one another... It's just so interesting that writers from two different ships unknowingly make these parallels with two completely separate characters who are often at the opposite ends of the seesaw.

But again, let's take a look at Extinction by rubikanon. (I know. Extinction?! AGAIN?! Always.)

Spoiler warning!

🔹 Extinction by rubikanon has a marvelous take on this, as it turns out Fleur and Narcissa are actually good friends, and if I remember correctly, occasionally exchange letters (I’m unsure about this bit, I might have read it in a different story). They just get along remarkably well; I imagine they both share a kind of mutual respect for each other, a quiet understanding for the way the other woman carries herself: poised, meticulous, they pride themselves in their work, they both know how to handle an Ocean Of Secrets™, they're both accustomed to being under the spotlight of the public eye, and they’re both dedicated to their loved ones. Needless to say, Fleur and Narcissa are both giddy over the prospect of being with someone they love and adore, and end up meticulously planning numerous (I think it was hinted) double dates (Fleur with Bill, and Narcissa with Hermione) with the same kind of endearing enthusiasm that leave Hermione and Bill with no choice but to agree to the whims of their respective lovers.

(Scene seen in Chapter 23: Build Up Your Defense 2 of 2)

Narcissa and (Hermione) I were sitting together on one of the couches when Bill and Fleur arrived later. They showered Teddy with kisses on his little cheeks. He'd gotten past his clingy phase and adored us all, struggling to walk around the room by bracing himself on everyone's knees.

Suddenly Narcissa reached up and grabbed onto someone's wrist behind her head. "Don't even think about it," she said.

"That's just scary. How did you know I was there?" George stood up from behind the couch, a toy spider dangling from his hand. Teddy shrieked with laughter.

"She has eyes in the back of her head," Draco said.

"Mothers," George grumbled, sitting down close to Angelina. "Dump her, Hermione. I need you to date someone more prankable."

Fleur looked in surprise at the two of us on the couch. "Oh, la vache! How did I not know zees? You are lovers?"

"We're dating," I said mildly, though we really were lovers. In every sense. I glanced at Narcissa and bit my lip as heat spread through me. My imagination started planning a middle-of-the-night rendezvous.

"No wonder she (Narcissa) was so adamant about healing that curse," Bill said thoughtfully.

"Adorable! Simply adorable!" Fleur exclaimed, sitting down on Narcissa's other side. "We must go out for a double date next week, all four of us. We'll dine at L'Escargot!"

Narcissa's eyes lit up.

"Oh, no," I said.

"You won't have to eat snails," Narcissa said. "Please, mon amour?"

"French doesn't work on me."

"Please?" She kissed my cheek again and again. "Please? Please?"

Laughing now, I pulled her in for a kiss on the lips and said, "Yes, alright. But only because I have fond memories of trying new foods with you."

"As do I," she agreed.

Then we realized everyone was staring. Narcissa cleared her throat and straightened up, blushing. Draco made a face. Ginny looked a little more favorable. Harry held in laughter, and Andromeda hid her camera.

"Adorable!" Fleur declared again.

🔹 Also, I just have to add Sugar and Spice by waltzlikeits1698 because Chapter 4: Happy Birthday, Harry is absolutely hysterical. During Harry's birthday party, Hermione sulks in a corner because Fleur has apparently been avoiding her. Ginny decides to do something barking mad, something Hermione typically falls for.

“Ooh, someone’s grouchy,” Ginny teased, retracting her arm and facing Hermione fully. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing,” Hermione insisted, although even she could hear the pout in her voice.

“Sure seems like it,” she snarked, summoning two shots and offering one to Hermione with a waggle of her eyebrows. Hermione pulled a face and Ginny shrugged before downing both, one after the other. (...) “You know, I spotted a tall, blonde drink of water hanging around the stairs.”

“What!?” Hermione exclaimed, whirling around and leaning out of the room to look at the staircase. Sure enough, standing at the bottom and resting a slender hand on the bannister was a tall, blonde witch who made Hermione’s heart stop with her mere presence. She had started forward before she knew it, her heart taking up an even quicker beat as she crossed the few steps and reached out a hand to clasp her elbow. The woman turned, that beautiful blonde hair catching the candlelight as it moved in one long sheet.

Hermione retracted her hand in horror, her eyes widening. “Mrs Malfoy!?”

Narcissa Malfoy raised an eyebrow at the witch who had practically accosted her. “Miss Granger. Can I help?”

What was she even doing here?

“Uh,” Hermione said dumbly, “sorry, I just… need the loo. Can I-?”

She gestured lamely to the staircase. Both women stared at the perfectly reasonable gap that Hermione could easily pass through. The moment stretched on.

Slowly, Narcissa returned her inscrutable gaze to Hermione, who squirmed uncomfortably in response. She then took a small step to the side and gestured for Hermione to pass. She did so and, as she turned the corner of the staircase, sent a deadly glare at Ginny, who was practically pissing herself with laughter.

(...)

Fleur had arrived. Hermione couldn’t explain exactly how she could tell, considering she had been in the duplicated bathroom for the last ten minutes after humiliating herself in front of Narcissa, but she knew it like she knew that it was levi-O-sa.

(...) (Hermione) She tried to avoid eye contact with Narcissa on the way back down and was thoroughly unsuccessful: the witch had physically reached out and laid her own hand over Hermione’s on the bannister, forcing her to stop and look up. Then, with an intention behind her eyes that Hermione had neither the brain capacity nor the energy to delve into, she said “It’s Ms Black now.”

Then she had released Hermione’s hand and turned back to her conversation with Andromeda and two wizards Hermione didn’t recognise.

Come to think of it, there were a lot of people Hermione didn’t recognise.

Anyway, long story short, this is the result of reading both Fleurmione and Cissamione—

But RIGHT. At the end of the day, again, these are just some crazy little things I picked up on and I may or may not be right, no one has to agree with me, everyone can disagree with me. Actually, yes feel free to disagree with me. I need to get out of this damn site and you know, touch grass.

Okay. Well. I'm gonna stop here now. So. Bye. But thank you anon for this lovely ask!! I’m really touched that you wanted to know what inspired the way I drew Fleur 🥺💕💖 But still. So sorry for this massive word vomit!! 😂

#fleurmione #cissamione #fleur delacour #narcissa black #narcissa malfoy #hermione granger #stupid rants #drabstuff #yall im telling you im the mad scientist but remove all the science

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gossip-girl-of-middleearth · 4 years

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The Softest Shout (Fili x Reader)

Requested by: @guardianofrivendell

Saw that your requests were open 👀 I absolutely LOVE your Legolas fics! But can you maybe write a Fíli oneshot 👉👈? Can be angst with fluff ending, or just fluff. I am WEAK for enemies to lovers or angrily confessing your love without thinking: "But why?" "Because I love you!" I'm happy with whatever really :)

A/N: here you are! My first Fili fic! Was gonna save it for Fili Friday, but couldn’t wait! Poor majestic lion deserves more love! Enjoy! ☀️

How dare he! The audacity! The nerve! What right did Fili have, as to boss those beneath him around?

Y/n grinded her teeth, as she sat on the stone steps of one of Erebor’s many halls. A battle loomed in the distance – one between her kind, and the Elves. It regarded mostly stolen jewellery, and the stubborn streak of Thorin, which she saw all too much in his oldest nephew.

Y/n was just as adept in battle as her male counterparts were. However, Fili apparently thought not.

He had always treated her unfairly, Y/n mused. He was always mean – pulling on her pigtails, making snide remarks and all-around teasing. Oh, how it made her blood boil.

However, this was the final straw for the woman. She was a grown adult, and yet, here she was – sidelined, and forced to sit out the approaching war.

It had startled her, to say the least, when Fili snapped earlier. She was arranging plans for the fight ahead, regarding her armour. However, Fili quickly stormed into the room, and took the chainmail right from her hands.

He then proceeded to seethe and scold her, claiming that she had ‘no place on the battlefield’. She too had said some choice words, which in hindsight, may have been a little brash. Though, she did not regret them at all, for they were birthed from nothing but truth.

So, now here Y/n sat – furious on the stone steps.

Dwalin soon walked past. He stopped, confused, for a moment. Why was she sat down? By Durin! There was a war to prepare for!

“Lass,” he began scolding, “I know for a fact you are not sitting down right now – not when you could be readying yourself to fight against those pansy peacocks!”

“I’ve got nothing to prepare for,” Y/n glumly said. She held her chin in her hand, and glared up at Dwalin.

“Whatever do you mean?” Dwalin asked, creasing his features.

“Oh, you haven’t heard?” Y/n started, with a roll of her eyes. “Our brave and true heir to the throne apparently has a superiority complex. He has removed me from the ranks. I am not allowed to fight.”

If Dwalin was surprised, he didn’t show it. Instead, puzzling Y/n, he merely only clicked his tongue, and muttered under his breath. It sounded like something along the lines of ‘that darned boy is utterly hopeless at these sorts of things’.

Y/n tilted her head, and parted her lips. What things? What was Fili hopeless at? He was sure a lousy comrade, that much was for certain. She herself would never have chosen to spend more than five minutes with him, but alas, the journey to Erebor deemed she would do so.

Finally, recalling the woman sat beneath him, Dwalin returned his attention to her.

“I know it isn’t my place to question our leaders’ authority,” he began, sighing, at the thought of Thorin, “but, I think you’ll find better luck in speaking to him again.”

“Shouting, you mean,” Y/n knowingly corrected.

“Aye, that’ll work too,” he mulled.

Smiling through a quick huff, Y/n dropped her eyes to the ground. She definitely had a lot of pent-up anger, so even if she couldn’t take it out onto the battlefield, she knew Fili would do just fine. After all, he was the reason she was so furious in the first place.

“You’re right,” she sighed, standing to her feet. “I’m going to go give him a piece of my mind!”

As she sauntered past, with squared shoulders, a set jaw and burning eyes, Dwalin chuckled, and responded aloud.

“Good luck...”

~ Fili was located in the armoury, and fiddled with the drawstring of his armour. Without so much as announcing herself, Y/n filed into the room.

“I have a bone to pick with you!” she seethed, marching on over to him. “How dare you take me out of this fight! I am warrior, just as much as the rest of you! You may be the future king, but you aren’t one yet! I demand a reconsideration!”

He was startled, but only for a minute. By the time she stood before him, he had regained his ever-cool composure.

Pretending to think, Fili hummed. He then smiled back down at her, but in a very smug way.

“Okay, I’ve reconsidered,” he said, earning a slight glimmer of hope from the woman, “and the answer is still no.”

Growling, she pushed his chest backwards. She spoke with much fury, which did nothing to unnerve the Dwarf.

“How dare you!” she shouted again, with anger written all over her face. “Why? WHY? Why must you always be like this? You treat me the way the men from certain human dwellings treat their spouses – like nothing more than little housewives!”

Fili blushed at this. Did she not hear her own words? Oh, if only she knew how close her accusations were. Of course, he didn’t do this for any narcissism. No, Fili did this for reasons he thought Y/n surely must have already known.

Kili told him how to acquire a woman’s heart – ‘they like it when you’re mean to them, sends their hormones haywire’, Kili had said one day.

Perhaps his little brother was wrong, though? Y/n certainly didn’t hold love in her eyes. Instead, she revered him in disdain. That was not what he wanted.

“You do not know of what you speak of,” Fili warned, raising his brows in gesture.

“Oh? Then perhaps you’d like to clarify for me? Because I’m lost,” Y/n seethed again. She folded her arms over her chest, and quirked a brow.

Fili was at a loss himself. He stammered over his words, before he realized none could form, and sighed.

Dissatisfied with his lack of response, Y/n flared her nostrils. She bared her teeth, and began shouting again. If he would not answer, then she would fill the silence.

“Why do you say nothing?” she began, revving up in her tone, which only hastened Fili’s heart, with every passing second. “Why? Why do you treat me so poorly? Why am I to be sidelined, when all my friends must fight?”

“It simply has to be this way,” Fili said at last, shaking his head at the ground.

“Why, though?” she tried again.

“Because, I said so,” Fili once more said, feeling his own anger boil.

“Yes, but why?”

“Because, I said so,” he growled again.

“But WHY?”

“Oh, for the love of Durin, because I LOVE YOU!”

“Yes, but why-“ Y/n had gone to say.

However, the moment his words met her mind, she halted. What had he just said? Surely her ears deceived her?

“What?” she next quietly whispered.

He chewed on the inside of his cheek, and studied her nervously. Well, there was no turning back now.

“The reason I do not wish for you to be on the battlefield,” he slowly began explaining, “is because I care, very deeply, for you, Y/n. I wouldn’t want to see you hurt.”

A pregnant pause ensued.

Oh.

Oh dear.

Pursing her parted lips, it was now Y/n’s turn to stutter and stammer. However, when no words of her own would form, she closed her mouth.

She stared at the ground for a moment in thought. Fili picked at his drawstring faster, for he figured she would now reject him.

Dammit, Kili, he thought. He knew he should not have taken his little brother’s relationship advice. That darned brunette couldn’t even grow a beard!

Lost in his seething thoughts regarding Kili, Fili was startled, as Y/n spoke again.

“Well…that certainly places things in a different perspective,” she said at last.

“A good perspective? Or a bad one?” Fili bemusedly pressed.

“That depends,” Y/n shrugged, “I wouldn’t wish to court someone who taunts and belittles my skills as a warrior.”

“I never meant to do such a thing,” Fili apologised, shaking his head. “I merely only want you safe, and as for the taunting, well…let’s just say Kili gives terrible advice.”

Unsatisfied with his lack of accountability, Y/n quirked a brow. Noticing this, Fili sighed again. He slumped his shoulders, and pressed on.

“And…let’s also just say, for argument’s sake, that I’m quite stupid?” he tried.

This gently extracted a bright grin from Y/n.

“Aye, that works better,” she warmly remarked.

Both then laughed, and reduced the bubbling tension in the room, to nothing but mist. Catching the other’s eye, both slowly died down. Y/n saw Fili in a new light – someone worthy of her consideration. Of course, Fili would still have to work for her approval, nonetheless.

“I’ll tell you what,” she began, “I’ll consider removing the layers in my heart, as to search for what I really feel towards you, if you allow me in this fight. I’ll have no such partner denying me the thrill of a battle.”

“Aye, you certainly love fighting…” Fili sighed, staring up at the ceiling.

“Indeed, and I’d urge you to make haste and find an answer, before you earn yourself another one,” she sassed.

Unable to fight the grin over her attitude, one he knew certainly couldn’t be missed in their ranks on the battlefield, Fili responded.

“Very well,” he said at last, “I will…step aside, although, let it be known that it deeply irks me!”

Rising up on her tiptoes, Y/n planted a swift kiss to his cheek. Fili then turned five shades deeper, and felt his mind burn into nothing but revving sparks.

“Good choice,” she commended. She then made a move to string up his armour, and spoke again. “Now, how would you like to assist me with putting my own armour on?”

#fili x reader #fili #hobbit x reader #the hobbit x reader #x reader #Tolkien x reader #lotr imagine #hobbit imagine #thorins company x reader #company x reader #the hobbit #hobbit

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sanktnikolais · 3 years

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Feed The Wolves

A/N: your local zoyalai stan neighbor is here yet again for another content but this time it’s for @wafflesandkruge‘s birthday!!! I went way overboard with this ig but the Vincenzo fever we’ve been on for the past two weeks was still strong and the ending still tugs at my heart. So pls have this mess, Tiff, I’m sorry HAHDKLHJAFDS Happy birthday, dearest! 🥺🥺

Word count: 13 874

CW: graphic depictions of violence and gore. Read at your own risk.

The Lantsovs have finally taken their move to overthrow the Brums’ tyranny to the extremities. They thought they already have the upper hand and that the odds are finally on their side. But in a game that two players have nothing and everything to lose, there is always a catch in every move they make, and with it also comes a price.

How far are they willing to take it?

If Nikolai could be proud of one moment, he knew it would be today. One couldn’t just make an easy audience with the head of the Brum Family; usually it would take nearly a week to set up an appointment. Jarl Brum was one of the first men to establish their own Families, along with the Tabans, Lantsovs, and the Morozovas, and he was the most powerful among them.

For now.

When one of the biggest Families was in a war and planning to attack another with the same reputation, it was only necessary to play carefully. Especially going against a cunning opponent like Jarl Brum. Today’s predicament was tricky; one wrong move could cost them the chance. Or worse—their lives. Either way, it was dangerous. But if they didn’t at least try to keep the Brums at bay, it would only be a matter of time before they take over all the cities, including Os Alta. And considering how they handled things, lots of lives could be lost.

There was still another way out of this, but it involved extreme measures and there would be no returning after that. He could only hope he wouldn’t have to settle for that last resort no matter how slim his chances were.

Nikolai snapped the lid of his lighter closed, his loud mind finding solace in the metallic clink it made. His eyes caught on the engraving on the side of the lighter. Consigliere Idiot. He fought a smile. The lighter had been a gift to him by Zoya on his birthday a few years back, and it somehow became his talisman ever since. It was a weird kind of gift at first, with Zoya knowing too well that he didn’t smoke that much. But he still got attached to it.

You never know, it might come in handy when you suddenly have an urge to set some place on fire, was what she had told him.

He scoffed at the memory, and then took a deep breath as he focused on his current situation. The risks of having this meeting turn to the bloodbath Nikolai was expecting were high, and if he were to be honest, winning a fight against the Brums was almost impossible.

But he was never the one to believe in impossible. Only improbable. The one thing he could do now was to put faith on the odds being at their side at the end of the day.

He flicked his lighter open and closed again before checking his watch. The bright numbers glared back at him like a countdown of a time bomb nearing its detonation. 17:48. Twelve minutes.

If his estimate was right, Zoya and her men would have arrived by now and started their raid. But knowing the Lantsov Underboss to be careful and precise, they would need a bit more time. It only meant Nikolai had to continue making small talks with the man to try and see if he could settle a score with the Don without the use of violence. Talking proved to be a bit difficult, though, as the head of the Family was being attentive to focusing on his paperworks rather than Nikolai’s presence.

"The numbers are really unstable in the past two weeks and it's mostly plummeting," said Jarl as his eyes scanned the paper he was holding for the last time. Then with a dramatic sigh, he opened the drawer to his right and put the file inside, plastering a rather fake smile on his lips afterwards. "There's been a lot of visitors."

Nikolai could see right through the man's displeasure. He almost laughed. At least the feeling is mutual. "Tell me about it," he said with a light laugh. "Having your business overrun without any reason sure does something to you."

A shadow crossed the Don's face, but Nikolai only smiled innocently and held his gloved hand out for a handshake, a sort of formal gesture between a Don and a Consigliere before and after every meeting. Anyone lower than the Underboss aren't allowed to touch the head of a Family, and they could only do as much as bow in respect for the Don.

Jarl accepted it reluctantly, his grip firm as if he were contemplating breaking Nikolai’s hand. Nikolai was grateful when the man didn't. Maybe because it wasn't a good sight to have and talk business to a Consigliere with a broken hand.

"A pleasant afternoon, isn't it?" mused Nikolai as he took a sip of the coffee. It tasted good, but not nearly as good as Genya's brew. No poison. Or maybe there was and the effects just weren't kicking in yet. He suddenly wished for the woman's knack on any poison. "The perfect chance to kill time.”

The Brum Don laughed lightly, the sound mildly threatening as if he had just thought of something vile. “Indeed, Consigliere,” he said, leaning back more comfortably in his chair. “Is the coffee good? I apologize if it isn’t, but I do hope the atmosphere is comfortable.”

Nikolai fought a wince. He had been here a few times before. Jarl’s office was ice white—ranging from the walls, floorings, and the ceiling. Even the chair he was sitting on had been white. The only thing that gave another color to the pasty room were the furniture and a few appliances. At least his couches were blood red, and the view of the huge window behind his desk was different in shade. Nikolai was thankful for the change of scenery.

“No, no. Everything is good.” It sounded fake, considering how he despised the man's office. But he shook it off. He tipped the mug up in a toast. “I appreciate it, and thank you for accepting my appointment.” He found it funny and silly, when Jarl’s caporegimes used the term “appointment”. It was as if Nikolai wanted to get his teeth checked by a dentist, and considering how the man’s office looked, maybe it really was one. “I thought it would take me another week to wait for the confirmation.”

“You’re a Lantsov, from the first pioneers of the Families.” Jarl paused, a hint of a sneer appearing on his face. “You needn’t to be delayed.”

There was something the way Jarl spoke that didn’t sit well with Nikolai, like the man knew something he didn’t. A thought crossed his mind, but he shook it off. There was no way Jarl knew about that. Or was it? It was not impossible—the Brum Don had a wide network of informants. Rumor had it that there were a few in Os Alta, the city that the Lantsovs had control over.

Him knowing about Nikolai’s real father would only give him power against them. But then Nikolai still decided to brush it off, though its dangerous possibility still lingered at the back of his mind. It wasn’t the time to think of it. They had to take back the territories that were once theirs, even if they had to do it by brute force. It’s what Zoya would have preferred, anyway.

“That’s good to hear,” said Nikolai with a tight smile.

The man crossed his hands over the table, a glint evident in his eyes. Nikolai didn’t know what to make out of it. “So let’s hear it, Consigliere,” said Jarl. “What brings the Lantsovs here?”

Straight to the point. Nikolai put his mug back to the desk and removed his gloves, exposing his scarred hands. Jarl’s eyes flitted to Nikolai's hands for a moment before looking away, an uncomfortable expression on his face. Nikolai felt a sneer twitch on his lips. Scars weren’t new to people like them—they had new ones very often, depending on the work they were doing that time. It was their brand, and they wear it with pride.

But if people knew the history of the scars you bore, especially when you had gotten it from being the vicious Enforcer who once intimidated the streets of Halmhend, you would have an ace against your enemies. And for Nikolai, he exactly just had that.

“We’re eyeing the areas in Halmhend and Ulensk for expansion,” he said, and he noticed the Brum Don perk up a little from his chair. Now Nikolai had his attention. “I heard that the two properties in those locations require some...changes. Big changes, if I may add. So I would like to propose an offer to buy the property for double its actual value.” He stopped to consider, putting a finger to his chin. "No, wait. Make it triple."

Jarl didn't answer for a while, and his expression was in between being offended and amused. Nikolai wondered if the man thought that his offer was a bluff.

"I think you're quite mistaken, Consigliere," he said mildly, his tone having an underlying disbelief. "We do not place our properties up for purchase or any sort of deal."

The properties you had taken from Families by force, Nikolai wanted to say, but he bit back his tongue. The feel of the lighter in his other hand was enough to ease the sudden flare of anger in his chest. He put on his signature grin to cover it up. "Ah, but I thought your numbers were plummeting for the past two weeks? I think my offer would help the numbers to be friendly and rise up nicely again."

"Is that what your father told you to do?" Jarl asked as he leaned back further into his chair. The look on his face had gone from slightly friendly to threatening. "To try and sway me with money?"

"Don't we all want to be swayed and pampered by money?" countered Nikolai, the grin never leaving his lips. Jarl’s expression only became darker, and it made Nikolai want to goad him more. "Think of the numbers finally rising, Jarl. I know you want that."

"It’s foolish to think that I’d willingly sell properties that we have the ability to look after just quite well, Consigliere.” The Brum Don shook his head with a disappointed expression. “I never thought you would be this desperate.”

This ticked something inside Nikolai, and he found himself suddenly saying, “Is that why you worked with the Radimovs to overthrow our territories?”

There was a tense silence, and the expression on Jarl’s face turned from angry to mildly surprised, like he hadn't expected Nikolai to know about the Brums involvement with the assault. They weren't the only Family with spies stationed in different cities; the Lantsovs had just as much informants as the Brums have, if not a bit less.

