#it’s all so weirdly flat and empty and the fights have no weight even when they should. it’s just boring and weirdly shot | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

tigerdrop · 4 years

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dogboy gordon rutting against benreys leg in the same way that benrey did it in the reverse. benrey encouraging him and also making fun of him in the same breath. yummy brain thoughts. i am rotating this

jesus christ i started thinking about dogboy gordon and have not stopped thinking. theres 7k words of dogboy stuff under here im going insane

how in the. help. Help. dog boy. how does he become dogboy. i cant keep giving these idiots potions but i guess thats what ive been reduced to

gman turns him into a dog boy. walks thru a portal and comes out in nintendogs but hes the dog and when he comes back out again hes still a little bit dogy. this is fucking stupid

THE TAIL WAGGING im going to pass away

> i think he would have such fucking issues with the fact that his tail and ears are expressing his emotions so much

trying to act angry towards benrey but hes given away by his tail wagging like crazy......and he never even knows its happening until somebody points it out

it would be cool if. um. he got a little more into roughhousing and rough play afterward. you know. like a . hes already really handsy......physical. . .. .

> okay like the anger turning into somewhat-serious jostling and pushing which turns into roughhousing

its not even horny at first it just gives him the weirdest fucking endorphins. like. its fucking fun man

> and by the time theyre roughhousing his tail is wagging furiously and like thumping on the floor when he gets pinned haha

> YES its about the exhilaration ......he gets this rush from flipping benrey over after he's pinning him, baring his teeth triumphantly

benrey pinning him by his wrists and half-laughing at him like "what the fuck is wrong with you??" and the rest of the science team chimes in like YEAH WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU GUYS WHAT WAS THAT

> gordon comes back to himself and turns red immediately and splutters like "i dont know! what - im just - benrey started it!” so like he refuses to do it again but then benrey pushes his buttons and he gets in his face, ears pinned back a bit and shoves him and benreys like oh...so its this again huh...

GOD......PUSHING HIS BUTTONS.......its sooo much fun now that gordons so physically reactive too

> what if he manages to get an honest to god growl out of gordon at one point and it makes something ugly twist in benrey's gut and he wants to make it happen again

and its probably really gratifying for him to see just how often gordons tail wags when gordon looks at him or snorts at one of his jokes

TWO SIDES

> the duality of their relationship....gordons tail wagging just a bit when hes looking at benrey though im

> im thinking about the growling though like...benrey gets fixated on how he fucking sounds, all deep and rumbly and this intensity just focused on benrey only....makes him think about how that would look in other contexts....

> benrey riling him up while their roughousing so he can feel that growl travel through his chest and like...getting gordon to that point makes him SO determined to win the "fight" over benrey hes almost a bit out of his mind with it......pins benrey and subconsciously ruts against him a bit as a sign of dominance....please stop me now goodbye....

NO LITERALLY THATS WHAT I WAS THINKING ABOUT THE MOMENT I STARTED TYPING

prodding gordon further and further and riling him up until gordon pins him to the floor, hard, an arm jammed behind his back and his HEV suit jammed up against benreys ass and rutting subconsciously as gordon. h. gordon. clamps down on the back of his neck and growls

benrey sucks in a rattling gasp and is like "what? ow" in a weirdly shocked yet distanced way

he cant feel where gordons hard b/c of the HEV suit but he can feel the metal awkwardly bumping against his ass Like That. and inwardly benreys on a loop of "what the fuck what the fuck" but not in a bad way in the slightest. just utterly cannot believe this is whats happening, right now, gordon freeman dry humping his ass behind a bunch of crates, not 100 feet from the rest of the science team

> gordon snapping out of it and being like...what the fuck am i doing... or....maybe the gasp makes gordon bite down harder in response...not sure

> gordon not even realizing hes doing it until that moment is so great....i dont know but....maybe he lets go and pushes off benrey, panting and wild eyed, and the image of benrey on his stomach, his bite mark in his neck, is burned into his brain

> he just doesnt say fucking anything and just dips to get jacked off by the suit maybe.... cant stop thinking about how it felt to see benrey with his teeth marks....hates himself for feeling that sick satisfaction in his chest

benrey......touching the back of his neck afterwrds, kind of dream-like, both consciously and subconsciously.......

i like making gordon freeman suffer so i want him to just angrily try to rut against his arm in private later trying desperately to get off thru this stupid busted HEV suit that he cant get out of. pathetic. gordon freeman humping his own fucking arm in a bathroom stall. like a dog

and he thinks about how benrey smelled when he had his teeth clamped on the back of benreys neck, his nose buried right against benreys jaw and neck, smelling the sweat and the hormones and feeling benreys rapid heartbeat, and his whole fucking head throbs with how bad he wants to get off

> and he just cant get off....has to deal with going back the team tense and a bit sweaty and just move on when they ask what happened. benrey doesnt say anything just stares at him and gordon cant meet his eyes. gordon tries not to fucking let benrey get under his skin cause i think hes probably mad upset and embarassed that he reverted to his like,,,more base instincts because of BENREY of all people.....

> but he still thinks about it sometimes and....he tries to distance himself from him but hes still a pretty touchy guy and he find himself around benrey still....laughing at his jokes and getting in his space once in a while. always pulls himself away when he notices but not before he takes in a deep breath of benrey's scent...

> meanwhile benreys trying to think of how to make gordon do that shit again LOL

ohmy god. oh my god.....before this.....before he tries to stop getting in benreys business and before he even recognizes what hes doing.......he like.....hes so touchy feely that he subconsciously tries to mark benrey a lot. like just doing everything in his power to rub the inside of his wrists somewhere on him. even if its barely gonna do anything b/c of the suit. its just instinct

> NOW HE ...now he realizes that he was doing that the whole time..jesus,...

> AUGH....in the buildup before this he didnt realize that he was doing it........but now he realizes he fucking misses doing that shit and kind of berates himself for doing it in the first place....like what the fuck....be Normal gordon...you cant want to fuck him....do you..?

i want him to. grrgohg i dont even know how or why this would happen but i want gordon freeman to lie supine on the ground with his hands up like paws like hes a big pupy looking for tummy rubs OKAY! BYE. I HAVE TO GO. im going to fucking sob why am i like this why is this the cutest possible thing for a man to do. i cant even think of a fucking reason why he would do this so im so fucking embarrassed

i want to fucking. i want to rub his fucking tumy and make him pop a boner from it im literally so sick of this earth

> i was literally Just typing: i just think it would be cool . To pet his tummy and keep telling him "good boy" in a Certain kind of Tone that just totally fucks him up about it . maybe flushed and tongue starting to wanna hang out of his mouth as he goes from laying flat on his back to kinda twisted to one side, breathing heavy, tail thumping hard against the floor cause hes a big dog so that thing is like a lethal weapon

> petting the fuzzy lower belly while hes already hard & needy just to make him whine Very high pitched and desperate-sounding bc its so close to what he wants but that just makes it worse 8)

> What if. Benrey pinning Gordon, maybe scritches behind his ear, as a "joke", he's a dog haha good boy wants ear scritches?? And Gordon immediately squirming and whining. Maybe even kicking his leg just a little bit

> i think it would be cool for a post-black mesa puby gordon pinned benrey to the floor with his whole body weight and humped the life out of benrey's leg while panting and drooling in benrey's ear. a total lack of regard for benrey, (of course he's into it tho) just using him like an object that's conveniently there for him to furiously get off on

> i'm thinking.... this happening after a period of prolonged teasing, like you said. rubbing his tummy and ignoring his dick

> Man ok combined with the suit edging huh? I love that, but i also kinda want gordon to sneak off to get off and discover his uh. k. kn. knot

> he sneaks off and if in this situation he can. idk. get at his dick in a bathroom or whatever. and well, he gets caught up so easily in his 'head empty' instincts mode that when he cums he's kneading that thang for like 2 minutes before he even becomes cognizant enough to notice. and then immediately panic. so idk maybe he cant get at himself for a while, right, so he didnt notice this

> i just think gordon being in the suit would not let him get at his dick and he would only be able to get off in really convoluted ways so like...he wouldnt fucking Know he had a knot he would just feel a weird pressure at the base that he doesnt know what its about. but he starts getting these fantasies of holding benrey down and staying in him when he comes and he doesnt know where the hell thats coming from.....yet. until after everything is over and he can get out of it, and the first time he jacks off again he realizes HOLY FUCK? like what the hell....but it makes sense in retrospect where those fantasies came from. but hes just super embarassed about those fantasies and pushes them down until benrey comes back into his life and activates him again

> in addition to embarassment i think he has a lot of complicated feelings about benrey and definitely feels a guilty about wanting to fuck him into the ground and fill him with cum....but GOD if benrey doesnt get to him just as much as he did in black mesa

> i think that something like this would be so unplanned and shit but like......theyve probably hung out a few times before this or more like maybe benrey has dropped into his house just to annoy him and gordon finds his ears pricking when he hears heavy footsteps around his house cause he recognizes them as benrey's...

> little rush of exhilaration maybe. cause it means they'll spend some time together and he has just all these emotions under his skin when they do. i dont know how this would happen but maybe gordon forgets to keep himself in check when benrey makes him laugh so hard he's snorting and his tail is wagging furiously.benrey tries to touch/catch his tail cause he's kinda curious about it and it never got to mess with it in black mesa. but it turns into roughhousing as gordon shoves him away a little bit but benrey keeps trying to get at it and then get at his ears

> "cmon man just let me touch them whats the big deal-" "NO!" but like hes still laughing a bit until they start really getting into it and he gets breathless and a little irritated at having to roll around and try to pin benrey's hands to the floor

hell on earth......the way his tails wagging and hes grinning and drooling a little once he gets benrey pinned.......

> little triumphant smile when he finally does.....got benrey on his stomach and he's subconsciously rutting against benrey's ass like in black mesa but hes just not noticing while he's berating benrey for losing

> talking right into his ear, and benrey lets out a little gasp when he does a particularly hard thrust and then hes like oh. fuck. he takes in a deep breath and can smell benrey's sweat and realizes hes just as horny about this as he is. cant help but bury his face in the back of his neck and lick. and benrey starts pushing back into him and talking the worst dirty talk and it makes him growl right against his neck and put his teeth there again as a warning not to move but benrey doesnt still, he just keeps talking. so gordon bites down, hard, cutting him off mid sentence with a yelp

f. fucking. benrey......arching his back into it.......pressing his hips up as high as theyll go......the angles bro.....the angles

> also: gordon popping boners more easily, even when he's just platonically excited w/ benrey..... yeah... :)

> like the thing about this is just that he got so excited from the wrasslin that he popped a boner....wasnt even thinking of horny.....

> not until benrey started gasping and arching back into him. then hes immediately aware of how this looks...like hes already basically in the position in his fantasies hes just rutting against him in the imitation of fucking

> gordon getting more frenzied by the little sounds benrey is making as he clamps down on his neck, drool dripping down his chin. benrey braces himself with one hand and gets the other to pull his pants down and then tug on the leg of gordon's down a bit because gordon is kind of. not thinking straight right now. gordon gets the message and fumbles with the buttons to get it down and like. haha i thinnk it would be fun if benrey prepped himself before this and gordon notices like. you really managed to prep urself this time? god, you really wanted this to happen. but maybe benrey had been doing it the last few times cause gordon would get in his space again sometimes and things were tense

NO GOD THIS IS GOOD. LIKE. oh my god gordon just like bitching at him and getting up in his face and Growling a couple times before while his pants are all tented from the inadvertent excitement boners that he doesnt even realize hes having.....and benrey might not be smart but hes not stupid

theres like a 50% chance theyre gonna fuck at any given time he realizes so like. why not......

even if it doesnt work out in the moment benrey still spends the whole time hopped up on the knowledge that they could have, that he was the little fucking pervert who got himself all prepped just in case gordon decided todays the day hes just gonna mount him, and honestly the way he beats his meat and fucks himself afterwards might be nearly as good as the real deal, just from that little bit of self-inflicted degradation

like u said...........he really wanted it to happen

> hhh.... maybe gordon ruts a bit against his ass and benrey guides him in and. he makes a deep growling rumble when he bottoms out. benrey feels it through his chest and gets a full body shiver as he's filled. i dont think hes fully developed his knot yet but its a tight fit. he starts fucking hard and fast into him while open mouthed panting, he cant keep his face away from the benrey's neck, licking up the sweat and burying his face there to breathe in his scent

the fucking . the desperation......every instinct in his body has been telling him to fuck benrey - yes, that benrey, fucking benrey - into the ground for......weeks now? months??

dudes probably tried everything he can think of to overcome it and to think about literally anything else when he gets off but nobody he fucks even comes close to smelling as good as benrey did when gordon had him pinned and gasping and sweating and he could smell the want rolling off him in waves.....and it sucks massive dick and he hates it

> hes been driven crazy by this thought for so long.....cant fucking control himself. wh. what if gordon managed to get a hold of a piece of benrey's clothes that he left and held it up to his face when he let himself jack off to this particular thought so he could get the scent but it jsut wasnt the same without his warm, panting body below him . he always nuts the hardest when he has it though

huffing benreys undershirt and desperately rutting into a pillow on his hands and knees with his ass fully up and hes just utterly debased right now

sad and pathetic gordon freeman humping his pillow like a dog and whining thinking about fucking benrey. if his past self could see himself like this right now he would be disgusted

> !!!!!!!!1 HIM GETTING INTO THE MOUNTING POSITION ON INSTINCT WHEN HE DOES IT...YOUR BRAIN ! i think that gordon would definitely give everything hes got to benrey when he finally gets to fuck him.

> now that hes actually doing it he's just out of his goddamn mind. benrey already being ready for him, slick and hot, just letting him push in .....i think he would definitely go insane

dudes never fucked so hard or so mindlessly in his life......for once all the neuroses just fly out the window. overcome by instinct

> letting out all these whines and moans, not even caring for how loud hes being... benrey's wanted this so fucking bad hes just eating it up, pushing back on him like an animal and getting a power trip that he made gordon this unhinged

thinking about him just being utterly shocked when benrey guides him in and he can just bury himself all the way to the hilt so easily and it makes something in his brain snap

> gordon doesnt even tell benrey when hes close, benrey can just start to feel his knot swell inside him and how it stretches him a bit past what he prepared for...but he wants it in him so fucking bad, he just lets gordon keep fucking into him

like. oh my god. does benrey even know about the knot or is this a brand new and fun surprise for him

> I DONT KNOW......I JUST REALLY LIKE THE THOUGHT OF HIM BEING A BIT CAUGHT OFF GUARD BY IT....

> being caught off guard by it but being so turned on by the feeling of it filling him that he lets out this really high, needy sound. which goes straight to gordon's dick and he just pushes into him harder and jolts his whole body with it. maybe he h....he bites down on the other side of his neck again and thrusts in one more time before coming deep in him. just shuddering from it, eyes squeezed shut and jaw locked around benrey

benrey just fuckin. face down ass up and arching his back as high as he can

(mumbling very quietly) it might be cool also if. gordon maybe.....started growling some things as he got close. a certain something. a word

you know......just......bent over benreys back......arms wrapped around benreys chest and fingers digging into the soft flesh (maybe even his titties, if youre feeling spicy).......pistoning his hips in staccato bursts while he growls.........u bh hhhhh......"mine". over and over not even realizing hes doing it b/c his brain is so fogged out on the sheer delight of rawing benrey after having thought about it non-stop

(mumbling so quietly im speaking at a pitch below the human hearing threshold) benrey hoarsely saying "'m yours, 'm yours" while hes got one hand jammed underneath himself to tug at his dick is the thing that sets gordon off and makes him come, perhaps. perhaps

and gordon just.....slumps over him, leaning his full body weight on him, panting weakly into his ear while his hips subconsciously rut just a little bit, arms still wrapped around benrey but otherwise as useless as a bump on a log while benreys jerking himself off to the wild new feeling of having that knot stretch him open and tug at him every time gordon shifts his hips

gordon nuts and becomes utterly useless but at least his knots still fat as hell so benreys still got something to work with

(sobbing) i just want to see men acting like animals leave me olone..... its about the submission to instinct......the degradation and dehumanization......and also the scent kink its all about the fucking scent kink. its about wanting to huff a guy you pretend you hate like hes a fucking magic marker and its about wanting to make him smell like u

> for scent kink, Gordon's boners due to sweaty benrey hehehehe. this is narsty -> Benrey is like "yeesh that was a lot of exertion" after their first almost-sex wrasslin match, and gets embarassed, so next time he like, wears a bunch of old spice.... but gordon doesn't get as excited. like yeah he can feel him against his back and yeah he's not soft but.. he's not panting or as hard. benrey thinks real hard when he gets home

> CLEAN SWEAT OK ITS A COMBATIBILITY THING OK. IT IS. LOOK UP THE SCIENCE OK I ...walks away. clown shoez

YOU ARE SO FUCKING CORRECT THANK U

> Maybe next time He doesn't bother with the old spice at all, and he gets real into the wrasslin... hell maybe he even uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh gets gordon's head under his arm im just saying

I DIDNT WANNA BE THE ONE TO SAY IT BUT NO YEAH THATS COOL. ITS A VERY COOL THOUGHT

think about......dogboy gordon roughhousing and getting pinned down himself and snapping his teeth up at benrey like joking but not joking. you know

they both start just getting really into roughhousing b/c sometimes gordons brain gets Stressed The Fuck Out by all the added stimulation to the senses of being pupy......theres too many sounds and smells sometimes and it makes him even more neurotic and makes him start acting up and getting irritable and trying to start shit until he exerts himself enough to tire his brain out and make it shut up

maybe even like.....in the interim after black mesa but before he runs into benrey again, gordon becomes a fucking hot mess b/c he doesnt know how to deal with it all and the only way he got thru black mesa without his brainstem snapping in half was b/c he and benrey would start shit and start fighting and wrestling and the rest of the science team eventually shrugged and accepted this as a (very weird) part of their life now. he looks like hes one minor inconvenience away from a panic attack and its so sad

any kind of physical exercise would help (he takes up jogging when hes feeling stressed out, which is a lot, and hes gotten some really nice legs by this point) but theres just something different about the roughhousing. its a mental exercise as well as a physical one, so it exhausts his brain more, and unbeknownst to him, he just gets fucking endorphins from the way benrey smells and from being able to mark him with all the up-close physical contact theyre getting. so. hence the wrestling and roughhousing and gordons occasional tendency to just pounce the guy in public and start fighting him with his tail wagging and thumping like crazy

it might be even better if gordon attempts to roughhouse with just about the whole science crew at some point, just for a point of comparison

like.....its usually good, its satisfying, and it wears him out and lets him function like a human being......but theres just something about roughhousing with benrey thats really satisfying and he doesnt have the emotional intelligence to figure out what it is

gordon freeman is an idiot, is what im saying

> tommy indulges him and probably lets him win a few times, coomer soundly wins out every time and bubby probably...loses some before getting pissy LOL. i think that its fun for him to get the most Good Feelings out of roughhousing with benrey.....

AUUUUGHHH WHAT IF HE LICKED BENREYS FACE THO

g gbfbhhh god im obsessed with the way benrey laughs at him and asks "what the fuck is wrong with you?" in the act 3 commentary and thats the exact kind of vibe im feeling from him about like. everything gordon does in pupymode

> Okay, before I go to bed, I shall leave you with a Dog Thought™. Gordon probably wouldn’t be the “best trained” dog in the world because, well, he doesn’t have anyone to make him listen or obey. Heck, given his need to be in control, he probably thinks he’s the leader of the proverbial pack and nobody can tell him what to do. He’d probably slip and do quite a few “rude” and obnoxious dog things, including but not limited to being all over Benrey.

> Trying to goad him into roughhousing. Licking his face. Being in his space to the point that it even starts to make Benrey raise an eyebrow. Inappropriate marking and whatnot. [cough] And what if Benrey--in a weird reversal of the roles we usually give--is stuck with the task of… training Gordon… to behave…

> YOU KNOOOOW. Because pitting alpha dog Gordon against Benrey, who is trying to get him to be “good”...

> … Well, that could be interesting.

> Imagine if you will: Benrey realizing he needs to get Gordon under control. As much as he likes the attention, it's becoming too much. Relentless. Tables have been turned and now he's the one that's a little overwhelmed by the situation because, well, Gordon is running on pure instinct half the time. Making it hard to do things. Making it hard to live his life. Always in his bubble which was, like, fine at first but now he can't do anything without feeling a wet tongue on his face or having Gordon trying to goad him into rough housing.

> He needs so much attention. Has so much energy. It's too much.

> So, he decides he's going to try to "train" Gordon to not... do that. Benrey trying to assert dominance over Gordon, as if he were just a normal dog. Gordon, who has already marked Benrey and decided that Benrey belongs to him does not take to this very well. This is not how the chain of command works. This isn't how the chain of command works at all.

> Benrey, struggling to curb him through praise and admonitions--"good boy," "bad boy," tossing him ~treats~ if he does something right--is now facing off with Gordon, who is both enamored with the attention he's getting but utterly pissed off by the fact Benrey is trying to stop him from doing what he wants.

losing it at the tables being turned and now gordons the annoying fucker getting up in benreys business all the time and never leaving him alone. he deserves this

> They're basically both unmovable objects and unstoppable forces. Benrey is stubborn and isn't going to give up all his sweet PS3 time because Gordon won't stop humping his leg, and Gordon is not going to give up his God given right to make Benrey his property. But Benrey isn't completely averse to the idea of being Gordon's bitch. He just wants to be his bitch on his own terms.

> So, in a surprising show of... well, intelligence on Benrey's behalf, he starts redirecting Gordon's energy towards what HE wants Gordon to do.

> That's how you handle misbehaving dogs anyway. You redirect their energy. That's what all the books on dog training says anyway, and Benrey's inclined to believe it because he's read it in all two books on the subject he casually flipped through.

> So, when Gordon starts getting in his space, he starts redirecting him to touch where he wants touched. "Good boy." When Gordon starts getting a little rough, he purposefully positions himself so he gets the most out of it. "Good boy." When Gordon's licking his face, he starts trying to guide that tongue down to his neck. Feels better there. "Good boy."

> Because he's not a complete idiot. Him and Gordon both know this is sexually charged at this point. And Gordon... Gordon can bend his behaviors a little bit as he's being directed if he still gets to do what he wants (in a way), and Benrey still gets to be fondled by the nerd.

