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paganpillar · 2 years

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◤──•~❉᯽❉~•──◥

The greatest forces lie in the region of the uncomprehended.

- George MacDonald

◣──•~❉᯽❉~•──◢

In my practice, I have put great importance on liminality and liminal spaces.

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Lim·i·nal

1. Relating to a transitional or initial stage of a process.

2. Occupying a position at, or on both sides of, a boundary or threshold.

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There are many reasons why liminality is such a significant part of my workings and a majority of it comes from a personal need to achieve balance. Most witches already work with the liminal without realizing it. For example, casting a circle is creating a liminal space for spell workings. I, on the other hand, intentionally try to work with liminal spaces, times, and magick. This is partly due to my own mental health, as I consistently experience very high highs and even lower lows. Oftentimes, the only way I can achieve balance is by working within the liminal. Now, I don’t really cast circles anymore but sometimes it is the only way I feel comfortable.

Other times, I feel most energetic and spiritual during dusk and dawn (which both can be considered liminal times as it is neither night time or day time). Moreover, meditating, astral traveling, spirit work, deity work, divination, and hedgecrafting are all liminal practices that keep me balanced and grounded when I might otherwise be too exhausted or too wound up.

But what does this have to do with witchcraft? Our paths have already begun, but have they ended? Not quite. Some practices require a road to initiation. The death tarot card reflects a lesson in liminality where something has come to an end before new opportunities await. When we are cleansing, we are clearing out negative and stagnant energies to make way for something more productive and positive. When some witches acknowledge the cardinal directions, these can be considered liminal as well. Some magick circles say having a liminal state of mind can help you receive answers and wisdom from guides, spirits, and deities. Contacting these entities through means of divination is a small part of spirit and deity work that deals in liminal spaces as they are not physically there, but also spiritually present. Invoking deities and spirits require your body and mind to enter a liminal state. The same can be said when we astral travel, enter trances, or when we lucid dream. Some witches and pagans celebrate the equinoxes and solstices, a transition into the new seasons. Even the turning of astrological seasons are seen as liminal times. The Dark moon and new moon in particular are also liminal. All of these things are examples of liminality and liminal magick.

Having respect and taking advantage of these liminal spaces can create a sense of balance and comfort, at least for me. Acknowledging the liminal is accepting and trusting in my intuition, spirituality, beliefs, and my path. It is also a reminder of the uncertainty and chaos of life.

Liminal Magick

Here is a list of liminal magick and practices:

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Spirit Work

Hedgecraft

Manifesting

Transformations

Shadow Work

Astral Traveling

Casting a circle

Ancestor Veneration

Deity work and invocation

Dream Magick/Lucid Dreaming

Cleansing/Banishing

Curses/Hexes

Death Witchcraft

Psychopomp Activities

Death Doula

Psychic Abilities

Past life regressions

Divination

Blood Magick

Meditation/trance work

Ritual work

Altar Space

Visualizations

Energy Work and Manipulation

(All UPG marked with *)

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Times and Spaces

I find that liminal times and spaces are where I feel the most balanced, grounded, and devoid of emotion that does not serve me spiritually. Does this mean I always seek out these times and spaces? No, because that would be impractical and somewhat unreasonable. Working magick doesn’t involve guidelines that say you must do ‘this’ specifically at ‘this’ time and at ‘this’ place. However, should the need arise here are some liminal times and spaces that might just help you to create some beautiful magick in the right headspace:

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New Moon/Dark Moon

Midnight

Dusk/Dawn

Weekends/Sunday Night/Wednesday

Solstices/Equinoxes

Holidays/Sabbats

Samhain

Astrological Transitions

Altars & Sacred Spaces

Appearance of Rainbows*

Birthdays/Transitional Celebrations

Forest Edges and Clearings

Hiking Trails

Crossroads

Stairwells

Libraries*

Showers/Bathtubs*

Canyons/Valleys

Beaches

Rivers/Streams/Lakes

Bridges

Thresholds/Entrances/Exits

Cemetery gates

Abandoned Buildings

Property Lines

Ley Lines*

Boundaries

Grocery Stores/Markets*

Balconies/Backyards

(All UPG marked with *)

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Liminal Tools and Items

Now this isn’t a comprehensive list by any means, but these are just a few examples of liminal times and spaces that hold a different kind of energy than, say, your bedroom. Now, in addition to utilizing these elements, there are also tools that you can use in your practice that can fall under the category of liminal. These things might include:

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Tarot Cards: Death

Colors: Gray

Scrying and Divination tools

Mirrors

Shedded Antlers

Bones

Tourmaline

Labradorite

Lapis Lazuli

Hematite*

Roots

Mushrooms*

Mugwort

Elderberry

Rose hips/Rose buds*

Perennials

Passion Flower

Poppies*

Chamomile

(All UPG marked with *)

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Deities and Divine Spirits

Lastly, some witches and pagans work with deities who might have liminal associations. I personally find comfort in deities who just so happen to have liminal associations, some of which I did not know about until after I began working with and worshiping them. Some of these deities might have chthonic/death, messenger, crossroad, contradictory, or psychopomp associations. This list is by no means complete but incorporates some more well known deities and divine spirits in no particular order:

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Cernunnos

Epona

Hermes/Mercury

Dionysus/Bacchus

Ceres

The Lares

Hekate

Persephone/Proserpina

Janus

Cardea

Iris

Osiris

Charon

Anubis

Nephthys

Donn

The Morrigan

Cathubodua*

Hel

Odin

Mania

The Manes

Genius/Juno*

Hypnos

Thanatos

Pluto/Hades

Dis Pater

The Fates

The Mother aspect of the triple goddess

The Valkyries

Morana

Yama

Lucifer*

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I am sure there is more, but I am trying to focus on deities and spirits that have some death or crossroad associations. Ther may be other deities that are not traditionally liminal but fall under the scope due to contradictory associations rooted in mythology. These might include trickster deities such as Loki. Working and worshiping deities with liminal associations is not required when performing liminal magick but it can definitely help if you are interested in delving into such a thing. I personally find that evoking liminal deities when cleansing liminal spaces such as thresholds and windows can be beneficial. Sometimes I will leave offerings to them in liminals spaces, especially crossroads and hiking trails as a way to show my devotion. I feel that liminal spaces are a special place just for them where I can interact with their energy without having to try so hard.

Connecting With The Liminal

If you do not wish to do work with liminal deities but would still like to connect to the liminal, then you can do so easily. My only advice is that you meditate in a liminal place, take note of your feelings and energy, contemplate what liminality feels to you, and acknowledge its existence. By doing so, you can tap into the liminal and form your own practice around the observations and energies you feel when you are in a state or place of liminality.

I hope that my personal practice and view of the liminal has inspired you to conduct your own research to further your understanding. I hold all aspects of the liminal close to my heart and in my practice because it is what helps me achieve balance and spirituality. I can only hope it will help you as well if you wish it too. Remember, everyone practices differently and I might not have covered everything, but I think it is a great place to start. Let me know how liminality affects your practice.

PaganPillar

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valorxdrive · 5 months

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"Ha ha ha. Finding yourself at an impasse, Sora? Boy feels unbecoming of your mastery, no less deciding to carry the wicked torch I've once held for my own purpose."

Who intoned such words were none other than Xehanort. His figure floated with ominous uncertainty in a realm most sacred, this very Keybearer's heart. An imposing and woefully curious eye centered directly upon him. One of those hands held little hesitation in drawing forth the No Name.

"My dark road may have been doomed into an eternal detour, but in return, it looks like I've found something much more promising. To think we were no different once upon a time."

Awaken.

No longer was it a situation of his unconscious mind grasping this seat of power. No, when the Heart gradually stirred from that ancient film of slumber, it would be Sora's waking mind that finds itself slotted into this position. His position left airborne before his steps found themselves placed on the crystallized shimmer of his station. Of all the things that could've stirred him, it had to be the very voice they found triumph against.

In Sora's eyes, a being that should've found himself banished from interfering ever again. Despite the countless, scathing wounds flogged upon the heart, his body holds vigilant as courage is no longer just his armor, he's become one of its living embodiments. Staring up towards the Void beyond, a firm glare would be locked in his impassioned gaze as the enigmatic man succeeded in his newest pilgrimage.

They found each other. The better question is exactly where does this all lead?

"Xehanort." His voice found itself holding neither bite nor bark, instead, a leveled calmness situated as a glowing storm of light finds itself tamed and swimming across his body in the form of an aura. "You truly do have the most nerve I've ever seen." Despite the sleepless nights spent in wondering why this man placed this scale of faith upon him, entrusting him with the very blade that humanity vied countless eras of bloodshed to grasp.

Once the biting vantalight of No Name's presence found itself appearing, it'd immediately face its counter point, the shimmering glory of a cheerful song, a force of hope and goodwill, the Kingdom Key finding it blooming within his grip once again. The weight of such an old friend was a return to normalcy, a soft smile settling upon the warrior's face as he listened in.

"No different? And just what does that mean? That we've both grown up upon those islands? We were both children once? There's a lot of ways you can wire that, but, I know that both of us are human at the end of the day." Sora shoots back, immediately drawing into the comfort of his battle stance. By now even the keyblade shared in his strength, enriching reality itself with its glow, as if the very acidic graces of Darkness struggle in the effort of touching this heart.

"..You've wanted to talk to me for a while, haven't you? That lat time we've spent in Scala never did make any sense to me, all those times you could've attacked me yourself."

#Anon #| Bottle Mail #first off anon I love you for this #secondly MAN did I have to save this one #until I returned to proper form

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yandere-toons · 3 years

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since it’s almost spooky season could you please write some headcanons for oogie boogie from nightmare before christmas?

Oogie Boogie (Platonic & Romantic Headcanons)

WARNING: yandere, references to abduction, death, stalking, psychological manipulation, toxic mindset.

A.N. - I memorized every line of his song. Also, I was just thinking of doing headcanons for Jack a few days ago to welcome October.

PLATONIC:

Oogie is a fan of all things dramatic. The other people in his friend's life are no more of a threat than a loose stitch, but his refusal to stay out of the spotlight for long drives him to order his henchmen to abduct these perceived interlopers and dump them into his torture chamber. Once there, he regurgitates their every flaw and laughable quality, tearing them down emotionally before tossing them into his vat of stew.

No matter how much terror is caused or how many nightmares are induced, Oogie scarcely views the situation as more than a delightful game of roulette to toy with and indulge in whenever he gets the urge to destabilize his friend's life.

The incentive for these mean-spirited attacks is often as simple as rolling a more favourable dice value than him. He assures them that the games are merely for recreation, but his persistence in achieving a winning streak implies that the stakes are much higher than a lost afternoon.

The fear that his behaviour inflicts is a source of pride for Oogie. He jokes about cooking the kinder inhabitants of Halloween Town into his stew to pressure his friend to end relationships abruptly and without an obvious motive, which gradually strains their reputation until they are as despised as he is.

Acts of rebellion are met with taunts, for Oogie is confident in Lock, Shock and Barrel's ability to retrieve them if they were to escape from him.

ROMANTIC:

Oogie is an avid cheater who has little to no integrity when it comes to his gambling practices, hopelessly rigging every game and machine in his lair. The Boogie Man challenges his partner to rounds of poker where the reward for beating him is freedom, a promise on which he would never deliver unless Jack was present and melting his bugs until he capitulated.

In the unlikely event they win, Oogie denies it by either inventing rules that nullify their victory or, if they show an insistence on leaving, threatening them with his Snake and Spider Stew.

The residents of Halloween Town live in fear of the name Oogie Boogie, limiting his partner's options for help to a lucky rescue by Sally and personal intervention from Jack. Word of their captivity reaches the Pumpkin King via gossip, and Lock, Shock and Barrel are ordered to act as spies who track and torment anyone suspected of scheming to free them.

While Oogie recognizes that Jack is a genuine threat, he will feign uncertainty and cowardice at the mention of the skeleton to lull his partner into a false sense of hope.

Due to his banishment and a healthy fear of Jack's wrath, Oogie spends most of his time in his underground casino. He relies on his henchmen to supply information about his partner's daily activities, adding the names of those who bully or are too comfortable with them for his liking to his hit list.

All his deception and time spent fretting over his status as an outcast has shortened his temper and eroded his patience, so Oogie devises a plan to trap them in his lair.

Do anything you want with my work, but never make me boring!

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aenaxes · 3 years

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omg!! congrats on 200!!!! 🥰🥰 ur my fav crosshair writer so: crosshair + trust, with a gender neutral reader? nsfw or not, it's up to u!! congrats again 🎉🎆🎉

kinesthesia

[crosshair x gn!reader] with precision, there is control, and with control, there is tension, not easily soothed. you take it into your own hands to prove that wrong.

warnings: nsfw, fellatio, (kind of) sub!cross

w/c: 3.0k

a/n: prince my he a r t 🥺💕 ily bb ! this was also a super fun prompt to write hehe, and look i openly accept that i’m a pillow princess bottom, but i think i would enjoy making crosshair squirm. uno reverse card on his oral fixation—mine now.

“I’m still not entirely sold on this,” Crosshair admits as he takes a seat at the edge of your bunk. His toothpick bobs anxiously between his lips, chewed down flat where his lips brush up against the bleached wood. It’s not often that this breed of restlessness finds hold: stiff shoulders and hands folded tight over his lap.

Nerves.

“That’s why we have the safeword,” you quip from across your quarters, voice rising as you struggle to twist out of your heavy uniform jacket.

(Un)surprisingly, Crosshair makes for a quick study. Beneath the stony, oftentimes sullen disposition, he’s a simple man. Of course, that simplicity didn’t necessarily limit himself from branching out into an actual person, but you could boil him down to one thing and one thing alone: control. Whether it was his genetic acuity that shaped him into the sniper persona or vice versa, control centered him, grounded him, tied him so close to his sense of duty and personhood that sometimes it was hard to tell the two apart.

So when you had offered two rotations prior to take the reins—offered both as something new and the hypothetical of release from, well, everything that kept him in a perpetually alert state of coiled tension—you honestly hadn’t expected for Crosshair to pause, rolling his toothpick thoughtfully between his teeth, and accept.

There’s certainly a part of you that hopes the manufactured brevity to your tone is enough to soothe the anxiety radiating from where Crosshair makes himself prim and small on your bed, smaller still without the bulk of his dark armor weighed over his shoulders. But, against your better judgement, a low-lying anticipation simmers at the base of your lungs when you finally shuck the day’s sweat and blaster smoke to the side.

He’s seen you undone under him time and time again, beads of sweat following the smug lines of his expression as he bent you to his—and, to be entirely fair, your own—pleasure. And as satisfying as that arrangement has proven itself to be, curiosity has always been that single, nagging vice at the back of your head.

Who can blame you for wanting a taste?

“You remember it, right?”

“Yeah,” he says, and you catch the heavy dregs of uncertainty (perhaps even bashfulness, ha) dragging at his voice.

“Then say it,” you prod. You gently nudge the point of your knee up against Crosshair’s calf and offer him a mirthful glance. And when that doesn’t seem to banish his withering hesitance, you drop down onto the bunk beside him, grasping his hand in yours and squeezing snug.

“I—” he clears his throat with a soft wince: embarrassment. “I don’t think I’ll need it.”

“Cross,” you warn. Because if you were going to do this, you were going to do this right.

“Fucking hell,” he mutters under his breath, scrubbing his palm over the highest points of his cheeks. You wonder if the warmth over his cheeks is the same as your own, desirous and shy as you venture into those dark, uncertain places hand in hand. “Tooka, happy?”

“Very happy,” you grin, and you lean close to press a quick peck to the corner of his mouth.

Crosshair leans towards you, lips parted to chase your touch, more, more. But he’ll have his fill, and you’re quick to dart away, leaving him even more disoriented than he already is, all wide eyes that seek you like fading light.

You’re tempted to indulge him because it’s not often that he looks like a kicked loth cat (and he does a damn good impression when he does). But you manage to stuff down the creeping sympathy, opting instead to reach into the pocket of your trousers and produce a well-worn headband.

“Please tell me that’s not Hunter’s.” The rosy edge of desire vanishes from Crosshair’s voice as he catches sight of the broad black swatch of fabric in your palm. In its place, the testing edge of judgement so often home in Crosshair’s snide play.

“Ew, no—what? That’d be weird. And gross. Who do you think I am?”

That seems to do what your previous efforts could not, and your heart jumps when Crosshair responds with a soft snort and shrugs. He’s not resentful, not in the slightest. It’s just trepidation, jumping into uncharted waters with nothing but the trust that your hand, snug over his, would hold fast.