Nikolai took the silence as his chance to continue. "Ah, let me make that clear. The Radimovs doing the dirty work and the Brums happening to ‘buy’ the two properties the following day from them. That's pretty much all of it, right? And it's not different from what you did with the Tabans and the Demidovs. And somehow the Morozovas too." He chuckled darkly. "Though it's probably pretty much the Morozovas' payment to your Family for protecting their ass, so I wouldn't really take that into account. Doesn't take a genius to figure that out."

Jarl’s jaw was set, as if determined not to admit to the accusation. His eyes were hard, but Nikolai could notice the man's hand suddenly fiddling the pen within his reach in tense movements. He has such an obvious tell. "I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about."

"Oh, I'm merely joking, sir. I mean, I am indeed a genius in certain aspects, but I didn’t learn about that information by connecting the dots. I knew about your tactics from an informant," said Nikolai with a kind smile. "We may have been spiraling a bit out of control since the attempted murder of my father, but we're not as stupid as you think."

The Brums had used the Lantsovs’ distraction in prioritizing the Don’s security to their advantage, going as far as making frequent appearances in their properties, and even in Os Alta. One of the instances he couldn’t forget were the three Brum soldiers who had caused disturbance in their bar in Kribirsk, and it stirred up the brewing dispute between their Families.

Nikolai wouldn't even be surprised if the Brums had something to do with the assassination. And if he were to really think of it now, it was most likely possible. The Demidovs weren't that powerful enough to do something as bold as trying to take down one of the most powerful Dons in the country, unless there was a much bigger hand controlling them.

The only Family who had the ability to pull off a stunt like that was the Brums. But knowing them, they always used someone else to do their dirty work for them as they wanted to maintain the 'clean slate' of their name.

They could always put out the fire, but they can never cover up the smoke.

Jarl considered Nikolai for another moment, and then he let out a loud laugh. “I get why Alexander appointed you as Consigliere and not your older brother. A clever boy, you are,” he said. "Can't be fooled easily."

"I'd take that as a compliment, sir," said Nikolai.

He reached over to the mug of coffee again, but his hand suddenly felt stiff and rigid as if something was keeping it from being able to move. Then his vision blurred slightly for a moment before it sharpened again, making him blink.

It took him a second, and a quiet laugh bubbled from his chest. His suspicions were right, then. He gripped the lighter tightly in his hand like it was the only source of his strength. Coffee was the last thing he had expected to have poison in it, and disbelief muddled his mind.

Cheeky bastard, should have put it in brandy or whiskey instead of slandering coffee this way.

Nikolai held the mug with a bit of effort in his outstretched hand, trying not to let his strain show. But when he looked up back to the Don again, there was no denying that he had already noticed Nikolai’s difficulty in moving, and the beginning of a smirk was evident on Jarl’s expression. The knife hidden under the lapel of Nikolai’s coat suddenly felt heavy.

This was going to be a pain to get through again.

"How's your father, Nikolai?" the man asked. Even his voice sounded faraway now. "Is he recovering well?"

"He is. Quite well, I'll say. He might get discharged next week," Nikolai replied before raising the mug to his lips again. It was only when he took another sip of the coffee did he finally recognize the slightest difference in the taste of a purely black coffee. Genya would have scolded him for not recognizing it right away. Cyanide. Cheap. "He sends his regards, by the way."

Jarl smiled. "I appreciate it." He paused, his eyebrows furrowing in mock concern. Nikolai wanted to laugh. "Are you alright? You seem to be looking quite unwell."

Nikolai shrugged, the movement requiring much more effort as he was still adjusting to the toxins in his body. "I'm fine, just a bit stiff. The coffee had a bit of a kick in it."

"Ah, but you did like your coffee without sugar, right?"

"Yeah, makes it more bracing." He gestured to the mug with a nod before placing it back to the desk. A dull tremor shot through him, and he fiddled with the lighter in his hand to keep it from going completely numb. "So, is your answer really a no?"

"You make me laugh, Consigliere. Here you are, alone, wanting to have an appointment to meet with me just to offer some nonsense."

“I wouldn’t actually call it nonsense I would say ultimatum, but that sounds too threatening so I think I’d tone it down for a bit,” said Nikolai, his tone light. He checked his watch. 17:58. Almost there. But then another tremor shot through him, and this time, he wasn’t able to stop a pained groan from tearing in his throat. He raised a finger. “Wait, give me a second.”

Nikolai closed his eyes and breathed deeply, flexing his fingers open and close. This was becoming rather embarrassing for him, to give threats to someone of a much higher rank than him while looking he was about to throw up, but he took his time. After a few more moments, he finally regained his composure. When he looked back up to the Don, Jarl had an amused expression on his face as if he were thinking of Nikolai as a big joke.

"Consider it a friendly warning," Nikolai said with a grin. “I wouldn’t want to spew threats yet when I still haven’t tried to convince you to change your mind.”

Jarl’s expression darkened. "This is a three-hectare property. No one would notice the Lantsov Consigliere not coming out of here."

"Oh, dear me. Are we doing threats now?" Nikolai laughed, or more like wheezed, and shook his head. "Three hectares, you say? So if I burned down this side of the compound, firefighters won't arrive in time, no? Or even just shooting you, I'm pretty sure no one else would hear."

"You're in my compound, Nikolai. My territory."

Nikolai shrugged. "Hasn't stopped me before."

"There are guards patrolling around right outside the hall. They will immediately barge in the moment I hit the alarm."

"Ah, let them. I like that kind of attention. Boosts my ego exponentially." The watch around Nikolai’s wrist beeped softly, and he glanced down at it to confirm that the numbers had already turned to 18:00. "I also did like my coffee without poison, actually. But I appreciate the improvised addition. Cyanide as an alternative to sugar? Genius. Gave a rush of thrill in my blood."

If Nikolai could frame the look of the evident shock on Jarl’s face, he would have made a whole exhibit just for it. People needed to see such a rare sighting of the Brum Don getting caught off guard. The man blinked repeatedly, as if he didn't believe what he was seeing in front of him.

Trust me, this will get useful at some point, Genya's voice echoed in his head. Nikolai silently thanked their caporegime's insistence for him to develop poison immunity. All those days of handling mild paralysis and unconsciousness was worth it.

"Oh, pardon me. Was I being too straightforward with that?" He chuckled lightly. "I can repeat it though. You got me good there, I can already feel it kicking in. But if you wanted to kill me, I think I would prefer a bullet to the brain just to be sure. That's a hundred percent chance I wouldn't walk out of here alive, or just mix in as much cyanide as you have. A sprinkle won’t be enough."

Jarl let out a laugh of his own, but the sound came out nervous instead of threatening. The man was evidently pale and he was now holding the pen so tightly in his fist he could have snapped it in half. "But that would be messy now, wouldn't it?" he said with a grin. Even his smile looked forced. "As you've told me, we don't do the dirty work.

"Hmm, fair. But there would be no thrill at all, would it? Having to hide behind your coffers and let others do the labor? That's icky." Nikolai shook his head. There was another tremor that shot throughout his body, but it was much weaker than the ones before it, and he almost smiled. At least that was over. Bless you, Genya. He leaned forward for a bit, his eyes narrowing curiously. "Do tell me, Jarl. How would it feel when someone else takes over your business by force, and brutally kills your men and innocent workers in the process? They’re not a threat, Jarl. Much less an enemy. Why involve them in the mess? We don’t do that. That is against our principles. But I guess that's never in your book, was it? You just do things that would satisfy your greed and thirst for blood."

“Getting bolder now, aren't we, Consigliere? I would watch that mouth of yours if I were you. Do you think the Lantsovs could handle another loss, especially their Consigliere?” The Brum Don shook his head, a look of disappointment on his face. “Who would try to handle things diplomatically?”

It was threat after threat. “That is a good question, sir,” said Nikolai. He flexed his fingers on both hands and put them on his knees. “I know Nazyalensky can be diplomatic if need be. But I also know she prefers to use rather drastic measures than talking. ‘It’s the easier way’, she always says. I would have to agree with her at certain times.”

“Are you implying something?”

Nikolai plastered a grin on his face. “Only the fact that you’d be facing lesser diplomatic meetings with the Lantsovs if I ever not make it out of here alive,” he said. A soft ping resounded, and he took out his phone from his coat pocket. He checked the alert, his grin turning smug and menacing, the kind that people rarely see the Lantsov Consigliere ever did. “And that you’d probably be dealing with it sooner than you thought.”

A look of confusion bloomed on the Don’s face, and then, as if on cue, the telephone on the side of his desk blared, the sound startling Jarl and making him jump slightly on his seat. He looked at it with suspicion. Nikolai wanted to laugh, but he figured that it would be rude. Besides, the whole ordeal wasn’t done yet—a lot could still happen, and he was still reeling from the effects of the poison. But he could already see the odds on their side.

“I would answer that if I were you,” Nikolai said calmly, his fingers finding the lid of his lighter again. He flicked it open and back close. He could still feel the strain in his hand, but at least it he could move it properly again. “It’s probably important.”

Jarl narrowed his eyes at him. “What’s your deal, Consigliere? Why are you really here?”

“Just answer the telephone, sir. Maybe it will give you the answer.”

There was another tense silence. The Brum Don suddenly didn’t look like he was having fun trying to get him cornered. This was the best part for Nikolai, the thrill he always got whenever the upper hand his enemies had against him was suddenly taken away from them and he would watch them crumble slowly and back away until they were the ones cornered instead of him. It was such a satisfying view to watch.

And Nikolai were to look at it now, it was exactly how he wanted it. One didn’t just easily get Jarl Brum on the edge of his seat.

“Well?” Nikolai mused.

The frown on Brum Don’s face only deepened, and then reluctantly, he reached for the telephone and slowly raised the receiver near his ear. A few beats, and then, “Yes?”

Nikolai watched the man’s face pale, his eyes shifting everywhere with the look of evident panic in them. His hand tightened around the receiver until his knuckles were almost white from gripping it too much. There was just so much anger radiating off of him that Nikolai was surprised the Don hadn’t even pointed a gun at him yet.

Then Jarl’s attention snapped to him after a moment, his eyes murderous with every intent to kill. Nikolai returned his look with an innocent grin, and the Don’s jaw was set in complete rage. If were some other person, he knew he would have cowered back in fear. But years trying to prove himself he was worthy to be an official member of the Lantsov family despite his bloodline contributed a lot to the name he had built for himself.

The Demon Prince of Halmhend—the people had whispered his name in both awe and fear. And with each dark and nasty scar and blood he got on his hands, the stronger his reputation grew. He would get the job done, and he would use whatever method he had to, even if it meant having to have a staredown with death himself.

It would take much more than some Don’s murderous look to derail Nikolai from his goal.

He watched patiently as the Don put back the receiver to the cradle, his dark gaze turning from enraged to cold fury, like he had finally accepted whatever was said to him in the call. Jarl stared down at him for another long moment, and Nikolai could practically see the gears in the man’s head working.

“Alright, Consigliere. You made your point.” The Don kept his face expressionless, but his eyes told Nikolai otherwise. “What do you really want?”

Finally. “Stop the unnecessary attacks and killings,” Nikolai said. “You can’t keep that act up and expect the others not to turn against you.”

“No one would dare go against us. We both know that.”

“It’s because we’re still holding back.”

A shadow passed over Jarl’s face, and his expression darkened even more. “Is that a challenge?”

“Maybe,” replied Nikolai. He reached up to fix his tie. “If I were to be honest, the Tabans could take you any day. They just don’t choose to. Waste of resources, they say. But really, I understand. It would be too easy for them.”

“The Tabans don’t choose to fight because they’re cowards,” Jarl said with a huff. “Not because they don’t choose to do so.”

Nikolai wrinkled his nose. “Tell that to Madam Makhi’s face, and you’ll see your throat by the end of her sword,” he said. He leaned forward as if to tell a secret. “She keeps a very sharp sword in her office, by the way. And she knows how to use it, so I don’t really suggest going against her.”

Jarl shook his head, the smirk still evident on his lips. “And if I don’t agree to your motion? What can you possibly do with—”

“You would find my family retaliating,” Nikolai cut him off, and the Don reared back in mild surprise. “The attacks would continue, and I will let it go on. Don’t try fighting in a war where you’re going to lose.”

The Don didn’t say anything after that. Nikolai gave him a smile, feeling a bit more confident than before that maybe they had driven Jarl Brum into a corner. Then, to his astonishment, Jarl did something entirely beyond his expectation.

He laughed.

And it wasn’t the desperate type but rather a genuinely amused one, like he had just heard the funniest joke that Nikolai could have ever done. Instantly, his grin faded. Jarl Brum was actually laughing. Nikolai could only look back at the Brum Don with utter confusion as uneasiness settled in his gut. The man acted as if he was one step ahead of them, and whatever confidence Nikolai had in himself the moment he stepped inside the man’s office was gone.

“The White Island, huh?” Jarl said through his laughs. He shook his head, dramatically reaching up to wipe the nonexistent tears from his eyes. "That hotel is quite a sight, but its location in Ulensk is utter shit. You can burn it down all you want, I wouldn't mind. You didn't have to hide the fact you would raid it just to make a point."

Dread washed over Nikolai. It felt like this was the real poison taking effect in his system and halted his thoughts completely. How in the saints' name did Jarl know about the raid? Were Tolya and Tamar safe? Which part of the Don's terrified look had been real?

He watched the Brum Don stand from his seat and walked to the drawers behind his desk. He bent down to pull a bottle of wine out along with two glasses, humming happily as he went along. It was a baffling sight to see Jarl’s shift in his demeanor, especially from the perspective of a person who knew their way around manipulating their own emotions.

Was this how he looked like to other people? Awful and terrifying?

"You're a lot silent now, Consigliere," mused Jarl as he poured wine onto the two glasses. He didn't even need to turn around for Nikolai to know that the man was having fun having the upper hand once again. "Did I surprise you?"

Nikolai's hand clenched into a fist to keep it from trembling badly with suppressed fury. It wasn't the right time to act yet. He glared at the Brum Don's back, and with slow, silent movements, he carefully reached for the knife under his lapel and slipped it in the edge of his sleeve. The distress and fear clouding his mind may have been overwhelming enough to make him unable to answer, but he wasn't going to let any chances slide. The Brum Don took his silence as a cue to continue.

"Ah, don't worry. Your guys leading the raid in White Island Hotel is fine," said Jarl with a light laugh. "I didn't put extra security there tonight on purpose. So your guys are probably done turning the place upside down by now." Then he paused, lifting his head up to stare out the glass window in front of him. "It's actually your people who went to the arms factory I'm worried about."

Whatever composure Nikolai had in himself crumbled to nothing. No—

"You're probably wondering how I knew about it. Well, like you, I have my informants too. And that huge shipment of firepower last week? What other reasons did the Lantsovs have to have that kind of shipment aside from going to war? Doesn't need to take a genius to figure that out." Jarl walked back to his desk and placed the other glass of wine he was holding in front of Nikolai. "And what's the most convenient thing to hit during a war? The arms factory and its warehouse. It's only our luck that you sent Nazyalensky to her own demise. I did put more security in that place."

For once, Nikolai didn't have anything to say back. He usually prided himself of being able to make people bow down to his wishes, even if it meant threatening them to the extremes or just simply having a conversation with them.

And yet the mere thought of Zoya in danger was enough to spiral him out of his thoughts.

"I did surprise you now, didn't I?" Jarl chuckled, taking another sip from his glass. "You see, this is what I meant when I said no one dares to go against us. I'm always a step ahead."

Nikolai gritted his teeth, clenching his hands into fists to keep himself from lunging at the Don. "What did you do to her?"

"Do settle down, Consigliere. She's not in danger. Oh, at least not yet. I haven't given them any orders." He paused, frowning as if he had said something wrong. "But that may change in a moment. Unless you do something for me."

"What do you want?"

Jarl raised an eyebrow. "That was fast, I haven't even blinked," he said. "It's quite a sight to see the great Lantsov Consigliere quickly bow down just because his woman is in danger."

"Just say your conditions, Jarl."

"You will agree to sign a contract that would legally make the Lantsovs as the Brums' subsidiary."

Nikolai looked at the Don with utter disbelief like he had just grown another head on his shoulder. Jarl must have been joking. Maybe Zoya was alright and had already handled the situation at Halmhend. Nikolai's irritation suddenly flared. His thinking was becoming too unstable—which wasn't ideal for his current situation. And if he continued to let Jarl’s words get to him, he would certainly lose this fight.

"In fact, it's still quite a generous offer." Jarl tipped his head in respect. "It's for seeing through that coffee I gave you. And even surviving it."

"And what if I don't?" Nikolai asked, voice nearly a hiss.

Jarl smiled. “Then Nazyalensky dies. Very simple.”

“How do I know you’re not bluffing?”

Then as if on cue, Nikolai’s phone rang again, tearing his attention away from wanting to lunge at the Don. He looked at the screen, and it showed a restricted number was trying to make a call. And even though it didn't exactly show who was calling, Nikolai already knew who was on the other line.

"I would answer that if I were you," said Jarl, his tone smug as he repeated Nikolai’s line from earlier. With a confident smile that almost ticked off the last Nikolai’s patience, Jarl added, "It's probably important."

Nikolai looked down at his phone again, thinking that maybe if he stared hard enough at the bright numbers glaring back at him, the call would stop and prove that the Brum Don was just bluffing.

But when it continued to ring, it stabbed fear into his heart. Zoya never called him during an operation, only quick signals and messages.

"Well?" Jarl mused. He took a sip from his own glass and raised an eyebrow. "Nazyalensky won't wait all night."

The urge to act upon his anger was now stronger than his will to keep on a neutral face, and yet Nikolai still held back. He wouldn't do anything unless he was sure he had every reason to.

But the mention of Zoya's name from this despicable man's lips was making it hard to keep himself from killing the Don.

"If you lay even one finger on her," Nikolai said, voice low with threat, "I will burn every single place you have until the flames reach you and you will be burning down with them."

A shadow passed on Jarl’s face, but it was gone as soon as Nikolai could blink, and there was the sneer on his face again. "Just answer the call, Consigliere."

Nikolai did what he was told and he swiped the icon to the right. He slowly put the phone to his ear, his gaze never wavering from Jarl.

The other line was quiet, except for the occasional strained breathing in the background. He fought the urge to call out for her name—it wasn't the time to give the Brum Don more leverage against him. So he waited.

Zoya, he pleaded in his mind. Please be alright.

It was a desperate thought, one he hoped that would be true, because he would have to settle for the last resort and the Don wouldn't see another sunrise after tonight.

There was another silence, more ragged breathing. Nikolai's vision was starting to tunnel as he fought for composure, and Don's smirk was only adding fuel to the fire in him that was waiting to be ignited.

A beat, and there was a pained voice that said, "Nikolai—"

Something in Nikolai snapped, and he was suddenly flicking the knife out from his sleeve and then hauled it at Jarl Brum.

It hit the man on his shoulder hard enough for his chair to tip back, and he fell over with a shout. Nikolai shot up from his own chair and slid over the Don's desk, landing on the ground next to the man and kicking the man's arm even before he could reach for the alarm button under the edge of the table. He kept Jarl's arm pinned to the floor with his foot, and when the Don tried to reach for Nikolai's ankle with his other free arm, he pressed his foot harder against the man's arm he was sure he heard a soft crack.

Dizziness hit nim like a tidal wave that almost threw him off balance. His vision swayed. Waiting for his body to adapt to the toxins would still take a bit of time, but he was being driven by his rage that he almost forgot he wasn’t here to kill the Don.

"Did I catch you off guard?" Jarl asked with a strained laugh. "She really is your soft spot, eh? If I had known earlier I would have—"

Nikolai didn’t let him finish and brought his foot down with force, completely breaking the man's wrist. Jarl opened his mouth to let out a scream of pain, but Nikolai's other foot had already hit the Don across face before he could make a sound. Blood dripped from the side of the man's lips, and he spit it out to the side.

“I would watch that mouth of yours if I were you,” Nikolai said. With casual ease, he nudged the handle of the knife with his toe, and it earned another shout from the man. A smirk twitched on his lips at the sound of the Don's agony. There was always something satisfying in hearing your enemies scream in pain. "Not looking so tough now, aren't you, sir? But do scream all you want. Your office is soundproof, isn’t it?"

Despite himself, Jarl still hadn't cowered back in fear. If possible, he only became much angrier than when Nikolai was goading him before. "The Families would know about this assault," he said through gritted teeth. "You're making a big mistake by attacking the Brum Don."

"Am I now?" Nikolai leaned closer, resting his elbow on his bent knee. He reached out his other hand and patted Jarl on the cheek. The man flinched under his touch. "And 'Brum Don'? All I see is a dead man."

Jarl’s eyes widened in fear. "You won't kill me."

Nikolai huffed lightly. "That's what our enemies in Halmhend used to say." He shrugged, and then reached for the Don’s uninjured arm. "Look where it got them."

With a hard tug on the man’s wrist, Nikolai kicked the desk until it was farther away from Jarl’s reach. He wasn’t taking any chances of the Don trying to sneak and alarm his men to his office. At least not just yet. They had the time for games later. Nikolai dragged Jarl to the wine drawer, throwing him off to the small wooden doors with a resounding thump.

Jarl groaned in pain, and yet it still sounded restrained as if he were keeping himself from making another shout. He was cradling his broken wrist on his lap, shoulder hunched forward enough for him to not show his face.

Nikolai raised an eyebrow. "Don't be shy now, I know you want to shout," he said as he grabbed the Don's fallen chair, standing it upright again and pulling it in front of Jarl before sitting down. He pulled out the lighter from his pocket. "I don't like it when they don't scream in pain."

There was no answer for a long moment, with the Don still in his hunched position. Nikolai eyed him sideways. The man's shoulders were shaking with every breath he drew, and the spot where the knife was lodged continued to leak of blood.

It was new to him to see Jarl Brum in such a vulnerable state. But he was still trying to put up the tough persona a Don should have, and Nikolai was determined to break him slowly. Inflicting immense pain was one of the strengths Nikolai learned in the streets that gave birth to his name.

“Still good, sir?” he asked in mock wonder. “You’re not as strong as I thought.”

The man shot up from his place on the floor, his other arm stretched out as if to reach for Nikolai’s neck, but the Consigliere had already anticipated it. He simply leaned back and grabbed the man by both of his arms. His movements stopped.

Nikolai gave him a sneer. "Courageous," he said with genuine respect. "But still slow."

He kicked the man on the chest, sending him crashing back to the drawers in a heap. Then Nikolai brought his foot down to Jarl’s ankle this time. There was another resounding crack, followed by a howl of pain. He almost smiled.

"Now that's the shout," Nikolai said. He stared down at the Don with pity. Jarl looked incredibly smaller for the Brum Don that terrorized everyone else. It was amusing to see how pain made anyone kneel to its extremities. "I thought your pride would still forbid you to scream. Make it louder for me, yeah? It sounds better."

"What do you want, Lantsov?" Jarl spat as if the name were some poison that stung his mouth. “Or should I say Opjer?”

Nikolai’s jaw ticked in annoyance. He knows too much. "Not 'Consigliere' anymore? I feel sad about that, sir." He bent down and reached for the man's arm, bringing his hand close to him. He opened the lid of his lighter and put one of the Don's fingers in between the edge of the lid and the case. "I'll be brief, which I rarely do as I prefer talking more." He paused. "Call off your men."

Jarl let out a laugh. "Too late for that, Nikolai. But I can almost assume that they're already leaving now that the threat was handled in the—"

Nikolai forced the lid of his lighter close, and the Don screamed in pain. The tip of his finger was set in an odd angle, with blood leaking from the damaged nail. It dripped onto Nikolai’s hand and his wrist, and then to the cuff of his sleeve. He inwardly winced in displeasure. It could be taken care of later.

He kept his expression impassive and moved to another finger. "Call off your men," he repeated.

Jarl’s face was twisted in cold rage, but there was no denying the agony he was under that he was still trying to put up with. When he didn’t answer, Nikolai closed the lighter onto the man’s next finger. Another howl of agony. He moved to another finger.

