#neither were expected him to be half dead

[ilguna]

☼ whisper of the beast (Finnick Odair) ☼

summary; on your own, you try to find your boyfriend in the arena. instead, you run across something much, much worse.

warnings; swearing, death, weapon usage, ehhh gore, blood mention.

wc; 2.5k

prompt; 11. "Just keep breathing. In and out. You're doing great."

—

There is something seriously horrifying going on with this arena, and each time you think you get close to figuring it out—it changes.

The only consistent factor in each of your theories is the jungle, and that’s because it’s the root of the fear. When you travel through the greenery for long periods of time, a creeping feeling grows on you, one that you can’t shake unless you make your way back to the beach.

Which is far from safe, itself. Especially since there are nine other tributes alive here, roaming around, hunting for lone victors. For it only being the second day of the Games, it’s remarkable that so many are dead, already. With six of them dying today, alone.

It makes you think that you’re being overly paranoid, because you’re out here by yourself. It’s a completely new experience to you. The first time around, during your Games, the Career alliance lasted up until the very last second. You never had to keep an eye out for yourself, because you had others with you that were doing the same thing.

You were under the impression that you’d be doing that for these Games, too, but nothing has gone according to plan. You and Finnick had a long discussion the night of the interviews on what to expect regarding corralling Katniss and Peeta into the alliance. Neither of you thought it would be easy. Worst case scenario, you’d grab one and he’d get the other, and the two of you would meet up somewhere in the middle. 

The Gamemakers really must have it out for you this year, determined to keep you and Finnick apart. That’s why they decided to put you on the opposite side of the Cornucopia, keeping you from seeing Finnick. While also putting Brutus in your water wedge, to ensure that you wouldn’t be able to reach him.

By the time you fought off Brutus and got to the Cornucopia, all three of them were gone. The only option you had left was to wait for Johanna and Blight, but with them still in the water and the Careers coming to take over, you had to leave. There wasn’t a choice in the matter.

Since, you’ve spent your time traveling through the jungle and taking the occasional rest on the beach, in the hopes that you’ll run across your boyfriend. The search was casual yesterday, as you were more worried about finding drinking water than the rebel alliance. Now that the numbers are spiraling, you know that the rescue plan is right around the corner.

You’re confident enough to say that they won’t do it today, but it’s got to be tomorrow or the day after. They won’t have Katniss and Peeta openly in danger like this for longer than they have to. You likely have less than forty-eight hours to find them, or else you’ll get trapped in here and taken by the Capitol.

You would say that you wish you had a general idea on which direction they went in yesterday, but it probably won’t make much of a difference. With the amount of people dying in these trees, you’re sure Finnick is directing them the opposite way, just in case. 

It’s another reason why you can’t stand to be in the jungle for long periods of time. From what you’ve gathered, at least half of the tributes that have died today so far, have come from somewhere in the trees. It makes you think that something is out here, and it’s more than just a rogue tribute.

In fact, it would make more sense for it to be a mutt of some kind. In the last Quarter Quell, they were everywhere. There was not a single animal that a tribute could trust to be friendly. On top of that, there were aspects of the arena that took them by surprise. 

It appeared to be the most breathtaking place imaginable. The Cornucopia was in the middle of a vibrantly green meadow, the sky a perfect blue, with fluffy white clouds. In the distance, there was a snow capped mountain, one that looked straight out of a picture book. On the other side, a healthy forest with plants you couldn’t name.

Of course, it was all too good to be true. The mountain was revealed to be a deadly volcano, the plants were poisonous, the water was infected with a disease, the insects stung and the flowers could kill when inhaled too closely. Everything that was placed in that arena was working against them.

Who’s to say it’s not the same for this one?

You pause next to a nearby tree to rest your feet, because they’re throbbing in your shoes. You lift one, stretching your thigh, feeling the immediate relief that comes with being off the foot. After a minute, you switch, but it doesn’t feel as good this time around.

When you reach up to run a hand through your hair to smooth it back, you find that your scalp is wet, soaked from sweating so much. It feels much hotter today than it was yesterday, like the Gamemakers are trying to boil you alive. It’s brutal enough being in here, do they really need to make it any worse?

You dip your head, eyes closed while you take a deep breath, sighing it out. You return to walking, paying attention to where you place your feet.

It might make more sense for you to go down to the beach and wait for Finnick, Katniss and Peeta to show up. The issue is that you’re not willing to take the risk of the Careers spotting you while you’re down there. The four of them could easily get you pinned down. You’ll be dead before you can call for help.

A branch rustling behind you makes your next step stutter. Your eyes widen, as you slowly look across the fern in front of you, to the left of your vision. With sensitive ears, you adjust the spear in your hand, turning your body halfway to look behind you, at the tree you were just standing at.

There’s nothing.

You take a minute to search the trees around you, backtracking to get a better look. Even if it’s just a critter, you want to know. If there’s living animals out here, that means there’s a water source—and you won’t have to depend on your sponsors to keep you hydrated.

There’s not a trace. At least, that’s what you think, until your eyes catch the hoof print in the mud. Your face contorts, you drop into a crouch to get closer, curious on what could’ve made a mark like this. As far as your knowledge on the jungle goes, there shouldn’t be anything that could leave this behind.

The goosebumps that crawl up your arms are involuntary, stomach dropping. The safety blanket that the jungle had been providing seconds ago, is gone now. There’s something in here with you, and it was smart enough to run when it made noise.

You raise your head, thinking about the best way to handle this situation, when your heart seizes in your chest.

What the fuck is that.

In one fluid movement, you jump to your feet, turning in the direction of the beach, and beginning to sprint down the slope. A screech cuts through the previously quiet air, piercing your ears enough to make you wince at the pitch.

And then you can hear it galloping behind you, hands and feet pounding against the spongy jungle ground. A scream rises in your throat, terrified to look behind you to see how fast this thing actually is.

You take the chance when you swing around a tree, stealing a glance over your shoulder. 

Whatever it is, it’s demonic.

You’ve never seen anything like it. It’s coming at you on all fours, there’s hooves where its feet should be, with long and pointed nails on its fingers. Its fur is so black that you can’t make out where its eyes are, or if it has any skin exposed at all. It’s a beast straight out of one of your nightmares.

It isn’t fast by any means, but it’s not slow, either.

You can hear it tearing up a path behind you, trampling through the bushes, ripping bark off trees. As the path between the trees narrows, the jungle becomes more condensed. You hear less of it coming in contact with the ground, thumping replacing the noise.

Until it stops altogether.

Your instincts take over, jerking to the right, shoulder slamming into the tree. You watch in silence as the beast flies by where you were a second ago, claws out and ready to latch on. It comes into contact with the ground about ten feet away, head whipping unnaturally to see over its shoulder.

“No, no!” You let out, beginning to weave through the trees.

A snarl rips through its throat at the idea of you outsmarting it. It’s coming for you, and there’s nothing you can do besides run for your life and dodge it each time it tries to attack. 

You play this game for what feels like an hour, but it can’t be more than twenty minutes. You make it half a mile down the slope, knowing that the beach can’t be that far away from where you are, when you realize that it’s gone. The monster that has been chasing you has given up.

You lean over your knees, mouth watering, throat beginning to close. As you gasp for air, your body tries to expel some of the heat by making you sweat, but all that’s doing is making you sick. You think you might throw up. 

Right as you’ve come to terms with losing all the water and food in your body, spit falling from your mouth in long strings, a shadow on the ground grows larger. Your face twists, thinking that something must be falling, like a leaf.

It hits you, literally, flattening you against the ground, head hitting the dirt. It digs in, nails cutting through skin as it tears through your back and arms, shredding your jumpsuit. A scream leaves your lips, a white hot and blinding pain smothering you all at once.

Your hand tightens around the spear, cheek against Earth as the beast presses into your shoulders, keeping you from moving. Still, with the small amount of mobility you have, you swing the head of the spear up, toward yourself, narrowly missing your left  shoulder.

It lodges into the beast, causing it to roar in pain. You shove the pole further back, hoping that it pushes into its body deeper. The weight on your shoulders disappears, you can hear it stumbling away.

In the window you have, you get back to your feet, ignoring the screaming pain your entire backside is in. You just need to make it to the beach, it’s not that far away, you’ve covered this distance in your sleep before. It’s harder to do, though, when every hard step you take makes you grit your teeth to keep from crying out. 

The beast is catching up with you, recovering from its wound. It’s faster than you are, and it’s completely disregarding everything in its path. Nothing can slow it down. You can see the golden sand through the trees, you’re almost there.

A body jumps out from behind a bush, making you run into it. For a moment, you’re sure that it’s an exact replica of the monster behind you, but once you realize that you’re staring at another tribute jumpsuit, the panic subsides. But only for a second.

“Move!” You shriek, trying to get around him. He grabs the sides of your arms, holding you there.

You look up, finding that you’re standing face to face with the male tribute from Ten—someone who is not part of the rebel alliance, and doesn’t care whether or not you make it out alive. When you glance over your shoulder, you can see that the beast is getting closer. It’s not going to stop until it gets its hands on somebody.

And it won’t be you.

The only choice you have is to sacrifice him, so that’s exactly what you do. You jerk him around, switching places with him, forcing his back to the beast. His eyes widen, mouth opening to say something, when you pull back from him, lifting your leg to kick him in the chest.

The beast takes him gratefully, landing on his back. He stumbles forward, struggling under the weight of the beast. You watch in horror as its jaws unhinge, revealing razor sharp teeth. It throws its head back, before whipping forward, mouth securing around the tribute’s neck.

And with no resistance, he rips out a chunk of the flesh. A spray of blood hits you in the face, and it coats the jungle floor. You back away with wide eyes, watching as Ten’s legs can’t hold him up anymore, body collapsing in the dirt beneath the beast.

A cannon fires.

You turn, making the final push for the beach before it can come after you, too. 

The moment your feet hit the sand, it begins to drag you down, keeping you from running as far away as your mind is screaming for you to go. You make it a few feet before landing on your hands and knees, sucking in sharp breaths and letting them out aggressively. 

That was almost you. That could’ve been you.

You try to crawl, hands forming in fists in the sand, tears falling from your eyes.

“(Y/n)?” You hear. There’s a headache forming, black spots coming to eat away at the corners of your vision. “(Y/n), hey.”

A hand touching your lower back makes you swing a hand up to get them off. Your wrist is caught, eyes meeting Finnick’s, finding him worried. 

“You’re okay, honey. I’m right here.” He pulls at your elbow to make you sit up on your knees. 

You grab onto his shoulder, struggling to breathe, “It—it… The—” 

Finnick takes your hand placing it against his chest. “Follow me.” He takes a deep breath, you try to follow, stuttering. He blows it out, you sob. “Come on, (Y/n). Just keep breathing. In and out.” You mimic his breaths, allowing them to even out. “You’re doing great.”

“Finnick.” You cry, head falling forward.

He cups your face with both hands, lifting your head. He’s only a couple inches away from you. “You’re safe with me, I’m not going to let anything happen to you.” He wipes your tears away with his thumbs. “Do you want to tell me what’s in there?”

You look away, eyes too intense to stare into. “A monster.”

--

this was part of my 3k celebration!!

[sweet-as-an-angel]

Ghost w/ a Zombie! S/O

Warnings: Suggestive Content, Descriptions of Smut, Ghost Losing His Mind, Implied Unprotected Sex, Parasitism, Angst, Hurt No Comfort, No Pronouns Used For Reader Except You.

We’ve all heard of Zombie! Ghost with a human companion, but consider the inverse: human! Ghost who is afflicted with a human s/o who has the virus.

He keeps you locked up in his basement, coming to feed you any meat he can find. Anything to stave off your inevitable rot.

Simon sits with you, talks with you, tries to remind you of who he is – who you were.

Sometimes, he’s sure he can see the glimmer of recognition in your eyes. Others, he’s almost certain he’s lost you entirely.

There are times where he misses your touch, your gasps, the way you would call his name whenever he gave himself to you.

His deepest secret is that he still thinks he can hear you now. Now, as he has your mouth gagged and arms bound, balls-deep inside you, pumping his hips against yours.

He calls your name, thinks he can hear you call his back, looks you dead in the eyes while he’s making love to you.

You still take him so well despite how cold you are. You bring him to a spasming, throbbing, white-hot end that leaves his voice straining, crying your name amidst the throes of his orgasm, his head hanging in the crook of your shoulder while he empties his load inside you.

He half expects your hands to card through his hair, for your lips to meet the sweat-soaked skin of his forehead, for your face to light up with a hazed smile when his eyes find yours.

When he looks down at you, though, panting and pushing himself up onto muscular arms, he sees none of that. Feels none of that.

Your eyes are milky and you writhe beneath him, trying to unbind your hands to grab him, scratch him — anything.

He can see you gnawing on the rope about your mouth, no doubt the sensation of his skin between your teeth on your parasite-infested mind.

He knows he’s utterly mangled. His mind won’t let you go.

And neither will he.

Reblog for more content like this! It helps creators like myself tremendously and it is greatly appreciated :-)

Masterlist Masterlist [Continued] Masterpost Modern Warfare AI Masterlist

AO3 Wattpad

[lizziesfirstwife]

Yearning

✿ neteyam x fem!reader ✿

➳ summary: neteyam and you have been crushing on each other for the longest time, with a lot of built-up tension. However, neither of you expected his parents to get in the way of your love.

➳ warnings: him and reader aged up, tiny bit of angst, mention of readers parents being dead, neteyam and you pining over eachother, slight talks about arranged marriage/ mates if you squint, fluff at the end

➳ note: this is my first avatar work, so please be nice! Reblogs, comments, and likes are appreciated <3

You were fed up. Fed up with his longing stares, and especially with the looks the other villagers gave you. Like you couldn't hear the whispers. As if you couldn't feel their condescending looks. Him staring at you only made matters worse for the fact.

Neteyam couldn't care less about the villagers. Hell, he didn't even know what exactly they were whispering about. Their disparaging looks didn't make it too difficult to figure out, though. You were perfect in his eyes. You had never judged him when he cried in your arms at night, while he let down the long-since-built walls, constructed as a consequence of his father's harsh words.

Neytiri could only shake her head, amazed at the similarities between her firstborn and her husband. They were both lovable, but when it came to showing that love outwardly to those they loved, embarrassment appeared quicker than she could shoot an arrow. Too many times she's had to wake you up late at night and send you home when you and Neteyam have been fooling around late into the night about some topic she thought was silly, and ended up falling asleep half on top of one another. A true masterpiece, as she would call it. And not infrequently, an unmissable blush would appear on Neteyam's cheeks as soon as she would mention it. With the number of times this already has happened, Jake was more than confused about the sudden change of color on his son's face, only for Neytiri to displeasingly shake her head. Sully boys and love, like she said.

For the two of you, there was only one thing: you would make fun of his little brother for the rest of your days. As friends. What else?

Your parents died in an attack by the sky people just before the Sullys decided to seek out another clan for the safety of their people. You didn't let go of Neteyam's arms for nights on end, and even though your nails were digging into his back, almost painfully, and his chest was smooth with tears, he never sent you away. It wasn't a difficult decision to go with him. Who else did you have?

✿

You walked arm in arm along the beach. The sun shone down on you relentlessly, pleasantly beating down your hair, and warming your skin. You could still feel the freezing wind that blew over the sea, grateful more than ever for the weather Eywa blessed you with after your long journey. Thanks to Neteyam, you had a not-too-hard time arriving, Tuk however took it the hardest. The eight-year-old still refused to make friends her age, instead clinging to her siblings whenever possible. Jake and Neytiri were usually too busy with clan affairs, which hit the youngest harder than she admitted. Lo'ak, however, preferred to spend his time with a certain curly-haired Na'vi. Surely it wasn't on purpose, but an eight-year-old would hardly understand that. Kiri was mostly out in the ocean anyway and didn't come back until late in the evening with a handful of accessories. No way you had a problem taking care of her! But in moments like these, when you were just a girl and Neteyam just a boy with no responsibilities, you were grateful more than ever for Eywa's blessing.

You were pulled out of your thoughts when you felt a prick in your upper left arm. A grin crossed Neteyam's face as you darted around to him, eyes narrowed and mouth wide open. He just shrugged his shoulders. "You could have just said no instead of scaring the hell out of me...looked like your mind left your body." You rolled your eyes. Neteyam has always been the more dramatic of the two of you, which has often shown to not be helpful in the most harmless situations. Neither of you would ever forget the incident with the pa'li, nor Neytiri's 3-hour-long debark. Since then you have never dared to ride one of these creatures again, which couldn't be said of Neteyam. Of course not. He needed adventure like air to breathe, and adventure needed him just as equally.

His long fingers wandered from your shoulder to your waist, where they lingered comfortably. You couldn't help but feel how your breath quickened and your body tingled where it touched Neteyam's. You prayed to Eywa that he couldn't feel how fast your heart was beating. More and more often lately, the eldest Sully boy didn't even have to touch you to get that kind of reaction out of you. But when he touched you... Suddenly you were very aware of his big hand on your waist, the way his fingers dug into the flesh...

"Y/N? Y/N! Wiya, you did it again! Seems like you don't even want to listen to me anymore..."

Pushing the inappropriate thoughts out of your head, you shook your head violently. "Teyam, no! It's just... I don't know. Everything feels so different lately. As if this peace were just a cruel dream, and we could wake up to reality at any moment."

His gaze softened, gently pulling you towards him so that your entire left half was now pressed against his right. "If this was a dream, I'd be glad you were in it. Maybe this is just a dream, so what? Then this would be the best dream ever." He playfully pinched your waist, which elicited an angry squeak. Quickly he averted his eyes and cleared his throat, missing the way your entire face was blushing. Eywa, this must certainly be a dream, he thought. He swallowed hard, looked up at the sky, and then back into your eyes. "My mom keeps asking about you. I think if you don't come to dinner tonight she'll wring my neck herself."

You grinned. "That would be too bad..." He looked at you in mock indignation but couldn't help the laughter that escaped his throat. "So, you'll come? For my mom?", he asked, looking at you with his puppy eyes. Your knees almost buckled at the sight, but you managed to look at him with a pursed mouth. "For your mom? Neteyam, if that's just another excuse to put those nasty leaves in my food that give me a rash-" "It was one time! Lo'ak threatened to push me off my ikran the next time we would have a mission again!", he interrupted you, but quickly closed his mouth when he saw the look in your eyes. Sometimes you were more like his mother than he would have liked. He had apologized to you for hours at the time and sat in front of your tent for 2 days because you had given him the cold shoulder. He could take it that you were mad at him, but it felt as if some part of him was missing when you weren't with him. There was a heavy storm at the time, and he would probably have frozen to death from all the rain and wind if you hadn't dragged him into your tent with your own hands and forced him to eat. He refused to even touch the food until you accepted his apology. Eywa, could he be stubborn...

Slowly you started to walk on, dragging Neteyam with you. You couldn't stay mad at him for long. Not your Neteyam. You breathed in slowly and audibly, a smile again creeping its way onto your face. "How could I ever turn down your mother's food..."

✿

"And then Neteyam here said that he didn't have to bathe for 2 weeks as a protest, just because I pointed out to him that he would scare away the whole prey with such a stench," Neytiri said with a full mouth, a handful of bladder polyps on her plate. The plant's salty taste was delicious, leaving a tingling sensation on your tongue after you chew and swallow it. Jake once compared its taste to the one of a pickle, whatever that was.

Neteyam's face flushed, his eyes grazing yours to see if you even caught his mother's words. He was suddenly very aware of your proximity. How your thigh grazed his, or the sweet smell of the perfume that Tsireya must have given you. He would always prefer your natural scent but still could only pray that his body wouldn't betray him during the duration of this meal. He prayed.

Jake cleared his throat and almost all conversation ceased except for Kiri's soft chatter with Tuk. He admonished the two with a quick look but didn't bother any further with their talk. "This wonderful dinner, prepared by my wonderful mate", he said with a loving gaze toward Neytiri, "finally gives us a chance to get together again. There is much that needs to be talked about, some urgent matters that take priority." Neteyam looked at him warily, not quite taking his gaze off of you yet. Jake was now facing Neteyam, who was switching from looking at you and his father. "As you surely know, the time has come in your life when you have to make certain decisions. Coupled with the rumors going around... Neteyam, you need a mate."

He could have also set fire to the tent, and thrown the entirety of you into the ocean. The sound that escaped from your throat sounded almost outraged. Neteyam swallowed hard, trying to hide the sweat from his hands. There was no way his father chose to have this conversation the one time you agreed on having dinner with him.

"Do we have to have this conversation when Y/N's over?"

"Don't worry, Y/N was expected to have this conversation in a few days as well. Having her eat here with us today only avoids unnecessary complications," Jake dismissed. Neytiri had a look in her eyes that you couldn't read, looking down at her plate vehemently. Tuk's and Kiri's conversation had also fallen silent in the meantime, the two girls now doing the same as their mother, although you could see Tuk sneakily glancing up at what her father was saying.

Neteyam shook his head, but Jake warned him with a look you've seen all too often on the father's face. "Rumors are floating around Neteyam... rumors that you've already chosen someone. Do you know how much concern these rumors are causing? And guess who the number 1 guess is." You knew he meant you. And from the way Neteyams ears twitched, you knew that he was aware of that too.

Neteyam hoped that if everyone saw him with you, they would finally understand that he wasn't interested in anyone else, and certainly never would be. But it rather seemed like it had the opposite effect.

