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starshiningsirius · 3 years

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Lone fae (Yandere Malleus x reader)

To my favorite lonley dragon fae happy birthday!

Malleus had been told about a fae living in a town of humans for quite some time now. At first he had become angry seeing as he was King and someone would dare ally themselves with the enemy. He'd punish them himself. As if any traitor could stand against him and live was a mistake that'd cost them their lives. He told his advisor and guardian Lilia that'd he'd be back after dealing with said traitor.

Only to get to said town and notice a woman with pointy ears, beauty beyond belief, picking berries within the forest that surrounded the town. At first he kept his composure watching for a moment maybe a bit longer considering she acknowledged his presence.

"Ah, hello sir."

She didn't know who he was? That was surprising literally everyone whose anyone knew the Fae King and would tremble at the mention of his name. Yet this naive little fae knew nothing about who she spoke to. How cute.

'A fae in the village? How strange do they not know about our hatred towards humans?'

"Hello." He had his arms crossed and came out into the open.

She noticed the ears and instantly became curious.

"Our ears are similar." She murmured it under her breath, but Malleus still heard it. She noticed his horns too and realized that she must have been a bit different since she lacked them.

'So she hasn't met her own kind before?'

That was how their first encounter went. They chatted for a little while exchanging names as Malleus wanted to test if she knew him by that but got no reaction. Malleus watched her go back all the way to her house in secret of course. From high up in the air. As soon as he saw where she lived he went back home.

'This so called "traitor" would require a bit more inquiry.'

* * *

He decided to find out himself, her background by asking a different question to gain some information.

"Y/n do you have a family?"

"Hm? I have a little brother named Aiden at home but that's about it."

"What about your parents?"

"I can't recall when I was kid all I remember was waking up in an alley with Aiden crying in my arms. There was a- .... lot of blood about the place my dress that was once white had been stained. Anything before that isn't anything I probably want to remember considering that scene alone." She trembled for a second before continuing to pick herbs and berries from bushes. Malleus sided eyed her reaction feeling slight guilt towards it.

"I see, my apologies for bringing up troublesome memories." Malleus wasn't hard of hearing considering how she paused as if she didn't want to recall the gory scene. Yet still she smiled without much effort it was small but it did make him feel some what relieved.

"It's fine your the only person I've told. No one else talks to me in town and I'm not ready to tell Aiden yet with his innocence, I'd rather not taint. He's all I've got and I don't want to lose him."

* * *

He understood quite a bit now pertaining to their situation. He had to admit though, he had become fond of the female fae. Someone so innocent and docile couldn't be a traitor. Lilia saw that the situation was taking longer than expected and decided to accompany Malleus this go around.

He wanted to see for himself if Malleus was being fooled, though he doubted it. Not only that but for the sake of his own boredom in the castle and to satiate his own curiosity.

"Y/n this here, is a comrade of mine." Malleus stood next to his comrade, a short cheerful looking child with bright magenta stripes of hair under the black side. Two pointy ears stood on the side of his head too.

She was happy to say the least to know two new similar people to her at the very least. Today happened to be the day Malleus was going to meet Aiden. She didn't mind Lilia tagging along of course.

"Lilia Vanrouge, Ms. a pleasure." He looked rather young in her opinion but his voice signaled to not be fooled by his appearance. She shook hands with the male who brought a pleasant atmosphere with him.

* * *

"So your Malleus huh? My sister speaks very fondly of you sir. She's been talking about you for centuries!" The little boy exaggerated making Malleus's eyes widen and at first he felt an overwhelming amount of happiness with how he had made a good impression.

Both him and Lilia chuckled to themselves as the girl who had been in the same room blushed furiously from embarrassment. Taking her brother by the arm she glared at him.

"Aiden you know that isn't true, you asked where I had been and I answered." She strained her voice to try and put emphasis on her truth only to receive laughter from the boy.

Lilia came up to him patting his head with a smile.

"Fondly and centuries such large words for a child so young." Lilia had felt a slight connection to the energetic youngster. He thought it'd be fun to get to know him better.

"Sis is teaching me to read and write words from the dictionary! I'm very ingenious!" He was smug about the new words he was learning with a proud smile causing Lilia to laugh.

Malleus had a smile on his face small and affectionate but a few other thoughts came up to his mind upon thinking about the boys words. He looked toward his sister who was now in the kitchen making dinner.

"Aren't there schools about here he could go to?" His concern for the child was showing.

"There are but with his ears, I'd rather not take chances until his hair grows out, not to mention his abilities are still uncontrolled, and we're kinda barely keeping this house, so school isn't much of an option at the moment." She looked down chopping vegetables but was still focused. Until her brother spoke again.

"Look I can do magic!" He was so enthusiastic, but the dread look on his sister's face said it all.

"No! Don't you dare we can't hope to fix the ceiling!" She yelled but Lilia stopped her seeing as she yelled she covered her mouth in realization.

"Worry not my dear, let me see this young lad do magic. I'll make sure he doesn't damage anything." He was calm and collected which was shocked her but she let him do as he wished.

Aiden whose excitement had been on the rise at the thought of showing someone else raised his hand and emitted a large slew of green flames rising fast. Of course it actually shocked both Lilia and Malleus to see the color itself and how big the flames he conjured were.

Lilia had regained his composure for a split second and created some wind to dispell the flames before they could reach the ceiling and burn a hole. Malleus and Lilia looked at each other knowingly for a moment before Lilia showed a smile toward the young boy with his fangs gleaming in the light.

"I see the problem your letting out all of your mana at once young one, still your mind and channel the flow to ignite a single flame." He advised carefully with hand on Aiden's shoulder.

Malleus felt as if he was watching a younger version of himself seeing his guardian teach another. The young fae had followed Lilia's teachings to a tee and a small green flame became lit in front of him.

"Sister! Sister! Did you see I got it! I did it!" He was jumping up for joy at his achievement.

"Yes I see thank you Lilia. You thank him too Aiden." She was happy to say the least, it was as if good fortune was brought with them to have met these two.

"Thank you Lilia!"

"Your welcome dear child you can learn with me anytime. You have a lot of potential that shouldn't be wasted." That made his eyes light up in pure unadulterated excitement.

"Sister did you hear that!"

"I did." She was just relieved someone could teach him besides all her past failed attempts.

"So does that mean you can use magic too then?" Malleus had wandered closer to her without her knowledge it made her flinch. Seeing the anticipation of her answer in his eyes, she answered him.

"Yes though mine's is a bit more controlled. I can conjure wind and green flames. As well as levitate a multitude of things toward me at once but that's about it. I haven't had too much time to practice." She waved her hand with a slight glow and brought a couple of ingredients in cupboards down on to the counter letting them shut on their own again.

Holding put her hand she conjured a small green flame that wouldn't cause any damage over the palm of her hand.

"Seems like your well taught." Lilia mentioned.

"That's only because before we got this house we lived in the forest and magic made things a bit easier, but otherwise while we live here we don't have a use for it. Aiden still wants to learn but my teaching can only go so far as I don't know much on the subject." She looked somewhat frustrated at her own uselessness. Malleus could tell she wasn't lying about what she could do that's for sure.

* * *

After dinner both fae left the home walking out but saying goodbye to the siblings. At first they walked away from the house, but soon to prevent from being seen by any late night walkers they teleported to the castle.

"A pair of fae with royal blood is rare. I do wonder how the both of them ended up in that human village though." Lilia started off by saying.

Green flames were the insignia to regal blood for fae even Malleus knew that fact. Known to be the most powerful of all faes. Yet two were living in a human town right within the heart of the enemy and neither knew.

"Yes but from what I've been able to tell whoever had taken care of them is probably dead. Slaughtered by humans most likely. She said she wasn't able to remember anything before that. I'm assuming her and her brother come from some line thought to have been killed when the war against the humans started." Malleus recalled all he learned about her over the past few weeks he came to know her.

"Such a shame those two don't even know their own kind. Living their life in solitude as outcasts when they could be a lot more free if they lived here." Lilia did actually feel pity for the pair of souls having grown an attachment toward the younger sibling as he had taught Malleus when he was young as well. Those days were reminiscent for him. Aiden just happened to be similar to young Malleus in that regard.

"Malleus, if any humans discover royal fae over in that village they'll be killed. It's only a matter of when." He stated that matter of factly considering he was a general during the aforementioned war and many fae had been chased out of human villages. The ones left had been unfortunate to be victims that were sacrificed.

"I know, I won't let them lay a finger on either of them. Get Silver and Sebek have the staff prepare two rooms in the castle for our guests." Malleus walked away from Lilia without a second thought after saying what he wanted done.

"I was hoping you'd say that. Seems you've gotten attached to her in a different way. Ah, I'm so glad to see you chasing after someone, it feels like ages since you've been small so long ago. I'll have little Aiden to teach all the stuff I once taught you. What a joyous occasion to think someone will finally sit on the throne next to you." Lilia smiled feeling eager and chipper at the future ahead.

He went to go get the two knights that would always await orders from their master. Skipping down the halls all the while humming an unknown tune.

* * *

Something has been different with Malleus as of today. He was fiddling with his fingers a bit more often than usual. He didn't want to meet her gaze at the time either.

"Malleus is there something wrong?" Worry laced in her tone for the man sitting next to her.

"Yes." He replied rather swiftly but ended it there.

"Would you like to tell me what about?" She at least wanted to try and comfort him however she could.

That's what made her different than most fae, most feared him, she didn't of course she and that oblivious little head of hers didn't. Before she could even grasp how much power she could have held it was taken from her.

Malleus had turned his head and looked her directly in the eye.

"You."

"Me?" She was surprised and confused about what he meant by that, lowering her head for a second to think.

Of course it didn't last long, as Malleus directed her chin to gaze at him instead of the forest soil.

"Y/n, my alluring little darling, would you do me the honor of staying with me?"

He said with a gentle smile. The proximity and his words had her face red within seconds. She still had to give him a reply and sadly she didn't want to upset him but she didn't have much of a choice.

"I'm sorry Malleus I can't. This place is all I've ever known. Going somewhere else with all that could happen, ... It's not that I don't like you but my own fears are holding me back." She was trying to come up with the right words so he'd hopefully understand.

It stung, it truly did. The rejection wasn't something he hypothesized but it was still an option. It was fine though, all would be well. That sheltered mindset of hers would just have to broken a bit. She'd come to rely on him, she'd have no other choice afterall.

She hadn't experienced much of human cruelty, he'd just have to show her how cruel they could really be and then she would have to seek his aid.

* * *

Everyone in town today had been on edge it seemed. She left Aiden at home sound asleep, while she went out to go and buy veggies and meat she couldn't get in the forest. As she walked toward a thrifter many people side eyed her. She was the only person to walk with a hood on. In fact many people generations before this one too when asked had seen her.

As she got up to the vegetable thrifter the man in front of her had scowled. She saw this but just thought he was having a bad day. That's when someone came behind her and pulled her hood down abruptly.

"A fae! A fae in the village!"

"She's the one who cursed the crops! If we kill her the curse will end!"

"Someone grab her!"

Before she knew it she ran, someone did lay a hand on her but she pushed them away with wind magic. It wasn't on purpose, but fear overtook her person and magic required self control.

She wanted to run back to her house but with how fast the mob was chasing she couldn't put Aiden at risk like that. Maybe just maybe if she went back to the forest, he'd be there. He could help her, or Lilia either would do.

* * *

She didn't see him. Maybe her words struck a cord. She should have agreed. A stupid decision on her own part, he could've probably taken them somewhere where people like her were accepted. Where magic was used and no worries to be had.

She just narrowly dodged an arrow fired at her. It seemed the mob had caught up. Turning her attention back toward their screeches, what could she do?

In a last ditch effort attempt she called his name.

"Malleus!" The crowd closing in on her arrows knocked and aimed. So this was it huh?

Suddenly something slithers around her body, her waist to be more precise and holds her in a vice grip.

A tail? Of long reach with a purple scales of a dark pigment.

Before it pulled her into the darkness of the forest behind her. Until she felt a chest that placed her gently to the ground freeing her from the grip the of the tail that had once gripped her tightly.

She saw a light emitted from where she had once been, green flames took its place in her stead.

"I do hope you'll accept my offer to stay with me now, my love." Malleus's voice brought her out of her stupor, a frown seeing her in such fear. He didn't want to go so far but he would rather have liked her to willingly agree to living with him as his Queen. She wouldn't have any worries should she live her life on the throne worshipped by everyone.

"Wait! Wait! Please let me bring Aiden I can't leave my brother behind!" She had gripped his clothing turning around desperate tears spilling.

Speaking of said boy who popped his head from behind the fae that stood in front of her, smiled and ran to hug his sister.

"Y/n! Malleus let me up on his shoulders he was so tall! Wait why are you crying?" Her brother's happiness went away for a moment at the tears he saw from his older sibling.

She was shocked, since when had he been here. He was asleep before, she was sure. It didn't make any sense.

"Aiden how, ... why are you here?"

"Lilia offered to teach me more magic! He said it was dangerous to teach me inside the house so we came out here." For a second she thought it was a dream. A bad dream turned good.

"Were you worried? Sorry, I'll tell you next time I promise." Aiden hugged her after finishing his sentence trying comfort his sister from her state of fear. It worked a little having her shoulders relax.

Malleus had stroked her head to sooth her worries as well. A small smile graced his lips at the scene before him.

"Worry not my dear, I'll accept all parts of you. Of course I'd never forget your dear brother. Will you accept my proposal now?" He was awaiting an answer, the same look in his eyes akin to when he asked if she could use magic.

"Yes I do, it was my mistake for denying your offer in the first place. I'm sorry Malleus."

He was happy that the situation had caused her to regret her answer. Of course he didn't outwardly show it. But he was internally pleased. His new queen and energetic little brother would make a wonderful addition to the Draconian line.

As they disappeared instantly to where their new home would be, Malleus left behind some what one would call fireflies by the looks of it. They were just traces of his magic to other faes. It was a calling for someone else though.

The town the two faes once called home was being destroyed as soon as they left. Screams upon screams could be heard one after another. Flames of red and orange to destroy and have no one alive to recall the prescene of two royal clan faes.

All done by three, one wise fae, and two knights that served to do everything their master asked of them. It would all be gone while Malleus would help them settle into their new lives, the one they deserved from the beginning, if humans hadn't taken it from them.

Masterlist

#twisted wonderland malleus #yandere malleus draconia x reader #twisted wonderland #disney twisted wonderland #twst #twst malleus #malleus x reader #malleus draconia #yandere malleus draconia #yandere malleus

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stigandr-the-cat · 3 years

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AHHHHHH THANK YOU AGAIN TO @ghost-party for listening to me babble for hours on end and letting me join your collab not to mention beta reading!!!! I LOVE YOU SO MUCH TREASURE OF MY HEART 🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡

A/N : Update because i realized i have zero context for this. 😅

Modern! Single dad! Reiner with GN reader. Theme is meet-cute. 4.8k mentions of death, war, and injury. More along the lines of fluff with slight smut so minors DNI. ENJOY 😊

The young woman ran from Eldia, from a home torn apart with war. One arm caged her son Reiner against her chest, the other hand held fast to the child of her sister, the rest of their family dead. Still in the throes of grief that threatened to tear apart her soul, her only thought was to save the children in her arms. A prayer that they soon would find themselves someplace safe and far away from this nightmare dragged into daylight was whispered unceasingly on chapped lips.

Years later, at 24, Reiner Braun has worn each stage of life like too-tight skin. Skin split down his back as he tried to find freedom with each forward step. Each new layer would crack across the knuckles, dripping blood-soaked memories. More cracks formed down his chest, broken and straining against the strong beat of his heart. He had run from childhood into the military without a second to breathe let alone think. A military that sent him to that first forgotten home to kill his own people that everyone was raised to see as monsters. Yet on the return, he could only see them as a single entity being lead to slaughter. The sight of his mother's tears when he had left burned in his dreams before turning into the screams of comrades who hadn't come home. With that, he now carries himself like a broken weapon, only good for being melted down and used for scrap.

Upon an old motorcycle, Reiner settled down in the traffic, kickstand on the road. They hadn't moved in a while, and from what little he could see, they wouldn't be for a while. As if the sky above had conspired against his desire to have a peaceful night with half-forgotten family before returning to the apartment — to the death that waited. A clean, loaded rifle, with the barrel ready for him to swallow so he could greet the stars above. Would they be welcoming in their cold light? Most of them were long dead after images, just as he was only the mirage of whatever broken mold there had been before. Still, he would say his goodbyes while they welcomed his brother's baby girl into this broken world.

