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Yeah, you're right that that is what makes him interesting. I do think that as a character, he would be boring if he were "perfect" and I feel like he might come off as too righteous. I do think his trauma informs a lot of his character and it's so sad. Like so, so sad. I guess it's just frustrating from a modern context because I'm like, yo, you KNOW you're suffering. And you're hurting other people because of that. We're clearly only in the middle of the story and also as a person who had a bias towards Miles, I side-eye Miguel a lot, but that's personal lol. Like, very attractive man, absolutely trash personality currently going on lol. I think I really responded to Hobie's character a lot because deep down, beyond the rebelliousness, he was actually looking out for Miles and encouraging him to think for hinself and protect himself and others. Hobie sort of serves as a foil to Miguel and I find that dynamic interesting. There are definitely parts of Miguel I do like, though. Like, it's clear he really values family and while he comes across as curmudgeonly, he cares about Peter and Mayday and truly respects Jess. I just wish he could extend that to the younger people and I think he thinks he is doing that, in his own way, but his behavior really reminded me of like, unevolved, traumatized parents in real life, so my reaction to him was like, fuck off with that shit, man lol. It may just be me, but it's hard to separate some aspects of the characters because they seemed so intertwined. It's hard to separate duty and family. Like, Peter is sort of like another father figure to Miles, so he feel very betrayed when he finds out the truth of what's going on. Hobie was acting like a brother to Miles and Gwen. She saw Jess as a mentor and def wanted her to serve as a parent figure, though Jess was maintain boundaries around that. Like, they are heroes and have obligations but it's difficult to keep those dynamics separate. So when Miles comes to Miguel, hoping to connect with him and Miguel is an asshole and is all business, when there is a clear connection the Spider people have and everyone is acknoledging that, it was frustrating. But I'm curious to see what will happen in the next movie. I have the feeling Miguel and Gwen will fight, and I kinda wanna see that lol. It would be an interesting parallel to their first meeting.
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combining both your asks into one for efficiency lol
we could probably go on talking about this until the next movie comes out, which is what makes it great C: there's just so much to discuss, so many angles, so many great characters <3
and of course it is very much the point that the characters can't see themselves from our vantage point as the audience. just like in your own life you are constrained by your own point of view and considering others requires an active effort on your own part. it doesn't just happen, you have to choose it
lol but I do love how it's essentially just
Miguel: nearly threw hands with a twelve-year-old 😑 Miles: what do you mean 'nearly'? also I'm fifteen 🤨
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theemporium · 1 year ago
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you have been invited to cece's smutober event! pick a day and dive right in. but be warned of the spooky surprises you may encounter.
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day one: steve harrington + dry humping day two: lando norris + phone sex day three: james potter + erotica day four: quinn hughes + car sex day five: charlos + free use day six: theo nott + humiliation day seven: dando + blindfold day eight: remus lupin + chocolate day nine: max verstappen + somnophilia day ten: luke hughes + cockwarming day eleven: lestappen + objectification day twelve: eddie munson + squirting day thirteen: poly!marauders + orgasm control day fourteen: daniel ricciardo + first time day fifteen: harry styles + filming day sixteen: jack hughes + thigh riding day seventeen: sebastian vettel + corruption day eighteen: steve harrington + breeding kink day nineteen: wolfstar + sex pollen day twenty: charles leclerc + aphrodisiac day twenty-one: sirius black + semi-public sex day twenty-two: carlando + seduction day twenty-three: trevor zegras + overstimulation day twenty-four: norstappen + mile high club day twenty-five: steddie + cuckholding day twenty-six: charlando + tit-fucking day twenty-seven: eddie munson + mastrubation day twenty-eight: maxiel + heat day twenty-nine: jack hughes and trevor zegras + intoxication day thirty: carlos sainz + manhandling day thirty-one: steddie + wet dream
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logging off...
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mediumgayitalian · 6 months ago
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prev
———
Whenever they drive into town, arguing over who sits where and spilling buckets of strawberries all over the floor, the music blasts so loudly on the horrible, tinny speakers that it vibrates the entire van, and still the group of them is so loud that the songs get drowned out anyway. It is especially worse if, Nico will admit, he and Chiara are in the front seats together, whatever argument they delight in having raising New York’s noise pollution levels by four percent at least. If there is enough fruit to warrant two vans, and all sixteen of them will go, they will race down the highway, drowning each other out with the pure force of their shrieking voices. People stare. Cars slow to a stop. Cars follow them, even, mouths open, wondering at these grinning, hollering fools, dressed in neon and crawling all over each other.
It has been a long time since Nico has driven in silence.
Even as a child there was noise. No radios in cars, yet, they’d hardly been invented, but he and Bianca would scarcely be within miles of each other without bickering. Crowded in the backseat of Nonno’s Alfa Romeo, shouting for Mama in between even every poked shoulder and shoved face, there was noise. In the backseat of Alecto’s SUV, too, muffled as it was, and in every car he raced at the Lotus. Even up front with Jules-Albert, there has always been something. Grumbling, usually, live Grand-Prix reporting if the season is right. Music if he is in a good mood and Nico can convince him.
The silence that rings from the coast of Long Island to the bridge over the Savannah River is unbearable. Even the van is unbelievably quiet, rusted shocks creakless and ancient engine quiet as a grave. As if it too is straining to hear the words Will is murmuring, over and over again, nonstop for hours; hunched over with his hands clasped and pressed to the bridge of his nose.
Nico knows the Lord’s prayer in five languages. He hasn’t spoken it in years, but it’s stuck in his brain the same way as the alphabet; he knows the rhythm, the place of every breath, the rise and fall of the words as they crest towards the heavens. Prayers go unanswered at the best of times, trickling down the soil and bedrock and gathering in the currents of the Styx, but Will prays like he is programmed to do it. Like it is all he has left to do. They leave in the grey peak of the afternoon and drive through the night, and the kids sleep in the back, and Will prays across the freeways, over the bridges, through the gas stations, straight through traffic. His voice scratches and fades and he does not stop, the tears roll down his cheeks and bubble into his mouth and he does not stop, the twisted-in hymns glow along every peek of sunlight, burning his throat and his hands, and he does not stop. He prays like the dying in line to be judged, like the weeping shades along the stone walkways of Asphodel, like the desolate on the bank of the River. He prays like he knows it is already over, and he is desperate for the strength to move forward.
When they pull into the parking lot it is late morning, and Nico has been driving for fifteen hours, and the sun is cowering behind black dirt stormclouds, and the heat is as oppressively constant as the Pit. Nico feels like he is standing at the mouth of something cavernous. Staring down sharp teeth and a maw the size of an island. He feels like he is teetering, balancing, tipping; like the single point on the ground moments before lightning strikes it. Close your eyes and hold out your hands. What is coming next is inescapable.
“Do we go in?”
Kayla’s voice is timid. It is never timid, and it jolts his obliques and abdominis into action, into stretching. She holds hands with her brother, and they are pressed shoulder to shoulder, eyes wide, mouths set brave and trembling,
and they are pressed shoulder to shoulder
eyes wide
mouths set brave and trembling
his ankle is twisted around hers
her skull ring knicks the flesh of his ring finger
her hands are cool
her voice is steady
her body shakes.
Where are you taking us? We would like to go home, please. Can we call our mother?
“Let’s go find Mama,” Nico hears himself say. Sees Will’s hands twitch. Watches Kayla flinch in the rearview. Feels Austin’s leg bounce the van.
His mouth feels like sand, like worn denim. Dry, desert sand, desert sand; Nevada air through the open window.
“Mama,” Will echoes. He chokes. His whole body shudders, shudders, compresses; shrinks down, mouth still moving. Knuckles white. “Mama.”
Nico swallows.
“Kayla,” says his mouth, “take your brother to go pay parking.” Take your brother inside. Wait for me; I’ll be back soon. Don’t leave the hotel. “Here.”
He hands her his father’s card, and she takes it, untangling from Austin but keeping their hands joined when he grabs for her. The van door wrenches open because the tracks are rusty and Nico jumps with it, exhaling past Kayla’s muttered apologies, waiting for the two of them to climb out and hurry across the asphalt. Huddle at the parking meter, poking at the button.
Nico opens his door and climbs out, shutting it carefully, walking calmly around the front of the van. He opens Will’s door and it doesn’t move, locked, so it waits, and when Will makes no move to pull the little lever he reaches around the door Kayla left open, pulling it himself. The door swings widely open, bouncing slightly on its hinges, and Will doesn’t so much as flinch, doesn’t so much as glance towards it.
Nico reaches out, slowly, and takes his clenched hands.
They’re wet.
He peels back his clenched fingers, one by one, and they are stiff, formed to shape. He takes a moment to straighten them, carefully, slowly, until his palms rest upwards again, fingers limp. When he presses their palms together Will’s fingers twitch, ever so slightly, around his, and he drags their hands up to his mouth and presses his knuckles to his lips, tasting the salt, tasting the iron of his cracked chapped skin. Will’s hand twitches, again, and his face matches; contorting and crumpling and breaking, for a second.
“Will,” he murmurs, salt like the coast, like Nonna’s villa, like the water slide, “Will, look at me.”
He does. He looks to him like he’s dragging himself like he is clawing his own way upright.
“I can’t again,” he croaks, “I —” and he stops, or rather he is cut off, by the sob that fights it’s way out of his throat. It is sharp like skull fragments. Some part of Nico bleeds.
“You won’t.” He drops Will’s hand and clasps instead both sides of his face, pulling him down until their foreheads press tightly together, until their breathing shares the same space, until he can feel every shudder against his skull. “We will save her.”
As he says it Nico knows he will make it so. Kayla and Austin run back to the van, ticket clenched in both of their hands, Will squeezes his eyes shut and nods, once, before sitting straighter than he has in hours, and Nico knows that he will not let Will lose.
Not again.
———
next
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hungermakesmonsters · 3 months ago
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(Once Bitten) Twice Shy
Chapter Seventeen
Plot summary : Desperate to get away from your controlling family, you take a job in New York as a wealthy vampire's blood source. A million dollars awaits if you can make it through a year, but life with Billy Russo is not going to be as simple as you think.
Pairing : Billy Russo x Reader
Story Rating : R  Chapter Rating : PG
Warnings : [This is a fic for 18+ only, minors DNI] Nothing too warning worthy, just some really creepy vibes at the end. All chapters will contain mentions of blood. Please check the warnings on each chapter if you choose to follow this story. 
Word Count : 4.5k
A/N : happy fic-friday!
CHAPTER ONE | CHAPTER TWO | CHAPTER THREE | CHAPTER FOUR | CHAPTER FIVE | CHAPTER SIX | CHAPTER SEVEN | CHAPTER EIGHT | CHAPTER NINE | CHAPTER TEN | CHAPTER ELEVEN | CHAPTER TWELVE | CHAPTER THIRTEEN | CHAPTER FOURTEEN | CHAPTER FIFTEEN | CHAPTER SIXTEEN
MASTER LIST
Chapter Seventeen
You sat in silence, too paralysed by fear to think rationally. There were things you knew you should be doing, like looking out of the window and trying to figure out where you were and, perhaps more importantly, where you were going. But, really, what did it matter? You’d always known that it would come down to this, that you’d end up his prisoner and, now, you knew for certain that no one was going to save you.
Your eyes drifted to the rear window, not looking at him, not even acknowledging his existence. 
The streets of New York all looked the same at night; all bright lights and crowds of people. The only thing you could tell was that you didn’t seem to be leaving the city. Somehow that made things worse, knowing that you were still so close to Billy but you might as well have been a million miles away. 
And, suddenly, despite your situation, Billy was all you could think about. He was probably at Josie’s by now, he’d probably realised that you were gone and that he’d never see you again. He was probably so angry.
“You’ll soon get tired of giving me the silent treatment,” he stated with a confidence that made you sick to your stomach, “but I’m not going to rush you. I have patience and we have the rest of forever.”
Forcing a breath, you tried everything you could to keep a blank face and not give into the scared helplessness that was filling you. Your gaze remained focused on the window and the streets you’d been so excited to explore only a few weeks ago. 
A sense of claustrophobia took hold the moment the limo turned into an underground parking structure, darkness filling the car and making you feel more trapped than ever. Then the car stopped.
You didn’t move, didn’t even tear your eyes away from the window.
Until he reached for you.
His cold hand on yours caused you to flinch and pull away, only to find fingers tightly gripping your good wrist.
“You’re going to behave for me,” he told you, the slightest hint of annoyance seeping into his tone.
“Or what?”
You weren’t sure what came over you in that moment but you were just as surprised by your sudden snap as he was.
“Do I have to remind you what will happen to your family?” He asked, leaning closer, gripping tighter. “Or maybe I should remind you what I’m capable of...”
“You don’t scare me anymore, Mr Drake,” you answered back, his name spat from your mouth like venom despite knowing you were only making things worse. 
“Please, you should call me Justin since you’re going to be my wife,” he offered with a smile that made you feel ill. “And you should be scared of what could happen if you try to refuse me again.”
“Am I supposed to care what happens to my parents after they sold me to you?”
You didn’t expect the laugh that followed, a sound that caused the dread in your stomach to continue to build.
“And what about Irene? You still care about her, right?”
The sound of your sister’s name on his lips was almost enough to cause your heart to stop. It was a lie, it had to be. She’d been gone for years, no one knew where she was or how to find her.
“You’re lying.” You decided to call his bluff.
He let go of your arm to reach into his pocket and pull out his phone. A moment later you felt bile rise in the back of your throat at the picture he showed you. It had been years since you’d seen her, but there was no mistaking that it was your older sister. The sickening feeling only continued to increase as he started to swipe through pictures; pictures of a family, of two young children and a telltale bump on her belly.
“If you’d prefer I could take what’s owed me from her instead, along with your nephews and your unborn niece.” He put the phone away, no longer needing it to threaten you. He’d made his point.
“You’re a monster.”
He laughed again.
“Oh, darling, you have no idea.” He leaned to open the door and then gave a wave of his hand, indicating that he wanted you to move. “It’s up to you whether we do this the easy way or the hard way.”
For a few seconds you remained completely still, defiant.
Then you moved.
What choice did you have? You knew he could bend you to his will if he wanted to, you knew he could hurt you and those closest to you. More than that, you knew that you were completely alone. No one was going to look for you. No one was coming to your rescue.
“Good choice,” you heard him mutter as he followed you out of the limo.
You bristled at the touch of his hand against your lower back, guiding you towards the elevator but you moved regardless, knowing better than to think you could outrun a vampire in the gloomy parking lot.
The elevator doors slid shut, trapping you with him and his driver, watching as he swiped a key card for the penthouse floor. Your heart lurched along with the elevator and, despite wanting to remain steely and unphased by the situation, you found yourself pulling your arms across your chest.
It was only then that you realised your suitcase was nowhere to be seen. Try as you might, you couldn’t remember what had happened to it. It had been with you when you left Josie’s but then you’d walked into Krista and -
And after that, everything was hazy.
“Where are my things?” You asked. “I had a suitcase.”
“Gone. You don’t need it,” he answered.
Your chest tightened, squeezing out a breath. Your eyes fixed forward, unblinking, not wanting to show him how upset you were. You weren’t bothered about your things, about your purse or phone, but your heart was breaking over the stuffed beagle that meant so much to you, the last little piece of Billy that you had.
“I want it,” you demanded defiantly. 
“Why?” He asked, a hint of annoyance in his voice.
“Because it’s mine. If you want me to stay here and not cause problems, then you need to find it.” You glared at him as he spoke, as if there was really anything you could do to hurt him. 
He seemed disinterested but shrugged before giving his driver a glance. The man nodded, understanding his orders without a word even passing between them. Though, by now, you knew it was probably too late. You’d probably never see Bill the Beagle again.
As he led you into the penthouse suite, his driver disappeared back into the elevator, but you weren’t so naive as to think that you were alone with him. He’d have his goons somewhere near, in case he needed them. If you wanted to even think about trying to get away from him again, you were going to have to bide your time.
Your stomach dropped when you were led into a bedroom. You lingered in the doorway, leaving as much space between you and him as you could and, of course, he noticed.
“There’s no need to be shy,” he told you, barely holding back a smirk.
“I’m not being shy,” you answered back. 
His gaze darkened.
“I can’t say that I like this new attitude you seem to have developed. I can see now why William Russo had to resort to physical means to keep you in line,” he stated, gesturing at your broken arm.
“You don’t know anything about Billy,” you snapped through gritted teeth.
“Oh, Billy is it?” He asked, looking at you like he could look right through you, like he could tell every little thought in your head, and he didn’t like what he saw. “Got close to him, did you?”
You felt your cheeks start to burn while your hands clenched to fists at your side, and he noticed it all.
“More than that?” He asked, though he didn’t need to hear an answer. “You’re lucky I’m not a jealous man, otherwise I might have taken it out on poor dear Billy. But, then, why should I be jealous of a vampire who likes to play with his food?” 
“You know nothing about it or him.”
“Oh, I know plenty,” he answered back. “Enough to know that he’ll have a new girl in his employ, bleeding for him by the end of the week and probably in his bed just as quick, just like he replaced your friend Krista...”
You shook your head, insolent, even though some part of you wondered if he was right. Perhaps Lissa had already put out an advertisement for your replacement.
But you weren’t given time to linger on the thought. He closed the distance between you, his cold fingers grasping your chin, turning your head one way and then the other as he inspected your neck.
“Did he bite you?” He asked and you stayed silent, so he resorted to threats. “Do I have to strip you and check for myself?”
The threat was enough to break you. “No. He didn’t bite me.”
“Good. Now get changed out of those clothes, so we can have supper and discuss our future together.” A wave of his hand led your gaze to an outfit that had been set out for you on the bed.
----------------
“Why didn’t she tell me?” Billy asked as if he thought Karen might have some magic answer to explain everything that was going on.
She’d explained about Madani, about the questions the Homeland agent had about Billy, as well as the warning that she’d offered outside the hospital. But she only knew what you had shared with her and the little that Madani had been willing to say, and it wasn’t a lot. 
And it certainly wasn’t enough for Billy.
“I don’t know, I guess because she didn’t believe it, she didn’t think it was worth worrying you with it,” Karen offered, lifting her glass and taking a slow drink.
Billy and Frank had asked around, hoping someone had seen you while Karen called Madani, but the most they got was from a drunk who thought you might have gotten into a limousine with friends. By the time they sat to wait for the Homeland agent, Billy was crawling out of his skin.
“And you’re sure she didn’t believe it?” He asked, again trying to get an answer that he knew Karen couldn’t possibly know.
“Well, she saw Krista, didn’t she?” Frank offered. “Hard to think you killed someone who’s still walkin’ around.”
“But, what if -” he started and stopped as Karen dared to reach across the table, placing a hand on his arm.
“Billy, she didn’t leave because she thought you’d done something wrong,” she offered.
“No, she left because I’m like... this...”
Frank bristled at his side but didn’t say anything, though Karen could tell just how much effort it took for him to bite his tongue. She’d seen them have that argument before, and she’d been the one left to console Frank afterwards.
“We’ll find her, Billy,” Karen tried again, pulling back her hand.
“I just -” he started but stopped the moment he noticed a woman in a suit approaching them, eyeing him with very obvious suspicion.
Karen’s eyes followed Billy’s, and she quickly stood up.
“Agent Madani.”
“Ms Page,” she greeted Karen before uncomfortably eyeing Billy and Frank.
“Something’s happened and we need your help,” Karen tried to explain, waving a hand, trying to get Madani to sit. 
Between the three of them, they explained what had happened as far as they knew, up to the point where they found your suitcase on the sidewalk. An uncomfortable silence fell while Madani took it all in.
“How can you be sure she didn’t just abandon it?” Madani asked, glancing at the case.
“She wouldn’t do that,” Billy answered, his hand resting on the stuffed beagle. “Why would she leave her phone and purse?”
Madani looked at him for a few moments, saying nothing.
“And how do I know that any of this is true?” She finally asked. “How do I know that this isn’t some elaborate ruse? How do I know she isn’t dead somewhere and all of this is to stop me from asking questions later on?”
“I didn’t kill her. I haven’t killed anyone. I -” Billy started to snap.
“Bill,” Frank warned, silencing him.
“You’ve got a badge, right?” Karen asked. “The store across the street has got a security camera pointed at the street, you can take a look at the last hour and see if we’re telling the truth or not.”
Frank struggled to fight back a grin, nudging Karen with his elbow, impressed with her. Madani on the other hand, seemed a little less enthusiastic. 
“It’s not that simple, I’d need a warrant, and -”
“We don’t have time -” Karen started.
“Fuck this,” Billy muttered, getting to his feet.
Frank followed suit. “What’re you doin’, Bill?” 
“I’m going to get the security footage myself,” he answered.
“Hey, if you think I’m going to sit back while you commit a crime -” Madani was on her feet a second later.
“The more time we waste, the harder it’s going to be to find her,” Billy snapped. “And I’m not going to lose her. You can either help or you can stay out of my way, but I’m warning you, Agent Madani, I’m not someone you want as an enemy.”
Without another word, he started towards the door, Madani and Frank following after while Karen opted to hang back with your suitcase.
Billy made his way across the street, not caring if he was followed; he was determined to find out what happened, with or without help. With the way he was feeling, he’d tear the store owner apart if he even tried to get in his way. And Frank seemed to realise that. It was why he didn’t let Billy get more than a few feet ahead of him.
And Madani followed because she was almost hoping that he’d do something to prove her right about him.
“How we doin’ this then?” Frank asked just outside the little corner store, stopping Billy in his tracks. 