“Eight remaining fingers, eight remaining chances,” he said. “I will say it again. Call off your men, Jarl. I’m still being generous with giving you chances.”

The man only smirked, and just as Nikolai was about to break off another finger, a loud thump resounded somewhere behind him. He glanced over his shoulder. The doors to Jarl’s office were rattling, almost threatening to come off its hinges. The Don's men had a good way of knocking.

"As I've said," Jarl wheezed, making Nikolai turn back to him, "too late to do that."

Nikolai tsked. "Very well," he said, and then clamped the lid to the man's third finger. He let go of his arm, and Jarl crumpled down to the ground. "A reward for being able to sneak past me."

His men were still trying to barge the doors down, but they were almost succeeding in doing so when Nikolai caught a glimpse of the light outside the hall through the small space by the door that was beginning to grow wider. He turned back to the Don.

"Let's make you a bit more presentable, shall we?" said Nikolai.

He grabbed the man by the collar and forced him to stand before dragging him to the chair. Jarl wheezed in pain as he tried to fight back, but both of his hands were so badly damaged he couldn't make use of them. The Don could only give Nikolai as much as a glare.

He forced the man back down to the chair. "No need to look so angry, sir."

"You won't get out of here alive, Lantsov," growled Jarl. "You are totally outnumbered. My men would—"

"Ah" —Nikolai patted the man on the cheek— "let's not get ahead of our predictions. Let me borrow this for a second." He swiftly pulled out the knife from Jarl’s shoulder. "I'll be right back."

"You and Nazyalensky are goners, Consigliere. Both of you are not going to make it through the night."

"We'll see about that."

Nikolai eyed the still rattling doors, and glanced at the bloodied knife in his hand. He would be at a total disadvantage, he knew, but it was better than having nothing. Besides, he'd had far much worse situations that he got out of, some that involved using bare hands and teeth just to survive.

Tonight wasn't any different either.

He approached the doors just as there was finally the sound of a wood splintering, and he pressed himself against the wall beside the entryway. With a twist of his knife in his hand, he reached up to remove the tie around his neck with his other, letting the ends fall loose onto his shirt. It would only be a hindrance to his movements.

The doors barged open and men in gray overcoats came rushing in. Nikolai tightened his grip around the knife and counted heads. Seven. Jarl should have invited more.

The man nearest to him hadn't noticed him yet, and he took his chance.

Nikolai stepped forward and pushed his knife behind the man's throat.

One.

He immediately pulled the knife out, letting it fly towards the other Soldier to his right. Blood spurted from the man's neck. He crumpled to the ground with a gurgling sound.

A sneer twitched on his lips.

Two.

He started humming. The remaining men finally turned to him with their guns raised, but Nikolai was already on the move. He collided with the third one. His hand closed around the gun barrel and the other to the man's hand, pointing the gun to the other Soldiers.

Nikolai pulled the trigger. It hit the other Soldier on the head.

Three.

He turned a bit to the left and fired twice on the fourth Soldier's chest.

Four.

Nikolai twisted, using the third Soldier as a shield just as the shots erupted. The body convulsed as it took the barrage of bullets. Then the shots stopped, and he pressed the barrel under the man's chin before pulling the trigger.

Five.

He grabbed the gun, aimed over the dead man's shoulder, and fired at the other Soldier. He immediately crumpled on the ground after the bullet went straight through his skull.

Six.

With a push, Nikolai finally let the body fall to the ground. He turned to find the last Soldier, but he wasn't fast enough.

A shot rang out, and pain burst on his ear. He stopped humming and blinked. The remaining Soldier looked at him with a terrified expression, his hand trembling so badly as if he was out enduring the cold winter night. Then he dropped the gun completely and he fell to the ground.

Nikolai approached him slowly, like a predator cornering his prey. The Soldier started to back away. But the tremors quaking his body were too much that he couldn't even move fast enough.

A moment later, Nikolai was hovering above him, with the barrel of the gun pointed at his face, and he immediately raised a hand to protect himself.

"No—"

But Nikolai already pulled the trigger before the Soldier could even plead, and he crumpled to the ground on the pool of blood from the hole in his head.

Seven.

The room went silent again. Nikolai reached a hand up to his ear, feeling the sticky wetness around it along with the sting of pain. When he looked at his hand, his fingers were drenched in blood. He huffed. At least they were able to nick him.

He turned back to Jarl, who was still sitting idly on his office chair, the expression on his face was a mix of horror and bewilderment.

"There'd be more of them in a few moments, right?" Nikolai asked mildly as he went and got his knife from the Soldier's neck. He wiped it at the edge of the Soldier's gray coat, staining it red. Then he put it back behind the lapel of his coat. “How many are there left?”

At the Don’s silence, he scoffed. He walked back to Jarl by the desk, grabbing the man by his collar and forcing him up to his remaining good foot. It’d have to do. An audience was still an audience no matter how few they were, and he wanted Jarl to see every drop of blood shed by his men for everything they had done, and for every life they had ruined.

For hurting Zoya.

Because in the end, he would rather let himself be the one to end all this rather than branding himself as a traitor for selling his own Family out and risking any chances of putting Zoya's life on the line even more. He could only hope Tamar would be able to reach her on time.

There was no turning back from this.

This tyranny had to end tonight, as it would only continue until the point of time where no one could stop them.

It was time to be the monster that he had been once more.

Nikolai dragged Jarl outside the doors of the office. “Let the hunting party start, then.”

---

Zoya struggled against the restraints bounding her hands behind her. But then pain shot up to her side from where a bullet had grazed her during the shootout earlier. She grit her teeth, glaring at the man in front of her. She would definitely break his neck the moment she got free.

The storage room where they had been holding her was guarded with three other men in gray overcoats. They looked stiff and alert, their guns poised readily to aim at her the moment she tried to do something funny. Zoya wanted to laugh. She understood the hostility around her, especially when there's only several of them left in the warehouse.

It was supposed to be much lesser than Zoya had expected—the arms warehouse should have been empty except for a few guards on patrol and a Brum Soldier staying in the upstairs office.

But instead of that, Zoya had walked straight up into a trap instead, with the number of Jarl’s men tripling and they were being led by Ivor Kravchenko, the notorious Brum caporegime known for his brutal tendencies when it came to taking down his enemies.

She had come to think that there might have been a leak of their own plans to orchestrate the simultaneous attacks against the Brums. They had been able to reduce a great number from Jarl’s men, but it cost all the lives of Zoya's men that were with her during the attack. Their blood would forever be on her hands.

The other thing she could hope for now was that Nikolai and the twins were alright on their sides of this predicament.

“You shouldn’t have left your Don’s compound,” she said. It was taking a lot of her remaining strength to speak. "You all left your boss' to the wolf's mercy."

The man, whom Zoya remembered as Ivor and Jarl's notorious caporegime, gave a dark laugh. "A wolf, you say? It doesn't matter, a lone wolf is no match for a whole pack," said the caporegime. "Your Consigliere might even be dead by now. Just like the rest of your men here. Don't get too cheeky now."

Zoya's rage flared, the urge to make the man suffer stronger than before. "You seem to be forgetting that I killed half of your men alone," she said. "You better make sure I don't get out of these bounds because it will be your blood spilled on the ground next."

This seemed to annoy Ivor, making him step forward in haste with a murderous expression on his face. But then he stopped abruptly as if he had just remembered something, and he straightened back up. "I could kill you right now and be done with it, Nazyalensky," he said in a low voice. "But I still just choose not to. It's fun to see the great Lantsov Underboss tied down at the Brums mercy."

"Chose not to, or you're still waiting for your Don to give the order like a good puppy you are?" Zoya said back, savoring the look of new rage on the caporegime's face. She gave him a sharp smile. "It's been an hour since you called my Consigliere and tried to rattle him down. You haven't even heard from Jarl ever since then."

Ivor snarled, and then he was grabbing at Zoya's hair and pulling her head back, his knife suddenly pressed to her cheek. Zoya smirked triumphantly. It was so easy to derail him—the whole Brum Family if possible. They were all bombs that were ready to detonate at any time.

This would be fun when she finally had him under her mercy later. But having to reach that point seemed very difficult and almost next to impossible, especially when there were ropes bounding her hands.

An realization dawned in her head when her eyes trailed down the knife near her face. She just had to make the man drop it somehow.

"Do not test me, Nazyalensky," Ivor growled as he pressed the knife harder to her skin. Zoya felt a trickle of blood run down her face. He traced the blood with the knife point lightly before hovering it to her skin again. "I can be merciless at certain times."

As can I, Ivor. "Suits you, then," said Zoya simply. "I have the freedom to choose when to be merciless. Unlike you, who still has to wait for a go signal from his person before he can bite."

With a growl, Ivor tugged at her hair harder. "Did you know what Jarl told me before I left to go handle the mess you will try to stage here?" he hissed. "He said that the Lantsov Consigliere and Underboss are the ones keeping their Family upright. If they were the ones to go first, they would all crumble, and he planned to do just that." Ivor smiled wickedly, the kind that spoke of a triumph gotten from a dirty play. "Starting with your Consigliere. I wonder how things would be if the Don suddenly decides to get rid of him."

She clenched her fists behind her, her fury burning cold in her blood. Nikolai was a lot smarter than the others give him credit for. There was never a dire situation that he hadn't gone through before—he could always find a way out of anything.

But their current standpoint only struck fear and doubt to Zoya. He was in their enemy's nest, the place where they had the absolute authority on everything. She had been reluctant for him to go alone, and yet he had insisted, saying that he had a plan just in case something went wrong.

And now that there had been a hole in their planned attack, Zoya could only hope that his plan didn't involve him risking his life more than he already did.

She would come and drag him out of hell if needed to.

"I'm pretty sure your Consigliere would run out of ideas at some point," added Ivor thoughtfully. "Tonight might be the time."

You can all dream.

Zoya gave a short laugh, and then she tipped her head back and struck Ivor's nose with her forehead.

The man shouted as he pushed back from her, dropping his knife and putting a hand up to his face. She quickly took the advantage and tipped the chair down sideways. Pain shot up to her side when she hit the floor, and her vision blacked out for a few moments. The blow to her head earlier only added to the dizziness that made her vision spin. But she shook the ache away and her hands felt around for the knife from the floor as the three men were still occupied with coddling their boss.

When she finally grasped the knife handle, she immediately tucked it to the insides of her sleeve before looking back up to Ivor.

Blood seeped through his fingers that were tightly holding his now broken nose, and his face was scrunched up in pain. Zoya felt a laugh bubble from her chest.

"Can't even take a hit, eh?" she called to Ivor, who only glared at her with a murderous glint in his eyes. "Come and train with our men, you'll learn how to brush off a punch to your jaw like it's merely dust."

Ivor let out an angry growl and started to walk his way to her again, but one of his Soldiers stopped him.

"There aren't any orders for us to kill her yet, sir," the Soldier said with finality. He looked a bit younger than the other men, but he had a sway on them that even Ivor stopped to consider his actions. "We should be patient."

Zoya huffed silently. Another well-trained pup, then.

The door to the room suddenly opened, and another one of Jarl’s men appeared by the threshold. "Sir," he said, gesturing outside, "it's urgent."

Ivor sighed in frustration. He gave Zoya another pointed look before turning to one of his men again. "Get her up and keep a close eye on her," he said stiffly, still holding a hand to his nose. "I might finally be allowed to kill her after."

With one last low gaze to Zoya, he stomped off the storage room. She huffed in amusement as she watched the Caporegime's retreating form disappear by the doorway.

"Petty ass," she muttered. But when Ivor's footsteps finally receded, she slid out the knife from her sleeve and started to cut through the ropes.

It was the younger Soldier that moved to lift her chair upright, his movements brusque and rough it made the pain on Zoya's side shoot up again.

"Easy with the moving, will you?" she hissed at the Soldier.

He sneered at her, pushing the chair roughly back down to its feet instead. "Witch," he hissed back, and Zoya had to laugh. The Soldier pointed the gun under her chin. "The only thing keeping me from firing is that the Don didn't want you dead just yet, and we're just waiting for the go signal." He pressed the barrel to her chin harder for emphasis. "Don't get too smug."

Men and their egos. "Sure thing, hon," said Zoya mildly with a shrug.

It seemed to be enough for the Soldier as he put down the gun and started to back off. But then ropes finally cut loose, and a smirk twitched at her lips. She kept her arms behind her and flipped the knife in her hand so that it pointed forward.

"Lapdog," she muttered, making sure the Soldier heard her.

And he did, because he suddenly stopped walking and turned to her again, a look of rage evident on his face. His jaw was set when he reached her again in a few quick strides.

He bent down and grabbed at her face. "What did you say, you—"

His next words came out in a gurgling mess when Zoya's hand shot up and pushed the knife into the man's throat.

She reached for the man's gun with her other hand just as the two other men noticed what was happening. She aimed and fired at the two of them before they could even raise their guns to shoot, and they crumpled to the ground with a thud.

The Soldier clawed at his neck desperately, his movements panicked. Zoya looked at him pitifully before yanking the knife out. The man fell to the ground.

She wiped her bloodied hand and knife to the squirming man's coat for a moment, staining the fabric blood red. His other hand still tried to reach for her ankle, but Zoya merely stepped away.

Then she pointed the gun to the Soldier's face. "For gunning down my men," she said before shooting him in the head.

He slumped to the ground, lifeless. Zoya winced at the sudden sting that pierced her side, and she almost doubled over. She checked her wound. The long line of the bullet graze was still oozing with blood, but much lesser than before. She would have to put up with it for now; she needed to have a talk with Ivor first.

Rushed footsteps echoed outside just as she neared the door. She immediately pressed herself against the wall beside the doorway and waited. A few moments later, the door barged open, and Ivor and another man came rushing in.

They hadn't noticed her yet, and Zoya sprang.

She raised her gun and shot the Soldier in the head. Ivor turned just as she aimed the gun to his thigh and pulled the trigger. He reared back with a shout, and Zoya swiped the gun up and whacked him across the face with the stock. Ivor crashed to the floor.

But when she finally got a closer look at the man's face, she realized it wasn't Ivor at all. The Soldier was only wearing the Caporegime's coat.

Zoya gritted her teeth as she pointed her gun to the man. "Where's Ivor?" she hissed.

He didn’t answer, and it made her anger flare even more. She put her finger closer to the trigger.

"Where—"

A crack of gunshot, and then a flash of excruciating pain on her other side just below her ribs. Zoya backed a few steps, dropping her gun and putting a hand to her side. When she checked on it after a moment, her palm was already covered in red.

"Miss me?" Ivor called out from the door.

Zoya didn’t have the strength to turn completely, and she crashed to the floor. The surroundings blurred into a mess of colors, the sudden flash of lights adding to the swaying of her vision. She put a hand to her wound, and she stifled a groan when another wave pain shot up to her body.

Ivor's figure appeared in her line of vision, his steps slow and deliberate as if he had all the time in the world. Zoya could only do as much as glare at the Caporegime, at the broken nose that had the faint traces of dried blood around it, and hoped for the Saints to give her enough strength to kill the guy right then. But her wishes were ignored and the pain only became worse.

"You think you could get out of my watch that easily?" He shook his head in disappointment. "I thought you were better than this."

"Come closer and I'll show you," Zoya snarled.

"A real tough one, aren't you? Even as you lay dying, you can still make someone cower in fear." Ivor laughed loudly, and it was like the sound of a chair being scraped off a tiled floor. "I had to admit I was impressed on how you got that knife. That was neat."

Zoya blinked. He had known?

As if he had heard her thoughts, Ivor chuckled darkly. "Oh, I did notice. That's why I staged a little dress up with one of my Soldiers here after the phone call. Always did the trick."

"Staged?" Zoya laughed, but it came out as a wheeze instead. "Did you really just use your men as bait just to kill me dramatically?"

"Ten points for Nazyalensky!" Ivor announced before raising his gun and pointing it at the Soldier he had made to wear his coat. "We're busted, unfortunately. Thank you for your service." Then he pulled the trigger.

Zoya winced at the sound of the dead body falling to the ground. She shook her head. "You're mad, Kravchenko."

"That, I am. But you know who's worse?" He bent down a little as if to tell some secret. Then he pointed two fingers at her. "You two." He paused to laugh again, and then he started pacing back and forth.

She took the small distraction to pull the handgun closer to her and hide it under her back. And when he stopped and stared back down at her, she noticed something strange. There was a wild look in his eyes, the deranged kind of glint of a paranoid man.

Ivor waved his gun carelessly in the air. "Oh, don't worry I finally have the order to kill you."

Zoya turned to her bad side slightly, bearing the pain that washed over her again and reaching for the gun she had hidden behind her.

"Worry not, Nazyalensky. You're going to meet your Consigliere soon," said Ivor. "The Don never planned to let your Consigliere get out of there alive, you know. The chance was too good to let it pass. He was a dead man the moment the Don accepted the meeting."

She knew Ivor was trying to get to her head, and she knew better that she shouldn't let it, but it was proving to be difficult when it was Nikolai’s safety being used against her. It was then she remembered this was what Ivor was known for—tormenting his enemies rights before he killed them. But Zoya knew to herself that she would have preferred physical torment than this. She wouldn't even have the chance to know if Nikolai was safe from any danger.

A bittersweet laugh bubbled from her chest. Even in near death circumstances, Nikolai was still her headache. She could only hope he would be able to get through tonight.

Zoya gripped the gun tightly. She wouldn't this man torment her until her last breath. Not without bringing him down with me.

Ivor was seething when he was checking his gun chamber. Something was definitely wrong with him. Had something come up after that phone call?

"This is a payback to your Consigliere for acting stupidly. And for what he's done," he said and he shook his head, fury and annoyance evident on his face. "He's so going to pay for that. I can't wait to kill him myself—" He stopped abruptly and turned back to Zoya. "You'll meet him soon, Nazyalensky. Don't worry, I'll make it—"

With what's left of her strength, Zoya lifted her arm and fired at the Caporegime, emptying the whole gun's whole clip at him. Ivor convulsed with every bullet he took, his eyes wide in shock as if he couldn't believe what had just happened.

When the gun only gave a click, Zoya let her arm fall. A triumphant smirk twitched at her lips as she watched Ivor's bewildered expression. His hand fell limp at his side, and he looked down at the holes on his chest.

A scoff tore from his throat, and along with it came blood that leaked from his lips. His expression turned from shocked to angry in a blink. With a shaking hand, he pointed his gun back at her. "You witch—"

There was a crack of gunshot. Zoya closed her eyes and waited for the momentary pain before the end.

But it didn't come.

There was a loud thud, like the sound of a body falling to the floor, and she opened her eyes again.

Ivor lay on the floor, lifeless, his wide, empty eyes still open. Blood started to pool around his body all too quickly.

"Zoya," a familiar voice said.

Through her blurry vision, Zoya could make out a figure of a woman approaching her in rush. Tamar.

She immediately held out her hand, and felt Tamar take it right away. The woman's other hand came to put pressure on her wound. "You're okay," Zoya said. Her breaths were starting to come out in short bursts. "Is Tolya—"

"He's fine, General, you should think of yourself first. Save your breath. You'll be fine." Tamar let go of her hand to pull out her phone. She dialled a number and started speaking to someone, but the words faded into echoes of distorted sounds.

A moment later Zoya heard Tamar's voice again. "Stay with me, Nazyalensky." She clasped at her hand, gripping it tightly as if it would give Zoya enough life again if she held on tighter.

Nikolai, Zoya wanted to ask her. Is he safe?

But the pain and exhaustion were too overwhelming for her to stay awake, and she found her grip on Tamar's hand loosening with every ragged breath she drew.

Have I done enough?

She didn't know.

Be safe, idiot.

She took another breath.

Then everything went dark.

***

Zoya opened her eyes.

Immediately, a dull throb washed over her body that almost made her pass out again, but the gentle touches she felt on her hand kept her anchored down to consciousness. She drew in a shaky breath.

She was still alive. She has survived the ordeal. Tamar and Tolya were safe too and—

Nikolai.

Where was he? Was he alive?

Zoya turned to her right in haste, but she stopped when she spotted a mess of blond hair on her bedside. The grip on her hand tightened, and she felt her eyes sting.

He's okay.

"Hey," she said, voice still rough from sleep.

Nikolai instantly bolted upright. He looked like a mess, with his hair ruffled and the bruises and cuts on his face. There were traces of dried blood on the side of face down to his collar, his coat, and even on the edge of his sleeves. His hands were no different; the skin around his knuckles were torn open and red. But the worse one he got was his left ear—or what was left of it. He was tired and in pain, and yet he only had the look of utter relief and warmth in his eyes when he looked at her and smiled.

There was an unexpected prick in her heart. Zoya wanted to reach out and hold him to her, to tell him that she was glad he was alive, but she couldn’t do anything of those as her body still felt heavy like lead due to the exhaustion and medication.

A tear fell down from his eye, and Nikolai quickly wiped it away with a tired laugh. Then he shifted closer, his hand reaching out to smooth the hair away from her forehead. She closed her eyes and leaned against his touch almost immediately.

“You’re a mess, dear,” he said, his tone light with amusement.

Zoya huffed weakly. “You should see yourself.” She nodded at his state of dress. "It's not you to have your suit ruined like that."

“There’s always a first one, you know.” Nikolai gave her a wink. “Just not the thing I prefered. I can always throw it in the laundry, though.”

“You, doing the laundry? I know you’ll break the washing machine first before you can get anything done,” she said, and Nikolai laughed lightly. A small smile appeared on her lips, and she laced their fingers together. What she expected to be a gentle touch was a trembling grip instead. His hand was badly shaking. Concern washed over her as she looked at him in worry. “Nikolai?”

“I’m fine. I just—” Nikolai stopped. He laughed again, but it sounded more like a sob of relief instead. He shook his head. “You scared the hell out of me,” he whispered. He still looked like he was about to break any moment, but it was gone in a blink and he put on his signature grin that brightened up his features. “But I guess I didn’t have to worry that much now, yeah?”

Tears stung Zoya’s eyes again, and she smiled ruefully. I almost lost you too. But she covered it up with a smirk. “They can’t get rid of me that easily.”

"I know."

Silence fell around them. It was unusual for her to have a quiet as she was used to hearing all types of noises, whether it be the angry and rising tones during meetings or the gunfire that followed after when the negotiations went wrong. Even at nights, which was supposed to be when everything was in peace, were still haunted by the voices of the people who had died under her jurisdiction, and their blood was on her hands.

Having this moment struck dread to her, because good things, even the smallest ones, always came with a price. And she wasn't entirely sure if she was willing to give up anything.

"Do tell me your thoughts, dearest Zoya," Nikolai said, breaking the silence. He smiled as he continued his ministrations on her hair. "When you're quiet like that, I'm worried that you might be planning someone's death."

Zoya huffed. "How can you be sure that it wasn't your death I was planning?"

Nikolai chuckled. "Please, you can't plan something that's already done," he said in amusement, and then his face fell after a second as if he realized what he just said. He smiled but it was half-hearted than his usual ones. "I like being one step ahead, you know."

"What happened, Nikolai?" she asked softly, not wanting to risk him shying away. Her hand tightened its hold on his. "What did you do?"

"I did what I had to do," he said simply. There was a faraway look in his eyes as he stared down at their joined hands. He rubbed circles around her skin, his touch feather light. "There was no other way."

"Did you—" Zoya stopped. She didn't want to say it. She wanted to believe that if she didn't, it could change the truth. But the defeated look in his eyes only solidified the truth.

“Jarl Brum is dead," Nikolai said. A sad smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, and he looked back up at her. “He died when his compound had caught on fire due to faulty gas pipes. And the Lantsov Consigliere died with him in the fire. It’s what the people would hear by morning.” He paused, and breathed in deep. Then he smiled his usual grin again. “He put up quite a fight, though. It ruined my suit doing it. What a sad mess.”

Zoya could only stare at him in melancholy. She didn’t even have the heart to answer his joke back. That was their last resort. They both agreed that if things had turned out the worst, he would have to settle with killing the Don. But that was before, when they thought that their plans were foolproof.