Slowly, traffic moved forward after an age of stillness. A silent prayer of thanks to whatever power kept the world spinning escaped Reiner's lips. The thanks turned into that sharp inhale of one who is trying to stay calm when faced with carnage. His eyes widened at the sight of the crash, one car so mangled as to be unrecognizable, trapped under a jack-knifed semi-truck. Blood dripped down a mangled hand, a ring glinting in a shaft of sunlight. Reiner wasn't sure if he felt envy or pity for the poor bastard. He crawled past and on towards the hospital where his family waited.

"Mr. Braun?" Reiner stood and turned towards the voice, faltering for a moment when he saw a policeman standing with a doctor. Their expressions were agonized, bodies as stiff as corpses on a sting.

"Yes?"

"I'm Doctor Cooper and this is Officer Forger. I'm afraid we have terrible news."

Reiner had known something was wrong when the nurse at the desk had, with the face of a ghost, told him to sit when he gave his name. How she had whispered into her phone, "He's here," when his back was turned. He sat stone-still, mind spinning. What could it be? What could be so bad that not one of the family could greet him? His heart thumped against cracked ribs, the scabbed-over, broken skin now oozing fresh blood at the strength of it. Fear filled his blood, choking the air.

"There was an accident. Your mother and brother were involved in a car crash and died. Your sister-in-law, upon hearing the news, became frantic, and in the attempt to restrain her, stitches from the caesarian tore open. We tried to save her but sadly were unable to do so."

Reiner felt the world stop, a shuddering breath turning to poison in his lungs. The car under the semi… Had that been them?

"What about..." His voice faltered before the soldier in him took over. "What about the baby? Gabi?"

"She’s fine. Healthy baby girl. There will be paperwork and other legalities to take care of, but it looks like you’re the only family she has left."

At nearly 30, this latest skin Reiner wears hardly fits him any better than others in the past. It still bleeds at the knuckles, staining his hands crimson. The baby turned toddler and now child, calling him Dad, not Uncle, even as Reiner tried to convince her otherwise. Gabi is as headstrong as both he and his brother combined. She has learned from her friends that he fits the definition of a dad, and so he is Dad. As such, he has taken this new name like a vow to be the best he could be. The rifle was long ago sold, his old uniform and medals placed in a locked box at the back of his closet, left to rot. The apartment that would have welcomed his death has now been left behind. With his daughter, they have made a faraway condo their home.

"Dad! It's time for the park!" Gabi calls, her little feet dancing loudly at the back door.

"I hear you, I hear you. One second," Reiner calls back from the kitchen, filling a water bottle before adding it to a backpack, along with some snacks.

Gabi continues to stamp her feet and huff as he puts on his jacket and shoes. Then they are out the back door, to the gate that leads from their backyard into the park. Gabi is already running top speed to the playground. Reiner just lengthens his strides to keep up, not even trying to get her to slow down. It’s as futile as trying to stop a rocket with bare hands.

At the park on the benches, three moms sit like The Fates squabbling over their single eye. He takes his place on another bench, close enough to hear them but only just. His mind is more focused on watching the children than listening to their continual tainted stream of gossip.

"Did you hear? The old condo sold, and apparently it’s the sister of that shrew," one hisses.

"They’re going to be living next to each other. It’s a family," a second observes. She must have spent the night over Facebook and wine again.

"Oh, look... Here comes the shrew. The kid must be the sister’s," the final woman — the ringleader — observes.

This catches Reiner's attention. He looks up from the kids to see the new arrivals. You are heart-stopping, wearing a black leather jacket and light pink shirt, snug jeans, and leather boots. Your hand is intertwined with one belonging to a small child, puffy in their coat and boots, and you silently encourage them forward to the swings. They look back at you before running towards Gabi to introduce themselves. Already her hand is taking the place of yours, and they are off running and tumbling across the playground.

Reiner has heard of you before, sure, the mothers only calling you “the shrew.” The only other single person on this block, they tried to set you two up as soon as they learned he was also single. But he never agreed and neither did you. An action he now regrets as his eyes drift back over you, a warm smile dancing on your lips as you stand before The Fates while they weigh you in the scale of their own image. He knows they already find you both lacking. Their ideal of white picket fences with a spouse and two children, with the only variant being what pet you own, doesn’t match the lines you have drawn around as your framework. And yet you stand, head high, knowing you are your own ideal. It is like looking at a river breaking the bonds others would have forced on it — magnificent, leaving him hungry for any scrape of attention you would throw at him. A shriek of delight recalls his attention to the children, even as he strains to hear the nectar that drips from your lips.

"Yes, my sister bought the condo next to me. Rin is the kid's name. I'm watching them today. Yes, my sister will be wanting to join the Facebook group. No, I still don't have a Facebook and won't be joining." Your voice is clipped against the torrent of questions.

Finally, you get away from them and come sit next to him. He can feel the blush rising to his face.

"God, they’re catty. I almost thought they were going to try and eat my heart." Reiner chuckles at this. "I'm Y/N. And you?"

"Reiner Braun."

"Which one is yours?"

"The one with dark brown hair leading the group. Her name is Gabi."

"Cute. Not even five and already a leader."

"Six, actually."

"So close."

"Not in her eyes."

"No, you’re right. Never in the eyes of the child is ‘close’ good enough when it comes to their age and how they wish to be treated." Reiner lifts an eyebrow. "Rin has to say their exact age down to the day and expects everyone else to do the same. But they also desire to be given the same respect as a child twice their age." You pause, eyes wandering the outlines of him. "Househusband?"

"No, our tale is a bit more tragic. She was my brother's child, but our family is... Our family is gone." His voice is ice numb, with the passage of time scabbing over those wounds. Yet he hears you suck in broken air at the revelation.

"I'm sorry to ask."

"I'm not. She changed my life for the better, even if it came with heartache."

"You don't look like a philosopher, Reiner Braun, but you talk like one."

"Oh, do I?"

"Just a bit." You offer him a small smile and it is a sunbeam through the rain.

The conversation is molasses, honey-sweet and slow, an amber spyglass that sharpens and colors in the lines you both have drawn around yourselves. He learns about what you call a sedentary life of living and working from home, broken up with family events and vacations. But it is a life you love, even in solitude. The way your eyes glow with each spilled word has his heart skipping like the children you both watch in between shy glances made of the spun sugar of new yearning.

You learn about Reiner's struggle with being thrust into his guardianship soon after his return home from war. His struggle to find a job that would allow him to be there for Gabi. The path that eventually led him to be a building inspector. He can feel the words rise from places within him that are both featherlight yet suck at his soul like tar. This time, his glance is rewarded with your eyes locked on his, your lip caught in your teeth.

"I know I should say thank you for your service, but your eyes look so haunted." There is compassion written in your eyes that says more than a thousand speeches about the honor he should feel from being a soldier, about doing his country proud. It's overwhelming, so he looks away, afraid to break at this lightest touch of tenderness.

Far too soon, the sky begins its slow turn to dusk. Far too soon, it is just Gabi and Rin running around. Far too soon, you both are the only ones left, yet there is no move to leave. It is comfortable, sitting together as the children run. As if it is a comfortable silence built by months and years of understanding and not just moments and hours.

"It's getting late, but I don't want to say goodbye." Your voice is whisper soft.

"Then don't. You’re both welcome to come over for dinner." His boldness is a surprise, even as he waits with bated breath for your answer. The words begin to slip from your smiling lips.

A discordant, jarring noise fills the air, making you both jump in fright before turning to nervous laughter. You hold up your phone, wincing as you see the name across the screen — a reminder of something previously forgotten.

"Hey, sis."

"What do you mean, ‘Hey, sis’? Where is Rin? I've been texting you for the past ten minutes and haven't heard anything back. Are you guys okay?" Pulling the phone away from your ear as the person on the other end shouts, Reiner grimaces in sympathy.

"Yeah, sorry, Rin is fine. We’ve been having lots of fun at the park. They made a friend."

The voice on the other end goes soft after your apology, so much so that he can't hear it. Not that he should have been listening to your conversation. He turns to face the children, watching them laugh as they go down a slide, tangled together. The blinding brilliance of childhood friendships made in innocence.

"Sorry, Rin was supposed to be home by now. Raincheck?" You offer a small smile in apology.

"Of course." He recites to you his phone number before turning to the children. "Gabi! Rin! Time!" His voice is loud enough to carry but not a shout, never a yell in anger. The two children pop up like weasels before scrambling over.

Rin holds on to Gabi's hand and won't let go. Gabi, too, has a determined look about her that he has seen for so long yet it still affects him, filling him with pride over how fierce she is.

"No. I want to keep playing with Rin. Can they sleep over?" Her voice is the high-pitched whistle of a fire in the clouds. Until you get down to their level, a serenity about you like the sea.

"I promise, you and Rin can play again really soon. Rin is moving here next month. But I'll try and get Rin down here again before then, okay?"

"Okay," She grumbles, the two dropping their interlocked hands. Rin wrapping their arms about your neck, head tucked against your shoulder.

Cooing to the child, you give Reiner one final smile before leaving.

"I'll text you later, Reiner." How you say his name has him weak-kneed. He wants to hear it again, bottle the sound and use it to fuel this newfound addiction. So lost in his name written in your voice, he stands rock still as you walk away.

"Dad?" Gabi tugs at him, her small hand hardly wrapping around his first couple of fingers.

Shaking off the spell of your voice he turns to her, kneeling himself. "Yeah, sweetie?"

"What's for dinner?"

"How about breakfast?" he asks, grunting softly as he picks her up with one arm, the other grabbing the backpack.

"Can I have waffles with whipped cream?"

"Sure, if you ask nicely."

"Please, Dad!" she squeals in delight.

"I'll get it ready. Why don't you go take a bath and get in your PJs?" Setting her down to open up the back gate, he holds it open for her before locking it once he is through.

"Okay!" Hardly remembering to take off her boots and coat, she is running up the stairs, unable to contain her energy and excitement. Reiner smiles at this blessing he has been given. A tree growing again after a fire, healing from its damage.

Reiner has learned the relaxation his mother taught him was in cooking, in feeding those you love with creations of your hands. He remembers her soft songs in a language he cast off. He hums them now, the words long lost to the decay of time. Soon the smell of waffles and eggs fills the small kitchen. Behind him, on the chair where he left his coat, his phone dings loudly once, twice. Work probably, some contractor asking him for the punch list. So he ignores it in favor of not burning their dinner.

Gabi babbles her thanks in between half-chewed bites of whipped cream mixed with syrup dribbling down her chin. Reiner tries to remind her to chew her food, which she apologizes for as more slips down her face, causing him to sigh. When she is satisfied, he sits her on the kitchen counter with gentle hands and cleans her face. How these hands have changed, but still, a scar across his palm catches at the soft skin. These hands are still marked with cracked skin, knuckles with fresh blood that slides down the back of them. He prays she never sees the ache of the bleeding wounds.

Gabi uses the last bit of her energy, squirming under the wet cloth before collapsing against his chest. In the soft silence of their home, he avoids the one stair that creaks before helping her brush her teeth and braid her hair to sleep. Her eyes have gone glassy, hands grabbing around his neck, soft breath against him. She is a gift he never would have deemed himself worthy to have. Already asleep, he tucks her in bed before kissing her forehead. Satisfied with checking that the window is locked, he turns the combination night light music player on before he leaves.

This new life is made of cotton, a cushion against the harsh turning of the times. Looking at the small mess in the kitchen, Reiner remembers his phone going off and puts off the latter in favor of just checking. Surprised delight works a smile up to his face as he sees a new number flash across his screen.

Rin's home safe. Wouldn't stop talking about Gabi and how much they love her. Had to admit, I thought her father was pretty neat. Is the dinner invitation still available if it’s just me?

Of course! Oh, I just looked at the time. Sorry for the late reply. If you want to come over, you’re welcome, but I don't want to disrupt your evening.

You're fine. I figured you were taking care of Gabi. How is she?

Sleeping like a log after playing with Rin. Thank you for letting me know you both are safe. I have to admit, I think you're pretty neat, too.

I'm glad we agree. I can be there in a couple of minutes. I'm back home now.

I'll have a plate of waffles ready for you.

Reiner sets down the phone before looking to make sure that it's only a messy kitchen he has to worry about. Satisfied that it looks decent, he finds no toys left on the floor like landmines. In the small kitchen, he sets up a plate. There is excitement trembling in his hands at the thought of seeing you again in the near dark. What sides will he see from this new angle?

But there is worry weighing on his shoulders, wondering how will you see him? The darkness is a theater screen that plays out the harshest memories of our past. Will the shadows that line his face be too much? Will you see the cracked skin and turn away, squeamish at the sight of blood? His thoughts are quicksand and cold rain, draining even as his breath speeds up.

He has already been given a new direction and blessing in his life with Gabi. Is there the possibility of the hope that he might be blessed with love? Someone who will hold his hand as he continues to bandage the cracks and seal them together? His chest heaves at the strain of racing thoughts, even as he is still blocking out the world lost in the mire. The crack of a stone on wood startles him.

The soldier he has restrained for years rises within, ready to fight to protect the life that sleeps peacefully above. He is quick to rush outside, only to hear giggling. Confusion twists around his head like a halo, the soldier retreating to the corner of his soul where he forces them to find peace. He finds you smiling, another small rock in your hand which is quickly dropped. With a look of false innocence fighting against an overwhelming smile, he can feel his own smile forming in response.

"I wonder who could be throwing rocks at this hour?" He looks around ready to see how far you will take this act.

"Must be a delinquent punk or a ghost."

"Well then, my chivalry demands I let you in, at the very least, to keep you safe."

Your hand coming up to pat against his chest has his head spinning, the lingering heat blooming and unfurling like vines, pulling his cracked edges back together. He hardly remembers the plate he had fixed for you. He cracks open two sour orange beers that he hopes pair well with the sickly sweet of the whipped cream and syrup. He sips at his can while you eat, your content moan at the food nearly setting him on fire. The dark clouds of his earlier thoughts change to different desires.

Those thoughts stay and linger after you set down your plate, thanking him. They rage when you move closer to him. The purse of your lips as you sip at the beer. How your eyes linger on his face before turning back to the sky. The stars that once looked so cold now point out the lights in the dark. Those lights dance across your skin, and he knows you are another light in the dark, calling to him — a blessing he feels unworthy to touch as you pull his arm around your shoulders, leaning into the warmth of his chest. He keeps his vision trained on you, drinking in your soft light. He pulls you closer, until you’re squished against him.

It’s a picture and a movie he will treasure in his heart, the soft exhale of your breath across his chest causing shockwaves. He thinks about leaning down and kissing the crest of your hair. Tensing to ask if he can, the first drops of rain hit. It’s a deluge in a moment, soaking you both as he lifts you into his arms to carry you to the warm safety of the living room.

"Wait, Reiner!" Your laughing hand against his face pulls his attention to your eyes. "Let's dance — please." Your voice is a whispering beg, and he would fall on his knees to hear that sound again.

Reiner is careful in how he sets you down, steadying hands against your waist. Your own hands wrap over his to guide them. The cold rain is nothing against the heat in his chest as he twirls you in the downpour. If happiness were a sound, it would be your laugh and sigh. The gasp you make when he picks you up and dips you back is a benediction. Your hands travel the path of his shoulder and waist to cup his face, pulling him again to your rainwater-soft lips, warm breath against his before the movement is sealed.

When you pull back to breathe, he catches your lower lip in his teeth, finding he finally can breathe. Your arms loop around his neck as you pull in closer to him. His arms lower to your thighs, pulling you up. He starts walking into the condo. Soon, your back is against the wall, legs wrapped around his waist. His heart is beating hard when he finally pulls back, pressing his forehead against yours and pressing a soft kiss to it.

"If this is too fast, tell me to stop." His voice is shaking with desire.

"But we both need to get out of these wet clothes." You nip at his lip, pulling him back into a kiss that quickly turns deep, his tongue scraping across teeth, the taste of beer and waffles lingering in your mouth.

Laughter bubbles soft in pressed-together chests. Soaked shirts and pants abandoned on the floor. Warm kisses press against cold exposed skin. He moves to your neck, placing kisses there. When you tug on his hair, he growls softly before nipping at the skin and moving back to your lips. Again, he is carrying something precious in his arms as he climbs the stairs. Again, he steps over the one that creaks, walks down the other side of the hall until he is pressing you against his bed.

Heat crackles, electricity flowing like circuits finally connecting at last. Soft thighs rub against his own. Nails scrape down his chest and back until he is keening. The heavy weight between his legs presses against yielding hips. The last of the soaked clothing is stripped away, cast off into the darkness. Moonlight plays across your skin, making him swear you have been sent from the stars to guide him home.

"Dad!"

He pulls away quickly, a groan leaving you both. He places a soft kiss on your stomach before trying to find some sweatpants, calling back that he will be there in a second. Looking back, you are smirking, swaddled in the thick duvet, finger pressed against your lips even as your eyes travel the length of him. Padding out and closing the door behind him, Reiner shakes his head at this sweet, tormenting twist of fate.