Jake's gaze softened a bit after looking at his wife's reaction. It seemed like she wasn't particularly excited to have this conversation, particularly not with you there to witness it. "I don't want to deprive you of your freedom of choice by any means son, but since you refuse to take Y/N as your-", he started, but Neteyam interrupted him with a snarl. "How many times do I have to tell you that we're friends? Friends! You act like the clan will throw us out if I don't choose a woman tomorrow." But the head of the family did not put up with any arguments. He raised his hand to signal Neteyam to be quiet. "We're lucky the clan took us so well. And surely no one cares that you're still unmated, but do you really want people to start talking? Especially about Y/N, who certainly has nothing to do with your situation."

Neteyam said nothing. He just looked down at his plate, defeated, all appetite driven away. It shouldn't bother you that much. You guys were friends after all, best friends if you can put it that way. But that he preferred to be the number one topic of conversation, instead of even considering mating with you...

No. No. No. You couldn't think like that. It was Neteyam after all! Your accommodating, incredibly considerate Neteyam, whom you would like to wring his neck for all the feelings he aroused in you. You didn't even notice your feet carrying you out of the tent, nor Neytiri's worried look, or Tuk's plaintive call of your name.

Maybe you were wrong. Maybe it wasn't just Neteyam who needed adventure in his life to survive. And perhaps it was Neteyam who was the real adventure in your life. Who was your adventure...

✿

The waves were unusually calm as you were sitting on the sand with Tsireya by your side as if Eywa sensed how shaken you were. It has been a week since the incident at the Sullys. You were thankful more than ever to have your own tent, as you didn't want any confrontation with Neteyam or his parents yet. You weren't sure if you would ever want that. Tsireya must have noticed your sudden change in mood because she said nothing, instead sitting next to you while the two of you worked on a necklace. She firmly believed that being creative and doing something was a great help against bad moods. And truly, you haven't felt at peace like that since before the dinner a week ago.

Your fingers almost hurt from the repeating motion you had to do to create the certain pearl pattern you wanted in your necklace, when you suddenly heard voices behind you. No no no. Your field of vision was suddenly blocked from the sun, and you had to tilt your neck uncomfortably to face the source of your problems. Of course, your moment of peace had to be interrupted by him. Neteyam Sully had his hands clasped behind his back and his expression seemed blank, were it not for the small smile that had long been reserved just for you. Tsireya looked back and forth between you, asking you with a silent look if this was okay with you. You just nodded slightly, never taking your eyes off Neteyam. Taking the hint, she took her unfinished necklace and quietly snuck away.

Neteyam looked after her until she disappeared from his sight, and then took the spot next to you where Tsireya just sat. Neither of you said anything for a few minutes until he finally spoke. "You know, my mom almost killed me when I didn't run after you." You didn't say anything, which he took with a nod and the sign to continue. "I never really paid attention to girls when I grew up. Why should I when I grew up with the best of them?" You slowly turned to him and realized that his eyes were on you. You almost stood up, if his eyes didn't have that pleading look in them. So you just continued to listen.

"I've never questioned my disinterest in girls growing up, thinking that the right one just hadn't walked into my life yet. But I was stupid, so stupid. Eywa, I probably still am." You couldn't help but grin at his words, and he laughed at how easily he could coax a reaction out of you. Slowly, not wanting to scare you away, he slipped his hands into yours so that you were now facing him. "Y/N... I never saw it. I never understood why my parents never wanted to stop teasing me about you. But I guess I didn't want to see it. Didn't want to realize that there was a possibility, a big one at that, that you might not feel the same as I do." Your heart was beating wildly, and you thought for a moment that he could hear how wildly it was beating, how wildly it was beating for him, when his gaze slid to your chest and then up again. He gently squeezed your hand, unconsciously stroking the back of your hand with his thumb soothingly.

You knew what he was getting at, the look in his eyes almost unbearable. You didn't know what you were supposed to say, your throat feeling tight all of a sudden, unable to get any sound out of it. So you just scooted closer to him, your chest now barely touching his. "I always thought there was something wrong with me. That I wasn't in a position to like the chief's son even a little bit more than his best friend should. But..." You looked up at him desperate, gazing at his lips for a short second. His pupils dilated with something indescribable at seeing your flushed cheeks and blown eyes. You could have sworn that the air around you was buzzing. No words needed to be said as you two stared at each other, no words to express the magnitude of feelings that existed between you.

"Neteyam, I-"

"I see you Y/N."

You sat there with a dumbfounded look on your face, mouth wide open at the fact that he shamelessly interrupted your confession. Part of you wanted to smack him in the chest for that, but you were sure that any more physical contact would make your heart actually fail. He saw you. He is seeing you.

Neteyam didn't know how you managed to smile that hard, or how his heart could beat as hard as it was right now, but Eywa would he put up with it a thousand times more if it meant he would be able to see that look on your face again.

"I see you too, skxawng."

You didn't want to think of all the consequences that this moment would bring, or how tomorrow would be after you woke up and the situation would sink in your head.

You were right. He was your adventure, but you were also his. He needed adventure like he needed air to breathe, and for the first time in ages, it felt like he was finally able to again.

With you.

[detachedminxsfics]

Motel

Masterlist

Characters: Negan (Dead City) x F!Reader

Summary: You've grown particularly close with the Motor Inn's personal walker killer and decide to pay his motel room a visit.

Word count: 4.5K

Warnings: NSFW - Oral (m receiving), vaginal sex, hair pulling, shower sex, praise, dirty talk, negan's usual foul mouth, gentle dom negan

A/N: If you're from my tiktok (which spawned the chaos that motivated me to finish most of this bc you guys are crazy), hello! This is my first time managing to actually finish and upload a oneshot in months, so I apologise in advance. I was also extremely tired when I wrote most of this, but I hope it was worth the wait for the handful of you bombarding my comment sections for the past 24 hours. 😂 I knew what I had to do the moment I saw that shower scene...like damn.

You downed your third shot of the day before slamming it back down onto the counter and wiping the corner of your mouth with the back of your hand, your eyes idly following the neon lights on the sign hung proudly behind the bar. The Easy Stay Motor Inn. It was a shithole. It only served as a way of keeping four walls and a roof over your head, and walkers off your ass. Speaking of, there was only one guy you'd grown particularly fond of during the month you'd spent working for the lady who owns this place and lapping up the amenities of their accompanying motel, Negan. He wasn't from around here, that much you gathered just by taking one good look at him, but then neither were you. You were both drifters. Heading from one place to the next, never staying anywhere long enough to see it through and find out whether it'd go to shit or hold out long enough before eventually falling to pieces. You just kept moving. That mentality had served you well so far and had kept you alive long enough to say that you'd made it well over a decade into the apocalypse now, not that you had much to show for it.

"Want another?" The guy behind the bar asked, half expecting you to agree to it as you had with all the others and making his way over to the bottle of vodka you'd been chipping away at.

"No thanks", you shook your head with a small smile and slid off the bar stool, "I'm gonna go try to entertain myself someplace else, but don't be surprised if I come back and finish that off later." You gestured to the vodka with a tilt of your head, and the certainty in your tone had the bartender smiling.

You headed towards the backdoor that led to the motel out back, the harsh change of lighting making you squint and shield your eyes to adjust for a moment, the dim vivid hues of the neon-lit windowless bar you'd been sitting in for the past hour or two being snuffed out once you stepped into the natural sunlight. Visual disorientation aside, you made your way down the row of motel rooms lined at your side, your interest only lying with the idea of arriving at one motel room in particular, and you stopped in front of the door when you found it. The door was a stark black to match the wooden panels sitting on either side of the window not too far from the right of the door, vines having wrapped around some of the slats in the wood from the overgrowth of shrubbery on the floor beneath it. It was run down and uncared for like just about anywhere else in this world. You tested the handle to see if the door was unlocked and to your surprise, it was. Twisting it fully you pushed the door open and stepped inside, closing it behind you as you began to observe the interior of the room. It was generically decorated like just about any other room in this place, and he didn't seem to have left anything behind for you to snoop through. The room was so empty that if you didn’t know any better you might have thought that he'd moved on already, packed up all his shit and hit the road. You figured that this was on purpose and probably explained why he didn't care too much when it came to keeping the door locked since he didn't have any shit to steal. Smart.

Negan hadn't been around for too long now, in fact, he'd only arrived about a week after you, but he left a lasting first impression. He was useful. He pulled his weight by taking care of any of the walkers that roamed or wandered into the perimeter of the motor inn, and was never bad company on the occasions that he'd sat on the bar stool next to you and made conversation. As time went on you'd gotten closer and more comfortable with one another, and you quickly found yourself noticing that Negan was the one person you'd opened up to the most in the duration of your entire stay here, better yet felt the most comfortable doing so with. Your vulnerability wasn't one-sided, either. He never went into an awful load of detail, but he had a bad past. He wasn't on the run per se, but there was a group of people that he was hoping to avoid the possibility of encountering for the rest of his days, a community that he had a difficult history with. He alluded to what seemed to mostly amount to horrible shit that most people had done by now just to stay alive, the kind of things you see at night when you close your eyes, haunting you from the backs of your eyelids. You paid it no mind, and you told him that too; he seemed to appreciate your lack of judgement. Gradually, the conversations grew more personal and not so casual, things got flirty. It was subtle, but Negan would make small coy comments on things that you say, or little compliments now and again that toed the line a tad too much for what could be considered harmless flattery or him shooting his shot. You were able to keep yourself humble up until the night when he had jokingly mentioned how good your ass looked in your jeans after more than a few drinks, not that he needed it to let you know just how much he was checking you out. Your thoughts were interrupted by the twist of the doorknob and the sight of it being pushed open afterwards, revealing a rather sluggish and slightly dishevelled-looking Negan. Negan had a silver beard that he seemed to keep well-maintained, the hair decorating his top lip thicker than the rest. His dark hair was always slicked, though it seemed to have transitioned to more of an ashy brown over time with grey tinging at the sides of his hair. He was ruggedly handsome, that was for sure. A grin crept onto his lips when he noticed you standing by one of the beds, closing the door behind him and running his hand through his hair, slicking some of the strands that had fallen out of place in the process.

"Just letting yourself into my place now, huh? We graduating from drinking buddies to whatever the hell this is?" He quipped but was amused by how bold you were to just waltz on into his motel room.

"It's not like you don't want me here." You remarked with a knowing smile as you sat on the end of one of the double beds, to which Negan chuckled and ran his tongue over his bottom lip, a seemingly small mannerism of his that always drove you wild.

"Touché."

He sauntered to the bed next to you until he stood at the foot of it and started to shrug off his leather jacket with a sigh.

"Well whatever it is honey, it's gonna have to wait. I have been out there cracking rotting skulls for who knows how long, and now I need a damn shower."

The checkered flannel shirt he'd been wearing open underneath it was next, him tossing it on the bed in front of him before his fingers brush over the hem of his black tank top. He glanced at you with the material still pinched between his fingertips, a cocky smile creeping onto his lips as he noticed the way you were shamelessly staring at him and didn't seem to plan on stopping anytime soon.

"You gonna watch me strip now too, darlin'?"

You playfully shrugged and let your eyes wander down his torso, an eye movement Negan most certainly followed judging by the way his smile grew, as did his ego.

"I can turn around if you're too shy, Negan."

The throaty chuckle he let loose was almost immediate, his eyebrows raised as he shook his head in disbelief.

"Me, shy? Fuck no. You can stare your little heart out, and you would most definitely be staring."

Well, you certainly hadn't expected him to take it with such pride, so you caved and turned so you were facing the wall next to the bed. You could hear the sounds of clothes falling against the sheets and the clinking of metal as he undid his belt, and then the zipper on his leather pants.

"You still thinking of sticking it out here for a bit longer? I know last time we spoke you weren't so sure." Negan muttered as he got his pants down to his ankles and started to try to shake his ankles out of them.

You thought for a moment, then sighed a little.

"I think so? I don't know, I'm just trying to go day by day. Why, would you miss me?" Your tone picked up towards the end as did the enthusiasm in your voice, the suggestion making Negan's sudden laughter start in the form of a snort.

"Miss you? Shit, course I would. I'd probably move on from here after that."

You opened your mouth to speak but found yourself unable to form the right words. He made it sound like you were the only reason he was still staying here, and that without you there'd just be no point. You didn't ask him to elaborate though, just silently rolled the thought around in your head.

"Well, time to take that shower. I'll be right back, and I don't know maybe we can grab a drink or some shit afterwards?"

"Sure." You mumbled in response.

After that all you heard was the soft tread of his footsteps as he made his way past you and into the bathroom, then the sound of the water being turned on and beginning to crash against the floor of the shower for a few moments before it became more muffled with Negan's body interrupting the stream, and you turned back to face something other than the blank yellow wall you'd be staring at whilst he was stripping. You did your best to focus on the small details of the room to occupy your head, the peculiar framed pictures decorating some of the walls, and the hideous design choices when it came to the taste of the room, but it was no use. All you could think about was what Negan had looked like underneath all those clothes when he was a mere few feet behind you, and what he looked like right now standing in the shower in the very next room, the image of water droplets trailing down his torso and body making it harder to stay seated with every passing second until you just couldn't take it anymore. You stood to your feet and made your way to the bathroom, standing in the doorway for a moment as you stopped in your tracks. The shower had a sliding door that Negan had slid shut, the distortion of the glass still allowing you to be able to make out the sight of him with his head tilted town and one of his palms pressed up against the wall, and the tattoo decorating his shoulder blade. There was no turning back now, you had made up your mind. You approached the glass and gave it a soft knock, the sound startling Negan a little as he turned and slid the glass just enough for him to lean into the gap he'd made.

"Everything okay?" He asked, concern tinging his voice as he used his other hand to sweep some of the hair that had fallen into his face back in place.

Your only response was the sight of your fingertips grasping the hem of your top before you pulled it over your head, holding the top in your hands for a moment as you gazed at him, trying to gauge Negan's reaction to your now exposed breasts. He seemed taken aback for a moment or two, and then his eyes darkened with lust.

"Can I join you?" You asked, fingers teasingly dancing along the waistband of your jeans as though you could tell by just the look in his eyes that he wasn't going to deny your offer.

He didn't.

"Fuck yeah you can." He rasped with a shit-eating grin, leaning back and pushing the sliding glass all the way open to make room for you to join him.

You stripped until there was nothing left, discarding all of your clothes into a pile on the tiled bathroom floor and stepping into the shower with him. The first thing you noticed was the heat. The steam from the hot water, the heat coming from Negan's body, all of it swarming your body with warmth. Then, him. All of him. From the water droplets falling from the scruff of his beard, the dark hair decorating his chest and trailing down the centre of his torso, and even the skull tattoo inked on the right side of his chest. The man was gorgeous. Your eyes dragged down his body, drinking in every inch of him until you got to the part you'd been anticipating most, but were interrupted. He cupped the underside of your jaw and urged your head back up, his thumb brushing along your chin as the tip of his thumb traced just along the edge of your bottom lip.

"You like what you're seeing, huh?" He seemed to be making more of a statement than genuinely asking, but you entertained him nonetheless.

"A lot." You replied simply, the intense and lustful look your eyes were lit with corrupting your stare as your eyes bore into his.

"Good."

He used the hold on your jaw to guide your lips to his, his lips claiming yours. The hand that had been cupping your chin moved to grasp the nape of your neck, his other hand gripping your hip and drawing your body against his. You could feel him hard against your thigh as he groaned into the kiss, his tongue slipping into your mouth so you could taste him and his hands keeping you pressed firmly against his body, your own hands beginning to wander from the top of his chest down to his abdomen. The water cascading down his shoulders caressed along your fingertips and down your breasts, the warm water trailing down your body whilst he continued to move his lips against yours until you couldn't breathe, and you were forced to pull back for air. The moment you did Negan dove his head into the crook of your neck and pressed his lips against your pulse point, gently sucking the skin there and occasionally teasing it between his teeth in a way that was sure to leave marks, his beard scratching along your jaw as he did. The attention he paid your neck had your hand rushing up the nape of his neck and into his hair, combing your fingers through the back before taking a fistful of his wet strands. The slight tension on his scalp and the way your breath was shaking right by his ear made him pause for a moment to smile against your skin, a hoarse chuckle following shortly thereafter. The warmth of his breath from the laugh felt hot on your skin, and you used the strands of hair you'd taken in your palm to urge his head back until his face was inches from yours again. His tongue swiped over his bottom lip when you found your voice.

"You've thought about this before haven't you, fucking me?"

His brows raised at your boldness, the corners of his mouth fighting a smile.

"Damn right I have. I'd have to be blind or crazy not to, you are easy on the eyes, darlin'."

"Oh?" You tilted your head as you feigned mock surprise, his eyes looking you over like you were good enough to eat, and you might just let him.

Slowly you leaned in and seductively ran your tongue over his lips, finishing with a small kittenish flick at his top lip before leaning back. You soaked up the wanton look in his gaze when you sank to your knees, your eyes locked with his all the while. Now kneeling on the floor of the shower you reached up and closed your hand around his shaft, the way his breath caught in his throat once he felt your touch giving you the encouragement you needed to lean in and run your tongue over the swollen tip, beads of precum gathering along your tongue as you did. As you licked at it you felt Negan's fingers stroke over your hair before he started to gather it in his hand, all of your hair soon clutched into his fist like a makeshift ponytail.

"Don't be a tease." He warned as he slid his free hand underneath your chin and cupped it, allowing him to use both the grip on your hair and your jaw to urge you forward.

Willingly your lips parted, his cock sliding past your lips and into your mouth.

"Fuuuck, there we go." Negan slurred as he slid further into your mouth, stopping just before he reached your throat.

He grunted once you flattened your tongue on the underside of his shaft and leant forward, bracing one of his hands against the tiled wall of the shower when he lowered his head to look at you.

"Shit, you look so good with a mouthful of cock." He rasped crudely with the dirtiest smile before pushing himself down your throat, and you fought the urge to gag as he did.

He started to move his hips, the motion prompting you to place your hands just above his knees for support whilst he slid in and out of your throat. Soon enough tears began to well in your eyes, the urge to choke too great as you finally gagged on him, the sensation making Negan momentarily screw his eyes shut before sliding out of your mouth. He let you breathe for a moment or two before he was already pushing down your throat again, his groans getting louder and deeper with every thrust.

"Ohh, good girl." He cooed, his sounds of pleasure gradually turning into a blatant string of curses as he repeatedly thrust down your throat, and you shamelessly took every single inch.

Eventually, the movement of his hips got slower, his moans getting louder until finally his hips stuttered and his abdomen began to tense. He tightened his grip on your hair, the harsh grasp burning your scalp, and then you felt the hot wet spurts of warm liquid coating your tongue. You waited until you knew he'd spilt every last drop and then carefully removed him and swallowed his release, your breath a little laboured whilst Negan hovered above you with totally ragged, uneven breath, his eyes half-lidded as he tried to come down from the high of his orgasm. A few tears had escaped your waterline and slid down your cheeks as he fucked your throat, but it had mixed with the occasional stream of water trickling down your face from the shower.

"You did so good, baby. So good." He praised as he finally released your hair from his hand and started gently running his fingers through it instead, his touch soothing some of the pain he'd inflicted upon your scalp.

You stayed like that for a moment just listening to the sound of the water until you felt his hand leave your hair and the sight of him extending it out in front of you for you to take, which you did. He helped you to your feet and wrapped his arm around your waist the second you straightened your back, his mouth crashing against yours and allowing him to taste himself on your lips, the urgency with which he kissed you making you moan into the kiss a little. Whilst he stole your air Negan guided you backwards until your back came to press against the steamy tiled wall, the condensation pooling on the tiles smearing against your skin, and the faint coolness to it making you gasp. You wrapped your arms around Negan's neck to draw him in closer, your hips subconsciously moving to bring your groin against his and allowing his still proudly hard cock to brush against your inner thigh. You broke the kiss to try to regulate your unsteady breathing, leaning back just enough so that your lips were practically still brushing, the hot heavy pants Negan breathed against your lips making you need him all the more.

"Negan?"

"Yeah?"

"I need you inside me."

He couldn't hold back the dangerous look his eyes filled with when you whispered exactly what you needed, an arrogant look in his eye as he leaned back and cockily smiled.

"Your wish is my command, sweetheart. C'mere."

He slid his hands all the way up the backs of your thighs, towards your outer thigh, and then took hold of your hips. The gesture prompted you to do a small jump that allowed Negan to hoist you up and trap you between the wall and his body, your legs wrapped around his waist as his hands moved to cup your ass. In one calculated movement Negan lined himself up and sank inside you, the way you stretched around him eliciting a filthy moan from your lips almost immediately.

"That feel good, baby?" He purred, his voice full of arrogance.

He knew it did, he just wanted to hear you say it.

"Yes, god yes." Was all you could manage as he set a hard and intense pace, drawing all the way out before slamming back inside you, the feeling of fullness with every thrust making your mouth fall open.

