#it is hard to explain the lowness of the bar that has not been cleared here??

[machinavocis]

(aforementioned shitposting not contained to tumblr lol.)

(sorry Business Partner Friend but i happened to look at some websites made by the subcontractor of another contractor of [CLIENT REDACTED] and now you’re gonna wake up to a thread of slack private messages in which i prove with both evidence and shouting that everyone is bad at things except us.)

[r-o-s-e-f-i-r-e]

idk i’ve been thinking for the last day about modern day corroded coffin, semi-successful in the local music scene, did a self-funded tour through six states last fall where they all lived in the van together and didn’t shower for four weeks, has a standing gig at the dive bar next to the highway and the strip club, they’re established, they have a small but dedicated local following, they —

“can’t play a WEDDING, are you fucking with me?” eddie says, when gareth shows him the text from his cousin who’s getting married in two weeks and who, as of last night, has no wedding band because they accidentally double booked themselves and gareth’s cousin had sent the deposit in late.

“i’ve explained to him so many times,” gareth says, furiously texting his cousin back, “we’re not that kind of band—”

except gareth’s cousin, instead of responding directly to gareth’s text outlining the musical thesis of corroded coffin or watching the youtube link gareth sends to the show last month where eddie got a black eye in the pit from someone in an inflatable garfield costume, just sends back —

“holy shit,” eddie croaks, looking at the string of zeros on the end of the number gareth’s cousin offers me to pay them in exchange for saving his ass and his wedding and his marriage, since his fiancé was demanding a live band. “that’s—”

“three months of rent for each of us,” gareth says, awed. “that’s buy actual fresh vegetables money. that’s go to the dentist money—”

“yeah, okay, give him my number,” eddie says.

so they spend the next two weeks practicing every white people wedding song they can think of. there’s no way they’ll be able to do, like, get low, tragically, but they can pull off the classics, especially after they bring chrissy onboard for vocals and keyboard. there are places where eddie draws the line — no fucking journey or especially insipid top 40 — but they can do some whitney. abba. fucking — mr. brightside. a lot of it is pretty simple, when you get down to it, “and people will be wasted anyway,” jeff reminds them. there’s an open bar at the six figure venue gareth’s cousin booked. hopefully everyone will be too hyped just hearing the opening baseline to i want you back to notice if they fumble anything hard.

rehearsal montage, chrissy takes the boys to the mall to buy suits montage (except for gareth who, like most transmasc dudes, already has a custom fitted and tailored suit ready to go in his closet; instead he makes catty remarks about brian’s tie choices.) chrissy makes eddie put his hair up and eddie makes jeff shave the experimental mustache he’s been growing and eventually the day of the wedding arrives and they load up the van and drive 45 minutes to the six figure waterfront reception venue.

they riff for about ten minutes while the whole wedding party makes their grand entrance into the massive tent set up on the lawn, ending with gareth’s cousin and his new wife dancing in, the whole crowd screaming and clapping. it’s cute, eddie thinks, vamping as long as he can while gareth’s cousin’s best man takes the mic and introduces the new couple and directs everyone to their seats for dinner.

and meanwhile: best man is frankly one of the hottest dudes eddie’s ever seen. he’s got longish brown hair that he keeps pushing out of his eyes, full lips, an insane shoulder to waist ratio, big hands. eddie sneak looks at him while they play a bunch of low key jazzy standards for people to eat their expensive dinner to. he’s sitting with his arm around the shoulders of a girl with shaggy auburn hair, and they keep leaning in to whisper to each other and giggle, so. oh well. but it doesn’t hurt to look, eddie thinks, watching the guy take his suit jacket off and roll up his sleeves and make a toast to gareth’s cousin and his new wife’s long and joyful marriage.

once most people have had their plates cleared away jeff turns to eddie and the rest of the band and nods, once, and while chrissy plays the opening synth chords to i wanna dance with somebody, jeff turns his front man showmanship deal all the way up.

it’s good. people are fucking hyped, so they throw themselves into it, feeding off the crowd’s energy, and almost no one is more hyped than mr. best man. he’s jumping up and down, his arms around gareth’s cousin and his wife. he knows every word to dancing in the dark (hot). when they transition into robyn’s dancing on my own he turns to the girl with auburn hair and points at her and screams. cute, eddie thinks, watching best man pick her up and spin her around while she downs her wine and shouts along. okay, really fucking hot, eddie thinks, when he finally pulls his loosened tie all the way off and unbuttons the top two buttons of his shirt and eddie can see a hint of chest hair peeking out.

they slow it down for the first dance. it’s the leon bridges one everyone always does, but it’s perfect in jeff’s range, and there is not a single dry motherfucking eye in the audience. they do a couple more slow ones, throughout the night. best man dances with his girlfriend and then gareth’s grandmother and then with every child under the age of 10, letting them stand on his shoes while he twirls them around. how is this guy fucking real, eddie thinks, which of course is when best man notices eddie looking right at him and their eyes meet. best man looks a little flustered, at first, and then grins at eddie, right at him, before spinning the flower girl around in dizzying circles.

jesus christ, eddie thinks.

they’re closing out the night on the only other request gareth's cousin gave them: the one from the end of dirty dancing. jeff thanks the crowd, offers his congratulations to gareth’s cousin, and then goes right into it. except as jeff sings the first line everyone absolutely loses their shit, turning to best man and jumping around him and one of the bridesmaids. what the fucking hell, eddie thinks, keeping one ear on jeff and chrissy’s duet and one ear on the crowd piling around best man “—you guys HAVE to, dude, you’ve GOT to—“ but whatever it is he has to do is not immediately apparent to eddie. best man dances in a circle with the rest of the wedding party and auburn hair and the bride and groom, shout-singing along, and then during the build up to the second prechorus gareth’s cousin’s wife and her bridesmaids start pushing everyone to the sides of the dance floor, so there’s a long space in the middle, so the bridesmaid with curly dark hair is at one end and best man is at the other end and oh my god is he actually going to —

the bridesmaid runs and then launches herself at best man, who lifts her perfectly, right on cue at the peak of the second chorus, his hands steady on her hips while she floats her arms out in front of her just like jennifer grey. they hold it for a few moments while everyone loses their fucking minds and takes a thousand pictures. eddie actually takes his hand off his guitar for a minute. he thinks his mouth is open. he can see the muscles in best man’s arms flexing under his white button up shirt as he carefully lowers the bridesmaid back to the ground, laughing, his eyes scrunched up in joy.

eddie is maybe a little bit in love.

they close it out. the whole crowd whistles and stomps and applauds for them, which feels pretty good, eddie’s not gonna lie. as they start packing it up and high fiving each other and a couple people come over to ask if they have a card, if they’re still booking for next year or the year after (what?) gareth’s cousin comes over and hugs every single one of them, almost in tears, and then adds another 2k to the check he writes for them. eddie pulls out his cigarettes right then and there.

“steve, come meet the band,” he yells, when steve and auburn hair walk past. “gareth saved my whole ass, oh my god —“

“you guys were fucking incredible,” steve says, grinning, shaking gareth’s hand. “best wedding band i’ve heard in years —“

“they’re not even a wedding band!” gareth’s cousin shouts. “they’re like metal — moshing — thrash, i don’t know, LOUD—“

“whoa,” steve says. he pushes his hair out of his eyes and then turns that blinding smile right on eddie. eddie feels struck by it, wants to stagger back like he’s taken an actual blow. “cool, so you guys — play locally, or —?”

“oh my god,” his girlfriend says, rolling her eyes; steve elbows her in the side.

“i like your guitar,” steve says, gesturing at the warlock eddie’s still holding in his non-cigarettes hand.

“oh, uh, thanks,” eddie says.

“it’s a cool shape,” steve says, stepping closer, flicking his eyes down and then back up to meet eddie’s. there’s sweat gathered along his hairline, dampening the ends of his hair. behind him, his girlfriend coughs something loudly that sounds vaguely like slut.

eddie feels his eyebrows go way up.

“uh, thanks, shapes are. you know. shapes are great,” eddie says, nonsensical. he sees gareth shoot him an incredulous look out of the corner of his eye.

“can i bum one?” steve says, looking down to the cigarettes in eddie’s hand.

“totally,” eddie says. “let me just—“ he holds the warlock aloft and gestures to the open guitar case.

“sure,” steve says. he waits around while eddie hustles through getting his shit sorted out and then turns away politely while eddie has a silent desperate telepathic conversation with the rest of the boys, who roll their eyes and make their way over to the still open, still free bar.

where auburn hair is standing and talking to chrissy, putting a hand on chrissy’s arm while she laughs at something chrissy says.

hm, eddie thinks.

“so,” eddie says, walking out from under the tent with steve, down towards the water, awash in the moonlight. he holds out his cigarettes. “you like springsteen?”

[ridher]

rafe finally asking out the shy pogue he's been crushing on

weeks of plotting — rafe cameron regularly showing up to the island country club for the sole purpose of seeing you, a soft-spoken pogue who works as a waitress at said place.

his intentions were anything but friendly, even if that's genuinely what you believed at first. despite this, he never made it clear and kept you in an awkward grey area that left you wondering just what his goal was.

and of course, you wouldn't dare speak up about your feelings, so rafe's visits remained strictly casual.

he hadn't been planning on changing your relationship any time soon, not even when he came into the club today in the late afternoon.

there you were, like always, shuffling about in the little uniform he found just so adorable, hair held back in a messy updo that always came out effortlessly perfect with pieces falling out and framing your face — enhanced by a layer of natural makeup.

the only difference was a small frown shaping your pouted lips, a sight he'd only seen a handful of times when an entitled resident of figure eight treated her as something below them.

he spends the remaining hours of your shift accompanying you after taking it upon himself to fix your face — a challenge.

though every time you come back from fixing up a table for a new group to occupy, you return with the same dejected expression. it almost pains him and he's lost in his thoughts, silently taking sips of the drink before him on the bar.

you let out a deep sigh signaling the end of your work day, to which he quickly responds after sitting up in the barstool.

"let me walk you out." he offers, leaving his glass for whoever is clocking in next.

replying with just a nod, you head back to grab your work bag — not having the energy to try and brush him off how you would with anyone else in this mood.

rafe is waiting in the decorated hallway outside the employee break room with his back leaning against the wall, hands stuffed in the pockets of his shorts, and curtain bangs parted due to how many times he'd run a hand through it.

when you come out and see him, it takes all your energy to flash him just a small smile. the gesture has him sighing and stepping forward to place a strong hand on the small of your back, guiding you through the building so he can say what he wants about your mood in confidence.

he stops you shortly after the entrance of the parking lot where the two of you usually part ways, moving to stand in front of you as his thumb caresses your back through the thin polo of your uniform.

"wha's goin' on, huh?" he lowers himself to be on your level and make his presence less intimidating — something he learned works with you.

"bad day.. i dunno, i'm sorry." you let out in a soft breath, gazing up at him with big eyes and brows pinched with tension.

he shakes his head and reassuringly mimics your expression, not mocking. the hand not splayed across your waist moves to brush some flyaways from your flushed face that had him distracted.

"it's alright, baby. let me make it better, yeah? will you let me help you?" when he makes his voice all low and smooth like that, it's hard to refuse.

you let out a shaky breath that releases the lines from your forehead before nodding silently once again with a small 'okay', knowing he'll continue with the little bit of confirmation.

"okay? listen, a'ight? you go home and get all cleaned up, take one of your little naps or somethin', eat. i'll come by later and pick you up — m'taking you out, okay?"

you're taking it all in with clueless doe eyes, nodding along until the last little bit. he sees the way your cheeks flush and you struggle to respond, reading the look too easily.

"yeah, yeah — like that. 'kay? we have a deal?" the large hand rafe has on your hip flexes when he tenses while awaiting your reaction.

"okay, rafe." you're nodding with an honest smile now and the sweet tone of your voice says more than you could explain.

he's grinning all smugly, proving no matter how soft he tries to come off, he is still the popular teen boy from the other side of town. none of that mattered in this moment when your crush just made the first step in pursuing you.

"okay. text me an' i'll see you tonight." rafe sends you off with a pat on your back, walking past you much too casually for having just asked you out. what were you getting yourself into?

as per request — @sublimepenguinpeach-blog & @lalaloopsie

[heytheredelulu]

Hey i hope you’re doing well i have an idea for a one shot and was wondering if you could write it.

So basically Bucky hears the reader talking to Natasha or anyone that she thinks she’s too heavy for any partner and that she has given up on dating for a while because of that, and of course Bucky hearing that he starts lifting heavy stuff such as weights, machines or even Steve😭 around the reader to show her he can easily lift her weight as well because he has feelings for her and you can add or change whatever you like and make it smutty idk whatever you think is right i trust your skills.

Hi! I’m doing good, how are you?

This request? Uh, YES. 🙌🏻

I love this idea!

I wrote this fully intending on Steve being like, “She ain’t lookin’, Buck. Lift me.” and then changed my mind and rewrote it when it took on a life of its own. 😂

I live and breathe smut so I definitely threw that in there in the form of Bucky needing to blow off some steam when he thinks about the reader. 😉

Anyway, thank you for the request and I hope it’s what you were looking for!

💋Sj

Bucky Barnes x Plus!Size Reader

18+

Word Count: 2.9k

CW: Male masturbation while fantasizing about oral (f receiving) and sex

“Bullshit.”

Bucky’s ears perk up as he passes the garage and hears Natasha fussing at someone in a string of curses, but it’s your voice that has him peering around the concrete wall with interest.

“I ain’t lyin’ Nat.”

You’re bent over the open hood of an old hot rod, your ass accentuated by the denim jeans hugging your curves. You blindly reach out towards the red headed assassin wiggling your fingers at her that are blackened with grease. Natasha rolls her eyes, pushing off the wall and picking up a socket wrench that she holds just barely in your reach. You let out a sigh, standing upright and snatching it from her.

“Look.” You tell her pointedly, blowing a loose piece of hair back from your face with a huff from your pouty lips. “It’s been months. I’m sufferin’, I am, really. But I’m just over it, you know?”

“No, I don’t know.” She replies, leaning her hip against the side of the car, watching you with a skeptical frown. “If you’re suffering, just come out with me. We can hit up that rooftop bar downtown. Have a couple drinks, dance a bit, pick up some hot strangers and scratch that itch. Come on.”

Scratch that itch?

A muscle jumps in Bucky’s jaw at Nat’s comment and he can feel his jealousy simmering low in his gut.

He’s been pining after you damn near since you’d arrived at the compound. The sweet little engineer Tony brought on to help take on his workload was only supposed to stick around and help out for a few months but when the team expressed their disappointment in you leaving and Tony realized despite his astronomically sized ego that he could get twice as much done with your help, giving him the opportunity for more free time with his family- you were brought on full time.

“I can scratch my own itches, thanks.”

Your curt reply to Nat brought Bucky’s attention back to the conversation he was eavesdropping on while the implication caught the attention of his cock, his jeans suddenly feeling tighter as he continued to listen.

“You’re crazy. You need to get laid.”

“Nat.” You warn and turn your back to her to grab a hand towel.

“Come on.” She pleaded, crossing her arms. “You’ve been so wound up. Nothing loosens you up better than a big, thick-“

Nat’s cut off by the hand towel being tossed in her direction and she catches it with a chuckle.

“I don’t understand why you’re so hung up on this.”

“I don’t understand why you’re so afraid to get laid.” She counters.

“I’m not afraid.” You protest, raking a hand through your hair. “I’m just- I don’t know. It’s hard to explain.”

Nat’s expression softens as she hangs the hand towel over the open hood. “Try?” She asks. “We’re friends, you know you can talk to me.”

Bucky watches you shift uncomfortably and for a moment he feels guilty for listening in, as it’s clear you’re debating on confiding in Natasha and it feels wrong to eavesdrop on something so private. But as soon as you let out that defeated sigh and begin to explain yourself, he’s so goddamn grateful that this was the conversation he had a chance to overhear.

“Men just don’t know how to handle me.” You admit, leaning back over the car and pretending to inspect something to avoid eye contact with Natasha but she isn’t having any of it, bending down to hold your gaze. “How so?”

“They just-“ You huff out a breath of annoyance, bracing your palms on the front of the car and standing upright. “I’m curvy, yeah? And I want a man that’s gonna pick me up, toss me around, hold me up and fuck me on a wall or somethin’ but the last couple guys I went home with they’re so.. boring. Missionary. Doggy. Like for once, would it be too much to ask for a dude to want to, I dunno, have me sit on their face? I swear, it’s like they’re afraid. I ain’t ashamed of my body, I like the way I look but shit, Nat. It really fucks with a girls head to feel like she’s too heavy or something to really be satisfied.”

Natasha’s moving closer to you, beginning to say something about ‘weak men with noodle arms’ but Bucky can’t hear it over the steady thrumming of his heartbeat in his ears.

He can’t believe that your experiences have been so lousy that you won’t even entertain the idea of going out with Nat if she was wanting to pick up guys. Honestly, he’s relieved by that, since the idea of you hooking up with anyone has the knuckles of his flesh hand bleached white with how hard he’s clenching his fist. He flexes his fingers, trying to relax his hand as he feels a wave of embarrassment wash over him. How could he be angry or even jealous when he’s been too shy to make a move?

C’mon Barnes, grow a pair.

She wants strong? You can show her strong.

He sucks in a breath, steeling his nerves before rounding the corner and strolling into the garage with his hands stuffed in his pockets. “Hey Nat.” He says with a friendly nod before slowly swinging his gaze over to you. “Doll.” He drawls. “What are you ladies up to this morning?” Your cheeks heat under the warmth of his cerulean eyes roaming over your body and you fumble the socket wrench, earning a lopsided grin from the handsome brunette. “Just- just workin’ on my project.” You stammer, bending down to pick up the tool. Damn, one flash of this man’s pearly whites is all it takes for you to lose control of your fine motor skills? Maybe you do need that itch scratched more than you’ve let on to your best friend and she can tell too, her brow lifting as she watches the scene unfolding.

“Mustang?” He asks, planting his hands on his hips. His eyes follow you as you bend over and reach for the socket wrench that’s just out of your reach underneath the car. When you stretch, your baggy t-shirt rises up your midriff, giving him a glimpse of that cute little pooch tucked into the dark-wash denim jeans that are deliciously hugging your hips and thighs.

He pulls his bottom lip between his teeth. “1960’s?” He asks, leaning down behind you. God, what he’d do to bring his palm down hard on your perfect, round ass and watch the flesh redden with each swat of his hand.