“That’s up to Agent Madani,” Billy answered, glaring at the Homeland agent.
For a few seconds she looked at the two vampires, hating that she was being put on the spot but realising that there was nothing that she could do to stop them from looking at the footage one way or another.
“Fine, wait here,” she answered, as she moved to step past Billy.
“What? If you think I’m -” Billy was silenced by Frank’s hand on his shoulder.
Madani waited for a beat before entering the store alone.
The bell over the door chimed, signalling her arrival to the young guy behind the counter who looked up from his phone for a split-second before dropping his gaze again. Madani strode towards the counter, reaching into her jacket for her badge and ID. For a few seconds she didn’t say anything, instead she listened to the faint sounds coming from the assistant's phone.
‘If vampire’s keep taking all the wealth and making it so honest, hard working humans can’t find a decent job that pays a decent wage -”
She cleared her throat, having heard all she needed to. Anti-vampire sentiment was still widespread and there were plenty of online commentators willing to try to make a quick buck from it, and in this situation, it was something she could use to her advantage.
“Agent Madani, Homeland Security,” she stated. The kid looked ready to shit himself at the sight of her badge. “I’m going to need to see the CCTV footage from the front of the store for the last couple of hours.”
“I -” for a moment he struggled to find the words, “- I think I’d need to ask my boss.”
“Is he here right now?”
“No, he lives in Jersey...”
Madani let out a sigh, letting the kid see her frustration.
“Listen, I’ll level with you, I’m tracking a dangerous vampire,” she told him and saw a flicker of anger on his face. “I think they’ve hurt a lot of people, a lot of young women about your age...”
“Fucking bloodsuckers,” he muttered.
“If I could see that footage, I might be able to catch him and, if I do...” she shrugged, “well, there’d be nothing to stop you from posting the whole thing online. I hear you can make a lot of money with stuff like this.”
Madani could practically see dollar signs lighting up behind his eyes. At any other time it might have bothered her just how easily influenced the kid was, but time was of the essence and she needed to know if Russo was lying to her. 
“Yeah, okay,” the kid relented, “it’s in the back here.” 
He gave a quick glance around the store, making sure it was still empty before showing her into the backroom. The set up was hardly state of the art, but it was easy enough to use - in fact, she’d used several similar systems in the past, so it didn’t take her long to scrub through the video and find the exact moment that you left Josie’s. The picture quality wasn’t brilliant and the poor lighting on the street didn’t help, but you were easy enough to spot with your suitcase.
Madani watched as someone deliberately stepped into your path before taking you by the arm and leading you towards a waiting limousine. She managed to get half of the licence plate of the limo and snapped a quick photo of the blurry figure with her phone while the kid’s back was turned, then she stood.
“Is it on there?” He asked.
“No,” she answered, forcing another sigh, “looks like the bastard managed to slip by just out of range of the camera.”
His disappointment was palpable.
“But that isn’t to say that he won’t come back,” Madani offered, “so it’d be best if you didn’t mention this to anyone, otherwise you might spook him and... well, I wouldn’t want to see you charged with obstruction after you’ve been so helpful.” 
He nodded and she didn’t waste any time in making her excuses to get out of there.
Billy was pacing by the time she stepped back outside, both men seemed to be engaged in a heated debate about something, and it looked as though Russo was on the losing end of it.
“All I’m sayin’ is -”
“What did you find out?” Billy asked, ignoring Frank and quickly refocusing all of his attention on Madani.
“I’m not sure,” Madani stated, pulling out her phone, “she left the bar and someone met her outside before leading her to a limousine. There wasn’t a struggle but... something didn’t seem right...”
“You think someone was compellin’ her?” Frank asked.
“Maybe. I can’t be sure. I got a partial plate and I’m going to call in some favours to run it, see if I can figure out who owns the limo and where it went,” Madani explained before holding up her phone to the men, showing the blurry image she’d captured. “But, while we wait, we should try to figure out who this is.”
“Fuck,” Billy grit out almost instantly.
“Goddamnit,” Frank let out a second later.
“Well, that was quicker than expected. Care to fill me in?” Madani asked.
“I knew I should’ve killed her,” Billy muttered, forcing an uneven breath, struggling to stay in control of himself.
“It’s Krista Dumont, alive and well, and still pissin’ everyone off,” Frank answered, though his gaze stayed on Billy. “You went lookin’ for her, right, Bill? Know where she might be now?”
“Yeah, I know where she lives,” Billy answered, his attention quickly turning to Madani. “You wanted to know what happened to my previous employees, right? Well, you’re about to find out.”
Without another word, he started moving back towards where he’d left his car. Frank and Madani quickly followed after, the latter on her phone calling in those favours to try and track down the limo.
----------------
You were finally left alone to change, though you spent at least five minutes searching the room, looking for anything that might help you escape. As much as you’d felt resigned to this eventuality, just being around him again had panic and dread gnawing at your insides. You had to get away.
The first thing you did was check the windows, despite already knowing that you were too high up to even consider it an option. In fact, the penthouse suite was so high up that the people on the street below seemed like ants.
Next thing you checked was the room’s phone by lifting it to your ear. No dial tone. No cord connecting it to the wall. If you could get a cord from one of the other phones in the suite, you might be able to call for help. You filled away the thought for later. 
Then you checked the drawers and the wardrobe, feeling sick to your stomach when you found several outfits that were obviously for you. They looked like the sort of clothes your mother would have picked for you and not at all like the outfits you’d enjoyed wearing over the last six months. Even the dress he’d laid out on the bed for you felt uncomfortably conservative - though you supposed you should be glad he wanted you to dress that way.
Shaking your head you tried to force the thought away and concentrate on finding things that might be helpful. 
Wooden hangers could perhaps be turned into weapons but... well, that was a line you didn’t want to think about crossing until you really had to.
“Dinner is here,” you heard his voice from behind the door. “Unless you want me to come in there and dress you myself, I suggest you hurry up.” 
As much as you wanted to be stubborn, as much as you wanted to cause him as much trouble as possible, the sorry fact of the matter was that you were scared. And you had every reason to be scared. So, you gave up your search and quickly changed into the clothes that he had left for you and stepped out into the suite.
The main room was lit by lamps, creating a romantic glow that made you feel sick.
Instead of looking at him and the table, you glanced around the room, taking note of where the phone was and how close the door was. But your host seemed to realise what you were doing.
“Sit,” he ordered, pulling out a chair at the table.
You made a point of walking around him and taking a different seat.
“You’re starting to test my patience,” he remarked, taking his own seat. 
“Already?” You remarked off-handedly, reminding him of the comment he’d made not two hours ago in the limo.
“Did Billy Russo let you talk back like this?”
“He never gave me a reason to,” you answered without hesitation, despite knowing it wasn’t strictly true.
He gave a grunt of irritation before uncovering your food. You looked down at the plate, your lips curling at the sight; tuna steak and salad. While he started to eat, you simply stared down at the plate. Even though you knew you’d never see him again, let alone bleed for him, the thought of eating anything from his list of prohibited foods. It took Justin Drake  a minute to realise that you weren’t eating, and then came the frustrated sigh.
“Are you going to fight me on everything?” He asked.
“I don’t eat tuna.”
“Since when?”
“Since I decided I don’t like it.”
“Then eat the salad,” he snapped.
You took small consolation in the fact that you were already getting to him, showing him that you were going to be far more trouble than you were worth but, again, you knew better than to push too far too soon. He could hurt you. He would hurt you if he felt like it. 
Reluctantly, you began to pick at the salad with your fork, silently wondering if you’d be able to sneak any of the cutlery away from the table.
You ate in silence, neither speaking until you were both done. He’d poured you a glass of wine, but it had been left mostly untouched and, thankfully, he hadn’t thought to order dessert.
“Tomorrow we’ll be travelling home,” he informed you. “The wedding is being arranged as we speak and, by this time next week, you’ll be my wife, so you should rid yourself of any childish notions of escaping or denying me.”
“I won’t marry you.”
“Yes you will.”
“Why? Why any of this? Why me?” You asked, anger quickly starting to bubble over. “I’ll never stop fighting you, I’ll never be yours. How is any of this worth it to you?”
He just laughed at that, sitting back in his chair and lifting his wine glass to his lips, taking a slow drink before even thinking to answer you.
“Because it’s fate.”
“What?” Had you heard him correctly? Had he called it fate?
“It was never about the money - that was just to keep your parents in line - it’s always been about you, my sweet girl.” He continued to smile as your skin started to crawl. “I knew I had to have you the first time I set eyes on you.”
Your stomach continued to churn and tie itself in knots as you thought how long ago that must have been.
“Why?” You dared to ask even though you were terrified of how he might answer.
“You look just like your great-great-great-grandmother.” He paused as if he was expecting you to say something but the shock had rendered you silent. “She was like you, she refused me what should have been mine, and she paid the price.”
It felt like your blood had turned to ice in your veins, not sure exactly what he was telling you, but not wanting to ask for clarification either. You remained silent, wondering how long he’d been tormenting your family like this and if you were the first to find yourself in this situation with him. 
“I always regretted it, once she was gone I mean. I should have handled things differently, but I was young back then, barely past my first century...” he sounded almost wistful, like he was recounting a fond memory. “But then I found you. And I won’t make the same mistake twice. You will bend to my will. You will be my wife in every sense of the word and, when you’ve finally accepted your place at my side, I will give you the greatest gift imaginable.”
You didn’t have to ask to know what he was implying.
“No,” your head shook. “I don’t want to be a vampire.”
“My sweet girl, what makes you think you have a choice?”
End Note : ... I'm not even sorry about ending it like that, I'm having too much fun getting things ready for the final confrontation. I think that there's probably only two more chapters left of this one now (depending on how carried away I get with the next part), so I hope you all enjoy what I've got planned. Also I'm sorry I picked that name for the bad guy...
As ever, thank you so much for reading/liking/reblogging/screaming at me in the comments! Have a great weekend!!
Let me know if you'd like to be tagged in future chapters! If tagging doesn't work for some reason (aka Tumblr being dumb) I post most Fridays around 7:30 gmt.
Tag List : @vaguekayla @thdcre @rensolodriver @house-husband-of-castlemurdock
@snowkestrel @danzer8705 @noortsshift @aoi-targaryen @lincerad
@vxnity713 @readerinsertsaremyguiltypleasure @dreadfulxives18 @fireeyes-on-teller-dixon-grimes @glamourbabe17
@sweetserendipity65 @damagelove @strangerfromketterdam @a-starrynightwith-u @readingabouthim
@countryday @weepingwitchofthewest @broadwaybabe18 @bunnygirlwriter876 @oliviaewl
@rosey1981 @benbarnesprettygurl @rachlovesactors @robertthehoover @ladyblacky
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@ashy-kit @jazzclubprincess @arwensloanebarnes
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teddy06writes · 30 days ago
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Whumptober Masterlist/Overview
Hey guys! I'm going to be attempting to participate in Whumptober this year (though admittedly I did kind of mash together a few different prompt lists). I have about 20 days planned out right now, and I really hope to get through them, but no guarantees unfortunately, because I do have other stuff going on in my life. Also most of these are in fact just going to be hurt/comfort because I am a weak man. Also yes I am aware that the variation in these characters is kind of insane, don't come at me.
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Day One - Survivors Guilt/"It's not your fault." - Robert 'Bob' Floyd - An accident during a training hop leaves your WSO badly injured, and you can't help but blame yourself. Bob makes it his mission to convince you otherwise.
Day Two - Migraines - Darry Curtis - Juggling a migraine and the Curtis gang is not the easiest thing in the world. Luckily, Darry is there to come to your rescue and tell the others off
Day Three - Overstimulation - Diego Hargreeves - (1960s, autistic Reader) - Between the prison break, Diego's strange brother, and home movie footage showing the assassination of the president, your not sure how much more you can take.
Day Four- Field medicine/"Hang on, we're going to have to improvise." - Fili - Even with the battle beginning to turn in your favor, there are still many losses to come, no matter how hard you work to prevent them.
Day Five - "You don't need to earn this." - Tommy Shelby - When your surprises and gentle treatment catch Tommy by surprise, he questions what he'd done to deserve it.
Day Six - Hostile environment/"I don't know how anyone could survive that." - Alfie Solomons - (War Era, Male Reader) - A poorly planned attack leaves you stuck in no mans land. Even if you make it back to the so called "safety" of the English trenches, nothing will ever be the same.
Day Seven - Needles/Stitching - John Shelby - After being sent on another needless errand by his brother, John returns late, exhausted and bloody.
Day Eight - Panic Attack - Aaron Hotchner - When a case that hits too close to home has too many missing pieces, and seemingly no end, you can't help but fall prey to a growing sense of panic.
Day Nine - Falling Asleep in a hospital room - Bradley 'Rooster' Bradshaw - When a training incident gone wrong lands Bradley in the hospital, you take it upon yourself to stay with him.
Day Ten - "Shhh, I've got you now, I'm here." - Alfie Solomons - Sabini's men kidnap you in a desperate attempt to get a leg up on your husband. When Alfie finds out, he's ready to burn the world down to get to you.
Day Eleven - Chronic pain - Boromir - The first day of a cold spell causes your pain to flare up, but you're determined to grit your teeth through the pain. Boromir however, is determined to get you to rest.
Days Twelve - Fourteen Break Days
Day Fifteen - Hiding an Injury - Aragorn - Somewhere in the thicket of Helms Deep, you're injured, but in the chaos that follows, doing anything about it seems to slip your mind.
Day Sixteen - "I did good, right?" - Umbrella Academy Unit - A mission gone wrong forces you to over use your powers, pushing you too far.
Day Seventeen - Bleeding Through Bandages - Kili - After being injured in escaping the Orcs, Oin does his best to heal you, but miles down the road, it doesn't seem to be enough.
Day Eighteen - Nightmare - Alfie Solomons - Night after night, you are plagued with nightmares, and Alfie seems to be the only thing that can cure them.
Day Nineteen - Scars - Diego Hargreeves - While patching Diego up after a fight, you see his scars for the first time.
Day Twenty - "Who did this to you?" - Dallas Winston - You get jumped, Dally plots revenge.
Day Twenty One - "You haven't done anything wrong." - Aaron Hotchner - (Autistic reader) - After a particularly long day, you find yourself overwhelmed and unsure. Luckily Aaron is there to help you calm down, no matter how much you protest.
Day Twenty Two - Chronic Pain (again) - Alife Solomons - Getting Alfie to take a day off when his sciatica is bothering him is a full time job.
Day Twenty Three - Exhaustion - Darry Curtis - Darry has been working himself to the utter bone. You take it upon yourself to make him rest.
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These might not get posted consecutively, but I'll do my best.
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imagines--galore · 6 months ago
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||The Thread of Fate|| Part Twenty
Summary: Soulmate AU. They say the Thread of Fate connects you to your one true love. It may tangle. It may stretch. But it will never break. Wrapped around your little finger it tightens when it feels your soulmate is close and loosens when they are far. And becomes visible with the colors of your soulmate’s Nation when you finally fall in love with them.
Pairing: Zuko x OroraOC (ATLA)
Rating || Genres || Warnings: T+ Romance. Adventure.
Previous Chapters - Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, Part Six, Part Seven, Part Eight, Part Nine, Part Ten, Part Eleven, Part Twelve, Part Thirteen, Part Fourteen, Part Fifteen, Part Sixteen, Part Seventeen, Part Eighteen, Part Nineteen
A/N: Okay so for the sake of moving things along, I'm gonna be compressing episodes together. Don't worry, we'll still get pivotal moments and plenty of angst inbetween as well as Orora's interaction with the Gaang, plus Zuko's turmoil, but just a bit fast paced cuz I know we're all excited to get to the Day of the Black Sun. One more thing, this chapter tends to get a little.....dark at some points. Orora is dealing with the trauma of Zuko betraying her, and Zuko is just warring with himself. So yeah, neither teenager is in a good place right now. BUT! Other then that! Happy reading lovelies!
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He was tossing and turning in his sleep. Half formed thoughts and lucid dreams plagued his mind. Nothing made sense.
Nothing except...........the thought of her.
Opening his eyes, he was greeted with the sight of Orora sitting on the edge of his bed. "Can't sleep huh?" She asked, sounding just as amused as he remembered.
Ignoring her, he sat up, running a hand down his face. "So whats on your mind?" She asked, standing to move around the room. "The Fire Lord?" He shook his head, though he was lying. "Azula?" Another shake of his head. "Aang?" She sounded a lot closer.
He was about to shake his head when something compelled him to look up and meet her gaze. It was almost scary, how clearly his mind could conjure her. And not just the physical aspect of her. He could actually imagine her warmth, and smell the perfume she had taken to wearing in Ba Sing Se.
"Of course, you're not thinking of me." She continued, sitting in front of him. "I mean why would you? I mean nothing to you." The look she fixed him with was once more a mirror image of what he remembered from the catacombs. His heart leaped in his throat.
A sudden flicker of color had his eyes darting towards the string on his finger.
It glowed a feeble blue, before disappearing.
He looked back up.
She was gone.
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"I think I see a cave below." Aang called out from beside her, though she could barely see through the cloud that drifted around them.
Sokka hushed him instantly. "Shh! Keep quiet!" Orora rolled her eyes as she scratched Momo behind the head. "Sokka, I doubt anyone is around this place for miles." She pointed out to which Sokka shot her a glare.
Appa landed as Aang dissipated the cloud he had been airbending around them. Sokka jumped down and looked around suspiciously before crossing his arms and turning to look at the rest of them as they disembarked from the Bison.
He looked so much like a father disappointed at his children that Orora had to suppress a smile to lest she annoy him further.
"Great job with the cloud camo." He praised Aang, to which the young Avatar smiled. "But next time, let's disguise ourselves as the kind of cloud that knows how to keep its mouth shut." He ended, before moving to look around once more.
"You gonna check under the rocks for booby traps Sokka?" Orora called out, unable to keep from taking a jab at the boy's suspicious nature.
Toph, who was standing next to her, and who also couldn't let such a golden tease Sokka opportunity go to waste added. "Yeah, we wouldn't want a bird to hear us chatting up there and turn us in." Aang and Katara, who had been holding back their smiles, smothered their giggles.
His face set in an annoyed scowl, Sokka rounded on all four of them. "Hey, we're in enemy territory." He pointed above his head where a few birds sat atop the boulder right behind him. "Those are enemy birds." He whispered harshly. One of the Toucan Puffin jumped onto his head and screeched.
"Maybe he thinks your ponytail is a friend." This time the other three did start laughing out loud as they walked towards the cave Aang had seen earlier. Grumbling under his breath, Sokka followed after them, though he did not stop in his.........reconnaissance. He brushed past Orora, prompting the girl to scowl at him in annoyance.
The group stood around as Sokka continued to investigate, and once he was satisfied he stood up straight and grinned. "Well, this is it. This is how we'll be living until the invasion begins. Hiding in cave after cave after cave after cave." His head fell lower and lower as his voice lost the enthusiasm behind it and his shoulders slumped.
Katara rolled her eyes at her brother's antics. "Sokka, we don't need to become cave people. What we need is some new clothes." She said, gesturing to herself as well as the rest of the group. Aside from Sokka, who wore the Fire Nation Soldier uniform, all four of them were wearing clothes of their respective nations, except for Orora, with cloaks thrown over their shoulders.
Orora glanced down at herself and grimaced. "Yeah, I think red on green is a little out of fashion." She flicked the front of her dress in annoyance. "Besides if we get Fire Nation clothes we can just walk around in the open no?" She continued, turning to look at her friends.
Aang nodded. "Yeah, blending in is better than hiding out. If we get Fire Nation disguises, we would be just as safe as we would be hiding in a cave." He finished with a big grin.
Having taken to sitting down on the stone floor, Toph nodded. "Plus, they have real food out there. Does anyone want to sit in the dirt and eat cave hoppers?" The girl punched the side of the cave, causing several hoppers to jump out. Feeling a shiver run up her spine, Orora quickly stepped a little ways away from the creepy crawlies, and tried very hard not to look at Momo who was chomping on one of them.
Sokka sighed before looking at Momo. "Looks like we got outvoted, sport." He said, before cheerfully proclaiming. "Let's get some new clothes."
Seems the thought of not living in a cave all the time cheered him up.
And for once luck was on their side.
All five of them crouched behind a rock that overlooked a Fire Nation home with a waterfall nearby. There were rows upon rows of clothes hanging over natural steam vents. As her blue eyes darted from one clothing item to the next, Orora contemplated on what to take.
"I don't know about this." Aang whispered. "These clothes belong to somebody."
Katara, who had been on her one side, jumped out from behind the rock. "I call the silk robe!" She called, grabbing two outfits.
The other waterbender was quick to follow. "No fair Katara! I had my eye on that!"
Aang blinked as the two girls began to race between the maze of clothes, darting to and fro, examining clothes, and picking the ones they liked and leaving what they didn't. "But if it's essential to our survival." He mused, before he too perked up and jumped over the rock. "Then I call the suit!"
Though there was a flurry of activity inbetween the clothing lines, each of them was discrete as they grabbed clothes here and there. Anything they wouldn't need would be returned, but for now grabbing as many garments seemed to be the best way to go about it.
Soon they had all picked out their clothes and moved away to quickly change. Orora looked at what she had picked out. A pair of pants that slid over her legs, sitting loosely and ending just below her knees. Pulling the laces on the edge, she was able to create a slight ruffle once she tied it up. She paired it with a shin length skirt wrapped around her waist, but had made a slight modification by splitting the sides of the skirt to allow her legs to move better.