"Gabi?"

"Down here!" He turns, going down to the living room.

"What is it, sweetie?"

"I was thirsty, so I was getting some water. I came down and saw the clothes on the floor." He can just make out the confusion across her face.

“Oh, I was outside and got caught in the rain, so I took them off as soon as I came in." His body flushes with embarrassment.

"Okay, but why are there two pants on the floor? Are you having a sleepover?"

"You know, I think it's time you go back to bed. Did you get your water?" His voice is cracking, mind spinning, eyes widening with horror as his breath speeds up.

"You are having a sleepover! Can I come join?"

"Gabi! No!" He is too quick, too loud, fear making him desperate.

"Why not?" She is pouting.

"Because." He pauses. "They’re already asleep and I don't want to wake them up."

"Oh, okay. Wait, why do you get to have a sleepover and I don't?"

"Come on, back to bed with you. I'll explain in the morning." He hopes for once she will be too tired and leave it alone.

"Fine." The sigh of relief cascades through his whole body.

Gabi, with a glass of water in her hand, trudges back up the stairs, little legs making her step on the creaking one. He really should fix it. Reiner grabs the clothes and goes back to his room, caught between shock and hysterical laughter, wondering if you heard all that transpired. He hopes to find you laughing. To press against you again, happiness wrapping around you both. To lose himself in your embrace. Instead, he finds you have pilfered one of his shirts and are curled up in his bed, asleep. Not having the heart to wake you, he goes to hang the clothes up in the attached bathroom’s shower so they can dry. Coming back, he leans down to kiss the space behind your ear, enjoying the mewl you let out from the contact.

"Hey, do you want to bed to yourself?"

"No — cuddles." Your arms are already grabbing for him. "Maybe I'll wake back up so we can continue."

"Don’t worry about that. Let yourself sleep. I'll still be here tomorrow,” he mummers against sleep-warm skin as he tucks you two together, bodies nestled together like puzzle pieces. Already, you are drifting back to sleep, face pressed against his chest, arms and legs tangling with his. A sob claws its way around his chest. Questions of why he was blessed and saved with first Gabi and now your brilliance in his life. How you feel like a permanent fixture, even within only hours.

He can feel sleep tugging at him, but still, his thoughts slip out. "Is it strange that I can already see us as a family?"

"No — not if I say yes." The words press themselves deeper into his skin, until they sink to his heart, a new bandage forming over the cracks.

His breath catches before he pulls you closer, lips pressing kisses into your hair.

That night, when he dreams, he doesn't see a mother's tears. But he remembers. When he came home with some groceries he had gotten for doing some work for a neighbor, and how his mother patted his head and told him he would be an amazing husband and father one day.

Reiner notices the next morning that his skin is healing, scars becoming thick with scales like armor. His role as father fits him far better than before, his hand having found yours.

#meet cute collab #attack on titan #aot #aot reiner #aot x you #snk x reader #snk reiner #snk #reiner x reader #reiner braun #reiner fluff #attack on titan reiner #shingeki no kyojin

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snarkwrites · 3 years

Text

ssw | pietro maximoff; you make my heart beat faster. [ suggestive ]

Notes:

Okay, so.. This is kind of a follow up to the one shot I wrote a few months ago, happy birthday. So this picks up the next day. Idk where this idea came from or if it even makes sense when read immediately after that one, but ah well. My brain kept nagging at me to write the thing so I wrote the thing.

[ happy birthday ] for those who haven't read it already.

The translation: ty chuvstvuyesh', chto delayesh' so mnoy, kotenok = "do you feel what you're doing to me, kitten?" loosely via Google translate.

Prompts:

taken from either [ HERE ] or [ HERE ] give or take. It could be one or the other or a mix of both at my own choosing.

the daydream of him inside you // seeing the bulge in his pants // you make my heart beat faster. - those were all the prompts / inspiration used to write this.

Fandom / Character:

MCU / Pietro Maximoff x Barton!OFC, Nicola.

Other Writing Nicola / Pietro can be found in:

[ happy birthday ] + several other oooold posts way back on the blog I think. I wanna write a fic for them one day. We shall see, though.

Warnings:

[ NSFW. Absolutely no minors.] If you're underage, this was not written for you -nor should you be reading it. If you choose to keep reading, this is strictly a you problem. I can't do anything about it. I warned you.

Things you need to be warned about before reading: implied sexual encounter.

Yes. I realize that I don't go full into writing out the scene. But there's enough here that anyone underage has zero business reading it. So, I'm warning you guys now.

Tagging:

@chasingeverybreakingwave

@kyleoreillysknee

@micolegg

@mrsstevenbuchananstark

Other Stuff:

[ ABOUT MY WRITING | TAG LIST DOC - IF YOU WANT TO BE TAGGED, THAT IS. ]

“Are you feeling okay? You’ve barely touched your food, Nicola.”

My mom’s concerned question cut through my thoughts and I made myself smile, nodding. Taking a bite as I replied through a mouthful, “I’m fine. Was just thinking. That’s all.”

“About?” my mom eyed me expectantly. Hints of an amused smile played at her lips. I hesitated for a moment. If I didn’t know any better, I’d almost swear that somehow she knew something was up.

,, would it be a stretch to think so? One, she is my mom and two, I’ve been acting skittish and just plain out of it all damn day...” the thought came and as quickly as it did, I shoved it down in the depths of my brain.

I shrugged. “ Nothing in particular.” I gave the vaguest answer I could come up with. If she had one tenth of a clue what I’d really been thinking about just now, I’m honestly not sure how she’d react to it.

I’d been replaying last night over and over again in my mind all day. Every single part of me was dying to ask Pietro if it meant anything or not but at the same time, every single part of me was also scared to death to do that very thing. The one or two times we’d been alone with each other today and I did try, the words got stuck in my throat. And he wasn’t behaving any differently than he normally did, so I kind of just… Let it go. Started to convince myself that making the two of us love the night before was just a one time thing. As my best friend Simone would put it, “Sometimes, you just need to scratch that itch.”

The whole problem with her theory is that even now, having scratched this particular itch.. I wanted to do it again. And again.

I wanted so much more than that too. The brief glimpse I’d gotten of Pietro beneath the sarcasm and the flirty swagger the night before completely did me in. I’d gone from trying hard to keep him at arms length to falling head over feet in love with him and knowing this drove me crazy.

I felt someone staring at me.

I looked up just as Pietro was looking down. Pouting to myself a little, I reached out to grab the spoon in the bowl of mashed potatoes to scoop another serving onto my plate. Pietro reached for the spoon at the same time and when our hands brushed, I felt this little jolt.

He moved his hand but not until he’d let it linger against mine for a second or two. His gaze not leaving mine for the entirety of it. Under the table, my thighs clenched tight. I could see his hands all over me again in my head. Feel his cock buried deep inside me.

I went from a little wet to full on soaked between the mental imagery and the brush of his hand against mine. My stomach coiled.

My body tensed a little.

I dropped my gaze first, busying myself with putting more potatoes on my plate. Pietro kept watching me.

My parents were talking at the head of the table as my mom fed Nathaniel some smushed peas and carrots... My little sister scarfed down her food and then shot out of her chair and out the backdoor to go play a game of tag with my brother in the backyard before it got to dark to play and they had to come inside.

I dared to glance up from shoveling food into my mouth and Pietro gave a teasing wink. Biting his lip as he openly fucked me with his eyes.

And there it went.. The lazy flip flop of my stomach. And no matter what I tried, I couldn’t tear my eyes out of the ocean blue depths of his.

I couldn’t take any more of the torture that was being around him and not having the courage to ask what I was dying to know so I stood and grabbed my plate as soon as I finished eating, making my way into the kitchen to put it in the sink.

I went ahead and washed it while I stood there. I was just drying the plate and about to put it away in the cabinet overhead when I felt Pietro’s muscular body press against me from behind. Wordlessly, he took the plate from my hand and sat it on the top of the stack inside. I turned to face him.

This put us body to body.

I swallowed hard. My mouth opened and closed and for about five or six seconds, I willed myself to say something. Do something.

But I couldn’t bring myself to. Because as much as I was dying to know whether last night was a one time thing or if there was really something between us… Parts of me were scared to death that if I asked, I wouldn’t like the answer.

And that kept me quiet.

Pietro’s hand raised. Reaching out. Brushing strands of hair out of my eyes. I barely restrained a whimper at the touch. His eyes flashed a brighter blue and his head tilted slightly as he stared down at me.

Lost in thought.

His hips pressed into mine harder. When I felt the bulge in his jeans, I took a few shaky breaths. His hand rested on my hip, squeezing. Digging the tips of his fingers into it. He leaned down slightly and his mouth grazed the shell of my ear as he asked, “ty chuvstvuyesh', chto ty delayesh' so mnoy, kotenok?” in a breathless whisper.

If I thought I was wet before, hearing him speak to me in his native tongue had me soaked. Absolutely flooded. The only word I could pick out of whatever he’d asked was kitten. And as usual, when he called me kitten, my heart fluttered just a little more in my chest. He rocked himself into me clumsily and I sucked in a breath.

“Pietro.” I muttered. I was right on the verge of asking him what he’d just said. And asking him about what the night before truly was, if he felt anything or if it just kinda… happened. But just as I thought I’d finally be able to get the words out, it’s like my brain froze up all over again. I frowned at myself in frustration and sighed, shaking my head. “Nothing. It’s silly.”

I heard my dad calling my name from the next room, so I stepped away from Pietro reluctantly and went to leave the kitchen. Pietro grabbed hold of my hips, holding me in place for a few seconds. Staring down at me.

“ I need to talk to you later, kotenok. Alone.”

All I could do was nod. Tell him that I was going to go up to my room in a few minutes.

He nodded.

I stepped away and walked into the next room, only barely managing to pull myself together enough to talk to my parents without either one of them seeming to be aware of just how flustered I truly was.

As soon as I got done talking to my dad, I made my way upstairs. Shutting the door to my room and leaning against it just to hopefully pull myself together.

I still couldn’t.

I flopped across my bed, picking up the Anatomy book and my notebook, preparing to start studying again for the final I had coming up soon and just as I settled into it, there were two knocks at my bedroom door.

I slipped off the bed, wandering over to the door. Opening it.

Pietro leaned in the doorway, gazing down at me. That hungry look in his eyes again.

I stepped out of the doorway and let him into my room, shutting the door behind me. When I turned around to face him, we were body to body. Leaning into me, he put a hand against the door, just above my head. I could feel him straining even harder against his jeans. His other hand raised, resting against the side of my face. Cradling my cheek as he closed the distance between our mouths.

I started out with my palm down. Determined to keep distance between us until I finally worked up the courage to ask my question, hear my dreaded answer and be done, but by the time his tongue slipped past my lips and started to trace my teeth, I was clutching at the front of his fitted black shirt instead. He nipped at my bottom lip, tugging until I felt it swelling under pressure. The kiss deepened until I got so lightheaded I thought I’d melt.

He seemed to sense this because he crushed me against him and the hand cupping my face drifted down. Skimming down my side. Stopping at my hip.

The kiss finally broke so we could breathe and we pulled apart; breathless. Staring at each other quietly. Wide-eyed.

“Kotenok…” he muttered softly. Fondly. His voice dying away as he stared down at me like he was lost in thought. Trying to say something.

“What’s up?” I mumbled, my stomach flipping and flopping lazily.

“Last night was..” he went quiet on me again and I tensed a little, bracing myself for him to continue. Preparing myself in the event that what he was about to say wasn’t what I longed to hear.

So it shocked me when he was closing the distance between our mouths all over again as he muttered in a lust-filled whisper, “Last night was more than just sex. You make me feel things that I haven’t before, kotenok.”

My breath caught in my throat and I didn’t realize it until I finally took a breath and it was shaky. I gazed up at him, letting his words sink in. Trying to wrap my head around it. I went to say something, to tell him that I felt the same way and I didn’t do what we’d done last night often, but he pressed the side of his finger against my lips, silencing me and continued to speak.

“You make my heart beat faster.” he took hold of the hand I had rested against his chest, placing it over his heart. I gasped quietly as I looked up at him again and saw the way he was looking back down at me, a look of pure and total adoration.

He looked nervous as hell. Fidgeting a little. Not quite sure what to do with his hands after he moved one off my hip and let go of my hand with the other. He went to step away, swearing under his breath and I realized that he wanted me to react somehow.

I pressed against him from behind. My hand wrapping around his where it lingered on the knob to my bedroom door. “Don’t go. Please?” I asked in a hushed whisper. Pietro turned around and when he did, I melted against him. Raising my arms to wrap them around his neck. Dragging my fingers through a thick mess of platinum blond. Tugging at it as I rose to tiptoe and crashed my mouth against his. Laughing softly when our noses bumped and our lips connected all over again; hungry. Desperate. Frenzied.

He reached down, twisting the lock on my door knob so that it was locked and no one could come in by accident. A low growl rose up from the depths of his chest, hanging in the air between us only to be swallowed by the kiss as our mouths reconnected and it deepened. I rubbed myself against him clumsily. Needy.

His hands locked across my ass and he slipped me up his body, stepping over to my bed. Dropping me against my mattress softly and positioning himself on top of me. Pressing his hips into mine. Bucking against me as his mouth strayed from my own, working it’s way down the side of my neck. His lips caught on my pulse, making me shiver and rock myself up into him as I gave a needy whine and raised my legs, squeezing his hips with my knees. The kiss broke and he muttered against my mouth with a teasing grin, “ Think you can be quiet for me, kotenok?”

“ I can try.” I whimpered as his mouth worked down the front of my throat, teeth scraping against skin. Stubble tickling me. Making me cling to him as he snapped his hips against me and his hands moved down between us, catching in the hem of my shirt. He pulled me up to a sitting position and pulled my shirt off, tossing it onto my bedroom floor. I tugged at his shirt, whining impatiently and he chuckled. Nipping softly at my bottom lip as he teased, “Patience.”

“Pietro.” I pleaded.

He tugged his shirt over his head, letting it settle on the floor near mine. And then he was leaning in. His hands moving up my sides. Stopping to squeeze my breasts, growling to himself quietly before reaching around. Hooking a thick digit beneath the band of my bra and working the clasps free. He pulled it off, balling it up and tossing it on the floor with the rest of our clothes as he leaned into me even more, my back pressed flat against my bed all over again. He positioned himself on top of me, his body spreading my legs wide and as his head dipped down, my fingers curled in my blanket and thick blond hair.

His mouth worked across my collarbones. Then lower. He squeezed my tits together, mouth diving down. Latching onto one of my nipples. Tongue circling lazily until he’d teased it to a point and I was squirming beneath him, rocking my hips, desperate for any kind of friction I could get. My fingers caught in the waistband of his jeans and I worked the button and the zipper free. He pulled away and slipped off the bed to shed his jeans and underwear and eyed me hungrily. Leaning down. Meeting my gaze with a mischief filled smirk as he took off my pants. Holding my gaze the entire time.

I kicked my pants free at the ankle and he was on top of me again. The tip of his thick cock brushing right against my fabric covered crotch as he bucked into me and muttered against my mouth, “Are you ready for me, kotenok?”

“Please?” I begged breathlessly, barely managing to keep my voice a whisper as I did so. When he smirked at me as if he were pleased with himself, I realized exactly what his goal was.

He wanted to see just how close he could get me to getting loud.

I pouted up at him and he chuckled. “What’s wrong?”

“You’re being a tease. I know what you’re trying to do.”

“Oh?” he muttered, his hand disappearing between us. Slipping into my panties. Fingers working me open. Burying deep in my throbbing, wet sex. I arched my back and gasped, my fingers tangling in his hair, tugging at it as I rocked against his hand.

It wasn’t enough. I wanted him buried to the hilt inside of me. Now.

But Pietro was in a teasing mood tonight. Something told me that the more I begged, the more he was going to prolong it. And if I didn’t beg? He’d prolong it.

I was absolutely fucked.

One way or another, he was going to have me screaming his name by the end of the night.

#pietro maximoff #pietro maximoff oneshot #pietro maximoff imagine #pietro maximoff fanfiction #pietro maximoff one shot #pietro maximoff imagines #pietro maximoff x oc #my writing ; pietro maximoff #my oneshots ; pietro maximoff #my fics ; pietro maximoff #// absolutely no one (0) underage. minors dni.#// implied s*xual content #// i'm warning you guys here so everyone knows... even if it doesn't actually go into great detail.

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thewidowsghost · 3 years

Text

The Daughter of the Sea - Chapter 5

(Y/n)'s POV

I have weird dreams full of barnyard animals. Most of them wanted to kill me. The rest wanted food.