“‘62.” You grunt, your fingertips brushing the tool that’s just barely out of reach. Bucky shrugs off his leather jacket and tosses it lazily over the workbench before stepping in even closer to you. “Here, lemme get that for you, doll.” He murmurs, his vibranium hand settling on the underside of the Mustang. Before you can eke out a reply, he’s lifting the vehicle off the garage floor like a goddamn carjack with enough ease that it makes the 3500 pound car seem as if it were cut from styrofoam. You’re frozen in place on your hands and knees from the show of brawn so it’s Natasha that crouches down and quickly grabs up the socket wrench before you snap out of your trance and scramble to your feet.

Nat presses the tool firmly into your palm while giving you a look that screamed, ‘do not fuck this up�� and saunters backwards admist the low groan of your car being set back down on its tires. “I gotta meet Steve for a briefing.” She tells you, which you know is a damn lie- but you nod nonetheless and stutter out a, “Y-yeah, yeah. Catch you later.” She gives you a little wave and jogs off, her red waves bouncing in stride. When you turn back around, Bucky is leaning against the car with his arms crossed, his biceps testing the integrity of his black tshirt.

Goddamn, that’s some quality fabric.

His gaze is locked on you, making you sweat a little under the intense stare so you awkwardly begin picking up the rest of your tools and putting them back in their rightful place at your workbench. A strong arm comes into view in your periphery as Bucky plucks up his jacket and you nearly lose your breath at the scent of cedarwood and leather. He slings the coat over his right shoulder, holding it with his flesh hand, his vibranium hand reaching up to rake through his cropped hair. “Finished so soon?” He asks. “You ain’t gotta quit workin’ just ‘cause I stopped by.”

“Oh, no. No, I-“ You swallow thickly at the way the corner of his mouth twitches up into a smirk. “I actually was just getting to a stopping point.” You tell him, absentmindedly pulling your hair up into a ponytail. With your neck exposed, he wets his bottom lip at the thought of dragging his teeth across the skin and that little glimpse of his tongue flicking out has you struggling to focus anywhere but his mouth. “Got somewhere you gotta be?” He asks, his voice low and gruff.

Fuck, this man is sex on legs. On two thick, strong legs.

You nod quickly. “Yeah, I got a meeting with Tony about a new project.” You explain, though it comes out an octave higher than usual. He quirks a brow. “Yeah? You got a new project?”

“Yep. Yeah. I better get going.” You teeter on your heel, ready to flee.

Chicken shit.

“Hey, wait. Hold on.” He says gently, reaching to grab your wrist and setting your skin ablaze with the touch. You glance over your shoulder at him. “Hm?”

“What’re you doin’ tonight, doll?”

“What am I..?”

Holy fucking shit. Is he gonna-

No, no way. This is Bucky fuckin’ Barnes. You two are friends. He’s your friend. Your insanely hot friend that you’ve definitely had some filthy, sinful thoughts about, but he’s never led you to believe that he’s ever thought of you as more than a friend.

Or has he? I mean, you’ve caught his eyes lingering on you on a few occasions but that doesn’t mean-

“Lemme take you to dinner.”

Oh. Oh.

It takes you a few seconds to realize that you’re staring at him like an idiot with your mouth agape before you click your jaw shut and nod. “Uh, yeah. Yeah, alright.” You manage.

A slow grin spreads across his face. “Yeah? I’ll pick you up at 6?” He asks, stuffing his hands into his pockets as tries to reign in his eagerness.

“That sounds- that sounds great.”

“Great.” He repeats, toeing the ground with his boot before taking a step backwards towards the open garage door. He sweeps his eyes over you one last time. “It’s a date, then.” And he ducks out of the garage back toward the compound.

You said yes.

You said yes.

He slips into his bedroom, the door clicking shut behind him and he falls back onto his bed, letting out a breath of disbelief. He’s taking you out. He finally fucking asked.

Laying in silence for several minutes he replays the interaction over in his mind like he typically did after he was around you. He had a tendency to over analyze your body language, your expressions, hang on to your every word like it kept him afloat in his sea of anxiety; though sometimes, most times, he let himself drown. He drowned in the worry that maybe he was imaging the way your voice caught around him. The way you tensed when he got close.

But you said yes.

You wouldn’t have said yes if he was just imagining it, right?

He lets out a huff, scrubbing a hand down his face as your words to Nat echo through his head like a shout in a cavern.

“Like for once, would it be too much to ask for a dude to want to, I dunno, have me sit on their face?”

And there’s his cock again, straining against his jeans just from the thought.

He groans softly, flicking the button open and unzipping his fly to give himself some relief from the pressure as he stares at the ceiling, watching the fan spin round and round and..

It takes all of the self control he can muster not to reach into his boxers so his hands fist in the sheets in restraint.

It wouldn’t be the first time he’s fucked his fist to the thought of you. Hell, it wouldn’t be the 2nd, 5th or even 10th time he’d done it.

He lets his eyes slip closed, imagining your plush thighs straddling his head as you smother him with your pretty, wet cunt. His aching cock twitching with need from neglect as he focuses all of his attention on delving his tongue into your tight, warm, hole.. closing his lips around that swollen button that makes you writhe in pleasure.. your puffy pussy lips grinding against his face as you use him to chase your release .. your sweet, sweet slick coating his chin and-

Fuck it.

He shifts his weight on the mattress, tugging his jeans down enough for his erection to spring free, spitting in his flesh hand and slowly stroking himself. He groans, squeezing the crown of his cock, a bead of pearly precum gathering at his slit that he rubs roughly with his thumb. Bucky can imagine you on top of him, your pouty lips parting with a soft gasp as you sink down onto him, maybe even a hiss or shit- a whimper from the stretch when he splits you open. He knows he’s thicker than most men, a side effect of the serum- everything about him is bigger, thicker, better. Fuck those other men who couldn’t satisfy you. Fuck them. He strokes himself faster, the thought of you bouncing on his cock making his toes curl. Your tits, those big beautiful tits, swinging, slapping together with every thrust.

He’d reach up and pinch one of your pebbled nipples, rolling the sensitive peak between his fingers, cupping the other with his hand to give it equal attention. It’d be heavy in his palm, he just knows it. Heavy, warm and filling his whole fucking hand. He imagines yanking you forward and burying his face in those perfect breasts before trailing sloppy, open mouthed kisses up through the valley of them. He’d trace the tip of his nose across the swell and sink his teeth into the supple flesh, soothing the sting with a lave of his tongue, making you collapse forward against him as you cry out in pleasure. He could fuck up into you deeper at that angle, feel the tip of his cock kiss your cervix over and over until you see stars and lose your rhythm as your orgasm tears through you.

Yeah, he’d make you come so hard you’re limp on top of him and he’d reach behind you, grabbing a handful of your plump, round ass and taking control, moving you up and down the length of him at a frenzied pace until he-

His fantasy fades as his climax crests and he grunts, thick ropes of come spilling over his fist and onto his pubic bone.

He lies still and silent, his heartbeat a metronome in his ear, keeping time of the minutes that stretch on while he steadies his ragged breathing. With a sigh he sits up, looking down at the mess in his lap as his euphoria dissipates and the shame starts to creep in.

He’s certain of two things in that moment-

One, he needs a goddamn shower and two, this will be the last time he fantasizes about fucking you.

Pulling himself to his feet, he glances over at the clock.

14:17.

He smiles to himself, crossing the threshold into the bathroom and twisting the shower on. His flesh hand tests the water, the warm spray cleaning the sticky release from between his fingers before he steps in, letting the water cascade over him.

Less than four hours. He thinks to himself.

In less than four hours he’ll be sitting across from you in a dimly lit restaurant, watching your eyes sparkle in the candlelight as he prompts you about your favorite things just so he can see the way you light up when you talk about your passions. He smiles to himself at the image of your hands gesturing wildly as you talk, the sound of your infectious laugh and the way your breasts bounce when it bubbles up from your chest.

He begins to stiffen again at the thought.

Goddamnit, his cock just won’t quit, will it?

He turns the knob, the water quickly growing ice cold and he grits his teeth at the temperature change, cursing the serum for making his refractory period so short. He’s grateful for it in the proper circumstance, but when he’s alone it’s a fuckin’ nuisance.

Bucky’s eyes slip shut, focusing in on the feeling of the frigid water splashing against the top of his head and rolling down the taut muscle of his back. Eventually the ache ebbs and he cranks the temperature back up, reaching for his shampoo. The cedarwood fragrance clings to the steam, filling his nostrils as he massages it into his scalp. Tipping his head back under the steady stream, he sighs contentedly.

Tonight’s the night he finally gets his girl.

[kiwisluv]

i think i've mentioned something similar on here with kylian but imagine situationship/cocky mf! jude sending you a ridiculous sum of money to get your attention when you're ignoring his texts or being petty- everyone knows he has the money so what's the harm in him using it to his advantage sometimes?

Situationship Jude who swears he wants to be more than casual but you don’t trust him based on his actions and knowing his history

He’s unashamed when he’s feeling needy and missing you, not afraid to send text after text asking what you’re doing and why you’re not with him

None of your friends know about him because as much as you refuse to admit it, you liked the thing you two had going on and didn’t want attention over Jude’s status to mess up your dynamic

So one Saturday night, you’re at the club with friends trying not to think too much about Jude because you find your thoughts wandering to him too much for your liking

You were giving him the silent treatment because the night before you had seen him chatting to another girl at the club. It didn’t seem like anything serious or overly sexual but it was enough to make you jealous - which you would never admit out loud - so you decided to play hard to get for a little while. When he had called you after the club that night, you declined his calls and answered his messages bluntly, telling him you were going to bed. Alone.

So now you’re in the club, getting the chance to see some girlfriends you hadn’t spent time with in a while. Your group is at a VIP table, taking shots and drinking an assortment of cocktails as you drunkenly chat about this and that, some of the girls bringing guys to the table to join in. A few guys had approached you throughout the night but you stayed polite and made it clear you weren’t interested. Some of your friends questioned why you weren’t flirting with anyone, but you reassured them that you just weren’t in the mood to deal with men tonight.

Your phone had been buzzing repeatedly for the past hour, different messages from Jude lighting up the screen, telling you he was at home, that he missed you, that he wanted you to keep him company. Reading the messages made a little knot tighten at the bottom of your tummy, but you stuck to the promise you made yourself of not entertaining his advances. As you sat at the table, though, you still found your mind drifting to the thought of Jude when your friends mentioned something that reminded you of him.

At some point, you go to the bar to get the next round for the table, and among coming back with drinks, you see a couple of your girlfriends looking at you with squinted eyes and exasperated faces.

You nervously ask them what they’re looking at, and one hands you your phone that you left on the table, with a new notification from your banking app at the top of the screen.

You immediately blush at the notification, which states that £5,000 has been transferred into your account by J. Bellingham. The thought of Jude sending money to get your attention made you internally roll your eyes, as it wasn’t his first time playing that card. He knew you would protest the gift and did it on purpose to get you riled up. However, as your friends sat there looking at you questioningly, you had no idea how to explain the transfer to them in a normal way.

They berated you with questions, like who sent the money, why on earth it was so much, and why the name was suspiciously close to that of star footballer Jude Bellingham

“What, is Jude Bellingham your sugar daddy on the low?” one of the friends joked sarcastically, but when your eyes drifted to your lap she gasped loudly.

You ended up having to explain your situationship, making your friends promise not to tell anyone since you wanted to keep it mostly a secret. The girls were hardcore fangirling, in amazement that their friend had bagged a real life celeb. You explained that he doesn’t normally send you money, he was just trying to get your attention, and the girls went crazy over his gift. They ask why you’re ignoring him and roll their eyes at your pettiness over what happened at the club the night before. When you explain your hesitancy in taking things further with Jude they all act like you’re silly and try to talk some sense into your head because just from the messages they read they can tell that Jude seems to care about you more than you’re letting on. Your friends know now why you’ve been in a reserved mood all night, and they’re encouraging you to leave and go see him. You’re almost offended that they suggest you bail on girls’ night but they absolutely insist that you need to “go get your man”

You eventually let them talk you into leaving the club after making plans to debrief over coffee the next morning. You hug and kiss them all goodbye before hastily exiting the club, trying to fight back the smile growing on your face. Once on the street, you dial Jude’s number and wait as the phone rings. It barely rings twice before the man answers the phone. 

“I’d hate to think you just want me for the money, Y/n,” he says smugly, met by a scoff from you. “Are you going to pick me up from this club or not?”

just some rambling 😁

[dovabunny]

When your heart goes 'Padam'

Soap hated unplanned leave and he hated this fucking club.

Price had walked into his room three nights ago to inform him that due to a security threat tip he was to be 'sent on a solo mission' so they can track who has their sights on him, while he is actually shipped home to lay low.

To make it worse, he swore someone has been following him all week, but everytime he tries to catch them, even in a subtle reflection - there's nothing.

So between his apparent paranoia, irritation of being sent home while they have all the fun, and being separated from Ghost - you can understand how the last thing he wants right now was to be in a fucking club. But his sister has the hots for the DJ and didn't want to come alone so she BEGGED him to tag along.

He caved cause he could never say no to her. He tried to stay at the bar but the constant swarm of sweaty bodies had him ducking out. He tried to keep to find a seat or table to lean on, but that apparently signaled that he was lonely and looking for company. When this one persistent bloke with terrible mullet and gold chain couldn't get the fuckin message that he wasn't interested - he figured his best bet was the dancefloor.

Maybe this was good for him. To just close his eyes and move to the rhythm of the music. He had always loved music since he was a boy, always found peace in it. Maybe it could even get his mind off the one thought that haunted him the most - Ghost.

He was so sure that the flirting and the looks might mean something more, that the way his heart thumped painfully in his chest when Ghost chuckled at his bad jokes might just be reciprocated. But then the lieutenant suddenly turned cold. Not just cold, icey. His gaze was cold and distant, he responded to Soap's usual attempts at banter with "focus on the mission, sergeant." And didn't that sting. He hadn't been "Johnny" in two weeks and it fuckin hurt. Had it all just been a bit of fun for Ghost? Had Soap just been a plaything, a distraction he grew tired of when he realized how much he could be? How needy?

Soap bit his lip, eyebrows drawn as he squeezes his eyes shut, trying to drown out his spiraling thoughts that had no right to hurt him as much as it does. He focuses on the beat of the music, the rhythm of the base he feels in his chest. Slowly he loses himself to it, not caring that he's dancing alone, not caring what he looks like - swallowed by the sea of pulsing bodies moving around him.

He feels the occasional hand on his hip, even grope of his ass or thigh, but smoothly slips away with a quick glare. Some men, some women, all looking disgruntled by the fact that Soap doesn't want to be groped by a stranger.

He was just getting lost to the music again when an arm slips around his waist in a way that just had him feeling repulsed. He whips around and it's mister mullet gold chain. His strong cheap cologne and smell of terrible beer like a fog and somehow it makes Soap feel dirty. He pointedly pushes his arm off and tries to slip away, but the clown grins like Soap is playing hard to get, gripping his hips to pull firmly to his crotch.

Soap has had enough, he elbows the man in the stomach and turns around to- but then suddenly it's like the man is yanked into the crowd. In a blink and a faint yelp smelly mcMullet has just vanished.

Soap feels uneasy. A man that persistent won't duck out that fast. He tries to put it out his mind. Moves to a different spot just in case, still in the sea of people dancing but closer to the fire escape.

He had just gotten himself convinced to close his eyes and clear his mind again when there's another touch...

But this one is different. It's light, a warm hand brushing against his arm, and he senses a heavy presence behind him. But they're not on him, not grinding on his leg or letting greedy hands roam over his sweaty t shirt. No they're... Asking. Cautious.

He can't explain why he leans into the touch. He had missed dancing with someone, hasn't done so in years, but it had to be someone he felt comfortable losing himself with.

At his subtle acknowledgments, another hand settles on his other arm, a warm breath falls over the back of his neck as those hands slowly move grip his biceps and move down along his arms.

A new song comes on, the new Kylie song. It's low, seductive, and rhythmic. Soap tilts his head to the side, a less than subtle sign that he accepts his mystery partner.

Strong hands wrap around his wrists and pulls him back against a huge, firm body. He feels the breath on his neck Ghost over his exposed skin, a soft brush of lips and he sighs. He pressed more firmly into the undulating body behind him, letting his back feel warm wide shoulders and a soft chest, he feels daring and rolls his hips, feeling the clear bulge in the man's jeans.

It should make him feel repulsed, dirty, too old for this. But why does it make him feel brave, naughty, wanted. He tilts his head and noses along a thick neck, the scent of bourbon, smoke, and something manly and dark has him shuddering.

Accepting Soap's daring advance, the man let's his big hands fall to his hips, monetarily returning Soap's tease with a roll of his own hips that has the smaller man give a broken moan at how hard and hungry the man feels. Those hands roam over his stomach, pressed flat against the thin sweat soaked shirt like they're mapping out his body. One hand travels up to settle just below his neck, the other wrapping possessively around his waist.

Soap is bodily anchored against the man, to the point that their movements are perfectly in sync. Soap grinds his hips and back against the huge, hard body and is reward with teeth scraping his neck.

"Yyy-ess", he chokes out. And then there's fingers on his chin tilting his head back just enough for warm lips to meet his.

Soap melts against the strong arms and chest keeping him up as they move in harmony to the beat. The kiss is gentle and dirty in equal measure and he gets lost in it.

They dance like that - or rather it would be more accurate to say they just moved like that, undulating and together to the music, pressed together to give and feel pleasure. Lips and tongues come together like they're choreographed, every lick, nip, and kiss matched like they've done it a thousand times and Soap has a hand in the man's hair holding him close.

He feels drunk on his stranger's scent and touch and taste, drowning in the best way. But then he feels it...

A sensation that hits him harder than any other he's felt all night.

Against his back, where the man's chest is pressed firmly to his skin, their t-shirts barely a barrier, he feels a clear thumping heartbeat.

It's too hard and too fast to be just from the music, but too steady to be from alcohol or drugs. No, it's sincere.

Soap let's their kiss end, just breathing each other in for a moment, before he turns and opens his eyes to gaze up at his stranger.

Lust lidded eyes stare down at him, a soft whiskey brown barely a ring around dark pupils blown wide, his steady gaze heavy with desire and possessiveness. Pale skin flickers in the pulsing lights of the club, revealing a blush bright and heavy over his strong nose and cheeks. Lips kiss swollen and split slick are parted as they pant in tandem. Short blonde hare stands messy where Soap had grabbed it, and tucked under his chin is a black face mask...

