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fleckcmscott · 3 years

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Stepping Stones - Chapter 2

Chapter links: 1

Summary: Y/N and Arthur share a delightful life, one that isn’t perfect but wholly theirs. When his struggles take a serious turn, she's surprised by the toll it exacts. Though the steps they'll have to take aren't easy, walking them together makes all the difference.

Warnings: Angst, Swearing, Struggles with mental illness

Words: 3,739

A/N: Once again, a heartfelt thanks to @sweet-nothings04 for offering to beta-read this story and her encouragement. Her contributions have been invaluable! Also, thank you guys for your support! I hope you continue to enjoy this story. And don’t worry: there may be angst - but there’s love, too.

If you have any thoughts or questions, please comment, feel free to message me, or send me an ask! I’m still working on requests and Way Back Home!

Y/N wasn't used to being searched. It'd last happened at the District Courthouse when she'd gotten in the wrong line and nearly wound up in the jury room for a murder trial. At least the stout woman in Arkham's visitor entrance lobby was more pleasant than the bailiffs.

Unassuming in a white polo shirt and black pants, her nametag introduced her as Gladys, and the split "I Can Help!" sticker along the top cemented her as a fixture. She was friendly for a Gothamite, commenting on the sunny weather while unceremoniously dumping the contents of Y/N's handbag onto a plastic table pad. Asking about the ride over as she politely ignored tampons and confiscated a nail file. She spelled Y/N's name back to her before jotting it on the sign-in sheet and offered a genuine smile. "You have a nice time with your husband, dear. Just check out with me before you leave."

Visitor's badge pinned above her left breast, Y/N adjusted the collar of her red silk blouse, ensured the heart pendent around her neck was centered, and pushed through the door marked "Visitation."

Her kitten heels click-clacked across the checkerboard linoleum floor. The cafeteria was large, like an elementary school gymnasium without the scoreboards. Lack of funding had turned the once pristine walls to the off-white of a bathtub that had seen too few scrubbings. Large windows dotted them in sets of two, each covered with grate from the inside. Metal fans were riveted to their frames, a poor attempt to compensate for the lack of fresh air. To her left, six rows of steel tables stretched halfway across the room, about a third full of staff and patients, family members and friends. A metal buffet stood to her right, along with a sign stating a menu of beef cutlets and gravy would be served at 5:30 PM. A pony wall separated a family area on the far end. She spotted a patient with his wife and daughter watching cartoons together, ones that were old enough for Y/N to have grown up on.

It struck her how average the place felt, similar to the hospital back home she'd spent far too many hours in. It made sense: the people here were patients like any other, even if they were under lock and key. When she headed to the aluminum coffee urn on a rickety steel cart, there was a woman, around thirty, making conversation with a new wave chick, holding a ragged teddy bear and pulling her hair. Their eyes met and Y/N attempted a friendly smile. Once she'd purchased two cups, she sat by a window and crossed her legs, foot swinging back and forth as she sipped the stale liquid.

She tried to quell her nervous anticipation. Due to his time of admittance, Arthur's forty-eight-hour observation period had stretched late into Thursday night, well after visiting hours. Tasks big and small had punctuated the wait. One of Arthur's clients called to confirm a birthday party, and Y/N, hazy from lack of sleep, explained there'd been a family emergency.

Then it dawned on her that she'd have to find Arthur's gig list, which meant rummaging through his desk, a private space she'd respected since presenting him with it for their anniversary. Thank god he no longer locked the drawers, because she had no idea where he kept the key. (There were only so many hiding places in their three-room apartment, but she had no desire to search every nook and cranny.) The yellow legal pad resided in the top left drawer, under a prop catalog and kraft paper notebook. After ringing Gary and asking him to fill in ("I'm not sure I can do all these, but I can mention them at HaHa's." "That'd be great but don't get yourself in trouble. And, please, leave out Randall."), she telephoned eight households and three businesses with his contact information and apologies.

She worked extra hours in the evening to make up for the time she'd inevitably take off when Arthur was home, an arrangement that wasn't strictly legal, but she didn't see the harm in. Her colleagues graciously ignored the number of personal calls she made, to ask how Arthur was doing and learn about policies. While he wasn't yet rational, staff said, he was cooperative. Well, mostly cooperative. He'd eaten breakfast and referred to everyone as sir or ma'am, but he'd also caused a ruckus when he'd come to and found his wedding ring missing. They'd made an exception to the no jewelry rule and given it back. Personal clothing wasn't permitted, either, besides underwear, and toiletries were out of the question. It irked her - he deserved the dignity of his own hairbrush - but she didn't want to single him out by arguing for further favors. So she shuttled over a week's worth of briefs on her lunch break, chest tight as she gave it to the man with headphones at reception.

Despite the setting, despite the weight of not knowing what mood he'd be in, a thrill bubbled through her veins. Whenever a silhouette appeared behind the glue chip glass of the patient entrance, her pulse skipped. Y/N knew it was silly to expect a lot this first visit but she couldn't help it. She missed him. She missed him. Like it had been thirty days instead of three.

It took about six minutes for the door to crack an inch, and a full ten seconds for it to open completely. An orderly propped his weight against it, pointing in her general direction with his head. She stood and smoothed her palm down her A-line skirt, ensured the hem was at her knee. Maybe it was selfish, perhaps even foolish, but she hoped the surprise would be a highlight of Arthur's day, make him feel better, and she hoped seeing him would be one of hers. He was still her partner, after all. Still her Arthur. That would never change.

Clad in white scrubs and white shoes and about twenty feet away, Arthur stepped over the threshold and scanned the room. She gave him a modest wave when she caught his eye. His approach was more tentative than she would have liked, his steps shorter than usual, fists balled at his sides. As he drew closer, she noted the oiliness of his hair, the two-day black and grey stubble on his chin. His crow's feet had grown deeper, his eyelids slightly purple. Exhaustion dripped from every pore. The cut on his forehead had scabbed over into a thin line, quite modest considering its origin and how much he'd bled.

But he was as beautiful to her as always. The hint of a smile tipped her mouth. "Hi, Arthur."

"Hi," he said lowly. A reservation she barely recognized clouded his light green irises.

Part of her began to suspect popping in like this had been a mistake. Giving up wasn't in her nature, however, especially when it came to the love of her life. She forged ahead, closing the gap between them. Dr. Kellerman had advised her to let Arthur set the pace of their visits, to offer support while respecting his boundaries. Yet, touching him had become as vital to her as breathing, and it didn't occur to her to ask for permission before she reached to cup his face.

His skin felt papery under her fingertips, and red, flakey spots of dermatitis bloomed next to his nose and below his eye. He smelled of cheap bar soap and detergent, though whiffs of his woodsy masculine scent lurked underneath. But his clothes were clean and fit him well, better than half his own wardrobe. "I'm so happy to see you," she said, tracing his sharpened cheeks.

He nodded weakly, lips pursed into a grimace of disbelief. "Good."

"I got us some coffee. We can sit here or on one of the sofas."

"Here's fine."

She took his hand and led him to their table, itching for him to entwine their fingers, lamenting a little when he didn't. While he followed closely, his posture radiated tension like an oven radiated heat. Rather than the gait they'd adopted over the years, he moved as if he was afraid to touch her, as if he feared she'd disappear. Or reject him. Once he was situated and stirring sugar into his cup, she sat beside him and bumped their legs, refusing to let his fears go unchallenged. "How's your room?"

"It's okay. Just me. I'm not there much." He blew lightly on his steaming brew. "I haven't seen this part of the hospital before."

Y/N arched her brow. "No?"

"Penny had trouble getting over here to visit. When I had episodes."

Flabbergasted, a huff of disapproval escaped her. Arthur had been in out Arkham six or seven times, and Penny hadn't made it over once? According to Arthur, she'd been sick for a while, but what about twenty years ago? Even later, they hadn't had any money, which meant she would've had to care for herself while he was away. If she had had the wherewithal to go through the process of committing her son, couldn't she have at least called a cab? Y/N pushed her ire aside, not wanting it to affect Arthur. "Did you see your therapist today?"

"Mhm."

"Is he good? Does he listen to you?"

"He's fine."

She took a long drink. "Did you get the underwear I brought over?"

"Yeah." he sighed, tipping his head back to stare at the ceiling. "They wrote my name on the waistband."

"I'll get new ones," she said, tapping her chin in contemplation, opting for a little cheer. "Donahue's has a racy number from Mad Mod. How'd you feel about zig-zag bikinis in maroon?" Instead of the laugh she'd craved, the incredulous smirk he saved for ridiculous suggestions, his knees quaked, bouncing and bouncing, freshly wound springs in bleached cotton.

None of this was going as she'd pictured.

Self-consciousness was atypical for her, a personality trait she'd shed in her late twenties after a failed marriage and the beginning of her parents' declines. Being with Arthur felt secure, open, even during his worst days. When he'd discovered his mother's Arkham file, learned the details of his abuse. Or the weeks after she'd passed and any chance of finding out more about himself, the truth about his father and chance to get a crumb of paternal affection, had died along with her.

Gathered at this table with her husband and bad coffee, old insecurities returned with the force of a subway careening at full speed. She sought to encourage him but didn't want to dismiss his feelings, harken back when he'd been burdened with "Happy." Her questions were obviously getting on his nerves - she was at a loss as to how he'd react to more of them. Their banter had vanished. The clues she had to follow were based on an old map, comprised of well-worn paths to joy she could walk with her eyes closed. Now those paths were overgrown with weeds.

But she wouldn't stop trying to trim them. Some shears were in reach: a woman's magazine lay abandoned on a nearby table, famous for its relationship quizzes and bedroom advice. She snagged it, scooted her chair closer to Arthur, and flipped through the glossy pages until the headline "Are You Meant To Be?" screamed in bright pink font. She cleared her throat and read aloud. "'You and your husband are shipwrecked on a desert island. You can take any household item with you. What item would you bring?'" She paused, then went with what first came to mind. "Toothbrush. I can't expect you to kiss me when I-"

"Why are you acting like this?"

Her gaze locked on him. "Like what?"

"Like I haven't fucked everything up."

Automatically, she reached for his thigh, not heeding the angry twitch of his jaw. "You haven-"

He batted her arm away, inadvertently knocking the magazine to the floor. "Don't lie to me," he rasped. "I don't like you seeing me like this. I don't want you to have to come visit and pretend." He wiped his nose with the back of his hand, an anger she recognized as shame dripping from every word. "Can you please just go?"

Pain lanced through her, pain she hadn't felt since her father, deep in the throes of dementia, had accused her of stealing from him. Her lashes lowered to hide her hurt. Arthur acting like this was proof of how out of sorts he was, how much he was struggling with his illnesses. But it didn't make his behavior any easier to take, even if she firmly believed it should. She had to try to accept him as he was in the moment. To forgive him and herself for pressing him too far, too quickly. To listen to his request for time, the way he'd listened to hers after the Murray show, giving her the gift of patience and understanding. A gift he also deserved.

Pushing herself to stand, she glanced at the orderly and lay a gentle palm on Arthur's back. To her relief, he didn't retreat. "I'm here if you need me," she said softly. "If you feel up to it, give me a ring. We could both use a joke or two." Fingertips caressed his distended shoulder, and she pecked the crown of his head, breathed in the oily musk of his scalp. Not entirely pleasant but him all the same. "We'll see each other soon. Get some rest and remember I love you."

~~~~~

"This woman wandered in off the street the other day. Pointy-toed shoes, fur coat, pillbox hat like she thinks she's Jackie Kennedy..." Perched on Y/N's side of the bed, Patricia dunked her orange pekoe teabag, gave it a good squeeze, laid it on her saucer. "She wanted to sue the Wayne Estate for damages to her Bentley, because Thomas Wayne had broken a legally binding oral agreement - she must have read a legal thriller and gotten haughty - to fix the potholes in Old Gotham when he was mayor. I told her to complain to Public Works, but she decided to camp out at your old desk to clip her nails. Finally, Matt had enough and offered her a phone call to Gotham PD or ten bucks for her trouble." She shook her head with a chuckle. "What a jackass. Retirement can't come soon enough."

"Don't wish your life away," Y/N retorted, inadvertently quoting a pamphlet she'd gotten from the Arkham gift shop, "Care for the Caregiver." The title had made her balk: Arthur bathed himself, fed himself, knew who she was. But it had been a straw to hold onto, albeit feebly. She retrieved a curved, wooden hanger from the closet and stuck one end in the arm of her freshly ironed blouse. "Besides, you've been working since you were sixteen, right? I give it a year before you'd go stir-crazy."

"Actually, I've been thinking about taking a class or two at the learning center," said Patricia.

"Oh, really? What kind? Pottery, advanced baking, conversational Spanish?"

"How to find nicer friends."

Hand on her hip, Y/N smirked over her shoulder to find Patricia's teacup raised for a toast. "Let me know what you learn," Y/N said, hoisting the laundry basket onto the bed. "I could use a few pointers." She batted the older woman with a dress sock, then fished for its companion. She shook them out. Aligned the cuffs and toes, smoothed the nylon with the side of her hand, folded the fabric into thirds. The top drawer's left ball-bearing slide stuck when she tried to pull it open, and she made a mental note to ask Arthur to take a look at it.

Without warning, a profound sense of loss swept over her, flushing her cheeks, her forehead. He'd been gone almost a week, the longest they'd been apart aside from conferences and training. Her days had been blessedly busy but dragged on nonetheless, slow as the secondhand on her watch when the battery had to be replaced.

Arthur had gotten in the habit of leaving a note whenever he had an early gig or errand to run, just a few words stating where he was, that he'd be home later, that he loved her. Though she knew he was in Arkham, she couldn't stop her heart from expecting one when she made morning coffee. She ached to pull him inside before he lit a second cigarette, and for his teasing kisses when he'd resist. The way he brushed his teeth from side-to-side, eschewing her method of small circles and daily flossing. Last night, a hot flash had kept her awake, and she'd longed for the feel of his strong, slender hands rubbing refrigerated lotion into her calves, a trick he'd learned to quiet his mother when she'd gone through what he politely referred to as The Change.

Y/N had never wanted to love someone so much she needed them, but Arthur had made it safe. And now here she was, anguishing over a stubborn piece of furniture. She gave the knob another good, hard heave until it popped off into her palm. With a groan, she slapped it on the top of the dresser, between his wallet and her jewelry box.

A gentle hold on her elbow halted her. "The clothes'll keep," Patricia said.

The compassion in her voice, subtle chords that would sound like judgement to others, loosened Y/N's stance. Granted permission for her to take a break from coping and give into grief. Slinking down onto the mattress, she picked up Arthur's blue house pants from the mound of panties and trousers and hugged them to her breast.

"Your anniversary is coming up," Patricia continued. "Will Arthur be home for it?"

"Yes. Three weeks is all the insurance will pay for, and Dr. Kellerman said we were lucky to get that." Most patients were discharged after two, even if they had nowhere else to go.

"How is he? Do you think he'll be ready then?"

"I'm not sure. He barely comes to the phone." She'd tried letters, too. Written on her office letterhead, declarations of her support and affection that were as stilted as the motions she regularly drafted. Something for him to read when they couldn't speak, when they couldn't touch. But he hadn't responded.

Although Y/N was the sole person he'd added to his list of allowed visitors, he hadn't signed the release. Sure, she'd learn the details of his care if a court remanded him, but she wasn't about to have him declared legally incompetent, not unless everything went to shit. But she had deduced his schedule by calling and asking if he could come to the phone. He's in group, Mrs. Fleck, the charge nurse had let slip. Or, You can try in an hour. He should be out of one-on-one by then.

Therapy three times a day. Safety and daily living skills. Goal setting before bed. No wonder he hadn't had the energy to say good night.

"I know what you're going through," Patricia said. She stretched to put her empty teacup on the nightstand. "When Robert got back from Korea, he kept his distance. Buried himself in starting his business, was gone most nights on extra late repair jobs, worked, worked, worked. It was nearly a year before he really came home. But he made it and Arthur will, too."

The intimacy behind the disclosure was a welcome invitation, a hook that tugged at Y/N's core and confirmed honesty would be all right. She drew a shaky breath, fiddled with a loose thread on the hem of Arthur's pajamas. "I thought I'd seen everything. Losing my mother, going out of my mind with my father. Those were finalities I couldn't prevent." Rapid blinking fought the wetness of her eyes. She swiped at them with the heel of her hand. "If you had seen him, Patricia... I just hope Arthur understands. I don't want him to think I wanted him to leave."

"Listen to me." Patricia adopted her mentor tone and hugged her tight around the middle. "There's no way he'd believe that. Remember when we doubled at Kao Wah? When we were in the restroom, and he ordered your favorite dish without having to ask what it was? He adores you." She swept her hand through the air as if she could sweep away Y/N's woes. "You promised to take care of him through everything. You did what you had to to keep him safe. You couldn't have done anything else, Y/N. Don't doubt yourself."

After some moments Y/N nodded. "You know, my parents had a swimming hole on our property. When I was young, I used to skip stones across it and make wishes. For my doll's arm to mend, for my parents to say safe, for my sister's surgeries to go well." She chuckled and dabbed at her cheeks with Arthur's house pants. "I guess it was like praying, which I never had use for." The slightest smile edging her lips, she turned to Patricia. "Let's go to Gotham Park and throw some rocks."

~~~~~

The next morning, eleven percent of her worries cast away by a currently sore right arm, Y/N walked past Sherwood Florist, a closet of a shop around the corner from her office. Storefront freshly washed, robust floral arrangements on display in large, spotless windows, and an owner in horn-rimmed glasses checking the temperature of the nearest cooler, she decided to stop in. Yes, the florist told her, an expression of dubious curiosity on his face. They delivered to Arkham. Just include the patient's full name and ward in the address, and it'd be sent this afternoon.