But the laughter settles, drawing back to reveal something that hums quiet between the small eternity between you. Even with your thigh pressed close against Crosshair’s own, you feel him drawing away, hesitant and wanting all at once. You gently pull his hand between you, squeezing once.

“Trust me?” you murmur.

Crosshair offers you a tremulous look, more nervous than apprehensive. You suppose it’s only fitting of him that relinquishing his steady grip over control might be more appealing in concept than on the eve of practice. Nonetheless, when you meet his gaze, you find the kind of uncertainty that heralds excitement, careful but enamored all the same. He nods.

“Then let me take care of you.”

Finally, as you raise your hands to his temples, pressing the dark fabric over his eyes, the tension pulls away from his coiled muscles, dropping his shoulders and bowing his head as you reach around him and tie a knot over the back of his silvery hair. He exhales long and slow as the knot settles snug over his scalp, warmed by the creases left behind by your fingertips and the sudden comfort yet complete unpredictability that shrouds his senses.

Testing the waters, you bring one hand to his cheek, just barely ghosting your fingertips over the lean lines of his jaw, and you are rewarded with a full-bodied shudder that shocks through Crosshair’s form as his lips gently part around his toothpick. Without that precious ability to see, he sits in your palm at your every whim.

You lean forward, gently biting your teeth around the tapered free end of his toothpick, and you feel him swallow hard when you free it from his mouth and drop it to the floor.

“Trust me.”

Chest heaving, he nods again.

“Safeword?”

This time, there is no snark to accompany a begrudging response. “Tooka.” Instead, his voice dips breathy and low between the long breadths between his soft exhales, his beating heart.

“Good boy.”

You surprise yourself at how natural the praise feels, rolling from your tongue and rising over the ambient hum of the ship around you. It fills your chest with something like affection, bordered pride that only swells as you watch him shudder, his lips parting just a little wider to pass that barely-there whimper riding on his exhale.

The hard planes of his body, that star map you’ve committed to the deepest parts of your heart, are familiar terrain under your skin as you flatten your palms over the sharp jut of his collar and travel lower. You pause the heels of your palms over the base of his ribs, pressing softly against the quickening rise and fall of his chest. Satisfaction curls sweet and rich over the tip of your tongue as his stuttering inhale shifts the air around you.

With slow, firm force, you push him backwards onto the bunk, Crosshair’s elbows catching his slow descent over the dark grey sheets until finally drops his head back onto the firm mattress. His chest heaves.

Your fingertips pass over the sinew and soft scar of his abdomen, chasing how his breathing expands from his chest and leaches tension over the length of his torso. You’re certain this isn’t new, not when your intimacy has you stealing the other’s breaths between stuttering gasps. But to feel it under your palms, thrumming and deep—it sets your nerves on fire.

Control. It’s wholly and entirely yours.

You still as the pads of your fingers catch the faint ridge of his waistband. And a part of you is smug with the power of reversal, that it wasn’t Crosshair offering you a knowing smirk as he parted your thighs and pressed close, that it was you, privy to only the deepest intimacy Crosshair could offer.

But it’s exactly that which keeps the power from rushing to your head, stymying the teasing mischief for something warm in your stomach when you trail lower and gently cup over the straining bulge in his blacks. And it grows fonder when Crosshair’s legs jerk with a labored puff of breath, the same one he breathes into your ear when he finally pushes up deep inside you and presses his skin close against yours. He whines, a straining, soft noise through his bitten lips, and you’ve teased long enough.

Crosshair makes a soft noise, somewhere between a gasp and a whining moan, when you finally hook your fingers over the hem of the dark fabric and expose the curved strain of his cock. He’s so open, you think as you reach forwards (though, you suppose being deprived of the one sense that reigned king would do that to you).

You don’t need to be able to see the half of his face rising above the bridge of his nose to envision the soft knit of his dark brows, eyes squeezed shut and lashes fluttering with every soft noise that passes his lips. You don’t need to see the half of his face bound under that broad swath of fabric to envision how his expression breaks from restraint to unbridled euphoria when you trace the edge of your nail down the underside of his cock.

“Please,” you think you hear him whisper past a breathy moan.

Whatever he might have had prepared, the whole gamut of biting, bratty demand to wide-eyed pleas, tumbles back into his throat when you finally climb onto the bunk by his hips, lick the flat of your tongue over your palm, and wrap it snug around the middle of Crosshair’s cock. Instead, you watch with a satisfied awe as he jerks up into your touch, spit-slick lips parted in a silent cry.

“You want my hand or my mouth?” you croon, pumping slowly from the thick base of his erection to the ruddy tip. You want him to feel every quiver of your touch as you run your thumb over the pearly drop of precome beaded at the crown of his cock, reveling in his shudder beneath you. You want to be the only thing he feels.

“Mouth,” he chokes out. “Please.”

“You’re so polite today,” you muse, reaching up with your free hand to rub your thumb over the plush bitten skin of his bottom lip. Emboldened, you slip your finger past his lips, grazing over his teeth as you push the pad of your thumb over his tongue, all the while slowly working your hand over his cock. “The good boy gets what he wants, then. Right?”

For a brief moment, something like disbelief occupies the warm air between you—you, amazed at how easy it is to hold the reins tight; him, stunned that somehow, you in control was as good, if not better, than being the commandeering weight to push your face into the pillows.

Crosshair nods, trembling as you squeeze softly over the base of his cock.

“I need to hear it, mesh’la.”

The last line of his restraint crumbles at the sound: one only ever given from him to you, yet suddenly brought back to him with the full brunt of lust, affection, the secret words you’ve come to call your own. Crosshair bucks up into your hand with a low groan, gasping soft and breathy when you slip your thumb from his mouth and hold him down to the mattress.

“Yes, please.”

You smile and dip low.

Unlike the slow deliberation of your earlier touch, you seal your lips over his ruddy cockhead with one smooth motion, pressing your tongue flat against the underside and hollowing your cheeks. And the heady taste of salt, of trembling anticipation, of him, only sweetens when you flick your eyes up to catch Crosshair tip up his chin, dig his heels into the mattress, and sob.

You sink his cock deeper into your mouth, achingly slow while you continue to work your fist around the base of his cock, and close in a way that coaxes soft, whimpering noises from his lips as he turns his head and clenches his jaw.

Flicking your eyes upwards, a pang of regret shocks through your chest that you aren’t able to see Crosshair come undone from the slightest of touches, tame in comparison to some of your particularly energetic nights. But you do away with the thought as quickly as it comes as his blunt cockhead brushes over the back of your tongue.

His pleasure has always been yours, yours his, you think as you pull back, just until your lips part around the tip of his cock while he shifts and gasps beneath you. You’ll have your turn soon enough.

Before you can sink back down, swallow him as deep as you can, the air by your cheek shifts, and expecting the worst, you lift your chin. But where you expected some stifled yellow light, Crosshair’s fingers feel blindly around you until they find purchase over your cheek. His relief is palpable as his stuttering touch curls over your skin and holds you close.

You smile.

“Trust me?” you ask again, your lips mouthing softly over his cock, catching thick smears of precome over your skin.

“I trust you,” he whispers.

Crosshair cries out, hoarse and as loud as he’s been all night, as you drop your mouth near-midway down the straining length of his cock in one motion, lavishing your tongue under his pulse. His hand tenses over your jaw, blunt nails digging light into your skin as his fingers curl with that bone-deep shock of pleasure. And if the breathy, desperate noises he whimpers into the alcove of the bunk are of any indication, you have a good feeling he’ll want to do this again.

You moan around him in answer. It doesn’t matter to you that his brothers might hear, only a few panels of durasteel away and connected by the reverb of a narrow ship corridor. They probably do hear, but all that matters now is Crosshair, coming impossibly more undone under your tongue as he runs his trembling thumb over the skin of your cheek.

His hips buck up towards you, catching the back of your throat with a soft sting that reaches your nose. If you weren’t so desperate, you might have pinned him down harder or pulled away entirely to let him think about what he had done. But as much as you want to chase this power play, hearing him lose himself to you has you desperate for his touch.

You follow him with every uneven jerk and thrust up into the wet heat of your mouth, letting him take his fill. You simply stroke firmer as his skin warms over your tongue. It’s all so hot, the air heady and thick as you breathe in sharp through your nose and lean into his palm, and you wonder what it feels like, anchored to nothing but you, his sole light in a world gone dark.

His motions fall uneven, his hips twisting against your touch, his breaths becoming deeper, louder as they bounce over the steel ceiling overhead. He’s close.

You twist your fist over his cock, redoubling your efforts. You sink down so far over his cock that your eyes water as you crush the head up against the back of your throat. Heavy and thick, it muffles down a soft gag for you—it’s the deepest you’ve ever taken him. Crosshair notices, and he nearly wails.

He’s been good, you decide as you all but choke around him. He can take that coveted control back. You gently rub his hand, unspoken assent, and his hand slides up your jaw to finds purchase at the back of your head to fuck you down onto him in earnest.

And you take it, eyes blurring with tears and shallow inhales through your nose, holding still and letting him fuck over your tongue until he’s taken his fill. It doesn’t take long for him to spill down your throat, a low, hoarse groan passed between his lips as you struggle to breathe between every dutiful swallow of his thick come down your throat.

“Good boy,” you rasp as you pull the blindfold from over his head.

Crosshair meets you with unfocused eyes, full of wonder and a shaky haze that finds focus on you alone in the low light. Over the ache in your knees, you crawl up to meet him, collapsing down beside him with a soft sigh. He meets you with habit, practiced and true as he tips down his chin and presses his lips to yours, tasting himself on your skin when he swipes his tongue over your lip.

“How was that?” you whisper, breathing soft over his lips.

You tilt your head up enough to catch your nose over Crosshair’s. He still meets you with that same stupor, but you see it begin to mellow into something other than the shock of enjoyment in submission in a man who has only ever known control to be his. It’s quiet and raw, splitting open your chest with that rare kind of warmth that the broad expanse of space and war leave little space to grow.

Yours, whispered and cradled close between your beating hearts, yours alone.

“I’ll remember the safeword,” Crosshair says finally, his voice distant and soft as he still rises out of the aftershocks of his orgasm. But in that weary daze, you catch the rosy relaxation, vulnerable and yet increasingly less rare in your palms. Relief, pride, joy, honeyed goodness rises to the apples of your cheeks at the sound.

“I still think I won’t need it, though.” And you both laugh, curling close.

#hm. i want to peg him now #i still dont know how to tag posts but. i do write better when im significantly inebriated #anyways hehe hope u enjoy!!#i'd also like to send a special thanks to those ppl on youtube who make reverb/slowed playlists *chefs kiss* phenomenal #crosshair x reader #the bad batch x reader #bobathots #yaej.writes

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ithebookhoarder · 3 years

Text

We don’t have to talk (Javier Peña x AFAB!Reader)

Description: Inspired by that scene at the end of S2xE3 (we all know the one)... Javi seeks the comfort of your embrace after witnessing Carillo’s drastic tactics trying to find Pablo Escobar.

A/N: Sooooo, I haven’t written smut before, so please bear with me and my likely terrible attempt. Also, as it is smut, reminder I don’t condone minors reading this, so keep on scrolling angels ;)

Warnings: Swearing, smut, references to injuries, references to drugs, alcohol and smoking. References to violence, my bad attempts at translating Spanish (Let me know if I missed anything)

Masterlist:

----

“Javi, what-?“

You’d barely even opened your eyes when you felt his lips pressed ferociously against yours, cutting you off mid-sentence.

Even in your just-woken haze, your body seemed to be fully aware of your partner’s presence as his hands crawled across you, as if trying to feel as much of your body as possible beneath your tank top and sleep shorts.

This wasn’t the first time Javi had ambushed you when he’d got home. Hell, you’d done the same often enough, both of you knowing when the other needed to simply forget their day at work at the DEA.

But tonight felt different. There was something manic about Javi as he woke you from your sleep. He seemed almost possessed, saying nothing in greeting or to lure you to him, as he often did.

No. Instead, he let his actions speak for him as he manouevered you under his body and pressed himself against you in the time it had taken for you to even open your eyes.

“Javi,” you gasped, taking a breath as he released your lips and began to press feverish kisses down the arch of your neck. His moustache created a familiar friction that sent a warmth straight to your core, which you guessed was his aim. He’d always known exactly how to pleasure you, to tease and taunt you until you were lost in a haze of desire. “Javi, baby, talk to me.”

“Y/N,” he groaned in response. “Ssh. Let me take care of you, hermosa.”

“Javi… what time is it?”

“Late,” was his reply, gazing up at you so that you had no choice but to stare into the depths of his warm chocolate eyes.

Something inside of you made you groan as you maintained eye contact, watching as he trailed his way down your body, taking time to savour each place he kissed. And when he began to peel up your shirt… well, you couldn’t be blamed for the moan that escaped you. Nor, the way you arched into him.

It took all your self control to refuse to surrender so quickly. To try and realise what felt so wrong about this whole scenario.

“What happened?”

Your words hung in the air, causing him to still for just a moment, but that was all you needed to know you’d been right. Something had happened after you’d left him with Carillo to bring in Escobar’s spotters.

“I… please… I don’t want to talk about it. I can’t.”

Your heart skipped a beat at the pain in your lover’s voice, at the gut wrenching agony and uncertainty that made him look… haunted.

“Ok, ok,” you soothed, reaching up to brush your hands through his hair. You loved how soft it felt almost as much as the way it always made him moan.

If he didn’t want to talk, then you wouldn’t force him. Not now, anyway. These things always had a way of coming out and knowing Javi, he’d be more open to the prospect come morning. For now, though? Now, he needed to forget. To feel safe. To feel secure and loved in a city that had taken so much away from him.

He was so different from the optimistic agent you’d met years ago.

“We don’t need to talk. Just promise me you’re ok?”

Javi nodded. “I’m ok.”

With one last silent examination of his trembling body, you allowed yourself to believe him and to melt back into his touch. He wasn’t injured, not that you could see, so any wounds were emotional and mental… wounds that could wait till the morning to be addressed.

Sunlight always had a way of banishing the demons of the night. Just as your touch had a way of soothing Javi better than any drug or alcohol.

“I need you.”

You smiled, wrapping your leg around his waist and pressing him closer. “Then have me.”

Like that, something was unleashed within him. A frenzy that had you moaning and writhing beneath him in mere minutes as he began to tear the clothes from your body. It was like he couldn’t get enough of you, enough to see and touch.

You were quick to try and return the favour, reaching for his belt. “Javi,” you whined as he pushed your hands away. “You’re wearing too many clothes.”

He clearly didn’t think so. Not when he was too busy reaching up to squeeze your newly bared breast in his hand.

Oh, fuck. He was going to take his sweet ass time tonight. You knew then and there. He was going to wait until you were begging and groaning before finally giving in to what you wanted - what you both needed.

“Sssh, Carino,” he purred, gently tugging at your nipple and grinning as you reacted. “Let me take care of you first.”

Well, who were you to deny the man what he wanted? Not every person on the planet was so blessed as you were, to have Javier Peña in their lives and as their lover. It was almost like flipping off destiny to ignore the opportunity presented to you, to squander the honour being bestowed upon you.

Still, a part of you knew it was wrong to ignore the larger issues at play and allow Javi to use you and your pleasure as some kind of distraction, like drinking his way through a bottle of whiskey or smoking a pack of cigarettes. At least this method of coping wasn’t exactly harmful for him… not physically, anyway. But you were sure as hell not about to allow him to ignore this in the morning, shoving whatever was worrying him aside.

It was like your mother used to say, you attract more flies with honey than vinegar.

Yeah, it still sounded odd even now, but you at least understood the principle; Javi would talk when he felt ready, and for that he needed to forget for now. He needed to lose himself and feel safe enough to open up to you. Pressing the issue now when he was vulnerable would only push him away and then you’d never get the chance. He’d simply clam up and bury himself in work until you finally dropped it.

You’d much rather he buried himself in you instead.

“Javi-”

“Yes, querida.”

Your mouth opened, but you were only able to groan as you felt his touch, leaving a burning trail of desire across your body. Javi had rendered you speechless, knowing exactly how to make you writhe beneath him. “Oh my god.”

You felt rather than saw him chuckle to himself. “Not God, honey, only me.”

Either way you felt divine as his hands held you firmly in place, his torturous mouth sucking, kissing, and teasing its way down your sternum. The route was a slow one, drawn out when you reacted particularly loudly to his efforts. Clearly, Javi was determined to set his own pace tonight, to ensure his pleasure through your own.