I should have known and done better.

Nikolai must have seen the look on her face, because he shook his head gently and his grin turned into a rueful one. “I know what you’re thinking. Don’t do that to yourself. I don't regret doing anything,” he said. He took her hand in both of his. “He was going to force me to hand over the Lantsovs to them, saying he’ll have you killed if I don’t. It was a deadend. There was no guarantee they won’t hurt you even if I agree. And I was never going to sell us over, anyway.” He paused, drawing in a shaky breath. "I'd rather get hurt a thousand times more than lose you."

A tear finally fell from the side of her eye. If this was the price she had to pay for having this moment with him, she did not want it. She would give up anything else to pay the price. Just not this. Not him.

“So, I guess this is our last night together,” Zoya said, her voice breaking slightly.

His hand reached up to her face and wiped the tear with his thumb. There were also tears clouding his eyes. He nodded gently, the sad smile still on his lips. Zoya leaned in his hand. “Don’t worry,” he said, “I promise to annoy you to death so you would have enough spite for me to last in a long while.”

Zoya huffed in amusement. She had never hated him so much than she did now. How could he make it sound so easy when he was going to leave? “I already have enough spite to last for the rest of my life.”

Nikolai laughed back. “That’s good to hear.”

Another short silence filled the air, and Zoya looked him over. If it was the last time she would see him, she wanted to bask in the warmth radiating in his eyes and remember all the quirks he had, as if she hadn’t memorized everything about him before.

She lifted her hand slightly, and Nikolai went to hold it back in his. He turned his attention to her forearm, tracing the dark lines of the tattooed dragon on her skin. It felt like he was doing the same, memorizing a distinct feature of her that he would carry with him.

“I’ve always thought this one’s cooler than my wolf one,” he said softly, running his fingers on her skin. “You always get cooler ones than me.”

“Where would you go?” Zoya asked instead.

Nikolai stopped his ministrations, his fingers coming back to lace with hers. “It would be better if no one knew,” he replied solemnly. “Besides, I wouldn’t stay in one place for long.”

Zoya took a deep breath. This was their reality, and she should know better than lament over it. She wasn’t the type to let emotions take over her. But for Nikolai Lantsov, she would always be willing to make an exception.

“Maybe I can mail something from time to time,” he said. “Postcards and pictures, how do you feel about that?”

“Are you trying to make me feel better?”

Her Consigliere chuckled lightly. “No, I am entirely serious.” He shrugged. “Mail is the safest thing to get something across without the risk of being traced.”

Zoya shook her head with a light laugh. I’d take anything. “Whatever you say, corn salad,” she said, and Nikolai laughed. A wave of dizziness suddenly washed over through her. The medicine must be taking its effects now. No, not yet. A few more minutes. “When do you leave?”

A beat, and then Nikolai said, “Soon.” An amused smile tugged at the corners of his lips. “You don’t have to be so excited.”

“Idiot,” she mumbled. There was a twinge in her chest with the nickname she had of him, knowing that it would be the last time she could tell it to him in person.

Nikolai tightened his hold on her hand, and she felt it trembling again. His eyes were bright with tears when he said, “I’ll miss that nickname.” I’ll miss you, was what never said aloud, but Zoya heard it all the same.

I’ll miss you too. Zoya gave him a small smile. “Just look at the engraving in your lighter, it will remind you.” Another wave of dizziness hit her, and she found her eyes drooping slightly.

Zoya heard him laugh softly, making her blink to shake the drowsiness away. Nikolai reached up to brush at the hair on her forehead again.

“Go get some more rest,” he said. His hand came down to her cheek, and he gently caressed her skin with his thumb. “Don’t fight it, I know you’re still tired.”

"I'm not tired," she grumbled back.

"Whatever you say, dear."

Her eyes were starting to feel too heavy for her to stay awake, but she still fought the drowsiness from taking over so she could still see him for a little more time.

"Go rest," he said again.

Zoya squeezed his hand. She was never the first one to ask. To their world, everything was a trade—you give and take. A request meant a desperate wish, and you should always be willing to pay the price.

But she had already paid for it, and it was only fair if she wished for one final request. Be it a selfish, impossible kind.

"Stay?" she asked. Even just for a moment longer. "You've always made a good bodyguard."

Nikolai smiled softly. I can't, was what his eyes said, and yet, aloud, he still said, "Of course." He tucked the blankets higher to her shoulders, his movements gentle and careful. "Now go back to sleep. I'll be here."

They both knew it was a lie.

Zoya closed her eyes, knowing she couldn't bear seeing him leave, and she'd rather have him do it while she was asleep.

Then he started humming. His shitty, off-tune humming. Her shoulders shook as her body racked with silent sobs, her eyebrows drawn tight together to keep her tears from falling. But they still did, anyway.

She felt him press his lips to her knuckles, and small droplets fall against her skin. She didn't even have to open her eyes to know that it was his tears.

"Good night, Nikolai," Zoya whispered in a shaky tone. Farewell. Be safe.

A short, heavy silence, and she heard him draw a ragged breath. "Good night, Zoya." Goodbye, Zoya.

His voice and the feel of his hand tight in hers were the last things she knew before sleep took over her.

And when Zoya finally slept, she dreamed that she would never have to let him go.

***

News about the death of the Brum Don because of the fire that caught his compound was heard early on the next morning. Television news, radio, newspapers, and even the social media boomed with the word, and it spread like wildfire.

It went even bigger when the Lantsov Consigliere was also reported to have died along the fire, with all the current evidence proving that the fire had been intentional. But none of them pointed to Nikolai. The investigation was still open, and it will probably go on for quite a while. The only thing that lightened the burden on Zoya’s chest was knowing that he was alive. He had known how things would go beforehand, and made sure that none of them ended up implicating the Lantsovs.

Always the well-prepared one.

The chair where Nikolai had sat last night was empty, as if he wasn’t there at all. The only traces left of him was the lingering scent of his perfume and the dip on her bedside where he had laid his arms on as he watched her with all the warmth in his eyes, the same warmth he took with him when he left.

Zoya felt her eyes sting with unwanted tears again as she looked out the window, but this time she didn’t try to keep them from falling. She smiled ruefully, a bittersweet feeling left in her heart. It was probably bad fate that had them cross paths, and it was also what separated them. But either way, it was still what had brought them together. She was thankful for that somehow, even if they only had limited time.

But then it struck her, that it didn’t always have to be fate that should handle things. She was the Lantsov Underboss, the one who drove the saintsforsaken Family out of the mud with the Consigliere. If there was something they were good at, it was handling things their own way and bending the odds to their will.

A near death experience had her questioning herself if she had done enough. She didn’t know the answer by then, but she did now.

I am not done yet.

She wouldn’t give up on Nikolai that easily. Even if it took her years to do it. She would bring him back.

Because she knew he would do the same for her.

I’ll see you again, Nikolai, she vowed. And it wouldn’t be the last.

Zoya would make sure of it.

***

A/N: if you’ve reached this far, please know i appreciate you ;-;

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gaming-universe · 4 years

Text

Who We Are || Russell Adler

Call of Duty Black Ops: Cold War

-PART TWO-

Warnings: SPOILERS FOR CALL OF DUTY BLACK OPS: COLD WAR! IF YOU HAVEN’T PLAYED/FINISHED THE CAMPAIGN THEN PLEASE DONT READ! Gore, violence, course language, mature content.

Summary: Betrayed and alone after surviving the events that took place on the Solovetsky Islands, Y/n ‘Bell’ L/n faces new and more dangerous threats when she learns that Perseus has other plans for his failed nuclear detonation of Europe. It was only a matter of time before Y/n came face to face with her old team. There is unfinished business between Y/n and Adler, as this operation proves to be more deadly than originally thought.

Author’s Note: So, after finishing the campaign, I needed to do Bell/Player and Adler justice. I loved this game so much, and chosing to play as the female character, I felt like there was a genuine connection between Bell and Adler throughout the game. There is a tag list open for anyone that wishes to stay up to date with the series. Simply comment below. Gif by @travelllar

|PART ONE|

For four months, you remained in the Solovetsky Islands, recovering and maintaining a normal life.

The old man that had rescued you, Viktor, welcomed you into his home, and offered for you to stay for as long as you needed. He did everything in his power to make you feel welcome, especially after you had opened up to him. You told Viktor everything; the trauma you experienced in regards to the brainwashing, the betrayal you felt as Adler turned, weapon raised, and fired that single shot which landed you here, your sleepless nights consumed by nightmares of memories you thought were long gone.

Everyone thought you were dead, and maybe that was for the best. You could start anew, build a new life for yourself, live in peace. But of course, there had to be one last cruel twist of fate.

You were sitting in the living room, reading a small novel when Viktor hurried through the door, his face pale and eyes wide. “What’s wrong?” You mused, tilting your head to the side in wait for his answer. Viktor swallowed thickly, approaching with stumbling steps. He sat down beside you, his hands trembling as he placed them gently atop his knees. “I was returning from my trawler when I heard some men at the docks talking...” He began, now turning to face you with a shaky sigh “some of them were saying that men, Russians, were returning to the ruins atop the clifface. With diggers, with machinery to rebuild the base you gave your life to destroy”.

You froze, the book in your grasp falling to the floor as your grip loosened. They were returning here? What on earth could Perseus be returning to the Solovetsky Islands for? If they were rebuilding that base, then that means that there must have been something worth saving up there.

But what could you have missed the first time?

You raised a questioning eyebrow at Viktor. “Do you still have my gear?” You asked lowly, the hidden anger within you slowly beginning to bubble. The old man nodded “It is in the attic, well hidden from prying eyes-”

“Good, I’m going to investigate those ruins tonight”.

“No, you cannot! If you are caught-”

“That won’t happen, I promise” You reasoned, standing up abrubtly before wincing lightly. Viktor stood to block your path “You are still injured. I will not allow you to do this”.

You groaned “If Perseus has returned to that base, then I need to put a stop to this before it even begins...” You spoke informatively “I can’t let him escape again. I might not know why exactly, but I can’t let him leave those ruins alive”.

With a long winded sigh, Viktor stepped to the side whilst giving you a pointed look. He said nothing as you passed him, beginning to make your way to the attic with a confident stride. Investigating that base was your best chance of figuring out exactly what was going on around this small town. You began to notice some subtle changes a few weeks ago. The people were growing scared, they were more cautious, and more suspicous of each other as days went by.

After clambering through the small manhole into the attic, you found your gear lying atop an old carboard box, neatly folded and out of sight. As you extended a hand out towards the pile of clothes, your hand faltered. Your eyes travelled to the round tear in the dark grey fabric, surrounded by a large red stain that refused to detatch itself from the fibres. As if in response, a phantom pain coursed through your chest, the ugly scar beneath your jacket aching with every awkward twist and turn of your arm, every deep breath you took. A reminder of the pain that had been inflicted.

Swallowing your fear, and suppressing the vivid flashes of you and Adler on that clifface, you changed into those old clothes. With no weapons, you would have to approach with stealth. They wouldn’t take too kindly to anyone breaking in to their new playground, especially if it were one who had been the cause of the base’s destruction the first time around. After making your way back downstairs, Viktor stood by the door. “You cannot expect to go in there unarmed...” He began, removing one hand from within his jacket to reveal a pistol, with a suppressor attatched to the end. “My son’s. It was his when he was with the Russian Army four years ago. He left it behind when he moved away with his wife. It would be more use to you than just sitting in a draw beneath old documents”.

Carefully, you took the weapon from his fragile hands, almost recoiling at the familiarity of the cool metal in your palm. You nodded gratefully, taking the firearm and securing it in the holster attatched to your right leg. Before you could leave, Viktor gently grabbed your upper arm, squeezing it tightly in emphasis to his words. “Be careful, and come back alive”.

With a light chuckle, you nodded your promise before walking past him and through the front door. You coudln’t help but feel incredibly nervous. There were two ways this night could go, and you hoped to god that everything worked in your favour.

Studying the ruins of the base atop your perch of a pile of rubble, everything seemed to be running smoothly so far.

You had watched several Soviet officers disappear through a single armoured door, only to return hours later. You assumed that that door lead either to an already rebuilt section of the base, which was heavily fortified and filled with armed guards at every turn. Or, that door lead down to subterrainean levels that hadn’t been affected in the air raid four months ago.

There was only one way to find out.

Checking that the coast was clear, you descended from your perch and kept close to the shadows. Taking the long way around was certainly not what you wanted to do, although you definitely did avoid several close calls. You only had trouble with two guards, who you quickly dispatched before continuing on your way.

You paused just out of reach of the doorway, crouching low to avoid the bright searchlight illuminating the grounds. Steadying your breath, you waited for the right moment to slip through the metal door without being detected. The door itself hadn’t suffered much damage, merely sustaining a few scratches and scorch marks against the olive green paint. When the search light moved on a second time, you took that as your opportunity to slip through, closing the door behind you with a small thunk, whilst completely unaware of the several pairs of prying eyes that watched your form in awe and disbelief.

After managing to sneak by several other Soviet soldiers, you found yourself descending a staircase that kept going down, down down. There was almost no end in sight, but you sighed with relief when a faint white light illuminated the end of the staircase. Upon entering the room, you almost swore that your heart leapt into your throat. There were several rows of computer terminals, but there was only one that was operational. As you approached, the screen flickered with two words. Two words that triggered a flicker of memory from your time with Perseus.

You were back in that bunker, the bunker with the red door. It was just you and Perseus, the rest of the room was dim, almost black and white. Perseus turned to face you, his eyes narrowing ever so slightly as he placed a file onto the table before you. “I only trust you with this information. You are my most valuable asset, and I trust that you will keep this a secret from the rest of the table...”

You nodded wordlessly as Perseus continued, “If Operation Greenlight is to fail, I have a failsafe which I intend to initiate, Operation Hydra-”

You found yourself stumbling backward, breathing heavily as you tried to make sense of what you had just witnessed. Operation Hydra? Perseus’ most valuable asset? None of this was making sense.

You heard the heavy footsteps before you turned, perhaps a little too late. The end of an assult rifle collided with your jaw, sending you sprawling to the floor as your vision danced with violent stars. Several angry Russian voices echoed throughout the bunker, all of them shouting for someone to retrieve a General Nikiforov. Ungracefully, you staggered to your feet and lashed out at the closest soldier, tackling him to the ground with a loud cry of effort. After managing to wrestle the rifle from his grasp, and after knocking the soldier unconscious, you took cover behind one of the computer terminals as the remaining four soldiers opened fire.

You cursed under your breath, readying your newfound weapon to fire when several more shots echoed from within the bunker, this time, resonating from the bottom of the stairwell on the opposite side of the room. It soon became hard to differentiate between who exactly was shouting. There were multiple accents all at once, making it near impossible to find out just who was shooting at who.

Peaking around the corner of the terminal, you sighed internally with relief as the three soldiers were preoccupied with dealing with whoever was on the other side of the room. Wait, three?

You had no time to react as the fourth soldier appeared to your left in your peripheral vision. You released a small cry of pain as the Russian grabbed a fistful of your hair, dragging you out from behind your cover before letting go, and delivering a swift kick to your abdomen. You managed to avoid his attack, rolling away before quickly standing to your feet.

The soldier charged, swining his arms wildly. There was no rationality to his attacks. Making him vulnerable, and completely predicatble. You caught his arm mid-swing, twisting it to the side harshly before delivering a hard kick to the soldier’s stomach. With a pointed grunt, he stumbled backward against one of the terminals, giving you enough time to advance. But the soldier was ready, and produced a large combat knife from within his vest.

You hissed as the knife cut your forearm, recoiling away from the soldier as blood began to stain the sleeve of your shirt. Believeing that he had the upper hand, the soldier advanced, swiping in every which direction in an attempt to land a critical hit. Doging and weaving, you swore as your back collided with a seperate terminal, effectively trapping you between the desk and the soldier edging closer towards you. Shit, this was exactly what he wanted.

You were practically bent over backwards across the terminal, your back straining at the awkward angle as you caught the soldier’s hand in it’s downward strike, leaving the knife mere inches from your throat. The soldier was leaning on top of you, putting all his weight into trying to accomplish the menial task of ending your life. You could feel the knife’s tip pressing against your skin, the cool metal still flecked with traces of your blood a stark contrast to the warmth of your body. The knife drew blood as you tried desperately to push back with whatever remaining strength you had left. You didn’t know how much longer you could last.

Suddenly out of nowhere, the soldier was hauled away from your form and violently shoved to the ground by a figure clad in black. You forced your self to sit upright, one hand caressing your neck whilst the other was braced firmly against the desk. Taking a few deep breaths, you watched on as the figure kicked the knife from the soldier’s hand, before removing a pistol from his side and actively shooting the soldier in the chest, the single shot echoing loudly throughout the now silent bunker.

Your heavy breathing was the only sound to be heard, as you tried to regain your composure, as you tried to calm down. But four months of recovery certainly hadn’t prepared you for this. Your entire being became rigid with fear as the figure before you turned, your eyes widened with dread, you could have sworn that you had stopped breathing altogether. Those blue eyes beneath those goddamned glasses, the scars across his face...

Two other figures appeared behind him, their eyes wide, their faces pale. As if they were looking at a ghost.

“No fucking way...” Woods breathed, his eyes not once leaving your form as his grip on his rifle slackened. Mason nodded wordlessly, he too in a completely dumbfounded state. Your fear soon turned to immense anger, as Adler stepped towards you, his expression unreadable. “Bell” was all he said, nodding slightly in aknowledgement. As if what happened four months ago never took place at all.

A heavy tension filled the bunker, becoming broken when your clenched fist collided with Adler’s jaw, a sharp but impressive ‘crack’ echoing throught the room.

Tag List (Tags with lines aren’t working as of yet): @pookolokon @travelllar @basicwhiteasian @shellshockedbell @inteligentecat @staryozora @quietblogs-2-rd @lovinggooppalacebanana @ktdragonborn

#russell adler x reader #russell adler #russell adler imagine #call of duty x reader #call of duty #call of duty imagine #call of duty black ops #call of duty cold war #call of duty black ops cold war

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10millionyearsdungeon · 4 years

Text

Praesidium Pt II: Talionis

A/N: Sooo...Merry Crisis one and all. Secret Santas are supposed to be fun and tailored for the recipient, yeah? Here’s hoping they enjoy given how the first thing they said to me after reading part one was, “Where’s the rest of it?” Mafia AU continuation where the endgame changes slightly. Thanks again to @dymphnasprose for the lovely banner (the raging dumpster fire that is tumblr won’t let me load the gorgeous gif banner you made for me D:<!!!)and for keeping my ass on track and on time with this shit. You know how I feel about deadlines.

TW: Non-Con, Kidnapping, implied drugging, sensory deprivation, gunplay, spitroasting, bondage, rope, fuck or die, forced cuckholding, coercion.

====================================================

The cabinet meeting adjourned per usual custom; the ministers in their bland, off the rack suits filed out of the chambers, their slow, humming chatter fading with every step taken out onto the polished marble. Shinsou straightened his tie and cast a wary eye to his phone, the vibrations buzzing through the laminated table like a hornet. Your number burned through the screen in starlight pixels-- it wasn’t like you to call him during a recess. Typically, you waited for him to call knowing just how arduous the arguments between old men could become when given a public forum.

“Yes, love?”

The familiar keening of your whimpering through his smartphone in reply sent a chill through him so cold it could only be described as hiemal. Almost frantically, your voice hitched and another breathy moan caught in your throat. Mangled pleas for release, for an end to the madness building in your core were punctuated by those same haggard cries. Shinsou froze at his desk in the auditorium, fixated on the harsh panting he knew was accompanied by the heaving of supple breasts and the telltale flush of your imminent end. He ached against his navy blue Dior suit pants, transfixed by the haunting song of tortuous pleasure you sang in his ear. Throat dry, Shinsou dropped his voice and tried again. “Kitten, I’ll be home shortly if you can keep edging for that long.”

“I’m sure you’ll find she’s about as far from home as she can get. Doubt the little princess can last much longer.”

Shinsou held his breath and the dread found a new way to boil the acid in his stomach. Through gritted teeth, he growled under his breath as your wailing continued to soundtrack a less than touching moment between surrogate father and son. He could hear the smug smirk as the formidable Boss Aizawa continued to taunt you closer to the edge.

"If you've hurt her--"

"Wouldn't dream of it. You're coming home, and not that over-indulgent highrise you've made your love nest in. Time is of the essence, Hitoshi." An unmistakable scream, your scream left him paralyzed as the line went dead. Though his mind raced, Shinsou had to will his feet to carry him through the maze of bureaucrats and journalists hindering him from his car. He knew the way to the compound without thinking. Muscle-memory had him weaving through city traffic to the outskirts of town, the memory of your scream a silent echo in his ears.

He knew Boss Aizawa was capable of anything, and that knowledge had his blood run colder the closer he drove to his family's homestead. Yamada and his perpetual grin was nowhere to be found when Shinsou pulled in, a surprise for the political upstart. An empty house for an organization as large as his was never a good sign. He ran through the maze of hallways, each door the same heavy ebony and gold lacquer, until he found the one room he never dared enter even as a young orphan running the streets. The silence of the compound left his ragged breathing suspended in a palpable dread. Hitoshi drew up his courage, caught his breath, and rapped his trembling knuckles against the door.

"Ah, the prodigal son." Boss Aizawa smirked and waved him in with an air of affability not unfamiliar to the young politician. Aizawa rested a hand along your hairline, gently running his fingers through your sweat-matted hair. Curled into his lap with heavy black cord caging your limbs in familiar lovers' knots and a bolt of black silk covering your eyes, you rested soundlessly as if unaware of the monster whose slacks you rested against. Shinsou slid into the room and closed the door behind him, the lump in his throat growing the longer his violet eyes traced the track of his surrogate father's fingers. "Couldn't stay away, could you?"

"Let her go. She has nothing to do with this."

Aizawa chuckled darkly, running his wandering hand to trace the gentle slope of your back and waist. "You're right," he mused, rubbing the reddened globe of your ass. "Her involvement is inconsequential. Nothing more than a pretty, little obstacle, really." Shinsou was fixated on the tender way Boss Aizawa danced his fingertips along your skin and choked back bile and rage as the mafia head continued to calmly voice his proposal. His onyx eyes darkened and a cruel glare frosted over his rugged features. "You've grown overly comfortable with the freedoms I've so graciously allowed you to indulge in these past months, Hitoshi."

Your brow furrowed slightly under the harsh grip on your thighs prying them apart to reveal the glistening secret between them. Shinsou chewed on his tongue, watching his mentor pull your lower lips apart with calloused fingertips. As much as he wanted to rip Aizawa's hands off of you, as hard as he tried to look away he knew it was a far better alternative than seeing your gray matter and bone splattered on the drywall behind him.

"Enough. Let her go."

"If only it were so simple, Hitoshi." Aizawa curled your hair around his fingers and gave a rough pull, arching your neck painfully back as your mouth flew open in a choked cry. "What I don't think you understand is this…" His smug grin burned against your skin, his thick fingers slid inside your slick walls stretching you through your waking moments while your husband watched on, helpless to intervene. "...Everything you own is mine. Everything you've built and become is because of me-- I own you, Hitoshi." Each syllable dripping with thinly veiled irritation punctuated another curl of those blood-stained fingers up into your dripping maw. Still oversensitive from earlier abuses, you wailed as Aizawa forced you to spread yourself open onto his lap for your husband to observe in silent disgust.

"It's simple, Hitoshi: you come back into the fold, and I'll let her go." Shinsou clenched his jaw and watched the gaping maw of your pussy accommodate his mentor's thick digits. Aizawa's free hand snaked its way around your pretty throat and gave an experimental squeeze, your gasping stirring his cock to life under your squirming core. "Refuse and she breathes her last." Stone-faced as ever, Shinsou watched impassively, his rage building in his chest like a war chant pounding a warning across the distance. The tighter Aizawa squeezed the angrier Shinsou became, all too happy to ignore the faint zip and sudden strangled moan pulled from your wanton lips as a foreign cock sheathed itself inside a stranglehold all your own. "Looks like you need more convincing," the dark-haired boss grunted. He rutted into your writhing body, pulling careless cries of frantic pleasure with a casual smirk.

