#i'm going to guess that im a third of a way through the chapter | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

jinx-on-mars-19xx · 3 months

Text

Still Not Dead

(Kill Somebody Like You Part Two Chapter Thirteen)

🔪Previous Parts Here🔪

Dom x Colson (Yungblud x Machine Gun Kelly)

Warnings: ABO dynamics (knots, slick, heats, mpreg), alpha serial killer/hitman Dom, omega mob boss Kells, cursing, past abuse, past SA, family fic, hurt/comfort, mentions of weapons, mentions of murder, past underage sexual acts, past dubious consent, allusions to selling people, angry phone calls, threats, rage, sexism (against omegas), Mod being sweet, Dom attempting comfort, mentions of anal sex, trying to be loving parents, enemies to lovers ❤️‍🔥 Rating: mature

All ideas helped by @iamnotanearthlingmotherfucker 🩷

The countdown came and went and the family barely paid attention to it. They heard the stranger's phone alert them every time the pompous idiot texted to remind them but all of those were ignored. Dom thought to threaten him back but it was more impactful to make him feel unimportant, and besides they were all busy. The pair spent the rest of their day fucking and when the sun fell they retrieved their baby and tried to sleep. Punk only woke twice that Colson noticed and they both got up with him. Eventually the omega fell back to sleep with an infant on one side of his chest and his mate on the other while Dom cupped his core like he owned it. When the omega awoke for the day he was surprised to see at some point his lover had traded and their little one was resting on his chest. Had he crashed before burping the baby and Dom took over? He enjoyed waking up curled against the other man.

They spent their morning as if it were any other even though the phone started going off more frequently. Eventually they all congregated in the living room with the cell on the coffee table. They didn't call to each other or plan it but Dom and Colson found their way in and after a bit, a nervous Blain joined them, followed by Mod and Tom who seemed closer and happier after the omega's accidental slip of the tongue the day before. The killer knew he needed to talk to his brother to make sure they were okay but he seemed so content he didn't want to bother him yet. They all got comfortable on the sofas as the clock ticked down to the moment Dom had gotten the original call. Before that came he realized something and he felt daft he hadn't thought of it before.

“Blain luv, ya know ‘im yeah? Ya said he's family.” He prompted their son. The boy looked startled that he hadn't even thought of talking about the man but they'd all gotten distracted by more important things.

“Yeah. James Sebastian. First or second cousin I think. Guess you further off.”

“We don't know we're related at all. Me dad could ‘ave jus’ worked for yours or summat.” Dom shrugged. It gave him the absolute ick thinking that his parents would have wanted him to wed his cousin. They might be from a more Northern redneck town but were they really that awful?

Blain narrowed his gaze and laughed, shaking his head. Looking at them he knew he could pass for their genetic son, but if his father figure needed to heal before finding out for sure he could wait. “He's a fucking bellend but he's a rich one. I don't know wha' he can pull.”

Col leaned over and wrapped his arm around their boy. He didn't want him worried or feeling responsible. No one was at fault besides this frat boy fuck and he wouldn't let his son or his mate feel the weight of the world. “Whatever he pulls you have to remember we're fucking better. I mean hell, your dad took out most of their group already. I'm not scared.” He soothed.

Blain nodded, jumping when the phone rang instead of the text alert chiming but they let it ring through the first time. The second time they pressed ignore and sent him to voicemail, but on the third Dom decided to answer and put it on speaker so everyone could hear. “‘Ello Jimmy boy, wha's up?”

The man on the other end paused for a moment, obviously already thrown off and annoyed. “It's James- wait. My name doesn't matter to you! How do you even- Shut up. Are you ready to turn yourself over and give me back my wife?”

Blain glared and crossed his arms as he sat back but he was trying to let his parents deal with the man. He looked to Dom who was obviously already upset. It was visible in his crimson eyes but he kept his voice bored. “Oh was tha' supposed to ‘appen today? I got a bit busy. I don't fink I can fit tha’ in, ya know ‘ow it is. Besides tha’ you ain't getting Blain. He was mine first and I'm keeping ‘im.”

“I knew you were keeping him for yourself. You're a monster, you can't hide that from me. Not after what you've done. Have you already ruined him for me? I don't want a used mate.” Dom couldn't hold back from scrunching his nose at that comment. He wasn't the disgusting one here.

“Only fucks for me are the ones I don't fucking give for this shite. I'm in pristine fucking condition mate, but I ain't yours. Ain't your wife or mate or baby factory. I was trying to give you a little bloody grace since I vaguely remember you was alright as a spoiled brat boy but you've become like all of ‘em ain't yas?”

“Landon? I was never spoiled. If anyone here should be giving grace it's me for you and that sharp tongue of yours. Grandfather would be ashamed. You were raised better than this. You aren't from the trashier side of our family no matter what you try to pass off with that accent. You'll be fixing that before you come home with me.” James huffed. “Dominic you should silence your bitches before speaking to another Alpha.”

Dom's brow rose as Col scoffed and Blain’s jaw fell open. The killer just sat back and gestured to the cell. He had three fired up omegas in the room and he'd rather let them deal with the idiot. Crimson met gold and he realized his lover was just as upset but they didn't want to show it. It gave the man power. Colson tapped the mute button and turned to their son. “You said you knew him as a kid? Is he your age? Cause that changes shit.”

Blain shook his head. “No. He was older like Da, my parents started leaving me wiv him and his nanny after Da left.” He held himself tighter and they both worried. Was he truly in pristine condition as he put it, or had the bastard messed with him?

“Did he… Has he ever…” Colson had to stop and clear his throat. Spring green eyes flashed gold and he looked away, making both his parent's hearts drop. It broke Dom even more because he felt at fault. If he had stayed or remembered he would have rescued him too. They stopped bringing him over long before he ran away but he didn't know why. Maybe they had already broken their agreement because they thought he was a broken Alpha. They didn't seem to think James was though and he wasn't sure he wanted to know how that was proven.

“Not all the way. We messed around. He told me I needed to learn for my future mate. He never… I convinced him I were waiting for a proper mating.” Blain couldn't look at anyone until he heard something snap and his gaze traveled up to see his adoptive father had broken the arm of the couch with his bare handed grip.

The Alpha hated seeing his son feel shame for something that wasn't his choice. They all had those experiences in their pasts and he hated it. He tried to give the boy a comforting smile but he was sure it fell flat. It healed something inside him to hear the kid's nickname for him from when they were young but he felt shattered all the same. He should have saved him too.

Kells could tell his family was getting too upset but they still had to deal with the asshole. He leaned over again and unmuted the guy but he was still ranting misogyny like he never realized what they did. “So Jimbo, it seems you've gotten the wrong impression of what's happening here. Do you even realize what you've stepped in? This isn't some bullshit about your family history and you're not in England anymore. You're in my territory and I'm guessing your kin knows about me?”

“It's James!” The man snapped before taking a deep breath they could hear him exhale. “If you mean your precious little gang of thieves and murderers, yes we know. You have no history. No strength behind your name. You might have had something when you were controlled by Alpha Barker but you? You're just a bitch trying to act tough. It's adorable if you ask me.”

“Fuck you dude, if you tell me to get back in the kitchen I'll skin your ass myself. Shove your right wing bullshit and go back home. You think we're adorable? After my mate wiped out your entire line basically? You're not getting anything you want douchebag. Go home with your tail between your legs before I gut you myself. Believe me, I have a lot of aggression to work out.” Col didn't mean to let his rage show but he couldn't stop it when he knew what this bitch did to his son. Even if he thought they were in a relationship the age gap was fucked. He tried to remind himself James was mentally poisoned growing up but it didn't help. He had too many problems to deal with this one too.

“Dominic, what did I say about this? Why do you let a bitch speak for you? No matter, I told you what would happen. I'll start with taking your life and then I'll take both your bitches as my own. Your first mate is a little older but still in breeding years obviously.”

“Yeah yeah. Like me mate said, go ‘ome Jimmy boy. You ain't getting wha' you want but I'll be ‘appy to send ya ‘ome in pieces.” The Alpha growled before ending the call. He wasn't in the mood for games.

“You can't go after him. Not while we're being watched and he's probably high profile. We still have to be careful.” Kells sighed. He was annoyed too, he wanted to put an end to all of their enemies and get a fresh start but they couldn't risk it yet. They had to let the world go mad around them and pick up whatever pieces they could. He wouldn't let his family risk jail time, not with the public and the cops watching their every move. No matter how badly he craved their blood. Perhaps Dom wasn't the only murder happy one of them.

“Fine. We can call it self defense when he gets stupid but I ain't risking none of yas. We gotta be careful.” Dom agreed though he hated it too. He wanted to see his hands drenched in the bastard’s cold blood. “You alright?” He asked his son gently and the boy nodded but they could feel he was stressed. He wasn't sure if the distressed omega scent was because of the risk to them all or from memories of what he did.

“Yeah jus' pissed. He weren't tha’ bad when we was kids. He were charming even. Sweet at times. Yeah he was a spoiled brat Alpha but… He made me feel… Sorry. You don't wanna ‘ear tha’.” Blain sniffled.

Dom got up and walked around to sit next to his son and he pulled him against his chest. He hugged the kid to him and rubbed his back, burying his nose in his honey blonde hair. “I'll ‘ear wha’ever you wanna tell me luv. You safe ‘ere. We love you and you can tell us anyfing. Always.” The Alpha vowed.

A soft cry escaped him and he pressed his face against Dom's chest. He hadn't truly cried since before the day he was rescued but after learning about everything he had in the last few days he felt overwhelmed and completely safe to express himself. “Did he lie? Was he lying? I felt special but I ain't! He's jus’ as bad as our fathers was. I let him touch me and we talked about a family someday and- and- he lied. He lied jus’ like all of ‘em! I only ever loved two people and you left me! You left! And he's- he- wha's wrong wiv me?”

The Alpha's lost gaze met his mate's and Colson shrugged. He wasn't sure how to help even though he had a lot more experience than his fiancé. He hadn't been in love before Dom though and he was scared that's what was happening here. Not only had their boy at some point loved Dom in a way that's thankfully changed since, he had his heart broken by two people. Obviously the killer couldn't help it, he was young too and didn't understand. But this bitch? He wanted to serve Jim’s heart to the kid on a silver platter.

“Your dad didn't mean to leave you, and you have each other again. He never meant to hurt you. Maybe James was different when he was younger. Maybe he was a good guy and he just got fucked up over the years. Maybe he meant everything he said to you.” Kells tried to help.

They were all surprised when Mod spoke up but the beta had his heart broken a few times over the years. He gave it too freely in his youth and then held it too tight until he met his omega. Colson was happy they had each other now. “From what I understand about Alphas, especially ones from families like that… they get taught from a young age they're all that matters. Even if he meant every word it doesn't really matter does it? He's not that same person. He fucked you over and you deserve better than that. You're a fucking prince kiddo, you're part of the best family around. He can't fuck with you. No one can break your heart again without pissing off an entire mob. Literally. You deserve the moon and stars and you'll find it, just like Cols did. Just like I did. It takes a little time to find the right one but you're surrounded by love while you wait. And revenge. Say the word and I drain this fucker's bank accounts.”

The room laughed at the man's threat and Blain gave him a happy trembling smile. His cheeks were still wet and his eyes still spilling but he was feeling better. His body was just getting out every ounce of stress he'd felt for months. Years even. He was finally safe and home. “A bloody poet you is.”

“Well nice.” Dom sighed and gave his new brother a thankful look.

“Nah, he thinks you're my moon and stars. Don't know shit.” Colson teased. “You understand we're never leaving you again right kiddo? You're safe with us. You're ours.”

The young omega looked up at the man he called his mum and he bit his lip. It was terrifying to accept something like that because he'd never truly felt safe since he was a boy being cared for by Dom but… he tried to take it in. It just might take time to accept completely. “I know. I'm sorry.”

“Nuffin to apologize for little one.” The killer soothed. He didn't always feel like he was good at comforting but he loved his family and he'd try to be a teddy bear for them. But only for them.

“Can we watch a movie and stop this shite? Or lunch time?” The kid asked, wiping his face clean of tears.

They all agreed though Dom worried they were just restarting the events from the day before. His ass still hurt enough he wasn't sure he could handle another round but he'd also understand if his mate needed to work some frustration out. He was angry with the posh bastard too. He knew eventually they'd have to deal with James in one way or the other. He even expected attempts on his life because that's what the fucker promised. He would just have to fight him off until he could see him dead. He would do anything for his family and that included letting himself be target practice. He'd do anything to make sure they felt loved, safe, and home.

Author's Note/Tags: @iamnotanearthlingmotherfucker @hollywoodxwhore @jaxbreaker @fenoy7 @cole-way-iero28 if anyone wants tagged let me know 💛

Have a little more plot. There might be more coming but I like learning about their lives and seeing them bonding as a family. They deserve all the love and happiness. I don't know what will happen with James but it might get a little crazy considering all they're going through already. I'm sure they can make it though and I'm sure it won't be long before they need each other again 🤭 Hope you're enjoying it still 🖤❤️‍🔥

7 notes · View notes

chloeangelic · 8 months

Note

Chloeeeeeeeeee!😱 OMG! Crescentina! I don't know if I should kiss you or punch (a friendly shoulder punch) you for writing that chapter. It was such a scrumptiously porny sequence, so damn hot and filthy with such an ending. How Joel ties her up and manhandles her is jaw-dropping in the best of ways. It made me go feral, squealing and squirming, lol! I'm so happy you're you, and you have the brain you have that comes up with such beautifully deliciously hot writing. I loved every word, not only the smutty parts (Joel feeding Ladybug felt like a pre-smutty part), but the shared intimacy made my heart burst with love for these two, plus Joel being that said gorgeous example of healthy masculinity that cries over ''Finding Nemo'', even if, from the first word, my mind kept telling me something would happen at the end. There was no way this blissful piece of heaven they found themselves living in could span the whole weekend they had planned.

I could keep gushing my love for the chapter forever if my brain could stop overthinking what the ending means for these two. I'm not asking for answers, but who is better to share my thinking than the person who's writing the story?

-I think I already made a comment on it, but is there something more about how much they like each other's smell, be it the clean one with shampoo/gel/cologne or the sweaty one? And how Joel smells her ovulation? I find it really hot, but I tend to be a bit hopeless in identifying metaphors and hidden images, and I cannot help but wonder.

-Who is at the door? A part of me wants it to be Gwen, so everything is finally out in the open. But just the idea of telling his wife he has been cheating on her has Joel hurting so much that it makes me want to wish it was someone else, like Tommy or Ellie. Despite the state of their relationship, there's still care and love (not necessarily romantic) between them, and Joel telling her he has cheated would be a harsh blow. If you add seeing him in the act doing things with an intensity, I get the vibe he has never done with Gwen, which ups it all to a whole new level. But who else would open that door when, by the feeling I got, the noise they were making left nothing to guess about what was happening in that room? Everyone else would go in the opposite direction. Unless the room is soundproofed, which I don't think it was.🤔

-Why do I feel like the plan B pill is not in their minds anymore? It might be quite complicated sometimes to get pregnant, but it can also take one time, and they have gone at it like rabbits.

Thanks for the chapter. It was mindblowing! I cannot express my need/desire/desperate beg (with no intention of being pushy) to read the next chapter.