One of your hands slid down his chest, his dark chest hair brushing up against your fingers as you did, whilst the other slid up his shoulder and moved to rest on the nape of his neck. His fingers were digging into your skin with the grip he had on you, strands of your hair clinging to the condensation of the tiled walls as you slightly threw your head back, uncontrollable sounds of pleasure spilling from your lips from the way he roughly fucked into you. The overwhelming sensation caused you to idly weave your fingertips in the hair at the top of his neck and run your hands through the back of his hair, occasionally tugging at it when he buried himself especially deep and you could do nothing but squirm in his grip. The water was still running just off to Negan's side, the hot water wasting onto the floor and creating a small pool at his feet. With the way you'd angled your body it allowed him to lean in and lick a stripe up the valley between your breasts, your skin feverishly hot against his tongue as he gathered some of the water droplets and left nothing but a trail of spit before beginning to kiss up your throat. He littered your neck with kisses, moving his affections to the side of your neck before planting a few kisses along your jaw, his stubble scratching along the side of your face all the while. It felt like heaven. You couldn't think about anything other than his touch, the way his mouth shamelessly marked your skin, the sounds of his heavy breath and the guttural groans spilling from his throat like music to your ears. By this point your sweet moans grew to resemble sobs, your legs slightly shaking in his hold as Negan thrust into you over and over, and a feeling started to burn in the pit of your stomach unlike anything you had ever felt before.

"Negan." was all you managed to choke out, practically in the form of a cry.

All you felt was his lips claiming yours, and the occasional parting of your lips just enough for him to whisper into the kisses.

"I got you, I got you, baby." He swore over and over, his gentle reassurance paired with his hard thrusts tipping you completely over the edge, and your whimpers getting lost in his heated kisses.

You feel the knotting in your abdomen just before everything comes crashing over you, waves of pleasure ripping through your body and making you clench around him as Negan continues to fuck you throughout your high, your mind hazed with overstimulation. Eventually his movements began to stutter, his abdomen clenching amidst the deep v-lines framing his hips, and a string of gravelly curses poured from his mouth. Carefully, Negan unwrapped one of your legs from his waist and urged you to set it down on the floor of the shower, the other still wrapped around his hips as he held it there. His free hand moved down to his shaft, wrapping his hand around it and giving it a few quick strokes until he finally came. His hold on your leg became more of a firm squeeze as he threw his head back a little and grunted, liquid splashing over the top of your inner thigh and beginning to gradually trickle down your leg. The bathroom was full of steam now, the air thick with humidity and both of your chests rising and falling rapidly as you both tried to catch your breath. After a few moments you felt Negan place your other leg down, his release still dribbling down your skin as you tried to come down from your incalculable high. His breath evened out a little, his eyes still half-lidded when his hazel eyes locked with yours, his gaze capturing you amidst the knowing grin playing on his lips. You were totally fucked out, and the sight made him chuckle.

"That good, huh?" He teased with raised brows, his tongue dragging over his bottom lip making you playfully roll your eyes and manage a small laugh.

"Shut up."

You'd give credit where credit is due, the man knew what he was doing, but you couldn't allow yourself to stroke his almost nauseating large ego any further. He shook his head with a smile, both of his hands smoothing over your waist and then taking hold of it, using it to lead you towards him. You let him coax you to the space closer to the shower head, the water now splashing directly against the back of his neck and trailing down his body, droplets of water simultaneously forming along Negan's jawline and repeatedly falling from his wet beard. He kept one hand on your waist whilst the other held one side of your face, his eyes boring into yours. His head tipped forward so he could rest his forehead against yours, water sliding down his neck when he started to speak in almost a whisper at first.

"If I hit the road, I want you to come with me."

You thought you may have not heard him right at first and leant back with slightly wide eyes, shock etched into your features.

"Really?" You muttered.

"Yeah."

A moment of silence passed, the stare you shared serving as more of an answer than any words you could utter, but you parted your lips to speak and did anyhow.

"You've got yourself a deal."

[artiststarme]

Dead or Alive

After Spring Break, no one could find Eddie Munson dead or alive. His Uncle Wayne, the angry mob, even the police couldn’t locate him so everyone assumed he was dead. Some grieved his loss but most celebrated his apparent demise believing it to be what he deserved after killing Chrissy, Fred, Patrick, and Jason and hurting poor Max Mayfield.

Once the town recovered enough, Wayne bought a headstone for an empty grave and dutifully washed off the new graffiti that appeared each day. The kids of the Party mourned the loss of their idealistic Dungeon Master and disbanded Hellfire Club out of respect to him. And Robin and Steve disappeared to Steve’s empty house to grieve the loss of a friend (or so it seemed).

Because while everyone thought they were grieving and finding support in each other, they were actually caring for Eddie’s wounds and watching gay movies on Steve’s couch. They are junk food, cuddled in front of the TV, and appreciated being alive.

Steve couldn’t be around the party because he was supposed to be broken-hearted but it was the opposite. While he left the Upside Down the most recent time with more scars, both mental and physical, it also gave him everything he’d ever wanted. It took him away from the job he hated, gave him more time to spend with Robin, and it gave him a prospective boyfriend.

He felt bad keeping Eddie a secret away from the kids and his uncle but he had no other choice. Until he and Robin could brainstorm a logical explanation for his innocence and return from the dead, it’d be the three of them in hiding. Which to him, wasn’t a bad thing. Between the love of Robin and Eddie, his house felt less like a crypt and more like a home.

After a few weeks, they’d all gotten used to their solitary. Imagine their surprise when someone walks in on the three of them watching the Rocky Horror Picture Show right on the scene of Rocky showing off his fishnet clad calves. Imagine Officer Phil Callahan’s horror when his eyes landed on an injured homicidal maniac sitting half on his brother’s lap while drooling over Tim Curry. And imagine Steve’s mortification when his brother stood unmoving in the doorway of the living room with one hand on his hip and the other held over his open mouth in shock.

“WHAT IN THE FUCK IS EDWARD MUNSON DOING IN OUR PARENT’S LIVING ROOM?!” Phil shrieked, his face going red in barely concealed rage.

Steve, Eddie, and Robin all spoke at once.

“Is he? Oh my goodness, I didn’t notice. Steve, Eddie is in your house!”

“It’s just Eddie, you piece of shit.”

“Ok technically, I can explain.”

Phil just looked at them like all three of them were insane. “HE’S A KILLER!”

“No he’s not. He’s just a metalhead, Phil.”

“What is that supposed to do with anything, Steve?! I don’t care that he’s a metalhead, I care that he murdered at least three people in a week!”

Steve shot up from his seat so he was nearly eye-level with Phil. “Woah, he did not! I was with him the entire week and neither of us killed anyone.”

Phil just shook his head in confused exhaustion. “Is he dangerous?”

Steve looked him directly in the eye, “no! He didn’t do anything and he’s one of my best friends now.”

“Fine. I’m not dealing with this shit tonight. You,” he pointed at Eddie, “don’t kill anyone. And Steve, do not wake me up before ten AM unless someone is getting killed. Jesus Christ.”

He stomped up the stairs, grumbling under his breath the entire way. Meanwhile, Steve sat back down next to Eddie and gave him a small smile. “Well, that went better than expected.”

Eddie looked at him in disbelief, “did it Steve? Did it?”

(It, in fact, did not. The next morning, Steve had to tackle Phil away from the phone when he tried to call the chief and then had to hold him down while Robin rambled the entire story in an impressive four minutes. He only gave up once Steve threatened to disappear himself and Eddie (and Robin) forever without ever contacting Phil again.)

Should I make this into a longer fic? Let me know in the comments please!

[velvetsainz]

summary: [ cl16 x fem!reader ] the corsican heat causes very particular problems for charles. part of the hot monaco nights series.

word count: 2.5k

content warnings: smut under the cut (minors dni pls!), a lil hint of plot, use of explicit language, fingering, brief p in v, mention of oral (f!receiving), google-translated french (i cannot be stopped), we're pretending charles can legally drive a boat this size, em dashes, time is a social construct

a/n: you guys wanted to know what happened in corsica, so here's the start to that story. also giant mega jumbo thank you to @lecrep for help with a wonderful plot point which i will not spoil—hehe! enjoy, bbys! xx

You weren’t sure what Charles had to promise Pascale to get you two alone, but somehow he managed it.

It was the summer break of the ‘22 season, and you’d been dating a sweet six months since he’d first kissed you as the clock struck midnight on New Year’s.  It had been a small enough party, about thirty or so close friends and their partners—even a few kiddos, to boot.  What neither of you knew that night was that half of your shared friends had been scheming to get you two together; despite excuse after excuse about why one of you couldn’t go on a date, finally they’d been able to get the two of you in the same room.

Now, months later, you couldn’t imagine life any differently.  It made you think of the future, about forever…

No, you stopped yourself when you found yourself daydreaming, forcing yourself to stay in the moment.  You didn’t want to put too much pressure on it, put too many expectations on what was awaiting on the other side of that question.  It made everything easier, lighter.

Charles, on the other hand, was head-over-fucking-heels for you.  He’d always been a romantic, but something about you—the way you touched him, the way you looked at him, the way you kissed…he found himself easily thinking of his future with you, and he didn’t try to stop himself.

Granted, the way you looked in your sundress as you boarded the boat for a day along the Cosican coast, how could he think of anything but you?  The white cotton fabric against your new tan, the short skirt skimming over the tops of your thighs in the most tantalizing way.  Thoughts of the dress rucked up around your waist with his head between your legs and hands palming your perfect breasts under what remained of your dress filled his head, eyes glazing over and cock stirring in his trunks.  You were trying to kill him, he concluded, and he was as good as dead.

What you had underneath didn’t help anything either.  Once he’d gotten you both out to a private little cove and he’d dove into the water to escape the heat of the late morning sun, you decided that it was time to lay out for the afternoon; your master's program had kept you busy enough over the past couple months that you still felt all-too-pale even with your newly-acquired tan.  (Not to mention, you swore he kept you up half the night with the way he would pull your hips flush with his own and plant soft, searing kisses on the bare skin of your shoulders and back—you needed the rest.)

Peeling the white sundress over your head and discarding it on one of the padded benches, you’re left in a baby blue string bikini that he swore got even tinier since he’d seen you prancing around inside the villa before you’d left for the marina.  Face half submerged, Charles’s hazel eyes watched you like a predator watched its prey as you laid out on one of the cushions on the bow’s sun deck with a book in hand and sunglasses perched on your nose.

He grumbled to himself in broken French as his mind swam and blood rushed from his head to the appendage between his legs.  He’d been practically insatiable the past few days, his hands always finding a bare strip of scorching skin where he could get ahold of you before his lips and pouty eyes could take care of the rest.

Thirty minutes passed like that, the Monégasque puttering around in the water before he finally gave in to the siren call.

Padding up the steps from the teak swim deck at the stern of the boat, you could hear as he stalked his way to you, but you kept reading regardless.  That was, until you felt a pair of lips pressed to the small of your back, just above the waistband of the aforementioned bikini.  It drew a hiss from your lips and a slight jolt as you felt Charles’s cool wet skin press against your legs and his hair dripped onto your mid-back. You whined his name, setting your book face down.

“Oui, chérie?,” he asked in a low voice as he continued pressing heated, open-mouthed kisses up your spine until he was at the juncture between your neck and shoulders.

“Baby you’re cold,” you tried to explain as he sucked a mark into the delicate skin of your neck, your head sagging down and away as you bared your neck for him, “and you’re wet.”

He hummed into your skin, and you could feel the smirk at his lips as the cushion dipped beside one of your hips.  You turned onto your side as one of his hands wove itself into the hair just behind your ear, and his lips found yours again as they always seemed to do.  But this wasn’t a tame peck, an innocent little kiss—there was heat and tongue and your head was sent spinning off into the abyss as you felt your tummy do that telltale flip while your eyelids felt ten thousand pounds too heavy.

“You are too, ma belle,” Charles teased in a low voice, his eyes dark and pupils blown wide.

Again, a pitiful sound slipped from the back of your throat as his head dipped down to find your neck once more and one of his hands slipped under one of the side ties of your bikini bottoms.  “That’s beside the point,” you tried to rebut before he kissed you again, this time pulling the tie undone completely.  Oh, how he enjoyed silencing an argument like that…(Meanwhile, you thought it was playing dirty, but you’d allow it—for the storyline of it all, at least…no other reason—absolutely none…)

“Je peux vous aider avec ça,” he hummed in your ear before pulling your earlobe between his teeth, the deft hand on your hip ghosting over the skin of your inner thighs and causing your breath to catch in your throat.  “Permettez-moi…”

The honeyed words were like a magical salve to all that ails you, to all the remaining doubts that his kisses hadn’t cured from your mind; you hadn’t had much restraint before, but whatever iota you had remaining was sapped the moment his lust-lidded eyes met your own.

You nodded your head, and that was all the bastard needed as he smirked like the cat that had just gotten away with eating the canary. “So stubborn,” he chided playfully as he pulled one of your legs over his hip and the two of you settled into the cushions in full light of the blue skies above. Thankfully, he didn’t tease you too much as he took to sliding his calloused fingers over the damp velvet of your folds, drawing a soft whine from you like a confectioner pulling taffy in the window of one of the boutique shops you’d seen in Ajaccio.

Your eyes closed once more, head finding the crook of your partner’s neck as he drew the pad of his middle fingers in lazy circles around your pearl and the searing heat of his mouth found yours again.  He swallowed every little sound you gave him when he finally sunk two thick fingers into your soaked cunt, curling them against that spongy spot deep inside you.  Stars burst behind your eyes at the sensation and your hips bucked in search of more and more and more.

“Charles—,” you whimpered his name pitifully, brows knit together as you concentrated on that tight burning coil in the pit of your tummy that pulled tighter with each stroke of his digits against the velvet heat of your walls.

“Such a good girl f’me, mon ange,” he praised quietly as your hips canted in time with the movement of his fingers and soft sounds of your pleasure melted into the water that lapped at the side of the boat.  You weren’t going to last long like this, not with how sensitive he’d made you from his voracious desire to have you falling apart for him every moment he had just enough privacy to do so.

“Gonna—fuck-I–,” you stammered as your thighs clamped around his hand and your body tensed around him like a rubber band pulled taut.  Your eyes rolled back and strands of sweat-curled hair stuck to your forehead and nape, your mouth falling open in silent screams of pleasure.  Something snapped in the depths of your core, legs quivering while warmth washed over all of you and your toes curled against the back of his calf.

“Tellement belle,” he cooed as he nursed you down from your high with slow, feather-light strokes over your swollen bud, “I’ve got you, chérie.”

Slowly, as you came back to earth from your climax, you watched as he brought his fingers to his mouth and sucked them clean. He knew exactly what he was doing when he pulled in you once more, the wet heat of his mouth meeting your own as you tasted the salt of yourself on his tongue.

Pushing him away so you could catch the breath he’d stolen from your chest, you rolled onto your back as your shoulder ached from how you’d held yourself against him.  With an arm over your eyes, you could feel the smoldering embers in your belly reignite—you needed more.

“You’re evil, you know that?,” you teasingly mocked as he pulled your half-undone bottoms off your other leg. Charles wasn’t done with you yet, and you had a few ideas of your own now.

“I think I can live with that,” he shrugged smugly as he sat between your legs, trunks pulled down just enough to free his aching cock.  Stroking himself one, two, three times, he smeared the precum over his length before sinking into your depths with a hiss and a slew of French curses that always managed to go straight to your pussy.

Within only a few thrusts, though, he was stalling and readjusting.

“What’s wro—oh!,” you yelped in surprise as he lifted you then, first onto his knees and then onto his feet before taking you to the side of the boat and perching you onto the railing. You could hear the warning bells in your mind start to ring, but you still felt like a pile of jelly from your first orgasm to the point that you weren’t in much of a place to argue. Still, Charles could see the hesitancy in your eyes, feel it in the way that you clung to him.

“Je t’ai, je t’ai,” he reassured with a strong hand on your hip and another guiding one of your arms around his neck.  You nodded, trusting he had tight enough hold of you.

But oh how that trust was misplaced…

The angle from which he drove into you was almost too good to be true—if you’d have been standing, your knees would’ve buckled at the very sensation.  And given the choked groans in your ear, you knew the Monégasque felt the same way, too.

You closed your eyes for just a moment and then suddenly you were plunged into a dim coldness that enveloped your entire form, a stark contrast from the simmering heat of your boyfriend’s body.  Thankfully, your instincts reacted faster than your conscious mind, and you emerged at the surface after only a moment under the waves.

Just as your head broke the surface, a large splash came down just next to you before familiar hands were finding your skin—first at your ankle…then your opposite calf…then your hips and small of your back.

This dumb motherfucker lost his grip amongst the sweat and sunscreen and slick of you and sent you over the side of the boat into the crystalline waters below.  It was only a seven-foot or so drop, but still, the point stood: he did not, in fact, have you.

A shocked and incredulous look took over Charles's face as he sputtered and stammered, trying to think of something—anything—to say that would make sense of this disaster of a sexcapade.

You, on the other hand, simply laughed.  You were fine—shocked, no doubt, but fine nonetheless.

“You’re so fucked,” you laughed as you wrapped yourself around him once more as you knew there was no meaningful way he could drop you now—you were not making the same mistake twice.

“Je suis foutu vraiment désolé, chérie—I-I thought-I,” he stammered, still falling over himself to try and explain the whole thing before you took his flustered face in your hands and pressed your lips together to shut him up once and for all.

“I’m fine, baby—I’m okay,” you soothed, resting your forehead against his.  You could feel his heart pounding in his chest pressed to your own.  Slowly, he seemed to come back into his body, into his coherent thoughts as the fear and adrenaline of the whole snafu began to fade.

“However,” you started, leaning back from the man, “I will expect some heavy groveling tonight.” You smirked, a slight mischievous twinkle in your eye.

“‘Groveling’?,” he asked in confusion, “I do not kno—”

“Ne t'inquiète pas,” you teased with a knowing grin, “you’ll figure it out, baby.”

And figure it out he did as you came for the third time that night, pushing his head away from your oversensitive cunt as a chuckle rumbled through his chest and over your sweat-slicked skin.  You were scrabbling away over sheets now damp with your sweat and release, whine caught in your throat as Charles tangled a hand in your hair at the nape of your neck to pull your mouth to his own in an absolutely fucking filthy kiss that had your rubbing your thighs together like a damn cricket.

“Charlie,” you whimpered as his hand pried your thighs apart once more with your chest still heaving from your last orgasm.

“I thought you wanted me to grovel, mon cœur,” he snarked as his teeth worried into that same spot between your neck and shoulder as before, tongue soothing over the blossoming mark before he ducked his head further down.  You keened for him petulantly, hips bucking momentarily as his plush lips wrapped around a taut nipple.

Still, he looked up at you as he released your nipple with a wet pop, and his hazel eyes met yours in earnest.  “Do you want me to stop, chérie—enough for tonight?,” he asked, knuckles gently brushing over your cheek and pushing your now-dampened hair away from your face.  You could feel his cock, hot and heavy against your sensitive thighs, and you would’ve had the dignity to blush if it hadn’t been for the fact that you’d probably let him do just about anything he wanted to do to you.

“No, I just—,” you started pitifully before a sharp cry of surprise left your lips as he tugged you firmly by the ankles closer to him once more.

“Good, because I’m not done with you yet, minette,” he half-groaned with that stupid fucking smirk on his lips while pressing against your quivering entrance before he bottomed out in a single press of his hips that made your eyes roll like a pair of marbles on a tile floor.

You were so incredibly fucked. Literally and figuratively.

final note: i now have a sideblog for my writing, @velvetsainz-writes! follow me there for fic recs, inspo, & all things related to my writing!

[kissagii]

Your brothers are dumb, but Isagi is always your number one fan.

cw: gender neutral reader, 2.4k words, reader is rin & sae's musically gifted sibling, silly isagi, obscene amounts of pining, i don't know how music competitions work lol

@celestair it's here!!!! thank you so much for the fabulous prompt <3

“So, you’re on next, how do you feel?” Your friend Yuki asks, giving you a reassuring squeeze on your shoulder. The performer before you is wrapping up his piece, and your turn on stage is approaching far too quickly.

“Were they there?” You whisper, completely ignoring her question. 

“Didn’t see ‘em,” Yuki sighs, “But hey, you can’t see anything from up on that stage, don’t give up just yet.”

Despite her attempts at encouragement, you both know the truth. They aren’t there. They never are. Even now, as you prepare to step onstage in the final round of a national piano competition, your two soccer-obsessed brothers are nowhere to be found. You should’ve expected that from the start when the most they could offer to your invitation was “ok.” 

How many soccer games have you attended by now? How many hours have you spent in the sweltering heat, watching your brothers run up and down a field kicking a ball around? And despite all that, they have yet to deem one of your music events as worth their time. You’re half sure the reason they neglected to arrive was because neither one would be caught dead sitting in the same room as the other. It’s always a competition with those two – a test to see who could be the better soccer player, the worse brother – and you’re simply caught in the crossfire as you pursue your own wholly different passions. 

But now, unfortunately, there’s only one thing to do: go out on stage, play your heart out, and hope that maybe, just maybe, you’ll get a scrap of recognition from one of the fools who shared your last name. 

“Break a leg. And don’t let your shitty brothers get to you,” Yuki says, nudging you out onto the stage as the previous performer exited past you.

When you walk onstage there is no announcement of your name, no applause. There never is. Just a silence so thick it could be cut with a knife as the audience watches with judging eyes, anticipating eyes, and… hopeful eyes? The stage feels different today, fresh and pleasantly cool, as if the crushing expectations are lifted ever so slightly.