Shinsou stepped closer, reaching out to put a stop to the madness, only to be stopped by the clicking of a hammer cocking from a discreet sidearm. He dropped his arm to his side and looked on at the familiar quiver in your thighs signaling the beginning of your many ends.

"'Toshi, please," you whimpered, desperate to reach that peak. On closer inspection, he could see the dark outline of noise cancelling earbuds resting in the shells of your ears, no doubt playing something soothing and wordless to supplement the drugs dulling your senses. Just when he thought to silently thank his mentor for the small mercy Aizawa's thrusting intensified. The high, keening scream Shinsou took pride in coaxing was a stiletto to the heart when you sang it for another man under such duress. Your cream coated Aizawa's cock, adding another layer of traitorous lube to the act. As the boss ran his aquiline nose along the column of your neck, Shinsou traced the curve of your parted lips with his ultraviolet gaze.

"I'm waiting, Hitoshi." Aizawa held the barrel to your temple and groaned at the full-body shiver that tore through your bound frame on his throbbing length. His finger rested on the trigger, each thrust bringing the reality of potentially losing you to a stray bullet in the midst of his mentor's passion sinking to the forefront of Shinsou's mind. Frozen, the politician swallowed hard and hung his head in defeat. It was one thing to insult him by kidnapping and fucking his wife, but dangling the prospect of losing you was an injury he doubt he could fully recover from. "Be a shame to ruin something so beautiful, but if this is how you demand to be taught, who am I to argue?"

Another moan nearly sent both men over the edge, Aizawa's finger squeezing the trigger reflexively. Fear was a beast clawing through Shinsou's chest, moving through him to grab the gun and pant out in desperation.

"Alright! I'll do it. Just let her go."

Aizawa released his hold on the firearm and allowed it to slide barrel first into Shinsou's shaking hands. With both hands free to manipulate your body to his whims, Aizawa redoubled his efforts. For the first time since childhood, Shinsou saw true joy light his mentor's hardened features. He might have felt a twinge of relief if he wasn't balls deep inside his ignorant wife's dripping cunt.

"Was that so hard? I'd say let's shake on it like men, but my hands are a little full at the moment." Aizawa shifted your weight forward, mouth hungry and open, waiting to be filled as saliva tracked down the corners of your lips. Shinsou hesitated, eyes flickering between your parted lips and Aizawa's empty black eyes. "Guess sharing your whore should suffice."

As if it was all the permission needed, Shinsou dropped his designer trousers and buried himself to the hilt in your throat. He tossed the handgun aside and gripped your hair as he lost himself in the moist contractions as you gargled another aria of wanton moans. With every stroke Aizawa took to bruise into your twitching cervix Shinsou backed off to allow you the half-beat to breathe before abusing your gag reflex. Halfway through you began to realize something was amiss as you clawed against your husband's bare thighs. Shinsou yanked roughly on your hair and continued to bite back his disgust with the situation. He was supposed to be better than this; he swore he was done with Aizawa and his gang, that he was done being a thug at his mentor's beck and call. Your grip left angry trails of heartbreak along Shinsou's pale legs as your body betrayed you.

The pace was brutal-- pounded rhythmlessly from behind, you felt pressure let off as thick, hot ropes painted along your back in viscous pearl. Head thrown back, Shinsou wasn't too far behind, his grip soon wrapping around your throat. With the fight fucked out of you long before reason sunk in, strength left your limbs leaving you limp between the two thugs. Growling out his release into your belly, Shinsou's grip softened and he lovingly rubbed soothing circles on your cheek with his thumb. Lost in the dark sensation of freefall, you succumbed to unconsciousness.

Warm light and the smell of dark roast roused you from sleep. Tongue thick and body numbed from your rest, you stretched futilely back into your pillows. Shinsou sauntered in, unhurried as ever, with a steaming mug to greet you with an apologetic peck.

"What's the occasion?" Your husband darted his gaze away with uncharacteristic sheepishness. "It's not like you to not send your assistant to fetch my coffee."

"I wanted a more personal touch this morning, kitten."

You hummed gratefully into the brew, soaking in its warmth and Shinsou's company with a smile. Your body ached curiously in muscle groups you forgot you had, sparking flashes of remembrance as he began packing an overnight bag for the two of you. "'Toshi…" you began. "I had the weirdest dream last night…" Your husband froze over his collared shirts and cufflinks as you mused over the morning paper. As he packed your counterfeit passports and offshore account information carefully between dinner jackets and evening gowns, you sighed in contented ignorance. Perhaps it was better you didn't find out how significantly the cost of living had increased overnight.

Tags: @thewheezingwyvern

#bnha aizawa #bnha shinsou #bnha smut #bnha mafia #the smut pile server #reader x shinsou #shinsou x reader x aizawa #shinsou x reader x aizawa smut #tw: gun play #tw: non-con #tw: spitroast #tw: drugging #tw: kidnapping #tw: coercion #tw: fuck or die

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untilenglandisnomore · 3 years

Text

PadMay 2021 – Day 2: How should Padmé be remembered?

(rocks up a week late with a chai latte) Played fast and loose with the word “should” here and ended up thinking a lot about Imperial propaganda.

Summary: Imperial Supreme Commander Darth Vader is sent to investigate accusations of a university lecturer spreading treasonous Rebel propaganda. A class on the life and work of Naboo’s former Queen Amidala brings back painful memories.

As far as punishments go, it would appear on the face of it that Darth Vader had lucked out. Being sent to assist the ISB might be painfully boring but at least it wasn’t painful. It seemed almost incongruous to the Emperor’s rage at his apprentice, once again, letting the Rebels slip through his fingers.

Vader knew better. Pain, he was used to. Pain, he could tolerate. Wasting his skills and time on pointless political suppression, investigating academics for spreading Rebel lies irked him immensely. The Emperor’s way of reminding him that he was replaceable, disposable.

And to rub salt in his wounds, he was commanded to investigate the faculty at the University of Theed. To be mere clicks away from his beloved’s final resting place was a pointed twist of the knife.

The quicker he got it over with, the quicker he could get back to hunting down the Rebels, so the Sith pushed all thoughts of her out of his mind.

Or at least, that was his intention. Begrudgingly, he followed the ISB Agent into the lecture hall. The Agent was to lead the interrogation, Vader was there to provide leverage.

The class had already started. Fifty pairs of eyes turned on them and the lecturer stopped abruptly.

“Can I help you?” she asked, a strong voice despite the fear spiking through her blood at the sight of Vader.

The Agent gave her shark-tooth smile. “Agent Elliot, ISB. We’ll just be sitting in your lecture today. Making sure everything is up the standards of our great Emperor.”

The way he cocked his head towards Vader made it clear it was not a request.

The lecturer stiffened. “What does education have to do with security?” she asked.

“Sedition,” said the Agent, “is a crime.”

She gave them a flat look. “Fine. Take a seat. Be sure to let us know when the truth runs up against the Emperor’s delicate sensibilities,” she snarked.

Vader felt a brief bit of surprise at her insolence and then almost amused. He really did not like Agent Elliot. There was something about the steel in her eye that made him wonder if all the Naboo were just like that.

They stood at the back of the hall, Elliot pointedly taking notes on his datapad, and Vader glowering, and the lecturer got back to her class.

“Okay hopefully you’ve all read chapters five, nine and ten on the Invasion of Naboo and the Clone Wars.”

There was some half-hearted murmuring across the room. The lecturer rolled her eyes.

“Come on guys. Fine. Does anyone in this room not know who Queen Amidala was?”

There was a smattering of laughter and snorts of disbelief.

Darth Vader didn’t hear the lecturer’s reply because what was left of his body went numb and a distant ringing filled up his ears. He stood frozen as the lecturer set up a holoprojector and suddenly it was her. Her face, lit up and larger than life before his eyes. Her voice breaking through the ringing in his ears and bouncing around his skull.

“Like so many of the people that we tell ourselves we're here to serve, Teckla lives in a district that rarely has electricity and running water as a result of the war.”

Vader could feel his heart stop in his chest. His mind went completely blank. He watched, as if from a very far distance, as the holoprojector floated up off the desk, crumpled up like a piece of flimsi, and then shattered into dust.

Stillness fell over the room as all the students and the lecturer stared at the spot where the holoprojector had sat seconds prior.

The lecturer seemed to recover first, giving herself a little shake and pointedly not looking at Vader.

“Well,” she said, “I’ve got printed copies of this speech on flimsi,” she handed out sheets for students to pass around while they started to whisper to each other, furtive glances in Vader’s direction.“So everyone take a couple of minutes to read the speech and take some notes.”

The students followed their instructions as the lecturer awkwardly scooped up the remains of her holoprojector and deposited them into a bin.

“Okay,” she said at last, “what does this speech tell us about the Clone Wars?”

A handful of students raised their hands, the lecturer pointed to a bothan girl, one of the few non-humans in the class.

“The war was causing lots of suffering and the Senate weren’t doing a good job stopping it. This is why the Emperor had to take over, to ensure peace.”

The lecturer glanced over at where Agent Elliot was standing and didn’t try to hide the roll of her eyes.

“I suppose it could be interpreted that way. Senator Amidala spoke out against corruption in the Senate many times.”

“She didn’t support the war,” said another student, a human boy, “doesn’t that make her a Separatist?”

“And she signed the bill asking the Emperor to hand power back to the Senate. Isn’t that treason?” added his friend.

Another disdainful eye roll in the ISB Agent’s direction as the lecturer trotted out the party line through gritted teeth.

“Senator Amidala was a close, personal friend of the Emperor. The Emperor supports democracy and free speech, but order had to be restored after the war. Senator Amidala was a great leader and surely would have supported the Empire had she lived long enough to see the excellent things it has achieved.”

“Professor?” another student put up her hand. “I was going to do my paper on Senator Amidala and the days around the rise of the Empire but there’s hardly any sources? Should I pick another topic? Do you know how she died?”

Genuine curiosity broke through the lecturer’s stony façade but as she opened her mouth to answer, she yelped and jumped back as her entire desk broke in half.

She stared at the desk. She stared at the rows of students gaping in shock. She stared at Vader.

Her eyes narrowed minutely at the Sith and then, apparently throwing all caution and good sense to the wind, she continued her answer.

“It’s a matter of some… contention,” she started slowly. “Senator Amidala was last seen at her home on Coruscant several hours after the formation of the Empire. She took her personal ship, and left Coruscant. There’s no further sources on where she was or what happened to her.”

The lecture hall felt very cold all of a sudden. Despite the ominous feeling in her gut, the lecturer continued.

“Official Imperial sources reported her death as an act of terrorism by a Jedi. They claim she died a martyr for the Empire.”

“And you don’t think that’s true?” asked a student. It was a fair question. The disbelief was clear in her tone.

The lecturer glanced over again to Vader and the Agent. She shrugged.

“Without any evidence to the contrary, it might as well be true. I think her actions as Queen and as Senator tell us exactly what Amidala would have thought of the Empire.” She ignored the twitch of the Agent’s brow at her tone, and pointed to a student. “Yes, Ilya.”

The class continued, moving on to discuss the boring, political, parts of the Clone Wars which Vader, for one, had no desire to relive.

None of it was new to him anyway, so he allowed himself to zone out the class, gingerly picking through the whirlwind of his thoughts.

Her. Somehow of all the days, of all the classes, they were discussing her.

He briefly mused on whether it was the Force, or his own cursed bad luck. Or, more cynically, if this was engineered by his Master, as part of his punishment.

They remembered her, quoted her speeches and still respected her as a leader, as Queen and as Senator. And yet they knew nothing about her.

They didn’t know that her laughter was musical when she was happy, and a graceless snigger when he made a particularly lewd joke. They didn’t know how the air in a room seemed to change when she walked into it, like all the atoms had ceased moving. Or how it changed again, when she spoke, always uncompromising and direct, like static electricity crackled between her sentences. They didn’t know all the good she could have done. Would have done.

He had robbed the galaxy of her blinding, beautiful presence. She was the only good thing left and he killed her and it was all his fault.

A blaring alarm shook him out of his reverie as students started to pack up their bags and awkwardly file out the door past him, shooting him apprehensive glances as they went.

The girl from before, who had asked… who had asked about that, was loitering behind to approach her teacher.

“Um,” she started, “so what should I do my paper on? So many of the books in the library have been taken out by the new censorship laws, it’s so hard to find good sources.”

The lecturer flashed her student a smile. “It just so happens that the Senator Amidala’s father used to work at this university, he’s an old friend and he dropped off some of the Senator’s old memoirs.”

She went to her bag and pulled out a datapad. “It’s all been copied to the holonet, and,” she rolled her eyes in Vader’s direction, once again demonstrating a remarkable lack of fear for her life, “edited to remove anything that could be interpreted as anti-Imperial. There’s lots of good anecdotes from her time as Senator, and a fair few political essays.”

They started to talk further about the student’s paper but Vader wasn’t listening, his legs moving before he was fully conscious of it, coming to a stop in front of the lecturer and snatching the datapad from her hand. She gave him an unimpressed glare and he was suddenly overcome with a need to explain himself.

“The ISB will need to review this,” he said stiffly, “for evidence.” He abruptly turned on his heel and walked out the room, nearly running over Agent Elliot in the corridor.

“Other than her having an attitude problem, there’s not much to go on here, she’s not distributing illegal material as far as we can see,” said the Agent. “What’s that?” He asked, pointing to the datapad in Vader’s hand.

“Nothing that concerns you,” replied Vader, and stalked away in a flurry of black fabric and disdain.

It wasn’t until he was back in his chambers aboard the Executor that he dared take out the datapad again, too often surrounded by nosy Imperial officials and gossipy stormtroopers.

He flicked it to a random page and at the first line he read, let out a snort of amusement, the sound odd and distorted through his vocoder.

“In a democracy, citizens have a duty to stand up against tyranny. In order to benefit from the rights and freedoms that democracy brings, citizens have an obligation to be vigilant against the rise of authoritarianism.”

This, thought Vader, was definitely not Imperial approved material. Distantly, he wondered if he should report it, this incendiary material was on the holonet, anyone could read it.

People would know what she thought. More would remember her as a traitor.

He preferred to imagine that he could have convinced her, that she would have come to see that the Empire was necessary. But. He quietly knew the truth. She was stalwart in her beliefs and a hell of a lot more stubborn than he was.

She would have been proud to be labelled a traitor by this Empire. She would hate to be remembered as a martyr for it.

She always did have the last word, Vader thought dryly, resolving to conveniently forget about the memoirs being on the holonet, and settled onto a chair to read every word she had written.

#padmay #padmay2021 #Darth Vader #padmé amidala #vaderdala #just some fresh nonsense from my brain prison #I definitely think some of my uni lecturers would have been totally unphased #by a robot breaking their desk in half with psychic powers #Anakin skywalker #anidala #sort of

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nervousladytraveler · 4 years

Text

@veryflowerobservation asked me for a little story with a very specific plot line. While I doubt this is what they had in mind (apologies in advance) this is what came to me over my morning coffee. Also, I’ve been reading Life After Life by Kate Atkinson, and am indebted to her for the world (and tone) of that novel that I borrowed here.

---

She was already seated at a table in a quiet back corner when Ross entered the restaurant. A sandwich sat in front of her--untouched. How long had she been waiting? Ross hadn’t been late. In fact he was rather pleased with his timing.

He’d only just found her note a mere half hour before he was to meet her. He’d almost missed it--a small piece of folded paper deposited on his desk and no one claimed to have seen the messenger.

Dear Mr. Poldark, it read. Please meet me, if you can, noon today. The Drake. Important item to be discussed. Yours, Miss D. Carne. The ink had smeared a bit revealing an impatient or untidy author.

He remembered Miss Carne. Often, if he were to be honest. He smiled at the physical feelings associated with the memory and was on his feet shuffling for his coat before he’d thought it all through. After a late breakfast, he wasn’t hungry yet his curiosity was piqued by such a veiled message. Then again cryptic was the nature of their business, he supposed.

Ross hadn’t wanted the job but was cajoled, battered--railroaded really. But his gallantry in the previous war and in his off-the-record jaunts in between, not to mention his Good Family (“So many Poldarks already in the high ranks, you know”) were all tallied up. If Ross was trying to slip away from duty unnoticed, it seemed he was his own worst enemy. And if he had a choice, he’d have preferred to return to the army, but his ankle still bore shrapnel from ‘17 and apparently he wasn’t needed in that capacity.

“We need trustworthy men inside, Poldark,” some smart Undersecretary and an older but oh so reputable Colonel had huffed. They nodded in agreement with one another, and without waiting for an answer, had begun making plans for Ross in an unmarked office at the end of a serpentine hall in That Building.

The last thing Ross wanted was to be trusted with someone else’s secrets and yet, there he was--working for the War Time Government, which he soon learned was a very different machine than the one they’d elected in times of peace, the one everyone thought they knew. And once he saw the ways the gears really moved, Ross was certain most would prefer not to know much about this one at all.

Miss Carne, the author of the note and the guardian of the untouched sandwich, was one of the girls in the unmarked office. The department that didn’t really exist on paper needed scores of young women to keep it running.

She was different from the other girls. Not just a typist but clever--she was always solving problems, often before they were discovered, and saving the men who didn’t really exist on paper from very real embarrassment.

Ross hadn’t many dealings with her. Well, not until that one night when he got to know her quite well.

It had been a Thursday and there had been cocktails out--what had been the occasion? War had already been declared so it was quite unusual to have held a work do. Why was she even there?

He remembered the dress she wore--blue satin--and the way it fit her. Like a glove. No, more like water in a stream rippling smoothly over immovable stones. It made him feel at ease to look at her and he knew how the night would end.

In the all the secretarial pools across the city, few girls had their clothes tailored--who had time or money? So when they ventured out after work, they sported those subtle signs of economy--gaping necklines or tight stretches across the middle. Their one good dress hadn’t been replaced in so many years but their bodies had changed with the war. Rationing had left them scrawny or cheap gin had left them bloated.

Oh but those girls tried, didn’t they? They carried on the best they could. With their lips so brightly made up they could violate the black out, they were hell bent on keeping up the spirits of the lads. Wartime made for an interesting and furtive nightlife. Of course the nice girls, the ones with breeding and good dress makers weren’t out much at all these days.

But this one, Miss Carne, with her red hair--real, not from a bottle--and a fitted dress the colour of the sea at twilight, was different. Demelza was her name. It sounded like some yet-undiscovered gem. Rare as hell and essential to keep out of enemy hands. She didn’t seem to belong in either world--not the world of well dressed would-be fiancees nor the seedy boîtes, that were filled after hours when the good girls were tucked up in their bunkers.

The hotel Ross had taken Demelza to after they’d left the party was nice enough. Not the Savoy but it had a toilet ensuite and the sheets were clean. She was not Ross’s first affair so he knew how to be discreet when signing the register. He needn’t have bothered--the concierge clearly hadn't cared.

He remembered the sound of that blue dress as he unfastened it down the back. A crisp zip in an otherwise quiet room. That and her breathing and his heart beating in his chest. The sounds of anticipation. Before the dress slipped from her shoulders and his hands clasped her naked body to him.

Today she wore a stiff woolen frock the colour of filing cabinets. It reminded him of a wall of sandbags, protecting a hidden softness beneath. Still the zipper would sound the same.

“Miss Carne,” he smiled and held out his hand to her. He contemplated kissing hers when it was finally offered but sensing some unspoken chill, he refrained. He sat down opposite and gave his serviette a merry snap.

She twisted her lips when she spied the gold band on his left hand.

“You're married?” she began, raising one perfect brow. Was it naturally arched or was that her own artistry?

He might have wanted to scrutinize her face, to map out what was artifice and what was real, but at that moment he didn’t dare look her in the eye.

“Yes, I am,” he said, just a decibel louder than a mumble. “And yes, I was married when we…” He took a gulp from his water glass.

“And yet there was no ring that night,” she mused. She had no problem with eye contact, her blue eyes remained fixed on his face.

“We...uh...we were in the midst of a separation then but the war has made us rethink things…”

We. Us. There wasn’t really an us. Elizabeth was merely feeling scared and lonely, between lovers, and suddenly liking the idea of a strong husband about. But since then her plans to retreat home to Cornwall, first spoken of as a ‘hypothetical perhaps’, had started to come to fruition. She’d been packing a trunk for some days now and was fretting about whether to take just some of her furs, or all of them. She was clearly planning to stay away. Ross’s response was to arrange a driver.

“Well then,” Demelza said and pushed away her plate. “That will complicate things but doesn’t change reality one bit,” she continued crisply.

It was an office voice. With it she would manage the girls under her with confidence and efficiency. No time for emotion, yet it wasn’t sour. Must keep morale up. They had jobs to do and every memo taken, every letter filed, was a fulfillment of their duty.

It was not the soft, easy voice that laughed in his ear as she lay next to him on the pillow in the blacked out room. The dusky voice that had whispered his name as he crawled up her body like a soldier crawling through mud. On a mission. Towards his target.

“It seems, Mr. Poldark, that I’m to have a baby.”

He held his glass aloft and stared at her.

“What?” he spat. “Well, it can’t be...I didn’t…not in...” Of course he couldn’t utter those words in daylight. Not over a sandwich at lunchtime. One needed a stiff drink before dissecting the mechanics of love. Yet somehow he knew it was possible. He thought he’d been careful not to leave seed in the field. Now it hit him he’d in fact laid a land mine.

“Well it doesn’t really matter what you believe you did not do, because apparently whatever you did, was enough,” she responded coolly.

He didn’t dare ask if there were any others who might stand accused with him in the dock. His gut told him she wasn’t that type. And though she hadn’t confirmed it during their night together--nor had he looked for evidence later--he suspected she’d been intact before he took her to bed. Oh, she’d been a quick learner!

He also sensed that she’d rather be sitting across from just about anyone else than talking to him now, so she certainly wasn’t trying to trap him.

“Are...are you sure? I...I need to think,” he said, aware that he sounded like an old Spitfire whose propeller couldn’t quite get going. So much sputtering.

She lit a cigarette, took one long drag, then ground it out carefully in the ashtray. No doubt she’d revisit that same fag again later, at a time when she was less impatient, when she could enjoy it alone.

“Well, you do that then,” she said, and gathered her handbag, ready to take her leave.

“Wait! Where are you going? How can I reach you?” His words came out in a fast and frantic stream. The engine had started--the sputter became a steady buzz filling the room.

She narrowed her eyes and shook her head lightly. Today her hair was held back with tortoise shell combs on either side. Tidy, discreet, and appropriate for an unmarked office. Or any office.

He recalled his hands getting lost in a sea of those curls, fistfuls he’d grasped in passion. An unexpected lifeline, it had seemed at the time, that prevented him from drowning.

He felt himself going under again.

“Now you want to reach me, Mr. Poldark?” she said archly.

“Hey--you left me! You were the one who waltzed out of that hotel room while I was asleep, without so much as a backwards glance,” he growled. He’d been rankled that she continued to call him Mister Poldark, especially when he could still hear her hiss in his ear--Ross--while her body bucked under his.

“I assure you it wasn’t a waltz,” she said. And that was all she said. At least she didn’t claim she’d been trying to save him the embarrassment of a morning after. “I share a flat with another girl in Kingley Street. We don't have a telephone but you can find me at the office--unless I get reassigned in the next few days. There are changes coming, I’ve been told.”

She rose to her feet and towering over him, nodded.

Ross tried to stand up quickly--to plead with her to stay? To follow her out? He couldn't say what his intentions had been but it mattered little. He was too slow. His legs got twisted under the narrow table, his chair scraped awkwardly, and the remaining lunch things began to tip before he caught them with his broad hands. He narrowly avoided one mess, aware that he had quite another still to be cleared up.