Her top was a deep red bandeau, with gold accents along the edges, that left her shoulders and part of her navel bare, revealing soft brown skin. She pulled on a pair of armbands that came up to her elbows. They were the same color as the top, and the ends were tipped in gold.
A nearby shed had revealed several shoes within. With a shoe size that was a little tough to find, Orora had taken the first one that fit her. They were a dark brown with a golden stripe down the front to the tip and came up to her calf. Pulling them on, she turned her attention to her reflection.
Now that her hair was long enough, she was able to make a braid that circled around her head like a crown, keeping stray strands out of her face.
Pursing her lips, she twisted this way and that, wanting to see herself from all angles. It wasn't her first choice of outfit, but she didn't have many options. Besides, it felt strange to be wearing red when all she associated with that color was fear.
She missed wearing blue, the girl suddenly realized, sighing to herself. Now she understood why Zuko had hated the colors of the Earth Kingdom. He had missed the colors of his Nation.
A scowl creased her features. Why had she just thought of him? He didn't even deserve a single second of her time.
Growling to herself, and ignoring the way her heart twinged, she bundled up her clothes and threw them into the river, causing her reflection to ripple.
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Once they had all reconvened, the small group walked into the nearby city to purchase some other items they needed. Accessories to go with their now outfits.
Katara bought a new necklace, swapping the one she wore. Toph chose a headband, Sokka picked out a top knot. Aang, already wearing a headband, didn't pick anything out. Orora took a simple hair clip that would keep her braid in place.
Now for the next problem.
Food.
"I'm starving!" Toph groaned. Her complain was followed by a rumble from her stomach. Katara smiled as she patted Toph's shoulder in reassurance. "Don't worry, that's what we're gonna do next."
Before stepping out into the street, they stood behind a wall, waiting for Aang to finish hiding Momo.
Seeing him pat down Momo's ears and hide him inside his shirt, Orora raised an eyebrow. "You sure he won't get out Aang?" She asked, to which he grinned. "Momo knows how to keep still, don't you buddy?" He nearly stuck his face into his shirt. The poor animal responded with a series of chitters.
"I used to visit my friend Kuzon here a hundred years ago." Aang said in a cheerful tone. "So, everyone just follow my lead and stay cool. Or, as they say in the Fire Nation, 'stay flamin'." He walked out from behind the building. With a brief look of confusion she shared with Katara, the rest of the followed after him.
As they looked for a restaurant, Aang continued to greet people n the strange lingo he had learned a hundred years ago. "If he keeps saying that we're definitely gonna get noticed." Toph stated.
Finally finding a restaurant, they all moved to step inside but Aang stopped. "Oh, we're going to a meat place?"
Sokka shrugged. "Come on, Aang, everyone here eats meat. Even the meat!" He pointed towards a hippocow who was consuming a piece of meat.
Aang grimaced. "You guys go ahead. I'll just get some lettuce out of the garbage." Katara waved at him before they entered the building. "Stay out of trouble." Orora called over her shoulder. Aang gave her a playful salute.
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It turns out, she didn't have much of an appetite.
And given that she felt a little restless, Orora decided to walk back to the cave by herself, leaving Sokka to nearly eat the whole restaurant out.
She took her time, looking around at the buildings, and watching the Fire Nation civilians go about their everyday lives. It seemed so strange, to be walking through the enemy and have them acting so normal. Then again they were normal. None of them were soldiers. She doubted any of them had anything to do with the war.
The young waterbender took a long while walking around and just exploring, and it wasn't until it was sundown, that she realized that it was getting late.
Changing course, she walked out of town following the stream towards the cave they would be staying in for the next few days. As she walked, her gaze slowly began to shift to the babbling stream she walked alongside.
Her steps slowed, and soon she came to a stop.
The girl stood there, staring at the water as it rushed by. Ever changing, ever shifting.
It followed it's own course, she thought, just like she had. And yet the stream seemed to have made its way in the world with no obstacles, so why couldn't she do the same?
Her obstacle wasn't physical. It was mental and emotional.
Since Ba Sing Se, she had kept her attention towards her friends and their well-being. There had never been a moment when she had been alone. And if she happened to be alone, she would try to distract herself by either training or wandering around, just as she had done just now around the town.
Now?
She was alone.
With nothing but her thoughts, and the stream for company.
And her mind went to the one person she had no desire to think of and yet.......he was always there.
At the back of her mind.
Zuko.
Her soulmate.
The boy who had decided to return to the Fire Nation. To a father who had banished him. Had burned him.
What Orora couldn't wrap her head around was the fact that he had just............left.
He'd just left.
Her and his Uncle.
Had he not thought of how his actions would effect either of them?
Had he not loved his Uncle?
Love.
She........didn't think he loved her. But he did at least care for her.
Didn't he?
Or rather hadn't he?
Did he still think about her? Or had he already forgotten all that they had shared in Ba Sing Se? All those moments when it looked like they were progressing with their friendship. All those talks they had had, sharing everything with each other.
Had all that amounted to..........nothing?
Was she nothing to him?
Had she not been enough?
That strange sensation began to creep up her throat again, she gulped it back but it took her a couple of tries before it disappeared.
She stared into the watery depths of the stream, completely missing the way her string glowed a dull red for a second before disappearing.
"Orora?"
The sound of her name suddenly echoed in her ears and she blinked. Shaking her head to clear herself of the fog that seemed to have descended upon her, the girl quickly turned her head to the source of the sound.
Aang looked at her from where he stood a few feet away, covered in dirt. "Are you alright? I've been calling out to you for a long time now?" He asked, concern in his grey eyes.
"I'm......fine." She finally responded, pushing away her morbid thoughts and forcing herself to pay attention to Aang. "Why're you covered in dirt?" She asked, wanting to change the subject lest the boy pick up on what had her mind so occupied.
He rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. "I went to play hide and explode with some new friends of mine." He said. Orora raised an eyebrow. "Uh huh, and where exactly did you make these friends?" From what the others had told her, Aang had the tendency to make friends wherever he went.
Aang grinned. "At school."
That was not the answer she had been expecting.
She blinked.
"Say what?"
                                           ————————–
Twice now he had gone to the prison.
The first time he had turned back, not even making it t the door. The second time he had walked in, threatened a guard before entering the one cell room he had been dreading to.
His Uncle's.
Not that going there had done him any good.
His Uncle had not spoken a word, and the already panicked and confused Prince had shouted a few choice words before going back the way he came.
It wasn't until the next morning, when he woke up and was playing around with his breakfast instead of actually eating it, did he realize that all that anger and confusion had morphed into something else completely.
Guilt and shame.
Zuko had wanted nothing more then to forget about it, to go about his day as if nothing had happened the night before. So when Mai had suggested that they take a private stroll to the nearby rocky outcrop that provided gorgeous views of the landscape he had almost said yes.
What had stopped him?
Memories of a blue eyed girl.
Her smile. Her presence. Her kindness. Her words. Her comfort. Her voice. Her hugs. Her laughter. Her smile. Her.............kiss.
"Thanks Mai, but I want to be alone right now." He finally responded. She gave a frown, her lips pinched.
"You know I'm getting tired of throwing hints and you not picking up on them Zuko." He flinched, thinking that maybe he had been a little dismissive of Mai's efforts to win him over.
There would have been a time when he would have actually reciprocated her feelings, and enjoyed them as well.
Now?
Now the very thought of even spending time with Mai had him feeling guilty.
As if he were going behind Orora's back.
Which was ridiculous, because they hadn't even been together officially. They'd just been friends.
But.....friends didn't kiss like they did.
Soulmates did.
Neither of them had thought of accepting the bond either, really they'd never even talked about it.
Mai had already walked off, and Zuko had barely noticed. His eyes were slightly glazed as he focused on the image of the water tribe girl he had called his friend for so many months.
If she were to see him now, she wouldn't be able to recognize him, he was sure.
Guilt and shame returned tenfold.
Though it was futile, he figured a walk along the same route Mai had suggested would do him some good. Pretty soon he was sitting atop a large flat boulder, one leg hanging over the side while the other he had pulled up so he could rest his arm on his knee.
The sun had just begun to set, casting gorgeous red, orange and yellow hues all around. He closed his eyes.
"You know its funny."
His eyes shot open and he turned his head. Orora was sitting beside him, knees pulled up to her chest. For the first time since his return home, there was a small smile playing about her lips. He stared, stunned.
"While we were in Ba Sing Se, we saw the night sky, and we watched a couple of sunrises together. But never a sunset." She turned her head so she could look at him. "I wonder why is that."
Feeling his own lips pull into a small smile. "Probably because we were too tired from being in the tea shop all day." He responded to which she sighed and nodded. "Yeah.......I just wish we had watched one together."
She lay her hands flat on either side of her body, leaning back on her arms, tilting her head back as she took in the last bit of warmth.
Zuko stared.
How was it that such a simple act would make her appear even more pretty then she already was? Had she always been this beautiful, or was his mind making her appear even more so then she already was?
Reaching out, he gently took her hand in his. Orora looked at him, surprise evident across her features. But Zuko was hardly aware of that, as he concentrated on the feel of her hand in his. Her scent as it surrounded him. And her presence that had always calmed him.
And yet.........the guilt..........the shame lingered.......
"I'm surprised to find you here by yourself Zuko. I figured you would be with Mai."
His eyes shot open and his head whipped to the side to see his sister leaning against a nearby rock wall. Her signature smirk was present across her lips as she looked at him.
"What do you want Azula?" He asked, turning his head back to it's original placement. Walking to stand in front of him, Azula cut straight to the point.
"So, I've heard you've been to visit your uncle fatso in the prison tower." Her words prompted him to slide down and stand in front of her, hands fisted in anger and glaring at her.
"That guard told you." He growled angrily, to which Azula shook her head, her smirk growing.
"No." She said, as calm as could be. "You did. Just now."
He wanted to kick himself for his own stupidity. Why did he have to go and fall for Azula's tricks every time. Still he stepped away from her and sighed. "Okay, you caught me. What is it that you want, Azula?"
His sister shrugged. "Actually, nothing." He stared up at her in disbelief. "Believe it or not, I'm looking out for you. If people find out you've been to see Uncle, they'll think you're plotting with him. Just be careful, Dum-Dum."
With that she walked off, leaving Zuko to think over what had just happened. There had to be an agenda behind her little visit. Azula didn't speak to him unless she wanted something. Or when she wanted to torment him and make his life miserable.
Too late for that, he mused to himself, lifting the hand that had held Orora's so many times.
He was already miserable.
The thread flickered a feeble blue before disappearing.
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This was rather strange for lack of a better word.
She'd attended partied growing up, but they had all been rather stiff and solemn affairs.
And there was nothing stiff and solemn about the dance party Aang had decided to throw.
Kids dancing, laughing, chatting and just generally being......kids.
She stood in the corner beside the table Toph and Katara occupied, sipping from her the cup the former had earthbended for their use. The cave looked gorgeous, with hundreds of candles flickering against the walls. Music filled the air as Aang taught his new friends all the dance moves he knew from a hundred years ago.
"Who knew Twinkle-toes could dance." Toph said as she sipped her drink.
"Hope those dances are still relevant." Orora added, smiling to herself as Aang began to pull a few girls to the dance floor, who followed eagerly. Her eyes shot to Katara, and she couldn't help but purse her lips to keep from laughing at the annoyed look on the girl's face.
But she didn't have to wait long. Aang approached Katara, holding out his hand and asking her for a dance.
Orora couldn't help but smile brightly as the both of them ran to the dance floor hand in hand.
Everyone stopped what they were doing and simply stared at the two dancers. Orora recognized the dance. It was actually a series of waterbending forms that required two people to perform together. Looks like Aang had decided to put a little spin on his and Katara's fighting skills to other use.
She sighed.
They looked so happy, smiling and laughing as they glided across the floor. They deserved it. The both of them had seen too many horrors and just deserved to be happy with each other. Anyone could see why they were picked to be soulmates. If they decided to tell anyone that is.
They just fit together.
Like two pieces of a puzzle.
Like.........
Like her and Zuko had been.
Her heart constricted painfully in her chest, prompting her to gulp down her drink, as if it would get rid of the pain. Though the ache remained. While Orora went off to refill her cup, Toph's unblinking eyes followed her retreating back.
This wasn't the first time the young earthbender had picked up on the weird anomaly. And she was starting to wander what it was all about.
                                           ————————–
He was back again.
He didn't know why he kept coming back. Call it desperation. His Uncle had always been the one he turned to during his hour of need. It was upon returning to the Fire Capital that Zuko realized he had no one other then his Uncle who could give him advice and whom he could trust.
Despite the guilt he felt every time he visited him, Zuko always pushed past it.
Why?
He was getting desperate.
As he slid some food through the bars of the prison behind which his Uncle sat, he couldn't help but feel that guilt increase tenfold as he wandered what kind of food were they even giving him.
If he received any food at all.
"I brought you some komodo chicken. I know you don't care for it, but I figure it beats prison food." He said, his low voice echoing against the cold stone walls of the prison.
"I admit it." He began again after a beat of silence. "I have everything I always wanted." Not everything, an inner voice supplied, conjuring up an image of a certain waterbender girl with white in her hair. "But it's not as all how I thought it would be. The truth is, I need your advice."
Leaning forward he gripped the bars of the door. "I think the Avatar is still alive, I know he's out there, I'm losing my mind." His Uncle did not even respond. Growing desperate by the moment, Zuko continued.
"Please, Uncle, I'm so confused I need your help." His words were met with silence. All that fear, guilt and loneliness boiled down to one emotion.
Anger.
Anger he let out on his Uncle as he suddenly stood.[Iroh still has nothing to say to him. "Forget it." He declared, his hands shook with anger as he began to walk out of the room. "I'll solve it myself! Waste away in here for all I care!"
A voice called out.
"Is this how you behave with your elders Zuko?"
The boy in question whipped his head around to see Orora standing next to his Uncle behind bars. She was looking at him with such disappointment. "Stay out of it Orora!" He commanded, before walking out and slamming the door behind him.
Behind him Iroh looked up, wandering why his nephew would say such a thing. The thought of his young pupil had the old Master hoping and praying that she was safe.
Two lone tears slid down his cheek.
One for his nephew, who had lost his way, and one for his pupil, who had lost everything.  
                                           ————————–
It had to be done.
This was the final resort.
He was desperate.
There was nothing else he could do.
As the man he had hired approached, Zuko lowered his hood and looked at him. "You're sure you weren't followed?" He asked the giant of a man with the metal leg. The towering figure gave no response.
"I've heard about you." Zuko continued. "They say you're good at what you do, and even better at keeping secrets." This was it. His chance to keep what he deserved.
"The Avatar is alive." He revealed, a slight tremor in his voice as he continued. "I want you to find him, and end him." After a few moments, the man nodded in confirmation. Satisfied, Zuko pulled back his hood. His heart clenched in his chest, and his stomach flipped. Despite the fact that he had hardly eaten throughout the day, he felt like he was going to be sick. He quickly hurried off, as the urge to take back his order rose in him in a wave of guilt and shame.
No sooner had he disappeared from view when another hooded figure approached, though this figure did not remove their hood, anyone who knew them would recognize the voice.
"You heard what my brother said. And no matter what, do not stop for anything."
The voice continued, smooth and without the slightest bit of tremor as it gave the orders to kill. "I will pay you thrice as much as he does if you follow my orders, and four times my weight in gold if you return with one of the Avatar's companions."
The man blinked at the figure.
"A watertribe girl, with white in her hair." Anyone else who heard the voice, would be able to pick up on the absolute glee in the person's tone.
After all, there was nothing Princess Azula loved more then tormenting her brother.
                                           ————————–
She stared into the murky waters of the river.
The voices of the rest of the group were muffled behind her as she sat a little ways apart from them.
They had arrived at the river with the town situated in the middle of it. Calling it a town was a bit of a stretch. It was nothing more then series of planks nailed together to form streets, with people living out in the open with nothing to protect them from the natural elements.
But that wasn't what had gotten to her.
It was the people.
People who were sick, children who looked like they hadn't eaten a proper meal in days. Her heart physically ached at the sight. She'd moved to suggest that they help them, with Katara taking her side, but Sokka had stopped them. They couldn't reveal who they were by using Healing abilities.
He was right though. They had to think practically. And though it went against her very nature to not help, Orora kept her gaze forward, not wanting to meet the eyes of some destitute soul she had the ability to save but couldn't.
Besides, she doubted she would be able to help anyone much, what with her own lack of strength. For the past couple of days her appetite had been completely non-existent, and she was barely sleeping. She would doze off, but then as she would begin to fall deeper into sleep, Orora would forcefully jerk herself awake.
Why?
Because of the nightmares.
Nightmares that were just as horrible as the one from the previous night, if not more. All of them included someone she loved getting hurt or tortured or being killed.
And she couldn't take it.
She just couldn't take it.
"Hey?" She blinked as her head turned to the side and watched as Aang sat down beside her. Aang. The sweetest boy she would ever meet. With a fate that was so difficult and full of obstacles that she didn't think was fair to him. He deserved so much more. So much more then always being on the run, never being a kid all the time like he was supposed to. Loosing his people, his friends, his loved ones at the hands of a mad Fire Lord. He had died, and yet somehow, he still retained his sweet nature.
How could fate be so cruel to him?
"Enjoying the view?" He asked, referring to the polluted river in a joking manner. The older girl attempted to smile, but it was a grimace at best. As she turned her gaze towards the heavens where the moon had appeared out from behind the clouds Aang frowned.
Something was wrong.
Her lips parted as she spoke. "Its strange, how fate gives you something, but then takes it away again. These people have this river, but their own superiors have taken it away from them for their own gain." She hardly blinked as her eyes shifted from the moon to the lake. "Makes you question everything, doesn't it?" She muttered, a strange look in her eyes, never once wavering from the murky water in front of her.
Beside her Aang blinked, his eyes darted to the half-eaten bowl of food beside her. "Are you.......feeling alright Orora?" He asked, the worry evident in his tone and his eyes as he reached out to place a tentative hand on her shoulder.
He felt her tense under his touch. Her back straightened, her racing mind suddenly coming to a halt.
"I'm fine Aang."
Lie.
"Are you talking about the river or about someone else?" Aang asked, testing the waters, hoping he didn't say the wrong thing.
Someone else.
Zuko.
He meant Zuko.
Her soulmate.
In a way, she was addressing him as well. Or rather she was addressing the way she had lost him. Had she lost him though? Had he ever been hers to behind with?
He had been the one to turn his back on her. To attack her friends meant to attack her.
She blinked, her eyes heavy with sleep yet she couldn't go to sleep. She wouldn't.
Not when it meant she had to see Zuko hurt or dead over and over again.
He was gone from her life, but that did not mean she did not miss him. She did.
But now was not the time to dwell on that. Instead, the older girl shrugged her shoulders in a silent response. Aang seemed to accept it, since he fell silent next to her.
Orora stayed there for a few more minutes before she stood up, getting ready to go to bed.
The food she barely touched, she gave to Momo.
                                           ————————–
Orora laughed as she pulled him along through the streets of Ba Sing Se.
"Come on Zuko! The fireworks are about to start and I'm not going to miss them." She called over her shoulder. Dropping his hand so he would follow on his own, she turned a corner disappearing from view.
Zuko smiled as he walked after her at a much normal pace.
"If I run after you anyone might mistake me for a robber chasing you or something." He called in a playful tone, as he too turned a corner and came to an open courtyard.
The scene that greeted him had the smile dying on his lips, and his amber eyes to widen in fear and panic.
There stood his father and sister, in full Royal Attire, with more then a handful of soldiers standing behind them.
But that wasn't what got his attention.
It was the sight of Orora, shackled and in his sister's grasp. There were chains on her wrists, around her throat and even her ankles. Her clothes were torn, her hair hanging in front of her lowered face as she knelt in front of his family.
"Zuko, you did not tell me you found your soulmate." Ozai spoke in a pleasant tone as he regarded his son with a look that had always frozen him in place. "That is the sort of news a son shares with his father. I had thought perhaps we were more closer then before your banishment."
The scene around him had changed.
He now stood in the courtyard of the Fire Palace, though the scene in front of him stayed the same.
His soulmate.
In chains.
Azula sighed. "Oh Zuzu, why do you insist on keeping secrets from your own family?" She purred in a tone that had more of a thread behind it then a question.
"Father, I-" He started but then fell silent when his Father held up a hand.
He shook his head. "Not a word Zuko. I would much prefer to hear a few certain words from your lovely soulmate here."
With that the Fire Lord walked forward, only to yank one of the chains. It was connected to the shackle around Orora's throat. The yank forced her to tilt her head back.
Zuko nearly threw up.
Her lips were bloody, her nose broken with dried blood staining her upper lip. One of her eyes was black, while the other was completely shut because of the swelling. There were numerous cuts and bruises all across her once unmarred brown skin.
But worst of all?
There was a burn mark on her cheek. As if she had been slapped by a hand holding a flame.
"Now my dear, I want you to take a good look at my son and tell me." He pulled the chain, forcing her to turn her head to look at him. Tears filled his eyes at the sight of her beautiful face, her one good eye betraying no emotion.
"Is he your soulmate?"
A beat of silence, where Zuko held his breath.
But then he saw it.
A lone tear escaping her one good eye.
Then she spoke the words that had his heart stopping in his chest.
"No, he's not."
His heart shattered.
                                           ————————–
With a heartbreaking cry, Zuko shot awake, his arm held out in front of him as if he were reaching for something.
For someone.
His chest rose and fell as he panted for breath, sweat lined his body as his mind played the nightmare in his mind over and over again. He could even feel sweat on his face and getting into his eyes since they were stinging so much.