It was the best kind of agony.

A hand clutched at his soft hair, trying and failing to guide him to where you most wanted him, feeling the soft graze of his moustache against your inner thigh. Javi simply tutted in response, gently nipping the skin before soothing the sting with his tongue, knowing it would only infuriate you more.

Thankfully, your whines were finally rewarded as you felt him turn his head a few moments later, his eyes locking with yours as he pressed his mouth against your entrance. It was the kiss of a starving man, devouring you as your back arched at the sensation of his tongue delving inside of you. There was no greater feeling in all the world… well, except when it was replaced with your other favourite part of Javi, which you prayed it would be soon.

“Javi, mi amor.”

“I know, baby. I’ve got you.”

His assurances did nothing to soothe the growing need inside of you, cresting higher with every second under his sinful touch. As it was, you feared for the neighbours on the other side of the wall when Javi thrust his fingers inside of you, causing you to cry out in surprise and delight.

Oh, you were never going to be able to look Mrs Dela-Vega in the eyes again. You could almost see her crossing herself the next time she passed you on the stairs.

Still, you were too drunk on desire to care, as Javi began to stroke inside of you, stretching you out deliciously as he added a second finger. The motion combined with his tongue caressing your clit sent you sky rocketing, knowing you weren’t going to last much longer.

His own moans only made it worse as you felt something inside of you coil tighter, before you plummeted headfirst over the edge. The fact he didn’t stop until you were almost begging, made your core ache, sending wave after wave of pleasure through you as he helped you ride out the orgasm.

In fact, part of you suspected he was tempted to keep you like that, pinned beneath him, groaning and sobbing with pleasure as he sent you convulsing over and over again.

However, you were relieved when he instead chose to pull back and surge upwards to press his lips against yours. The shift in position meant that his hardness pressed directly against your throbbing core, causing you both to groan at the sensation. You knew he had to feel your heat, even through his straining jeans. The way his hips snapped forward in response was clue enough as he pressed himself tightly against you.

It was almost too much, and yet, not enough as he lowered himself completely against you.

“You feel that, hermosa?” Javi growled, rolling his hips again. His breath was hot against your neck as he spoke almost directly in to your ear. “Feel how hard you make me? How much I want to bury myself inside that glorious pussy of yours?”

“Fuck, yes, Javi. Do it. Please, fuck me.”

“Are you sure, baby?”

He almost sounded nervous, a sound that made your heart ache as you pulled his lips to yours. You hoped he could feel your eagerness as much as he could hear it.

“I need you, mi amor.” Your hands snaked downwards, palming at the bulge between you until you heard his gasp. “I just need you. You can use me however you need. I promise.”

That was all he wanted to hear. In a mere instant, Javi had turned feral as he reached down and all but tore off his jeans, kicking them to the floor in his haste. His underwear was quick to follow, allowing his proud member to spring free as he grabbed your legs, tugging you towards him.

You barely had time to focus as he lined himself up with your entrance, the familiar look of desperation clear. It was the same look he always gave you when he thrust himself inside of you. Whether it was in a closet at work, or in the comfort of your own home, you still felt the same giddy rush as he filled you up, stretching you deliciously around him.

You gasped as he groaned. Your eyes rolled back as you relished in the sensation for the brief moment he granted you, before he decided to move.

“Fuck.”

“Fuck. Hermosa,” Javi moaned, setting an unrelenting pace, pulling out and pounding back into you until you couldn’t remember your own name. “You feel so good.”

Your free hand gripped the sheets.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” you chanted as your partner ruined every other man for you. He moved his free hand down to your clit, rubbing in time with his strokes until you felt yourself on the edge again.

It never did take very long with Javi.

“Cum for me,” he said, bringing his forehead down to yours, “I need to see your beautiful face as you cum.”

And cum for him, you did. Hard.

In fact, by the time Javi came, you were covered in a sheen of sweat, hair falling into your eyes. Your fingernails were digging into his back, searching for something to ground yourself with as Javi thrust into you one last time, coming deep inside of you.

The next few minutes were a blur as you came back down from the high rushing through you and your trembling body.

Vaguely, you realised Javi had gone to get a washcloth to tidy up with, as he returned to you a moment later. He always was affectionate with you, even after fucking you hard enough that you were unable to walk properly for a few days. Tonight was no different, as he proceeded to wipe both of you clean, peppering kisses against your face as he told you how much he loved you. How great you were. How lucky he was to have you.

You couldn’t help but agree, a soft smile tugging at the corner of your mouth as Javi finally settled back down beside you.

You then laid there, head on his chest, finger gently tracing all of the scars and moles that were dotted around his torso. His arm was around you, and you could physically feel some of the stress melt away from the room as you both lay there, listening to the sounds of the night echoing through the open bedroom window.

The sound of cars, cicadas, and the night breeze rustling in the trees was all the lullaby you needed as you felt exhaustion creeping up on you both.

However, you knew Javi too well to think he would simply fall asleep. Not when whatever had inspired his performance tonight was still on his mind… or so the still visible frown on his face suggested.

“Javi,” you whispered softly, hoping he would listen. “I don’t know what tonight was about, but … I love you, ok? And you’re a good person. A great one, who is kind and brave and everything I could ever want in a partner… whatever happened today won’t change that. I promise.”

A soft sigh escaped Javi as he glanced down at you. His expression was clear, even in the dim light of the room. There was still pain there, lingering in his big brown eyes, but there was also hope too - hope that you were right. That there was still a shot at redemption for him outside of this crazy world of Escobar, Sicarios, and darkness.

“As long as I still have you in my life, then I have a shot at that being true, mi vida… I don’t know what I’d do if I lost you… I don’t want a life without you in it. You’re the only thing that makes sense anymore. The only thing that’s good.”

“Well, as flattering as that is to hear, relax. Javi. I’m not going anywhere, Peña. Not now. Not ever.” Your tone was firm, and you knew he’d heard you when he nodded. Just once, but that was all it took. Everything else could wait until morning. “And Javi?”

He smiled. “Yes?”

“If you do ever happen to feel unsure about that, then please, feel free to use me again to remind you as many times as you like, however you like.”

Javi’s laughter was soft as he chuckled, leaning down to kiss you once more. “It’s a deal.”

#ithebookhoarder #masterlist #javier peña #Javier Pena #javier peña x reader #javier pena x reader #javier pena x you #narcos #narcos imagine #narcos fanfic #narcos x reader

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dreamingofscully · 4 years

Text

no night but shadows

rating: explicit // length: 5366 words // classification: ust to rst, season 2, post-ep (f. emasculata), canon divergent or canon compliant (your choice) // summary: a worried mulder shows up at scully’s apartment late at night

thank you to @suitablyaggrieved @starbuckthirteen @fragilevixenfic @impulsive-astrophile for the amazing reviews and betas. love ya❤️

tagging @today-in-fic

***

SCULLY’S APARTMENT, 1:15AM

Mulder hesitates, the smooth wood under his palm coolly unaware of the turmoil just beneath his skin. Making himself push forward, he knocks, not knowing and yet afraid of certainty.

His heart speeds up when he doesn’t hear someone right away. The turning of the lock abates his fear, but only a little. He’s still not sure if he’ll be faced with her mother, her sister, or her God, ready to cast judgment upon him. He’s relieved when he sees her shining red hair and curious expression.

“Mulder?”

“Can I come in?”

He told himself that he was only here to make sure his life hadn’t ended, that her report belied the fact that she’d soon be carried off in a plastic coffin to die a horrible, disfiguring death. Her unblemished skin and mild concern, only for him, gives him some courage. The rare comforting space between fear and guilt.

Scully pauses a moment, looks him up and down. She’s wearing her warm white robe, hair gently curled, face scrubbed clean, freckles peeking through the shine on her face. By contrast, he looks like he’s been to hell and back, and knows that she’s wondering if he came from a bar or some unsuccessful X-Files hunt, the product of a bad decision either way. He’s an intruder, disrupting the perfect domesticity that she’s created in her home; of course, she lets him in anyway.

Tossing off his leather jacket, he remembers to remove his shoes and slumps into the embrace of her couch; not a place for sleep or work, but conversation. She sits in the chair opposite him and waits, curling her slippered feet underneath her. He’s thankful for her patient mood.

He stares at his hands, ruminating over just what it is he’s doing here. What it is exactly that he came here for, now that he has confirmation that Scully is safe and sound. When he peers up at her, she raises an eyebrow, smiles slightly. That she doesn’t mind his barging into her life, her home, at ungodly hours gives him hope. Maybe she likes him. Just a little. He doesn’t fucking deserve it, but he holds onto that thought like a cliff’s edge, the sharp rock the only thing preventing his fast descent.

He chuckles and stares at the floor, breaking the uneasy silence that settled over them. He’s glad she can’t read his mind, his overdramatic musings at once too much and yet never enough.

“Did you want some tea? Water?”

He sits back and looks at her again. Despite the hour, she’d been awake when he knocked. The television is paused at some gruesome scene -- Rosemary’s Baby he thinks -- and there’s a giant mug of tea on the table along with a small bowl of disgustingly white unbuttered popcorn. She’s bundled and comfortable, and he thinks about her normal becoming his as well, that it feels right, despite the popcorn. The thought is banished as quickly as it forms -- he doesn’t belong here. He was the reason she’d been awake, the reason she wasn’t sleeping peacefully, as she deserved.

“Why didn’t you tell me what happened at the jail?” He accuses. Scully’s back straightens, and he knows she knows what he means because her eyes don’t harden at his challenge.

She licks her top lip and sighs, looking down at her lap...

“It didn’t matter once I saw you again, I wasn’t infected.” Her hands dance across the terrycloth of her robe. Fidgeting was her tell when she was uncomfortable with something, he knew, and usually he’d back off and let her form her thoughts, but he needed to know.

“Would you have told me if you were?”

Scully’s gaze rises sharply to meet his again, indignant protest in her blue eyes. They battle silently for a moment, but Mulder’s accusation falls flat in the truth of the matter. Of course she would. Closing his eyes, he lays his head back against the couch. He should leave, he has all the answers he needs. He just needs a few seconds to breathe.

He hears the clatter of the remote as she turns off the television, the whisper of her slippers as she crosses to him. The instinct he’d had to bolt at her approach vanishes when she rests her warm hand on his leg.

“Why are you really here, Mulder?” Her voice is soft again, worried.

His rumpled shirt and wild hair tell the truth of his emotional state. She gives and she gives and she gives. Her mind, her trust, her strength. He takes and takes. Her time, her life. But he's left with nothing in the end, while she's bursting, full of everything he wants but cannot receive.

“I... can’t keep doing this, Scully.”

Her thumb draws comforting circles around the outside of his thigh, and he focuses on it. Imagines leaving his body, following the point of her thumb straight through to her soul, somehow finding a way to tell her without using words.

“You mean putting me at risk.”

He just looks at her, sighs.

“I’ve told you I need to work. I chose to enter the FBI, to take a field position. Not to live my life safely as a doctor or a teacher. To be by your side finding the truth.” She moves her hand to cover his own, which had moved to pick at her couch, worrying the material until it frays. Does he ruin everything he touches?

“But--”

“No, Mulder,” she interrupts. “When I was in that jail, they wouldn’t give me any information. I had to go searching for it.”

“Scully, I don’t think--”

“Let me finish.”

As much as he doesn’t want her to give him any more fuel for his nightmares, he remains silent.

“I was in the incinerator. I’d opened up a body bag, was looking at one of the victims, at the pustules that covered their skin.”

Mulder winces at the memory, the pulsating greenish welts threatening to burst at any second. Right on the boy. Instead, a bullet and brain matter. Nightmares and therapy for the kid for the rest of his life.

“Doctor Osborne found me there, tried to warn me away, but it was too late. The boil evacuated. All over him, and, I thought, all over myself.” Scully pauses and looks away with a tight frown, her shoulders drooping, speaking her next words reluctantly. “I understand your guilt, Mulder. A little. He died because of me.”

Mulder shakes his head. “No, Scully… he was there by choice--”

She leans closer, presses her other hand firmly to his lips, keeping him silent. “And it’s my choice.”

Something shifts. The horror of the case fades abruptly, the heat of her body next to his comes into sharp focus, pressed near in her need to comfort. He can smell her soap, the lotion she uses on her hands. Her hair is lit from behind, shines like a halo. She’s so beautiful.

So he takes her thumb in his mouth, sees her eyes dilate and shift to watch his lips as he suckles. But she doesn’t move away.

One of his hands moves up her arm to cup her face, angling it upwards. He releases her thumb with an audible pop and she slides it over his plush lower lip, taking her own between her teeth.

“Is this okay?” Mulder leans towards her, slipping his arm around her shoulders and pulling her closer.

“Yeah,” Scully sighs.

“You sure?”

“My choice.” She grins and closes the distance between them.

Mulder didn’t think things through when he took her thumb in his mouth, but the touch of her soft lips to his dashed away any thoughts of leaving her here with only a few sweet, nearly-friendly kisses. Something sparked, instantly, as their lips connected, and neither of them would be able to pretend this was simply an inappropriate but friendly moment between colleagues.

Did she crawl into his lap, or did he pull her on top of him? Like everything between them, he thought it was a bit of both. Her tongue in his, swiping across the roof of his mouth, the cage of his teeth. She tastes like flowers, salt, and something else that he knows is just her. Time has no meaning, and when she pulls away and rests her forehead on his, they’re both gasping for breath. He’s bereft, despite her closeness; diminished, despite his need to breathe.

Needing to keep connected, he finds the space just below her ear and kisses a hot trail down to her collarbone. A hum from deep within her chest accompanies his caress. He nuzzles her skin with his cheek, finds the layers of clothing hiding her from him suddenly offensive.

Thick fuzzy terrycloth gives way to the slick smoothness of her pajamas. She shrugs her shoulders and it falls to the floor in a heap, her hot mouth connecting with his once more.

As his hands glide up her ribcage, over the silky material, all he can think about is consuming her. Holding her close and disappearing into her soft skin. He winds his fingers through the hair at the nape of her neck, wonders at the feel of her small body against him. His thoughts zip from place to place: where he wants to kiss her next, memorizing the smell and feel of her, suppressing his own desires in an attempt to figure out what she likes, what she wants.

He reaches for the hem of her top, but she pulls away, stands, and holds her hand out to him. She’s smiling at him, trembling as she holds it there. Looking at her delicate fingers, he's worried that if he left the couch, he’d be just as likely to run out the door as he would to follow her. Her expression changes as she waits for him, confidence and desire giving way to uncertainty and shyness, something he’s never seen grace her features until now.

He takes her hand, lets her lead. He trusts her, more than himself.

They stand at the end of her bed, hands clasped together. He’s nervous, all of a sudden. The electricity between them fades, fills with awkwardness.

Releasing his hand, she starts unbuttoning her top, but he sees her hands shaking and knows it’s not just him. Covering her hand with her own, he places his finger at her chin and lifts her head to look at him. The light from the doorway brightens her face. Her eyes are deep indigo, and a flush brightens her cheeks. Her chest rises rapidly as they look at each other, the sound of their breathing and the ticking of the clock on her bedside table breaking the silence. As each tick and each puff of breath beats against his ears, he feels the moment slipping away.

It’s Scully who breaks the standoff. She grasps the collar of his shirt and pulls him down into a kiss. The tension between them dissipates, the passion reigniting. All of the doubt disappears at the touch of her lips against his. Her hands wind through his hair, tug not-so-gently. He resumes the task of unbuttoning her shirt, encouraging her efforts with a soft groan.

“Please, Scully,” he says, mouthing her name against her lips. Please love me. Please touch me. Please don’t stop. Please let this really be happening.

His fingers release the last button, push aside the material, graze along the smooth skin of her back. As they divest themselves of the rest of their clothing, Scully nips at his bottom lip, drawing blood in her fervor. Pulling away quickly, she raises a finger to his mouth, caresses the spot where she injured him.

“Sorry,” she says, and he sees the uncertainty start to creep back.

He shakes his head in amazement that she considers him and chuckles softly. “Don’t be.”

Scully stares at him, her eyes darkening, and a smile perking up the corners of her mouth. “You liked that?”

“Oh, yeah.”

Grabbing her shoulders, he brings her close, kissing her roughly and guiding them both onto the bed. She’s underneath him, surrounded by him. Light against dark, hard against soft.

The spark in her eyes and the playful smile both betray her enjoyment of his attempt to wrest control away from her. She doesn't give in, though, fights back just as hard, pushes him away and pulls him back. Like the tides, his Scully, the inevitable surge against time and distance.