...it's the mask that sets it off. Suddenly Soap blinks himself into wakefulness and takes a closer look at his beautiful stranger.

The man seems to have gone through the same awakening, but instead of curiosity he seems to be taken by nervousness and panic.

Before Soap can even respond there's a mumbled apology and the man turns to flee.

[klbwriting]

Surface Tension

Chapter 10 - Somewhere Only We Know

Fandom: Aquaman

Pairing: Ormxfemale!Reader

Warnings: some violence

Summary: Orm comes to terms with his past, and Y/N puts the plan into action

Notes: almost done! Just a couple more chapters! I want to thank everyone who has read, liked, commented, etc on this work. Its hard writing anything and it feels so nice when someone says they like it, so thank you! song is 'Somewhere Only We Know' by Keane

Taglist: @hyperagitatedcydonian13 @gabrieleskywalker @philiasoul @duchcess

This could be the end of everything So, why don't we go somewhere only we know?

Orm was standing on the beach, watching something floating towards the shore. His heart sank as it got closer. It was a body, Y/N’s body. He moved, picking her up and carrying her up to her chair on her porch, setting her down.

“Y/N?” he said, shaking her gently. She opened her eyes slowly and looked at him.

“Why did you do this?” she asked. Orm frowned. “Why didn’t you save me?” She closed her eyes, and he knew she was gone.

“I tried…I tried…I tried,” he repeated, falling into her lap as he sobbed.

“Orm, wake up!” Atlanna said, shaking her boy. He woke, sitting up from the bed he had in the lighthouse. He was pale, stomach turning. Aria was standing in a corner, eyes fixed on him. “It was a nightmare.” His mother held his face, leaning her forehead to his like she did when he was child.

“I can’t save her. I can’t do anything,” he whispered. Atlanna shook her head. “Mother, is this what it felt like? When you had to leave here? Everything feels like its ending.”

“Yes, that’s what it felt like to leave Tom and Arthur…but that’s also what it felt like when I was forced to leave you,” she said. Orm looked at her. He knew her banishment to trench was forced by his father, but he always figured she hated being in Atlantis anyway, hated his father, hated him, so death might have been a relief. He never imagined leaving him had hurt her like this. He took a breath.

“Did you talk to her?” he asked her. She nodded.

“She told me to tell you she would see you again, but not just on Halloween?” she said, not sure still what Y/N had meant. Orm smiled. She planned on coming back to him alive and well. Her confidence made him feel better. “I’m glad you know what she meant.”

“What are you doing about actually freeing her?” Aria asked from her post by the window. “Or are you just leaving her there to stew for awhile?” Atlanna frowned and looked at the girl.

“Why would we leave her?” she asked. Aria swallowed. “I know that in the past the royal family have not treated those they deemed below them well, but Arthur is not that kind of king, he is a better king.”

“Ya, that bar was really low…” Orm said to himself.

“Be that as it may, we have put in the evidence that she was not involved with the assassination, and that it was Hendrix looking alone. We should not only be able to clear her name but the rest of the Atlantis for All members that are currently in prison still waiting punishment. And you Aria, will also be cleared,” the queen explained. “There is one final piece we need. Y/N is going to talk to Hendrix and get him to confess.”

“Why would he even talk to her?” Aria asked.

“He will have to, she is going to be put to death and her last request will be to speak to Hendrix,” Atlanna explained. Orm’s eyes widened.

“What do you mean she’s going to be put to death?” he demanded, the dream coming back to him. Her body, cold, lifeless, him just standing by as she passed on.

“It is the only way to force Hendrix to speak with her. He must answer her last request. Her death sentence is not official, but he doesn’t know that. We are going to record him. She says she learned from Aria how to get him to say things he shouldn’t,” Atlanna explained further. Aria smiled, proud of her friend. She looked up, hearing AJ crying from his room. “I will be back, don’t worry my son, you will see her again.”

Aria watched her leave the room before looking at Orm. She was trying to figure him out. He wasn’t like she expected, how was this guy, a crying mess at the thought of a single woman being in danger, the same man who had killed hundreds just a few years ago without batting an eye?

“You can say it you know,” Orm whispered. “You can say it should be me, that I’m a coward and I should be going back to Atlantis, demanding her freedom in exchange for my head. I don’t deserve her; I don’t deserve to be free after what I did.”

“I have thought that many times since she was taken, but that’s not what I was thinking now,” she said. She moved to sit next to him, playing with her rings. “I was thinking that she saved my husband on the day of that tidal wave. She used her power, exposing herself to possibly any Atlantian that could have been around, someone who could have reported her, but she saved him because she knew I loved him. And now she’s in love with you, the person who caused all that pain. I was thinking, I should be watching you hurt with joy but I can’t.”

“Why?” he asked.

“Because she loves you, and she’s happy with you. You haven’t redeemed yourself for your crimes but you’re starting and that is important,” she said. “She will be back with you soon and you better spend the rest of your life showing her that you can be better than you were.”

“Don’t worry, I’m never going to be less than she deserves,” he said. Atlanna came rushing into the room.

“Hendrix is gone. Aria, go back to the house, see if he goes there, I’ll find him in the water,” she instructed. They were gone and Orm had a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach.

Hendrix arrived at Y/N’s cell, ready to grant her last request. He had no idea why she would ask for him, but he couldn’t refuse. He was ready, the letters and the video made him look bad and he had started planning his escape as soon as he left the king’s office. He was going to break Arthur by killing his family, before returning to the throne room with Orm’s body, proving the king was a liar and hid the tyrant. Then Hendrix would be king, and things would change.

Y/N was humming to herself when he arrived. Poseidon’s blood, he hated her obsession with music. She sounded terrible and she didn’t care. How could she not care?

“What did you want terrorist?” he asked, standing before her. She stood and looked at him.

“Is this what you wanted? The death of anyone who would actually stand up for the rights of the lower city?” she asked. He rolled his eyes.

“You are such an idiot, no one cares about you, this is about me. You are just a pawn in this game, a sacrifice to be made. Once you are dead I will find Aria now that I know she’s alive and…” he stopped talking. This wasn’t right. She looked smug, like she knew something he didn’t. She was trying to trap him. He stormed forward, hands padding over her clothes. She cried out in surprise, but he found what he was looking for, strapped to her back.

“What are you doing?” she asked as he ripped the recorder from her skin. She cried out in pain, and then again when he hit her with it. Her cheek started bleeding and he smirked.

“You think you are so clever, trying to trick me into saying something I shouldn’t” he taunted. “I am not an idiot Y/N.”

“You’re not as smart as you think Hendrix. Everyone can see what you’re doing. You are sloppy, you’ve always been sloppy. Mailing letters to people without checking who is receiving it? Not disguising your pulsar enough so I didn’t see it before you killed the king? Now even, you openly show your hatred for the king, rumors spread that you actually tried to poison Orm several times when he was ruling. You are an insignificant little person who thinks he deserves to be king…” she stopped when he hit her with he recorder again. She was knocked to the floor, staring up at his enraged face.

“I AM GOING TO BE KING!” he screamed. “My plan to kill Orm was perfect. I got you to tell me the parade route using sweet words, because you have always been craving someone to be a good daddy for you…and maybe I would have done that if you had let me kill that bastard. None of you knew because I was so good at hiding it! And poisoning Orm? Would have been simple if he wasn’t so paranoid of his stupid brother coming to usurp him. Then Arthur…what a joke. He thinks his family is safe in that lighthouse? Just wait until you’re dead, then I’ll kill them all and I WILL BE KING.” He stormed out the door and Y/N smiled as she called the guard.

Arthur took the holodisk and went to the council. The confession was enough to get the guard out to arrest Hendrix on not only one count of treason but several. Y/N was released and taken to Arthur’s office where a doctor cleaned up and bandaged her cuts.

“I can go home now,” she said. Arthur nodded. Guards came running into the office.

“He’s gone, Hendrix escaped,” one said. Arthur moved to get his armor on to search for him, sending word to the queen about the escape. Y/N paled. The lighthouse. Hendrix knew about the lighthouse. She took off herself, hoping she was in time to warn them.

[aquarium-ina-bag]

Where Danger Finds Me, it Follows with Tides - 7

'Cause you live in my day dreams ch. 7

Word count: 2.7k

Relationships: Wednesday x Reader (She/they)

Warnings: Mention of blood, pain, bullets.

A/N: So sorry I took so long had a project anyyywaayyyy, if I do breaks again Im able to do drabbles so ask away. I have an Idea for a side au with Jenna, just confused about how I'm gonna use this character R and actor R (Gasp spoilers, wtv) enjoy, give suggestions yatta yatta.

Small conversations spread among the bar, bottles hitting stained, polished wood and smooth granite countertops, and low music playing. It definitely wasn’t a big bar, but it was the home of drunken souls in the outskirts of Jericho. And tonight it housed hopeful, evil, and grieving souls. 

The door swung open, hitting the bell. A small three-man group raised their heads to see the newcomer as the bartender gave his regular warm smile to the eccentric man. 

"Evenin’ James, usual?" The bartender cleaned a glass, ready to serve. 

"Nah nah, I need somethin’ tougher; I’m ina surprising mood tahnigh’ hit me hard." James was practically jumping and shaking. 

The bartender started to pour him a fireball.

"Well, gee, it seems like you've got something heavy already." He slid the glass across the counter.

James quickly caught it and brought himself to the table of three men. He threw his head back and drank with speed. "Fellas, I got that damn thing that's been killin’ my livestock." He slammed his hands on the wooden table. 

The three of them laughed, and one spoke up. "The fucking big creature you saw, with the big claws and skin like a lagoon?" Dune made gestures to mock James' description. 

"Nah na! It’s real, but this one had wings! My god, the size of them nevah seen before, the tips nosebleed red, and it-it-it got deeper colah at the base." James tossed around his arms to depict this creature of the night "OH! And-and-and when I shot the bitch, the speed it took was incredible! Even though I shot it in the wing, damn it was moving maybay 300 miles?"

The group looked at the man in front of them like he was on shrooms, he sure acted like it. The bigger male chuckled, "So you’re saying some big ass peregrine falcon, has been taking your sheep, and when you shot it, it left at the speed of 300 miles per hour?" 

"No, no, Harlow, it gave me my sheep back! It done dropped the sheep back in the pen, ALIVE! The damn hooves were painted pink! Fuckin pink!" James explained.

The men were invested now. "You got two creatures in your fences now?" Harlow asked. 

"Yes! One is killing them, the other is saving them. Like an angel." James fawned over his findings.

Chuck took a sip of his beer before speaking. "Well, you said it was dark and bloody lookin’, don’t sound like no angel to me." 

"What would I call it then?" James questioned his ideas.

"I say call it a blood hawk, it’s easy to identify," Harlow said as he toyed with the ring of condensation on the wood.  "Also, go buy one of them cameras that videos motion." 

The bartender couldn’t hold his words anymore. "Say, you know what’s known for having creepy abnormalities, that Nevermore school miles away. That lagoon creature you were talking about James, I think it’s been seen there plenty of times." 

The bartender pushed a glass towards a shaggy brown-haired man, his hair long, as were the scars on his face as if he were mauled by a beast. The man’s clothes looked so mismatched and ripped; he had a beard starting to grow; and he looked homeless but still had money to buy a drink. This man couldn’t help but listen to the conversation; he made clear, surprised expressions at the words ‘Nevermore’ ‘Blood hawk’ ‘sheep’ and ‘alive’. All this man could do was hum in acknowledgment. 

"I’ll look into it once I get home." James smiled and continued to change the subject.

—————-

"Wednesday I know you usually don’t regret things, but I honestly feel so awful about hurting Y/n," Enid said with her chin on her school desk, her body droopy.

Sure, that is true Wednesday doesn’t feel regret, but everything she regrets on her mind is rooted in because of you, she regrets ever talking to you, accepting your dual, working on the project with you, letting you see something vulnerable in her—she regrets a lot when it comes to you. 

"They said it was fine." What Wednesday really regretted was letting you leave and trusting that you would take care of yourself. She hasn’t seen you all morning. The thought of you bleeding out that whole night banged on her cranium. 

Enid turned to face the goth, laying her cheek on the cold wood. "You don’t really believe that." Wednesday regrets not smothering her roommate, and Enid started to understand Wednesday’s ‘signs’. The raven stayed silent, keeping it that way the whole period. 

When it was over, she took her free period to confirm that Enid hadn’t murdered you. She checked the gym; you weren’t there. Wednesday looked where you feed birds; no luck. She entered your dorm to find clutters of paper and files scattered around your desk. As if a voice was pulling her into the room, Wednesday walked in and shut the door behind her, making a careful walk across the room to your desk. The floorboards creaking had an unusual pattern as if someone were in the room with her. The raven was on edge but still curious; determined to find out why you were gone. 

The goth inspected the papers on your desk. Pictures of the farm you two went to, papers containing information about the owner of said farm. What really stuck out were documents from the U.S. government. How in the world were you able to access something like this? The thought that you were taken by the FBI could make her chuckle. Wednesday shuffled the small stack, trying to get them back in order. When the order was found, Wednesday couldn’t stop reading.

In brief, the documents explain how an ‘anomaly’ that was captured in December of last year escaped a government vehicle, killing four of the six men in said vehicle. This creature never made it to the lab for testing, questioning, and possible execution. This creature could be conjured by American citizen Tyler Galpin. 

Tyler was out, and that was him; he was still lurking in the towns, waiting for his next victim.  

Wednesday looked around for anything that could reveal she was here, and when she turned to the glass screen door, a shine drew her in like everything else in this room. 

Unlocking it and stepping onto the concrete, she looked down to find a bullet that was almost perfectly clean. Why would you have a perfect bullet here? The casing was gone, so this was fired. 

This curious black cat bent down to pick up the fired bullet. Her head was shot backward, and scenes dashed and flashed across her vision.

Fingers that weren’t yours loading ammunition in a firearm; the bullet flying into feathered flesh, then deeper into warm blood and muscle; with her perspective being the bullet, Wednesday felt layers decompressing her. From what she could guess, it was feathers falling off, then skin, then muscles. The bullet dropped in a pool of blood; something or more of a surplus made a horrific shriek as if it was getting brutally attacked. She couldn’t tell what made it, and the warmth of blood left her after the vision ended.

Once the vision was over, Wednesday moved her head back. It felt as if someone was beating her skull; that never happens with visions, but that aside, what did she just see? Wednesday began to make a hypothesis, clearly, this was past, not future, and this bullet wasn’t yours, but she couldn’t be sure if you fired the weapon, it was shot in some bird, but why was the bullet removed like that, layer by layer? What was that screaming? 

The girl’s head was pounding, and before she left your room, she took the bullet, the papers. She wanted to find some type of DNA in the room, but her head said otherwise. 

—————-

Something was wrong; your brain was triggering some sort of defensive reaction, and you didn’t understand what was triggering it. You’re trained to keep your brain in full control, to know when you’re being psychologically attacked, and currently, the right and left sides of your brain are disagreeing with something. Before you can get the problem fixed, you need to know the problem. That could wait though.

"I really need to train back home again." You muttered to the wind, and it raced past as if responding.

You smiled as you continued to walk along the side of a gravel road. This scenery wasn’t better than the woods with Wednesday; did you even look at the view when you were with Wednesday? What were you focused on? 

This constant questioning of yourself was scaring you. Your family described you as a person, with no limits, but you had to be in control of your whole body, and recently you weren't. Maybe that’s why you're triggering a defensive response.

You stopped at a small home surrounded by flat, crop-growing land, knocking on the door before you looked yourself up and down. With a small smirk, you thought the outfit looked like a hitman in the winter decked out in dark, puffy clothes. Hey, it was close to the beginning of winter.

Once the door opened, a taller man, maybe 2 inches taller than you, greeted you with a grimace.

"Well, who the hell is you? Matrix-looking kid. All these damn new fashion trends." His accent was a deep Southern one.

You chuckled before speaking, "You, James Turner?" Your hands shuffled in that dark, puffy jacket, pulling out a picture of the man in front of you. 

"Who’s asking?" He got closer to you, and smelled like booze. 

You've shown him the photo now. "There’s a problem if someone did." You murdered someone, sir?" He could have the other night if your thesis was right. 

"I ain’t kill nobody, did I?" Bingo. James started to get a little scared, you could read it off his body language.

"Well, I heard a complaint about some gunfire, and when I asked around for you, I heard you shot something." Part of that was a lie, you didn't really ask, just lots of tabs closing at a bar. 

James looked like a child getting caught with their hand in a cookie jar; he was going to break. "Listen, somethin’ been stealing my animals. I was waiting to shoot it last night, then this big bird-like person dropped a sheep in the pen, and I shot at it."

Your face scrunched in confusion. "Why would you shoot something, dropping your sheep back off? And you said human-looking? You were going to just kill a person like that?" You took steps forward, and James kept backing up until both of you were in the house. 

"I jus wan-tah to catch em’ , Ay I don’t even think that was them! Something else was killing my animals, it was green and-and-and large, eyes like a bug." Tsk tsk James, the hole he dug just kept getting bigger.

You were so close in his space that he tripped into a seat. "So you shot something that you wanted to catch even though it helped you; it wasn’t even the creature that was killing! What were you going to do, James? When you caught it, that is." 

"I I I." He sure does stutter you noted, "I was gonna report it for stealing." 

You gripped the table, did it crunch? James questioned. "What’s the story, Turner? You said it gave back…" 

"You’re right It was, it was." He was sweating badly. 

"Good, so you understand that you committed attempted murder? Correct?" Your voice was deathly low. "It can be a pretty hefty sentence, James." 

He watched you move around his house, preparing a glass of water, before sitting across from him.

"I’m going to jail?" He looked on the verge of tears. 

You paused before speaking, a clicking sound filled your silence. "Yes, if you refuse to comply with me." You took a long sip of water, making Turner wait in anguish. "Heard you’re gonna set up cameras around this place, I want you to set up cameras around the woods, set up baits, get as much footage of this killing creature as you can, and hand all of the footage, pictures, and what you baited with to me. Sound simple?" 

"Course, anything yes, please, I jus don’t wanna go to jail." He nodded like a bobblehead.