Sorry, but not that much sorry for the ramble I'm just sending you! That’s how much you’re making me think. Love you! ♥️♥️♥️

hiii!!! im working on seeking 6 as we speak so i figured this was the perfect time to discuss ch 5 !!! first of all, thank you so much for your lovely words as always <3 i am SMILING reading through this for the third time

that punch is gonna move from my shoulder to my face really quick, believe me :S wouldn't it be absolutely psychotic if i wrote a chapter where absolutely nothing went wrong?? hahah

them liking each other's smell is honestly just my personal kink, though i think there's a strong compatibility thing around liking the smell of someone's sweat. no deeper meaning behind that - i'm also terrible with hidden meanings, so your first guess is usually right when it comes to my stuff.

you'll see who is at the door pretty quickly in the next chapter ;)

they have fully forgotten about the plan B HAHA and that is also mentioned in ch 6, which - if i get my shit together - could realistically be posted in a few days.

love YOU !! <3 <3

#chloe answers #seeking fic

14 notes · View notes

pink-strawberry-kissess · 1 year

Text

Thank you!!!!! @visualheresy :D

rules: give us the links to your fics with the most hits, second most kudos, third most comments, fourth most bookmarks, fifth most words, and fic with the fewest words.

IM STILL A BABY WRITER FOR THIS FANDOM LOL

Fic with the most hits: The Night Shift

Leon found himself looking forward to each and every shift that she would come in. Knowing that he’d be able to see her again. They went on more “not dates,” which mostly consisted of sitting in the corner of the cafe after his shifts. And occasionally enjoying a stroll in the park that often went on too long into the evening. They spent a few nights on the park benches, staring up at the skies and the few stars that managed to shine. - from chapter 2

Second most kudos: Mornings with you

Still not stirred from her sleep, a soft smile grew on his lips as he admired her sleeping form. So rare to see, he couldn’t help but stare. Like a flower that only blooms once, he cherished these soft moments. Memorizing it and tucking it away. She was much more spared from any scars from the world than him, perhaps it was just her ability to always slip away that kept her more unscathed from the world they lived in. She was perfect to him, despite knowing that she was far from perfect from everyone else’s eyes. Her flaws he always seemed to overlook, found them to be endearing somehow.

Guess that’s how love works.

Third most comments: A Midnight with you

“You shouldn’t be playing around when you’re working. Should you, Agent Kennedy?” She asks in sultry honey filled voice.

Leon swallows, unable to stay focused. He’d lose focus whenever he was with her. Especially from her. The warmth of her hands permeated through his suit to his chest. The feeling of her touch trailed down towards his thigh, getting far too close for comfort. He felt his body twinge suddenly. His dress pants growing uncomfortable in seconds.

Fourth most bookmarks: A Vacation with you

The morning light fills the entire bedroom in that pleasantly annoying way. The sun is so perfectly bright and beautiful but Leon struggles to keep the light away, shielding his eyes with his arm as he struggles to fall asleep again.

He can’t. His head is still pounding. Albeit more tolerable than last night. But more sleep is exactly what he wanted, he’s on vacation after all. Already regretting his choices yet again, he takes a few seconds to recount his night.

He had dinner by the little restaurant near the hotel, the bar. Drinks. More drinks. Even more drinks. Red cherry. The red drink. Red dress. The woman at the bar.

Ada.

Fifth most words: Longing with you

Ada stirred, a more audible sigh leaving her. “Are you going to sleep or keep staring at me?” She finally opened her eyes to see Leon fairly close to her, just inches apart. Her eyes had already adjusted to the darkness fairly quickly, seeing the halo of the light from the window shining against his dark blond fringe. Casting an heavenly glow to him. A sight she wished she could see more often, just like this, every night. After everything was said and done, and they only had each other and nothing else.

“I don’t know. Will I see you in the morning?”

Fic with the fewest words: and i'm cheating here but my one post of all my fanarts has the fewest words LMAO some of my leon x ada fanart

my current fave is my newest piece

i have no idea who to tag but whoever wants to do this!!! please do!!!!!!!

#ada wong #leon s kennedy #leon kennedy #aeon #leon x ada #leon kennedy x ada wong #leon s kennedy x ada wong #ada x leon #my writing #ao3

11 notes · View notes

tragedyslayer · 2 years

Text

Neteyam x female reader! Part 2

like this chapter a lot more, and It's a little longer! I switched from first person to third person once or twice to get Neteyams' thoughts on things, but let me know if you guys don't like that. Also let me know if there's anything I can improve on. (Also I don't proof read cause Im too excited to post the chapters as I finish them, I will edit my mistakes eventually) Enjoy!

TW: semi detailed description of cutting skin.

Characters are both 18

Part 1

Word count: 2,156

After hearing about Miles, or Spider I guess, it was hard for me to refuse the Na’vi boys' plea for help. So I found myself following him back to his home.

“Are you sure this is a good idea- erm what's your name?”

I asked, realizing we skipped formalities. He looked over his shoulder at me before replying.

“Neteyam, this is a good idea. They will understand where I'm coming from.”

“And if they don't?” I argued, worried I would be shot on sight for coming anywhere near the Na’vi home. Neteyam stopped and turned to look at me. “My father is of the sky people, he saved all the people of pandora. He would not have been able to do that without my mothers trust.”

My eyes widened and I took a good look at Neteyam. I studied his features for a moment before smiling.

“How did I not see it?”

I shook my head, Neteyam had five fingers. Not only that but he had a striking resemblance to Neytiri. Everything made so much more sense now.

“You're Jake's son, that's why Spider was with you.”

Neteyam only nodded in confusion, not understanding why I would care who his father was.

“ Why do you keep bringing up Spider?”

I decided it would be best to wait to reveal my identity, he would understand in time. I shook my head in dismissal before answering him,

“My name is Shyla, I'll explain who I am to your father.”

Neteyam pressed his lips together, clearly unsatisfied by my vague answer.

“If you only intend on telling my father who you are, I'm sorry but I doubt that's possible.”

That wasn't ideal, I knew Jake would understand my position, but when it came to the others I wouldn't blame them if they were quick to judge.

My eyebrows pinched together as I listened to Neteyam. I understood there was nothing he could do, but this wasn't going to work.

“Ok, hear me out.” I raised my hands, gesturing for him to stay with me.

“Take me somewhere, where I can meet with your father. A mutual meeting place, you choose when and where. I know it's not easy to agree to, but do you really want to lead your enemy to your home? How do you think your mother would feel about that?”

Neteyam thought for a beat. I seemed to get through to him, because he sighed before nodding his head in agreement.

We climbed through a maze of trees, he definitely chose somewhere that wasn't easy to get to. He grabbed a vine, turning towards me and extending his arm as an invitation to grab onto him. Before I could argue I looked past the ledge of the tree we were on, the fall wouldn't be a pleasant one. I gave Neteyam a deadpan stare.

“Are you coming or not?”

I pressed my lips together into a line, stepping closer to Neteyam and wrapping my arms around his neck.

“You better not drop me Neteyam.”

Neteyam looked down at the women. He liked the way his name sounded when she said it. Now that he thought about it, he also liked the way he felt with her arms around him. However he didn't like the way he was feeling.

He shook off the thoughts before they could manifest anymore, holding Shyla tight by the waist before jumping off the tree branch.

The pair swung through the air and Syla gasped. Neteyam glanced downward, his confused expression melted away into a smile as he watched the girl. Shyla let out a breathy giggle as they swung through the forest.

They landed on another branch, and Shyla let go of Neteyam, composing herself. Neteyam internally scolded himself for immediately missing her warmth.

“You liked it?”

Neteyam smirked, walking forward through some foliage. I scoffed, not bothering to hide my true amusement, following close behind him.

“It was alright.”

My sorry excuse at feigning indifference didn't go unnoticed. The both of us surfaced from the branches and vines. I took a moment to examine my surroundings. We were completely closed in by rock walls that towered above us, covered in greenery. It was like being in the center of a dormant volcano that became a plant utopia.

“So this is where you intend to hide me?”

I teased, walking further into the grass. Neteyam rolled his eyes, following me.

“You're the one who wants to be hidden.”

He had a point, but I had no intention of giving him the satisfaction of knowing that.

“Whatever”

I laughed under my breath, but it was cut short. A searing pain rang through my body, I yelped before grabbing my forearm.

“What is it?”

Neteyam rushed towards me, taking a hold of my arm and inspecting it.

Suppressing my groans as best I could, I looked at my arm. I had never felt anything like this in my life. Neteyam continued to question me, not knowing what else to do.

“Is something wrong with your avatar?”

Then it clicked, my eyes widened as I looked up to meet Neteyams fixed gaze.

“It's a tracker.’

I Grimaced, pulling a knife from the waistband of my pants.

“What are you doing?!”

Neteyam grabbed my wrist, stopping my blade.

“I can't let them find us!”

My reasoning didn't seem to convince Neteyam. I sighed before groaning at another shock of pain.

“Listen, it's either you leave me here, or I take out this tracker.”

Neteyam knew she was right, but he still hated the idea of Shyla mutilating herself.

Neteyam slowly let go of my wrist, giving me a worried expression.

I reassured him the best I could with a half hearted grin before lowering the knife to my arm. I took a deep breath before slicing through. I Gasped, trying my best to keep my hand steady.

“Fuck”

I weeped, dropping the knife after finishing my incision. I could tell Neteyam wanted to help but had absolutely no way of doing so. Biting the inside of my cheek I took my thumb and index finger, and dug into the cut. The taste of blood filled my mouth but I was in too much pain to care. After a few short moments that felt like an eternity I retrieved the tracker.

Neteyam took it from me and smashed it with the end of my knife while I held my arm.

“Keep pressure on the wound”

Neteyam complied without question, and I grabbed a bandana I had in my cargo pants, wrapping it around the wound. Neteyam tightened the not, causing a yelp of pain to escape my throat.

“Sorry,”

He grimaced, and I glared up at him.

“At least you came prepared.”

A smile tugged at my lips, and I shook my head.

“You really are stupid.”

The sound of a helicopter overhead interrupted the conversation.

Me and Neteyam gave each other a knowing look before he dragged me toward the walls of the enclosure.

“Shit”

Neteyam mumbled, it was the middle of the day and the sun illuminated every inch of the surrounding area.

“Over there!”

I urged, and we ran toward a slight overhang that conveniently had vines growing over it that provided some coverage.

Neteyam pushed his back to the wall, and I stood pressed against his chest. Both of our breaths stopped as the helicopter flew directly over the opening of what once was a hiding spot. Neither of us moved an inch until long after the sound of the helicopter dissipated. I let out a sigh of relief, wondering how the hell we got away with that.

“That was close.”

Neteyam agreed,

“Too close.”

Then I realized how close we were to one another. I could feel the vibration of Neteyams rapid heart rate on my shoulder blade. His hands were cupped around my arms, and it was shocking how large they were. I couldn't imagine how large he would be compared to my human form.

I swallowed the dryness away in my throat, as Neteyam let go of my arms. I took that as my que to step away.

We both emerged from the shadows cautiously, I looked at Neteyam,

“If they got my location before we destroyed the tracker they would have already been here.”

That was the best I could do at reassuring him. At the mention of the tracker a panicked expression took over Neteyams face.

“Your arm!”

He grabbed my wrist, tugging it, somehow gently, towards him. I had bled through the cloth, which granted was not ideal.

“I have to take you home, now.”

I pulled my arm away shaking my head.

“No! I can wait, I'm fine really.”

Neteyam looked at me with disbelief,

“Are you serious Shyla? Why won't you come with me?”

Neteyams tone turned subtly sour as he spoke. I could have been misunderstanding his expression, but he seemed hurt. I bit my lip, contemplating every decision I made to lead me to this point. I took a sharp breath in, deciding there wasn't much to lose.

“I'm spider's sister.”

There was silence for a long moment. Neteyam just stared at me, and I probably looked like I was going to throw up.

Neteyam laughed and I just watched, not able to understand any part of his actions.

“Why would that be a bad thing?”

Neteyam offered me a sympathetic smile, and it unintentionally made me melt. I sighed, focusing on the more important topic of conversation.

“Because…my fathers back.”

That's when Neteyams expression matched my own, he was horrified. All I felt was shame, I wish I could go back to saying my father was dead.

Neteyam insisted on bringing me back to the Na’vi base, reassuring me that I wouldn't have to tell anyone who I was until I was reunited with Spider. I spent the walk explaining that I was born on Pandora, and did not go back to earth tell my dad died. I explained that I was very young, and did not have a say in much of anything.

“So, you knew my parents? And Grace?”

I smiled slightly, shrugging in reply,

“Kind of, Like I said I was young, but yes I spent some time with them.”

Neteyam matched my smile, his pace quickened.

“You have nothing to worry about, they will think of you as someone to protect.”

My expression hardened and I thought for a moment, no one has ever wanted to protect me in my life. I've always just been a soldier, dying meant serving my planet to my fullest. Neteyam slowed, watching my expression.

“Is something wrong?”

I pulled myself away from the thought and looked up at him. I laughed, shaking my head.

“No, I'm sorry.”

Neteyam shook his head,

“Don't be.”

I don't remember much of Jake Sully, but that was him to a tee.

Before I could reply someone sprinted out of the woods and tackled me. I didn't let the utter shock stop me from fighting back. In a matter of seconds I was on top of the culprit with my knife to their throat.

“Lo’ak!”

Neteyam hissed, and I relaxed my arm, not pressing it into the boy's skin any longer. After the initial adrenalin wore off, I got a chance to observe the boy who attacked me, he looked familiar.

“Your brother?”

I chuckled, getting off of Lo’ak. Neteyam sighed, roughly pulling Lo’ak to his feet.

“What the hell are you doing?”

Lo’ak shrugged off his brother, furrowing his eyebrows together.

“I thought you needed my help!”

The boy defended himself, and I couldn't help but laugh under my breath. Both of the men looked at me, expecting an explanation for what I found so funny.

“Sorry, it's just, that lame excuse for an attack wasn't gonna help anybody.”

Neteyam also found that funny, chuckling as well. Lo’ak looked at his brother in utter disbelief.

“What are you doing brother? She is a sky person.”

He mumbled, as if it was some kind of secret. I pressed my lips together, maybe the Na’vi wouldn’t be as understanding as Neteyam promised.

Neteyam lightly pushed his brother's shoulder as a form of scolding.

“So is dad, and Kiri’s mom.”

Neteyams argument made Lo’ak shut up, but he still didn't seem to agree with the situation.

“You will get an explanation soon, but for now we have to get Shyla home.”

Neteyam started walking but Lo’ak protested.

“To our home?! No, no, no.”

Neteyam shot Lo’ak a death glare, and there was no arguing after that.

Tag List

@liyahsocorro

#neteyam fluff #neteyam x oc #neteyam x y/n #neteyam sully #neteyam x reader #fanfic #avtar #neteyam x you #sully family

23 notes · View notes

llycaons · 1 year

Text

final ch lb reposted bc it's not showing up in the tags???