She chose a squat, plastic vase filled with daisies and a yellow enclosure card with a bumblebee in the lower left corner. A bit cutsie for her taste, but it was the only neutral choice among birthdays and congratulations. She pondered what to write, pushing back the urge to ask him to reach out. A minute later, she put her pen to the cardstock. "I miss you like thread misses a needle. (Good thing you're the comedian - that was terrible.) You're not alone in this. You have my whole heart. - Y/N."

~~~~~

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#arthur fleck #arthur fleck fanfic #arthur fleck x reader #arthur fleck x female reader #arthur fleck x ofc #joker 2019 #watchwhathappens

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closetfanfictionauthor · 3 years

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a university au in which genya is a fashion major and david is an engineering student and neither of them are brave enough to admit their feelings to each other but it works out in the end anyway.

(i was working on another story but i just finished re-reading the series and then i binged the show and it was just CALLING to me. this was meant to be like 2k words but it quite got away from me)

this is also on ao3

She meets David when she's looking for a table in the university library to complete a paper on fashion history and he is the only one with an available seat. And because she's Genya and beautiful and unafraid to approach anyone, she asks him if he wouldn't mind sharing the table with her.

David gives her a very distracted yes and she flashes him one of her smiles that's sent men stammering before gracefully sliding into the seat.

What she doesn't know is that a glimpse of her was enough to send David's heart into rapid palpitations and his palms immediately begin to sweat. But he's got to stay focused on his problem set because he fears if he looks at her head-on he might actually have a heart attack right where he sits.

And wouldn't that just be embarrassing.

She expects him to ogle at her like men usually do, but from where she's sitting he looks focused on his own problems, a slight wrinkle in his forehead as he glares at his laptop screen and huffs in irritation. But they sit in silence for three hours and David never looks her way. On the rare occasion he can drag his attention away from his screen long enough to notice she's even there, it feels as if he's looking right through her.

And she should feel relieved. Comfortable. Because he's not doing anything to make her feel uncomfortable. It should be nice.

And she's beyond irritated. Genya can't decide if it's because her ego is really that big that it takes offense to the first man who doesn't notice her or if it's because she finds him so attractive it makes her want to burst out of her skin and he's making it very obvious that he's not interested in her.

She doesn't know which one is worse.

He leaves without a word and she has to sit there and force herself to act like she doesn't notice the vacant seat across from her or why, for some reason, she feels so lonely.

Afterwards, Genya begins to notice David all around campus in ways she didn't before. And every time he's always alone, rarely is he surrounded by anyone she could assume is his friend. David never acknowledges her, never says hi, and she likewise pretends she never sees him.

But one day Genya is studying in the library again. At this point she's developed a sixth sense when it comes to David and the second he steps foot into the library, she knows. Her muscles tense and something in Genya's gut is telling her David is here and to look for him.

She forces herself to relax and shrug it off but only a few moments later, a shadow falls over her and she blinks up in confusion. David stands there, fidgeting from foot to foot, his hands traveling from the hem of his crewneck to his hair to the nape of his neck. He looks so uncomfortable and awkward it's endearing and she's tempted between saving him the anxiety and saying something and letting him stew in the feeling.

"Is it alright if I sit with you. Library's full," he mutters quietly, eyes darting around to the others sitting nearby. Genya forces the corners of her mouth not to twitch upwards like they so desperately want to and calmly nods before turning back to her work. Today she's working on sketching some designs for class.

David shrugs out of his bag and pulls out the chair across from her, all the while avoiding eye contact. Genya looks back at her sketch and picks up another colouring pencil. The whole time she pretends like there isn't an available table three tables over, or another one less than five metres behind David. The library is certainly full but it's not that full.

He could sit somewhere else but he chooses to sit with her and that makes her sit up a little straighter.

After about the second hour of working in silence, David starts to fidget. It's like he's working up the courage to do something but can't quite bring himself to do it. Genya can see him shift in his seat but pretends she doesn't notice. He crosses and uncrosses his legs, slouches in his seat before straightening up again. David opens his textbook, stares at the page blankly and then closes it again and turns back to his laptop.

There's a burning need in Genya to ask what he wants, the question is on the tip of her tongue but something about David tells her if she asks he'll shut down.

Finally David clears his throat and when Genya looks at him, he points to one of her sketches and says in a grave tone usually reserved for imparting condolences, "I really like this one, I'm not one for colours or anything but I like the yellow and brown."

It's the most he's ever said...well...ever.

"Thank you, that one's my favourite too," Genya replies warmly, a smile spreading across her face. In truth it wasn't her favourite creation but it was David's favourite and now it was hers.

She thinks that's all he's going to say and turns back to her drawing but David has mustered all his courage and he seems determined to have out with it and asks her, "What are you making these for?"

"It's for my Fashion Design class. I'm a fashion major," Genya says and blushes a pretty pink at the statement. There's nothing wrong with fashion. People wear clothes. They like looking nice. Genya wants to be a part of that process and yet she can't help feeling silly telling people she studies fashion. But David doesn't look at her as if it's stupid or as if she's dumb, an intent look on his face as he gives her all his attention.

"Do you...do you like fashion design? Is it one of your favourite classes?" he asks her awkwardly. She wants to giggle at the way he looks at her as if she's about to impart the meaning of life to him. But Genya stops herself, because David is making an effort. And she doesn't know this man but she's pieced together enough to know that socializing doesn't come easy to David. Knows enough that underneath that quiet almost stern demeanor his heart is probably pounding from making small talk and she won't be the one to hurt his feelings or discourage his attempt.

She just wishes his shyness didn't make her go soft as pudding inside.

"I love it a lot actually. My favourite aspect is that you get to be creative with whatever you want to design, there's no limit and you don't have to worry that anything will be too outlandish because it's just a sketch and you're not actually wasting any fabric on it. They really push you to your limits on this class, always encouraging us to push the boundaries of style and creativity. It doesn't matter how crazy it is just so we can get used to-" Genya stopped abruptly and feels heat spreading across her face. "Sorry, I didn't mean to go on like that."

"Why are you apologizing?" David asks, frowning in his confusion.

"I got carried away, I'm sure you were looking for a shorter answer," Genya replies. She might as well have told him she's been told to shut up by other people before for talking too much about her passion.

"If I didn't want to hear your thoughts, then I wouldn't have asked," David says matter-of-factly. He sits patiently, looking at her expectantly. She blinks at him and then continues, stuttering at first and then becoming more confident as David continues to gaze at her, riveted. He doesn't interrupt her as she gushes about her sketches, her ideas, the specifics of fabrics and stitching, even going so far as to ask follow up questions.

What's her favourite fabric to work with, is there a designer she's particularly fond of, what kind of film she thinks has the best costumes? And the questions go on.

"I don't really know what I wanna do after, maybe work for a designer, maybe go into costume design for Hollywood," Genya says, finally going quiet.

"I think you'd be a great costume designer," David says with all sincerity and gives her a wide smile. And saints, that smile. It completely changes his face and does things to her insides that she can't voice.

"You think?" she asks and immediately wants to kick herself. What was that breathy voice that just came out of her.

"Yeah, some of these are so creative and different, I think it would serve you well on a set," David says as he picks up some of her sketches and looks through the drawings.

"Thank you," Genya replies timidly. She's about to ask about David but he gives her one more smile before turning his attention back to his work, the conversation over. She wants to interrupt him and learn all about him but she doesn't want to interrupt him.

They leave the library at the same time, walking side by side without saying anything. Genya can't stop herself from glancing at him every few seconds from the corner of her eye. David on the other hand looks deep in thought, like he isn't walking next to her at all. She desperately wants to see him again, wants to reach out and touch his hand but she thinks about it so long her nerves get the better of her and never does a thing about it.

"See you next time," David says at the exit, and then turns around and leaves without waiting for a response.

"We...will?" Genya asks the thin hair because David is gone before she has even comprehended what he's said.

She spends the rest of her day in a daze and then the following days afterward she asks herself if the whole incident in the library actually happened. But then she sees David in the hallway and he nods in her direction and she flushes like she's a girl of fifteen all over again. And then he begins to smile in her direction and Genya becomes so flustered she finds herself walking into pillars and water fountains on multiple occasions.

Genya sees David at least a dozen times a day, more than she has ever seen him before. Part of her wonders if he passes by the places that he's figured out she's going to be in most often. The library becomes their meeting spot. Genya spends as much time there as possible in the hopes that David will show up to see her. It comes to the point where her friend starts to complain that they never see her because she's constantly studying.

"Why are you even in the library this often, you're a fashion major," Alina whines one day when Genya announces she's off to the library.

"Fashion majors need to read," Genya replies defensively. She's shoving books into her bag when Alina reaches over and grabs the opening to stop her.

"Of course fashion majors need to read but you spend every waking second in the library, not even the history students are in there that often," Alina points out. "Is there something you're not telling me about?"

"No," Genya replies too quickly and now she sounds even guiltier. Alina has a knowing look in her eyes.

"There is someone, isn't there," Alina pounces, a gleam in her eye. She leans forward, arms crossed on the table between the two friends.

"There isn't anyone, I just really enjoy the...atmosphere," Genya says. The excuse sounds lame even to her own ears but it's the only thing she can say. What else is there to enjoy about the library.

"Genya you're the most outgoing person I know, sitting quietly in a library for hours on end is the very last thing you'd do. I can't even get you to go to a bookstore with me," Alina scoffs. Genya might have been able to get away with her evasiveness if David hadn't passed by at that very moment.

Her face lights up in happiness at the sight of him, a smile overtaking her face before she's even registering her response to him.

David smiles in return and nods his head and says, "Hey," in passing.

"Hi," she quietly breaths back but he's gone before he can hear it. Genya's gaze immediately snaps back to Alina and her friend looks back at her, smug.

"Oh I see," she says, the picture of ease, slouched low in her chair, legs spread out before her. Genya scowls back at her.

"Not a word," she snaps back mortified.

"No, no, what is there to say," Alina replies nonchalantly. "I just never mistook you for someone to go for the whole quiet nerd vibe."

"David is lovely," Genya says defensively.

"I never said he wasn't, I just said he was nerdy."

A beat of silence.

"Do you know anything about him?" Genya finally asks grudgingly.

"I'm the last person you should be asking," Alina says with a snort. "Mal would probably know more though."

"Oh yes, Mal, your little friend, and how is Mal, your friend, doing?" Genya asks, widening her eyes innocently. Alina blanches, her face going white.

"You know what, maybe you should go to the library, go there as often as you want. We're really not that close," she says. Genya lets out a cackle and wiggles her fingers goodbye before setting off.

***

"So why did you pick engineering?" Genya asks him one day. They've finally progressed to getting coffee together instead of sitting in the library all the time. The social setting makes her more comfortable but she can see the way David's shoulders are tense and he shifts in his chair restlessly.

"I like making things with my hands. Seeing a bunch of pieces and putting them together, like a puzzle," he says. "And you know, machines aren't complicated."

Genya blinks at him.

"I mean, they're not complicated in the way that people are complicated," he amends. "I've never really liked big groups of people or parties, they're so noisy, you can't hear anyone, no one can finish a sentence without being interrupted, so I just keep to myself. It's easier that way."

"But don't you get lonely?"

David turns his head towards the sun streaming in and thinks for a moment. Genya can't help but be distracted by the way the sun turns his hair brown or admire the angle of his jaw, or his nose, or his full lips. Especially his lips. What a shame they're not attached to her. Or her neck, moving down towards her ...

David. Talking. Genya blinks rapidly and pushes the thoughts of David's mouth on her neck (among other places) away to focus on what he's saying.

"Not lately. But I like spending time on my own, I don't have to worry about talking all of the time or thinking about something interesting to say. There's no pressure to be entertaining."

And while Genya hears the rest, her mind is stuck on the not lately part. She's pretty sure he means since meeting her but she's too shy to ask even though she knows David wouldn't think it embarrassing.

"And people are always saying things they don't mean," he goes on frowning. "I can never understand how dating is supposed to work. My brothers try to explain it to me but it sounds like a lot of saying what you don't mean and expecting someone to figure out what you're not saying. You can't do certain things because it makes you look needy or too eager, which makes no sense to me because wouldn't you want the person you like to know you like them?"

This is the most he's ever said to Genya she's pretty sure. Her heart leaps at the idea that he's comfortable enough around her to say these things. Her heart leaps at the way his arms looked crossed in front of him the way that they do in that snug shirt.

"That's true, it's one of the nice things about you though," she replies and when he looks at her in confusion she adds, "I can just say what I mean and what I want and you won't think I'm weird for it."

She swears she sees his cheeks turn the barest shade of pink although his brown skin hides it well.

"I think you have class, I'll walk with you," he says, clearing his throat and the two of them leave the shop together. He does that a lot lately, walking her to class that is. Genya has taken to walking him to his. She definitely doesn't stand outside the room watching his butt as he walks away from her.

Neither of them feels the need to comment on anything as they walk side by side towards the arts building.

They're at the door of her classroom, and David is in the middle of saying goodbye, when one of Genya's classmates shoves David's shoulder to get past them. The man looks Genya up and down and shoots her a wink before disappearing into the room.

Genya turns to David about to apologize when she sees the scowl he sends towards her classmate. It's the first time she's ever seen David anything other than neutral and serene and the fact that it's on her behalf makes her giddy.

"Who's that?" David asks. Genya has never been gladder of his earnest manner more than this moment. It's gratifying to hear the note of jealousy because it means she's not the only one at odds and ends in this budding friendship they have. She shouldn't like it but she does. Alina would have her head if she heard such nonsense.

"Oh just some classmate," she says with a shrug. "He does this all the time. He's quite harmless."

At least she thinks, although the man in question is a little too persistent for her tastes but surely he can only mean the flirting as a joke.

"I have to go," David says abruptly and marches off in a determined manner, leaving Genya behind wondering what's just happened.

She hopes he's not mad at her and agonizes over his behaviour the whole class, completely missing the topic at hand. When she eventually leaves, she's so miserably anxious she doesn't know what to do with herself. Genya is about to call Alina and beg her for advice but never gets the chance to decide because David is standing outside the door.

He thrusts a large bouquet of flowers at her before Genya has a chance to say anything and instinctively she reaches out to take them so they don't fall on the ground.

"For you," David says without ceremony. Genya blinks in bewilderment at him and looks between the flowers and his solemn face.

"Ah….thank you, these are beautiful," Genya says. She's sincere about the compliment but her brain is still playing catch up with her and can't quite get past the beautiful flowers and that David got them for her.

"They're red amaryllis," David offers and shoves his hands in the pockets of his jeans. "It reminds me of your hair."

She can feel tears gathering in her eyes because this is the sweetest thing anyone has done for her and she's not quite sure what she's done to deserve this man. David notices the watering eyes and his brows furrow in alarm.

"I'm sorry if you don't like them. I didn't mean to make you cry, I'll take them back," he says miserably, reaching for them. Genya moves them out of his reach.

"These are happy tears, don't you dare take these away from me. No take backs," Genya says, clutching the flowers to her chest. David relaxes and sends her one of his disarming smiles.

The gestures continue. David brings her coffee, or snacks. Sometimes he'll even hand over his own food because he sees her looking at it just a little too long in the library. Genya buys him lunch or dinner. She seeks him out in the library if she knows he's been hard at work studying and reminds him to go home. She tells him tidbits and facts that she thinks he might like. She gives him her hat if he says he's cold, and he gives her his gloves because he knows her hands are always cold.

Genya brings him little oddities she finds when she's out shopping, and David gives her books on the collections of famous fashion houses. He invites her over to his house and she bakes cookies with his mom and makes plans for a shopping trip with his sister. David agrees to meet Alina and Mal and immediately he and Mal become the best of friends.

Now when Genya arrives in the library before him, he chooses to sit next to her instead of across the table. Sometimes he throws his arm across the back of her chair casually. Sometimes the hand of that arm will unconsciously trace patterns up and down the side of Genya's arm.

Genya doesn't know how to ask him to go on a date even though they're doing things that couples do, but it seems the universe wants the two of them together even more than she does.

It happens when she's on the way to the library one evening to meet up with David. They're planning on studying together, he needs help with an English paper due in a few days, and Genya wants to spend time with him. The fact that she's not that good at writing English papers is not important.

The sun is starting to set, and she's been trying to shake off the man who shoved into David that one day but he's either not getting the hint or he's choosing to ignore them. She tries to make excuses to leave so they'll go their separate ways, but he conveniently also has nowhere to be. Genya gives curt responses and purposely makes it seem as if she's not paying attention to what he's saying. She gives dry responses to his flirtations in the hopes to deter him. When he stands too close, she very obviously puts space between them.

And now he's following her to the library and Genya is praying he leaves her alone because she's got a sneaking suspicion he's going to wait around until she leaves the library and then follow her home.

Eventually he gets to the point and asks for a date.

"You're very lovely," Genya lies through her teeth. Her smile is more of a grimace at this point. "But I'm not all that interested."

"Come on, just one date," he says, taking a step toward her. Genya takes a step back. His tone is light but she's on her guard and she knows how quickly that good humour can turn sour.

"No thank you," she insists. When he opens his mouth to say something else, she blurts out, "I have a boyfriend, his name is David. I'm on the way to see him at the library."

She doesn't know why she says it, it's the only thing she can think of, the only thing that's always worked in the past a hundred percent of the time. And as if she's summoned him herself, David appears as if from nowhere. Her knight in….well not exactly shining armour but in his favourite crewneck at least.

"I was wondering what was taking you so long, sweetheart," David's voice says. He rounds the corner, his mouth set in a grim line as he stares down the man cornering Genya. The endearment sounds a little stilted coming from him, but the natural way he puts his arm around Genya's waist and leans in to kiss her cheek makes up for it.

She feels the tension leak out of her at the contact. David is here and she's not alone, she's safe and he'll take care of this. She leans into his side, absorbing the warmth coming from him and puts her head on his shoulder.

"Hello darling, I was just picking up dinner for you," she replies as lovingly as possible. She looks up at him like he's her hero (she doesn't even have to pretend) and burrows into his side even more.

"How thoughtful of you," David replies warmly. He leans down and gives her a long, sweet kiss that sends her knees quaking. Her classmate thoroughly forgotten, David steers the two of them away from the man and they continue on to the library. Once they're far enough away, Genya lets out a long sigh.

"Thank the saints you showed up, I didn't know what I was going to do about him," Genya says. David rubs his hand up and down her back as the two of them walk.

"The nerve of him to ask out my girlfriend," David huffs. Genya drags the two of them to a halt and stares at David unblinking.

"Your what?" she asks, thinking she's misheard.

"My girlfriend," David repeats, a little slower this time as if she's hard of hearing.

"Since when am I your girlfriend?" Genya asks because she's fairly certain she would've remembered something that monumental. But no, she's certain he never asked.

"Since I brought you flowers after class?" David asks as if he's beginning to doubt himself. "I mean what have we been doing if not dating?"

"David you never asked me to be your girlfriend," Genya insists. Not that she minds the presumption but there are rules to these things.

"I didn't realize I was supposed to, I thought it was obvious. Of course you're my girlfriend, why else would I bring you home to my mom," David says, head tilted to the side. He's looking at her as if she's recently had a brain injury.

Genya's mouth has dropped open as she processes this new development. She doesn't know whether to whoop in elation or burst into song or start dancing or leap onto David right now and ravish him.

"David, you were supposed to ask," she insists and suddenly the whole ordeal is hilarious. Genya's biting her lip to stop from laughing but her shoulders are starting to shake from holding it in. It's all just so ridiculous.

Here she was agonizing over whether he wanted her and the whole time David already thought they were dating.

"Oh, do you not want to be my girlfriend then?" he asks, worry creeping into his tone. He deflates and the look of dejection on his face makes Genya want to shower him with kisses to make it go away.

"No, that's not what I meant. I- never mind, we're dating, I'm your girlfriend," Genya says with a roll of her eyes.

"But you just said-"

She cuts David off by wrapping her arms around his neck, her hands digging into his hair, and pulls his lips down to hers for a proper kiss.

"Forget what I said, okay," she says breathlessly. "You were right we've definitely been dating this whole time."

"Yes ma'am," he agrees in bewilderment. "You know we should be doing a lot more kissing since we're boyfriend and girlfriend."

Genya can't help but beam at him. "I completely agree. More kissing. Lots more kissing. In fact, I propose we go back to my room and play catch up. We've got a lot of kissing to make up for."

#shadow and bone #grishaverse #the grisha trilogy #siege and storm #ruin and rising #fanfiction #genya/david #genya safin/david kostyk #fluff #romance #pining #writing #genya fluff #happy ending

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kalypsichor · 4 years

Text

ménage à trois [ paul mccartney x reader x john lennon ]

summary: There’s only one bed and none of you speak French.

prompt: k hear me out mclennon sandwich BUT ITS ON THE PARIS TRIP SO IS JUST YOU THREE IN THE TINIEST BEDROOM + a request for reader’s wet dreams waking paul up warnings: this is a threesome babey 🥪🥪🥪

masterlist

guess who’s never had a threesome? me. guess who accidentally drank a shit ton of coffee and didn’t go to bed till six am writing this?? also me. i’d appreciate any feedback y’all have bc @spaceyantique beta’d this for me like a darling but my illiteracy knows no bounds

There’s only one bed and none of you speak French.

Paul tries, but between his wild hand gestures and the receptionist’s increasingly confused looks, he’s getting nowhere. John more or less just flirts with her. You tolerate about five minutes of it before dragging them away from the front desk.

“Sorry,” you offer to the receptionist, and you’re pretty sure it’s the first word she’s understood in the whole exchange.

The three of you stand at the foot of the bed for a bit and just. Stare at it. The hotel room is long but narrow, with the bed at the very end of it literally touching three walls. Whoever designed it was obviously at the end of his wits. The bed would be roomy for one person, cozy for two, but three? That’s pushing it. Still, there’s not even a couch in the room, so when you all look at each other it’s with a wordless understanding.

“I sleep on the right,” John says. He claims his spot as such and immediately stretches out, not even taking off his shoes. You wrinkle your nose but choose not to say anything. Paul wrinkles his nose and does.

“Don’t be disgusting, John.” Paul toes off his boots and clambers onto the left side. “There’s a lady present.”

John grins and twists around, dangling his feet in Paul’s face. “Talking about yourself in the third person, eh?”

You’ve locked the bathroom door by the time they start fighting but the walls are thin. There’s a thump and a shrill screech. Laughter. More shouting. Your reflection frowns back at you, eyes tired and hair a mess, and you take your time showering. In true European fashion, it’s a tiny, miserable affair. Your elbows keep knocking into the walls. The water runs cold before you even finish shampooing. It’s a mad dash to put on your pajamas before you freeze your tits off—except even that goes awry when you realize you forgot to pack them. The only things you can find are a soft tee shirt and shorts, which are a bit shorter than you’d like to be wearing but will have to do.

To top it all off, when you step out of the bathroom, they’re still lobbing shoes and insults.

“Boys, please! It’s one in the morning!” Two pairs of eyes flicker to the clock on the wall, then back at you. “Can you at least pretend to be adults?”

Paul has the decency to look a little scolded. John, on the other hand, leers at you.

“I think someone cut a few centimeters off your shorts, love. Not that I’m complaining.” He winks and you decidedly push down the fluttering in your stomach.

All in all, it takes another hour for the three of you to get to bed. Paul insists on showering first, which leads to another argument that takes five matches of rock-paper-scissors to be resolved.

(Paul gets the first one. John calls a two out of three and wins that. Paul calls a three out of five and wins that. John accuses him of cheating and gets called a sore loser. You end up shoving Paul into the bathroom while John is looking for another shoe to throw.)

If your mother knew you were squeezing into a bed with two boys, she’d throw a fit. Especially if she knew that you couldn’t stop thinking about how rosy Paul’s cheeks looked when he stepped out of the shower, or the fact that John is bloody shirtless. No, it’s best that none of this gets back to your folks at home.

“Comfortable?” John asks. Both boys are facing outwards and you’re lying on your back, trying to ignore the warm bodies on either side of you.

Paul shifts his arm and nearly elbows you in the boobs. “I feel like a sardine,” he says.

“Try sleeping in the middle,” you retort. “It’s like being in a sandwich.”

That earns a laugh from John, which turns into a contagious yawn.

“We should go to bed,” someone says, but you’re already drifting off.

***

John’s a pretty heavy sleeper, so when he wakes up and it’s still dark out he’s very confused.

He’s also a lot warmer. Sometime in the night, John had turned and pulled you flush against his chest. His nose is pressed into your hair, one leg thrown over your hip. John rather likes the feeling of cuddling so close, but he knows it’s not the most appropriate position. He goes to move when he hears a quiet noise.

“John…”

… oh. So that’s what woke him up.

You’re moaning, soft little sighs and whimpers that go straight to John’s cock. You’re having a wet dream… about him. He wants to pull away, knows that this is wrong, but then you’re grinding against him and all thoughts fly out the window. John’s hips find yours and he has to bite his lip to keep from groaning. God, he’s rutting against you like a teenager but it feels so good he can’t even bring himself to be embarrassed.

“John?”

John’s eyes snap open and he freezes. Your voice is different, clearer. You’re awake now. It’s like a cold bucket of water has been dumped over his head and he jolts away from you.

“Sorry, I didn’t—“

His apology cuts off because you’re suddenly moving, pushing back into him. The soft curve of your ass presses right against John’s cock. All the air in his lungs rushes out and he gasps out your name.

“Is—is this okay?” he asks. He wants to make sure, needs to.

“Yes,” you reply. It’s more of a plea, and it’s all John needs to start moving again.

The hand that’s on your stomach trails down and slips under the waistband of your panties. John groans when his fingers find your slick folds.

“Fuck, you’re soaked.” John rocks his hips into yours. Your hair is still damp from showering and when he breathes in, the scent—lavender—sends a rush of arousal through him. “Were you dreaming about me?”

You can only whine in response because John is slipping a finger into your cunt. His thumb finds your clit, rubs gentle circles that send flames of pleasure licking up your body. It’s already so much, too much, not enough.

“Didn’t know you were such a filthy girl,” John growls and you arch into his touch. “What was it about, hm? Were you dreaming about this? About getting fingered while Paul is sleeping right there?” His words tear a gasp from your lips. “You’re gonna have to be quiet or you’ll wake him up, birdie. Unless that’s what you want…”

“It’s a little too late for that.”

John can’t see very far, but he doesn’t need to in order to make out Paul’s face on the other side of you. His pupils are blown wide, eyes trained on John’s hand still moving under your clothes. And John… likes it. Being watched. It should be weird, should feel wrong because Paul’s his best mate, but then his eyes find John’s and the hungry look in them tears a hot blaze of arousal through him.

Somehow, his voice is steady when he speaks. “You want a taste?”

Paul’s mouth falls open and he nods. Without a second thought, John pulls his hand from your pussy and lifts it to Paul’s lips.

The sight of Paul licking your juices from John’s fingers is quite possibly the hottest thing you’ve ever seen.

Second only to the look on Paul’s face when you hesitantly wrap your hand around his cock and start jerking him off.

“Fuck,” he groans. His eyes flutter closed, head tips back and bares the curve of his neck. John wants nothing more than to bite into it, to mark Paul, but you beat him to it. And John, who’s never liked feeling left out, lets his hand drift back down to you. This time, he curls two fingers into your cunt. You clench around him and your grip involuntarily tightens on Paul, whose hips jerk forward at the feeling.

God, how John wishes he could see your face. You’re sure to be so pretty, cheeks flushed, lips parted around gasps, eyes watching Paul’s cock in your hand. Still, he can hear the noises you’re making, and that’s almost just as good.