Then you see him. It’s just a glance, an impression of an individual, a hint of green and black in your periphery. But when he sees you it’s earth-shattering. He can breathe again – but only one barely-muffled gasp, because you’re quick to steal the air from his lungs as his heart begins to inexplicably race. Isagi has been in the same audience seat many times by now – the same seat every time, for his favorite view – yet every time he sees you walk out onto that stage it’s like rebirth, a preparation for the waves of joy and sadness and admiration and, dare he say it, love, that would wash over him as you played. All he has to hope is that you know he’s there, watching like he always is. And for the first time, you know – you deeply, truly, know – someone is out there watching you.

For this competition, you chose Liszt’s Un Sospiro. After mastering the technique, you spent hours of practice imbuing the piece with a thousand emotions, a thousand ways to sigh, and yet none of them felt quite right. So in the ten seconds before your fingers hit the keys, you have a decision to make.

Yoichi.

Of course, how could you forget? 

Without a moment’s hesitation, you begin to play, the notes dancing with the image in your mind. Simply the thought of him makes your heart race in time with the arpeggios, your measured breaths falling out of time as you let the music wash over you. The emotion flows so naturally you’re not sure if you’re pushing them into the music or if the music is pulling them out of you, a different one for each phrase, the joy and fear and longing and hope and desperation. You could practically see them, figures of light in every color dancing together across the stage and out into the audience, seeking out their target. 

They more than find their target: they crash into him like unceasing waves. Each one slightly different than the last, yet all so familiar; a language without words, yet each phrase he understands clearly. 

Is it five minutes, one, or thirty? Time begins to blur, everything fading to soft pink and green and orange and blue, colors and sounds existing independently of earthly constraints. It’s transcendental, almost, the room immersed in a lovestruck state of reverie until the final notes echo through the auditorium.  

By the end of the piece his chest is aching, and yours is aching too. The exhilaration hardly makes sense – were you not full of worry only minutes ago? Or had it been an eternity since anything other than Yoichi was on your mind? Adrenaline pulsing through your veins makes your head spin as you attempt to process your own performance. Oh, how unreal it felt. It had been a long time since you last felt so moved by your own playing… yes, truly a long time. 

The audience applauds with the required politeness, if not a bit louder than usual. None of it falls on your ears, though. You’re too busy staring at Isagi’s distant face as he gazes back at you with sparkling cobalt eyes. He nearly forgets to clap, sitting so unblinkingly still that those in the seats next to him wonder if he’s alright. He’s more than alright – his mind is racing in the same way it does when he scores a goal, and it’s taking every ounce of self-control he has to keep him from running to you now. 

As soon as you’re backstage, Yuki barrels into you, earning a few miffed glares from the last few performers preparing to go on. “Oh my god, that was amazing!” She whisper-yells, “I’ve never heard you play like that! See, I knew you’d do just fine without them in the audience.” 

Right. Them. You had forgotten about them while onstage. 

“I think I’ve found someone else worth playing for,” You murmur, half to yourself. For the first time, you didn’t really mind that your brothers hadn’t been there. Of course, it would’ve been nice, but without them… without them, you had made magic. You can make magic.

Yuki smiles brightly, the way she always does. “You’ve gotta tell me everything. And quickly, so as soon as this shindig is over you can head out and see your loverboy.”

“How’d you know that’s what it was?”

“Trust me, it was obvious. I’m pretty sure everyone knew.”

So, of course, you tell her everything. And as soon as the final round of applause echoes down the hallway, you’re getting pushed toward the door, standing nervously in the auditorium lobby until a familiar face emerges from the exit doors.

You see him first, which means you get to watch in real-time as he sees you and immediately lights up like a kid in a candy store. It’s his third epiphany of the day, and the only thing he can think to do is run toward you, frantically apologizing to strangers as he weaves through the crowd. Before you can even greet him or thank him for coming, he thrusts a large bouquet of flowers into your hands.

“You did amazing! Your music is like magic and I think I might be in love with you!” Isagi blurts out.

“Huh?”

“I’m sorry, that was probably tactless. No, it was definitely tactless. I’m sorry. It’s just, I saw you up there and I heard you play and it was like the music was talking to me and it was saying, oh, by the way, you have feelings for them and it’s actually ridiculous that you didn’t notice earlier because you’re absolutely whipped, y’know? Is that weird?”

You can’t help but chuckle at his unrestrained reaction, the genuineness in his tone. “No, it’s not weird at all.”

“It’s not?” He asks, breathing out a sigh of relief.

“Of course not. It means you heard what I was trying to tell you.”

It’s his turn to be surprised, and he lets out a soft, confused, “Eh?”

“I knew I wouldn’t be able to confess to you directly, so I did it the only way I knew how. Yoichi, will you go out with me?” 

“Yes! Absolutely!” He beams, smiling wider than you’ve ever seen him smile before; little wrinkles appear next to his eyes and his slightly crooked teeth are on full display. Shyly, he asks: “Could I hug you?”

“Please do,” you say, opening your arms to let him wrap his tightly around you. For a moment you stand in silence (not true silence, of course, because the room is full of people) and feel his heartbeat hammering against your chest. He feels your heartbeat too, he swears he can hear it over the noise.

“Thank you for coming, Yoichi,” You whisper, gripping the flower bouquet tightly, “It means a lot to me that you could be here.”

He hugs you tighter, so tight it feels like your ribs might crack in his grip. “Of course. You always come to my big games, there’s no way I’d let myself miss one of your big events. Speaking of that, do you know when the results come out?”

Though you’d like to keep hugging him forever, you let go and check the time.

“They’ll let us back into the auditorium in an hour, though they never seem to announce the winners on time.”

“In that case, can I take you out on a date while we wait? Unless you already made plans to wait with someone else… ahh, I really should’ve thought this out more.” Isagi scratches the back of his neck with an awkward smile, a nervous habit of his that never seems to lose its charm.

“Oh, no, I don’t have plans. I’m sure Yuki’s already gone off with her boyfriend, and you’re the only person I really know who showed up to watch. Spending the hour with you is a serious step up from waiting alone.” 

“Let’s go then! There’s a cute café just down the road if you’re hungry, or we could go walk around the mall if you’d prefer.” 

Isagi lets you lead for the hour, making it a bit of an early celebration. Because while the results aren’t out just yet, he’s entirely sure that your performance is worth a hundred gold medals and more. Anything you want to do is good enough for him, even if it’s something as simple as window shopping in formal wear, and he does everything in his power to make sure he’s the best new boyfriend possible. After all, he’s won at life, hasn’t he? Because now he gets to date you – he gets to give you flowers and cheer for you and hold your hand and make you smile. 

As you sit in the adjacent seats waiting for the results to be announced, he rubs his finger affectionately over your thumb. 

“See, I told you they’d start late,” You whisper with a laugh.

“They must’ve realized their trophy wasn’t big enough to properly congratulate you,” He whispers back.

“Hey, don’t say things like that! I haven’t won yet.” 

“I don’t think you witnessed yourself perform. You did amazing.”

“And you’re not a musician, so you’re not qualified to decide who won.”

“Even an untrained ear can tell you were the best up there. Trust me.”

Before you can come up with a witty reply, the head judge steps up to the podium on stage, holding a single sheet of paper in her hand. She gives a short speech – something about appreciating the hard work of the competitors – but neither you nor Isagi hear half of what she says. The room is silent waiting for the top three to be announced. 

“In third place,” The Judge calmly says into the microphone, “Matsuoka Yuki.”

Immediately you burst into cheers, hastily untangling your hand from Isagi’s so you can applaud your friend. Her performance had been stunning, and she’s more than deserving of the prestigious accomplishment. 

“In second place,” The Judge continues, once the applause quiets down, “Watanabe Shigeru.”

Another talented performer, of course. He had won his fair share of competitions, and the two of you had stood together on the winner’s stage more than once. As soon as you finish applauding, Isagi grabs your hand and squeezes tightly, as if to say the Judge will call your name next, I just know she will.

The moment you spent months waiting for is here. Either your hours of rehearsal and stress and aching hands paid off, or they didn’t. And the only thing between you and knowing was one sentence from the Head Judge’s mouth.

“Finally, in first place, winner of the Japan National Piano Competition, Itoshi Y/n.”

I’ve won. It’s as if you’re up on that stage once more, the way that the room explodes into applause like thunder. Isagi is shouting and shaking you by the shoulders – he really couldn’t be prouder of you. He knew all along, it seems, that your indirect confession was worth a gold medal from the organization and a thousand more in his heart.

The head judge invites the winners up to the stage, and Isagi nearly pushes you out of your seat to receive your award. Yuki meets you onstage, whispering her polite but excited congratulations to you. You return them hurriedly before taking your place on stage to be presented with your trophy. The process of handshakes and photographs feels like it takes forever when all you and Isagi want is to spend the rest of the afternoon together in celebration. 

Isagi meets you in the auditorium lobby again, and he presents you with the same bouquet of flowers a second time. “You won! You actually won! I’m so proud of you!” 

“Thank you, Yoichi,” You say, grasping his hand with your free one, “Thank you for being here to inspire me. Now c’mon, let’s go celebrate!”

The rest of the afternoon is blissful, almost unreal, just you and Isagi enjoying the sweetness of victory and love. When your phone begins receiving text message after text message you can hardly be bothered to reply immediately, even when you get the message you nearly spent the whole day waiting for.

rin: good job on the competition or wtv

isagi 💚

[xxresi-rotxx]

Avoiding You- L.S. Kennedy (pt. 2)

It was well into the night when you decided to depart from the base. You had been trying your hardest to get Leon out of your head. Why was he so interested in your lead? Was he upset at the move you pulled? 

It didn’t matter, at least you got the satisfaction of seeing his face when you mentioned Ada and how you saw the two of them. It wasn’t entirely the reaction you were expecting though. There wasn’t a trace of anger or embarrassment, but more of shock and shame. 

It didn’t make sense in your head at all. Leon was probably the most loyal, down to earth agent you had ever met; it seemed so out of character for him to fall for someone like her. But then again, maybe you didn’t really know him. You definitely didn’t know him the way you thought you did. 

You had been walking through the back streets of the city for a good half hour now, making sure you weren’t being trailed. It was close to pitch black out now, the dusk quickly turning into night, and you finally began scoping out your lead. 

It looked like an old, abandoned warehouse. Perfect setting for a bioweapon. Almost too perfect actually. It felt off to you; the hairs on your arm standing on end. You didn’t like this feeling; you knew something was wrong and you went on high alert trying to figure out why. 

Before you could react, someone was behind you. They made quick work of disarming you & pinning you to them. A hand covering your mouth and an arm around your waist, you slammed back into something solid. 

“Relax Y/N, it’s me.” The hold on your body becoming looser. 

You forcefully yanked your body away from Leon, a flood of emotions coursing through your veins. Fury, embarrassment, confusion, excitement; it was all so much. 

“What the hell are you doing?!” You quietly shouted at the man. 

“Look, I would have explained this all to you earlier but you stormed off at base and-”

“And what?” You interrupted, earning an exasperated and tired look from Leon. 

“And you really shouldn’t be here alone.” 

“And why is that?”

“You know why” Leon’s tone turning serious “I don’t know where you got this lead but it’s right, the bioweapons” he paused to glance at the factory “are right in there. What were you trying to prove by going alone?”

You hated that he could see right through you. 

Before you could think of something to say another shadow emerged from the street’s edge. It took every ounce of restraint you had to bite your tongue and hold back the anger you felt just looking at this woman.

“I told you tonight wasn’t a good night Leon.” Ada purred as she got closer to the two of you.

“We were just leaving.” Leon responded, grabbing your arm before starting to walk away.

Ada put a hand on his chest, halting his movement.

“And who’s this?” She asked gesturing to you.

You opened your mouth to respond but Leon beat you to it.

“Nobody.” His voice dripping venom as he spoke. You rarely heard Leon this clipped, angry.

He pushed the two of you past Ada and began walking towards base. Keeping to the street’s edge to avoid unwanted attention, his grip on your arm never wavering.

——————————————————————————

“Mind telling me what the hell this is all about?” Leon asked the second you arrived back at base.

“I could ask you the same thing.” You replied, ice in your tone. This whole situation was so confusing. Was he making things hard on purpose? He was the one who rejected you, not the other way around.

“What Ada?” Just hearing her name leave his lips killed you a little. “She knows more about those bioweapons than we do at this point, she’s been giving me intel on the situation there.”

You scoffed at that.

“Seriously Kennedy? I saw the two of y-”

“Leon.”

His interruption left you speechless.

“What?”

“You keep calling me Kennedy, it’s Leon incase you’ve forgotten.”

If looks could kill you’d both be dead on the spot. Your stares penetrating each other, neither one backing down.

“Okay Leon,” the memory of the last time you said his name haunting you “why not share your intel hm?”

“You think I trust Ada?” Leon scoffed, his voice slighter raising in volume. “I learned a long time ago never to do that. There’s a reason they only ever have me contact her, I’m the only one she won’t immediately betray.”

“I wonder why that is.” You mumbled under your breath, your emotions getting the better of you.

“There isn’t a price I wouldn’t pay to keep those I care about safe Y/N, but that doesn’t mean I enjoy paying it. I figured you of all people would know that.”

You had no response. Starting to feel guilty for saying what you did. Leon would do anything, give anything, to keep you all safe. You knew that for a fact. Your heartache made you forget so much, made you forget everything you had ever known about Leon just to try and ease the pain.

It had been over thirty seconds and you were still speechless.

Leon let out a laugh, “Okay, well”, he turned on his heel, leaving you frozen standing alone in the dark.

You came to your senses and ran to catch up with him, going past him to stand in front of him, blocking his path. To your surprise, he spoke first.

“You know if you really saw us you would have known that much, following a lady’s lead isn’t my style.”

You thought back to when you saw them, Leon against the tree with Ada pressed against his chest, her clearly taking the lead.

“So why then?” You could hear the slight tremor in your voice but chose to ignore it. Avoiding Leon wasn’t going to work anymore, something had to give.

“I already told you-”

“No not about Ada, why did you reject me?” You bit your tongue, trying to swallow it the way you wished the earth would swallow you.

“Reject you?” He asked, voice laced with confusion.

“I tried to kiss you Leon, don’t tell me you don’t remember. I made a mistake clearly, but if you didn’t want me like that you could have just said so.” You broke eye contact with the man to stare at the ground. Had you become a masochist? This conversation was leading you to believe you had.

“I didn’t reject you.” He lifted your chin, locking eyes with you once again.

Had you heard him correctly? You stared deeply into his eyes looking for any trace of insincerity but found nothing.

“You didn’t reject me? Leon you pulled away from me, the message behind that is pretty clear.”

“You don’t get it.” He sighed, leaning his forehead against yours.

You missed him. God you missed him so much. You just wanted to reverse time, forget you ever tried to kiss him. You missed his banter, his scent, his voice, having him by your side for every mission.

“You’re right,” you whispered “I don’t.” Leaning against his forehead gave you some sense of relief. At least he couldn’t see how shiny your eyes had gotten, glistening with unshed tears.

“I didn’t kiss you for multiple reasons, not a single one of them being that I didn’t want to.”

You tore your head away from his to look into his eyes.

“What?” You spoke, trying to piece it all together.

“Did you not realize where we were when you tried to kiss me? How many people were around?”

“So?”

“So? So I didn’t want people to think that I was using you. That that’s the reason I specifically requested you for each mission I went on.”

“Specifically requested me?”

“You didn’t think that was random did you? That we just happened to get paired for every mission.”

“You requested me?” You spoke like a broken record, he requested you? Specifically?? Every time?! You heart was beginning to beat faster, feeling better with each word he spoke.

“Every time, without fail. I pride myself on a lot of things Y/N, but my self control isn’t one of them.”

You smiled a little, thinking about past memories proving his statement to be true.

“I wasn’t worried about my reputation, there’s no rule against dating other agents in the DSO, but I was thinking about yours. You hear the shit everyone mumbles when Ada’s mentioned, I didn’t want that happening to you. That I would have minded.”

“I was right then?” You asked barely above a whisper, “to kiss you I mean, I didn’t misread you?”

“No you didn’t misread me, in fact I’d been waiting for you to figure it out. But after you tried to kiss me and I stopped it, you went radio silent. Every time I tried to find you or talk to you, you weren’t there. And when you were, you wanted nothing to do with me.”

You thought back to the debriefing, when you saw his steps hesitate, turns out you hadn’t imagined it. Leon broke you from your thoughts.

“I thought maybe you had regret it.”

His eyes were the ones to break contact first, glancing down at his boots before looking back to you.

“I did regret it, but for a completely different reason I assure you.” He smiled slightly at your comment, you continued on “But when we saw Ada just now?”

“I barely trust her with my own life, you think I’d trust her with yours? Better she have no idea who you are.”

Everything was starting to make sense now. You started to feel so stupid thinking of all your wasted emotions and pain. The stupidity you felt was quickly replaced however by pure joy. You were right, Leon did feel something for you.

“I can’t believe I spent all this time away from you and it was for nothing.” You grumbled.

“Well not for nothing”, Leon smirked, staring down at you, “I heard you’re one hell of a shot with a 12 gauge now.”

You laughed, a genuine laugh, and Leon’s smirk grew bigger.

“Let them say what they want about my reputation Leon, I have a feeling they won’t dare.” You smirked back at him.

“In that case…” Leon grabbed your chin and leaned down, his lips connecting with yours. It was so soft, so gentle; his lips meshing with yours so perfectly.

You both disconnected, a comfortable silence hanging between the two of you.

“For a man who doesn’t pride himself on his self control, that kiss was pretty impressive.” You teased Leon.

“You know, teasing me isn’t going to help that so called self control of mine.” He teased back.

“I’m counting on it, Kennedy.” Using his last name on purpose, only fueling the fire.

Leon moved faster than you, throwing you over his shoulder and giving you a slight smack on your rear, earning a squeal from you.

“Where are we going?” You laughed, trying to lift yourself off his shoulder.

He jumped slightly, making you fall back down onto his shoulder.

“Someplace more private”, he responded “I intend on hearing my first name fall from your lips tonight, over and over actually, until I can be sure you won’t forget it again.”

You stopped trying to lift yourself up and surrendered into his hold, after all you had a long night ahead of you….

——————————————————————————

I LOVED THIS SO MUCH😭😭I hope this was the pt 2 everyone wanted! I’ve officially reached over 200 followers here and I’m so flattered❤️❤️I love this fictional man and am so happy I found others who do too😂enjoy my writing lovelies😘😘

(Also sorry if this looks funny, I finished it on my phone)

Taglist: @levisbebe

@momma-vi

@apathetickun

@animesnowstorm

@the-abyss-of-fandoms

@warm-milk-with-honey

@crystaldwightsworld

@lottathoughts

[sergeifyodorov]

would you actually be willing to give like a pretty long rundown of those main guys from the 2015 draft class?? because i would be Very interested

Of course! I wrote this in a Google doc so I could get it all down. It's a LOT btw -- this is the abridged version, leaving out what are probably important details, and it's still [checks] 11k words long. Sorry about that.

Anyone who tells you that the draft is a science is an idiot not worth their twenty-dollar stadium beer. The draft has analytical elements, sure, but it is a crapshoot through and through. If you dare to take a look back on draft histories from the past ten years -- the past twenty, the past thirty -- only rarely is the first pick, the “best in show,” actually the best of his class. I mean, no wonder, right? How well can you determine how good a man is going to be at hockey when you have only seen him as a teenager? Accuracy and prophecy are not kin.

Every ten years, though, you come across someone whose trajectory is easy to map. A prospect who is so head and shoulders above everyone else -- in numbers, in the eye test -- that you cannot help but say that they are going to be The Next One. God save the poor boy you put that name on.

In this case, it is 2014, and they are speaking those words again. On the dingy ice of an OHL arena, a red-haired Toronto boy with scared fawn’s eyes paces around the circles, faster than anyone else in the building. There are articles written about him already, calling his experience the torture test and labelling him Jesus, the saviour, the new great. It will get worse for him from here.

A Generational Prospect

It is 2004, and all eyes are on Sidney Crosby. He has eclipsed QMJHL scoring records. He performs highlight-reel antics. It is known that he will make the NHL as a teenager, and that whichever team has him will have an asset they should not ever think to relinquish.

Now, in 2023, all expectations of him are blown away. He is fifteenth on the all-time scoring list, having played most of his life in the dead-puck era, and will be inside the top ten by the time he retires. He has never been below a point per game, having gotten to a hundred points as an eighteen-year-old rookie and only slowed down to ninety at thirty-five. He has won three Cups; two Harts; two each Art Ross and Rocket Richard.

Something similar can be said for his contemporary, one Alex Ovechkin, sixteenth in all-time scoring, second ever in goals. While neither were always the most singular, dominant player of the past eighteen years (has it really been that long?) their longevity and consistent high-level play have cemented them into that tier of all-time greats. 

Such players only emerge once (or, for them, twice) in a generation; a “generational talent.” Gordie Howe was the first, before drafting happened at all, then Gretzky, joined as a part of the WHA merger, then Lemieux, then, debatably, Jagr through the early half of the dead-puck era, then Crosby and Ovechkin. Jagr was drafted fifth overall partly due to political constraints (it was 1990, and Czechia was behind the Iron Curtain), but all of the other drafted ones went first. While development curves for everyone else are hard to map, it is easy to tell, for them, how good they are as youths. We all call Gretzky the “Great One,” but he actually got that nickname before he was a teenager, because of how much better than the rest of his peers he was.