I must've woken up several times, but what I hear and see makes no sense, so I just pass out again. I remember lying in a soft bed and spoon-fed something that tasted like (Favorite/Food), only it's like pudding. The girl with curly blond hair hovers over me, smirking as she scrapes drips off my chin with the spoon.

When she sees my eyes open, she asks, "What will happen at the summer solstice?"

"What?" I manage to croak.

She looks around, as is afraid someone would overhear. "What's going on? What was stolen? We've only got a few weeks!"

"I'm sorry," I slur, "I don't . . ."

Somebody knocks on the door, and the girl quickly fills my mouth with the pudding.

. . .

The next time I wake up, the girl is gone.

A husky blond dude, like a surfer, stands in the corner of the bedroom keeping watch over me. He has blue eyes - at least a dozen of them - on his cheeks, his forehead, the backs of his hands.

When I come around for good, there is nothing weird about my surroundings, except they are nicer than I am used to. I am sitting in a deck chair next to Percy - who was looking at me with concern - on a huge porch, gazing across a meadow at green hills in the distance. The breeze smells like strawberries. There is a blanket over my legs, a pillow behind my neck. All that is great, but my mouth feels like a scorpion had been using it for a nest. My tongue is dry and nasty and every one of my teeth hurt.

On the table next to me is a tall drink. It looks like iced apple juice, with a green straw and a paper parasol sticks through a maraschino cherry.

My hand is so weak I almost drop the glass once I get my fingers around it.

"Careful," says a voice.

Grover is leaning against the porch railing, looking as though he hadn't slept in a week. Under one arm, he cradles a shoebox. He is wearing blue jeans, Converse hi-tops, and a bright orange t-shirt that says CAMP HALF-BLOOD.

"You two saved my life," Grover says. "I...well, the least I could do...I went back to the hill. I thought you might want this."

Reverently, he places the shoebox in Percy's lap.

Inside is a black-and-white bull's horn, the base jagged from being broken off, the tip splattered with dried blood.

It hadn't been a nightmare. My mother was gone.

"The Minotaur," Percy asks.

"Um, Percy, it isn't a good idea -" Grover gets cut off.

"That's what they call him in the Greek myths, isn't it?" Percy demands. "The Minotaur. Half man, half bull."

Grover shifts uncomfortably. "You two have been out for two days. How much do you remember?"

"Mom," I say softly. "Is she really . . ."

Grover looks down.

I stare across the meadow. There is a grove of trees, a winding stream, acres of strawberries spread out under the blue sky. The valley is surrounded by rolling hills, and the tallest one, directly in front of us, is the one with the huge pine tree on top. Even that looks beautiful in the sunlight.

My mother is gone . . .

Nothing should look beautiful. The whole world should be black and cold.

"I'm sorry," Grover sniffs. "I'm a failure. I'm - I'm the worst satyr in the world." He groans, stomping his food so hard it comes off. I mean, the Converse hi-top comes off. The inside is filled with Styrofoam, except for a hoof-shaped hole. "Oh, Styx!" he mumbles.

Thunder rolls across the clear sky.

Mom had really had been squeezed into nothingness, dissolved into yellow light.

Percy and I are alone. Orphans. We would have to live with . . . Smelly Gabe? No. I'd live on the streets first.

Grover is still sniffling.

Percy says, "It wasn't your fault."

"Yes, it was. I was supposed to protect you."

"Did our mother ask you to protect me?"

"No. But that's my job. I'm a keeper. At least . . . I was."

"But why . . ." Percy begins and I suddenly feel dizzy, my vision swimming.

"Don't strain yourself," Grover says. "Here."

He helps me hold my glass and puts the straw to my lips.

I recoil at the taste because I was expecting apple juice. It isn't that at all. It's chocolate-chip cookies. Liquid cookies. But not just any cookies - Mom's homemade blue chocolate-chip cookies, buttery and hot, with the chips still melting. Drinking it, my whole body feels warm and good, full of energy. My grief doesn't go away, but I feel as if Mom had just brushed her hand lovingly against my cheek, given me a cookie the way she used to when I was upset and told me everything was going to be okay.

Before I know it, I'd drained the glass. I stare into it, sure I'd just had a warm drink, but the ice cubes hadn't even melted.

"Was it good?" Grover asks.

I nod.

"What did it taste like?"

"Chocolate-chip cookies," I reply and Percy looks at me knowingly. "Mom's. Homemade."

He takes the empty glass from me gingerly, as if it's dynamite, and sets it back on the table. "Come on. Chiron and Mr. D are waiting.

3rd Person POV

The porch wraps all the way around the farmhouse.

Percy's legs feel wobbly, trying to walk that far, and (Y/n), though her legs feel like Jello, had moved to support her brother. Grover offers to carry the Minotaur horn, but Percy holds onto it. I'd paid for that souvenir the hard way. I'm not going to let it go.

As the trio comes around the opposite end of the house, (Y/n) catches her breath.

Percy's POV

We must be on the north shore of Long Island because on this side of the house, the valley marches all the way up to the water, which glitters about a mile in the distance. Between here and there, I simply can't process everything I'm seeing. The landscape is dotted with buildings that look like ancient Greek architecture—an open-air pavilion, an amphitheater, a circular arena—except that they all look brand new, their white marble columns sparkling in the sun. In a nearby sandpit, a dozen high school–age kids and satyrs play volleyball. Canoes glide across a small lake. Kids in bright orange T-shirts like Grover's are chasing each other around a cluster of cabins nestled in the woods. Some shoot targets at an archery range. Others ride horses down a wooded trail, and, unless I'm hallucinating, some of their horses have wings.

Down at the end of the porch, two men sit across from each other at a card table. The blond-haired girl who'd spoonfed (Y/n) is leaning on the porch rail next to them.

The man facing me is small, but porky. He has a red nose, big watery eyes, and curly hair so black it's almost poker. He looks like those painting of baby angles - cherubs. He looks like a cherub who'd turned middle-aged in a trailer park. He is wearing a tiger-patterned Hawaiian shirt, and he would fit right in at one of Gabe's poker parties, except I get the feeling that this guy could out-gamble even my step-father.

"That's Mr. D," Grover mutters to me and (Y/n). "He's the camp director. Be polite. That girl, that's Annabeth Chase. She's just a camper, but she's been here longer than just about anybody. And you already know Chiron . . . "

He points at the guy whose back is to me.

First, I realize he's sitting in the wheelchair. Then I recognize the tweed jacket, the thinning brown hair, and the scraggly beard.

"Mr. Brunner!" I cry.

The Latin teacher turns and smiles at me, then looks curiously at (Y/n), who is still supporting some of my weight. His eyes have that mischievous glint they sometimes got in class when he pulls a pop quiz and made all the multiple choice answers B.

"Ah, good, Percy," he says. "Now we have four for pinochle."

He offers me a chair to the right of Mr. D, who looks at me, then (Y/n), who is leaning against my chair, with bloodshot eyes, and heaves a great sigh. "Oh, I suppose I must say it. Welcome to Camp Half-Blood. There. Now, don't expect me to the glad to see you."

"Percy, why don't you introduce me?" Mr. Burnner says, sending a soft smile towards (Y/n).

"Oh, this is my twin sister, (Y/n)," Percy says.

(Y/n)'s POV

I smile and wave shyly.

"It's nice to meet you, sir," I say. "Percy's told me a lot about you. Even said you were his favorite teacher."

A warmer smile spreads across Mr. Brunner's face and then he turns. "Annabeth?" Mr. Brunner calls to the blond girl.

She comes forward and Mr. Brunner introduces us. "This young lady nursed you back to health, (Y/n). Annabeth, my dear, why don't you go check on Percy and (Y/n)'s bunks? We'll be putting them in Cabin Eleven for now."

"Sure, Chiron," Annabeth replies.

She's probably about my age, maybe an inch or two taller, and a whole more athletic looking. With her deep tan and her curly blond hair, she is almost exactly when I think a stereotypical California girl would look like, except her eyes ruin the image. They are startling gray, like storm clouds; pretty, but intimidating, too, as if she's analyzing the best way to take me down in a fight.

She glances down at the Minotaur horn in Percy's hands then looks back up at me. She says, "You drool when you sleep." My cheeks take on a slight red tinge as she sprints off down the lawn, her blond hair flying behind her.

"So," Percy says, looking anxious to change the subject. "You, uh, work here, Mr. Brunner?"

"Not Mr. Brunner," not Mr. Brunner says. "I'm afraid that was a pseudonym. You may call me Chiron."

"Okay," Percy says, looking totally confused, then looking at the director. "And Mr. D . . . does that stand for something?"

Mr. D stops shuffling the cars. He looks at Percy like he'd just belched loudly. "Young man, names are powerful things. You don't just go around using them for no reason.

"Oh. Right. Sorry."

"I must say, Percy," Chiron - Brunner breaks in, "I'm glad to see you alive, and the chance to meet your sister. It's been a long time since I've made a house call to a potential camper. I'd hate to think I've wasted my time."

"House call?" I ask, interested.

"My year at Yancy Academy, to instruct Percy. We have satyrs at most schools, of course, keeping a lookout. But Grover alerted me as soon as he met him. He sensed he was something special, so I decided to come upstate. I convinced the other Latin teacher to...ah, take a leave of absence."

"You came to Yancy just to teach me?" Percy asks.

Chiron nods. "Honestly, I wasn't sure about you at first. We contacted your mother, let her know we were keeping an eye on you in case you were ready for Camp Half-Blood, and then we learned of Miss (Y/n), here." He nods to me. "But you still had so much to learn, Percy. Nevertheless, you made it here alive, and that's always the first test."

"Grover," Mr. D says impatiently, "are you playing or not?"

Percy's POV

"Yes, sir!" Grover trembles as he takes the fourth chair, though I didn't know why he should be so afraid of a pudgy little man in a tiger-print Hawaiian shirt.

"You do know how to play pinochle?" Mr. D eyes me suspiciously.

"I'm afraid not," I answer.

"I'm afraid not, sir," he corrects.

"Sir," I repeat, liking the camp director less and less.

"Well," he tells me, "it is, along with gladiator fighting and Pac-Man, one of the greatest games ever invented by humans. I would expect all civilized young men to know the rules"

"I'm sure the boy can learn," Chiron says.

"Please," I plead, "what is this place? What are we doing here? Mr. Brun— Chiron—why would you go to Yancy Academy just to teach me?"

Mr. D snorts. "I asked the same question."

The camp director deals the cards; Grover flinches every time one lands in his pile.

Chiron smiles at me sympathetically, the way he used to in Latin class, as if to let me know that no matter what my average was, I was his star student. He expected me to have the right answer.

"Percy," Chiron prompts. "Did your mother tell you nothing?"

"She said . . ." (Y/n) begins and I remember her sad eyes, looking out over the sea. "She told us she was afraid to send us here, even though our father had wanted her to. She said that once we were here, we probably couldn't leave. She wanted to keep us close to her."

"Typical," Mr. D says. "That's how they usually get killed. Young man, are you bidding or not?"

"What?" I ask.

He explains, impatiently, how you bid in pinochle, and so I did.

"I'm afraid there's too much to tell," Chiron says. "I'm afraid our usual orientation film won't be sufficient.

"Orientation film?" (Y/n) asks, quirking an eyebrow.

"No," Chiron decides. "Well, Percy, (Y/n). You know your friend Grover is a satyr. You know -" he points to the horn in the shoebox - "that you have killed the Minotaur. No small feat, either. What you may not know is that the great powers are at work. Gods - the forces you call the Greek gods - are very much alive."

I stare at the others around the table.

I wait for somebody to yell, Not! but all I get is Mr. D yelling, "Oh, a royal marriage. Trick! Trick!" He cackles as he tallies up his points.

"Mr. D," Grover asks timidly, "if you're not going to eat it, could I have your Diet Coke can?"

"Eh? Oh, all right."

Grover bites a huge shard out of the empty aluminum can and chews it.

"Wait," I tell Chiron as (Y/n) sits down on the edge of my chair. "You're telling me there's such a thing as God."

"Well, now," Chiron says. "God—capital G, God. That's a different matter altogether. We shan't deal with the metaphysical."

"Metaphysical? But you were just talking about—"

"Ah, gods, plural, as in, great beings that control the forces of nature and human endeavors: the immortal gods of Olympus. That's a smaller matter."

"Smaller?"

"Yes, quite. The gods we discussed in Latin class.

"Zeus," I say. "Hera. Apollo. You mean them."

And there it was again—distant thunder on a cloudless day.

"Young man," says Mr. D, "I would really be less casual about throwing those names around if I were you."

"But they're stories," I say. "They're—myths, to explain lightning and the seasons and stuff. They're what people believed before there was science."

"Science!" Mr. D scoff. "And tell me, Perseus Jackson"—I flinch when he says my real name, which I never told anybody—"what will people think of your 'science' two thousand years from now?" Mr. D continues. "Hmm? They will call it primitive mumbo jumbo. That's what. Oh, I love mortals—they have absolutely no sense of perspective. They think they've come so-o-o far. And have they, Chiron? Look at this boy and tell me."

"Percy," Chiron says, "you may choose to believe or not, but the fact is that immortal means immortal. Can you imagine that for a moment, never dying? Never fading? Existing, just as you are, for all time?"

"You mean, whether people believed in you or not," (Y/n) says.

"Exactly," Chiron agrees. "If you were a god, how would you like being called a myth, an old story to explain lightning? What if I told you Perseus and (Y/n) Jackson, that someday people would call you a myth, just created to explain how children can get over losing their mothers."

My heart pounds. He's trying to make me angry for some reason, but I wasn't going to let him. I say, "I wouldn't like it. But I don't believe in gods."

"Oh, you'd better," Mr. D murmurs. "Before one of them incinerates you."

Grover pleads, "P-please, sir. He's just lost his mother. He's in shock."

"A lucky thing, too," Mr. D grumbles, playing a card. "Bad enough I'm confined to this miserable job, working with boys who don't even believe!" He waves his hand and a goblet appears on the table, as if the sunlight had bent, momentarily, and woven the air into glass. The goblet fills itself with red wine.

"You're Dionysus," (Y/n) says and Mr. D looks at her. "The god of wine."

Mr. D nods then stares at me as I say, "You're a god."

"Yes, child."

"A god. You."

He turns to look at me straight on, and I see a kind of purplish fire in his eyes, a hint that this whiny, plump little man is only showing me the tiniest bit of his true nature. I see visions of grapevines choking unbelievers to death, drunken warriors insane with battle lust, sailors screaming as their hands turn to flippers, their faces elongating into dolphin snouts. I know that if I push him, Mr. D would show me worse things. He would plant a disease in my brain that would leave me wearing a straitjacket in a rubber room for the rest of my life.

"Would you like to test me, child?" he says quietly.

"No. No, sir."

The fire dies a little; he turns back to his card game. "I believe I win."

"Not quite, Mr. D," Chiron says. He sets down a straight, tallies the points, and says, "The game goes to me."

I think Mr. D is going to vaporize Chiron right out of his wheelchair, but he just sighs through his nose, as if he were used to being beaten by the Latin teacher. He gets up, and Grover rises, too.

"I'm tired," Mr. D says. "I believe I'll take a nap before the sing-along tonight. But first, Grover, we need to talk, again, about your less-than-perfect performance on this assignment."

Grover's face beads with sweat. "Y-yes, sir."

Mr. D turned to me. "Cabin eleven, Percy Jackson. And mind your manners." He sweeps into the farmhouse, Grover following miserably.

"Will Grover be okay?" I ask Chiron.

Chiron nods, though he looks a little troubled. "Old Dionysus isn't really mad. He just hates his job. He's been . . . ah, grounded, I guess you would say, and he can't stand waiting another century before he's allowed to go back to Olympus."

"Mount Olympus," I say. "You're telling me there is really a palace there?"

"Well now, there's Mount Olympus in Greece. And then there's the home of the gods, the convergence point of their powers, which did indeed used to be on Mount Olympus. It's still called Mount Olympus, out of respect to the old ways, but the palace moves, Percy, just as the gods do."

"You mean the Greek gods are here? Like...in America?"

"The what?"

"Western civilization?" (Y/n) guesses and Chiron nods for her to continue. "It started in Greece, then spread to Rome, right?"

"That's correct, Miss (Y/n)," Chiron says.

"And then they died?" I ask, looking between my Latin teacher and my sister.