His.

When he grinds his erection against her leg, she whimpers - whimpers. His thoughts wander to places he usually avoids: how sexy she is, whether wielding her gun or her scalpel or her skeptical gaze. And now, nothing but her luminous skin, piercing eyes, and plush lips. As his hands wrap around her waist, he encompasses all of her with the width of his hand. Her presence makes everyone else seem so insignificant, it's easy to forget that she's so fucking tiny.

Nipping and grasping turns into soft caresses, his touch feathering her ribcage, dusting along the small curve of her abdomen, slipping down to slick against her wet slit.

“Oh… yes,” Scully whispers into his ear. Her nibbles turn into licks, as if they know they want this to last, that it might not be forever. That they could make time stand still in her bed, just for tonight.

He moves downward, swirls his tongue around one hardened nipple than the other. Pausing there, finding himself stuck. Her hand brushes through his hair as he nips and teases her hardened peaks. Glancing upwards, wanting to see her, needing to know if this is right, he sees her head thrown back, her other hand tangled in her own hair, eyes squeezed shut. Her mouth is open and relaxed, uttering soft moans and unintelligible words, and then it hits him.

“Muuh...lderrr…”

The way she says his name, how it rolls off her tongue. He'd thought he'd heard it said with every possible inflection, but this is his new favorite. The cadence of the sigh-like "Mu", the extended "r". It sends a shiver down his spine, vibrating along his limbs, through the tips of his fingers and toes. He breathes against her, closes his eyes, and takes a moment to recover.

Moving upwards, he caresses the side of her face and waits for her to look at him. Her eyes open, and she blinks a few times to focus.

“Why’d you stop?”

He chuckles at her protest, at the breathy whine that peeks through. Kissing her mouth a few times, he looks at her. Watches her expression change from mildly frustrated to tender. The fan of her hair against her pillow beckons him, and he threads his fingers through the strands, combing them out neatly, giving her a halo.

Scully’s hands wander, tracing down his neck, along his shoulder blades and around to play with the hair on his chest. Dancing her thumbs across his nipples, he jerks backward, a jolt of electricity moving through him at her touch. Her grin widens and she tweaks them in her fingers, pushes him back and over, moves downwards and swipes her tongue around the sensitive flesh.

She glides her tongue along his chest, dips into his navel, lower, lower. Traveling across his skin, leaving a soothing wet trail and an aching anticipation as she moves downwards.

Gentle hands trace the veins of his cock, graze the head, sweep the drop of liquid from its tip. She’s looking at him as she tests the weight of his balls in a hand, as the other takes his cock and strokes up and down a few times. He’s impossibly hard, knows that if she continues this will end much sooner than he’d like.

He scoots away from her, evading her deft hands, and pins her underneath him. The movement is more forceful than he intended, but her mischievous smile silences his apology.

When his breathing steadies, he kisses away her pout. He drags his nose along her cheekbone and breathes in the scent of her hair. Presses gentle kisses along her neck, feeling the pulse of her jugular with his tongue. The life of her, so intertwined with his own, the steady beat keeping him afloat.

As his touch travels down her body, he feels her tense, relax, whispers encouraging him on his journey. The musky scent of her arousal, growing stronger as he dips downwards, tastes her for the first time.

She writhes as he slicks his tongue upwards along her folds, his nose bumping her clit just briefly. The hair on her mound tickles his cheek, and he loves all of her. Kissing, sucking, nibbling with his lips. He memorizes her, drowns himself in her smell, her taste, the vision of her in front of him, her voice anchoring him to the present. Resists the urge to thrust against the edge of the bed, to make this about her, to let this last.

Trembling against him, her inner walls contracting around his fingers, he steadies her with his arms, avoids being crushed by her thighs. As she relaxes, he rests his head against her and dreams of always being surrounded by her - her liquid warmth on his chin, her scent enveloping him, the salty indescribable taste of her on his tongue.

He pulls away reluctantly, searches through the pile of clothes they discarded in their haste earlier. In his pocket, he finds his wallet, in it a condom, thankfully not expired.

Climbing up next to her, he pulls her next to him and brushes a soothing kiss against the flushed skin of her shoulder. He attempts to open the package but his palms are slick from sweat and Scully, and as a bonus, he’s shaking like a nervous teenager. Feeling foolish and inadequate, he’s about to throw the damn thing across the room when her small hands encompass his and she takes the square of foil from his grasp. His emotions settle at her gentle touch, and he leans down and kisses her firmly, gratefully. As her tongue slides into his mouth and tastes him thoroughly, he wonders: does she like the taste of herself on him?

He lays down next to her as she takes over, resting his hand on her leg when she sits up, drawing circles with his thumb, remembering what started all of this tonight. He studies her, eyes traveling over the soft curves of her breasts, her slim waist, the jut of her hip, and softness of her thighs. Hearing the rip of the package, his eyes dart back upwards and he sees the wrapper hanging from her mouth. The shyness creeps back into her face as she holds the condom between them.

“If you’re not sure--” he starts.

Scully looks at him, raises her eyebrow, and shakes her head.

“It’s just been a while.”

Mulder nods but doesn’t say anything. For him, unfortunately, it hasn’t.

His mind flashes back to the memories of when she’d been taken. Shame wells up, threatens to overtake him. The details of the case in L.A. were left deliberately vague, but Scully wasn’t stupid, she could read between the lines. She knew the risks he took, what he’d done. He was a piece of shit and Scully was…Scully was--

Her hand cups his face, and he returns to her.

“No, Mulder.”

The shyness is gone, replaced by familiar certainty, his steadfast partner holding him up, rescuing him from himself. When she gets him to smile, she withdraws. She places the condom on him and is straddling him in two quick movements, bottom lip between her teeth, eyes sparkling in anticipation. Bringing him back, moving things forward. She’s efficient, his Scully.

His.

Delicate hands dance along his shoulders and press into his chest before she locks her eyes with his and adjusts himself at her entrance.

He watches as she takes him in. Her brow is furrowed, eyes squeezed shut like their lovemaking is a mystery that needs solving. Maybe it is? She inches down on his cock, agonizingly slowly, adjusting to his size before she finally surrounds him.

When she opens her eyes, looks at him, his breath catches. It’s really her.

He breathes out, feels the poison that consumes him, drives him, slip away into the darkness of her apartment. Breathing in and watching her move above him, his heart swells. He feels her everywhere, deep inside his marrow, every neuron in his brain - hers, hers. A beautiful tangle, something he hopes never unknots.

He sees her, really sees her. Her outer shell, her private warmth. All of it. But more importantly, looking into her eyes, he believes she sees him too. Even the ugliness that he tries to hide. But instead of disappointment and fear she caresses his face, loves him harder. For the first time, he believes he’s worthy, not only of her but of this.

“You feel that, Scully?” His voice breaks the silence, raspy and breathless.

She smiles briefly, grinds her hips around him, flicks her thumbs around his nipples. “Oh, yeah.”

“No,” he says, as he stills her movements with a hand on her hip. He needs to know. Is this as monumental for her as it is for him? Is all of this one-sided?

He places his hand over her sweat-slicked skin, where he feels her heart beating. He focuses on a smattering of freckles near his thumb, imagines he can see the universe. Raising his eyes to her face, he can't find adequate words to express the emotions swirling inside of him.

“This.”

She looks at him. He can feel her brain calculating all the possible meanings of his words. He hopes his eyes convey what he can’t speak.

A small nod, almost imperceptible if he hadn’t been looking for a sign. Leaning forward, she presses her lips against his. Tears fall down the side of his face as he squeezes his eyes shut. He wraps his hand through her hair and kisses her back thoroughly, until he’s sure the tear tracks have blended into the sweat at his temples.

She starts moving again, rocking against him with soft thrusts, keeping her forehead pressed firmly against his own.

His hands wander up her back, counting her vertebrae. His teeth clasp at the junction of her neck and shoulder. He’ll have to ask her if there’s a name for it.

Slow movements shift quickly into erratic desperation. She’s tensely coiled, shoulders bunched as she grasps his chest, embeds her nails into the skin of his shoulders, marking him. Exhaustion causes her to falter, hands trembling and breath catching in her throat as he flicks his finger over her nipples, strains upwards to claim her rosy peaks with his mouth.

His Scully. His.

He takes control, wrapping his hands around her hips, marveling again at how small she is, yet how well they fit together. She’s so warm, so tight, and he’s glad for the barrier of the condom, it keeps him from falling towards the edge too quickly. What she would feel like without it, he can’t even imagine.

She’s so close, moans lengthening, deepening, a thread connecting him to this reality. The flush of her chest deepens, spreads, the pitch of her voice rises, and she stiffens as her inner walls pulse around him.

He catches her when she falls, kisses her temple. Moves her underneath him once more and waits. Watches. So beautiful. Her heavy lids lift, swollen lips reach for his, and they kiss as she returns to herself.

Her hand wraps around his neck, and she whispers in his ear. “I almost feel embarrassed.”

“For what?” Mulder pulls away to look at her.

“I feel… greedy,” she says. “This isn’t just about me, you know.”

“Believe me, Scully, I’m enjoying myself.”

She grins broadly, a smile he rarely sees that crinkles the edges of her eyes, places a dimple in her cheek. “Yeah?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Well get moving, then,” she says impatiently.

“Yes, ma’am.”

Her laugh fades as he starts thrusting, slow for only a few moments before the pleasure at the edge of his senses calls to him. Encouraging him, she grabs onto him, bites his shoulder, lifts her legs to wrap around his waist. He buries his face into her neck, breathes Scully. Her nails pierce into the skin of his back, and he imagines she wants to crawl deep inside him just as much as he wants to crawl inside of her.

It’s that thought and the sound of her gentle whisper calling his name that pushes him over the edge. He’s floating, all the darkness banished in a moment of pure, clear light. He drives into her a few more times, strains against her soft body, and somehow remembers to collapse to her side instead of crushing her beneath him.

Lying beside her, catching his breath for a moment, he keeps his hand entwined tightly in hers. He’s afraid if he lets go he’ll wake up, have to face the reality of life without having experienced this moment with her. Turning to face her, he watches her chest rise and fall, feels her pulse in the tight grasp of his hand steady. Holds on for just a few more moments.

He rises when her hand relaxes in his, thinks she’s asleep. In her bathroom, he removes the condom and disposes of it, pees and cleans himself, fetches a warm, damp cloth and brings it out to her. She’s lying in the same position he left her, legs and arms askew, skin glowing in the moonlight from the window. One of her arms covers her eyes, and if he strains, he thinks he might hear the soft sound of her snoring. Smiling, he touches the cloth to her knee so he doesn’t startle her.

“Mmmm.”

“You sleeping?”

“Mmm, not yet.” Her voice is low and rumbly, and she peeks out beneath her arm to grin at him contentedly. “That was nice.”

“Nice?!”

She chuckles, and his breath catches at the movement. The image is burned into his brain, and he vows to make her laugh at every opportunity from now on.

“Amazing, then.” Her grin has turned into a wide, toothy smile, blue eyes peering up through sleepy lids, reassuring him of the truth of her statement.

Mulder swells with pride and cleans her up. Settling down next to her, she leans up on her elbow and kisses him, dragging her teeth along his lower lip and then looks at him. She doesn’t say a word, but in the comfortable silence, he can feel her thoughts. She’s happy, and he did that. His hand rises to cup her cheek and she sinks into it, closing her eyes and sighing. The contentment that rolls off of her wraps around him like a blanket.

Turning her face, she kisses his palm and smiles shyly. “Be right back.”

She heads to the bathroom, and Mulder adjusts himself on the bed. He fidgets again, moves on his side. There’s something wrong. Is her bed too soft? He bounces, adjusts the pillows, fetches his boxers from the floor and puts them on before sinking back under the blankets. Her comforter is soft but not overly warm.

Everything’s perfect, he thinks.

Suddenly panic rises within him, the guilt from earlier almost pushing him over with its weight. What has he done?

He sees it now, a vision manifesting with excruciating clarity. Two paths laid out in front of him. The first - the comfort of her bed, the warmth of her embrace. Bubbling happiness in his chest. A bright light that blinds him. And the second - shadows and darkness, but his eyes pierce through them. Scully at his side, banishing the darkness slowly, inch by inch. He knows he can’t have both.

This could have been something good and whole and right. A respite from the horror of their difficult cases. An island where he could forget. But he knows himself, he knows what he needs to do, and things with Scully could never be just a momentary escape.

He didn’t know… didn’t know. The intensity of their time together, the feelings that welled up within him. He didn’t think he was capable of them, knew for sure that he could lose himself in her, that she would unwittingly consume him.

When she comes out of the bathroom, he’s yanking on his jeans and can’t meet her gaze.

“You’re leaving.”

He peeks over and sees her toes digging into the rug, but he doesn't speak. Staring at it, the white and blue checks blur, and her feet disappear behind a curtain of uninvited tears. He blinks fiercely, looks away.

He continues dressing, and he hears the whisper of her pulling on her pajamas, discarded on the floor in the heat of their passion. Several times he opens his mouth to speak, thoughts half-formed into inadequate words. What he wants. What he needs. But what about what she needs? The awareness, the connection they had only minutes ago fades. It’s replaced by sudden and terrible uncertainty.

Completely clothed, he turns to her. She’s lying in bed, curled on her side away from him, her hair fanned out and hiding her face.

“Scully--”

“I know.”

She knows?

“You can’t let this interfere with the work, right? That’s what you’re going to say?” She says, voice thick and flat.

“We can’t… I can’t...”

She doesn’t say anything. He watches the rise and fall of her body as she breathes, and it steadies him.

“That was…a lot,” Mulder says, as he perches on the edge of the bed, ready to take flight at any moment. Being so near and yet knowing those last few inches, pressed against her side, are an impossible distance.

She turns to face him, face stoic, cheeks dry. It doesn’t comfort him.

“I wondered how long it would take,” Scully looks at him, hiding away. That connection they had, so intense and unexpected, scurrying away in the shadows of her bedroom.

“I could lose myself in this…and I just can’t,” he says.

“I know.” She bites her swollen lips, and his gaze can’t help but linger on them. He knows what she tastes like. How can he make himself forget?

Dread rises in his chest as they look at each other. Strangers with a tenuous connection. No longer partners from before, or lovers as of tonight, but something in-between. Would it be like this forever, or could they return to the safety of their partnership?

“Can we go back? To the way it was?” Mulder can’t believe he could be so lucky to have had this moment with Scully, that he could discard her so easily, and that she’d still be willing to stay.

At her silence, he looks up at her, the fear crawling in his belly and making him feel sick. Her hair is wild, the bed sheets tangled beneath her, but her eyes pierce into his with steely blue determination, and her mouth is set in a stubborn line. She’s sitting up ramrod straight, her back rigid, her shoulders set.

“I don't have a choice, Mulder.”

The corner of her mouth turns up in a small smile, and he lets out his breath in a ragged sigh. This quest is hers just as much as it is his, now. He knows he can’t do it without her, at least not for very long. Hates himself for indulging in this moment tonight, that he could have lost it all because of his impulsiveness.

He smiles at her sadly and wrenches his gaze away, pushes himself off of her bed, and flees from her apartment before he can change his mind. The key twists in her lock with finality, his head a mess of conflicted emotions, the walk to his car a blur.

Taking a moment in his car, head bowed, he polishes his memories of tonight. Turns it into a small gem, buries it under the weight of his obligations. Tells himself he regrets giving in, regrets the weakness that led him here tonight. Knows that deep down, his weakness is not being strong enough to stay.