AUGH THE CHAPTER IS CALLED DUNGEON MESHI. it's simple but I love it when they do that. perfect for dm, which is pared-down in themes but applies itself perfectly to what it wants to say

wow, damn, guess that makes sense, it's so amazing that laios brought so many people together with the simple promise of something that unites all living things - nourishment - and they in turn brought their own food to add to the communal pot. I would have liked to see more exploration of this community-building through food, but this is literally one of the only things I would change about dm it's so impeccable crafted

damn marcille

JESUS LAIOS

aw man, that's genuinely an awful thing to live with. this might be a happy ending, but laios lives with the consequences of his defeat of the demon

this is an actual medical condition too...people can get really sick

celebratory panel!!! ofc senshi is stoic (though without ever being unkind! he's unruffled without being cold) and izu doesn't rly care

sorry but 👀

THIS IS SO FUNNY. senshi being like 'I'm politely staying out of this' and everyone else being like 'yeah there's no way he's that selfless'

damn, what a step for marcille, who was so terrified of losing the people close to her

she's so hot here ugh

OHHH this visual is so cool

mmm tasty! her face says hehe she's so cute I missed her so bad. real babygirl material

yayy!!! and standing up suddenly able to walk, and TAKING the dragon with her??? that's so cute like a little plush

it would have been an interesting ending for her to maybe not recover the use of her legs? ending the story with a disability wouldn't have been a tragedy, and it's been done really well in other stories. like, I'm still me, this is a change that happened because of something I've been through, and it's something to adjust to and keep moving forward with. sorry to bring up tgcf here but sqx's storyline is truly so compelling like she DID that

SHES SO CUTE I CAN'T STAND IT. farlyn are you free friday I can take you to a movie and buy you dinner

really incredible how she's hot in one panel then charming in another then ravenous in the third. her range...

this is such lover behavior <3

AHHH SIBLING LOVE!!

marcille love!!! her legs lmao

😭😭😭 not many stories end this straightforwardly satisfyingly and honestly it's really really nice. a more bittersweet ending or a more 'mature' one might have had farlyn not come back at all a lesson abt death or w/e but fuck that!!

ohhhh sexy

STOP THIS IS SO FUCKING CUTE!!! LOOK HOW HE'S SMILING. CRYING OVER THIS!!! character who barely know each other and have met like once before but will absolutely be friends for life. this might be my favorite panel in the chapter and maybe even series

PEACE AND LOVE ON THE PLANET EARTH

aww she's trying to reach out to izu. she's not someone who warms up to people easily but farlyn is just so lovable and sincere and weird that I can def see a friendship potentially for them

STOP STOP THIS IS SO CUTE. im so glad farlyn didn't get paired off or even god forbid MARRIED to that guy who likes her can you fucking imagine. maybe farcille isn't confirmed but they're real in our hearts and nothing disproves them

damn, pizza? I don't remember that

of course she does!!! she's outgoing and adventurous and loves to eat!

you know this story wouldn't have worked half as well if farlyn wasn't legitimately a charming and lovable character who was easy to get attached to and root for. if they tried going the jerk with a heart of gold route, it would have taken a lot longer and been harder to create sympathy for her. like how cql's appeal rests disproportionately on you liking and rooting for wwx, dungeon meshi's driving plot relied on you WANTING this woman to come back to life, to eat and see her friends and do her magic and get into her weird hobbies. and she's perfect! the writing doesn't rely on one cliched line or scene to get you to realize 'oh they're a good person despite their harsh exterior' to get you to root for her (even tho that's an underutilized technique for writing women), it just presents this oddball and lets you love her. rk is so good at writing women who feel like real people, it's a reason adore marcille - for her awkwardness, her judgement, her readiness to blow things up without thought. she's just a deeply uncool person who's very endearing

not to be a monarchist or anything but this is probably the best they could have gotten given the situation so I'm not going to complain too much. it's not like I read dm for in-depth and realistic political engagement

and this is like the easiest way to be a good leader. just care about your people getting the food they need. that's enough, really. I don't think laios is capable of much more anyway. it's not like he's a politican

also what does the succession line look like? I know he's not having a kid. omg kabru!! his face is so ajshdksad. and yayy marcille and farlyn staying to advise him together!!

oHHH SHIT. thesis statement of the series! also these babies are so fucking cute I can't deal. ik that one of them is a dog person but the other one??? is that an orc??? well take back what I said about just food being important. integration is happening here too - it's clear that laios's kingdom is welcoming of people like orcs who have historically been expelled from other places and violently targeted by other races. idk how he managed that but like, well done, laios!

you know I adore cql but it's such a relief to step into other stories that aren't quite so much about Good (TM ) in a vague and all-encompassing sense and also have characters who aren't laserfocused on one person and who you can envision making connections to and becoming close with other characters 😭 loving lwj is so hard sometimes loving farlyn is so easy always

#dunmeshi lb

6 notes · View notes

peaterookie · 2 years

Text

Lupin III Chapter 43 Review

GRAAAAHHHHHH ITS CHAPTER 43 TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

goemon is in the cover again this means its big deal boys

in this chapter im assuming goemon is out to get revenge for all the scrolls lupin stole he gets hired by his superiors to kill him but he constant gets outsmarted by lupin

the first time is goemon trying to kill lupin while he is trying to have sex with a random woman

he gets smacked by a wooden plank while lupin complains about him, saying how hes taking a day off and he doesnt need goemon in his way ok but what lupin be doing having sex outside though lupin and the woman leaves and afterward goemon meets with his superiors

theyre very disappointed with him! saying how he needs to focus more and be more cold blooded they show an example in fact one of them picks up a bird from a cage and rips off one of its wings, showing how goemon needs to become heartless and a true killer…

im not gonna show the panels in particular because it makes me whince everytime i look at it goemon is also shocked to see him do such a thing, but he listens believing that he can kill lupin by training to be cold blooded feels bad

it's the second trial boys, maybe this time goemon can do it this time he enters DIRECTLY INTO LUPIN'S MANSION HOW DID HE FIND IT of course this time lupin is still having sex with the woman i would commend him for being courteous and doing it indoors but goemon is right in front him... poor guy.

L: Goemon! I told you! I'm taking the day off! L: If you absolutely insist, I'll kill you tomorrow! G: Now, damn it! Kill me now! Or return the Jitoryu scrolls!

lupin ignores him and continues with his business and goemon slices through the couch that they were on

im assuming from the sequences of events that he took the girl and leads both of them to fight outside of some random wilderness again

something funny that i wanted to mention is how lupin called goemon a teenanger because he comes at the worst times in the manga i guess you can hc goemon as a teenager or probably the youngest out of the cast, hes usually the less cruel one and he's typically the most 'innocent' one if i'm putting that right

anyways, lupin unarmed, pretends to be trapped and cornered by goemon and calls for help, but in fact...

L: Somebody please shoot this man! Why don't I have a gun? W: Because you gave it to me, silly!

...and Goemon's attempt fails i like how each attempt is slowly getting sillier everytime you'll get why it gets like that later goemon, once again, returns back to his superiors.

them, even more disappointed now, starts to ridicule the man for being too nice and warm blooded my boy does NOT deserve this hes too sweet for his own good leave him alone…

ok THIRD TIME'S THE CHARM, RIGHT!? this time goemon and lupin meet up on a cliff of some random coast with a boat goemon demands lupin to fight him and he sounds super super angry..

i think this is an attempt to sound threatening lupin pulls out the scrolls and he decides to put it in the deck of the boat to convince goemon to not fight him goemon opens the deck of the boat and he sinks as it was just a silly little trick, and lupin and the woman run off with the scroll still in their hands

...Goemon's third attempt fails. how long is this going to go.

S: You are not a talker… a thinker… you are a KILLER! S: The secret iron-cutting technique… use it! Destroy Lupin! and so he does!

goemon approaches lupin this time on a highway while lupin is driving his car, and SLICES IT IN HALF lupin is so fucking done with goemon's shit this time good lordy

ok but how is the car still running but anyways lupin runs over goemon, and he fails for the 4th time...

as he returns to his surperiors he announces that he's now sick and tired of listening to his superiors and he's going to leave!! what is he gonna do next though??

surprisingly hes taken quite a liking to lupin through the time, and decides this time to follow him instead!!!!!!

woohoo!! goemon joins the gang finally!!! AND IT ONLY TOOK 43 CHAPTERS

#lupin the 3rd #lupin iii #lupin the third #local lupin manga fan screams about the manga as per usual #goemon ishikawa xiii

13 notes · View notes

sopebubbles · 1 year

Note

hello there! before i start with my ramblings, may i know what to call you? your username is sopebubbles and i love sope and bubbles!! but what do i call you ? i’m sorry if i missed any ask that have mentioned your name, but i really don’t know what to call you other than author-nim 😭 so im so sorry!

— btw i just finished my final papers. my days were hectic with studies and revisioned with these killer subjects that literally killing me, but i managed to pull it off and end it well sighhhhhh. i’m 22 yet im still taking exams. (never quit learning btw, it’s good to stimulate your brain-) anywayyyy, that’s why now i have some times to come back to tumblr and have my precious time delulu-ing away with my favourite fics updates!!

imagine my surprise that i saw two chapter updated 😭😭 omg it was heavenly surprised!!!

actually it took me few weeks to collect myself, my thoughts, my spirits, to talk (sending ask) to you here. now i’m good to discuss this eheks :3 i hope that you don’t mind with me being so handful and asks lots of questions sometimes 😔 ㅋㅋㅋ

emm,to start, i wonder if yn ever will ever share her sad background story with the pack as now she’s one of the pack and yoongi’s mate. with how privileged life that most members in the pack grew up with, unlike yoongi and jimin and maybe taehyung too. so i wonder if she will ever tell them and maybe in future it might be a solid reasons to the pack to protect her. as in in chapter 12 where namjoon feels threatened by yn that she might stole the spot or something. i feel like they need to know how horrible she was treated before, you know my little heart sometimes cannot handle this injustice feeling - however i understand why namjoon felt that too. yet still — shhshshs

for taehyung and jungkook, what is their position in the pack? i mean jimin close with yoongi obviously. seokjin and hobi are married, namjoon being seokjin right hand man. so where does these left jungkook and taehyung? are they like just there in the pack like a family or they are lovers too with others? sorry if this sounds stupid but i am stupid so it’s not surprising. shshshs

anyway anyhow by the way, i cheer for your upcoming stories! rest well and don’t get hurt!!

-🫧

🙋🏻‍♀️hiiiii! Nice to hear from you again! I'm glad to hear you got through your exams. I absolutely do not miss those days! Learning is fun but taking tests is not! I'm grateful you made time to read my little story.

As for what to call me, i guess you can call me maddie! Although author-nim gives me a nice warm feeling 🥰

She will definitely tell them, although it probably won't be all at once. She will reveal some to just Yoongi in the next chapter though! They will all come to understand her and love her better eventually.

They are lovers too!! Jungkook was the third to join. For a year or two or was just Jin, Hobi and Jungkook. Then Jungkook and Jin kept bringing home strays 🤭 Jin brought Namjoon and Jungkook brought Taehyung not too long after. Jungkook has a very central role in the pack, though they all do in their own way. He's kind of close with everyone. Taehyung is closest with Hobi, Jimin and Jungkook, although Yoongi and Jin give him a lot of respect and trust, leaving him to protect their omega(s) all day long. When it comes to Jimin, they're very silly but very close and really understand each other. Low key if the pack had split, Tae might have asked to go with Jimin.

You're not stupid at all!! You've done so well with school and i hope you have some time to relax! Thank you for your questions, they're never a bother 💜

#lone wolf asks #lone wolf thoughts #🫧 anon

5 notes · View notes

pjisskullourful · 2 years

Text

do i bring subby damiano for a ffuture chapter of stained sheets?

having some thoughts but cant decide... 🤔

having some thoughts ....

i've had it mentioned in the past that the gf plays the bayonetta games- she loves bayo, wants to name a dog after her

so the third one came out a couple of weeks ago& as i was playing it(i loved it btw), i was thinking of how the gf would play it too. but what would daddiano be doing as shes being her nerdy gamer girl self& playing this long game?

i guess i was in such a different headspace when i played bayo 1/2 all those years ago& it didnt stick in my mind just how much wild top energy bayonetta has. its dominatrix energy, lets be real. the games are sexual& bayo is the main character that keeps this going

so as im playing im imagining that maybe dami would watch gf play through& it would really start getting his attention. not so much cos hes a gamer but cos shes pole dancing, theres lowkey nudity, etc. & maybe hes like 'how come you've never cosplayed as her?'-- cos cosplaying is something i've had them do together in the past, so its one of her interests. & shes like 'that would be way above my skill level, etc'& maybe hes like 'well if you ever wanted to channel her in the bedroom, i wouldnt be mad...'

cos heres some of the shit that bad demon bitch says:

you want to touch me?

YOU'VE BEEN NAUGHTY

kiss this

you want to play with bayonetta?

I'm not much for the talkative types. How about we have a little fun, instead? You did plan on having fun with me, right? There'll be plenty of time for pillow talk afterwards

DO YOU NAUGHTY LITTLE ANGELS DESERVE A GOOD SPANKING

im not one for pets who dont listen to their masters

like hello!!! so do i have her get some prop spectacles & channel this energy to dom her mans? she could do a little pole dance maybe?

how would everyone feel about that?

8 notes · View notes

thatboxylady · 1 year

Note

i mean this in the kindest way possible but how the hell do you write so much so fast without getting burnt out ???? im kind of terrified

KGADSHSKJGD lmfao. Thank you I am always glad to instill terror in others as a special treat.

I think it's a couple of things.

1. ADHD hyperfocus. If I'm in a good headspace without any distractions, I can plow straight through a couple of pages at a time.

2. "Write what you want to read." No one else is going to write about Jetstorm/Thrust or zombie robots so I guess I gotta do it myself grrrr.

3. My method for writing chapters, maybe? I usually start out scenes with a few lines as concept placeholders (i.e. "thrust gets bit by a zombie oopsie daisy cheetor bad kitty go BRRRR") (this is not paraphrased this is LITERALLY what the line was), then I start layering things on top. It will go from ten words to maybe three hundred in the first draft. A third pass will see it turn into a thousand words as I add more onto it. By the time the fourth pass comes along it might double that. I'll also start looking to insert specific imagery, themes, and potential Chekhov nonsense (foreshadowing my beloved). Last phase is to go over it to see if I can catch spelling/grammar errors, but I am very dyslexic so I miss a lot. :(

4. I am actually not that fast of a writer haha. The Long Way Around had its first drafts made in the spring of 2020 and These Forsaken Few had its first outline finished in the fall of 2020. I've just been doing the third method for a really long time to get the chapters to the point where I can then power through the final drafts/add some extra scenes on top to beef them up, which is probably why it seems like I write super fast. Short stories are easier and quicker to do than regular "chapters" that have to adhere to some sort of continuity.

#as for the burnout it used to happen a lot #but TFF and the reaction its gotten has given my brain such a boost like #awwww hell yeah people are ENJOYING something??? I am writing???? aaaaa #knowing people are having fun reading what I write is a huge confidence boost and I have a lot of fun doing it hence why no burnout #boxy writes fanfic

3 notes · View notes

commanderquinn · 1 year

Text

Good Space Chapter 1: Flower

! i dont! keep these posts! updated! like i do! ao3!

that means you're going to find typos and shit (and possibly minor detail changes) that don't match the ao3 version! that's because im not going to bother fixing the tumblr posts until i finish good space as a whole. im only uploading them here as a backup tbh

—

master list / ao3 chapter link

—

She’s the one good thing about trips to medical in the Avenger’s Tower.