It’s not the most comfortable position, really. Your wrist feels awkward at this angle, with Paul being so close to you. And John keeps breathing in some of your hair. But the intimacy, the heat, the rush of adrenaline makes all that fade away. The filthy sound of John thrusting his fingers in and out of your cunt, Paul’s high, almost feminine sighs. John’s grunts as he rocks against your body, breathe hot on the nape of your neck.

Paul gasps something unintelligible but you know what he’s trying to say. You start pumping him even faster, letting the sound of his cries spur you on. You want to taste them, you think, and it doesn’t make sense but you lean forward anyway and capture Paul’s lips in yours.

The movement changes your angle. John’s fingers curl against something in you that burns white hot, electric in your veins. His thumb presses into your clit and then you’re cumming, moans falling from your lips to Paul’s as he follows you over the edge.

“Fucking hell,” Paul breathes.

You can only nod. Your mind is still floating somewhere in the stratosphere. You can’t remember the last time you felt like this, both high and irrevocably grounded, pressed tight between two bodies thrumming with warmth.

“I’m gonna… clean up a bit,” you mumble when you’ve caught your breath. While you stumble off towards the bathroom, Paul reaches and finds John’s face in the dark.

Despite the fact that he’s just had a threesome, John suddenly feels shy. It’s intimate in a different way, how Paul’s fingers trace the bridge of his nose, outline the curve of his lips. And when you come back, weight dipping the mattress slightly, the warmth of your body settling behind him is so gentle that John is scared he’s only imagining it.

Paul doesn’t say anything, just pulls John forward and kisses him. It’s a chaste brush of the lips, but combined with the feeling of you nipping at his bare shoulder sets John’s nerves ablaze.

“I—“

You shush him and run a hand down his spine, thumbing the waistband of his joggers. “Just relax, John. It’s okay.”

Whether it’s your words or the soothing touch, John’s body almost melts, curving into yours. At the same time, his lips seek out Paul, who pulls back with a glint in his eyes.

“You haven’t even come yet, have you?” Paul asks, though he already knows the answer.

“Does it fucking look like I have?” John grumbles. Your hand trails across his waist and cups his erection and suddenly John can’t come up with anything witty anymore. He keens and bucks into the touch.

“So this is what it takes to get you to shut up.” You giggle when John’s attempt at protesting is muffled by Paul’s mouth.

“Guess we should do this more often, then.”

#john lennon x reader smut #paul mccartney x reader smut #beatles fanfic #beatles x reader smut #mclennon x reader #kalwrites #the sandwich strikes again #more filth for y'all #🥪

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fortheloveoffanfic · 4 years

Text

Protective Service

John Wick x Reader (A/n-random fact, in reality, The Irish is actually from the West, i.e, they’re called the Westies, but this is fiction so *shrugs*)

Masterlist Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5

Warnings- Tension?

Chapter 6 Jealousy And Other Sharp Objects

A week has passed, and things between John and Y/n had gone back to the way they used to be, as if she hadn't opened up to him, in a way she usually didn't to anyone, as if they hadn’t seen each other in a light that would blur the lines of what they were. Of course, the apathy exchanged immediately afterwards should have been telling enough, and for the most part, it was, at least for the first four or five days. It hadn’t even bothered John until, late one night, when he was heading to Y/n’s home office for confirmation on a work matter.

He was just walking up the hall, hands slipped coolly into his pocket and a file wedged between his arm and his side, almost near the door when it opened. He was wholly expecting Y/n, and was a little taken aback, even if he didn’t show it, when Donavan walked out instead, buttoning his wrinkled white dress shirt and blazer draped over his crooked elbow as he nudged the door closed behind himself. Both men brushed past each other hastily, not wanting to share the same square footage for longer than absolutely necessary and an irrational wave of jealousy surged up in him. Reaching the door, John could even hear Y/n shuffling around, probably just getting dressed. Still though, he knocked.

It took a minute, but eventually her voice rang through, cool and unaffected as she permitted, “Come in.” Drawing in a sharp breath, John pulled the door open, not sure if he should keep looking or turn away when he caught her in the midst of pulling on her thin chiffon blouse. She wasn’t half as exposed as she was during their shared evening in the kitchen, but there was something about knowing that Y/n had just been with someone else that made it seem wrong for John to look. Though he didn’t have much time to think on the matter for the minute she’d finished fiddling with the stylish ruffles at the neckline, Y/n moved to lean against the lip of her desk, breaking John’s thoughts as she ran her fingers through sex mused hair, “What do you want?”

Unable to keep the edge of unwarranted envy to himself, John lounged on the leather upholstered sofa kept against the wall, setting the file next to him before leaning back and crossing one ankle over his knee, “Does he know?” Nonchalantly, he nudged his head towards the door.

Her reaction wasn’t what he expected and Y/n quirked a mischievous smirk, her lithe fingers finding a half drank glass of Cabernet near some disarrayed papers, swirling around the remainder of her drink before slowly bringing the glass to her lips. Y/n’s gaze holding John’s didn’t waver, nor did the mischief reflected on her features, “Know about what?” Feigning innocence didn’t really suit her because even then a dark, menacing mystery lurked beneath her façade and Y/n didn’t look any less the vixen that she usually was.

“Don’t do that,” John huffed. It was a battle to maintain some semblance of dominance over the situation, neither of them wanted to be at the other’s whim and it only then dawned upon John that it was a miracle that they’d existed in the same space for just over two months without getting into a fight. They’d come close though, two personalities that alike were bound to clash. “You know exactly what I’m talking about,” he persisted, not phased in the slightest by her behavior.

“Why would he need to know?” Finishing off her wine, Y/n replaced the glass on the surface with a quiet thud, “Who I fuck isn’t his business, and its not yours either,” folding her arms, Y/n’s smirk widened a bit when upon noting how John stiffened slightly, “Are you jealous, John?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” John fired immediately, sounding more defensive than intended, “It’s just,” clearing his throat, he pondered only for a second before voicing his suspicions, “I don’t trust him.”

Smoothly, like aged whiskey over ice, Y/n chuckled, rolling her gorgeous orbs, “Donavan? You don’t trust Donavan? Now who’s being ridiculous?” Pushing off the edge, Y/n sauntered around the desk, easing into her chair, “He’s loyal, there’s no reason to doubt him.”

“I’m just saying,” pressing the matter was fruitless, yet John still continued, “You should keep an eye on him.”

“Stop it,” immediately, her tone grew firm and her jaw tightened, “Don’t do that,” exasperated already, Y/n threaded a hand through her loose tresses, “Is this what you came here talk about?”

Now, equally irritated by her dismissiveness, John’s voice took on a new harshness, “No,” He stood, swiping up the manila folder and taking long strides towards her desk, “These are the specifics for Vienna next week,” he offered hastily, the folder almost falling to the table top during the trade off, “Review it, tell me what you you think in the morning.”

Sighing heavily, Y/n almost felt guilty about the turn their conversation had made, but something stopped her, leaving her to try to call out to him in a tone tinged with annoyance as he headed for the door, “John-”

“Good night, Y/n,” he cut her off, stalking out of the room, leaving the door open.

The next week, Vienna. It was the morning of Y/n’s second meeting with the High Table and like the first, the hours before had brought a sense of dread with it, the only thing soothing her in the tiniest bit was that John would be right outside the door that time. They still hadn’t ironed things out after that late night in her office, once again sinking into a state where words spent between them were short and few. Usually something like that wouldn’t have bothered Y/n, but somehow, being at odds with John wasn’t the same; she secretly wanted him to care and not knowing if he still did was disheartening.

The whole thing had made her more snappy than she usually was; her quick temper grew shorter, her sharp words were given a new edge and her moments of quiet were vastly extended. For the most part, it made those around her even more willing to back down instead of pushing an issue. All except one.

The three of them had gathered at Y/n’s room that morning; Donavan to brief Y/n on the fast approaching meeting and John to leave with her when she was ready. “The mayor of New York is requesting your audience; at the charity gala next month,” Donovan casually eased in as they ate at a table near the room’s living room window.

Scraping her fork against the delicate china, Y/n’s absent gaze snapped up, focusing on the source of the words, “You can tell the mayor to go fuck himself.”

“Vila-”

Without letting him finish, she was cutting him off, “Donavan. I’m not interested, okay. We stay away from politics.” Clearly over the conversation, Y/n stood, taking her plate over to the room service cart, refilling her coffee afterwards.

“This could be good for us,” Donavan reasoned, forgetting his food and glancing at a still silent John before looking to Y/n, “He needs funding for his reelection campaign and he says that if he’s in for a next term he can give us a leg up; an in with the D.A and couple judges on our side just in case.”

“Yeah,” she huffed, “But it also gives him leverage. He can betray us just as easily as he’s betraying them, and one word and we’re over,” taking a long drag of her coffee, Y/n shook her head, “This isn’t a good idea.”

Standing abruptly, Donavan tried to step next to where she stood at the cart, though Y/n simply moved away, walking near to the table, standing where Vienna’s early morning sun would cast an otherworldly glow on her face. Simply taking it all in, John continued reading through the intel he’d had on the other members of The Table as he ate. “It is. Vila,” he whispered the name, hidden affection laced with the word, “This union could give us an edge on the Irish. Fuck the city, you’ve wanted to take time down since you stepped foot in the club house. If we don’t do this with Balinski, they will, and we can’t risk that.”

“Donavan,” Y/n’s exasperation was audible and John was internally glad that he wasn’t the only one on the receiving end of it, “You don’t understand. We need to be careful with who we trust, and Balinski, he’s not the kind of man we can trust. God,” she scoffed a humorless chuckle, “He’s a fucking politician, we don’t need his type sniffing around.”

“What we don’t need is the Irish with such a big leg up in the game. Look, we already have Staten Island and everything else in the west, but they have most of the east. We work with Balinski, we can take it, and wherever the fuck you want, no questions asked,” anyone from a mile away could see that Donavan was reaching his rope’s end and there was an sense of desperate urgency in his explanations, as if there was a lot riding on Y/n accepting the invitation to the gala, “We can not just hand this over to them, right now, we’re the one’s he’s asking for, but if you refuse this offer, he’ll be offended and he’ll shack up with them just to take you down.”

“There are other ways,” Y/n gritted. She didn’t want to, for even the slightest of a second, think that she might need someone alongside her to help her rise to the top. Y/n worked alone, it was how she had been trained and she intended in keeping it that way. She didn’t need anyone, especially not some sleazy politician looking for dirty money to help him plaster his face on billboards, to help her fight her battles, “And we can explore them when necessary.”

“You don’t understand how big this is for you Vila. For us,” Donavan emphasized, shaking his head and grinding his teeth, “You,” he spun hastily, turning to John, “Since she trusts you so much, why don’t you talk some sense into her?”

With a hard, cold gaze, John just stared, and Y/n was the one to interject, able as ever to speak for herself, “Talk some sense into me? Who the fuck do you think you are?” Folding her arms and standing her ground, “I don’t need anyone to talk sense into me, and if you think that that’s what you're here to do then maybe you should sit this one out.” For a minute more, Y/n and Donavan traded sharp glares, and again, it was Y/n that spoke, pointing to the door that time, “I mean it Donavan.”

Sniffing for effect, Donavan nodded bitterly, “Whatever you want boss,” the word was said with such disdain that it might have been an insult. And really, it was, considering that most times, Donavan was the only one that ever got a taste of being her equal. That was, until she’d hired John. “But I’m telling you,” he warned pointedly, “You make the wrong decision, it won't be pretty.”

Largely, she ignored him, pretending his words weren’t an omen, rooted to the spot until Donavan slammed the door. Fuming, Y/n suppressed the urge to throw something. She absolutely hated being questioned, her word should have had finality, not room for argument. Yet, when she shifted her gaze, feeling John's stare bore into her, Y/n suspected that another argument was in the making, "What?" She snarled, planting a hand on her hip, "Just say it."

"I know that this isn't my place," John began, standing as he did, swiping up his mug as he walked past Y/n into the living area, "And I hate to admit it," he continued, a begrudged twinge propelling his words, "But Donavan is right. If the mayor wants an alliance, you should give it to him."

Taking another sip from the scalding black liquid, Y/n followed John into the living room, sinking into an armchair; crossing her legs and placing her arms on the cushioned rests. "It's not that easy," turning to face the blank television, Y/n hoped the gesture would guard the first traces of defeat, "I don't need him having leverage on me."

"But he has it anyway," John insisted, going through the weaponry he went armed to her room with, "Think about it, he knows who you are and what you're doing. Balinski can rat anyone out if he wanted to. But he hasn't. Besides,” John was in the process of assembling a gun he’d taken apart for cleaning earlier; his stocky fingers working with precision and fluidity, “If he’s working with you, then you have leverage too, if he’s willing to partner up, then that’s gotta mean he has some skeletons in his closet, and if not, you’ll be the first one. You have the upper hand Y/n.” John cut his words short, putting the gun to his ear as he made a couple more adjustments, “I’m not saying you have to do it,” he sighed as he finally loaded the handgun that would ultimately become part of his on-person armory, “But I am saying that you should think about it.”

Y/n lapsed into a bout of deep thought, pensive stare far off and unintentionally falling to the display on the glass table, littered with an array of guns and blades, along with John’s mug near the edge. He was right, they both were, and Y/n hated defeat, but the more his and Donavan’s words sank in, the more she realized that she needed the alliance with New York’s mayor. If she didn’t take it, he and the Irish would have the upper hand, but if she did, for the price of a small risk, Y/n would have insurmountable power. She’d had to have been foolish to pass it up.

“Alright,” draining the last of her coffee, Y/n carelessly discarded the delicate cup on the end table next to her, standing with purpose, “I’ll do it, and I’ll go to that gala,” she was already walking off towards her bedroom and John had already nodded in acknowledgement when she added, “Under one condition; you go with me.”

“I go where you go, that’s the rule,” he hummed gruffly, not thinking much of it until Y/n turned, leaning against the metal doorframe, her constant, amused stare beckoning his attention.

“No,” a glimmer of a wicked smile tugged at her lips while a mischievous glint danced in her eyes, “I meant you go with me. Invitations for those things are usually for two people, you’re gonna be my…..plus one.”

Straightening his back, John briefly reflected on their conversation in her office and then more so on how confused his feelings towards Y/n made him. Guilt for seeing her the way he did, jealousy when she was with Donavan, irritation during almost every conversation they had and finally something simply…...undefinable. Fondness maybe, likeness, something that made him wish things weren’t as complicated as they were, that Y/n wasn’t who she was so maybe, just maybe, he could give letting someone in another shot. “That’s not part of our arrangement,” he countered dismissively; since she was so protective of her boy toy then should have just taken him anyway, “You should take Donavan.”

“I said I’m taking you,” Y/n turned again, strolling off into the bedroom, “Hope you’ve got a nice tux,” she teased, disappearing into the shadowy dimness before shutting the door behind herself.

*****

Tagging-@harrisongslimited @magnificentclodpiebanana @keandrews @greenmanalishi @rdjloverxxx @danceoftwowolves @planetkt @wheretheriversrunintothesea @jupiterdawngirl

#fanfiction #john wick #keanu reeves #john wick fanfic #keanu reeves fanfic #john wick x you #john wick x reader #john wick x y/n #keanu reeves x you #ff #fanfic #protective service #jealousy and other sharp objects #requested

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limeblood-exe · 4 years

Text

A Singular, Bloody Mattress (part 1)

tw: blood

The warehouse door bursts open, slamming against the concrete wall; the sharp sound thundering through the thick silence of night. Dust plumes and scatters as the old and abused door falls off its rusted hinges, the only sign of movement besides three masked figures who stealthily make their way inside.

Mikey, wielding an odachi in place of his signature kusari-fundo, frantically glances around the abandoned mattress warehouse, surveying for any threats amongst the giant columns and rows of mattresses with an uncharacteristic expression of apprehension smearing his features. Joined in his search, Donnie approaches a much shorter column of mattresses, about his height, and stops to inspect one with his goggles.

“All clear,” Mikey whispers, determining that the deafening silence means that no present danger is lurking in the shadows. Not that they really expected any threats from a mattress store, but anything's possible when with them.

Glancing behind him at Raph, who stood back for the all clear before entering any further into the building, he waits for further instruction from his leader.

Raph, holding a blanketed figure in his arms, nods at Mikey, and both relax their posture at the promise of no current danger.

“Do you think we were followed?”

Sharing Mikey’s worried expression, Raph tries to smile in an effort to placate his distressed younger brother, though it probably comes out more as a grimace when replying, “With that cool stunt you pulled off earlier? Not a chance. I don’t think those freaky Foot guys were expecting to get roasted with that fire tornado of yours. I bet you they’re running back home with their tails between their legs!”

Mikey responds in kind with a timid smile; he’s always welcome to any of his older brothers’ praise, soaking them up like a needy sponge. Besides, it was pretty cool what he did back there.

None of them had expected to be jumped by those two Foot dudes, having just left April’s house from a fun night of trying out the new board games her parents bought her. Now that he’s thinking back on it, they probably should have been more concerned with the fact that their enemies had actively sought them out rather than the turtles running into them by happenstance. The paper ninjas they commonly used were totally different this time around, and not just because of the change of color scheme (an ugly shade of dark green, if you were to ask Mikey his professional opinion).

They didn’t have any hands.

Well, they did have hands, just in the shape of blades.

Really, really sharp blades.

The vomit-colored paper was obviously mystic, no inspection from Donnie needed. No paper should be allowed to cut cleanly through concrete for goodness sake. It shouldn’t be allowed to cut through shells, either-

Remembering why they were seeking shelter in the first place, Mikey’s gaze darts down to the bundle in Raph’s gentle hold, the blood seeping through the blue blanket. His face immediately falls, and he feels queasy at the sight of the red puddle already starting to form on the floor. Blood that should be inside his brother, not drenching some stranger’s blanket they stole from a clothes’ line. Mikey opens his mouth but before he can voice his question, he is interrupted by a heavy “plop” to his right. Bodies tensed, Ralph and Mikey whip around for the cause of the noise, only to see Donnie airing out one of the mattresses. Dust clouds the surrounding air, getting caught in the lungs of his unsuspecting brothers and a massive coughing fit follows. Donnie, unperturbed, just drags the offending mattress away from the dust cloud and drops it to the floor, wiping his hands against his thighs with a look of disgust on his face.

Facing Raph, Donnie says, “Lay him down here. I can't get a proper looksy otherwise,” while nodding in the direction of the mattress.

Following his brother's directions, Raph stifles down a cough as he kneels down next to the mattress, but hesitates for a brief moment.

“Don’t worry, Raph, I already scanned it. They’re safe. These mattresses are definitely older than most of Splinter’s clothing, but just as filthy, if you were to ask me, but they’re relatively clean,” Donnie reaffirms him.

“It’s not that, Donnie.”

And it's not. Not really. Swallowing thickly, Raph gently lays down his far-too-quiet and limp brother to the mattress, trying to be as slow and careful his large body will allow him. While Raph was as gentle as he could possibly be, even the faintest of movement jostles his younger brother, and a pitiful whimper escapes from his throat. Raph can’t help but wince, as hurting his own flesh and blood, even unintentionally, makes him feel sick to his stomach.

It doesn’t help that Leo looks absolutely awful. From what’s peaking out from the blanket, his eyes are pressed tightly shut, skin cool and clammy to the touch, and sweat beads at his creased forehead. He sounds awful, too, with his rattling lungs gasping for air like he just got done running a marathon, as if he wasn’t just carried for three whole blocks. Raph may not have as extensive of medical knowledge as Leo and Donnie do, what with Donnie’s general interest in all sciences and Leo being the medic of the team, but he knows signs of shock when he sees it.

His brother has lost far too much blood for comfort.

Donnie wastes no time in getting to work, carefully unwrapping Leo from the blanket. Donnie and Raph hiss at what is revealed from the confines of the blanket; a deep gash on the lower left side of Leo’s abdomen, his plastron having been neatly cut through deep enough to injure the skin and tissue that was supposed to be protected by thick shell. Thick rivulets of blood seep from the wound and cascade down Leo’s side even with the gray hoodie, also stolen, wrapped tightly around him to halt the bleeding.

“That doesn’t look good, Donnie,” Raph whispers after a second, trying (and failing) to reel in his worried thoughts about how quiet Leo is. He’s never quiet; it's basically Leo's given nature to never shut up. Yet, here they are now, and Raph would give up just about anything to hear one of Leo’s one-liners.

"No, no it does not," Donnie nods in agreement. His brows are deeply furrowed as he gently prods the edges of Leo’s laceration.

“I’ll have to analyze just how deep the wound is. I have to get the bleeding under control, too, or he won’t even make it back to the lair in time,” Donnie states matter-of-factly. If Raph didn’t know his brother any better or notice the slight shake in his voice or the way his hands trembled, he might believe that Donnie seemed unfazed by his brother’s condition. But he knows, and they all know, that Donnie's attempts at appearing emotionless is just a facade he hides under.

As Donnie starts to delicately remove the sodden hoodie, the fabric gets caught on the jagged skin, causing Leo to let out a sudden gasp, back arching from the sudden pain, and his breathing becomes more erratic. Recoiling, Donnie puts a placating hand on Leo's cheek.

“Shit! Sorry, sorry,” Donnie mutters to Leo, gently thumbing away the tears that start streaming down his face. Raph is so taken aback by Leo’s reaction that he doesn’t even bother to chastise Donnie for his potty mouth.

"Is… is Leo gonna be okay?"

Raph faces his youngest brother, whose arms are clutching tightly around Leo’s sword. Mikey's gaze is locked to the floor, eyes wide with unshed tears. He looks so lost and scared, so devoid of his regular pep and overall cheer, that Raph has to suppress the overwhelming urge to engulf his brother in a giant hug.

His brothers need him right now. He might not be able to help Leo like Donnie can, but he's still their leader. He is still their big brother.

“Leo’s gonna be just fine,” Raph starts, approaching to grasp Mikey’s shoulders in his large hands, squeezing gently. “He’s strong, you know that. Remember that time when we thought Leo got lost in the sewers, and he did, but he found his way back? We spent hours searching for the guy and the cheeky bastard was home the entire time, eating the last of the oreos. Or what about that time he broke his arm doing that stupid double back-flip he saw in a video once when he was seven? He only cried like twice the whole time!"

Mikey looks at him, eyes glistening and mouth wobbling.

"I know my brothers. If there's one thing I can count on Leo, it's that he always pulls through in the end."

Silence fills the air for just a brief moment, filled only with the labored breathing of Leo. That brief moment is all Mikey needs, however. He presses his lips into a thin line and vigorously wipes at his tears with his forearm. After taking a composing breath through his nose, Mikey asks, "What do we do now?”

Isn't that the question. It’s far too dangerous to go back the way they came, not with the Foot Clan still searching for them knowing they have the advantage with one turtle down. And especially not with those new paper ninjas.

They’re incredibly lucky that when Mikey resorted to using his fire tornado, it was discovered that while mystic paper, it was still just paper and fell to the power of its natural enemy. Of course, that was after one managed to get the jump on Leo.

Raph can still vividly feel the gut punch he got when his own brother's screaming pierced his ears, the way his blood chilled in his veins and his heart plummeted. The raw fear of thinking oh god my little brother is dead.

He shakes his head. There'll be time to digest today's events later, when they're home and Leo's patched up and back to his annoying self, using his injury to his advantage so that his brothers may tend to his beck and call. And they'll fall for it too, of course, cause that's what family does for each other.

So, they can’t go back the way they came, what else then? The main sewer entrance for the lair is too far away to just make a run for it, especially being above ground. Raph could have Donnie track down another near manhole, but not only is Donnie currently busy using his tech to scan Leo’s injury checking the severity of it, they'll have no way of knowing if that manhole is connected to their sewer line unless they're in it. And even if that does happen to be connected to the lair, it's still quite a long distance to travel with someone who doesn't have any time to spare.

Dammit, he needs to think! Raph isn't the greatest at coming up with plans; he's always been more of a "smash first, talk later" kind of a guy.

And look where that got them. Raph's baby brother is bleeding out to death, they're being pursued by the stupid flame-heads with deadly (well, deadlier) paper ninjas with nowhere to go, and they're stuck in a mattress store of all places.

Leo would have known what to do. Hell, he'd have gotten them home by now with one of his portals, where they'd be enjoying the rest of their evening with pizza and a movie.

But they're not home. They're stuck with no where to run to, and Raph can't think.

“I-I don’t know," Raph stutters, self-doubt numbing his mind, jumbling his thoughts like clothes in a dryer, spinning and spinning. "I don't-"

“I c'n port'l us.”

Shocked, Raph whips around. Leo, even though his face is twisted with pain and his arms tremble, struggles to hoist himself to his elbows, swatting at Donnie's attempts to push him back down. Leo’s breathing extremely hard from the exertion of just sitting up, but he remains upright out of sheer stubbornness.

“I c’n get us-shit,” Leo grits through his teeth. Donnie, relenting to his brother's will, wraps an arm around Leo's shoulders, taking most of the weight as he leans him up. Glaring up at Raph, eyes blaring with fierce determination, he finishes with more clarity in his voice, “I can get us home.”

“No, absolutely not! Not in the condition you’re in.”

Raph knows that with Leo now awake, they have a chance, a real good chance, of escaping their ridiculous predicament and getting Leo proper medical treatment. And Leo is the only one who can do it; he's the only one who can use his sword after all. But Leo can't even sit up without Donnie's support, which he clarifies as he gestures to Leo, “You can’t even sit upright on your own, how are you gonna hold a 30 lbs sword?”

“Oh yeah? Watch me."

Leo moves to stand up, pulling away from Donnie, but as soon as he draws his legs beneath him and shifts his weight, his eyes roll to the back of his head and he lists to the side. If it weren’t for his older brother, he would’ve faced-planted the floor.

“Woah, woah, easy there ‘Nardo,” Donnie smoothly scolds, pressing his brother back to the comfort of the mattress. Leo hasn’t lost his battle with unconsciousness yet, grasping harshly onto Donnie’s bicep. His big brother grimaces but ultimately ignores it. After Leo's breathing evens out, Donnie gives his younger brother an exasperated look.

“Well, that was the dumbest thing you could have done.”

Leo rolls his eyes.

“Ugh, sh-shuddup, you weirdo asshole.”

Donnie snorts.

“Glad to know your personality is still somewhat intact. Though, I think you're more so the asshole here, seeing as I'm the one trying to be helpful and all.”

"Whatev', you just doin' this for yer own sake."

"Ah, yes. I have been wanting someone to be in my unquestionable debt recently, since I’m entirely incapable of doing anything from the goodness of my heart. Thank you for reminding me, Leon. I’ll be sure to remember this the next time you try to unload your chore duties onto me."

Leo tiredly gives one of his signature smirks, "No problemo."

Donnie's face turns stern.

“But seriously, Raph’s right. Being completely honest with you, I don’t even know how you’re still conscious right now.” Even as they speak, Leo’s eyes start to lose their focus, glazing over with exhaustion. Even eye-rolling and smirking seems to take away any energy he has left, and if Leo wasn't currently bleeding like a stuck pig, he would've gasped at the audacity of it all.

“I can do this," and Leo looks at Raph knowingly. "I always pull through in the end, remember?"

He's using his own words against him, Raph realizes. He must have been awake enough to hear his conversation with Mikey.

And he did say that, but if Raph was honest with himself, he mostly said those words to comfort Mikey. The odds are stacked against his brother right now. He doesn't have general mishaps anymore forming portals, but there are occasional days when Leo still struggles. Today, though, had been an average day, with Leo having successfully transported them directly in April's living room just earlier this evening, but failing to open one to the lair when the game night ended.

And there are plenty of examples of Leo triumphing when he reasonably shouldn't have. But looking at his brother now, bleeding and sickly and dying, he can't help the tendrils of doubt that suffocate him, snaking their way into his subconscious.

But Raph knows his brothers. Even amongst doubt, Leo always does come through, in some way or another.

Raph trusts his brothers, and he will trust Leo in his word that he can get them home.

After all, Raph's not one to make plans. He's never needed to really, not with his brothers by his side.

"I know."

Raph glances over to Mikey, communicating with a single look.

Mikey understands completely.

There's no time to debate whether Leo can do it or not. Every second that passes is another second of Leo losing more blood. Donnie might be pressing the hoodie into the large cut, but it’s not enough to entirely stop the flow.

At that moment, a large crash reverberates from just beyond the warehouse walls, the sound similar to the likes of a building collapsing in on itself. Dread stifles the air; their hiding spot will soon be found, it's only a matter of time.

“You got this," Mikey encourages, presenting Leo with the handle of his odachi. Raph and Donnie watch, faces scrunched with anticipation. As Leo grasps the odachi, he breathes deeply, preparing himself both physically and mentally.

His arm pathetically quivers as he lifts his sword from Mikey's hold. Raising the familiar object to its full weight, Leo heaves himself forward, sending white sparks across his vision as the pain blooms from his side. Blood begins to pool in his mouth as he bites the inside of his cheek to refrain passing out.

Focus.