> "But part of the problem is that he is in Benrey's space all the time!" Yeah, but Benrey figured that out, too. You know what shuts up Gordon real fast? Pushing him back down on the other end of the couch and telling him to stay. And if he listens, he slowly, carefully hand feeds Gordon a treat as a reward. Pushing it into his mouth, making sure it goes all the way in. Letting Gordon lick the last bits of taste off of his fingers. He usually sits still after that. "Good boy."

i have a thought thats almost unrelated but im so desperate to give this scenario the proper context

thinking about......gordon getting out of black mesa and hes still dogboy.....and hes attempting to go back to life as normal now that benreys out of his hair for ever but one day his pupy nose catches That Fucking Smell on the air and he realizes that benreys not fucking dead. he thought benrey was fucking dead, b/c he killed him

gordon freeman losing his mind for a solid week or two trying to hunt that smell down (why?? to prove a point?? to try to kill benrey again??? uh huh.) and then when he does hunt benrey down, its like.....well, what was the plan, bud? you found him, and now youre having a staredown outside a 7/11 while benreys frozen halfway through his big gulp

i literally forgot what i was typing b/c dogy gordon tum y rub b gtfhgbb ggfabgbbg

and.....well......he doesnt know exactly what his game plan was, but he does know that benrey cant be trusted as far as u can throw him, and hes not about to let benrey wreak havoc on new mexico if he can help it, so now his new hobby is......tracking benrey across the city to keep an eye on him

and thats how they keep ending up in close proximity

and thats how u start looping in the whole role reversal thing.....suddenly gordons the one that benrey cant shake......hes a bloodhound and hes got the scent

SORRY im SORRY i crave context with the same ferocity that i crave, like, air

and then they start roughhousing when gordon tackles him to the ground one day to stop him from doing.....something......and gordon snaps being to being a normal person so quickly afterwards that its dizzying. turns out a solid 80% of what he really wanted was a sparring buddy

> good afternoon everyone this is not horny in the slightest but i just wanted to say- you know that thing dogs do where they get REALLY excited and playful when you come home from a long day at work? well i’m just thinking about. y’know how benrey has a tendency to just, vanish for a while and come back like nothing happened? think it’d be cute if he were gone for a particularly long stretch of time b4 catching up with the science team again and gordon RESPONDS in his typical annoyed, bratty fashion while his body language is saying something completely different (he still hasn’t mastered the art of puby)

> like, u know, tail wagging a hundred miles a minute, ears perked up and attentive, subconsciously getting all up in benrey’s space

Im going to Cry thats so fucking cute wtf wtf wt ff

still going insane thinking about the “good boy” thing......like...... its all fun and games until hes grappling his best friend benrey and hes got benrey in a headlock and hes plastered against benreys back from head to toe and his tails thumping excitedly against the floor and hes panting hot and harsh right against benreys ear and benrey takes that moment, right there, to choke out "good boy"

its half outright horny and half power play b/c benreys banking that either theyre gonna fuck or gordons gonna let go and be like "what the fuck, man" and then benrey can get the drop on him again

the way gordon just goes stiff after he says it.....breath getting shaky.....dick twitching once against benreys ass and the guy can fucking feel it clear as day......Augh

his tail slows.....and then fires right back up again when he tentatively rocks his hips against benreys ass and feels the sound benrey makes more than he hears it......and like for fucks sake theyve been dancing around how horny their roughhousing sessions are for weeks, this guy deserves to finally get his rocks off by dry humping benreys ass while benreys getting spots in his vision from how tightly gordons got his arm wrapped around his neck. he deserves this

gordons free hand slowly opening up and pressing flat against benreys shirt, then crawling under it so that he can feel the bare skin of his stomach......rocking his hips against the dip between benreys cheeks and whimpering when benrey says it again, breathless and hoarse. "good boy." his tongue poking out to lick a broad, wet stripe up the side of benreys neck to taste the salt and sweat and the hormones, jesus christ, hes never been able to taste if somebodys horny before but its rolling off of him in waves.......and gordons breath comes out so loud and harsh and desperate when benreys leg lifts up a little bit for him to slot his own between them more easily

just mumbling stupid horny shit like "fuck benrey, you taste so good" while his tongue lolls out of his mouth and he licks the curve of benreys ear and rolls benrey onto his stomach b/c something in the back of his brain is whispering to him that it would be a really, really good idea, and hes originally got benrey just crushed flat against the floor with his full body weight but benrey takes a rattling breath and tells him to ease up, get up offa him.....

and gordons confused at this point b/c he was pretty sure this was where this was going, he was being a good boy, but that thought doesnt last very long b/c benreys shuffling into position under him, raising his hips and pushing gordons up with him while his face and torso are flat against the floor, and, Oh. hes. hes doing that. this is what theyre fucking doing now

> gordon taking the collar of benrey’s shirt in his mouth in an crude imitation of scruffing him

every fucking bone in gordons body is telling him to move his hips, fuck benrey stupid, bury himself to the hilt, but he cant do that when theyre both still clothed so he does the next best thing and ruts against benrey like he fucking means it and like if he just tries hard enough, gets enough friction, itll be just like fucking him for real......

hes so dizzied by looping thoughts of he wants this, he wants you to mount him, like youre a filthy fucking animal, arent you? you sick fuck, you wanna mark him and breed him and hed let you, hed beg you for it, look, hes doing it right now and when he comes back down to earth, yeah, benrey is begging right now, isnt he. while hes palming at the front of his sweatpants and whimpering and calling gordon a good boy, attempting to tug his pants down to his knees so gordon can rut against bare flesh, and gordon slows down just enough to let him do it and to fumble open his own zipper to ease some of the agonizing pressure

gordon fumbling his dick out of his underwear to line it up between benreys fat cheeks and god, the feeling of skin against skin is so much fucking better than chafing against his jeans that it makes him growl against benreys neck and benrey cant pump his fucking dick fast enough. hes so encouraging, what with all those little sounds hes making and the way hes arching his back and pressing his hips up as high as theyll go, groaning into the crook of his arm "fuckin, fuck me, bro, j-just like that"

> thinking...... they both get so lost in it, they both can’t hold back long enough to fuck for real. this is too hot, benrey feels something hot and wet on his ass and gordon is curling into him. benrey’s never felt so simultaneous turned on and frustrated that he’s still empty, he’s still gonna have to wait, snd ironically that denial pushes him over too

GOD yes fuckin. coming on his ass b/c gordons so frantic and desperate that he cant wait...... but seeing his cum all over benreys ass is deeply satisfying in its own way. he smears it deep into benreys skin to mark him like that

> oh hey imma be nasty sorry but Gordon all cum-high just sort of manouvering Benrey until he can start licking his cock clean bc he likes to uh. i mean benrey's all wet and you know. he likes it. and benrey comes from that, before he can even think about sucking him off properly

> he doesnt have a thought left in his head at the moment... and can u blame him? so he just uh follows he nose....... and benrey's brain is deleted except for "GORDON FREEMAN ON MY DICK????????" bouncing around like a screensaver yes

> yeah he's not even trying to suck him off really, hes not gotten that far yet cuz hes so cumbrained, gone stupid, etc

im gonna be gross here too okay......and like. fucking. huffing and burying his nose into the crook of benreys thighs b/c he smells so intensely like sex and sweat and it makes gordon lightheaded

> YEAAH maybe he starts licking there before he gets up to his dick. it's not like he's dragging it out really so it's not long but benrey's gaping like a fish. he's trying to say something sorta but he can't get any words out and isn't even sure what he himself is trying to say

maybe he cant help himself and he just starts licking and biting on impulse b/c its your resident fuckin thigh guy here and i think benrey deserves to get em chomped like a drumstick

> and then that's gordon's tongue on his dick, bro and this neurotic mf looking so pleased and blissed out as he sloppily licks him all over is a sight he couldn't have even cooked up in his imagination before now

> benrey not coherently enough to warn him he’s like right there, his babbling incoherently at the tease of gordon’s nose and lips is gonna make him- and then his Tounge darts out and it’s over, the start of the end and he’s spurting all over gordon’s completely surprised face without even being jerked or licked through it

> maybe since gordon's been so stressed and keyed up for so long that benrey coming is a surprise but still doesn't shock him enough to clear the cumbrain, so he licks ben clean after that too, while he's twitching and whimpering etc

> think that benrey massive meat being useless and barely even touched is hip and rad even in the context of him technically being in the higher position of power

> then rests his head on beny's belly for a while, feeling very accomplished and tired. he'll panic later, don't worry

god im still thinking about. pillow humping/voyeurism

gordon freemans a bad fucking dog and sometimes he cant help himself and just starts rutting into a pillow with his ass up and his face buried in one of benreys undershirts while hes just panting and mumbling shit the whole time about benrey, benrey, benrey, why is he so fucking obsessed with benrey and with thinking about mounting him just like hes doing to his poor abused pillow every week

and. you know. maybe one day......benrey kind of.....catches him in the act. i think that would be cool. just coming home one day and cracking open his bedroom door and seeing gordon freeman on all fours, his teeth sunk deep into one pillow and another pillow between his thighs, desperately fucking it while hes groaning benreys name b/c he sure as shit was not expecting him back that early, which is why his cumbrain made him feel confident enough to crawl into benreys bed and roll around in it and mainline benreys scent from his clothes and nut on his pillow (and then feel fucking bad about it and frantically try to clean it off)

and benrey just slooowly steps back with his heart pounding out of his chest for possibly the first time in his whole life b/c he did not think gordon freeman ever wanted to fuck him, but here he is, using benreys pillow as an imitation of the real thing and jerking off in his bed

just turns right the fuck back around and goes into the bathroom and splashes some water on his face and stares down at his sudden boner

THANKS FOR READING ALL OF THIS B/C THIS ISNT EVEN GETTING INTO THE PISS STUFF THAT WEVE OBVIOUSLY BEEN THINKING ABOUT. SORRY FOR BEING LIKE THIS

#asky #writin stuff

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platypanthewriter · 4 years

Text

Billy Hargrove: Possessed Trash Bandit

For @awickedplacethisis

Steve was always aware of the motion lights around the swimming pool, after Barb. He’d stood at the ready menacing maple leaves that had fluttered in front of the sensor, inflicted mutual terror on at least five deer, and the evening a Canada goose landed clumsily on his roof, thudding and scraping as it rolled the entire way down, he nearly batted it into Christmas dinner.

He was immediately aware when the lurching human being crept from the door to the Upside-Down in the tree by his pool.

At first he just grabbed his bat, wondering why he didn’t screw a piece of plywood over the hole, or at least wrap the whole tree in duct tape, but he registered a human head, and hair, and—and it wasn’t like the figure was menacing anyone, stumbling around Steve’s pool, finishing off the leftover beers and a half-box of Cheez-its. He waited until it had shaken the box three times, and pulled out the bag, scraping long broken fingernails inside the Cheez-it box looking for more.

“Got some cold pizza inside,” he said, from the shadows, and the figure stumbled back, shielding its face.

“What,” it asked hoarsely, and Steve recognized the voice. The bat nearly slid from his fingers.

“Hargrove?!” It—Billy Hargrove, who was supposed to be dead—flinched, and Steve lowered the bat. “Billy,” Steve tried. “Let—lemme call someone. Hopper. Your sister Max, she thinks you’re dead—”

Billy shook his head violently, holding his hands up, and Steve dropped the bat.

“Come here,” he said, trying to keep his voice level. “...come inside,” he whispered, thinking of Max, sitting alone on Billy’s bed in his empty room, and Eleven, who Billy had sacrified himself to save. “Come get some food.”

Billy lowered his hands, so Steve finally stepped closer, grabbing a thin, dirty hand, cold in his grip.

“Jesus, Billy, are you even alive?”

Billy lowered his head. He looked alive, as Steve squinted into the darkness. His skin was scarred everywhere with dark lines, and his lips and nails were blue, but he was breathing, and he shivered as Steve pressed his fingers under the dangling earring, checking for a pulse.

“Come on, Billy,” Steve tugged him forward. “Come inside.”

He’d lost weight, but Billy Hargrove was still the guy who’d spent his free time lifting weights, so Steve’s pulling at his wrist wasn’t getting them any closer to the house.

“I’m going to pick you up if you don’t walk,” he said, finally, and Billy stumbled a couple of steps forward before nearly losing his balance again. He was barefoot, Steve registered, and pinched the bridge of his nose before bending to sling an arm around Billy’s waist, and haul him over his shoulder in a fireman’s hold.

He plonked him in the kitchen—pushing him into a chair when he swayed alarmingly—and handed over the pizza box to watch Billy fall upon it like a dog that finds something disgusting in the yard and wants to eat as much as possible before you tell it no. Four slices in, he started to slow down, cold-sweating, pressing his fingers to his mouth, and hunching his shoulders, so Steve slid the pizza box away, pulling the half-eaten piece from Billy’s hand. He didn’t resist.

“Jesus,” Steve told him, softening his voice as Billy twitched. “Don’t make yourself puke.”

Billy didn’t want hot water—as a shower or bath—and nearly dropped the cider Steve made him, from the instant packets Steve’s boss had tucked in everyone’s locker with one stingy wrap of curling ribbon and no bow. He turned back from the microwave to see Billy fiddling with the ribbon, frowning vaguely.

Steve pressed Billy’s bluish fingers around the mug, turning away to frown out the window at the pool, then swung back around at Billy’s hiss as he spilled the cider. Steve steadied his hands. “Jesus,” he whispered. “I’m gonna get you a blanket, at least—” he made it two steps towards the living room, when his shirt slid down over his shoulder, its cuff in Billy’s fist.

Billy let go, closing his eyes, and Steve stared at him, then rubbed his face, and crouched next to Billy’s chair.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he said. “You get that?”

Billy didn’t react, but when Steve grabbed the down comforter he’d drug downstairs for when he was too lazy to go to bed, he turned away from the couch and smacked into Billy, standing inches away.

“Holy shit,” Steve shouted, and Billy flinched again, stumbling away, so Steve grabbed the blanket and wrapped it around him, pulling him back towards the couch. He shoved his new—roommate?! down onto the couch, tucked the comforter around him, and held up a finger. “Stay,” he said firmly. “Stay there. Gonna get the nail clippers. Okay?”

The blanket crumpled as Billy clutched at it, but he didn’t reply.

“Stay,” Steve repeated, running to the bathroom. When he walked back in the front room, Billy’d slid off the couch. He was in a pile of comforter between the couch and the coffee table, his eyes darting.

“...Harrington,” he whispered hoarsely. “Why are you here. We—we have to go, they—they’ll come back—”

“Jesus,” Steve said, for what felt like the seventieth time. “You’re back. You’re in my house, you’re safe.” He knelt in front of the pile of blanket.

“What do you mean, I’m back,” Billy hissed, reaching out to grab his hand. “We can’t—we can’t stay here. I can take you somewhere safer—”

“You’re safe already,” Steve argued, squeezing Billy’s hand, and clipping the nails that were most torn.

“It’s not safe where there are lights,” Billy tried to stand without letting go of Steve’s hand to push himself up, and didn’t get very far. “Harrington, you fucking moron, what are you doing here, you have to listen, I know I’m gonna sound crazy—there are monsters here, Harrington,” he shook Steve’s arm, swallowing. “Monsters worse than me. They’ll come for you—”

“Okay, okay, I believe you,” Steve gathered him up again, half carrying the Billy-burrito to the wall to switch off the lights.

“...how did you make the lights go off,” Billy asked, wide-eyed, and almost fell, and Steve put both arms around him.

“I have magic monster fighting powers,” he told him, trying not to laugh, but Billy’s eyes teared up, and he swallowed hard, grabbing at Steve’s shirt again.

“Help,” he whispered. “Please. I know I’m—I know I’m another monster—”

“I’ll use my magic to protect you,” Steve told him, pushing him back onto the couch. “You’re safe, Billy.”

“You’re gonna get tired,” Billy whispered, settling in a fluffy lump against him. “Wake me up before you go, don’t just—don’t fucking leave me here—”

Steve could feel him shaking through the comforter, and he leaned closer. “I magicked this space safe,” he told Billy, who nodded, taking in a shaky sigh. He smelled like rusted metal, or possibly blood, and rot. The dark veins across his cheek and neck didn’t look as dark as they had, out in the snow.

“...I’m not even hungry here,” Billy mumbled, and Steve put an arm around him, squeezing, and wrinkling his nose, as Billy’s voice rumbled under his chin. “How long can I stay?”

“Oh,” Steve stared at the tangled hair leaning against his shoulder. “Uh, I need you. I’m gonna pull you back through a magic doorway while you’re asleep, okay, buddy?”

Billy nodded, closing his eyes again, but grabbed Steve’s hand through the blanket. “O-okay. I’ll—whatever you—what do you want me to do? Can I—” he swallowed. “How long can you keep me out of here?”

“No,” Steve shook his head, pulling Billy Hargrove, surreally, into a two-armed tight hug. “No, you’re mine now, okay? You stay with me, and I’ll use my magic to keep you safe.”

“I can’t use magic,” Billy whispered against Steve’s chest, his eyes fixed on the window, and Steve squeezed him tighter.

“All you need to do is trust me,” he told him. “Just trust me,” he whispered against Billy’s nodding head.

Steve snuck off to pee either late that night or early the next morning, and returned to find Billy sitting up, looking around. “You did it,” he laughed shakily. “You came and got me. What—what do I need to do?”

“Jesus,” Steve muttered to himself, again. “How much do you remember?”

“You saved me, because you need me for something,” Billy said, shivering. He pulled the blanket back up around him, rubbing his arms. His eyes were clear, and looking around curiously, and Steve bit his lips, uncertain whether to drop the lie yet.

“Yeah, um...you want a shower?” he asked, cautiously, and Billy groaned.

“If there’s time, yeah, holy shit. Can I—can I take one?”

“I’ll get you a towel and sweatsuit,” Steve said, dodging the issue of Billy’s view of reality. “It’s through there. You need me to help you walk?”

Billy shook his head, biting his lips. “If I open that door and you vanish, I’m gonna cry,” he said matter-of-factly. “You won’t care, if you’re not real, though, will you?”

“I’m real,” Steve told him, pulling him up by one hand. “Want me to call your sister while you’re in the shower?”

“Shit,” Billy said, and snorted. “I—” he swallowed, rubbing his face. “Am—am I going to jail? I killed those people. God, I’m not even—they can’t put a monster on trial, they’ll shoot me in the head—”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Steve interrupted Billy’s weirdly calm theorizing. “I won’t call anybody, we can talk about it later. Shower first. Here you go, through here.” Billy nodded, then made a high noise in his throat as Steve shut the bathroom door between them.

Steve blinked at it, then wrinkled his nose, and asked, “You, uh, you need me in there while you piss, or—”

“No,” Billy laughed. “No, I’m fine.” He was still laughing a little, against the door, as Steve walked away, but halfway through rummaging through his drawers, Steve heard him yelling “Harrington! Steve Harrington!” and ran down to smack the flat of his hand a few times against the door.

“I’m here, you’re in my house, you’re safe!” he shouted back, and didn’t hear a reply, so he took a deep breath and opened the door on Billy wedged in the corner of the shower, staring at him with wide-dilated eyes.

“Billy,” Steve whispered, and he inhaled sharply.

“Water’s cold,” he whispered. “Did you put me back? Am—am I—” he looked around, his thinner, scarred chest panting with shallow breaths.

“No! I can’t. And you’re fine, it just takes forever to heat up.” Steve took a deep breath and shoveled more bullshit onto the lie pile, reaching in to turn off the shower. “I used most of my magic to bring you out,” he told Billy solemnly, and received a tight nod. “I—can’t put you back, no matter what you do. And I, uh, I made a bunch of spells. Here. On my house, so that can’t happen. And me. And my, uh, Hawkins. You’re safe. Super safe.”

“Th-thank you,” Billy let his head lean back against the wall, closing his eyes.

“I’m gonna order us some food,” Steve told him, having checked the time, and found it later than he thought, and Billy started giggling.

“Can’t order takeout in there,” he was mumbling to himself as Steve left.

Steve ordered about four extra things to stuff Billy with, then looked around his house. Billy yelled his name every few minutes, and Steve answered, feeling like he was playing Marco Polo. The thought of bringing Billy to bed was...weird, so he hauled the air mattress in, and made it up next to his bed, then scrabbled at his hair, and hauled his homework downstairs.

When Billy came out, his scars and skin pink and healthy, he followed Steve’s gaze and smirked, flexing his biceps. Steve rolled his eyes and waved at his spread textbooks. “What I need from you is help with the homework,” he told Billy. “Max said you were smart.”

She hadn’t, but Steve didn’t want to imagine what kind of tasks he’d need Billy Hargrove enough to summon him like an evil genie, so they’d just have to stumble through Steve’s calculus.

“What,” Billy stared at the books and papers.

“Nancy dumped me and it’s weird now,” Steve told him, truthfully enough. “You can do whatever you want as long as you try to help me, uh, edit this essay.”

“...why would you—”

“It was hard work bringing you back,” Steve just let the bullshit train take him, the feeling familiar from talking to girlfriend’s parents about why his own were always busy. Handily, waving a magic wand to rescue a dead guy sounded about as likely as finding him half-naked outside, rooting through the trash like a raccoon. “I fell behind on schoolwork. Got you out as fast as I could. So, uh, will you help me?”

“How can you be magic and that shitty at essays,” Billy squinted at him, allowing himself to be pushed into a chair.

“...you were trying to bring me back?” Billy wandered closer. “...why would you…”

Steve tried to imagine having magic powers, and also derail this from looking too generous. “You did most of it yourself. Stayed alive, found the door.”

When the Chinese food arrived, Billy was standing waaay too close again, and Steve returned to the table and just sat against him, feeling him relax. “You’re safe,” he said. It was becoming a habit. “You’re with me, I’ll keep you safe. Want an eggroll?”

Billy nodded, watching him, and Steve put his arm around Billy’s waist, rather than squish it between them.

“...I don’t remember all of this,” Billy said after a while, his tone bleak, and Steve reached up automatically to squeeze his shoulders.

“We got time,” he said, noticing Billy’s ears and cheeks turning red, and wondering whether it was the heat from the shower, finally circulating everywhere. “I’ve got you, remember?”

“Yeah,” Billy laughed, quirking his mouth. “You’ll keep me safe.”

#harringrove #platypan #platypan fic #Feel better Wicked Place #hurt/comfort #Steve Harrington: pro at improv #Billy Hargrove: Usually a cynic but at this point who knows?!

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boymeetsweevil · 5 years

Text

Heat Index

Grouping: Reader x Taehyung

Word Count: 2700 exactly!

Warnings/Themes: use of toys, mutual masturbation?, tae has a sweat kink probably

Summary: The town being in a heat wave puts Tae’s in a bit of a love drought. But even still, he makes do and (kind of) does you.

Another drop of sweat rolls down Taehyung’s face. It makes his nose itch with the gentle grazing sensation and falls on the cardboard flap in his hands. The sweat darkens the area it lands on and he stops for a minute to take in the perfectly circular shape haloed from the way the drop burst on impact. Normally he wouldn’t be so interested in his own sweat, but he feels as though his thoughts are slowed and dulled by cotton. It’s the heat.

“I’m really sorry, Tae,” you apologize as soon as you return from your kitchen, a single plastic-wrapped treat in hand. “They’re not putting in the AC until tomorrow.”

“It’s fine,” he says pleasantly while taking the popsicle from you. But it’s not really fine.

The heatwave terrorizing your town has been going on for almost 9 days at this point. He’d volunteered to help you move in, only for the weather to put a halt in your plans. But after the 4th day, you couldn’t put it off any longer and had to go meet the movers at your new place. Taehyung being the chivalrous boyfriend that he was—or that he wanted to be—kept his word despite the warnings from various weather people on his TV telling him not to leave his own air-conditioned apartment.

Though it might seem as though his priorities aren’t in place, Taehyung would honestly admit that the worst part about the heat wave was the lack of sex that came rolling in with it. With your new place being on the other side of the city and with the both of you relying primarily on public transport to see each other, your sex life seemed to be dwindling—no—frying in the sun. So, when you brought up the move yesterday he figured he’d just be helpful with unpacking until the AC installation finished and then suddenly become very helpful with packing you full of him. But that doesn’t seem to be in the cards.

He bites at the popsicle forlornly with his back teeth. You have your own popsicle that’s a subtle pale green. It’s lime. Your favorite. Even if he didn’t know you well enough to know that you loved all things citrus, he’d still know you were enjoying the lime pop. The way you happily slurp around the cylinder while leaning on one of the larger boxes makes for quite the mirage in Taehyung’s sex desert. Your back is arched elegantly so you can peer out the window on the opposite wall and admire the much better view you have in your new space. And your skin looks iridescent with the sheen of sweat the weather has lovingly draped upon you. Then you catch a stray juice trail about to run onto your hand with the flat of your tongue and chase the flavor all the way to the top of the popsicle and Taehyung suddenly needs a plan B fast.

You jump with a shriek when your neck meets something shockingly cold and wet. Turning your head, you see that it’s just your boyfriend running the edge of his snack along the place where sweat was collecting like a pretty dew on your skin. His tongue follows the sticky path he just made, causing your eyes to flutter shut on their own before you fight them back open.

“What are you doing, that’s so...gross,” your breath hitches when he bites down at the intersection of neck and shoulder.

“Nothing.” The popsicle descends again to follow the same trail he made but, this time, you only flinch a little. “Just enjoying my snack.”

“Am I the snack?” You give him an unamused look.

“You’re always a snack, baby.”

“Sorry,” you’re not sorry but still remove his hand from your shorts with some care, “but I draw the line after 80 degrees.”

His hand only retreats a little and ends up sitting on your stomach, laying like a hot coal there. You can feel the arousal twisting your insides and raising your temperature like it does. The only problem is that this time you really can’t afford to get any warmer. You’re sure that you’ve already sweat out all the important things in your body and if you so much as look at Taehyung the wrong way, you’ll become a puddle that’s 20% you and 80% limesicle.

“But it’s been so long.”

The tip of his nose reacquaints itself with the shell of your ear. The heat of his front does the same with your back.

“You won’t die. Back off and help me with these other boxes. There might be a fan in here somewhere.”

The promise of a fan measures up fairly well against the promise of (sweaty) sex and he immediately hunts for the scissors he was using to open more of the boxes. With the blades in hand, he cuts through the tape holding yet another wardrobe box closed with hope as his only means of staying cool. The flaps reveal no spinning blade treasure—only kitchenware that you promptly scoop up and rush out the room with. Taehyung stares dumbly at your fleeing back, slick and bare besides a black sports bra, before cupping himself lightly. It’s just to take the edge off, his thinks to himself.

After the kitchenware layer, the box is rather oddly packed. There’s a bunch of hangers, which he promptly puts into your closet, and some knick knacks he knows you plan on putting on your bookshelves once they have books on them. There’s even some winter clothes that he’s fairly sure should have gone in a different box while you were packing them. Before he can dwell too much on your lack of packing skills, he reaches the bottom of the box, which contains yet another box. It’s a simple shoe box. Which wouldn’t be out of the ordinary if you were a shoe fan like some people he knew. However, you aren’t a shoe fan. In fact, all of your other shoes were jammed into the bottom of another box that had been opened earlier. So why do you have this shoebox here?

Going solely off intuition and knowledge about you after nearly a year together, he’s guessing there’s just some random sentimental things inside that you didn’t know where to put. If that’s what’s inside, he knows he shouldn’t peek, but he’s curious to see if anything to do with him is in the box. He pulls the lid up daintily, like the secrets won’t escape if he’s gentle, only to slam it back down as soon as he eyes the contents.

Well, he supposes sex toys could have sentimental value. But they don’t have much to do with him.

He lifts the lid again now that he’s certain nothing in the box can tell on him. With the sounds of you organizing your kitchen as his personal soundtrack, his begins rifling through the box. There’s a few bullets, what he thinks is a dildo but it’s covered in scales and has a few unnatural bends in it, some beads of varying sizes, and a classic hitachi among other things. Some of them he’d seen before, and some he hadn’t. Perhaps some of them kept you company before he started to. After a few thoughtful moments, he grabs one of the toys before replacing the lid and stashing the shoe box.

You’re almost finished sorting through all the different families of silverware you’ve collected over the years, when two hands land on your unclothed waist. The feeling of his palms on your sweaty skin has you squirming a bit.

“On a scale of one to ten, how wet are you,” Taehyung whispers in your ear.

“Your romance never ceases to amaze me.”

“Sorry, but...is it really just me?”