"Perfect, and don’t think you can escape this; I've got all the information to make a court session last less than 10 minutes." You smiled and finished the glass. Quickly grabbing a pen and paper, you wrote one of your numbers and labeled it, 'Turn in footage work and info here' 

"Cya round James Turner." And just like that, after scaring this older male, you left, walking back to Nevermore. 

———————

This headache wanted to make Wednesday have a lobotomy or struck like Zeus to get Athena out. She could barely piece together the papers in front of her. Enid watched her struggle to work, pointing it out like always.

"What’s up with you? I feel like this is easy." 

"My head has been in pain since I had that vision, usually that doesn’t happen," Wednesday explained as she moved the sheets and note cards around the board. 

Enid knew that if the pain was really bothering her, this headache was something from hell. "Hm, do you want to take something? Or maybe take a break?" 

"I did; it got worse." Wednesday's face barely scrunched as she spoke. "I don’t need a break either." 

Thumps on the door broke the conversation; they both looked at each other, then Enid went to open it. 

You stood there with a toothy grin and said, "Hey Sinclair, where’s Wednesday?" 

"I don’t know if she would be up for a date, Y/n, she’s got a raging headache." Enid knew Wednesday stole from you, so she had to make somewhat of an excuse. 

You paused for a second. "I, uhm, no, I’m not here for that, she has something I ne-" 

Enid shut the door in your face and said, "They know!" Whisper yelling to the goth. All she did was nod and signal to let you in.

Enid slowly opened the door to let you in; once you did, Wednesday’s now migraine blared. She gripped the side table near her. 

"Evening Addams, I’m guessing you know why I’m here." You walked closer to her, maybe 5 inches away from her now. 

"Why," she paused to take a breath, "why do you have them?" 

You raised a brow and said, "I could ask the same." You whispered, getting closer to her ear. "You can get in trouble if you have them; I know how to take care of them." Also, you have a vision?" 

Wednesday wanted to make sure this wasn’t some fake whispering again, so she clutched the bottom of your shirt. For you, it seemed like desperation. She released you and went to take the papers.  

"Yes." Wednesday handed the papers back. Just like that, the pain was gone, and she could think straight now. 

"Doesn’t hurt anymore, does it?" This no-distance whispering with you was going to kill Wednesday; it made her feel sick again. 

She slowly nodded, and with that, you backed up and said your goodbyes, then left.

So many holes—how did you know about the papers? Where have you been all day? How did the vision connect with the headaches? How did you fix it? What trouble did you mean? Why do you have those papers? What were you going to do with it? Her loud thinking was blocked.

"So no more evidence?" Enid asked. 

"The bullet—I still have it."

"Well, it is like almost 12. Let’s look at it tomorrow. Also, who comes to someone’s door at 11? Also,  what did she tell you? I couldn’t hear, over the sound of you two practically making out with each other's whispering. Wait a minute, you didn’t even whisper; you just nodded. What was that about? Whatever, that's a question for tomorrow. I’m too tired, night Addams." Enid threw herself onto her bed and crashed to sleep. 

Wednesday, on the other hand, couldn’t do the same; she needed to get answers.

[lady-z-writes]

Hopper x reader

A hot day at Hawkins new splash zone proves to be a steamy afternoon.

(Part 4 of this post. Also found on ao3.)

Snippet:

Hop stops mid-sip, gaze raising to meet you ...bikini with a see-through cover, big smile.

He swallows hard.

Behind your sunglasses, your eyes linger over the white tshirt sticking to his skin in the heat. He notices. His breath catches.

"You better not be making a scene, sweetheart." He speaks quietly, glancing around at how much distance is between you and the nearest guest.

"Oh, I won't," you hum, removing the bathing suit cover, tossing it on the chair beside him.

His jaw goes slack, eyes gawking at every inch of you. He grinds his teeth.

"When you've had enough, I'm told the changing station locks."

The heat these last few days has been pure luck for the owners of the new splash zone Hawkins just gained.

The new owners gave exclusive tickets to important townspeople - and, he'd heard, a few lucky winners at some local bars. Drum up business, all that.

He'd gotten tickets and gave them straight to Joyce who planned on taking the kids.

Only, this morning she called and informed him the whole household was down with a stomach bug.

So guess where he ended up on this stifling Wednesday morning.

El was stoked, of course. How could he say no?

But no way in Hell was he taking his shirt off.

He barely fit into his swim trunks anymore so he'd had to buy new on the way there. When was the last time he swam ?

Sunglasses on, trying to sit himself into a beach lounger chair, Hop sighs.

"Complimentary champagne?" The owner was going around, handing out freebies which was pretty awesome, no complaints there.

He'd learned they got their liquor license and planned some adult events after hours.

Oh, he could come up with some ideas for a certain someone...

El's laugh snaps him out of his daydream. The redheaded kid managed to get tickets, probably because her mom was a barfly. He's glad. Now El won't be bugging him to join her in the water.

He grabs his champagne. He hated the stuff, to be honest, but free was free and the drops of condensation off the glass made his lips dry from thirst.

Guzzling it, he joked for the owner to leave the bottle.

"For you, Chief, I would."

Was she...flirting with him? He clears his throat, nods, feels sweat drip down the back of his shirt.

"Oh! There you are! Great seeing you, y/n. Thanks for coming."

Hop stops mid-sip, gaze raising to meet you ...bikini with a see-through cover, big smile.

He swallows hard.

"I couldn't pass up the free tickets, Anne. Congrats on the new business endeavor." You hug the woman, grab a champagne, sip it, with a nonchalant, "Hey, Chief."

Behind your sunglasses, your eyes linger over the white tshirt sticking to his skin in the heat. He notices. His breath catches.

"You know each other?" Anne asks.

"Oh. You know: trouble ," you joke, pointing to yourself. Hopper doesn't laugh. Not when he sees the cut of your bikini through the cover, the heave of your breasts when you sigh. He shifts uncomfortably in his seat.

"Chief, y/n and I went to school together; convinced me to take business classes. She's part of the reason today is even happening!" Anne explains.

Hopper swallows more champagne, realizes his glass is now empty.

"Well, aren't we the lucky ones?" he chides.

"Save a bottle for us? We're catching up," y/n tells Anne, points to Hop.

She gives a quick nod, meeting her friend's gaze, acknowledging that there's something here.

"Of course," she hands them another glass. "Meet you out there," Anne nods to the water.

Now alone, Hopper growls low in his throat.

"You better not be making a scene, sweetheart." He speaks quietly, glancing around at how much distance is between them and the nearest guest.

"Oh, I won't," you hum, removing the bathing suit cover, tossing it on the chair beside him.

His jaw goes slack, eyes gawking at every inch of you. He grinds his teeth.

And then he's watching you walk to the tiki bar, lean over on it, say something to Anne while you know his eyes are on you. She points to some small building with "changing station" scrolled on a wood sign.

Your ass looks good in that bikini, he thinks.

When the two of you walk toward the water, Hopper bites his tongue. Anne is in some kinda one piece, but his eyes are glued to you.

You, stepping below one of the sprayers, letting the cool water mist across your chest. You, tensing up when one of the buckets pours down from above; the force gapping your bikini top just a little; making him groan.

He imagines your nipples are hard from the cold water, imagines kissing that spot at the curve of your neck where your shoulder meets, the relief of having your wet body pressed against him in this heat; how he'd rut against you until his cock leaks.

Cock hardening in his swimtrunks, Hopper shifts again, sits forward, places his forearms on his thighs, body in a slouch to sheath him.

Fuck, he wants to touch himself. But obviously not here.

Trying to distract himself, he looks over to find El sitting in the shallow end with Max. Safe, he's glad.

He knows you're putting on this show for him.

"It's so refreshing," you call to him and he notices you walking closer now that your friend is chatting with someone else. You're near him now, standing close enough for him to see the water dripping down your skin. "Come join me."

"I can't, " he grumbles.

"What? Why not?"

Hopper looks at you with a dumbfounded expression.

"You know why."

"Oh!" You lick your lips, sit at the foot of his beach chair. "You hard for me, Jim Hopper?"

His eyes widen behind his sunglasses, "Keep it down. Jesus."

"You can't seem to keep it down, huh, honey?" You speak only a little quieter. "No one can hear us."

He's trying to ignore you, block out the look of your lips when you finish your glass of champagne, the soft hum you make, the chill bumps appearing on your skin when the wind blows.

"When you've had enough, I'm told the changing station locks."

With that, you leave him again.

When he lost control of this whole thing, he'll never know.

He's trying his damnedest to get ahold of himself, but any time his erection starts fading, he has a thought about the changing station or your previous nights together and he's right back at attention again.

It's getting uncomfortable. Between that and the heat, he finds his breathing labored.

When you come back for another glass of champagne, you've got the whole bottle and an ice bucket.

"More?" You ask as you approach.

Fuck.

You're too close, looking like that.

You pour another glass, the condensation dripping down your arms, onto his body, stinging him yet feeling so good.

Fuck.

You sit down in the chair beside him, lean back, close your eyes, and soak up some sun.

You've put an ice cube on your belly, moved it around to cool you down, but now it sits in a puddle on your skin, melting by the second.

Hopper focuses on it, sees you shift those perfect thighs as you readjust.

Fuck.

He bites his cheek, stares at the sky, unable to sit back like that or the neighborhood will be talking about big Jim's hard on at the splash zone opening event.

Talk about a splash zone...

"Y/n..." He hums it, low in his throat, a warning. You need to leave . Or he's going to do something stupid.

You lower your glasses at him, glance over, secretly trying to peek at his little problem .

"They're about to start the raffle. People will be distracted," you stand and he watches the ice cube and water slide down your body, down your thighs...

"Meet you in there?"

He glances up at you, eyes desperate, fingers twitching to just pull you down on his lap, grind himself against you, take you right in the open. With you looking down at him like that...in this chair...he's practically pussy-level.

Before he knows it, he's watching you walk away, seeing the little shrug you give him when you close the changing room door.

He gives it a minute, is tempted to wrap his towel around himself, for fucks sake. He's sweaty enough to have someone believe he was in the water.

Minutes tick by and he's able to settle down a little, focus on the movement of employees, the prepwork going into setting up the doorprizes for the raffle.

He's grateful you're friends with the owner. Maybe that's what you'd been chatting with her about. He doesn't even care if she knows about your little fling. All he cares about is fucking you in that changing station right now.

"Alright! If we can have everyone grab their tickets, we're going to get started with our prizes!!"

Free shit gets people moving real quick. He glances at El who's too engrossed in conversation to notice.

And he stands, crumples his towl in front of him in the least conspicuous way he can, and books it for the changing station.

It takes a second for his eyes to adjust, but he sees a wall of lockers, some showers, and you smirking at him.

"You cruel, cruel woman..." he strides toward you, removes his sunglasses, doesn't even care that the door didn't lock behind him.

You squeak when he picks you up, presses your back to the nearest wall as he kisses you roughly.

A moan leaves him at the feeling of your wet bathingsuit against his warm body.

"Hop, the door, baby..." you remind him, trying to reach it yourself.

His hand juts out, swipes the lock shut, returns to kissing you.

"Off. Now." He's pulling at your bikini top, trying desperately to get your tits in his mouth.

"I want you shirtless, Jim," you moan out as he's kissing your chest.

"Mhm. I know, baby. I know," he groans when the top falls to the ground. "First I need to feel you,."

His finger dips under your bikini bottoms, feels you dripping wet, swollen with arousal.

"Oh, fuck..." he can't help but cuss. "That little teasing do something for you too? God..."

You nod against him, "and your body. Fuck, Hop, you in that shirt. I could see the outline of your body," you moan when he inserts another finger into you. "You had to know what you were doing."

He hadn't, but he'll play that way, act like he'd been very aware.

"Cum on my fingers, sweetheart. Cum for me. And then I'll fill you up."

He knows you thrive on the dirty talk, sees you glancing down between your bodies to watch his forearm flexing as he pumps his fingers into you.

When he puts his mouth on your left tit, you arch against him, let out a soft whine. He feels your walls clenching around him, puts more intensity in his movements to help your orgasm along.

And then you're clawing at his shirt, kissing him roughly, sloppy, moaning into his mouth.

Hopper can feel precum leaking, inhales sharply as he sets you down on wobbly legs.

You paw at his shirt and he obliges, removing the sweaty thing and tossing it to the bench beside the lockers.

The room is stifling, fans lazily spinning overhead, but Jim is drenched in sweat.

You eagerly touch him, fondle his love handles, kiss his biceps, grind your lower half against him. Hopper loops his fingers under your bikini bottoms and pulls them down your legs, leaves you completely bare for him.

His swimtrunks are tented, and he feels his cock pulse at the look of you - wet and desperate before him.

"Go start the shower," he instructs.

As he watches you walk there and open the curtain, he steps out of his swimtrunks, pumps a fist over his hardened cock. The slightest touch to his tip has him hissing an inhale.

He follows you there, surprises you when he presses your back to the wall under the spigot, forearm above your head, kisses you wantingly. "Legs on my shoulders," he speaks, lowering himself to his knees.

You're hesitant, he can tell. "Dont worry. I've got you."

His hands cup your ass, holding you up as you lean against the wall, drape your legs over his hunched position, knees on his shoulders.

And then his mouth is on you and you're gasping once more.

Hopper eats you out like you're his hydration for the day. You're dizzy with arousal, you find solace in the metal fall bars on the shower wall.

Hopper can't help but pump his hand around his cock when you've steadied yourself more.

"Don't," you urge, moaning as he flicks his tongue across your clit. "Dont cum. Not yet, Hop. Please. I want you in my mouth."

The growl that leaves him vibrates against your pussy and you're coming on his tongue in moments.

He helps you to the ground, stands, gets pelted in the face by the shower water. As he makes sure you're steady, his mouth drops open at the sight of you on your knees for him.

He throws his head back when you deep throat him, says your name like a curse, doesn't hold back from pounding into your mouth.

"Oh, fuck, good girl. God damn...so close."

His orgasm hits him quickly and he's thankful for the release, finally, gasping out your name. You choke on the amount which he finds so sexy, but you swallow him down. When he's finished, the feel of you swirling your tongue over his corona sends chills through him.

He shudders, feels your mouth pop off him, watches you turn off the water, realizes he's still hard.

"Fuck, I need to feel you," he kisses you, this time more intimate, less needy and heated.

You lean into the kisses, stroke your hand down his facial hair, fondle his torso, press an open hand to his neck in a mock choke.

"Yes, sir."

You lead him away, sit him on top of his towel on the bench, grab two folded towels to place beside him, and straddle his thighs.

His cock finds your opening quickly as you sink down on him; the initial feeling making his eyes close.

He doesn't rut up into you, but instead allows you to move at your own pace.

His hands trail down your torso, landing on your hips and gripping them, helping you along.

Watching you ride his cock, he moans as you slam down on him, hitting you deep.

Your nails dig into his shoulders and he's sure you'll leave marks again just when the last ones faded.

He'd stay like this all day, if he could.

The urgency you feel when someone pulls at the locked door, you feel your cheeks heat up, pull your bare breasts closer toward Hopper's body.

He chuckles, listening to the footsteps retreating, thankful you know the owner.

Your hair is still dripping wet from the shower and he enjoys watching the beads of water trail between your breasts. It's mesmerizing.

You grip his shoulders harder, pull him in for a kiss, moan against his mouth. The sounds you're making alert him that you're coming. He hadn't even realized you were close.

"Mmm, there you go, sweetheart. Oh fuck, so wet for me."

You slouch against him, heavy breaths on his skin.

He loves feeling you this close, enjoys the way you let him manhandle you after you're done.

Hopper tilts your chin up as he lifts and drops you in his lap. The way you're looking at him, the feel of your slick pussy...he can't help but be close.

"Get off," he grunts.

"I did!" you gasp.

Swiftly, he lifts you off of him, sets you on the floor before him.

You're about to protest when you watch his hand cup around his erection, jerking himself off.

You always love watching the muscles move in his forearm when he's masturbating. You understand now what he wants.

You kneel again, get ready, trace your hands over his thick thighs, ghost your fingers over his balls.

Hopper moans.

"Wanna see your tits painted," he huffs out.

It's warm when his cum hits your breasts. Hopper moans loudly as the look of you before him, eager, dick drunk, streaks of his cum sliding down your perfect tits.

He leans forward, kisses you with such passion, such need and warmth, you never want it to stop.

Your knees ache from the tile, but he helps you stand, starts the shower water, helps rinse you off and clean you up.

His hand trailing all over your skin, you're heated once more yet so pleased.

Hopper takes good care of you, almost lulling you to sleep. Between the champagne, the orgasms, and the heat you want a nap.

"You've been so good to me today, baby girl." At his words, you nod. "You fucked out? Too cockdrunk to walk?" He's teasing but, damn, does he love seeing you like this.

"M'fine," you urge, kiss him again while he gets your bikini top clipped.

Your skin looks irritated from the biting and his facial hair, but he can't help kissing your skin again.

"You don't stop now, we'll never leave."

He hums. You're right.

It's decided you'll sneak out seperate.

"Do this again soon?" he asks, grabbing his towel.

"Please," you respond, kissing him once more.

Quickly, Hopper sneaks out of the changing station, sunglasses on, walks calmly to his chair again. He smirks at the look your friend is giving him, nods a 'thank you' her way.

He sits down, cusses at the burning sensation from the chair sitting in the sun.

And he realizes.

He left his shirt.

Fuck.

He hopes El doesn't notice the nail marks on his shoulder.

Moments later, his eyes meet yours before you slide your sunglasses on.

Your knees are still marked, bruised from the tile floor you knelt on. His shirt is pulled over your body, wet spots from where your bikini hits.

He thinks you're leaving, but you approach your friend, grab a glass of champagne, and approach him.

"Thanks for a nice time, sir. Glad Anne made good on your invite she promised me," you wink at him, taking a sip then handing him the champagne.

You little...-

He watches you walk right out of the park.

Until next time.

[hankwritten]

A Tavern Named Keep [6/6]

Demoman-centric Modern AU

[1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]

In a small uni-town in New Mexico, DeGroot Keep serves liquor and succor to an eclectic yet loyal group of patrons, and has for many years. The Keep owes its success to its equally colorful owner, who always seems to know what you need—whether that be a stiff beer or a word of advice. But, between setting up his patrons or sifting through his friends’ problems, will Tavish remember to take care of himself?

Two mugs spring with amber liquid, the tap gushing with the satisfying rise in pitch as each one fills. Practiced hands kill it at just the right time, the foam heads perfectly proportioned, settling briefly before Tavish tops them off. He drops a curly straw in one, and slides them forward.