"Died? No. Did the West die? The gods simply moved, to Germany, to France, to Spain, for a while. Wherever the flame was brightest, the gods were there. They spent several centuries in England. All you need to do is look at the architecture. People do not forget the gods. Every place they've ruled, for the last three thousand years, you can see them in paintings, in statues, on the most important buildings. And yes, Percy, of course, they are now in your United States. Look at your symbol, the eagle of Zeus. Look at the statue of Prometheus in Rockefeller Center, the Greek facades of your government buildings in Washington. I defy you to find any American city where the Olympians are not prominently displayed in multiple places. Like it or not—and believe me, plenty of people weren't very fond of Rome, either —America is now the heart of the flame. It is the great power of the West. And so Olympus is here. And we are here."

"Who are you, Chiron? Who . . . who am I? Who . . . who are we?"

Chiron smiles. He shifts his weight as if he was going to get up out of his wheelchair, but I know that was impossible. He's paralyzed from the waist down.

"Who are you?" he muses. "Well, that's the question we all want answered, isn't it? But for now, we should get you a bunk in cabin eleven. There will be new friends to meet. And plenty of time for lessons tomorrow. Besides, there will be s'mores at the campfire tonight, and I simply adore chocolate."

And then he does rise from his wheelchair. But there's something odd about the way he did it. His blanket falls away from his legs, but the legs don't move. His waist keeps getting longer, rising above his belt. At first, I think he's was wearing very long, white velvet underwear, but as he keeps rising out of the chair, taller than any man, I realize that the velvet underwear wasn't underwear; it was the front of an animal, muscle and sinew under coarse white fur. And the wheelchair isn't a chair. It was some kind of container, an enormous box on wheels, and it must've been magic, because there's no way it could've held all of him. A leg comes out, long and knobby-kneed, with a huge polished hoof. Then another front leg, then hindquarters, and then the box was empty, nothing but a metal shell with a couple of fake human legs attached.

I stare at the horse who had just sprung from the wheelchair: a huge white stallion. But where its neck should be was the upper body of my Latin teacher, smoothly grafted to the horse's trunk.

"You're a centaur!" (Y/n) says in awe, and Chiron's eyes sparkle with amusement as he nods.

"What a relief," the centaur says. "I'd been cooped up in there so long, my fetlocks had fallen asleep. Now, come, Percy and (Y/n) Jackson. Let's meet the other campers."

Word Count: 3702 words

#percy jackson x sister reader #percy jackson and the olympians reader insert #fem reader #female reader #reader insert

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revchainsaw · 3 years

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You're Next (2011)

Greetings Flock! Reverend Chainsaw here with another film review to feed your souls. Parishioners of the Cult of Cult should be familiar with todays offering, and that is good news for you shall find your hearts strangely warmed. Please join me as we dive into the Book of You're Next and renew our devotion to the Trinity that is The Tiger, the Lamb, and the Holy Wolf.

The Message

You're Next is definitely a tough film to review. For a movie as young as it is to have had such a strong and committed following speaks volumes and I believe you would be hard pressed to find a review by anyone who loves horror that is down on the film. While it can sometimes bring me great joy to review the awful films of the world, occasionally it is a pleasure to give honor to those films which deserve it.

You're Next is a film which fits neatly into both the Slasher and Home Invasion genres. The story centers around a vicious assault on a wealthy family by 3 masked men, all on the evening when our heroin, Erin, is meeting them for the first time. Avoiding the Slasher genre trope of generic murder lambs we are yet again faced with an excellent cast where not even the early victims are forgettable.

The movie opens with the grizzly murder of the Davison's nearest neighbors by our animal masked assassins, insuring that should anyone attempt to flee they will not be finding help any time soon. Then we get one hell of a title card before we find Paul and Aubrey Davison preparing to have their children and their respective partners over to their home to celebrate their anniversary. Aubrey is played by Re-Animators own Barbara Crampton. Foremost among the children visiting are their son Crispian, a college professor, and his Australian girlfriend Erin, who was once his T.A. This is a source of contention for Crispian when his siblings judge the professional nature of this relationship.

Two by Two the Children arrive. It is off handedly mentioned that the Davisons money comes from defense contracts, and that the family dynamic is particularly strained. An arrow from a cross bow pierces the window during a particularly tense dinner, and then the film enters full force into unyielding action. There are characters murdered by arrows, a gruesome slice to the jugular by some sinisterly placed piano wire (during what was ramping up to be a daring escape from the home), and of course axe murders.

Crispian manages to escape into the night abandoning Erin and his remaining family. At this point, Erin, who is revealed to have been raised on a survivalist compound begins to fight back. Erin goes full Home Alone on the invaders, and the hunters soon become the hunted. After Erin kills one of the villains It is revealed through the course of the night that the murder of the Davison family is an inside job. These men are paid assassins and they were hired by Felix and his gothy girlfriend Zee, whose macabre tastes include being sexually aroused by dead bodies. Once Erin discovers this fact she dispatches the rest of the animal masked crew as well as Felix and Zee with some very creative uses of kitchenware.

Just as we are about to declare Erin the final girl of this film Felix's phone rings, it's Crispian. When Erin answers Crispian reveals that he was the ringleader, but his weak constitution had caused him to flee the scene. Impatient when he doesn't here Felix on the other end Felix reenters the home to find a bloody Erin. He begs and makes excuses, promising Erin that she was intended to be a witness to the slaughter and was safe the whole time. Erin is having none of it, and ends the relationship once and for all with a stab to the neck.

The film ends with the arrival of the police who upon discovering Erin murdering Crispian set off one of her Home Alone traps and she is set up to be held responsible for the whole affair. Here's hoping we get the court room drama sequel that this movie deserves.

The Benediction

Best Kill: Erin, In the Kitchen, With the Vitamix It's not often in a horror flick that the best kill can be said not to have come from the hands of the monster, but from the heroin. Toward the climax of the film Erin has had enough and she expresses her self in glorious gory satisfaction with a blender to the skull of her lovers brother Felix.

Best Character : T.A. Taking Action Suprise! It's Erin. The best character is Erin. I really wanted to try and say that it was some more obscure character like snarky big bro Drake, but No. It's Erin, it was always Erin. She is the stand out feature of the film. The Lamb, the Tiger, and the Wolf masks were instantly iconic and sold in Hot Topic from the minute the movie made a wide release, but no one comes out of You're Next thinking about the mercenary assassins. We come out thinking about how the lass from the land down under turned the tide against the terribe trio. The audience wants more Erin.

Best Actor: We Came, We Got You, Barbara!

It's just so good to see Barbara Crampton whenever we can. It says something for a person to still be doing the Scream Queen thing for this long. She is not the most likeable character in You're Next but she is selling the fear, the tension and the goals of her character. I think it would be safe to say that the first act would not be nearly as effective without Barbara Cramptons performance.

Best Villain: Zee Nation

Zee was just something else. The Masked Trio of Home Invaders were sort of plug and play. The masks and tactical gear definitely sold the menace, but they were not really characters. They are given some slivers of back story and I don't think that it's really a problem that way. I've been happy with less before. It just sort of means that no one killer stands out in particular. Though the Lamb Mask is my personal favorite. For all the brutish merciless killing these three dole out to the Davison family it's really Zee who makes a splash in my memory. She's absolutely as gleeful as a deadite about all this bloodshed going on around her. She isn't just dark and edgy cuz it's a look, it seems like she really took that aesthetic to heart. The fact that you couldn't tell she'd happily tear your throat out by looking at her certainly makes her a bigger threat than she gets credit for.

Worst Character: Poor Little Rich Kid

All of the characters in You're Next work. Some move from grating to sympathetic, others from charming to pitiful, but at some point every character has a presence and a personality that the viewer can recognize. No Character in this film will receive worst character because they are poorly written, unneccessary, or just obnoxious. However, one character is consistently self-indulgent, cocky, sniveling, and has all the undeserved sense of superiority of a Kevin Smith protagonist, and that's Crispian. Fuck Crispian. He's a bad boyfriend, a bad brother, a bad son, and a bad teacher. He has so much that he doesn't deserve, and earnestly feels he's entitled to more.

Most WTF Moment: Crossing the Line

Was it Crispian's heel turn? Was it Felix stabbing drake? The realization that the family extermination was an inside job? Was it the twist that Erin was a bad ass? What single moment made everyone who's seen this movie go "WHOAH!!!" all at once? When Crispian was attempting to make his exit the first time he proposed he go and get help claiming he's the fastest, to which his overestimation of himself is comedically undercut by the fact that he is in fact out of shape and his sister Aimee used to run track. The family unanimously agrees they would put their lives in the hands of poor Aimee and her athletic past, but they also propose she back up and bolt out the front door the minute they open it up. The music swells, and Aimee makes a run for it. She is stopped short by a piano wire trap set by the mercenaries, as her momentum allows the wire to cut deep and clean into the meat of her neck. She is not decapitated but bleeds out on the floor of the house. It really catches the viewer off guard and is a very impressive effect. Not only is Aimee's kill the most WTF moment, but it is runner up for best kill.

Summary You're Next is hands down my favorite home invasion movie. It's wide appeal is undeniable. As of 2015, You're Next was predicted to be considered the best horror movie of the 2010s. Unfortunately for You're Next but how wonderful for us, the later half of the decade really ramped up the great horror films releases. I wouldn't call You're Next the best horror film of it's time, but it definitely deserves to be remembered. People's enthusiasm for the film does seem to be slowing and I think it would do our congregation a great service for us to continue singing it's praises.

Overall Grade: A

#You're Next #slasher #horror #home invasion #2011 #2010s #masked killer #wolf #fox #tiger #lamb #Final Girl #A #Grade A #(A)

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theawkwardterrier · 4 years

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things left behind and the things that are ahead, ch. 40

AO3 link here

Peggy sleeps less now. Her doctor assures her that it’s normal, a perfectly common thing that happens to older people, but she can’t help but think ruefully of all those times over the years - decades, really - when she was pushing through on catnaps and adrenaline, having ten meetings a day while still trying to get home in time to quiz someone on their multiplication tables. Inconvenient, really, that her body’s waited until now to decide it can do with less.

Her eyes open at ten past four and she can tell that she isn’t going to be able to get back to sleep, so she puts on her dressing gown and leaves Steve in bed, breathing evenly. Down in the kitchen she starts water for tea. It isn’t quite late enough for the morning paper, so she takes a deck of cards and deals herself a round of solitaire. Last night’s comfortingly pouring rain has tapered off, leaving dismal drizzle and heavy gray out the windows.

Perhaps some part of her sensed something different about this morning, though, because when the phone sounds, bright and loud in the silence, she isn’t startled by it. She picks up in the middle of the second ring, hoping that it hasn’t woken Steve.

“Hello.”

“Mom?” The sharp sound of Drea’s franticness, the suppressed panic of her breathing, is interrupted by surprise. Steve usually picks up the phone during the night. “I didn’t think you’d be up.”

“The benefits of getting older, I suppose,” Peggy says. “I assume that if you’re calling this early...?”

“We’re driving up,” Drea confirms, words piling atop each other. “Jackson’s in the shower now. Ce called at midnight, told us that it would probably take a while, but I’m going a little—”

“Of course.” Peggy can imagine her daughter’s eyes wide open in the darkness, staring at the ceiling, shifting over to check the clock. All those nights of childhood insomnia, restless nerves over tests or tiffs with friends, grown now as she waits for her child to be born.

“And I thought I’d call and...let you two know, um...” Drea breathes out, a shudder.

After a gap of silence, Peggy speaks. “Did you want to ask me something?” she says gently.

Blurting as if she only needed permission for the question, Drea says, “What if I’m not good at it?” and then seems to hold her breath.

“At what?” Peggy prods.

“At being a mother. A parent. What if I’ve just been fooling myself - Jackson’s so excited and he seems so ready, but I never wanted to babysit growing up, and I’m never the one to try to hold the babies when we’re all together, and Max always used to cry when I picked him up, and I once almost dropped Luke onto his head.”

Peggy smooths her face, even though no one can see her, and holds back a chuckle. “That’s quite a lot of worries,” she observes.

“What if I’m not good at it?” Drea asks again, whispered. “Celia’s trusting me, she’s gone through being pregnant all of these months, she could have picked anyone, but she picked us. She picked me. And I don’t want to let her down. I don’t want to let the baby down. I just don’t know if I’m good enough for this. If I’m ready. If I’ll ever be.”

This sort of vulnerability is, Peggy thinks, the reason Drea chose to call here instead of phoning her brother. Because Nate would have picked up, too, would have been just as happy for her, told her it didn’t matter that it was barely light or that Eleanor and Luke were sleeping, would have given her his perpetual calm, offered soothing encouragements and bits of parenting advice. But Drea has always been the big sister, the protector between the two of them. Peggy can still see them in that first glimpse, Drea’s small arms around Nate’s smaller shoulders, knuckles tensed just in case. She still remembers those nights, peeking through the crack in the door when she came home late, Nate held safe between the house and his sister. And as much as Nate has grown, alongside her the whole time and even, in some ways, surpassing her, as clearly as he knows her flaws and insecurities, perhaps she wants to hold on just a little longer to that idea of herself striding ahead of him, fearless.

“Celia had good reason to choose you,” Peggy tells her. She’d only met Drea’s friend once, at their law school graduation, has an approximate memory of a round-faced woman, not quite Drea’s height but close enough that she seemed tall too, with vaguely tamed wheat-colored hair down near her waist, chunky bracelets in bright colors or made of hand-carved wooden beads beneath the sleeves of her graduation robe, a perpetually gentle, encompassing smile: like someone had tried to package every free spirit cliche into one person, though Drea had assured her that it was just the way Celia was. After graduation she had apparently moved to Vermont and specialized in environmental law, as if perfectly comfortable pigeonholing herself further, and Peggy hadn’t thought of her once until Drea had called seven months ago.

She and Jackson had been married for over three years, already a year into trying to adopt, and feeling the strain of it, especially given that they been honest about the fact that Jackson was meant to be the main caregiver while Drea worked, a plan which had been greeted (still, Peggy thought, dismayed, all these years and all we’ve done later) with no little disapproval.

(It was the sort of thing that made Steve absolutely furious. It always would have, but especially after all those years working with children.

"I can't imagine," he would comment to Peggy after another phone call with Drea, "telling the kid in front of you that sorry, there's no family for them just because you don't like the job or the skin color or the sexuality of the parents who want them. Especially when there are too many people who look right on paper and should never be allowed around children.")

And then, all of a sudden, there had been Celia, sending a letter to the address she had gotten from some mutual friend. The story of a hiking trip in Maine, one night with a man from Canada, a pregnancy that she had considered ending and decided not to. How she had remembered hearing that Drea and her husband were trying to adopt and wondered if they would like to take her baby.

Peggy was dubious about the situation, thinking how messy it could be to be acquainted with the birth parent of your child, seeing the potential there for hearts shattering and difficult questions in the future. But she trusts Drea's mind, and it was made up - not quickly, but decisively.

Still, Peggy isn't surprised by the panic at this final moment. Precipices are always frightening.

"Celia made the right decision," she reiterates with firm gentleness. "I always trusted you to take good care of your siblings. You can give this baby a wonderful home and a family. And after all, you only ever almost dropped Luke."

Drea doesn't laugh. "Okay, even if I can keep the baby alive what if I don't—" Her words tangle a little, tripping on something Peggy suspects is tears. "What if I hold them for the first time and don't feel anything? I've seen people fall in love with their kids. I won't share blood with this baby, I won't have had those months of feeling them grow and move. I painted a room. I went to a few classes. I bought a bed and bottles and a chair. It's not the same."

"It is, somewhat. Those steps mean the same thing," Peggy points out, and she realizes that she's drawing from that reserve of hers that keeps her calm in meetings when she feels something stirring and tightening in her chest. Drea has certainly considered Peggy and Steve her parents for decades, and she doesn’t mean to glance against the cruelty of saying that some sorts of parents are more real than others. "You've been preparing to bring a child into your life."

"And if it's not enough?" Drea asks. Her voice is so vulnerable that Peggy feels the stirring in her chest transform. She holds the phone closer.

"Then it's enough for you to want to help the baby, to hold them close and keep them safe and cared for. It's enough, Drea. I promise." Peggy fingers the playing cards before her. The deck is so worn, the cards creased in places, soft at the edges, the occasional little tear, that she imagines they must have had it from when the children were small.

She has never really said this aloud to Steve, though she thinks he must have guessed. She needs to take in a breath before she can begin to speak the words. The pain of thinking about the children she lost might be old by now, a healed sort of wound which only gives the occasional twinge on its own, but it can still hurt when she presses on the memory of it.

"The first time I became pregnant," she says carefully, "I wasn't entirely excited about it. I knew your father would be and I took joy in his joy. I wasn’t unhappy. But I became caught up in more logistical concerns, making certain I could still work, thinking of how it would change my marriage and my physical ability going forward, and I didn't truly focus on the meaning of it. And then I lost the pregnancy, and...it wasn't that I thought my thinking had caused it, but I certainly thought that it hadn't helped. I found myself wondering about all of these other aspects of that future which we might have had and now never could.