#my fic #xf fanfic #mulder and scully #msr fanfic #fox mulder #dana scully #msr #x-files fanfic #xf smut #early season msr #msrheadcanon #x-files #the x-files

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kotoplasm · 3 years

Text

out of reach fortunes (prev. freedom)

summary: you didn’t understand the concept of love, something that felt so constrictive that it made your skin crawl with nerves. it had been how many years now? four-no five years? you were beginning to lose count with the sheer volume of other thoughts rushing through your mind.

at a first glance, people would be quick to assume that you were nothing short of a person who couldn’t fend for themselves if the time ever came - which wasn’t surprising considering the number of times you’ve found yourself in that situation at your chosen place of work: usually they were dark alleys - at least that’s what you treated them as since most wouldn’t be able to find anyone but you in that corridor, washing away the remnants of whatever you had just wiped off the tables.

if you ever felt daring enough, you would sometimes imagine yourself sitting atop the green pastures, curling your toes into the rich earth, grass needle points pricking into your fleshy ankles or dangerously testing the ocean waters with nothing but your fingertips submerged into the body of liquid. although the feeling was unpleasant, you did enjoy the salty scent that made your nose wrinkle with glee and the sound of the ocean’s backwash against the rocky shores.

to be completely honest, you were never brave enough to fully submerge into the water - it was something your siblings had always picked up on, sometimes finding the urge to simply throw you into its belly and observe to see whether you could climb out on your own. “a rite of passage,” they would excuse with a fleeting glance, batting not a single eyelash when you finally spat out the volume of water that you've been trying to force out of your throat for the duration that you've been out of the water.

occasionally, seagulls would also appear in your illusions, striking their coloured beaks into the sand for what appeared to be insects and other miscellaneous creatures.

in this setting, freedom never felt so peaceful: a twisted, naive image of something that you wished could be but never will be. so against your own wishes, it’s forced into the backend of your thoughts, your attention drawing back to real life where you were a waitress in an underground establishment known for its impressive dancers and palatable wine.

in your peripheral, you spot emiko, receiving their tip for her work.

she looked satisfied, you note, rubbing her wet hands on the mounted handkerchief on the wall.

you would have congratulated her for her work but your mouth clamps shut remembering the status of your relationship.

strictly based on the fact that both of you worked in the same establishment, who were you to interrupt her of all people, now speaking with her co-workers who seemed delighted by her company.

now that you thought about it, you definitely looked desperate, staring at something that could’ve also been you but unfortunately failed to be.

you can call it the price you have to pay for being a natural loner.

“he only tipped her because she was feeding into his lust.” the tone is sharp and deep, waking her up from her evening mirage. now you're looking into the eyes of her only companion masaaki, sleeves rolled up to his forearms and shirt unbuttoned at its brink.

“nevermind that, your shirt is unbuttoned again idiot,” replying with an exasperated expression as your hands fly to his shirt, fixing its buttons and tidying it up a little. “you know the boss doesn’t like it when you don’t look representable.”

“last time i checked, the way i dress doesn’t affect business y/n.” he tells you.

“try explaining that to him.”

you notice his jaw click with agitation. “you know i’ve tried, and you know what the result was?”

you urge for him to continue the conversation, interested in what he had to say but he shakes his head.

“i was on cleaning duty for months and the things that these men leave behind are revolting.” you could tell from his grimaced features that the sights were highly unlikely to be nice. “i mean you wouldn’t believe the mess one man left after kyoko was finished for the night. absolutely dis—”

“o-okay!” you interject quickly, noticing his devil-like smirk fast enough to land a punch to his arm for the unnecessary details. “i didn’t ask for details!”

“yeah i know. guess i just wanted an excuse to talk to you before my shift ended.”

“didn’t think you thought about me like that misaaki wow.” and you smile cheekily, managing to somehow miss the way the tips of ears turned into the softest pink.

“yeah yeah whatever.” misaaki is quick to attend to the tables positioned near the entrance leaving you with the bar.

there were only two men there, both dressed in similar attire that made you assume were co-workers however their expressions said otherwise.

the first one wore tinted glasses, hiding the glint of his irises from your sight as he took another sip from the champagne glass containing the golden tinge of their own version of Krug.

the sleeves of his button up were also rolled up but unlike misaaki’s, his were struggling to conform to the form of his arms, possibly due to muscle.

you don’t let your eyes linger too long on his figure. though admirable, you didn’t have the leisure of pursuing something temperamental - especially now since you had yet to claim the freedom you’ve fantasized about from youth.

the man beside him was dressed in a similar outfit, his sleeves however were rolled down, probably compensated by the broadness of his back, you note, admiring the cuts and curves that his back managed to imprint into the materia-

“y/n those bar stools aren’t going to clean themselves up.” misaaki shouts from across the room, eyes narrowing in a mocking way.

he definitely caught me.

there wasn’t a need to reply to his sudden outburst - everyone in the establishment had mutually agreed to never reply since he always chose the most inconvenient times to ridicule his co-workers.

afterall just yesterday, he had already driven akane to tears after embarrassing her in front of a man she was deeply interested in.

you would’ve castrated him if he didn’t tell you his reasons for doing so which had left you flustered and slightly dazed.

rather than dwelling too much on the past, you step over to the bar and begin to work on each bar stool, taking special care to ensure that the material doesn’t tear due to the pressure you were applying to remove the stains of food and other ghastly things. tinges of cigarette smoke were the first thing you could pick up, the source belonging to the stray fling on the ground, still emitting smoke from whoever had decided to set it aflare.

“little inconsiderate to be doing that isn’t it,” comes the voice of someone unknown to you. your gaze lands on the man with blonde tufts of hair framing his face, glasses hanging from the bridge of his nose in a low, rather enticing manner.

“they don’t listen despite how many times i mention it,” you finally reply. “but i guess if they don’t listen now, i doubt they’ll listen in the future.”

valid in a sense. but not completely since you’ve only ever mentioned it once. other times resulted in the latter eyeing you up and down until your bravery watered down to a puddle and you requested misaaki to take care of the incident.

“there’s a reason why i don’t have you out there with the rest of them,” the boss says, pressing the smoked edges of his cigar into the small crater stationed at the corner of his work desk, newspaper hiding his hardened eyes and lips.

you never opposed what he said. most who did were never heard from again. misaaki was lucky in the sense that the boss could never truly banish him. he was a useful asset to have hold of from his tall, ever intimidating stature to his brain, it was no wonder that most of the women here would always fawn over him when his back was turned and shoot daggers, bullets and knives whenever they caught you exchanging words with him.

perhaps it was because of your aloof nature but everyone apart from you knew about his wavering interest in you. there was a reason why he always came to you before he finished his shift or put in that extra effort to tease you for something small and insignificant. he even made the effort to make sure you’ve eaten something before tending to your shift.

misaaki has always been there but you feigned oblivion to his good deeds. you blame some of it on your non-existent parents who had passed just after you turned three and your adoptive father who smothered your adoptive sister with all the love a father could muster.

to you, it felt like they were saying, “only some are deserving of unconditional love.” and it left you believing that love was nothing more than a construct that benefitted some and made others suffer.

and unfortunately for you, you were grouped with the latter.

“i’ll wait.” his words still echoed in your mind accompanied by that toothy grin that made your chest warm. maybe one day you’d be willing to give him a piece of your heart but that day wasn’t today. love was nothing but a construct that made the strong weaker and the free imprisoned. what you wanted was freedom from the system, not another uncertainty.

“that isn’t a good mentality to live by,” the other man quips. you were known for admiring things you found beautiful, mesmerizing and enticing. his eyes were found in the latter, sporting an eerie glow of whiskey and golden flecks of curiosity spritzed here and there in the pit of his irises.

his demeanour wasn’t intimidating like the first one or what misaaki was at first, it felt comforting. that’s what his body language was telling you.

“i don’t pride myself in it but that’s just something i’ve come to learn,” you shrug.

he inspects you for a few moments before nodding slowly. “i see.”

“i don’t mean to disturb you but is there any chance you might take a look at this image?” the first man with the rolled sleeves speaks up. he stands and it’s now that you notice his height. mysterious, tall and brawned… you kept your instincts sharpened

tentatively, you take the photo off his hands, thumbs scanning over the scratches marked on the glossy turned matte surface and nose taking in the scent of vanilla rose or whatever the name given to the smell of old pictures was.

a girl, dressed in a thin red dress is the subject of the image, most of it being a blurred mess but it was enough to distinguish the markings on her legs, something you suppose is prominent.

you try to ignore the upsettness of your stomach but not giving anything away that may deem to be lethal was the priority. if they were who you thought they were, then the goal was to keep things down without inviting inevitable deaths knowing him or the possibility of being found out.

the first thing you do is compliment the picture, asking how old the image was and whether they still sell film like this in today’s age. he clearly doesn’t know the answer, ticking off one box in your mind: the photo isn’t his.

“i’m not too sure myself but i’m sure my boss could provide some answers if you’re desperate to find out,” you tell them, faux innocence lacing your words. his gaze lingers on your figure a little too long for misaaki, who has been watching this dialogue play out for the past ten minutes, growing closer towards it source in time.

“nah it’s alright. i’ve got a curfew anyway.”

“at your age?”

“yeah my brother says that he’ll lock me out if i don’t get home before midnight,” he dryly lets out a chuckle. you don’t miss the confusion that was spread across his friend’s face. “well thanks for the help. we’ll take our leave now.”

and before he is able to do so, his friend hits his arm, signalling to something unknown to you. it takes a few more seconds for his eyes to widen in realisation.

“actually there is one more thing i’ve got to ask.”

the ordeal was simple enough. for fifty-eight thousand yen, they were willing to rent this place out privately for the night to congratulate their friend for making it to twenty-four years of age - with friends like that, i’m surprised they made it out of high school.

eventually, they took their leave sporting what seemed to have been an early hangover and an accomplishment, leaving you with a cheque with oh so many zeroes written on it and a sinful gleem written on your features.

when you got like this, there was no telling what you would do.

“i guess things will only go up from here.”

if you had sensed the irony in those words, perhaps you wouldn’t be in this current predicament.

conclusion: you blame your greed for money on your family. bags filled with gold, silver and green were the first thing you were taught to count instead of living a semi-normalized life. [2.2k]

#[ʕ•́ᴥ•̀ʔ ~ myworks]#hinata x reader #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu #haikyuu headcanons #haikyuu!!#haikyuu scenarios #hq fluff #haikyuu × reader #haikyuu fluff

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supremeuppityone · 4 years

Photo

This was written for Klaroline Bingo @klaroline-events.

You can read Part 2 here.

Prompt: Zombies.

It was supposed to be a routine scouting mission for supplies, but the second wave of the virus changed the world and now nothing was routine.

Warning: Angst

Remains

“The fair face of nature was deformed as with the ravages of some loathsome disease” ― Edgar Allan Poe, The Colloquy of Monos and Una

She didn’t dream anymore. No, that was a lie. Nightmares were still dreams. The infected changed the world, but perhaps Caroline should be grateful. Once the second wave of the virus spread, she was a new person. She became a survivor. Caroline impatiently pushed back the greasy strands that escaped her sloppy braid, snorting as she recalled a time when frizzy split ends like these would’ve led to instant banishment from her social circle. Right before the world died, she’d been posting tutorials on marble and tortoiseshell manicures and the best smudge-proof lipsticks to wear with face masks. And now she could field strip a Glock in under a minute. But there was no use mourning the remains of her old life.

She was crouched behind a stack of old tires when she spied Klaus’ rally signal, indicating the all-clear to their group. The arrogant Brit in all of his alpha male glory easily had become the leader of their group of castoffs; some were intrigued by the brooding mystique he cultivated and others comforted by his confident, charismatic leadership. Caroline was still suspicious of his intentions, knowing better than to be swayed by those innocent dimples and playful smirk.

Caroline shook her head in irritation, refusing to get distracted. They were at a landfill about eight miles outside of camp, searching for salvageable materials. The mission was what mattered. Survivors had grown desperate, swallowing their distaste at sifting through the remains of the world. She wrinkled her nose as she passed by a river of brown sludge, the smells of rotten eggs, motor oil and bleach making her stomach turn.

“Nothing there for us; keep looking,” Klaus barked at her sharply, making her scowl. She recalled how furious Klaus had been on that first scouting mission to a landfill; shouting until he was hoarse when he realized how quickly food waste decomposed even in the mild spring. After the first wave of the virus, the grocery stores were raided; the second wave saw the residential areas ransacked. The zombie hordes had been timid at first, as though viewing the immune as the predators. But humanity was fragile, and soon they became prey.

“I know,” Caroline snarled, feeling the need to bare her teeth when he held up his hands in mock surrender. She jerked her head toward a heap of milk-white containers in one of the mounds in the distance, telling him, “Those might be plastic jugs we could repurpose. You should be over there investigating instead of wasting time waiting on me to screw up.”

Anger registered on his handsome face before his expression went carefully blank. “Time spent with you is never a waste,” he muttered, quietly stalking away to signal Enzo, Bonnie and Tyler to follow him to the area she’d indicated.

That was weird. Klaus always seemed irritated by her presence; he grumbled at her questions and mocked the efficiency protocols she’d established around camp. Plus, during his daily combat drills, Klaus always made her train harder than anyone else, running through every fight sequence over and over until her muscles shrieked. Between her explosive temper and his wild mood swings, they’d had some epic screaming matches, but ultimately a begrudging respect had formed and she was startled to realize she’d come to trust him implicitly with their group’s safety. So, why was he messing with her now?

Irritated that their asshat leader’s antics were so distracting, Caroline carefully stepped around broken glass, leaning forward to examine an overturned metal rowboat. Even with the streaks of rust, the hull was intact and they could take it out on the lake to fish.

“You’ve got that look on your face, little bird,” Kol drawled, startling her with his close proximity. He grinned cheekily at her glare, adding, “The one where you’re planning to boast how you’ve scored the most useful haul on our mission. Tsk, tsk — you know what a sore loser Nik can be.”

“Klaus is a grumpy asshat regardless. Pretty sure he came out of the womb with that smirky-scowl of his.”

His brother snorted, kicking aside a dented oil pump that scattered several crank seals across the trash heap. “You didn’t know him from before, little bird. Trust me — Nik is almost downright cheerful these days.” His brown eyes twinkled mischievously as he mused, “I wonder why that is?”

She ignored him, rooting around the edge of the rowboat to see if they could break it free from the black silt and thick sludge that she did her best not to identify. She impatiently pushed away some rusted-out tractor parts that likely belonged to the same pile Kol was kicking around. Actually, it was thanks to Klaus she even could identify tractor parts. He’d pulled her off of game hunting duty to help him work on the tractor they’d found in the woods behind the campgrounds. He taught her the different parts and tools used to free up the seized engine.

“Oil down the cylinders,” he’d commanded, showing her how to neatly coat the spark plug holes in a manner that she absolutely refused to find erotic. Tractors weren’t sexy. British asshats who knew how to tune up carburetors were not sexy, damn it!

She flicked her eyes up, skin prickling as she had the sensation of being watched. Klaus was watching her. Again. Was he seriously that concerned she’d screw up this scouting mission? Asshat. With a huff of annoyance, she turned her back, stooping a bit to inspect something shiny that had caught the sun’s rays. She checked to make sure she couldn’t identify any solvents or other chemicals before she touched it — a lesson they all learned last week when Enzo came back from a scouting mission with a nasty rash. He could’ve died. But they all could, at any time. They were stuck in this terrible world where everything kept trying to kill them.

Her heart gave an unfamiliar tweak as she uncovered an old charm bracelet with several silver butterflies and cheap glass beads linked together. It looked nothing like the platinum and diamond butterfly one her father had given her as a child, but it was the last thing he’d gifted her before he died. Once the infected had swarmed her property, she’d had no choice but to leave it behind. She hadn’t cried when her childhood friend, Elena, succumbed to the virus and transformed, but she’d wept a river over losing that damn bracelet. She was fucked up long before the world ended.

She was focused on unwinding the bracelet from where it had caught on the hinge of a splintered cabinet door, and she didn’t hear Klaus’ piercing whistle until it was too late. Decayed arms grabbed at her long braid, yanking her back with surprising strength.

“Fucking zombies!” Kol bellowed, bashing a skull in with the butt of his rifle as two more clawed at him.

Caroline’s body reacted of its own accord, muscle memory executing a fluid elbow strike as she reached for her gun. She hardly felt the recoil as the bullet messily severed the zombie’s brittle neck.

Kol gestured wildly, shouting at her to run, but she stubbornly kept trying to free the bracelet, paying no mind to the splinters from the door shredding the back of her hands. She couldn’t explain, but she needed it. A connection. Another creature reached for her, gnashing its rotted teeth, but she paid it no mind as she swung the cabinet door, gouging out strips of its festering cheeks.

The door broke just as Klaus reached her, his gray eyes feral as he jerked her arm, yelling, “Leave it! It’s not worth your life!”

Caroline stubbornly shook her head, angry tears in her eyes as another group of infected raced toward them. Too many. Defeated, she left the bracelet where it had fallen and finally allowed Klaus to spirit her away with the rest of their team.

________________________________

Klaus was a caged animal as he paced the short length of the small cabin Caroline shared with Bonnie, whirling around to face her with his blazing stare. “You could’ve died, Caroline!”

“Yes.”

Caroline’s simple answer seemed to spark something in him, and his voice grew dangerously quiet as he harshly said, “You jeopardized the safety of our people over trivial nonsense. My brother was nearly killed. How could you be so stupid? So utterly selfish?!”