Focus on his breathing; focus on imagining the lair, the skateboard ramps, the untouched, warm pizza sitting on the counter waiting back home that Splinter had promised them.

Letting all other thoughts evade his mind; let's them fall to the ground like forgotten crumbs off of a home-cooked meal Mikey had prepared; let's them fall off his shoulders and into the drain like water when Leo spends too much time brooding in the shower and his brothers get upset at him for stealing all the hot water again.

Clearing his mind, Leo draws in the formation of a circle with the tip of his sword and blue light zaps and sparkles from his odachi.

But no portal forms. Halfway through, his muscles seize up, locked with overexertion, and he can't complete the circle. His sword lowers to rest on the ground, nearly falling from his grip altogether, his arms too tired to properly hold it.

His body has betrayed him, refusing to move when he commands it; feeling like he's trying to move around in thick syrup.

He didn't do it. His brothers' faith in him was misguided, and they're all gonna die here, not just Leo.

No! Not wanting to give up, Leo tries again. An even more pathetic attempt than the first. His body protests his wishes, and his sword stays put as though it trying to tell him that he's already beat.

Hands are suddenly upon him, grasping the hilt of the odachi next to his own and resting on the back of his shell. His brothers are here, helping him bear the weight alongside him.

"We gotchu, Leo!" There's Mikey's positive attitude, refreshing to hear as always. "Just focus on making a portal, we'll take care of the rest."

In the distance, another boom can be heard, louder and closer than before. Raph faces the direction it came from, protectively standing over his brothers as Mikey and Donnie crouch beside Leo.

Reaching his zen mode, confidence from knowing he's not doing this alone, Leo directs his sword to move in a circular motion, his two brothers following his lead and finishing in a perfect circle.

And like a miracle itself, a beautiful brilliance of blues fills the dark warehouse, and a perfect portal stares back at them.

Quick successions of multiple slashes can be heard, and the wall behind them explodes, raining heavy chunks of concrete and plaster all around them. Mattresses, carried by the blast, careen through the air, experiencing freedom for the first time in so many years.

Wasting no time, Donnie throws Leo over his shoulder despite the weak protest, leaping into the portal. Behind him, Mikey and Raph follow, but not before Mikey gives the Foot Heads a taunting wave, blowing raspberries as he jumps through the portal. Leaving behind two very frustrated villains, having been outsmarted once again by the turtles and left with nothing but a single dusty and bloody mattress for their efforts, they can do nothing but stew in their hatred.

"Gah, those pesky turtles," the shorter one of the duo rasps. They had gotten so close this time, too. But they still have their new weapons at the ready; all they need as another opportunity to strike, then those pests will never bother them again.

Just as they're about to leave the warehouse, the larger of the two stops by the mattress, picking up what looks like a familiar blanket.

"Hey wait a minute, isn't that-" He doesn't get to finish that statement, with a scraping scream interrupting him.

"Noo! My Lou Jitsu: Punch Chowder hoodie!"

#rottmnt #rottmnt fanfiction #rottmnt fanfic #rottmnt leo #rottmnt donnie #rottmnt raph #rottmnt mikey #my writing #blood //#injury //

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ashestoashesjc · 5 years

Text

Bad Witches (0.3)

Some towns sleep more than they’d care to admit. They claim to be the town that never does, but they sleep. They bustle until the wee hours when even the traffic lights must catch shut eye. (This is the leading cause of late night car accidents, in fact). But not in Riverwake. No matter the hour, Riverwake is alive and in motion. At the peak of dawn, the rumble of mechanized street cleaners is something of an alarm: A new day is here. The only challenge is survival. The road is now adequately shiny.

On a day this beautiful, a person would be mad to waste even a second of it inside. This is why when the coven meets at their favorite restaurant, Giorgio's, for cocktails and gossip, they ask for outdoor seating, beneath a veil of dark gray umbrellas.

After the waiter brings around the first tray of flutes, Bev flags him down and whispers in his ear. When he returns, he has a pitcher filled to the brim with a hazy, dim yellow. He places it at the center of the table and walks off to attend to other diners.

Shrugging, Bev says, "Save him some trips."

During a third round of mimosas, Kate off-handedly mentions her father-in-law and his rocky relationship with his son, but that he thinks gifting Dan membership to their familial country club is effective enough as tension relief. Dan's typically too busy to take advantage of it, she says.

"But you still want to," says Bev, drinking from her orange-tinted glass.

"I didn't say that," says Kate.

"You didn't have to," Bev says, swatting at the air, "Does anyone else hear that buzzing? What is that? Do you think a WASP snuck in?" The other witches attempt to stifle their giggles.

Turning bright red, Kate leans back into her seat, clutching at her glass and bringing it closer to her face so as to slightly cloud the next words she mutters, "I can invite guests, by the by."

The witches' ears perk up.

"You know, I don't think I've ever been to a country club," Matt says, "The wealthy have historically neglected basic hand-washing techniques. Seems like a petri dish, but in a higher tax bracket.”

"I'm from the country. And I've been to a club. Does that count?" Haley asks, still nursing her first mimosa.

"What should we wear?" Bev asks.

Kate sets her glass down to refill it from the orange pitcher, "Dress for spring."

So, they do. The next morning, they are all casual shorts and solid-colored polos and white visors. Only, it's a month away from the dead of winter and it's the middle of Massachusetts. Bev, Matt, and Haley stand outside of the given address and, with their miserable shaking, resemble a group of very posh street urchins.

Kate arrives in a cozy-looking fur-lined parka and upon seeing the other witches' bewildered expressions, snuggles affectionately into the mink hood, "Teach you to mock me."

The other witches follow Kate into the almost intimidatingly large, red-bricked building. What are presumably wings stretch nearly a kilometer in each direction.

"One of you couldn't have ch-checked the weather before leaving the house?" Bev admonishes, one shiver away from legally qualifying as an icicle.

"T-throwing a lot of stones in that g-glass igloo, aren't you?" Haley asks.

The combination of central circulated heating and at least two fireplaces (one in the den closest to the club's entrance; one in the more formal of the two dining areas) nearly melts the witches as they linger with Kate at the front desk.

"Okay, we're approved," Kate says, shaking hands with the attendant behind the desk, "Just don't touch anything."

"Damn. There goes my Grand Theft Itinerary," says Bev.

Looking at her sternly, Kate says, "Don't even joke about that. They will absolutely kick us out."

The witches huddle at the end of the entrance hall, dissecting the list of offered activities. Bev is interested in exactly none of them, but does wish to examine their stock of spirits. Matt begins spraying himself with hand sanitizer the moment he notices how many of the items have a "Group Activity" label.

A woman in a calf-length Houndstooth coat walks past the group but stops to gaze at Kate's jacket, fawning over its charm and subtle glamour. She asks if Kate also bought her coat from Nordstrom. She then asks if Kate plans to play in a tennis match later.

Kate happily confirms that, yes, she will be playing. They chat for a little longer and Kate is still smiling when the woman bids her farewell and walks further into the club's interior.

"How are you going to play?" Matt asks, pointing to the tennis poster pinned to the cork bulletin board at the lobby entrance, "It's Doubles and three of us will likely solidify if we venture outside."

"Oh, we're still playing tennis. Do you know how much I had to bribe the babysitter to come on such short notice?" asks Kate, "They have a heated indoor court," she says, taking off her coat to reveal a sensible, pale beige skirt and thin, rust red pullover.

"Oh, they're fancy fancy," says Haley.

Kate finds the sports center in the left wing, guided by the rambunctious sound of middle aged aerobics. It is a vast gymnasium filled with varied exercise equipment and a bounty of helpful regimens: elliptical trainers, stair masters, Homeless Person Avoidance Training, medicine balls, etc. There's even a rock climbing wall mounted in the back. There are no cables attached to it for fear that people may actually wish to use it, but it has its scenic benefits. She then sees the tennis court, a green square girded with a chain link fence. She spies the sign-up sheet on a plastic folding table at the entrance and begins scrawling her name.

As she flourishes the Barston-ending 'n' and admires her penmanship, an unexpected voice takes her by surprise.

"You're in the way," says the voice and Kate notices that it belongs to the robust, older gentleman looming behind her. He is accompanied by a smaller, leaner fellow and together they look like a before and after advert for malnutrition.

Kate nearly leaps out of the man's direction when she notices her folly. "Sorry! I wasn't paying attention."

"Never seen you here before," says the shorter, wheat blond man.

"Yes, I'm a new--" begins Kate, holding out her hand in anticipation of a handshake.

"Who's your husband?" interrupts the other man, a gray halo of hair situated on the perimeter of his scalp.

"I'm not sure how--" starts Kate, slowly lowering her hand.

"That's how you got in, right?" he asks as he bends down to add his own name to the roster, "Bring the 'Girls' for a 'Fun Weekend' at the country club and then fuck off to whichever Wellness Spa you crawled out of?"

"That's--" Kate tries to interject.

"We promise not to beat you too badly later, okay?" the blond interrupts as he saunters off, followed shortly by his friend.

She is left standing alone at the front of the sports center, not entirely sure she has correctly interpreted the preceding events. In her mind, she loops through their meeting again and again, wondering what she did wrong. When she does realize that she, in fact, ‘Just Got Dunked On’, grim is not the right word to describe the aura she emanates. It's pretty close, though.

Kate staggers into the common area and, seeing the rest of her coven lying haphazardly across an island of recliners, plops into one of the vacant chairs. Her entire demeanor is a haggard sigh.

Trading concerned looks, the witches aren't sure who should handle this. They play "Rock, Paper, Sigils" while Kate slumps further into the padded leather. The agreed upon worst candidate for helping someone through distress is also apparently really bad at games of chance because when she loses, Bev swears under her breath.

Bev very tepidly strokes Kate's back and whispers, "Now, now. Emotions are..." she gulps, "Perfectly normal. I have them all the time." She retches.

Taking Kate's hand, Matt asks, "What happened?"

A full body sigh later and Kate appears to have summoned the drive to retell the tale. By the time she's through, the witches bear the expressions of those personally wronged. How dare anyone make fun of Kate? And not even behind her back like a decent person. WASPS have feelings, too.

"You should've led with that," says Bev, cracking her knuckles, "I'll kill them."

Matt nods, "I don't know about getting someone else's blood on me, but yes, murder seems in order."

Haley can't believe what she just heard. She really can't. She stopped listening halfway through to stare at someone she thought might be her Little League coach. But why would they be here, ten states away in this country club common area? It just doesn't make sen-- Oh, no, that's someone else, nevermind. Oh, god, now everyone's looking at her. Make something up, make something up.

"Like a flock of crows in V-formation," says Haley. Nailed it.

"You guys... you have no idea how much this means to me," says Kate, a welling in her eyes, "I know with you by my side, Bev, we can--"

"Oh, yeah, no, I don't want to play," Bev corrects.

Clearly disappointed, Kate's face sobers a little, but she looks to Matt with hope.

"Sorry, me either. I didn't mean to mislead you," says Matt, sincerely apologetic.

Kate feels as though the dinghy she just acquired footing in has capsized beneath her.

Haley smiles.

Kate looks to her nervously, but the smile only widens. "Have... you ever actually played tennis?" Kate asks.

"Sure, I played a little at home," Haley says. Kate sighs.

"Of course, we had wooden rackets and the strings were made from goat guts, but how different could it be?" Haley asks. Kate sighs again and internally resigns to her fate, but still intends on having a very fun, very non-competitive time.

On the court, shortly before their starting match, Haley tests the weight of the carbon fiber racket. She tosses it from hand to hand and gives a few practice swats. Once, she sends the racket flying, leaving her to run to the middle of the court and retrieve it.

Their first few matches - one with a couple from Denver and the other with the woman they encountered in the lobby and her "chiropractor" who is definitely only half her age because it helps to be young and limber in his profession. Definitely - are nothing to write home about. Haley's home, in particular, is where you should not be writing to. Because they would not be very impressed with her performance. But after getting used to how light this inferior plastic racket is, the aerodynamics of its slender frame, the whistle of its whip through the air, she feels a touch more comfortable.

This comfort is promptly squished like a windshield mosquito when their next opponents enter the fence. Kate's heart falls when she recognizes the sheen of one man's head and the smarm on the other's lips, but her face is unflinching steel.

"Didn't think you'd still be here," the blond says, his eyes a sneer.

The walking comb over assumes his place across the court and, beginning to stretch, says, "They wanted to lose to real men. I don't blame 'em."

Haley exhales. The match begins.

For the first set, the court is a frenzy of movement. Rhythmic thwacking echoes across the gymnasium. The squeaking of sneakers, the breathy grunts upon each impact, the flicked beads of sweat as they dart to strike the racket. All four are giving it their all.

But Kate and Haley are just too accurate. Too fast. Too relentless in their fury.

Nearing the end of their third set, Kate and Haley have dominated the game, easily leading over their opponents' hefty score of one. What was only meant to be a playful diversion sees the girls one favoring play away from taking the whole kit 'n' caboodle. Reigning victorious. But, like, in a fun, non-competitive way.

This is what it all comes down to.

"They would be good at this," huffs the gray-haired man to his partner, "Chicks and tennis." He serves the ball, and Haley, in her distraction, swings and misses. A green blur zips by her head.

The gray-haired man chuckles, "I think that's our point."

"One of them even looks like Serena," his blond partner wheezes hoarsely. They burst into ill-concealed snickers.

"One more round?" Kate asks, bouncing a tennis ball.

"One more round," Haley concurs.

They trade the tennis ball back and forth with their opponents, the net flapping with every pass. For a few tosses, they are very light swings, measured and contained. But in one of her connections with the ball, Kate applies a considerable amount more force to the racket. The tennis ball responds with equal vigor, shooting from her racket's wired face and careening toward the other side of the court.

But it never hits either of the men's rackets. Or makes contact with the ground. It simply floats and whirls at a standstill just past the net.

No one moves a muscle.

The silent stillness of the moment is broken when the blond man appears to muster the confidence to approach the green rotation. He seems to have descended from glaciers with the time it takes him to close the gap. Mere inches away, he stares up at the tennis ball in the exact way that you're not supposed to stare at the sun.

He lifts his hand and reaches slowly upward with an extended finger.

The ball, still in a rapid spin, yet frozen in mid-air, comes undone and pelts the blond directly between the eyes. He goes to the ground and rolls onto his back, his scream slightly muffled by the hands now covering his face.

Exclaiming his name, the gray-haired man runs over to kneel and assist his partner.

Focused on tending to his friend, he is blissfully unaware when, under Haley's intense stare, his shoestrings loosen and then intertwine, lacing together.

"I think that's our point," says Haley.

The man clambers to a stand and starts off toward her with a warning, huffy "Why, you little..." before tripping and spilling to the ground like a freshly slingshotted Goliath.

The blond, a red burn at the center of his face, goes to help him, but his shorts sink quickly to his feet and he falls in a tangle to the green mat.

"That's set," says Kate.

"And match," says Haley.

They grasp hands in a high five and make their way to the fenced door.

As they exit the court, Haley shouts back to the groaning men, "And I would love to look like Serena! She's a goddamn Amazon!" Even after they've exited, Haley can still be heard shouting, "An Amazon!"

They've made it halfway into the main house when they run into Matt just outside of the kitchen, wearing a black apron, stamped with the country club's logo.

"Why are you--?" Haley begins before Matt raises a hand and cuts her off with a sharp breath.

"I went to the restaurant to sample their Chateaubriand," he says, pulling the apron strings over his head, "But someone mistook me for a waiter and one thing led to another, and I report for duty at 9 am."

Slinking down the hall to join them, Bev says, "That's really going to confuse your students."

"Where have you been?" Kate asks.

"That's what I wanted to talk to you guys about," she says.

Occasionally looking over her shoulder to ensure she's not being followed by any of the club's staff, Bev leads the coven to the rear section of the expansive building. Despite the recently watered ficuses, it doesn't appear as though this area of the club receives much visitation.

Taking another cursory look, Bev waves the witches into a room and closes the door behind her. Once she flicks the light on, an old ballroom comes into focus. The dusty, white grand piano, tucked in the room's corner, has uneven keys. The floor is cedar coated in a thoroughly scuffed varnish.

At the center of the room is a freshly painted and ornamented circle, surrounded in thick, off-white candles.

"You've been busy," Kate says.

"Since we got here, I've sensed a mass of souls, trapped just beneath the floorboards," says Bev.

"I felt it, too," says Matt, "I suspected it was just the unease that comes with being in a country club."

"There's that, too," Bev says.

Bev stomps on the floor and a chorus of weak groans ekes up, "That's at least 30? Maybe 40 unhappy ghosts." She locks eyes with Kate, hesitates for a moment, and says, "We have to do something."

Kate, all out of sighs for the day, brings her hands together and lets them go with a deep breath. "Okay," she says, "What do we do?"

There's no boom box available to blast "Wannabe" while they work, so their preparation lacks a distinct Spice, but they each have their jobs and they each complete them with an expected diminished enthusiasm.

Once Kate's finished lighting the candles, Haley flips the light switch and they take their positions.

Because it was her idea, Bev heads the ritual, and thus initiates the throaty, guttural chanting. As she nears the end, like a musical round, another witch starts from the beginning. And the cycle continues until, thrumming like a locust swarm, the coven is in overlapping cacophony.

As their chanting increases in volume and an impossible wind whips their hair to and fro, the candle flames grow into angry blazes. And in an instant, they extinguish.

And the room goes dark.

Then, suddenly, light returns as a host of faint, blue-white specters encircle the witches. As a few seconds pass and they regain more human forms, a great variety of age among them, the "Leader" of the group, a weathered man in an eagle feather-adorned headdress, nods to the coven. One by one, their forms dissipate. Soon, they've all faded, leaving one little girl, clutching a small toy bunny. She waves at the witches and too disappears.

The candles flicker back to life.

"So good of you to release them," Kate says, laying her hand on Bev's shoulder, "The afterlife will be kind to them."

"Right. Release," Bev says, tapping Kate's hand.

From outside of the ballroom there comes a scream. Looking a smirking Bev in the eyes, Kate pulls her hand away and makes for the door.

The chaos encapsulating the country club can be heard in its full intensity the moment Kate cracks the door open.

It's difficult to decipher exactly what is transpiring: a typhoon of well-clothed, well-fed patrons bounds in every direction. They wail and beg and stumble over each other, flown after by a roaring cavalcade of translucent figures.

The witches watch as the little girl who thanked them earlier flies through the bottom of a couple's table and into their roasted duck, chasing them with scornful, flailing drumettes as they scream for mercy.

Kate's face gets in the way of her palm.

"You know, I saw a hand sanitizer dispenser in the bathroom," says Matt, "Maybe this place isn't so bad after all."

#i'm sure i'll catch a bunch of typos and things i want to edit later #but here's snippet 3 #Bad Witches

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afandomroom · 4 years

Text

From the Shadows- Part 1

((Ooooh, wonder what this is???))

Several years into the future, Ninjago is at peace. All villainy, outside of typical crimes, has seemingly ceased. With the new age of peace, the ninja have not only settled down, but also extended their ranks. Old friends and reformed enemies became official members, and trainees were taken in. New teams were formed. The first, and currently only, of these teams is the “Shadow Squad”. At least, that’s what they like to call themselves. They’re led by a young man known as Marion Nettle, the current elemental master of fear and Morro's first student

The sound of two boys arguing shattered the morning silence. Marion sighed; this was the fifth time this week that the trainees had disagreed over something. Getting up from his meditating position, he opened the thin paper door and went to find the source of the yelling. Just a month prior, Lloyd had placed three young Elemental Masters in the care of Marion’s team. They were to train the kids both in their respective elements and the way of the ninja. Sadly, nothing Morro, Marion’s siblings, or the other ninja had taught him had prepared him for dealing with two boys who just couldn’t get along. If the trainees had been sent by Wu, Marion would have been convinced this was some sort of lesson. That there was a second meaning for him to learn. He didn’t know if it was better or worse that they were sent by Lloyd. Stepping into the courtyard, Marion spotted the cause of this morning’s ruckus. Damian Kieran, Master of Mind, and Jaxon Oak, Master of Nature, had gone from arguing to fighting, both tumbling around on the floor, trying to pin each other down. Watching from a far, timidly pleading with the boys to stop was Aurora Cyan, Master of Illusion. The master of fear sighed a second time, and walked over to the two boys. Noticing him, Aurora took step back, attempting to hide from view. Damian and Jaxon, however, continued fighting, seemingly not noticing Marion. “I think”, Marion started, separating the two boys, “That’s enough roughhousing for today guys”. Neither boy said anything, avoiding eye contact with each other. Marion could tell that some bruises would be forming, and both boys had various scratches and busted lips. Kneeling down next to their height, Marion spoke calmly. He wasn’t mad at them; he was just worried about all the fighting. “Alright, I want you two to go to Zoe. Ask them to take care of the bruises and such. Take some time to calm down, and then I want to talk about why you were fighting. Alright? You don’t have to apologize or make up; I just want to know what the problem was. “He looked at the two, waiting for a response. After a moment, they nodded, still avoiding eye contact. “Good,” Marion stood up, a warm smile on his face, “Go on, go see Zoe”. The boys mumbled quiet “yes sir”s before leaving. Exhaling, Marion turned, looking for Aurora. Instead of finding the young girl, he saw a taller, black haired man walking towards him. Calvin must have wanted to find out about the ruckus as well. Marion raised his hand in greeting, smiling brightly. “Hey Cal! Got the ruckus sorted out, hope Damian and Jaxon didn’t wake you up or anything” Calvin gave a small wave, yawning. His dark hair stuck up in several directions, confirming that he had in fact been woken up by the fighting boys. “‘Sup Red…nah, the…” He yawned, interrupting himself, “…The boys didn’t wake me up or anythin’.” The slightly shorter man chuckled, “Right Cal, sure they didn’t.” Calvin smiled, playfully punching his friend in the arm, “Shut up man.” Marion punched him back, laughing. This led to laughter filled play fighting between the two young men. Nothing serious, they were just messing around. Zoe had finished fixing up Damian and Jaxon, and had sent the boys to go get some breakfast with Aurora. Now, they watched their teammates play around in the courtyard, a small smile on their lips. It wasn’t a thought the team had often, but they were all lucky to be in this time. A time of peace, when the ninja were rarely called upon. Their job now was to teach the next generation, not fight villains every five seconds. This granted the team a life different from their predecessors. Of course they still trained often, keeping themselves in tip top shape. But they didn’t need to be on their toes, waiting on edge for another attack. The three of them could have moments like this, without worrying about wasted time. Zoe let out a small laugh when Marion finally managed to flip Calvin, who had the red haired man trapped in a light headlock, over his shoulder. Placing a foot on his fallen “foe’s” chest, Marion smiled triumphantly. “Take that, dark sorcerer, I have won this battle!” Calvin put on a bit of a ‘woe is me’ act, a stupid grin on his face. “Oh my, defeated by the Grey Ninja himself, and without the aid of his element! I’m a disgrace to the dark sorcerers!” After a moment of attempting to make serious faces, both young men broke into laughter. Marion reached out a hand to help Calvin up. As Calvin stood, Zoe walked over, smiling. “Wow guys, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a fight quite that spectacular!” Zoe giggled, as both men turned to them with sheepish smiles. Marion seemed to fall into a trance when he looked at Zoe, a barely noticeable blush coating his cheeks. “Well we’re glad we entertained you,” Calvin chuckled, nudging Marion when he noticed the trance, “Right red?” The nudge seemed to snap Marion out of it, a nervous chuckle escaping his lips. “Y-yeah, uhm” He cleared his throat, obviously embarrassed, “Glad we could k-keep you entertained, Zo.” Zoe giggled again, “Well, thank you. I’m gonna go brew some tea for the trainees. I’ll make some extra for us, ‘k?” They turned, leaving the boys to go to the kitchen. “Aight, thanks Zoe!” Calvin called after them with a small wave, before turning towards Marion with a smirk, “Y’ wanna remind me why you haven’t asked ‘em out yet?” “Wha-I don’t-I’m not-Zo is just- I-“The poor guy had turned as red as his hair as he stuttered through denying his feelings. Calvin just shook his head, laughing. “Dude, you’ve had a painfully obvious crush on ‘em for a while now, don’t bother denying it. “ Marion was quiet a moment, before mumbling, “It's not that obvious…..” Calvin smiled, “Sure it isn’t Red, sure it isn’t. C’mon, let’s get some tea ‘fore the trainees drink it all.” He slung an arm around his embarrassed friend’s shoulder, guiding him to the kitchen.

#Ninjago #From the Snadows #Ninjago ocs #Oc story

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lyricfulloflight · 5 years

Text

Rumour Has It: Part 2

A modern Cherik AU, powered, university setting.

If you haven’t read part one, here is a link:

https://lyricfulloflight.tumblr.com/post/188224206227/rumour-has-it

Tagging @gold-from-straw because she kindly asked to be tagged if I kept going. If anyone else wants to be tagged for future additions, let me know!

I will be focusing on my long WIP for the next little bit, so I don’t expect to update this ficlet series for at least a week - fair warning.

Rumour Has It - Part 2

Erik sat in his seat and groaned. He could not believe that Professor Garcia was going torture them this way. Group work. How could he do this? Erik had actually been enjoying this class until two minutes ago. Professor Garcia wasn’t a mutant, but he was married to one and had a mutant child, so he was very much aware of the struggles of mutants in society and was relatively sensitive in how he approached the topics covered in class. He also openly encouraged debate, which made class lively and far more interesting than it would have been in a traditional lecture format. But this, this was cruel.

“I am assigning everyone a random partner. And yes, before you all jump down my throat, the selections were totally random, I used a computer program. Your pairings are final. You will not change partners, I don’t care how much to plead with me about it. You will work on this assignment – together – for the rest of the year. It accounts for thirty percent of your grade, so this is not to be taken lightly. The list of pairings is right here -” Professor Garcia held up one sheet of paper, “and I will post it up front at the end of this class. Now, let’s talk about the Identification Act of 1985...”

Erik spent the rest of the class half listening to the professor and half absorbed in glancing around to look at all his classmates to try and figure out who would be the worst person to be paired up with. There were half a dozen humans in the class who had apparently signed up just to give speeches about how dangerous mutants were and how identification and separation was “essential for national security”. Erik wasn’t sure he could work on an assignment with one of them without it leading to him punching one of them in their smug human face. Otherwise, Erik figured one classmate was pretty much the same as any other. Regardless of who he was paired with, Erik refused to let this stupid group project bring down his grade point average.

The class ended with a rush of students clamoring to the front of the class to get a look at the list of student pairings. Erik sat at his spot and slowly loaded his notes into his backpack. There wasn’t any reason to rush – the list would still be there in five minutes when the crowd cleared, or his partner would find him before he even had to get up and look.

With his head bent over zipping up his bag, the first thing Erik heard was someone clearing their throat.

“Hello. I believe we’re partners.” Said a crisp British voice.

Erik leaned back slowly, something like dread curling in his stomach. He looked up at the man in front of him and found himself looking into the impossibly blue eyes of one Charles Xavier.

“You are Erik Lehnsherr, yes?”

“Yeah.” Erik spoke, determined to react normally – surely it couldn’t that bad to have been paired up with the most promiscuous man on campus. “That’s me.”

“I’m Charles, Charles Xavier.”

Charles held out his hand and Erik found himself reaching out, and having his hand grasped in a surprisingly firm grip.

“I think it best if we meet to talk about the assignment as soon as possible.” Charles continued. “I have to admit my schedule is quite full and it may be difficult for me to arrange time to meet with you if we don’t plan ahead.”

Erik bit the inside of his cheek to keep himself from making some sort of snarky comment about Charles ‘schedule’, which the majority of the university seemed to think involved enough sex for about three healthy young men, and instead nodded in agreement.

“I don’t have class until later this afternoon. We could go to the library now and sort something out, maybe pick our first topic from the list Garcia gave out?” Erik suggested.

“Excellent. I have about an hour before my next commitment.”

Erik found himself walking about a step behind Charles as they exited the classroom. Xavier was a startling fast walker and even though Erik had a good five inches on him at least, he found he had to consciously keep himself from falling behind the shorter man.

He was so focused on lengthening his stride to keep up with Charles, he almost ran right into him when the other man stopped abruptly only a few meters outside the humanities building.

“Found a new fuck, have we Charlie?” Sebastian Shaw’s voice dripped with contempt.

“If you’ll excuse us Sebastian, we were headed to the library.” Charles said blandly, head held high.

“You know he’ll have sex with anything that breathes, right Lehnsherr? If you want to join his pussy footed little Mutant Human Alliance, you don’t have to sleep with him, even though everyone knows he’s slept with the entire group.”

Erik glared at Sebastian but said nothing – there was nothing to say to his baseless accusations.

“Fine.” Sebastian shrugged. “Just wrap it up – who’s know what diseases Charlie has by now.”

Sebastian cackled as he walked away, waving his fingers in a jaunty fashion as if he was saying goodbye to a couple friends, not two people he’d just insulted.

Charles didn’t spare a second to look back at Sebastian, he simply soldiered on and Erik followed him in silence until they found an empty study room at the library.

“Does he do that a lot?” Erik asked.

“Hmm, what?” Charles frowned, apparently confused by Erik’s question.