"So the next time I became pregnant, and the next, I put so much into thinking of how our life would be changed for the better by having a child of our own. It hurt, more than I would have ever thought, when I wasn't able to bring those children into the world, to bring reality to those futures I had dreamt up. And then we found Rose, and life with her was...very different from anything I had imagined. But no matter how much things in the beginning might have been about pushing through, keeping her alive, warm, fed, settling ourselves in, it becomes more. Taking care of another person like that, it changes things. Perhaps you'll have that moment of being struck by love and perhaps not. It depends on the parent, it always does, but I promise that the love can come later. Things are allowed to take more than a moment."

(She remembers Steve telling her about the day he had gone over to Nate’s to help put together the cot before Luke was born. How as they had examined their handiwork, Nate had asked in that quiet, straightforward way of his about whether his father ever thought of what would have happened if they had had biological children, if they hadn’t needed to adopt.

“Do you wonder?” she had asked Steve, “What did you say?”

He had looked at her: those eyes, bright and hers and the same, even as age stroked at his skin.

“I told him that whenever I’ve wondered, I imagine what Rosie would be like if she’d had older siblings. I think about how we’d have needed an even bigger house for everyone or we’d have been refereeing fights every night and putting lines of tape down all the bedrooms. I told him that when I do wonder, I ask what life would have been like with all of them.”)

“You have,” she says to Drea, hoping she can promise such things, “so many moments. There will be so many moments for you and Jackson to love your child, to grow to love them. And when you do…”

She can’t speak for a moment. She thinks of Rose in the third grade spelling bee with a gap-toothed smile and hair growing out from the mangled trim she’d decided to give herself, Rose in a formal dress organizing everyone to walk down the aisle at Nate and Eleanor’s backyard wedding last month. Emma’s gaze monitoring Peggy that first moment she had held her all that time ago, and just a year ago, sitting beside Emma as she typed out her statement for her congressional testimony the next day. Nate: how those once small hands which held his stuffed animals and pulled others up from where they’d fallen on the playground now hold onto his wife and son, demonstrate technique to the children he helps. And Drea, running wild with tangled hair, her light on late as she tried to study just that last little bit more, Drea draped softly in love the day she was married, arguing with straight shoulders at the courthouse in downtown Boston while Peggy sat hidden and proud in the gallery.

“I love you too, Mom,” says Drea quietly. “Thank you.”

Peggy clears her throat. “Have you decided on a name?” she asks, a bit of rust on the words.

“Jackson likes Harriet,” Drea says. “Harry. After Harriet the Spy.” She sounds so fond. “He thinks it will help the baby fit in with the girls.”

“The girls” are Drea and Jackson’s cats, Nancy, Trixie, Judy, and Ginny. Peggy had thought that Drea’s heart had been too broken to ever get another pet following the escape of the demon Lula-Cat, with her vicious clawing of anyone who crossed her, which she considered everyone but Drea, and the deep-throated Tallulah Bankhead meow which had been the basis for her name. Apparently she’d been wrong. The four that live in the house in the Boston suburbs are much friendlier and better behaved, but Peggy still shudders thinking of all the fur.

“What names do you like?” she asks Drea, just the faintest push.

For a moment, Drea doesn’t say anything. Then: “I like Casey,” she says hesitantly. “And Cameron. We could use Cam as a nickname, maybe.”

“A name a person can take anywhere,” says Peggy with assurance. The grandfather clock in the hall strikes the hour.

“God, things are probably moving along there,” Drea says. “Even if we leave right now, it’ll be three hours or more before we can get there and—Oh, here’s Jackson.” There’s the muddled sound of conversation in the background, then Drea saying, faintly, “No, Jacks, I don’t...You don’t have to, J, I promise, I’m fine,” before she holds the phone directly by her mouth again. “Jackson’s making me hot chocolate for the drive,” she tells her mother shyly.

Peggy thinks of her son-in-law, tall and bony and soft-voiced, Texan as his preferred cowboy boots, a man who can rewire an outlet in a flat minute and sets aside money from each check to buy books. “Good,” she tells Drea. “Tell him to add some extra chocolate from me.”

When they’ve hung up, after more reassuring words from Peggy and a promise to call when they know anything else, Peggy goes back upstairs and climbs back into bed with Steve. He stirs just a bit, puts an arm around her.

“We’re going to be grandparents again,” she tells him quietly, the eagerness she couldn’t allow earlier sprouting between her words. “Maybe even by the time you wake up.”

Despite the silver sneaking into the strands of his hair, those still-broad shoulders, when she gazes at his face, she can see the boy she met all those years ago, gentle and overlooked, fierce in righteousness; he still lies at the core of her husband all this time later, the way she knew even then he would.

She thinks of the girl she was, long decades ago, older than her years with responsibility over life and death and no idea of the things the future would bring her.

The pain and the promise of it all, my dear, Peggy thinks with solemn fondness, all still before you. And she tucks herself more tightly beneath Steve’s arm and thinks of all that still lies before her and them and those they love.

More chapters here

#Steggy #Steggy fic #Steve Rogers #Peggy Carter #things left behind fic #the Carter crew #(I wonder if this one might be struck by my emotional awkwardness but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ typical I guess)

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hopelesstvaddict · 5 years

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Jon and Sansa's relationship is fragile because of Jon's insecurities

[So we're back. Instead of full reviews I think I'm just gonna write about specific subjects that make me pause and think, more than the general episodes]

So we've been treated with Jon's return to Winterfell and his rocky relationship with Sansa resumes. Again. Ain't this old by now ? Perhaps not.

Jon and Sansa are at their most affectionate when it comes to hugs but this second time, Sansa keeps focused on what's important. I don't really understand why Jon would take issue with Sansa speaking up at the council in the Great Hall; she brought up very valid points. Saving the world is important of course but people tend to forget what needs to happen behind the scenes in order to ensure that. I think I'm not alone in this but I also wondered why she didn't take into account Dany's army when preparing all the food storing. While that can be blamed on sloppy writing and it's fair to say that she could have at least entertained the idea, it's also fair to remember that Jon's main idea was first to mine dragonglass and then try to convince Dany to help them. Sansa was not convinced he would succeed; in her mind, Dany would only care about her throne. So far she's not proven entirely wrong. And we also have to remember that Jon didn't send any message to her for a long time and certainly not before he knelt. Probably the last scroll she got was something like 'Hey I'm ok' and then next thing she knew he had bent the knee. So by this time it was already too late to gather whatever food was necessary. Plus I think it's safe to say the entire North brought what food was available FOR THE NORTH ONLY. Obviously there wasn't much and in any case, even if she had been warned she'd have to feed many more, there wouldn't have been enough. Sansa takes care of all this, and all the political stuff - things that both Jon and Dany do not care about and have little regard for. Jon still doesn’t quite realize how much he needs Sansa to handle all of this because he doesn’t realize how important it is. Yet.

The scene that stood out the most takes place during Jon and Arya's reunion in which Jon tries to dismiss Sansa. Live reaction: Ok so we're back to this 'Jon-putting-down-his-sister' nonsense? At first view, it's quite infuriating to see Jon acting this way and it's hard to believe these two ever found a way to unite and effing retake Winterfell. But once you stop and think about it, this little exchange yields so much to analyze.

As many pointed out, Jon likely tries to revert to a childhood joke he shared with Arya when they were younger and used to diss their sister together. Fair point. Siblings often side against one another. But that shows several things. Jon has been away from Arya all series long and he doesn't realize yet that she's not his little baby sister anymore. His conversation about Needle further proves the point. In any case, Arya is having none of it and supports Sansa. We're all here for this.

Here Jon seemingly tries to diminish Sansa's intelligence. But he knows that she really IS smarter than everyone else. He knows it. So I think part of what's going on here is that Jon works as the embodiment of the last part of the general audience who still thinks that Sansa is useless and this scene was written for Arya - a known fan favorite - to dismiss this and assert her support of Sansa - to really drive home this idea. The scene with Tyrion (another fan favorite) serves a similar purpose.

Narratively, beyond Jon dismissing Sansa yet again, this reads as another instance where it's more about Jon than it is about Sansa. Several times Jon has confronted Sansa about her asserted cleverness - and all those times, she's been right - and each time it boiled down to Jon's lack of self-confidence and the need to prove himself to his sister. When she told him that Ramsey was more devious than what he thought, his first reaction was to boast about his military achievements. When she told him to be smarter than Robb and their father, his reaction was to half-jokingly dismiss her offer of counsel. This essentially is a version of him saying 'Yeah she's smart but so am I and I wish she saw it too'

This ties closely with the rest of the exchange where Arya tells him that Sansa is defending the family. Pay attention to what Jon says next - specifically the choice of phrasing it.

There is so much to draw from that line. He doesn't say 'She's my family too' or 'she's our family' or 'I'm your family too'. His choice of words means 'I, Jon, am part of Sansa's family too'. That singles out Sansa as Jon's focus for discontent. He could have said 'I'm your family' or just 'I'm family too' and that would have included Bran and Arya as well. But no, Sansa alone is who Jon focuses on. This shows that he still has some unresolved issues with her - even after all that happened between them. After two seasons of her repeatingly validating him, her saying out loud 'You're a Stark to me' he still doubts HER in particular

Perhaps that boils down to her behavior towards him when they were children since this comes up again later. A seemingly random bit of conversation but one can't help but wonder why this was brought up again. Jon and Sansa weren't close growing up and Jon is a deeply insecure person, being a bastard and all that and it's understandable that he would have a hard time letting go of all these presumptions when they all but defined his childhood. She was the sole of his siblings to make him feel like he didn't have a real place in the family (to make it very simple), hence why he doesn't have a problem with Arya or Bran. Yet.

But how can Sansa change that ? A girl can repeat her support for him so much and reassure him all the time but really it's up to Jon to get past childish jabbing and accept the woman his sister has become and that she's genuine in her concern towards him. That she's changed.

'I'm her family too' is another way of saying 'I'm part of her family too so why is she always antagonizing me/fighting me/disagreeing with me?' Jon still thinks Sansa doesn't consider him family and she's the last one not to in his mind.

The choice of words also emphasizes the 'I'. Rather than say 'she' and put focus on Sansa alone, the use of 'I' brings the sentence back to Jon and puts the spotlight on him as well. 'I am part of her family too'. As if he's saying it out loud and repeating it so that perhaps his thick brain will finally accept it. This is a clever exchange that foreshadows the existential/identity crisis that he's going to go through no later than before the end of the episode. Which renders Arya's 'Don't forget that' quite unsubtle. This will be Jon’s final storyline, the resolution of the one problem that defined him at the beginning of the story.

This need to gain Sansa's approval is driven further in the scene the two of them share later on (another candlelit setting). We have yet to see Jon interact with Bran or Arya but Jon is decidedly different with Sansa. Perhaps that's because they're the eldest. Perhaps that's because they're closer in age. Perhaps that's because they are the leaders of their House. Perhaps that's because they went to war together. In any case, Jon is wary, unsure and insecure about how she feels about him. He doesn’t look to Sansa the way he affectionately looks to Arya or Bran. A smile is rare when he interacts with Sansa. He yells, they don't see eye to eye, he feels like she belittles him, he feels hurt and at the end of it, this :

This is him asking her for reassurance. Asking for a clear answer. 'Please trust me. Please tell me that you support me'. He craves her validation. After he all but dismissed her in front of Arya. Why go see her? Why take her intel so close to his heart then ?

To which she responds 'You know I do'. Two things to take from this. First, once again she reassures him and reasserts her support and loyalty to him. Second, 'YOU KNOW I do' means 'you already know the answer'. This shows that in her mind, Jon should ALREADY know that he has acquired her undying support - probably against her better judgement. Newsflash : he doesn’t.

Can we stop now for a second and breathe a sigh of relief that Sansa has grown confident enough to be sure of who she is and not question Jon's lack of faith in her ? Thank the Gods one of them has their shit together because if she were like him, this wouldn't go anywhere.

It's possible that her not lashing out at him and instead adopting this quiet, sad behavior is also the manifestation of her own fear towards him - that he effectively abandoned her. For all the tough 'no one can protect me' behavior, anyone is going to be touched to have someone pledge to protect them.

Anyway, Sansa trusts Jon but he doesn't. It's quite interesting that he was the one asking for mutual trust before and yet he is the one in the end who can't totally do it because in his heart, he is still deeply insecure about her. Sure there were some steps made. Ensuring the safety of the North and entrusting her with it was a huge improvement. But still, we see that on a personal level he is quite not there.

The obvious question then is WHY. Why is he still insecure ? And why Sansa in particular ? The beginning of an answer can be found in the relationship he had with her while they were children and how it compares to Arya and Bran. Maybe that's just remnants of that strained relationship.

But if Sansa has changed and for the better and Jon still struggles to accept it, let's just hope that a similar situation doesn't arise with Arya and Bran. Let's rule out the latter since he's all about the zen attitude but we've already seen that Arya is not Jon's Arya anymore and that she will stand beside Sansa when needed. For now, Jon has no reason to doubt Arya like he does Sansa. When the reveal about his parentage comes out, how will Sansa and Arya react ? If he can't handle the thought of one sister seemingly doubting him, what's it going to be if it's two sisters ?

All of this insecurity regarding Sansa - for now - is at least partly in preparation of the drama that is sure to unfold in the next weeks. Jon fears that Sansa doesn't see him as family and now, he has even more reason to be afraid. All the drama that has happened between them for seasons boils down to this deep fear of not being accepted by her and now we're in for the culmination. There will be a lot of fighting, we’re told. Jon will sulk and convince himself that he was right in the end, that he wasn't part of the family and more so, that SHE was right not to accept him. Sansa on the other hand, I suspect, will mainly fight to make him accept once and for all that he is a Stark. That's the passionate fight for her this season. To make her family complete.

Another interesting thing to note - as others have observed - is that the conversation is left unfinished.

Sansa asks if Jon loves Dany and he doesn't respond. Once again, Sansa demonstrates - to us and to Jon - how perceptive she is, how well she can read people, and him specifically. As of now, Jon’s relationship with Dany is still a secret and yet she has figured it out.

What's really notable is that this is a pattern in a lot of Sansa/Jon conversations, specifically the ones where they argue in private. Compare this one to the tent scene in 6x09 or the one in 7x01 right after the council or even in 6x07 when they argue about the men they have. We have Sansa and Jon arguing heatedly then the conversation tones down to soft, sad voices and then it ends before resolution can happen, either because they choose to end it there, someone else interrupts or we simply are denied to see it.

Sansa and Jon have been arguing ever since they reunited. Every season they were pitted against each other as the siblings who fought. Now in the final season, it's still brought up and used in the narrative. Meaning that it means something, that it's important to the story. We saw that Arya and Sansa fought in Season 7. It was tied to their old bickering from childhood and ultimately it was resolved and now Arya stands by her sister. Narratively, a conflict plaguing characters has to be resolved when the story comes to its conclusion. Sansa and Jon’s storyline has been going on since Season 6 now, so their relationship HAS TO come to a resolution, one way or another. And it'll be all about Jon finally accepting that he is a Stark and about him accepting that Sansa has accepted it.

#got #game of thrones #sansa stark #got meta #game of thrones meta #jon snow #jonsa #actuallyjonsa #arya stark #got theories #game of thrones theories #got thoughts #game of thrones season 8 #got s8 #got season 8 #game of thrones s8 #jon x sansa #got analysis #game of thrones analysis

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sarcastically-defensive17 · 4 years

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Times Like These - lrh Chapter 4 - Luke is shit. Shit luke.

Luke was livid.

No, he was beyond livid. He was fuming so much that he was convinced he was running a fever.

Never one for tact, Luke released his outburst in the middle of the crowded cafe.

"What the fuck did you just do?" He seethed. He couldn't fathom how they could make such a big decision without consulting him. "You do know that I pay the rent too, right? Don't you think I should have a say in 16-and-pregnant moving in?"

"Woah, watch your mouth," Michael snapped, fixing Luke with a glare that he reciprocated.

"Am I wrong? What is she? 17?"

"I'm nearly 20," she mumbled, focusing more on wiping the smooshed muffin from Alexis' face.

Calum rolled his eyes at his friends petulance, "what does it matter? All you do at that house is shit and sleep so who cares if Audrey moves in?"

"Because maybe I don't want to live with a kid and her kid," Luke snapped. He didn't hate the girl, he just would like to avoid living with her and her small child at all costs.

He's a 22 year old man who has an active sex life (with a less than intelligent bimbo) and who enjoys coming home to sleep his hangovers off.

How can be so that if the blueberry bitches at him for waking her kid up?