He buried his head in his hands, curling in on himself where he sat.
How could he ever have thought it? How could he ever have thought of bringing Orora here? His Father would never have accepted her as his soulmate. His sister would've tormented her every single day. She wouldn't have been safe.
His eyes stung and he brushed away the sweat that stained his cheeks. Suddenly he stopped, staring at the drops of sweat that shone on his palm.
Not sweat, tears.
He was crying.
He was crying because he had nearly brought Orora to certain death if he had asked her to come with him.
What had he been thinking?
The window beside his bed was open, casting the light of the full moon on his bed. Despite the horrifying nightmare still plaguing him, he turned his head to look at the moon.
"That was horrible wasn't it?" Orora asked from where she sat at the foot of his bed. He always turned to look at her whenever she would appear like this.
But right then, he couldn't.
The image of her so hurt and burned was still too fresh in his mind.
"Don't worry, I've had the same dreams. Though in mine everyone I care about or love always die."
Finally, he turned his head, only to meet her gaze and having his heart stop.
She looked so sad.
So utterly heartbroken.
He had done that to her, he suddenly realized as she stood to walk up next to him beside the bed. He had made her so incredibly unhappy because of his choice. Because he had wanted his old life back.
He had thrown everything they had in her face and just left her.
His stomach roiled inside him, and if he had anything in it, Zuko was sure he would throw up.
She was standing in a patch of moonlight, appearing as ethereal as the Moon Spirit herself as she looked at him. His mouth opened, wanting to say something, anything to her.
But she beat him to it.
"I hope you found whatever it was you were looking for Zuko. I hope it was all worth it in the end."
He blinked and she was gone.
                                           ————————–
"Hey guys, we need to talk." Katara called out to everyone, minus Orora. The older girl had volunteered to go get some food from the nearby town they had saved a few days ago.
"About your hair loopies and how out of fashion they were so you're gonna keep this hairstyle instead?" Sokka quipped from where he was cleaning his brand new sword.
His sister glared at him. "No, this is serious. Its about Orora." Her glare melted away to a look of concern. "I'm worried about her." She revealed. Almost instantly the very atmosphere of their small camp became somber. Sokka put his sword down, Toph stopped tossing the space rock in the air, and Aang paused where he had been playing with Momo.
"She's not acting like herself." Katara continued, worry evident in her tone as she spoke. Aang sat up straighter. "You've noticed it too?" He asked, wanting to confirm her words. Sokka frowned in thought where he sat, a hand coming up to stroke his chin in thought.
"Come to think of it, she has been acting a little strange the past few days." He commented. "I mean every time I wake up at night to use the little boy's bush, she's always awake. No matter what time of night."
Aang nodded. "Yeah I mean, have you seen the circles under her eyes, and she hasn't been practicing her bending either. When was the last time any of you saw her actually practice. She was so strict about it in the first week or so since we left the ship."
Pursing her lips Katara stepped forward. "Its not just that, I've noticed she's not eating enough. She's even thinner then when we started traveling through the Fire Nation. And I've seen her give her food to Momo or Appa most of the time." Toph, not wanting to keep what she had discovered to herself sat up.
"Guys, there's something else I've noticed." She revealed. As everyone stared at her eagerly, she continued. "Sometimes, I feel her heart pause before picking back up again." She frowned. "Its strange as if her heart.......skipped a beat or something."
Aang's eyes widened in horror, a thought forming in his mind as Katara spoke. "But isn't that dangerous? Does she have a heart condition we don't know about?" She asked, looking around the group the worry clear in her eyes. Sokka, noticing Aang's expression frowned.
"You okay there Aang?" He called out, to which the younger boy pursed his lips. "I am, but I think I know why Orora is acting the way she is." He revealed. The other three stepped forward, demanding to know what he knew.
They were all worried about Orora. Where she had been the one to get them to get up every morning during those horrible days when Aang was in a coma, now she was the last one up. She would go about her day in a strange way, as if she had no desire to do what she was tasked to do.
Aang held up a placating hand. "Look what I know, I can reveal until I ask Orora. Its her secret, and I don't want to betray her. But!" He called over the sounds of protests that greeted his words. "I have an idea."
Quickly pulling out a map of the Fire Nation, he spread it on the ground. The rest of them crouched over it, heads brushing together. "We're near this waterfall and its surrounded by a lot of rocks so that will give us some cover to just have a mini-vacation." He looked at each of his friends. "We'll stay there for a few days and maybe, without the constant moving around, Orora will be able to rest properly, and even tell us whats bothering her."
Everyone looked to Sokka for confirmation, hoping that the little detour wouldn't come in the way of the route he had designed for them. But Sokka wasn't even thinking of that. He was thinking of his friend, and how sad she appeared all the time.
Her sadness was familiar to him.
Somehow.
The sadness in her eyes, was the same he had carried after Yue had died.
Nodding in determination he grinned. "Alright then Gaang. Operation Get Orora To Her Normal Self will launch tomorrow."
                                           ————————–
It was late at night, and he was sitting beside the pond he had frequented so often with his mother. The garden was empty, silence surrounded him as he stared into the clear water of the pond, the moon shining her light down on it, reflecting her silvery glow against the flat surface.
                                           ————————–
It was late at night, and she was sitting in front of the fire, while everyone else slept around her. The silence of the night was broken by the sound of fire crackling and the occasional snapping of a twig whenever the fire would eat away at the flesh of the wood. The warmth of the fire enveloped her.
                                           ————————–
He was sitting with his legs pressed to his chest, his chin resting between his knees. While one arm was wrapped around his legs, the other was held aloft in front of him, his fingers holding up the small comb he had found laying on the battle-ridden floor of the catacombs.
                                           ————————–
She was sitting with her legs pressed to her chest, her chin resting between her knees. Both her arms were wrapped around her legs, keeping herself in a semi fetal position as she stared into the fire. The fire continued to flicker, casting strange shadows against her brown skin.
                                           ————————–
This was all he had left to remember her by. A comb. A blue comb with a dragon. Ironic that it was a dragon since it was the symbol for fire. Ironic that it was blue, the color of her Nation. Or more specifically, her eyes.
Her gorgeous ice blue eyes.
                                           ————————–
The fire was all she had left to remember him by. The fire that burned within him. The fire that burned in his hands when he fought an opponent. Maybe it was her imagination, but if she stared hard enough, she could picture his eyes looking back at her through the fire.
His beautiful warm amber eyes.
                                           ————————–
His heart clenched in his chest, so painful that he actually grunted softly from the pain of it. His mind conjured memory after memory. Memories of her. Of the brief life they had shared before and in Ba Sing Se. All those moments where nothing else had mattered.
Nothing except her.
                                           ————————–
Her heart clenched in her chest, so painful that she actually grunted softly from the pain of it. Her mind conjured memory after memory. Memories of him. Of the brief life they had shared before and in Ba Sing Se. All those moments where nothing else had mattered.
Nothing except him.
                                           ————————–
He brought the comb to his chest, as if it would alleviate the pain he felt.
                                           ————————–
She had nothing to comfort her, nothing to remember him by except her memories.
                                           ————————–
He now understood why he was seeing her everywhere. Why everything he did reminded him of her. Why she plagued his mind no matter the time of day or night. Why he could not eat or sleep.
                                           ————————–
She now understood why she was feeling the way she did. Why everything she did reminded her of him. Why he plagued her mind no matter the time of day or night. Why he could not eat of sleep.
                                           ————————–
He just missed her so much.
                                           ————————–
She just missed him so much.
                                           ————————–
As they both buried heir faces in their arms, Zuko with tears stinging his eyes, and Orora with a vacant emotionless expression on her face, they both missed the way their strings glowed.
And they continued to glow throughout the night.
Fate had intended them to see the light, yet neither of them saw it.
Instead they each succumbed deeper and deeper into their mutual pits of utter despair and hopelessness.
                                           ————————–
Tag List - @wavesofchaos​ @violet-potter​ @rennysketch​ @emma-andrea1 @lovesammikinzz @fuzzyfestcat @msrawog @notsaelty @lust-for-pan @aces-tattooartist @jinxxangel13 @lotr-got @bitterspoons @realrintaro @gatorgirl151 @inutheangel @heartfully10 @lucaaahhh @juniper-july19 @anuttellaa @gfksz @bussyvussy @punksnotdeadbutiam @ablofftoneverland-blog-blog @slut-for-menn @vyliie @army-moa75 @juwhls
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the-poor-miranha-quotes · 2 months ago
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Gwen: how old are you?
Miles: sixteen
Peter: he's fourteen
miles: almost fifteen
Peter: but it's still fourteen
Miles: well fourteen, almost fifteen, right?!
Gwen: I'm older...
Miles: yeeeeh
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smolvenger · 1 year ago
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A Court of Mischief and Purpose Masterlist (Loki x fem! Reader Hiddlesverse A Court of Thorns and Roses AU! series)- Ongoing!
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Summary: Sarah J Maas's A Court of Thorns and Roses series reimagined with Tom Hiddleston's various characters- Especially the events in the second book: A Court of Mist and Fury. England. 1885. You are dying of tuberculosis right before your upcoming wedding to the Lusty Vicar of Aldwinter, Will Ransome. As you lay on what could be your deathbed, the god of mischief Loki appears before you with a deal. He will heal you in time for the wedding...if you spend a week of every month with him. When the time comes to fulfill your end of the bargain, you are introduced to a world full of more magic and danger than you could possibly imagine...
Content Warnings: Cheating (not Loki, but...* takes a long sip of a fun little drink with a straw*...dealing with Will Ransome's canon actions and decisions and portraying them as bad so Will fans and Lusty Vicarettes you have been warned). Period Typical Attitudes. Mentions of sex and religion.
A03//My Ko-Fi//My Etsy Shop//Masterlist//Wattpad
Taglist: @evelyn-kingsley @jennyggggrrr @five-miles-over @fictive-sl0th @ladycamillewrites @villainousshakespeare @holdmytesseract @eleniblue @twhxhck @lokisgoodgirl @lovelysizzlingbluebird @raqnarokr @holymultiplefandomsbatman @michelleleewise @wolfsmom1 @cheekyscamp @mochie85 @fandxmslxt69 @skittslackoffilter @mischief2sarawr
Update: This will very likely be split into two parts or seasons (like in @muddyorbsblr's gorgeous series Relinquish The Crown), I just have to figure out how and the events in it. Also, comments, dms, reblogs, and asks about my work are always greatly appreciated!
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
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set-phasers-to-whump · 30 days ago
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racing the clock
prompt: race against the clock
whumpee: illya kuryakin
fandom: the man from uncle
hi everyone and welcome to my sixth year of whumptober!! i am so excited to be doing this again and i hope you like this first fic! it can be read as gen or ot3 or pre-ot3, whatever you feel like.
There’s a terrible noise in Napoleon’s head, a tick, tick, tick that counts down in time with the bumping of the car down the gravel road. Thirty minutes. Thirty minutes and then Illya’s body will start shutting itself off irreparably. Thirty minutes. Tick. Tick. Tick. 
It has been five minutes and forty-three seconds from the time they’d found him strapped to that chair, struggling against iron restraints with the ferocity, the desperation, of one who knows that the clock is ticking. 
“Two minutes. Sixteen seconds,” the report from Illya on how long it had been since a man in a lab coat had stuck a needle into his arm and pushed the plunger. 
Napoleon had immediately taken up the count. 
They are miles away from the city, from medical help. Napoleon had radioed Waverly as soon as they’d flung themselves into the car. The earliest evacuation time is two hours too late. 
Gaby is driving as fast as she can. She isn’t counting time. Can’t afford to, isn’t built to. All of her focus is on driving the beat-up little Renault down a road neither it nor she especially wants to be on. Her right foot is glued to the gas pedal, the wheel merely an extension of her arms. She’s in top gear, has been since she’d gone smoking out of the flattened patch of grass she’d parked on. 
She isn’t thinking. It is her and the car and the road, and nothing else exists. 
Nothing else can exist, or she will not be able to work. 
In the backseat, Napoleon is still counting. Tick. Tick. Tick. Nine minutes. Twenty seconds. God knows how far there is still to go. 
Illya is by necessity pressed up to his side in the cramped seat. Heat radiates off him, and Napoleon doesn’t know if this is normal and he’s just noticing everything now, or whether it’s some effect of the drug.  
He thinks. About the worst, mostly. About what he is going to do if they’re not in time, if Illya starts dying. If Illya loses himself. If they lose him. 
It’s difficult to think these things through when Illya’s body is a heavy weight beside him, when Illya’s breathing—slightly irregular—is as loud as the ticking in his head, as the gravel on the road. 
He doesn’t dare speak. Doesn’t want to risk losing count. Instead he blindly reaches for Illya’s sweaty hand, squeezes. 
Illya leans into him more heavily, his head coming to rest on Napoleon’s shoulder. This close, the shaking is impossible to ignore. 
“Я хочу—,” Illya whispers, voice unsteady and afraid, but before he can say what it is he wants, they’re both thrown to the side as Gaby executes a screaming turn, and suddenly the horrible noise beneath the wheels drops away. 
Asphalt. A proper road. 
Fourteen minutes, forty-eight seconds. 
Tick. Tick. Tick. 
Illya is silent. Napoleon’s heartbeat is thumping in his ears, but it has no hope of drowning out the clock. 
Gaby navigates through rapidly rising buildings, trying not to let relief overwhelm her. She still has to find a hospital. They still have to explain what’s wrong to a bunch of Portuguese doctors, and none of them speak Portuguese. 
Stop that. Drive. 
She’d seen signs for a hospital yesterday, driving through the city. She searches for familiar landmarks, finds none. Except—
There. A spire, rising up from behind a dreary apartment block that looks like it belongs back home. She knows where she’s going. A map forms itself in her mind. Fifteen minutes at the current speed limit. 
She’ll do it in ten, or maybe less. 
Napoleon does not let the increasingly more familiar cityscape outside calm him. Any number of things might still go wrong. Plus, getting to the hospital itself is hardly enough. It isn’t like Illya will magically be healed simply by virtue of being in the building. 
Please, he lets himself think, addressing no one and nothing in particular. Let us have time. 
His hand is still wrapped around Illya’s hand, and he’s squeezing every few seconds to make sure Illya’s still there. He gets weak squeezes in return, tappings of fingers, but they’re less and less sure every time. 
The hospital jumps into view as Gaby careens around a corner. Napoleon jostles Illya, directs his attention out the window so he knows what’s coming. 
Twenty-four minutes, six seconds. 
They screech to a halt outside the emergency entrance. Before Gaby’s gotten out of gear, Napoleon’s already half out of the car, pulling Illya along behind him. 
The next few minutes pass in a chaotic haze. Half dragging Illya into the hospital, Gaby hot on his heels. The frantic search for help, a doctor running up, “English?,” frantic explanations, reassurances, Illya being whisked away. 
And then it’s just them, standing in a waiting room with several Portuguese people eyeing them with a combination of confusion and interest. 
They both sort of collapse into each other. The clock in Napoleon’s head has gone silent in the chaos and without it he feels off-kilter, like he is missing something important. 
Gaby is thinking for the first time since she’d slid behind the wheel. Thoughts enter her mind too quickly to be processed in any semblance of order, emotions crashing over her in force. 
She’s shaking, she realizes, leaning into Napoleon. Or maybe it’s him. 
--
They wait. The doctor comes back out, and Napoleon has to forcibly restrain Gaby from jumping at him when he says he can’t say anything definite yet. She’s shaking, he thinks. It might be him, though. 
Finally, they’re given information. Illya is fine. No permanent damage. He needs rest, and they want to keep him for the night, for observation. 
They both start protesting at once. They can care for him. It’s what they do. And they should get out of here as soon as possible. Who knows how long it’ll take for someone to track them down, or to realize they’re not who they say they are. 
The nurse who’d delivered this information puts his hands up in surrender. They both slow down, turning to each other for mutual confirmation, comfort. 
Their evacuation will arrive in about an hour, Napoleon realizes, looking at his watch. They can contact the medical team, let them communicate with the hospital staff. 
He goes out to the car to relay this decision—well, technically it’s a suggestion, but he knows Waverly will agree. He finds it very illegally parked in much the same spot as they originally stopped in, which does not surprise him in the slightest. 
He pulls the car into an actual parking space, then calls up Waverly. He agrees, just as Napoleon had known he would. 
Back inside, Gaby sits in a chair beside Illya’s still, silent form. She’d been able to persuade the nurse to let her see him, and she isn’t sure what she’d been expecting. 
Not this. Illya is so small and pale lying in the hospital bed, IV in his arm, eyes closed. She wants him to wake up, to pull the needle from his skin, swing his long legs out from under the sheets and walk out the door as if nothing at all is the matter. 
Except he’d nearly died. That’s what the nurse had told her. Nearly died. 
But he hadn’t. He’s alive, albeit asleep, hurt, but he’s still here. No lasting damage. 
She slips her hand into his, careful not to jostle the IV. She squeezes, but his hand remains limp. 
Napoleon enters the room a few moments later, and she knows from his expression that Waverly had agreed to their proposal. She watches him take in Illya’s body, sees the pain in his eyes, the relief, the dregs of fear. 
He sits down opposite her and takes up Illya’s other hand, and they wait, the three of them, together.
thanks for reading!! fun fact in an unprecedented and shocking turn of events i have managed to write a substantial amount of fics ahead of time this year (including this one!!) wow ahh ooh
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mangoshorthand · 10 months ago
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Arrow of Time- [Five Hargreeves x F Reader]. Chapter 2 (Hard Feelings Part 5)
SUMMARY: When the mother of all teenage tantrums causes time itself to fracture, Five has to travel back to 1831 to repair the damage. But will he be able to cope with what he finds there? On to Chapter 3 >> << Back to Chapter 1
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Aoife cheats on her math test...with disastrous results.
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Blue balls for Five ahead.
Chapter 2: The Bike Shorts
When you enter the bedroom, Five’s lying on top of the sheets, still in his cycling gear (minus the helmet).He looks almost entirely calm now, chest rising and falling only slightly harder than usual. He flashes you his most charming smile, however, patting the bed beside him. 
“Aoife ok?” he asks.
“Fine. Back to rolling her eyes.”
“Good,” he grins up at you, “well that was a shitshow.”
You flop down next to him and melt into his embrace.
“What brought it on?”
“It was stupid. I rode past the Argyle Public Library.” he runs his fingers through his hair, “it’s been demolished.”
“Oh.”
You understand immediately. It had been his and Dolores’ home base, enough of the internal structure left standing to provide them with shelter to sleep. It had been the closest thing he’d had to a home for him for forty years: the longest he’d ever lived anywhere.
“Wanna know something funny? They must be halfway through: the way they pulled it down, it looked exactly the same. The same parts were left standing.” a bitter smile pulled at one corner of his mouth, “the more things change, the more they stay the same.”
You know his mind now almost as intimately as your own: he’s not just talking about the way the two timelines rhyme.
“It’s been ten years since I had a freakout like that,” he says, resentfully. “I been to therapy every two weeks minimum , I take the damn pills religiously and still I lose my ever-loving shit over a building.”
You ease his hand out of the fist he’s screwed it into. You take a breath to respond to him but he plows over you.
“And I know what you’re going to say: the state I was in when we got together, it’s amazing that I haven’t had a major freakout for ten years. Maybe if I weren’t taking the pills, I’d be losing my mind every damn day, and I know therapy isn’t a cure-all, it just helps you work with what you got but…”
He pauses for a second, frustration on hold as his conscious mind catches up with what he’s said. Then he gives a rough laugh.
“And you’d be right,” he rolls to face you, smiling genuinely now.
“You said it all for me,” you shrug, smiling back at him.
The realization seems to have bolstered him:
“So, all in all, I give myself five stars for that panic attack. Threw it off like a champ.”
“You did,” you smile, leaning over and kissing his lips gently.
He’s always thought you have the sweetest lips. Maddening, in fact.
Even after all these years, the lines of your body are still the delight of his eye, particularly the ones that have developed since you’ve been with him. Everything you’d tell yourself is imperfection is, for him, just another object of devotion. After all, the stretch marks, wrinkles and reduced elasticity are all products of the fifteen years you’ve given to him: sixteen Christmases; fifteen fourth of Julys; fifteen whole trips around the sun that you chose to spend with him when you should have run a mile right at the start. 
He wants to celebrate that, wants to love you physically and worship your body with his.
The kiss you give him is only just beyond a peck, but he leans into your perfect mouth and works his way between your lips. You pull away before he’s half done. 
Honestly…it’s been a while. He’s kept his frustration quiet: work has been troubling you. It’s fine: it’s just a matter of feeling stressed on top of getting a little older. He knows it’s not because you love him any less…academically, at least. He can take care of himself ok and even if you never had sex ever again that’s perfectly fine: he’s in this for the long haul, no matter what. 
He’d cope…he’d adapt. He’d find a way to not ogle you, mouth dry, every time you get undressed. He’d spent most of his life having, (with all respect to his first long-term partner), sub-optimal sex. Now he’s had fifteen years of amazing sex, it’s almost unbearable to imagine having to just  ‘make do’ again. But he will if he needs to. 
He hates feeling needy. It’s a form of vulnerability he’s not yet able to reconcile in himself. It doesn’t feel so long ago but he remembers how you used to look up at him with needy eyes… Maybe tonight can break the dry spell.
“Say…how about you and I…”
You look at him with amusement, “Really, Five?”
“Come on….” he adjusts his body so he’s leant against the headboard and you can see his hand skimming down his body towards his crotch, “you know you like the bike shorts.”
“You’re seriously going straight from a major panic attack to horny?”