His forehead bumps against the back of your head as he takes in the way you look in shorts and a sports bra. It’s an understated look, to say the least, but he’s always loved the way you look with sweat on your skin.

“No,” you groan when he presses an open mouthed kiss to the nape of your neck. “But it’s just too hot to be doing cardio for no reason.”

His tongue darts out and flicks at your lobe, sending a quick blitz from your core out to your extremities. A small gush of arousal rushes down and you squeeze your thighs together in a stubborn effort to keep calm.

“What if I told you it’s not too hot?”

“You found the fan?” You turn around in his arms with shining eyes and he feels like an ass for not being able to say yes.

“No,” he grimaces. He attempts to wrap his arms around your waist placatingly, but you brush him off partly in anger and partly because you’re overheated. “But, if there’s no cardio needed, is it really too hot?”

“No cardio?”

You eye him suspiciously but let him drag you by the wrist back into the living room. Clearly he’s emptied out and flattened several other boxes since you took all your mismatched forks to the dining room for sorting. Only a few boxes remain unopened. The question of what he’s planning is still lingering when he pulls you over to a little setup that looks like he wrapped something in a pillowcase

“I don’t get it.”

“You will,” he grins boxy reassurance at you before sitting before the bundle on the ground. You follow suit while he unwraps it to reveal a vibrator you hadn’t used in a long while.

“What’s the joke, again?”

“It’s not a joke,” he whines, “This is how we can be lazy and get off.”

“I never really liked that one. I got it for free in a raffle in college and it was weirdly shaped so I couldn’t really get it to work.”

“Please? I swear I can make this work.”

You’re really tempted to say no. There are several drops of sweat actually rolling down your back as you ponder having an orgasm in your now-90-degree apartment. It seems ill-advised and like more work than Taehyung is marketing, but he also makes a convincing case. The convincing case being him and the fact that he still manages to look nearly edible in the middle of a heat wave.

His hair is flat and darkened against his forehead, heavy and saturated with sweat after brushing it back with his hands. The summer sun has darkened him slightly, making his skin appear more radiant in combination with the layer of his light sweat. The fact that he’s been shirtless and handsy all day only works in his favor. You sigh in defeat.

“Fine.”

His expression brightens considerably and he scrabbles up to rest his weight on his knees and heels to tug off his shorts to reveal the simple black briefs he had on underneath. He returns to a reclined position before snatching up the vibrator. You don’t get much warning and only barely get your own shorts hanging off one leg before he’s switching the toy on and nudging it between your thighs.

“So how did you—Oh!”

He has it angled differently than you did the times that you used it, and you wonder through the vibrations traveling over you if it's actually supposed to be for someone else to use on you. The thought dissipates quickly with the sudden wave of acute pleasure that creeps over you. It’s the type of feeling that has you almost smirking to yourself as you bite your lip, eyelids drooping closed as you hum to yourself. Taehyung lets out a sympathetic moan when you start rocking your hips against the device ever so slightly.

When your underwear is wet enough that he can feel it dampening the tips of his fingers near the toy, he removes it from your center. Your breath catches in your throat in a needy scoff that he ignores in favor of placing the still pulsating toy over his own crotch. There’s a small wet spot darkening the material of his briefs where his swollen head lays tucked up. He’s never really ever used a vibrator, but he figures it can’t be too different an experience. But when he touches it gingerly to the base of his clothed erection, the vibrations knock his breath out his lungs.

“Fuck, oh my...god,” he chokes out. Greedily, his finger twitches to kick the speed up a half unit. The increase has him nearly drooling within seconds and creates a steady dribble of pre-cum. “Shit, that feels good.”

“Share,” you snap at him after about 90 seconds of neglect to you dripping center.

“Make me,” he mumbles before massaging the toy up and down his length, ripping a gasp from his own lips.

You don’t take kindly to Taehyung hogging the vibrator. So you kick off your panties the rest of the way and decide to sit on the toy to get some action where you can. Before that, though, you do him the service of tugging his briefs down until they bunch around his knees. Once you’re settled, you’ve effectively trapped him where you want him. On the floor with the toy nestled between your folds and his shaft.

With your added weight and the return of your subtle hip rocking, the vibrations feel more intense for the both of you. You hiccup above him, hands coming out to brace your weight on his chest. It’s the only point of contact between you besides where your pelvises are slotted together. Naturally sweat begins to pool in the small spaces where you’re both joined, but it’s minimal and you don’t care. Especially not after Taehyung’s clumsy fingers knock the pulses into one of the different pattern modes. The steady buzz between your folds becomes a sudden tangle of tiny bursts. The pleasure hits you in matching percussive beats and you curl over Taehyung helplessly as the first wave of your first orgasm hits.

His eyes are squeezed shut because he’s not accustomed to the intense vibrations, but the sound of your moans let him know that you just came. He’s quick to follow with a few shallow thrusts that have you instinctively tightening your thighs around his hips to maintain your balance. The low, drawn out sound of his groans is accompanied by his large hands coming in to lock at your hips, grinding you down against him, soaking him further with your arousal. His holding you down has you squealing and squirming with oversensitivity at first. But when he doesn’t let go even after he spurts onto his own chest, you feel the familiar curls of pleasure behind the acidic overstimulation. Your nails scratch a fiery trail down his chest, somehow further raising his internal temperature as you both struggle in the silent endurance competition.

Who can last against the toy longer?

With gritted teeth and a river of sweat dripping down from his forehead, Taehyung taps out first. He switches the toy back down to its lowest setting before letting out a bark and squeeze at the flesh of your hip in a silent surrender. Your breathing is harsh and you’re so exhausted that you don’t even bother to use the muscles in your thighs to get off him. Instead, you nudge the toy out from in between you and let it clatter to the floor between Taehyung’s thighs while you recover still in his lap.

“That was fun,” you pant after a few minutes of silence. The sweat cooling in the space between you and Taehyung makes you finally scoot off him and onto the floor.

“I told you it would work. We didn’t even have to move that much.”

“That’s also true.” You watch him use the spare pillow case to wipe off the tacky cum on his stomach. “I never doubted you for a second.”

“You definitely did!”

“I whined about how hot it is. I didn’t say I thought your plan would fail.”

“I guess.” He lays star-fished out in the middle of your sparsely decorated living room before popping his head off the ground. “We really do need to find that fan, though.”

#btssmutclub #bangtan bookclub #networkbangtan #bttnetwork #95line.net #btswriters #kimtaehyung.net #bts smut #taehyung smut #bangtan imagines #bts imagines #taehyung imagine #bangtan scenarios #bts scenarios #taehyung scenarios #bangtan fanfic #bts fanfic #taehyung fanfic

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jootsmcgoots · 4 years

Text

Quiet Room (AFAB Reader with GN pronouns x Risotto Nero) Hurt/Comfort, Not SFW

Okay...last one of the batch! I do hope to write more pieces in the future, but this is all I got for now folks! Hope you all enjoy what I’ve posted up, and I will resume reblogging more stuff, old and new, when the fancy/energy strikes me.

This one’s yet another hurt/comfort fic about depression because well...as we all know, times have been rough lately, and that means a lotta people’s mental health situations have varied, mine personally just going down. Way down. I’m still afloat, but I really needed something comforting and so I wrote this piece.

I went back and forth about whether I should include smut or not, and in the end I did because I was trying to go for something less like... “ooh sexy time” and more just intimate, like a soft kind of sexual intimacy.

So for all of you out there who are feeling the same way I do: keep fighting the good fight. It only ends when we’re dead ✌️

Hope y’all like this.

Rating: Explicit, Not SFW

Genre/Tags: Not SFW, bath sex but only kind of.

Word count: 3499

Summary:

Come with me as I swim into the pale, pale darkness.

Never let go of my hand that grips yours hard.

Hey, are you still there?

When you're sinking, Risotto is there to pull you back up for air.

AFAB reader, gender-neutral pronouns.

You were no stranger to the weights and burdens of the world. After all, such things were natural. In a world full of beautiful, wonderful things, it only stands to reason that painful and heavy things would exist in equal measure.

As someone who had experienced pain, you had already come to the decision that you would be someone who helped others, to help them shoulder the weight so as to not let their knees buckle, to not leave them to be crushed under their load. You were a supporter, a protector, and you found strength in your kindness. You made a choice every single day, and not once did you ever regret it.

However, even the strong can be weak. No one is perfect nor invulnerable, and that includes even the strongest person in the world.

That was you today. Today, you were weak. Today, everything was far too heavy, far too difficult, far too much. It felt like no matter how much you struggled, it was a futile effort that would end in failure, no matter how many attempts you made to command your body into acting. You were practically on autopilot and taking care of yourself had been a veritable chore. It felt like all of your movements were slow and cumbersome. Every single action took far more energy, time, and effort than it should have had you not felt like your brain was full of molasses and worms.

Now it was evening, and the seconds continued to tick past as you sat slumped against your chair, eyes glazed over as you mindlessly browsed the Internet. A quick glance at the clock on the bottom right of the screen told you it was past 11PM and definitely well past your usual shower time. You let out a sigh, thick and heavy with your exhaustion despite the fact that you had barely done anything today.

You had been trying to convince yourself to finally get up and bathe for at least the past hour, and yet your body still stayed right where it was, as if you were glued to the computer chair. No matter how many times you commanded yourself to move, your body refused.

Closing your eyes tiredly, you wondered if it was even worth trying to shower. Normally, you put in an effort to take care of yourself, no matter the circumstances, yet your limbs refused to move, resigning themselves to remaining bogged down by whatever was ailing you. But then again, your hair needed washing and your skin was sticky and grimy with sweat and you were uncomfortable and…

The distant sound of the front door unlocking and shutting shook you out of your haze. One eye peeled open, looking in the direction of the sound. With a grunt, you did your best to pull yourself up to sit straight as heavy footsteps drew closer and closer to your room. The door opened with a quiet swing as Risotto stepped in. You stiffly turned your head to look in his direction.

Your greeting barely made it past your throat, your voice rather empty sounding. “Hey.”

Risotto hummed in response. In silence, red eyes studied you intently. Though you could feel his stare on you, you paid him no mind, continuing to scroll through whatever random online forum you found yourself at.

“You haven’t showered yet.” he observed.

You merely mumbled an affirmative, finding speaking to be difficult. You didn’t like it when he saw you like this, but you couldn’t find it in you to put up some façade of stability. It felt like you were up to your waist in water and your pieces were drifting in all different directions, and no matter how hard you trudged, you could barely fight against the current, let alone pull yourself back together.

Risotto hummed again, this time in consideration. It was one of those days, he supposed. He had hypothesized that that was the case. When he had passed by the kitchen, he had noted that the dishes on the dishrack seemed to be the exact same ones from this morning, except with a few additions. You must have managed to do the dishes but not put away the already clean ones. A sign that you were struggling. He had prepared himself for this to be the case when he walked into your room. Seeing you drift in and out of focus as you basically wilted away in your chair only confirmed it.

With that, his mind was made up. Sighing, he leaned down to pick you up into his arms. You made a noise at the contact and removal from your spot, but offered zero resistance, letting him hoist you up and carry you to the bathroom.

“Let’s get you washed up.”

“Nyehhh,” you whined in response, drawing out the syllable, “M’already washed up. Heh. Geddit. Heh heh heh.” Your chuckle was deadpan and flat. You felt his chest rumble with his “mm” as he continued to carry you.

Entering the bathroom, Risotto flipped the light switch on with his elbow. You groaned and instinctively shied away from the suddenly too-bright fluorescent light. Your boyfriend walked further into the room and closed the lid of the toilet before gently setting you down to sit.

You sat there, body lax and gaze unfocused as you watched Risotto start the shower and strip down. Heaving a sigh, you followed suit, lethargically pulling your clothes off. By the time you were finally bare, the water had heated up to a suitable temperature, and Risotto led you inside of the stall.

You gave a contented sigh as you felt hot water wash over your body. Despite how it seemed, it wasn’t that you didn’t want this; you just couldn’t get up to do it. You could feel your muscles relaxing underneath the shower. You really did need this.

“Good?” Risotto asked.

You nodded, eyes lidded from the heavenly warmth of the shower. “Good.” You were beginning to zone out, when you registered Risotto’s hand and a handful of cold shampoo all over your scalp.

“Close your eyes.” he commanded, beginning to work some shampoo into a lather. You obeyed, staring into the dark, taking in all of the sensations. The gentle sound of the shower, the scent of your shampoo, the pleasant scratch and pull along your scalp and the warmth on your skin, all of these felt heightened in the dark. You shivered as you felt his nails scrape at the back of your head and along the nape of your neck.

You felt him silently guide you to where the spray was strongest, and you felt his hands carding through your wet hair, rinsing out all of the suds. When he was done, you raised your head and ran a hand through the front, sweeping back any hair that was stuck to your face.

You fumbled blindly for a moment, looking for the face towel you kept in the shower.

“Here.” Risotto offered, handing you the towel. After a moment more of blind groping about, you took the towel with a thankful grunt before wiping off your face. You handed it to him after you were done to let him use it while you glanced around for the bodywash.

Picking up the bottle, you squirted some into your hand and worked the soap into a lather before setting your hands along Risotto’s body. He murmured appreciatively, enjoying the feeling of your hands working his skin and muscles. You scrubbed him diligently, massaging him wherever you could reach. Soon, he took matters into his own hands for the rest.

Before you could start on yourself, a firm hold on your wrist halted you.

“Allow me.”

You looked at him as if in thought, but in the end you silently acquiesced. Without a word exchanged between the two of you, you stood there as Risotto’s large hands roamed over your body, lathering your skin with care and attention. You let out a breathy “ah” when you felt his thumbs press into the muscles of your back and shoulders, massaging them carefully. You could feel your muscles relaxing with the firm yet gentle motions, letting yourself go slack under his touch as he worked out the knots that had formed while you were hunched over your desk.

He didn’t go further than that, and set to rinsing the both of you off. The two of you shared the quietude of the bathroom, the spray of the shower on your bodies and the tile the only sound in the room.

Once Risotto deemed the both of you adequately clean, he shut off the water and gestured for you to step out. Just as you were about to towel off, you were interrupted again.

“Wait.”

You looked over your shoulder inquisitively. If your emotions weren’t so weirdly stopped up, you were sure you would have had some sort of confused look on your face. When Risotto stepped past you and over to the tub, you understood, letting out a realizing “ahh”.

“Are you sure?” you asked. You knew he didn’t always have time for something as indulgent or time-consuming as a bath; life kept him busy that way.

He returned your question with an immovable stare. “Yes.”

Though he had only uttered one word, even in your depression-hazed mind you knew he was vocalizing his choice to reassure you that he wanted this. Your heart fluttered with appreciation, and you had no more arguments.

When the bath was full enough you watched as Risotto added some bath oil to the water, the scent of lavender and sandalwood hitting your nose. Settling in, he looked up to you and wordlessly beckoned you to join him. Your steps were slow and hesitant, but soon you settled in the water and sat between his legs. A gentle hand took you and encouraged you to lean against him.

A few moments of silence passed. Now the room was entirely quiet, and the only sound was the occasional trickle of the showerhead or the stray drop or two of water from the tub’s faucet dripping into the water below, sending ripples through the tub.

Normally, you would be filling the silence or starting the conversation with any sort of pointless topic or line of discussion. At this moment though, your mind was a jumbled mess, words difficult to grasp as they seemed to fade in and out of focus, blocked up in your throat and stuck to your tongue.

Even then though, you knew that neither of you truly minded the silence, nor found it awkward or stifling. Risotto was never one to mind the quiet, and you had already fallen into a state of comfort where you could say nothing and simply be without it becoming awkward or anxiety-inducing.

You merely leaned against him more, sighing, the sound tired and empty. As if to soothe you, Risotto’s hands began roaming over your body, large, strong hands stroking you gently and reassuringly. You mumbled in response to let him know that you could feel what he was doing and enjoyed it. That was all he needed to understand what you meant, and he pressed a soft kiss to your wet hair.

His hands stopped at your hips, thumbs just rubbing your skin appreciatively and affectionately. You shivered at the sensation, letting out a low sigh. Your breath hitched when you felt his lips move from the top of your head to the side, kissing your temples tenderly. You were then hoisted up to sit on his lap, water crashing against the walls of the tub and filling the still and quiet room with sudden noise.

A small noise of confusion left your lips, and you gave him another questioning look. What you found was Risotto looking at you, black and red eyes so soft and tender, so full of affection that your heart quivered. His face had hardly changed from his default indifferent expression, yet you saw all of the subtle signs that were written all over his face, tiny details and landmarks only you understood from the emotional landscape you had come to know and love.

“Please let me take care of you.” His voice was as deep and rich as ever, yet there was a quality to it, like it was just a step below pleading to you. You nodded, finding yourself unable to launch into some stumbling tirade about how he didn’t need to or how you didn’t deserve it.

A shudder rolled down your spine as you felt one of his hands dip between your legs, his fingers delicately tracing around your mound. You hissed as the pad of his finger traced up your slit, teasing your lips. He drew circles along the flesh, making you twitch expectantly as he neared your clit yet pointedly avoided it.

Mercifully, he was only going to tease you just enough to heighten the experience for you. Soon, his fingers found purchase on your clit, and you let out a small, sharp whine at the sudden and much-desired friction. Your mind began to fog over as he slowly rubbed over your clit, stroking it lazily while his other hand worked its way up your body, out of the water and onto your breast.

You shivered at the sudden warmth on your cold chest, letting out a little gasp at the change of temperature. As his hand kneaded your breast, callused fingers playing with your nipples, more and more sounds were being coaxed from your lips as he rolled his thumb over your clit. Soon the relative silence of the bathroom was filled with noises, from Risotto’s soft, muted pants to your moans that were slowly but surely building in volume.

Your head was clouding over, and you felt as if you were sinking beneath the surface in a slow but pleasant descent. Between the heat of the bath, the steam, and the growing tension in your gut, you felt like you were lost in a fog – hot, humid, and all around you. You were sure your face was horribly red and flushed, heat practically consuming your features. Your head lolled slightly as your jaw slackened, surrendering yourself to the slow but steadily mounting pleasure, letting yourself get more and more lost. You barely registered the feeling of plush lips against your neck, kissing gently, over and over again.

“Ah!” You let out a sharp gasp of pain and lust as sharp teeth nipped at your skin, marking and bruising you. The pinpricks of pain momentarily forced your senses back to attention, and you were suddenly all too aware of the heat and tension building between your legs that was going to blow. Your pants grew desperate and hurried, wordless, meaningless whines escaping your throat as his fingers drew you closer to your end.

He gave your nipple a hard pinch and sped up his ministrations between your legs, and Risotto’s kisses took on a more fervent pace, littering the column of your neck with marks, as if he was dedicatedly trying to cover you in them.

You barely heard, much less consciously registered Risotto’s quiet pleads for you to cum, your eyes squeezing shut as euphoria coursed through your veins, shivering as the deep bass of his voice vibrated against your senses. The bolts of arousal that had been building came to a head as you finally went over the edge, shaking and spasming in Risotto’s strong, secure hold as you came with a cry, warm waves of ecstasy washing over you. He held you as you rode out your orgasm, kissing the side of your head sweetly as you came undone in his arms.

Your body lay limp against his as you came down from your high, practically melting into him as your head lolled to the side to rest against his chest. Your hair was now partially dried, now fixed in a weird arrangement, but you were far too dazed to care.

Your bleary eyes registered drops of moisture running down his chest, and only then did you notice the tears running down your face. A steady hand was raised to wipe them away.

“Sorry.” you managed to mumble out, tears continuing to roll down your cheek as you blinked. The hand on your face continued to wipe the tears away dutifully before it moved to your arm, squeezing you reassuringly.

“There’s nothing to be sorry for, darling.” Risotto asserted matter-of-factly. However, the hands on your arms removed themselves, and you found yourself trapped in a tight embrace as he held you close to him.

The sound of those comforting words in his voice that you loved so much stirred something in your heart. So badly did you want to believe in them, to dispel the curse born from you so you could be free. And yet you found yourself afraid, able to see the light in the distance, but your feet refused to move for fear of disappointment.

“I don’t want to make you baby me.” Your voice was so tiny and shaky that if it weren’t for the fact that you were forcing yourself to speak, you were sure the words would have died upon contact with the air. “I, I should be better than this. You already take care of a lot, and I don’t want to add to that. And anyways, I don’t…”

Your voice petered out, your vocal cords seeming to be unable or unwilling to produce the sound for those words.

I don’t deserve any of this. I don’t get to have this. Don’t waste your time on me.

A part of you refused to realize this thought and wanted to prevent it from taking form more than it already had. It was your last-ditch attempt at rebellion, the final semblance of defiance against your own mind. However, it was also because you were afraid of what would happen if you vocalized that wretched thought.

You wrapped yourself in silence, and a part of you hoped that if you shut your eyes and ears, you would finally disappear.

You felt the grip on you grow tighter, and a firm, steady voice behind you anchoring your soul here, refusing to let you go to that place.

“(Y/N).” You made a slight face. The sound of your own name sounded so strange to you. “It is a fool’s errand to think that you can take on everything by yourself when you are outmatched.”

Though the content of his words may have seemed scathing, the sting was dull, if not non-existent. You knew, and you were already well-aware of the fact; it’s just that your brain still told you otherwise, and no amount of cognitive, logical recognition of the fact seemed to dampen the belief enough.

He continued, the low rumble of his voice reverberating through you as you closed your eyes and listened. “I know you don’t do the things you do for me because you feel like you must. You should know that I feel the same way about you.”

And you did know. You knew that you lent your strength, not because of some lofty moral goal or desire to be some icon of righteousness, but because you just truly cared about the people you loved, and that you could find love in support and compassion. You were never just a benefactor but also a beneficiary in providing your support because those that loved you would respond in kind, sharing what they had with you.

“When you are by my side, please remember that I am by yours as well.”

You were tired, exhausted beyond comprehension, and the world still had countless ways to hurt and disappoint you. But he was right; you weren’t alone, and you never would be. That very fact preserved the light in your eyes and the fire in your heart.

No words were exchanged, and the room was silent once again, but from the way you tentatively sought his hand and squeezed it softly, Risotto knew you understood what he meant. He smiled and gripped your hand in turn, his fingers rearranging to lace with yours as he pressed another kiss to your head.

Even if he wasn’t much for promises in a world where nothing is guaranteed, Risotto figured the least he could do was offer you his loyalty, the most ironclad thing he had to give to you.

Though you were likely to have many more nights such as these, you knew you would find the strength to fight another day, again and again without fail. You would rise to your feet, knowing that your strength was not only your own, and with the most reliable person in the world by your side.

In the quiet of the room, surrounded by his sublime warmth, you let the reminder that you were loved and cared for seep into you, permeating your flesh and bones and settling deep into your chest.

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flowercoasts · 5 years

Text

this dream isn’t feeling sweet (1/1)

words: 3.2k

After a meeting with her father ends poorly, Beau tries to distance herself from the group. Nott doesn’t let her.

Read on AO3 or

Beau’s sitting by herself and nursing a glass of shitty ale when Nott finds her.

“You look like shit.” Nott says bluntly, pausing a foot away from Beau. Behind her, the rest of the Mighty Nein sit around a large circular table, playing a round of card games that Beau opted out of pretty early on once she realized that Jester and Nott would just cheat the whole time. Fjord’s loud groan from across the room probably means that the great detective duo are still winning.

“Fuck off,” Beau replies half-heartedly. It’s more of a grumble than anything, with the way her face is practically buried in her tankard and her head is lowered to the bar. She knows she looks like shit - she certainly feels it. It’s not like Beau can help it though - her head hurts like a goddamn stampede is marching around in there. There’s nothing she can do to stop the pounding in her skull or the whispers in the back of her brain that sound eerily like her father. Or herself. Both, maybe. Either way, it’s so fucking loud.

Why are you here, Beauregard? You don’t belong here.

Nott just hums, and there’s a scraping of metal as she clambers up onto the barstool next to Beau, her wide yellow eyes shining with something that makes the dread in Beau’s gut sink even further. It’s Nott’s signature ‘I’m going to meddle now’ look, and whenever Nott gets that look, nothing ever ends well. Beau really does not need something else to add to this horrible fucking day. She just wants to get super fucking trashed, maybe start a fight, and then pass out. Hopefully in the morning, she’ll just wake up with absolutely no memory of the night before but at least ten bruises to fill her in on the details.

“What.” Beau slams her empty tankard down on the bar a little harder than necessary when a minute passes of Nott remaining silent. “What do you want.”

“Who said I wanted something?” Nott waves down the bartender.

Beau raises an eyebrow as Nott gets six shots, all filled generously with the high shelf shit that Beau herself was eyeing earlier. It’s so strong that she can smell it from a seat away. “You always do.”

“That’s not true.”

There’s no reply to that. Beau just stares at Nott with a raised eyebrow as the goblin studiously ignores her and throws back a shot, quick. Her clawed fingers tap on the bar’s countertop restlessly.

Nott sighs, concedes. “Alright, maybe I do want something.”

It’s Beau’s turn to hum and continue the silence now, and she waves down the bartender too, except instead of six shots she just tells the bartender to get the whole bottle. He eyes her a little pitifully when she asks, but a well-practiced glare makes him avert his gaze easily.

There’s certainly one thing you’re good at Beauregard: driving others away.

“Beau.”