Dell’s beer is parted from the bartender’s hand for approximately half a second before the engineer grasps it firmly and takes a mighty gulp.

“Trouble in paradise?” Tavish asks as Pyro double takes at the man beside them.

The mug slams back down, and Dell wipes his mouth on his sleeve. “You could say that, yeah.”

“Well come on then,” Tavish says, cocking a hip and leaning sumptuously on the bar. “Tell ‘ole Tavvy your woes.”

“So long as you never call yourself that again, sure. Why else come to a bar but to unload relationship troubles?”

“Truer words never spoken. C’mon spill it, Conagher. First month is always when the heretofore unknown character flaws come bubbling up, and Fortier had a wagonload to begin with.”

“Hell.” Dell rubs the bridge of his nose. “For one, I think Scout’s still mad at me.”

A froth of consoling noises comes from Pyro’s mask, as well as a rubbery pat on the back.

“Alright, maybe she isn’t, but it sure feels like it. And I know I should be giving her time to get used to the idea of me and her dad uh…” He clears his throat. “Seeing each other. But that don’t make it any easier.”

“She’ll come around, Dell,” Tavish assures. “But ‘for one’ makes me think that isn’t all?”

Dell rubs a hand over his freshly shaved head. “I…it’s hard to explain this one. More than it’s just a feeling, not anything he’s said or done but…Seems like he doesn’t want to go anywhere with me. Most of the time when I suggest some place the two of us could spend a nice night at, he goes on grumbling about Teufort being a backwater whatever. But sometimes I wonder if it’s more than that. That he doesn’t want to be seen with me.”

Tavish’s opinion of Fortier is low enough that he thinks ‘yeah that tracks’, but quietly, and to himself. Instead he says the proper thing as both barman and friend of, “ach no, don’t go thinking that. Prissy as the man is, he did make the decision to be with you, and he’ll honor that.” He better. Otherwise he’ll have fifteen stone of Scotsman putting a boot up his arse the next time he walks through the Keep’s door. “I think you’re jumping to an uncharitable interpretation of events.”

“Maybe. I got a cousin’s wedding coming up, and I was hoping to bring him along, but if he’s going to get cold feet…”

Pyro gesticulates something.

“Wadda you mean? Like a chance to get him used to the idea?” Dell asks, to which they nod. “Trying things out at a small gathering might just work…Hey DeGroot, I assume we’re having a going away party for Doe sometime soon, right?”

And just like that the world shifts, the axis of the Earth tilts another 2.5 degrees, the conversation of the same old help-your-friends-fix-their-hearts slips from Tavish’s grasp as he struggles to comprehend what has just been said to him.

“A…a going away party?” he repeats stupidly. “Going bloody where?”

The two spines in front of him straighten, and don’t do much to hide as their topmost vertebra twitch just enough to exchange bewildered looks with one another. Cautiously, Dell says, “his new job up in Minnesota? Didn’t he tell you?”

The underlying accusation of wouldn’t you be the first one he’d tell? as clear as day.

“Is this…?” Permanent? For certain? All the things Tavish wants to know but they’re all butting heads to get out the door first. He whips his head around, to shout across his tavern to the man in the far corner, ‘oi Doe, all of this true?’ but the words catch in his throat. Instead, he hastily says, “‘scuse me lads,” and puts every ounce of concentration into moving his legs across the floor.

His heart does not have the aptitude to panic. Years of the drink have persuaded his blood pressure to never get too worked up over itself, and this morning’s draught still sloshes heavily in the stream. So if his body doesn’t respond to the signals his brain is sending, the ones stumbling along to conclusions he’d never even seen the edges before, then he can thank it for getting him from one side of the Keep to the other.

“You’re moving?” he says before he’s even greeted, before the others at the table even realize he’s there. Its bluntness is unfamiliar in his mouth.

He doesn't get a chance to see Jane's reaction. In that instant, two newcomers (the bell still tinkling) appear at the table, and Mikhail is shouldering into the conversation with, “DeGroot. Mikhail needs advice”

“Pah,” another voice comes elbowing past him. “Such as ‘what ingredients shall I put on my sandwich today?’ I am here with a true emergency.” Helen, having just fought her way over who could squeeze through the front door first (and having lost rather spectacularly) puts both hands on the table. “The board is forming an inquiry into the exact nature of my relationship with Miss Pauling. This is a matter most urgent.”

Mikhail growls in a way that indicates he’d very much like to simply knock her aside again, “is own fault did not think of this when starting relationship. Live with decision. Mikhail has real issue.” He pales considerably. “Doktor talks about moving in together.”

“And?” Helen hisses. “Either you do or you don’t, DeGroot does not have time for such petty frivolities when the entire reputation of The Facility is on the line!”

“Listen, would you two mind coming back some other…” Tavish says, but is promptly ignored.

“Is not this thing you just said,” Mikhail counters. “Is dangerous. Too soon. Doktor wants to pick up with commitment right where he left off. Cannot make him see this. Need advice, is DeGroot's fault in first place.”

“I think fault is-” Tavish tries.

“I have equal claim to his time, as this whole- “““dating””” -business was certainly not my idea!”

“Ach, one at a-”

Although not prone to fits of panic, this does not make Tavish immune to being utterly overwhelmed. Mikhail and Helen are looking to shed blood right in the middle of his nice clean floor, their blame is loud in his ears, and Jane is just feet away. Inches. Agonizingly close and—to Tavish’s drawing dread—wearing a look of guilt on his face.

Jane stands. To Tavish's relief, this is apparently to disrupt the conversation. He says, “you two keep at that. DeGroot’s superior officer needs a word with him.” His hand finds Tavish’s upper arm, and the barman does not resist when he is gently marched away from the indignant pair. Before Helen can muster a demand to return, they’re already in the cramped room below the stairwell.

They’re barely alone for more than a second before Tavish blurts, “you got a new job?”

And what can Jane say but, “…yeah.”

“Oh.”

They stand there, too close to each other where a single pull string light casts the tiny landing into contrast. He’s still breathing heavy, and he wants to ask why didn’t you tell me? but it’s increasingly obvious that this is why Jane didn’t tell him. Because he’s freaking out, because normal people don’t find out their best friend is moving out of town in a perfectly natural and adult change in careers and immediately feel like they’re going to die. He struggles, once, twice, three times to school his expression. He smiles. Friendly, congenial bartender here at your service.

“Where to?” he asks conversationally.

Jane won’t look at him. He struggles to look anyone in the eye on normal circumstances, but the proximity makes it all the more palpable. “Up at Chippewa. There’s an animal sanctuary there that had an opening.”

“Ah, that sounds nice. I know how much you like working with the rehabilitation cases.” It hurts, it hurts so much but he forces out, “I’m really happy for you.”

“Really?”

It isn’t a really of surprised hope. It’s an accusation, disappointment, and Tavish knows for certain that Jane did keep this from him because he knew Tavish would make this horrid, embarrassing, thing out of it.

“I…”

Tavish tries to swallow around the lump in his throat. Don’t cry. Don’t cry you sappy, useless drunk. You’re making it bad enough as it is. Who cares if it feels like all your organs are shutting down one by one? Doc always joked how your liver would go any day now, the rest of them might as well toddle on after it.

“That’s all?” Jane asks doubtfully. “You’re happy for me?”

Jesus why does he keep pushing this? It compels some of the truth out through Tavish’s teeth. “Well…no. I’m not happy. But what am I supposed to do, try to talk you out of it? Throw a fit every time something doesn’t go my way?”

Jane snarls something. His profile is stony, and Tavish is afraid of it, knowing he’s seeing it for now a finite amount of times and afraid he’s doing it wrong. That he’s not appreciating his best friend right, not appreciating him enough. Tick tick tick the seconds go by, and Tavish is wasting it as his mask slips further.

“No,” Jane finally admits. “No, but sometimes I wish you weren’t so damn selfless.”

“The hell is that supposed to mean? Look lad if you’ve found a better job, and you’ve made your decision, I won’t try to guilt you out of it-”

“That’s what I mean!” Jane yells, and the silence that follows is so deafening that the outburst must have reached even the front of the house. “That! Perfect, noble, so goddamn observant about every little problem that wasn’t yours, yet you couldn’t figure me.”

“What?” Tavish asks. “What was I supposed to be seeing?”

“You‘ve diagnosed every lovesick private who’s ever walked into this tavern, but you still couldn’t see how much I was in love with you.”

Somehow, that silence is more powerful, more terrifying than anything that came before it. It reaches deep under Tavish’s skin, pinning him with tenterhooks until he can’t move, can’t think, can’t cycle the air that’s caught in his lungs.

“Twenty goddamn years.” This, it seems, is mostly to himself as Jane stares at the single mop leaned in the corner. He shakes his head. “Everyone else, clear as day. Me? Not a damn clue.”

“Jane I. I don’t think I…”

Jane holds up a hand. “You don’t need to say it maggot. I’ve thought through this conversation as many times as I’ve knocked myself unconscious with a shovel. I know you can’t love me like I love you.” Something wry—nowhere near a laugh but dry enough air squeezed through lungs as pained as Tavish’s—indicates something might have been amusing, once, a long time ago. “To be honest, I didn’t think I was capable of it either. Not when we met. But here we are, I’m the one who’s fucked, and it’s been too damn long Tavish I can’t live like this anymore. So I looked up that sanctuary in Minnesota and applied for the position.”

The admission hangs.

“But,” Tavish says, “even if I- if we- at least you could stay for the Keep, aye? We’re like a family here.”

Jane shakes his head. “They’re not my friends. They’re yours. I’m just the owner’s lunatic buddy they tolerate because they like him so goddamn much.”

“That’s not…” It’s not true. And if it’s true, then it’s because disrespecting Jane is as good as disrespecting Tavish, because Jane’s part of his life. Is his life. “Jane you’re…”

“…I didn’t know if I was going to tell you before I left,” Jane says. “It was probably the honest and American thing to do, to tell you, but there is cowardice in all of us. I’m sorry. For everything. I need to go pack.”

Tavish doesn’t stop him when he steps past and through the plain black door and into the kitchen. What can he say? Already committed as he is to not talking him out of it, still reeling from…from being blind. For not knowing. He finds himself in the kitchen, and it’s by accident when overhears the commotion from the tavern proper.

“-That you are all ungrateful MAGGOTS,” Jane is saying. Tavish has heard him rant before, heard him deride each and every person now clustered awkwardly around him on an individual basis, but he’s never heard something like this. “That man in there has done everything for you! He has listened to your woes, he’s wiped up your big sobby tears when no one else would, he’s guided you to love and support and what have you done for him in return? NOTHING! You take and you take and at the end of the day all you want is more of what he already gives you. You are nothing but a clat of writhing, steaming, WORMS, and when I am gone you WILL treat him better.”

Jane’s voice cuts off sharply. Tavish can only see him from the back, the slope of his shoulders, the way his uniform cuts a silhouette in the fading light from the stained glass.

“You better,” he says softly.

And then Jane is gone, seashells clattering, and Tavish still hasn’t said goodbye.

The assembled patrons are all in various stages of shamefacedness, some stepping from one foot to the other, some staring anywhere else but at the bartender who's just appeared at the kitchen door with an expression that tells that his whole world has just ended.

“Tavern’s closed for the day,” he informs them emotionlessly.

It’s a rash thing to do, but he doesn’t care. How could he care about anything anymore? The supposed family doesn’t wait around to be told twice.

That night, he drinks himself to unconsciousness in record time.

When he wakes, he thinks ruefully that this is the exact opposite of what Jane’s been telling him all this time, about how he needs to take better care of himself. And really needs to now that Jane will be gone. No one looking after him but himself anymore. That’s the only thought that stays his hand as he reaches for the spare whiskey in the bedside table, makes him draw it back and use it to wipe the dried drool from his mouth. Jane won’t be there on his favorite stool anymore, flashing Tavish a smile on busy nights. He won’t break into the kitchen out of misplaced paranoia, he won’t convince Tavish that a drive out of town won’t kill him as long as there’s a new rib place on the other end. There will be a hole in Tavish’s life where Jane once was, and that is all that awaits him in the foreseeable future. Fuck. Why couldn’t he have seen it? Not that Tavish knows what it’s like to fall in love with someone who doesn't-

Well let’s face it. Tavish doesn’t know what it’s like to fall for someone, period. But he can imagine how painful that would be, and if it’s already gone on too long, already become too much, there’s no way he can ask Jane to put up with more of it. Christ, how many times has he botched a relationship because he’s fallen short? Granted, it’s always been with lassies, and lassies he was already dating, but it’s still the same mistake in different packaging. What I need is not in your power to give is what Jane had told him once, and he had been right, though not in the way he’d thought.

Tavish gets up, but doesn’t find it in him to shower. He wraps himself in a blanket and stares at the opposite wall, eye unfocused as he processes the fact that while Jane had the misfortune of falling for him, in the end it’s Tavish’s fault that he’s losing the most important person in his life.

The self-pity wears more heavily on him than the alcohol ever could. It’s only his errant bladder that finally forces him to move, and when he returns he sees the unread message flaring on his phone screen. Pyro’s contact information is a single flame emoji.

i know you kicked us out of the tavern but it’s really important that we see you today. can we come over?

Tavish doesn’t know who we is, assumes it's them and Scout, and naively replies sure. We turns out to be every person he’s ever met.

It seems that way at least. It’s mostly the regulars, more than there were last night, and Tavish sniffs out an ‘intervention’ faster than it takes for you to say scrumpy. But they’ve already seen him take one step into the tavern, and he can’t back out now. What is he going to do? Run out of his own place of business and hide in his room?

They’ve arranged themselves around one chair in particular, doing a right poor job of making any of this look natural, though Dell smiles sympathetically at him as he sits down. Crue smells like smoke and Tavish can practically hear the argument of ‘you better put that out before we go in there’ that must have occurred right outside the tavern door. To Tavish’s left are Pyro and a squirming Scout, more chairs behind them to support others who weren’t even there to bear witness to the events last night (since, Tavish is beginning to suspect, that’s what this is all about.)

“I’ll warn you lads,” he says to a neutral spot in between Mikhail and Ludwig’s heads. “I’m no stranger to interventions, and I’m a tough nut to crack.”

(The joke doesn’t go over particularly well.)

Even to himself his voice sounds oddly flat. Ragged. He watches the exchange of worried looks, and a whisper into Helen’s ear.

“This isn’t meant to be a fight, partner,” Dell says. “It’s a gathering of concerned friends, who are going to help if they can.”

“Doe was right when he told us off,” Mikhail says. “DeGroot does good things for all of us, and we do not help him when he needs us. Now we help.”

“Ach don’t let him get to you,” Tavish bats away. “I’m fine. I do what I do for the love of it, you don’t need to worry about me.”

Pyro makes a distressed noise that belies otherwise.

“No offense lads, but you really don’t know the half of it.” Tavish truly isn’t in the mood to relay the argument to a new audience, no matter how sympathetic.

“We can guess.” This comes from Mikhail. “Doe moves. Heart breaks.”

Aw Jesus. He thought he could do this, sit and bear as his closest friends try to ‘help’ through all this, but having it said so plainly cracks the modicum of resolve Tavish has managed to collect. “It’s not…” he tries, but to his horror the pressure he’s been holding back since the news rears its ugly head. It’s bulbous and angry behind his eye, the reality that Jane’s not moving on a whim, that this has been coming down the track for ages, that it’s irreversible. He can’t make him come home. “Bloody hell.”

The whimper peters out into a true wail of distress, because Tavish is nothing if not some weepy idiot, just as Jane always said he was. The weight of everyone staring isn’t enough to keep him from sobbing, and he throws himself into the nearest waiting shoulder to blubber his woes. The shoulder turns out to belong to Helen.

She stiffens like a possum playing dead. Tavish can’t stop crying though, and he feels an utterly flat palm come up to pat him uncomfortably on the shoulder. “Ah. Hm. There there.”

“Oh for Christ’s sake. Here.”

The mellower voice of Dell commands Helen aside, and he peels Tavish off her and into his own waiting arms. Tavish transfers to the hug gratefully. He hears chairs scoot closer as he makes a mess of Dell’s shirt, the uncomfortableness audible. Well they can all suck it. If they didn’t want to see a grown man cry they shouldn’t have staged a bloody intervention.

“Hey pally, oh whoa okay yeah I know it sucks,” Scout says from somewhere behind him. “But it ain’t too late. You can still tell him.”

“Tell him?” Tavish lifts his head miserably. He assumed that sentence was going to end with ‘convince him’.

Crue groans, “yes you-” He’s elbowed sharply by Scout. “…You poor soul,” he finishes with a healthy veneer of sarcasm.

“We have talked a bit amongst ourselves,” Ludwig picks up this truly baffling train of thought. “Yes Ranger Doe has found superior employment, but he does not seem terribly excited about it. I find it unlikely that he knows your true feelings for him, and if you were to confess, he might see fit to stay. Then things can stay right as they are, all without DeGroot Keep falling into disarray!”

“Okay, ignore that last part Doc said that made us all sound like selfish assholes who only care about the bar,” Scout glares at Ludwig. “But yeah, intervention stuff. It’s obviously killing you, keeping it all balled up inside, so go shoot your shot while you still got it.”

“Hold on now,” Tavish says, righting himself and looking at his friends incredulously. “You all came here, put aside your differences and all that, because you think I’m in love with Jane?”

A collage of faces—some bespectacled some not, some incredulous others exasperated—all glance around the tables shoved together at the center of the room.

“Well…yeah?” Scout says.

Tavish is struck silent, looking between his friends. And suddenly he feels very, very foolish. “I don’t…”

“You don’t need to give us an explanation, mate.” The new voice is shocking, mainly because Tavish didn’t even realize Mick was here, pressed as he is against the corner. Even more so for the fact that he doesn’t even like Jane. “We’re just offering advice. And support. We hope you’ll at least try to sort things out.”

Every single person he knows thinks he’s in love with Jane. He wants to ask why? What makes you think that? but part of him realizes that he already has the answer.

He stands, his chair scooting a tuneless note on the hardwood floor. “I need to go. Now. I- thank you.”

There is a chorus of no worries, and good lucks, various hands patting him on the back as he struggles through chair legs to get to the door. He’d spent years wasting time, he wouldn’t squander any more.