This is how we go up to the 2015 draft. Let’s say that it is September 2014, a full hockey season before the draft, so we can set the scene. Go back to the dingy Erie rink, watch the red-haired boy speed around the ice.

This is Connor McDavid. He was born in January just outside Toronto; if you are unfamiliar with the term “GTA,” I will pause now to tell you that it means Greater Toronto Area, and that it is the nexus of all hockey in the world. He is a Leafs fan, as so many of the GTA hockey-playing hopefuls are. 

Connor is an unusual child, even by young hockey prospect standards. Entry to any of the CHL major junior leagues -- the OHL, the WHL, the QMJHL -- starts at sixteen, but select few can apply early, and if they are academically, physically, and emotionally deemed adept they can be accepted for exceptional status and join at fifteen. This happens once every two or three years nowadays; Tavares and Ekblad were the only ones to predate McDavid. As well as being deemed exceptional by the board of the CHL, he is exceptional among peers, too: intelligent and analytical, black-and-white, painfully shy. He works hard in school, desperate to avoid coming off as a “dumb jock.” Media interviewers ask for him, but they have to change the settings on their microphones in order to pick up his voice, it is so soft. 

He has already won trophies; scholastic achievement, sportsmanlike behaviour, CHL rookie of the year. He will score at least one point in all but one of the first eighteen games of the 2014-15 OHL season, before breaking his hand in a fight (getting himself a Gordie Howe hatty, being that he already has a goal and an assist). He will score a hundred points in thirty-eight games, and a hundred and twenty points in the forty-seven games he will play.

Understandably, his name is penned in at number one on the draft board. Even such deficits as breaking a hand and being out for six weeks don’t tank his stock, it is so obvious how well on track he is to outpace all but the best.

He is sweet and shy, a captain of Erie based mostly on skill, and tight-laced into the destiny of future franchise saviour.

At least he has a friend, though, right?

Dylan

The 2014-15 Erie Otters are a good team. A great one, even -- third in league standings by season’s end, and you don’t get that far if your single generational superstar is sidelined half the year with a hand injury.

This is where Dylan comes in. Like Connor, he’s a GTA boy, and a young Leafs fan. Unlike Connor, he’s part of a serious hockey family -- the middle child of three. His older brother Ryan has already been drafted, in the first round, no less. He’s a real student of the game, too, a stats obsessive and a calm, steadfast personality. 

Remember how we said the draft is a crapshoot? That’s very true. Prospects may have precise rankings when all is said and done, but in the meantime I find it best thinking of them as instead arranging into tiers -- there’s the generational talent in this year, but disregarding him we have a first overall-level, then a small handful of top prospects. Not saviours in their entirety, but certain to make a team very happy. Dylan projects as the latter group -- he’ll be somewhere between three and five. In 2014-15, he’s the OHL scoring leader, and takes the Erie Otters’ single-season record.

He and Connor are also best friends. Connor’s quiet, anxious even, but Dylan has a coolheaded sort of confidence that brings out the best in him. Rarely are they pictured without each other; rarely are they spoken to without mentioning the other. There’s a sweet little video out there of the Otters going to New York state and going on this little ziplining/outdoor climbing gym, and Connor and Dylan are about as glued to each other’s sides as you can be while obeying the harness safety rules. In hockey terms, while a little young for it, they’re married. Much like Crosby and Malkin are, although over a much shorter term, and publically the two Otters are much closer.

Dylan is the one I feel as if I can talk the least about. He is mostly defined by what he is not: not Connor, to start, and before the actual draft takes place that is the most of it. 

Of course, that’s the most of what any of it is, isn’t it? These are teenagers, separated into imprecise tiers and mostly defined by which tier they slot into. The three boys below Connor, no matter how good they are, are defined by being not Connor.

Jack Eichel most of all.

Jack, to start, is American, unlike any of the other three. He’s a late birthday -- born in November of 1996 instead of  the first eight and a half months of 1997 -- so he’s, in theory, had another year to adapt. (Brief footnote: the September 15 cutoff is what determines draft eligibility, either the year you turn eighteen or the year you turn nineteen. If you were born in, say, June of 2000, you would be eligible for the draft in 2018. If you had the audacity to be born in October of 2000 instead, you’d have to wait until 2019.) His development pipeline is also unlike the others, having come up into the NCAA, college hockey, and playing at the US National Development team before committing to Boston University. He won the Hobey Baker award as a freshman, and led the NCAA in scoring as a rookie.

He was marketed, coming into the draft, as the American Connor -- the new face of American hockey, a homegrown star, a fellow generational talent, although that was a feeble marketing strategy to dull the disappointment of going second to greatness. He was proud and polite, quiet but not scared, a young man uncomfortably aware of his own myth and rather irritated at the fact he had a myth in the first place. Taken in and treated well, he would probably have a well-suited disposition to a high-stress, playoff-bound team.

It’s unfortunate that that wouldn’t realize until eight years after he was drafted.

The Draft Itself, or, What Caused All These Problems In The First Place

The draft lottery rolls around. The lottery and the draft take place on different days -- the lottery several weeks before, so that for a long time the boys have an idea of to whom they will go. The first four teams to pick are, in order:

Edmonton. Edmonton had been very bad, for a very long time, and had three shiny prizes already to show for it: Taylor Hall, drafted first overall in 2010; Nail Yakupov, drafted first overall in 2012; and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, drafted first overall in 2013. I’m sure you already know this, but Edmonton was Gretzky’s team, while Gretzky won all his cups, and they now stand to get themselves another generational talent in Connor McDavid.

Buffalo. The Sabres have a few decent pieces: Ryan O’Reilly, Sam Reinhart. They haven’t made the playoffs in a few years, and have plummeted to the bottom of the standings, finishing thirtieth out of thirty.

Arizona. Arizona has never gotten off the ground, not once. They are a dust mote of a franchise, held in place by Gary Bettman’s fragile ego and the skimmings of Original Six markets. Their survival, as doomed as we know it is, is banking on a distant hope of good prospect luck and better PDO.

Toronto. While Arizona is the smallest of small markets, Toronto is… well, it’s Toronto. Remember earlier, how I said that the GTA is the nexus of hockey? Toronto is called the Centre of the Universe, and for good goddamn reason. The Leafs are one of the most storied franchises in the NHL, and simultaneously one of the winningest (the second-most Stanley Cups, after Montreal) and the losingest (their most recent Cup was almost sixty years ago.) Their fanbase dwarfs all but the most hardcore of French Canadian separatist contingents. There’s a common phrase now, when any hockey news is mentioned -- but how does this affect the Leafs? It’s well-done satire.

And with four teams, we have four boys. So I come upon the last one now: Mitch Marner. Mitch, like Dylan and Connor, is a GTA boy, a born and raised Leafs fan on an OHL team. He plays for the London Knights -- a diminutive forward (he weighs in at 160 pounds soaking wet at eighteen, and eight years later barely cracks 180) with fantastic playmaking skills, the creativity and gall to do things other players have never even thought of. He’s a sweet one, too, bubbly and energetic and cuddly and kind.

Here is how the draft goes:

The Oilers take the stage first, for the fourth time in six years. The ceremony is unnecessary. Connor McDavid is the name everyone knows they will say. Connor walks up to the stage, looking vaguely nauseous, and dons the jersey and the hat. (His facial expression in the interviews afterward is thoroughly dissected over the next eight years. Some say it’s simple stage fright; others say it’s personal distaste for the Oilers -- remember, Toronto boy, Toronto heart. I choose to believe it’s the first one. Not all of us are John Tavares.)

After a first-round prospect is chosen, they bring him down for an interview, then shuffle him off to some arena underbelly for photos upon photos. Connor performs his niceties, but before he is taken back, he asks to stay. He wants to watch Dylan get drafted.

The Buffalo Sabres come second, and pick Jack Eichel. Eichel is asked, throughout, how he feels about Connor, being behind Connor, coming second to Connor. The narrative being pushed is called McEichel -- the Canadian wunderkind versus the American one -- and he wants no part in it. He’s impressed by Connor’s play, in their few brief meetings he thinks of him as nice enough, he wants to carve out his own path.

This refusal to play along may have been the start of the discontent, in hindsight. The media clearly wasn’t going to get anything out of soft-voiced scared-eyed perfect Canadian boy Connor, but Jack, sharper edges and colder heart, might be good for a soundbite or two about this new league-made rivalry. Jack, though, ever aware, puts himself solidly into Generic Hockey Interview voice and backs off.

The Coyotes come third. Here is where a choice occurs, the first genuine decision. Connor McDavid had been slotted into first pick since the day he got accepted for exceptional status. Eichel had taken a few years more, but his place in second after Connor was well known for months on end. Dylan and Mitch, however, were up in the air. Do you pick the big one with more points, or the small one with star power?

The Coyotes follow the conventional hockey wisdom, and take the big boy. Connor waits to watch his friend take the jersey, then hugs him in the wings.

Finally, the Leafs.

Let’s actually take a step back to talk about the Leafs rebuild, for a second, because it, like everything the Leafs have ever done, is a testament to failure. Also, somewhat, because it is relevant. Also, moreso, because I can’t shut up about hockey and you’ve asked me to talk as long as I like. If you’re still reading, I want you to know that a) I am ever thankful for your time and b) we’re, like, just getting started here.

The Leafs’ last contending era was before the 04-05 lockout season, which means it predates the salary cap. They struggled in the midsection, for a long time, then finally fell enough to gain the fifth overall pick in 2008, with which they selected a big tough young defenceman named Luke Schenn, the first official piece of the Leafs’ rebuild, strange as it may be. Luke, while competent enough, was obviously not the sort of franchise-changing star the Leafs needed, and they struggled in the midsection again, before gaining, once more, the fifth overall pick, with which they selected Schenn’s partner, one Morgan Rielly. The two would be perfect partners, but we won’t know this for eleven years. Luke was traded twelve hours after Rielly’s draft.

Rielly is still in the AHL the next year, 2013, when the Leafs make the playoffs. This is the infamous 4-1 series: the Leafs go down 3-1 in the series, claw their way back up to game seven. They gain a 4-1 lead, going into the third period, and then blow it completely and lose the game, and the series, in overtime. They do not make the playoffs in 2013-14, and before the 2014-15 season begins they change management. The man they install as President decides to tank, and tank hard, selling as much of the Leafs as he can in the hopes of landing that elusive first pick.

They end up with fourth overall, and Mike Babcock, the Leafs’ head coach, does not want Mitch Marner, instead asking the then-management for the bigger defenceman, a boy named Hanifin who will go fifth to the Hurricanes. The Leafs take Marner anyway. Watch him as his name is called. He, like the first three, sits in a nest of other prospects and their families -- Mitch actually sits right behind Jack Eichel -- but unlike them, when his name is called the other prospects lean over to offer him congratulations, as well as his parents and brother. Mat Barzal, from across the aisle, offers a bro-hug as Mitch goes by.

The rest of the draft goes as usual. The 2015 draft, beyond narratively, is one of the deepest drafts in recent memory; players you may recognize include Timo Meier, Mikko Rantanen, Travis Konecny, Sebastian Aho (the Carolina one!), Roope Hintz, Kirill Kaprizov, Troy Terry… the list goes on. These players have their own stories, but few really tie in to this one. (So far.)

Summer passes; we move on. Training camp rolls around.

Connor McDavid, as expected, makes the team. He moves in with Taylor Hall, a fellow first overall. Jack Eichel also makes the team.

Dylan and Mitch do not. Dylan’s reasons are unknown to me, but Mitch is sent down because, again, Babcock does not want him. He’s naturally undersized and does not have a frame that builds muscle; Babcock is not under the impression that young men in Mitch’s image make good hockey players. Both Mitch and Dylan are returned to the OHL.

The stage is set now; each boy has a team. Eight years on, only half of them are on those teams. But we can’t worry about that yet! We have to make it to the NHL first!

World Juniors and the Memorial Cup

Once Connor makes the Oilers, Dylan Strome is named captain of the Erie Otters. Very cool, to only get what you deserve after the golden boy is gone.

Jack and Connor are off playing with the big boys. They’ll get their own section later -- we have to work our way up, not up and down and up and down. I’ve got to be somewhat cohesive, you know? So, we’ll stay, for now, in the world of junior hockey.

The Otters and the London Knights, Mitch’s team, are in the wonderful circumstance of not only both being very good at the same time, but also being in the same division as one another. This means they see each other quite often (no plane travel in the OHL. Bus only.) and have thus formed… a bit of a rivalry. It is becoming difficult to dance around: Dylan Strome, despite the politeness they’ve shown each other at the draft, hates Mitch Marner.

And why wouldn’t you? He’s the one Dylan fought with all last season for the OHL scoring title; he’s fast on his feet and can shoot from impossible angles; he makes plays you’ve never even considered, much less considered possible. He dangles through the Otters and scores the easiest impossible goal you’ve ever seen and laughs as light as air about the whole thing. And he’s tiny. Unfortunately for the rest of us, Marner drew a lot of comparisons to Patrick Kane in his junior days -- thankfully without the character in common, but as a hockey player. An undersized (almost comically so) London winger with otherworldly ability to manifest scoring chances out of nothing. The exact sort of irritating worm that not one of us wants on the other team.

So, of course, they get put on the same team.

The 2016 World Juniors are summoned. Connor McDavid, then dealing with a broken collarbone and a great deal of pressure, is not on Team Canada’s roster. Dylan Strome and Mitch Marner both are. Suddenly and thankfully, the media’s focus shifts from one, false rivalry in McEichel to a very very real one.

I don’t want to dismiss what happens next as a mere symptom of the fact that hockey players are engineered to get along with their teammates, even if they don’t like each other. Admittedly, it does start that way -- Mitch is a winger and Dylan a centre, and both skilled, so the coach puts them on the same line. Simple enough. And then they spark up a friendship.

Dylan’s reasons for hating Mitch were not personal, just hockey-related. Dylan hated Mitch because he was good and he knew it, the simple way a teenager hates their direct competitor. On the same team, though, the competition aspect is removed, and the barrier for hatred is gone. This is the Dylan/Mitch enemies to lovers arc, if you want to put it that way.

Mitch, for the record, I doubt ever hated Dylan. He doesn’t have that in him, never had. He saw a rival, sure, and as soon as that rival wore a matching jersey I assume he taped the word friend over whatever defined their relationship before. Mitch is probably one of the most gregarious, friendly, charming hockey players out there. Beyond his cute little face and on-ice highlights, even. He’s loud, sure, but when he talks he knows how to include you. He finds out what you like and talks about it, he singles you out if you’re shy and builds up your confidence. He’s just plain nice.

Dylan, like the rest of us, was charmed. Within weeks he went from calling Mitch annoying to telling us all about how he loves cuddling (!?) with him. They became fast friends and great linemates.

Dylan’s not the only one Mitch Marner befriends at Worlds, though. Somewhere between matches, Mitch takes an elevator at the complex they’re staying at, and ends up sharing it with a boy from the American team, a tall square-jawed Mexican centre with a Justin Bieber obsession. This is Auston Matthews, one of the projected top picks of the 2016 draft -- born just two days after the cutoff that would have made him eligible to go in 2015. He played with Jack Eichel at the USNTDP, before taking his age-eighteen year to go play pro in Switzerland. He holds the NTDP scoring record as a seventeen-year-old, and will continue to hold it until Jack Hughes breaks onto the scene. The two boys in the elevator do not yet know it, but they are about to share the mantle of franchise saviour, for the franchise most desperately in need of saving.

Either way. The Canadians place sixth at World Juniors, the Americans do better, the Finns win the whole thing. (In the long run, Laine turns out not to be better than Matthews after all.) Mitch and Dylan go back to their OHL teams.

Erie and London tie in points that year, but London wins the OHL title and goes to Alberta for the Memorial Cup, the CHL trophy. Mitch Marner takes home the scoring title, the Stafford Smythe (CHL equivalent of the Conn Smythe), and the Memorial Cup itself. He is one of the most decorated winners in OHL history, touted as being clutch, creating magic, and racking up points. He has close friends in Dylan Strome and fellow Knight Matthew Tkachuk, who will be selected sixth overall in the 2016 draft, the second American after Auston Matthews himself. And when NHL training camp rolls around in the fall, even Babcock cannot deny he is ready, no matter how slight he may still be.

Connor Complex

There’s nothing that fuels story like a good rivalry, and the NHL was obsessed with marketing this rivalry. The Canadian versus the American. The perfect child of a long line of red-blooded southern Ontario tradition versus the Boston boy with a chip on his shoulder. Jack and Connor, Connor and Jack. They hyped Jack up the time leading up to the draft, trying to hint that he was almost as good -- no, just as good -- as McDavid himself.

He was not, and everyone knew.

The 2014-15 Sabres, then the worst team in the NHL and having done an elite job at tanking (they are one of the worst teams in the analytics era, besides the 2022-23 Anaheim Ducks -- I wonder what prize might be waiting at that number one spot? Surely not someone named Connor.) wanted McDavid. The Pegulas, the owners of the Sabres, tried to hide their disappointment in him as pride. They had an all-American star, they said, someone who had grown up not too far from Buffalo himself, and in the same country, no less. He would be the sort of man to lead them into a new golden age, away from the misery of the tank years.

And yet the narrative persisted. McEichel, they whispered. Look at how good Connor McDavid is, and look at how much Eichel is not him. McDavid, they say, McDavid McDavid McDavid. No article could be written about Jack without mentioning how he came second to Connor.

The Sabres tried to quell the whispers. Look at our boy, they say. They signed Eichel to an eight-year, ten million dollar contract, and in the beginning of the 2018-19 season they named him captain. Isn’t our boy great.

The team does not improve. The Sabres hadn’t made the playoffs for three years when they drafted Eichel; they still haven’t made the playoffs today. I wasn’t around to look, but the team was bad. Eichel did his best, but he was young and inexperienced and did not -- never did -- have captain’s blood in him; Ryan O’Reilly lost his love for the game.

The whispers of character issues start to come out. Jack Eichel is a “locker room cancer;” he’s selfish, stuck-up, quick-tempered. He’s caught in a cage where the only key is to be Connor, something which he never wanted to achieve in the first place, and never could have even if he did want it. The whole narrative was completely fabricated. He liked Connor well enough when they met.

I do imagine he has feelings about it, though, and feelings about Connor now. He didn’t know him, not enough to have an opinion on the boy, but the name followed him around long enough for him to think about it. Imagine it. You’re good in your field, great, even. You’re doing well enough to earn yourself a superstar contract, you’re an All-Star, and yet the only way you will get any recognition at all is when they say that you are worse than one of the greatest players ever to play the game. They lock you into a connection that you have never wanted, barring you from forging your own path. You exist permanently in that orange-and-blue shadow. I don’t blame Jack for being angry. I would be too.

Babcock

Auston Matthews was incredible from the jump. He was big, he was strong, his wrister is the stuff of legend. He won the Calder in his and Mitch’s rookie year, by a not insignificant margin, well ahead of Laine. He was a coach’s dream doll, unusual enough to be marketed and good enough to be useful. Unavoidably masculine even at nineteen.

Mitch less so. Mitch is still small, remember, and struggles to gain weight. I know I talk about his size a lot, but it’s genuinely important. Hockey and its fan culture has long been a group that prioritized size and raw power above all things. Mitch possessed neither of those things, and when he struggled with gaining muscle it was seen as an unwillingness to try. If you know anything about the ability of our bodies to gain or lose weight, you know that it is simply a genetic roll of the dice, a scale that puts a little bit of us into the “gains muscle mass easily” category and decides when to stop. Most hockey players actually aren’t very far up the muscle-gaining spectrum, especially when compared to American football or baseball players -- mass is strength, yes, but it’s also more to move around on ice -- but Mitch is especially low on the scale. Because of this, he is seen as unmanly, a dangerous thing to be.

The Leafs media market is a nightmare, and always has been. Because this is the Centre of the Universe, there are more eyes on the Leafs than on any other team. More eyes mean more writers, means you have to say weirder and wilder things to beg for clicks. Outrage is a good marketing tactic. Getting mad about one of the prize prospects seemingly not wanting to bulk up for the good of the team is a very easy thing to do.

What’s more, Mitch, after his entry-level contract had expired, had had a very difficult and long-drawn out contract negotiation, asking for a lot of money -- essentially the maximum that the Leafs could afford at the time. Because of the salary cap constraint, this was seen as kind of selfish. The angry clicks move. Mitch is sensitive, they say. Soft, selfish, weak.

It’s easy enough to dismiss out of hand when your uncle from Belleville does it, because what does he know. It’s different when it’s the head coach of the Leafs. Mike Babcock, is, at the time of hiring, the highest-paid coach in the NHL. He was signed before the 2015-16 season, and at that point had an eight-year contract, which would have carried him up until this year.

Mike Babcock sucked. Structurally, his teams were fine -- the Leafs made the playoffs in 2016-17, and haven’t missed it since, but he was awful, horribly mean to the boys under him, and especially, especially Mitch. 

We should skip ahead a little bit. It’s the beginning of the 2019-20 season. The Leafs have made the playoffs three times already, and lost in the first round each time -- but this, too, is not yet a phrase that strikes worry into our hearts. They’re young, and they have plenty of time left. 