“Yeah.” The alcohol burns easy down her throat, soothing away a bit of that ache in her chest. Jester’s laughing, loud and bright at the table with the others. It’s more than a little frustrating that out of everyone’s side talk and chatter, Jester’s the only one who Beau can hear clearly. She really doesn’t want to inspect whatever that means right now, not after the day she’s had, maybe not ever. Another gulp it is.

“I need to talk to you.” Nott’s fiddling with her other five shots, all full but untouched at the moment. If she doesn’t drink that soon, Beau probably will.

Beau smirks, but there’s none of her usual mirth in it. “We are talking.”

Nott huffs. “You know that’s not what I mean.” She turns around on the stool so that she’s facing Beau instead of the bar, and Beau doesn’t miss her long side glance over at the table where the rest of the Nein are seated. When Nott turns her gaze back to Beau, her yellow eyes are determined and tinged with that little bit of sadness that makes Beau’s jaw clench.

“Not sure I do know what you mean,” Beau says through gritted teeth. That pity in everyone’s eyes is what made her leave the table in the first place - she doesn’t need more from Nott, not right now. Not ever. A swirling heavy ball rolls around in her stomach, glowing and angry; Beau has to breathe through her nose heavily to keep calm.

“Why are you being so difficult?”

“Always am.” Beau slams back another swig and turns around in her seat for the first time that night as she moves to stand from the bar. Everything right now is making her skin crawl. It’s so stifling in here. As soon as her boots hit the ground, a small green hand darts out, fingers wrapping around her wrist and holding her in place.

Nott’s yellow eyes are shiny with genuine concern. “Beau. Please.”

Jester laughs again, and Beau flinches at the sound. It’s still so clear, even when her brain is so foggy. Even when her hands shake, just slight enough to pass off as a chill. Everything else is blurry except for that laugh, and, as Beau cuts a cursory glance at the table the Nein are huddled around, Jester’s grinning, wide and bright, and Beau has to fight every urge within herself to walk towards her. Beau can’t. Not now. Not when that ball at the pit of her stomach is making her nauseous and Nott’s careful fingers are wrapped around her wrist like Beau will break under too much pressure. Fuck, maybe she will. Her head feels like it’s about to burst open, so anything could happen at this point.

Beau sighs, nods.

Still clutching the bottle of alcohol she bought, Beau steps towards the stairs leading up to the second floor of the inn, where her room is. Well, where her and Jester’s room is. Nott follows along, her fingers slipping away from Beau’s wrist, but still keeping close anyways, like Beau will somehow wander off in this tiny tavern. Though, Beau kind of wants to leave this conversation, because there’s no way it’ll end well, so it’s a valid concern.

The bottle bangs against her thigh, a steady beat that keeps her grounded with each foreboding step towards Beau’s shut room door. She focuses only on that instead of how nauseous she feels. Beau shoves the door to the room open, more forceful than strictly necessary, but it slams solidly against the wall, satisfying an ache for a moment as she settles on the bed, taking a large swig from the nearly-empty bottle.

Nott follows her in a bit after, taking small cautious steps like Beau will dart away if she moves too fast. It’s still up in the air. Beau just watches her, looking for nothing in particular. Watching the way Nott’s eyes are wide and sad, maybe. Or how her claws are tap tap tapping against each other - a nervous tic. Maybe she’s looking at the slight sag in Nott’s shoulders.

“So.” Nott halts just in front of Beau, who’s sitting on the bed passively. “... What’s up?”

Beau raises an eyebrow. “What’s up?”

“Yeah.” Shifting quietly on her feet, because she’s always quiet on her feet, Nott looks away.

Beau just stares. And stares. Takes a swig and stares some more.

“What?”

“Seriously?” A frown crosses Beau’s face, suddenly stricken with a weird nauseous anger. “You wanna talk to me and all you wanted to ask is ‘what’s up’?”

“Beau -“

“This is stupid. I’m fine, whatever.”

Never were good at making friends, Beauregard. No one had to even tell them to leave before you chased them away.

Nott clicks her tongue against her teeth, an ugly, abrasive sound. “You’re not fine. Literally anyone can see that, Beau.”

“Yeah. Well.” Abruptly, Beau pushes herself off of the bed, making Nott have to jump out of the way to not run into Beau as she takes a step towards the door. “They’re wrong.”

A hand wraps around her wrist, the same one, but this time rougher, more insistent. “Beau, don’t you dare run away right now. You’re not okay, and I need to talk to you.” Nott yanks on her hand and Beau stumbles, more unsteady on her feet than she thought. Must’ve had too much to drink. “Sit down.”

Beau grunts, flopping facedown down onto the bed. It squeaks under her weight. The whole thing smells like dust and stale air, but it’s weirdly comforting in it’s familiarity.

“Beau.”

Grunts again.

“Look at me.”

No response.

This is why they leave.

The room lapses into a weird nebulous quiet then, just tense enough for Beau to feel comfortably uncomfortable as she presses her cheek further into the mattress. It’s scratchy against her skin, coarse and rough in the way that most shitty inns are. The slight sting it leaves on her skin is grounding, and she focuses on that as the second pass by.

“He was wrong, you know.” Beau stiffens as Nott shuffles closer, wooden floorboards creaking under her weight. “He was wrong about you.”

Beau grits her teeth and wills her throat to stop feeling so tight, so choking. It means nothing and it should mean nothing, not anymore. It’s not a big deal, so why is her hand shaking against the bedsheet? She lets out an unsteady breath, still pressed firm and tense against the bed. The faint voice from before pounds against her skull, invading her thoughts with echoes of her father’s voice. Her voice.

You’re still a disappointment, Beauregard.

“We know you, Beau, and your father, he -“

“He’s right,” Beau croaks out, flipping over onto her back to look Nott dead in the eyes.

“No, Beau. He’s not.” Nott leans forward, placing her small hands on Beau’s ankles. “He’s not.”

Coughing lightly, Beau looks away from Nott’s too-heavy gaze. “Sure.”

You didn’t truly believe you were good, did you? After everything you’ve done?

Nott sighs, and her grip tightens a little where it’s placed, warm on Beau’s cool skin. “Okay.”

Judging by the weird flat tone of voice, Nott doesn’t believe her. That’s fine. Beau doesn’t believe Nott either.

“There are like, at least 20 different people that are for sure way worse than you. You’re not even in the top 25. Maybe top 50.” Adjusting her grip, Nott stares up at Beau, her expression a little pleading even with the lightness to her tone.

“Eh.” Beau sits up. “Doubt that.”

“What do you mean, you doubt that - you know we met Trent Ikithon, right?”

“Yeah but 20 is kinda a stretch.”

“Beau -”

“I’ve killed probably more people than any of those people on your list,” Beau says. Her shoulders are still tense, but her hands aren’t trembling now. Not when she’s in her preferred territory.

All you’re good for is making everyone else uncomfortable.

Nott narrows her eyes. “I’ve killed just as much.”

Oh, a competition. “I punched a kid the same week I met you.”

“I shot you in the ass.” That one doesn’t seem worse, honestly.

“I got my girlfriend locked in jail.” Saying it out loud still stings, but it’s a good kind of pain. Just the right amount of edge to feel alive enough to sit up straighter, lean towards Nott’s increasingly sad eyes.

The corners of Nott’s lips pull down slightly. “I killed Caduceus.”

“I lied to Molly the last night we had together.” Beau has to win this. She doesn’t know why. The pounding in her head won’t stop though, and the drink in her hand has done nothing but make her feel even shittier about the whole day. The only thing that’s making any sense right now is this sharp pain as she digs into old wounds. It feels like resurfacing into a burning fire - all consuming, cleansing.

You’ve always loved picking at your own wounds.

“I let my son and husband think I was dead for years…” Nott looks so unbearably sad, and just a little scared. Could be at Beau’s suddenly excited face. Could also be her own registering of shit that she’s done. It makes the nausea soothe a little in Beau’s stomach, but the thought of feeling relief at Nott’s pain causes the sick in her throat to well up all over again.

She needs to win. She has to.

“I was so terrible as a kid that my own dad had to hire people to kidnap me.”

The room goes quiet, thick with tension and untapped secrets like bombs waiting to go off. Beau wants to tap each one of them, just to see how big that explosion would be. Probably would wreck them both.

Nott lets go of Beau’s ankles, her claws scraping unpleasantly against Beau’s skin. Her yellow eyes are so full of a heavy sadness it hurts to look at. But Beau stares anyways, unblinking.

You hurt everyone you know.

“Beau, that wasn’t -”

There’s still a point to be made here. No one’s won, yet. “I lie to everyone, all the time. I lie to you. I lie to the group. I lie to Jester.”

“Beau -”

“I have a crush on my best friend that I still haven’t told her about. I sleep next to her every night, anyways.” The wound feels raw, aching, but still not enough. Beau laughs mirthlessly and runs a hand over her hair. “I hope she finds out.”

That confession gets Nott to slap her hands on Beau’s knees, her fingers tight and shaky where they rest against the scars littering brown skin. “Why?”

“I want her to hate me.”

“Beau,” Nott whispers, her voice a crackly and scratchy thing. She looks more scared and sad than before. “Why -”

“Because, Nott.” Beau leans forward, nodding and smiling just like her father taught her to. It’s only a little bitter around the edges. I love to ruin others. “Thoreau’s right.”

There. That’s the point. She needs Nott to get that. Even if the wounds are still sore and aching and open, even if she still feels like throwing up, even if her head is still pounding. Beau needs Nott to understand.

If there was any good in her ever, it disappeared the moment she started stealing from her dad. Everything from then on was just a pit of quicksand and regret, chewing her up with teeth sharper than knives. It’s all Beau knows, all she ever can be.

She needs Nott to know that her father was right, even if it makes her sick to her stomach to think about.

Yellow eyes stare at her, taking her in. Nott sizes her up, chewing on her bottom lip thoughtfully. No doubt she’s trying to figure out the fastest way to end this conversation. Good. Beau can finish her bottle in peace and fester her wounds on her own. Beau eyes the room’s window. Maybe she can even sneak out and find some kind of fight. Or start one.

Nott sucks in a breath, releasing it slowly. Her claws tighten around Beau’s skin, leaving indents. “...I know how you feel -”

“You don’t know how I feel,” Beau cuts in, quick. Her eyes are sharp as she leans back, away from Nott.

“Beau, I do. I fell in love with my best friend, and we got married.” At Beau’s sharp intake of breath, Nott shakes her head and presses on insistently. “Despite what anyone thought about us.”

“Nott this is so far from that -“ Beau runs a hand over her hair and looks away, takes another swig from her bottle.

“How? How is it so different?”

“Because.”

Nott leans forward, frowning heavily. “Where I’m sitting they seem pretty similar.”

“They’re not.”

“Why.”

Because I’m Beauregard Lionett.

“Look, this isn’t a fucking fairytale, we die nearly every fucking day. No way in any way will she ever feel the same.” The nausea comes crawling back in full force and Beau shifts on the bed. Scratches irritably at the back of her neck.

“Life doesn’t have to be a fairytale for things to work out,” Nott says, and leans in even closer, like closing the distance between them will help get her point across, somehow.

“No,” Beau replies sharply. “It has to be a fucking miracle.”

With a heavy, exasperated sigh, Nott lifts her hands from Beau’s legs, reaching forward to grip tight around Beau’s arms, instead. “Why do you keep thinking like that, Beau! Seriously, what -”

Beau growls and rips away from Nott’s grasp. “It’s a goddamn pipe dream and I know it, but there’s still this stupid piece of hope in me and you’re not helping by trying to convince me I have a chance.”

“How do you know she doesn’t like you? How are you so sure?”

“I just am, okay?” Beau stands abruptly, pushing past Nott. The goblin follows her as she goes to the window.

“Why can’t she like you back?”

“This doesn’t work like that.”

“Why, Beau.”

“It just doesn’t.”

“But why Beau?”

Because I’m Beauregard fucking Lionett and not even my parents wanted me. I’m unlovable and abrasive and rude and hard to look at, remember?

Beau looks away.

The moon hangs high in the sky, interrupted only by a few errant dark clouds as they roll through the night. Rays of light shine down onto the slatted roofs of the houses below, all quiet and dark in slumber.

Something tugs on her sash. It’s not hard enough to move her, but it’s just enough pressure to register as Nott’s. Beau hears her sigh.

“Your father was wrong, Beau. He always has been. I’m sorry… I’m sorry you ever had to listen to him.” Overwhelming sadness and longing creeps up Beau’s tight throat but she wills it away, far down where no one can reach it. “You deserve so much more.”

Beau keeps on looking out the window.

After a minute of silence, Nott shifts, the rustle of fabric the only indicator that she’s moving away.

“Beau.” A pause. Beau stares resolutely out the window. “We’re here for you.” And then, so quiet Beau has to quiet her breathing to hear: “You’re good. You’ve always been good. More than enough.”

There’s nothing Beau cares to say. She still has a thousand raging fires under her skin and the pounding in her head hasn’t lessened, but she stays tense and silent as the door creaks shut. Once she’s sure Nott’s padded away, Beau drops the now empty bottle to the floor and rests her forehead against the cool wooden wall of the room.

Her father said a lot of things to her that day. A lot of it stuck. The one she’s thinking about right now though?

You don’t deserve them.

Beau steels her breath, lifts her hands to her eyes to rub at them until she sees stars and then just stares at her knuckles, thinks about how useless she is without them. The restlessness wells back up, taking its place right next to the nausea and the pain. She glances back out the window and takes in the position of the moon. It’s sometime around midnight.

Jester would probably be going to sleep soon.

Not looking back, Beau opens the window and hops out, that skin crawling ache following her as she lands on the cracked pavement two stories below.

Fuck Thoreau for being right.

#elena talks #cr fanfiction #beauregard lionett #critical role #critical role fanfiction #my writing #beaujester #kind of? this is just pure beau angst tbh #mine

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vitanes · 5 years

Text

say it’s okay when it’s not

chapter 5: i miss my mom

Lucas and Eliott hang out together more than once, there are deep talks and a birthday party. One would not believe what happens during that party.

(a/n: internalised homophobia tw)

Sleeping on the couch might have initially seemed like a good idea. In a wasted Lucas’ mind. Now, as his eyes flutter open just to be met with the blinding sunlight and the pain in his neck registers, Lucas has many regrets. He clicks his tongue and God, is his mouth dry. He needs some water as soon as possible or he will die. Surely.

He turns his head to the left and groans. He’s really ended up in an uncomfortable position. His legs are partly hanging off the couch, he’s weirdly bent in the middle and one of his arms has gone numb from having supported his weight for God knows how long.

Lucas sighs and tries to move around and stop damaging his back even further. It’s then that he notices something else. Or rather someone. Curled up to make himself tiny, on the other end of the couch is Eliott. His knees are drawn up against his chest and his arms are hugging them. His lips are parted, hair tousled and his expression calm. He looks soft and despite knowing better, Lucas would even say he seems cosy.

He moves a little in his sleep and Lucas panics. It’d be weird if Eliott opened his eyes and found Lucas watching him. Fucking awkward even. Like, yes, they are known for having those weird staring matches, but that would be too much for Lucas’ standards.

Thankfully, there’s no need to worry since Eliott is still safe and sound. Lucas breathes out and looks away, oddly aware of how he was actually observing someone in their sleep. His mind is hazy from having only woken up. And he smoked a lot the day prior. That would explain this whole thing.

Hell, sometimes he really acts like a total weirdo.

“Hey.” He hears after a couple of minutes pass and his eyes land back on Eliott, who is blinking sleepily.

“Hello,” Lucas croaks out and coughs. Water, he needs some water.

Eliott closes his eyes and smirks. “You sound like you’ve been sucking dick for a few hours straight,” he mumbles, his limbs stretching out up until there’s a loud crack.

Lucas’ eyes do not rest on the stripe of skin where Eliott’s shirt rides up. He’s too busy being appalled by Eliott’s comment.

“Fuck off,” he says. “I feel like I haven’t had anything wet in my mouth for years.” Lucas scowls, his eyes searching for anything to drink that isn’t alcohol.

He feels Eliott looking at him for the longest moment before Eliott says, “That means there was no dick sucking.”

Lucas turns towards him, feeling pretty much done. “Where’s the Eliott who makes movies and is into classical music or something?”

“If I remember well from our piano concert, you’re the one who knows more about classical music, not me. I’m a dubstep kind of guy.” He winks at Lucas and it’s just so–

So ridiculous and surreal, that they are teasing each other like old friends. Twenty-four hours ago Lucas hated Eliott’s guts and was dreading coming to his flat and now? Now he’s content, he wants to hang out with Eliott. Lucas has learned that Eliott isn’t some kind of a god; Adonis or the perfect guy. He likes bad music, makes dick jokes and if Lucas wanted, he’d probably find dirty clothes scattered around his bedroom. No wonder his friends like him this much, he fits. It’s like Yann said, Lucas just hasn’t given him a chance before.

Oh, how much can change overnight. And all the weeks of Lucas’ hostility towards Eliott seem so silly to him. They just had to spend a few hours together to get along.

“Wanna eat something?” Eliott asks, sitting up and it takes a second for Lucas to realise the question is directed at him. When he does so, though, he nods and gets a wide grin in return.

Eliott nods towards the kitchen and gets up. Lucas follows him closely.

Once inside, Lucas literally attacks the sink and turns the water on. He takes big gulps, killing the thirst and feeling refreshed.

“You know there is water here,” Eliott says, his tone tinged with joy and Lucas glances at him to see him pointing towards a bottle standing on the counter next to the sink. Lucas turns the tap off and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Maybe I like tap water,” he retorts, leaning against the side of the sink.

Eliott snorts and turns towards the fridge. He opens it and lets out a thoughtful hum.

“I can’t say I have anything nutritious. Can’t say that,” he mutters, threading his fingers through his hair. It still looks good despite the whole night on the couch and being ruffled. Lucas wonders how it’s possible. He must have a bird nest on his head by now.

He steps behind Eliott to get a peek on what’s inside the fridge and yeah, it sure is empty. There’s some cheese, a bottle of ketchup and yoghurt.

He looks up at Eliott, scowling and Eliott bites down on his lower lip.

“Haven’t gone grocery shopping?” he says meekly, stepping from one foot to another and it’s then that Lucas realises Eliott is nervous. They can’t have that. Lucas isn’t here to be impressed or some other shit.

“It’s fine. Do you have bread? We could make some cheese toast,” he suggests, eyeing the cheese and hoping it’s still good. Eliott gasps and goes over to a cupboard above the sink. He opens it and looks inside, but very quickly his expression falls.

“Dude, how do you manage to survive?” says Lucas, the last person who should be judging Eliott in this case, if his own empty shelf in the fridge is anything to go by.

(But what Eliott doesn’t know won’t hurt him.)

“Like I said, I haven’t gone grocery shopping this week,” Eliott replies and turns around to face Lucas. They stare at each other for a long moment until it gets too uncomfortable and Lucas chuckles. Eliott huffs and shakes his head. “I’ll order us pizza.”

Lucas isn’t exactly in the place to allow himself to have a takeout. See he has got some financial problems lately. “I… um didn’t bring much money with me,” he mutters, shrugging. Eliott waves him off.

“It’s whatever. You’re my guest and I should provide you with food, don’t worry.”

Lucas swallows and a part of him wants to fight, wants to disagree. He doesn’t want pity, doesn’t want to leech off someone else. But Eliott doesn’t seem like he’s taking some mercy on poor Lucas. So Lucas doesn’t say anything and lets Eliott order the food and pay for it.

They eat, talk between the bites. After they are full, Eliott lends Lucas a spare toothbrush. Lucas doesn’t dwell on the why Eliott has spare toothbrushes and explains it with it being a precaution for situations like this one. Not for some wild hook-ups.

“Do you want to play some games?” Eliott asks when they are both fed and have freshened up.

Lucas has no places to go, no responsibilities, so he says yes and stays till the sun sets.

***

Monday is weird for various reasons. Firstly, Lucas doesn’t come to school filled with anxiety upon having to spend time around Eliott for the first time in weeks. On the contrary, he’s actually quite excited to meet him. There’s also some shift in the dynamics since, sure, Lucas and Eliott spent Friday evening and most of the Saturday together and then were texting each other through Sunday, but it’s been only the two of them then. Arthur, Yann, and Basile are used to Lucas acting like Eliott doesn’t exist at best and being mean to him at worst. So seeing their expressions when Eliott comes up to them, greets them and exchanges a high five with Lucas, is a sight.

Lucas barely stops himself from laughing at how confused and shocked they are. Eliott catches on it very soon and grins at Lucas, amused. Lucas smiles back, feeling giddy because of how in tune they are.

“What happened?” Basile asks, completely baffled and Arthur nudges him in the side.

“Don’t ask questions, just smile and hope it stays that way,” he says through gritted teeth and Lucas rolls his eyes.

“That’s what happens when your friends are traitors. You find other allies.”

“Yeah, we are a team now,” Eliott says, playfully bumping his shoulder against Lucas’.

“Oh, so it worked?” Arthur asks and Lucas scrunches his nose up in a scowl.

“What worked?”

“We were hoping that if you two spent some time together, this whole Lucas hates Eliott would stop,” Arthur explains.

Lucas doesn’t know how to feel about it, but his skin is crawling. His friends ditched him with someone they knew he was uncomfortable around for their own benefit? Things have changed, yeah, but facts still stand. And it sort of stings. Lucas also remembers how hopeful to hang out with all of them Eliott was and his disappointment when they cancelled. He was genuinely upset. It’s not cool. He’s angry on the behalf of the two of them and inches closer towards Eliott.

“Let me get this straight, you bailed on us in hopes that we could possibly become friends? Ignoring how it’d make us feel?” he asks, his voice pretty composed considering the situation. He briefly glances at Eliott and sees him connecting the dots. He doesn’t seem pleased as well.

“No, it’s not like that,” Yann says and looks grimly at Arthur before turning his attention to Lucas and Eliott. “Coincidentally, we did all have unexpected plans then. What Arthur means is that we had decided to let you guys know we weren’t coming when we knew you would be at Eliott’s already. To be fair, Arthur proposed that. I wasn’t sure but thought fine, let’s try it.” Yann gives them both apologetic looks and Lucas deflates. He really must have been difficult if they went with that.

“Hey, dude, putting all of the blame on me? Not cool.” Arthur crosses his arms over his chest and pouts. “I just wanted everyone to get along. And it fucking worked. No need to thank me.”

They’re all awkwardly quiet for a moment. Well, Lucas thinks, that in some twisted way it does make sense. Especially the fact that Arthur came up with the idea. He’s friends with Lucas and may have a crush on Eliott. It’s obvious, Lucas would like his close friends to get on with someone he had a crush on as well.

He sighs. “Okay, maybe next time don’t do that, but whatever. It doesn’t matter anymore,” he says, defeated.

“There won’t be next time,” Arthur says, his voice confident. “Just don’t be so stubborn,” he adds and punches Lucas in the shoulder.

Lucas opens his mouth to reply, but gets stopped by the bell ringing.

“God, I can’t wait to be done with school,” Basile mutters as they all drag themselves into the building.

***

Lucas is focused on the lesson, making notes and gathering all the important facts for them to make sense later. He writes down the last sentence that the teacher said, briefly pausing halfway through before he remembers the rest of it. He’s writing the last word when his arm is poked and he smudges the last few letters.

“Why didn’t you tell me Manon was back?” Imane whispers into his ear. She looks at Lucas meaningfully and he gulps.

“She asked me not to,” he says, glancing towards the teacher to make sure she isn’t looking in their direction. “Wait, how do you know?”

She grimaces. “She posted something on Instagram and the location said Paris. Doesn’t take a genius to know what it means,” she explains, pressing her pen harshly against the page of her notebook. “We confronted her and she said she’s been back.”

“I see.” Lucas isn’t sure what more he could answer. Is that an accusation? A small talk? A friend talk? Is that what they’re doing now? Being friends, chatting and stuff?

“She hasn’t told us what happened, though,” Imane continues, her expression full of concern. “Do you know anything?”

So not a friend talk. A business talk. Fishing for information.

“Listen, Manon hasn’t told us anything more. I don’t think she wants to talk about what went down in London yet. Give her some time, I’m sure she’ll come around.” He tries to smile reassuringly and gets a weak nod in return.

“I’m just worried, that’s all.” She shrugs and looks down on her notes. “What about you?”

Huh?

“What about me?” he asks dumbly.

“How are you? I know you haven’t been well lately. Just asking.”

How is he? It’s a tricky question. One he doesn’t know a correct answer to. He can’t sleep well at night, misses his mom and hates his dad. He doesn’t dislike Eliott anymore but despises himself. He’s nearly out of money and still hasn’t paid this month’s rent. His grades haven’t dropped yet, but he doesn’t have much will to study nowadays. As long as he’s paying, the blackmailer doesn’t keep in touch with him, and he tries not to think about what’s going to happen when he can’t pay any longer. There’s a mess in his head, but it’s relatively stable as of now. Mostly because he sweeps everything under the rug. He can’t fool Imane with a simple I’m fine, although he’s got no idea what else he can offer to her.

“I’m lost,” he says eventually, in a moment of vulnerability. It’s the truth and the most he’s actually shared with anyone. He’s wandering around, blindfolded and scared, hoping for someone to guide him home.

Imane reaches out her hand towards his and squeezes around his fingers. “If there’s something, anything, I could help you with, tell me, okay?”

Lucas smiles and nods. “Right back at you.”