In answer, ghosts his fingers over his package. The shorts certainly are tight… Were you in the mood, something about them would make you want to reach in there and root around to see what you can find. They cling attractively in all the right places, stopping an inch or so above the knee. As if his bulge wasn’t enough, the way they sculpt themselves around his muscled thighs and perfectly peachy ass is…noticeable, to say the least.
“I’m a little tired.” you say, not wanting to burst his bubble but hoping he’ll take the hint. 
“I can be quick,” he says, trying to keep the slight plea out of his voice, “you could call me daddy again, if you want. Aoife hasn’t called me that in years now.”
“Nice try, Five,” you smirk, “maybe next time.”
“Oh, I’m not trying,” he says, rising to a kneel, turning and straddling your thighs, “I’m succeeding.”
He’s half-joking but nevertheless trying his luck, deliberately raising a rock-hard tent beneath his hand. Then, he rises on the bed into a high kneel.
Even in your totally unaroused state, the look he fixes you with almost makes you feel like a hooked fish being reeled in. He looms over you, head tilted and arrogant smirk firmly in place. He looks down his long nose as he paws at his boner, circling his hips. The shorts really are obscene. They would only have to be one iota tighter for them to cling to every single vein on his fit-to-burst shaft. As it stands, the lycra outlines the bell-shaped tip of his cock in minute anatomical detail.
It's a beguiling sight, but not beguiling enough.
“You’re still one hot grandpa but I’m sorry, I’m really not feeling it.”
He gives a small smile of acceptance and kisses your forehead before he swings his leg over and gets off you, heading for the ensuite bathroom.
“I’ll take care of myself,” he says as he peels off his cycling gear.. Then, in a final bid, he adds, “guess I’ll have to take a shower, lather up real good, lean up against the tiles and whack myself off with the suds…”
“Yeah, guess you will.” you say, picking up your reading glasses and the book off your nightstand. 
Five stifles a sigh and enters the bathroom; boner leading the way like a perky seeing-eye-dog. As he shuts and locks the door behind him, he leans against it.  It looks like it’s another night of jacking himself off into the shower tray. He tries not to feel hurt, tries to keep in mind all the reasonable thoughts from before. The humiliation of trying so hard only to be rejected? Rejected kindly, lovingly, but still rejected. He’s not going to degrade himself so far as to beg for sex. He’ll never be that pathetic. 
Thank god for his left hand: it’s been there for him for nearly 80 years now and it’s always in the mood whenever he is.
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The Trevor Dalton school covers PreK through to 12th grade. You’d initially felt conflicted about sending Aoife to private school but, for Five, only the best education money could buy would do for his daughter, regardless of your ‘commie bullshit’. You couldn’t help but agree emotionally; she deserved the best.
Overall, you’d been pleased with her progress: she had a firm group of friends and she enjoyed her extracurriculars- particularly band. Despite this, her math scores worried you both. Though Five had taken to tutoring her himself, she was showing little improvement in school. You’d both been pleased, therefore, to see how much time Aoife had spent holed up in her room studying for an upcoming math test.
Aoife certainly has been studying for her math test…just not in the way you and Five might think. She’s been practicing religiously every night before sleep. Every time, her temporal jumps are getting longer and without the need for all that stupid math. Last night, she managed to reverse an entire hour without even turning a hair. She can do it quickly too- she doesn’t have to force herself through the seconds like her dad seems to: she can just do it. He won’t know what’s hit him when she shows him what she knows. 
Were she to sit down and analyze her feelings, she’d be unsure precisely why she wants this so much, whether she wants to make him proud or piss him off. Most of all, she wants to prove that she’s not a baby. All she can do is imagine the look in his eyes when she jumps through time with him along for the ride.
The math test will be her first time using her skills in the real world. She never blinked at school, (she’d learned early on that letting too many people in on the fact you have superpowers doesn’t end well) but jumping through time was different: when you went backwards, you’d erase anyone’s memory that you’d done anything unusual.
The test was in-class, and Aoife had taken care to discover the format before the big day. Mr Douglas would put the questions up on the board, the class would have thirty minutes to answer the questions and then, at the end, they would pass their answers to another student to mark and he would reveal the answers.
Sitting at her desk now, she’s full to bursting with nervous excitement. She can barely concentrate during the test, (not that she needs to), but she fills in stuff anyway. When Mr Douglas calls time and reveals the answers, she’s trembling so much that she’s surprised nobody’s noticed.
She passes her piece of paper to Izzie seated behind her and takes Jack’s from up ahead. Ignoring his paper, she grabs a fresh sheet of her own and begins to write down the right answers. This is what she’ll hand in…now she just has to make sure that this piece of paper is the one she passes to Izzie.
Holding her correct answers in one hand to exempt it from the reversal of time, she reaches easily into the abyss. It’s second nature now; couldn’t be any easier. It’s cool to watch. Alone in her bedroom, it was hard to see the effects; it's different in a crowded classroom. Jack’s pen reverses, going from right to left; eventually, he turns and takes his test back from her desk while Izzie hands Aoife’s over her shoulder. This, Aoife screws into a ball and drops into her backpack. The answers on the smartboard disappear as Mr Douglas moonwalks into his chair and the booger Kevin Simmons flicked across the room returns to his finger and he places it back up his nose.
Aoife lets go. Only somebody watching her closely would notice her jolt.
“And that’s time,” said Mr Douglas, “pass your test to the lady or gentlemen behind you. Ladies and Gentlemen at the back, bring your tests to the front of your row.”
Grinning all over her face, Aoife passes her new answers to Izzie.
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Five spent most of the day with Luther who, for once in his life, has had a brain wave.
They’d been in Five’s bedroom, using the huge dry-erase and a plethora of colored post-its to plot out his idea: a non profit focused on helping male survivors of sexual violence. 
Five helped mainly out of solitarily with Luther: arranging support groups and having to break the ice with the story of his own rape wasn’t exactly appealing, but Luther’s bright blue eyes were so alight at the the possible scope of the idea (that he dubbed ‘The Umbrella Foundation’), that Five was willing to put his misgivings aside for now. He'd suck it up if he had to. 
When Aoife gets home from school she barrels into the room when he and Luther still stand, contemplating the timelines and tenuous organizational structure they’ve drafted. 
After a quick hug for Luther, she passes Five her test and smiles coyly at him. 
“What’s this?” he says, smiling back.
“Unfold it and see!”
He does so and his eyes light up, even as he affects to look casual. He stands with one hand in his pants pocket and his hips loose
“An A+? Jeez, where was this the other day? And not a single wrong answer?”
“You’re surprised, right?” she smiles up at him
“Surprised? Proud is what I am.”
He grins and pulls her into a full hug which she, for once, reciprocates.
“Ben fatto, tesoro. Hai lavorato sodo.”
“ Grazie papa.”
She has worked hard for this. Maybe he wouldn’t think of it that way, but she has.
“Well done sweetheart.” smiles Luther, putting a hand on her shoulder.
“You see what you can do when you set your mind to it?” says Five, kissing her forehead and holdung her at arm’s length, “How about I take you out this weekend? Maybe we take Izzie too? What do thirteen-year-old girls do these days? The...mall or whatever?”
Aoife snorts laughter at this, “yeah sure Dad, we’ll go to the mall.”
“Well I don’t know what you guys like to do. You’re the first teen girl I’ve spoken to for fifty-five years!”
Five’s never sure why, but he never feels as old around anyone as he does his daughter. Despite speaking seven languages, Teen Girl is one he can’t get his head around.
When Aoife bounds out of the room again, Luther turns to Five with a significant look on his face.
“She just runs into your bedroom...without knocking?”
Five knows exactly what he’s referring to. 
“Yes,” he says, testily before looking sidelong at Luther and lowering his voice, “not exactly much for her to walk in on these days.”
Luther gives him a sympathetic look and turns back to the dry erase.
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When you arrive home, long after Luther’s drifted downstairs, you’re instantly more skeptical than Five. To go from a D+ average to an A+ with no steps between? You smell bullshit. Perhaps it’s a fluke…but something about the way Aoife shows you the test sets off warning bells in your head. You don’t want to accuse her if this really is the product of hard work, but you’re worried you’ll have to. While she practices the drums after dinner and you sit with Five on the couch, already feeling guilty about raining on his parade.
“This math test…pretty surprising, right?”
From the tone of your voice, he immediately realizes your implication. Fifteen years of a relationship has given you so many little shorthands and layers of implication that would be lost on others. The line between his eyebrows deepens as he considers.
“You think she cheated?”
“I don’t know, but it seems a bit too good to be true. When her homework’s been so poor and she could barely do simple algebra last week?”
His lips pull inwards. He’s by nature a rather cynical man, tending to believe the worst in people until they prove him wrong, but he has a blind spot the size of Jupiter when it comes to his daughter.
“She knows how important it is that she learns. She wouldn’t mislead me.”
Really Five? You raise your eyebrows at him incredulously.
“She’s a teen. Pushing boundaries and lying to their parents is what they do.”
His scowl deepens, “I still don’t think she’d lie about this.”
You sigh.
“Well, I’m going to go talk to her. You’re telling me she didn’t seem weird to you? Like she’s got a huge secret?” 
He nods slowly, considering. 
“Do you remember when she was six and stockpiling candy under her bed? She was pulling the exact same face.”
Reluctantly, Five follows you as you knock at her bedroom door. It’s amazing she hears you over her drumming, but she does. When you both walk into the room together, she stiffens and puts down her drumsticks
“Hey honey,” you say, Five at your shoulder but skulking slightly behind, “we just wanted to have a talk.”
“What about?” she says, too quickly. She’s immediately on the defense and even Five notices.
“Well, we were just talking, and we’re concerned.” you cross to the bed and sit down on it, trying to appear less threatening. Five remains standing, hands (as ever) in his pockets and head tilted. You catch his eye and prompt him.
“Did you cheat on that test?”
Great job Five. Subtle as a flying brick.
Immediately she looks panicked.
“No!”
“Just tell us the truth and we won’t be mad," you say, trying to keep your voice calm.
“I said I didn’t!” she snaps, firing up immediately.
You move to placate her: it suddenly strikes you how unjust this would be if she actually did earn her score.
“I know you’ve been studying this week and if you’ve got this score because you’ve worked your butt off then we couldn’t be more proud of you, it’s just…my Mom senses are tingling. I know when you’re hiding something.”
“I’m not!”
“Okay,” says Five, stepping forward and grabbing a notebook and pen from within his jacket pocket. He scribbles rapidly and then slaps both down on her dressing table.
“How about you prove it? Expand this.”
He looks more pissed than she’s ever seen him directed at her. Feeling a mixture of shame, anger and injustice Aoife stands and approaches looking down at the scrawled problem:
5(12c + 7) - (1 - 55c)
There it is. The familiar panic that sets in when she encounters numbers in almost any context. She picks up the pen. She knows where to start but when she tries to perform the expansion, it’s like her brain crashes. She tries to concentrate and can’t…especially with both of them staring down at her.
“That’s way too hard!” she whines, “I can’t do that one. The test was easier. You just make them way too complex because your brain is all weird about math.”
“Oh, well that's interesting.” Five’s voice is dangerous- almost a whisper. “Now I know you’re bullshitting me. Wanna take a quick guess how?”
She doesn’t answer, even when he jerks his head towards her.
“No answer, eh?” he turns from her to you, “Do you want to know how I know she’s bullshitting us, Mom?”
You frown in slight disapproval of this theater, but it’s about time Five stepped up to be the bad guy so you keep your mouth shut. He turns back to Aoife, teeth slightly bared,
“That was a question ON the test, genius.”
Her face heats up and eyes prickle. Five just gives a disdainful scoff, shakes his head and looks away from her.
“Tell us the truth, Aoife,” you say, sternly, trying to keep your own temper under control, “you cheated, didn’t you?”
She turns to you and stamps her foot in a way you haven’t seen since she was six, “Just shut up Mom!”
As Five gives a sharp reprimand for her speaking to you that way, you speak over him,
“First you cheat and then you keep denying it? You’re still lying. I’m so disappointed that you’d be this dishonest.You’ve not just cheated us, you’ve cheated your classmates and you’ve cheated yourself too!”
Suddenly, Five turns back to her, shoulders rolled and hunched in the awful posture he adopts when stressed or angry.
“You know, I couldn’t give a rat's ass that you cheated. I’m just still trying to get my head around the fact you lied to me about this !” he begins to pace distractedly, “you know how important it is that you UNDERSTAND basic mathematical principles. It’s a matter of life and death! ”
You turn to Five, angry with him now.
“So you don’t care that she lied at school, only to you?”
Five tosses his head and returns his gaze to his daughter standing between the pair of you. Hormonal rage courses through her. Right now, she’s as erratic as Five ever was in his prime.
“I don’t even need math to be able to use my powers! It’s not my fault your head’s so far up your own ass that you can’t jump a few minutes without filling a whole wall with equations!”
“Aoife!” you rebuke, shocked by this attitude towards her father, but she ignores you.
“I did cheat, okay? And you wanna know how I did it? I just wound back time-”
Five blinks at her, dumbstruck. He looks as if he’s been clubbed over the head.
“-and you know what, Dad? I’m still here. I didn’t end up years in the future and get stuck there like a dumbass! ”
You spring up from the bed, grab her shoulders and turn her to face you. Her eyes are wild with anger, face red and teeth bared even more than Five’s had been only a minute or so before.
“How can you speak to your Dad like that? How dare you? After-”
But the rage that’s been building in her bubbles over. All she wants is for you both to get out of her room. You think just because you’re her parents that you know better? You don’t: you especially don’t get it. Always so far up your own ass, judging her for every time she falls under your ridiculously high moral standards. Nothing short of sainthood is good enough for you.
She can feel full-body tingles growing as anger descends over her. It makes her grab your forearms. If she’d been less angry, she might have noticed the crackle of electricity or the feeling of polarity accessed in her mind…the feeling of the last jigsaw piece slipping into place…
“JUST GET AWAY FROM ME, MOM!”
…but the whole puzzle explodes as she pushes you abruptly. She only means to shove you in the direction of the door, but the portal that erupts swallows you whole, collapsing in on itself before you can even stumble.
Tag list: (please comment to be added or removed.) @dilfjohhny , @sunsunhe, @w4stedtr4sh, @nevbrooke-555, @theredvelvetbitch, @td-miley01, @five-hxrgreeves, @rorygi1more, @jamiebower88
On to Chapter 3 >> Masterpost
Alternatively, join me on A03.  Here is a link to the whole series
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heartz4shauna · 7 months ago
Note
Write something about a locked door or something? I don’t know (I too have no motivation but have two things I gotta write)
Locked Out
Word count: 1290 (my longest fic thing yet yippee!!)
Warnings: none just cutesy stuff kinda idk?? kinda Shauna x reader idfk yall also modern au.. GUYS IDK HOW TO LABEL THIS
a/n: so sorry this took me so long i was procrastinating so hard my bad ahhh also didn’t really know how to like.. finish it so it’s kinda shit but okay!!
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You pulled into your driveway, the worries of the school day rushing out of you as quickly as they came. You grabbed your backpack from the passanger seat and got out of the car. Making your way up to your front door, you checked your pockets for your house key. Fuck. They weren’t there. You groaned in annoyance as you got to the door, dropping your backpack onto the ground and looking through it for your keys, but with no luck.
You pulled out your phone and called your mom. After a good five rings, she picked up. “Hello, I’m in work, what’s wrong?” You sighed into the phone, rubbing your forehead in exhaustion, “Uh, I forgot my keys. Is there like a spare under a plant pot or something?” You could practically hear your mom rolling her eyes on the other end, “No, there isn’t. Call your dad, he might be around,” she said just before she hung up. Alright then.
You took your moms advice and called your dad who picked up immediately, “Yes, hello, what’s wrong?” You huffed and explained to your dad what was going on, with a bit more drama. “Okay, so I had a shit day and I just wanted to get home and relax, right? Okay, so I got out of the car, checked my pockets. No keys! Just my luck. Called mom, no spare key apparently, so she told me to call you. Are you around or are you grocery shopping or something?” You could hear your dad sigh, which obviously meant “I’m about 34478 miles away.” You groaned and nodded to yourself, “Alright. I’ll see you later,” and you hung up.
You took a deep breath and decided to call your best friend, Shauna. Surely she could help you in some way? You dialed her phone number and it rang. No answer, no bother. Try again. You rang her again. No answer, fuck. Okay, third times a charm. Surely she wouldn’t leave you outside looking absolutely hideous and drenched in sweat after soccer practice. On the third try, she finally picked up, “Hello?” “Shauna, hey. Can you do me a favour?” You could hear from the noises around her she was still driving home, and lucky for you, she didn’t live too far from your house. “I could, sure. What’s up?” Chances are, she would most definitely do what you asked. You never asked her for much, really. This was nothing in the grand scheme of things.
“I forgot my house key, so I can’t get into my house. Could you take me back to yours? Just until my mom or dad gets home.” You dropped the bomb. Okay, maybe not a bomb but a hard boiled egg. “Uh, yeah, sure. I’ll come pick you up. I’m about fifteen minutes from your house. Just stay put.” A grin spread across your face. Success! Now all you had to do was wait outside for a good fifteen to twenty minutes, taking traffic into account, and no more worries.
You spent the next thirteen minutes scrolling on your phone and moaning to Van in your texts; “feel so stupid”, “forgot my keys”, “shauna my lord and saviour is picking me up!!!!:!:!2&/!:!” and Van would respond, “u are quite the interesting specimen”, “have fun with with the wifey”
After the excruciatingly long time of sixteen minutes, the last three minutes spent by counting the amount of leaves on the tree in your front lawn, your lord and saviour, Shauna, finally arrived outside your house. You waved at her quickly and picked up your backpack, swinging it over your shoulder. You ran over to her car and got into the passenger seat.
“Ugh, thank you, Shauna. I forgot my key, my dad’s out and my mom’s at work, so thanks,” you explained as she nodded along. “Why didn’t you just drive up to my house yourself?” She asked you, an eyebrow raised. You hadn’t thought about that. Fuck. “Uh, I didn’t want to take up too much space in your driveway..” you answered with a shrug. Sure, what you said made sense, but a shit excuse. Shauna just nodded, not really listening to your excuse, more so flattered you decided to call her out of all people.
“I hope your mom doesn’t mind, y’know. That I’m coming over and whatever,” you said, glancing away from the road for a moment. “Oh, no,” Shauna shook her head, “She doesn’t mind at all. She loves you.” That shocked you a little bit, usually when you came over to her house, her mom would give you looks, snarky smiles, the whole lot. But apparently she loved you? Weird. Your eyebrows creased together and, of course, Shauna noticed this.
“What? You don’t believe me?” she chuckled out, punching you softly in the shoulder. “I mean, usually she looks like a starving animal, watching its prey. Me, obviously, being the prey.” Shauna laughed, eyes widening in shock a little, “Really? That’s what she told me. She said, ‘You know your friend? The one who’s always over here, comes into the kitchen when I’m makin’ dinner? Actually a really sweet kid. I was iffy about ‘em at first, but,’ and then she shrugged. She does like you, trust me.” You listened intently to what her mom had told her, clearly interested in what she really thought of you behind all of the bitterness she showed you.
Shauna braked at a red light and handed you her unlocked phone, “Plug in the aux, Ms. Roan, if you please.” You smiled at her, opening her Spotify and playing her top playlist, whose name was “queen but like in a cunty way”, interesting. You picked up the aux wire, plugged it into her phone and pressed play on the playlist. The first song that came on was Red Wind Supernova by Chappell Roan. She looked back over at you as she continued to drive, humming along to the opening lyrics, whilst you sang, “She was a playboy, Brigitte Bardot. She showed me things, I didn’t know.” Shauna loudly sang after you, “Put her canine teeth in the side of my neck!”
You both chuckled at your equally horrible and loud voices, “So mad we didn’t get tickets,” you said with a frown. She groaned, “Ugh, I know. I would literally be screaming the entire way through. Got her CD, though..” She said in a sing-song voice. You shrugged, not satisfied with the outcome, “Not the same, is it?” She frowned, “Guess not.”
You pulled into her driveway and she parked the car, she got out after grabbing her backpack from the back seat and you followed. “Is your mom making dinner or is it too early for that?” You asked her as she unlocked her front door. “Uh, I dunno. It’s kinda early, so probably not yet?” You gave a nod as you walked into her house. “Mom, we’re home!” Shauna called out to her mom who was presumably in her bedroom. She kicked off her shoes and threw her backpack onto the floor near the door.
You walked into her living room and took a seat on the couch with a heavy sigh. Shauna came over and sat beside you, grabbing the remote from the tv off the coffee table. You pulled out your phone to see one new text message from your mom.
You unlocked your phone and read the message to yourself, “I’m almost at Shauna’s, I’m coming to pick you up in 10 minutes.” Sent 7 minutes ago. Damn. You huffed and showed your phone to Shauna who was flicking through channels, “Ugh, seriously? You just got here.” You shrugged, a guilty frown playing on your lips, “Sorry, man.”