Every other day, at her direct insistence, her lab is the only place in the entire wing that he’s willing to go to. It smells warm and safe, nothing like the antiseptic that makes him want to break a limb. For the first two weeks, he tries to tell her that she doesn’t have to do this. He’s been looking after the link from his arm to his brain for years. There’s never been a problem with it that he couldn’t handle, and he’ll come back if anything ever feels off. No matter how much Steve hovers, she doesn’t need to waste her time on this.

By the start of the third week, he can’t bring himself to suggest that anymore.

—

psa: there’s some gross ass (sometimes detailed) nazi medical shit all through this fic, so if lobotomy talk of any kind is a no for you, skim over any brain talk. your best bet is just to skip the lab scenes where you can ❤️

fic title is a song by skrillex! we needed bouncy shit that vague hinted at plot. the chapter title is a moby song to lay out the v i b e s 👾 im always going to list these, so y’all have a song to listen to while reading

all i can think that needs to be said for canon clarity (ill make it all clear over time dw) is post-WS buckaroo got picked up by steve and sam to be taken for a shower and therapy. no civil war, no age of ultron. we're taking parts of it and doing other shit, you'll see. fury’s publicly alive and director again, shield got flushed out because mmmmm i said so i guess. no red room here. its not about nat, the lack of consent history hanging between them isnt something i want with this. i want to focus on other parts of their trauma bond. alsomaybeishipnatwithsomeoneinthis.

im sorry, but i never started wanda content on my end, and AI jarvis is comfy nostalgia i want to play in, so likely not a lot for her here. yes, we will be having shuri bully bucky, ofc, she’s the pin that holds this whole plot together (what else is new)

oh and i treat bucky’s arm as more of an atompunk feel rather than “the nazi’s had bleeding edge limb tech in ww2 that only affects bucky’s arm, definitely not anything else”

other than that, we’re firmly in good ‘ol stark tech magic and too many open wiki pages for all my plot device needs

also my grammar aint the good. i write these mf's in my spare time while baked af, you're gonna have to give a bitch a break babes 👾

—

Febuary 17th, 2018

"That's not what I'm asking about."

Tony throws up his hands from the other side of the conference table, then lets them smack back down against the polished surface dramatically. "Illuminate me then, Rogers. I'm running out of ways to explain that she's the best I've got to offer for this."

Steve pushes a hand through his hair with a frustrated huff. "I'm not a brain surgeon."

"No shit, that's what she's here for."

"I meant that I don't know what the fuck I'm looking at."

"Now I know you're worried if you're willing to," Tony clutches at the front of his shirt in mock horror, "swear in public." Pepper smacks his shoulder without even looking up from her tablet. The sight would make Steve smile under normal circumstances.

"You can hand me any resume you want, Tony. I'm telling you that I won't be able to see a difference. I know you're giving me a team who can do the work; I'm asking if they can do it while it's Bucky."

"Are you worried about his safety or theirs?" Pepper asks, finally looking over. Her tone isn't judgemental. If anything, it's veering towards the gentleness it has when she's talking Tony down.

"I'm not worried about theirs. I will be there every time. Even if he has a bad day, I'll make sure that—look. Nothing's going to happen. It's just...." Steve flips open the folder he's been carrying for a week. The edges of it are starting to wear down at this point. Sighing, he slides his summary notes to their side of the table. "He still doesn't... he doesn't talk about the previous escapes. No matter what his therapist tries. He just can't bring himself to do it. But it's not hard to get a clear picture of what used to happen. He does this every time. He builds himself a strong house, then a fallback point, and then he goes to work trying to fix all the damage alone, which he'll never be able to do. No one could. And there's not going to be a goon squad rolling in to drag him back anymore, so he's just going to—"

"Yeah, yeah, push him to help him; I grasped the concept the first hundred times," Tony cuts in. If he weren't so damn anxious, Steve might honestly feel bad about being so far up everyone's ass over this. "You've got me on board. So, what's the concern here? Will she quit the first time he bites her head off? That's a pretty chauvinist perspective, especially coming from you."

"She's had to put up with Tony long enough to befriend him; that should be proof enough." Pepper smiles as the nightmare himself points toward her in silent agreement.

Steve raises his hands amicably. "I'm not trying to insult anyone's professionalism. I'm sure she's had more than her fair share of problem patients to get where she is today. I'm... I'm more asking if—Christ. I'm sorry in advance, alright? But... Tony, I need you to look me in the eye and tell me that you'd have trusted her to get you home."

A stiff, all-consuming silence falls over the spare meeting room. Pepper and Steve waiting on bated breath; Tony frozen as he looks back at him with an expressionless face.

Steve despises himself for doing this to him. The knowledge of what happened in that cave is something the man is unimaginably protective over. It took years—and a night of blackout drinking on Tony's end—for the story to even slip out of him. Talking about Yinsen is the only time Steve's seen him cry that he can remember. It was just one overflow, barely even two tears that got scrubbed off his cheeks within the first minute, but it was there. It's the only way Steve knows to get his point across.

Tony looks down at the table and adjusts his posture. His head shifts and his lips purse in that signature move of his, the one that comes up when he's forced to be a person. With feelings. Pepper's arm moves, no doubt taking his hand under the table.

He looks back up, meeting Steve's eyes as his posture relaxes. "I wish they could have met. I think Yin would have gotten a kick out of her fashion taste. I think she'd have gotten an even bigger one out of putting him in it."

It's the most ringing endorsement he's ever heard the man give. More importantly, Steve knows just how much weight sits behind the guarded words.

—

"I've got their personnel files if you want them. They all volunteered them to you willingly."

"I'm alright."

"Do you want their names ahead of time?"

"No."

"Not even their first ones?"

"They can tell them to me."

"Okay."

"...."

"...What are they?"

"The ones that'll be behind the glass are Hannah and Wyatt." Of course Steve knows to start there, where his nerves will fixate the most. Asshole. "You probably won't even talk to the two of them today, but your main doctor for this will definitely offer to let you. Her name is Ava. She's going to check in with you for confirmation on a lot of things before she does them. I shadowed her for over a week, asshole. It's not about you; she does it for everyone."

Bucky grunts. "I wouldn't have jumped on her for it."

"No, you'd have sat there brooding like a petulant jackass instead, probably making her feel bad." Steve pauses for a long moment, fiddling with the paper coffee cup in his hands. "You should read Hannah's file, Buck."

"Why?" He shouldn't ask. He can hear the motive sitting in his best friend's voice. It's a fucking trap, and he fucking knows it, but he also can't stop himself.

"Her last name is Schuster."

He absolutely despises the way the situation makes his gut clench. They're dead. They're all dead, and the ones in their place have been declawed for much longer than he's been off ice. He's probably not even going to talk to the woman, at least not today. He might catch the sight of a name on a coat, however. Or on a chart.

He wanted to do this without letting old habits in. He wanted to at least start this feeling like a person, not a weapon. But he gets why the dickhead is trying to baby-step him into it.

Bucky holds out his hand. Steve silently passes him the tablet he keeps. Neither of them says a word as he reads the SHEILD file to himself, line by line. Taking in a stranger's entire professional life. Her family, her known associates, every residence she's ever held. It takes a moment of hovering his finger over the subfolder with her medical records to talk himself down from opening it. Nothing is lingering in those shadows; Steve wouldn't allow it. That's not a line he needs to cross anymore.

He hands it back when he's done. "The other two?"

"Nothing I could think of. Ava's seen your hard limit list—you remember I told you I was gonna give it to one of your—?"

"I remember. It's okay. That's why you have it."

"Yeah." Steve takes another long pause. "You remember that she knows—"

"I know."

"Good. The others don't. She says they don't need to for any of it, and it's never going on record again." He looks over out of the corner of his eye. "She's going to bring it up today."

"I had a hunch."

"I just wanted to make sure it didn't surprise you."

"I know."

"Good." Steve picks up his coffee to drain the last of it in one swig. He tosses the empty cup into a trashcan by the wall a few tables over before looking back at him. He extends his now-empty hand. "Ready?"

"Not in the fucking least." Bucky raises his hand to lock with his best friends momentarily. "Let's go."

There's no wing in this tower—and he's been through all of them by now—that he dislikes more than medical. The place makes his skin feel like a thousand goddamn spiders are crawling all over him, and the smell of it, fuck. It sits in his head like a fog while it burns up the inside of his nose, making him want to break anything touching any part of him. He'd make Steve be here with him no matter what; that's a given. But the fact that there's going to be a doctor poking at him today while he's trying to power through it all makes the guy's presence non-negotiable. Bucky needs the safety net for the good of everyone in that room.

Steve doesn't try for talking to distract him, mercifully enough. There are times when it helps. Today isn't going to be one of them. He doesn't even have to bring it up for Steve to know, and the reminder that he's understood helps his nerves. It's been an incredibly long time since he had an incident. He's proud of every last one of those days. He won't be upset with himself—well. He'll try not to be upset with himself if that streak ends. But he really, really wants that day not to be today.

Bucky treats it like a mission. He's braced and ready for the antiseptic when they first get through the entrance. He doesn't flinch or huff through his nose at the invasion, not even as they make their way to the specialized divisions. He's walked these hallways before; he's walked every single one in the tower. It was the only way he could get himself to sleep during his first week here. Aside from a few trips to the emergency intake, he hasn't had to force himself back.

He's definitely never bothered with meeting the specialists themselves. It took long enough to convince himself not to memorize the names of every staff member in the tower. He doesn't need to do that anymore. That's what his therapist and the Star Spangled Spandex keep insisting, anyways.

The door Steve goes for sticks out against the sleek hallway long before they reach it. It's painted, and not just a solid color; it's covered with a garden scene done by several different hands, going by the skill variation. Bucky runs his thumb over one of the hundreds of flowers as they walk past it to feel how thick the tiny acrylic mountains are. One of the petals cracks under the light pressure of the move, making him frown. The mural's not sealed at all, despite being long dried. Not the kind of thing maintenance usually overlooks.

An absolute shock of color hits Bucky's eyes when he gets his first look at the neurosurgeon's office. The walls he can spot from this side of the entryway are lined with tie-dye hanging cloths, and the floor is covered in fluffed-up, vibrant rugs. There's not a hint of SHIELD regulation left in the architecture, with all the walls that aren't glass holding even more heavy paint globs. Some of the murals are more flowers, but a majority of them are space themed.

The stench of antiseptic fades the farther into the room Bucky goes. By the time the door shuts behind him, it's entirely replaced with the warm aroma of apples and cinnamon. A long, curved desk is off to one corner, pushed against the glass wall overlooking the city and covered in picture frames. An arrangement of chairs piled with pillows matching the rest of the decor sits in the center. Each one of them is fucking massive.

The room itself is separated in half by a thick glass wall. He can spot two doctors sitting behind an array of equipment on the other, equally decorated side behind the glass. There isn't any creative paint in there from what he can spot. If it weren't for that, he could almost forget that he's standing in a medical lab.

Almost.

"Hi there," comes a voice to his right.

The woman it belongs to almost blends in with the office once Bucky turns his head to look at her. The lab coat that comes down to her knees is a solid blue rather than tye-dye, but it's covered in stitched designs. Most of them are shaped like bees. Bucky barely stops his eyebrows from raising at the sight of the outfit underneath. Loose cloth pants hanging low on her hips, with even more bees on them, and a hand-knit top that would have been called obscene during most of the decades he woke up in. The bun she's pulled her hair into must have been done this morning; more than a few bundles are hanging down haphazardly. Bucky hasn't met a lot of brain surgeons that he knows of, but he doesn't remember any of them having glasses as thick as hers. He's pretty sure that good vision is something most of them need for the job. Not that he's nervous.

She walks over with a warm smile, already extending a hand to him. She's a short, round little thing. Barely five feet, if his guess is accurate. It always is. "I'm Dr. Ryder. You can call me Ava. I'm told you're my newest patient."

He accepts the shake with a nod and tries not to think about how sweaty his hand might feel to her. Wiping it against his pants would have been too weird. "James."

"But you prefer Bucky, right?"

"Yes, ma'am. Ava," he corrects himself quickly.

"Oooh, someone's stepped on some toes in the new century." Her smile takes on a teasing edge. "I'm originally from Canada; you won't find me taking offense. Ingrained cultural manners are a bitch to hold back."

"Careful, they're the only manners he's got," Steve warns, already heading for one of the chairs.

"Ignore him. I'm house-trained," Bucky assures her. Taking his hand back, he hikes a thumb over his shoulder, needing something to stall with. "You sure you don't want someone to give your door a few clear coats? It'd be a shame to see all that work chip off."

Ava waves dismissively. "We redo it a lot; it's a relaxation project around here. It'll look different pretty soon." She points toward the glass wall separating the two halves of the office. "I've got the rest of the team working on a project to give us some space, but I can bring them in for a minute if you'd like to meet them?"

"I'm... I'm alright for now, thanks. I can meet them—whenever."

She doesn't insist further or comment on the blatant nerves in his voice. Her hand waves at the arranged chairs as she moves to sit in one. "Take your pick of the lineup, then. Typically I'd offer to take you to the corner of the roof that we've claimed for ourselves as an alternative. But, I need to keep you in environmental controls for sanitation, at least for the initial visit."

Bucky nods a few times as he sits in the one next to Steve's. His ass sinks nearly a foot into nothing but pillows, and his spine goes rigid. "Here's fine."

He'd have said no anyways, not that he'll mention that. Too many open sight lines with his anxiety on edge. He'll be revisiting the roof before his next appointment to familiarize himself, though, that's for sure. His last trip up there was long before she was even hired. The mental image of bead strings and tye-dye throw blankets on patio furniture flits through his head. If she decorates the same way everywhere, he's guessing it won't be all that hard to find the space.

Ava pulls up a tablet from the coffee table to rest in the middle of her folded legs. He's guessing she's into yoga in her spare time. One of her eyebrows arches at them in amusement. "You know, I've never actually seen someone fill one of these before now."

"The benefits of dosed living," Steve quips, his tone a little too positive. It makes Bucky's foot start to bounce silently against the floor on instinct.

If she notices, the doctor doesn't mention it as she focuses on Bucky. "Steve tells me you prefer when doctors keep things direct with you."

Bucky shifts his eyes over to the man in question, who busies himself with one of the pillows, picking at the hanging fringe. Fucker's going to be hearing about this later, that's for damn sure.

He looks back at Ava. Time to get it over with, he encourages himself. "Yeah, if you don't mind."

"Not at all. I know Steve's already told you, but I want you to hear it from my mouth. I have The Soldier's activation memorized."

He can't stop the gut instinct to swallow over hearing the words, but he nods. "I'm okay with it."

"It's not in any of my notes; it never will be. My team understands that there is a specific trigger in place; they need to in order to do their job. But they have no indication of what it is. I'll never write the words out or speak them where they can be picked up. Steve helped me with the pronunciation and the order when he first gave me your records, but you have my word that I won't be repeating them."

"You should," Bucky insists immediately. "If anything happens, you should, and you shouldn't hesitate about it."

"She knows, Buck," Steve assures him with a murmur. "I took her through the worst case drill. She's got a panic button on her."

"Steve tells me that my reaction time is fast enough for working on your case safely." Ava's head tilts to the side slightly. "Your comfort is the priority here. We can always run through a silent drill together if you'd like the reassurance."