Fuck. It wasn’t anything she hadn’t heard before, but somehow those words felt different coming from Klaus. “Because I needed it!” The raw emotion tore at her throat, and she’d never felt so small and weak. “You don’t have tell me I’m stupid and selfish — I already know. I’ve heard it my whole useless life.”

She wasn’t sure when she started crying, but she didn’t duck her head in shame. Instead, she straightened her spine and looked him in the eye. She wanted him to understand. “I was always stupid and shallow and no one ever loved me as much as I loved them, but my dad gave me a bracelet with butterflies on it and I needed that connection to him!”

Klaus opened his mouth to speak, a rare look of uncertainty in his gaze as he studied her. Shaking her head, she felt the fight leave her as she brokenly confessed, “It’s all I have left. And even if no one cared about who I was before, it’s all that remains of my humanity.”

The silence between them was nothing but jagged edges that made Caroline want to curl away from him. Suddenly, Klaus was so close she could feel his breath on her cheek, something unrecognizable flashing in her gaze. He kissed her roughly, clutching at her back as his lips moved over hers. Dominating. Possessing.

The fiery kiss was over far too quickly, leaving her reeling from the heat of his touch. As she raised trembling fingers to touch her lips, Klaus wordlessly stormed away, his jaw tight. What the fuck just happened?

________________________________

Hours later, a heavy banging on the warped wooden door woke her. Bleary eyed, Caroline stumbled out of her bedroll, flicking the safety off of her Glock. Her heart sped up when she spied Klaus standing at her doorstep with his fists clenched.

“Um,” she stuttered inelegantly, unsure of what to say.

“Here,” Klaus said gruffly, thrusting something at her and storming off again before she could speak.

Caroline looked down at her hand, immediately tearing up when she saw it was the old charm bracelet from the landfill.

#kcbingo2020 #klaroline fanfic #uppity bitch fanfic #klaroline #klaroline aesthetic #aesthetic #kc does zombies #just working through my quarantine feelings

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magpiemorality · 4 years

Note

Okay okay okay can we learn more about Tall Logan :0?

You absolutely can :D

Warnings: fantasy battle and accompanying implied violence, minor character death (multiple), implied injury

First | Previous | AO3

***

"I'd like to tell you a tale, Remus," Logan said one evening. It was the depth of what passed for winter there in the land of eternal temperate weather. Mostly the nights just felt a little longer, and Eavan's cousins had joined them to journey into the mountains to explore for the season. They'd found a cave and had stoked up a fire, and with Eavan's head in his lap Remus had suggested they find a way to pass the time.

"You have my leave," Remus agreed, getting comfortable and pulling his Fae into his lap and back against his chest to cuddle. "What's it about, your tale?"

Logan glanced at the two other cousins, and they apparently understood some unspoken signal because the first sat bolt upright with wide eyes and the other hid his face in the first's side with a soft sound. "A King, a long time ago," Logan answered slowly, dragging his eyes away from the other two and back over to Remus. "A King of lands unimaginable. Perhaps more than a King, because he ruled entirely unopposed for more years than can be counted, revered almost as a god of the world you now tread."

Eavan shifted. "I don't know this tale," he murmured.

"That's because I have never told it. It's too old and too sad for most days, but it feels right to tell it now, here." Logan and the other two Fae looked around with a curious expression in their eyes before all three refocused on the fire, their glow outlining them to Remus from the opposite side. "Will you hear it?"

The mortal shrugged and his Fae nodded. "Yes, go right ahead," Remus agreed, and tugged his Firefly a little closer for comfort as they got ready to listen.

The tallest Fae nodded slowly, staring into the fire with eyes already gone distant again. "Where to start?" He murmured to himself, as the air hung still and saturated with anticipation.

For a moment the only sound was the soft crackle of the flames, before the Fae who'd hidden his face sat back up, still clutching the other for support. "Start with the beginning of the end, Lo," he whispered, reaching out a hand that Logan took, locking their fingers together. The second Fae nodded his agreement, curling tighter around the first, gazing attentively at their soon-to-be storyteller.

"The beginning of the end, indeed."

"I must stress first that it truly was a shock when things changed. Change was almost unthinkable before that time, after so long of the same and the same and more of the same. The world was smaller then, or perhaps it was bigger, but it felt entirely complete from land to sea to sky and nothing ever strayed from the norm. Oh, people would travel, bicker perhaps, have their own little intrigues and very occasionally there were children born or changes to households through bonding ceremonies or departures, but true change was quite inconceivable. Even the land was simple then, mostly flat plains and rolling hills all covered in rich forest, and the folk gathered in large droves around the shore where the seas would provide for there was little water inland.

The first tremors of change came with the winds. Where there had once been peace with the sky before now there was instead a restlessness. The flurries agitated the trees, and the tides, and the people who walked across the land, sometimes playful or gentle but often biting and bitter and cruel. The King who ruled heard of this new attitude of his once great ally, but little did he know he should not blame the wind, for it was not of its own accord that it was acting so strange.

If only they'd known that then.

Next came the seas, clashing on the shore, stealing the fish, drawing out and rushing in, still when they should run with current and sneaky when anyone tried to swim. Too many were lost to the depths before caution was observed, and the sprawling towns that ran up and down the shoreline grew afraid, always waiting for the sea to rise and claim their homes as it seemed so likely to do.

Which left, of course, just the land as not turned traitor to the folk that lived on it. Before the land could inevitably also rise up against them, the King had word of a possible cause of all of their sudden troubles. There was a faction of miscreants, troublemakers, traitors, who were using magics too dark to contemplate to upset the world against the inhabitants thereof. They weren't targeting the King directly, nor did they seem to have much motivation other than to sow pure chaos, but what they were spreading in its wake was fear and uncertainty and most importantly doubt. People were growing wary and losing faith in their King, and the witches and warlocks delighted in what they'd caused, growing ever bolder.

The King called a council swiftly together, of the Lords of the land he presided over. They came from every corner, all but one. She was called Lord of West because of where she held dominion, but she had reportedly been waylaid by a group of these fanatics. At first there was much sorrow and shock, because Fae were so rarely lost in those days, and even now death is often far from our minds. But the messenger who brought the news had other information to share as well.

The fanatics had been bold, loudly proclaiming themselves true children of the land, which in our oldest language we knew as 'dragon'. These dragons had spun their sorcery over the Lord and had not killed her but entrapped her in a new form, that was bound to unleash destruction on the towns, already burning a wide trail through the forests from her home towards their goal, leaving great swathes of open land where once the trees had flourished.

So the sorrow turned to rage and determination, and the King and his council rode out, gathering armies out of Fae who were more used to tilling and tending the land than defending it. There were a few protests from those Fae who turned out to be sympathetic to the cause, calling for change and crowing injustice whenever they were caught and expelled from the army, but the King and his people carried on despite the growing dissent and he told his people to be merciful, to let them leave to join their chosen side and fight with what honour they had left.

They intercepted the dragons, the Fae who had joined them, and their enslaved Lord long before they reached the peaceful shore, clashing against them army to gaggle of scum. The fight was long and bloody and hard, and magic rent and tore the world around them all, pulling seas inland in great rivers, thrusting the earth up to form new mountains at the top of which great storms gathered, shaking trees down many miles away from earthquakes that rocked the ground beneath their feet.

But they were vanquished when one brave young Fae threw themself from their horse and climbed up the wing of the Lord, foolishly sacrificing themself so that she may be freed from the magic with a spell that has been since banished from memory. The energy involved in that sacrifice shook the foundations of the earth more than any quake before and all those who had fought on those plains were lost in a moment. Too much other magic lay in the air and the sacrifice in the end, ended the battle only at unbelievable cost.

The King himself had been stood at what passed for the enchanted Lord's feet, near the very epicentre of the spell, attempting to reach one of the dragons spouting the foulest magic.

The remaining Fae saw the lights all the way from their homes by the sea and knew what it meant. That magic left behind the first cracks through to the world of mortals, and the Fae that remained living became wary of one another and governed only in small tribes at most. The shoreside towns were abandoned as the seas grew too unpredictable and the Fae became rovers, almost solitary, wild. Changed.

In many ways the dragons in fact achieved their goals."

Logan paused for breath, shaking his head slowly and bowing it with a weight Remus could almost see crushing down on him. "That's... awful," the mortal whispered hoarsely, hugging Eavan tighter. The air felt colder and he shivered.

"Awful does not begin to cover it," the second cousin said, lifting his head from where he'd clung to the first. "It hurts my very soul to hear the tale."

"And there is more to come, hush," the first murmured, still holding Logan's hand tightly. "There is more, Lo. Don't stop there." They all watched as Logan took a deep, unsteady breath, and lifted his head again, squaring his shoulders with a determined nod.

"Quite right."

"It was not the end of the story for the King. For he had not been killed, but thrown far, far away. The dragon he had been fighting had hit him with a bolt of some still unknown magic at the moment the sacrifice was made. I'm sure you may have realised by now that magic is incredibly delicate, and easily mixed and merged to disastrous effect. That magic that enveloped the King combined with the sacrificial spell and every other piece of wild magic in the air and, through some stroke of perhaps fated luck; protected the heart of him as he was transported.

For many years he remained unseen, unknown and yet alive, healing deep in the mountains with V- it appears I- I must have missed a part, my apologies.

Something else happened when he first awoke after the battle. There was the sound of a child crying, and he sat up. Everything hurt, of course it did after what he'd been through, but he could only think to get to the child. A tiny Fae child, so rare, was lying nearby and calling for him. He cradled it in his arms and promised to care for it. No one else could be nearby, he reasoned, if they'd left the child next to his body and run off.

Except there was someone else. Another Fae, but this one an adult. He was surprised to find the King awake, and explained that he'd been running with the child, fleeing from the growing mountains, when he had heard an almighty crash and had diverted to investigate as the mountains finally settled and the magic dispersed. He had recognised the King and set out to find the herbs to help with his injuries, leaving the child alongside his body as he swiftly searched nearby. His home had once been where the mountains now stood, he said, and the remains of it lay far up in the peaks that towered above them. He had pledged himself immediately to help the King and the child, and together they built a home in a cavern, far away from the rest of the Fae where they would be safe and the King could recover.

It was slow progress, and the King insisted every time the Fae offered, that they not send word to anyone about his whereabouts. He was changed, he said, and he had only one charge left to protect, which was the child. After a while the answer changed to two charges, as the other Fae grew to mean much to him in their solitary convalescence. Years passed until they were all strong enough to travel, and the King finally felt restless enough to want to see the aftermath of what had happened, ready to mourn the losses and adapt to the new world.

They found the world as I said, much changed. Insular, isolated pockets of Fae, distrustful and doubtful and proud. It hurt his heart to see it, and to see how few and far between they really had become, but nonetheless there were survivors and he could be nothing but glad for that. The Fae with him helped him raise the orphan child as they journeyed, and they found a new and deeper bond between them, growing close on their long travels across the world that he'd once called his own.

While there were many years to come we will skip to the final chapter to this story. It comes some while after, when the King had long been forgotten. Or so he had thought, but one auspicious day, upon finding a copse and staying in it a while, they were interrupted by another Fae journeying, equally restlessly, across the land.

Once a member of the King's court, this new Fae recognised his King immediately and wept to find him alive, falling into his arms with grief and relief in equal measures. They spoke for many long hours as his first companion tended the child, and after much arguing finally agreed that the decision to no longer be king was the right one, much as the court Fae despised seeing his King no longer afforded the respect his long term of service to their people had rightfully earned. He joined their party and ever since they have all roamed together, closer than family, the three of them raising the child as their young cousin until he was ready to explore the land of his own accord.

The young child Fae left, roaming alone, and for a long while the three old Fae travelled without him. They turned to a new task, keeping order among the Fae that remained in the world and keeping as tight a grasp as possible on the doorways between your land and ours. Their little cousin visited from time to time, until one day he quite abruptly vanished from the world. And when he at last returned he brought an entirely new chapter to their lives, one that has yet again changed things anew. Perhaps, hopefully, for the better."

Logan leaned back and nodded slowly, satisfied with the conclusion to his storytelling.

They sat in silence for a while, gazing at the flickering fire and letting the tale sit in the air between them all. Then the first cousin, the one holding Logan's hand, squeezed it and leaned up to press a kiss to his cheek with a soft look, and the other took up residence on the tallest Fae's other side, bracketing Logan with twin embraces.

Eavan sighed quietly, absently stroking the back of Remus's hand where it sat over his stomach. "It sounds familiar somehow, but I don't believe you've told it before," he said, frowning over at his cousins, something tense in the line of his shoulders as though his words weren't quite revealing everything they were actually saying. "It is true?"

"More true than most," the first cousin said with a smile, even though his voice was hoarse with repressed emotion. "Most of it was a very long time ago though."

"I remember it still," Logan said sagely.

Remus looked up at him with raised eyebrows, trying to read the expression on the tall Fae's face. "You remember it? Were you there? Did you know the King?"

"In a sense," Logan replied with a wry smile. "In some ways I only joined the story later on, but that's a matter of interpretation. And as for the King, I knew him better than anyone, you might say."

"Oh talking in riddles is unfair," the second cousin said, snorting softly. "You chose to tell the tale and you must answer their questions now."

"I will, I will. But tomorrow, after the night is done. Leave tonight for stories, tomorrow we can come to truth and answers."

Silence fell again as the five went wandering in their own thoughts. Remus could feel Eavan shifting restlessly and wondered what was going on in that pretty blond head. He was clearly thinking something through but whatever it was was, Remus was apparently going to have to wait until the morning to find out. Remus had learned a new patience from the experience of living with his Firefly, and while often he had to fight to outlast Eavan's stubbornness; this time he thought he might be able to guess what thoughts troubled his beloved.

It wouldn't be such a stretch to imagine Logan as the King of the story, with the two other Fae completing the trio, and his Fae, his Eavan as the child they'd found. It was mysteries upon mysteries and opened more questions than it answered, but such seemed to be the way with these Fae in particular, and Remus counted himself lucky to have been generously given a piece of the puzzle at all, no matter how small it might end up being.

If he was a betting man though; he'd put all he had on this being the biggest piece of all.

#writepie #dukeceit #demus #ts remus #ts deceit #ts logan #fae folk #owing me owing you au #ts writing #ts sanders sides #ts sanders sides aus #ts sanders sides fic #sanders sides #death mention

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skymoonandstardust · 4 years

Text

Love and Light in Hell

Prologue, Chapter 1, Chapter 2 , chapter 3, chapter 4 , chapter 5, Chapter 6

Chapter 7

An: Sorry it took a bit to get this out, but i hope you lovelies enjoy <3

Hugin cawed and Muninn ruffled his feathers uneasily.

"It sounds fair and easy enough. . ." thunder grumbled, punctuating the Allfather's uncertainty, "but can we trust a child of Loki? Can we be certain she will hold the bargain and not try to trick us as her father would?"

Frigg sighed and adjusted her wrap as she looked at the storm outside.

"I'm afraid we can't."

She turned to her husband, putting a comforting hand on his shoulder. "But we have to give her the benefit of the doubt. We must remember that she is not Loki, though she is of his blood. The gain is worth the risk if it means our son will be returned to us again."

Odin grumbled, turning a bit away from her to stroke Muninn's dark plumage.

"You're right. I don't like it, but she's our only option to get our son back."

Another sigh passed his lips as he turned, scratching his snowy white beard

"I will have the messengers sent out in the morning. With all luck, we should have the testimonies we need by the end of the week.”

"I hope for all our sakes that is true."

Odin listened to her long skirts brushing the floor as she walked away.

Sleep just wasn't coming. You'd done everything you could think of, counting crows, thinking peaceful thoughts of a universe devoid of gods and humans except for yourself, and even singing the old gruesome lullaby your mom used to sing to you, in the few days she had you before your banishments by the gods.

Nothing made the voice stop.

"Thank you, your majesty. You are as good and magnanimous as your father."

The snide tone replayed on a loop in your mind and you swore if you had to hear it one more time you'd snap and go down to your bone dungeon to do some torturing.

That would certainly calm your nerves and blow off some steam. . .

You're not Loki, you know you're not anything like him. . .he was trying to get under your skin.

Yeah, and he succeeded.

The second voice whispered softly in the background of your thoughts. You sighed and sat up, throwing the covers off to slip out of bed.

Alright, enough of this.

A few minutes later you stepped out, now fully dressed, and padded down the hall.

Thankfully there were no guards stationed outside your door to question you. No matter how your advisors protested you insisted on this. After all, what use were guards when you were a weapon yourself?