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sunsickjune · 1 year ago
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bathroom - age six, peering at the new scar along his cheek, wondering how he’s going to explain this one away at school, nose scrunched up in pain as he runs his fingers gently along the mark, fruitlessly hoping to will it away
bathroom - age seven, wet hair, dripping onto his pyjamas, his mother wrapping him in a towel, bundling him up in her arms, carrying him into the bedroom, giggles filling up the shoebox room
bathroom - age nine, drawing in the steam on the mirror, hiding out in the shower, shampoo stinging his eyes, water’s too hot, suffocating, the glow of the almost full moon shining through the window, eyes closed against the pain already vibrating through his bones
bathroom - age eleven, staring at the envelope, green eyes bright with amazement, tracing the letters with a scarred finger, hope, fear, restlessness, excitement
bathroom - age twelve, examining the new scar across his jaw, padfoot says it looks badass, prongs yelling for him to hurry up, dragging a toothbrush against his teeth, can’t get rid of the grin on his face
bathroom - age fourteen, padfoot messing with his hair, slapping his hands away, smirking, grabbing a jacket from the floor before running after prongs, late for breakfast, calling for wormtail over his shoulder
bathroom - age fifteen, on the floor of the shower, eyes closed against the hot water, how much of the water is his tears? uneven breathing, pounding in his head, idiot padfoot, it’s not like he even cares, heartbroken, betrayed, hating them, hating the wolf, hating himself
bathroom - age sixteen, pulling on one of prongs’ hoodies, scanning his notes as he rinses his hands, padfoot smirking at him in a way that quickens his heartbeat, come on moons we need to get going, flushed cheeks, bright eyes, shoulders knocking, towel discarded on the tiles of the floor
bathroom - age seventeen, back against the cold porcelain of the toilet, eyes scrunched shut, fingernails digging into the flesh of his palms, sharp enough to draw blood, can’t sleep, can’t stay awake, the soft sound of the door opening, prongs’ hands on his shoulders, prying his fingers away from the wound, moony talk to me, hey, look at me moons, head falling onto his shoulder, so fucking tired
bathroom - age eighteen, panicked breathing, shaking with pain, gripping marlene’s hand, padfoot trying to stop the blood with his shirt, lily muttering healing spells over it, prongs’ quiet cursing from her side, can’t get the bodies out of his head, lifeless eyes, familiar faces, gideon, fabian, how many more?
bathroom - age nineteen, choking on his sobs, can’t breathe, can’t stop seeing her face on his head, hair spread out on the concrete behind her, beautiful blue eyes wide with shock, she didn’t even scream, marlene, she’s gone she’s gone she’s gone, door cracking open, he pulls him into a hug, marlene, marlene, padfoot’s voice cracks, i know
bathroom - age nineteen, padfoot fixing his tie for him, prongs chattering nervously from behind them, straightening wormtail’s suit, mary banging on the door, yelling that they’re going to start without him, “you can’t start the wedding without out the groom, macdonald!”, prongs grins, and his smile is the sun
bathroom - age twenty one, spilling water over harry, padfoot pulling faces, making him laugh, splashing water on his face, a casual arm on his shoulder, turning to him with soft eyes, a smile lighting up his face, loved
bathroom - age twenty one, standing next to padfoot, but he feels miles away, avoiding his eyes, clearing the sink, “i miss you”, he breathes, a confession, padfoot pausing in the doorway, “i’m right here”
bathroom - age twenty two, panic attack, can’t breathe, can’t think, can’t open his eyes because everything reminds him of them, doesn’t want to be alone, but it doesn’t matter, he has no one to go to anyways
bathroom - age twenty five, head hovering over the toilet, fingers gripping the sides of the seat, violently throwing up, knocking over a discarded bottle of beer with his foot, when did he start crying? head pounding, “i miss him” he admits his secret to the empty room, no one there to judge him
bathroom - age thirty, sitting on the cold tiles in his pyjamas, mary clinking her bottle with his “thirty, flirty and thriving”, he gives her a look, she giggles, he’s happy for the first time in a long time, “love you rems”, yeah he’s happy
bathroom - age thirty three, splashing cold water on his face, it’s fine he can do this, but he looks just like him, he needs to plan some lessons, but the eyes, maybe a boggart for tomorrow, those green eyes, lily’s eyes, fuck, he can’t do this, how did he think he could do this?
bathroom - age thirty five, brushing his teeth at the mirror, padfoot’s right next to him, can’t stop smiling, “what?” padfoot’s smiling too, “just missed you”, nudging his shoulder slightly, “i’m not going anywhere moons”
bathroom - age thirty six, broken, more broken than he was last time, shaking, can’t get up, won’t get up, he’s not going to survive this, he knows he can’t survive this, how the hell did he do it last time? leans back against the wall, eyes closed, thinks of prongs, of padfoot of lily and marlene, smiles softly, silence, endless silence.
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delopsia · 1 year ago
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Rhett's truck hasn't had a keyfob for the better half of fifteen years now.
Built back in 2001, its bounced from owner to owner so many times that nobody knows who lost the fob, and Rhett only knows that when he bought the truck, the previous owner didn't have that little device.
But you can't complain when you're a broke sixteen year old whose been taking odd jobs for a good year and a half, and this truck is the only reliable vehicle you can afford.
All these years later, Rhett very well can afford a newer, nicer truck. Something with a radio that doesn't still take cassette tapes and with lesser miles. Hell, he can afford to buy a new damn keyfob.
But he doesn't, for one very particular reason.
It gives him an excuse to open the door for you.
With this truck, he gets to quicken his step as the pair of you near his vehicle. Fishing the key out of his pocket, sliding it into the passenger door, and opening it up for you. And since he's already there, it only makes sense that he waits to shut it once you've settled inside.
You know what he's doing. He knows that you know what he's doing. But oh, does he love getting to do it.
Nowadays, trucks aren't made with bench seats in the front row. How is he meant to feel you rest your head against his shoulder while driving if there's a big console between the pair of you? And where is he supposed to rest his right hand, if not on your thigh? And those sleepless nights where neither of you is ready to go home, and you sprawl out together on the seat?
No, he doesn't think he's ever buying a keyfob.
And he's surely not buying a new truck.
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usmsgutterson · 2 months ago
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Achilles Heel - Givenson
okay!! I posted an excerpt from this initially more than a week ago now and it's just evolved ever since. I was gunning for angst and landed somewhere in hurt/comfortville instead but I'm happy with that so I'm posting this!
Fic type - the tone of this one is kind of hard to explain--it's like if angst and comfort had a child of neutrality
Warnings - there's a couple things--alcoholism and it's adverse affects are discussed a bit (for context, heart attacks, seizing and liver failure are mentioned, with heart attacks being a focal point in every single chapter of this fic and also just generally) and Tims time in the military is discussed at least a little. There's one offhanded mention of a psychotic break, and cigarettes and smoking are also semi-present in this chapter and will make a few minor reappearances throughout the fic in it's entire. This bad boy is also really long (with a word count of a bit more than 5k for this chapter and a minimum of such in the other chapters as well.
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When Tim hears the words: "I never woulda pegged you for a smoker. When'd you start?" it's 7:30 am on a morning in early October. Kentucky is falling into autumn while simultaneously riding out the last coattails of summer, and he's sitting in a coffee shop parking lot with fifteen minutes to go until Rachel wants him in the office on a new case.  
He recognizes the voice instantaneously without meaning to, but—how could he ever forget that voice, really? Even a little more than a decade gone by, that voice is one of the most distinctive voices Tim has ever heard.  
"When the fuck did you get into Lexington?" he asks a Raylan that is eleven years older than he was when he left. His hair is a lot lighter than the medium-dark brown Tim remembers, and the beard he's sporting is a shade of grey that looks almost white, but he looks good. Too fucking good for a guy of 56. He asks the question while he taps out the last of his cigarette, takes the last drag of it before flicking it off into the nearest empty parking spot with a nature so careless it almost seems natural instead of practised.  
The remark makes Raylan laugh. "Last night," he says. "Rachel wanted me in nice and early. I’ve never much made a habit of waking up before even the sun, but—”  
"She's Rachel," Tim nods. He's worked with her since he started with the Marshals. They've been working together for a whopping sixteen years now, and Tim loves her more with every day that passes. She’s like a sister to him at this point, which does come with working with someone for more than two thousand days, but she knows him as well as Art does and she's always just been innately good at her job and easy to work with. Letting her in was easy and he's not lived to regret it yet, doubts that he ever will. “I get it.”  
He remembers, and does not miss, the early mornings that came with being the office newbie, but he’s been a chronic morning person since he first got out of ranger school. The only beef he has with early mornings in correlation to his work is that he doesn’t really have time to go for a run, unless he plans on skipping breakfast or waking up earlier.  
He’s up for six thirty, has been every single day since ranger school, no matter how much or how little sleep he’d gotten the night before, and he usually just goes for his runs in what he sleeps in—a pair of sweatpants and a shirt that’s not usually more than a size or two too big. He runs for five or so miles in the usual half an hour-ish it takes and then runs back from whence he came, showers, gets dressed, has coffee and a decent breakfast in him by the time he’s leaving the house at 8:30 so he can start for close to nine.  
He’s been up since 4:30 on the dot today, though, and the coffee is such a necessity that it hurts somewhere deep in his chest, although coffee has tended to bring out chest pain lately anyway.  
“You doin’ all right?” Raylan asks. “You’re lookin’ a bit faint there. Late night?”  
A smirk crosses Tims face in the last half a second before memories of one of the only gay bars in the area and a guy that looked like Raylan but was so painfully mediocre flash across his minds eye.  
“Somethin’ t’ that effect, sure,” Tim shrugs. It hadn’t been a late night, per se.
He’d gone to the bar after getting off work at nine even though he’s spent the last six weeks sober as a nun. He had a few cokes and a club soda and eventually softened up enough to let a Raylan lookalike by the name of Mitchell flirt his way into getting Tim to agree to going back to his place. A tad more of the flirting and some off-kilter sex that just left Tim wanting later, it was 4:30 and Tim was waking up after having slept only three hours because he can’t--won’t--let himself let anyone else in, and especially not someone who could, rather convincingly, play Raylan in the lifetime movie about his existence.
He slipped out of Mitchells apartment without leaving his number, or his real name—he'd told Mitchell his name was Justin, for anonymities sake, if his stone cold sober memory serves him right—or much of an otherwise trace behind. He went home, changed out of the jeans and t-shirt he’d worn to Mitchells place and into a pair of loose fitting gray sweats and a black long sleeved shirt before making himself his first coffee of the day and going for his run.  
The run that usually lasted an hour both ways ended up lasting him an hour and a half—he loved to run to clear his head and he ran an extra mile and a half before turning around and running the same distance back home. He made it home for six thirty, took his time with his shower and decided to treat himself to his second coffee from the coffee spot he liked that was close to the office both because he needed more caffeine and because their bagels were cheap but still delicious.  
“Never thought you the type,” Raylan says. “I mean—”  
“it’s been over a decade,” Tim nods. “You probably don’t know me as well as you used to anymore.”  
The only person who he will ever let know him as deeply as he can be known is dead. He died when Colton Rhodes pulled the trigger, and the one person who got as close as Mark did was never meant to have gotten that close to begin with.  
Tims words seem to touch a nerve, almost, but Tim decides to be nonchalant. He takes a sip of his coffee and looks at the parking lot through the front of his car.  
“I hate it, but you’re right,” Raylan laughs. “Sorry I didn’t keep in touch.”  
Tim looks at Raylan—really looks at him, studies him like he used to study his targets whenever he had an assignment, and sees what appears to be anguish masked poorly by indifference, covered up with a laugh so false that it almost feels like a bullet to the gut.  
“So am I,” Tim says. “How’ve you been? Hows Miami?”  
“Its Miami,” Raylan shrugs.  
“You and Winona work out?” It’s more of a sore spot than Tim would care to admit on an ordinary day, but Raylan Givens is in Lexington. This day is not ordinary.  
Raylan laughs nervously. “You were a sniper in the rangers,” he says. “Tact should be a talent of yours.”  
“It is,” Tim shrugs easily, grins just a tad. “Just not with you.”  
“Well to answer your question, no,” Raylan says it like it doesn’t hurt him to admit, but Tim knows that it bruises his ego just enough to make him close to humble. “What about you? Any prospects?”  
“Never,” Tim says. “I’m not really one for relationships. They never work out.”
“They do on occasion,” Raylan rebuts.  
“Did becoming a father make you inherently more optimistic or just inherently more stupid?” Tim asks, the sarcasm dripping in his tone in such a way that allows the question to seem like sarcasm was the whole intent of the question, rather than for it to be an insult, which Tim knows it is somewhere deep.  
“Ah,” Raylan sighs easily, smirking that smirk that Tim will never cease to find incredibly difficult to even so much as mildly disdain, let alone hate. “You’re still an asshole? Oh, some things just never change much, do they?”  
Tim flexes his hands to stop himself from reaching for his pack of Marlboros and his lighter.  
He checks his watch, takes another sip of his coffee. “See you at the office, dipshit,” he says. He hears Raylans laugh as he pulls out of his spot and drives away, needing to breathe the air he’s had more than a decade to get used to—air absent of Raylans presence.
He gets to the office a whopping total of two minutes earlier than necessary, heads straight for Rachels office.  
“Let me guess,” he says. “Boyd Crowder has escaped the lovely Harlan County Penitentiary and we’re charged with finding him?”  
“Precisely,” Rachel says, heaving in a sigh. “Only if he comes down this way, though, which he might if he thinks Ava is still here.”  
“Why the fuck would he ever--” Tim starts, pausing to think and just long enough to enter her office fully, shut the door and sit down on the couch across from her desk “It’s Boyd. Even if he’s smarter than to think she’d ever come back ‘round these parts as a goddamned fugitive, he’s at least considered the possibility.”  
Rachel smiles, tight lipped, professional but just a touch sarcastic, like always. “I like it when you use that brain of yours to actually think,” she says. “You’re on the lead, Raylans takin’ second.”  
Tim can’t help his facial expression—he and Rachel have worked together for a decade and a half now, with Tim having joined the service when he was almost thirty and her having been in the service for fourteen years by the time he was joining. He doesn’t try to hide the mild discomfort he feels at the thought of taking lead or working with Raylan again and she, in turn, has the decency not to stifle her sarcastic chuckle or soften the hardened glare that she sports in his direction for the following fifteen seconds.  
“I know you don’t wanna do this,” she says. “I dunno which part you hate more—takin' lead on this case or workin’ with Raylan again, but c’est la vie, Tim.”  
Tim shrugs, defensive air coming to him before he can stop it. “I don’t hate takin’ lead on a case,” he says. “Actually--I love it. If you want to put me on lead for the next several task forces we have to pull out of our asses, be my motherfuckin’ guest, I just don’t understand why you’d make me lead and Raylan second when Raylan is the one who knows Boyd the best out of just about anyone in Kentucky.”  
He and Boyd have had a limited number of interactions, all things considered—the time where Boyd used Tim and Rachel to save his own ass and then shot a gun while his hands were cuffed behind his back, as well as the time Tim played Scrabble against him and was about five minutes out from losing when Raylan walked back in are the first of their interactions to come to mind—and it makes very little sense to have him on lead when Raylan and his “we dug coal together” shtick know Boyd better than Tim ever wants to.  
“I was given a very strong suggestion not to make Raylan lead,” Rachel shrugs. “Manpower in Miami is stretched so thin that losing Raylan to this taskforce is the Miami equivalent of losing 1/3rd of their damn population, apparently. Dan was hesitant to send him down here and doesn’t want him gone longer than a month or two.”  
Tim shrugs. “Boyd is a hell of a lot smarter than to risk his own skin comin’ down here, even if he thinks Ava’s somehow holed up here without gettin’ caught,” he says. “Ava is smarter than to come down here, too. She wouldn’t risk it, I don’t think. Too afraid Boyd’d come lookin’ to bother.”  
“You might actually be right on that front,” she says. “I hope you are. You remember how much of a damn fuss those two kicked up back in the day?”  
It’s not often that Tim reminisces—he hates thinking about the past that is riddled so much with Raylan and Mark that it can induce a hangover unlike anything he’s ever experienced, even absent of booze—but he lets himself reminisce a little bit. The Boyd Crowder case had been a long time coming by the time they finally put Boyd away and Raylan didn’t have a means of screwing it up.  
He and Rachel have been getting along like a house on fire since they started working together, back when Art would pair the two of them up before Raylan had even come around, but their bond had strengthened throughout the six years that Raylan and his reign of terror masqueraded about Kentucky. It’s easy to let her see bits and pieces of who he is because she is the closest thing that Tim has to family worth their salt.  
“I do,” he says. “Damn it—the Crowders and associates and the fuckin’ Bennett clan. Part of me yearns for those days on occasion.”  
Rachels lips upturn in a reminiscent smile. “What, you miss when they were shootin’ people left’n right? I don’t.”  
“I miss being busy all the damn time,” he confesses. “Our criminals nowadays ain’t like they were back with the turn of the 2010s.”  
“You’re sayin’ you want a Boyd Crowder wannabe runnin’ around Harlan like he owns it?”  
Tim shrugs. “This Boyd Crowder wannabe had better be more efficient at blowin’ shit up than Boyd was,” he says. “Or at least do it more often. I miss bein’ so busy it was hard to sleep at night, mostly, but bickering with Boyd was entertaining on the rare chance he wasn’t directing all of his verboseness at Raylan.”  
Rachel laughs, dry and easy. “You’re so lucky I love you enough not to transfer you down to Arlington,” she says. “I don’t blame you for it—we had very different versions of Boyd Crowders heyday, but I miss it on occasion too. Mostly late at night, after a few too many.” 
Tim knows the six years they had with Raylan were vastly different—Tim was drinking his liver into a premature death every night, going to see Dave Alvin with dates or guys from his military days who’d turned into such, then later fucking around with Mark and Raylan and knowing full well his heart would probably not make it through the ordeal.  
Rachel was repeatedly hurt—first her ex brother in law turned into a fugitive and had to be arrested while in a pizza joint, then her marriage fell apart and she had to keep it together without losing her entire goddamned mind just so that Art wouldn’t walk back his decision with regards to having her be the chief once he retired, and in between that whole mess, Boyd Crowder and those he kept in his employ or worked with shot at her repeatedly. Even if they missed, being shot at still fuckin’ sucks.  
“Yeah?” Tim laughs. “I thought since you became the chief, you’d be like all chiefs before. Take up a taste for Pappy Van Winkle.”  
“I’ll take my fridge cold Modelo over Pappy, thank you,” she says. “Time check?”  
Tim glances up at the clock, high up on the wall behind Rachel. “Time check says quarter to eight,” he says. “You see Raylan?”  
“Late, as usual,” she laughs. “Missed him, but I didn’t miss that. Assuming we’ve got at least two more minutes til he graces us with his presence, if you don’t tell me you’ve been to the VFW this week, I will use my gun and shoot you my-fuckin'-self, right here in this office.”  
Tim hasn’t been in a few weeks if not a full month, but Rachel, decidedly, does not need to know that. He nods.  
“I’ve gone twice a week since the incident,” he says. “Meet with a therapist every Wednesday and Friday.”  
“Good,” she nods. Tim fights a sigh of relief when he finds she believes him, that she doesn’t see through the lie that several of his buddies from his ranger days would see right through in maybe half a second. “You scared the shit out me, you know that? I don’t want that happening again.”  
Tims lips form a line before he can stop himself. “I’ll do my best.”  
“Have you been drinking?”  
“Not a lick,” Tim says. That, at least, is the truth. “Not since the incident. Too scared to drink after that.”  
“Is the booze still in your fridge?”  
“Yeah,” he doesn’t see the point in dumping it—one day, be it in that week or that month or in the next few months, he won’t be so scared to touch the booze and even if it means going all in right out the gate, it’s an odd little creature comfort that he’s not ready to let go of yet.  
“Tim,” Rachel says, tone authoritative and well meaning. She’s weirdly good at it—finding the balance been friend and boss. Tim finds it admirable. “You gotta do somethin’ with it before it expires—don't you dare drink, though.”  
“I’ll dump it one of these days,” he says. “Just--not yet.”   
“I know you well enough to know you’re not lyin’ to me,” she says. “The minute you start, though? And the minute I sniff it out? You’re going on a leave of absence and you ain’t comin’ back til you’re stone cold sober. I liked you as you were back when Boyd was in the shit with the heroin and the Dixie mafia, but I like you not drunk off your ass or hungover a hell of a lot more than I liked the version of you that drank every fuckin’ night. Don’t make me dislike you, Timothy.”  
Tim smiles, gentle and easy and a little more sarcastic than he really means to be. “Yes Ma’am,” he says. “I promise not to do anythin’ out of line that would affect my ability to work. You have my word on that.”  
“You’re lucky I know your word means somethin’,” she says. “You scared the shit out of me six weeks ago, and while I’ve tried to forget about it, it ain’t happened yet. I don’t let myself do it often—you're a big boy and if you can’t take care’a yourself at forty-five with a decade of military experience under your belt? There is not an ounce of hope left for you—but I’m lettin’ myself do it now because I can afford that. You scared me half to death, Tim, and if I ever find you like that again I’m gonna hold you liable for my psychotic break.”  
“I know,” he says. “Stop worrying. I’m okay now, and I’m going to stay that way.”  
“You’d fuckin’ better, Tim. I don’t take too kindly to being scared like that.”  
Like a curse brought down onto Kentucky, Raylan takes that moment to open Rachels office door.  
“Sorry I’m late,” he greets. “Tell me what’s what.”  
Eleven hours later, it’s seven o’clock on the dot and Rachel, Raylan, and Tim still feel like they’ve gotten nowhere. Apart from the assembly of the task force—which includes the likes of Rachel, Raylan, Tim, Dunlop, and a few newbies that joined the Marshals after a good and long half-decade or so in the Marines—and coordinating a press release that Tim will have to talk in during the following day informing locals about Boyds current escapee status, they have nothing.  