***

They are standing in the line to order food and Lucas isn’t sure he’s got enough money for more than an apple. The food at his school is tasty, as far as school meals can go. But good quality means they aren’t exactly the cheapest. Not when you’ve only got a few stray coins inside of your wallet. And fuck, not to sound depressing but lunch at the cafeteria was the only warm and filling meal Lucas could afford lately. He mostly lives off sandwiches and similar things at the flat and he’s been looking forward to eating at school. He’s been paying for it with the money he classified as the one for food and apparently, he’s pretty much run out of it.

Lucas isn’t going to touch what he’s got on his card – this money is for the blackmailer and he still needs to figure out how to pay his part of the rent. So, bye-bye normal lunches at the cafeteria.

He sighs, hides his wallet and steps out of the line. Lucas ignores questioning looks his friends send his way and avoids glancing towards the displayed food. Maybe he’ll have enough coins to get a chocolate bar from a vending machine.

In the meantime, he leans against the wall, away from the line and waits for the guys to get their food. He hopes they won’t say anything.

Once they all have their meals and come up to Lucas, they move towards the cafeteria and sit down at their usual table. Everyone, except Lucas, starts eating and Lucas pulls his phone out to busy himself.

It’s not weird if he doesn’t make it weird.

His mom texted him again, a passage from the Bible. She never asks about how he’s doing, how’s school or whatever. As if all the motherly love could be found in these few lines from a book people excuse their hatred towards someone like Lucas with.

“Dude, why aren’t you eating?” Basile asks with his mouth full and it takes a second for Lucas to realise he’s asking him. He looks up and notices how all of the guys are acting like they’re more interested in their food than the answer to the question, but their eyes jump over to him anyway.

He isn’t delicate, they don’t need to do that. It’s an embarrassing situation, yeah, but Lucas can handle it.

“Didn’t withdraw money.” Somewhat. He can manage it somewhat.

“I could lend you some?” Arthur offers. Yeah, no, Lucas already has enough people to pay off.

“I’m fine, don’t worry,” he says and knows that this will surely make them worry. Yann is already frowning. Lucas glances towards Eliott, hoping for some rescue. It’s stupid to do that, to cling onto someone Lucas feels at peace with to jump in and solve his problem. But Lucas is stupid.

Eliott looks back at him, turns towards Arthur and says, “Hey, you said you wanted to discuss something during lunch.”

Lucas wants to thank Eliott, but knows he’d draw unwanted attention. Nevertheless, he sends a tiny, grateful smile Eliott’s way when he catches his eye again.

“Oh, yeah. Basically, Baz had his birthday. We didn’t do anything for the occasion and we should throw a party. I was thinking this Friday.” Arthur gazes at them expectantly.

“You’re just looking for an excuse to party,” Lucas deadpans.

Arthur gasps and puts a palm over his heart. “How dare you accuse me of something like that? I want to celebrate the existence of our dear friend,” he declares solemnly. “Are we on board?”

They all nod and Yann replies, “Sure, but where?”

“I have a flat,” Eliott offers.

“Eliott has a flat,” Arthur chimes in with a wide grin, pointing at Eliott. Are they on their way to being a couple? Because for Lucas it feels like it. “Lucas and I can take care of decorations, Yann could invite people.”

“What about me?” Basile asks.

“You act like you’re surprised,” Lucas says, patting him on the back.

“By the way,” Yann kicks Lucas under the table to catch his attention. “Have you and that girl talked recently?”

Lucas squints his eyes in confusion. He thinks hard about who Yann is talking about. The only girls he talked with recently were Manon this morning, asking her whether he could borrow some of her milk, and Imane yesterday. But the look on Yann’s face tells Lucas he doesn’t mean either of them.

Oh, Chloé. He’s talking about Chloé.

“The one from the party?” Yann hums. “No.” He completely forgot she existed, to be quite honest.

“Why not? She was so into you,” Basile says, pouting. Lucas rolls his eyes and involuntarily glances at Eliott. He seems rather indifferent, unlike the rest of the guys. The only one who doesn’t care about Lucas hooking up with some random girl. Lucas really gets why everyone liked him from the beginning, he may become his favourite pretty quickly, too.

“It was just a kiss.”

“You should invite her to the party,” Yann says and Arthur nods encouragingly. It’s then that Lucas realises it’s expected of him and to keep up his act, not to disappoint his friends, he should do that. He can’t let them down, can he?

Lucas sighs deeply and unlocks his phone, taps on the Instagram app and finds the girl. Chloé has followed him recently, but he didn’t really care. He hasn’t even followed her back. He decides it’d be appropriate before sending her a message. He does so and right after that types out a short do you wanna come to the party on Friday? He doesn’t have to wait too long for a reply and soon enough he gets a positive reply. He sends back the details and locks the screen, already fucking spent.

“Done, happy?” he asks, sending them a tight smile.

“Dude, how are you so brave? No hesitation, no nerves. Wow,” Basile mumbles in amazement.

Well, the answer to this question is simple. Girls don’t make him nervous.

***

If two weeks ago someone had told Lucas he’d be skipping classes with Eliott, he’d surely look at them weirdly and tell them to fuck off. Now, however, they are squeezed together in a tiny toilet stall. Eliott is doodling all over the wall with a sharpie and Lucas is sitting on the toilet lid, hugging his knees to his chest and watching Eliott work.

Lucas wouldn’t admit it out loud, but he’s been actually looking forward to spending some time with Eliott without the guys. No offense, he loves them but they can be a bit too much at times. Eliot, on the other hand, brings peacefulness with himself. It’s hard to explain, at least for Lucas, but they get each other and it’s nice to escape once in a while without completely isolating himself.

And all it took for this to happen was Lucas offhandedly mentioning in texts that he may not go to his next class. Eliott was all too eager to skip with Lucas and now every time someone walks into the bathroom, they have to pretend there’s no one in there. Or, that there aren’t two people hence Lucas’ legs are up.

“Are you excited about tomorrow’s party?” Eliott asks and Lucas perks up.

“Are you? You will have a lot to clean up.” Lucas is just thrilled to go there, get wasted to forget about everything and most likely put on a show for his friends once again. Yay. So much fun. He hopes that at least the booze will be worth it.

“Well, I’m counting on you guys to help me with that,” Eliott says and glances over his shoulder before getting back to his masterpiece.

Lucas tries to sneak a peek but to no avail. Eliott is too fucking broad.

“You will have to secure your bedroom if you don’t want anyone fucking in there.”

“Yeah, I know. I feel like if someone wants to have sex, they’ll find a way no matter what I do, though.”

“Your flat will lose its virginity,” Lucas says, scrolling down his phone.

“You think it hasn’t already?” Eliott teases and Lucas’ thumb stops scrolling. Right, Eliott had a girlfriend. And he could have brought someone else home as well.

“I was just joking,” Lucas says as the phone buzzes in his hand. He hears Eliott snorting in response when he opens the message and it’s his mom again. He sighs, tilts his head back against the wall and closes his eyes.

“Everything okay?” Eliott asks.

“Yeah, just my mom.” He shrugs. In all honesty, it’s only the tip of the iceberg but surely gives him a headache.

“What about her? If it’s okay to ask.” Eliott sounds gentle, trustworthy.

“She’s ill. Like, mentally ill. And I love her, I know it’s not her fault but I miss having a mom, you know?”

“But…” Eliott hesitates. “She’s still there. Just because she’s mentally ill, it doesn’t mean you don’t have a mom.”

“I know, but… I’m sixteen, living without any parent and all I get are passages from the Bible. I miss a mom who would ask me if something hurt when I fell down.” He rubs the back of his hand over his eyes to stop the tears from welling up. “I don’t blame her, but sometimes I think my life could have been normal if my dad hadn’t left and mom wasn’t put in the clinic. Sometimes I just want a hug and an it’ll be alright, but I have neither. I try my best not to be bitter or, fuck, angry at her. The only person I can be angry at is my father. But I still wish some things were different and I still had a home.” Lucas doesn’t realise his voice is shaky up until he’s finished talking. He doesn’t know what prompted all of it spilling out of him. He’s only talked about his family issues in more depth with Yann. Only because they’ve been best friends for so long he knew he wouldn’t be judged. And now, there he is, sharing his secrets with someone he hated less than a week ago.

Someone who could turn his back on Lucas if he misunderstood him.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay.” Lucas opens his eyes to find Eliott crouching in front of him and staring at him. “What’s important is that you love her and know it’s not her fault. It’s okay to want things to be better. You just need to find the middle ground with your mom. She’s mentally ill and not braindead, I’m sure if you told her some of the things you’ve just told me, she’d understand. Maybe she doesn’t handle things well but still wants to be there for you and the only good way she finds are the Bible fragments? I’m glad you’re still in contact. And believe me, if she reaches out to you like that it’s better than you think. Have you talked with her in person lately?”

Lucas shakes his head, ashamed. He couldn’t bring himself to go to her after she was admitted to the clinic and he moved out. He feels like he abandoned her just like his father. For the longest time, he thought she might hate him.

“You try that. It’ll do good to the both of you.” Eliott smiles at him reassuringly and stands up. “Do you want to see my masterpiece?” he asks, one of his eyebrows raised.

Lucas notices some distress in Eliott’s eyes, despite him smirking expectantly at Lucas. His voice was different when he was speaking, strained. Only now does Lucas realise that Eliott may be changing the topic for the sake of the both of them.

Some things are better left untold and unfinished after all.

Lucas nods and his eyes land on a mini-comic drawn on the wall.

“It’s inspired by your parallel universe theory,” Eliott whispers excitedly.

There are two panels. Both are showing cartoonish versions of a raccoon and a hedgehog. In the first one, the raccoon extends its paw towards the hedgehog but gets rejected and its ears are downturned. In the second, they are in a similar setting, but the raccoon is smiling at the hedgehog that has speech bubbles filled with small images of a piano and the stars drawn around it. The first panel is captioned This universe while the second has a The universe no. 874386 undearneath it.

“Is that us?” Lucas asks, reaching his hand out in amazement and tracing his finger over the drawings.

“Yeah. I’ve been identifying with a raccoon for a long time, but I couldn’t figure out what would suit you for a while. Until last weekend. Then that hedgehog hit me.”

“This is so cool,” Lucas says softly, his eyes still glued to the cartoonish versions of them. That way he can’t see Eliott watching him with interest from the side, a blush blooming over his cheeks.

***

Arthur is standing on a stool, trying to hang on a Happy Birthday all the while Lucas is monitoring him from behind. They’ve decorated most of the flat by now and are nearly done. There’s only an hour left before the party starts, Eliott has gone to bring Basile for the surprise and Yann is supposed to be on his way, carrying the alcohol. Things are looking pretty good.

And that’s why Lucas chooses that moment to ruin the nice atmosphere. Or, perhaps he’s exaggerating. He just thinks that he’d consider something like that irritating, but maybe Arthur won’t. Nevertheless, he has to ask this question or he’ll explode.

“I was wondering. Why didn’t you tell us you were bi sooner?” It’s been gnawing at Lucas ever since Arthur came out. Considering how much he’s struggling with his own sexuality, he can’t help but be curious.

Arthur stops for a second before he taps the decoration in a random place and steps down from the stool. He turns towards Lucas, a calm smile tugging at his lips.

“I’m surprised none of you asked me that earlier, actually. Well, it’s that… what good would it do?” he asks, waving his hand dismissively. Lucas thinks that having a friend who isn’t straight and knowing so would give him some sort of comfort. But what does he know? Besides, Arthur has no idea about him. “I wanted to tell you, but I thought to myself how things could change. I know you aren’t homophobic, but straight dudes just get weird about bi and gay guys most of the time. I’d have to watch myself, my every move and word. And you wouldn’t even understand. Then why would I come out? No need to complicate things.”

“Then why did you now?”

“Well, I found another guy who’s like me that I’m friends with. We can relate to each other, we can support each other. I couldn’t just have him thinking he was alone. I don’t know, it’s different when there’s another person like you. There’s a sense of community I don’t have with you, guys.” That fucking stings like a motherfucker. “And having Eliott there made me feel safer and braver. I don’t know how to explain that.” He doesn’t have to. Lucas understands, in a way. Maybe if he wasn’t so ashamed and hateful towards himself, instead of bitterness, he’d feel comfort as well.

“Do you have a crush on Eliott?” Lucas blurts out. It sort of escapes his mouth. It’s been something he’s been sure but hasn’t had a confirmation of. And since they’re already talking and one thing leads to another, his brain must have thought it was appropriate after hearing Arthur’s speech.

Arthur tilts his head to the side, his eyes widening. He looks confused. “What? No. We’re just friends. I mean, he’s sweet and hot, but I’m already into someone else,” he says.

“Who?”

Arthur blushes. “Ugh, there was a student exchange last year and I was teaching some guy French. We hit it off and became friends. I kind of fell for him, but then he left. He’s got a boyfriend back home. And I’m hopelessly pining.” He smiles sadly and scratches the side of his neck.

So much has happened in Arthur’s life and they had no idea.

“I’m sorry,” Lucas says, suddenly filled with sadness. He’s more sorry for not being able to be there for Arthur through his heartbreak and something tells him Arthur knows because there’s understanding in his eyes.

“It’s okay,” he replies, his voice soft. “It happens.”

***

Three hours later and the party is in its full swing. Basile really played his part at acting surprised, there was a birthday cake that Manon has apparently been asked to prepare by Yann through Emma. There are a lot of people and with each hour the crowd only grows. At some point, Lucas wonders how Eliott’s flat is going to fit all these people inside but so far there haven’t been any issues.

Lucas has been drinking, dancing with his friends, laughing and talking. He’s having fun to the point he lets his guard down and completely stops in his tracks when he sees a face he thought his mind has erased from its memory.

He becomes very aware at once, looks around to check if no one is watching him. It’s paranoid, he knows, but if the blackmailer is there and they are watching Lucas? Fuck, he’s doomed.

The person he’s noticed is the guy he was caught kissing. What the fuck is he doing at this party? Yann was responsible for inviting the people. He could know him. He could know about them kissing and that’s why he’s been pushing Lucas to hook-up with that girl and–

No. Yann doesn’t know and if he knew he wouldn’t be a jerk about it. He wouldn’t be.

From the moment Lucas notices him to the one he’s seen back, around thirty minutes pass. He’s been trying his best to become invisible, but one look too many in the guy’s direction and he catches Lucas’ eye and then takes a double take when the recognition falls over his face.

Lucas was hoping the guy wouldn’t remember him.

He steps off the dancefloor, begging the universe for the boy not to approach him. Why would he? They only kissed and that kiss has been causing Lucas stress and lack of money ever since. But as far as he knows, it was only a drunken hook-up for this boy.

The universe is a bitch, Lucas realises, when the guy finds him and leans against the wall next to him. He sends him a lazy smirk and Lucas looks around to see if no one is watching them. He doesn’t see anyone, but last time he didn’t either.

“Fancy seeing you here,” the guy says, moving closer.

The best way to avoid this situation? Act dumb. Lucas is great at that.

He chuckles. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“If you don’t remember I can refresh your memory,” the boy says and reaches his hand out to touch Lucas, but Lucas flinches away. The guy looks over the crowd, then back at Lucas, frowning.

“Please, leave me alone. I can’t have people see us,” Lucas says under his breath, hoping he can be heard over the music. He doesn’t look at the guy. He’s drunk, he does dumb things when he’s drunk. And it’s been long since he experienced some tenderness. He can’t let the guy know how much he wishes he was allowed to want him.

The guys tsks. “Whatever, I’m not going to waste my time on another closet case. Bye,” he mumbles and leaves.

Lucas breathes out, his heart beating fast and his palms sweaty. He’s trembling and he needs a drink.

***

He has drunk more, he’s lost the sight of his friends. Lucas has been wandering around sadly ever since the encounter with the guy. He’s caught him looking a couple of times, probably thinking how pathetic he is, but that was it.

Fine, he’s fucking pathetic and gay and the only thing that gets him through this party is putting as much booze as possible into his system. He hates it. He hates himself for not being normal. He hates other people for being free.

He wants to forget.

Lucas turns around and the beer in his bottles slushes over his fingers.

He sees Arthur and Eliott kissing. The whole world slows down and he doesn’t see the rest of the crowd anymore, his vision closing on their silhouettes meddled into one. On the way Arthur is arching his back against Eliott and Eliott’s fingers are tugging on Arthur’s hair. Arthur is pressing Eliott against the wall, desperately sucking on his bottom lip and Eliott kisses him back with just as much intensity.

Something sinks down in Lucas’ stomach. He knew. He knew it’d end up like that. Two great, attractive guys would end up making out with each other. Because they can.

It’s only Lucas who can’t kiss boys even if he wants to.

His eyes sting with unshed tears, but he simply can’t look away from how they are consuming each other with their lips. It’s intoxicating in a way. Much more than all of the alcohol he’s got into himself.

Someone bumps into him, snapping him out of his daze. He blinks and looks away from Eliott and Arthur. Turns around and sees Chloé smiling up at him.

It must be a sign.

He wants to cry when he starts kissing her, caressing her, squeezing her body. They kiss until their lips are sore; until Lucas can’t feel anything.

“I know a place close by we could have some privacy in. Do you want to,” she whispers hotly into his ear and tugs on his lobe with her teeth.

Lucas nods and lets her drag him out of the party.

***

There’s a piercing pain shooting through Lucas’ scalp when he moves and he hisses when he opens his eyes. He feels hot, sticky and uncomfortable. He’s hangover and the curtains aren’t closed, letting the morning light in. His mouth tastes like death and there’s something lying across his chest making it hard to breathe.

He blinks a couple of times and looks down.

The sight makes his gut churn.

Chloé is naked, he is naked and she’s cuddled up to his side.

What the fuck did he do?

#elu #elu fic #skam france #skam france fic #lucas x eliott #eliott demaury #lucas lallemant

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wildmagicplant · 5 years

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[hello everyone! i bring you a small tim drake character study-ish fic that’s maybe also a little bit of a love letter to a small part of san francisco. i do live in SF, but i’ve never touched a skateboard in my life, so the accuracy of this is... mixed.]

As Tim walks toward Golden Gate Park, he struggles to remember how long it’s been since he last used his skateboard. It’s dangling from his hand right now, the weight familiar, but he’s pretty sure he hasn’t ridden it anywhere in months, at least. Just a street or two more and he should be good to go.

It’s gray in San Francisco, but somehow the fog here always feels different than Gotham’s near-constant darkness. There’s a breeze that keeps ruffling Tim’s hair into his face. If he squints, he can make out a lighter edge to the sky off to his right.

He dodges a car in the crosswalk, smirking slightly as it honks at him. Tim slouches into his hoodie even more, playing into the teen loser vibe he knows he’s giving off. Even if it’s only for a few hours, it feels good to be just some kid, anonymous and as irresponsible as he wants to be. He has his phone in his pocket, so if anything goes really bad, his team can get in contact, and probably Barbara could manage a way to contact him even without it.

Tim’s walked into the edge of the park without realizing it, the steep sidewalk ahead of him and the sudden decrease in cars alerting him. He passes a woman and her dog jogging in the other direction. Neither of them pay any attention to him, and Tim can feel some minute loosening of his shoulders as he walks. He reaches the top of the hill quickly.

There’s no cars coming at the moment so Tim doesn’t wait, just drops his board onto the road and steps on. The road curves down to his right and he keeps moving without thinking and pushes off. He picks up speed as the road slopes down again. The grin stretches across his face before Tim is even thinking about it. He thinks about himself as a kid, awkwardly trying to skate for the first time, or struggling to climb up a fire escape, and marvels at how far he’s come. A car passes him slowly, and he adjusts to veer out of the way seamlessly. It’s weirdly reassuring how naturally skating is coming back to him. Tim had worried that he would be rusty, that somehow all his knowledge of how to skateboard had been forced out of his head by which compounds Scarecrow had put in his latest fear toxin or by sales figures for Wayne Enterprises’ third quarter. Instead, it feels like he never left, and Tim sighs in relief that he can still do this.

There are people around—it’s San Francisco, it’s never empty—but it’s relatively quiet as he sails down through the park. Past the bottom of the hill, Tim follows the road that will lead him west. It feels poetic, heading west into the sunset, and usually Tim would laugh at himself for that kind of thinking but today it feels right. There’s none of the normal buzzing competition of thoughts in his head, and he wonders if this is what doing nothing feels like for other people, the calm solitude of being alone but not trapped with his own anxieties.

After another few minutes, Tim feels a slight chill as he goes under an overpass. There’s an intersection ahead, and he smoothly turns left, cutting across the park, pushing off with his foot as the road reaches a slight incline. He can feel the muscles in his legs working in a way he remembers from when he was skateboarding regularly, and Tim realizes he’s going to be sore tomorrow. It doesn’t bother him. Actually, he’s kind of looking forward to it. Being sore from actually doing something instead of from getting tossed into walls by someone with superpowers sounds like a nice change. Tim takes a moment to shake his head at what his life has turned into.

It doesn’t take long to cross the park in this direction, and when he gets to the intersection just before 19th, he hops off his board, tipping it up into his hand, and hurries across the crosswalk behind some cars waiting to turn. Tim walks out of the park, and waits to cross the street. It’s busy enough here that he doesn’t want to risk riding his board, and he also knows if he heads one street over, it will be much quieter, and he can take it down to Noriega.

The walk sign comes on. A man pushes past Tim as he talks on his phone, and Tim resists the urge to gesture at the otherwise empty crosswalk. The tops of the trees in the park are shrouded in fog that rolls silently on as Tim walks by. As he looks ahead of him, he thinks he can see the end of the fog further down the street. It’s always weird to him how consistently the weather travels across the city here. It’s not that the weather doesn’t change quickly in Gotham, too, it’s just that back home, the weather doesn’t sweep in straight lines from west to east. Or maybe it’s just that it’s easier to see where it moves from here. Part of Tim wonders if he could look that up, compare meteorological maps and patterns in San Francisco and Gotham, but Tim tells that part of him to shut up for a bit. It’s too close to all the ways he has to be on in the rest of his life, and the whole point of this excursion is to get away from all of that.

Tim turns down the next street, and walks past a few driveways before dropping his board down again and hopping on, guiding it down onto the street. It’s flat enough that he can push off occasionally and still glide pretty far, and he takes off. There’s a moment a couple blocks later when he crosses a busier street, but he just pushes off harder and darts across the intersection, ignoring the cars waiting to turn. Tim doesn’t even think as he does it. He wonders if it’s recklessness or confidence, and if he’s always been like this, or if it’s born of training and practice and years, now, of crime-fighting. He supposes it doesn’t matter.

A few minutes later, the only sound he can hear is the rhythmic clatter of his wheels against the concrete. The sudden calm of earlier is back, and Tim wonders what it says about him that despite his tendency to sit in front of a computer for hours, he only ever seems to find this relaxation while moving. Is this why Dick is the way he is? There aren’t any cars coming his way, so he takes the opportunity to swerve back and forth across the road, leaning from side to side. He catches a snatch of music drifting out of a house, but he’s past it too quickly to identify what it was. A few houses later, he thinks he can smell some sort of grilling meat, and he thinks briefly of the kitchen back at Titans Tower. Tim’s not sure there’s actually any food, but he can probably convince someone to go get some. He stops thinking about it.

It’s not much longer until he reaches Noriega, and he slows down to take the turn, making sure no one’s going to immediately run him over. Tim looks up after he turns, and sure enough, he can see all the way down to the ocean where the sun is shining off the water. He finds himself smiling. Maybe also wishing for sunglasses, but he’ll live. It’s worth it, Tim thinks. He’s picking up speed as he drifts downhill. Someone honks at him. He ignores them.

The sky gets brighter as he skates, that same calm keeping him company as he passes street after street, goes through sections of stores and restaurants and then houses and apartments. Several blocks later, a group of four other teens shout cheerfully as they skateboard past him. One of them sticks their hand out for a fist bump and Tim obliges, inordinately endeared. They’re probably only a few years younger than him, so of course Tim feels both ancient and desperately young. They speed past, swooping around each other, one of them filming as they go. Tim watches them hurtle confidently toward the ocean. Had he ever been that young and unafraid?

He slows down to cross Sunset, but the light changes right as he gets there, and Tim speeds back up, pushing off again, and really letting himself drift once he gets past the intersection. He’s close enough now to the ocean that he finds his attention drawn to the horizon, gleaming and almost too bright to look at under the beginnings of the sunset. The sky hasn’t begun to turn colors yet, exactly, but everything is beginning to take on a golden hue. It’s beautiful.

Tim doesn’t let himself think about anything else the rest of the way down the street, just focuses on his body, on the small shifts he makes out of habit to guide his board and on the way the light feels against his face and the wind pulling at the edges of his clothes. It feels good, almost like when he meditates, the way his awareness of the rest of the world recedes until he can forget what everyone else must think of him and how he has to live up to that.

Before he realizes it, he’s almost to the highway just before the beach. Tim hadn’t planned on making it this far, hadn’t really thought about what he was going to do, which is its own kind of freedom that he also rarely allows himself. Popping the skateboard up to grab it once more, he walks up to the top of the sidewalk and, seeing no cars, crosses the highway. He has to walk through the sand a bit to get to the walkway, but it doesn’t bother him for once. Tim walks along the wall, absently looking over the ocean. Propping his board up against the thick cement wall, he leans on it and stares out across the ocean.

Technically, Gotham has a harbor, and the harbor leads out to the ocean as well, but it’s nothing like this, in so many ways. It feels incongruous even to think of it in the same breath as this. Tim can be an existential kind of person, he knows it, but there’s something about staring out at the ocean that makes him forget all of his other concerns in a way not much else he’s found does. It looks like it goes on forever.