“Shaw – does he go around saying shit about you all the time?”

“Oh, that.” Charles waved a hand dismissively. “Sebastian doesn’t like the fact that I run a Mutant Human Alliance – it clashes far too much with his ‘Brotherhood’ and their belief in mutant superiority. He likes to try to get back at me with petty insults.”

“He’s an asshole.” Erik grumbled. “And his ‘Brotherhood’ is practically a terrorist organization – their blog has a list of all the human politicians they’d like to ‘eliminate’.”

“I’m aware.” Charles sighed. “I feel the less attention I give Sebastian and his efforts, the better. Now, the assignment – was there a particular piece of legislation you wanted to look into first?”

Erik let his desire to dig into Sebastian’s insults about Charles’ sex life drop. It wasn’t really any of his business.

Working with Charles was nothing like Erik had thought it might be. Charles did not flirt – he didn’t so much as bat his eyelashes. He was completely professional and focused the entire hour they’d spent in the library.

It only took about five minutes for it to become clear that Charles was incredibly intelligent and well versed in mutant legislation. He also wasn’t afraid to voice his opinions, or disagree with Erik. They both agreed they wanted to pick the broad topic of ‘Mutant Identification and Suppression in the Education System’, but spent a good fifteen minutes arguing over which specific piece of legislation to analyze first.

Erik was impressed. A lot of people, well most people actually, backed down in the face of Erik’s tirades, but not Charles. In fact, he hadn’t missed a beat – he was ready with a calm rebuttal to every argument Erik offered. Erik finally, after much back and forth with Charles, compromised by agreeing to start with Charles’ top choice (the Dangerous Mutant Identification Act of 1999), but only after Charles explicitly agreed to end with Erik’s top choice (the Mutant Segregation Bill of 1961).

The meeting ended with a quick check of their schedules and a plan to meet every Tuesday for a brief face to face chat after class and to have a longer collaborative work session every Saturday morning.

Erik walked home feeling unexpectedly happy about the whole thing. It seemed that working with Charles was going to be fine, even if he was nothing at all like Erik had expected.

One might think a man described as the biggest slut on campus would look a certain way. Sean had asked if Xavier was pretty and… he was so much more than that, and yet also, strangely less. Today, he’d been wearing an oversized knit sweater, the type you might see a fisherman wear to keep out the cold, paired with rather ill-fitting corduroy pants. The entire ensemble did absolutely nothing to highlight Charles’ body; clearly he had a body somewhere under all that fabric, but Erik couldn’t have told you if he was thin, muscular, pudgy, or somewhere in between. Despite his complete lack of fashion sense, Xavier’s face more than made up for his clothing choices. His face… his face was achingly handsome. It wasn’t quite pretty, not with its slightly too large nose and the freckles, but it was somehow better because of its flaws.

No, Charles Xavier wasn’t pretty. But damn if Erik was going to tell Sean that Charles’ eyes practically glowed when he was talking about something that got him excited, or that his lips looked just as impossibly red up close as they did from across the room, or that he cheeks flushed an enchanting shade of pink when Erik had teased him about how many books he’d had stuff in his book bag. Erik wasn’t going to share any of that with Sean. Sean’s head would probably explode from excitement from the knowledge that Erik had been within five feet of the infamous Charles Xavier.

No, Erik thought, he’d just keep his newfound knowledge of Charles to himself. No need to add fuel to the already raging inferno that was the Charles Xavier rumour mill. How difficult could it possibly be to keep one little secret from his freshmen roommate?

#cherik #cherik fic #rumour has it #cherik univeristy au #lyric writes #lyric writes too many cherik fics at once #part 2

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tendertenebrosity · 5 years

Text

A short introspective bit before we get to the next part.

Previous parts one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine)

Lian curled up among their pillows, in their nightshirt, and stared at the book sitting at the foot of their bed as if it was a wild animal that might do something unpredictable.

The hour was late, and Lian was alone in their finely appointed bedchamber. If they opened the door and looked down the hall, they would doubtless see a guard; they didn’t look. The light of a single candle made shadows leap and flicker around the bright colours of their furnishings, the windows shut and curtains drawn closed against the night air.

They reached out with one bare slender arm, drew the book towards themself, and took out the letter that had been inside it. They could probably have already recited it from memory at this point, but they read it again as if it would say something different this time.

Esteemed Ruler,

I hope you will forgive my forwardness once again, but I have taken the liberty of selecting for you this small collection of poetry and songs from my personal library. Art has ever been a bridge of shared humanity across national divides, don’t you agree?

If you enjoy any of the pieces in this volume, I would honoured if you might return it to me in person, and we could speak further. I never tire of re-reading books, there is always something new to be found between old pages. Perhaps at the concert next week - although of course, you’re also welcome to keep the book until you have need of it.

Yours faithfully,

Rylior Silverquill

It was written in bold, forceful handwriting, on thin paper that had been scarcely noticeable tucked inside the front cover.

When Lian had returned to their bedroom after a long day, made no shorter but much calmer by the Empress’ absence, the book had been lying on their freshly made bed. Lian had flipped through it and it seemed to be exactly what it looked like, a slim volume of Elven poetry. Small enough that Lian could probably tuck it into the lining of their clothing and leave nobody the wiser, until it was time to hand it back to Silverquill.

Lian put the letter down and covered their face with their hands.

After they had fled the ambassador and returned to the gathering, Lian had felt sick over the magnitude of what they had done without even really thinking about it. Wasn’t this what they had prayed for? A lifeline? For somebody else, anybody else, to step in and oppose the Empress so that she didn’t have free reign to do whatever she wanted to Lian’s people?

And Lian had turned it down. They had run away. That might have been the right decision or might not, and they had agonised over that, but they would never know for sure because it had been made, it couldn’t be taken back.

Then tonight, this book had appeared.

And now the decision was back, they could make it over again, with as much time as they could want to think it over - and they were still just as frozen as they had been in the garden.

It was too much to hope for that Silverquill could get Lian out - not even worth considering. It wasn’t possible for him any more than it was for the resistance movement. But he had offered…

Lian played back his words in their mind. What do you need? What would help your people the most?

Lian had answers for those questions. The glaringly obvious and impossible, of course: we need the Empire to not be here anymore. Can you give us that? But real answers, too. We need to import more grain. We need to rebuild the bridges and docks that were destroyed in the fighting. We need the army to stop conscripting people for the work gangs, but I don’t know how you could help with that… the list went on.

Those problems were killing their people just as surely as the Empress’ soldiers. If Lian had any hope of achieving even one of those things with the ambassador’s help, they had to at least consider it, didn’t they? Otherwise they might as well not even be trying. They would be letting people die through their own inability to act.

Even if the elves were just playing some sort of political game, if it meant getting what they needed, Lian couldn’t afford to be picky.

Empress Elisandre was not back yet. She would be here tomorrow morning, and part of Lian thought they were an idiot to even be thinking about sending Silverquill a message when they didn’t know how she was going to react to Lian sneaking away from the dinner. They should be trying to come up with a plan for what they were going to say to her, instead. Not that plans would do much good.

If Lian wrote Silverquill a message and the Empress found out… They shuddered, wrapping their arms around themselves for comfort. She wouldn’t be above making whatever problem Lian asked for help with ten times worse. She would kill, torment, mutilate Lian’s palace staff. She had done it before, when all Lian had done was say a word in the wrong place or fail to achieve something. What would she do for outright trying to defy her?

“Nothing seems to motivate you quite like other people screaming, Lian dear,” she had said once, quite pleasantly. “It is admirable.”

Lian had no frame of reference for their own judgment anymore. Were they being overcautious, allowing their fear to rule them, letting their only precious chance of help slip through their fingers because they were a coward?

Or were they being reckless, moving too fast, too blinded by how bitterly lonely and overburdened they were to take the care they should with the great responsibility that they held in their hands?

Either possibility seemed plausible. Maybe even both at once. Lian wished they had someone else they could turn to for their opinion.

Resolutely they put the book and its letter under their pillow, blew out the candle, and lay back among embroidery and goose-down that didn’t feel like home, or safety, or comfort. They would keep the book close and see what tomorrow brought.

#ruler and empress #Lian #my stuff #not much happens in this one #just some worrying and wavering and wondering #Rylior

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paellaplease · 5 years

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Firebird | Chap.4

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7

Chapter 4: Seeker

Look for the truth where the past has buried it.

After exchanging a few more words with Kamori about her extended stay, the meeting concluded. Maiya bowed politely, bidding the two Ritos goodbye. Before she left, Kamori stopped her at the door, pressing an envelope to her hand. “Follow the address in this letter, my dear. The innkeeper there will take care of the rest. Winds be fair to you, hoo.”

Maiya returned his smile, touched at his grandfatherly kindness. Her eyes briefly lingered on Revali's burnt feather before she turned away, the guilt she felt at indirectly hurting him still caught in her throat.

She avoided Talako’s wary gaze as she stepped out of the hut, not wasting any time in making a hasty exit. One foot after another, careful not to trip, she descended the many village stairs.

The young Enchanter released the breath she was holding as she cleared two levels. “So that happened,” She said aloud. The anxiety was creeping back in. Her heart felt like a butcher’s mallet. Thump! Thump! Thump! If her chest was a piece of meat, it would be well tenderised by now.

First order of business. She needed paper and a messenger pigeon-person-thing...Whatever they used in this village. Chief Kamori already assured her that a missive would be sent to her mentor’s private letter box first thing tomorrow morning explaining the whole situation. However, she knew that she needed to write to her mentor separately. Relaying whatever she can in great detail was of utmost importance if she wanted even a smidgen of a chance of surviving the Sheikah’s ire.

Calm...calm. I am calm.

Teacher was going to kill her!

Round and down she went, lost in her thoughts but aware enough to dodge around a yellow Rito child that was playing tag along the railing. Opening the note, she followed the address written at the top in Kamori’s cursive. That’s a lot of levels down . Nodding to herself, she increased her walking speed, making her way towards her accomodations for the next few weeks.

The inn was located only a floor above the village’s main entrance, making it one of the first things travellers would see when they arrived. Like most structures situated around Valoo’s Spire, a flat platform jutted out from its doors, connecting the main arterial staircase to the wooden, circular, double-story building that was Rito Village’s one and only inn.

The building exterior was painted a deep red, with white curtains billowing from its many open windows. Planter boxes were hung up along the railings of the second floor, pink daphnes and other winter blooms peeking from their containers.

Another staircase, though this time shorter and much more narrow with steps worn from years of use, ran flush along the inn’s side. Maiya theorised that it supposedly gave customers a means of accessing their rooms without having to pass through the reception area. That said, she was unpleasantly surprised to find that whilst most rooms were situated at the building’s second floor, the inn still offered beds on the first. In its lobby.

...

What?

Eyebrow raised at the arrangement, Maiya tiptoed past sleeping travellers and made her way to the front desk. Tourist season must be in full swing, with most of the beds filled and a small sign above the front desk announcing a limited vacancy. A customer’s snores echoed from the corner.

This is, um, unpleasant. She thought. But arguably not as bad as when Uncle Rohan had to crash at the forge after he and Teacher had too much to drink. Maiya grimaced at the memory. That Goron blacksmith’s snores were loud enough to wake Death Mountain...but I still wouldn’t complain if this place offers earbuds.

A burgundy Rito with a short side braid and golden hooped earrings smiled sunnily as she approached. “Welcome to Swallow’s Roost,” she whispered.

Maiya mumbled a shy ‘hello’ back. She set her pack down and fished out her identification papers and coin purse. A leaf flew out of her open wallet. Oh damn. It was then that the Hylian realised, with much embarrassment, just how filthy she was from weeks of travel. The quick wash at the stables that morning took care of most of the grime, but her travel pack was still covered in mud and leaves. From the moment she entered the inn, she was already tracking dirt on the massive blue circular rug that covered most of the wooden flooring.

I am the queen of good first impressions.

“I would like to book one of your beds until the Winter Solstice, please.” Maiya said, glancing at an open bed warily, noting the thin divider between it and the traveller sleeping a few steps away.

“Not a problem, but you won’t be placed in any of the ones down here, that is, unless you really want to,” The innkeeper said. She giggled at Maiya’s confused expression. “My apologies, let me clarify. These beds are reserved for single day travellers.”

From out of nowhere, the innkeeper pulled out a graph. It was framed, hitting the table with a dull thud . She grabbed a piece of charcoal to the side and pointed to a random line. “See here?” Maiya nodded, not sure what she was seeing. “We noticed that many visitors of our village have been on the road for quite a while and simply needed a place to rest for a few hours. By implementing this we’ve Roost Boosted our business by 15%!” The Rito grinned proudly. “It’s our solution for the short-stay traveller without breaking the bank!”

Not one to be rude, Maiya replied. “That makes sense.” So I’m not sleeping in the lobby? Nice.

The innkeeper didn’t even try to hold back an amused laugh at Maiya’s expression. “Ha! Relieved now, aren’t you? You’re adorable. My name is Cheska by the way, owner of this lovely establishment. I’m guessing you’re also on the search for a warm bath and a good meal?”

“And the softest bed you got,” Maiya said, recalling the difficult evening she had the night before.

“You’re at the right place, have you heard of our world famous Rito down-beds? Of course you have. Let’s sort you out!”

The room was sparsely decorated in a cosy sort of way. The place was free of knick-knacks or paintings, and it soon became obvious that everything there was there for a purpose.

On the right was a double bed and a wooden chest sitting at its foot- open, unlocked and empty. Opposite this, to the far left of the room, was a small fireplace. Stocked with logs, it was ready to be lit to ward against the later evening chill.

Maiya pulled the cloth door further, stepping over the threshold. On the wall directly across from her was a window. The surrounding waters of Lake Totori and the leafy green Tabantha forests were visible from within its four corners. To Maiya's relief a writing desk was positioned beneath it, paper, inkwell and quill already supplied. Her mentor wouldn't have to wait too long for a response.

The place felt untouched, as if frozen in time since the last tenant vacated. She liked it. It smelt like honey and sage.

“Forgive us for the dust,” she heard Cheska say. The Rito swiped a few feathers on the top of the window sill, frowning at the dirt that came off it. “It has been a while since anyone’s set foot into this room. Would have offered one of our vacant newer ones too, but Chief Kamori suggested in the note that you could stay here.”

“Where’s the original owner?” Maiya asked.

“They left many years ago, when I was just a chick. Mama was the innkeeper at that time as I was still too young to learn the ropes.” Cheska tilted her head, earrings glinting. “I can’t really remember their face, but my ma described them as always a bit intense. 'Too many eggs in one basket makes a person go crazy, Ches!’ She would say. Whatever that means.” The Rito wiped her wing on her apron. “Wonder if that’s why they left, huh?”

Maiya racked her brain for something to say, “Uh…”

“Anywho! Communal baths are a Spire floor up. Complimentary soap from the front desk will be handed out if you remember to cheer 'Swallows Roost Boost!' Oh! And clap twice. Don't forget that. That's very important."

She felt a headache creeping up. "Is it really?"

"Nope." Cheska grinned. "But it’d still be a good idea to have a wash before you knock-out for the day. Sorry to say it, hylianlla , but you stink!"

The young Enchanter worked quickly to acclimate herself to her new surroundings. Whilst this was the first time she’d travelled so far outside Akkala, she knew it would be smart to be curious and observant. Everyone had their patterns, and the Ritos were no exception to this. Much like it did with enchanting, figuring out how things worked early around these parts was going to do her a lot of good in the long run. And not making a fool of herself by missing simple social cues was always a plus.

Day one was when Maiya realised that Rito Village rose before the sun. The smell of freshly baked bread and the sounds of haggling at the markets began as early as the crack of dawn. Sitting on the railing just outside her room and picking apart her mandarin, she also found that some fruits tasted better here.

She swung her feet. The cool mountain breeze and view were enough to brave the drop, and she surprisingly found herself at relative peace as she finished her meagre breakfast. It was a big change from earlier that morning.

Maiya had awoken before first light, bleary eyed from another nightmare she couldn’t quite remember. Walking outside to catch her breath, she spotted a squadron of warrior Ritos flying overhead in the early twilight. She’d nearly called out and waved to them, doubtful that they would hear her anyway, but thought better of it when she caught the familiar sight of blue amongst their ranks.

The Hylian exhaled, tilting her face to the warming sunlight. Watching the sky now, about three hours afterwards, she saw a dull orange Rito depart from one of the upper floors, flying in the same direction towards the mountains. She wondered if they were a warrior too.

She bit into her fruit, chewing somberly. A warrior. She was supposed to find a worthy warrior. But how could she now when the dagger rejects one of the best fighters this village could offer?

Perhaps I have to look harder.

Maiya closed her eyes, the rune on her hand aching. "Where do I even start?"

On the list of tasks to complete whilst she was here, another began to weigh heavily on her mind. She remembered that Teacher said this was her opportunity to gather more information for her studies. Where books on Ancient Weaponry were limited, tomes on Enchanting were extremely rare. Most were burned, buried or lost to time when the Sheikah were subdued 10,000 years ago.

Enduring information survived in bits and pieces, some being handed down by word-of-mouth through stories and secrets. Whilst this worked to protect knowledge, it made finding consistent techniques difficult. And with all known Enchanters aside from her and Teacher either lost, dead, or in hiding, finding instruction beyond her mentor’s library and her mentor herself felt almost impossible.

Feeling hopeless, Maiya stared at the new glove which covered her left hand, lifting it so that the eye-shaped scar underneath would be at level with her own. The rune was quieter today. She turned her hand, examining the neat seams at its sides and the small tufts of feathers which cushioned her palm. The fit was perfect. She wondered how much study and practice it would take to make something this good.

A memory of one of her Teacher’s lectures came to mind.

“Most Enchanters encountered in legend are Sheikah, however this does not mean that they are the only beings with an aptitude to enchant. ” Her mentor’s voice echoed in her head. She could visualise the moment easily, see the tall woman in a dark hood pace the room, her long pendant of a weeping eye lightly swinging.

“In fact, were it not for the Goron People in Eldin and the teachings they kept of their late-Enchanters, I would have never fully mastered the flame for my first weapon. Hence, I would have never become Enchanter were it not for me seeking their guidance. We are nothing without the teachings of others.”

“I am nothing without the teachings of others.” Maiya repeated, words eaten up by the cloudless sky.

All of Teacher’s old books said that the Hebra Highlands were the original birthplace of ice enchantments. Rito Village, with its close proximity and history of keeping physical records, was her best bet in finding actual information regarding Ice Enchanting or even runes if she were lucky. She needed something , whether it be a book or an old myth. Anything to lead her in the right direction for her research. And she had no idea where to start.

Questions, questions…

“Why so glum, hylianlla? ”

“Shit!” Maiya jumped, dropping her fruit, she tipped forward, body seconds from falling into the waters below.

“Woops! Hold on there.” A wing reached to grab the collar of her jacket, pulling her backwards.

The young woman fell onto the wooden decking behind her. She groaned, rubbing her back as she rolled and stood up gingerly. Familiar burgundy feathers, braids, and now silver triangular earrings met her gaze. “Good morning Cheska, nice earrings. Please don’t do that again.”

The Rito looked slightly apologetic, tossing her mop’s handle from one wing to another. “I’m sorry for that, you see I was just cleaning out the room next door- terrible stuff really, the man left a smell that you can’t just scrub out- when I saw you sitting here all sad looking and lonesome.” She looked a bit bashful. “I was going to leave you to your thoughts, but then you said something ominous out loud and my curiosity got the best of me.”

Note to self, don’t repeat Teacher’s top ten quotes in public.

Cheska continued, “Were you thinking hard? I don’t think you blinked once. You looked like you were trying to set something on fire with your eyes.”

Maiya laughed dryly. “Would you believe me if I said you were not the first one to tell me this?”

The Rito’s curious teal eyes seemed to gleam even brighter. Those apparently were the wrong words to say if she wanted the feathered woman to leave. If she didn’t before, Maiya well and truly had Cheska’s attention now.

The innkeeper placed the mop she was holding to the side, and with a flap of her wings was over the railing and seated next to Maiya as if she’d been there the whole time. “Alright! What ails you on this fine morning, little traveller?”

Maiya sighed. Might as well . “Is there a place here that stores information?”

“Depends,” Cheska said, holding up three feathers, lowering them with each suggestion as she ticked off a mental checklist. “Fifth floor we have a library for general stuff. Cookbooks, numeracy and literacy texts, some basic readings on science. The elders use it as a resource in the syllabus for the young’uns.”

“If you want some political and business advice, or a long winded talk on our current economics, then ask Chief Kamori how his day is going. Don’t get me wrong, I love our fearless leader, but he needs to get out more.”

“How about old information? Like old history?” Maiya tried.

“Old history, huh?” Cheska went quiet for a moment, looking at the final feather she held up. “Then you should definitely see Honoka in the Archives. She knows heaps about old teachings. More than anyone else in our little llaqta. Got a whole collection on dead languages and legends not even Old Man Yieni would tell- not that he does much storytelling anymore but I digress!”

Sounds promising . Maiya smiled. “I think that’s it, Cheska.”

“Is it really? Oh, I’m happy to have helped. It’s the fourth level from the top by the way! Might be a difficult climb, for a Hylian I mean. A lot of stairs. Don’t get too winded on your way up. Take your time.” She pushed off the railing, flapping her wings and hovering in the air. “You don’t owe me anything by the way. Just maybe let me know if you find something interesting. Actually, definitely let me know if you find something interesting.”

“You’ll be one of the first,” Maiya said, pushing off from the railing she was leaning on. “Thank you, Cheska. For the help and the directions.”

“Not to worry, Miss Maiya!” She did a somersault in the air, and dipped down past her sight. A few seconds later she resurfaced, picking up her mop and buckets with her talons. “Oops forgot these! The things a girl would do to get some good gossip around here. Good luck, hylianlla! You’ll need it! ”

Maiya took Cheska’s advice, ascending the spire whilst taking time to enjoy the village with a more wakeful and less anxious mind than the one she had yesterday. A range of colourful shops and little wooden houses were found on every level. It was refreshing to see how open everything was. Doors were mostly long pieces of cloth, rolled up to air out the home and let the wind in. Children ran to and fro, some who were old enough to fly zipping around the clotheslines. There was so much laughter in the air. Their elders sat and gossiped on the front porch, a few leaning out their windows or resting in their rocking chairs.

It was loud, full of energy, and Maiya loved it.

There’s an antique store on this level. The pottery is so beautifully shaped! Are those little clay wings?

A jewellry shop. The fine details are so exquisite! I wonder how they got the metal to bend like that without snapping?

A tavern! I’ve never been to a tavern before!

Distracted by the sights, it took her an extra few minutes to reach her destination.

Meeting the Head-- and only-- Archivist of Rito Village, Master Honoka, was, well for lack of a better word, interesting. A security gate behind the main cloth door rattled and shook as the Rito Elder unlocked it, pulling it back in a single motion. She peered at Maiya through the thick glasses which rested at the top of her beak, cautiously taking in the appearance of the small human woman who awkwardly stood at her doorway. Even whilst leaning on an ornate silver cane, the Rito stood three heads taller, practically towering over her. “Unfortunately, we don’t take walk-ins,” the old woman said. Her voice was intelligent, educated, and extremely tired.

“I’m not here to sight-see,” Maiya said. “Are you...are you the Archivist?” She shuffled in place, willing herself not to stare at her shoes. “If so, nice to meet you. Do you have any texts on arcane weaponry? Something that mentions blue-energy, or ice magic?”

Master Honoka expression softened, but her grip on the gate did not waver. “I’m sorry, hylianlla , but the Archives do not welcome tourists anymore. If you wanted to know how to make ice arrows however, I suggest you see the bowyer a level down. Though don’t get his shop mixed up with the blacksmith’s, that bird is a gruff one. Now have a good day.” She shuffled back, pulling the gate to shut her out.

Her rune flashed. “Wait!” Maiya said, unsheathing the flame dagger. Its orange gleam was as bright as ever, catching the morning light. Her hands shook minutely as she presented it in front of her in a nervous hurry.

Perhaps shoving a knife with little explanation in front of an elderly lady was a bad idea, she thought. Honoka’s eyes widened, a small gasp escaping her beak. She gripped her cane tightly. Maiya’s gloved hand warmed. She panicked, wondering if it was going to hit her. However, as the Elder advanced, her eyes caught the light of the red flame, feeling the radiant heat which ran under the metal of the dagger. The rito stopped, eyes widening in recognition. “Enkantada,” Honoka whispered.

In an instant, the door was pushed back. Maiya jumped as a wing wrapped around her wrist, quickly pulling her into the hut.

Immediately, the familiar smell of dust and books filled her senses. Maiya blinked, looking up. All around her, covering the walls and reaching the ceiling, were shelves upon shelves of precious books.

The collection was massive .

Maiya gasped. A part of her, the giddy childlike excitement at discovering something new, jumped for joy. It’s like she was standing in the middle of a perfect storm. Some books were hardbound, the titles on many of their spines in languages she’d never heard of before. Others were nothing but just paper and twine, on the verge of falling apart and standing on their last legs. She saw books with paper backs, and books wrapped in animal skins. The top of her banada felt warm, with beams of white, dusty daylight shining from the oculus above her.

Someone cleared their throat. Maiya whirled around. The elderly rito stood only a few steps away, cane outstretched. The metal stick nudged at the arm which held the dagger, lifting it up higher to the dusty light that filtered in from the glass ceiling.

“Who are you?” Honoka said, cautious yet not unkind. She reached for a dial at the side of her glasses, turning it. The lenses on her spectacles moved and folded into a focal point, magnifying her vision. She leaned forward, examining the dagger with a critical eye. “An Enchanter? I can’t believe it. I thought there was only one of you left.”

Maiya’s shoulders sank, sinking the dagger back into its sheath. “Two now, actually. I was only given the title a few weeks ago. I’m sorry for the confusion.”

“It’s no trouble, dear,” Honoka said. “I apologise as well, we’ve had an issue the past few months with thieves. The Yiga Clan have been pretending to be travelling scholars looking for precious, old books in our collection. We’ve lost many in the past month and I didn’t want to take the risk.”

“That sounds terrible.”

“It is,” Honoka said, looking close to tears. She sniffed, squaring her shoulders. “Nevermind that. What brings you here, Young Enchanter?

“I’m learning how to enchant Ice Weapons. Someone told me that you’re a collector of old knowledge.”

“I’m a historian and archivist, enkantada. Not an antiquarian. However, yes, I believe I might have something along those lines. And who was this Rito that directed you here?”

“The innkeeper.”

Master Honoka sighed, taking her glasses off and rubbing her head. “Of course it was Cheska. That girl never has the sense to not stick her beak where it doesn’t belong, especially if she can get a story out of it.”

“Do you know her?”

The old rito hobbled to the middle of the room, cane glinting in the early afternoon light. “She’s my niece.” She tapped her cane to the ground, giving the floor two experimental wacks.

Maiya stood to the side, not quite sure what was going on anymore. “Uh...what are you doing?”

The Archivist raised her cane over the floor once again, stabbing its end into a barely noticeable hole in the planks. She twisted the cane and stepped back, lifting up a long piece of floorboard. It came away easily, nailed-in less tight in comparison to the others.

Underneath there seemed to be a deep gap in the floor, holding what looked like four mysterious rectangular stacks.

Maiya bent down to get a better look. The inside was dusty, probably from having not seen the light of day in several years. As she moved closer, she realised that the stacks she saw were actually books, all faded and leather bound.

“Many years ago,” Honoka said, looking down at the cobweb covered tomes. “I was asked to burn these. Me, being the stubborn woman I was back then, followed my heart and decided to hide them instead.”

“Why?”

“Knowledge is never supposed to be destroyed,” she said, looking at Maiya seriously. “We should not fear mistakes nor the things we don’t fully understand. If we did, then we would never learn from our shortcomings and continue making regretful decisions.” She turned away, walking towards a back room. “I will be in my study, the tomes are free for you to peruse. Let me know if you don’t understand anything, I have a few cipher guides you might find useful.”

“Thank you, oh wait!” Maiya couldn't help her curiosity. “Who asked you to burn them all those years ago?”

Honoka paused before she closed the door. Her back was turned, the intricate weaving and patterns of her multicoloured shawl contrasting with the pale peach-almost white of her feathers.

“It was the King of Hyrule, young Enchanter.”

#revali #botw #breath of the wild #revali x oc #loz botw #legend of zelda #botw fanfiction #revali botw #rito #rito botw #botw fic #fanfiction #writing #enemies to friends to lovers #paellaplease #firebird botw #maiya botw