No leads as to his whereabouts, no confirmed information from the CI that used to work closely with a few of Boyds buddies, nothing. They’re at a dead end and Rachel tells them to go home, to come back in no later than half past eight, and Tim is grateful for it as he leaves, his thoughts blurrying somewhere between the ride in the elevator and the short walk between the bottom floor of the courthouse and his truck.  
He sits in his truck for a long couple of minutes, drums his fingers against the steering wheel because he doesn’t want to go home but otherwise doesn’t know what to do with himself.  
He could grab dinner, but grabbing dinner completely alone still feels more pathetic than not. He could go home even though he doesn’t want to and make it worth it by stopping at a grocery store on the way and picking up a pint of Ben and Jerrys, and then eating it in one sitting whilst some western he’s seen a thousand times before plays monotonously in the background.  
He could go to a bar, just like he did the night before. He could order a coke or a water and then let someone flirt their way into seducing him, just like he did the night before, but he’d really rather not.  
He realizes, as his eyes move to his hands and he finds his fingers still drumming against the steering wheel, that he effectively has nothing.  
So he drives for a bit, takes a left turn and then goes straight only to take right and somehow, he finds himself at home anyway.  
He checks the landline that he’s had for fifteen years and will probably never give up, is unsurprised to find a message from the counselor he used to see at the VFW twice a week.  
“Hi, Tim, this Alexander calling again, just to check in,” the voicemail starts. “I just—your number is still listed and you haven’t come around in a month. I’ve been wondering about you, is all. The VFW will always have your back, as will the people in it. I’m not saying you have to come back, per se—you're a lawman, I can’t force you to do shit—but I’m saying that we’ll be here for you, if you let us or want us to be. Call me back whenever you feel like it, okay? If you ever feel like it at all. If you don’t, that’s just fine, too.”  
He doesn’t call back even though some part of him kind of wants to. Instead, he goes to the bathroom, pulls his jeans off of his body and lets the Henley he wears follow suit. He tosses them into the dirty laundry basket that’s been building for a week and bends to get to the dryer so he can pull out a pair of joggers and a Carhartt sweatshirt that’s as old as his time in the Marshals service.  
He grabs a towel and a fresh pair of boxers before finally taking his boxers off and tossing them into the dirty laundry basket just as he'd done with the rest of his day clothes.
He showers, keeps the water so cold that it almost turns the tips of his fingers purple and lingers in the shower a little longer than what’s necessary. He stays under the water until he gets sick of it and only afterwards does he step out, reaching for the towel he’d grabbed and using it to towel dry his hair before he wraps it around his waist.  
He gets dressed faster than he means to, slipping his boxers and sweatpants on at the same time and not even bothering to grab a shirt to wear under his sweatshirt, just slipping it on over his torso and rolling the sleeves up to the elbows.  
He heads back to his living room, checks his voicemail again.  
“Hey, Tim—it's Raylan. Are you okay? Rachel seemed on edge with you today, and she told me about an incident,” Raylans voice comes through the speaker and Tim almost hates him for it. “Refused, vehemently, to give me specifics though. I hate it when she does that, but—anyway. Are you doin’ all right? I think we’re due in to catch up about now, how’s dinner sound?”  
There’s silence for a beat, one breath in and another out before Raylan sighs. “Look--I know you’re not answering this landline is probably because you’re busy but if you aint, meet me at Magdelenes for eight on the dot.”  
For a few seconds, he considers it. He even goes so far as to check his watch, sees that it’s barely half past seven.  
He flops onto the couch that is so old now he’s surprised the legs haven’t sccumb yet to dry rot, stares at his ceiling as he considers.  
The way he sees it, he has two options. He can go and suffer through a dinner with Raylan for an hour, pointedly avoid the questions about the incident and narrowly beat around the bush by giving Raylan enough non answers that he takes it back to Rachel.  
The other option is that he makes the ten minute drive down to the VFW, which is always open til midnight on Fridays. He can see if Alexander has a slot at the time or wait it out until he has one, go to one of the AA meetings across the road in the meantime and then after he’s done at the VFW, he can treat himself to a greasy pizza from Antonios and eat it while he watches a western before he goes to bed a little earlier than normal.  
He gets up into a proper sitting position, sighs and puts his head in his hands. “Damn you, Alexander,” he says. 
He gets up, shuffles his way into his running shoes and grabs his car and apartment keys.  
Between the company of Raylan Givens and a trip to the VFW, for the first time in his life, Tim has chosen the motherfucking VFW. If Art could’ve seen it coming, Tim is sure he’d’ve died on the spot.  
“You still drinkin’?” Alexander Moreno is a guy that’s fifty-three, tops. He’s starting to go grey on the sides of his head and his skin is very clearly weathered by the sun, but he’s only therapist that Tims gotten through the VFW that has actually understood him. “I mean—you look sober, and you’re actin’ it, but—answer the question for politeness sakes.”  
“Negative,” Tim says. “I haven’t touched booze in six weeks, one day and about fourteen or so hours, even though I do think my math might be a little off.”  
Alexander laughs. “Why the fuck’re you countin’ for?” he asks. “Sobriety is usually a choice, but for you, doesn’t seem like it is--no sober person would keep a count that specific. Days, months, weeks, yeah. Hours? never, unless they're at the very beginning. Is it a choice?”  
“No,” Tim confesses. “It’s not. I had—well—my boss and I are calling it The Incident.”  
“What happened?”  
“Oh, you know, normal shit,” Tim shrugs, defaulting back to sarcasm. “Up until six weeks ago, I was bein’ real reckless. I didn’t care about my liver, my kidneys, my heart—none of it, and so I was doin’ as I’ve always done.”  
“Drinking your vital organs into the earliest grave you can manage,” Alexander nods. “You’n the booze, Timothy. You have the worlds most devastatingly one-sided love affair. What did all this drinkin’ lead to?”  
“Rachel and I were going to do a stakeout the next day, and she’d agreed to come’n grab me from my apartment because my truck was in the shop for the week,” he says. “She found me on the tail end of a bender so bad I’d had a heart attack, seized and gone very briefly into acute liver dysfunction. She found me layin’ in the bathtub with vomit all over my mouth mid seizure. Made me promise to stay away from the booze and to go to the VFW for therapy and meetings.”  
“How long had you been drinking when you passed out?”  
“I got off of work late—eleven, if I’m remembering right. I thought I could have a few’n then go to bed, but I had to eat and didn't feel like cooking so I had to stop for half an hour to grab food from the pizza place that just opened up. I’d been drinking at midnight and she’d said she come get me for 6:30. I was still drinking at five that morning because I couldn’t fall asleep.”  
“What do you think triggered the bender?”  
“The--the anniversary of my first kill in the rangers is next week,” he laughs tiredly. “Six weeks ago it was the anniversary of when I first took the ASVAB. Any of those dates trip me right the fuck up, make my PTSD do something awful.”  
“Have you been on leave ever since?”  
“No,” Tim laughs. “Took a few days’n I was back in the office, but it was really difficult to convince Rachel to let me. I don’t do well with time off and I never have, and recovering from the closest to death I think I’ve ever gotten outside of an active zone of combat is apparently no goddamned exception.”  
“Figures,” Alexander says. “Are you okay, since?”  
“My liver is workin’ normally again even though drinkin’ coffee makes my chest hurt now,” Tim sighs. “Can’t drink the booze in my fridge but every time I think about it I think about just chugging all of it and then leaving the rest to nature because dumping it feels like a waste of money, and I just—shit, Alexander. Where have I been going wrong?”  
“Before I speak my mind, do  you want me to sugar coat this or be blunt?”  
“Blunt,” Tim says. “Hate it when people sugarcoat shit.”  
“Okay,” Alexander nods. “You’re screwed by nature a little, I think—your father died when you were what, eighteen? Because he got so drunk that he’d gone through every single half full bottle of booze in his collection, and then he went and did a goddamn wheely into a ditch. Your mother is currently in a nursing home dealing with dementia and she left the house to you because your brother is just as bad as your father was, and your sister is a criminal defense attorney livin’n working in Miami who hasn’t seen or talked to you or your mother in well over a decade. Alcoholism runs in your family by nature, and yeah, you had a heart attack, sure, but at least dyin’ of a heart attack is less embarrassing than doin’ wheelies on a busy street’n getting your car into the bottom of a ditch, Tim.”  
He makes an annoyingly fair point and Tim hates it.  
“There are worse ways to die,” Tim says.  
“And better ways, too,” Alexander nods. “Yeah. The good thing is that just like death, there are better ways to live than using alcohol as a crutch and I’m thinkin’ it’s time you realized that.”  
Tim glares at him, though the gesture is so half hearted it’s obviously so, and it makes Alexander laugh a little.  
“Glare at me all you wish,” he says. “You know that I’m right about this. You know you need to keep comin’ to these sessions because you ain’t been in the military for seventeen fuckin’ years now but you walk around with all that trauma fresh as a daisy in your head.”  
“It ain’t trauma, Alexander.”  
“Fuck me if it ain’t trauma,” Alexander laughs dryly, sarcasm dripping from his tone. “You worked infantry from the age of 18 to 21, correct? Then you were a ranger til ya hit 26, then you went through the sniper school and were a sniper til you left at 28. That there is a decade of seein’ combat. You don’t do what we did and come out untraumatized, Tim. That ain’t how it works. You kill as many people as you did, no fuckin’ way to leave without at least a little bit of scarring.” 
Tim heaves in a sigh, lets his shoulders slump. “You, Alexander Moreno, are no fun,” he declares.  
Alexander laughs. “I had a drinkin’ problem too,” he says. “After I drank, I transitioned from booze to ciggies, which, judgin’ by the pack I can see pokin’ out the pocket of your joggers, so have you. After I got over cigarettes I left that shit behind entirely. You ever take up reefer, though, I ain’t gonna judge you. Lots of the guys here have prescriptions that they get filled because of chronic pain or other issues.”  
“That’s comforting,” Tim says. “I just—fuck, you know?”  
Tim checks his watch. He sees that it’s quarter to nine and realizes that he’s somehow been sitting across Alexander for a full hour when it barely feels like it’s been fifteen minutes.  
“When you were comin’ down here at first, you came down twice weekly,” he says. “I’m gonna do the nice thing and assume this ain’t a one-time visit.”  
Tim heaves a breath in. “I’d very much like to stop lyin’ to my boss, so it’s not,” he says.  
“All right,” Alexander nods. “Instead of Wednesdays and Fridays like we used to, we’re gonna do Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Forty five minutes Monday because Mondays are inherently disgusting and an hour and fifteen Wednesday and Friday, though I’m gonna put you in my last two hour time slots so that if you need more time, we have it. You finally comittin’ yourself to mental wellness?”  
He has a general hatred for that kind of language—therapy language feels superficial, at best, and is agitating at worst, but he nods. He lets Alexander use that language because some part of him believes maybe it does play a role in getting better somehow. 
Alexander stands and naturally, Tim follows suit. He extends a hand and Tim takes it assuming he’s just going to shake hands, but Alexander pulls him into a bro-hug instead.  
Tim has never really been much for physical contact but he decides that it’s fine because the idea that he wants to get better is sticking for the first time in his life. He’s not just saying it for the sake of saying it but instead is saying it with the intent to keep to his word.  
“I’ll see you Monday,” Alexander says. “Eight on the dot, right?”  
“Eight should work best with my schedule,” Tim nods. “Thanks.”  
Alexander smiles as Tim makes his way to the door, fully intending to go home and knock out until four so he can run for longer than he usually does and get to work on time.  
“Yeah,” Alexander says. “You take care of yourself in the meantime, all right?”
“Either get busy livin’ or get busy dyin’,” Tim rebuts, some part of him hating the way that the words sound when they come out of his mouth. “I’ve committed and I really don’t need to piss my boss off again, so I don’t have much choice.”  
Alexander barks a laugh and Tim hears it as he leaves, the sound echoing in his mind even after he's left.
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lost-girl-2021 · 1 year ago
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Would it be possible for you to write a fanfiction on ao3 about Metkayina Spider human au? It sounds so interesting that I don't even know how to comment
I think I might after I finish up with Days Into Decades. I'm in school rn (and trying to get a job) so I don't want to take on too many projects at once. I've definitely started fics, then got a new idea, started a new one, and accidentally ghosted the first, so I'm hoping to avoid that atm, lol.
I have three-ish ideas for new fics that I've written a little about, but I'll probably decide once I've finished with Days Into Decades (I'm starting the last act rn, actually).
The options are as follows, for anyone interested:
Metkayina post-battle Spider AU
(After the battle) Spider is taken in by Ronal and Tonowari. Either he washes ashore like Ariel and is taken in before the Sully's even notice he's there, or he's doing his little beach-boy thing and sleeping in trees and they notice.
I also think it'd be really funny if all the Metkayina people think Spider's, like, ten or something because surely human's get bigger than that, right? Like, it's been awhile since they've seen any humans and they never worked closely with them/interacted outside of fighting. So, they never really paid attention.
Young Spider (Adopted) AU
AU where humans don't age as fast as the Na'vi, so Spider's like 12-14-ish and his friends are all fifteen/sixteen. Also, in the AU, I would probably have Spider be adopted by the Sully's. I've touched based on it before, but I'd probably do something where Spider was raised (properly) besides the Sully kids and the rest of the movie takes place pretty much the same (minus my boy Neteyam dying, never gonna go there).
Brainwashed Spider AU (Probably my fav atm)
Spider is 'rescued' by the Sully's after the battle, except he doesn't remember them. At all. As far as he's concerned, he's Miles Quaritch Jr. and Jake Sully is a traitor of humanity.
There's a couple different ways this could go. Either Quaritch lives and takes him back at some point, only for Spider to realize he was treated better with the Sully's. Or, Spider finds out Jake killed his dad and feels bad for starting to trust him. Spider could run away at some point, he could try to off himself like the 'good soldier' he is. Idk, there's so many options.
Modern Metkayina/Foster kid Spider AU (the more I think about this one the more ideas I get)
Spider is a foster kid sent to live with Ronal and Tonowari's family.
Two options for Spider's childhood before this: (one) he was living with the Sully family until they had to move to another country to be with Neytiri's ailing mother (two) he lived with his father in the mountains and was homeschooled, but his father was arrested and Spider's been sent far away to avoid anyone knowing his situation/any of Spider's uncles/aunts being able to find him while the case is investigated. I'm partial to the second version, because I feel like it'd be interesting to see Spider have to learn how to be a Real Boy. But, I also like the angst that comes with Spider getting comfortable with his new foster family and his old foster family (the Sully's) moving back to the States and wanting to adopt Spider, basically making Spider pick where he wants to go.
Whichever backstory he gets changes how the rest of the fic goes, but we'd definitely see Spider learning to surf (maybe to swim?) and Aounung at first bullying the guy and then getting in a fight for him or something whenever someone else tries to do it (very much 'i'm the only one allowed to make fun of my brother' vibes).
Those are the main fic ideas I have atm, lmk which one(s) you like the best or if you have any more ideas for me to hyperfixate on lol.
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outstandingblue · 2 years ago
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Promises to Keep
Sixteen - Playin' Around
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recom!miles quaritch x fem!na'vi oc
| Masterlist | Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three | Chapter Four | Chapter Five | Chapter Six | Chapter Seven | Chapter Eight | Chapter Nine | Chapter Ten | Chapter Eleven | Chapter Twelve | Chapter Thirteen | Chapter Fourteen | Chapter Fifteen | Chapter Seventeen | Chapter Eighteen |
It's a bitch to get a taste of your own medicine.
cross-posted on ao3 here content warning: an attempt at hurt-comfort(ish), shits and gigs word count: 5.7k
“How are you feeling today?”
“Much better. Ready to get these out. They’re itchy.” Jiniraa answered, trying her best not to gag at the overwhelming antiseptic that lingered in the air. The smell in the actual medical wing was overwhelming compared to Renia’s office. 
Renia nodded and slid her chair across the room to grab her tweezers and scissors before pushing off again and sliding right back to where Jiniraa waited. Lurking along the wall, Miles rolled his eyes at the doctor’s childish antics, but he knew better than to say anything forthright.
She had launched a textbook at his head the first time he made a snide comment and her scissors gleaned under the lights. They would be a much deadlier weapon than an oversized textbook. He had tried to make peace with Renia, but it was a work in progress. She made the Colonel work for her peace, not just accept his mumbled ‘thank you’ as he avoided eye contact. Regardless, the two managed to remain relatively civil over the past week since Jiniraa woke up. They were forced to interact when Jiniraa came in for her daily evaluations, so they fought to suppress their insults that just begged to be unleashed. 
It had been a week. A week since their intimate moment and kiss outside, but no one brought it up. Not once. Their gazes would linger longer than usual, but neither had the guts to say anything. Their dynamic was complicated to say the least. In public, Miles made a point to keep his distance from Jiniraa, but tried to keep her within his line of sight. He would hover in the background - like he was doing right now - and try to look busy and make work out of nothing.
On the other hand, Jiniraa didn’t know what to think about much of it. Did she want the kiss? Absolutely - one could argue she was the main instigator. Does that mean she magically forgot everything Quaritch did the moment their lips touched? Well, maybe for the moment, but everything came rushing back right after: the destruction of Hometree, the killing of hundreds of innocent Na’vi, the threatening of the Sully children, and every other heinous crime Miles and Quaritch committed. So, she retreated inward.
After they disconnected and Miles made his declaration for her, the words flowed from her lips before she was able to think, too caught up in the emotional and physical sensations. I see you, Miles. What was she thinking saying those words? He couldn’t have understood, even if he was fluent in Na’vi, he wouldn’t understand the weight of those words. Now, Miles had no clue what she said - a failed translation attempt from Spider only left him more frustrated. 
Since the Recoms tended to move in groups, he knew they could be trusted with Jiniraa’s wellbeing, but there wasn’t a moment outside the housing district where she was left without an escort. When asked, Miles chalked it up to makin’ sure you don’t start bleedin’ to death again. It should be noted that Miles always made sure to escort her to and from the medical wing. He would argue this was the most logical course of action - he would get the information from the source, not some second-hand account from Wainfleet or Zdinarsk. 
The private and public spheres of Jiniraa and Miles were completely different stories. In public, Miles kept Jiniraa at arm's length, limiting their interactions to brief conversations with none of his usual charm. At meals, he would sit at the other end of the table. He was relentless in training, pushing her harder than anyone else. In private and protected from the intrusive Bridgehead crowds, Jiniraa and Miles were free to be themselves. Rather than exploring their physical intimacy, their emotional intimacy had grown much deeper. Once Miles’ door closed behind them, they were back in their little domestic bubble. Once they passed through the threshold to his quarters, there wasn’t any discussion of Ardmore or the greater mission at hand. It was only Miles and Jiniraa and that was all they needed. Did they share a few passing kisses here and there? Sure. The only thing they didn’t talk about was their kiss outside - little stolen pecks were fine to giggle about but the epic kiss under the stars was off limits.  
In the absence of interaction with Miles in public, Jiniraa had grown closer to the other Recoms. She was already closer with Lyle and Zdinarsk out of everyone, but she made leaps and bounds with Lopez, Prager, and Ja. Mansk was a slightly different story because he wasn’t much of a conversationalist. Although she wasn’t able to participate, she’d watch from the sidelines as the Recoms messed around with each other in the courtyard. If he wasn’t stuck in meetings with the General, Miles would try to show off in whatever activity the group found themselves engrossed in, but it only earned him a few laughs and eyerolls. 
Lopez may have been on the smaller side compared to the rest of the team, but he easily was the most competitive when it came to sports - even resorting to dirty plays. Prager was a good sport, just happy to be there. Ja was somewhere in between the two - not quite as constantly pumped as Lopez and Lyle, but also not as casual and mellow as Prager and Zdinarsk. The second day after Jiniraa woke up, Spider told her about Ja’s efforts to keep her alive. Using some materials she’d been collecting for a while, she made Ja a bracelet - both a thank you for saving her life and semi-apology for knocking him out in the forest all those weeks ago. Ja just laughed, knocking her shoulder saying “just another day on the job.” He didn’t show it outright, but the words stuck with him for the rest of the day. Although it was against RDA regulation, he proudly tied his bracelet onto his medical pouch. 
“Alrighty, you’re all done. You’re gonna scar, but other than that you shouldn’t have much else to worry about.” Renia disposed of her gloves, cleaning off the bed. Jiniraa was lost in her thoughts for a second, not even realizing Renia had already finished taking the stitches out. “You haven’t been having any pain when you walk, right?”
“No, I do not have any pain there anymore,” Jiniraa answered, sliding off the hospital bed and repositioning her pants. She was still stuck wearing Bridgehead-issued clothing, but they were only a temporary problem. She already had plans to make her next article of clothing, but she just needed more materials. “Spider says I have not been limping, but I did not notice.”
“That’s a good thing,” Miles grumbled, pushing himself off the wall. In front of Renia, they didn’t have to be as reserved with their interaction compared to the rest of Bridgehead. They couldn't go full on make out or anything, but they also didn’t have to pretend to hate each other.
“The Colonel is right - as much as I hate to admit,” Renia mumbled, ignoring how Miles pinned his ears. “That bullet must’ve been the cause of all that after all. You really don’t remember getting shot?”
“Be nice,” Jiniraa slapped Miles’ on the arm, glaring at him for his rudeness. 
“I don’t do nice.” 
Jiniraa decided it was better to ignore him as she continued. “When they found me in the forest, I was already bleeding from that area. I don’t remember being injured, just the aftermath. There’s nothing from before that day.”
Renia nodded, scribbling something down in her notepad. Miles’ eyes were trained on the floor, deep in thought. With a tentative tap on the shoulder, Jiniraa snapped the Colonel out of his daze. His head shot up, meeting Jiniraa’s mildly curious gaze. She had been finding him stuck in his thoughts more and more often. He cleared his throat, “all done?”