He thinks about it. Honest to god, he lets himself sit in the idea of putting Steve's training to the test for more than a few moments. Neither of them push him for an answer. "I might take you up on that at some point."

She nods, the hair hanging closest to her face bouncing slightly. "Whenever you want. That offer is permanent. I'm taking this case on because I want to help undo what's been done; I'm not here to let it be continued, not even in research." Her eyes shift to Steve, with a bitter defiance building in them. "I trust that'll be clarified to the director if our work here ever reaches his ears, captain."

Steve nods, finally looking up from where he's moved on to picking at the pillow's stitches. "There's no more mud in that water. Fury understands how far over the line we went."

Ava doesn't look convinced in the least. Bucky doesn't blame her, not with the scattered memories of his role in all of it sitting in his head. When she looks back at him, the distrust leaves her eyes. "I'd like to get a better idea of what we'll be working with. I know that's probably going to be one of the most difficult parts of this, so we can try to get through it now if you'd like. Or we can wait until you're feeling more comfortable. It's entirely up to you."

Shifting slightly to straighten out his shoulders, Bucky nods. "I'm ready now."

It's an outright lie, but that doesn't really matter anymore. There's never going to be a time when he is ready. He still needs to do this.

"I'm going to need to adjust your head a few times today," she tells him with a relaxed, melodic tone as she stands up. She lifts a black briefcase from the coffee table and brings it over to rest on the arm of his chair, where he can easily see it being handled. "Is there anywhere you'd prefer me putting my hands? Or anywhere specific you want me to avoid?"

Bucky sees Steve shift his head slightly in his peripheral and wants to roll his eyes. Asshole. He'd have made a joke at the most; he wouldn't have been insulted. Probably. "I can't think of anywhere to steer you away from. You're good to do whatever you need to do."

She doesn't take him into the other section of the room like he thought she would. She doesn't even make him stand back up. All it takes to get the nightmare he's been dreading for years started is Ava pulling a wired, plastic wreath from the briefcase to put over the top of his head. She doesn't push a cold faceplate over his eye and against his temples; no bite guard gets shoved in his mouth. There's no frigid metal probing into the top of his neck to make his teeth buzz until he wants to rip them out of his jaw. The air around him isn't humid and suffocating like it was in that bunker. He can't hear the hum of electric coils or the squeak of leather boots on linoleum.

He's not in Siberia. He's in New York. This isn't a HYDRA agent strapping him down. This is a hippie, who definitely smoked pot this morning, putting a sensor on his head that barely has any weight.

"Here, hold this for me," she tells him from behind his chair, offering her tablet over his shoulder. He takes it silently, bringing it to rest in both hands. A digital scan of his brain is already being mapped out on the screen. It's the first time he's seen the anchor that wraps around his brainstem since the X-rays HYDRA used to leave up like trophies. "We can get a look at this thing together."

Bucky takes a deep breath in. It's… not a pretty sight. Whatever they put in him isn't registering in the bright blue lights of the rest of his brain. They're all dark spots, primarily lines branching out from the anchor that might as well be a black hole.

"You see that?" Ava leans forward to run her nail up the path of one of the lines. It starts at the anchor, and it's attached to another point further up, but that junction is the source of even more lines that go all over. There's a fucking mechanical spider web in his brain. "That's your motor cortex, and those links are tethered to your arm, starting there. That—the one right there—is what's making your cybernetics work."

"What's the rest of it?" There's a fucking lot of it, whatever it is. A lot more than he remembers being put in.

"Considering the intent of the Nazis that had you, the end goal was probably total control." Her finger moves, tapping several things that look way too fucking important as she keeps talking. "All of those there are connected to your essential functions: breathing, heart rate, consciousness. From there, they branched out into trying for control over your limbs. Jesus." She leans further over his shoulder and pinches at the screen to zoom in. "It looks like they were already building into your entire cognitive process."

"What does that mean?" Steve asks, worry rising in his tone.

"It means they were reckless on top of being cruel. And fucking stupid—pardon my French."

"You're talking to soldiers, doc," Bucky reminds her quietly, his brows drawn in as his eyes trace the black spots in his grey matter.

"Right. In that case, fuck every last one of them and the horses they rode... into whichever circle of hell they're burning in, I guess." Bucky's lips twitch slightly as she zooms back out. "They were venturing into parts of the brain that haven't been studied enough for human testing, even by today's standards. Blindly poking just to see what worked; my guess is because they knew that you could survive it. You see that big scary thing under your hippocampus?"

Bucky nods as she taps at the anchor. "Yeah. Yeah, that was… that was the first part. That got put in, I mean." He clears his throat when it starts to scratch. "I'm. I'm pretty sure it was the first part."

"Do you want to know why you don't feel sure?" she asks gently. Her voice has dropped to something much softer. It makes him sit back in the overly comfortable chair incrementally.

"Yeah," he tells her quietly, honestly. He wouldn't have a year ago.

Ava circles her finger around the center of his brain, where one of the more prominent lines from the anchor holds several thinner, black branches. "That's your limbic system. It controls emotion, memory, behavioral habits, that kind of thing. They fried it at some point trying to get to your memories, I assume. My team has the photograph from your HYDRA file, the one with the X-ray from your initial brain surgery. I've studied it with my own eyes. That serum in your bloodstream is the only thing that brought you back from being a vegetable. The salvaged notes from the initial facility they kept you in mention months of unresponsiveness and varying levels of brain activity.

"There's a reason you can't remember who you were then, Bucky. They wiped you clean because they knew you, out of all their test subjects, could recover from it. There wasn't enough left of your mind to hold memories, much less any kind of higher will." He hears her clothes shuffle behind him and sees Steve turn his head to look back at her from the corner of his eye. "I'm more than willing to testify to that in any court on Earth, captain. So we're clear."

"Understood," Steve replies, his voice thick. "I appreciate that."

Fuck, so does Bucky. Too bad he can't get his throat to open back up at the moment.

"Now, let's talk about the hard part." He hears Ava sigh. "From what I can see, there's no way we can remove any of this. Not by any standard that I'm willing to entertain, at least."

Bucky shakes his head and tries clearing his throat again. It doesn't feel anywhere near as successful this time around. "That's fine. I don't—I don't think I'd… I wouldn't be ready for that. I just want to know it's not…."

"Capable of being controlled remotely?" she offers when he trails off.

"Yeah. Aside from the code. I don't—that's not a problem. They're dead. Anyone else that had it, I mean." Christ, his foot's going to bounce straight out of his boot, right through the leather.

"I can't make any kind of assurances at this stage when it comes to that. But you have my word that it will be my team's primary focus." Her hand pulls back, and he feels four of her fingertips lightly rest on his shoulder. "I'd prefer to check that connection point they left over your spinal cord before you leave today, but the rest of what we need for diagnostics can wait until another time."

Bucky pulls in a heavy breath through his nose. "Yeah. I'm ready to do that."

"I need to get a few things for it and check in with my team." She taps at the side of the wreath lightly. "You don't have to keep looking at the scan, but you should leave this on while I'm gone so we can get some basic readings."

"You're the boss, doc." He tries not to make it look like he's in a hurry to get the thing out of his hand when he dumps the tablet on his leg.

"I'll be back in just a bit," she tells them, calmly shuffling off into the other half of the office. The glass door hisses loudly as she goes through it, confirming it's a sterile lab. The wall frosts over shortly after with the privacy screen activating.

Neither of them says a word for the first few minutes.

"Well," Steve finally offers up, his voice still as thick as when he thanked the doctor. "There's the confirmation you've been waiting for."

"That's not what that was—"

"Alright, you know what? Fuck you very much, Buck—"

"Fuck me? Fuck me? Yeah, I guess that's how it works now, what with you making alll the fucking calls—"

Steve's finger comes sailing into his face. "This affects more than just—" He stops with a short, muted groan and yanks his hand back to shove through his hair. After a moment, he lets it fall to his thigh in a clenched fist. "You want to sit here blaming yourself for it all, fine. I've got no right to tell you to stop when I'm still doing the exact same thing. But I'm pulling you through this whether," his voice goes high and mocking as he turns to glare a hole into the side of Bucky's head, "yooou like it or not. I let you fall once; I'm not fucking doing it again, asshole."

Bucky stares down a lava lamp sitting on the coffee table for a long, silent moment, his face pinched. He counts the number of wiggling blobs floating from the top to the bottom. He takes in their shared color and picks as close to a stupid paint name for it as possible. One by one, his photographic memory goes down the list of stupid colors from that stupid swatch wall at the stupid art supply store that Steve takes him to when he can't sleep at three in fucking the morning. He decides on fuchsia because it sounds extra stupid. There're twelve in total, they're fuchsia, and his best friend is as stupid as the name of their color.

The anger eventually eases up. "You're the asshole."

Steve sits back in his chair with a sigh. "Love you, too."

It takes a long minute of grinding his teeth for Bucky to force out the question that won't stop echoing in his head. "She doesn't know about the others?"

"She knows there were other attempts, but no, I didn't tell her any of them were successful. I left my notes in her file on what's been held back from her, along with the things she knows that her team doesn't. You can tell her whatever you want; that's up to you. I really think you should read through all of their files."

"Yeah?" Bucky snaps mockingly. "I really think you should kiss my ass."

Steve reaches out to grab one of the magazines from a stack on the coffee table. His posture is resigned and absolutely screaming I know better than you right now, idiot. "You should grow the fuck up."

—

There's no way the notes from HYDRA cover all his surgeries, not with this much framework built up inside his brain.

Steve warned her to expect something like this. The bastards passed Bucky around like a science experiment over the decades. Whenever a station was compromised, all of its records were destroyed to safeguard HYDRA's critical secrets, the work and confirmed existence of the Winter Soldier being one of them. Only a handful were raided by SHEILD efficiently enough to prevent further loss of his medical history. What remains is the scattered works of solitary minds spanned across decades.

In Ava's opinion, not one of those minds should have been granted the mercy of seeing daylight again after their senseless, abhorrent, despicable crimes against the sergeant. Never in her life has she been a violent woman, but given a blunt object and five minutes with the lot of them, she'd have been very tempted to rebalance nature with ruthless gusto.

A hand nudges at her arm, pulling her from her distraction with a quick inhale. "Sorry, repeat that?"

Wyatt's eyebrows pull in sympathetically. "Y'can hand this part off to one of us, boss."

"You can hand it off to him," Hannah interrupts briskly, her eyes never moving from where they're pressed against a microscope.

"Y'can hand it off to me," Wyatt rapidly corrects with a warm smile. He drums his stylus against his arm and leans against the lab's center console. The movable hologram program Tony gifted them is already building detail into one of the darkest acts in human history. Right there, in front of one of the most gentle souls Ava's ever met. The contrast makes her stomach drop. "I mean it; y'know me, I got a real sweet touch. Betch'a the sergeant wouldn't even know I'd been there til it was over."

"Don't make me say it, Combs." Hannah almost sounds bored. The former marine is in a good mood today.

Wyatt doesn't even bother with throwing a quip back at her. He's usually wise enough to know when he's in a losing battle. Reaching out, he gives Ava's shoulder a supportive bump. "You said so yourself; he's alright with meetin' us."

Ava shakes her head, bringing her hand up to rub at the bridge of her nose. Her eyes are stinging hard enough to make them water. She shouldn't have pulled an all-nighter before this; it definitely isn't helping her frustration. "He's okay with it; that doesn't mean he's ready for it. You should see the way he's practically vibrating in that chair. There's not one part of this he isn't forcing himself through. I want to try to limit contact until he feels like he's in control of the space around him."

"That won't take long," Hannah comments quietly, reaching for another slide. "There are certain habits infiltrators don't lose."

"Speakin' from your own experience on that one?" Wyatt asks, curiosity creeping into his tone. Their eternal beacon of southern sunshine has yet to give up chasing details about her, unlike everyone else who visits their little medical corner.

"Infiltrator is not the classification I would have given myself. I was never very subtle in my old line of work."

"Yeah, 'cause subtle's definitely the word I'd pick for your blunt ass now." Wyatt rolls his eyes and extends his hand to rapidly spin the projection of Bucky's brain with the flick of a stubby finger. "Either'a you looked at these trenches much yet? There's different cablin' in every major section. None of it's got a set standard, far as I can tell."

"I don't think he ever had the same doctor for more than two surgeries." Ava leans heavily against the console with a sigh, trying not to let herself venture into the mindset of a terrified soldier. She has to stay detached, or this will eat her alive before they're even halfway done. The enlarged hologram already hurts to look at in more ways than one. "Steve confirmed that HYDRA intermittently lost sections of his records through the years. All of this could be fractured by the decades; we won't know until Paige starts getting a read on the programming behind that main port."

"How do you want us to handle data transfer?" Hannah asks.

"Let's keep this off our internal server as much as we can help it. Tony sectioned off a virtual instance that we can burn when needed, but the only time you should be using that is for his scans. Put everything else on an isolated hard copy here in the lab, wherever you can do it without hindering the work. I want the equipment analysis kept as off-record as possible. I don't want this being recreated. By anyone."

"Definitely agreein' with you on that one, boss." Wyatt pokes his finger into the projection's left frontal lobe, halting its slowing spin. "I know we said extraction ain't the goal here, but I'm gonna be runnin' some sims on that when I've got the time. I don't like the idea of leavin' any'a this shit in, even if we do get it identified and nuked."

Ava nods and reaches up to give his shoulder a warm squeeze. "Let me know what initial paths you route; we can build from there. I doubt he'll be ready for any extensive work for years to come, but the least we can do is present him with some options." She takes a deep breath through her nose as she looks over the port connection on the hologram. "Alright, I'll be back after I finish his consultation."

"Good luck, boss," Wyatt encourages with a smile. "Tell the sergeant we said hi."

She waves her hand over her shoulder with a hum and braces herself to face her latest patient again.

The sergeant himself is sitting just as stiffly as he was when she left, but the captain has moved on to relaxing with a magazine in his hands. They both look up at the sound of the door opening, with a laid-back smile on Steve's face and a forced one on Bucky's. She almost wants to tell him that he doesn't have to make an attempt.

"Sorry for the wait; needed a quick check-in with the brain trust." And to not want to throw something heavy through Tony's fancy glass walls. "They wanted me to pass along their hello's. Dr. Combs, in particular, is very excited to meet you."

Bucky huffs a silent laugh through his nose as she returns to stand at the side of his chair. She doesn't try to move behind him for the moment. "Yeah, I'm sure I'm real—"

"Buck," Steve cuts in softly with a side eye in his best friend's direction.

"Fascinating?" Bucky's eyes lift to Ava's at her teasing guess, and his responding nod is sheepish. She smiles at the attempted manners. "Your case is as interesting as it is horrific, that's for sure. Lucky for you, we're a morbid bunch, so you can go for the gallows humor whenever you want." She taps at Bucky's arm with the pad of her index finger, trying to warm him up to repeat physical contact. "However, I'm pretty sure Wyatt is looking forward to asking for your autograph above everything."

The sergeant's eyebrows rocket toward his hairline. "What's he looking for? Love, The Winter Soldier?"

"Bucky." Steve doesn't even look over this time; he just drops one side of the magazine to pinch the bridge of his nose.