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jennywritesfanfic · 4 years

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like a hurricane (billy hargrove x reader)

Summary: (SMUT) Billy is the hot new guy with a bad reputation and you’re right in cross-hairs.

daddy kink, car sex, rough sex

CH.1

Sometimes you wished you could go back to an earlier, easier time way before Billy Hargrove had ever stepped foot in Hawkins; other times you wondered how you managed to trudge through a life so dull, so unexciting as the one you led before he did.

***

Gym was your least favorite class — followed closely by algebra, but at least you had Nancy to help you get through that one. In gym you were all alone, mostly overlooked by the jocks and never really fitting in with the popular girls though they weren’t overtly mean to you. The one saving grace that prevented gym class from being completely awful was that the teacher never picked on you and you could get away with the minimal amount of effort you were willing to put in.

On Thursdays you had gym in the morning, so you were extra lazy as a precaution against any sweating that might ruin your hair or your perfume. When you walked out of the locker room, clad in a gray t-shirt that hugged your chest nicely and a pair of green running shorts that seemed a whole lot shorter than they did a couple years ago, you saw the rest of the class crowded together in the center of the gym.

“Hey, what’s going on?” you asked one of the friendlier popular girls who was on the outskirts of the circle.

She leaned closer to whisper, “It’s the new guy, take a look.”

You weaseled your way up to the front where the teacher was giving some half-assed speech about basketball and that’s when you saw him. He was standing nonchalantly with his hands in the pockets of his gym shorts, and you couldn’t help but let your eyes wander up his tanned, muscular arms that he obviously devoted a lot of time to. His hair grazed his shoulders, your initial ‘oh god, he has a mullet’ turned into ‘oh god, he has a mullet’. He caught you staring and met your gaze — fuck — you quickly turned your head as if something else has caught your attention. Out of the corner of your eye you could see a slow smirk break across his face and you were certain your cheeks were simply glowing by now.

Gym went by without much of a hitch. The girls were all obviously distracted, watching the new guy score basket after basket. The guys, on the other hand, exchanged disgruntled glares every few seconds which you couldn’t help but find funny. The real trouble started when out of nowhere the bright orange ball was coming right at you and you had no choice but to reach out and catch it. You whipped your head around — you didn’t even know who was on you team, never mind what the hell you were supposed to do now that you had the ball.

“Let me take that, doll,” a rough, low voice said and before you knew it the ball was snatched out of your hands.

It was the new guy; you stood awestruck and mildly annoyed as he tossed it up to land another basket just as the teacher blew the whistle that signaled class was over. You could hear a few of the other girls snickering behind you when the new guy turned to you, running a hand through his curly hair.

“I didn’t get your name,” he flashed a movie star slick smile.

You rolled your eyes on instinct, “Well it’s certainly not ‘doll’.”

He laughed in a way that was both warm and disconcerting, “I’m Billy. I’m sure we’ll see each other around.”

“I wouldn’t put money on it,” you called as you had already begun to make your way back to the girls’ locker room.

When you walked inside you could feel the eyes of every girl in there on you. A few whispered to each other, but you ignored them and changed quickly into your jeans and shirt.

***

You managed to get to your next class, algebra, right on time and plopped down in your usual seat next to Nancy. Mr. Ackerson began to drone on about exponents or something when you saw Nancy scribbling one a scrap of paper. Eyes forward you reached your hand into the aisle between desks and felt her deposit the now-folded note into your palm.

You opened it in your lap, safely hidden below your desk:

Something happened in gym? Heard from Stacy. New guy is kinda hot!

Posing as if you were taking fastidious notes you penneda reply:

Seems like he might be a douche — hard to tell. Definitely a big flirt. Never knew you were into mullets…

You handed the note to Nancy, who you heard stifling a laugh seconds later. Her next note read:

Give him a chance and play along. Let yourself have a little fun.

Maybe you should let yourself go for once. There was no harm in flirting, anyway, and it had been awhile since any of the guys at Hawkins High even made you blush.

***

The rest of the day was perfectly average: you went to english and history, ate lunch with Nancy and Jonathon, and had almost forgotten about the gym class incident when you strolled into your last class of the day. Physics wasn’t your strongest subject, but you did well enough, and Mr. Clarke was just about the nicest teacher you’d ever had. You exchanged friendly smiles as you took your seat, nestled in the back corner near a huge window that looked out on the parking lot. It was good for daydreaming, people watching, or even dozing off since you were out of Mr. Clarke’s usual line of sight. There was also the fact that your lab partner, Danny, had been out for a week with mono and probably wouldn’t be back anytime soon. It sounded kind of mean, but you had to admit his absence meant you were free of any distractions.

The rest of the class shuffled in and Mr. Clarke began drawing something that looked like a large magnet on the chalkboard. When he turned around you saw his eyes focus on something behind you.

Before you could move to see what it was Mr. Clarke glanced at the attendance and said, “Billy Hargrove?”

Holy shit.

“In the flesh,” said the same low voice that had chided you during gym.

Mr. Clarke grinned, “Why don’t you take the seat beside Y/N,” he motioned towards me, “Seeing as she’s missing a lab partner.”

You’re whole body tensed as Billy slid luridly onto the stool next to you. You ignored him, staring intently at Mr. Clarke without hearing a word he was saying. Billy’s eyes were on you and you could feel it.

“Y/N, Y/N, Y/N,” he purred almost inaudibly, “Pretty name.”

“Thanks,” you said, unable to think of a witty remark to fire back with. Despite your best efforts you were flustered; thinking of Nancy’s note from earlier wasn’t helping.

“Are you hot for this old man or something?” Billy said, still keeping his voice quiet enough that the people around you couldn’t hear — not that it kept them from looking. Practically every girl, and most of the guys in the room glanced at the two of you periodically.

You turned your head to look at Billy, “Excuse me?”

“It seems like you can’t take your eyes off him,” he was obviously pleased with your reaction, the sly smirk tugging at his lips gave him away.

You adjusted on your stool in a way that you knew might emphasize your best features and said, “Well, I’m not looking at him now.”

Play along. You let yourself take in Billy’s leather jacket, his dark jeans that were tight in all the right places, even the thin sliver of skin visible where his shirt was unbuttoned much further than necessary.

His eyes widened momentarily before narrowing again to hide his surprise. “How about you let me give you a ride,” he paused a second too long, “home.”

You were shocked, Nancy was right after all, Billy was flirting with you. You realized you were taking too long to answer and Billy had furrowed his brow. “Uh, no thanks,” you said suddenly, “I have plans.” It wasn’t a lie, you did have plans to babysit, but that wasn’t until seven.

“Another time then,” he said. His voice was soft, but something in it seemed to sent a shock of electricity down your spine.

CH.2

“You said ‘no thanks’?” Nancy said, a look of disbelief on her face.

You shrugged, “I don’t actually want to hook up with him.”

“Y/N, saying ‘sure, you can drive me home’ isn’t the same thing as saying ‘take me now!’”

You couldn’t help but laugh at her ridiculous impression of you. She was right, but the way Billy had asked you, you had a feeling there was a little more on the table than just a lift home. Or maybe you were just reading too far into things. You had gone over the conversation once or twice in your head last night, but it didn’t bring you any more clarity. He was attractive, sure, but there was something that made him feel like bad news.

Hawkins High came into view and Nancy sprinted across the parking lot to greet Jonathan with a hug. You continued toward the building when you heard the sound of someone revving their engine closely followed by a sight previously unseen at Hawkins. A dark Camaro parked abruptly and your heart dropped when Billy emerged from the driver’s side, slamming the door behind him. He looked at you and winked, making you suddenly very aware of your own movements.

You had half a mind to go over there and say something, but just as the thought crossed your mind you saw Carol Jenson walk out from the other side. She said something to Billy, giggled, and turned to walk over to a group of girls a few spots away. You opened your mouth slightly in disbelief, tucked a strand of hair behind your ear in an attempt to collect yourself, and hurried into the building.

***

You stood at the edge of the court, pretending to care about who had the ball, and avoided looking at Billy. He was shirtless — of course he had to take his shirt off right now, you thought. The other girls in the class were all over him, shouting for him to pass to them, flashing enthusiastic grins, most of them wearing their tightest, shortest gym clothes. All you could think about was Carol Jenson — fucking Carol Jenson of all people — stepping out of Billy’s car all smug and beautiful. Had they spent the night together? What had they been doing in that car before driving to school? You hated where your mind was wandering, but you couldn’t bring yourself to rein it in.

You snuck a sidelong glance at Billy; he was fit, there was no denying that. You pictured him spending his free afternoons in the weight room, long hair slightly damp, eyes hardened in concentration. Oh fuck, you had a thing for Billy fucking Hargrove. The realization hit you like a brick wall. At almost the exact same moment you heard the crack of thunder followed by the light, constant sound of rain hitting the gym roof.

The teacher’s whistle echoed throughout the large room and everyone broke into chatter. You kept your eyes on the floor as you walked towards the locker room.

“Hey,” Billy’s voice called out from behind you.

You turned your head, making sure to keep your expression neutral, “Yeah?”

“I’m giving you a ride today,” he took a step closer and leaned in a little so his face was only a foot away from yours, “and you’re not allowed to say no.”

You couldn’t help it, you smiled ever so slightly, “If it’s still raining, sure. If not, no deal.”

He bit his bottom lip like he was thinking over a serious proposal, “Fine, you drive a hard bargain, Y/N.”

Once in the locker room you started to picture Carol Jenson again, and all the things she and Billy might have done last night, or this morning, or whenever. It made you feel grimy and kind of anxious, but you pushed the thoughts away.

***

When you told Nancy about the agreement in algebra her eyes nearly popped out of her head. Unfortunately Carol sat two seats behind you, so you had to be extra discreet when you told Nancy about what you had seen this morning. You could see Billy’s hands on her hips, her thighs, while she tangled her hands in his hair. Jealousy and insecurity washed over you in equal measure. God, you hated feeling this way especially when you knew getting involved with Billy just meant subjecting yourself to even more of it in the future.

The debacle of you and Billy Hargrove took up the entire conversation at lunchtime. Granted, Nancy did most of the talking while you and Jonathan exchanged exhausted looks once in awhile.

“She hasn’t been with anyone since she ended it with Matt,” Nancy said to Jonathan who just nodded, “Right?” now she was looking at you.

“Right. I really needed the reminder, Nance,” you rolled your eyes. You weren’t one to sleep around really, but you weren’t a prude either and the last three months since splitting with Matt had felt like ages.

“I’m just saying, that hair screams good in bed,” she whispered, patting Jonathan on the arm and muttering, “Sorry.”

“More like good in the backseat of a musty car,” you scoffed, thought didn't totally disagree. You hadn’t been thinking about it before, but now that Nancy mentioned it, you couldn’t help but wonder.

***

You were getting ahead of yourself, you thought, as you took your time walking to Physics. You have better things to worry about than some new guy with a perm. Taking your seat by the window you could see that the rain was still coming down in sheets. You had a good view of the dark Camaro, which served both as an unpleasant reminder of this morning’s incident and as a more pleasant one that you would be riding shotgun in only an hour. You didn’t know if it was just jealousy, or curiousity, or pure boredom that was driving you to Billy. Maybe it was the part of you that, as Nancy put it, just wanted to let yourself have a little fun.

All of the sudden you realized class was fully in session and Billy had just sat down next to you.

“I said, hey,” he was obviously repeating himself, but you couldn’t remember him saying anything before.

“Hey, sorry, I was just spacing out for a minute,” you laughed, but it came out painfully awkward. You opened your notebook to a blank page and tried to catch up with what Mr.Clarke had written on the board.

“Maybe you were thinking about what all that rain means,” Billy murmured, not looking at you but pretending to listen to the lesson.

You felt your face get warm and you shifted around in your seat a little, “Walking home in this would be hell, I guess.”

“Exactly,” Billy drew out each syllable in a way that was oddly hypnotizing. You sucked on your lower lip and braved a glance in his direction. He met your eyes instantly and you gave him a tight-lipped smile, attempting to diffuse any tension. It felt like everything he did, everything he said exuded a kind of smooth, sexual energy.

Mr. Clarke was talking at a mile a minute and you knew he wouldn’t call you out on anything, so you decided to take a risk. “How’s Carol?” you muttered, staring intently at your notes.

Billy looked up, his face contorted in confusion, “How’s what?”

“Carol,” you said, already regretting what you had said. You didn’t want to upset him, you had the feeling he had a short temper.

Billy laughed, the same warm honeyed laugh you’d been replaying in your head since yesterday. “I wouldn’t know,” he said calmly.

You didn’t know what to say. The hint of a grin on his face and the easy way he had brushed off your question suggested nothing had happened, but then what was he doing driving her to school? You had heard the rumors, everyone was saying they had fucked in the backseat or that she had blown him in a parking lot or whatever. “People talk, you know,” you said, only half joking.

“People can talk all fucking day if they want to,” he raised his voice slightly, making you tense up.

The final bell couldn’t have come at a better time. You breathed a sigh of relief and packed up your things. Billy slung his bag over his shoulder and ran a hand through his dirty blonde hair, seemingly composing himself. “Come on, doll,” he said.

You were flustered by the pet name, but not as opposed to it as you were yesterday. You mentally chastised yourself for being such a pushover and followed Billy through the halls out to the parking lot.

By the time you reached his car you were both soaking wet. Once inside you peeled off your damp sweater to reveal the dry tank top you had on underneath. You knew Billy was watching you, so you took your time adjusting and taking in the new environment.

The interior was black leather, all very clean, and it smelled heady and almost woodsy. It was pleasant, especially with the white noise of rain battering the windows. “Nice car,” you commented, your eyes finally landing on Billy.

He looked like the living embodiment of sin with his wet hair pushed back off of his forehead. He had removed the leather jacket and had his shirtsleeves rolled up so you could follow the dark veins of his forearms. “Wait ‘till you see how it drives,” he laughed and switched on the radio. It was some rock song with heavy drums and lots of guitar riffs, he turned it down enough so that you could talk.

Once you told him where you lived and got on the main road he sped up to well over the speed limit. It made you kind of nervous, but the road was empty and it was unexpectedly exhilarating. “You might have to drive me home more often,” you said.

Billy smiled and leaned back in his seat, keeping only one hand on the wheel, “I won’t argue with that,” there was a hint of something odd on his face, “Do you mind if we stop somewhere real quick?”

***

You waited in the car while he went into the small convenience store. Through the large windows you saw him grab a Coke and a pack of cigarettes. It had stopped raining a few minutes prior so you had the windows rolled down. Billy slid back into the driver’s seat and lit one of the cigarettes, placing it in his mouth as he popped the cap off of the soda. His movements were fluid and you wondered if he was always like that.

“There’s a party tomorrow,” he took a drag of his cigarette, “You should come.”

You rolled your eyes, “I’m not much of a party girl.”

He leaned his head back against the seat and looked at you, “It’ll be fun, I promise.”

Have a little fun. You hadn’t been to a real party in months, you just weren’t a part of that scene. There was also the fact that you knew Nancy was going away for the weekend, which would mean you would have to take on the party by yourself. “I don’t think so, Billy. I wouldn’t know anyone.”

“You know me,” he replied matter-of-factly.

You huffed, “Well, yes, but I don’t really drink all that often and I don’t want to embarrass myself in front of the whole school.”

“Come on, Y/N,” he groaned and the noise sent a shock straight down between your legs, “You know you want to.”

CH.3

Saturday morning came and went; your dad had woken up early and surprised everyone with pancakes, your favorite, and then you had to work on a history paper that was due Monday.

It wasn’t that you had forgotten about Billy, or the ride home he had given you the day before, but you didn’t see the point of dwelling on something that could never happen. You saw the way Billy looked at the girls in gym class, the girls in the parking lot, the hallways, anywhere and everywhere — he was a one and done kind of guy, not someone you wanted to get caught up with.

You had been sitting at your desk trying to write for what felt like years when the phone rang and your little brother, Jamie, yelled for you to come downstairs. You knew it was Nancy, she must’ve finally reached the hotel, you sprinted down the steps and snatched the phone from Jamie’s hands.

“Y/N!” she shouted, “Tell me all about yesterday, I want to know everything.”

You told her about the weird, but still kind of fun afternoon ending with, “Oh yeah, and he mentioned some party tonight.”

“Party?” Nancy asked, “You have to go. You haven’t been to a party in ages — god, I wish I was there to go with you.”

You grimaced, “I don’t think so, I won’t know anyone there and it’ll be really awkward— ”

She cut you off, “No, no, I’m sorry but it’s for your own good. You said it yourself, you felt something with him yesterday and tonight’s your chance to confirm it.”

You and Nancy chatted for another twenty minutes before you realized it was nearly dinner time. Your mom came into the kitchen and motioned for you hang up and help with the cooking, so you said goodbye to Nancy and started cutting up some vegetables.

“Uh, mom,” you said, unsure how to breach the subject.

She continued fiddling with the dials on the stove, “Yeah, honey?”

“There’s this party at Cathy’s tonight,” you began.

Your mom smiled knowingly, “Of course you can go, I’m happy to see you putting yourself out there again.”

The last part stung a little, you didn’t need to be reminded that you were on your way to turning into a social outcast, but she was your mom and you knew she meant well. Dinner went by at a painfully slow pace between your brother babbling on about some science fair thing and the endless string of worries parading through your head.

What if everyone thought you were a loser? What if you embarrassed yourself in front of Billy? What if he abandoned you for some other girl and you couldn’t find anyone else to talk? You decided you were getting way too far ahead of yourself and excused yourself from the table by claiming there was some schoolwork you wanted to get done before the party.

Once upstairs, in the comfort of your own bedroom, you began pulling outfit after outfit out of your closet. Billy had said the you should be there at nine and it was already eight, so you had to hurry. It was being hosted by Tommy H., who you understood to be Billy’s best friend, and luckily his house was only a fifteen minute walk from yours.

It took a few minutes, but you finally settled on tight ripped jeans and a black top that showed off more of your chest than usual. You dug around your closet some more and pulled out a pair of chunky heels that you remembered buying, but had never actually worn. Slipping then on in front of the full-length mirror completed the look. Shit, you actually looked kind of sexy. By the time you were finished the clock read 8:45, so you spritzed some perfume on your neck and headed downstairs.

***

The sound of pulsing music and people laughing and talking spilled out onto the street in front of Tommy’s house. You stood on the doorstep, tugging at the hem of your shirt, wondering if the boots were too much. Finally you worked up the courage to reach out and press the doorbell. You heard someone inside yell before the door swung open and Tommy himself appeared. You stepped inside and he looked confused, “Y/N?”

You were kind of surprised he knew your name, “I’m a friend of Billy’s.”

He started to smirk, but tried to keep a straight face, “He’s out on the back porch.”

You said thanks and started towards the back of the house when Tommy shouted something about drinks in the kitchen, so you stopped there first. Every room was packed with people dancing, goofing off, or making out. You glanced at the stairs and noticed a jock leading some obviously drunk blonde freshman by the hand — a gentle reminder of why you had stopped going to house parties.

The kitchen was just as raucous and you grabbed a beer from the counter. You didn’t actually like beer, it was just something to hold onto and make you look like you belonged.

Weaving your way through the crowd wasn’t too difficult. The porch was small, but all of the more popular guys and their girlfriends seemed to have congregated out there. You opened the screen door cautiously to join them. After waving at a few girls you knew from class, you tried to see over the heads of the people in front of you. They were cheering someone on, probably Steve Harrington, and you wanted to see what was going on. The cheering rose to a crescendo and someone accidentally elbowed you so hard you almost fell over. Still stumbling, you saw Billy himself emerge from the center of the circle. He was shirtless, wearing only dark jeans his leather jacket; you thought your jaw might unhinge at the sight.

He was grinning from ear to ear, high fiving people as he went by. When he saw you he winked, just like in the parking lot, and motioned for you to follow him. You did and he stopped in the kitchen. Some of the girls were trying to get his attention, but he ignored them as he set out four plastic cups on the counter.

He finally looked up at you with a told-you-so expression and said, “You came. I thought Ms. Perfect Student was too good to party.”

“I can make an exception for one night,” you shrugged, trying to seem as casual as possible even though your heart was beating like a hummingbird in your chest.

Billy laughed and poured something clear into each of the cups. He handed you one and you swirled the contents around a bit.

“Come on,” he teased, “Have a little fun.”

Ugh, you thought, have a little fun. You’d heard that one before. You thought about making an excuse about having to go home early tonight, but then you remember that your parents thought you were at Cathy’s and would probably expect you to sleep over. Fuck it. You knocked back the entirety of the liquid in one go and coughed when it burned your throat.

“Jesus Christ, Y/N. You’re definitely not a newbie,” Billy handed you another cup and you did the same thing. He drank the other two in quick succession.

The two of you each took a couple more shots and before you knew what had happened you felt the familiar light, carefree sensation that came with being tipsy. If you were being honest you were a little more than just tipsy, but you were sure Billy was feeling the effects as well.

You hopped up to sit on the edge of the counter, dangling your feet above the floor, and gazed at Billy before breaking into sudden laughter. “What is it?” he said, moving slightly closer to you.

“I don’t even know you,” you giggled between words, “All I know is that you drive too fast and don’t like wearing shirts.”

He laughed, the sound was even more intoxicating when you were like this, “That’s all you need to know, doll.”

You took a small sip of beer, trying to mask the fact that the nickname still made your face heat up more than you’d like to admit.

Billy cocked one eyebrow, “And all I know about you is that you’re a lightweight and you blush every five minutes.”

His comment only worsened the blushing, which you were sure he intended to. “It’s just the alcohol,” you blurted out.

“And what about all the times when you weren’t drinking,” he lowered his voice, “Like yesterday in my car.”

Your voice felt like it was caught in your throat and the hand you had wrapped around a bottle was getting clammy. You were completely oblivious to any of the other party goers shuffling around you. He was leaning in closer now, your face was directly in front of his, and you spoke hesitantly, “Why did you invite me?”

He was silent for a minute, “You seemed like you could use a good time.”

His answer struck you as kind of strange, even in your inebriated state you could tell he wasn’t telling the whole truth. You turned the thought over in your mind, but then someone yelled Billy’s name from the other room.

“I’ll be back,” he said before walking off, leaving you alone with your now empty bottle.

Figuring you might as well do some mingling, seeing as this was a party after all, you wandered around the living room with a fresh cup of whatever had been closest to you. You chatted with some girls you knew from English class for a few minutes before continuing on into the hallway. It was darker and there were at least three couples feeling each other up. You bypassed them quickly, not too eager to see any of your classmates in the throes of whatever that was.

Most of the doors, presumably leading to bedrooms, upstairs were closed. The muffled sound of something banging steadily against the wall echoed from one of the rooms. You walked slowly down the mostly empty hallway, being careful not to trip, as your choice of footwear did not mix well with alcohol.

You closed the bathroom door behind you and downed the rest of your drink before tossing the cup into the trash can. Checking yourself out in the mirror you didn’t think you looked too bad, your cheeks were a little pink and your eyes were a little glassy, but all in all you couldn’t see why Billy wouldn’t want you. Wait, wait, wait, what were you thinking? You told yourself you weren’t going to get involved with him, and your decision to come to this party wasn’t going to change that. Even though you had to admit the whole time you were in the kitchen you had thought about reaching out and pulling him in by the lapels of that leather jacket. Fuck, you were spiraling. You let the cold water run over your hands for a few seconds and took a deep breath. When you walk out of here, you told yourself, you’re going to have it together.

There was a hard knock at the door that made you jump. “Just a second,” you called and shut off the water before drying your hands quickly.

You swung the door open to see Billy leaning against the wall, he was looking at your with hooded eyes, forcing you to notice how long his eyelashes really were.

“I was looking for you,” he said as he took a few calculated steps forward, barring you from the door. You could smell alcohol on him, but underneath it was the scent of his cologne — musky in the way that made you want to lean in closer. He had clearly gone through a few more drinks since you had last spoken, but then again so had you.

“You’re drunk,” you pointed out matter of factly.

He looked you up and down, lingering a second too long on the deep v-neck of your shirt. “So are you, doll,” he purred, grinning. He had the same fluid, sexual energy that you had felt the day before when you watched him smoke.

He was a good head taller than you and this close of a distance you had to look up to meet his eyes. You felt a surge of bravery and spoke suddenly without realizing what you were saying, “Did you fuck Carol Jenson?”

What the Hell — never in a million years would ask Billy Hargrove a question like that. You bit your lip nervously and clenched your hands into fists, preparing for the worst.

When his face broke into a slow smile you were too shocked to be relieved. He laughed, low and barely audible, while moving in a way that forced you between him and the sink. The backs of your thighs pressed up against the countertop, but he was still less than a foot away.

“You want to know if I fucked Carol,” he said quietly, “why, exactly?”

“I’m curious,” you replied bluntly, never breaking eye contact.

The smell of his cologne was even more hypnotizing up close. His voice stayed low and his words seemed to be chosen carefully, “And what if I did? What if she spread her legs for me in the backseat Thursday night?”

Those words sent chills down your spine, good and bad. You swallowed and your breathing had become shaky.

Billy continued when you didn’t have an answer, “I didn’t.”

It felt like one weight had been lifted off of your shoulders only to be replaced a different one. The fact that he hadn’t done anything with Carol meant that all those winks and suggestive comments weren’t just random. And god he was so close right now, if leaned forward even a little you would be pressed up against him.

You were lost in your thoughts and already feeling a little dizzy from all the alcohol when you saw something change in his expression. You were going to ask what was wrong when he leaned down and pressed his mouth to yours. His lips were soft and warm and he tasted like tequila, but it made you feel as if your entire body was vibrating with excitement.

He didn’t bother to pull away, he just put his hands on your waist and lifted you easily onto the edge of the sink. You couldn’t help but moan into his mouth when he situated himself between your legs, his body pressed against yours. He moved to kiss your neck, sucking hard enough to leave hickies. Your mind was completely blank of anything besides Billy. You placed your hands in his hair, like you had imagined dozens of times before. As he returned to your lips again you became very aware that he was obviously hard and doing nothing to hide it. The thought that you could do that to Billy fucking Hargrove turned you on even more.

You didn’t want to stop kissing him, but he pulled away and just stared. “Don’t look so smug,” you said breathlessly.

His hands were still on your waist and you let yourself lean forward to rest your head on his bare chest. You could’ve stayed like that forever, wrapped up in his arms, listening to his heart pounding fast right next to your ear.

“Fuck,” he whispered, “why don’t we take this to another room.”

Alarm bells went off in your head — you weren’t going to be that girl, no matter how much you wanted it right now. You barely knew him, you reminded yourself, all the while still trying to memorize how he had kissed you. You hadn’t been with anyone since Matt, and weren’t very experienced otherwise. Panic began to set in as you thought of all the other girls Billy had probably been with. Girls who felt the same way you did right now, girls he said the same things to, who he invited to parties to get drunk with.

You pulled yourself away from Billy abruptly and shimmied down off of the sink. He stumbled back. You mumbled an apology and rushed down the hall and down the stairs where you elbowed about a dozen people on your beeline to the front door. You couldn’t stand being in that house anymore, with the music and the people and Billy, it was suffocating you and you needed air.

The cool night breeze hit you and your pulse began to slow again. The steady rhythm of your feet hitting the pavement calmed you. Tomorrow is a new day, you thought to yourself, and you’ll barely even remember this.

CH.4

You couldn’t bring yourself to get out of bed on Sunday until around noon, and even then you felt like you had been hit by a bus. After some Advil and a hot shower you felt more like yourself, but the fuzzy memories that you had about last night kept gnawing at you.

If it wasn’t for the glaring purple hickey on the side of your neck you would have a hard time believing you had actually made out with Billy Hargrove. Billy fucking Hargrove. The asshole from gym class was now taking up a significant amount of your mental real estate. You gently ran a finger of the mark on your neck and tried to recall exactly how it felt.

Downstairs you grabbed a bagel and quickly retreated back to your room, you weren’t in the mood to talk to anyone. You let yourself collapse onto your bed, staring up at the ceiling, and soon felt the familiar sting of tears welling up in the corners of your eyes. You were an idiot, god you were an idiot — you had him right there, ready and willing, and you ran away like a scared little girl. There was no way he would even look twice at you now; he probably thought you were a full on basketcase.