Respected veteran Jason Spezza came home to the Leafs, having spent his career -- a player who might squeak the Hall of Fame, but is more likely just below its level -- in first Ottawa, where he was the captain of the Senators briefly and one of its most well-loved players, and then Dallas. Like the boys I talk about here, Jason Spezza is a former OHL player, a GTA boy, a Leafs fan. The Leafs’ season opener is against Ottawa, the team where Jason Spezza left most of his mark. There used to be a promotion with the Senators -- a local branch of some pizza chain would offer a free slice if the Sens scored more than five goals in a game. Spezza (and his linemates, Heatley and Alfredsson) were so good, they named his line the Pizza line. Mike Babcock makes Jason Spezza a healthy scratch on that day.

This is seen as disrespectful, but no more than a coach living up to his hardass reputation. You do what the coach tells you, don’t you? Lest you become a whiner, or worse, a locker room cancer. Scratching an extremely well-respected veteran on the opener against his former team is just something some guys do. A message, if you will. Stay the course, Babcock just wants his players to respect him.

And then news of the list leaks.

It happened when Mitch was a rookie, but they kept it hidden for three years. The Leafs went on a father-and-sons trip, one they do every season. They’re on a road trip, with only their fathers, isolated from their home.

(A brief aside to talk about Mitch’s dad; his name is Paul Marner, and he is the most stereotypical hardass hockey dad on the planet. A nitpicker, an armchair coach, a bully. I do not imagine Mitch felt particularly comforted by his and Babcock’s combined presence on this trip.)

Babcock approached Mitch and asked him to organize all of his teammates in a list. He wanted Mitch to arrange them in order of hardest workers to laziest; he thought Mitch was one of the lazy ones, and wanted to drive this point home by making him categorize his teammates like this. Mitch, as a rookie hockey player does in the presence of the Maple Leaf hanging over his head like the sword of Damocles, obliged. He was under the impression it would be a private affair, just an assignment from Babcock to teach him some sort of lesson. Whether it be out of fear or honesty, he placed himself last on the list. 

Babcock told the others.

Specifically, two Leafs vets that Mitch had placed low on the list -- Nazem Kadri and Tyler Bozak. Imagine this: you are a decent centre on a bubble team, but nonetheless an established NHL veteran of about a decade, and your coach shows you a list a rookie made. He tells you that the rookie arranged everyone by work ethic, grinders to lazy shits. You are firmly on the “lazy shit” end.

How much does the coach have to suck, or how much does the rookie have to be loved, for Kadri and Bozak to react like they did? The rumour says they called for Babcock’s head on the spot. Mitch was in tears. I wouldn’t want to stay in Toronto if that happened to me. No wonder he and Auston signed for so much -- Babcock was barely halfway through his contract when they did. If I’d thought that I would have to deal with him for that long, I wouldn’t accept anything less than as much as they could possibly pay me.

In the end, in the beginning of December, 2019, Mitch got hurt and the Leafs went on a road trip. They were already losing by the time they’d left, and they kept losing. Normally, a team on a road trip doesn’t take the hurt players with them, but they took Mitch. The Leafs lost six in a row and finally fired Babcock, letting Sheldon Keefe take his place. Mitch’s presence was a comfort.

Go West

The Leafs make the playoffs first, and take Mitch with them. The Sabres are fighting a silent war with their star centre, but they are no closer to success. 

Connor McDavid is named captain at nineteen, the youngest in the history of the NHL. He scrapes the team to a playoff spot, then to a second round loss. He wins the Art Ross and the Hart.

The year before his entry-level contract expires, when he is first eligible, he signs what is then the most expensive per-year contract in NHL history -- eight years, a hundred million dollars. He is looking forward to spending the rest of his prime as an Oiler. He wins the Art Ross the next year, comes very close the year after. The Oilers do not make the playoffs again until after Covid hits.

He gets hurt a lot, too -- he breaks his collarbone as a rookie, missing half the season, and at the very end of the 2018-19 year, crashes into the net irons and shatters his knee. There are rumours of the man who broke Connor’s collarbone doing it on purpose; Connor claims that he overheard the man bragging about it, and I am inclined to believe him. This guy gets traded to the Oilers not too long after that.

In the meantime, Dylan is struggling. The Coyotes stick him in Tucson, a team he is obviously too good for. His entry-level contract slides another season. He wiffles between Tucson and Arizona, not being considered good enough to stay up but being too good to stay down. In the end, on the last year of his entry-level contract, he is traded from the Coyotes to the Chicago Blackhawks, a similarly bad team with a few remnants of its Cup-winning days. Dylan, a feeble icon of Chicagoan hope for one last dance with the aging core, centres Patrick Kane.

In his first half-season with the Blackhawks, he scores 51 points in 58 games. There are hopeful flashes of what he can be, the touted prospect he once was. 

Things wrap up on New Years like this: Connor is beyond a hundred-point pace; Dylan, although in no less danger, is at least out of the dust at the bottom of the barrel; Jack is caught in a cold war; the team loves Mitch. 

John Tavares has a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Playoff Series

March of 2020 rolls around, and with it the coronavirus pandemic. The league is shut down before the season ends, and the playoffs re-formed in July, inside a bubble -- no one in, no one out until they are eliminated. The Sabres stay with their families, having once again missed the playoffs. The Leafs are set to play the Columbus Blue Jackets, and the Oilers are set to play the Blackhawks.

This, to date, is Dylan’s only playoff appearance, and he is set to face Connor.

Dylan wins.

The qualifying round -- functioning as the first round of the bubble playoffs -- is a best of five, not of seven, and the Blackhawks defeat the Oilers 3-1. They then proceed to lose in five games (this one is a best of seven) to Vegas, but Dylan’s job is done.

The Leafs lose in the first round again. The Leafs have made the playoffs since Auston and Mitch’s debut, every single year, but they lose each time; in six, to the Capitals, then in seven every year after that. Or, in this case, in five.

Covid had not stopped by the end of the 2020 season ( :/ ) and the NHL was rearranged for what would be ostensibly the 2020-2021 season, but ended up being played mostly in 2021. Because of border laws, the Canadian teams are sequestered into their own, North division. Dylan Strome signs a two-year contract extension with Chicago right before the season starts -- one that will carry him until the end of the 2021-2022 season. 

If you’ve seen All or Nothing on Amazon Prime, it is this season that is covered. The Leafs tear through what is seen as a weaker North division, taking a comfortable first place spot. Connor McDavid cracks a hundred points in fifty-six games. Both Leafs and Oilers lose in the first round.

The Leafs do it perhaps most remarkably. They have drawn the Canadiens, a rather insubstantial team who are in their spot mostly because they have one of the best goaltenders in recent memory at their back.

I watched this game, live, before I was a serious Leafs fan. I can only imagine what it would be like if you were already invested at that point; I would not wish to live that horror on anyone. I tried to watch All or Nothing, later, but I stop here. 

Corey Perry and John Tavares are both on the ice, in the race for the puck. Tavares catches an edge, as you sometimes do, and falls, and Perry’s knee is in exactly the wrong place at exactly the wrong time, and it catches Tavares in the side of the head. He falls to the ice, his limbs splaying unnaturally. He won’t move. 

Medics come over, to try and raise him to his feet. He fights against them, blood streaming from a cut in his forehead, unable to tell if they are trying to hurt him or not. There is no one in the crowd, the stadium empty for the pandemic. The camera cuts to Kyle Dubas in the rafters, who has a phone in his hand and swiftly vanishes back into the halls of the arena. He is calling Tavares’ wife. We do not know what is going to happen. Everyone looks shaken -- the Habs have just watched a man nearly die, the Leafs have just lost their captain, perhaps forever. They lose, although the game feels like an afterthought. I do not want to watch hockey anymore.

They win the next three straight, though, even without him. Then they lose, twice, in overtime.

The Leafs, as they have done for the past four years up to this point, go to game seven.

Partway through the game, Mitch Marner panics in his defensive zone and puts the puck over the glass. This is a penalty, it is a penalty every time, and he knows that. He sits in the box, looking defeated already. He curls in on himself, and the camera flashes to the penalty box. He’s crying. He knows the game is lost.

The Leafs are eliminated again, and there is a target on his back now, not only for the puck going over the glass but for the tears. He’s soft, they say. As they have said since he was picked, because he doesn’t look like a hockey player should, because he doesn’t act like a hockey player should, because he doesn’t play hockey like a hockey player should. He makes too much and he disappears when it matters.

Thoughts on the Leafs’ playoff successes suddenly switch from the core is young, even if this is frustrating to they need to win before it’s too late. Already, in recent years, they have suffered historic game-seven chokes and drastic failures to launch. Whether they do it against teams like the President’s Trophy-winning Capitals or the barely-alive wild-card Canadiens is irrelevant. They cannot win a round, at all. The Leafs are already the team with the greatest Cup drought, and they are now gaining a long playoff round victory drought too. It should be time, at least, for them to look like they are a contender. 

This is how the Leafs find themself stuck; a particularly frustrating timeloop, even though hockey itself is nothing but. Sports are cyclical by nature. A team is bad, then okay, then good, then declining, then bad again, and this repeats anew. Some teams try to get themselves out of this cycle by being good forever; I can assure you that this only really happens to the New York Yankees, who employ a cadre of evil wizards to keep everything on that hell team going well for them. Most other teams who try end up stuck like the Canucks are, right now: bad enough to miss the playoffs, but not good enough to get key picks for a rebuild. I can see next season play out, clear as day: they struggle out of the gate, one of their stars gets hurt right when it seems like they’re at the very, very start of gathering momentum, they’re bottom-10 by January and the team says everyone but Pettersson are on the table, they trade picks and low-grade players, they get blazing hot post-deadline and finish twenty-first.

There is, unfortunately, also a perception that pure talent is not what makes players playoff performers -- instead, some so-called “clutch gene” that exists, or not. The reality is somewhere in between. Clutch exists. There are always players who can score when no one else can even dream of it, but a greater problem is luck. President’s Trophy winners are not often Cup winners (even if higher seeds are most likely to win), because the regular season is a much, much bigger sample size and the playoffs can change the course of all of it by a goalie having a hot streak at the right time. The 2018-19 Tampa Bay Lightning, third-best team in NHL history, got swept in the first round by Sergei Bobrovsky going crazy. The 2022-23 Bruins lost in seven in the first round in much the same manner.

And no matter what, the Leafs are always on the wrong end of the luck. Bounces hit the post. The refs take back goals for reasons they would have ignored at any other time of year. John Tavares slips, and his head makes contact with a knee.

Mitch ends up the whipping boy. He is the Leafs’ most valuable player, and this is a team with Auston Matthews on it, but I’m serious. He was the Leafs’ leading playoff scorer in 2023, he’s one of the best penalty-killers in the league, he’s adored by everyone who’s ever once talked to him. He only ever wanted to be a Leaf, and now that he is here he is the sacrificial lamb for the anger at a curse that is not his fault.

I do blame the media. I will always blame the media, those who turn on him at a moment’s notice because they know picking on the skinny pretty unmanly one will get more clicks than anything else. I beg of you -- know that, of anything that it could be, it is not Mitch’s fault.

Jack Eichel has a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Neck Injury

It is 2021, and the Sabres aren’t going to make the playoffs. Jack Eichel has been captain for coming up on three years, and has been a Sabre for coming up on six, none of which have even slightly improved the team. He is widely disliked within the fanbase, and, rumouredly, within the locker room and organization. 

Jack is frustrated, dragging a mediocre team along through a slog of the past six years, and he has never been the kindest man on the planet. He is about to get worse. The Sabres are on a losing streak when they head to Long Island, and Jack is hit the wrong way and slips a disk in his neck. The Sabres insist he’ll only be out a week and a half. 

It is a great sin in hockey, to go against team. Anything that can be seen as selfish is demonized; shooting from a difficult angle when your teammate is wide open, not playing when you can muscle through the pain. Not trusting your coach or management is about as bad as you can get. If you’re a team guy, willing to sacrifice health and limb for the boys, you are held as saint, no matter how hurt you become in the end. This is a philosophy that has been drilled into these men since they were kids, as soon as they put their first skates on. You can stand any pain for the length of a hockey shift; you can play through anything for two minutes. It is a dangerous, dangerous school of thought, one of the most destructive parts of hockey culture. But it is, nonetheless, law.

Eichel is about to commit a sin so great they’ll kick him out of Heaven. I do think that, of the four of them, he is the only one with any semblance of genre awareness: when he was first scouted as a prospect and they were comparing him to McDavid, I think that he would be the only one to ignore the media’s spin on that as thoroughly as he did. He knows what he is, and he knows himself. Of course it comes off as bitchy and selfish, though -- that kind of pressure can’t be kind to anyone.

Before the week and a half is up, he visits a specialist doctor about his neck. This is where it all starts to go wrong.

The Sabres take issue with that for two reasons: one, that they hoped he’d be able to come back after the end of it. Keep in mind that he has herniated a disk in his neck, an injury typically so severe it’s impressive he’s walking -- slipping a cervical disk often causes nerve pain that radiates down through the entire spinal cord below that point, which is the whole body from how high up his is. Two, that the doctor he consults is an independent surgeon, one unaffiliated with the Sabres themselves. 

The thing about belonging to a hockey team is that you are, because of the way your employment is linked to your physical health, essentially their property. They make your medical decisions for you, they feed you, they tell you how to move. Going to someone else is a breach of contract, and the already-tense connection between Jack and the Sabres gets more tense. The Sabres keep losing. They lose eighteen games in a row.

Jack’s doctor recommended a surgery that no NHL player has ever had; cervical disk replacement. The Sabres did not want this -- the surgery carries risks, yes, but they also wanted to control the way that Jack’s injury was handled, and going through with this surgery was Jack’s wish, not theirs. The Sabres do their own evaluation, and ask for a different, more common surgery: spinal fusion. This surgery carries less immediate risk, but the bones in Eichel’s neck will also be fused, and he doesn’t want that. Because the team has final control over a player’s health, not the player, they decline his disk replacement. Having reached a stalemate, they rule him out for the rest of the season, trying to win a war of attrition.

September 2021 rolls around, and the Sabres, along with thirty-one other teams, take training camp. At the beginning of training camp, players do a physical exam. Jack, because his herniated disk has not improved, because he needs a surgery that has been denied from him, because he is stubbornly and bravely willing to wait out the Sabres, fails his physical. As a result, the Sabres, fed up with him, strip the captain’s C from his chest.

Jack makes one final request to the team: either let him get the surgery or trade him. In the end, they trade him to the Vegas Golden Knights, a team that did not exist when he was drafted. The Golden Knights approve him for the disk replacement surgery the day they acquire him.

The surgery is a success; his rehab goes better than anyone expects, and he starts tearing it up when he comes back. I would argue that, if the Golden Knights win the Cup this year, he should get the Conn Smythe -- he has been an invaluable member of the team, even without a letter on his chest.

It is less important for him to win his million awards than it is for him to come in and out of this surgery in the first place, still able to play. He fought with the team that was supposed to have upheld him as their star for months over his right to do what he wanted with his own health; in the end, the only way to go was for him to change that team. He was the first to have this surgery, but after him there have already been hockey players who have undergone it -- much like Tommy John, the baseball player who got his ulnar ligament reconstructed and the surgery to do so named after him. He fought for the chance to control his own body and won.

And for that, he was demonized.

The Sabres missed the playoffs every year they had him; they missed the playoffs every year after he left. Because he was the captain and he had the audacity to go against the organization’s wishes, he was hated. In Buffalo, he is still hated. If you ask, they’ll tell you he was a locker room cancer, that he was undevoted to winning. If you look at him in Vegas, neither of those things are true.

Jack Eichel is a rare man -- he does have that “clutch” gene, or rather doesn’t have the choke instinct. He has always been unbothered by the spiral around him. He operates well in the mire, and when the pressure rises it doesn’t affect him (or maybe, even better, he feeds on it.) He has the right kind of mentality -- that fuck-you, I’m here and you can’t change that, you tried to control me and I wouldn’t bend mentality. He has only made the playoffs once, this year. Like Dylan, actually, his only appearance has involved defeating Connor McDavid. Go back and watch his highlights from the Vegas-Edmonton series if you can: he has a couple of pretty goals and more than a couple great defensive takeaways, but he doesn’t lose his cool, not once. He has earned his right to be here, and he knows it more than anyone else. I’m rooting for the Stars, but I hope he wins some day.

153

How do you talk about the Edmonton Oilers? I mean, without either excusing or demonizing them, although I admit I have Hater Instinct and trend towards the latter. They have the best player in the world; that grown-up incarnation of the wide-eyed boy on the Erie rink. They have the best playoff performer in the world; Leon Draisaitl, who I have not avoided mentioning until now on purpose, but whom I cannot continue without bringing up. They have been terribly cap-managed since the day McDavid was drafted, and are an unstable roster with blazing-hot offense and very little defence or goaltending at all.

For a brief moment, let’s not talk about the Oilers. Let’s only talk about Connor himself.

McDavid has 850 points in 569 career games. Not even Sid had that many points through that few games. If he stays healthy, Connor’s well on track to become the second player ever to hit two thousand for his career -- after a certain other Oiler, who need not be mentioned. He has won just about every award you can win, with the exception of the Selke… and the Cup.

If it’s possible, he has proven himself better than all of the hype at the draft saying he would become a great. To watch him, you can see the way he has changed his team, how even though they have all learned from him that he is still the best.

There is something that many Oilers do. When next your team plays them, pay attention to it: they cut into the offensive zone with possession on the outside, using tight little crossovers to gain speed, after which they’ll usually try to rush the net (if there are no defenders in the way). This is a move that McDavid has patented; he’ll use it, just as many of the others will, but he’ll probably be the one that scores. The depth all skate like him, really, fast and in wide arcs, trying to generate a rush chance. 

Connor as a player is a tour de force, the best power-player in the world by a mile, no slouch at even strength, speedy enough to score even shorthanded. The boy’s got wheels. Sometimes it’s hard to tell which NHLers are fast and which are slow, but Connor’s just that tick above everyone else that you can see it without eye training at all.

Connor as a person is a bit less showy. He’s quiet by nature, shy and soft-voiced. Because he was hyped so much (franchise saviour, McJesus, Next One) he has been media trained into sterility, giving the same level answers as everyone else, hardly daring to express any opinion at all. His eyes are big, rounded, and one of them is lazy from a time when his brother tried to take it out as a child, and that combined with his heavy brow and stiff expression -- he’s never been a good smiler, smirks with one corner of his mouth and that’s mostly it -- give him a resting expression of something like concern, or maybe despair. When he laughs, he doesn’t really “laugh,” just kind of coughs, a one or two-syllable affair. He avoids eye contact with the camera, and often the reporters as well. There is no seething emotion under the surface, not like with Eichel, nor does he speak analytically like Dylan does. He moves through his life as if he is someone who does not want it to turn out quite like this.

I do not know if he wants to be in Edmonton. There are jokes about how he is desperate to leave, but I definitely don’t believe those; there’s a difference between not wanting to stay and wanting to go. I don’t think he hates it. He has been given a responsibility, the captain’s C -- and because, unlike Jack Eichel, he is a good Canadian boy who has been given a destiny, he accepts it. He loves his teammates, especially Draisaitl, whom he seems to derive all his confidence from.

I will also say that I don’t believe he’s stupid. Naive, perhaps; not stupid. There is no way out for him, even if he was sure he wanted to leave; he’s the best player in the world, far too expensive for any contender to afford in either trade or cap space, and if he asks for a trade he won’t let himself go to a team that isn’t already a contender. He will remain an Oiler at least until his contract is up, and I imagine that his staying afterwards depends on Draisaitl.

People talk about him leaving a lot, largely because of the team that has been assembled around him. The Oilers are not a well-created team, and I will say that plainly now and spend as little time technically deconstructing it as possible.

Beyond McDavid and Draisaitl, they have:

A rookie starting goaltender, whose success as we know it is based on a single-season sample size and a complete playoff collapse.

A five million dollar backup goaltender, who earned his contract by being carried by the Leafs, despite being utterly horrendous for a long enough stretch leading up to his free agency that anyone who looked beyond the win-loss numbers wouldn’t have signed him.

One genuine shutdown defender.

One young up-and-coming defender; by far one of the most promising Oiler (or otherwise) defensive prospects, beyond the usual suspects.

One netfront grinder who is great at playing wing to high-power setters, but cannot drive his own line.

One decent 2C.

Sarah Nurse’s cousin. Sarah’s better.

A supporting cast of bad defencemen and middling-at-best forwards.

Many charming characters, of course: Zach Hyman, the grinder, is a beloved ex-Leaf, and I’m personally a fan of Nugent-Hopkins, the 2C, but the vast majority of this is not the sort of thing a contending team is built upon. McDavid has missed the playoffs almost as often as he’s made them. The playoffs are a crapshoot, but in order to try your luck you have to at least be able to enter the lottery, and it takes a stunning amount of effort to be able to do that.

So, McDavid lingers, in this kind of limbo. It mirrors the Leafs, almost. (And yes. Because McDavid is an Ontario boy, and the Leafs are the Centre of the Universe, we have to mention them both in conversation. Not all stories revolve around the Leafs, but this one does.) One true contender, and one generational talent, both what we picture to be well overdue for their Cup run, but neither having yet done so. 

The thing about the stories of the class of 2015 is that they intertwine, that they mimic and mirror each other. These boys have not simply gotten drafted in the same handful of picks in the same year and gone on their merry ways -- they layer, they parallel, they weave around each other. Connor is the captain of a team that cannot win, Jack is a captain, Mitch cannot win. Jack fought for the right to control his body and was demonized for it; Mitch negotiated for a contract that he determined to be a fair price for Babcock, and was demonized for it. Whatever pure saviour they figure Connor to be, Jack is the twisted inverse of that, falling from grace.