And just like that she was gone. Leaving her entire sandwich and almost-intact cigarette behind afterall.

In a strange flash, Ross was surprised she didn't offer to pay for her own lunch. Of course a gentleman should pick up the bill for a lady no matter the circumstances, but there was something so determined and iron about her now, that he couldn’t imagine her allowing anyone to help her.

And yet help her he must. Somehow.

He felt his pockets frantically for a scrap of paper but only found a stub of a pencil.

Kingley Street, he scrawled on the back of a matchbook. He had no house number, nothing else to go.

Could he ask someone to watch the street? He knew some blokes who would do a job like that--a stake out--for the right price. Or was he better off handling this himself, intercepting her at work? Even if she did get moved to a different sector--one that also did not officially exist--he might have channels to find her.

He sat back in his chair and reached for her cigarette. He imagined it smelled like her but he lit it anyway. It helped him to relax for just a moment while he planned his next move.

Ross knew he had a duty to this woman--to their child if one was to be--and while that was an overwhelming and unforeseen realisation, he was taken aback by a different unexpected sensation.

Desire.

He wanted her. Again. Now.

And he had to find her.

#poldark fanfic #poldark modern au #london blitz #ross poldark #demelza carne #blue dress #fastens down the back

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spield · 4 years

Text

journey to i - kakasaku

Author’s Notes: This has been in my google docs for so long, I’ve forgotten all about it. I low-key panicked when I couldn’t find it my files hahaha. But here it is. Not much romance, but more of... hmm, you tell me what you think it is in your comments! ;)

Disclaimer: As I’ve said before, sometimes I just write to get things out THEN edit it after. This is the case for this one. Will probably edit this soon though!

In the end, when Sasuke asks, Sakura says no.

She takes his lone hand, kisses his palm and whispers why she can’t.

Sasuke doesn’t understand but he sees the longing in her green eyes, and ah, that he understands. So he pokes her forehead, just above her seal, and hopes they meet on the road and promises a cup of tea.

She doesn’t linger to watch him leave. Instead, the moment he turns his back, she turns hers too. One feet in front of the other, she walks through the paths of her village, through the market and takes a few turns and goes inside the Hokage tower.

In less than an hour, Sakura files her indefinite leave with a promise to assist, help and support members of the Shinobi Alliance on her way but with no promise when she’ll come back.

Kakashi is outside when she steps out, no signs of his hat and coat but with his trademark slouch present. He must’ve jumped through the window, Sakura thinks amusedly. Somehow, even through everything, under the fading light, he still looks untouchable. Perhaps, especially now. “You going somewhere?”

“You just approved my papers.” Sakura smiles, waving the scroll in front of him. “You know where I’m going.”

Kakashi’s dark eyes - eyes, how odd - are unreadable as he says, “No. No, I don’t.”

There’s much left to say, but years of cowardice and hiding are not easy habits to break. So Sakura heads home, and is gone before the sunrise.

At the end of it all, Sakura goes on a journey to retrace her own family’s history. Beyond Konoha, beyond the Land of Fire and beyond the world of the shinobi.

Because before Sakura was the Fifth’s Apprentice, before she was The Scorpion Killer and way before she was the leftovers of an old genin team, Sakura was a Haruno.

And all Haruno go back to the sea.

She left Konoha with just one bag filled with colorful clothes that she never got to wear. Clothes that her mother and father gifted her year after year, holiday after holiday, even when she couldn’t wear them. Not in the village of leaves, not when they smell of the sea even if they’ve never touched it.

So, Haruno Sakura goes home.

This is what Sakura tells the Godaime, the Rokudaime and anyone who asks.

(This is what she tells herself, however, in the end, it’s still heartbreak that leads her away from Konoha. When she meets Sasuke for tea, she hopes they could talk about how Konoha broke their hearts in the way it never did to Naruto.)

All questions are quelled by a calling, by the vast distance, beyond the greens of different trees and blues of different seas tug at her heartstrings, whispering, “Darling, our darling, let us hold you.”

Sakura circumnavigates the world and through her journey, she meets a monk, a lover and a heathen.

Suna is not known for their religious beliefs. From what she’d gathered throughout her years of friendship with Kankuro, they were pretty lenient to whatever gods their shinobi choose to worship.

“Maybe, you know, except for another Rabbit Goddess,” Kankuro backtracked, fingers uncoordinated and stiff from fighting, trying to balance a sake cup. It was the first time they’ve seen each other after the war, on the tails still of victory and defeat. High off it. “Yup, maybe not another Rabbit Goddess, maybe not Jashin either - everything else, fair game.”

“Faith is an interesting reprieve from the terrors of life.” Gaara said, righting his brother up with his sand. His teal eyes are fond and warm, and new. His gourd is nowhere to be seen and he looks so young for a man who led their army. “We let people have their gods.”

Suna is not known for their religious beliefs, or rather, they’re known for not being known for it but still, it’s where Sakura meets the monk.

Suna welcomes her with open arms because the sands may be forever shifting, but it never forgets. It remembers her as that 15 year old prodigy who saved their Kazekage’s brother, that 19, 20 and 21 year old who performed miracles in the battlefield with eyes fierce and elbows deep in people’s guts. Suna loves her for what she represents - grit, dirt and kindness honed by the cruelty of the world.

(Abandoned. That’s what Suna and Sakura had in common.)

Sometimes, Sakura wishes she could see what they see too.

Now, she’s 23 years old. Two years after the war and she’s still so tired.

In Suna, she’s given free reign of the hospital. Overseeing their developments in prosthesis, their puppet corps turned into experts of the field. She supposes Sasori would be rolling in his grave at the thought of how his notes revolutionized the entire field of artificial limbs - if he had a grave that is.

(Sasori was a brilliant man. Mad, yes, but brilliant - and aren’t the brilliant ones always are?)

When Sakura lessens her healing and caseload citing more hands-on training for the Suna medics, Gaara doesn’t ask. She’s still brilliant with her lectures and demonstration and nobody dares to question the greatest healer of the nations.

It is on the first day of her sixth month when she sees the monk. There’s some sort of blessing ceremony to be done to the new ward of the hospital. The Kazekage’s invited the religious leaders of Suna to bless the place.

Several came, all with different garments and different rituals. One came with water from a blessed oasis, all barefooted and with hair reaching up to the backs of their knees. They spoke a language she’s never heard, words running over like water over rocks in a bubbling stream. Another came in traditional Suna garments, and sprinkled sand over the white tiles of the new ward - under the setting sun, it looked like fairy dust and gold.

Many came and went, but one remained still at the outskirts of the crowd, quiet and familiar.

“It’s the first time he’s gone out in public since Chiyo-baa-sama’s death,” Kankuro shrugged when Sakura asked. “He’s kind of particular and all that.”

It isn’t until the sun dips down the horizon that the monk steps forward. At this point there aren’t anyone left but Gaara and Sakura but nevertheless, they receive no acknowledgement from the stooping man.

He’s quiet, as he bleeds his chakra to the floor and down every grain of sand in the ward. It always amazes Sakura how chakra lives in non-combatants - a proof that it exists beyond duty. And proof that it can, perhaps, one day exist only for beauty.

“Do you think he takes confessions?” Sakura whispers. Gaara’s lips quirk upwards, knowing that she knows the difference between a priest and a monk and yet indulges her. “Perhaps. If he does, let me know.” They’ve all got sins to unload, Sakura muses. And yet, despite being weighed down by all the choices she’s made and been forced to make, it’s not what spills from her mouth when she finds the monk a week after.

Or rather, he finds her. Coughing, old and sitting on her table.

There’s something about him, lungs barely holding on and yet still at peace, old age running lines on his face that had her saying, confessing - “I believe I am lost.”

The monk pauses, eyes torn away from the window and gravitating towards her face. Sakura doesn’t expect a response, after all, he hasn’t said a word to anyone for years. But, he shakes his naked head and offers her a smile, “Nothing is ever really lost.”

That night, she receives a missive from Konoha, like she’s been receiving for the past eleven months but this time, there are two of them. One is a response to the report she wrote about the progress of her study in prosthetics and the other, the other smelling of home and written in a piece of old weathered paper. It almost makes her smile. Mr. Ukki misses you.

Sakura doesn’t stay long after that. She fears that if she stays so near to home, its voice will overpower her roots’, and the sea has been waiting for her since she was born.

She bids Suna goodbye after a year of staying within its walls. She hugs Kankuro tightly, hold Temari’s hand and kisses Gaara’s cheek.

The Kazekage blushes underneath his hat and Kankuro jibes, “Well, if this is what farewell feels like, then you should say goodbye more often.”

For months, Sakura moves from town to town, village to village. Occasionally receiving scrolls from Konoha, asking her to lend assistance to a new ally or an old enemy.

It’s funny, how a great military power apologizes for its sins. Never acknowledging it, never calling it reparations, preferring the term “aid” when it only ever is leverage.

How odd.

How hypocritical.

(Sometimes, Sakura wonders if Uchiha Itachi was truly a loyal ninja of Konoha or if he was yet just another blinded soldier searching for idealism in a corrupted system. Was he a victim, truly? A hero? A martyr? To what end? For whom?)

In her bones, Sakura feels time slipping faster and faster, and despite these emerging thoughts, she wonders if spring has begun in Konoha.

She claims her free tea from Sasuke at a small town on the border of Iwakagure and Takigakure, almost half a year after she left Suna - two years into her journey.

“You need a haircut, Sasuke-kun.” Sakura greets and watches in satisfaction as the hobo-looking man looks up to her as she sits in front of him. His hair has grown longer, covering part of his face, finally succumbing to gravity and bidding the duck-butt style goodbye.

“Sakura.”

There’s something in the way Sasuke speaks her name. When they were kids, it’s always with dismissal and when they went on, it’s with a tone of chained fondness. During the war, it’s with disdain turned acknowledgement.

When they were in Konoha, Sakura could swear that she could hear pride in Sasuke’s voice, hidden behind the syllables of her name.

Here, he calls her with surprise melting into relief. Perhaps, being alone has taken a toll to her wayward teammate.

(Here’s the difference between the two: Sasuke is looking and running from something, Sakura knows where she’s going. Whether or not she’s running or looking too is irrelevant.) (Kind of.)

“Hey, Sasuke-kun.” Sakura smiles and waves a waitress down, “Fancy a cup of tea with me?”

Sasuke nods, his lips tugging upward. His dark eyes linger on the spider silk strands of her hair against the orange setting sun. Her hair’s grown longer, almost as long as when they were genin.

For a short moment, he’s filled with dread, struggling to remember what young Sakura looked like. He’s starting to forget, perhaps, and it is both a blessing and a punishment.

The shadows shift and stretch under the guidance of the setting sun, and they exchange stories of the road until the moon nudges the sun to rest.

It’s funny how easy they fall into bed together, right after tea.

Sakura’s childhood dreams featured more of a courtship, a promise and a marriage. Teenage Sakura’s fantasy featured more heated kisses, a fight and a leveling of a forest in rage turned lust.

But this, this is so much better.

Sasuke touches her with surprising gentleness and want, after they trip their way to his accommodations. There’s a softness in the firm kisses of his mouth, a tremble playing at the edge of his fingertips. It’s not a battle, or a dance but rather an introduction. A hello followed by oh... gods, yes, there --

Sasuke makes it good, despite only having one arm, it must be an Uchiha thing to be so good at everything, Sakura thinks as she lay beside her former team mate.

In a different life, perhaps, she would’ve married Sasuke, she thinks as she watches his lashes flutter as he sleeps. Perhaps, she would’ve give him a child, a girl with his eyes and her hair. A pink-haired Uchiha. But this is not that lifetime.

Instead, Sakura meets Sasuke again - or perhaps for the very first time - as a lover. Washed anew by his journey, Sakura gets to know her former teammate as a man who can reel out moans and gasps from her, who can, after they decided to travel together for a while, and will start a fire to keep her warm and will tease her about her love affair when he reads Kakashi’s letter over her shoulder. “Was he the reason why you didn’t come with me?” Sasuke asks. They’re in the Land of Snow, farther from where Sakura really aims to go, but she’s got time to spare and Sasuke might actually be killed by the Raikage if he’s found shuffling around near their country without an escort. Sakura glances at the words written on the wrinkled parchment (Naruto’s taking classes with Shikamaru. Lots of reading for him to do. He tried using Kage Bunshin to study and knocked himself out. Time is of the essence, he said, and I agree.) and pinches that flicker of hope budding in her chest.

She shrugs at Sasuke’s question, “I think... I think I wouldn’t have gone with you even without him in the picture.” Something sad flickers in Sasuke’s eyes before it’s gone, “And yet, here we are.”

“Here we are.”

In the frigid cold of the snow, Sasuke moves against Sakura as an apology and a goodbye. It’s more than comrades sharing warmth but less than lovers making love. At the back of Sakura’s mind, she wonders if Kakashi knows - if he’s angry or if, like always, he understands. (She misses him, even when they’ve never had each other like this. But the intimacy of sex is trumped by the intimacy in battle, in handling each other with precious care, scars and blood be damned. It is an intimacy borne of desperation, fostered by respect, watered with fondness -- and killed out of love. She misses him, but time is of the essence.)

Sasuke and Sakura split up at the outskirts of the Land of Stone at the start of her third year of travelling. He went East, she went West and that was that. A few days in, Sakura enters Asakura. Asakura is the city of heathens - prostitutions, gambling, and underground dealing. It’s the city of sin, which means, it’s also the land of base instincts and humanity stripped to its bare bones.

It seems like a city just right up her shishou’s alley. Sakura only had to follow the sounds of bellowing, of bodies of men flying out of tavern, and murmurs about a (beautiful but) crazy bitch burning through her own money to find Tsunade.

News of another jinchuuriki kage reaches her ears too, but she brushes it away. It’s been three years since she last saw her shishou and in the dim lights of the tavern, she’s glad to see her as youthful as ever, and tries to erase the image of her wan, old, and dying.

It is only after Tsunade wins that Sakura approaches with a bottle of sake on hand.

Glancing down at the large money of pot she just won, Tsunade’s heart pounds hard looking at the girl she broke and trained and broke again until she remade herself - her daughter in all but name - and chokes, joking, “Are you dying?”

When her girl smiles, all calm and accepting, and raises a bottle of the most expensive sake Tsunade ever tasted, something inside the old Senju crumbles.

“Aren’t we all?”

“Oh Sakura, what have you done?”

Tsunade’s hands are shaking, the fading glow of her uselessness mocking her in the darkness of Sakura’s rented room.

“Everything, shishou. I’ve done everything. I’ve read every book, prayed to every god--”

“God? What good is a god?”

Initially, Tsunade refuses to let her go. Forces Sakura to stay put with the same glint in her eyes when she taught the kid how to dodge, but it seemed the Slug Princess taught her too well.

Because after the barbs, sarcasm and nights of getting way too drunk off the pots of money Tsunade continues to win, Sakura says goodbye.

And Tsunade, not as bitter as she would’ve been, lets her go, and curses the gods for not taking her instead - because hasn’t she witnessed to many deaths already?

It’s at the fourth year of her journey does Sakura finally lays her eyes on the blue of seas at the border of the old Whirlpool lands. The calling is silent now that she’s come.

She sheds her old life - her headband, her gloves and her boots and brings out the vibrantly colored fabrics from her parents. It’s silk against her pinkened skin, and the sand is warm against her feet.

It feels like a hug and a song of - “Darling, our darling, let us hold you.”

Kakashi writes to her and Sakura doesn’t answer with a letter of her own.

Instead, she sends Kakashi eel that she herself smoked, a small vial of pink sand and a kiss on a card.

That night, she dances under the moonlight like a flickering moth around the pyre she built.

The oceans sings for her and she is home.

After that, there’s no more letters from Konoha.

In the middle of the fourth year of her journey and the year mark of her semi-permanent residence by the seas at the border of the old Whirlpool lands, Ino visits her. Ino, with her platinum blond hair arrives, still beautiful even with sweat dripping off her.

It takes three days of sunbathing, flower weaving and rebuilding of an old friendship before Ino asks her to come home.

“Haven’t you been away for far too long?” Ino asks, quiet and grown. The days of high-pitch screams and name-calling seems so far away from this little shack by the sea, in this little life her best friend built for herself.

They’ve spoken of their friends - Naruto’s marriage, Shikamaru’s courtship fo Temari, Ino’s love with Sai and they laughed like bells but Ino didn’t find an ounce of longing in her friend’s eyes, and she already knew she has lost.

Sakura looks to the shore, there’s a storm coming and hums, “Perhaps.”

The last letter she receives from Konoha is not a letter at all.

It’s a missive, an invitation - for the Rokudaime’s retirement and the Nanadaime’s ascension.

“God? What good is a god?”

Who knows? For believers, gods are good for much but--

Because Sakura is not a reincarnation of a god, when she touched Kaguya with her fist glowing green and blue, Sakura touched something not human.

And it touched her back.

A year into the peace, it rooted deep inside her bones, a poison of the gods against humans brave and stupid enough to lay hands on them.

It doesn’t take long for Sakura to understand her predicament. She was rotting inside out. Her chakra is poisoning her organs, taking bits off her little by little and so she left Konoha. In leaving, she left what was blossoming between her and Kakashi too in hopes that perhaps she could spare him from this pain.

But also, she left for this: the sea, the calling and the sand under her feet, and the presence drawing near.

On the last day of her journey, five years after she left, with her life force draining and yet stretching still - holding on, waiting, the Rokudaime, Kakashi, the man of a thousand jutsu, her lover, her love - arrives on the shores of this little island west of Whirlpool.

He is older, of course he is. But still, Sakura runs towards him and he, mask pulled down, feet bare and eyes warm - finally free-, takes the last step and meets her halfway. (There’s still much left to say, but they’ve had years of dealing with cowardice and hiding that they’re laughingly easy habits to break.)

#kakasaku #mild sasusaku #kankusaku friendship #gaasaku friendship #tsunade #journey to i #inosaku friendship #the aftermaths of touching a god

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hhoriginalworks · 3 years

Text

written in the stars | g.w

You were exhausted. N.E.W.Ts were coming up, and there was no chance in hell that you were going to do well enough to please your mum and dad. No matter how many hours you slaved over your textbooks or how many tears you cried over the Herbology jargon, you doubted you were going to get more a four O's.

"Hello, love," George cheered, sitting next to you with a too-familiar grin. It was a shit-eating, I-just-caused-Peeves-to curse Umbridge sort of smile, and it was the last thing you needed.

"George, I have to study," you stated in a stern tone, filing through the various pieces on parchment sprawled around you. "I love you, but my mum will kill me if I don't get the N.E.W.Ts to be a healer."

"Hm, I guess- if I have to- I can wait until we walk to Transfiguration to tell you about what Fred and I have decided on," George pouted, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms over his child like a toddler put in time out.

You offered the redhead a thankful smile, pleased with his answer. It was the perfect answer, but something about the fact that your trouble-making boyfriend was so quick to sit quietly left you unsettled. You suddenly found yourself more distracted than you should've been, stealing glances at the boy between paragraphs.

"Don't do that," you finally commanded, pointing your finger accusingly at the ginger.

"Don't do what, love? Radiate handsomeness?" George asked, a smirk playing on his lips.

"Don't smile at me like that- I'm trying to focus," you huffed, propping a book between you and George.

"Sorry, love, I didn't realize that loving you was so distracting," George teased, his handing finding his way on your thigh.

You shook your head, trying to find anything but amusement in his actions. It was clear that you weren't going to get anything done at this rate, especially not with his fingertips tracing shapes on your leg. "You win, Wesley this time," You surrendered, cleaning up your table. "What is that you wanted to tell me?"

George beamed at you, quickly jumping to his feet and helping you pack up all of your books. "I can't tell you in the library- it's against all of my morals," George stated, shoving a few books into your hand before dragging you out towards the courtyard.

"Hm, it didn't realize you had morals," you teased, trying to keep up with the towering boy's long strides. As annoyed as you were at yourself for letting the charming redhead interrupt your studies, you couldn't find it in yourself care enough to break away from George's grip.

"Haha, you're so funny, y/n," George deadpanned, setting you down on a stone bench in the courtyard. "Now, y/n y/l/n, I'm about to ask you something that will change our relationship entirely. I know that it may seem like I'm rushing things-"

"No, no, no, no, no. You are not allowed to propose to me, George Fabian Weasely. We're too young. You have no income- I have no income. George, I love you, I swear, but if you get down on one knee, I'll punch you. Oh god, what would my mum say if she found out? Oh, Merlin," you rambled, wringing your hands in your lap.

"Y/N, you're overthinking this. I'm not-"

"Of course, I'm overthinking it, George. I want to marry you, but the logical side of me is telling me this irresponsible. And, so I like to overthink this! It's not going to kill me unless, of course, I have to pick between two things, or else I die," you mused aloud, your heart pound against your chest. "But, in that case, I guess I would have to-"

"Will you move in with me after you graduate Hogwarts?" George interrupted, his ears tinted pink.

You opened your mouth only to have the words stuck in your throat. You had always been the less romantic of the two, the one who never made the first move, and more than anything, the one who insisted you two go slowly. Yet, when George didn't ask you to marry him, disappointment filled you, and the world seemed to have shattered.

It was irresponsible to rush into marriage- the mature side of you told you that much- but you couldn't help but wish he was on one knee. "I- yes, I will," You replied when you realize George was staring at you expectantly.

"I thought you would be more excited, love," George frowned, sitting next to you. "I know that it's fast, and you're always going on about taking everything slowly so that it won't end up like your sister's marriage, but it feels right. It feels like even Ron, who is rubbish at Astronomy, can see it's written in the stars."

You gave the redhead a half-hearted smile, feeling embarrassed. "I am excited, and I'm proud that you finally found a place for your shop," you shrugged, resting your head on George's shoulder.

"Please, y/n, I know you better than I know Zonko's products," George scoffed, nudging you gently. "Come on, love, tell me what's wrong."

"I think I wanted you to propose," you mumbled before shoving your face into his shoulder. Merlin, he was your boyfriend, but somehow the thought of you wanting to get married to him made you feel like a tiny first-year.

George kept silent for a moment, trying to suppress the giddiness he felt because- thank Merlin- you were near the same page as him. He knew that he wanted to marry you since fourth-year when you charmed Mrs. Norris blue. All he was waiting for was you to feel the same way.

"George, say something," you pled, the two of you ignoring the students rushing to their next class.

"I don't know what there is to say," George stated plainly. "I've wanted to marry you the day I met you! All you need to say is the word, and I'll get down on one knee."

His words filled you with love; you didn't know how to explain it besides pure, unadulterated love. "I-I- didn't know you felt that way," you stuttered, tears starting to pool in your eyes.

"Of course, y/n! I have only been talking off Fred's ear about you for the past three years. Blimey, love, my mum has already decided how to hyphenate our last names. I want you to be with me forever," George chuckled, the words rolling off his tongue as if it were the easiest thing to say.

You smiled at him- your mind made up. "Marry me, George Fabian Weasley. Marry me the moment this stupid war is over, and make my day by letting me wake up next to you every morning."

George chuckled, his eyes starting to tear up. "Can you do it again, but on your knee?" George choked out, wrapping his arms around you.

"Shut up," you teased, pulling away from the hug and kissing him on his freckled cheek.

#holyhead-hufflepuff archive

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captainjimothycarter · 4 years

Note

So it's a silly image but I like to imagine Steve realizing that Peggy was responsible for what's now one of New Yorks first gay bars, but back until the 90s it was an underground secret no one knew about. "Everyone needs a place to be themselves."

i don’t think this was silly at all. I love the HC so much and I hope I did it honor. Thank you for sharing it with me.

“What’s this?” Steve asked the second Natasha flung an old file down on top of his sketchbook. His nose wrinkled from the dust, fingers brushing over the frayed edges. This thing had to be decades old, but the same could apparently be said for him in this new century.