Tim doesn’t know how long he stands there. He doesn’t want to leave. Of course he wants to go back to his team, to see his family again, and more pressingly, he wants to eat dinner, but once he leaves, he’s going to have to go back to his increasingly varied lives. Tim isn’t Conner, he doesn’t mind living a dual life, and sometimes he actually loves it. There’s just something incredibly freeing about letting himself just be himself for once and Tim finds he isn’t ready to give that up just yet. He quickly pulls his phone out of his pocket; there’s a few messages and notifications, but no missed calls. Tim can stay a little longer. He slides his phone deep into his pocket and leans back against the wall, looking out toward the sunset.

#tim drake #dcu #red robin #robin #teen titans #listen sometimes you live in SF and you remember that the tt are also in SF #and sometimes you see a dude in a suit just casually skateboarding down the street and you think 'oh it's tim'#and then you have to write something about it #note that in this fic tim is notably not wearing a suit #but i 100% bet he skateboards around in his suit occasionally #especially if he ever has to do wayne enterprises business in SF #someday i'll post something not at 1am #today is not that day #my stuff

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iamalivenow · 5 years

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He's covered in blood, clothes tacky to his skin when the rain starts. The fight's almost over, just a few stragglers who are either trying run or trying to play dead, face down in the mud with their fallen friends on top of them. But the breathing gives them away. It always gives them away.

He stands in the slowly softening earth and waits, hands coiling around the hilt, adrenaline still rolling off of him in waves. She's around, somewhere above him, waiting for him to get it out of his system or at least to scratch the itch for now, and he's close to finished. Seere hovers by the edge of the forest for either of the adults to return to camp. Arioch's mouth already dripping red and when he catches her from the corner of his eye, she grins at him, waving an arm that isn't attached to a body. He shakes his head, doesn't know to which one of them, and instead closes his eyes and waits. He can be incredibly still, if he wants to. Their old servants never appreciated it, not that they would tell him, but he heard whispers sometimes. He listens. Rain hitting mud, his own shallow breathing, the rustle of wind through far off trees. His partner's heartbeat, a constant barely there thrum in his tongue. He hears a gasp of air and stalks to the corpse pile, staring down at the solider, lifting his leg and pushing the man's face down into the mud. There's a struggle, the pile of bodies shifts with his efforts, but Caim is unyielding. 'Excessive, even for you.' He doesn't turn to look for her. He might lose his balance if he did and then where would they be. 'No arterial spray, no caved-in skull, just pathetic blubbering.' He doesn't know why she still bothers to judge him. 'Whether I am or not is none of your concern.' And then a moment later, 'What are you getting out of this?' Another dead imperial is just as good a reason as any. And this one finally stops trying to escape the weight he pulled on to his back. Caim lifts his leg and steps back, boots slick. He feels weirdly tired. Must be the weather. Or his partner's exhaustion. It bleeds through sometimes, despite mutual best efforts to keep the more physical separation from each other. He hears another intake of air to his right, another imperial trying the same trick trying to scramble away now that he's seen what Caim's done to his friend. Caim walks, doesn't bother running, no reason to, to the man crawling in the mud. If just holding him under was excessive then- He stomps down on the man's helmet, the scream muffled by the mud, and then he does it again and again and again until there's no more screaming. 'Really?' But now he doesn't even have to turn to try and find her. The beat of her wings creates wind strong enough to drag his clothes against his body, to really let the rain sink into his skin. She settles, he just catches her do it, the way her body sags, claws digging, sinking into the mud. 'Let's go. Before you catch your death.' One man army dying from a head cold. The Imperials would have a laugh at least. One last great gift from him. 'Very generous.' He climbs up her wing and settles into his usual spot between thirty second and thirty-fifth vertebrae and sheaths his sword. He chances leaning forward, flat against her once she takes off again, cold wind and rain ensuring he's plastered to her now, no way around it. But she doesn't seem to mind. She used to, used to gripe about the filth, the way the blood would drip off of him and soak into her scales. Now she seems to like his warm body against hers. 'Don't flatter yourself.' Of course not. There's no point bothering with camp, because it's still raining and still windy, and between the lot of them, a golem and two elementals don't really have to worry about the weather and even if a fairy can get sick he's sure it's easy to warm it up comparative to his partner who is the size of a house. There's a cave not far from here that she could fit into. Empty from the last time they passed by the area, and Caim spent the better part of an hour clearing it out. Imperials are so lazy they don't even bother making camp. How does his army ever lose to them? They settle at the edge, her tail winding around a tree, maybe out of reflex, and the loud splintering of wood echoes for miles. She breathes into the cave, the heat rushing up to meet his face once the fire settles and she shakes in a way that can only mean 'get off of me, you fool.' He slides down as gracefully as he can what with the rain and not landing face first in the mud is as much of a success as any. She starts a smaller fire for his benefit before moving inside and pressing up against the now heated walls. He gets out of his wet armor and dumps it on the stone by the fire before moving to sit against her, back to belly, and stare at the fire. To think, Caim of Caerleon would find it so easy to close his eyes and rest by a dragon. 'It's no easy task on my end either, prostrating myself to a human.' But there's no real bite to it. There's warmth, and a pressure to his front, and that all familiar exhaustion until he realizes her sensations are bleeding through the pact again. He wonders if she feels his tired too, limbs still heavy. But then that's what he gets for not stretching. She snorts and a smile, minute as it is, slides along his face all the same. This is new. She doesn't acknowledge him, but then her slow breathing slows even further, so maybe she did just fall asleep. She's shockingly comfortable to sleep against, under scales practically soft to the touch. Between the warmth of the fire and the warmth of her, it's like he's in his childhood home again, nestled between Furiae and Inuart on a cool fall evening. It's better like this, he thinks. His hair is still damp, and it still feels like every motion is laborious but against her, his sword a show reach away? He could get used to this. Or maybe he already has, and that's why he presses even closer to her. For his rest, of course. 'Of course.'

#dod #drakengard #full fic #writing #long post

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angelaiswriting · 6 years

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Loop | Tony Stark x reader

[GIF not mine, found on Google, source: x][look at him. do you hear me cry?]

✎ Pairing: (slight) Tony Stark x reader

✎ Requested by my undying love for this man (as always)

✎ A/N: this is what that time of the month does to me. I couldn’t focus on my essay today, so here ya go with this. I’m also slowly working on requests, don’t worry, I just had to get this thing out of my head. Hope you enjoy, feedback is always welcome ❤

✎ Warnings: angst, super light mentions of sex. Tony has panic attacks, so yeah, if it triggers you, better skip this.

Word-count: 2,144

It always goes like this.

Tony Stark lies awake at night, the faint glow of the miniature arc reactor in his chest a constant reminder of what happened.

He goes up, up, up into the sky and into that damn wormhole every night--and every day, when his brain goes back into the loop his life has become.

He still feels it all: the weight of the missile on his shoulders, its raging sound as he steers it away from New York City, his sweat trailing down his spine, his body confined in his armor. The gut-wrenching fear of dying, of exploding in space--or worse: of getting stuck there, in the void, waiting for death to come, terribly aware of it getting closer and closer until it’s there and he cannot run away anymore and he can only watch it get closer, stalk him like a prey. He still feels Death’s fingers as they claw at his heart, at his brain, at his throat as oxygen quickly runs out and his lungs fight to keep on working and his brain is stuck on a loop and it cannot think and it cannot scream and it keeps him there, paralyzed, horribly aware of his time running out.

And if he closes his eyes, he’s still there, in space, and suddenly that vast expanse that makes every brain stop isn’t appealing anymore. And he still sees it, the Chitauri army, waiting to invade Earth, ready to invade Earth and destroy it. And he fears for himself and for his friends and for Rhodey and for Happy and for her. And he still hears the sound of a flat line as he tries to call her, to tell her he loves her and that she doesn’t have to worry, that he’ll be home for dinner and he’ll take her out to a fancy dinner on his disgustingly expensive yacht. But she doesn’t answer, she never does, and every night he still hears that noise and he still feels his chest tighten and contract and shrink in size until it’s as small as the arc reactor. And he’s afraid of dying.

Scratch that.

Tony Stark is fucking terrified of dying. Of dying alone, of dying with the only one he loves, of dying in the cold of space, of dying in front of the Chitauri, of dying in his suit, something he grew to love and that is now ready to swallow his body.

He’s fucking terrified of dying because, in those infinite seconds up there, he realized he’s never lived, not for one day, not for one minute. And he finds himself wishing to live, every single night, in his own bed, his limbs turned to stone, his body paralyzed, his brain whirring and going wild, filling his mind with a static silence that terrifies him to the bone.

And his fingers twitch, every night, in the same way, and he’s never aware of it.

And his breath comes out ragged and his heart thunders in his ears but he cannot hear it nor can he feel it. Because every night he’s never there, never in his room, and that gut-wrenching, mind-shattering fear still crawls on his cold and sweaty skin, forcing goosebumps to appear and pull at his skin and at his hair and at his mind.

And the arc reactor feels like an ice cube, like a fucking iceberg and he feels like he’s losing his mind even if he knows he already has. And he doesn’t fear he’ll never be the same because, this time, he knows it. He knows it. And weirdly enough it doesn’t hurt, it doesn’t bug him, because for once he can re-start from scratch, he can build himself as he goes. And he’d love to do that, but he can’t because he doesn’t go. He doesn’t move, he’s stuck there and his lungs hurt when he realizes that. They itch and burn and they contract and they shrink in size and they inflate and they feel like they’re on the verge of bursting and he’s terribly aware of it all.

And when he turns his head to the side, Y/N isn’t there: a Chitauri is and he is screaming and writhing and fighting back.

With the only exception that he’s not moving. He’s hardly breathing, and he’s not screaming, nor moaning, nor whimpering. His eyes are open wide and it takes him a long minute to realize that Y/N is right there, next to him, sleeping peacefully and that minute feels like an eternity as his mind dilates time, slows it down.

It takes him another eternity to calm down--but he doesn’t. He just goes back to breathing normally and he’s able to restart his brain, but it still doesn’t function, it’s still stuck in a loop, with the only exception that this time it’s another loop, one he’d sell his soul to keep living it.

And he stretches his hand out to touch her, to feel her warm skin under his stone-cold fingertips. But he doesn’t, not immediately, at least. He desperately wants to, but he cannot bring himself to.

She doesn’t deserve this. She doesn’t deserve him. And it’s not because he’s too much for her, but because he’s too broken, too shattered, split between life and death, stuck in a limbo in the in-between, and he’s not there for her even if he’d give his life for her.

And he almost did.

But he doesn’t want to think about it now. He doesn’t want to go back there, back where he finally learned the true value of his life. Which amounts to nothing.

He’s not worth anything.

Tony Stark isn’t worth anything.

Or this is what he saw, what he keeps on repeating himself. And he cannot stop it and he cannot believe otherwise. He knows it’s the truth. Because he wasted it, his life in this world, and he is still wasting it. And suddenly he wants to go back there and fight against the fall that brought him back out of the wormhole. He wants to stay there and to freeze to death, to feel his body and mind die as the glow from the arc reactor in his chest dies with him.

But he’s still looking for excuses. Excuses to be selfish, to stay there, even if he’s broken and scarred and paralyzed, reliving the same moments again and again and again.

And again.

And he doesn’t want to believe Y/N when she tries to talk some sense into him, when she tries to comfort him, because he cannot feel her arms, or her skin on his, or her breath fanning against his shoulder as she sleeps, unaware of the battle going on in her lover’s head and heart.

And he knows he loves her, but he also feels like his love is stuck in that same loop as his mind, and it’s frozen, and it cannot save him, cannot warm him up, cannot shake him out of his terror.

And he wants to stop loving her and he wants for her to stop loving him, to save herself from the only thing he can offer her--misery. And he wants her to leave him, to crush him under her shoes, to forget him because she doesn’t deserve this, because he doesn’t deserve her.

He’s got so many things wrong, and he still hasn’t steered away from that path.

With the only exception that he has, but his mind hasn’t caught up yet. It still doesn’t know where he stands, where the world stands, even if he puts on a brave mask every morning and proves everyone otherwise.

But his façade is slowly cracking, and light isn’t seeping out. There’s no light inside him and even that of the arc reactor seems dull now and he wants it to stop working.

But he’s still too scared of dying. He doesn’t want to feel like that again and it doesn’t matter that he actually feels like that every night--and every day, under a mask that does nothing but kill him slowly.

He just doesn’t feel it, and at the same time, he does. And it doesn’t make sense and it probably never will.

And every night his brain goes in override and his body tenses and he cannot close his eyes, nor does he want to.

But, every night, it also goes like this.

Y/N wakes up. She doesn’t need Tony to shake her awake because her sleep is light, now, and when he finally manages to moan out in pain and despair, she’s there for him.

At first, she holds his hand in hers, and she kisses it, kisses his fingers, his nails, every inch of its skin until some warmth goes back to it. Until he realizes she’s there and she’s real and she’s not leaving, she’s not abandoning him behind.

She pushes his sweaty hair back, away from his forehead, then, and she keeps her hand there, half on his forehead and half on his head. And she brushes her lips against his shoulder and she feels his cold skin and his cold sweat and the tension in his muscles and she breathes out silently as his goosebumps tickle her lips.

Then, slowly, almost afraid of startling him, her fingers start playing in his hair and her free arm hugs his waist.

And Tony Stark trembles from head to toe and his lower lip quivers and his heart hurts.

He lets out a trembling sigh and he can slowly feel her--feel her hands and her arms and her skin touching his and her warmth, almost too hot, almost burning him alive. But it feels different, it feels good, and he knows he can breathe again.

But he doesn’t, he can’t, not yet. Because if she died, he’d die, too, slowly, a little every day, until he’d be but an empty shell and he’d eventually die, too.

But she’s not dying, he has to remind himself, and she’s not hurt, either. She’s there, alive, buzzing with life, and his fingers twitch again, against her stomach now, and he knows she’s there. And for a moment he holds onto the hem of her shirt--or of his shirt, these days he can never really see what she’s wearing. He holds on tight with just two fingers, sometimes three, and he doesn’t say a word.

Y/N doesn’t say a word either. She lies there, next to him, against him, and the sense of touch slowly gets back to him, it brings him back to reality.

And slowly, very slowly, he becomes aware of her heart beating like a drum against his arm and his fingers twitch again and he lets out another sigh.

And just as slowly, he ends up cuddling her, hiding his face in her chest, and she does her best to soothe him, rubbing circles on his back, trying to loosen the tension in his muscles.

It’s almost morning now and his heart has calmed down, his breathing is regular once again. But he still cannot sleep--and she can’t either. And so they lay there, clutching at each other, and they breathe each other in and he tries to apologize, but she’s having none of it.

And even if he has nothing to apologize for, he still whispers it against her collarbone, his chapped lips brushing against her warm skin. And she kisses his head, and she apologizes, too. She’d like to do more, to help him better, but, just like him, she’s paralyzed.

And slowly he moves to hover over her and her eyes are teary and his are empty. If they closed for good one day, he probably wouldn’t even notice. But he stays there, motionless, and he stares at her like he’s seeing her for the first time all over again. And she stares at him like he’s a work of art--battered and broken and grey, but a work of art nonetheless.

And when they make love--because it always goes like this--Tony feels something, every time a little more, and he’s sure one day he’ll feel again. And as they make love, she holds him close, and tight, and she kisses his temple, and she moans softly against his ear as he whimpers against her skin.

And when the sun finally rises and catches them both in the act, Tony feels at home, and he’s hopeful, and Y/N knows that, for a while, he will be back until, one day, he will be for good.

And when they both come and their breathing stops for a second and their eyes screw shut and their hearts pick up and the world shatters and breaks and fades all around them, nothing but them exists.

And for a few hours, all is well.

The real question here is: why do I keep doing this to him? Why do I seem to only be able to write angst with my precious? Ya girl needs help

I feel like this sucks, but gaaah, i miss you all so here i am

TAGS (to be added/removed, shoot me an ask) (crossed-over name means I couldn’t tag you, check your Tumblr’s settings)

Everything: @idhrenniel @saibh29 @fuckthatfeeling @aya-fay @pebblesz892 @toomanyfandoms96 @mblaqgi

Bratva (buddies that might be interested): @sweetvengeancee

#tony stark #tony stark x reader #tony stark imagine #tony stark fanfic #tony stark fanfiction #angelaiswriting #iron man #iron man imagine #iron man x reader

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awake-the-game · 7 years

Text

Awake: The Game - Chap 1.2

( Beginning ) ( < Back to Ch 1.1)

In the end, you decide that crying and any further ventures in the existential crisis department can wait. It's not as though laying on the floor curled up in the fetal position is going to get you answers, after all.

Still a bit unsteady, but determined to at least get to your feet so you can cry with a little dignity, you push yourself up onto your knees. Getting all the way to standing takes a great deal of coordination, and for a good minute it feels as though you'll never get the hang of having so many parts to move, which is starting to make standing look less and less attractive by the moment.

You get there, though, and it's with no small sense of triumph that you're finally able to look up and down the hallway from your new, higher vantage point, even if you are half-clinging to a decorative wall pillar. Its marble surface is cool beneath your fingertips, but you pay it, and the view out the window at your back, no mind when you spot someone standing in the hall not far from where you are.

A bolt that is equal parts excitement and trepidation shoots up your spine at the sight, making the feathers of your wings flare in surprise before settling back into place once more. You look down at your feet, expecting treason as you take your first step, and are pleasantly surprised when you pull it off without a hitch. A second successful attempt follows, but the third is brought up short by the fact that to go further means taking your hands off the pillar that has been supporting you.

You frown back at the piece of architecture, then turn your gaze forward again towards the person that still lingers just a little ways down the hall. Your determination rises again, and you take a steadying breath before taking that third step, which carries you out of reach of your pillar.

As soon as you do, you fall over almost immediately, your balance thrown by the sudden lack of additional support. Your wings are heavy, ungainly as they trail behind you, forcing you to lean forward to compensate for their weight. You flare them unconsciously in an attempt to catch your balance once more, but the action simply sends you tumbling forwards face first to the floor.

Perfectly smooth stone rushes up towards you as you shout and throw your hands out to catch yourself. They hit with a stinging smack and you find that you are on your hands and knees again, which nearly makes you tear up until you remind yourself that at least you’re not in the fetal position this time. You force open eyes that you don’t recall closing, and realize that that the floor is so smooth that you can actually see your reflection in it.

Distracted, you touch your face with long fingers, tracing over your cheek and out along your pointed ears. You take in your golden hair and silver eyes with their white pupils, then pick absently at your lips and frown a little. Seeing the result, you try a smile instead, then feel silly and return your attention to the wings on your back with a scowl. It takes you a moment, but you manage to pull them in along your spine and try standing once more. Trial and error teaches you that a little movement on the part of your wings allows you to stand more easily, and pulling them in against you once upright lets you to walk without hunching.

Soon, after a few shakey steps, you have a hang of it, and with a relieved smile you move carefully towards the stranger who has been your goal for some minutes now. You wonder that they haven’t noticed your inept flailings, and on instinct call out, “Excuse me?” as you finally reach them.

They turn towards you, and you’re more than a little startled when you find yourself looking into your own face.

The sensation is so alarming that you actually take a sharp step backwards and nearly stumble again. A moment’s closer examination, however, proves that the stranger doesn’t look exactly like you. The resemblance, however, is uncanny. They have the same hairstyle, and weirdly similar facial features, though their eyes and hair are a few shades darker than yours. Their wings are the same pearly white, and their clothing is a similar cut with the exception of the coat, which is not as long in the back as yours.

You open your mouth to speak, but no words come. Instead, the stranger says, “Going to take Lord Claudius’ challenge? Good luck, Hero, you’re going to need it!”

“What?” you ask, wrong-footed by the non-sequitur. “No, I’m not taking anyone’s challenge, and I’m definitely no hero-” you begin, then pause as the image of a strangely familiar face flashes across your mind.

Fair skin, red hair, bright blue eyes leaning in, examining you as someone else with darker hair lingers behind their shoulder, watching.

The Hero.

You’re not sure how you know that, but something in you that you can’t put a name to tells you it is so. You turn your attention back to the stranger in front of you and ask, “You mean the man with the red hair? And the...” you pause, frowning as you rub absently at your temples as you try to remember the person that had been with him. You think they were female…

Fairy, the same something that called the red haired man ‘Hero’ tells you. That’s what his companion had been; a fairy.

“The fairy girl? I think they did something to me. I don’t… I don’t remember anything before just a moment ago and-”

“Going to take Lord Claudius’ challenge? Good luck, Hero, you’re going to need it!”

You stop and look at the other person again, brow furrowed in confusion. “Um,” you say, when nothing else comes immediately to mind. “I don’t- you just said that.” Your words are slow and uncertain as your gaze meets their’s and finds… nothing. No spark of recognition or true focus on you as you speak. The vacancy in their eyes frightens you into taking another step back as a deep seated unease settles in your belly.

“Going to take Lord Claudius’ challenge? Good luck, Hero, you’re going to need it!”

Pulse pounding, you rush away breathlessly and clap your hands over your long ears to block out further repetitions of the inane phrase. In your distress you don’t even register the ease with which you now move, bare feet barely making a sound against the tile. You spy someone else and, panting, call out, “Please! There’s something wrong, I need help!”

“Good to see you, Hero! You had such a long journey, have you-”

This person looks less like you than the last, though they bear the same white wings and pupils. More terrifying, however, is the vapid look they share with the last person you met. It drives a bolt of horror down into your gut and makes you feel sick. You don’t let them finish, but flee once more, long, pale hair streaming in your wake.

“Hello, Hero! What have you-”

“Hope your skills are up to the task, Hero-”

“Challenging our Lord Claudius so soon, Hero? I-”

Hero!

Even with your ears covered the title echoes in your mind as the reality of your solitude begins to settle over your newly formed mind with the weight of mountains. It threatens to overwhelm you, and tears start to prickle at the corners of your eyes as you run blindly through the halls of… wherever you are.

The Crystal Keep in the Kingdom of Morning at the edge of-

You push the unwanted knowledge away, furious and confused and terrified. You’re running flat out, now, but you don’t know where to, or what good it might do you. Everyone you pass, whether they be idle watchers that look eerily like yourself, or armored guards patrolling the hallway, they all share that empty expression and spout meaningless words on endless repeat.

Your frantic steps bring you, at last, to a crossroads. To your right is an open door that leads into a sunny courtyard. Ahead and to the left are multiple hallways all branching off to who knows where. You’re tired of running now, tired of all the identical halls with their identical occupants talking in their endless loops…

You stand in the center of the crossroads, fighting to catch your breath as you look up into the vaulted dome ceiling overhead and feel a few tears spill from your eyes. There’s a mural painted there, but you can’t appreciate the details of the imagery. In fact, if someone had asked you a moment later, you don’t think you could have told them what it was of.

Not that anyone is asking you anything at all.

What do you do?

Shout for help and hope someone hears

Go into the courtyard for some fresh air to clear your head

( On to Ch 1.3 > )

#Awake: the game #Awake story archive #Awake Ch 1.2 #choose your own adventure #fiction

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spideyxchelle · 7 years

Text

i’ve been working on this fic forever and a day. and so now its all done. here is part 2 of the world war ii spideychelle headcanon/fic. before any of you ask me in my inbox: no. there will not be more. this is it. this is how it ends.

tw: violence. depression. PTSD. violence. really, really bad violence.

here is the music i wrote to, in case you were curious.

the boat ride over is long. and rocky. the boys he’s put with in his squad range in age but all of them looked terrified. a world war is not like fighting just the Japanese.

peter looks at each of the faces and doesn’t bother to try and learn them. chances are most of these boys aren’t going home. himself included.

he takes out the picture of MJ he has hidden in a pocket he sowed into his uniform. its still perfect. he imagines that in a few months it will be bent and dirty and maybe even lost. but for now, its still MJ.

a man probably fifteen years his senior plops down next to peter and he hides the picture. he doesn’t need anyone to know about MJ. he’s not sure what kind of guys are in his squad. racists look like normal people, after all.

the older man offers peter his flask and peter takes a swig. and coughs. its strong. the older man laughs and claps peter on the back, “you ever thrown one back before, kid?” peter sputters out, “no, sir.” “captain actually. captain rogers.” “peter parker, captain.” “pleasure to meet you,” captain rogers gestures to the picture peter just hid, “that your sweetheart?” peter nods. and captain rogers smiles, “good. it’s nice to have someone back home. makes this easier.” “how can anything make this easier?”

captain rogers stands and adjusts his uniform, “some of these boys don’t have much to go home to...and so they’re not gonna fight like hell to get back. but you will.” “yes, sir.”

and peter writes off the weird interaction with captain rogers as a one time thing but when they touch down in the UK, he learns why captain rogers approached him. he’s the head of peter’s squad. and he was getting to know each of the boys on the boat over. its weirdly sweet. and makes peter long for his aunt. and his bed. and his MJ.

he wants them even more when training starts. bomb threats happen all the time in London. its a warzone. and it rains. and there isn’t really a barrack for them to sleep in. everyone and everything is exposed and out in the open.

at night, he hears the sirens of a bomb threat and he and his unit all huddle in the bomb shelters under ground and pray they don’t die before they make it to the front. and as the world above him shakes and explodes he looks at that picture of MJ.

he knows he’s closed off, he knows that the other men in his unit are looking to create a family between them. but peter has lost family before. and the chances of him losing the men in his unit are high. and he can’t get invested. losing his parents and ben was devastating.

but this plan doesn’t hold. it can’t. not when he meets little Miles Morales. he’s 15, not much younger than peter, but young enough that it makes everybody pause. because the enlistment age is 18. how he got in, whatever paperwork he lied on, makes everyone in their troop very, very nervous and equally protective of Miles. he shouldn’t even be here, peter argues with captain rogers one night.