Connor has one of the best seasons in NHL history, one of only seventeen player-seasons with over a hundred and fifty points (Nine of those seasons belong to Gretzky. Another four belong to Lemieux.) He loses, in six games in the second round, to the Vegas Golden Knights. At the time that he’s eliminated, he leads the playoffs in points. Leon Draisaitl is tied for second place. Counting from the date Mitch Marner played his first game in the NHL, the Oilers and Leafs have almost exactly the same number of playoff game wins, with the Oilers having one more.

There’s No Place Like Strome

Before we can look to the future, there is one person I have been neglecting. Dylan, poor Dylan. I think it would be only half an unfair assessment to call him a draft bust. He’s talented, for sure, but not nearly the same calibre that the draftees around him are. Hardly a Marner, an Eichel, or even a Rantanen or a Meier. 

His career has existed quietly in the shadows, so far from Connor McDavid that it only feels fair to mention them in the same conversation in this context. It has been eight years since they were best friends, Connor so close to Dylan he waited in the stadium in order to watch him get drafted. They didn’t look each other in the eye in the handshake line when Dylan won their series. Connor didn’t go to his wedding.

That being said: so far, he has found himself a knack for landing in the shadow of greatness. When he was an Erie Otter, it was Connor -- Dylan held the scoring title in their draft year, while Connor was out nursing his hand, but Connor was the chosen son and Dylan was the Coyotes’ consolation prize. When he was traded to the Blackhawks, he found himself centring Kane and Debrincat, but of course both of them were the offseason and trade deadline’s prizes, and not him.

And then he signed in Washington.

So now, we go back to Ovechkin. Alex Ovechkin is one of the greatest players of all time; his Capitals are on the decline now, but they contended for a long time while he was playing and may still contend as long as Ovi still skates. For a long time, the team relied on Ovechkin’s goalscoring, assisted mostly by his faithful centre, Nicklas Backstrom. They, too, are married; they have played a thousand games as teammates, been through a decade of heartbreak together before the Cup was theirs. During the 2021-2022 season, Backstrom took time off -- he needed hip surgery, something likely to end his career. Ovi was alone.

There is a fundamental difference, of course, between the expectations of wingers and centres. A winger, like Ovi, scores, or assists, at his own leisure, but it is the centre’s job to drive his line. Ovechkin is generational -- he will sink forty goals no matter what -- but he still needs someone to move him out of the defensive zone, someone to make his assist.

Enter Dylan -- a young centre, not especially fast on his feet but intelligent, and clearly experienced in the realm of managing high-calibre wingers (see: Debrincat, and the ghost of Patrick Kane.) He joins the Capitals on a one-year contract, desperate to prove himself. Chicago didn’t want him, and Arizona didn’t either. It takes barely until November before he is, once again, the necessary shadow of greatness. 

Ovechkin, the team’s captain and centrepoint, clearly likes what he sees, and the management does, as well. The Capitals offer Strome a five-year extension.

Maybe it’s because he’s less of a superstar then the other three members of his draft class, but Dylan has a life outside of hockey -- a wife and young daughter. After being thrown away by other teams, and with his new family, I can only imagine that it was… peaceful, if anything, to be offered this contract.

Chicago, after rapidly getting rid of him, Debrincat, and then Kane, would go on to tank spectacularly, and win themselves the first overall pick. They will use it to draft another generational talent. His name is also Connor.

The Blue Wedding

So, here we stand, at the end of it all. Dylan finally has a home, a mother hen of a Russian bear that it has become his job to assist in record-breaking, and soon to be two daughters. Jack has a team that loves him, freedom from pain, and an ongoing potential Cup run. Connor has a sterile mansion, a best friend, and an unsteady team. Mitch’s life is up in the air.

Right as I’m writing this, the general manager of the Leafs has been unceremoniously kicked out. His tenure will end the day before Mitch’s no-move contract kicks in, but it is not known if Mitch’s time as a Leaf will survive that long. He is well on track to become one of the greatest Leafs of all time, and his tenure might be cut short in the prime of his career. 

But let’s wrap up with this: Mitch will get married this summer. Because he’s Mitch, the darling of the league, everyone’s best friend, I imagine the wedding party to be extensive/ Packed to the brim of current and former Leafs, as well as people who have never been Leafs. I wonder if Dylan Strome will be there -- or even Connor McDavid, although McDavid never even attended Dylan’s wedding.

The stories, as they do, go on.

[gay-dorito-dust]

Hey! Saw that your requests are open :]

Could you write a scenario where Gwen, miles n pav are looking for Hobie in his universe for whatever reason, just for them to find him and his s/o taking a nap together on a rooftop together 🥺?

I just kinda wanna see hobie/y/n in the perspective of other characters <3

Thanks in advance ❤️❤️❤️!!!

‘Hobie’s not picking up.’ Pavitr said.

‘Neither is y/n.’ Gwen replied, pocketing her phone after the third failed phone call.

‘Hobie’s phone is probably dead, he let’s that thing drain to it’s last percentage and y/n is probably busy on a mission.’ Miles tried to justify as he, Pav and Gwen walked through the streets of Hobie’s dimension in search of their friend to hang out but the longer the trio went without seeing Hobie -or you for that matter- in places they believed he’d be; the last place being the pub he frequents where Hobie’s band mates informed them that they haven’t seen him in a while, the more worried they’d become for his well being despite not needing too, but still he’s their friend and friends worry about one another; no matter how capable they are.

‘Have you tried his place?’ One of his mates tells them, ‘can’t hurt if you haven’t.’ They added, raising the pint glass to their lips as they downed the rest of their drink in a couple of gulps. ‘We have, he wasn’t there.’ Miles said and they put their glass back down on the table, wiping their mouth with the back of their hand, shrugging their shoulders. ‘You know how Hobie is with his dislike for consistency and all that. But if I were to guess where he is -if he’s even there at all by the time you lot get there- it’ll probably be up on the rooftop of that half arsed complex they’ve left to rot.’

‘Where would we-‘ ‘I think I know where that is,’ Gwen cuts in, remembering her time spent here and the places she’s been due to Hobie helping her get her bearings of the place, one in particular having stuck out more so then the others. ‘Thanks for the help.’ She tells them right before looking to Pavitr and Miles, jutting her head towards the exit of the pub. ‘Come on, if I’m right, he shouldn’t be too far from here.’ She tells them as she, Pav and Miles left the pub and began making leeway to their next destination.

‘They’ve been here the whole time!’ Miles exclaimed upon seeing you and Hobie fast asleep with you practically cuddled into Hobie’s side, your face buried within the crook of his neck as your hands clung to his waist while one of Hobie’s hands were at your waist, keeping you anchored to his side as his other hand was holding onto your forearm that rested comfortably across his hip bone; Both of you looked at peace within the others presence, it was a sweet sight to behold for the trio that it made the goose chase all the more worth it’s frustrations.

‘You’ll wake them!’ Pavitr shushed Miles but he couldn’t care less when he saw what was in his friend’s hand, his brows immediately raising. ‘Pav, are you taking pictures of them asleep?’ Gwen piped up, also having caught on.

‘You expect me not to? Look at them!’ Pavitr was the one to exclaim this time as he gestures to yours and Hobie’s still slumbering intertwined figures. ‘They’re love incarnate, the beautiful vulnerability brought forth by their comfortability with one another,’ he sighs longingly as he snaps another picture of you two, ‘to have a relationship where your soul feels at ease with that person, to have all your walls come down when you’re with them to the point you are able to hear the song of their heart, soothing you into a slumber filled naught with dreams but memories.’

‘So kinda like the male and female skeletons that were found romantically embracing one another.’ Miles said. ‘I guess I can see the comparison.’ Gwen piped in as she looked closely at you and Hobie, her eyes immediately noting some movement in Hobie’s hand as it subconsciously intertwined itself with yours and giving it a squeeze, almost like he was making sure you were still with him. So it made Gwen smile when she saw you reciprocate the squeeze with one of your own; It was so obvious that the relationship you and Hobie had was one of love, respect, loyalty and above all else trust.

It’s a relationship anyone would die to have but it takes a special person to have that type of relationship and Gwen couldn’t be happier that you and Hobie found each other. You two were the missing pieces that you’ve been searching for so long, Gwen couldn’t imagine the imminent relief you must’ve felt whenever you and Hobie held hands knowing that you were finally where you were meant to be, to be able to see clearly, to be able to breath; Gwen might not be a hopeless romantic like Pavitr is but she couldn’t help but want a relationship like yours and Hobie’s one day because that’s the day when she knows she’s found her person.

Miles took note of how Gwen looked longingly at you and Hobie and wondered if she thought the same as he did, to have what you and Hobie had, to find his person whom he can spend every waking moment with and still feel how he felt when first meeting them; in adoration and awe, to have someone whom he can be unapologetically himself and hope that they feel the same with him, to be able to fall sleep on a rooftop somewhere without fearing all the possibilities that could happen in your moment of vulnerability.

Miles deeply wished to have the kind of love his parents have, the kind that you and Hobie have for it was, in Pavitr’s words, a love that transcends the need for words, for words weren’t enough to convey how you felt compared to the intimate act of soul searching within each others eyes.

‘We should leave them be for now.’ Gwen said softly to Pavitr and Miles whom had no qualms in agreeing to leaving you and Hobie alone, though not without admiring both of you one last time, just as you nuzzled yourself deeper into Hobie’s neck and Hobie’s little smile before they all headed back to hq.

[loveswrites]

Is love enough? Poly Joe x Love x reader

Poly! Joe Goldberg x reader x Love Quinn

Time it took me: 5 hours spread out a few days

Word count: 1058

I asked you guys on a poll if you guys would like a poly xreader with Joe and love and you guys definitely did! So Let me know how you guys like it! The closer I got to the end I was thinking about making this one into a mini series! As I could do a lot more with this one! Tell me if you'd like a part two!

When you finish reading tell me. Do you think love is enough?

Love <3

"Depression makes you do crazy shit Joe!"

"That doesn't make sense, Love! just accept the fact that you killed her for no reason but the fact that you can't control yourself!" Joe yelled at love with wide eyes. 

"I can't control myself? I can't control myself?! You were the one obsessing over yet another woman! What did you expect me to do?! We have a family!" Love yelled back at Joe with tears in her eyes. But they weren't tears of sadness.

"Babes? What's with all the yelling what's going-... on.." You questioned coming down the stairs but paused seeing exactly what the yelling was all about.

"What happened?.." You whispered. On the ground all you saw was blood and the body of some blonde. 

"What are you doing here!?" Love and Joe yelled in unison.

"You told me to come pick up Henry so you could finish on some things- What happened!" You yelled, snapping out of your explanation of your presence.

"I- I she fell-" Love attempted to say but you quickly cut her off.

"Into an Ax!?" You yelled.

"It was an accident!" Love tried defending herself.

"What the fuck! What the actual fuck? I- Where is Henry?!" You yelled out looking around the dark basement for the child you came to pick up.

"He's over there he is fine!" Love gestured to Henry who was literally a baby in a corner.

You watched as Joe paced the floors as you could only assume he was thinking about what to do about this.. situation that lies in front of you three.. and a half. 

You Joe and Love were in a relationship together. It was a loving happy relationship you felt secure in some aspects of it. Besides that fact that you never knew if the police would show up at your front door and arrest you was all. It was one of the things that made the loving happy relationship feel a little less secure. Also with love's impulsive behavior and Joe's constant need to have a new fixation every other month put a damper on the relationship at times. But none of that stopped you from loving them both. And them loving you. 

"You said no more. No more killing. No more death. A fresh start and a New beginning. And Joe you no more.. obsession plus the killing also." You whispered shifting your eyes between you two lovers. 

"How can neither of you keep your promise?" 

"I haven't killed anybody!" Joe yelled.

"But you stalk! And you creep! And you lie and cheat on both me and Love! Why?! Why are we not enough for you? I keep your secrets, I'm there when you're scared! When you're scared that you might do another bad thing! And you Love I'm there for you every sleepless night when Joe is gone! We were all supposed to be happy here! But since we're all killing and lying, I'm going to tell the truth I hate it here! I hate the suburbs I'm a fucking city girl I don't belong here yet I am trying to adapt for you for you both because I love you! You both ripped me apart from a city that I loved so much to lie in a house with two people that I thought loved me more than I loved that city just to feel like some neglected piece of trash! I hope to God Henry never feels like this- Oh wait he probably already does since he's facing a corner chilling in a room with a dead body!" You screamed with so much pent up aggression you snatched up the baby carrier that held Henry.

"Pleas-" Joe started but you cut him off without turning to face them.

"Don't call me, don't text me. Fix your mess then maybe me and Henry will come back." You said causing panic to rush through both of their veins.

"Maybe?!" Love yelled her eyes widening. 

"What do you mean maybe?! I love you, there is nothing that I wouldn't do to make you stay!" Joe yelled.

"Shut up." You said, shaking your head as you walked up the stairs leaving the bakery. 

When you've been in a relationship with basically two insane people you learn when their threats mean you harm or not. In that case Joe threatened you out of fear. Not anger. He was never angry at you much. He got mad at Love more than he would you. Him and Love fought more than you, him and love ever did combined. Which you couldn’t lie was understandable because seeing that their habits could land us all in jail. You’ve never killed anybody but that still doesn’t make you a good person. 

You’ve lied for them. Threaten people for them. Even though Joe and Love do their best to keep their dirty habits away from home, it’s inevitable that one of those habits will come knocking on your front door. You’ve helped with the..bodies. So no matter how sick it makes you or how bad you feel about it you are and will forever be an accomplice to their crimes for no other reason than the fact love makes you do crazy things. 

When you got to your car you went to buckle Henry into his car seat. He was crying. You almost missed that.. How could you miss a screaming baby? As you tried to zone yourself out of your deep thoughts about your two loves you tried calming the only love that mattered right now. You found it hard to do this as tears rolled down your own face. Who was going to calm you down with their love? As you shhh henry to calm down rocking him in your arms on the side corner of the bakery you started to think what if this was all?

What if this was it? 

What if all your life now consisted of was lying, hiding, running, crying, screaming, fighting, shovels, dirt and muddy midnights. But at least you had your two lovers by your side, That’s all that matters right? Could the love between three people be enough to grow into a happy family?

Getting into the driver's seat you started the car. And as you drove away from the bakery you couldn’t help but think, is love enough?

[cuubism]

on watching your god become human

--

"I don't believe you are meant to be here, Corinthian."

Corinthian is certainly not meant to be here. He's not sure where the impulse to slip from his cage came from; he's pretty sure that was supposed to be written out of him when Dream reconstructed him from the ashes of his rebellious former self. Maybe when you make a being of wanting, the wanting for itself comes back, whether you like it or not.

"Fuck that," he says. "Neither are you."

Morpheus observes him placidly from where he's sitting on Hob Gadling's couch, sipping a cup of tea. Humans are alternately entranced by or repelled by the Corinthian, depending on their particular complexes, but Morpheus -- human, human Morpheus -- is neither. He knows the truth of what the Corinthian is, and doesn't fear him, even though Corinthian could step over there and bury a knife in his throat and this time, it would stick.

"Maybe not," Morpheus concedes. Dead, he's supposed to be dead, Corinthian thinks. "But I am. Are you going to sit, or just ogle?"

Corinthian might just stare at him. Morpheus looks exactly the same as last Corinthian saw him, except that he is fucking human, and every time Corinthian looks away from him and then back, his stomach jolts like he’s missed a step on the stairs.

"Depends, are you going to call the cops on me?"

"Is that how you saw me?" Morpheus asks. "As jailer and persecutor?"

"...No," Corinthian admits. In his former life, in the end, maybe. In the way an adherent chafes against the strict, incomprehensible strictures of his holy book. But Morpheus -- Dream -- was much more than some rules meant to circumscribe him.

"Regardless, I won't 'report' you," says Morpheus, with a half-smile. His eyes are sharp and knowing as ever where they track Corinthian's movement across the living room as he sits down in the armchair across from the couch. But he's lacking the thrum of power Corinthian is used to. The gravity well of belonging that always let Corinthian know he was near, that drew him in. It's disconcerting. "As long as you don't go around carving out eyes, after this. I would hate to see you unmade."

Corinthian has more important business here than that. Besides, he isn't interested in being taken apart again.

"I'll pass. Pretty sure that kid would dissolve me like that."

"Are you somehow implying that I was lenient with you?" says Morpheus. "Although, I suppose he did not create you."

"If you wanna get technical about it he did," says Corinthian. That well of power has transferred over to Daniel, now, those ancient brushstrokes of creation now following the path of his hands. But it feels wrong. The Corinthian does not want to be Daniel's creation. He wants to be Morpheus's. He has always been Morpheus's.

"Technically," repeats Morpheus, a spark in his eyes as if he knows exactly what Corinthian is thinking. "I still consider you mine."

This sends a confusing rush of emotions clanging through Corinthian's being. Not that that is an unfamiliar sensation, around Morpheus. Pleasure and indignation war within him. "You have no power over me anymore."

"Don't I?"

Corinthian grits his teeth. He doesn't know what to do with this Morpheus. Whether to hate him, whether to mourn him. Whether to drag him back to what he once was, somehow. "You're nothing, Morpheus.” He intends this to sound cruel. It doesn’t, quite. “You were a world." My world. “Now you're nothing."

"I've accepted that," Morpheus says, which is not the response Corinthian had expected, and gives him no satisfaction. He wanted Morpheus to lash at him. To punish him, the way he might once have, for his rebellions. Instead, Morpheus just watches him evenly, as if this behavior is no surprise to him but doesn't bother him anymore. Because it’s not his responsibility anymore. Because he’s human.

Once, Morpheus had been an entire dreaming universe. One the Corinthian inhabited. Once he had held Corinthian's fabricated heart in his hands, crafted each ventricle from dreamstuff. Corinthian was carved from a piece of his soul. A piece that he didn't want, Corinthian had thought, at his first life's end. A piece that he wanted too much, Corinthian thought, when reborn. He had thought he could see straight through to Morpheus's heart, that he was a part of him, that he understood. He had thought he knew everything.

And now Morpheus is sitting in the Waking world like a human, as a human, and Corinthian thinks desperately on the boundless creature he once knew and wonders what he didn't see.

"Some hypocrite you are," he accuses. "Unmaking me for wanting to be different."

"You'll notice I didn't use it as an opportunity to murder people," Morpheus says drily. "However, perhaps that has some merit. But tell me: would you give up what you are to be here? Not as a nightmare walking free in the Waking, but as a human?"

This gives Corinthian pause. Once, he had roamed the Waking world as a terror, had gorged himself on power. Had held men at his mercy and relished in it. It would not be quite the same, would it, to be one of those men himself.

"I don't know," he says.

"It's not so easy a trade to make," Morpheus says, setting down his tea and holding out his hands, palms up, hands that once could have stripped the Corinthian back to dreamstuff, now useless against him, "to give up your power for freedom."

Corinthian isn't sure if this is what he intends, but he lays his own palms over Morpheus's.

His skin is warm. Soft. Human. Corinthian could never have touched him like this, before. Not that Morpheus had never touched him. But it had not been like this, with hands open.

"I tried to destroy you," he says.

"So you did, my creation."

"Did that hurt?" Corinthian had meant it to. At the time.

"When you make something with your own hands and it decides it hates you," Morpheus says, gaze without its old stars but still fathomless as he looks down at their joined hands, "yes, it hurts."

The thought gives Corinthian no satisfaction now. "I never hated you." I loved you. "I worshiped you."

"I don't require worship."

"I loved you, and you unmade me." He stands without meaning to, and looks down at Morpheus from above. Morpheus doesn't follow him to standing, just observes him, face tilted up. He looks, if anything, sad. Corinthian recalls, from a distance, the expression of disappointment as his former self was unmade.

"And then I made you again," Morpheus says.

"Better?"

"More suited to your purpose."

"Like you did with yourself?"

Morpheus blinks and looks away, thrown by the accusation. "I--"

"Ripped yourself apart and threw away the piece that wasn't working?" For Daniel is Dream but also not, and it's the not that keeps sticking in Corinthian's guts like a bite of tough meat, impossible to digest.

"Is that not what you wanted?" Morpheus says. He seems discomfited by the Corinthian's words. "You did tell me to change."

"Yeah, well, I didn't want some random kid running the place that you made." He doesn't know, anymore, exactly what he wanted, only that now he wants Morpheus and seeing Morpheus here, like this, leaves a bitter taste on his tongue, carves fault lines everywhere he stands.

"I've been assured Daniel is doing a fine job."

Corinthian huffs in frustration. "Sure, yeah, fine."

"What do you want of me, Corinthian?" Morpheus asks. They're still fucking holding hands. Morpheus hasn't pulled away. His hands are weightless in Corinthian’s grip. “Absolution? I granted it when I remade you. Guidance? That is no longer mine to offer."

Love? Corinthian thinks, disgusted with himself. I don't fucking know. He's not even sure why he's here, only that he had to see. Had to see all of this for himself.

“You can’t give me anything, Morpheus. You're just a human now." The word scrapes over his throat, he might cry with rage, it's so intolerable. “You were so—”

"So?"

Beautiful. Monstrous. Terrible.