His car starts on the second try, a beaten old thing because even if he isn’t as careless about taking his poison behind the wheel anymore, he’s still afraid he’ll forget one of these days and doesn’t want to wreck something shiny and new. It gets him where he needs to go, and where he needs to go with every fibre of his being is the preserve on the edges of town. His car growls, and screeches up to the mountain as Tavish takes every turn at 15 over.

He does not park in the visitor area. He doesn’t even stop at the end of the drive, even though the signage clearly indicates the two tracks of beaten dirt with the line of grass between are for park vehicles only. Only when he’s in the semicircle of trailers does the car finally come to a halt, dragging lines in the gravel and expelling him, panting, from the driver’s seat.

Jane is not packing. He has no box in hand, no bit of furniture over his shoulder. When Tavish’s car had come barreling in he’d been stood in the clearing west of the homes, up a wide grassy path, just watching the sun set.

Tavish runs. The urgency has meaning, even if it’s to him and him alone.

He stumbles to Jane, straightening the words, knowing he will make this count, and says, “you want me to start asking for things? Fine. I’m asking you to stay.”

Jane looks at him. The orange light behind him casts him heavenly, his expression of surprise the gold against his cheeks, the red along his shoulders. The same grass that clawed around his home whips at his ankles, the breeze shaking it and random leaves about. The expression doesn't change, still stoic and without hope as he looks at the wheezing bartender who's followed him on this pointless attempt.

The lack of reply does not deter Tavish. “Please Jane I…I can’t say I know what you’re going through, what I’ve made you go through all these years," he says. “I don’t know if I love you. But I do know that I can’t imagine my life without you in it. I’ve never asked myself what I need, and what I need is…is you Jane.”

He takes a few steps closer. The run up the western hill really has taken the wind out of him, or maybe its heart that refuses to stop its galloping pace. Either way, when he stands in front of Jane, he can’t seem to catch his breath.

Jane’s shoulders, still brushed with that blushing light, lift. “I don’t know what you’re asking me.”

“I’m asking…I’m asking to be yours.”

Tavish reaches out, forgetting boundaries, forgetting everything, and touches Jane’s cheek.

Jane’s so warm underneath the pads of his fingers, and it doesn’t feel wrong the way he thought it might. The way it’s been other times, when he’s forced himself to at least try to exercise the most perfunctory of romantic duties. There is no repulsion of unwanted closeness. It’s wholly right.

Until Jane brushes his fingers away. "I know you don't really want that. Goddammit Tavish, I know the way I love you isn't the way you...want me around. I can't stay. I can't keep fighting this one-sided war all by myself."

"It doesn't have to be one-sided," Tavish says. "Maybe we can't be like every other lovey dovey happy couple we’ve put together, but maybe we don't have to be.”

"I..." Jane glances back at the sunset, then to his trailer, the boxes lying abandoned outside.

"Isn't it worth trying? If neither of us really want you going, isn't it worth it to try something a bit unorthodox?"

"You're really mean this." Jane asks it flatly, more seriously than he's ever looked at Tavish before, which is saying something. "Being with...me."

“If I’m going to be selfish for just once in my bloody life,” Tavish says, “I sure as hell want it to be for keeping you.”

“Then...Okay,” Jane says.

“Okay?” Tavish says. He’d hoped—but also hadn’t dared to hope. Had only been concentrating on making sure his words came out in the right order, that he hadn't even considered what might happen if they actually worked. “Even though…”

Jane draws back just enough to put a hand over Tavish’s mouth. “Okay,” he repeats.

“Oh,” Tavish whispers through the fingers when they finally part.

They return to the Keep, and they are heroes coming home to the castle they’ve built.

Those he’d left behind are not waiting like solemn sentries, to Tavish’s immense relief, but they are milling about his tavern with a grimness that immediately disperses on seeing Tavish and Jane enter in together. There is an unspoken and collective sigh of relief, and then they resume whatever it was they were doing before but now with actual enthusiasm.

(What they were doing before was mostly being served Swedish Gloggs by a giddy and unleashed Pyro.)

“Why in Abraham Lincoln’s name is everyone staring at us?” Jane grumbles. It is, oddly, the most comforting return to normalcy Tavish experienced.

“I’ll tell you later,” he says. “Right now, I just want to grab a pint and find somewhere quiet to sit down for a bit. Professor Zakharov, Doctor Humboldt,” he nods respectfully to the pair of doctors as they pass, who in turn raise their mugs in salute.

“Fine by me,” Jane grunts. “Better than thinking about all the stuff I have to unpack.”

“Ah, that’s always the worst end of the packing process, isn’t it?”

“And don’t think I’ve forgotten whose fault it is that I now have to extract all my worldly possessions from a bunch of two-foot cardboard cubes after moving exactly zero miles!”

“You have my sincerest apologies.”

It feels good to say it so easily. The slight undercurrent of tension that’s run between them for years is completely absent, a tension Tavish knows he must have noticed but had ignored all the same. The way he can simply reach up and squeeze Jane’s shoulder like he did ten years ago is staggering.

There is an argument, toothless, jocular, from the table belonging to Mick, Scout, and Crue.

“Just saying you could totally spring for it,” Scout rambles on, thoroughly heedless to the pulsing vein in Crue’s forehead. “Considering you got loads on the side ‘n all…”

“What you are suggesting would cost the entire payout from one of my contracts,” Crue scorns.

“…What exactly do you do for work again?” Mick eyes him from across the table.

With the clearly enunciated syllables of a man daring you to challenge him on it, Crue says, “I am a dentist.”

Tavish chuckles, and leaves them to it. Approaching the bar nearly causes Pyro to vibrate out of their suit, head whipping back and forth with a series of mumbles that is unmistakably pleased. Before Tavish can get a word in, they disappear underneath, humming and clattering about in the various bottles.

“They were hoping you’d come back together,” Dell explains. “I mean, so was I, but they’ve been practicing mixing something special, just for the two of ya’ll.”

When they arise, they have a bottle of cognac in hand, which they promptly upend into a pair of glasses.

“…You’ve been sneaking peeks at my recipe book haven’t you, you little devil?” Tavish asks as the mix appears before him. The only reply he gets is a filter-strained giggle.

The last bit of bitters applied, Pyro ushers the drinks into each of their hands and shoos them off.

“This one of yours, then?” Jane asks, eyeing the drink as he follows Tavish deeper into the stronghold.

“Is not on fire is it? Just one of my little experiments. Though I’ll be honest, it’ll be odd to try the finished product when I didn’t mix it myself.”

The lower level beckons. Helen and Pauling are momentary obstacles, partially blocking the half-flight’s entrance. When she sees them, Pauling flashes the biggest double thumbs up ever seen between the 106th and 107th longitudes.

When they’re close, she prompts, “behind you ma’am,” to her partner, tugging on Helen’s arm to get her out of the way.

“What?” Helen interrupts herself, midway through a sentence about the inefficacy of assassins these days. “No, this is the only spot in this whole dreary bar that has lighting not reminiscent of a dungeon. We are perfectly-”

“Helen,” Miss Pauling says. And Tavish never thought he’d see the day. Miss Helen, terror of Teufort, is obediently led away by her 5’ 1” girlfriend.

The lower bar is free for their leisure. Tavish sits in one of the couches, and immediately there is warmth around him, an arm snaking forward and clutching the front of his shirt.

When he turns his head, Jane stutters, “I uh. Sorry. I’ve just always wanted to…”

“No apologies necessary.” Tavish lifts his free arm and drops it around Jane’s shoulders.

It still doesn’t feel wrong. He hasn’t hit that invisible barrier that always seems to come up when he gets like this, and that both thrills and terrifies him. The idea that it could be waiting for him in the distance, but also that it might not be waiting for him at all.

“Merasmus is going to be pissed at you,” Jane notes absently.

“That so?”

“Mm. He was really looking forward to getting rid of me.”

“Ah. Well if he tries to seek his supernatural revenge, he’ll have another thing coming. I can beat a wizard any day of the week.”

“If you think you’re going to be dueling any wizards without me, then you are a hippie and a fool, DeGroot!”

A smile springs over Tavish’s face. He raises his drink for Jane to toast. “I’d never deny you that honor. He comes rolling down on clouds and thunder to have the bar brawl of the century, you’ll be the one I call to have my back.”

“Damn straight.”

Jane clinks their glasses together, and they swill in unison.

[khianat]

MISC HEADCANON ; ROA EDITION

Roa has no memories of the face or the name of the angel that transferred its life to her, she only knows it happened and they had known since she had been a child. It did insist on being of a lower rank, likely explaining why the transfer went all wrong, not giving her only its life but part of its soul and abilities.

When she stopped being human, the memory of everyone who knew her was wiped. In history, she never existed.

Most Humans tend to avoid her out of an instinct that tells them she's a being that shouldn't be there. By supernatural, she tends to be mistaken for a half-blood.

Roa suffers from phantom pain on her back from time to time, the angel's memory of missing wings she never had.

She has no interest or intentions to learn how to proeprly make use of any of the abilities other than the ones kicking in automatically like faster healing or a boost of her physical strength.

Roa's favorite hobby is everything connected to sports, she has tried out about everything there is and found her favorites in archery, material arts, and soccer.

She doesn't like to be touched because it seems humans are uncomfortable by the feeling received and she adapted to not really liking it with anyone, always dodging Siu's attempt of hugging. The exceptions are one-night stands she gives in to here and then or when she's out, partying and dancing.

In contrast to her interest in sports, she still enjoys everything many young women also do: shopping & styling but it's a low priority while on bounty hunts.

Roa is loud, if she's around, unless she desires to hide, her presence is clear. It's why the others tend to compare her with a thunderstorm, one hard to ignore.

She never shows pity and generally believes "better safe than sorry" when they disagree about killing a target. However, she never goes against the will of the team, once a vote is made. Roa is the one going on low-rank hunts on her own often.

Roa is aware of the angel's personality that sometimes comes out, the reason why she made a blood pact with Inha, binding them together and making it impossible for the angel to try and kill them. She allows Inha to draw from her unknown ability, sometimes leaving her exhausted.

In contrast to all of that, Roa seeks company at bars most often, she likes to meet people she never has to call back.

She fits into the cliche of ignoring all of her problems and going through life by force, no matter how challenging or the consequences.

Roa enjoys fast driving, she has several licenses and participated in more than one race over the years.

[deusexlachina]

Wannabe Warden Part 13: Everyone does exactly what they always do, shocking everyone else

In which everything starts going south for entirely predictable reasons, leading Fenris to start quoting song lyrics.

For the second time in three years, Viscount calls me to rescue his son Saemus from his own decision to live with Qunari. I make a token effort just to keep the guy happy, and pop over to the Qunari compound only to be intercepted by assassins. One of them has snow-white hair despite looking pretty young. Pretty wild.

When I reach the compound, the Arishok says that people convert of their own free choice and the Qunari have a better culture than Kirkwall, which is a low bar but it's pretty hard to argue with him on that one.

But he doesn't happen to have Saemus with him, and in fact got a letter ostensibly from me luring Saemus to the Chantry, which astute readers might notice is both a proselytizing religion that openly competes with the Qun and the home base of Sister Petrice, the Priestess of Meanness, who has tried to incite war with the Qunari twice already by murdering people. To the surprise of apparently Saemus and not a single other living soul, she tries to incite war with the Qunari a third time by murdering Saemus. She then blames it on me, still thinking my name is Serah.

After I wipe out her small army within about two minutes, she comes crying to Grand Cleric Elthina to stop me. Elthina does not buy her story because Petrice predicted the massacre a little too well, and also is Sister Petrice, Priestess of Meanness, who has the personality of a Captain Planet villain. She then suggests that she'll be dealt with by the law, displaying a level of confidence in the integrity of Kirkwall's justice system that would have been promptly dispelled by interacting with it even once. Elthina is wise enough not to trust Sister Petrice but not wise enough to do literally anything about her, so the Qunari step in and shoot Petrice in the least sad death scene that has ever occurred in Kirkwall.

Although Saemus is avenged, the Viscount is heartbroken, lacking faith that he's the right person to lead Kirkwall. He certainly isn't, because he decides that right after the Qunari shot someone is a good time to demand the extradition of three elves who converted to the Qun. And he sends Other Aveline to do it.

I have the Arishok's respect. Merrill is a fellow elf and (the alienage being a small place) a neighbour of the killers, so she would have the knowledge and sensitivity to engage with the situation productively. Fenris has the Arishok's respect and is an elf. Other Aveline only has three advantages:

She has no social skills or tact, both attempting to seduce her direct subordinate and failing to even make clear that this is what she is trying to do

She is exactly the kind of corrupt, hypocritical status quo bureaucrat that the Arishok despises

She leads the Kirkwall guard, meaning if she does screw up, it reflects badly on the entire city rather than just one of my band of merry misfits.

Upon seconds of reflection, those are actually disadvantages. Unfortunately, the Viscount is too overwhelmed with grief to reflect for seconds. The moral of the story is not to make major decisions when you're grieving.

Fortunately, Isabela gives me an excellent excuse to drag my heels - she has a chance to get a relic that will get Castillon off her back. I go with her, whereupon we are intercepted by Qunari who recognize Isabela and demand the relic, which is literally in the building they're right next to, which they must already know because they're there in force. But this is the fighting branch of the Qunari, not the logician branch, and they attack. Isabela explains that the relic is a Tome written by Cousland, mixing up the Qunari's most revered philosopher with Warden Morwen's family. I would never make that mistake, because I know lots of Warden trivia.

(Speaking of which, it is about at this point that I notice that, because Isabela decided she was my girlfriend, she's lost her cool chainmail F).

Fenris asks if she means the Tome of Koslun, which would be the Qunari's most sacred text, so valuable to them that they would stay in a place for three years to find it...oh. This is Isabela's fault. I tell her she needs to return the Tome of Koslun immediately before Other Aveline tries her hand at negotiation. She says she will, but then steals it away from the Tevinter agents who want it because they're at war with the Qunari and stealing their book would be, like, a huge flex.

This selfish act not only dashes our hopes of resolving this peacefully but leaves me with a party of three. Fortunately, this is not a difficult fight. The Qunari and Tevinter forces attack each other, an interesting gimmick that is completely irrelevant because even with three party members this fight ends more quickly and easily than most random gangs attacks. But this betrayal still stings, enough to make Fenris start quoting Inspector Javert from Les Miserables.

It's Fenris. He's the Miserables.

[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

Stale(mate)

Summary: A pact written in blood.

(Vampire!au Dickinette. Vampire!Mari says ACAB. As a cop, Dick thinks this is very concerning.)

It started, as all cases of serial killers do, with a single body.

It was a particularly alarming scene, one that haunted the few officers that had borne witness to it for the next several days. Not because of the murder itself, though that was frightening on its own. When the man’s head had been lifted to check for a pulse, they were given a perfect view of why his neck could no longer support it – for there wasn’t much neck left at all. Deep claw marks poked their way through his shirt, curling themselves in his skin, leaving gaping wounds in their wake. Gunpowder residue suggested that the man had shot at his attacker, but there was no bullet at the scene, and no blood. Not even his own. Despite the cruelty involved in the murder, it was clear that there was a method behind the madness, because he had been bled of every last drop, and said blood had been stolen away.

This wasn’t why the police had been so shaken, though.

It was because the man was one of their own.

It was because, in the officer’s hand, stiff with rigor mortis, was a slip of paper, with one simple sentence in curling, elegant script:

The police department has been dirty lately, but don’t worry, I will clean it up for you all.

Needless to say, the case quickly became a high priority.

Everyone on the force was called to inspect the scene. Invited to take pictures of evidence. Begged for theories.

Dick Grayson knelt in front of the body. His lips were pressed into a thin line, but not quite out of disgust or concern like his peers’.

No, his eyes found their way to the hand that had been clutching the note. It had been taken away for the sake of evidence, but the words were seared into his mind regardless.

The man in front of him had been a dirty cop. Dick had known that even before this had happened, but he had never been able to get any hard evidence. Nothing that couldn’t have been explained away, at least.

Now, it wasn’t necessary.

The words on the slip of paper echoed the ones he had told himself when he had joined the Bludhaven PD. The promise he had made to himself. That he would find evidence on all of the dirty cops, that he would clean up the force.

It seemed like someone was going to do all of the hard work for him.

He put the thought out of his mind. He might agree with the reasoning, at least on some level, but he figured that agreeing with a potential serial killer wasn’t exactly the way to go.

He shook his head. He would focus on this case, get this murderer off the streets, and then go back to his true goal.

⋆♱✮☽🦇☽✮♰⋆

How do you catch someone who leaves no clues behind?

The night it happened, Dick had been staying late, pondering this very question. More cops had been found dead, all drained of blood, all looking as if they had had a run-in with a wild animal, all with their throats torn out. He had stared at the many pictures of all of the different crime scenes that lay strewn across his desk, drumming his fingers on the arm of his chair, trying to find any semblance of a clue. But there wasn’t any.

His attention had been stolen away.

Maybe this should have been the first sign.

It shouldn’t have been all that interesting, shouldn’t have held his gaze longer than a few seconds. A cop was bringing in a woman. Based on the gem-covered, short dress with a low v-cut, and the fact that she was clearly on at least one substance, Dick figured she had probably come from a bar. Nothing new. Not worth the ruckus that had started up the moment she had come in, and certainly not worth a second glance from him in particular.

“Drunk and disorderly,” the cop holding her hands behind her back announced to the too-curious room.

Her eyes were sharp when they swept over the room. This should have been the second sign.

The third sign came quickly, the moment she spoke. For there wasn’t nearly as much of a slur to her words as the strap of her dress hanging from her shoulder and the dazed look on her face might have suggested:

“C’mooooon,” she complained, leaning back against the officer, digging her heels in to make it harder for him to take her to one of the holding cells, her head turning to nuzzle into his neck. “Can’t we just keep this between you ‘n me? I’ll make it worth your while…”

The officer’s face flushed red. Her mouth came to press against his pulse point.

Her lips curled into a kind of grin. But not the kind of grin you might expect from someone who was about to get out of jail. Dick had seen that look before. That was full of relief, or sometimes smug, but this was different. No, there was something malevolent there.

She whispered something, and this was the final warning.

Because the officer’s eyes widened in abject terror.

Dick started to rise, his hand finding its way to the gun at his hip.

He never got the chance to even try.

She dug her teeth into his neck and pulled, yanking his artery right out into the open. Blood spurted, splashing everyone in the nearby vicinity in red.

Including her, but she didn’t seem all that concerned. She held the rapidly dying man close to her, her head still tipped back against his shoulder, her tongue poking out of her mouth as if she was concentrating hard on something.