"You're unbelievable," Ashton mumbled to Luke as he pulled faces at the little girl. Luke will never admit it to anybody but himself, but the child was calm, and manageable.

If it wasn't for a matter of principle, he would be somewhat okay with the two moving in. But for them to not even ask him? He was fuming.

"I'm unbelievable? At least I ask before inviting two whole humans to enter the house!"

His voice was raising but he didn't care.

"Oh, like when you invite your screechy fuck buddy over without consulting any of us?" Michael snapped back at him, earning a smack across the ear from his sister when he cursed. "Sorry, your snuggle buddy. Happy?"

She nodded with a smirk, finding amusement in the sarcastic tone her brother took. "You know I don't like her hearing those words. She's impressionable."

"Can't be worse than what's tattooed on your hip," Calum giggled around his coffee cup. "Bye bye bikinis for the sake of Alexis, am I right?"

Audrey's face went red, and she fixed Calum with a glare that could kill a man. Or two.

The tattoo had been a drunken mistake from before she was pregnant, and she had grown fond of it by the time she planned to get it covered up.

Luke was interested in the ink, but couldn't bring himself to let his curiosity derail his anger.

He had a point to prove, and he was determined to get some acknowledgement for his presence in their shared house.

"All in saying is, maybe you should have asked me before-"

"Before what, Luke?" Michael shifted in his seat, crossing his arms over his chest. "Before asking my sister and her daughter - who, might I add, do not have a stable home to live in - to move into the spare room we will have so that they are safe and happy?"

Luke knew it was a challenge, and he was prepared to put all his chips on the table as he glared his nostrils at his best friend, "Yes. You should have consulted me first."

Tensions had been brewing between the two friends for long enough, Calum and Ashton were first hand witnesses for both the strained relationship and Luke's growing attitude and narcissistic behavior.

"Okay, you know what-" Michael was on his feet now, bringing the attention of majority of the cafe to their table, and Audrey couldn't help the deep red flush that covered her cheeks.

"Okay, enough!" She snapped, using the same voice she would when Alexis would start biting or hiring. Stern, but careful to upset. "Thank you for the offer but I don't have the energy to deal with this so, no thank you. I'll text you later Mikey."

She lifted Alexis from the high chair, before dropping money on the table and gathering her things.

She could hear the faint sound of flesh connecting with flesh and Luke whined faintly in the background accompanied by Michael calling him a "cockwaffle with narcissistic personality disorder."

Alexis, from her position situated on her mother's wide hip, turned and aggressively waved her arms at the four men still at the table.

Despite the high tensions, they all stopped their bickering to wave at the small girl. Even Luke, who - even though he wouldn't admit it out loud - found the child to be rather bubbly and entertaining.

He watched the pair retreat, noting the way they took off in the direction of the tattoo parlor not far from the cafe. The same place he had an appointment for later in the day.

He just hoped he wouldn't run into her again, for he wouldn't know how to deal with the guilt that is beginning to overwhelm him.

"Is there seriously something wrong with you lately, or are you just being a dick for the fun of it?" Ashton spoke up.

Luke gaped for a second, not used to Ashton sounding so aggressive when he lectured him. Usually Ashton was a soft touch, preferring to give a soft but stern talking to rather than a growled scolding.

There was a fury in the mans hazel eyes that Luke had not seen many times before, and it made him wonder just how much the girl meant to the three of them.

It had its downsides, being the least present inductee into the group of friends. Even more so, when he knew that Ashton, the last inductee, had more of a connection with Michael's sister than he did. And he had known Michael as long as Calum had.

Michael held such anger in his expression that Luke visibly recoiled at the sight. Calum stared blankly at him.

It was silent for a beat, none of them saying a word as Luke felt the guilt begin to creep up his spine. He ran his fingers through his hair, brushing the flat blond hair back from his eyes.

"Do you really not want to know how bad she has it at home, that she needs somewhere else to go?" Calum questioned the taller man, leaning forward on his elbows. He seemed to be the calmer of the trio, the only one able to explain Audrey's situation without wanting to rip the mans head off.

Luke nodded, not trusting his voice.

Calum sighed, "she's a near twenty year old, uni student who works countless amount of hours to be able to afford to take care of her daughter and herself while dealing with her asshole cousin who is hell bent on making her life hell."

"Not to mention our asshole father who has been set on reminding Audrey of how she has wasted every bit of potential she has by choosing to keep Lexi," Mike growled. Like knew the relationship between the siblings and their father was strained but he knows he will most likely never get the extent of it.

He had never met Daryl Clifford, not had he met Jason but Michael and Calum had told him enough for him to not like either.

"Is it really... that bad?" Luke winced at his own words, knowing the insensitive syllables will not cause a positive reaction in his friends.

Michael scoffed, not lowering his glare from his friend, "You want to know if it's that bad? The phone call she had when she threw your coffee on you, that was dear dad telling her she needed to fork over money to fix damage that Jason blamed her for. She handed over nearly 3 grand of savings she had to move out just to fix the shit he broke and buy him a new tv because he and his friends broke his when they were high."

"So they get high and carry on like assholes with a baby in the house?"

All three men nodded at him, and he dragged a hand down his face. He had ducked up. Big time.

Hell, if anybody deserved to get out of there, it was the pair.

"Shit."

"Yeah, you're damn right shit. There's a hair in my coffee," Ashton cringed, not realizing the intentions behind Luke's words. The three looked at him with confused expressions and he turned slightly pink as he noticed their gazes. "Oh, yeah, no. Luke is shit. Shit Luke."

Michael face palmed, trying to stifle his laughter at the lack of attention Ashton had put into the conversation within the past few sentences exchanged.

#luke hemmings #luke hemmings x oc #times like these #book #michael clifford #ashton irwin #calum hood #audrey clifford #alexis clifford

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thedyingmoon · 5 years

Text

🖤 I See My Future Before Me 🖤

***

XVII

***

It was the happiest moment of my life. The moment we spoke our vows, the promise of our unending love, the feeling when he slipped the ring on my finger, and that time when we kissed,...

... it was as if the universe conspired to make everything perfect for the two of us as husband and wife.

But, that was a year ago. Despite our efforts, we could not help but be crestfallen for the thing we desired the most but could not gain - offspring.

We consulted every possible expert we could think of but, it seemed that it really was impossible for me to conceive. And one day, we just,... stopped trying. I knew there was something wrong with me, and I could never deny it.

But, my husband, despite this condition of mine, stayed with me and remained patient and understanding. He never gave up on me and never once left me. He gave me all the love that he could, despite the fact that I was unworthy of it to begin with.

No, he never thought of me as unworthy. Never.

Then, one day, he gave me the most wonderful gift in the world. Gifts, in the form of three very different, yet precious, little girls who stood before me that one morning during my birthday.

He called them Galatea, Andromeda, and Cassandra. They were the three sisters of fate - The Bearer of The Past, The Protector of The Present, and The Aspect of The Future. The three loyal Muses that served him and guarded him.

Despite them not being human, and also not Demonic, in nature, they do mimic everything that normal little girls do. They play, sing, dance, they ask for bedtime stories, they yearn for love. And they were the most beautiful beings in all of existence.

They were,... perfect.

From that day onward, they have become my three darling daughters who stayed with me at all times, protecting us and making us whole and happy,...

***

youtube

"Talk about a fine line between love and hate.

We've lost more than our direction of late.

Talk about a fine line between lovers and friends.

We've never been lovers now we're not even friends.

In this invisible war, it seems we're waging an invisible war.

Everyday I seem to lose you more in this invisible war.

Wounded deeply the scar is here to stay,

Opening up the little things I do or say.

You always want things to be as before.

So I make you angry and you bleed a little more.

In this invisible war, it seems we're waging an invisible war.

Strained maneuvers keeping silent score in this invisible war."

"Where is V?" You asked Nico for the third time that day.

Instead of saying that she didn't know, the freckled woman sighed. "Is there something wrong, hon?" She inquired as she repaired one of Nero's Breakers.

"Ah, nothing." You let out with a dejected sigh.

"You sure?"

You nodded.

"Whatever you say,... "

It was a really cold and cloudy day. Nero was snoring loudly on the sofa, Nico was doing some more Breakers for him to kill time, V was, indeed, nowhere to be found,...

... and you?

Ever since that strange encounter you had with him earlier, you couldn't help but feel unnerved. It's like a part of him drastically changed the moment he went back from his talk with Fleminger. You so wanted to ask him what's bothering him, to comfort him and to offer a shoulder to lean on.

But, the fact that you just saw him got hurt with something unknown? It was like watchig a loved one suffer from the other side with bars separating them, making it impossible for one to reach the other. And it really took a toll on your sensitive emotions.

You just couldn't stop thinking and worrying about him. And it awfully hurt not to see the usual V you have grown to admire and adore.

Silly, yes. But, you missed him so much,...

And the sad song on the radio was really not helping with your current situation, at all!

Nico noticed your behavior and cleared her throat, which succesfully gained your undivided attention.

"If you're just gonna grumble all day, then we might as well try out my new invention."

"What's your new invention?"

The Artisan at Arms proudly smiled and crossed her arms.

"Oh, you'll see what I'm talkin' about." She gloated with a wink.

A few hours later, the two of you arrived at the farthest and most abandoned site in the city away from Fleminger's mansion.

Nico dropped her huge rucksack on the ground and took out several pieces of unflattering clothing from it.

"What are these?" You curiously asked as she handed them to you.

"Those are special clothes made from a very durable and expandable fabric that absorbs extreme heat and pressure. I was developing it a week before this whole fiasco began."

"And this is for me?"

"Of course!" Nico answered, crossing her arms and looking very proud. "You can't burst out of your clothes every time you transform into that thing! We need to innovate! And we,... " she took out a video camera from the rucksack, turned it on, and focused it at you. "... are going to test that right now."

Staring at the woman, clueless, you muttered, "Ah, so I have to change now?"

"Of course, dummy! And make it quick!"

After scrambling to a secluded, hidden place to change, you came out wearing Nico's invention looking like a huge walking fashion faux pas.

"Is this it?" You questioned, looking at the huge sleeves of the gray jumpsuit - like outfit that was several sizes too large for you.

"Pretty much, yeah." Nico answered as she settled her video cam on a tripod. She took a peak at it and waved her arms. "Hey, uh, I need you to move farther away."

You took a few steps away from Nico. "Like this?"

"Honey, I mean, further, further away. I don't want to get disintegrated!"

"Fine,..."

You walked several feet away from Nico, trying to measure just how much the impact of your transformation would make, and when you faced her once more, she finally gave you a thumbs up.

"Okay! I need you to transform on the count of three!"

"Alright!"

"Whenever you're ready!"

"I' am!"

"Alright, then! ONE, TWO, THREE!"

You called the entity's name, summoning it, and when you felt its presence, it instantly took over your body, enveloping you with that blinding light and disintegrating everything within your immediate vicinity.

"Never gets old, (Y/N)." Nico said, whistling as she captured your mind - blowing transformation on camera. "Never gets old."

The entity hovered on the ground for a moment, waiting for a command, until Nico finally gave it.

"Alright, hon! You can go back now!"

The seven - foot creature spread its arms, enveloping itself once more with light. And after a few heart - stopping moments later, you changed back to your original form,...

... butt - naked from head to foot.

And from the moment you realized how exposed you are, you gasped in fright, covered your private parts, then hustled back to that secluded place where you've been before to put on clothes.

A few minutes later, you were back, horrified to see Nico laughing non - stop,...

... and the camera still recording!

"Are you really my friend, or not?!" You shrieked at the woman, not caring in the least that your movements were being documented.

"Dude, chill! I need this for documentation!"

"Of your crappy invention?!"

"Hey! It's a - HAHA - work of - HAHA - art!"

"Ugh, SHUT UP!"

Despite your complaints, you were back to where you transformed, wearing another one of Nico's inventions but, this time - in the form of a school uniform.

"What,... IS THIS?!" You yelled at the woman, disgusted at how extremely short the skirt was.

"Uhh, never mind that!" Nico, who was fortunate that she was far away from you and, therefore, could not be seen sweating, answered nervously. "Another round!"

You sighed, shook your hands, took a deep breath, and morphed once more into the entity.

And, once more, Nico recorded it, along with how you morphed back, and how you were naked again.

"THIS IS NOT WORKING!" You shrieked like a depressed banshee as you made your way towards your hiding place to put on clothes.

"You're almost there!" Nico reassured you a few moments later as she recorded you once more, this time with you wearing what looked like a risqué pop idol cosplay. "Don't worry! You look hella cute!"

"Just get on with it!"

And so, you transformed once more, went back,...

"THIS IS NOT GOING ANYWHERE!" You angrily shrieked, this time not even bothering to run away to get dressed. You just strode angrily towards Nico, who was still filming you in all your naked glory. "And why do you have to film me getting myself naked? You're planning something, aren't you?!"

Nico laughed nervously, her sweat instantly giving her away. "What do you mean by that?! I'm so not going to let V see this!"

"UGH!" You let your frustration out as you facepalmed. Of course, she's planning to let V see all this!

However, at the mention of the poet's name, you heard a noise coming from somewhere not far away. Nico stopped panic explaining as soon as she saw you getting your guard up.

You swore that whoever's watching you, they would not get out of this alive. Not when you've exposed yourself over and over.

You took simple, wary steps to your left.

"Hey, Nico," you began. "I think I left something at the van."

"What's that?" The woman played along, knowing your plan by instinct.

"V's jacket! I remember he told me to mend it,..."

And surely enough, the two of you heard the noise once more. It sounded like,... a squawk?

Your eyes widened. You gave Nico a subtle nod and made a quick dive behind one of the boulders.

There was a struggle, a lot of noises and curses, and a few agonizing minutes later, you finally came out, dragging a blue demonic bird by its beak.

"MHMH! MHMH! MMHHMMHH!" Griffon yelled through his muffled beak.

"Ohoho, so the little chickee really wants to be cooked in a steel pot, after all!" Nico taunted, making the bird struggle even more, to no avail.

"BRING OUT THE STEEL POT!" You madly boomed, not letting go of Griffon's beak. "I WANT TO KNOW WHAT THIS BIRD IS BREWING UP!"

"MMMHHHMMM! NNNYYYEEERRRHHHGGG!" The bird panicked once more but, this time, he was able to let out a weak electrical current, enough for you to let him go.

"FUCK! FUCK! FFFUUUCCCKKK! I THOUGHT I'M DONE FOR!" Griffon squawked, flying just a few inches above your head. "WHAT'S YER PROBLEM, WOMAN?! YE TRYNA KILL ME BY COVERIN' MA NOSE?!"

"Ah,..." you stuttered but, then, remembered that you wouldn't do such a thing to him if he didn't start anything in the first place. "YOU CAN'T BLAME ME! You know, all you need to do is ask and I'll definitely allow you to come along,..."

"Wait, don't tell me Chickee here knows the secret?!" Nico exclaimed, pointing at you and Griffon.

After a minute or so of explanation on how Griffon came to know your secret, Nico nodded knowingly, finally accepting the fact that the bird was now in on all your secrets from that fateful day onward.

"So, let me get this straight, Chickee knows the secret but, V doesn't?" Nico questioned.

"Y - yeah,... ?" The bird hesitantly answered.

"WHAT'S THAT? YOU TOLD V, DIDN'T YOU?!" You yelled at the bird as you grabbed his wings.

"NO! NO! I SWEAR BY MA OWN FEATHERS! SHAKESPEARE DOESN'T KNOW A SINGLE THING! I SWEAR! I SWEAR! DON'T MURDER ME WOMAN, I BEG YOU!"

"He's telling the truth." You finally admitted as you let him go.

"WAIT!" Nico, who seemed to not let go of the issue just yet, stopped you. "If you're here, then V is here, too!"

Griffon's eyes widened. "Hehe, well,..."

"AHH!" You shrieked in embarrassment as you covered your parts and literally collapsed on the ground, feeling your body heat up.

"HAHAHA! WAHAHAHA! LOOK AT YA! WAHAHA! WAHA - !"

Now, it was Nico's turn to grab the demonic bird by his beak.

"Keep messin' with us, and you'll really have to say bye bye to your pretty little Shakespeare!"

"SQUAWK!"

After a few more threats to the poor bird, you three had finally managed to settle down. You, now fully dressed and officially through with Nico's experiments, were taking a nap, leaning against the wall inside the abandoned building. The freckled woman was putting the camera back to her rucksack,...

... and Griffon? It was safe to say that the bird has started sniffing you for some unknown reason. Your friend noticed this and called his attention.

"Hey! I know that's a chick you're sniffin' there but, ya just can't do that without V's permission. He'll get real mad!" Nico mumbled in a whisper to avoid waking you up.

"Ah! Haha! Well, tryna sniff some bugs out,..." Griffon nervously lied, then whispered, more to himself, "That's weird, I can't smell anythin'!"