The sight of an exasperated Captain America sitting in her office makes Ava snort loudly. She doesn't miss the way it makes Bucky's lips raise at the corners. "He comes from a long line of history buffs who believe accurate preservation is the best tool to prevent it from repeating. The guy grew up with battle models and field testimonials from every major war. I'm guessing he had some Howling Commando envy as a kid, though he won't own up to that on his end."

"He knows I was one of them for all of five minutes, right?"

"None of us were Howlies for long," Steve forcefully insists, one foot coming over to kick Buckys. "But that doesn't change the good we did while we were."

"It also won't stop him from chewing your ear off about it if you let him." Ava crosses her arms over her chest in amusement. "My advice is to stop him early. Definitely before he starts asking what you remember about the maps. You've got a real Milo Thatch working on your brain now." Bucky looks up at her in confusion. "Haven't gotten around to Disney movies yet? Milo's a character from Atlantis, one of my personal favorites. He and Wyatt share a certain level of academic excitement."

"I'll add it to the watch list." A small smile comes up, making her wonder what his cheeks look like when he really lets it go. "And keep the point of no return in mind."

She stops herself from gushing about the beauty of the art behind the movie, wanting to honor his headfirst approach. "You ready to get the last part of today's visit over with?"

His shoulders rise with another resigned intake, making her want to be ferociously violent toward the closest available Nazi. "I'm ready when you are, doc."

"My go-to hardware specialist built a prototype connector based on the scans Tony got during your initial intake. It's only the first iteration for the sake of data extraction, so be sure to speak up if anything feels off. Anything at all, even if it's just minor discomfort. She can work on changing it for the next build. I'm sure Steve can attest to Paige's efficiency at her job by now."

The slightest hint of a blush comes over the captain's cheeks at the teasing mention of his numerous visits to the engineering department. "Ms. Findley—"

"Does she ask you to call her that?" Bucky jumps on his best friend with immediately. Ava would feel bad about chumming the waters, but the banter is making him relax against the chair.

Steve shuts his mouth momentarily. The blush gets a shade darker before he opens it again. "Paige is a very dedicated worker. And a lovely conversationalist. How do you two know each other? Through Tony?"

Now Ava really does feel bad. She puts a hand on her hip and tries to keep her smile from growing. "No, I'm the one who introduced them. She's been my best friend for about fifteen years now."

Steve freezes, and Bucky's grin takes over the lower half of his face. The sergeant sits all the way back, with shoulders that are perfectly at ease. "Oh, good. If I think of anything later, I can just have Stevie drop it off for me. I'd hate to forget between appointments."

Ava pulls the wireless reader and its port connector from the briefcase on Bucky's chair. She steps up behind him and tries not to let her eyes linger on how his smile lights up his face or how it warms her chest to see. Her free hand comes to rest on his left shoulder, leaving the exit door in his right peripherals. "This shouldn't take more than a few minutes at most. Ready?"

"Hit me." It almost doesn't sound forced.

She lifts his hair and runs her thumb over the port once to brace him for the new sensations before lining up the connector. As she'd explicitly requested of Paige, the mechanism doesn't snap into place when she locks it in, meaning there's no responding vibration to move through his skull. The notes from Bucky's therapist that were passed along didn't mention it, but they hardly mention anything at all. There's a lot he's holding back, there has to be, and she's been trying to preempt as much of it as she can.

Bucky's nails dig into the arm of the chair, and he inhales sharply. After a moment, his fingers start to relax one by one. Ava watches them all, her eyes moving between his hands and neck repeatedly, while the reader begins its data harvest. She gives him long enough to get a few steady breaths in.

"Have you started any animated movie binges?" she prods, wanting to stall for time to get a closer look at his implant. With him letting her hold up his hair like this, it might be her only chance for the foreseeable future.

"Sam's gotten me to sit through a few of his picks," he replies tensely.

"Mmm. I'm guessing Mister Feathers is a Pixar fan."

"I know that's an animation studio, but that's the extent of my expertise on the subject. Are they the ones who made Lilo and Stitch?"

"He did not make you watch that one first."

"He did, but that's technically not my first animated movie. We had them back in the 30s, you know."

"Some of us still call it animation's golden age," Steve mutters in the most crotchety old artist fashion, his eyes back on the magazine in his lap.

"Take a look around this room, Rogers," Ava sasses. "Do I look like someone who'd argue with you about its significance?"

"Point taken."

Her eyebrows pull in while she looks over just how much of Bucky's spinal cord is exposed to outside influence. She knows how far the port runs thanks to the scans, but now she's getting an eyeful of movable hatching and flesh that will never get the proper chance to heal.

"How are you handling the daily care of this?" she asks, running her finger around one edge of the port.

"I do it," Bucky tells her simply.

Her eyes lock on the back of his head in disbelief. "You do… what, exactly?"

"I've got a morning routine for it. Clear the excess buildup, sterilize the whole area, work the skin, that kind of thing."

"You understand that this has direct access to your brainstem, right?"

"I know." He shifts his weight in the chair. "I'm careful."

"I have several medical degrees, one of which is entirely focused on the human brain, and even I would hesitate to approach this on my own body. If anything that can give you so much as a hundred-degree fever touches this, you're dead, Bucky." She lets the hand not holding up his hair come to rest on his shoulder. "I'm not trying to scare you with this, but as your doctor, I need to make sure you understand the severity here. I don't want you doing this yourself anymore; I want you to come to my office for it."

"That's not necessary—"

"What time do you want him here in the mornings?" Steve asks, ignoring Bucky entirely.

"I don't need to come here in the mornings—"

"It doesn't have to be every morning," Ava offers, wanting to give him a compromise. She's definitely not letting him go back to doing it himself. "I can set up a stable cleaning routine every other day whenever you have the time to come in."

"I have it handled, really—"

"I wouldn't push it past three days, though."

"Every other morning," Steve agrees. "That's perfect. JARVIS can keep an eye on the schedules for him."

"I've got working fucking eyeballs," Bucky almost shouts, making Ava and Steve finally let up.

She squeezes her hand on his shoulder, half in apology, half in sympathy. "Yes, you do. But they happen to be in the front of your head. My eyes can see the back of your neck without a mirror, and they've got a decade's worth of disgustingly thorough medical training behind them. You came here because you're ready for this to get done. Now you actually have to let me do it."

Bucky lifts a hand as if he's about to argue but then lowers it with a soft sigh. "Yeah... yeah, alright. But I'm not always going to be here in the mornings—"

"She said it doesn't have to be the mornings," Steve cuts in again.

"You know what I mean, jackass. I'm not always going to be here consistently. I have, you know, a job that you try to boss me around on—"

"We can make sure you've got a trained medic to help—"

"No, Grant."

The words are said softly, and it takes a moment for Ava to even remember that it's the captain's middle name, but something happens in the wake of them. Steve's relentless push stops on a dime, and the fight leaves Bucky's shoulders. The two of them relax marginally, and Steve nods once. "Okay. So, we establish the routine here. Get it ironed out; get you practiced with it. Then I'll clear you for doing it yourself on missions. But if you miss even one while you're here, so help me—"

"I got it, I got it."

Steve watches Bucky with a tightly held expression for another long moment. Then he looks up at Ava with a nod. "He'll be here, and I'll make sure he's not cleared for another mission until you two have a stable routine for taking care of this."

Ava gives Bucky's shoulder another light squeeze. "I promise it'll be quick every time. I'll work with Paige on making you a field kit. In the long run, this shouldn't interrupt your normal day-to-day much at all."

"Appreciate the effort, doc." Bucky gives a soft grunt. "Sorry for the. Y'know. Pushback."

"I think the world owes you a little more than patience as backpay, Sergeant. I'm happy to help where I can."

—

Febuary 19th 2018

"I can handle it if you want me to."

"No. No, I... I can do it."

"You're sure?"

"You think I can't?"

"I think you look like you're about to throw up on my shoes."

"I don't like the idea of... starting off like that."

"That's why I'm offering to do it."

"No. It should be me. There are things you won't be able to explain."

"You can always fill in the blanks when she shows up for Soldat training."

"What a great alternative first impression! Hello, ma'am, not only am I a complete jackass, but I also delegate my role as—"

"You're not delegating; you're assigning the right person to the job. And this takes away the need for you to be a jackass."

"Leaving you to be a confrontational bitch in someone's eyes?"

"What's the issue there?"

"That's not what you are, Nat."

"Says who?"

Steve reaches out to smack the side of her arm. "That's one of my closest friends you're ragging on."

"She can take it." Natasha looks over at him, a bored hike to one brow. "Let's stay focused on what the doctor can take. This won't be like the therapists. We can't put him through multiple doctors on this. We'll only get one or two tries before he draws the hard limit."

He nods, turning his eyes back to the closed elevator doors. "Right. Right, it's for a good reason. I can do it."

"You don't have to. I can handle it."

"I know. But it should be me." He knocks the side of his boot against hers. "Thank you."

"Always. Let me know how it goes."

Natasha's off the elevator before the doors are even finished opening, leaving Steve to collect himself alone. He pushes off the back railing with a heavy sigh. No part of this is going to be easy to stomach. He's accepted that. He exits the elevator with a resigned set to his shoulders.

The medical wing is dark this late into the day. JARVIS already confirmed that the doctor is still in the building. From the AI's reports, she pulls late nights like this regularly. It bodes well for what he'll have to ask of her and her team.

He stops to admire the heavy paint on the outside of the lab's door. There's days worth of work here, clearly a labor of love. It takes until he's admiring the fourth flower of his perusal to notice that it's not all the same artist. He scans it a bit quicker after that, trying to take a guess as to how many different hands took part. His best guess is four.

Accepting that he's been inadvertently stalling, Steve pushes it open roughly. He probably should have expected the onslaught of color in the room from seeing the door. It still hits him hard enough to make him do a double-take through his exaggerated annoyance. The doctor sitting on the other side of a very large desk nearly jumps out of her chair.

"Christ Al-fucking-mighty," she swears, one hand coming up to brace against her chest. Steve gets nailed with a furious glare. "Knock much?"

Well, that's one test passed. "Are you Dr. Ryder?"

"I am. Who the hell wants to—oh." Recognition dawns on her face as Steve gets close enough to be illuminated by her desk light. The fury in her shifts toward indignance. "I happen to hold a lot of respect for you, at least during normal business hours. So, I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt here and let you have a moment to explain yourself, captain."

He almost starts with an apology, but he catches himself in time. "I've been told you're one of the best neurosurgeons we're in contact with—"

"No, you've been told I am the best." She crosses her arms over her chest and leans back in her chair. Her head inclines toward him. "You can continue."

Steve's reservations about her being able to handle Bucky are leaving rapidly. It almost makes him smile. He holds it together with his best captain voice. "I need your expertise on a consultation. A private consultation. Completely off SHEILD books."

"Am I being roped into the organization's second overhaul?" There's bitterness lingering in her tone. The kind Steve remembers feeling on his own end for months leading up to Fury's near-assassination.

"No. When I say private, I mean private. This isn't under SHIELD purview. I'll be expecting discretion if you think you're up to the case, so we're clear."

The doctor's eyebrows sail up, and her head moves back far enough to hit her chair. "I'll be expecting you to hand over some details before I agree to a damn thing. As a follow-up, you can provide me with an explanation as to why this needed to be done an hour before midnight, with no forewarning and definitely no respect. Otherwise, you can turn your happy ass back around and go find the other neurosurgeons you didn't feel like harassing first."

Damn. He really should have gotten Natasha to do this; she's faster with proper comebacks. "You'll be given information as you need to know it. First, I need to make sure that—"

"First, you can fuck off." Her head shifts to one side as he pauses. "I don't respond well to authority, captain. I'm sure whatever's going on is very important if it's got America's Sweetheart making an ass of himself in the middle of my office on a Monday night. But that's not really my problem. It could be, were I given a reason to care about it."

"Does rectifying war crimes warrant your valuable attention, doctor?" The words feel awful leaving his mouth; she doesn't deserve to get barked at like this. But he needs an honest indication of how she'll react to a bad day.

Ava watches him with a slightly open mouth for more than a few tense moments. Then recognition dawns for a second time, and her eyes roll dramatically. "Oh, for god's sweet sake. You could have just asked if I have experience with PTSD patients. Hell, you were clearly sent by Tony, and I met the man at a veteran's benefit, so you could have asked him. Barnes' presence on the Avenger's roster isn't exactly a secret these days."

Steve holds himself still, then shifts his weight to one foot. "You met at a veteran's benefit?"

She nods slowly, with a bit of mockery behind the motion. "Yes. Almost a decade ago. He funds most of my work with the VA."

That hadn't been included in her resume. He didn't want to invade her privacy by pulling her file until she agreed to it. Steve feels heat rise to his cheeks. Then the anger starts to surface. "You know, I'm not one hundred percent sure I was supposed to know that."

"You think?" The words are bone dry, and her posture is still defensive, but there's a smile working its way up from the corners of her lips.

"Look, I...." Steve raises a hand to the back of his neck sheepishly. "I apologize. I promise it's not about doubting your professionalism—"

"It's about protecting family, yeah, I get it." Her arms don't unfold from her chest. But her eyebrows do come back down.

"He's very important to me. I want to make sure he's in good hands, that's all."

"Well?"

Steve's brows draw in. "I wasn't trying to dump the case on you right now—"

"No, idiot." Her eyes roll again, with much less aggression. "I'm asking if I passed."

"Oh." He nods, his cheeks still feeling far too hot. "With flying colors, so far. There's still a lot more to cover before we get Bucky involved, but. Yes, ma'am. I think you'll handle him just fine."

With a sigh, her arms finally lower. She extends a hand out in his direction. "Ava Ryder. It's very nice to meet you, Captain Rogers."

He takes her hand with a firm shake, inclining his head apologetically. "It's very nice to meet you, as well, doctor. You can call me Steve."

"You can call me Ava. So can James whenever I'm finally graced with his presence."

Yeah. She'll do just fine. "He prefers Bucky. And I'm sure he'll provide you with a much more agreeable first impression. All that can wait until you don't look like you're going to fall asleep on your keyboard, though.

Ava smiles warmly at him, falling back against her chair as she takes back her hand. "I'm looking forward to it. You can send me the details on the case at a reasonable hour to make up for scaring the shit out of me."

"Yes, ma'am." He tips his head respectfully, already backing up from her desk. "Sorry for the scare. And for being so disrespectful. He really is—"

"Important to you." She waves her hand dismissively before reaching up to push at her glasses. "I get it, don't worry. I'd be twice as much of a wreck in your shoes. You're doing fine."

Sometimes, on the rarest of occasions, there are benefits to having the worst moments of his life in the history books. "I appreciate that, thank you. You have a good rest of your night, ma'am. I'll send—I'll have JARVIS send you his file—"

"Captain Rogers is unaware of how to forward SHEILD files, doctor," the AI cuts in gleefully.

"I had my suspicions, JARVIS; thanks." She waves her hand again, this time in goodbye, as she looks back at her computer screen. "Please don't trip on my carpet and bust your ass on the way out of my office."

Steve pointedly turns on his heel, glad for the excuse to hide his burning face. He all but races to the door. "I'll be in contact, doc."

"Mhmm."

When he pulls open the painted door, he's almost unsurprised to find Natasha leaning against the other side of the hallway. She doesn't move at all, but one side of her mouth lifts in a smirk.

Steve lets the door shut softly behind him before cocking his head to the side. "Very cute. You two in on it together?"