Finally, he was allowed to fall to the ground, and she showed off freed hands. The handcuffs still hung from one of her wrists, but she was no longer limited to only her teeth.

A bullet slammed into her stomach, and she stumbled just slightly with the force of it, but didn’t seem all that affected. She reached down to pick the bullet out of her dress, and then presented it for all to see. There wasn’t a single speck of blood on it.

“Someone’s gonna be paying me back for this dress. I liked it.”

This wasn’t their main concern, though, because the woman launched herself at the cop who had dared to shoot her.

She didn’t even bother with her teeth this time. Instead, she slashed her throat with long claws, and the woman gave a silent scream as she went down, frantically trying to hold the blood in.

She didn’t pay her any mind, instead turning to her next victim.

Dick just… stared as she made quick work of the precinct.

He couldn’t quite bring himself to jump directly into a losing battle. He knew better than that. The only effect the constant gunfire seemed to have on her was annoyance. If she wasn’t concerned about a bullet, then there was little he could do to stop her. She was fast, invulnerable, and (if the desk she threw at the people running for the doors meant anything) stronger than a normal person could reasonably fight off. Fighting her was stupid, and so he didn’t.

And, beyond that… well, he had already admitted, even if just to himself, that he agreed with her goal, even if her methods were hard to agree with. He couldn’t quite bring himself to try and stop her when she was doing what he had been struggling with for months now.

She was efficient, if ruthlessly so.

Before long, he was the only person left alive.

She slowed to a stop. Her hair was a mess, her bun on its last legs, strands falling in her face messily. Somehow, this didn’t make her look like a mess at all. Somehow, even the blood spilling down her chin just added to the strange, unearthly beauty that he couldn’t seem to look away from.

Her lips pulled into an amused smile.

His eyes caught on her teeth, dripping red. On the long canines that might have poked out of her mouth even when her lips were closed, on the other sharp teeth that could tear him to shreds in a second. She ran a tongue over her teeth, her eyes gleaming with something that was distinctly inhuman. Something more.

“You didn’t shoot,” she said.

He swallowed thickly, and then mentally cursed himself when the motion drew her eyes to his neck. “I –... it wasn’t helping anyone else,” he said.

She hummed, pursing her lips in a way that was definitely mocking him. “Did you know your heart rate increases when you lie?”

“Well, my heartrate being fast isn’t all that surprising. I am a little scared of you.”

She laughed, and her teeth glinted in the light. “That, at least, is true.”

She walked towards him, her steps slow and languid, as if she had all the time in the world.

She did.

She came to stand in front of him, and he almost laughed aloud at the height difference between them. You would expect a serial killer to be tall, strong, imposing. She was strong, but if he hadn’t known any better he would have walked right past her on the street without being any the wiser. If not for the blood staining her front, he might have thought her pretty. Maybe he still did, but not in the way he usually found people pretty, but instead like a waterfall. A force of nature, a gorgeous thing you can’t quite tear your eyes away from, something that will pitch you off the side of a cliff, down hundreds of feet towards your doom.

Her gaze flicked downwards, to the gun pointed at her heart. It was useless, they both knew, but he couldn’t bring himself to let go of it. Maybe it was because he was human, but he couldn’t give in, couldn’t lay down and die. Not entirely. He wanted to fight. He wanted to keep her from truly trying to fight him.

Too pale blue eyes (bloodless, he realized dully) zeroed in on the nameplate on his chest. Her gaze, briefly, flicked to the side, as if considering, but either she didn’t care enough to dwell on it or her thoughts raced faster than he could ever hope to comprehend, because she found her way back to his eyes within a second.

She leaned into his space. A hand came up to cup his chin, and he only just stopped himself from flinching.

If she wanted to kill him, he wouldn’t be able to stop her. If he couldn't hold onto his life then, at least, he would hold onto his pride.

A finger came to rest against his pulse point, and even he could feel just how fast his blood was pumping beneath it.

He didn’t have much pride left, but he could at least have this. The knowledge that he hadn’t screamed and cried and tried to run away like everyone else.

“Officer Grayson?” She said, and a faint accent hung onto her words as she sounded out the name, but he couldn’t quite care about figuring out where it was from when a fanged mouth was nearing him. “I’ve heard a lot of good things about you, so I’ll let you off for good behavior.”

“You’re pretty close for someone that’s going to be letting me go.”

She hummed, an impossibly low sound that almost reminded him of a purr, and then tilted his head to the side with her hand. “Well, something tells me that your shock might wear off soon, and I want to be able to clean up in peace.”

This was all the warning he got before her teeth sunk into his neck.

Have you ever been put under anesthesia?

A sudden rush, a buzzing in your head drowning out all thoughts you could have in just a second. No matter how hard you thrash, no matter the amount of panic making your heart race, your eyes droop against your will. Within seconds, you’re gone.

That was what it was like.

Not that Dick passed out, per say. No, he was very much awake. He just… couldn’t bring himself to do much of anything. Not even stand on his own two feet. If it were not for the arm wrapped around his waist, the hand cradling his chin, he would have collapsed instantly. The gun slipped from his fingers and somewhere, distantly, he recognized that it had gone off, but he didn’t really care.

Lips detached themselves from his skin, and she carefully lowered him to the ground.

She smiled, swiping away the stream of blood sliding down the side of her face with her thumb.

“Sweet,” she mused.

“Mm,” Dick said, though even he wasn’t sure what he had been trying to say. He felt… floaty. He had never been one for drugs and had never liked the taste of alcohol enough to get anywhere near blackout drunk, but he suddenly understood why people were so into them. There was something relaxing about not being able to hold a thought longer than a few seconds, freeing about the idea of all of his worries falling away into nothing. He was almost scared of how he would feel after the weird floatiness was gone, but he couldn’t even bring himself to care about that.

All he could think about was the pleasant little smile on the woman’s face, sharp teeth dripping with blood and something that had a deep purple tint.

He lifted a heavy hand towards her.

She snickered and batted the hand away with ease. “Mm indeed, Officer Grayson. How about you get some shut-eye, hm?”

That sounded like a good idea.

He thought about thanking her for it, but he drifted before he could.

⋆♱✮☽🦇☽✮♰⋆

Dick, obviously, had a lot of things to explain when he awoke, his head pounding and in desperate need of something to eat.

Luckily or unluckily, the footage of the incident had been wiped. As had the blood. He wasn’t sure how she did it, because the murders had been bloody and she’d made no attempts at all to try and mitigate that… but his concern was more with how he would have looked on camera. He hadn’t made any attempts to stop her, and had allowed her to put him to sleep without any hints of a struggle. It would not have looked good.

But it also didn’t look good to be the new-ish recruit who was inexplicably the only one left alive during a mass murder.

Thankfully, his blood tests exonerated him. His inability to react was attributed to high traces of a sedative that had gotten into his system. The two pinpricks in his neck were said to be the injection sight and, thanks to the awkward positioning that would require him to contort quite a bit to take it himself, they just assumed he was dosed by a rowdy criminal he had arrested earlier that day, and that it had kicked in at a bad time.

Within a few hours, he was let go to go and sleep off the last of the ‘drug’, given a few days' grace before he would need to give a witness statement…

But he didn’t sleep.

He couldn’t stop thinking about her.

Because it was his job. She was a case that he needed to solve, and it had suddenly become far more difficult. It would take careful planning to take her down. There was a very high chance that he would die trying.

And…

Because of the way she had made him feel. Even hours later, he couldn’t seem to stop craving the feeling of her teeth sinking into him. It hadn’t even hurt. The second she had broken the skin, he had been enveloped in a warm feeling that he couldn’t help but want to go back to. It was as if all of his problems had melted away in that second, and who wants to have problems? Wasn’t it only natural to get a taste of that kind of freedom and then crave it from then on?

As long as he didn’t let it affect his search for her, then it didn’t really matter.

He gripped his phone tighter, the veins in his arms bulging.

It might even help.

⋆♱✮☽🦇☽✮♰⋆

It had been three weeks, but there she was.

If he hadn’t seen it in person, he wouldn’t believe it.

A real-life vampire.

Standing in the sun. He supposed it wasn’t all that surprising to see that she didn’t die like in the stories. The idea of something as powerful as her crumbling away into ash over something so trivial seemed impossible.

If she had noticed him, she didn’t show it. Humming a playful little tune, her head bobbing to music playing in her earbuds, her sundress flowing in the wind, her mess of keychains clinking together as she locked up her apartment… she looked human, in that moment. Like any other person who was just going about their day. She had a job as a tailor. A couple of friends that she would meet up with later. A pet cat that was already meowing and scratching at the door, begging for her to go back in for ‘just a couple more’ pets. She was so… normal.

Maybe the reason they were seen as creatures of the night was less about that being their domain, and more about how difficult it was to see her as anything but human during the daytime. It was hard to conflate the image of her dripping in blood with the girl who looked so alive.

Dick’s breath caught in his throat.

She paused just slightly. She didn’t move, didn’t even stop humming, and yet the air around her changed. Her smile stretched wider, showing off the fangs that had been plaguing his mind for weeks.

But the sun softened even that edge. Glittery lipgloss glimmered on her lips. Sunspots decorated the bridge of her nose. Even the lifeless blue eyes he had noticed on that first night seemed bright when reflecting the sunlight.

She clapped her hands together by her face as if she was just so delighted to see him. “Officer Grayson, sweetheart, how have you been?” she greeted him, as if they were old friends, as if he hadn’t shown up at her house uninvited and she hadn’t killed a majority of his coworkers.

“Awful,” he hissed.

Which was true. His skin had taken on a pallor, sweat beaded his brow more often than not, and his hair hung limp around his face. Whenever the few coworkers he had left asked, he would say he was sick, but that wasn’t quite right. He just felt… antsy. Like something was crawling beneath his skin, trying to claw its way out. He needed to keep moving. If he didn’t, his mind would stray back to the floaty feeling that the vampire had given him, and how that might help calm him down.

“Yeah, you look it,” she teased, taking a few short strides in his direction. “That venom did a number on you. Maybe I used too much…?”

She reached a hand out, ready to grab him by the chin, looking so damn concerned that he almost believed it, but he caught her wrist before she could.

The handcuffs hanging from one of his belt loops were burning hot in the few places where they touched his leg. Which was to be expected on a day as hot as this, where he had to unbutton his shirt and roll up his sleeves for fear of heat stroke, metal does get hot… but it was more than that.

The handcuffs that his department used were plated with silver, or at least a pure enough alloy of it for the cuffs to give vampires pause. Back during her siege on the precinct, she had forgone the use of her superhuman strength when getting out of the cuffs, having to get out the old-fashioned way by stealing the key. If there was any chance of subduing her in a way that was still in line with his training as a police officer, it was through this.

He needed to arrest her.

And yet.

He needed answers more.

He knew where she lived, anyways, so it wasn’t like she could up and leave that easily.

He could spare a few moments to ask why he felt so terrible. Why all of his thoughts were plagued with thoughts of the purple venom that she had injected into him.

“What did you do to me?”

She inspected him for a minute, blue eyes boreing into his own, and he couldn’t help but look away.

She must have found whatever she was looking for regardless, because she answered him: “I used some venom – er, vampire venom, though I think you know that much at least – it was just to calm you down. It’s supposed to be used to subdue our…” she glanced to the side “food while we eat it – think like a rattlesnake or something, but a little more enjoyable for the food… less neurotoxin more vague high feeling… usually people like me tend to take more time when eating, I just tend to be on a bit of a time crunch, so I don’t really use it for that… it does make a good sedative for getaways, though, which is why I did that…”

He stared at her. It stood to good reason that she had never explained venom before, vampires were secretive in nature, but the explanation was so scattered, as if she was coming up with all of it on the fly.

How had he ever thought her a threat?

How was she?

“Now,” she said. “As fun as explaining that was, I do have to pay the bills, so –.”

“Why did you let me live?”

She sighed, rolling her eyes. “I’ve already told you. It’s because I’ve heard a lot of good things about you.” Her lips twitched. “You’re ‘one of the good ones’, if you want to explain it terribly.”

“Why should that matter? I’m still food.”

“You’re not food. And, just so you know, I’m not a monster, either.”

He went quiet.

She smiled.

“Ciao,” she said.

Her teeth sunk into his arm, and that was just about the last thing he remembered before he was back to floating. His skin felt like it was buzzing where she held him, dragging him back toward his car. His vision was a blur of bright skies and a brilliant smile.

⋆♱✮☽🦇☽✮♰⋆

Dick groaned when he came to properly. He was laid across the backseat of his own car, the hand she hadn’t bitten pillowing his head. Which meant both of his arms were numb, great. His eyes struggled to focus on the ceiling of the car. Possibly because there wasn’t much to focus on, but more likely because his vision was generally blurry. His head ached, and he realized that, fittingly, he could count out his racing pulse with every throb in his temples.

Okay, admittedly, he had been a little unprepared.

But he could prepare himself now. He knew about her safehouse and, even though it was very likely that she was abandoning it now, it should give him a good idea of the kinds of places she would stay in.

And, if he could get into one of her safehouses when she wasn’t there, then he could really prepare.

He moved to let himself out of the car so he could go in and inspect the place.

… it was a cop car. The backseat is reserved for criminals to be taken in, and couldn’t be unlocked from within for fear of a criminal jumping out during a red light. He kicked the door in frustration.

⋆♱✮☽🦇☽✮♰⋆

“How old are you?” Dick asked the next time he saw her at the precinct. It was a slow day, with only a few cops, none of whom were nearby, and only one ‘prisoner’, so no one paid any mind to their chatty coworker.

You could ask why he wasn’t trying to warn anyone, but he knew it wouldn’t do any good, and he still didn’t have anything that would stop her in her tracks, much less get rid of her for good.

As callous as it might have been, his current objective had shifted. He needed to make sure she didn’t go on a killing spree while he was on the job again. He couldn’t take her down if he was sitting behind bars for collusion.

So. Keep her talking.

“Why do you care? This isn’t Twilight, y’know, I’m not going to fight a werewolf for you,” she said, leaning against the bars.

“You know Twilight? You have to be young, then,” Dick said, a ghost of a smile dancing across his face at the small victory.

She gave a quiet laugh. “Every vampire knows Twilight, trust me. I swear, I may be killing people, but it’s just rude to ask if I sparkle in the sun when I’m trying to do it!”

He tried to imagine that, for just a moment, and a laugh bubbled out of him. “I see.”

“Ugh, if another edge lord tells me that they want me to turn them so they can be with their people or whatever, I’m going to step out into the sun.”

There was a moment of silence, and he could almost feel her hesitation, the words hanging in the air, waiting for her to acknowledge them.

“Twenty-six.”

“I mean, like… actually,” Dick groaned.

She snickered. “I’m serious. I was born twenty-six years ago, in Paris, to this lovely French couple. Humans, just so you don’t ask.”

He mulled this over. She was… twenty-six. At maximum, she had twenty-six years of being a vampire under her belt, and that was if she had been turned as a newborn. If her age of turning was her physical age, then he would guess that she had had maybe two or three years as a vampire.

She had been a human for… most of her life.

How would he feel if he had gone from human one day, to a bloodthirsty monster the next? How could he live, knowing that the only way to do so was to make a meal of other people?

He had the sinking feeling that he would react much the same as she had. Grab the worst people he could get access to, and chow down. Because the other option was to starve, and starving was one of the worst ways to go.

He wasn’t sure he wanted to think about that. “Humans?”

“Mhmm,” she said. “Tom Dupain and Sabine Cheng. They were great.”

Dick didn’t miss the use of were.

“How would they feel about their little girl going around killing people?”

She scoffed. “Well, I’d like to imagine that they would be glad I’m not dead, too.”

⋆♱✮☽🦇☽✮♰⋆

The vampire hummed as the door swung open. She glanced behind herself, making sure that she wasn’t being followed, and then swept a leg out to catch her cat before he could sneak past. She scooped him up by the scruff of his neck, giving the cat a tired look.

“Really?”

The cat, being a cat, meowed.

She meowed back. As all cat owners must.

She closed the door behind herself without even bothering to glance back, instead concentrating on making sure her cat didn’t wriggle away. But, finally, the risk was gone, and she set him down. Immediately, he took off in the direction of his food and water bowls, meowing loudly for sustenance, and she laughed lightly, making a move to follow...

Only to stop cold.

Her welcome mat had been turned around while she was out.

Now, most people wouldn’t notice. And, if they did, this would make them immediately wary of who was there and why they would do such a thing.

But Marinette wasn’t a ‘people’ at all, and her expression immediately twisted. She looked back at her door, and found the doorknob had been turned upside down.

Dick’s heart pounded in his chest, and he had to hope that she would just assume it belonged to her cat.

Whether or not she was fooled, she seemed to have bigger problems.

For, you see, he had done some research on vampires and their houses, and found very little that he could use. But in the footnotes of an article about classic vampire mansions (which didn’t apply in this dingy little apartment), he found a strange detail: that, when someone you knew turned into a vampire, you were supposed to flip the doorknob upside down so they couldn’t get back in. Vampires were creatures of habit, the article claimed, and this would confuse them so much that they would have no choice but to leave.

She didn’t look like she was all that confused, admittedly, but she wasn’t making any moves to attack, nor leave. She stood perfectly in the center of the mat, trapped.

“Fuck,” she breathed.

He breathed out a sigh of relief.

Her head jerked to look at him and, for once, he got to see her when she had been thrown out of her element. There was no smile on her face, just pure terror.

It… didn’t feel as good as it probably should.

“The welcome mat?” she said, sounding genuinely offended.

“Well, you vampires aren’t supposed to be able to get inside without being invited,” he argued, coming out from behind the counter. “It’s only fair that I change the mat.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “I was invited. This is my house. You are the one who showed up uninvited.”

He decidedly ignored her in favor of pulling out his phone. Trembling fingers scrolled through tab after tab on vampires, until he came upon the one he wanted:

An exorcism.

For just a moment, he hesitated. And not just because the video warned that you had to be a priest to perform an exorcism.

No, it was because she looked so human at the moment, her eyes wide and her fingers bunched in the fabric of her dress, anxiety rolling off of her in waves. Dick had killed people before, it was a part of his job, sometimes he had to make tough choices… but shooting someone was far faster than any of the methods for killing vampires that he had been able to find. Shooting someone was a split-second decision, something that could haunt you but ultimately didn’t give you enough time to regret, to have that horrible second thought.

This was more.

And, though he hated to admit it, there was another, less virtuous reason.