It was an old, unmarked file with the edges starting to yellow and fray. He was afraid if he picked it up by the edges or flicked it open, the thing would crumble apart in his hands. There wasn’t one single, distinguishing mark on this thing. It was odd, considering most of the files that Natasha had tossed his way recently were marked with some sort of SHIELD symbol or even the SSR. This one was null.

“What do you think it is?” Natasha huffed, sitting herself down across the table from him. She nearly blended into the gray walls with her outfit, the only part of her that stood out, as always was the bright, red hair. Her voice was kept down low, not in a this is a shared secret sort of way, but more of we’re in public and in a library so don’t you dare we loud.

Even if this was SHIELD’S library.

“I don’t know. Looks like a file.”

Steve couldn’t help but roll his eyes, dropping it down so it laid on top of the book he was reading. Natasha complained he spent far too much time in the library but given the circumstances of waking up in some new century where everyone you knew was dead (including the love of your life), then you sort of became a shell of yourself and hid away in Shield’s library. One, to read all you can about missed events, and two, to hide away and distract yourself with the knowledge of the fact that you had to play catch-up of the last 60-something years.

“Just open it, Steve. I think you’ll find the contents interesting.”

His mouth opened but what could he say? Argue? Insist? Nothing. There would be nothing that he could say that would get Natasha to take this file away because she knew she’d won. She had plopped it in front of him, an unmarked file, and sat down and at him expectedly. Curiosity would get the better of him, even if Steve didn’t want to admit it.

Natasha’s eyebrow rose in a manner that reminded Steve of his mother, that insistingly asked him if he was really done with telling the whole story. Instead, she silently waited, arms crossed over her chest.

Steve reserved his sigh for another day when she might care more about his wants and just did the quickest thing that would get her to leave him alone. He opened the damn file and immediately wished he didn’t.

Front face and center was the love of his life. Or well, there was a photo of her. Actually, there were several photos of her. Photos that he wasn’t even aware that existed. Peggy must’ve been shortly after the war, standing next to who could’ve only been Angie. She was smilingly brightly despite the shiner and he could hear her laughter echoing in his head, see the red lips despite the black and white photo. They stood with a group of people he didn’t recognize either. People that she looked friendly or even close to given how one guy was holding onto her waist.

Steve wasn’t jealous, not by much. Maybe a small flicker of jealousy flared to life inside of him, but it instantly cooled down when he made the connection. Or, one connection. Just hidden between them, he could see the guy holding her waist was also holding hands with a gentleman that was smiling brightly at the camera.

Oh.

It reminded him of the gay clubs he and Bucky would risk visiting when Steve was in the better days of his illnesses when there wasn’t a risk of them being seen and ratted out by neighbors or when he wouldn’t risk coughing up a blood-clotted lung.

Sadly, there was nothing on the other side of the photo. Not that Steve expected much, Peggy had her manner of keeping things organized, and being a spy meant you left little untraced. So why she allowed herself to be photographed was beyond him.

No answer came with the next photo.

Even if in this one, he could make out the bruise under the makeup she tried to hide it with. He could see her eyes crinkling in the corners when she laughed and smiled at the camera. Her red lips instantly claiming his attention. Despite the crowd of men around her, some familiar to the old photo and some new, Steve didn’t look at them. He looked at her eyes, the warm, honey-coated eyes that were a sign to him that screamed welcomed home.

Natasha wouldn’t give these to him to stare at the photos of his beloved, she wanted him to see something, but what?

There were still men and women around her, some dressed in stylish outfits, some with funky-looking ones. Angie was still beside her and despite the closeness of the pair, one man each hung from their shoulders. The same two men who held hands in the photo before. They stood in front of a brick wall, one that looked familiar to him, but why?

It was an itch in the back of his mind that he couldn’t quite scratch.

There were more people in the next photo, more than enough to sit two photos side by side so he could cram them together to see the full photo. Still, nothing. Still, Peggy and Angie and a group of people. Men holding hands, a little braver to be outside the frame of the two women. And still that same brick wall, but why was that brick wall familiar? Why did that little notch right above Angie’s left ear hit him like, well, a stack of bricks?

And why did the next few photos, each following more, and more people, until Peggy stood by herself in front of the building, silver in her hair, a wedding band on her fingers, but pride radiating in those fierce eyes, frustrate him more?

Steve just wanted to slam these photos down and take a walk, take a breather. He doubts Natasha did this to be cruel, to throw his reminder that he had loved and lost into his face. He did that enough to himself.

Sighing, Steve ran a hand over his hair and dropped his hand beside the last photo of Peggy. Older. Shortly before she died of old age. Silver in her hair, wrinkles on her face but a fierce, determined look.

It hit him then, why those bricks frustrated him so much, why that notch in the brick made his heart drop.

That very notch was made from Bucky using a slingshot to scare off the bees because they terrified his baby sister.

Those red bricks belonged to the apartments that he and Bucky grew up in.

There was more in the file but Steve didn’t want to look. He wanted to shut the damn thing and turn away. Instead, he swallowed and picked up a newspaper article from the 1990s. Peggy was on the cover, holding onto a cane, looking dead in the cameras as if she was daring a soul to challenge her.

Peggy Carter: Fighting the Unseen Fight is what the title read.

“It was a gay bar,” Natasha murmured, drawing Steve from his thoughts. She must’ve seen how his hand was shaking around the article. “Peggy Carter assisted in running a few underground gay bars in New York, up until the 1990s where...the one she is standing in front of is one of the first public gay bars to open.”

“I…” Steve swallowed, his throat feeling dry. It felt like he took in a mouthful of dust. “I don’t know...why?”

“I think you know why,” she mused, giving him an almost loving look. “Because she wanted to protect those who couldn’t protect themselves. I wonder where she got that from?”

“She’s always had that,” Steve snorted, forcing himself to let go of the files. “Always fiercely protective of her loved ones. I had nothing to do with it.”

“Yes, but you stirred the fires inside of her. She might not have done it because of you, but she did it in your name.”

Tapping the newspaper, the woman sat back and Steve sighed as he looked back down at it. He forced himself to read the last few questions and answers.

Why did you do it?

“Everyone needs a place to be themselves. If no one else was to protect the innocent, then I had to step up to the plate to do so. I’m only lucky that some of my connections had agreed to protect us when things got bad. During the movement, we became safe houses and safe havens for those who needed protection. Not once do I regret my actions.”

Why here? Why open the first gay bar here?

“I…could think of no place better. Steven Grant Rogers was an inspiration to me, the driving force as to how I actually met my wife. During the war, we’ve seen men, great men being sent back home for being in love with people of the same sex. I’ve seen Captain Rogers step up to the plate to put a stop to it, to take falls for kissing men and women when all of us knew that he was far from the situation at the time given the nature of the job. I’ve seen him lie straight to people’s faces, no matter their position in the government or war to keep our men’s feet on the ground. I’ve seen him harbor his best friend’s secrets until the day they both died. I protected those men and women before I met Captain Rogers again and even after he died, but Steven...gave me the courage to do more.”

“I…” Steve, this time had to open and close his mouth, to force his brain to think. “I don’t know what to say..”

“Don’t then,” Natasha breathed, reaching over to take Steve’s hand and give a gentle squeeze. “She knew you were bisexual before you even knew.”

“I think that can be said about a lot of things.”

Natasha’s lips twitched into a small smile before it disappeared. “Would you like to see the bar? It’s still functional to this day. I think it’s written into some post SSR, pre-SHIELD clause that it has to be protected and kept open. It’s still in the same spot.”

Sitting back, the blonde let out a long sigh and picked up his jacket. He might as well, he was getting nothing else done today. Not when his mind was on Peggy, on everything she’s done. “Sure. Just...what is it called?”

Natasha paused, leading them out of the empty library. Her head craned over her shoulder to watch Steve carefully tuck the file inside of his coat and follow after her. “Captain’s Commandos.”

#Steggy #StevePeggy #Cartinelli [mentioned]#AngiePeggy #Steve Rogers NEEDS A HUG #Someone hug him [and me] stat #Nonny Prompt #I hope its good

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valiantly-onward · 4 years

Text

The Serpentine War Ch. 10

Chapter 10: The Anacondrai General

They arrived at Ouroboros the next day.

Ray was reminded of travelling with Wu after he left his father. That time, they’d walked most of the way. Something about “training before training”.

Wu had sent word beforehand that they were coming. Still, they were met with a ring of Anacondrai blades when they landed. Ray was immediately on guard, wondering why they’d agreed not to bring weapons. Wu, however, stood tall, undeterred.

“Good warriors,” he greeted the Anacondrai. “Lead on.”

Ray tried not to feel like they were prisoners as the Anacondrai marched them through the city. The sky was clear, the desert sun hot on their backs. Unlike in Ninjago City, the streets of Ouroboros were wide and straight, pointing true toward the city center. Large, rectangular buildings patterned themselves along the road. Within tall, narrow doorways, Ray caught sight of more Anacondrai. Not warriors. Ray had never realized there would be Serpentine citizens in the great Anacondrai city.

There were Serpentine on the streets too, bustling about their daily business. Members of other tribes were represented among them. All made way for their small procession to pass. The expressions on their faces spoke of murder.

This was a mistake, Ray thought. The sight of Serpentine civilians softened his heart a little, but not enough to trust these warriors and their violet blades. They could attack in an instant and the Alliance would lose two Masters and its leader.

A wall rose ahead of them, composed of small keeps. They strode between the sandy walls and entered a huge, round courtyard. Except - the keeps weren’t just walls. They were stands, like a stadium. This was an arena.

Anacondrai warriors filed in behind them and lined the base of the stands. And in the huge throne carved from a golden snake head, Ray got his first look at the Anacondrai General.

Arcturus was larger than his brethren, majestic neck curling proudly and menacing green eyes. He wore golden armor over his shoulders and chest, engraved in red - even from where he stood, Ray could tell the pieces were beautifully crafted. His blacksmith hands itched to get a closer look.

Wu bowed respectfully. “You know me, General Arcturus. My brother and I have defended these lands for longer than you have reigned. I speak for the people of Ninjago.”

“You do not speak for all of them,” Arcturus rumbled. Ray’s spine went cold at the sound.

Wu nodded in agreement. “I know. That’s why I am here.”

“I know why you are here.” Arcturus rose angrily from his throne. “And I am not a fool, Son of the First Spinjitzu Master. Your desires lie with the humans of Ninjago.”

“Forgive me,” Wu said. “They are my people, as the Serpentine are yours. But I wish for us to come to an agreement.” He raised his voice for all to hear. “We have been made aware that there are Serpentine who do not wish to fight. We share this desire. We hoped that our mutual interest could stop any further fighting.”

The general slithered to edge of his podium, glaring. “Why should I trust the word of a human?”

“Don’t. Trust the Master of Fire.” Wu stepped aside to reveal Ray to the crowd. Ray waved, trying not to feel like an imposter. He was the Master of Fire. There was no reason to fear, and no reason for the Serpentine to think otherwise.

“He fought honorably in the Battle of Jamanakai Village just weeks ago,” Wu continued. “But he has come to sue for peace. If the Master of Fire is willing, shouldn’t we be also?”

Murmurs rippled through the ranks of guards, but they stood stiffly, steadily watching for their general’s orders.

He’s not gonna go for it, Ray thought, as Arcturus leered above. This was a HUGE mistake.

“The Master of Fire,” Arcturus mused. “And you expect me to simply believe you?”

Wu frowned. “General?”

The general seated himself on his throne again. “You were a fool to come here, Master Wu. Guards - kill them.”

The Serpentine closed in.

~~~

You expect me to simply believe you?

Ray didn’t remember the day his mother died. He’d been too young. The memory of her was more a feeling than a moment. The feeling of belonging somewhere, of being someone to someone else.

He was tired of living without that feeling. No longer.

It was there, that burning in his chest. That was his. That was him. Ray was the fire. Even about to die, no one could take that from him. He was truly part of the Alliance and no one could take that from him. He was in this moment and no one could take that from him. Not his father. Not General Arcturus.

They would not simply believe. They would know it, as he knew it.

He was the Master of Fire.

An Anacondrai stabbed at Maya.

The fire ROARED.

Ray was wreathed in red. It licked outward, avoiding Maya and Wu. For the first time, the flames felt like an extension of himself. Perfect control. Ray didn’t even have to move; it followed his thoughts. A globe of red rose around him, shining like liquid silver in the air. His heart was loud in his ears.

“Ray!” Maya shouted. “You’re floating!”

“I know,” he said. The globe lifted him higher. The Anacondrai were scattering now, headed for the keeps.

“Oh, no you don’t,” Ray muttered. At his bidding, a wave of fire shot around the ring of stands, blocking the exits.

Ray turned toward the Anacondrai General. Arcturus didn’t look afraid, but his guards did.

Ray’s voice boomed without shouting. “I am the true Master of Fire. No one can take that from me.” He gestured to his raging fire. “Your ancestors respected the flames. I suggest you follow their example.”

Silence fell over the arena. All eyes were on Arcturus. Everything hinged on his response.

At last, Arcturus bowed his head slightly.

That was enough. The fire snapped toward Ray like metal to a magnet. In a moment, the only shade of red left in the stadium was his glassy shield.

But even that faded, and Ray was left as just himself. He felt warm, for the first time in a long time. More himself than he had ever been in his life.

All the Serpentine were staring at him. Ray turned to face Maya and Wu. Wu was smiling. And Maya...Ray couldn’t read her expression.

The deep voice of the Serpentine General broke the silence.

“Leave us,” he ordered. “I would speak to the son of the First Spinjitzu Master alone.”

~~~

After the stadium cleared, General Arcturus slithered down from his podium. He was smaller up close, though still a good head taller than Wu. He regarded a circle of ash as he crossed over it. The heat from the fire still burned in the air like a living memory. The teacher in Wu was thrilled for Ray; the diplomat wondered if threatening to burn Ouroboros to the ground was the best way to make peace. It seemed far too Garmadon-y.

“What is it you want, Master Wu?” Arcturus asked.

“What I asked for,” Wu replied. “Peace.”

“Is that all? Truly?” Arcturus circled him, his long tail trailing behind in the sand. Wu did not turn to follow with his eyes, as a show of trust, but his back itched in expectation of a blade.

“Do you know the story of Aspheera and the Great Deceiver?” the general finally asked; Wu stiffened. “It is a story slowly fading into myth. But it speaks of a human child who broke our ancient treaty and betrayed the sorceress Aspheera.”

Wu replied softly. “I know this story. The way I heard it, Aspheera was the deceiver.”

“Ah, Aspheera was no saint, but neither was the human.” Arcturus stopped, his expression questioning. “This is not the only story. There is a reason our children are taught not to trust humans. So I ask you again - what do you want?”

Wu saw no reason to lie. “I want our villages back, along with the prisoners you took. I want things to return to the way they were.” He paused, then added, “And I want to know why you came for us in the first place. I know there’s a good reason.”

Arcturus scowled. He was the epitome of Anacondrai strength, the image of old Serpentine kings. There was honor in his eyes. “You say you wish for things to return to the way they were. But I have studied you humans. I know your wars, your history. I do not believe we could achieve such a peace now.”

“You underestimate us.”

“We shall see. As for your prisoners, they are well taken care of. They are insurance, and will be returned to the villages once Ninjago is under Serpentine rule.”

“So that’s it. World dominion? Do you presume to overthrow Shintaro and Metalonia as well?” Wu shook his head with a small, sardonic chuckle. “If all you want is power, I must say I’m disappointed.”

Arcturus turned his back, even despite his professed distrust of humans. His sword hilt glinted in the sun. “Our vendetta is against the humans alone. Our prophecies say one among you will bring the destruction of Ninjago.” He peered at Wu over a broad, armored shoulder. “There are even humans who believe this.”

Alarms bells rang in Wu’s head. “Do you? Believe it?”

“Do you not?” Arcturus retorted. “Can’t you feel it turning, Son of the First Spinjitzu Master?”

“What does that mean?”

Arcturus arched his snaky neck at the sky. “If you cannot feel it, I will not try to explain it to you.”

Unsettled, Wu pressed on. “Can’t we come to some agreement?”

The general watched him for a moment. Finally, he said, “I will send diplomats to my generals. I will halt their next attack. And I will make you a deal. From here on, the Serpentine will not strike first. Until the humans do. Once the humans attack, the war will continue as it has.”

“So all I have to do is keep the peace amongst my own?” Wu nodded. “A test, then.”

“You understand well.”

“This will not be easy.”

“Nevertheless,” Arcturus said. “Do you agree to these terms?”

Wu sensed this was the best he would get out of the old general. As such, he replied, “I agree.”

Arcturus dipped his head and said, “Good” in that rumbling voice of his. He slithered back up to his throne. As he sat, he called down, “Also, have your Master of Fire return the Anacondrai blade he stole in Jamanakai Village. It think he’s well enough off without it.”

@greenygreenland

#the serpentine war #ninjago #ninjago fic

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yandere-ghostbox · 4 years

Note

i absolutely adore josh 💖 so i gotta ask, what would happen if, by some awful, terrible stroke of bad luck, his darling found and read some of his journal? i can only assume, depending on what part and how much they read, he'd go ballistic.

ohohoho anon, nothing good would happen for the darling in this situation. It would definitely be a catalyst for the worst.

TW: minor violence

---

What is happening? What... what am I looking at right now? This can’t be... real...

An oppressive rage overtakes the room, and even in the warm light of the afternoon that filters through the window, you feel cold. It seems darker, though nothing tangible has changed. When you make yourself turn around, the damning object in hand, you see him.

Josh stands in the doorway of his room, hands holding the frame in a white-knuckled grip. His jaw is clenched taut. His eyes are shadowed by anger, dark and mossy and alive. Every part of him is coiled and ready to strike. A predator in his prime. Fear overtakes you with the dawning realization that you, in this situation, are the prey.

Pages flutter as the journal slips from your trembling hands, thudding open on the floor, loose paper scattering. Your class schedule. Your notes. Your letters. Your information and your trash. At a glance, anyone could see your name on nearly every line in neat handwriting, punctuated by aggressive and jagged scrawls detailing the owner’s actions and inner psyche.

With restrained and just barely controlled calm, Josh steps into the room, closing the door behind him.

The silence is suffocating.

My journal... my JOURNAL... how much did you see? This was never supposed to happen, y-you were never supposed to know, I didn’t PLAN for this... (y/n) why?

“Why?!”

Wincing and whimpering, your heart and mind are at war, torn between dread and compassion. His voice sounds so raw as if the word had been ripped from his soul. You care for him, you care for him so much... but that journal... and the way he’s looking at you right now...

Crossing the room, he cups your face in his hands, rough palms pressing against your jaw, boring into you. His eyes swim with confusion and nerves and rage. His hold feels tender and final.

“Why,” he draws you closer and your noses are touching, foreheads pressed together, “did you look at my journal, (y/n)?”

“I-I didn’t- I-”

“How much did you read?”

“Josh I-”

“WHAT DID YOU SEE?!”

Tears threaten to spill from your eyes and you can feel his fingers digging into the base of your skull. You can’t tear your gaze away from his even as his grip grows uncomfortable.

Meanwhile, he’s reeling. Josh cycles through the need to knock you out right now so that he can focus, the need to shake out your reasoning and understand, and the need to kiss you, only having fantasized about seeing you in shambles like this and starting to accept that this is reality.

So he gives your head a sharp pull, swallowing your gasp with his lips. His hands drop from your face, one grasping your wrists and the other crushing your torso against his own, firmly planted against the small of your back. Out of instinct - out of desire - you kiss him back, but then the journal and the fear and the pressure on your wrists kick in and you pull away. He lets you, but you don't go far. He’s kissing at the tracks of tears on your cheek while increasing the pressure of his hold and you want to hold him and push him away and tell him you might love him and file a restraining order.

“J-Josh what... what did I read? What is going on I-” you shudder, “I’m so confused, I-”

“I’m confused too, (y/n)… why were you looking through my things?” It’s a growl against your skin.

You struggle to find the words, to explain, to think straight. You saw your schedule peaking out, you were just curious, you didn’t know - you almost wish that you never knew. Josh steps away from you, and you feel like you can breathe. His back is turned to you. You watch him meander towards his bed, he looks lost, you muse. In momentary relief, you sag against his desk, face in your hands.

You don't get to explain. Picking up your head to finally respond, your open mouth snaps shut as you meet the ground.

Josh looks at your body sprawled out on the floor, his bat hanging limp beside him. You can see him - barely - as he crouches next to you. Bleary, you watch him reach out to you, brushing your hair from your face. You barely register the touch.

“I really didn't want to do this, but you gave me no choice. Fate decided. You can explain everything when you wake up.”

#requests #Joshua zents #oc josh #yandere oc #my ocs #josh x reader #josh x you #yandere x reader #yandere x you #yandere oc x reader #tw violence #male yandere

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snowdice · 5 years

Text

The Horror of Stereotypes (Part 1)[Dice Roll 6]

Fandom: Sanders Sides

Relationships: Remus/Logan/Patton with Remus/Logan focus (more pre-romantic considering the situation), Remus & Roman, Logan/Patton (established, but not at the forefront for most of it)

Characters:

Main: Remus, Logan

Appear: Roman, Patton, Deceit (but blink and you’ll miss it)

Summary: There had always been a certain stereotype about people like him for as long as anyone could remember. After the Heart War of 1963, those stereotypes had been legalized and places like this had been created to enforce the universal truth: everyone had a soulmate. One soulmate. No more and no less.

At least they were supposed to.

When Remus’s brother gets arrested because of his two soulmarks, Remus risks everything by infiltrating the facility he legally should be in as well due to his own two soulmates to save him. There he meets Logan and it turns out they have a lot in common: they both got hired this week, they both have two soulmates, and they’re both here for the same reason.

Oh. And as it turns out, they’re each other’s soulmates too.

Universe: Soulmate AU

Genre: Horror (Yeah, it’s a fun combo. The horror vibe is mostly contained to chapter 3 though. It’s all still horrifying, but that specific tone is pretty much only there.)

Notes: Torture, Torture of a main character, Dystopian, Blood, Guns, Gunshot wounds, Leg wounds, Mentions of Desecrating an Animal Corpse by a Main Character, Imprisonment, Mentions of Cannibalism, Genocide Suggested, Sexual Innuendo, Fear, A tasteless but not serious incest joke, Medical procedures.

...

Goodness my tags were already horrifying enough because of the darkness of this universe and concept of this AU and then Remus started talking...

This is part of my Roll the Dice Event which is where I do random ships, universe, and genres for the Sanders Sides fandom. For more details see this post. I posted a few days ago my results from this dice roll here.

In which I once again do a dice roll that ends up not being a one-shot like it’s supposed to be... This is going to be 6 parts...

Getting into the building had been easy for Remus. Remus had a special set of skills that he’d never really thought of as skills until he was sitting in a little office right outside the main gate of this facility spouting off every one of his worst possible thoughts in extensive detail during a job interview. They listened to him for less than half an hour before deciding he was perfect for the job and two days later, here he was.

His tour guide chatted and chatted happily to him seeming not to question his contentment with his surroundings. She’d probably gotten a peak at his file after all.

Remus had always been… a weird child at best and the “bonkers evil twin” at worst. Almost everyone in his life tended to give him a wide berth since he was younger. Honestly, you hang one dead cat you found on the road on the middle school flag and suddenly you’re a pariah. It’s not like he’d killed the cat. In fact, he’d loved Senior Bitey when he’d been alive and knew for a fact that it was the type of funeral the feral little thing would have wanted. It was one more chance to put terror into the hearts of all the children in the school. He’d attempted to explain his reasoning to the school counselor. He didn’t think he’d done a good job at that.