Steve stands and gets in peter’s face, “what would you have me do? waste resources and time sending him home, Queens?” “you’re sending a 15 year old kid out to die, Brooklyn.” “if i had another choice do you think i wouldn’t have already taken it? this city is shut down. we’re heading out in three days. i’m not gonna leave him in a warzone unprotected.” “no, you’ll just march him into a warzone instead.” “he’ll have us watching his back. he’ll have a gun.” “yea! because some other german bastard has a gun of his own pointed at that kid!!” “you questioning my command, parker?” “i’m questioning your morality, captain.”

rogers tent goes quiet. and the two men stare at each other. rage flitting across each of their features. steve takes a deep breath and speaks low, “you question my command again, parker, and we’re gonna have problems. do you understand me, solider?” peter grits his teeth, “yes, sir.”

he throws the flaps of the tent open and goes straight to Miles’ bunk. he knocks him off of the bunk and glares at him. eye-to-eye. “you listen to me, Morales. you’re not dying on me. i won’t have that on my conscious. you hear?” Miles nods. “and if i say duck, you duck. if i say run. you run. if i say jump up and down and do the fucking conga you do that. you hear?” Miles nods. peter sighs and claps him on the shoulder, “good.”

and with Miles under peter’s wing, he’s not a part of the troop. a band of brothers. a group of scared kids with riffles in their hands fighting not for their country, but for the people they’ve left behind that they love back home.

Miles tells peter about his uncle. they’re close from what he can tell. and Miles talks a lot. as they begin the journey to france Miles nervously chatters seemingly all day and all night. Clint, a superior officer in their troop, is always throwing things at Miles and telling him to shut up. its fond. really.

its 1942. its August when they arrive at the front. they’re the first wave of soldiers. and so they’re to help to english. to do what they can. when they arrive, its disgusting. piss and shit everywhere. and he can hear the screams from the medic tent all the way across camp. war isn’t glamorous. men are dying.

for the rest of the war, all peter smells is rotting flesh. he never gets used to the smell.

he yanks Miles next to him and whispers under his breath, “remember what you promised me.” their whole troop is shoved in one barrack. its small and cramped and the floor is mud. his nails are always disgusting. and peter feels like he can never get clean. not that it would matter. there’s no point being clean in war.

the next day, he’s woken up by steve. captain rogers nudges him out of his bunk way too early. he’s bleary eyed and yawns, “yes, sir?” “you’re good with a gun, parker. come with me.”

he’s briefed by one of the english soldiers. and he’s tested. he shoots long range and he’s good. its almost like he was born for killing. that thought unnerves him. the english captain talks with steve and peter watches the sun rise.

when steve finds him, he tells peter he’s going to be going to a vantage point and is gonna shoot down some nazis. long range. peter almost argues. in fact, he does try, “shooting somebody whose face i can’t see up close feels cowardly.” steve’s eyes are flat, “war is cowardly. what did you think we did here? fought with honor? there is no honor at the front.”

a gun is strapped to his chest and he joins the other snipers in a tower overlooking a battlefield. he sees men die. they fall like cards. and the smell. they smell is vomit inducing. but he shoulders his gun and looks down at the field.

he feels like god a little. because that’s what god does in heaven, right? he looks down at all of the little people on the ground and choose who gets to live and who gets to die. he doesn’t feel powerful, though. being god is a burden.

he lets the first shot off and it hits. he kills his first man. and the noise around him goes static and white. he grips his chest, just over his heart, where he’s hidden MJ’s picture. like he’s willing it to give him strength. it doesn’t. he feels empty.

he lets out another shot. and another man falls. on and on it goes.

that first day he kills 32 men. 32 men whose faces he can’t see.

that’s the first night peter cries. he curls up in his bunk, back safe at base and sobs into his pillow. his fellow soldiers do him a service and pretend to not hear him. it’s a gift.

the next day he gets up and does it again. and the day after that, and the day after that. it doesn’t get easier. but he does get more numb. his eyes get that same flat sheen that captain rogers has. he wonders offhand what captain rogers has seen. what made him the way he is.

the only good thing about being a sniper, if it can even be called good, is that he can keep an eye on Miles. he can keep him safe. any person that gets close to Miles he picks them off. from his haven in the sky.

they’ve been at the front for four months when Miles gets clipped by a bullet. it goes clear through his shoulder. and peter shoots the person who clips him in the head. its a clean, vengeful shot.

he abandons his post. all of his fellow snipers scream after him, but peter is running down the steps. he has to get to miles. he has to get to him. he won’t let him die. he’s almost 16. that’s too young. they’re all too young.

when he catches up with medics, Miles face is pale and he’s bleeding a little too much. the kind of bleeding that kids die from. he tries to help but the nurses nudge him out of the way. he follows them all of the way back to camp and he’s left outside of the medic tent. in the rain and mud.

that’s where Captain Rogers finds him. he doesn’t stand in a show of respect. he sits, broken and dead-eyes looking ahead. steve sighs and sits beside him, “parker-” “don’t,” peter cuts him off, “i’m not sorry. i’m not sorry i abandoned my post. i’d do it again. he’s 15, steve.” “i was just gonna say he’s gonna be okay.” peter’s eyes light up and he turns his face up to steve, “really?” he hates how wrecked his voice sounds. steve nods, “really.”

when they check in with the doctors, later, they tell peter Miles’ shoulder is pretty much dead weight now. he won’t be able to shoot. which means he’s discharged. which means he’s going home.

and that’s the second time peter cries. this time its relief. because Miles will get to see 16 and 17 and 18. but Miles, being Miles, tries to fight the doctors on this. peter smacks him upside the head and tells him he’s done his duty. he’s served. now its time to pack up and go home.

when Miles is discharged, peter hands him a letter. he’s not written home since he was shipped out. its nearly impossible to get things home. but if Miles is heading back to Queens, he can make sure this letter gets there.

the first is to May. the second is to MJ.

MJ’s letter is him telling her how much he loves her. and tucked safe inside the paper is the picture she gave him to take overseas. its dirty from battle and from his finger prints. his worshipful finger prints. he’s certain he’s not making it home. and he’d rather she have the picture. its his way of saying goodbye without actually saying goodbye. its him literally letting her go.

Miles and Peter hug tight. and he tells him to keep his nose clean and go back and finish school. Miles tells peter he’ll be looking for him once all of this is over. he doesn’t have the heart to tell Miles he’s not sure he’s going home. in fact, he’s sure he won’t.

he spend the next few years killing. and he’s good at it. he’s really good at it. he sees men screaming from his terror in his dreams. he sees women and children on the other end of his gun. and in his dreams he kills them, too. all of the innocents.

but he’s good at killing. and so they don’t let him stop. in fact, the start sending him on more covert, bloody missions. he’s a ghost. no one sees him until its too late.

he sees them all, though. in his dreams. haunting him.

in 1945 peter is captured by the nazis. he’s sent to a warzone with a small group of specialized soldiers, captain rogers among them. peter’s better than a good shot, he’s a great one. and his whole troop gets wiped out. picked off one by one. except him and captain rogers.

well, captain rogers for a minute.

when they drag the two of them back to their base, steve fights. or tries. and he gets a bullet for it.

that’s the third time peter cries. its not like he expects war to be gentle. he’s smarter than that. but there is something powerful and eternal about steve. like, if anybody was gonna live for him it’d be captain rogers. and he looks so unnatural unmoving. he’s such a effervescent person. or was.

peter sobs.

the germans drag him to a tent where they keep their prisoners and he cries well into the night. until a soldier, tired of hearing it, knocks him with the handle of his gun and peter passes out.

the next morning, he tastes lead in his mouth. blood. he tastes blood. “MJ...” he whispers into the air. “MJ,” he says again. he can almost see her. in fact, he does see her. she’s in that red dress that he loves. she’s got that easy, soft smirk on her face. and all he can think is that he’s not dressed up enough. he’s in his dirty uniform and has dirt and blood caked on his face. and she’s an angel.

“MJ...” he says again. and she leans down so they’re face to face. she touches his face and he closes his eyes. “i miss you,” she says. he opens his eyes and takes in everything about her. her lips are a vibrant red. the same color they were on the night of their first kiss. “are you real?” he whispers in awe. she shakes her head and her eyes are sad, “no, baby, i ain’t real.”

he slips back into the abyss. when he wakes the second time she’s gone. and peter rests his head back against the pole he’s tied to. he won’t cry. he’s breathing. and that means he’s gotta keep it together.

the girl in the red dress with the secret smile would want him to keep breathing.

or maybe, the evil thought snakes into his mind, maybe she would want him to die. maybe she want him to be at peace. he’s fought for so hard and so long now. maybe he’s earned rest.

he doesn’t get to think much longer because a soldier joins him in the tent and starts barking at him in german. peter shakes his head, exhausted. “i don’t,” he coughs, “don’t speak German.” “get up American scum,” the heavily accented soldier commands as he cuts peter lose. he knows its a chore, the soldier has to practically drag him to a german command tent. and when he arrives some officer points to a map and demands peter show them where the americans are trooped out.

he doesn’t answer. they hit him. and so he spits his blood on the map in a show of defiance. they hit him again. demanding he show them the whereabouts.

peter shakes his head, “i ain’t gonna tell you that.” “you stupid solider-” one guy begins, cocking his gun. peter chuckles, “i’m a musician, actually. i played the trumpet.” he’s not sure why he’s holding on to that detail now. he’s gonna die. the fact that he used to play the trumpet shouldn’t be the detail he’s clinging to. and yet.

the barrel of the gun is positioned between his eyes. peter smiles. he remembers when he had to shoot from a vantage point that first day. he remembers talking to steve and saying that he wanted honor. to look a man in the eye when he killed him. and this feels like that.

sure, no one will know what happened to him. yes, maybe they’ll think he went down with the rest of his troop. but he’ll know that he went down standing on his two feet. staring death in the face.

“any last words?” the German stilts out in broken english. peter exhales, “not to you.”

he hears the gun shot go off and jumps. because it doesn’t hurt. he expected it to hurt. in fact, he expected it to be over. but when the shock of the shot is over, he realizes he’s not dead. and the soldier who was holding him at gun point is.

he realizes the room is in chaos. he realizes that there are soldiers screaming in a language he doesn’t know. it sounds what he always imagined russian to sound like. but he could be wrong.

all he knows is that this is the moment. the moment he could stay behind and find the other end of a bullet to whatever side won this battle. or he could escape.

he takes option two.

as he runs, he feels lightheaded. he’s not sure when was the last time he ate or drank water. he’s not sure how long he’s been kept prisoner. did they kill steve yesterday or a week ago? its all unclear.

the woods wherever he is is thick. and it offers a lot of shelter. he only stops running when he stops hearing the echo of gun shots. and then, he throws up.

he’s not safe. he has no idea where he is. and he has no idea how to get home. he knows that he needs to go west. that’s where the allies will be. that’s how he gets home.

it takes him 30 days to find a town that has english speakers in it. he’d avoided every german occupied village and port. but when he arrives in the small city he hears english. american english.

he nearly faints when he notices an american uniform. he wanders into the town square. announces the name of his unit number and collapses.

when he wakes up, there is an American soldier sitting beside him in his bed. peter groans in pain. the soldier springs up, “hey woah, soldier, don’t push it. you’re in real bad shape.” “peter,” he mumbles, “my name is peter.” “pleased to meet you, peter,” he smiles, “i’m Doctor Banner.” “where am I?” “safe. and just off the coast of France.”

Doctor Banner moves to sit on the edge of Peter’s bed, “son, where is the rest of your unit?” he remembers the bullet and steve falling the mud, blood floating in the puddles of rain. “dead. sir.” Doctor Banner nods, “i thought as much.”

peter coughs but forces himself to sit up, “i’m ready to head back, sir. as soon as i can stand.” “that won’t be necessary, son.” “why not?” “the war, peter. its over. honestly, its been over since hitler did himself in.”

peter chokes and then he’s crying. the fifth time he cries during the war. Doctor Banner wraps his arms around him and squeezes him tight, “its okay, son. you’re going home.” home. peter shakes his head. he can’t go home. he can’t. he can’t look at any of them. his hands dashed sticky and red. he can’t stand to look at them and know what these hands did.

“no,” he cries, “i shoulda died. i shoulda...” “hey,” Banner rocks him back and forth, “you’re alive for a reason, peter. you’re living. cause you’re meant to live. don’t wish for death. there is nothing glamorous about death.” “you think i don’t know that?” his back shakes, “you have no idea what i’ve done. what i’ve seen. i’ve killed hundreds, shit, probably thousands of them. do you know what killing thousands of people does to a man?”

and he’s a man now. that’s the first time he remembers. he’s 22. fuck. his curls in on himself. Banner rubs his back. “peter,” he says gently, “you have to talk to me. i’m here to help you.” “ain’t nobody can help me, doc.”

people are celebrating in the streets once he’s discharged. the war is over. but he feels lost. later, history will call them the silent generation. probably because war stole their voices. there is nothing to say. not after you’ve seen what he’s seen.

he steps back on American shores in the summer of 1946. the streets are the same. but he’s so different. he’s showered and clean but he feels the dirt of war all over him. he’s not sure how he’s gonna acclimate to civilian life. if he ever can.

there are men and women sobbing as they reunite on the streets. men in uniforms. men coming home. men who weren’t on the front. he’s heard lots of americans were stationed away from France. only the first wave of boys went there. only the first wave of boys looked germans in their eyes. and pulled a trigger.

he goes to his aunt’s apartment and hopes she’s still there. that she hasn’t moved since he shipped out. he wouldn’t know. he spent four years without a stitch of news. no letters ever made it to him.

his shaky hands knock on the door. and aunt may answers the door. she looks horrible. and shaken. and then, she screams and throws her arms around him. she’s sobbing and he clings to her. his hands fist in her clothes. she smells the same. but it doesn’t quite reach him. because he can smell the battlefield over everything else.

she pulls back and touches his face and smoothes back his hair and cries harder, “they told me you were dead.” his stomach falls. and she keeps talking, “they told me you were dead, peter. said your whole unit died in germany. on a special mission.” peter’s face is void of emotion, “i’m alive, aunt may. i’m the only one.”

aunt may spends the next three days feeding him, snuggling him and trying to get him to talk. but peter doesn’t want to speak. he has nothing to say. nothing about the war, at least. they talk about curtains and movies he’s missed while he’s been away. they talk about their neighbors. and how tedious rationing has been for her. but never about the war.

he can’t.

and then she starts to tell him about the boys in the neighborhood who died. the ones who shipped out and didn’t come back like he did. he figures she’s trying to get him to open up about what he did and what he saw. but he won’t.

he won’t tell her that he stood over the battlefield like a god and killed thousands of men. that some days it was easier than it should have been. to pull a trigger and kill somebody.

she gives peter two weeks of being a zombie before she gently tells him that he needs to do something. a hobby or a job. he needs to get out of the house. staying home all day isn’t “healthy”. he almost laughs at her. because he’s not doing much healthy anymore. like, sleeping in a bed is too suffocating. he sleeps on the floor with a sheet.

but he doesn’t wanna upset his aunt more than he already knows he is doing. he sees the way she looks at him when she thinks he isn’t watching her. but the jokes on may. peter is always watching now. he always sleeps like a bomb could go off. he learned that trick in London before he even made it to the front.

so he goes back to the club. the club where he was happy. it’s day time. and he knows the band will be practicing. if any of the boys are still alive. he’s not sure if he’s ready to see who made it.

when he arrives no one is playing on the stage. that hurts peter more than he expected. so he sits at the bar. and the barkeep isn’t someone he recognizes. its a young girl. maybe 16.

he asks for a whiskey. straight. and she pours. peter turns around and looks at the stage. he looks at it through two more drinks. and that’s when Sam Wilson walks on the stage with his trumpet case. Peter stands. alarmed.

Sam jumps down from the stage and Peter braces for a punch. but it never comes. Sam wraps his arms around him and hugs him. peter doesn’t relax, though. he’s not great with comfort. not since the war. Sam seems to sense this and pulls away, “fuck. peter parker. as i live and breathe. you’re alive.” peter nods. Sam talks more, “we thought....nevermind what we thought. Emmy will be thrilled to see you.”

and there it is. the real reason he knows he walked down to the club. to see her. he knows she’s probably married now. she’s old enough. probably has a kid or two. she’s in her early twenties. most girls settle down around then. but he doesn’t wanna ask. he’s holding his life together by a shoe-string. if she was married, he’s not sure what he’d do.

“how,” peter’s voice breaks, “how is she?” “good,” Sam nods, “Steinway and Sons stopped making pianos during the war. made glider wings. and she worked on the line. helping our boys over seas. helping you.” “i wasn’t in the air force.” “still,” sam grins, “shit, kid, its great to see you.” “you didn’t go,” peter observes. and Sam shakes his head, “no, uh, i have bad eyesight. they didn’t take me. didn’t take bucky either. his arm.” peter swallows and asks an impossible question, “and Ned?”

Sam’s face falls. and Peter locks his knees so he doesn’t fall over. “he went down in the pacific,” Sam looks at the ground, “damn good piano player.” peter remembers the face of that german soldier. the one he told he was a musician. he wonders if Ned thought that in his last moment. if he was scared. if he was at peace. he hopes it wasn’t painful.

he’s already radiating with pain. so he dares to ask, “MJ...is she married?” Sam sighs, like he knew the question was coming, “not a lot of boys left during the war to date much, honestly. besides, she was busy with work.” “if she still wants me, Sam, i’m gonna marry her.” even peter is shocked by the words coming out of his mouth.

Sam argues, “peter, i told you...” “its not illegal in the state of New York. i don’t care if we get looks. i’m tired, Sam. i’m so fucking tired. you don’t have any idea how tired i am. and i ain’t afraid of you anymore. i’ve seen the devil. and he doesn’t wear your face.”

Sam sputters, tries to stop him. explain that peter doesn’t understand. that he’ll put Michelle in danger. but peter’s a good shot now. and nobody can take that skill away from him. peter tips his bartender and eyes Sam’s trumpet, “i don’t play much anymore.”

he goes right from the bar to MJ’s house. he’s never been there before. but he remembers her telling him once her address. she thought the apartment number 123 was hilarious. and he remembers laughing too hard. he doesn’t laugh at all anymore.

he knocks on her door, hard, twice. and she opens. and time stands still. because it might have been years since he could still paint her face in striking detail. he was afraid he’d forgotten her. he hadn’t.

her eyes widen and she gasps. but she doesn’t hug him like May did. she takes her shoe off and throws it at him. “you ASS, peter parker.” she takes off her other shoe and throws it again. he stands there as she proceeds to throw four other things at him.

then, he speaks, “you done?” her eyes water. and she hugs him. she starts brushing her fingers through his hair and whispering into his shoulder, “i thought you were dead. you sent me back that stupid picture. i hated you so much for that.”

he’s glad, for a moment, that Miles found her. “i thought i was gonna die,” he whispers. and its the first time he says that out loud. he was terrified he was gonna die. and then he accepted it, but it was always there. the thought. that he’d die. she squeezes him tight, “what happened to you?” “i was a nazi prisoner toward the end. i don’t remember much. i think i was there for a week. i shoulda died.”

she pulls away and slaps him across the face. and he feels something. “don’t you ever say that again, peter parker, you hear me?” he nods, “yes, ma’am. can’t promise i won’t think it, though.” and she looks like he might’ve hit her this time. “why,” she stutters, “why would you say that?” “nothing,” he whispers, “don’t worry about it. marry me.”

and she raises her eyebrow and smacks his chest, pushing him away from her. “you can’t say you want to die, for me not to worry about it and then ask me to marry you all in one breath. that’s not right. especially not after five years. five years, peter.” “i can’t control how long i was away!” “you never wrote me. not one letter. except one goodbye letter. that was all i had of you. do you have any idea how that felt?? the only thing i ever had from you was a freakin’ goodbye letter. that’s not OKAY!” she yells.

he roars back, “YEAH WELL I’M NOT OKAY.” she steps back, the force of his voice moving her. his eyes flutter and rubs his forehead, “i’m sorry. i-....i didn’t mean to yell. i just....you don’t know.” she brushes his arm, “then tell me.” he shakes his head, “i can’t.”

“i can’t marry you,” she gnaws on her lip, “not like this.” he’s expecting her answer, so he smiles sadly, “yea, i know. i’m trying, Em. i’m trying every day. its just so hard.” she kisses his cheek desperately, “let me help you.” “you did,” he admits. and she raises an eyebrow, so he explains, “when i wanted to die. when i was a prisoner....i saw you. you spoke to me. you were wearing your red dress.” “i was?” “yea,” he whispers, “you were.”

MJ guides peter into her apartment. there are pictures of her family all over. he sees a picture of a younger MJ and Sam. when she sits him on the couch, she runs off to the kitchen to make him tea. she forces it into his hands and then says gently, “tell me what happened to you.”

and it all comes back. he wasn’t a german prisoner for a night. no. he was a prisoner for a week. seven days before they dragged him to that german command tent and told him to give up the american’s position. he was there for a week after they shot Steve. and every day they tortured him. he remembers Doctor Banner telling him that he was in bad shape. that was why. but he’d pushed the thoughts of that week of hell away in the back of his mind. it was like it never happened.

until MJ asked.

peter started to cry and she put their teas on the coffee table and hugged him. “baby,” she whispers, “tell me.” he remembers the post he was tied to. he remembers the pain. they tied him to the post and flogged him. his uniform was ribbons when he ran. because they’d beaten most of the fabric away. they’d hung him upside down and left him, letting the blood rush to his head. and he’d pass out. throw up. they’d throw him in a puddle of water and toss an electrified device in the water to electrocute him. every day something new. every day something horrible.

“i shoulda died,” he cried, “i shoulda died instead of living through that. steve died. why me? why did they pick me?” and slowly, he told her. told her as he remembered. and she didn’t cry but her eyes watered. it looked like she was fighting back the urge to fall apart. instead, she lets him.

its night time once he’s done talking. and MJ doesn’t speak. she pulls him in her arms and rocks them back and forth. that only makes him cry harder.

that night, he doesn’t go home. MJ lays on the floor next to peter and they both sleep. he’s exhausted. and in the middle of the night when he wakes up screaming, she’s there to press kisses into his shoulder until he comes back to himself. its after the night terrors that he asks her again, “marry me.”

she kisses him on the mouth for the first time that day. and its brief. too brief. it makes everything easier. “no,” she shakes her head, “not like this. i can’t be your savior.” and he hates that she’s right.

so the next morning he leaves. this time he gives her more than a goodbye letter to remember him by. he gives her his dog tags. and promises to come back for them. but he needs to work this out. and she smiles, “next time i see you, you better have better jewelry for me than dog tags.” he laughs. and it startles him. he can’t remember the last time he did that. laugh.

“you’ll get a ring. promise.” “good.” and she hesitates before leaning in and kissing him soundly. against his mouth, she whispers, “come back to me.”

when he gets to the veteran recovery hospital he’s diagnosed with combat exhaustion. later, they’ll call this PTSD. and he’ll begin to work through it slowly. he’s in new york. the doctors are progressive and understanding. and they take their time. he talks through things at his own pace. and he’s given techniques to handle his outbursts. his anger. his sadness.

he declines the drugs, its ‘46 and everything is experimental. but he does work hard on getting better. and he writes MJ. he writes MJ every day. even the days he doesn’t wanna get out of bed. and there are plenty of days where he doesn’t wanna get out of bed.

he knows he may be starting to get better when he wakes up one day and decides he wants to play the trumpet. so he asks May to send it to him. and when it arrives he’s rusty. actually, he’s bad. but it makes him happy. the music is louder than the memories of the screaming on the battlefield.

and six months after he checks in to the hospital he feels more like himself. its not perfect. he doesn’t think he’ll ever be the same. but he’s feels happiness again. and he laughs. and he plays the trumpet. and sometimes you don’t get perfect. you get what works for you. and this is what works for peter.

so he checks out of the hospital and buys MJ a ring. and this time when he knocks on her door, he’s already on one knee. and he smiles up at her shocked face, “i’ll trade you?” and her eyes water. so he explains. “you still have my dog tags. i’ll give you this ring and you give me them?”

and she rolls her eyes but she throws herself into his arms. he crushes her to him and breathes her in. she doesn’t smell like the battlefield. she smells like MJ. she kisses all over his face and then breathes, “ask me for real, you idiot.” he nudges his nose against hers and asks. for real, “marry me?”

and she does.

#headcanon ask #spideychelle #ww2 au #tw: violence #tw: PTSD #tw: depression

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kyakykreativitylover · 7 years

Text

McGrawHamilton Uni AU

I’ve been to uni in the UK and met some people and had some experiences that made me want to write the Black Sails characters as Uni Freshers. So here it is,

PART 1 of infinity, I kid, but really I’m not seeing an end to this so....... PART 1

Imagine James McGraw is moving to Manchester for the first time and is all O_O and lost. Anyway, he’s like “Take a deep breath James, it’s just a city, no biggie, calm down, be cool, it’s only your first day at Uni, you’ll be alright.” Thus our story begins.