"No, but sniffing out Tony's bait didn't take long. You'd have noticed, too, if you weren't so far up Bucky's ass." Her head tilts in the opposite direction as his. "Feel better?"

He straightens up with a nod. The motion feels confident. "Much."

—author's end notes, yoinked straight from ao3—

“what’s paige like?” well. to put it simply. she is every last ounce of karma that steve has earned by lovingly terrorizing his best friend 😌

i feel like the overall theme got covered enough with this to tell if the plot is for you or not. flirting starts next, but isn't super blatant until chap 4. i am in zero rush and will have no problem with dedicating an entire chap to cuddling tbh, this is a comfort project im in for the long haul. check back later for * to get full smut taste, current (possibly changing) map has it in chap 9. OR you can check back for kinktober, i have all 31 days outlined for these idiots. i need starfield to be good so i can do smut for that too, bethesda pls

keep in mind this will get sci-fi weird at times, and loosely ref/revolve around greek myth tropes bc iiiii like ‘em ❤️ im a fandom ancient who takes no issue with cleaning out the dickhead comments 😌 also i might edit shit. im still not clear on what ao3 will email about a bookmark (god willing its not edits that dont include a new chapter) but just in case i figured id warn for anyone who doesn't want email spam

im gonna try to keep ava and paige as vague as possible, aside from a few scattered physical details so i have SOMETHING to write. my favorite bucky fic in existence is a reader!fic (safe with me is Ungodly levels of good, and i dont just say that as a fellow west wing addict. i constantly forget that his apartment in it isn't actually canon and there're no m&ms hiding for eternity somewhere) so you wont get any judgment from me on replacing both of them right down to their names, that’s how im writing them!! it just feels unfair to tag it a reader fic with them being given SUCH a heavy “presence" i guess

main pov's (the undated ones) will always flip between bucky and ava. the dated ones are other characters pov's OOOOOOR its a flashback in which case it could be the two of them, but ill always try to make it clear whose headspace is focused up front, so i dont think ive set up a hurdle there

thanks for reading ❤️ i love and appreciate feedback immensely ❤️ feeds the brain chemicals 😌 no worries abt spoilers, i feel like anyone looking there knows what theyre risking lmao

#bucky barnes #bucky barnes fic #chapter update #man the way thats going to be the extend of effort i have when it comes to promoing this damn thing #truly astonishing how little fandom energy i have lmao #i sure as shit aint taggin the other ones with anything but my sorting tags lmao #i do not have the Energy #good space

0 notes

etsuven · 3 years

Text

☁️Venti | Surprise☁️

if you couldn't tell already, i have a soft spot for venti <3

this was his birthday where i rambled on slightly about how much i adore him and how thankful i was because he was my first 5 star!! i finally ended up getting him during his rerun in the third 10 pull after weeks of grinding (starting the day albedo's banner ended) and im rambling again here's the chapter

cw: venti being venti, slight 1.6 summer event spoilers, rushed at the end because if i remember correctly, i ended up rushing

june 16th, the day of venti's birthday. you were probably more excited about it than him, to be completely honest. since your boyfriend was a god, he never really was the type of person to seriously celebrate it. "it's just another day! plus, i'm thousands of years old!" he would always say, sending you a big smile as he strummed away on his lyre. "i don't really feel the joy of birthdays anymore! though, we could always get a few drinks at the tavern if you really want to celebrate a bit! on you, of course!"

it honestly made you kind of sad... so you decided to do something about it! you had planned out something similar to what had happened on grand acting master jean's birthday. buy lots of food from good hunter, and reserve the tavern for the night. it seemed like a great idea at first, but... "it's not good enough.." there needed to be more! venti deserved way better than a small party in a tavern. after a few more minutes of brainstorming, you finally came to a conclusion. "i'll make sure this is venti's best birthday!"

the plan started with you ordering a bunch of food from good hunter. it wasn't a lot of money because you had only gotten a few things, but it was enough to where it would fill all the guests up. next was the hard part. finding venti. you couldn't find the bard anywhere. you looked in angel's share, near the barbatos statue, and even around and in the branches of the windrise tree. but he was in none of those places. "where could he be?..." you thought for a bit, almost giving yourself a headache before you finally had an idea.

stormterror's lair

you sighed, internally groaning at the thought of having to climb that tower from the waypoint just to get to venti's usual spot. but you persevered!

after teleporting to the closest waypoint, you made your way up the tower. as you expected, there he was. he had his cape off, probably to better take in the strong winds that blew through the deserted place. "oh, you're here? i didn't think you'd find me!" you watched as he turned around, the wind blowing slightly in his hair. your voice caught in your throat as you began to admire him, but you quickly snapped out of it. "it's your birthday! i can't let you spend it alone, especially after all we've done together..."

you pretended to look sad as venti raised his eyebrow. "we have done a lot together..." he said, resting a finger on his chin. you played around with your fingers, adding in a small comment on how he also wasted your weekly savings on a single night of drinking. he seemed to consider the idea before grabbing your hand and pulling you close to him. "let's go do something fun! have anything in mind?" you smiled and nodded, and the two of you made your way towards angel's share.

you opened the door, only to be met with darkness. "it's dark, that's weird..." you said, trying to hide the excitement in your voice. venti looked at you strangely, trying to figure out why you were talking like that. "i guess it is weird, but why are you-"

"happy birthday, venti!!" the lights were suddenly switched back on as a chorus of voices rang through the tavern. you watched as venti's eyes widened, feeling some sort of pride from his reaction. "wait, what's all this about?..." jean was the first to speak up. "it's your birthday, and we wanted to thank you for all you've done." she was probably referring to all of his archon duties too. summoning a dragon to a mysterious island isn't something a normal human can do.

"you didn't have to, really!..." you patted venti's back and led him further into the tavern, leaning in to whisper in his ear. "master diluc might let you get free wine!" venti gasped and practically skipped into a chair, being met with diluc rolling his eyes. the night went by smoothly, and you kept venti from drinking too much since you still had another surprise for him. he listened for once in his long life, and the two of you quickly found yourselves on starsnatch cliff.

on your way there, you stopped by your house to pick up a basket full of baked goods. venti, being as nosey as ever, tried to take a peek in the basket. of course you stopped him. you decided to take a seat near a patch of cecilias, which were venti's favorite flower. the boy sat in front of you, wiggling around as he waited for you to take out whatever you had in the basket.

you smiled softly at him and took out a freshly baked apple pie. venti let out a small "ooh" as he stared at the pie. you took out plates and a knife, cutting up the pie and handing him a plate. the two of you ate, talking about the stars and how your days went. after that, the two of you sat in silence before venti spoke up again. "thank you for today... i love you..." you smiled, placing a hand on his cheek.

"i love you too..."

#venti x reader #venti #genshin venti x reader #genshin venti fluff #venti fluff #genshin impact #genshin #genshin fanfic #genshin scenarios #genshin impact x reader

70 notes · View notes

magicalrecord · 2 years

Note

how was the IOT? i wanna join in a few years but i wonder what to expect. of course i know that you can’t spill too much but i guess whatever you’re able to tell, im interested in hearing.

Full disclosure - I am no longer a member of the IOT. After about three years in the organization I was told, "I am not a good fit." As is usual with organizations like this, real reasons are not given. I am fairly certain I was jettisoned for political reasons. I was only a fourth degree, and so I could be removed without cause. However, I have a good friend who is a third degree who the organization was displeased with, and I am guessing throwing me out was a way for them to get him to quit. Or perhaps they saw my book - Emergent Magick - as an affront to them, or some kind of competition. It is not. I can think of no reason why a person could not do both. It may have been my critique of all organizations that have grade systems. If that is the case then they need to ask themselves why they can't withstand such a critique. in the end, I met some great people in the IOT, one I consider my best friend today. I also encountered people who went out of their way to disparage me and tell lies. Every organization has this, be prepared.

All that being said, I think my time in the IOT was valuable. I learned a lot. I also learned some things not to do. How much you learn from the IOT will depend on where you are in your practice. I do recommend that you go through and perform Liber MMM, that would be the first chapter in the book Liber Null and Psychonaut by Peter J. Carroll, as that is essentially the novitiate program of the IOT. You will need to do it again when you join, but at least you will have the practice.

I have been told that I was one of a small group of people who turned in an application online and was accepted. Almost everyone else got in because they knew someone in the organization. From what I experienced, I would say this is true. So your best bet for becoming a member is to know someone active in the IOT.

I have also been accused of discouraging people from joining the IOT. This is true, as I believed those people were joining for the wrong reasons. I don't know you, so I'm not here to convince you one way or another. Like I said, it really depends on who you are and where you are at in your practice.

I will say that you should be doing group magick. It will expand your experience greatly and make you a better magician. Whether that is through joining a group like the IOT or just getting together a group of friends to do magick, that's up to you.

3 notes · View notes

lelenoir · 4 years

Text

characters;; wong kunhang, wong yukhei [ft: yuna and sejun (ocs)]

word count;; 4.8k

warnings;; hallucinations, implied character death, hendery discreetly trying to kill you

part of @starryqian & @takitaro 's stephen king collab,, this is very late im so sorry :(

shoutout to @jenoir for proofreading this messy baby :')

sorry if comes off as a bit rushed :(( i was ✨struggling✨ and i wanted to get this out soon

NIGHT SEVEN

Run. Run as fast as you can. Run till your legs burn. Run till the sun dies out. Your life depends on it.

The woods were an unforgiving place. Especially at night when the lights turn off and the mind is at its all time high. The sounds you were hearing were unmistakable. The footsteps and the chunk of leaves cracking beneath them told you they were close. And they were coming in fast.

Your breaths came out in pants while your legs begged you to stop. But you couldn't, not when you came all this way. Suffered days in the harsh wrath of mother nature. No, you couldn't afford to die now. And as if things weren't worse enough, you tripped on an overarching root. A wild thorn grazing the skin of your ankle, making you hiss.

The sounds were getting closer now but your legs had already given up. Already turning to jelly as soon as you'd stopped running. You huddled yourself against a nearby tree in hopes of its protection. The low growl that erupted from whatever was out there echoed around the trees like a villain toying with its prey.

Your instincts were telling you to gather whatever you could. To pray to whatever higher being was up there for one last miracle. But you knew better. There were no gods that could hear you within these woods.

So you count to ten like Hendery taught you and braced yourself at the mercy of whatever being was on the other side of the trunk.

Five… four… three… two… one.

DAY ONE, TWO HOURS BEFORE

Friends. You love them. You care for them. And you'd do pretty much anything for them. Right now you really hated that concept. And you really hated the way you'd fallen for it.

Sitting in the backseat of a car with your friend and her boyfriend arguing in the front was not how you expected your Friday to go. You grumbled under your breath, looking out the window as you watched landmarks pass by. You were such a great friend. And in your greatness as a friend, you let yourself be strung along to what you've just declared as 'the worst weekend of your life'.

"If you want to stop then stop! I'm just saying that with all the places you want to stop by we might not get to the one place we actually want to go in time." She argued, putting air quotes on the words 'stop by' with an over the top eye roll. That's your friend, Yuna. She wasn't like that most of the time, the opposite actually. In your friend group she was considered as this huge ball of sunshine. Her current boyfriend just brings out the worst in her, which, in your book, is reason number one on why she should break up with him.

"You say it's okay but then you always add something like that. If you don't want to just say it! No need to act like such a saint." And on the left corner was, you guessed it, her boyfriend Sejun. As an individual, he was okay. A little douchey but everyone has a bit of douchiness inside of them in your opinion. However, pair him up with Yuna then that's a different story. They were like monsters, only acting up when close to one another. It makes you wonder why they're still holding on to each other. But, alas, humans are very complex creatures. You'd rather read a book than try to understand them.

So you do. You whip out 'Alice in Wonderland' off your bag and start reading. You didn't like butting into other people's relationships, much less going on weekend trips with them but Yuna, your sweet amazing friend, managed to convince you to go with them. How? Through bribery. Yup, after promising you that you were free for this and next month's rent, you were quick to settle your belongings. You were a simple girl with simple priorities and at the top of that list of priorities is surviving college.

You'd read at least two chapters when they'd decided to stop at some mountain. Being the sporty and outgoing couple that they were, they weren't here to take pictures nor eat at the local diner. No. They were here to hike.

You sighed in defeat when Yuna visibly beamed at you. You reluctantly placed your book down next to you before grabbing your small bag of food and water.

The two were now giving each other the silent treatment while Yuna held onto you like a leech. It was awkward to say the least, especially with the side glances they keep giving each other and you were in the middle of it. Like a small child in the middle of their parents' divorce all over again. You hated it.

You could already feel the energy getting drained away from you and you hadn't even stepped on the mountain yet. That's how intense they were. You never voiced it out. Too afraid that they might gang up on you instead of each other. They may be worse against each other but together, they're a nightmare. You much preferred them going at each other's throats rather than yours.

The mountain was as green as you expected it to be. There was a clear path set out at the foot of it with little to no people standing by. It was higher than most you'd climbed and a vast forest enveloped it. The place was quiet and it looked like one of those towns that rarely had anything bad happen to it but on the off chance that something did happen, it was bad. Really bad.

"Okay so we have like an hour here before we continue on our trip." Yuna said, looking at the map in her hands. "This should be fun."

Really? You wanted to ask. But oh you were such a good friend. You scoped the mountain once again, already dreading the experience as Yuna gestures you to come forward and Sejun already walking up the path. You sighed to yourself, opting to give yourself an internal pep talk as your legs carried you to the start of a very begrudging journey.

You can do this. You can do this. You can do this.

An hour had passed. And you know it had, based on the watch you'd carried on your wrist. The small diner at the bottom of the mountain had already left your vision minutes ago.

On your way up, the ground diverged into two paths. The right side leading towards a secluded resort while the other pointed towards an upward slope. The couple opted to take the left. Your frown deepened.

One hour, my ass! You screamed in your mind, throwing a mini tantrum as you glared at Yuna's back. Your feet stomping on the (thankfully) dry ground, lips pursed and brows stitched together. You hated being a good friend.

In the midst of your childish antics, you heard a chain snap off your bag. You quickly turned around to see your treasured key chain on the ground. It was a gift from your late mother, a small remembrance of the time you both went to Disneyland. The first and last time. You bent down to pick it up when a sudden flash of white tore through your line of sight.

A white rabbit stood in front of you, your keychain tucked in between its mouth as it stared at you. As if waiting for you to chase it. Its red eyes bore into yours.

They say when your eyes focus on one thing, everything around you blurs in the distance. Nothing but muffled background noises and subtle outside forces. That should've been your first warning.

"Why are you even yelling at me?" Sejun complained, snapping your attention back. They were back at it again. You hadn't even heard Yuna yell at him during your short daze. You held back for a while, watching them argue as they walked. That should've been your second warning.

Like a magnet, you felt your gaze shift back to the rabbit. Indistinct whispers emerged around you. That should've been your third. You glared at the small creature still holding on to your precious trinket before it suddenly dashed in the woods. You clenched your teeth, unable to stop yourself as you followed after it. Strike.

DAY ONE

You cheered in triumph as you retrieved your belonging, smirking at the rabbit as it looked up to you. The rabbit cocked it's head on one side, as if to question you, before hopping away from you. You furrowed your eyebrows before finally looking around where you were. Your eyes widened at your surroundings. The green scenery of the trees covered your vision as you cautiously stepped forward. The path was nowhere to be found and dead silence engulfed the air.