***

Monday morning was even more miserable because it meant you had to see Billy in a couple of hours. When you were anxious about one thing, you were anxious about everything; picking out the day’s outfit took twice as long as normal, you fretted over how to do your makeup and hair, and even picking what cereal you wanted for breakfast felt like an impossible task.

Your mom had evidently noticed your nerves and asked, “Do you have a test today, dear?”

You faltered, unable to collect your thoughts, “Uh, yeah—” you paused, “yeah, it’s a really important one.”

She smiled reassuringly and placed a hand on your shoulder before you could walk out the door, “I’m sure you’ll do great.”

You sighed, wishing that it really was just a test that had you this on edge. When you got outside Nancy was already waiting for you. She had a huge grin plastered on her face and before you could get a word in she insisted on hearing all about Saturday night.

Begrudgingly you recalled the events of the party up to your encounter with Billy. When you told her about how you ran out in a panic her face fell and you looked away awkwardly.

“He hates me, Nance,” you said, “he has to.”

“You can’t say that, you haven’t even talked to him since the party,” she replied.

“I can’t talk to him, I don’t even think I’ll be able to look at him.”

***

You emerged from the girls locker room at the last possible minute, earning a glare from your teacher. You took your usual place on the side of the court and scanned the room for Billy. A wave of relief washed over you when he was nowhere to be seen. You could finally relax. Some of the anxiety crept back in when you noticed some of the girls on the other side of the court glancing at you with daggers in their eyes. You didn’t remember any of them being at Tommy’s, but then again word travels fast in Hawkins.

Class went by at a snail’s pace, and the rest of the day did the same. You were half expecting to see Billy at every turn. Your eyes were immediately drawn to anyone in your periphery with a leather jacket, but it was never him.

He was probably sick, or just didn’t feel like coming to school today, at least that’s what Jonathan and Nancy tried telling you at lunch. He wasn’t avoiding you, it was just a coincidence. Trying to convince yourself that you didn’t have anything to do with Billy’s absence was futile. When you walked in Physics you were certain he would either be totally absent or have moved seats.

Your heart nearly burst out of your chest when you saw him in his usual seat. A million different thoughts ran through your head, a million different ways you could escape this situation. Before you could make up your mind Mr.Clarke was calling your name from the front of the class, “Miss Y/L/N, please take a seat.”

The whole class was looking at you, your cheeks were on fire and your hands were sweaty. As quickly as possible you rushed to your desk and sat, keeping your eyes glued to the front of the room. The embarrassment was just too much, you felt like curling up into a ball and disappearing.

You were adamant about not looking at Billy, even though you knew he kept glancing over at you. You barely registered it when he finally said something, “Can I borrow a pencil?”

Instinctively you turned your head and saw him for the first time since that night. His hair was as perfectly messy as ever and he flashed you his classic award winning smile. You cleared your throat and handed him the pencil you had been using, reaching to get yourself another out of your bag. He said thanks and you again turned your attention to Mr. Clarke; you were trying in vain to remain unphased.

You managed to actually pay attention to the lesson before you noticed Billy place something on your side of the desk. It was a folded scrap of notebook paper, under different circumstances you would have laughed at such a silly gesture from him. You considered ignoring it, but curiosity got the best of you and you opened it:

Offering free rides today if you’re interested.

You couldn’t help but crack a small smile. God, why did you have to fuck up the other night? You ripped a sheet of paper out of your notebook and wrote:

Surprised, but still interested.

You slid the note over and he picked it up right away. He chuckled quietly when he opened it and you felt as though you could finally relax. He wasn’t angry with you, and that was more than you could ask for.

It was impossible to pay attention for the rest of class, as you were too engrossed in your own thoughts. Should you bring up Saturday, or just pretend it never happened? Would be bring it up? Would he try to make a move? Should you make a move? Definitely not, you told yourself, there was no point in risking further embarrassment. Anyway, you weren’t even sure what you wanted at this point.

***

A few minutes after the final bell you found yourself in the passenger seat of Billy’s Camaro for the second time. It felt like home in an odd way, even though you felt like you might jump out of your skin every time Billy so much as glanced at you.

He began pulling out of the school parking lot when you finally blurted it out, “I fucked up on Saturday.”

“What do you mean?” he asked, and turned the radio down.

You stared down at your lap and tugged at the hem of your dress, “You know what I mean. I shouldn’t have left all of the sudden like that.”

He laughed, forcing you to look up in surprise. “It’s not a big deal,” he said, “trust me, I’ve down worse.”

“You didn’t— I mean, you weren’t upset?” you asked earnestly.

“Upset?” he looked at you with wide, disbelieving eyes, “I don’t know about you, but I had fun.”

You didn’t know what to say. Your insides were a mess of butterflies and uncertainty, and you weren’t sure which one to trust.

When you looked at Billy he had a curious expression on his face. He seemed to hesitate before saying, “There’s a place near the lake I think you might like.”

Your breath caught in your throat, you knew what he was trying to say. You didn’t feel the panic you had on Saturday; it has been replaced by a skeptical excitement that this was really happening to you of all people.

Billy turned up the radio and a fast paced guitar solo filled the car. It wasn’t anything you would normally listen to, but in this case it seemed fitting. You laughed as he began to tap along to the rhythm on the steering wheel and mouthing the lyrics.

The lake wasn’t too far from Hawkins High and you got there in a matter of minutes. It was a small clearing, deep enough into the forest that you couldn’t be scene from the main road. The lake that Billy had mentioned was laid out in front of you in an overgrown valley. Thanks to the thick woods surrounding you it was shady and nearly silent, save for the radio.

Billy cut the engine and looked out onto the lake. You took in his profile, trying to burn the image, the moment, in your brain. “What is the mysterious Billy Hargrove thinking about now?” you asked mockingly, leaning on the center console.

He turned to look at you and smirked, “I think I have to show you.”

Your heart skipped a beat — you knew it was coming, but time still seemed to stop the moment his lips collided with yours. This kiss was different, it was softer and more practiced than Saturday’s had been. He was being gentle with you, placing his hand on the back of your neck, letting you take the lead. Fuck gentle, you wanted the urgency and the heat you felt last time.

You pulled away and he looked surprised which you found quite funny despite yourself. “I’m not going to break, and I’m not going to run away again,” you said, keeping your eyes locked on his, “I don’t want you to be careful with me.”

That was all Billy needed to hear. His mouth crashed into yours with more force this time, there wasn’t a hint of hesitation in the movement of his tongue against yours. He gently bit your bottom lip, earning a soft moan from you. You tangled one hand in his long curly hair and left a trail of kisses down his neck, where you made sure to suck hard enough to get him back for your now faded hickey. “Backseat,” you whispered before pulling away to slide carefully over the center console into the larger space.

Billy followed suit and as soon as he was seated you situated yourself on his lap, facing towards him. He looked up at you with an expression full of lust and awe before kissing you again and sliding his hands under the skirt of your dress. You shuddered at the feeling of his rough hands on your bare thighs and hips; he played with the edge of your panties and you were suddenly self conscious of how wet you had gotten.

You broke the kiss to pull down the straps of your dress; you hadn’t worn a bra and your nipples were hard the minute you removed the fabric. You let out a surprised sort of gasp when Billy leaned forward and began to run his tongue over your nipple. Every movement was slow and teasing and you needed more. You could clearly feel how hard he was beneath you and it was driving you insane.

As if on cue he slipped a hand between your legs and felt you through the thin fabric. His mouth was right next to your ear, “So wet for me already, doll?”

“It’s been awhile,” you said breathlessly.

Billy laughed to himself and you took the liberty of reaching down and quickly undoing his belt. You unzipped his dark jeans and gingerly uncovered the length of his hard cock. You became even wetter at the sight of it, longer and thicker than any guy you’d previously been with. Billy was smiling smugly when you looked up. Your cheeks were on fire and you mumbled, “Sorry I’ve— I mean, it’s bigger than I thought.”

You began sliding your hand up and down on his cock, eliciting some satisfied groans from Billy. When you let go of him so you could focus on kissing him once again he surprised you by abruptly pushing your underwear to the side and running his fingers along your slit. You were dripping so much you thought you must be getting it all over his jeans, but he didn’t seem to mind as he slid a finger into you and then another. With the second you moaned loudly, unable to control it, as he hit just the right spot.

He began steadily fucking you with his fingers and you tried your best not to cry out as he went faster. When he stopped suddenly you whined in protest, making him chuckle. “Do you want it?” he asked, his voice low and slightly hoarse.

“I need it, Billy,” you said quietly, “please.”

With that he placed his hands on your waist and slowly slid into you. It stung at first, stretching you out more than you had ever experienced, but it quickly became pleasant. You moaned when thrust all the way inside you, filling you perfectly. “Shit, Y/N, you’re so fucking tight.”

You began moving your hips, riding him slowly. It became easier with each movement and you sped up a little. He groaned and said, “Open your eyes, doll.”

Before which you had barely realized your eyes were closed. When you opened them he was staring at you head on, his eyes met yours and you felt yourself clench around him. Something about the intimacy embarrassed you and you could feel yourself blushing heavily as a result. You slowed to gently rock your hips back and forth, feeling every inch of him. You were feeling kind of brave, seeing how desperate he was to go faster, bucking his hips up every once in awhile. He caressed your hips gently and you laughed quietly, “I told you not to be careful with me,” you said.

You had barely finished talking when his hand smacked your ass loudly and you call out in surprise. His face had hardened and he lowered his voice, “Then stop being a fucking tease.”

You sped up then, slamming yourself down hard on his cock again and again. The angle combined with his length were bringing you dangerously close. You were both panting loudly, the sound of skin hitting skin was intoxicating and your moans were getting louder and more frequent. “I’m close,” you muttered between breaths.

“You want to cum all over my cock?” he asked, gazing directly into your eyes.

You nodded feverishly before you felt everything inside of you wind tighter and tighter until it finally broke and you fell apart for him. You were pressed against him, chest to chest, and the scent of his cologne was overwhelming in the best way. You moaned his name over and over, shuddering all the while trying to keep up a steady pace. His face shifted into a pained expression and he bit his lip as you felt him throb and pulse inside you. He cursed loudly and you etched the contorted, yet beautiful expression on his face into your mind. It was a few more seconds before you both came down enough to untangle yourselves.

You moved back just enough for him to buckle his pants again. You could feel his hot cum beginning to slide out of you, a feeling you found surprisingly enjoyable. You couldn’t help but smile when he looked at you, with his disheveled hair and full pink lips. “This might be the best ride home I’ve ever had,” you said with mock seriousness.

“I would hope so,” he replied.

#billy hargrove #stranger things #smut #billy hargrove x reader #billy hargrove x you #billy hargrove x y/n #billy hargrove smut #multichapter

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glasyasbutch · 4 years

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sorry I’m on mobile. interiors and contact for roona and whoever else is tasty

Interiors: Describe your OC(s) bedroom / home / a place they consider theirs. What’s in it? Do certain items have a significance to your character?

Roona: So like, any d&d character doesn’t have much of a bedroom bc they’re wandering around camping and killing shit, but roona especially doesn’t, because she’d be wandering even if she wasn’t an adventurer.

That said, she definitely has some quirks and things she does in any inn room to feel more at home. She has a special layout of all her instruments + swords that she keeps at the foot of her bed when she’s not performing, she has a few stolen candlesticks that always go on the night table, and she’s got a blanket that a kind stranger gave her that she sleeps under most nights. I think its a grandma quilt cause why the fuck not.

Ebbie: At the monastery, and even worse at home, Ebbie’s room was just. Stuffed to the brim with shit. Broken machines, scrap metal, half-finished projects, crumpled up paper of plans that he didn’t like but couldn’t bring himself to put away, tools that he was in the middle of using before he realized he was running late and left in the middle of working on something. Trip hazard to anyone involved. For better or for worse, that is now all packed as tightly as humanly possible into his jingly backpack.

Nissy: Before he left Rosohna, he had a stupid fucking rich kid room, with art on the walls that he didn’t appreciate and a bed more lavish than he’d ever need, an on suite bathroom with full amenities, a walk in closet, all oak furniture, you know. Rich Bitch Stuff. One cute thing I have is that he and Leth have rooms next door and have found a spot in the wall where the insulation’s run thin enough that they can hear each other if they talk into it, marked by some school certificates they both have hung there.

Tov: Does have a room to himself, actually, because his party was gifted ownership of a tavern with living quarters above it early on in the campaign. His room is almost embarassingly bare, since he lived in the woods before this and didn’t have a lot of excess possessions. I’m including him purely because, at this exact moment in-game, everything he owns is shoved in the closet because he loaned his room to Savra for the night but didn’t want her to get weirded out by him asking her to stay in his room after the first date so he pretended it was a guest room and then slept on the floor in rowan and moos’s room, and I think that’s funny as hell.

Stella: Including her mostly to be emo about stellis :3

Now that she’s no longer a wanted assassin, she has like, a little apartment and everything where she lives when she’s not on hunting jobs. The place is more functional than personal at this point, cause she hasn’t been there long and doesn’t have a lot of spare cash. She keeps a lot of plants though, growing in various pots all over the place. She doesn’t have a pet of her own, since she leaves for long periods of time, but she puts out food for strays when she’s around and has a good rapport with several birds, a few cats, a dog, and a bitch of a squirrel.

She also keeps in her bedroom, on her desk: her letter writing supplies, a gold ring that she definitely did not buy for herself, a nearly empty perfume bottle for a scent she doesn’t wear, and a dragonchess set which is all white pieces save one black one with a rose carved in the bottom. (Craving has the opposite, all black w/ one white and a star) (they use them to seal their coded letters).

Contact: How does your OC feel about physical contact? Are they affectionate? If so, how do they display affection towards others? Roona: VERY cuddly. As she did in session tonight, she likes leg hugs because that’s usually about where she can get to on other people. Sitting in laps, piggy back hugs, and of course her fanny pack rides are also all commonplace with her. She kinda .... crawls all over you like weevils but in a loving way.

I’m gonna try and keep it short for the rest of them bc this is already super long but ... Craving: very touchy w/ her hands with anyone she thinks isn’t like. destestable, but it’s rare that she’ll let anyone get more than that. hugs are a rarity but she does like getting them from people she really trusts. Tov: not super cuddly, but he likes sharing space. sitting next to someone and your shoulders or legs bump and you don’t move away.

Stella: Aggressive hugger. If you’ll remember, post killing Mystra she bull-rushed craving the lobby of motherfuckers unlimited and picked her up despite being two feet shorter than her. She grew up in a very tactile environment and it’s stuck with her

Hed’ja: doesn’t mind touch but rarely initiates it

Gildy: hugs? good. patting/pinching cheeks? good. holding hands? good. carrying people? good. she like it

Ezra: If someone else needs a hug he won’t like. run away. but he’s not really a physically affectionate guy. even more so now that he’s wearing heavy armor pretty much any time he’s not asleep. he does like to carry people, but he will NOT be asking anyone anytime soon because that feels Way too intimate (even though pointy’s like. already falling asleep on nyxi after getting her hair braided but w/e)

Udoora: INCREDIBLY TOUCHY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! LOVES HER FRIENDS NEEDS THEM TO FEEL IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I don’t think I ever got to lay on hands anyone in the oneshot I played with her, but if I had, it would have been cheek kisses every time.

Nissy: ew no

Ebbie: More often than not it makes him tense, but he’s not like. Appalled by it. He’s also had to get used to a fair amount of touch cause he’s like a monk, but that’s not really physical affection

#craving #tov #stella #hejda #gildy #ezra #udoora #nissy #ebbie #roona

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punishandenslavesuckers · 5 years

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Mollymauk Tealeaf wakes up in a grave by the road ten years after he died. Things have gone a bit wrong since then and he might be the only one who can set things right… since it’s the Mighty Nein themselves who’ve gone wrong. AU: Where Molly comes back to yell at his super-powered Level 20 friends. (AO3 - part1) (AO3 - part 2) (AO3 - part3) (AO3 - part4) (AO3 - part5) (AO3-part6) (AO3-part7) (AO3-part8) (AO3-part9) (AO3-part10)

Mollymauk is getting accustomed to this teleporting thing.

He’s getting accustomed to a lot of things, really, like the dying. Like the constant apprehension painted in a thin, burning layer across the inside of his lungs. Like the taste of blood in the back of his throat and the way resurrection magic slithers through his body – like a climax but turned horribly inside out. Molly’s getting used to this dissociation now between his physical self and his soul as he’s pulled through reality from point A to point B. That tooth-click that keeps happening when he stops being nothing and exists again suddenly. That weird ‘pop’.

Molly pops back into being standing in what looks like a dim and unkempt professor’s study.

It’s a big room. There are long wood tables scarred with chemical and arcane fire. Books stacked and laid out everywhere, papers scrawled with shorthand that seems to slither on the parchment when Molly looks at it. The place smells of burnt ozone and there are fading white runes painted onto the flagstones beneath his boots. Suggesting to Mollymauk that Caleb’s pulled him somewhere very specific. He’d hazard it’s Caleb’s personal workshop by the vaulted ceilings literally top to bottom and wall to wall bookshelves stuffed and stacked with tomes.

Caleb Widogast is still gripping Molly’s hand. Like a man might have hold of a handle.

On immediate instinct, Molly tries to extract his hand. But Caleb doesn’t let go so they just stand there. Caleb is still just a little bit shorter than him, but his eyes are still lit from the inside by whatever power lives in him like a star dying behind his irises. He’s staring at Molly and as Molly watches, the blood and gore and the crushed pieces of dead insect that coat his skin begin to flake away, floating and peeling off like embers off a log until Caleb is whole and healed and his hand is hot around Molly’s knuckles.

Through his teeth, Molly says, “Let go of me.”

Caleb’s eyes seem to focus then, like he’d been staring at some other layer of reality until Molly’s voice brought him. His fingers unfurl and he watches Molly instantly back away three paces, massaging his hand where the wizard touched him, rubbing off whatever lingers in the ink and scarring. If he’s offended by this, he gives no outward sign.

“Don’t touch anything. I can’t promise the items here won’t hurt you.”

Molly tells him to go fuck himself in Infernal.

Caleb blinks, then says, “You say that a lot, ja?”

“Well, you haven’t listened to me yet and I really think you fuckin’ should,” Molly snaps, frantically looking around the room. There’s no visible exit, just a strange constant convergence of walls and shelves and acute to obtuse that don’t seem to quite follow the laws of geometry as Molly understand them. It makes the room simultaneously bigger and more claustrophobic. Molly finds breathing harder all at once. “What do you want from me?”

“To talk,” he says, “for now.”

Molly processing that for a minute.

Then snarls, “Are you out of your bloody mind?” When Caleb knits his brow, Molly waves his hands around. “Kidnapping me? You think holding me hostage is gonna do shit? I’m the magic undead teifling, you dumbarse. You can’t threaten me. I’m literally the most useless hostage you could take. What’re ya gonna do?” He puts on a sarcastic voice. “Kill me?”

“I don’t plan on it.”

Molly’s still got one hand around his own wrist, rubbing restlessly at the tattoo run over his knuckles. His fingers dig tight until the bones in his hand pulse with his own rabbiting heartbeat. His entire body feels wound too tight to take. Shaking to bolt or battle, but his hasn’t got any weapons now and he’s standing near enough to touch to a man that kills with one word. He consciously slows his breathing. Tells himself to stop bloody shaking while Caleb studies him head to foot. Incrementally. Like he’s committing details to memory.

“Will Caduceus be alright?”

“That cell has more air, if that’s what you mean.” Caleb circles to Mollymauk’s left. “I wouldn’t use a fire-based spell otherwise.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

Molly steps right to keep the same distance between them.

“He won’t die,” Caleb says, still circling, forcing Molly to move so they’re slowly orbiting one another. Caleb never breaks eye contact and Molly’s heart keeps racing, panic telling him that, and just that, could be some somatic component in a spell. Caleb shrugs. “I don’t know if he’ll be okay. That’s a bad enchantment. It can, ah, affect people.” He waves a hand vaguely at his head. “You know, that way.”

“Torture spells are traumatizing?” Molly snaps. “Fascinating. Who knew?”

“You think Caduceus is so gentle.” Caleb’s brows lift. “So soft, ja?”

“No, he skewered a dragon and trades in man-eating beetles. I’ve met trolls that were less scary. That doesn’t mean I’m on your side.”

“Of course not.” Caleb stops to face Molly full on. “You’re on the side of those who raised you. It’s understandable.”

“Oi, bite me, Mr. Widogast. I was on your bloody side until you killed me on a whim and word.” Molly squares himself to the wizard. “Don’t try to play victim when you bring up demons and attack your friends without a kindness of warning. If you mean to make me see your reason in all this, I’m tellin’ you now it’ll be a hard fuckin’ sell.”

“I know,” say Caleb. “Mollymauk, I’m going to show you something, but you need to do a few things for me.”

“Ha!” Molly didn’t mean to laugh that loud, but he’s a little hysterical at this point. “I’m not doing fuck all. You can drag me around on a magic leash first.”

Caleb sighs, then waves a hand… and Molly starts to glow. Or rather, his mithril-chain shirt and his bracers start to glow. Also, the rings on his index finger and thumb. Also, the half-dozen charms hanging around his neck and the clasp around his right horn, and the empty sword sheathes at his hips. Molly is lit up all over, glowing from every magic source on his body which is – with Nott’s insistence – quite a lot of magical aid.

“Take all that off,” Caleb says, hand still shimmering with the detect magic charm.

Molly doesn’t move.

“I’m not identifying any of that shit,” Caleb says evenly. “Take all of it off.”

“Nott gave these to me.”

Caleb’s expression cracks. A slight widening in the eyes suddenly – not of surprise but hurt. Then it’s gone under a stern indifference and he tilts his head a little and raises his other hand, thumb pressed to his middle and index finger in the precursor to a snap.

“Last chance,” Caleb says.

“Nott gave all this to me,” Molly whispers, “to protect me from—”

Caleb snaps his fingers and the air behind him displaces as something massive just materializes in the space directly behind him. Molly jerks back, his hips hitting a worktable. The thing behind Caleb sort of… unfurls. A broad, muscular back shifts as gargantuan leather wings arch up and flare over the wizard’s tawny head. Blue hide, riddled in plates of scale, shimmers in the torch light. A long serpentine neck arches up and up until the beast turns giant predator-gold eyes to fix on Molly. Its skull is the size of a battle shield, its jaw long, draconic, and toothy. Talons big as coat hangers clack and scrap on the floor as what appears to be a bull-sized blue dragon rises up behind Caleb the way a hunting dog comes to quarry.

“Blue dragon wyrmling,” says Caleb, reaching up to pat the beast’s horrifying jaw. “They like magic. Frumpkin doesn’t get to play with anything magic in this form, you see. My work is too dangerous.”

“Caleb,” Molly starts to say, fingers, digging into the table edge behind him. “Don’t—”

Caleb says a word in Zemnian. On that command, his hulking familiar looses a joyous predator scream.

Then it lunges at Molly.

It tears past Caleb, so smooth it barely disturbs the wizard’s fine black and gold robes. Molly, to his credit, immediately hurdles the table, dive rolls, and comes up sprinting on the opposite end of the table. Frumpkin hits the table, missing Molly by inches, then it hits the ground behind him, claws scrabbling on the stone like an off-balance Labrador. Molly feels it on instinct when Frumpkin swipes at his back. He ducks right, going low, skidding, razor-sharp claws whipping through the air over his head.

But then he’s on the ground and Frumpkin is huge.

Frumpkin’s jaws snap closed on the back of Molly’s tunic and with a whip of his head, the hurls Molly against another long table like a cat slinging a mouse against a wall. He crashes through a pile of books which – wondrously – take flight and scatter like a flock of disturbed pigeons. It would be neat if a small dragon didn’t then slam Molly like a battering ram. The beast pins him under massive claws, landing so the pads of its feet are crushing Molly’s upper arms flat, his spine bent back over the edge of the table as Frumpkin the blue dragon wyrmling start to bite excitedly at the mithril chainmail beneath Molly’s tunic.

“CALEB!” His tunic shreds under eager dragon teeth. “FUCK! WHAT THE FUCK!?”

Frumpkin drives his massive bony head against Molly’s chest and instantly cracks two ribs. Molly still manages to scream. Then Frumpkin is grinding an anvil-heavy skull against him like a cat might shove its face in a pillow of catnip except it’s his fucking ribcage and stomach. Frumpkin snuffles at Molly’s skull, chewing lightly at the clasp clipped to his horn before giving that up as a back job and rearing back to study him.

Then Frumpkin’s jaws start to open, crackling with blue static, a long tongue lashing with sparks. Molly sees it coming but he can’t stop it. Frumpkin licks Molly’s neck which… you know, fucking electrocutes him. Molly chokes as a short, agonizing current rips through him, lashing every muscle in his body into a garrote-wire of tension before the current dispels into the wood and it’s over.

Molly isn’t conscious of Frumpkin getting off of him, only of hitting the floor and rolling onto his side, his entire body throbbing and his neck searing where the dragon-thing licked him. He smells burnt skin and ozone.

“Okay, ah, that was a bit much…” Caleb is saying. “Bad cat.”

“Fuck you,” Molly snarls, but it’s undercut with a sob. His entire chest pulses red rivers of fire with every breath.

He curls his one arm around himself and just lays there in a heap with his forehead pressed to the cool stone, tail wrapped around his body at the knee. He has one palm pressed to the floor near his waist, but he can’t find the strength to get up. Through the feverish glow of pain, he feels a hand touch his neck and that cold palm smooths from the hinge if his jaw, down the line of muscle to his clavicle. A slow bleed of magic slides through the gash, like pouring liquid salve into the wound and from there it travels down, down, spreading out inside his chest until the hairline cracks splintered through his ribs go cold as well. Soon, there’s no pain left. Just a numb buzzing in the nerves.

Molly lifts his head.

Pale blue eyes stare back.

“Are you going to take off your enchantments or do you want Frumpkin to try again?”

Molly shoves Caleb in the chest.

This knocks the wizard onto his butt. He didn’t seem to have expected that, because he just kind of drops on his ass and blinks. Surprised while his gigantic wyrmling familiar sniffs at his hair. Molly levers himself into a sitting position. Then he starts pulling the rings off his fingers, palming them, before reaching up to remove the clasp from his horn and the earrings that stave off cold. He unstraps the bracers, pulls the charms from around his neck and sets all this aside. Then he glares, gets to his feet, and turns his back on Caleb while he reaches up and tugs his shirt off over his head from the shoulders.

That way no one can see it while he wipes his eyes with the back of his hand.

Molly puts his ruined shirt on the table while he pulls the chainmail off, leaving on nothing but the thinner, sleeveless under-shirt he’s been using to pad the chainmail. The rings are still leaving marks in his skin. He’s not used to armor. Molly starts to pull his shredded tunic back on over his head when he feels Caleb start to move toward him again and –

Molly whips around, snarling, the words going Infernal in his throat: “Back off!”

Frumpkin the wyrmling starts to growl, but Caleb waves his quiet. There’s pause. So, Molly turns back around and finishes pulling his clothes back on. There’s an ache in his bounding heart now, a low panic like a current in his blood that makes him want to double over and start screaming for the frustration of it. The fucking unfairness and stupid cruelty of it. He straightens his shirt and pushes his hair out of his face, then turns to look at Caleb.

“What now?”

“That wasn’t intentional,” Caleb says.

“You sicced your giant bloody cat on me.”

“I warned you.”

“Oh. Well. Alright then. All’s forgiven.”

There’s a tense silence.

Then, “Follow me. Don’t try to run or Frumpkin will sit on you again.”

And then quite suddenly there’s an obvious doorway on the wall to Molly’s right. Caleb crosses the room and opens it, going through, not stopping to check if Molly follows. Probably because Frumpkin is now standing directly behind Molly, breathing static on his neck. Molly pauses to glance back up at the giant familiar. He literally has Molly’s cursed sword sheathes between his jaws like a grinning dog with a stick.

“Your boss is a bastard,” Molly says.

Frumpkin just blinks and nudges him in the shoulder.

“Fine.”

Molly follows Caleb.

Through the door is a long hallway, mostly featureless and should be cold for all the empty stone space, but the air seems to be magically regulated to a comfortable room temperature. The silence is broken only by the soft slap of boots against the floor and the terrible scraping clack of Frumpkin’s talons. They walk through the hall. Caleb keeps surreptitiously checking a dark metal pocket watch as they walk, but the face of it is blank and makes Molly’s eyes hurt to look at it directly.

“The others are looking for you,” Caleb says.

“You don’t seem worried. I would be.”

“I have time,” he says, pocketing the weird watch. “Jester’s young god still needs time.”

“Famous last words.”

Molly glances at a hanging tapestry on the wall nearby – a map of a land he doesn’t know. He’s certain now that he’s passed it a few times. He’s getting the impression that Caleb’s lair really does not obey any laws of physics and the only reason they’re moving through it at all has to do with the wizard himself. Frumpkin, once more, nudges at Molly’s shoulder. Like a border collie keeping a flock of one in line, confirming this really isn’t his first time playing guard dog to visitors.

“The others have told you I’m trying to end the world,” Caleb says.

“No.” Molly folds his arms across his chest, tail lashing anxiously around his boots. “They were very specific that’s not what you’re trying to do, just a possible side effect of what you’re trying to do. That’s what they told me.”