Later in life he’d been “guided” toward more “productive” outlets for the dark thoughts that sometimes rattled in his head. He was given a pen and told to write down stories. Remus had taken to this suggestion with gusto and quickly learned not to let anybody read them. His high school biology teacher had been a bit weirded out by how enthused he was about dissection days, but he scored well on the AP test and got the highest marks, so she was willing to write him a letter of recommendation that helped him get into college with a biology major. He’d thought about becoming a coroner or forensic scientist, but when he’d turned 18 and his soulmark… well, soulmarks he guessed… had shown up, he’d decided that he really shouldn’t be doing anything that would put him in such close contact with law enforcement.

So much for that, he thought and glanced at his tour guide. “And last I’ll show you the upstairs housing!” she was telling him. “It’s for the multis who have already gone through processing and interrogation and are now on work detail.” When they walked into the next building, Remus did his best to pretend to look without actually making himself look. For all his notebooks full of bloody stories and horrifying abstract musings and his memories of dissected frogs, cats, and pigs, actual human suffering was not something Remus relished. Yet, he still smiled at the woman who was gaily guiding him through the prison that legally Remus himself belonged in.

See, there had always been a certain stereotype about people like him for as long as anyone could remember. After the Heart War of 1963, those stereotypes had been legalized and places like this had been created to enforce the universal truth: everyone had a soulmate. One soulmate. No more and no less.

At least they were supposed to.

But for a universal truth, different things happened at a surprisingly high frequency. There were people who didn’t fit the mold. They were broken. Like Remus.

There were people who grew up to not have any soulmarks. Since soulmarks appearing were the cut off for adulthood, legally these people never became adults. Once they turned 18 and no soulmark presented, they had no legal right to basically anything. They couldn’t own property or make decisions for themselves. They weren’t allowed to attend school anymore, and they couldn’t get jobs. Their parents could decide they didn’t want to deal with them anymore, and if they did so, the soulmarkless people were either put into a shelter or left to die on the streets. Remus wasn’t sure which option was better honestly.

Then there were people with multiple soulmates. They were monsters. They were selfish, immoral, and deranged. For most of his life, Remus had accepted this as fact. He probably would have gone on believing it even after he got two soulmarks himself on his eighteenth birthday. After all, people had been telling him all his life he was a monster.

Then his brother had gotten two as well.

If Remus was the evil twin, Roman was the good one. He was kind and enthusiastic in his love for other people and the world around him. He’d become an EMT during the day and was an actor on the side. His creations brought people joy and happiness. He was everything good in the world. Everything Remus could never quite be.

And he had two soulmates. Just like Remus.

So, fuck the world, honestly. In particular, fuck tour guides cheerily guiding him through the first level of hell who would have definitely run away from him if she’d met him on the street. Would she have jeered at him that he was crazy and disgusting all through middle school? She may have been right, but at least he knew it. He could draw the line between the evil in his head and what he put into the world. Her though? Her head was probably clear as white snow. She probably just followed orders and didn’t think about it. Her brain probably skipped right over the sights and sounds before her and never lingered. Remus thought dark thoughts, but he also didn’t ignore them when they came to life.

“This of course isn’t where you’ll be working,” his guide went on with a grin. “The people up here don’t know anything or already gave up what they do know. So, you’ll really not have much to do with it. You could use it as a reward offer though if you ever want to play good cop.”

This was the reward, Remus wondered with disgust. It wasn’t even a prison. It was a pig pen at best and a slaughterhouse at worst. Human suffering was pouring off these cement walls and, though Remus talked a good game and kept a smile on his face, it turned his stomach.

His brother was probably in one of these pens somewhere and that was the best-case scenario. You’d think, Remus though grimly, that the brother who was an actor would have been the one able to pull off the lie the longest. But no.

“Anyway, that’s the end of the tour. Well, except the two floors downstairs. You’ll need to wait for your pass to get there. It’ll take about two to three days.”

“Can’t wait,” Remus said.

She smiled at him and swiped her keycard to open a door into a much cleaner area before leading him down a hallway. “So, now, I’m going to introduce you to your team. It’s actually a very fun thing!” Fun. “You should be excited to be a part of it. We’re expanding the facility and we’re thinking of separating them all out by class. You’re going to be tasked with helping design a whole new wing for the 4 and ups.”

“Fantastic!” Remus gushed. “I’m surprised you’re letting the new guy in on it.”

“Well, the higher ups wanted fresh ideas for this, so we went out and got people in the tops of their fields specifically for this project,” she explained. “Most of your teammates have been working for us less than a month except for your boss Gavin. He’s been working with us for almost five years and was transferred to this office specifically for this project. Speaking of,” she said swiping her keycard at a door so it opened into a fancy looking office space. “Gavin!” she called. “I have your new interrogator here!”

A man turned and his eyes flickered to Remus. There was something off about him even more so than the sickly-sweet guide who ignored the horrors happening around her every day. He paused for just a moment too long before he gave Remus a wide, predatory smile. “Hello,” he said, his voice smooth and low. He walked over to them. “Gavin,” he introduced himself, his eyes studying Remus intently.

Remus plastered on a smile. “Nice to meet you,” he said with a wink.

Gavin chuckled a bit. “Thank you, Beatrice. I’ll take him from here.”

‘Beatrice’ apparently (Remus hadn’t bothered to learn or remember her name before.), nodded and quickly left the office back the way she’d came.

After that, Gavin showed him around the office, introducing him to normal looking people doing normal looking things. That more than anything he’d seen today make a shiver go up Remus’s spine. They all acted like normal people, but any one of them would happily annihilate Remus on the spot if they learned about the soulmark he hid on his back in addition to the one on his forearm. They’d likely helped harm his brother in some way in the last two weeks over the coffee and donuts in the corner of this very pretty office.

Once Remus had seen most of the office and been introduced to most of the people in it, Gavin led him into a different room off to the side. This room was something out of a science fiction movie. It had a giant screen across an entire wall with a 3-D blueprint pulled up of a building and a bunch of text scrolling down the side. At the console in the center of the room stood a man in a dress shirt and tie.

He turned emotionless eyes on Remus and Gavin as they came into the room. Remus barely kept himself from tensing to run. This man looked dead inside, like someone had stolen his soul and left him an empty husk.

“And this is Logan Berry,” Gavin introduced. “He’s the head architect for this project. You two will likely be working closely for a lot of this venture. Logan, this is Remus Prince. He is an interrogator who will be consulting with us.”

Something flickered across the stoic man’s face, but it was gone in an instant. “Salutations,” Logan said, sticking out his arm.

“Sup,” Remus replied, reaching forward to shake his hand. The moment that they touched, Remus felt warmth bloom across his lower back where he knew his hidden soulmark was. He met Logan’s eyes which were suddenly wide and not nearly as emotionless as they had been just moments before. Terror had immediately broken through whatever mask he’d been wearing. Oh, Remus thought. Remus had just met one of his soulmates, and clearly, he also had more than just one soulmate as well judging by the fear in his eyes. Remus swallowed and pulled away his hand. “Nice to meet you Nerd,” he said with a careless shrug, “or whatever.” He saw Logan take a small breath and then the mask slipped back into place.

“Likewise,” he said, voice impressively monotone.

Gavin clapped his hands once, not seeming to notice anything off. “Well, we have a lot of work to do today gentlemen. Let’s get to it!”

Want to read more? Click below!

AO3 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6

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coffeestainsandcashmere · 4 years

Text

‘All that’s best of dark and bright’ - a Draco x Hermione x Theo story

Summary:

Hermione returns to Hogwarts for her 'eighth' year without Harry and Ron, with the horrors of the war still fresh in her mind, but determined to start anew. Malfoy seems subdued, altered by the events of the past year or so, though he's not without his acerbic tongue. Assigned Theodore Nott as her patrol partner for their prefect duties, she finally has the time to get to know the two Slytherins, and discovers that there's a whole lot more to them than the prejudice of their past and the snake on their house badge.

Slow-burn Draco x Theo x Hermione, endgame happy trio with lots of fluff and smut. Title taken from 'She walks in beauty' by Byron. Also posted to my Ao3.

___

Chapter One - A fresh start

She didn't mean to flinch.

“Granger,” Malfoy said curtly as he sat down beside her in their first Advanced Arithmancy Studies of the new term. His usual sneer and bravado were somewhat lacklustre though, like the colours of a tapestry bleached and robbed of their vibrancy by the power of the sun.

Still, she really didn’t mean to flinch. After all, she’d seen him once or twice since that last battle - the now infamous ‘Battle of Hogwarts’ - so it shouldn’t have been so jarring to see him back in his ordinary school robes, with an ordinary Slytherin tie on and an ordinary white school shirt; a quill in his hand instead of a wand brandished…

But it really was jarring.

He was a young man in a schoolboy’s uniform and it was frankly ridiculous. It felt somehow like they were trying to pretend as if nothing had happened; like there weren’t huge gaping holes in friendship groups and families, even if the masonry of Hogwarts castle had been restored almost without blemish. The word gouged into her left arm burned dully beneath her blouse. It was ridiculous to pretend; none of them would ever forget what they’d endured in the past two years.

Malfoy looked older than he should have done at eighteen, and there was something serious, even dolorous, about the set of his brows and his hard, grey eyes. She’d grown so used to seeing him stalking around the halls and corridors of Hogwarts like a spectre; dressed from head to toe in severe black, accentuating the white-blond of his hair and rendering the silver of his eyes colder, the shadows beneath them deeper. His once gold-tinged blond hair had faded to completely, starry white now, and it even had a slight wave to it, which actually went some way towards softening him a little around the edges. He’d apparently realised that an overabundance of hair oil did nothing to ease the slimy impression he gave, and she surprised herself as she snuck a quick glance at him in the classroom to find that she thought the softer look rather suited him.

What little colour there had been in him to begin with, though, had faded to ink and paper monochrome.

Now, as Malfoy turned away from her to glare at the front of the classroom and slouch across the desk, resting his sharp chin in a graceful, long-fingered hand, she shot another sidelong look at him and weighed him anew.

The last time she’d seen him before the start of school had been at his trial. He’d looked truly awful then - worse even than in that dreadful pause during the battle, that holding of breath before the final screams began, when they’d all believed Harry dead and Voldemort victorious. Malfoy had looked like a standing corpse in the empty embrace of Voldemort.

Gaunt and haunted in the Ministry courtroom docks, it was obvious that he’d been held in the cells in Azkaban for nearly a month before being brought to London. He’d turned eighteen in those cells, no doubt alone. That particular thought made her chest ache. No one deserved to come of age in utter isolation in Azkaban; and certainly not Malfoy of all people. He’d saved their lives in the end, and she’d testified to that in person. He’d refused to identify Harry at the Manor, even though it had been painfully obvious to anyone who’d seen Harry even once who he was, and he’d surrendered his wand to Harry after their brief skirmish. The protest he’d put up had been so farcically thin, it was a miracle that no one had seen right through it. Even in the midst of chaos, he’d done what he could to make it right. The Ministry had said she could make a written statement for them to read out, but Gryffindors didn’t flinch away from difficult situations, and so she’d spoken her testimony aloud in front of everyone.

Malfoy had stared at her the whole time with those lifeless, ice-grey eyes. His gaunt face was a porcelain mask behind the rune-inlaid bars of the magic-resistant cage which they’d locked him in like an animal while his mother had wept and Hermione had been cross-examined almost to tears herself. They’d made her feel like she was the one in the dock for daring to state the truth about how he and his mother had saved them all. Then again, to have a mudblood defend a family like the Malfoys might have been one stretch too far for most.

He’d clawed back a bit of weight again in the months before school started up again, but he was still on the leaner side of slim. He still had dark shadows under his eyes too, and the lids looked heavy and almost bruised. His profile, as she now saw it in the classroom, was all sharp angles and hard plains. His jaw was set and a tendon in his neck jutted like a guy-rope, pulled taut and thrumming with the ever-present tension in his body. It seemed to be the only thing holding him together. Even his shoulders were hunched and solid. He looked caught between expecting a blow to the back of the head and being half a second away from drawing his wand. In short, he still looked terrible.

She stared too long.

“Waiting for me to bare my arm and cast the Dark Mark above the castle, Granger?” he sneered sidelong at her under his breath. “I think I’ll have to disappoint you.” She thought she heard him mutter something else under his breath, but she didn’t catch it.

Closing her eyes briefly, she looked away without responding. He was just lashing out and she wasn’t going to rise to it. A seventh year in the row in front had gasped at his words, and began a hushed and scandalised whispering with her neighbour, but Hermione remained silent, staring unseeing at her open textbook. No one really knew what it had been like for any of them - the ones at the core of it all - regardless of the side they’d been on.

What had McGonagall said in her welcome speech in the Great Hall the night before? “Hogwarts is entering a new age of openness and tolerance, of compassion and companionship, where walls must be torn down and old grudges laid to rest if we are to heal and move forward as a whole - as a unified community - in both school and society at large.” She wasn’t wrong. If Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy could sit side by side in a classroom without disrupting the space-time continuum, there was hope for everyone, she mused, allowing a tiny smile to play across her lips.

A moment later, someone slid into the lecture hall benches on Malfoy’s other side and she caught a glimpse of Theodore Nott, before Professor Vector swept in amid a billow of robes, and the class of mixed seventh and ‘eighth’ years fell quiet. The movement of his silver-blond head told her that Malfoy had been staring at her since his little outburst and had only just looked away.

The room was not overly full, and she had been a little surprised to find that Malfoy was taking Arithmancy this year as one of his N.E.W.T. subjects. His strengths had always lain in the practical rather than the theoretical. Not that he wasn’t smart in either field; he’d matched her almost grade-for-grade in nearly every subject they’d taken together since first year. Nott, however, she wasn’t at all surprised to see there. He was the only one who’d ever beaten her test scores - though admittedly only once back in third year when things had been somewhat more… hectic for her. Between the three of them, they probably made up the brightest minds in the student body at that moment.

Nott leaned forward as Vector began her introductory spiel, and ducked his gaze beneath Malfoy’s chin to sneak a look at her. When Hermione’s eye was drawn by the movement, he met her gaze and flashed her a grin that brought dimples to his cheeks. He was then promptly and unceremoniously shoved back against the classroom bench by the flat of Malfoy’s palm. His back connected with a soft ‘oof’ and he laughed under his breath before falling silent under Vector’s dark glare.

Hermione frowned, but quickly lost herself in the beautiful and relative complexities of higher level Arithmancy.

At the end of the class, she packed up her belongings and filed out of classroom 7A alone, heading for the Great Hall and lunch with a growling stomach and a strange knot of tension in her chest. It showed no signs of loosening all day. It felt odd to be walking the halls alone, without Ron on one side and Harry on the other to share a joke or a worry on their way to the next fixture. She ached at their absence, and wrote them each a short letter over her lunch break to tell them how her first morning had gone. She left out her musings over Malfoy, however, and concentrated on the work and how the castle had been restored almost perfectly to its condition prior to the takeover, save for the memorial to the fallen in the courtyard.

Long after supper that evening, having completed her first Arithmancy assignment already, she headed up to the newly-repurposed Prefects’ Common Room for their first meeting with Headmistress McGonagall. That ball of tension in her chest had gnarled itself tighter and tighter around her heart and lungs, but it wasn't until a first year actually squeaked that she finally realised why people had been shying away from her all afternoon in the corridors and in the Gryffindor common room. Her scowl had become as fierce as a basilisk’s stare. She almost snorted at the idea, especially since her route to the common room had taken her past the girls’ bathrooms, where all the chamber of secrets chaos had found its focus. Famed war heroine Hermione Granger, the brains of the Golden Trio, was glowering like a thunderhead, and people veered away as if she might start spewing acid.

“Ah, Miss Granger,” McGonagall’s lilting voice called as she finally reached the prefects’ common room at about a minute to nine. “Wonderful. Now we’re just missing Mister Nott, and then we can begin.”

“Nott’s a prefect?” Hermione hissed at Ginny, and the head girl nodded. “Since when? He wasn’t one before…” All anyone had to do was impose a certain inflection on the word ‘before’ and all the implications were well understood.

“He was given Malfoy’s badge,” she whispered back. “Can’t very well have that Death Eater ferret stalking the halls at night, can we? McGonagall picked Nott to fill out the Slytherin numbers since Pansy Parkinson and most of the others didn’t return this year.”

“Ex-Death Eater ferret,” Hermione murmured pointedly, recalling his subdued glower in the classroom that morning, and Ginny pulled a face as she conceded the truth.

“Still a bloody ferret though,” she huffed. “And he’s here on probation don’t forget. If he fucks up, he’s going straight to Azkaban to join his father.”

Mulling it over, Hermione fell silent, and a moment later the door opened again and Nott stepped inside.

She’d never really taken the time to look at him before; he had been a part of Malfoy and Pansy’s little gaggle of Slytherins since the beginning, apparently having known Malfoy since early childhood, but she’d not known him to take part in many of Malfoy’s petty cruelties. He seemed rather bookish, but definitely not shy; aloof but not arrogant. If he hadn’t aligned himself with the Malfoys, he might perhaps have been someone with whom she could have got along. Intellectually, of course. He was still a Slytherin and the son of a convicted Death Eater…

Now as he stepped into the cosy little room and apologised for his tardiness to the headmistress, and also to Ginny with a quick flash of his eyes, Hermione took stock of his high cheekbones dusted with a plethora of freckles, his sapphire blue eyes that noticed everything and revealed almost nothing, his floppy, dark brown hair that curled attractively in a somewhat old-fashioned and timeless manner and glimmered with gentle highlights in the dancing flames of the fireplace. He was tall too at almost six foot - taller than Malfoy by a good few inches - and a fraction broader at the shoulder. Gone was the skinny, lanky, coltish boy whose robes had hung off him like he was no more than a wire coat-hanger. Merlin, she thought, he’s actually quite handsome now.

A second later, he caught her staring at him and her cheeks flushed unexpectedly hot.

Still oddly flustered, she looked away and focused on McGonagall as she began to inform the newer prefects of the duties and expectations of the role, before going on to assign patrol partners. Even in the flickering warmth of the fire, the headmistress looked tired and drained. No doubt the most recent toll on her had been the immense effort of readying the blasted and battered castle for the start of term after the Battle of Hogwarts.

“In the interests of continuing and promoting congenial inter-house relations, I’m going to be splitting the patrols up. You will no longer be patrolling by house. You will meet in the entrance hall and begin your patrols from there. Now, Padma, you will pair with Hannah; Ernest with Anthony; Cho with Michael; Hermione with Theodore; the rest of you will find your pairs on the rota, and of course the heads of school will patrol together. Any questions?”

Hermione glanced across the room and found Nott staring at her with a strange quirk to his mouth that was almost a smile. He was leaning against the carved masonry of the door frame, ankles and arms casually crossed - the very picture of nonchalance. She raised one eyebrow at him, and his expression blossomed into a full grin, all white teeth and dimples. Rolling her eyes, she looked away, hearing a very low, faint chuckle.

“The rota will be posted here in the prefects’ common room, along with the upcoming password for the door,” McGonagall went on. “Anyone found abusing their position, or caught docking or awarding points gratuitously, will be permanently and immediately removed of all privileges. Thank you, and goodnight.” With a flourish, she sent the parchment with the rota fluttering across the room to pin itself to the cork board, and left.

The younger prefects huddled around it, keen to see which nights they were on duty and someone called, “Granger, Nott! You’re up first!”

“Wonderful,” Nott purred suddenly standing at her elbow. “I didn’t get a chance to say hello properly earlier.”

Good Godric, he really was tall, she realised as she turned slowly to regard him and tilted her chin up. “I don’t think we’ve ever actually spoken,” she said carefully.

“I don’t believe we have,” he returned with an easy, genuine smile. He had all the politeness and poise of a pureblood, trained from birth to schmooze and glide his way through social situations, and she reminded herself not to be charmed by it. He was still a Slytherin, and his father was a notorious and sadistic Death Eater, even if Theodore had mostly stayed out of it himself. He held out his right hand and she stared at it. He had ink stains on his thumb and first two fingers, just like she did. “Theodore Nott,” he grinned. “Call me Theo.”

With another roll of her eyes, she acquiesced to his playful little farce and shook his hand as if they’d just met. “Hermione Granger.”

“Everyone knows who you are,” Ginny snorted, sidling up and digging her in the ribs, the gesture making her yelp and lurch towards Nott. He steadied her with a hand on her upper arm and smiled. Ginny glared at him and he let go, still chuckling. “If you fuck around with her, Nott,” Ginny glowered, her face darkening.

“Ginny,” Hermione said softly, turning to her. “It’s fine. Besides, it’s not as if I don’t know how to take care of myself anyway…”

“I know that!” Ginny countered hotly. The red in her cheeks eclipsed her freckles for a moment before she took a deep breath. “The same goes for everyone else,” she snarled as she sensed they had an audience. “If anyone pisses around or puts a single bloody toe out of line, I will hex it off, McGonagall will hear of it, and you will be out of here. Got it?”

Her outburst was met with a mixture of nods and snickers, and with that, she left.

“Come on,” Hermione said with a quick, awkward laugh. “Let’s get going.”

“Eager, Granger?” he chuckled, holding the door open and ushering her through first. The gesture didn’t seem facetious, and she nodded curtly at him in thanks as she stepped out into the corridor. “I assume, since you’re an old hand at this whole prefect thing, that you know the routes and the hot spots better than anyone. Lead the way…”

“Why did you get made a prefect?” she wondered aloud instead of responding. “You’ve never shown any interest in anything relating to school spirit before.”

“That’s not fair,” he countered easily, striding to catch up with her after softly closing the door behind him. “I watch Draco play quidditch on a regular basis. Have done for years.”

“Watching sports doesn’t count towards the wellbeing of the whole school, Nott,” she sniffed dismissively, turning left at a portrait of a white haired old witch who appeared to be having a discussion about astronomy with her kneazel, and hopping onto a staircase before it decided to move.

He sprang after her easily enough. He might not have had seeker reflexes, but he certainly wasn’t clumsy either. “Of course it does,” he said. “If no one showed up, morale would plummet faster than a dropped quaffle and you know it. But you’re right; I haven’t shown much interest other than that… No time like the present,” he added a little breathily.

“Indeed. I heard Malfoy is trying out for seeker of the Slytherin team this year. Ginny says he’s good.”

“Mmm.”

“You’ll be able to bolster your already admirable school spirit then by being a prefect as well as continuing to support him from the stands then,” she said sarcastically.

Nott only laughed lightly and strode along beside her, but after a while he cleared his throat and said, “Listen, about earlier in Arithmancy… Draco told me what happened… what he said…” He scratched his jawline and grimaced. “Don’t mind him…” he faltered. It sounded like he was aiming for a light tone, but he missed a mile. “He doesn’t really mean it when he says things…” he didn’t finish his sentence, but he didn’t have to.

“I know,” she said, pausing to listen at the end of a shadowy corridor. As she glanced up at him, she witnessed a flicker of surprise in Nott’s dark blue eyes. “Malfoy’s always lashed out like that when he’s feeling defensive. And it’s no wonder he had a go at me today - it must be hell for him being back here with everyone staring and whispering.” She sighed. “Better than the alternatives, I’m sure, but still. It’s brave of him to come back to Hogwarts.”

Theodore blinked twice, and then a slow, dazzling smile dawned on his handsome face.

Merlin, had he always been that good looking? She refused to let that of all things become a problem on their first patrol, and so, fighting to keep a blush off her cheeks, she marched off down another corridor before he could say another word.

It was true, although it had taken her actually speaking the words aloud to realise it. Malfoy had always had some pithy, nasty, venomous comeback whenever he was cornered, his words designed to inflict enough showy, hurtful damage to allow him to escape. In a world where he’d been rendered all but helpless by others, buffeted this way and that by more powerful players, and with impossible choices forced on him, his sharp tongue and hard, silver glare had been some of his only defences.

He really is like a snake, she thought wryly: beautiful, quick, and deadly, but… perhaps largely harmless if left un-threatened.

To her surprise, it took Nott a brief moment to catch up with her.

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Part Two

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