"Yuna?" You called out anxiously. "Sejun?" You tried once more. "Yuna!" You say louder but there was no reply. You looked up to the beating sun. It was noon. You couldn't tell which was east or west.

"Yuna!" You screamed. A flock of birds flew in the distance. The loud crows and scampers of the forest animals harmonised with your echo. "Sejun!"

You gulped. You looked in between the trees, trying to decipher even a small silhouette of a clearing. You narrowed your eyes, loosening up your shoulders and hands before taking another step. Then another. And another until you're finally walking towards god knows where. You were slow but you weren't really in a rush.

You pulled your bag closer to your body.

The slightest of sounds rang in your ears making you snap your head to every direction only to see that there was nothing there. That never eased your paranoia. You can feel its eyes trail along the fabric of your jacket. Feel its breath on the back of your neck. Hear its growls close to the shell of your ear. You clasped your shaking hands together, your nervousness evident as your legs began to turn jelly.

"Y-yuna!" You called out helplessly. Tears began to tickle the sides of your temples. "Anyone!?"

It was like that time you went to an amusement park with Yuna. The loud thundering rhythm in your chest, the strong rush of adrenaline leaving your body as soon as it entered, not to mention the growing anxiety constantly increasing as every second passed. It was almost hard to breathe. Almost difficult to take another step.

You collapsed on the ground, spent and shaking. Your hands stayed close to your chest in an attempt to keep warm as the air seemed to have gotten cold---despite being scorching a few moments ago---vision already hazy as you began to slip out of reality.

Just then, a figure emerged from the trees. His tall stature crouched down to get a better look at you. You couldn't even muster up a smile in relief at the stranger. Too tired to feel the cold hand on your cheeks, lightly slapping you back to reality.

Then you let yourself be engulfed in darkness.

DAY TWO

You jolt awake at the impact of his toes on your knee. Your eyes, still blurry from exhaustion, had a hard time adjusting to the harsh light of the afternoon sun.

"You're awake." A voice sighed in relief. You turned your attention to the sound, unsure and terrified as you drew your arms in front of you. "Woah, no need to fight there, little one."

"I'm not a child." You tell him but the stranger merely cocked his head to the side. His gaze curiously fixed on you before smiling.

"Then why are you here?" He shot back. The question seemed to hang in the air and an unsettling ominous feeling creeped up your spine as you mustered up your answer.

"I got lost." You say, face almost a breath away from his as he leaned in closer before prompting his head to nod.

"Exactly." He grinned. "Surely an adult wouldn't get lost within these woods. Especially for a silly trinket such as this." He holds out an object engulfed in his hand. There lay your keychain, dangling in the air and close to your face. You lifted your hand to take it until the stranger dropped it on the ground. It was not much of an action but it was humiliating as you tentatively picked it up from the soil.

"You must be hungry, aren't you?" The stranger lifted his body off the ground.

"Who are you?" You asked, voice still weak as you struggled to support your weight.

He smirked, staring down at you in utter confidence. "Hendery will do for now." You furrowed your eyebrows as he crouched down, once again, in front of you then putting your bag on your lap. "Eat up, little one."

Meanwhile…

"I didn't even notice. God what kind of a person doesn't notice her friend has gone missing." The girl sobbed for the nth time that day. Only a few of the officers paid her any mind while a boy, he assumed to be her boyfriend, sat next to her with his arms engulfing her in a comforting hug.

Lucas sighed at the pitiful sight, there was really nothing much he could do now. The map splayed in front of him was scribbled with a small 'x' within a large circle. He stared menacingly at the location.

"Detective," one of his subordinates came up to him. " What's our course of action?"

He sighed, closing his eyes as he pinched the bridge of his nose.

The subordinate couldn't understand his superior's reaction. Why did he look so distressed? It's only been a day since the victim has gone missing. They could be weak or injured, but that's about it. Throughout his time here, a handful of people got lost and all of them have been found.

"Sir?" He succeeded in getting Lucas out of his reverie. The detective then moved his fingers to rub at the lines on his forehead.

"Have everyone search in pairs around the perimeter." He finally ordered.

The subordinate nodded before scurrying off to relay the command.

It was futile. Lucas wanted to say but then that would make him look lazy. He never liked the word, but it was one that described his opponent greatly. He's been lazy. It was suspicious that he managed to find those lost tourists so easily, often they were found by their companions if they searched hard enough, but somehow this search has now stretched for a day.

The missing person, L/n Y/n, was last seen by her two friends yesterday, November 15, XXXX. It has been a day since then. The longest search in five years.

Lucas narrowed his eyes at the small x located at the north east side of the map.

What are you playing at, Kunhang?

xxx

"Keep up, little one. We have a long way ahead of us." Hendery calls out, walking a few feet away from you. His strides, quick and wide, has you picking up your pace. You couldn't help but pant as you trail behind him, the food in your pack weighing you down a bit but you couldn't afford to leave them behind.

"Why are you doing this?" You askes in between heavy breaths. Relief washed over you when he paused.

"What do you mean?" He asked.

"Why are you helping me?" You finally caught up to him. You splayed your arm out to the nearest tree as you calmed your breathing.

"Isn't this what you wanted?" He shot back as if it was stupidly obvious.

"Yes but--"

"You hear a person desperately calling out to someone for help and they sound incredibly in need. Wouldn't you help them?" You stared at him in shock, both of you quiet for a moment before he spoke again. "Isn't mankind built to be rational and compassionate? Do you doubt me as a person?"

"N-no I was just curious." Hendery narrowed his eyes at you, pursing his lips as he thought deeply. Not long after, a smile stretched on his face.

"Right, curiosity does come from rationality. I can't really blame you for being human I guess… but you must understand, little one, curiosity is a double edged sword. Once you wield it recklessly, the consequences may be severe." He looked away from you, eyes focusing on whatever was ahead before assuming his previous trek. "Keep up, little one, the sun won't last forever."

"Where are we going?" He smiled at that and you noticed that he had gone at a slower pace than before, walking side by side with you.

"You've used your curiosity well I see. We are going to find shelter. It's been hours now so the police are probably already looking for you. I don't know where you started running but let's hope this area of the forest is still part of the search. Daylight is slowly dying and we need to find a safe place rather than that clearing you passed out in."

"Why are you here then?" You asked. "In the forest, I mean."

"One thing about mankind is that they don't recognize chances." He whispered under his breath. A sound of confusion escaped your lips, he either ignored it or didn't hear it. "Some things are better left a secret, little one. Use your curiosities wisely."

DAY THREE

"If an animal comes rushing at you, what do you do?" Hendery asked one morning as he sat at the edge of the small stream you'd found.

In the years you'd watched documentaries and survival movies, one thing always played a vital role in human survival: water. So when you happened to come across the stream, the both of you couldn't say no to the opportunity. During your walk yesterday, the both of you came across a small shack hidden by the trees: its wooden walls looked old and were infested by moss; however you weren't really picky. It was the only shelter you could find and you lacked the supplies and skills to even attempt making a tent. There was a small window on one side and a few empty shelves on the other.

You thought for a while about his question before telling him the first answer that comes to mind. "Dodge it, I guess."

He stood up from his seat, walking towards you before sitting next to you. In a flash, you felt his hand push against your collarbone, sending you back on the ground.

He looked down at you and hummed. "Seems pretty ineffective."

You glared. "I wasn't ready."

"And what makes you think that you'll be ready when the attack comes?" He raised an eyebrow. You opened your mouth to retort but no words came. "I thought so."

He pushed his body off the ground once again. This time, to inspect the plants behind you.

"What would you do then?" He smirked.

"Like you said, I'll dodge." He starts, swaying his body slightly for a moment before suddenly running towards you. "Then attack." He whispered, just by your ear and you felt a chill run down your spine. A small shadow rose above you and it's then that you saw a large rock in his hand, parallel to the skull of your forehead. You sensed the object pick up its pace and you barely had enough time as you moved your head away from its course.

Hendery smashed the rock to the ground. His body slanted forward and you took this chance to stand and land a hit directly at his nape with the side of your hand. He jolted forward at the force and you started to distance yourself away from him.

"What the fuck, Hendery?" You watch in slight horror as he chuckled lightly before turning to you with a smile.

"No need to worry, y/n." He picked up a piece of the rock. "It's shale," he held it up with his fingers before breaking them, "practically harmless."

You let him walk past you before making your way towards the remnants of the stone. Looking back, you see him occupy himself with some berries on a nearby bush. You gently picked up a small piece of the rock, imitating what Hendery just did with his fingers.

It wouldn't budge.

You furrowed your eyebrows, this time using both hands to break it. The sheer force of your finger tips made your skin slip. A small cut was drawn on your thumb and you narrowed your eyes on it.

You looked over to Hendery who was now picking out some berries. You glared at his back. This fucker was trying to kill you.

You decided not to voice out your concerns. It was smarter to observe him for now and run away later.

Use your curiosities wisely. The words echoed in your mind as you gripped the strap of your bag tighter.

It'd been a while since he's had this much entertainment. From a human, no less. Usually they would've been dead by now or begging for their pitiful lives. But you? You were something special.

Hendery couldn't help but smirk.

DAY FIVE

"You don't trust me." You flinched at the sound of his voice. All of the forest seemed to have stopped moving for a second as you scramble for your thoughts.

You whip around, ready to deny the accusation before he lifted one finger up to silence you. "I don't really blame you about this but then why are you still here?"

Why were you still here?

You had an answer to that of course but admitting it out loud would've exposed you further to the man in front of you. You were afraid, weak and very fragile at this point. Your body was growing unbearably hot and your head has been in pain since yesterday. You didn't want to inform him of your state.

"There's safety in numbers. I don't know what's out there and frankly, I'm not prepared to face them either." You answered curtly. The response heightened Hendery's interest and he couldn't help but wonder: why would you lie?

Fortunately, he let it go. Being as he was, he asked you another question. "If an animal stalks you while you're powerless, what would you do?"

"Another one of your hypothetical scenarios?"

He shrugged, "you'll never know."

"Guess I'll die."

Hendery blew raspberries at that, unable to contain his laughter at your blunt reply. "You really are amusing, aren't you?"

"What do you suggest I do then?"

"Good point," he thinks for a moment, resting his chin on his fingers in a childish manner that made you slightly confused about the different sides he held. He sighed in defeat, "it really is a hopeless case!" He groaned, "the least you could probably do is count to ten and hope for the best."

You raised an eyebrow at him, holding back a humoured smile. "Thanks for the tip."

He grinned, "you're welcome!"

xxx

That night, a low rumbling growl awoke you from your slumber. You jumped up from your position, the thin blankets of leaves rustling below you as you looked around the dark room. The dim glow of the moon didn't help much but you could faintly see a huge silhouette of a figure standing right outside the window. Its back was turned in your view and you couldn't identify what it was.

You looked to your side to see Hendery gone. You panicked, the adrenaline spiking up to your lungs as you began to panic. The figure was still out there and it was not going anywhere.

You take a cautious step forward, the floorboards creaking as you did so. You tensed at the loud sound. Your whole body froze, keeping an eye at the window when the door of the shack suddenly opened.

"Did I wake you?" Hendery asked, rubbing his temples while he stood at the door. "I needed to pee."

"N-no?" He only nodded his head before groggily walking to his spot on the floor.

You were now wide awake. The will to sleep abandoning you as you hesitantly lay on your back.

The shadow was still there.

DAY SEVEN

"Hey y/n," you looked up from your seat to the man next to you. The slight flinch of your shoulders didn't go unnoticed by him.

You'd been exceptionally jumpy since yesterday and Hendery knew why. Fear was a cord that humans could never cut off. Once you're introduced to an unknown being, your whole body freezes as you desperately try to make sense of what you've witnessed, just to ease your irrational mind.

"We don't have any food left." Hendery says, holding out the empty wrappers of the bread you ate the night before.

You thought for a while, the image of the shadow pushed to the back of your head for a short while. "I guess we need to start looking for something to eat? I think there are some edible berries and plants we can collect."

He appeared to be considering it before nodding his head. "Okay! I'll go look for something to eat. Go start up a fire y/n to keep us warm while I go in the woods."

You nodded your head, already preoccupied with the grass, thoughts wandering back again to whatever it was that you saw.

With the way you were going, it almost felt like Hendery had only been gone for a few seconds when he came back just to see you hunched over; the same stance you had when he left. He sighed.

"You okay?" And there you were again, jumping a few good centimeters away from him. "I told you to start a fire."

Your eyes widened in shock before sputtering out multiple apologies. Hendery pressed his lips to a thin line.

"I'll start it, don't worry y/n. Just stay here." You nodded, eyes focusing on the ground that you failed to see the smirk on your companion's lips. He handed you a leaf filled with mushrooms, berries and some nuts.

"I hope they find us soon." You huffed, lifting a few of the food to your lips. Hendery watched you intently, smiling to himself before picking at the edibles on his makeshift plate.

"I hope so too. It's already been a week."

Suddenly, you felt your vision turn hazy. You furrowed your brows, concentrating on a specific tree as it morphed with its surroundings. "H-hendery?"

You lazily turned your head to your side, the weight felt light on your neck that you whipped faster than you've anticipated. Thus, your brain began to ache. You focused on Hendery's features, his expression unreadable as he, too, became a blurry mess of lights and shadows.

Once your eyes finally closed, Hendery let out the chuckle he's been holding in. He lifted your body off the ground.

Thus the game comes to end.

NIGHT SEVEN

Four… three… two… one…

You opened your eyes when you realised your limbs were still intact. The animal was nowhere in sight. Still, you couldn't shake off the overwhelming presence you felt all around you.

Looking around, it was pitch black. No shine of the moonlight peeked through the leaves of the trees, no sound of the whistles of the wind as you stood up from your terrified stance. Cautiously, you took a step forward. Your bag slumping down your shoulders before falling to the ground.

Your whole body felt weightless and you didn't find enough care in you to pick it up. Not even when the gleam of your treasures keychain sparked your vision.

You were tired.

You fell forward, a flash of bright white lights shocking your eyes as you squinted. A hum of a familiar lullaby and a chorus of footsteps neared your fragile body. You allowed your eyes to close as you finally relaxed, feeling the warmth of an embrace wrap around you. The smell of mint and chocolates killing you to sleep as gentle hands lift you up.

The soft song never faltered, vibrating across the person's chest and to your warm cheek.

You were going home.

xxx

In the shadows, Hendery watched as multiple police officers circled your body. One of them, Wong Yukhei, lifted you off the ground. He shakes his head in disappointment and regret at the state you're in: head bloodied, limbs bruised, and skin already blue.

Cold hands and feet already limp from the games he played, strumming your chords throughout the week until you eventually snapped.

Hendery hummed, a sweet lullaby in contrast to his wicked deeds. There was no shadow, no animal, nor a Hendery to begin with. It was all a byproduct of the scared, fragile and lonely human mind.

"How unfortunate, little one."

#nct-writers #neothestars #neowritingsnet #wayvhoursnet #kpopscape #starryktown #wayv imagines #wayv hendery #wong hendery #hendery imagines #hendery x reader #wong kunhang #wong guanheng #wong kunhang x reader #wong kunhang imagines #collabs

30 notes · View notes