Jiniraa nodded, turning around to bid Renia goodbye. The doctor didn’t even look up from her notes as she waved back. A few weeks ago, Jiniraa was clueless when it came to navigating the halls of Bridgehead, but now she knew certain sectors like the back of her hand. The knowledge was a double-edged sword: it was nice not to need a guide, but everytime she turned a corner without contemplating the direction, it felt like a small part of her native self died. 
“Jiniraa, slow your roll.” Miles jogged to catch up. She basically darted out of the medical wing, not able to stand the chemical smell anymore. 
Jiniraa. The name was a punch to the gut. He stopped using those nicknames in public. No more sweetheart and no more baby, even after all those sweet words he said last week. None of it in public. He addressed her using her actual name - historically, he used it out of pure desperation. Those few times in the forest? He was terrified of losing her. Why did he use her actual name now? It was still desperation, but a different type. Ardmore’s threats plagued his thoughts, so he was keenly aware of his word choice, meticulously managing every single syllable. 
Jiniraa didn’t even wait for Miles as she pushed ahead towards the mess hall. As usual, when Jiniraa joined the Recoms at their dining table in the mess hall, all eyes were on them - or her specifically. She’d grown used to the constant unwanted attention, so it didn’t bother her anymore but it didn’t sit right with everyone else - especially Miles. He was stuck between a rock and a hard place when it came to Jiniraa. Ever since Ardmore made her threats clear, Miles knew he couldn’t step out of line because it would risk her and Spider. On the other hand, hearing rumors floating around the nameless humans that crowded the corridors of Bridgehead made him indescribably irritated - at one breakfast he broke a set of utensils from how aggressively he was cutting into his food. 
Miles Quaritch was never one to care about how he was perceived by those around him, as long as they feared and respected him he didn’t give a rats ass about what they thought, but a recent discovery of Bridgehead social strata had begun eating away at him. According to Bridgehead gossip, Jiniraa died during her surgery and that was why the Colonel had been so irritable while she was in her comatose state. Another rumor said he was the one who killed her in the forest in a blind fit of rage, this of course was debunked when she made her return to civilization and the other theory became all the rage. 
“So, what’d the doc say?” Zdinarsk asked with a mouth full of food once Jiniraa settled between Lopez and Ja - at the other end from Miles. 
Jiniraa gave a thumbs up, one of the many human gestures Lopez had taught her in the past week. Some were innocent, others were incredibly profane. “Stitches are out. Renia said I’m cleared for everything.”
Prager sighed, throwing his head back as he looked up to the ceiling. “I wish I saw the doc more.”
Lopez laughed, eyebrows creasing together, “you what?”
“You know,” Prager began, bringing both hands up in front of his chest, “she got a nice rack.”
“Excuse me?” Mansk challenged from a few seats down, suddenly interested in the conversation. “Wanna say that again?”
Prager held a finger up at Mansk, already feeling his death glare burning into his soul. “I’m just saying Mansk, you’re one lucky man.”
“You are fucking disgusting,” Zdinarsk mumbled, focusing back on her food rather than the idiots in front of her. 
Jiniraa watched as Prager tried - and failed - to rationalize his case to Mansk, who had slid his dark shades up, exposing his irritation and borderline wrath. Lopez bumped his elbow against the woman next to him, he already had a dangerous grin as his eyes twinkled with mischief,  “that means you’re playin’ with us today?”
“I would like that, thank you, Lopez,” she smiled back, engaging in an insignificant conversation with the tattooed Recom. At the other end of the table, Miles glowered at his subordinate. Lopez could feel the Colonel’s stare, but he paid it no attention. He wasn’t doing anything wrong, he was just being nice and inviting Jiniraa to participate in their little games.
Daringly, Lopez glanced past Jiniraa and made eye contact with the Colonel before focusing back on her and gave his most flirtatious grin, “anytime, sweets.”
Miles growled under his breath, stabbing his fork into his food. Looks like another set of utensils were about to meet their untimely end. Next to him, Lyle smirked, knowing exactly what was bothering the Colonel, “hey boss. Everything ‘ight?”
“Don’t.”
Miles didn’t know this, but all the Recoms had a bet on how long it would take before he snapped and made a scene in public. They would push a little more each day, being extra flirty and teasing Jiniraa all in attempts to get a rise out of the Colonel. Miles was gagged - unable to say anything without blowing his “cover”, but seeing that little purple blush that encroached on her ears when Lopez shot a quick wink almost pushed Miles over the edge. She shouldn’t be giggling at his snide jokes or blushing at his nicknames or trading culture with the Recom - those are all things she should be doing with him. He royally messed up - his theory to push her away was biting him in the ass. 
So that’s how Jiniraa found herself outside with a few of the Recoms. For the past few days, she was just an observer. It was refreshing - they weren’t Marines or Recoms anymore. They were just a group of young adults messing around and getting pumped up on competition. 
“So you understand the rules?” Lopez snapped his fingers in front of her face, already knowing she wasn’t listening. Jinraa stood there dumbfounded as Lopez rolled his eyes, lightly pushing her shoulder, “too caught up in that pretty lil’ head of yours, ma.” Jiniraa averted her gaze as an involuntary blush rose. “Tie this around your waist. Put the hanging parts at your hips. Here, like this.”
Jiniraa nodded, adjusting the fabric to replicate what was on Lopez. They had already been divided into teams. She was with Mansk, Lyle, and Zdinarsk while the other team was Miles, Lopez, Prager, and Ja. Spider would be their referee for the day, a suggestion Jiniraa made to keep the teenager involved. He couldn’t use a normal whistle because of the mask, but the screeching buzzer Lyle had in his bag (for whatever reason) made up for it. Spider menacingly laughed the first time he pressed the button and Jiniraa knew right away he was already plotting to terrorize the Recoms with it.
“Hey Lopez!” Zdinarsk called a few yards away as she stretched, “we playin’ full tackle today? Little lady is with us.”
Miles went to object - she hadn’t even been cleared by Renia for two hours, but Jiniraa beat him to the chase, “I want to play how you normally do. Don’t change for me.”
Zdinarsk laughed, popping a bubble before spitting out her gum, “alright then, get ready to get your shit rocked. Who’s shirts and skins today?”
This time, Miles didn’t have to interject as Lopez had already moved to take off his shirt, waving it above his head. He was getting a little too enthralled at today's game. Miles shook his head, making sure to hold eye contact with Jiniraa as he untucked his tank from his belt and peeled it off his skin. 
The teams lined up in the middle of the clearing, Spider placed in between them as he held an avatar-sized football in his hands. “Everyone ready?”
Every single Recom had dangerous smirks and ravenous glints in their eyes. This was their favorite time of the day, evident in how they bounced on their feet when Spider moved to toss the ball into the air. 
Right before the ball left Spiders fingertips, Jiniraa and Miles glanced at each other at the same time. His facial expressions were more exaggerated than the rest of his unit, a devilish grin and gleaming eyes, “you ready?”
Her eyes flicked down to his bare chest for one moment before hardening her expression at his obvious taunts, “of course I am.”
Miles sent her a wink, something daring to do given their current location, but it clearly was a tactical decision. A way to stun Jiniraa momentarily as Spider tossed the ball into the air, giving Miles a chance to grab it before throwing it towards Lopez who was already running towards the water-bottle-marked end zone.
Lyle chased after Lopez, feet sending dirt and grass into the air as he reached to grab Lopez’s flags, but he was just a little too far. Lopez maniacally laughed as he crossed into the end zone, making a point to slam the football into the ground before triumphantly kicking a leg into the air and yelling out, “oh fuck yeah - you see that Wainfleet? That bald ass head is too slow to keep up!”
Lyle’s eyes turned to slits, but his lopsided grin said otherwise. As payback, Lyle gave Lopez’s queue a sharp tug as he sauntered by. To make matters worse, Prager clapped his hands on Lyle’s shoulders as he moved back to center field, “no need to be a sore loser, Lyle!”
Lyle shook off Prager’s gloved hands, “you got one fucking point. You didn’t win.” Their team circled up, making sure they were out of earshot of the other team. “Alright. I am not going to lose to those bastards today. I’ll throw the ball to Z-Dog. Mansky-”
“I hate it when you call me that.”
“-too bad. You go after Ja and Prager while Z runs down. I’ll take care of Lopez.” 
The Recoms agreed, moving to break the circle before Jiniraa spoke up. “What about me?”
“You have the most important job of all - distract the boss.” Lyle winked.
Not catching his drift, Jiniraa tilted her head, “how?”
Lyle smirked, “I’m sure you’ll figure out a way. Alright, break.”
Since Lopez scored first, Jiniraa’s team was given possession of the ball. She hadn’t quite grasped the rules of the game, even though she’s watched half a dozen before. A certain someone often distracted her from the logistics of the game: his muscles and glistening skin were often more entertaining than the sport. Since that’s how Miles distracted her before, Jiniraa decided to use her own charms against the Colonel. 
As Spider pressed his ear-shattering buzzer, everyone moved instantaneously. Lyle threw the ball to Zdianrsk as planned and Miles moved to cut off Jiniraa. Exactly what she wanted. He stood there, arms outstretched and ready to grab at her if she tried to slip past, but he didn’t expect her to stand there with bedroom eyes and a surly expression. Something he’d never seen from her, even in their mild makeout sessions in his room - things never got to that stage before one of them stopped. This time, it was Miles’ turn to be stunned as she winked before glancing over his shoulder to see how far Zdinarsk traveled before Lopez tackled her. Almost half way, not too bad. With a second wink, Jiniraa jogged past Miles to join the rest of the team. 
Miles chuckled, “oh you little minx.”
Jiniraa smugly shrugged her shoulders, yelling back, “just using your own tactics, sir.”
Miles gulped, instinctively straightening his posture as the designation rolled off her tongue. He shook his head, trying to suppress the explicit thoughts that invaded his mind, “Christ, what have I gotten myself into?”
Cursing and yelling took over the field as the game grew increasingly heated. Lopez began his dirty plays after the twenty minute mark, resorting to pulling people’s tails rather than flags and accidentally tripping others. He was careful enough to keep his tricks out of Spider’s eyeline.
“Score is ten-ten. You guys are tied.” Spider announced, grabbing the ball from Miles.
“That’s right!” Miles exclaimed, pumping his arm in triumph after scoring his most recent tough down. He was oozing confidence, jutting his chin out and cocking an eyebrow as he passed Jiniraa. She couldn’t help but admire how his dog tags bounced off his chest as he shook his entire upper body. 
“Circle up!” Lyle shouted. “Alright, I’m going to give the ball to you this time, princess. You’re fast and agile. Just make a dash down the field, yeah? We’ll take care of those bitches.”
It would’ve been the first time the ball was purposefully thrown to Jiniraa. She was on the receiving end of Lyle’s cannon of an arm once before - it was a Hail Mary at the end of the second quarter but Prager managed to tackle her before the ball was secure in her arms. Prager didn’t hold back in his assault - the scuffs of dirt on her skin and blades of grass sticking out of her hair were proof enough. Jiniraa nodded, the competitiveness of the Recoms was beginning to rub off on her. “I got it.”
“Hey, let’s go ‘Niraa’s team! We have three minutes left on the clock!” Spider yelled from center field, hands raised in exasperation at having to wait. Miles stood behind him, hands on his hips. Lopez tapped at his wrist three times to taunt everyone.
Lyle ignored Lopez as he continued, but pointed right at Spider, “I prefer ‘Lyle’s team’.”
“No.” Spider shook his head, not caring how he bruised Lyle’s ego. He scoffed before plucking the ball out of his grip. Spider turned away to hide his smile - he loved getting under the Recoms skin as much as possible. It was one of the only things that made life at Bridgehead bearable. 
By this point, Miles considered himself somewhat of an expert on Jiniraa’s body language, so he knew something was up when she fiddled with her fingers as Lyle looked around at his team. He knew the ball was going to her, but he’d let her have her fun for now. 
As expected, Jiniraa dashed past the opposing team and tried to offer Lyle an opening. It was a good thing his throw was aimed directly for her chest because it bounced out of her arms before she secured it down to run. Miles faked out Zdinarsk, spinning past her to chase Jiniraa as she sprinted down the field. Given her height and injury, she was no match and he closed the gap in a matter of seconds.
“Oh no you don't, baby.”
Jiniraa’s steps faltered as the nickname reached her ears. Between his stripping, the wink, and now the nickname, he clearly was using their undefined relationship dynamic against her, a dangerous move given their location. It’s not like Jiniraa was a saint in the matter - she’d been using the same tactics, but hers were a little more discreet. 
Miles reached forward to grab the flag on her hip, but decided fuck it and pushed off the ground to tackle her instead. He wasn’t going to haphazardly tackle her like Prager did earlier - no, he wouldn’t risk injuring her as his weight came down. In a split second, Jiniraa felt his arms wrap around her waist from behind as they twisted in the air, making sure he would take the brunt of the impact. 
As Miles rotated their bodies in the air, he managed to spin Jiniraa around to face him. When he hit the ground, she landed right on his waist. Her mouth dropped open in shock, not able to comprehend how Miles managed all that in a matter of seconds. Miles smirked from below, reveling in her expression before pushing up on his hands. The movement made her slip down from his waist to press against his hips. He tried to ignore the weight of her body as it pressed into his groin before reaching down and pulling on the flags around her waist. 
“Flag down,” he smirked. Given their current situation, they were at eye-level for once. With a snarl, Jiniraa tried to stand up, but Miles flipped them over so Jiniraa was pinned to the ground. Her hair spread out against the grass, braid falling over her bare shoulder. Her pupils were so blown out that the green was almost completely gone. 
They hadn’t mated, but that didn’t mean their bodies were immune to reacting as they were placed in compromising situations. This time, she wasn’t making the surly expression on purpose - it was her body’s natural response to having Miles on top of her, large hands on either side of her head. He straddled her waist as powerful thighs encased her softer body, muscles not even strained as he supported his massive body weight. 
Miles could get used to this image of Jiniraa below him. She felt the same, heat rushing to her core as she tracked a single bead of sweat travel down the expanse of his chest. She almost threw all her values away right then and there as he bent over and nipped at her neck. 
Her head lulled to the side for a second, allowing him to explore more, but her breathy response made Miles groan into her neck, “Miles…public - we’re in public.”
Miles sighed as he pulled back, realizing she did have a point. There were too many eyes around. He reluctantly pushed himself off her before jumping to his feet. Jiniraa ignored his outstretched hand, brushing the dirt off her legs as she bent over to pick up her flag. 
“I could’ve helped you, you know.” He tried to banter with her, but she only shot him a playful glare before jogging off. He couldn’t help the way his tail swished and his ears pushed forward to full attention as exhilaration took over. 
Lopez snickered as Miles rejoined his team, “nice tackle, boss. A little much don’t you think?”
“No clue what you’re talkin’ about, Lopez.” Miles challenged, eyes trained on Jiniraa as she laughed with her own team. Lopez hummed, obviously not believing a word the Colonel said. 
In the end, Miles’ team reigned victorious as Lopez’s dirty tricks managed to pay off once again. Lyle was pissed, but there wasn’t anything they could do about it. Lopez was slick enough to hide his tactics from Spider’s watchful eye, so there was no way of getting caught, even though Lyle complained the entire time. It’s not like Spider wanted Miles’ team to win - if anything, he was making calls in favor of Jiniraa’s team time and time again, but that wasn’t enough to secure a win for them. The final score was eleven-ten as Ja managed to intercept a ball meant for Mansk and dashed for the endzone just as the clock ran out.
The sun was beginning to set as the humans started clearing the outdoor space, retreating inside for dinner. Jiniraa sat down on the grass, watching as the sky blurred into rich reds and oranges. Miles approached, dropping a water bottle into her lap, “can I sit?”
Jiniraa nodded, not pulling her eyes away from the sky as Miles plopped on the ground, a little ‘hmph’ forced out as he made impact. Jinraa giggled, a soft smile placed on her lips.
“What’s so funny, hen?” Miles jeered. Jiniraa looked over her shoulder, giving Miles a once over before shaking her head. His tank top was still off and slung across his shoulder, abdominal muscles defined by how he leant back on one arm.
The lower half of her face was hidden in her shoulder, but Miles could see evidence of a smile as the sunset hit her eyes. Without thinking, he reached forward and brushed a piece of hair behind her ear, allowing his nails to graze the sensitive shell. Jiniraa’s eyes fluttered closed at the contact. 
“Still in public,” Jiniraa reminded, but made no effort to make him stop.
Miles glanced around, “humans are all inside. The bozos over there are trying to teach Spider how to throw a football. I found a human sized one yesterday.”
“You did?” Jiniraa opened her eyes just slightly, enough to see the softened expression Miles held as he continued to study her features. 
He hummed, “yeah, didn’t want him to feel left out.” As if on cue, Spider laughed out as he managed to hit Lopez square in the side of the head. The Recom let out a string of curses as Lyle almost fell to the ground in laughter, saying it was what he deserved. 
“That’s sweet of you,” Jiniraa offered up, watching the situation unfold past Miles.
Miles grumbled, “I’m not sweet.”
Jiniraa rolled her eyes at his response - he didn’t know how to take a compliment. With a sigh, she pulled her head away from his touch and returned to watching the sunset. 
“Sky is pretty tonight,” Miles offered after a few minutes of silence. 
Jiniraa didn’t respond. Not even a hum or nod. Since Miles was leaning back on his hands, he was given a perfect view of her side profile. A single tear rolled down her cheek, highlighted as the light hit it. He pushed himself forward to get a better look, making sure his eyes weren’t playing tricks. Jiniraa remained with her back straight as another tear followed. This time, Miles couldn’t help as he swiped it away. She didn’t move to swat his hands away - she didn’t move as her eyes remained trained forward.
Miles took her chin between his thumb and index finger, lightly pulling her to face him. She resisted for a second, but even when her head turned towards him, she refused to make eye contact, preferring to watch as everyone cheered when Spider finally threw the ball correctly. 
“Baby, what is it?”
Jiniraa shook her head, trying to pull away but Miles only tightened his grip. His eyes searched her, both face and body trying to decipher what was wrong. He even glanced down to her hip, trying to see if she somehow started bleeding again. 
Jiniraa finally swatted his hand away, wrapping her arms around her knees, “it’s nothing.”
“You wouldn’t be cryin’ if it was nothing.” Miles offered. Jiniraa mumbled something under her breath, muffled as she buried her head into her knees. “What’s that?”
“Confused,” it came out a little clearer.
“About?” Miles continued to pry. 
“You!” Jiniraa spun to face him. Her chest heaved as she held eye contact as long as she could bare before burying her face into her knees once more. Miles remained silent and Jinraa even wondered if he managed to sneak away. Hesitantly, Jiniraa peaked out from her hiding place to glance at Miles. He was still there. He looked younger in this soft light, the creases of his face weren’t present and his eyes looked a little brighter. It wasn’t angered or disgusted or anything bad. It was soft and full of love.
“It’s just,” she paused and groaned, “everyday I feel myself falling further and further from my family, from my people. I’m getting so wrapped up in life here that I am losing myself.”
Miles processed for a moment, “I see.” 
Wrong choice of words, buddy. 
Jiniraa spun to face him, bouncing up to rest on her knees as her chest began to heave again. She stuck a finger into his bare chest, but Miles did nothing to stop her, letting her have the moment, “no, that is the problem. You do not see. You do not know what it means to see and that is the problem. I see you, but you do not see me. Not the way I want.”
Miles held her gaze steady, not looking away for one second. He’d heard Spider and Jiniraa talking about their ‘seeing’ stuff, but none of it made sense to him. “What do you want?”
“To go back to the forest. To go back to my family. To give Spider his life back. To get my life back.” Jiniraa listed, not breaking their eye contact either. 
Miles pressed further, beginning to lean in ever so slightly, “is that all?”
“No,” Jiniraa sighed and looked away. Miles held his breath as he waited for her response. “You. I want you, but that is the problem. I want you and I cannot have you. Not truly. Not with everything else I want.”
“We’re going back out tomorrow, if that makes you feel better,” Miles offered, trying to cheer her up. Based on the way her eyes dropped down and hair tail fell still against the ground, it wasn’t the right thing to say. He completely ignored her blatant declaration of feelings, making her choke back a whimper. He pursed his lips, glancing back at the rest of the group as they remained engrossed with Spider. “Come’ere.”
Jiniraa glanced up, this time her eyes were downturned and teary rather than playful like earlier. Miles waited with one arm open, inviting her to sit between his legs. Slowly, she moved to place herself in front of him, a sigh of relief escaping her as his arms pulled her flush against his chest. She continued to watch the last remaining bit of light recede over the horizon as Miles pressed his lips against her temple, pausing to take a deep inhale of her scent. 
“Just so you know, you don’t have to want me. I promised myself to you that night under the stars. You have me as long as you want me.” Miles affirmed before his tone lightened into a little chuckle, “it’s me who wants you, baby. It’s been that way for a while.”
And well friends, that meant everything. 
Next - Seventeen - To See and To Choose
●●●
i'm sorry this chapter is shorter than usual. school has been kicking my ass recently and i have a lot going on since i'm graduating in may and have grad school and moving abroad within the next few months. i like to use this story as a little brain break and creative outlet, so i do apologize for clumsy storytelling or if you just hate it lmao. this was kinda a filler chapter because i just didn't have the emotional strength to write the next chapter (you're gonna like it hopefully winky winky).
i appreciate any feedback you have to offer!
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