“Hmm,” Caleb says.

Molly feels a heat flare in his throat. “What?”

“I thought they’d lie a little more. I’m surprised.”

“Maybe you just think all your friends are against you when really they’ve been busy – you know – being crazy with grief or kidnapped by demi-gods. Which, by the way, I’m curious, did you try to get Fjord out of there?”

Caleb looks over his shoulder. “Of course. Did they tell you I didn’t?”

“No.” Molly rolls his eyes, leering for effect. “But you’re such a jackass right now…”

“No one could reach Fjord,” Caleb says plainly, blinking. “None of my magic meant anything in the face of that. Nothing short of a god could get close and the only god we had was Jester’s. Fjord was gone so long…” Caleb pauses. “I thought he’d be insane by the time we got him out or thralled to the Serpent.” Caleb’s eyes are unfocused, looking sidelong and away. “It seemed impossible he might still be him.”

Molly hesitates before saying, “Fjord’s stronger than you gave him credit for.”

“Maybe, or maybe he’ll turn on the others in due time. Jester has a blind spot for him. Always has. She would not accept that Fjord might be gone. She obsessed and no one could talk her down from it. Not Nott or Caduceus or anyone. Maybe Beau could have talked her down, but Beau was gone and Yasha was gone and so…” Caleb shrugs and looks forward again. “She was taken too.”

Molly tilts his head. “You say ‘taken’.”

“Yes. There’s a difference.”

“You sure?”

Caleb glances again at Molly. “Caduceus left me. He promised he’d never do that, but he did. He wasn’t taken by anything. Neither was Nott, but I don’t blame her. She was scared. I scared her.”

“You’re a moron,” Molly says.

“Thank you, Mollymauk. Nice to have you back.”

“You’re both morons,” Molly insists, bending at the waist a little to put some emphasis on it, really enunciate. “Caduceus stuck by you because he’s an optimist who couldn’t see you’ve got your head so far up your own asshole there’s no fuckin’ sunshine. Caleb, I’m here to tell you.” Molly cups his hands around his mouth. “Pull it the fuck out, mate! You’re going to end the world because you feel bad about Beau dying.”

“You act like you’re the first to tell me this.”

“I know I’m not the first, but since you won’t listen to literally anyone else, the gods brought me back from the bloody dead specifically, I think, to tell you to stop being a bastard stuffed bastard in bastard sauce and just stop.”

“I can see why the gods in their infinite wisdom decided to intervene and raise you from the dead.”

Molly spits. “I didn’t come back from the dead to persuade you of shit.”

“Apparently.”

“I’m not your conscience, Widogast.”

“You’re saying that like I ever thought that was the case.”

Molly folds his arms again, gripping his elbows in his hands and swallowing, glaring at the wall to distract himself from the slow crush of panic and futility coiling around him. It seems impossible he was in the Blooming Grove less than an hour ago. That he was laying in the grass, chatting with Caduceus. That he’d been surrounded, however briefly, by familiar faces and there was a plan, however, tenuous, as to how all this was going to end and now… he’s here. The shock of loneliness stings his throat and eyes all at once.

“You know, I’m not sure what I am, really.” Molly drags a palm across his face, pulling his hair from his brow again, wiping his eyes. “I thought my job was to get everyone together to, I don’t know, dogpile you until you stopped being a lunatic, but that doesn’t seem to be working.” He glances at Frumpkin who bares horrible fangs around belt and scabbard set in his mouth. “I don’t think I’m doing this right.”

“You got Fjord out,” Caleb says.

Molly blinks but Caleb doesn’t look at him, just keeps walking.

“It’s not your job to save us. You’re your own person. You don’t serve our purposes, Molly.”

“You can’t say that and hold me hostage, Widogast.”

“I know, but I’m a terrible person. Imagine someone better said it. It’s still true.”

Caleb’s hand is pressed against the wood of a heavy looking oak door. Molly can’t say when it was that the distance between the infinite hallway suddenly started to close, but it’s closed now and Caleb looks over his shoulder to meet Molly’s eyes. The wood beneath his hand is complex with runes and sigils, cut with some kind of arcane formula. It, like so many things in this place, ripples and changes before his eyes just looking at it. Caleb keeps staring at him, his burning stare inhuman and bright.

“Have they told you about Beauregard?” he says.

Dread drives a rod straight through Molly’s gut. His pulse rabbits fast.

“They told me a little. Like what she did, how she went down.”

“I don’t mean that. I mean have they told you about her. Do they talk about her?”

Molly hesitates. “If you mean, do they tell me funny stories about her, like what a shithead she was or the time she, I dunno, snorted oatmeal up her nose laughing at breakfast… no. They didn’t.”

“Ja. It’s hard for them.” He kind of looks away. “I remember her. I remember everything she ever said to me, actually.”

“Beauregard… she was pretty important to you.” Molly looks meaningfully around the giant mage-lair around him and the miniature dragon leering over his shoulder. “You’ve done a lot to save her. You’ve, well, you’ve pushed away everyone else who cares about you to do this. I can tell you’re dedicated but, speaking as a formerly dead person… you sure Beau would want to come back like this?”

“They didn’t tell you she became our leader, did they?” Caleb doesn’t wait for Molly to answer or acknowledge his previous question. “She told me once, that she had a reoccurring nightmare. In this dream, she’s standing on that cart on the Glory Run Road. She can’t move, her boots are frozen to the wagon wood while Lorenzo kills you.” Caleb’s looking at him with this strange expression, unreadable as a wall. “I don’t think she ever stopped having that nightmare.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Molly says.

“She called you ‘the best of us.’”

“Wow, okay.” Molly managed an exaggerated laugh. “That’s just because you didn’t know me very well and your bar was low back then. I should have told you all about this one time, in this port town, there was this thing with noodles –”

“It doesn’t matter,” Caleb cuts him off, visibly irritated. “It doesn’t matter that you’re an obnoxious, loud, carnival man that we barely knew. It doesn’t matter that we never really understood you, that you kept secrets, and died before we knew them. None of it matters because when you died, Beauregard regretted that it was you, instead of her.”

Molly stiffens a little, shoulders tensing. “Look, that’s a nice notion and all, but from what I’ve seen over and over, none of you much remember me like I was.” A beat. “Like I am.” Another beat. “Like I was before? Ah, fuck it…”

“Stop being flippant.”

“Sure. Stop holding me hostage.”

The wizard shakes his head, looking tired all at once. “You’re not going to listen to a word I’m saying, are you?”

“Caleb,” Molly says, “If you want me to listen, I would do that. You wanna sit down and have a cup of tea and talk? Great. I’d love that. Gossip is my thing. But I don’t think you’re trying to convince me of anything. I think you’ve already made some godawful decision and you’re just thinking out loud in my face.”

Caleb says nothing.

Just… stares at him.

It’s so strange. It’s Caleb, like it’s always been Caleb, just five degrees off Molly’s memory of the man – cleaner and more put together. He’s had a haircut and a proper shave. He looks like he should be on a council to something important somewhere, telling people to do things… but through every bit of that there’s still the fucking eyes. Just… empty and sad and resigned in exactly the same way he remembers but so much fucking deeper and blacker than that.

“I can’t talk to you,” Molly says softly, “if I’m a spell component and not a person to you.”

Caleb stares. “I don’t think you’re a spell component.”

“Then what do you want?”

“I want to know if you want to kill Beauregard.” He says it so blankly, so hallowed with exhaustion that it feels impossible that he’s been able to mask it until now. A deep festering despair in his voice that goes all the way down to the core of him as he laughs a little. “Because it seems now that everyone else in our little family has decided to kill her and it occurs to me that you, Mollymauk, might be the only one undecided on the issue.”

Molly doesn’t say a goddamn thing.

“Would you answer me?”

“It’s not as simple as –”

Caleb cuts him off saying, “Until I’m done asking questions, you should tell me the truth, Molly.”

And the suggestion takes hold of him. Gently. Not dominating but it slides over his tongue with such an easy familiarity Molly’s swallowed it before he can make even a token resistance and his shoulders kind of relax, tension easing out of his limbs for the first time since he was torn from the Blooming Grove. Caleb’s hand, holding something nonobtrusive at his hip, opens and he reaches up. It’s familiar. Molly lets him pat his cheek and thinks, unbidden, about Hupperdook and a very fucked up Caleb slurring, “Yeah. Th’only magical thing here… is you, friend.”

There’s something sticky on his palm. Smells like honey or…

“Just tell me what you think,” Caleb says.

“Okay.” Molly feels… strange, a little drunk almost but in a nice way, a mild anxiety in his breast that compels him say, “I don’t wanna kill, Beau. Bloody hell, of course I don’t.” It’s such a relief to say that, he goes on a little urgently. “Everyone is saying this is the right thing to do, but it makes my whole fucking body ache to think about. I don’t want to do it.”

“Do you think you can do it, if you had to? If it was down to you?”

“No.” The admission physically hurts to say aloud. Molly clenches his eyes shut. “I can’t.”

Caleb’s quiet for a moment.

Molly feels a hand on his head, pressed over his left ear, beneath the curl of his horn and he looks up at Caleb.

He looks strangely relieved. “Me too.”

“I’m not on your side, Caleb. It’s the wrong thing that I can’t do it. I can’t do it because I’m selfish and I don’t want to live with doing that to my friend… but I know it’s wrong.”

“I know.” Caleb laughs a little. “You feel poorly about that. I don’t. I’m not willing to kill Beau to save the world.” He shrugs. “I know its not fair or right, but she was… she really was the best of us. I can’t let her go like this.” He shakes his head, a wry smile suddenly on his lips. “This mistake. I don’t have to let it stand like the others.”

“Good people die all time,” Molly whispers. “The world’s not a fair place. It’s our job to make it fair as we can, but you can’t bloody do this.”

“My people don’t have to die,” Caleb says. “Not this good person.”

“Caleb, just stop—"

“You cared about Beau, yeah?”

“I died for her, didn’t I?”

Caleb studies his face and in his stare, Molly sees it – the bald-faced fact of it: He’s not looking at a man expecting to get away with anything. He’s not looking at someone with a tomorrow in mind. Then Caleb waves a hand and Molly feels the enchantment release its hold on his thoughts. It’s a cruel hand pulling a warm blanket off his shoulders and he’s standing in the sudden cold aftermath of the spell. All the compelled words sour suddenly on his tongue and a ripple of rage and grief lances through him simultaneously.

“I’m sorry. I needed to know where you really stood.”

And Caleb pushes the door open.

When he does, the air in the room rushes out. It’s freezing cold, turning Molly’s breath to fog instantly and penetrating him to the bone. He shivers, arms jumping up to tuck around his chest, his teeth chattering almost immediately in the artic chill. There’s light coming from the other room, cold and blue and anti-septic. It’s a large circular chamber, empty of everything, just stone walls etched in the same magical formula as the door except all the runes here glow gently blue, humming a slow two-two beat. Like a pulse.

Which makes sense because sitting the in the middle of the room, legs crossed, and facing them… is Beauregard.

She’s seated on a low stone dais. There is a barrier of blue light around the platform. The air glows around her, a vertical shaft of cold azure magic from floor to ceiling. She’s sitting as if in meditation, back straight, hands in her lap, eyes closed. She’s wiry and dark. Small and dense with muscle. Denser than he remembers. Her arms are probably bigger in the bicep than his now. Around her arms are silver bracers, smithed in the symbols of Ioun. There is blood on her fingers, on her knuckles, her lip split, her eye darkened with bruising and that… that makes her so familiar it turns something tense in Molly’s stomach.

Beau with a black eye.

Beau standing on the back of an ice-cracked wagon.

Beau screaming his name, her blue eyes wild in the dawn light, as Lorenzo –

“Why is she bloody?” Molly manages.

“She’s been like that since the day she struck down Oblivion,” says Caleb. He’s still got his hand on the door, his eyes on Beau. “Nothing touches her except divine magic. Caduceus and Jester used to heal the wounds, but they always return. Nothing we do stays. She always… goes back to the way she was in the moment she killed the Oblivion.”

Molly moves into the room. With every step toward Beau, the temperature drops, until Molly’s shivering so hard, Caleb must see it because he taps Molly on the shoulder and warmth slides through his clothes and insulates him in a thin layer of heat that makes his skin steam slightly in the freezing air. Molly moves close enough that he can see the light around her is not just light, but a thin, runic barrier – a magic layer of transparent blue writing so fine it looks like mist moving up and down the surface of the barrier wall.

“You can touch it,” Caleb says. “It only contains.”

Molly cautiously presses a palm against the magic and his hand cleaves lightly to it, like glass, like Beau’s a thing in a shop window he’s trying to see.

Molly can see now that the stone where she touches it is calcified and cracked, frozen as if by a spill of liquid nitrogen. Frost cakes the ground around the platform in shimmering white. The air near her is… humming. Shaking in Molly’s bones, buzzing down to the atoms that compose him. It feels awful and familiar all at once.

But he can see Beau clearly.

She is dressed in battle attire, or what remains of battle attire. The kind of thing you wear when you go to war for the gods.

Her long sleeveless jacket is shredded along the hem and shorn as if by a blade. The royal blue fabric is dark with blood which does not appear to have dried somehow. Her tunic is shredded open to the athletic small clothes beneath. There are etched and glowing bands around her arms, around her wrists, obsidian studs in her ear lobes that shimmer with enchantment. Her dark hair looks exactly as he recalls: shaved along the sides then knotted up at the top. Molly recognizes Yasha’s touch in the beads woven there in braids and plaits. There’s a tattoo of a posie beneath her right clavicle.

Molly’s throat knots up.

“Yasha and Beau…” Molly says, only after her gets his voice working. “Did Yasha—?”

“Marry Beau then lose her?” says Caleb. “Yes. On the same day in fact.”

Molly’s eyes burn. He clenches his hand shut against the barrier magic, leaning his weight against it. He can feel Caleb moving to stand at his right shoulder, watching him react but he doesn’t care. Frumpkin’s heavy footfalls place the dragon creature to his left, hovering protectively as Caleb touches Molly’s arm.

“Yasha won’t survive it.” His voice is certain and indifferent as sunset. “Losing her completely after Zuella—”

Molly knock his hand off his arm, yanking away. “Don’t!” Infernal heat laces his breath. “Don’t you try to use her—”

“You know I’m right.”

Molly pulls his hand from the barrier. “You want me to help you, don’t you? You’re trying to get me to help you.”

“No.” Caleb sounds sorry. “Just… confirming some things.”

He snaps his fingers and there’s a flare suddenly from the light barrier and the color of the runes, glowing faintly from every stone surface, changes suddenly to a deep, seething purple. Black steam immediately begins to burn off the sigils and Molly lunges back from Beau’s alter, hands up like he can defend himself from anything Caleb is doing. The wizard is ignoring him. He has some kind of crystal in his right hand suddenly and he’s drawing signs in the air with the fingers of his left hand. The signs stay there, like ghost writing, shivering with terrible potential energy. Like a bow string pulled taut except pulled through the whole fucking universe.

Frumpkin bumps into Molly’s back, his tail lashing in a sudden half-circle around him, penning him in suddenly, wings flaring up over head.

“I think the gods are on my side,” Caleb says, still casting his spell. The crystal in his hand disintegrates to dust and he waves a hand. Summons a blade from somewhere and uses it to slice open his left forearm, but doesn’t stop casting. “I was hasty before. I didn’t see it.” Blood splatters the floor. “All the spells to bring Beau back are so complicated without sentient sacrifice. Willing sentient sacrifice. I’ve had to build workarounds. So time consuming but now it’s so simple…”

“I’m not dying for your bloody spell!” Molly snarls.

“You already did.” Caleb looks over his shoulder. “You died for Beau ten years ago and not just a little; you died a true death. You were dead of a different kind. The kind that matters and makes gods intervene.” There’s a smile then, on Caleb’s lips, both sad and victorious. “That magic is forever, Mollymauk.”

Light flares blinding from Caleb’s fingers, igniting the blood on the flood so it burns white and evaporates into a red steam. Caleb closes his eyes. He breathes in and the crimson effluvium disappears down the wizard’s throat and when he opens his eyes, they’re burning red as a blood-letting sunset. He turns and presses both hands against the barrier wall that holds Beauregard in. Red light injects itself into the magic, spreading out like a cancer along the surface of it.

Molly feels a pull. Not on his body but a pull he’s come to know in the transition between life and death. Every time Vax’ildan sends him to and from the plane between realms– something is pulling on his soul.

“Caleb!” Molly feels that pull again, hideous and cold and Molly hits the floor on his knees, clutching uselessly at his chest. “Fuck! Stop! Stop!”

“It’s okay, you won’t lose your soul,” Caleb says. “I just need it here…”

There’s a flare from the barrier wall and Molly screams as the light seems to shove himself out of his flesh and the sliding back in feels like falling into a solid slab of screaming nerve and blood and it hurts. It hurts. Molly’s doubled over on the floor, arms knotted around his body, tail curled around himself. This spell has no guiding touch on it. No raven knight errant gentling the transition between astral and material and its like dying a little over and over. Nauseating and awful.

“I’m sorry. Most sacrifices are dead when this is happening.”

“Oh really?” Molly grits, getting one knee under him.

“Just a little longer,” Caleb murmurs. “It’s just a little farther—”

Molly doesn’t let him finish. He snaps his fingers.

Instantly, there’s a flash of light from Frumpkin’s mouth as the empty scabbards in his jaws ignite with conjuration magic. Frumpkin’s head jerks back, the dragonling snarling in surprise. But before anyone can lift a finger, Molly pivots around and lunges at him, faster than he can remember moving in his life… and his fist closes around something solid. He dive-rolls past the familiar, tearing the scimitar from its scabbard. Molly spins up, sword in hand, breathing frantic.

Caleb is glaring at him.

“Stop fucking around.” There is a dark and throaty edge to his Zemnian accent. His eyes flare in his skull, burning brighter, fixed on Molly. “You think you’re going to fight me, Mollymauk?”

“No.” He shakes his head, breathing fast and shallow. “No, I can’t fight you.”

“I know this has been… confusing.” There’s blue flame gathering in the man’s hand. “It’s an admirable instinct, but—”

Molly reverses the sword. An easy, almost casual flip of the blade in a two-handed grip, and sets it point-first against his own sternum. No hesitation. No time. The hit at first: like being punched, the breath driven from his body, then the pain (the feeling Lorenzo taught him ten years ago on the Glory Run Road). Mollymauk shoves it through his ribcage and—

He wakes up standing on a hill beneath the shining moon.

He’s clutching his breastbone, fists stacked where the hilt of a blade was driven in the Material plane. The moonlight is shining, shimmering on his skin like a sheen of diamond dust on his knuckles. Molly stumbles. His knees give out but before he can fall, he’s suddenly tackled as a blur of blue and skirts and arcane light bursts into existence and lunges at him. He collapses against them, arms seizing instinctively around their neck and their hair is silky, chiming with silver, and smells like carnival caramel when he breathes in.

“Jester!” Molly clutches her, fingers sinking into her hair, hooking his elbow around the back of her neck as she laughs and hugs him back. “Bloody hell.” He plants a big kiss in her hair, catching the curve of her ear. “Fools flock together huh?”

“Molly! Molly! Fuck! Shit!” She’s kind of crushing his ribs. “Are you okay? Did he hurt you? How’d you—?”

“Caleb didn’t kill me,” Molly whispers. He hugs her more tightly. “I did it myself.”

Jester freezes. Her fingers dig more tightly into his shoulder.

“S’alright, Jes.” He tries to laugh, but it’s not very convincing. “I’m a one trick tiefling.”

“Can you go back?” Jester whispers. “Molly, were you with Caleb? I can break through another way, but if you can go back–”

Molly pulls back, lets Jester cup his face in shaky fingers. “Caduceus put the Death Ward on me.”

Jester nods. Her eyes brim bright with tears, her pretty white teeth biting at her lower lip. Molly carefully mirrors her, fitting his hands around her dark, heart-shaped face. She starts to say something, but it comes out a sob, so Molly just drops his brow against hers and stays that way for a moment. Feels her tail lash protectively around his right knee, her fingers sink a little more deeply into his hair.

She murmurs, not words, but a low Infernal subvocalization that has no translation into the common languages of the realm – it just means… sadness, sadness, rage, regret.

“Tell me about it,” Molly says in kind.

Jester moves her hands down his neck, to his shoulders, his arms, taking his hands in hers.

“I’ll do it, Molly.” She squeezes tight. “I can stop him.”

“I know.”

A voice over his shoulder says, softly, “You will have half a moment.”

Molly smells dust, old soil, the faint scent of decay – not of flesh but some older less transient material. Jester tucks herself close to his side, gripping his arm tight and it hurts how much strength he can draw from that. Molly turns. Vax’ildan stands again on the hill with them, beautiful and familiar, but unlike every time before… Molly can feel the eeriness in the Raven Queen’s champion. The size of him suddenly astronomical behind his physical presentation.

There’s darkness rising from his shoulders, a strange canopy that stretches up from his back and spreads out in translucent gloom. Molly hears the rustle of wings, of feathers, of a thousand, ten thousand ravens taking wing. When he looks up, he realizes the darkness is merely the massive arch… no… just the shadow of two leviathan wings. Vax moves forward and the moonlight avoids him where walks. Molly doesn’t flinch, even when he fits both palms to either side of Molly’s face and lifts his eyes.

“ I can give strength you don’t remember, Mollymauk. But that’s all I can do. Are you ready?”

Molly pauses, then, “Kiss for luck?”

Vax’ildan – wreathed in darkness, gaze holding the mass of collapsed stars, the voice of the Raven Queen on his tongue – gives him a look. Then rolls his eyes and says, amused, “Fuck it. Kiss for luck.”

Then he leans down, tilting his head and kisses Molly gently on the mouth.

And Molly opens his eyes.

He’s standing in the same room, holding the scimitar point first against his chest, in the precursor of killing himself. There’s blood all over his forearms, his hands, and soaked through his tunic. But he’s still on his feet and Caleb is staring at him with this… startled expression. Eyes wide, mouth open as if in the middle of saying something. He’s still got one hand against the burning red magic that’s holding Beau, the other hand kind of raised in the attitude reaching or casting.

He looks frightened. That fades though as Molly releases his grip on the blade and it clatters to the floor. Molly exhales, his breath a silvery cloud and he backs up a little, shaking his head at if to clear it.

“Why did you do that?” Caleb says blankly. “Killing yourself won’t make a difference.”

“It did to me,” Molly pants.

“Please, don’t do that.”

Molly stares at him. “Caleb, I wish I could I say I’m sorry about this… but you’ve been an asshole.”

And that’s when Jester – stepping out of the ether like a woman stepping through a door – grabs the wizard from behind and punches him. It’s not, like, a ‘how dare you slap’. She snatches his collar in one hand, rears all the way back, and cracks him across the jaw with the other. Caleb staggers, shoulder slamming against the barrier wall. He scrabbles at the wall, visibly struggles to stay conscious through what is certainly a concussion and a broken jaw. Jester doesn’t give him the time. She raises one hand over her shoulder. A massive lollipop bursts into existence – pink and white and brilliant with ribbons. Then she takes the handle in both hands and she swings.

She hits him like a kid playing stick ball.

There’s an arcane flare – of magic hitting magic and Molly feels it as unmovable object meets unstoppable force. The lollipop hammers a defensive spell Molly has no understanding of and the impact ignites the air in blinding radiance. Molly is knocked to one knee by the shock wave alone. A body launches from the center of the room like a rachet ball and then slam into the far wall like a rag doll. It’s definitely Caleb. He hits the floor in a heap, a swirl of passive magic siphoning around his body.

Frumpkin, by then, has finished tearing across the room and lunges at Jester, jaws full of lightning –

“Bad kitty!” she screams.

Her eyes flare white and Frumpkin poofs out of existence.

Caleb seems to be regaining consciousness. He shudders and levers himself up on one elbow, head hanging low as he sways dizzily. He coughs blood, red splattering the flag stones. There’s blood in his hair at the back of his head. He can’t seem to orient himself or speak, suggesting that his skull might be cracked so badly its costing him basic functionality. He tries, with difficulty, to lift his head. His eyes are flickering erratically, brightening and dimming, like a circuit is shorting in him.

Jester, again, does not wait. She disappears then reappears standing directly over him.

She doesn’t say a damn thing.

She just raises a hand and with a flare a soft orb of pink magic blooms around her, encasing herself and Caleb. Immediately the passive magicks moving around Caleb go dormant and disappear. Over her shoulder, the massive lollipop rests like a mace in her hand. Invisible winds disturb her hair and skirts. Her eyes burn green in the iris and she just… waits. Because Caleb is bleeding out at her feet, fast losing consciousness in the neutral bubble of her anti-magic field.

Still he manages, “Jes…ter…?”

“Where is Caduceus?” she says. But when she speaks, her voice quavers. Water drips from her chin. “Did you kill him, Caleb?”

“Nev… I’d never…”

He can’t finish the sentence.

Jester covers her mouth with one hand, eyes squeezing shut, and Caleb slumps unconscious on the floor. For a moment, there’s just silence. Blood freezing on the cold stone floor. Then Jester dismisses the spiritual weapon and drops to her knees. She fits her hands to Caleb’s bleeding head. She combs the bloody hair from the ugly split in his skull and magic begins to sink gingerly into the wound. She’s whispering something softly, like a refrain.

Eventually, Molly moves to kneel with her inside the dome.

“He’ll be okay,” she says, attempting cheerfulness as tears overrun her eyes. “He’ll be okay. I’m asking the Traveler to break some of the… the forbiddance spells around the keep. The others will be here soon. We’ll be okay.” She chokes a little on her own voice. “Everyone’s back together.” Her fingers close in the back of Caleb’s robes, the magic dissipating from her fingers, and that’s when Molly loops his arms around her. She grabs his shirt, clinging suddenly, something building in her chest until she blurts, crying, “What did we do wrong, Molly?”

“Nothing.”

He cradles her head, rocking a little as she starts to sob.

“We tried so hard!”

“I know.”

Jester is wailing now, just gut-wrenching heaves against Molly’s shoulder. “I miss her so much!” She can’t seem to breathe, giving in entirely to ugly crying, almost hiccupping. “I miss Beau! She said we needed to take care of each other and we didn’t.”

“Hey, the world asked a lot from you. S’not your fault if you didn’t do every damn thing on the list.”

“I’m sorry!”

“Shh, stop it. It’s over,” Molly murmurs, hugging her closer. “It’s over, Jes.”

Jester just keeps crying until it seems like she may never stop, but even as he begins to think this, there is a sudden rush of warm wind and the scent of… of somewhere else. Somewhere green and summer-y, sap-sticky, and hot against the skin and Molly feels someone step into the space to his left and kneel. There’s no one there of course, but Molly sees it when Jester’s hair moves a little, an invisible hand tucking strands behind her ear and only then does her wailing become a sniffle.

“I know, but I didn’t want it to be this way,” she says loudly to no one.

Molly feels that murmur of wind again, so comforting it wipes away the cold of the room.

“You promise?” Jester says, looking up at the empty air.

And there’s a chuckle, resonate and deep. Molly gets the impression of the ‘yes’ and a whisper like a cloak against his shoulder, passing by.

And Jester turns to Molly and says, “It’ll be okay. I’m okay.”

Molly gives the room a wary once over. “You sure?”

Jester starts to smile. “We can fix it. It’s… it’s going to be—”

“Finally,” says a voice.

The word splits through Molly’s skull like a nail through the roof of his mouth. He’s on the floor before he can process anything farther, his every limb locked up around a sucker punch that didn’t happen. Dizzy, he struggles to lift his forehead from the ground, but the voice goes on like a tuning fork jammed inside his brain.

“Hey, man. Don’t run, I have some questions for you.”

Molly manages to lift his head. His vision is splitting, going dark around the edges. It hurts to look.

But, there in the middle of the room, Beauregard is standing. The barrier spell around her is gone. She’s stepped half way down from her dais, one foot sill up on the platform, the other on the floor in the attitude of descending a short flight of stairs. Her body is on fire. A pillar of blue and black flame sheathes her skin, billowing the torn edges of her jacket.

She’s looking at something forward and slightly to her left.

Her left arm is extended and her fist closed around something Molly can’t see. Her arm jerks slightly, like something is fighting her hold but she’s smiling this kind of confused, mildly annoyed smile. Like someone is being a little rude at a dinner party or something and she steps down fully. Ice bursts across the floor where her feet touch the stone, the temperature in the room going sub-zero and Molly knows without knowing that if the anti-magic field drops, they’re going to get the brunt of it.

“Wow. Stop spazzing out. I just want to talk,” Beau is saying in that awkward friendly-but-I’m-kind-of-faking-it voice she does when she’s working at being a person to someone she’d rather punch. “Hey. Listen, buddy. This isn’t like before. I’m something else and I need to ask you some stuff.”

And suddenly there’s someone standing in front of her. They’re struggling to get away from Beauregard, who has one iron-fingered grip viced relentlessly around their wrist.

They’re the size of a regular person, tall, slender, arguably a male build. Their skin is strange and iridescent and glowing faintly with a dim greenish warmth that penetrates the cold around them. They are dressed in adventurer’s finery – good boots, a clean blue tunic… and a long, long forest-green cloak that’s pulled up over their head and shadows everything but the lower half of their face.

Jester, seeing this, screams in horror.

But Beauregard doesn’t seem to hear. Her focus is entirely on The Traveler. She uses her free hand to grab a fistful of their cloak and drag them closer.

“I’m trying to be nice here,” she says, exasperated when her captive shoves a hand against her chest. “I’m a new god too, you know. We should stick together.” The Traveler doesn’t say anything, just bares their teeth and light flares through their body, snapping through Beauregard like a blow that knocks her face to the left. “Fucking. Rude,” she says, glaring down at the other god in front of her. “Stop it.”

“I don’t have answers for you,” says the Traveler. His voice cuts through the disharmonics from the other god, dragging a swath of relief through the room allowing the mortals there to breathe again. “I didn’t kill a god to become one.” A smile pulls briefly at his mouth, wry, and fiercely proud. “I found a faith stronger than any in the world and she believed in me. I don’t know what you are, half god. You are not like me.”

Beau-Who-Is-Not-Beau thinks about that.

Her eyes, Molly notices now, are pitch black hollows full of nothing.

“You’re right. Duh. I need to talk to her.” She thinks about it some more, then looks suddenly toward the two tieflings huddled together against the wall. “Hey, Molly. You know Vax’ildan, right?”

“Oh no,” Jester whispers.

“I wanna talk to his boss,” Beau says. “Can you tell him that?”

Then she smiles at Molly… and of course it kills him instantly.

#critical role #mollymauk tealeaf #caleb widogast #the mighty nein #critrole #long post #this one goes up to eleven

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