It took James McGraw a bus and a train ride to get from his home to the city of Manchester. Once in Manchester he took a deep breath and used GoogleMaps to get his bearings as well as figure out how to get from the train station to his new halls. He had admittedly lost his mind a tad and splurged a bit when he had gotten his student maintenance loan, so he was looking for one of the “better” halls in Manchester. Once he had figured out how to go from the bus station to his halls (”Bus number 147.″ a polite -if slightly drunk- man had told him) he was able to take another deep breath.

He managed to get on the bus and get to halls in about half an hour. After getting his welcome pack from the reception of his halls (which contained two different forms as well as his access fob and room/flat and post box keys) he is told his flat number and the building it was in.

He manages to get from the reception to his flat relatively painlessly. Once he enters his flat he finds five other people sitting in the common area. (”Fuck, I look and smell like shit, I’m not ready to meet people and here I fucking am with like five people looking at me, SHIT!”) He goes to his room (”Ensuite- awesome”) and dumps his bags, and suitcases on the floor. He washes his face, brushes histeeth and then braces himself to meet his new flat mates. (“Stay cool James, stay cool.”) There’s six of them in this flat:

Charles Vane (”Don’t think about how hot he is James. Cocky fucking git he probably already knows, SHIT”)

Jack Rackham, (”What a sweetheart, shit, I just want to hug him and his perfect floppy hair”).

Madi Scott (”I wish I was that organised, she already has her text books, I don’t even know what my reading list looks like.”)

Max Parker (”She’s such a cutie, look at her smile, also wow holy weaponised sexuality, batman.”)

Miranda Barlow (”Is she meant to be here? She’s like hella posh, fuck, am I meant to be here? Also WOW she brought a WHOLE harpsichord?!”).

Charles decides that the best way to bond as room mates is to play drinking games. Max and Charles are the heaviest of heavy weights. Jack gets drunk and is apparently a hungry drunk because he decides that they should go to a pub to eat. “I’m sure there’s a ‘Spoons near here.” Jack announces after demolishing another bag of crisps. Miranda handles her liquor well as she is no where near drunk, but she is getting gigglier (”Is that a word?”) and gigglier. Madi didn’t want to drink but she watches them get stupider and stupider, records their bad behaviour and laughs at them. And he....... he wants to curl into a ball and cry. He also wants to fight Charles, just because...... why the fuck not. He ends up arm wrestling Charles (and losing, but never mind that).

They end up at a kebab shop approximately 20 steps from their halls. Jack orders a kebab with everything. Charles is flirting with a random girl they met at the shop. Madi gets cheesy chips (”Now I weirdly crave falafel and hummus.”). Miranda gets a chicken sandwich meal deal and gives Max her fries. James gets a classic fish and chips and douses both with salt and vinegar. When they look up from their food they find Charles is already locking lips with the girl (”That didn’t take long” Jack tells him, “Yet, when you look like that, it wouldn’t take long.”). Then Jack goes off with some random redheaded girl. (”Hi Anne.” “I wanna fuck.” “Okay, then, I guess I’ll be off, bye guys.” Max and Madi laugh at Jacks’ retreating form, Miranda just smiles into her apple tango.) Charles also leaves with the girl. (”Don’t wait up guys, daddy’s gotta take of business.” Charles whispers at them with a massive smirk. “Fuck off Charles” James says with a mouth full of fries. “Have a good night.” Max offers, before returning to the near empty box of fries.) Max finishes the fries and then pouts at the empty box. “If you want I could get you more fries?” James offers. Max brightens up at that. “Thanks.” “Get like two boxes then, sine I’m sure we’ll all end up sharing them.” Miranda says before turning back to her phone. “Sure.” James responds as he goes to the counter.

A group of lads then walk into the kebab shop. (A/N This image kinda captures their banter with each other but they are dressed more like Jack and Finn from Jacksgap- which is to say well put together, perfectly fitted and stylish as hell).

They all have extremely posh accents and look like they’ve never seen the inside of Primark, let alone the charity shops James buys 70% of the clothes he owns from. Three of the lads go to the second of the three booths in the tiny shop. One of them comes up to the counter. He sees James and smiles.

James smiles back, then he remembers he was meant to be buying food.

“Uh, can I get two boxes of fries.”

“And some onion rings.” Max shouts from somewhere behind him.

“Uh, and onion rings.” James adds putting 3 pound coins on the counter.

The man behind the counter gets busy serving the dishes. “Sauce?” He asks. “No thanks.” James says with a wide smile.

“Next.” The man says after handing James his food.

“Hi.” The posh lad says. “Can I get two number 7′s, a 5 and a cheesy garlic bread.” He then hands the man a twenty. James goes back to his booth. Miranda looks up from her phone and then exclaims “Thomas!”

The lad at the bar looks back at them. “Miranda! Madi!” At that Madi turns around to face the lad and ends up grinning.

He then comes to their booth and to give Miranda and Madi massive hugs. Miranda pseudo crawls over James in her haste to give Thomas a hug. “I haven’t seen you since we went to the gardens last month. How have you been?” Miranda asks. “I’ve been goo-”

“Thomas.” One of the other lads calls from their booth. “I think the food is ready.” The other boys laugh. Thomas shakes his head before giving Miranda another hug. “I’ll be back.” He gets the food, dishes it out amongst the lads he came with and then returns to their booth with his order.

“Aren’t you leaving your friends a little high and dry?” Miranda asks chuckling and stealing one of his chicken wings. “Hey boys, am I leaving you high and dry?” Thomas calls over his shoulder. One of the lads he came with laughs out loud while another one says “Nah, you can have him. We’d have killed him if he had stayed.” The third is focused on eating.

Thomas then looks at Miranda who shrugs. Max steals another of his chicken wings. “Please eat before Max and Miranda eat all your food.” Madi says eating an onion ring. Thomas laughs and tucks into his burger. James hasn’t stopped staring at him. (”Holy shit he’s hot. Like, fuck me, he’s really hot.”) Thomas turns to smile at him. “I know Miranda and Madi but I don’t know the rest of you.” James goes slightly red as Miranda starts introductions. “That’s Max.” Max smiles and eats some more fries. “Next to me is James.” James almost chokes on his chip. He manages to hold out his hand for a hand shake. Which Thomas takes with a soft chuckle. “You already know Madi.” Miranda says while staring at him questioningly. “Yeah we were chained together on the M4 for the better part of a day. We then spent 30 hours in holding.” Thomas then shakes his head “Not to forget going to court for those three days.” Madi adds taking one of two his chicken pieces.“Yeah. Good times.” Thomas says with a smile, giving up and pushing his last three wings, piece of chicken and left over fries towards Max, Madi and Miranda.

“How do you and Miranda know each other?” James dares to ask. Miranda then laughs very loudly before looking at Thomas. “The truth?” He asks her. She nods. “We’re married.” James is grateful he has no food in his mouth because then he’d have spit it out. Max and Madi look as stunned as he feels. “We got married in kindergarten.” Miranda clarifies. “We’ve been stupidly close since.” Thomas then kisses her hand. “I’d be lost without you.” He tells her. Miranda then gasps. “We should have you over for dinner tomorrow.” Madi nods. “Dinner?” James asks. Miranda looks at him. “You mean tea don’t you?” James says with a wide smile. Max looks confused. “De quoi parlez-vous?” Miranda then answers “The great English North- South divide.” James then turns to Max. “As we are in Manchester- which is the North- the correct term for the last meal of the day is tea.” Madi and Miranda roll their eyes. Finally Thomas says, “Very well then, am I invited for tea tomorrow night or not?” James smiles and says “Yeah, sure.”

“Thomas!” One of the lads calls out. “You’re either in this Uber with us or your taking the bus.”

Thomas smiles at them as he gets home. “Well that’s my cue. Good night my dears.” He kisses Mirandas’ and Madis’ hands and shakes James’. Max gets up and kisses his cheek. “Thanks for the food.” She tells him. “You’re more than welcome.” Thomas says before leaving.

James discreetly sniffs the air around where Thomas sat, and finds that it still smells of Thomas’ cologne and after shave.(”I’m fucking screwed. I have a crush on a rich southern lad. Great.”)

“Well what are we doing for tomorrows dinn- I’m sorry I mean tea.” Miranda asks the table. “Let’s discuss this tomorrow.” Max says. “I want to go to this party I was invited to.” Miranda nods. They all leave the booth. They all offer to walk Max to the party. Max declines their offers. “I’ll go back to the flat, get changed and then meet my friends at the reception. We’ll go together.” Miranda nods.

Once the get back to the flat James bids them all good night and then goes to bed.

#FlintHamilton #Black Sails #James McGraw #Thomas Hamilton #Miranda Barlow #Madi Scott #Max Parker #Anne Bonny #Jack Rackham #Charles Vane

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keaalu · 7 years

Text

Remember Me, chapter four

Title (chapter): Remember Me (04)

Series: Transformers, G1-based “Blue” AU

Rating: PG-13

Notes: In which Slipstream realises just how big this thing might be that he and Dash are caught up in, and Starscream finally gets back from New Vos to a hostile welcome.

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The command centre on Nemesis was every bit as sickly purple and ostentatiously oversized as Slipstream remembered it.

He didn’t remember ever seeing it from this angle, though.

“Show proper respect to your new master, scum!”

The shove to one shoulder made him stumble and fall to his knees. Before he could recover, scramble clumsily back to his feet, something heavy – and hot; someone’s thruster? – pressed down on the back of his neck, forced him to bow his helm.

Slipstream snarled in pain and bucked, trying to squirm his way out, but the bigger mech just kept increasing the pressure on the back of his neck until he was almost crushed flat to the floor. Ultimately it hurt too much to keep struggling, and he went limp. The scorching weight on the back of his neck disappeared.

“Good boy,” a condescending voice cooed, close to his helm. Felt like Dirge. “Keep this up, and maybe we won’t feel forced to use you as target practice… quite so much.”

The ripple of unkind laughter which simmered through the crowd was quickly replaced by a weirdly expectant lull, broken only by the sound of mechs jockeying for position, and the sound of approaching footsteps.

A new voice spoke up, somewhere just above and in front. “I should admit to being impressed, Ramjet. Your trine have actually done well, for a change.”

Well, there was no mistaking those gravelly tones. Suddenly, Slipstream didn’t really want to get up, any more.

“Thank you, mighty Megatron. It is an honour to serve!”

There were jeers from the rest of the assembly. An honour to serve! Get up off your belly, Ramjet; who’d you think you are; Screamer? Yeah, well done for kidnapping a sparkling.

Someone caught a hand under Slipstream’s shoulder and hauled him upright. He had to work hard to restrain a flinch.

Barely an arm’s length away, Megatron sat scrutinising him – elbows propped on his knees, leaning down towards him. The warlord looked good; not the scruffy, half-starved bundle of desperation the youngster had expected, from the disparaging way his family had taken to describing him. Poor Megatron, stuck on the wrong side of the spacebridge, squabbling with Autobots.

No, the mech sitting staring down on him looked clean and capable, well-oiled and powerful. Every inch the nightmare that could flatten everything on Cybertron, if he wanted.

“Slipstream,” he said, at last. “Considerably larger than last time we met.”

Slipstream didn’t recognise his own voice – thin and fracturing. “Yes, sir.”

Didn’t hurt to be polite, even if you did feel like purging a tank, right?

“I did expect more from you,” the old warlord finally said, at last, relaxing back in his chair. “As a sparkling, I could see the potential in you. A small mirror of your sire, who had been loyal to me for a very long time. With a little…” He wafted a hand. “…coaching, in the right direction? A little reminder of why this was the only faction that would ever truly understand you? The two of you could have been valuable assets in my campaign.” He elaborated a sigh. “Instead, I see just another unimaginative, whining Autobot, with the lack of ambition that comes as standard.”

Slipstream bristled. The words might have still been faint, but they were out before he got the chance to evaluate whether they were actually sensible to say; “I don’t think I asked for your approval.”

The blow came out of nowhere – an almighty, needlessly violent kick to the head, it sent him skidding across the deck. He fetched up against someone’s legs, puffing softly in alarm.

The bellow chased him across the floor; “Watch your manners, dirtcrawler!” Only just able to pick up the words through a haze of distortions, he wasn’t even sure who was yelling. The owner of the legs used their feet to hustle him back to the centre of the room.

He could feel a trickle of… something… begin to ooze down from his temple. His diagnostics couldn’t make up their mind on what they thought it was. He hoped it was only energon.

Megatron watched with a smirk. “Please don’t kill our guest before we’ve had the chance to make use of him.”

Dirge chose his moment perfectly. “Don’t worry, sir. If that one gets broken, we just use the spare.”

When the blue jet didn’t immediately elaborate, Megatron lifted his head briefly off his hand, and waved his fingers, impatiently. “Go on.”

Dirge waited until he was sure every optic was on him before opening his cockpit and extracting something small. He strode through the centre of the mass and with a flourish, placed it into Megatron’s hands. “First-instar sparkling,” he said, for the benefit of anyone without optics.

“Well this is very interesting,” Megatron purred, holding the small body up in front of his face; Skydash curled up, facing away from him, hugging her knees. “Dirge, I am very impressed.”

Dirge preened at the praise, thumbing his nose at the jeers from his comrades. “Thank you, sir.”

“Now. Where did you come from, I wonder.”

“Well, the little superstar here…” Dirge gave Slipstream a little shove and knocked him sideways, “was meant to be looking after it. Wasn’t counting on us coming along to spoil his orn, I guess.” He snorted and waited for Slipstream to wobble back to his knees before pushing him back over. “I figure they were so disappointed with their first effort – I’d be disappointed; I mean, not only a dirtcrawler, but an Autobot, too? – they decided to try again? That or Skywarp just never understood the concept of protection.”

“Always disappoints me when I realise you might be right. There’s grounder in it, again,” the warlord said, disappointedly. “Just can’t keep from polluting his code, can he? I can’t tell if it’s desperation leading to this lack of standards, or he’s just that easily swayed by a pretty face.”

Thrust leaned closer to his wingmate. “Does this mean you’re gonna lay off with the Primusawful Pit-screech, now?”

Dirge flattened his hand over his wingmate’s face and gave him a shove. “That’s one noisy little scrap of tin. Next time, you can try flying with it caterwauling in your cockpit.”

“She’s not caterwauling. She’s scared,” Slipstream spoke up, quietly. “I’m surprised a bunch of cowards like you don’t understand that. She’s had no part in your squabble, leave her out of it.”

“Did you forget the part we’re at war, you worthless nonentity?” Dirge closed a fist on the antennae spreading from the right of Slipstream’s helm, and dragged him halfway up off the floor. Slipstream squeaked in pain and scrambled to get his feet underneath himself. “That makes everybody fair game.”

Thrust folded his arms and glared. “Good going there, scrappy. He was almost in a good mood, there. Now I’m gonna have to put up with him sulking all night.”

Megatron set the sparkling down on the arm of his chair; Skydash stayed huddled in the smallest ball she could manage, but looked too scared to try and escape. “Oh, I have a very specific reason for wanting you, Slipstream. I’m not going to make either of you fight.” He propped his chin back on his hand. “No, there’s one thing I know I can always get from your kind of pathetic, snivelling coward. You make excellent bait.”

Slipstream stiffened. A very large penny had apparently dropped.

“I know your, ah… family… will feel obliged to rescue you. Starscream won’t be able to resist the urge to try and show me up. Skywarp won’t be slow to follow, since he doesn’t have the brainpower for anything else. As for Thundercracker, well, when has that ditherer ever made a decision on his own, hmm?” Megatron sighed and shook his head, as though in regret. “But when I have finally destroyed all three traitors, in full view of the watching planet, no power in this universe will be able to stop me taking back what is mine.” His lips curved into a smirk. “It was so kind of that fool Starscream to do all the work for me, even if ultimately all he has created is another bloated, stagnating Autocracy. Waiting for me to step in and develop it to its true capacity.”

“They won’t come here. They’ll know it’s a trap. They’re not stupid!”

Megatron actually snorted. “If thousands of vorns of war has taught me one thing I can rely on with absolute certainty? It’s that your sire is most definitely stupid.” He gave the smaller mech a flat look. “Disappointing that it appears to run in the family.”

* * *

Starscream made remarkably good time back from New Vos, but didn’t appear to have the most appropriate target for his frustration in mind, as evidenced by the raging scarlet ball of temper that appeared in the empty infirmary doorway, wings hiked high on its back. “Remind me why I seem to be the last person to find anything out, around here?!”

“Excuse me?” Skywarp rounded on him so fast, Starscream actually flinched a step or two backwards. “I told you within a handful of breems of finding out for myself. You shut me down, saying I didn’t understand how important what you’re doing out in Vos is. Now you’ve apparently decided I wasn’t being a total moron for interrupting you, I should have told you faster?!”

Starscream puffed himself up, trying to avoid the need to admit Skywarp’s unexpected pushback had made him jump. “You know that wasn’t what I meant.”

“No? Educate me.” Skywarp leaned in. Their faces were almost touching. “What did you mean.”

A soft, fracturing voice broke through in the brief silence. “Guys… please?”

With one final glare at each other, they turned to find Thundercracker perched on the edge of the empty berth, looking surprisingly small and sick, helm propped in both hands, wings drooping.

“You’re both being kinda loud right now. I think this is gonna turn into a migraine and I really don’t want to be laid up for five orns, again.” He drew in a long stabilising sigh of cold air and shuddered, wingtips trembling. “I haven’t even started to think what I’m gonna tell Lara.”

“Primus, dude.” Skywarp leaned down and bumped cheeks, briefly. “I’m sorry. Lemme find you a cold pack or something.”

“That’d be good. Thank you…”

The medical supplies in the adjoining office weren’t strictly for machines to help themselves to, but most staff had learned that Skywarp wasn’t the sort to be put off by rules and regulations, and making things hard to obtain just increased the likelihood that he’d make an unholy mess while searching. Thundercracker’s personal supply of icepacks were in a small easily-accessible chiller just inside the doorway; his ‘migraines’ were thankfully infrequent, but fairly infamous as well, and having an icepack on hand sometimes made the difference between it lasting one orn, or six. And him being able to still see.

Skywarp helped himself to two, and waved a threatening finger under the nose of the mech that had followed him into the office. “Don’t. Even start.”

Starscream put his hands up in defeat. “I wasn’t going to. I’m sorry, all right?”

Skywarp grumbled wordlessly through his vents, but appeared somewhat mollified. “What then?”

“I was going to say, once we’ve got TC comfortable, maybe we should go home.” Something dark passed through the smouldering scarlet optics. “Someone wants our attention. I don’t feel inclined to keep him waiting.”

#remember me #blue au #sbm4 #starscream #skywarp #megatron #transformers #slipstream #skydash #thrust #dirge

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sbextra · 7 years

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Persona 5: Ascertaining Purpose in the Face of Expectations

Spoilers for all of Persona 5,other Persona games, and Neon Genesis Evangelion. Also rambley as fuck

This is gonna serve more as a subjective review of my engagement with Persona 5, and why I’ve come out really enjoying this game, for reasons outside of what is probably the more standard fare in this discussion.

One of the things that I found kept hitting home for me in Persona 5 was that there’s this introspective self-reflection that’s near omni-present in the game. Social links seem to rely very heavily on mediations of identity, while those cast in the light of villainy seem to be the few of the primary cast that uncritically seek hedonistic desires, an idea that only further gets reinforced by the implementation of these villains succumbing to *The Seven Deadly Sins*. Structurally, within the social links I played at least, confidants are presented as donning a mask , acting out a role successfully be it as a professional shogi player, a pr0 gam3r, store clerk, teacher, etc etc, pretty much anything.

Things go pretty well until you start getting a glimpse into their life, where they’re struck with immense role strain, pulling the validity of their perceived identity into question, leaving characters at a point where they feel they’ve lost everything. We see this with Shinya realizing the personification of strength he strived to be falling into conflict with his heroic aspirations, Hifumi’s role as a Shogi enthusiast conflicting with a prescribed idol career, Takemi’s aspirations to break new ground medically vs set institutions, and Kawakami’s teaching ideals being repressed by public expectations due to previous happenstance. Characters wane and wax between these roles, until they’re forced against a wall of obligation that causes them to ultimately forgo their truest desires. This is where the protagonist steps in, and through changing the context for these characters, and changing how they’re seen by those reinforcing these societal obligations, they find the confidence to seek their own emotional liberation, and claim their emancipation. These characters themselves don’t really change that much, they’re just given a medium, through player autonomy, to really explore who they are, instead of who just who they’re told to be, or seen to be. They then have a cathartic moment of realization, understanding that just maybe, by forgoing who they were perceived to be, they can strive closer towards their truest self, even at the cost of losing who they were seen as before.

Persona 5 consistently places it’s characters in situations where they feel they’ve lost everything, but through re-contextualization and an abandonment of their fears, they find new bold meanings and forge paths towards their happiness and fulfillment.

In my run, I chose Kawakami as my romantic route, and the idea of fighting role strain is something that stays very present. There’s the obvious issue that she’s a teacher, and you’re a student, which is a reality that never fades away during the run of the game. Even on the very last in-game date, it’s an issue and a strain that’s present in her mind, but she ultimately goes against social norms for something far more valuable to her. It’s this harrowingly relatable sense of indecisiveness and anxiety that’s ultimately pushed aside for the pursuit of this cathartic happiness that I find so compelling. Previously, P3 and P4 felt a little empty on the back-end of social links because once you hit your rank 10, you kinda just never talk to the characters again. Having an arc like Kawakami’s, that continues past the streamlined route of an SLink was a wildly welcome improvement to me. It’s something that I felt really reinforced the human flaw and nuance of these characters, because ultimately Kawakami is running into a similar problem as she had before. It’s wildly relatable to feel as if you’re just another human caught in the throes of making the same mistakes over and over, but seeing the process of making these mistakes as the route to removing the mask and becoming the happiest self you can be feels like a truly romantic outlook on life. In a world where it’s easy to become obsessed with success, and stricken with anxiety for not living up to expectations, Persona 5 tells us that maybe we need to focus on what will make us the happiest first, and that seeking our own emancipation from expectation is the path to this happiness. The pursuit of the true self is a theme that is far from new to the Persona series, but I really feel that Persona 5 takes a ton of extra steps to really sell this idea further than Persona 4. Persona 5 capitalizes on the fears and anxieties of the process, and that even in the face of being seen as the lowest, we can still ascertain our emancipation and reach true happiness.

One great parallel to draw from Persona 5 to it’s contemporaries is how unwelcoming the setting is. Persona 5 is flat out oppressive in comparison to it’s brother-sister-games. You aren’t greeted with a friendly uncle once you move into your new town. You’re greeted with a “fuck you” and a terrible reputation. You’re immediately surrounded with whispers, rumors, and flat out shit-talking from those with more influence than you. Despite being labeled immediately as a terrible person and a problem child, you slowly but surely claim emancipation and find happiness that really matters, by defiantly sticking to your ideals, no matter how terrible the situation gets. Eventually you reach your highest high, and you’re more successful than ever before, but that looming pressure of role strain is still present in your MCs life, even if small. It’s a progression that almost mirrors the progression of the social links, but I really feel like that provides an emotional unity amongst the cast, despite how different their subjective struggles are. Persona 5 dabbles in explaining this through the usage of “aesthetics”, an admittedly poorly chosen term given how hot the fuckin’ meme climate around that term is.

Characters find unity in Persona 5 through “aesthetics”, or their world view. Through your autonomy as a player, they affirm the belief that fighting for their happiness is worthwhile, directly in the face of society that demands they act as a small piece of a larger predetermined identity. The MC is thrown straight into the depths of this process, being seen as the biggest shitbag, but over the course of the game’s calendar, you change the world, just a little, by changing how you and those close to you see it. The moody oppressive atmosphere of a Japan that doesn’t want anything to do with you is reclaimed. It becomes the city where you foster a small army to fight the same fight you do. While Persona 4 and 3 have more of the impression of falling into a friend group, it’s this sense of reclaimation that makes Persona 5 feel so much more emotionally intimate to me. To give an incredibly subjective example, a lot of Persona 5 and it’s imagery of being just one of thousands in a crowd reminds me a lot of the feelings I get when I listen to shoegaze. There’s this powerful sense of intimacy, amongst an overwhelming dissonance. It’s a contrast that makes these relationships feel more important to me. It gives them a distinct, weighted, and honest value, which I feel it helps escape any notion that these character relationships are contrived.

It’s this sense of intimacy that scales across characters of all calibers in Persona 5 that I find really brings this thematic unity. The route to ascertaining our purpose, and more importantly happiness, is by rebelling against expectations and exploring our identities in hopes of realizing what we actually find most important. No matter how grand our aspirations are, all that matters is that we’re special to those we love and respect, and most importantly, to ourselves. Even at your lowest of lows, don’t forget that life goes on.

cons: Everyone says prolly, mechanics are an improvement but not as good as SMT IV yet, Boss fights are mechanically underwhelming, you can’t date the boys (who are weirdly written better as romances than most of the females), cant disable animations making the gameplay loop a lot longer than it needs to be during grinding, this song is dogshit that seems to only serve to ruin and trivialize emotional punchlines as a “safe” route around contrived, hammy writing at times, That cat seriously needs to not tell you to sleep as much

Kawakami best, Ryuji and Yusuke best, I AM SHAPSHIFTER. THAT OST IS SICK , 8.5-9/10

#this isnt really structured well #Itd probably just be easier to call this "why I like SLinks in P5

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