The dark hallways ahead were empty, only the usual night shadows in attendance as you wandered through the corridors. After leaving your hall you occasionally ran into a sentry on the night duty, but they let you pass with a nod of respect, not stopping you to ask any questions.

Sooner than you thought you would, you reached the door.

Pushing it open you slipped In quietly and pulled it closed with as little noise as possible before turning to look around the infirmary.

While most of the beds were empty a couple were occupied. . . Just looking around you could see bandages that needed changing and beds sheets that need cleaning. Probably some doses you could prepare as well.

Rolling up your sleeves with a satisfied smile you got to work. This is just what I need right now-- and thank the Allfather I stocked everything myself. Knew it would pay off to know where things are in here.

You tied your hair up with a black ribbon and picked up a patient's chart. Now, let's get to it.

Time seems to have no meaning sometimes. And for you, this was one of the times where it felt like it did not.

It could very well have been seconds, minutes or hours as you saw to the needs of the patients and did things in general around the infirmary, prepping, cleaning and tidying..

You tied off the soft white gauze then cut it with famine before sheathing it again.

"There you go Eric, now--"

The creaking of the big wooden doors opening for the second time that night interrupted you. Your fingers flew back to famine's hilt as both you and Eric turned to look at the doorway.

The blinding brightness told you who it was immediately.

"Harrison."

"Yeah." He looked around with sheepish curiosity, his cheeks starting to tint pink from embarrassment. "Sorry, I didn't know you were in here."

"Couldn't sleep." You shrugged

"Neither could I. I was just trying to find the kitchen to get a midnight snack when I heard something in here and thought I'd investigate. Seems pretty stupid now that I say it out loud."

Harrison chuckled and glanced down, missing the smile that tugged your lips up for a second.

Okay I admit it, he's pretty cute, and sweet. . . everything I'm not.

The last thought had the same effect as sea spray on a winter day. It froze you to your bones in seconds.

You are Loki's daughter and queen of hell. You may be polite to each other but you'll never be friends.

Still there wasn't any use not trying so you mustered up a slightly rigid smile and nodded at him. "Would you like to join me? You can help if you like, or we can just keep each other company."

Harrison glanced around for a moment and licked his lips, his hesitance easy to read on his face and see in his eyes as he shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot.

He's going to say no, I know he is.

"Yes."

His response obviously surprised both of you and you listened with wide eyes as he continued to ramble on.

"I-I mean, yeah I'd really like that. If I'm going to be stuck here for the rest of eternity we should learn to get used to each other.”

A half alive half dead smile appeared on your face.

"I know that's something people have trouble with, with me." You gestured vaguely at your face.

Harrison couldn't help smiling "I'm a blazing halo of light down here, and it was the same way on Asgard. I'm hardly any easier to look at."

You laughed and held out your hand to him.

"Well, I think I'm willing to make the effort if you are."

Harrison gazed at the withered blackened skin of your hand for a moment, then took it with a smile that rivaled the glow around him in brilliance. It nearly made you drop the handshake.

"I think I can do that."

He let go of your hand as his smile disappeared and he suddenly looked down and cleared his throat.

"I-I also wanted to say I'm sorry. For what the emissary said-- what my father did to you-- for what happened with your brothers.”

It felt like someone had speared your heart on a hook and used it for ice fishing bait, stabbing it and suddenly plundering it into below freezing water. You could almost start to feel its beats begin to falter and slow.

"Thank you. It's good to have one of the gods acknowledge their mistake. To hear one of them admit they did me and my family wrong. . .no one else ever gave me so much courtesy."

You wrapped your arms around yourself from the chill in the room and looked at Harrison. “It's not your fault, though. But, when you return to Asgard and take your rightful place on the throne you can do something about it. Reinstate me and my siblings to our proper place, that's what you can do for me.”

"Yeah." Harrison nodded. "Once I return and become king of Asgard."

He didn't sound convinced, and honestly neither were you.

@madmadmilk @hollandroos @hazmyheart @marvellous-holland @queenofmotherfuckingterrasen @aidiastyles @hey-its-grey @mysmileyspideyboi @pascalispedro @a-sea-of-fandoms @scarlettsoldier @imadeangirl-butimsamcurious @scarlettsoldier @fangirl-who-dreams @esoltis280 @theresnofandomforthis @cassiopeia-barrow @dragonangel-funandfire @iaiabear @coffeeismylife28 @katiegoddessofmischief

LLH taglist: @the-crazy-fanfictionist @spideygirl2003 @allegra-writes @rebekkah4766 @musicandbokkslovingweirdo @petersoftboyparker @fanficparker

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popcornbutterflymedia · 3 years

Text

it’s a little before seven in the evening as i am attempting to begin writing this post on the day a former president has died. in other words, i am winging it and praying it comes out half decent. i have been winging all my the posts for this show, but writing this post about this particular episode at the tail end of the last week is interesting, to say the least.

upon first viewing on iwanttfc, i had already tweeted “consider this the soul of the show.” at this point we’re not even halfway to the entire series. that declaration carries such weight, but this episode did prove to be the soul of the series. this is also the first episode i’ve had a visceral reaction to, beyond the understandable kilig. i was lightheaded, stumped, and on the verge of tears after the first episode viewing, that’s probably why this is taking awhile to put out.

this also feels like an episodic answer to a lot of questions.

max has entered the lion’s den, lost, but with her defenses up. deib was less than prepared to fight back, considering the circumstances, but he was quick to gather his wits about him, pinning max where he is at an advantage. even now, as i am writing it, i feel it - it’s a notch above giddiness, it’s an awareness, it’s pushing the envelope in a way that’s right for their age, but still surprising, and refreshing. it’s the naughtiness of the sly smiles, the role reversal, and the trading of banter, all of them collectively are building blocks to max and deib’s dynamic.

the banter graduates to actual conversation, that, for people who are considered arch rivals, is surprisingly decent, and seemingly cordial. both max and deib give as good as they get, much like a tennis rally where either one refuses to be on the losing end. this amuses to no end, and ups the kilig factor in such an intelligent and substantial way. this is how you know, this part of the series is their story. more on this later.

outside of the boy’s room, the banter becomes a challenge, a daring as represented by a pool table, and the number of games that such table hosts. these pool games between benison’s star player and mindoro’s top billiard player, and pool center fixture, these games are metaphors, with the stakes higher each game, for their rivalry, and their curiosity about each other. more so his curiosity about this slip of a girl who he finds difficult to win against. i daresay, at some point he gave up trying to win, and just gave in seeing her in a different light. deib’s eyes give him away, and as for donny’s eyes, finally doing the work, this is it, and it’s a sight to see, a growth to enjoy.

it’s a given that belle makes donny’s job easier for him. four episodes in, and i am still in awe at belle’s ability to transform. it’s still surprising, how she willingly gets lost in character. i am watching max, but she doesn’t make me forget that i am watching belle. it’s a weird thing i have watching actors in character - i am aware i am watching both the character and the actor wholly and simultaneously, and belle is one of the few who makes me do that with ease.

deib’s mother announces her presence, interrupts the pool tournament shaping up between taguro and sensui.

in front of his mother, deib the star bear, the alpha disappears. he signals for max to leave, and just when she was about to, max is invited to join them for dinner. it is insisted that she join her for dinner. he warns his friend: 'don't say anything that will get us into trouble' prompting said friend, max to wonder, what could she ever say that will put them both in trouble?

at the dinner table, the silence weighs heavy between mother and son. a silence foreign to the lone guest, a silence she attempts to diffuse, by talking about anything other than subjects, as touchy as family, and the like. then again, between this mother and son, the line between touchy and permissible topics of conversation are blurred and fragile.

food! food is a free for all, food is a benign subject. the food's delicious, is it her own recipe? max is genuinely curious ma'am. the woman across the table laughs off such a formal honorific. call her auntie, she says. 'tita' is more like it. 'tita' it is, max decides. not stopping there, max asks if she'd gone to one of deib's games to see his lay ups and three pointers. she regaled him with embellished stories of his reputation, of being an all around star student and an instant friend. this, much to the mother's relief - her son is apparently surrounded by good people. max was able to do all this, when all deib asked of her was to not get both of them, into trouble. just like that, the girl single handedly broke the tension and dispelled the air of formality, in a way no one else has. if that isn't enough of a surprise for deib, max held the door open for him, and granteded him access to his own mother's heart, and let hope spring in his own.

after dinner, we find max and deib in his room, steeped in the assigned work. it's an easy silence between them, proof that from that dinner encounter, something new and beautiful and unnamed grew between them. he pays her his due, and thanks her for not damaging his reputation more in front of his own mother. so he knows how to say thank you, after all, she's surprised...in jest. he allows it. and so insues an exchange of histories, and fears and lessons. she reads him so perfectly, he's supposed to be scared, or condemn her, or banish her from this earth, or whatever it is the deib lhor enrile does to those who get a bit too close for comfort. he, instead allows it, giving her unprecedented access to his friends, his brother, his heart. and his heartbreaks. he dares to get closer himself, in the most physical sense so the curiosity planted at the pool table grew exponentially. that is until she breaks the spell. there is resistance in letting him in, which he knows to hold against her. he wins, and she relents. we learn of a ghost of a past love, a young love. a better player than deib is.

just a note though: for a past love who ghosted her, max boasts of rj being the better basketball player still. this could be true, based on who I am guessing rj is, but consider this: could she be clinging onto the untarnished memory she has of this first love, disregarding the pain she was caused, because straying away from that memory will allow her the space to fall, and that's what she promised herself she would never do? if that's the case, max is just as complex as deib is, maybe even more so.

after knowing her story, he did promise to go up against this ghost of a lover, in a one on one game of basketball and win it for her. someone is making her promises now. that's unsettling.

meanwhile, the barb is winding down as alpha two plus lorde strolls in. they keep it open for the boys who are in for a later night shot of caffeine, sweets, a shot at love perhaps?

art and sweets and flirtatious, funny quips are choice ammunition in this game of love, or something like it. naih's confidence is legendary. she gets away with her boldness because of criza's charm. joao, you know, that boy always makes it work.

tob and michiko are easy, because rhys and kaori make it easy. i understand the visual. I get the chemistry. I swear I get the hype. I have been waiting for this. you all know that. they've only cemented their place in the industry as new partnership, and there are hardly any words for it, a chemistry this strong. theirs is an unspoken connection and sincerity that cannot be taught. they are all that.

it is clear, though, that this is deib and max's story. see, I have been hyping myself up for thst tochiko moment, probably from the time when we still had very little news in the junket about donny and belle. and they did deliver, they did not disappoint. max and deib's chemistry surprisingly captured my heart from the get go, though, especially in this episode (as they should, this is, again, their story anyway). if I was a teenager, I would be fawning over tochiko's eye to eye silent conversation and up to now, I still do to some extent. I'm just older now. give me substantial kilig more than anything any day. give me kilig in context. kilig that opens up the heart. kilig with emotional intimacy.

max and deib in the fourth episode is kilig (just as tob and michiko are), but I can't stress enough, just how much and why. from the entire conversation from the banter to the interaction with the mom to the entire encounter in the room, they aren't trying to make us kilig. it isn't exactly sweet, but you'll reach a point where just the mere act of people wanting to have a conversation with you is life changing, when someone cares enough not to put you in more trouble than you expect, matters so much more. it shows you your worth. and that to me is the sweetest most loving thing ever. that is, even before both of them acknowledge that love between them.

a breakthrough has been reached. walls have been shattered.

the day of their school presentation, the event is met with an air of uncertainty, not for the two's lack of skill, but because two people from separate ends of the social spectrum are to work together, which up to that point is unprecedented.

the presentation started out shaky even for max and deib themselves, but once they got drafted, they had the audience, most of them, at least in the palm of their hands.

'we are all bullies, yet we are also victims. the cycle never ends...because we are all trying to survive this cruel world, trying to succeed, trying to grow. trying to discover who we really are. trying to accept who we really are. trying to be accepted for who we really are...'

this was followed by definitive apologies from both deib, for bullying, and max, for judging, and not necessarily helping to make things better. this prompted the entire community to mingle, and make their own apologies.

a few things about this whole moment:

there is such power in calling things as they are, calling things by their name. 'bully' and 'victim' are such weighted words and there is such a relief in taking responsibility for your disgressions and through that responsibility allowing your victim to embraced their pain guiltlessly.

there is also such power and humility, that while one did not do anything explicit, to stop the cycle, they did not do anything to make things better, easier. there is humility in realising that even as a victim your own pain, might have caused more pain to others.

apologies matter. the word 'sorry' matters. and it matters across the board. while metaphorical apologies are in some ways acceptable, and poetic, sometimes, the simpler, the better. a sincere 'sorry' should suffice. no one is ever too old to apologize.

now, even the sincerest words have parameters that are dictated by how many listen, and how many don't. and that's what we cannot control. there is power in recognizing who you are in the community, and that, especially when you are in a place of influence, you have the power to create change. the power to stop the cycle. there is peace in knowing we've done all that we could to make things better, just like deib had his own moment of reckoning.

as for max, the moment she stepped into that school, she was meant to be a trailblazer, and even at this point, she had been nothing but an agent of change.

I am curious now, how she is changed by the newness of her surroundings and the possibility of a budding love?

everything is well and dandy for everyone else, max and deib even had that little moment by the tables, again with the simple but powerful chemistry. everyone is changing (this is a shoutout to melizza again. every time the camera pans to her, especially when max was speaking at the auditorium, you could sense an internal transformation. she knows the assignment well, huh? )...everyone else, but aimee. I feel sorry for her. it makes me want to know more of her story. what makes her cling to being mean? why the volatility? more than anger, there's curiosity. I feel sorry for her. there's more to be told. breakthroughs open the narrative up for more, newer stories.

this was a fast one to write, but I held off until these last few moments, because it's incredibly triggering and just as healing. more than the kilig I understand and we all enjoy, the real message is the importance of communication, telling people how you really feel. don't let them assume and don't assume they know. it's also important to call things as they are, even if it's ugly, even as it hurts. some days, there is no replacement for a 'sorry,' a genuine apology.

be gentle. be kind. listen. everyone, after all, is a story.

#tv #tv: he's into her

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anamaleth · 4 years

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Corrupted

read on ao3

Characters: Virgil, Deceit; corrupted versions of a Roman and Remus fusion, Logan and Patton

Summary: It wasn't supposed to be like this - but there was nothing Virgil and Deceit could do about it. An accident caused their friends to become something that wasn't them anymore - twisted and dangerous versions of themselves that the two of them were barely able to escape. Hiding away in a barricaded room, the only comfort they have is each other.

Includes: Deceit and Virgil that can be interpreted as romantic or platonic; Angst and Hurt/Comfort; Threats of Violence; Cussing; Unsympathetic Roman, Remus, Logan and Patton? They aren’t really themselves but still.

---

It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

There should be six of them – four of them living together on ground-level where sunlight was streaming in through open windows and laughter and music was filling the rooms at all times. The happy little family living their ordinary and perfect little life together.

And two of them, the outcasts and abominations, banished; locked away in the basement. No light, no music, just the two of them stuck, with an everlasting reminder of a time that had long since passed.

A time where there had been three of them, when they had been their own family, demented and terrifying but perfect in their own crazy way.

Two of them terrorizing the other four – that’s what it was supposed to be like.

There weren’t supposed to be just five of them.

Two separate parts of the same coin weren’t supposed to melt into one again after being forcefully broken apart for a reason a long time ago. The force of this horrifying amalgamation wasn’t supposed to destroy everything around it, to defile that which was good and to enhance that which was harmful.

There weren’t supposed to be three beings, twisted and tainted, hunting the two that hadn’t been corrupted.

The one that had changed wasn’t supposed to come crawling back to the place he had once called his home. He wasn’t meant to be there anymore, not meant to be a refuge looking for comfort in a place he had turned his back on so long ago.

And yet here he was, desperately holding on to his lifeboat, a person he was starting to love again.

Virgil had placed his head in Deceit’s lap. Deceit was running his gloved fingers through Virgil’s hair. It had been an eternity since the time they would’ve last done something like this, and yet they found themselves settling back into this dynamic.

They weren’t sure how long it had been since they had fled to this room, how long they had been hiding already, but time seemed relative now that they had found each other again.

“Are you really sure they can’t get in”, Virgil asked. He couldn’t help it; couldn’t push the thought of them being found out of his mind.

“The door is barricaded,” Deceit assured him, his voice still gentle despite having to repeat himself for the millionth time, “I checked. They can’t get to us.”