It was also because of that purple liquid she had injected into him. It was… nice. A horrible part of him was dangerously aware of the fact that she was trapped here, would starve without his help, and that she would likely do anything he asked once she got hungry enough. He could get a constant buzz, at the cost of a murderer’s freedom.

At least this jail was nicer than the one she would have gotten were she human.

He shook his head to clear it.

If he didn’t do this now, it would only be harder to quit later on.

He clicked play on the Youtube video, and then repeated after the kindly priest, chanting, a cross held out.

She pressed back against the door and started sliding down, but not in horror or because she was weakening. She looked… bored.

“Hey, an important thing to know about vampires: Christianity doesn’t mean shit to us. Christians are just liars who saw scared townsfolk and decided that they could capitalize. ‘Hey, look, we conveniently have all of the solutions to your vampire problems’.”

Dick… didn’t know what to do about that. Most of the solutions he had found were Christian-based.

But perhaps she was lying.

⋆♱✮☽🦇☽✮♰⋆

She was not. Dick had tried everything. Silver to weaken her. Garlic. Holy water…

He had even had time to feed her cat!

He sat on her counter, among aged wine bottles filled with blood (she had gleefully explained to him that the alcohol stopped the blood from coagulating, which he had not needed to know), scrolling through the internet frantically for something that might work.

She glared at him, her face half-buried in her cat’s fur. Like he had done something wrong. Sure, he had gone into this fully expecting the exorcism to send her crumbling into ash, but she had been trying to drain people of their blood, so he thought that this was kind of fair game.

Still, he bristled. Offended and defensive. “What, was I just supposed to let you go on killing people?!”

“They were going to die anyways, were they not?” she argued.

“Not for several years!”

“That’s the problem,” she said, rolling her eyes. She stroked her cat’s fur, scratching it behind the ear, and the cat purred as it leaned into her. “They would have used those ‘several years’ to cause harm. Wouldn’t it be better this way?”

“They have families! Those people were innocent, and now –!”

“Their victims were innocent, too. So were the victims’ families. But you never see people talk about them.”

Dick… didn’t quite have a retort for that one.

He sighed, running his hands through his hair. “They’re bad people, okay? I agree. But you can take them down using the system, you don’t have to kill them.”

“How’s that been going for you?” She said, raising an eyebrow skeptically.

Dick, once again, wasn’t sure.

“We have the same goal, sweetheart. I’m better at achieving it, obviously, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t work together. I can get all of the people you can’t get evidence on, you can get me schedules and stuff so I don’t accidentally incriminate you or anything. We could work.”

He shook his head. “I can’t let you do that.”

She sighed, tipping her head back to rest against the door. Her expression shuttered closed. “Then do me a favor and go through the actual process to kill me already.”

He perked up.

“Stab me through the heart with a wooden stake, use it to pin me to the earth until I stop moving, burn my body, and then scatter my ashes in a river so I can’t reform.”

“That’s…” Dick said, deflating.

“A lot. But still better than starving. So, prove you’re a good cop, do me a mercy.”

Dick hesitated, chewing on his bottom lip. He could tell she was manipulating him, but to what end? Was she really so scared of starving that she would advocate for her own murder? Or was this all just her version of reverse psychology?

Damn, his head hurt.

It was still hurting from the pseudo-hangover the vampire venom had given him, but this certainly wasn’t helping.

He combed his fingers through his hair, thinking hard. “I’m not going to let you starve...”

She raised an eyebrow.

“What? Going to start body snatching from the morgue or something?”

He snorted a little, shaking his head. “No.” He walked across the small apartment and held his arm out, wrist bared. “You need blood. I have blood. Problem solved.”

“I’m not going to be your pet, I hope you know.”

His lips twitched into something of a wry grin. “I know.”

“I could drug you out of your mind. You wouldn’t even know your own name, much less that you need to run. I may not be able to leave here, but it would not be difficult to make sure that you reach the same fate.”

“I thought you weren’t a monster.”

She grinned, sharp teeth flashing in the light. “Treat me like one, and I will deliver. When I get out of here, I will tear you to shreds. And I will make sure you feel every second of it.”

“I knew the risks when I got this job.”

“Funny. All of your coworkers used to say the same thing.”

He offered her his hand again, and this time she took it.

Teeth sunk into his wrist, and this time it hurt.

[animehouse-moe]

High Card Episode 2: Make a Choice

So, admittedly, not as action packed and cool an episode as the first, but super interesting for two main reasons. Kingsman and Cards.

So let's look at that first one, Kingsman. I'm fairly certain the majority of people out there know of the Kingsman movies (which were originally comics). They know of the sort of rough around the edges underdog being picked up by a suave and sensible mentor to help with some top-secret spy stuff. They know of the Kingsman suit store, of the classic spy tropes. They know of that bar/pub scene in the first movie.

A lot of it is in this High Card episode. Of course, they can't give it all direct and literal references, but stuff like Wizardsman really makes the comparison clear as day.

Anyways, the cards. This episode confirms it. They all have "themes". We sort of knew with the diamonds, but it could have been a simple coincidence. Today though, we got another heart card so can properly confirm (you can cheat if you use the opening). So, what are the "themes"? Well, we know 3 of the 4 themes for sure. The heart suit is constitutional, or "enhancement", cards. Chris' 5 of Hearts is effectively immortality, and the bad guy's 3 of Hearts this episode was Rocking Rock which made his body super strong and durable. So how about diamonds, which we already know of? Well, now that we know how broad the themes can be, I would assume diamonds to be able to exert control over reality. Lucky Lunchman and his ability to effectively gamble and luck out on existence, and Bobby Ball's ability to turn people into marbles. Additionally, because of this theme, we can assume the talk about human combustion is another diamond suits player. Regardless, moving on, thanks to the opening, we know of the suit (and ability) of Wendy's card. She possesses a spade, and is able to create a katana (or potentially more specifically a Nodachi given the size), and has leather gauntlets instead of gloves. This means that the spade suit is used for weapons, though I would assume with a twist given what we know of Finn's two of spades. This leaves Clubs as the most unknown, the only person possessing one being Vijay (thanks to the opening). Vijay's clubs makes use of vines-slash-nature, but since we don't have any other one to compare to, it's hard to give an answer as to what the theme of clubs may be.

More in terms of the abstract of the episode, I really enjoyed the direction of it. They continue to provide a wide range of style that really sells the appeal of the series. It's got swagger, it's got a strong sense of self, and above all it sells the personality of each character. They keep shots wide with several characters, they have plenty of low angle shots to sell the scale and grandeur of them, and the list continues. The lighting and overall color palette of the series helps a great deal with it though, it provides a great deal of contrast and allows them to go all out with the feel of certain scenes.

As a side note I love this one, because the little tea filter or whatever it is (sorry, not well versed in tea stuff!), is symbolism for the filter through which the cards select the player, and that last little drop is the example of the bad players that would abuse the cards slipping through.

I think my point's been made, so moving on. The last little bit I'll speak about is the exposition. It's always great when there's a character that genuinely doesn't know of the comings and goings of what's behind the curtain, and they don't miss a beat in capitalizing on that to explain things and sell us on Finn. We learn a great deal about the X-Playing Cards, and about the nature of the world. They give some hints as to how the cards might choose their players but there's nothing set in stone. And lastly, I really enjoyed seeing Finn's mentor/adoptive father Lindsey again this episode. I believe it's really important to include those characters when possible within stories like this, particularly when it's a foundational aspect of a character like Finn. The whole piece about choices and decisions with this episode, due to Lindsey's involvement, was really solid.

So, not quite the first episode by any means, but it makes the most of the typical cadence and flow of a fresh series as it goes through the motions of explanations and recruitment. Looking forward to what they do with the next episode now that the playing field has opened!

[electricbluebutterflies]

Mcargent + ❛ why is it whenever we see each other, you’re covered in blood? ❜

Vaguely and slightly pre-6A, PG-ish, also on ao3.

This is getting alarmingly predictable.

All things considered, Melissa has adapted surprisingly well to the directions her life has gone in the past few years. As soon as she accepted that humans weren’t the only possibility – and that did take a moment and remains the closest thing to a regret she has as a mother – she’s embraced it all, and if that’s gotten her a reputation and set of projects she never asked for, well…

Teenage beasties are one thing. The very human man in her age bracket is another.

On paper, this should be easier, if for no other reason than she knows the anatomy and the tendencies, but on the other hand there’s the frequency and-

At some point, seeing a familiar figure sitting on the porch when she gets home became normal. At least he is on the porch, she thinks, at least he didn’t let himself in this time, she slipped a key into a jacket pocket a couple weeks ago and it’s been used and understood and-

“How much do I want to know?”

She’s not in the mood. Not after the day she had at work. But this is her life now, so…

“Nothing bit me…”

Somehow that makes his condition look worse, but-

There is definitely blood on the porch, and that at least she can ignore. If there’s a redemptive quality here it’s that Chris has the same kicked-puppy tendencies she sees in herself sometimes, a dormant but useable people-pleaser streak that responds to… honestly there are questions Melissa does not ask even as she takes advantage of their results, but-

“Why is that whenever we see each other you’re covered in blood?”

“I can leave.”

So, that came across wrong. Dammit.

“That’s not… you just… worry me.”

He turns and looks at her with those eyes and there is something deep in her that wants to keep him and that’s a terrible idea and it might be the first fun one she’s had since all of this happened to her and-

“Not my intent. It’s just… easier to have an extra set of hands, and you’re… all I have left.”

She’s tempted to point out that most of the kids would do something so minor in a heartbeat, but on the other hand she’s started to suspect she gets these adventures because she asks minimal questions just as much as because she knows what she’s doing and-

“Can you get inside?”

“Yeah. Just a cut, wide but not deep, so…”

That would explain the level of blood versus the fact that he’s still coherent, so-

“Kitchen. Now.”

They get inside and she pulls out supplies – if she’s lucky she won’t have to put any stitches into him this time, that gets awkward fast and-

Of course the damn wound is on his thigh. That’s not awkward at all.

Melissa is trying to be a good person, which means not having certain thoughts about the other person who gets stuck herding around supernatural weirdness, which is really hard when said person is undressing and perching on her kitchen counter, and she knows how to be professional and ignore but god this is not-

“You do realize how much you stress me out,” she mutters.

“It’s easier-“

“If I wanted you to get gone, I would make that very clear. You’re just…”

“I owe you.”

“Damn right you do.”

The wound doesn’t look that bad – probably barbed wire or something similar, nothing alive, the bar is so low here – and it just needs to be cleaned and bandaged, and for all his current faults Chris is one of the most cooperative people she’s ever had to fix, and-

“That feel okay?”

“No worse than I’m used to.”

“Is there something I need to…”

“Better if you don’t.”

That worries her more, and she’s not sure how she feels about that right now, and-

“You should probably stay. Just in case.”

“You sure?”

“You’ve never complained about the couch…”

“Point taken. I still don’t…”

“If you bothered me, you’d know. This is still weird, but… at least you’re someone I can talk to.”

And that’s what keeps her calm about it, she thinks as she puts supplies away and moves onto making tea like she only does on these nights. She hasn’t really had friends in a long time – too busy with everything else going on in her life – and she’s not sure how to do that let alone handle the first actual crush she’s had in even longer, but-

“I owe you,” he repeats like a promise of something much deeper than spraying down the porch in the morning. “If you ever need anything…”

“Someday I’ll take you up on that.”

[imashoe69420]

Those Eyes: Rise! Leo X OC

Chapter 6

Recap:

When I grab the key, the light fills the entire room. A low vibration hums in my ears as I begin to lose consciousness.

• • •

I fall hard on my back with a thud. Glancing around, there’s nothingness. The same nothingness from my dream.

“That was not a dream.”

Jumping to my feet, I shout, “Who said that?”

“You know me.” The voice claims. “We’ve been more than a dream. But you cannot remember—and for some parts—nor do I…”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Where am I? And who are you?”

What is happening to me? What is this place and who am I talking to? One minute, I’m in the hotel. The next—

“Our thoughts are one, Lala. I know everything that you think and vice versa. But I promise you, there is nothing to worry about and everything will be explained soon.” The voice says.

“What… what do you mean you’re more than a dream?” I ask.

The same blue light shines in the distance, a warm breeze flowing towards me.

“Come.”

There’s a brief hesitation before I begin to walk towards the now pulsing light. After a few moments, I’m able to view where the light is coming from.

Before me is an orb containing a glowing blue wisp. The orb itself has a ring around it, the same material around my neck. Attached to the ring is some sort of black web-like substance that stretches from all angles into the dark void.

“What is this?” I say barely above a whisper.

“My prison. Our prison.” The voice slight whimpers. “I’ve been stuck here for twelve (12) long years imprisoned by external powers. I was bested, and now you are the only one who can free me. Once I am free, we will truly be one and destroy those who have wronged us for so long.”

I take a step back, surprised by the voice’s words. “Destroy? Destroy who?”

“You know who.”

I shake my head. “I don’t want to destroy anybody. If we’re one, you know what The Foot have put my through. My whole life has been about destroying and building back up the same thing, but in their image. I’m sick of destroying.”

“When I said our thoughts were one, I didn’t mean we thought the same. You’re pacifistic while I am vengeful. Are you not? Do you not feel angered by what everybody has done to you?” The voice raises its tone.

“The only thing that angers me is everybody telling me what to do and how to feel!” I yell at the wisp. “I can never form my own thoughts or opinions without feeling bad about it. I’m not a bad person for not thinking the way you all want me to!”

“Lala, soon I will break out and no one can tell us what to do.”

“That’s the same thing the Lieutenant says. Get me outta here now! All of you fucking suck!”

“Think about it, Lala.” The voice says before the the wisp’s light becomes overpowering and I shield my eyes.

~~~~~~

I gasp as I lurch forward. I’m back at the hotel and around me are blue flames accompanied by a hole blown through the wall. Various debris are scattered around the room and into the hallway where there are more blue flames.

The fires dance irregularly in a way that makes my stomach churn.

I think I’m gonna be sick.

With the glass and bars busted out, I escape through the window and sprint off into the direction I hope my apartment is in. There’s no time to gather my surroundings or open a GPS or focus on street signs. My only desire is to tell the Lieutenant to either change his reward for bugging the turtles or get somebody else to do it.

The “future” me in my past dreams was so pleasant. I enjoyed the blue flames and the way they made me feel. Now I hope to never see another one again.

* * *

I throw on a hoodie and pull the strings tight, my hair blocking my vision. I turn my TV on and turn up the volume to an unreasonable level. My leg can’t stop bouncing when I plop onto the couch and stare at the random channel.

The Foot are on their way. I know it.

The Lieutenant won’t be happy. One (1), because I didn’t properly clear the building. Two (2), because I won’t complete his little Watergate scandal mission.

Several hours ago, I wanted to know what was hiding behind the ring. I wanted to know what was being hidden from me for so many years. Now that I know what it is, I’d rather keep it on for the rest of my life.

The voice or whatever it is said it was vengeful. It wants to hurt people. It wants to hurt The Foot and maybe more people who have “wronged us”. Believe me, if I could get a lick or two (2) on the Lieutenant or The Brute, I would. But not because someone else wants me to do it. I’m tired of doing what everybody else wants me to do. I want to do what I want to do. I want to be able to control my own life. I don’t even know what I want to be when I turn 18.

I gasp as a loud banging sounds from my right. When I shoot a look over to the noise, I sigh in half exasperation and half relief. Leo’s subtle smirk somewhat calms my thoughts, but I’m soon confused.

How did he find my apartment? Did he follow me from the hotel? It wouldn’t be the first time he’s followed me around, but I can’t help but feel irritated.

I roll my eyes and stare back at the screen. He only raps louder, copying my annoyed expression.

With a loud groan, I stomp over to the window and shoot it open.

“Leo, what’re you doing here?” I say harshly. “How did you even find me?”

“A great ninja always knows where to find people.” The turtle responds confidently.

I furrow my eyebrows. “That doesn’t make any sense. Come inside before anybody sees you.”

Taking a few steps to the side, Leo swoops inside my apartment. I close and lock the window behind him.

He gawks at my living room. “Nice,” he accentuates the “i”, “someone’s got taste.”

“Don’t get comfortable. You can’t stay here long. But again, what’re you doing here?” I question him.

The turtle pretends to be offended. “Well excuse me for checking on the damsel after a whole building blew up. Your lack of understanding hurts me.”

He came to check on me? Like, just to check on me?

My cheeks start to grow warm. “Leo, look, what happened back there sucked, but I don’t need you to check up on me. I’m fine—Leo!”

I barely finish my sentence before he stalks through the hallway leading to my bedroom and bathroom. He opens my bedroom door, letting himself in.

“Ooh, is this your room? Swanky.” He comments. “I thought you were some sorta robot. Like you’d recharge at a factory or something.”

I roll my eyes again. “Nope. I’m human. Now, like I said—”

His eyes fix on my Yari leaning against the wall. I try to grab it before he does, but he’s ridiculously fast.

“Woahhohoho, is this the thing you pointed at me? Sick!”

“Yeah, it is. Put it down.” I snatch it from him and place it back against the wall. “Don’t touch my things.”

Leo groans as he throws himself onto my bed. “What’s got you in a mood? You were so much fun a couple days ago. Now you’re being boring.”

He thinks I’m fun? Or was fun?

“I am fun. What’s ‘got me in a mood’ is some random mutant turtle following me to my house, barging in, and touching all my fucking stuff!”

Leo sits up and looks at me sternly, his usual cocky smile gone. “Hey, you let me in. And I already told you I was just making sure you weren’t dead. I don’t see what’s so wrong with that.”

I cross my arms. “Why do you care if I’m dead or not? You don’t even know me.”

Silence quickly fills the room as Leo and I maintain eye contact for several seconds. Soon enough, his glare softens and retreats to the floor.

I sigh. “I think it’s best you leave now.”

“Nuh-uh.” Leo stands up and walks to the doorway. “We’re going out until you get fun again.”

Get fun again? I snicker. “No way. I have to stay here.”

“For what?”

Damn. I can’t even answer that half-truthfully. “I’m having people over and they aren’t used to seeing giant walking talking turtles.”

“Well ditch them, cuz we’re gonna be out on the town.” Leo unsheathes his Ōdachi and faces the hallway. When he slashes the air, a blue circle rips through the living room ahead of us. The blue clad turtle turns toward me and offers his hand.

“Come on, I promise you won’t regret it.”

• • •