"I heard that!" Nico retorted as she quickly made her way towards you and him to shelter herself from the impending rain.

"Can't ya smell anythin' weird about her?"

"Weird? You mean bad odor, or - ?"

"Not bad odor!" Griffon shrieked.

"Sshh!"

"Oh, sorry."

Nico raised an eyebrow as she sat next to you and wrapped her arms around her knees for added warmth. It really was getting a bit colder.

"You've been actin' weird. Especially that Shakespeare dude! Where's V, huh? And you better start tellin' me the truth."

"He's,... ah,... somewhere! Yeah, somewhere,... "

"Really?"

"Well, I can't really tell ya! Just know that he's out there but, not close here, yeah?"

"Whatever." Nico said, rolling her eyes. She pushed the rim of her red - framed glasses closer to her nose bridge and went on interrogating the bird. "And what do ya mean by that odor?"

If birds could sweat, Griffon could probably produce buckets by now. Fortunately, it was slightly hard to see through his real emotions due to his brash nature.

After all, Nico would surely suspect something if he told her that V sent him to spy on you.

And for what reason?

V actually didn't fully believe everything that Fleminger person told him. He said to him the exact opposite of what he truly believed in, and, confused to the core he may be, he wanted to make sure if the guy was telling the truth, or not. He just couldn't do the spying, himself, as of the moment. It just felt wrong to do it to a lady such as you.

After all, he did come to adore you despite the really short time you've been together. And he's not letting anyone ruin that.

Not now when,...

So, he wanted to make sure by first sending Griffon to you. If the demonic avian failed to produce results, then he'd be the one who will do the interrogation, himself but, only as a last resort.

He would never believe that YOU were the Dreadnought, and he's willing to prove it so that he could slap that hard truth to Fleminger's face. Along with Shadow's scratches to boot.

The only problem was, he didn't know that you were hiding secrets from him, yourself. That alone was truly suspicious, and Griffon knew all that. The Demon just opted not to tell V that, for he had also learned to love you as a friend after the Malphas event. You've been a really good person and a protector to him, and he, like V, hoped that Fleminger was wrong about you.

"Hey!" Nico said, snapping her fingers to get Griffon's attention.

"What?!"

"The odor? I was asking about (Y/N)'s odor."

Ah, crap, Griffon thought. Should I let this woman know?! She's her friend! She could easily tell whether (Y/N)'s the fuckin' Dreadnought or not!

"Well! I, uh,..."

"Speaking of which," Nico interrupted, much to the bird's rotten luck. Or, was it? "... Nero has been bugging me with this non - existent apple pie he's been sniffin' round about three days ago. I mean, I can't even bake. But, if it's Kyrie then - !"

"If the pimple kid's a Demon, then that makes total sense! I - " Griffon blurted out without even thinking, making the woman stare at him in disbelief. He gulped audibly, his nerves getting the better of him. "Ah, oops?"

Nico raised an eyebrow in suspicion. "And what does that supposed to mean?"

"Ah, what?"

"THAT?!"

"AH! AAHH! NNRRGGHH!" Griffon squawked and started flapping his wings wildly in panic.

"HEY! I'M ONLY ASKING A QUESTION!" Nico said in an effort to make the bird calm down. "Unless,... " she stood up and pointed a tattooed finger at him. "... YOU'RE REALLY HIDING SOMETHING FROM US!"

"WWWHHHAAAKKK! QQQUUUAAAWWW!"

Griffon was moving too much that he accidentally scratched your arm in accident.

"DUMBASS!" Nico grabbed the bird's talons, taking them away from you. "LOOK WHAT YOU'VE DONE!"

"G - guys,... " You muttered, finally waking up due to the noise and the sudden pain in your arm. "What's happening?"

"It's the chicken's fault!" Nico shrieked, shaking the bird in annoyance.

You gave them a confused look, then glanced at the now bloody wound on your arm. You shook your head in disbelief.

"Do not be too hard on the creature. I will heal." You tiredly responded, standing up and making your way outside despite the rain.

"Hon, it's still raining." Nico pleaded as she finally let Griffon go.

"It matters not." You answered monotonously. "This body would soon perish, after all,..."

"Come again?"

It took both Nico and Griffon a few seconds to realize that your voice sounded different, the way you moved looked suspicious,...

... and your eyes seemed a different shade,...

"(Y/N), is that you?" Nico asked, wary of her own movements.

"That is the name of our vessel." You answered, further confirming that you were taken over by the entity in a space of only a few moments right after waking up.

"Our?" Griffon added. "What do ya mean by that, sweet pea?"

"Feeble minds would never be able to comprehend the meaning of our existence. Humans and Demons alike perceived us as one." You glanced back at them, only for them to see that you have completely changed your appearance.

To Nico and Griffon, you now looked like a tall and slender woman with beautiful dark skin and equally dark and abundant hair. Your large, mournful eyes shone brightly and looked upon them with such enigma that none of them dared to utter a word.

"We are one. However, at the same time, we are three. I' am the Aspect of The Future." You, or the entity, made yourself known. "I' am here in this crucial moment to partake of a vital information from the near future."

"Future?" Nico bravely asked whilst Griffon remained silent. "You have a prediction for us?"

The entity, or The Aspect of The Future, bowed her regal head.

"In four days time, two hearts would be ripped open, blood shall be spilled, and emotions will clash upon uneven ground. A Prince will awaken and a King shall rise. The Pale Ones would make their move and engulf the whole world in darkness. Only then would the third and final heart, the one who would regret the most, be stabbed by their own doing."

"That sounds,... cheerful,..." Nico added sarcastically to somehow lighten the mood. She might have poked fun at you for changing into that light being who can disintegrate your clothes but, she just couldn't make fun of this particular entity who made unfunny prophecies.

Griffon flew towards the entity before Nico could even stop him.

"You said something before about crying and kneeling, and whatever that was." The demonic bird questioned. "What's up with that? Another twisted plot on a fuckin' t.v. show?!"

"My answer remains the same." The entity answered calmly. "At the final hours of the evening and the last radiance of the wounded moon, the past will weep, the present will kneel, and the future will die."

"The future will die?" Nico cut in. "Is that what you mean by your body perishing soon?"

But, the entity did not answer. Instead, she went past Griffon and made her way towards the woman.

"Would you weep, human?"

"Uh, it depends,..." Nico said matter - of - factly. It's the plain truth! Why would she cry at the prophet's death?

"You are strong and vigilant. Remain as such until the promised hour." The entity answered, then went back towards Griffon.

"Ahh, ya have somethin' for me?" Griffon asked.

"Remain true to your instincts." The entity told him. "Even in the face of true danger."

"Okay,... WHAT?!"

The entity nodded, then faced away from them, glancing at the depressing weather outside. Nico, who was curious to know more, followed suit.

"Why are you telling us all this? Isn't the future kind of forbidden to tell? And why show yourself now? Because the world is ending and some shit?"

"And so, you believed me?"

"Well, yeah! I believed in my friend, and her power comes from you! Of course, I believe you."

"Such innocence,..." the entity simply stated, then released a sound that sounded strangely like a chuckle. "There was a time when I was stoned by my own people for warning them of such dangers. No one believed me, and that is my eternal curse. A curse for turning away a powerful lover. He gave me this power."

"No one's stoning you here." Griffon said, joining the two. "That's just barbaric."

"Is there a way to prevent all this bad stuff from happening?" Nico finally asked, positively itching to know the solution. Well, there must be! "Like a plan B, or somethin'?"

"There is no alternative. Everything I told you is inevitable."

"So, that's it, huh? All of us will fuckin' die?" Griffon slightly yelled at the entity for being so pessimistic.

She looked at him and gave him a meaningful glance. "There is,... an alternative."

Griffon and Nico's eyes widened as they looked at each other in utter surprise.

"And it all depends on one." The entity finished.

"One what?!" Both Nico and Griffon questioned, to which they were just ignored as the entity glanced back at the weather outside.

"By then, the past shall still weep but, not for long, the present shall forever kneel but, the future,... may no longer die. That is,... a nice thought. If only,..."

"If only,... ?" Nico asked in an attempt to keep the entity talking.

However, the strange creature remained silent as she watched every single drop of the rain.

"It has been,... a long time since I watched the rain." She quietly said, her voice as gentle and calm as possible. "It is so calm, so peaceful. A fitting start to an end."

Nico sighed. They never truly heard something positive from her other than her proposed plan B, which was still very vague, much to their distaste.

"I'm afraid I'm keeping your friend." The entity told them. "I must go, for her strength must be replenished."

"WAIT!"

Both the entity and Nico looked at Griffon, surprised at what he just blurted out.

"Speak, creature of the night."

"I, ahh,..." Griffon began, unsure how to bring up the Dreadnought issue. "I just wanna know, is,... is (Y/N) an, ah, err, an,... ah, how to say this?"

"Just spit it out, Chickee!" Nico blurted out, crossing her arms once more.

"Is (Y/N) an enemy? I just wanna know." And just like that, the words were finally out from him like removing a thorn piercing his heart.

"ENEMY?! WHAT ARE YOU - ?!"

"I see." The entity said. All of a sudden, her body was engulfed with light, like she was catching on fire. "It entirely depends,... on the beholder."

And with those final words, the entity vanished, leaving behind her vessel.

Your eyes were closed shut, and when you finally opened them, you were surprised to see both Nico and Griffon staring at you with open mouths.

"Did I just do something weird?" You asked them, which made them convinced that you did not remember everything that just happened.

"No!" Nico answered with a nervous laugh.

"That's it! I just gotta tell V that she's not an enemy, right?!" Griffon said to himself, entirely forgetting that you and Nico could totally hear him.

"What are you talking about?" You asked him.

"Ah! Nothin' ! Gotta go!"

"Wait!"

And, just like that, the demonic bird flew away, his strange words and behavior making him even more suspicious.

***

~ A V X Reader set in an Alternate Universe wherein heavy rain means lost videos and Apocalypse. 🖤

~ Tagging @heaven-on-a-landslide , @lessy86 , @boundbysoul , @simmy-ships , @ehrzeth , @ceruleanworld , @gxthghoulfriend , and @diabeticsugarush . Thank you for all your support.

***

"I will wait for as long as it takes. I only ask for one thing: don't forget about me."

***

🖤🖤🖤

***

#devil may cry 5 #v #i see my future before me #v x reader #v x you #devil may cry nico #devil may cry nero #devil may cry griffon #invisible war #sitti navarro #chapter 17

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bluboothalassophile · 6 years

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Hiya Blu. I think i missed your request writing spree, but we read a lot of stories where Raven is told by others, in public our a group, that they wonder how she got him. Would you write a story where a group wonder how he got her? Not him wondering or Damian telling him in private, but a lot of people saying they don't know why she picked him. Or just write anything about them. I love your writing. Thank you if you do!

Hello,

I’m always on a writing spree; some of it’s not posted, some of it is, some of it’s requests, and some of it is drabbles. Though not so much lately because of my job… And requests are always open, so while I might not be quick to write it up I will get to it with time. So never be afraid to make a request, even if it takes me a while to get to it, and if I can’t do it, I’ll give you a heads up.

And I hope you enjoy the story. =)

Girl Time…

“Raven we’re so happy you could join us tonight,” Barbarasaid rolling in with a smile. Things had been strained between her and theredhead because of that slap, but now Barbara was actually being nice to herwhich was odd, but Raven wasn’t questioning it too much. Like it or not Barbarawas Jason’s family, and Raven would have to adapt to having Dick’s ex-fiancéeall the time too.

“I didn’t think I had a choice,” she gave a pointed look toCass who smiled brightly as she sat on the arm of the couch.

“It’s been a long time since we’ve had girl time!” Stephannounced leaping over the back of the couch with a bowl of popcorn.

“It’s chill,” Harper Row announced. “And we haven’tofficially met,” Harper smiled. “You’re Jaybird’s girl.”

“Raven,” she introduced herself.

“Cool,” Tiffany grinned. “Tim says you’re a demon!”

“I am,” Raven said as she took some of the offered popcorn.

“Rae’s Jay’s better half,” Steph snickered.

“How’d you meet him?” Harper asked taking up perch.

Raven stiffened. “Meet?”

“I mean, we all know how you two got together, but how’d youtwo meet?” Harper clarified as she ate some popcorn, and Raven swallowed hard.

The tricky way to describe how she and Jason met…

Raven didn’t know how her boyfriend was going to like this,or explain it. They hadn’t ever been asked out they met, and their meetingwasn’t the most pleasant of meetings. Taking a steadying breath Raven decidedthat the truth was the fastest way to explain how she and Jason had met.Honestly, hiding it wouldn’t work, she was pretty sure that if one wentdigging; hard core digging, they’d find the way that she and Jason had crossedpaths as something other than enemies when he’d been Red X.

“I found him in a Lazarus rage,” Raven answered.

“What?” Barbara said softly.

“It was after the Red Hood rampage in Gotham, by, oh, ayear, I think, not much more than that. We’d crossed paths before when he’dbeen Red X. And yes, the asshole put that damn red X on my mouth the firsttime.

“But the first time I met Jason, not Red Hood or Red X…” Ravenpursed her lips as she thought about the answer carefully. “I hid him under mybed.”

The girls laughed.

“But seriously Raven, how’d you meet him?” Steph grinnedmunching on popcorn.

“He held a gun to my head,” Raven deadpanned. The girlssnickered some more, but that was the honest truth.

“Kay, I’m curious,” Tiffany cut through the giggles then. “WhyJason? I mean, of all the Bats, why him? I get Dick.”

“That smile, that ass, the hair, the charm,” Stephanie dramatizedwith a mock swoon, and they were giggling again. Raven took an amused sip of thewine Barbara had poured them.

“Or Tim,” Harper piped up.

“The guy is just adorably clueless!” Tiffany said seriously.

“Or Luke,” Babs piped up.

“Ew! That’s my brother!” Tiffany cringed.

“But Luke’s hot, and that smile, and he knows how to treat agirl,” Harper countered.

“Why Jason?” Cass prodded her ribs and Raven looked at herboyfriend’s self-proclaimed older sister. There was the sincerity off of Casswhich demanded and commanded an answer. This was a sister who wanted what wasbest for her brother.

“Because why not Jason?” Raven answered.

“Seriously?” Barbara, Harper, and Tiffany stared at her. ButStephanie softened then.

“And you can do better than Jay, I mean he’s great, but he’sgot all those issues. Daddy issues, PTSD issues, trauma issues, obsessionissues, and probably a plethora more,” Harper blandly pointed out.

“Aren’t you an empath, isn’t he a bit…?” Barbara struggledfor a moment.

“Much, good at bringing me to the threshold of hell, in aconstant hurricane?” Raven supplied.

“Yes,” Cass chirped.

“Yes, he is,” Raven nodded and looked at her wine then. “Buthe’s also been the one person to never fear me at my worst, and he’s seen me atmy worst. He’s thoughtful, not in the way Dick is, but in this absent way. He’snot going to remember a date, or an anniversary, but he’ll make me breakfast,walk me to classes, and he listens. He talks all the time; all the time, and I’velistened to him, but when I talk, it’s the way he listens, like he’s beenwaiting for me to talk. He treats me like a queen, common courtesy manners, andhe tries very hard at us.

“He’s passionate, and I don’t mean just in sex, but ineverything, he throws himself into whatever it is that has his attention withhis full heart and his soul, no regards to the consequences, it’s why he’sfearless. He’s kind, not in the traditional way. I don’t think he’d ever doanything in the traditional way, but there is a kindness to him if one can getpast all the snark, sass, and surly stubbornness that is Jason. And despite howbad it can get, whatever shit we’re dragging the other through, he’s got myback. I know come Hell and high water, he’s got my back.

“I don’t know why I would want any other guy, honestly,”Raven admitted.

Oh, there were Jason’s looks to consider, she could alsomention she loved that body of his, scars and all, and she just loved hispersonality. But Raven couldn’t describe just what exactly had made her fall inlove with Jason, she didn’t even remember when she had fallen in love with him,it had snuck up on her. The dawning wasn’t like being hit by lightning, but rathersomething quiet, and a secret she had told her lover by accident before sheeven realized how true it was.

“That’s… thoughtful,” Stephanie smiled. “He’s happy withyou, I’m glad he makes you happy.”

“Are you insane?” Raven sputter. “The man drives me mad! MadI tell you!”

The girls laughed at that, and Raven took a solid gulp ofher wine.

Jason drove her insane.

But he was also the man she loved with everything she hadand then some.

#bluboothalassophile #fanfic #one shot #calm in the storm #jayrae #redrae #raex #raven #cassandra cain #stephanie brown #harper row #barbara gordon #tiffany fox

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