“What if…” Virgil started. He was talking fast despite the exhaustion: “What if we’re just hiding away from something that will never stop hunting us? Maybe we’re just delaying the inevitable! Maybe we’re doomed to-”

Deceit removed his hand from Virgil’s hair and interlaced their fingers instead, making Virgil snap out of his spiralling monologue. “It’s not inevitable. We’re safe in here. And there’s still a chance that everything will be okay,” he said.

“I used to be able to tell if you’re lying almost effortlessly,” Virgil remarked. “You’re harder to read now.”

“A lot has changed. But you know that I would never lie to you,” Deceit promised.

“What about Santa?” Virgil asked, a smile spreading on his face.

Deceit chuckled softly and shook his head. “That’s different and you know it is.”

“Then what about the collector’s edition of The Nightmare Before Christmas with the Jack Skellington plushy that you ‘totally weren’t getting me for my birthday’ because it was ‘way to expensive’ and ‘not necessary because we could pirate the movie anyway’?”

For a moment, all their fears were forgotten. There was just the two of them, teasing each other with smiles on their faces and no thoughts of the impending doom lurking just outside their blocked door.

A chilling gust of wind swept through the room, ripping their perfect moment away from them as the room temperature dropped.

As a scratching sound was heard on the door. Virgil felt himself tensing up in an instant.

“This is ridiculous! It’ll only be more painful if you hide! That door won’t hold for much longer. Just give in already, maybe we’ll be more merciful then,” threatened a voice, a terrible mixture of two different ones, rising and plummeting in volume and pitch.

“Shut up,” Virgil groaned, overcome with annoyance. He had heard those empty threats way too many times, to the point where they did nothing more than to occasionally plant seeds of doubt into his mind; he found himself questioning if they were right from time to time but he never gave in to the uncertainty.

He wasn’t a “poor anxious baby”, not a scared child - he was irritated and wanted nothing more than to finally be done with this. Virgil tightened his grip on Deceit’s hand.

“Alright then. But I’ll be back. And next time, you will wish you had taken this plea bargain. Next time, you will wish you were never born at all!”

Finally, the voice ceased; Creativity, or what was left of it, left them alone once again.

Looking up at Deceit, Virgil stopped dead in his tracks: “You’re shivering.”

“Still totally warm-blooded. It’s not freezing cold in here at all.”

Virgil rolled his eyes. “So much for never lying to me”

“I’m totally doing this intentionally. It’s absolutely possible for me to control when I’m like this” Deceit was hissing out his words at this point.

Virgil sat up, took off his hoodie and wrapped it around the two of them as he pulled Deceit into a hug.

“Sharing body temperature might not be as effective as a heating lamp, but I’m sure as hell not going up there to get one.”, he explained, ”Take off your gloves. Maybe I can warm your hands.”

Deceit briefly hesitated before doing as he was told, sighing softly as Virgil took his hands into his own, yellow scales pressing against pale skin.

“You don’t need to hide your scales when you’re with me,” Virgil said in a hushed voice.

Deceit didn’t respond, he simply nestled closer to Virgil, giving in to the drowsiness creeping up his body. He was fast asleep in next to no time.

He looked so peaceful with his mouth slightly open and his chest rising and falling slowly and steadily. Virgil knew how exhausted he was, how hard he was trying to hide the fact that he desperately needed a break; he wouldn’t dare to wake him.

“Kiddo? Why would you even try to hide? We are your family, Virgil! You belong with us!”

There he was again. This wasn’t fair. None of this was fair.

Something inside of Virgil was itching to get up and fight this terror once and for all. He knew he shouldn’t - of course he did - he hadn’t just spontaneously lost his common sense, yet he still had to restrain himself.

“Please, Virgil. Don’t do this to us. To me. How do I deserve this? Am I not good enough for you, anymore?”

Virgil’s fingernails dug into the palms of his hands. This isn’t Patton, he told himself. And although he was certain that he was right, hearing those words in a voice that had once belonged to his best friend was painful.

“I can’t believe you would turn on us like that. I thought we were friends. I thought you loved us! But it turns out that was all a lie! You’re nothing more than a dirty liar, just like him!”

At least his voice was clearly distinguishable from Patton’s at this point.

“Fine! If you wanna be like that, go on! But you are going to burn in hell for it!”

‘Yeah, you better run,’ Virgil thought bitterly.

After that, things seemed to go back to normal for a while – at least as far as “hiding away from twisted and horrifying versions of your friends that are only there because of an accident” could be considered normal.

It wasn’t that Virgil had been lulled into a false sense of security - because nothing could have prepared him for this – but when a new voice was heard outside their door, everything inside of him was screaming to either run away or destroy what had made them suffer for way too long.

“You must be aware of the fact that you cannot hide away in there forever. So why don’t just GIVE UP NOW AND END THE WAITING?! IT DOESN’T MAKE ANY SENSE TO PROLONG THIS ANY FURTHER!”

Virgil flinched as the screams grew louder. Oh no...They had gotten Logan, too. It had been naïve to hope that somehow, he’d have found a way to escape – yet Virgil hadn’t lost hope until now.

“Fuck…that was him, wasn’t it?” Deceit whispered.

Virgil hadn’t noticed him waking up. Though sleeping through those screams did seem impossible. Neither of them knew what to say. After all, nothing they could say would make this any easier.

Virgil nodded. It pained him to acknowledge it, but saying it out loud would have been even worse.

Deceit and Virgil held each other close, drowning the awful torment out. At least, despite everything, they had each other.

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imagine-loki · 5 years

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Pride and Prejudice

TITLE: Pride and Prejudice CHAPTER NO./ONE SHOT: Chapter 31 AUTHOR: wolfpawn

ORIGINAL IMAGINE: Imagine Loki was raised on Jotunheim as Laufey’s son after the war, but an agreement was then made that he would wed Odin’s daughter so Odin could secure the alliance of Jotunheim through the marriage. Loki, in turn, was raised to be king of Jotunheim, but how he views Asgard is far different from how Odin’s daughter is raised leading to a clash of cultures as well as uncertainty between the pair of betrothed youths. RATING: Mature NOTES/WARNINGS: Forced Marriage, not all fun and games. My first real step back into the Loki scene in over a year.

Tags - @skulliebythesea @asimovethroughthisworld @blackcherry26-blog @we-shadowhunter2901

It continued in such a pattern, Ella spent her nights in Loki’s room. They used their own rooms through the day but at night, Loki or Ella, whichever braved it first, tried to entice the other to bed after they had dinner in his rooms. Four nights they were back on Jotunheim and four nights they slept together. Their intimacy altered too, from merely the act of sex itself to more touching. The one issue Loki had was that as much as he tried to encourage her to do so, Ella remained quiet. On the fifth night, he decided that his gentle urges to make her feel she could not remain so. He made her feel more pleasure than she thought possible before he entered her and twice more she completed after him doing so. By the time he was finished himself, she had moaned several times but what ended his stamina was how she gasped and moaned his name as her nails dug into his back, causing him to emit a hoarse grunt of his own as he filled her. Exhausted from their excursions, nothing more was said that evening on the matter. He watched as she settled close to him in the bed, yet not touching him, something they were becoming far more comfortable with, neither of them trying to go to the furthest they could away from one another on the bed. Just as Loki was about to try and get more comfortable, he sighed contently before a thought occurred to him. The bed was after getting more comfortable. In her weary state, Ella had swapped her bed for his. It was not as big but the comfort of it made up for it and he settled beside her contently for the night.

The next day, as with others, they had something to eat together before Ella went to her rooms to get ready for the day. They did not usually get to see one another again before Loki was called to assist his father with some matter or another and were likely to see one another in the throne room if Laufey felt up to it. Through it all, Ella thought over everything that had occurred over the past few days, noting how Loki seemed far more open and indeed honest than before. Not in his words, he did not tend to lie to her, he simply remained silent a lot of the time but in his demeanour. He was smiling and joking with her more and it made her feel more comfortable in his presence. For a political alliance marriage, she was fortunate. She knew she would have to be incredibly fortunate to get one like her parents’ marriage, but she also knew that that was a marriage that had taken considerable work to get to where it was. Her parents had over half a millennia of an age gap between them so they had very little to tie them as common ground. A sense of duty to their respective homes was one of the defining features of their early marriage, ironically, that was something she too had in her own one. But now, she was seeing aspects of her husband that she liked. His sense of humour made her laugh and smile and she liked that. As did she like his sense of duty, she respected that. Everything Loki did, Loki did for the betterment of Jotunheim, even if it hurt him personally, such as the situation they were currently in. Loki feigned indifference, but the hurt was evident. She had not seen his brother or his ex-lover in the time since their return from Vanaheim, though she had heard the argument between Helbindi and Býleistr, she had not seen them and knew sooner or later that something would be done with the matter to allow things to move forward once more, as to not do so would lead to greater issues in the long run. She did not look forward to that, but she knew it would have to occur and no matter what, she would stand at Loki’s side to support him, knowing that in this, he would need someone there for him.

The throne room was incredibly dull for the day, several left throughout. Mundane would have been too much excitement for it, but it still required Laufey and his sons to be there, and by default, so too was Ella who refused to leave until the last order of the day was dealt with, even if it did bore her greatly. When all matters were dealt with for the day, Loki gave Ella an indication that he wished for her to remain where she was and not leave the hall, to which she nodded and stood patiently to the side as the room emptied. When Laufey ceased speaking to his sons, he sent them about their business once more.

Loki walked over to Ella. "How did you endure that? You should have excused yourself."

"I have endured far worse, I can assure you." Ella smiled politely. “If you think things get boring here, try some of the matters dealt with on Asgard, there is an entire week of the year dedicated to dealing with barren space rocks.” Loki shuddered at the idea. “Exactly. So, how can I assist you this evening?”

“I need to speak to my brother.” Ella looked towards Helbindi, who was in the far corner of the room. “No, not ‘Bind.”

“Oh.” She realised he was referencing Býleistr. “Okay, what do you require of me?”

“To be by my side.” “Very well.” She did not wish to do such a thing but she felt honoured that he would ask such of her. “Whatever you need of me, I am there.” “Thank you.” He indicated for her to walk with him, which she did willingly.

They walked through the hallways in silence, their strides matching, even with Loki’s longer legs. They looked ahead as they walked, their faces stoic. It was somewhat interesting to see, the heir and his mate, two different beings from vastly different realms, yet so alike in their manner.

When they got to the royal wing, Loki inhaled deeply as he looked at his older brother’s door. With slight hesitation, he looked at Ella who gently placed her hand on his arm for a moment before nodding slightly. With another deep inhale, Loki knocked on the door. It was Alma, Býleistr’s first mate who answered. When she noticed who it was on the other side of the door, she looked apprehensive.

“It is a realm related matter, not a social visit, Alma,” Loki informed her.

Nodding slightly, the Frost Giant moved to one side and allowed them entry. Ella gave a small nod in salute and gratitude. She had not spoken much to Alma since her arrival but what she did speak to her regarding was pleasant. Loki’s focus was on the far side of the room, where Angrboða was avoiding eye contact. “He is in the chambers,” Alma spoke, her deep voice calm and without any emotion.

“Thank you.” He looked at Ella, who nodded reassuringly at him. He nodded in return and walked to the bedchambers, Ella remaining where she was.

“What are you doing here?” Býleistr scowled at his younger brother.

“You are to be sent to the Western lands for three months,” Loki informed him.

Býleistr shot to his feet, his face contorted in an ugly manner in anger. “So, you and Father came up with a punishment for me then, banishment? Is that it?” “No, you idiot,” Loki snarled back, not allowing his brother’s superior height to faze him. “You are being sent there because we have a risk of unrest from those living there.” Býleistr studied Loki’s face. “Yes, we have an issue, you are the best trained of the three of us to head our soldiers and we need to show that our family is serious about this and will not tolerate such action. I am needed here in case Father becomes more ill and Helbindi, Norns bless him, has the attention span of a fly.”

“So Father convinced you to send me.” “I had to tell him to send you, not the other way around,” Loki informed him. Býleistr considered Loki’s words. “But, after everything…” “Publically, no one is speaking of the matter, frankly, most do not care, they only care about their own issues, it does not affect the running of Jotunheim, so they do not care. I do not need to like or forgive you for your actions for us to work to better our family. Privately, I will not be overly happy with you until I get over this but you are still my brother, as my mate states, there is no preventing that from being the truth.” Loki looked at Býleistr, noting his shame-filled face. “This would all be so different if you had not been so dishonest, Brother, if you had simply said something.” He shook his head. “You always liked her too greatly, I should have seen it.” “I am sorry, Loki, for my betrayal.” Býleistr tried to say the words he had been trying to say to Loki almost a week previous when he returned from Vanaheim. “I just...when you chose the Aesir…” “Her name is Ella and you will address her as such. She is my mate and you will treat her with the same decency as you would if she was a Jotnar as you are.” Loki declared.

Býleistr shook his head slightly. “You never spoke this way of her before.” “Ella and I have spoken a lot of late and she is a good and honest mate. Time shows us who we are in such cases.” Loki commented.

“Is that before or after you mate her so much that she moans your name so loud that it can be heard a few rooms away? How much time does that leave for talking?” Loki’s brow rose. “I am surprised you are not half deaf.” His older brother joked.

* In the outer room of Býleistr’s rooms, Ella stood where she had when Loki left, looking around with light curiosity at how different a room could be to two brothers.

“Are you going to stand the entire time or do you actually know how to sit?” Angrboða growled. Alma looked at her, yearning for her to remain silent.

“I am aware of the requirements for such things, I simply do not partake in them so long as realm duties are in need of doing." Ella retorted boredly.

"Is it serious?" Alma was both curious as to the reason Loki would come to speak to Býleistr after everything and wishing to prevent Angrboða and Ella from arguing.

"Yes, civil unrest, he is who is required to quell it." Ella knew that had been discussed in the throne room and knew it to be the most likely reason for their coming to Býleistr's rooms.

Alma looked slightly concerned. "Where?"

"To be honest, I did not hear. It sounds like it will require travel." This was the truth, she had gotten bored through the discussion and allowed her mind roam, knowing that it was none too important.

“Would we go too?” “Honestly, I am not lying when I say, I genuinely was not involved in the discussion that came to this decision, so I do not know.” Ella looked at the Frost Giant to show her she was being sincere. “I do not think it to be too serious but I know Laufey wants it dealt with before it becomes such.” “So he is only sending the son he is currently not speaking with, that is convenient,” Angrboða hissed. “Anything to appease the glorious Asgard.”

Alma gave another warning glare before looking at Ella again, her unspoken apology in her features.

“How long do you know Loki?” Angrboða looked around at Ella, uncertain as to why she would ask such a question of her. “How many hundreds of years?” “Six or so.” To her own bewilderment, Angrboða answered.

“In that time, do you recall terrible arguments between him and his brothers?” Angrboða nodded. “Did he continue speaking to him after said arguments?” She got a nod as a response. “And did he, at any stage, risk their lives in said times?” Angrboða shook her head. “So you think this different? You think you could come between these brothers, between blood? You hold yourself to very very high standing, it must be said.” “He thought more of me than he ever did with everyone else he ever bedded through the years, until you. Whatever trickery you brought to proceedings, though he claimed you to be some pure little maiden.” There was ridicule in her tone.

“I was, yes. And what of it? How is that any more or less okay than your choice of how you wished to deal with such matters? My choice was mine and I was happy with it, same as I would not think to have an opinion on yours as it was yours and yours alone to have. Same as even Loki.” Ella remained diplomatic.

“You are okay with him sleeping with so many before you?” In truth, Angrboða had thought such would disgust Ella. “That does not bother you as he makes you moan so loud we all have to endure it, knowing he never cared to wait for you like a faithful dog?”

“It is not my place to have an opinion on my mate’s life before he was bound to me.” She shrugged as she noted to make their rooms soundproof to herself, before looking Angrboða in the eye and speaking again. “Though I should thank you.” “What for?” The genuinely smile on Ella’s face worried Angrboða.

“I may not have mated with any before I was married but I know many women who have spoken of the same terrible issue through their courtship and marriages and they have, through their experiences, taught me that there are many men in the realms that are utterly inept or utterly nonplussed about being tentative partners and as a result, there are a lot of poor misfortunate women that are left unsatisfied and ignored in bed. I have been fortunate to you and his other previous partners for taking care of training him up so I never have to worry about such dreadful things.” She smirked.

#loki #other #submission #Submitted fic #chapter 31 #Pride and Prejudice #wolfpawn

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