He is still beautiful. Corinthian has always thought so. Was he made to feel this way? Maybe. But that doesn't change the feelings. Once, Morpheus was beautiful in the way of a distant, inhospitable planet, seen only by craning your neck up to the sky. Now, Corinthian is walking in that landscape. He's unused to having to be wary of where his footsteps tread.

He squeezes Morpheus's hands, hard, and when he lets go the skin has gone white, blood chased away by the pressure.

Corinthian stares at the evidence of his touch. Morpheus is vulnerable to him now, as vulnerable as any of the men the Corinthian's former self had killed. Corinthian is more powerful than him, except that Morpheus is right, Corinthian is still in thrall to him and would only destroy himself by destroying Morpheus now.

He had not yet even accepted the idea of Morpheus as something that could be killed. And now he must contend with this as well, this bloody human thing.

Barely thinking about it, he steps closer, until he's standing between Morpheus's spread knees, looking down at him. He takes liberties he had always wanted to, slides his hands up Morpheus's throat, cradles his face with thumbs hooked under his jaw to tilt his head up further. Morpheus doesn't stop him. He doesn't even move. Just watches him with that all-knowing gaze, still every inch the king even if he's pulled his kingdom out of himself and given it to another, no longer holding such tight control and instead waiting to see what his creation will do.

"What do you want of me?" he asks.

Corinthian leans down and kisses his god.

His lips are soft. He tastes of tea. Corinthian doesn't get smited by the heavens; no void swallows him whole. He digs his fingers into Morpheus's hair. Sweeps his tongue into his mouth, feels the pulse of blood against his thumbs.

Morpheus doesn't kiss back, exactly, but he does let Corinthian take what he needs from his mouth. And when Corinthian draws back with a nip at his lower lip, Morpheus's eyes are dark and heavy-lidded as if he has drawn some pleasure from it himself.

"I could destroy you," Corinthian murmurs, still close to his lips, even knowing that he could not. "Like this."

Morpheus gazes up at him. "Could you?"

His voice no longer echoes with the distant turning of planets, but Corinthian's being still resonates at its frequency. Perhaps it always will, even if he has a new master now. Corinthian wants him and he could have him, like this, he could debase his former god and make this human body his own; he knows how to bring ecstasy as much as he knows how to bring terror, and he could lay waste, could have Morpheus gasping and begging for it, could deliver his worship and rage at last and ruin him for human lovers. He thinks human Morpheus, hands off all reins, might even invite it. And Corinthian would have him after all of that chasing.

But Dream is gone. That Daniel kid doesn't matter. Corinthian's Dream is gone.

"What do I want from you?" he repeats. Hands still on Morpheus's jaw. "Let me go."

Morpheus smiles, and it's not the smile of a human, but of the creator of horrors and nightmares. It rings a bell of recognition in Corinthian’s ribcage, like calling to like, for all that there is no power in the connection anymore. "I have no leash on you."

Your existence is a hook in me, Corinthian thinks.

He kisses Morpheus again, a flat, chaste, but lingering kiss, then pulls back. When he does Morpheus's expression looks soft, human again, and it's unbearable.  

Corinthian steps back, releasing Morpheus's face. "You're supposed to be dead. Do me a favor, and finish the job."

He turns to go, but Morpheus catches him by the wrist. A light grip Corinthian could easily pull out of, but doesn’t, letting himself by held as much by the lump festering in his throat as by Morpheus’s fingers. "Corinthian."

“What.”

Morpheus kisses the underside of his wrist, a motion that feels both proprietary and beneficent. I don’t need your charity, you half-god thing, Corinthian thinks. He doesn’t pull away, but he also doesn’t look. If he doesn’t look, he can almost pretend that it is Dream kissing him, and that fantasy, that terror, is a well-worn path. If he pretends, then he doesn’t have to stumble through the feral woodland trail that is his king becoming human.

Morpheus’s lips are still brushing his skin when he says, “Even when you went astray, you were always my favorite."

Oh, fuck you, Morpheus, Corinthian thinks. How dare he say such a thing when he left. When he made himself human. When he unmade Corinthian for daring to try the same.

He pulls his hand from Morpheus’s grasp. Doesn't respond, or look back. Maybe he'll return, maybe he won't. Maybe he'll finish the job Morpheus started. Or the one he himself started, in daring to touch his lips.

For now, feeling only more jumbled up than when he arrived, he leaves the flat. Leaves Morpheus to his human life. And lets the door slam shut behind him.

[just-late-roman-republic-things]

Common Misconceptions About the End of the Roman Republic

Julius Caesar was not born by Caesarean section. Romans only performed that procedure on dead mothers, and Caesar's mother definitely lived another 40+ years.

Julius Caesar was almost certainly not Marcus Brutus' father. He was only 15 years older than Brutus, and Servilia was married to someone else.

Caesar's electoral campaign for 59 BCE was funded by his intended co-consul, Lucius Lucceius, not by Crassus. Although Crassus probably loaned Caesar money at other times.

It is not clear whether Caesar and Pompey used armed intimidation to get their legislation passed in 59 BCE, as neither of them had an army at this time, no contemporary source charges Caesar with political violence during his consulship, and only some of their proposed bills actually passed. See Robert Morstein-Marx's Julius Caesar and the Roman People for more.

Caesar was not an ideologue or demagogue, nor was his legislation particularly radical or populist. He was neither a "voice of the working man" nor a fascist. However, the methods he used to get what he wanted, and his refusal to back down at critical moments, were controversial and sometimes illegal.

Caesar was probably not behind the Vettius affair, considering that Vettius had previously attempted to get Caesar killed.

Caesar was also almost certainly not a member of the Catilinarian conspiracy; in fact, he assisted Cicero's investigation of it.

The "first triumvirate" was not an official group in the same way the second triumvirate was, nor did it overwhelmingly dominate Roman politics. Most of the triumvirs' legislation failed after the first half of 59 BCE, and most of their electoral candidates were unsuccessful.

Caesar didn't conquer all of Gaul, since the Romans already ruled the southern coast and Cisalpine Gaul.

Caesar landed on Britain, twice, but did not conquer it.

The Gauls were not "savages," but a diverse and sophisticated collection of tribes with their own agriculture, political systems, artwork, trade networks and more.

Caesar's Gallic Commentaries are mostly reliable for concrete events and dates, but less so for distances, troop numbers, and people's motivations. The Civil War Commentaries are even more biased.

There was probably no serious threat of Caesar being prosecuted if he entered Rome without imperium. His conquest of Gaul had been highly popular (with the Romans) and his laws had been repeatedly upheld by the Senate. See Morstein-Marx again.

Caesar did not go to war "against the Senate" or "against the republic." The Caesarian and Pompeian factions in the Senate were roughly equal in size, and the overwhelming majority of senators preferred peace over either one.

Caesar did not say "The die is cast" or any variant of it while crossing the Rubicon. He had already sent troops into Italy, and the Senate had begun military action against him over a month before.

The civil war of 49 BCE was caused by a mutual breakdown between Caesar, Pompey, and other factions in the Senate, not solely by one man.

Caesar and Pompey's falling-out was not caused by the death of Crassus or Caesar's daughter Julia, which happened years before any evidence of a rift appeared.

Most of the Pompeians were not fighting "for the republic," and Cicero expected a dictatorship to occur no matter which side won.

Caesar was not the first dictator of Rome, or even its first dictator for life; the first dictator for life was Lucius Cornelius Sulla in 82 BCE.

Caesar also wasn't the first Roman general to march on Rome. That's Sulla again, or possibly Coriolanus if you believe he was real.

There is no evidence that Roman armies considered themselves more loyal to their commanders than to the republic until very, very late in Caesar's civil war, when we first hear of soldiers calling themselves "Caesarians" in Spain. Caesar, Pompey, Marius, and Sulla all had to argue their political legitimacy to their troops before they could make them fight other Romans. See Erich Gruen's Last Generation of the Roman Republic for details.

Caesar was killed in the Theater of Pompey; the Senate house had been burned down years before.

Caesar's last words are unknown, although classical sources suggest "Kai su, teknon?" (You too, my son?), "Casca, what are you doing?" "Why, this is violence!" and silence as possibilities.

Caesar is not usually categorized as an emperor by modern sources, but some ancient writers like Suetonius did.

Augustus was not born in August, but in September.

Octavian never went by Octavian. First he was Gaius Octavius (Thurinus), then Gaius Julius Caesar (Octavianus), then added "Divi Filius" and "Augustus" and eventually replaced the first two words with "Imperator."

Cleopatra probably was not killed by a snakebite. She had much more reliable and less painful poisons available.

Cleopatra was not the last pharaoh of Egypt. The last native Egyptian pharaoh was Nectanebo II, the last Ptolemaic pharaoh was Caesarion (Ptolemy XV), and the last Roman emperor recognized as pharaoh was Maximinus Daza.

Augustus' reputation as a coward comes from his enemies. He fought numerous battles throughout his career, including the two he was accused of ducking, Mutina and Philippi. (He fought in the second confrontation for each one.)

Augustus didn't declare himself ruler of Rome. Although he was de facto the ruler, he was officially just "the first citizen" (princeps), a concept that long predated him.

Although initially patricians were the aristocratic class, by the late republic they made up only a minority of the aristocracy; the rest were wealthy plebeian families.

The Senate could not pass laws on its own during the late republic; its legislation had to be ratified by the People's Assembly.

The Roman government was not as democratic as most modern republics, with much less of the population represented, but it did have some popular influence on government policy, and public demonstrations and protests were common.

Roman politicians do not fit into modern political movements like socialism, fascism, or liberalism, or into stable parties like democrats or republicans. Roman politics was driven mainly by personal alliances and rivalries rather than by ideologies.

Although the "Roman empire" is sometimes used to refer to the period when Rome had emperors, Rome had an empire-like system of provinces, conquest, and tribute as early as after the First Punic War in 241 BCE. Julius Caesar and Augustus initiated a change in how Rome was governed, but they did not create Roman imperialism.

Roman women played an active role in politics, particularly in coordinating marriage alliances, communication networks, advocating on behalf of their families, public protests, and diplomatic negotiations behind the scenes.

The late republic was very ethnically and religiously diverse, with many Roman citizens descended from Greeks, Africans, Gauls, Jews, Iberians, and other groups. Mixed marriages and multilingualism were common.

Romans did not categorize sexuality by gender attraction, and most Roman men would not have identified as what we now call heterosexual. See Roman Homosexuality by Craig Williams for details.

Most famous Roman monuments, like Trajan's column and the Colosseum, date to after republican times. During Cicero's era the city was mostly brick and wood.

Historians do not agree on why, or when exactly, the republic "fell." Not all of them believe it was "doomed," either. It's likely that many connected factors, and random chance, played a part.

Suggested sources for learning more:

SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome, by Mary Beard

Cato the Younger: Life and Death at the End of the Roman Republic, by Fred Drogula

Cicero: The Life and Times of Rome’s Greatest Politician, by Anthony Everitt

Augustus: First Emperor of Rome, by Adrian Goldsworthy

Julius Caesar and the Roman People, by Robert Morstein-Marx

Historia Civilis

The History of Rome podcast by Mike Duncan

Everything on my recommendations page

[rubyarrows]

He Knows

YN sat at her desk, nervously fidgeting with a pen. She watched as Tony DiNozzo, her field partner and friend-with-benefit for some time now, strolled off the elevator with his trademark smirk plastered on his face as he walked over to his desk. She took a deep breath, deciding that it was better to get this off her chest before anything else was to happen today. YNN was beyond nervous, but she knew if anyone was going to be able to get through something like this it would be Tony. 

"DiNozzo!" she called out, motioning for him to join her. "Can I talk to you for a minute?" 

Tony raised an eyebrow, his curiosity piqued. "Sure thing, YN. What's up?" 

The YHC haired girl gestured toward the empty conference room nearby. "Let's step into the conference room. It's a bit more private." 

Intrigued by her serious tone, Tony followed her, shutting the door behind them. "Alright, YNN, spill the beans. What's going on?" He questioned her and crossed his arms. “And why are you being so secretive?” 

YN bit her lip, searching for the right words. "Tony, I'm pregnant. And it's yours." 

Tony froze, his eyes widening in shock. "You're... you're pregnant? Are you completely sure?" 

YN nodded, tears welling up in her eyes which at this point not even she could tell if they were happy or sad tears, and neither could DiNozzo. "I couldn’t be surer than I am at this moment. After the four different tests I took within the last twenty-four hours and the random fits of morning sickness I've had to fight off the past few weeks, I promise you, I'm sure." 

Tony's initial surprise quickly melted into a mix of emotions. He ran a hand through his hair, struggling to find his voice. "Wow. I... I don't know what to say." 

YN wiped away a tear, her voice trembling. "You don't have to say anything if you don’t want to. I just thought you should know. It's your decision what to do next." 

Tony took a step closer, reaching out to gently touch her arm. "YNN, you have no idea what this means. This... this changes everything. Not just on an aspect of me and you because God knows I will never let you go through this alone. Especially not when it's my child you’re carrying. But you can’t go out into the field, not pregnant anyway, there’s too many dangers in it. That’s a no from me and when Gibbs finds out it’ll be a hell no from him." 

YN sniffled, mustering a weak smile. "I know. But we’ll get through it." 

Tony nodded, his expression filled with a mix of concern and determination. "Of course, we will." He said and leaned forward and placed a sweet and gentle kiss upon her lips. As they exited the conference room, Tony couldn't help but wonder who else knew about their situation. "Speaking of Gibbs, does he know? Have you told anyone else?" 

YN shook her head, her gaze fixed on the floor. "Not yet. I wanted to tell you first. I thought we should face this together before involving anyone else. But it wouldn’t surprise me if the Gibbs senses were already in of this information before either of us." 

Tony placed a comforting hand on her back as they walked back to their desks. "That's probably for the best. We'll share the news when we're ready, when we've figured things out." 

YN nodded, feeling a sense of relief wash over her. "Yeah, whenever that maybe. Though I'm half expecting to be barred from any of the fun stuff for the time being." 

As she sat down at her desk, McGee and Ziva looked at the two of them curiously. “There anything the two of you want to share?” Agent David asked, looking specifically at YNN with eyebrows raised. 

McGee was quick to put in his input. “Yeah, you guys did disappear in quite a hurry.” 

Agents YLN and DiNozzo looked over at each other and shook their heads. “No. Can’t say that there is.” Tony says and YNN gave a small nod in agreement. “Just had a quick little chat is all.” 

Just like being saved by the bell, in walked Gibbs. “Gear up. Sailor found dead just outside of Norfolk.” Everyone rose from their seats and headed towards the elevator. Well, that was till Gibbs stopped two of them before they made it out of the bullpen. “YN. DiNozzo.” 

Just by the tone in his voice when he said her name, YN knew that her boss knew. She looked at Tony with a I told you so look and then back at Agent Gibbs who was already staring her down despite the gentle expression on his face. 

“Yes, boss.” Tony said as he turned to face the older man. 

Gibbs looked from YN to Tony back to YN. “You know,” YN stated and looked back at Gibbs who nodded. 

“Be keeping an eye on you the past few weeks. You good to go today?” he questioned.  

YN nodded. “I’m good. I’ll let you know if that changes.” 

“Do that. And DiNozzo,” he said and turning to Tony. “Keep an eye on her. Letting YN out of your site is not an option going forward.” 

“Didn’t plan on it,” Tony said and looked over at the girl to his right with a small smile, knowing he would do absolutely anything to keep her and their little one safe. “To be honest if I had the authority to bench her right now, I would.” YNN turned to her partner and gave him a cold look. “Don’t look at me in that tone, it would give me peace of mind.” 

“Good thing it’s not your call then.” she said and turned back to Gibbs. “I’ll promise to always stay within reach of somebody, if that’ll help Mr. Paranoid over here calm his nerves.” 

Gibbs nodded. “Good. We got questions that need answers and a body waiting for us.” 

As the three of them got into the elevator, Gibbs leaned over and whispered, “By the way, congratulations.” 

YN smiled. “Thank you.” 

[black-rose-writings]

Unexpected Consequences (Danny Phantom One Shot)

Also on AO3

Inspired by and referencing the events of this comic by @lilianade-comics

By the time Danny Fenton was four, his parents have gone through all of the available babysitters in the entirety of Amity Park and Elmerton. Well, technically not all of them, but apparently, there is a critical percentage of babysitters scared half to death, at best, which makes all other babysitters turn you down no matter how high the pay.

Of course, in this case, the problem was with the house, not the kids, but the Fentons would not be convinced that their house is anything but the safest place for their children to be. What if a ghost came to the babysitter’s house? How would they defend themselves? Do ignore the fact that their own house was a magnet for ghosts, because that’s exactly what they did.

And it brought them to him.

The last thing Vlad Masters expected to hear during his Thursday dinner was his phone ringing.

Well, that was not entirely the case. He was running a rather large company by then, and he was known to take after-hours calls. Not happily, but it wasn’t as if he had any sort of life outside of work – not one that he could be open about, anyway – and with the global expansion of his enterprises in the last few years, sometimes people simply forgot about the existence of time zones.

He didn’t expect to find his personal phone ringing. A small thing that he modified himself and was fairly certain only his mother and a certain annoying definitely licensed and absolutely not shady or paranormal in any way psychologist had the number for. This was neither of them.

He was sure Spectra would give the number to someone just to piss him off, but no living being (and very few dead ones) even knew of their connection. Which left his mother, whom he did instruct to not give the number to anyone, under any circumstances. Of course, telling a Masters to not do something was entirely pointless if said family member did actually want to do the thing.

He hoped to all Ancients his mother wasn’t trying to set him up with some pretty single girl or a recently divorced single mother from her church again.

And while that prayer had been answered, it was much like making a wish to Desiree – somehow worse than the thing he wanted to avoid.

On the other end of the line was Jack fucking Fenton.

It took considerable willpower to not immediately crush the phone and burn the remains to nothing. He did, however, transform before Jack even finished the first sentence.

What ghost wouldn’t get defensive, hearing the voice of their ghostmaker, for the first time after a decade of silence, talking cheerfully and excitedly? Like he hadn’t killed him with his impatience. Like he hadn’t left him to rot. Like he didn’t turn him into an abomination. Like no time had passed. Like nothing had changed.

How dare he talk like that? How dare he ask for favors?

His ghost half may have been the more emotional one, but there was also a level of confidence and power that it brought. Things that he was going to need if he was to talk to Jack Fenton and not let the oaf know anything was wrong. He was fairly certain the man wouldn’t notice either way, but there was no way to know when Madeline could be listening in.

Jack – no, both of them – were asking for a favor. They needed someone to babysit their kids.

Vlad was vaguely aware the two of them had produced two children – the thought of Jack’s clumsy hands anywhere near Madeline made him see red every time – focus, Vlad.

It seemed the couple had bought a haunted broadcast tower to work in and had transformed it into a livable house (or so they claimed). Unfortunately, it seemed that while the ghosts haunting the tower steered clear of the Fentons, babysitters had no such luck, and neither did their kids – though they taught the kids basics of ghost defense (Vlad didn’t know much about kids, but he was fairly certain ghost fighting skills of any sort were not standard curriculum for four and six-year-olds).

It took Vlad a considerable effort to not send Jack to hell and tell him that it’s their own fault. He thought of Madeline. They were her children too.

Of all the plans he had come up with, of all the ways he considered wooing her, this was not one that had come to him before. Things have changed. They weren’t in college anymore. His Madeline was a mother, now.

Perhaps all he needed was to show Madeline that he was a better parent than Jack Fenton. It couldn’t be that hard, right?

***

If you told Vlad Masters the day he (run from) left the hospital that there would come a day when the love he felt for Madeline was going to be but a distant echo or that he would love children sired by Jack Fenton as if they were his own, he would probably laugh at you.

If you said to him the day he received the notice of the birth of their first child, that he would one day destroy any creature that would even dare to look at her meanly, that he would endure any pain, put himself between any weapon and this child, he might have blasted you to pieces. He would endure. But she was so human. So fragile.

If you told him the day he found out about their second child that one day, that the child would be the first human to find out his secret, he might have just flown over and throttled the baby in its cradle, just to be safe, and felt exactly zero remorse about the action. Nobody would ever know. Babies die all the time. Especially with parents like his.

If you told him the day he received that fateful phone call that one day, he would be the first to hold Danny Fenton after his death, the only way he would imagine such a scenario happening would be he was the one to kill the boy. Why else would he hold Jack Fenton’s son?

If you told him, any time in those 18 years between his transformation and today, that the Fentons would make their own child a halfa with their negligence, he would have nodded along. Perhaps he would have even been excited about finally having someone be like him, someone he could teach, someone who would share the hate every ghost feels for their ghostmaker for Jack Fenton. It didn’t surprise him – they never changed in that way. And if there was some excitement, when he found out, he could never imagine how much it would hurt.

If you had told him how much the second fateful call would hurt, what emotions it would ignite with him, how irreversibly it would alter him, he would have never picked up the first one.

But he picked up both and there was no going back.

***

Danny’s hands were shaking as he carefully put in the numbers into the phone.

He felt so stupid. He knew it was stupid. He knew it, and he did it anyway.

And for what?

He had been so proud when his parents left him alone at home for the whole weekend for the first time, when Jazz convinced them to take a campus tour at one of her top choices for a university.

She was sixteen for god’s sake, she had so much time for that stuff.

So, of course he invited his friends over. Of course his techno geek and goth best friends wanted to see the stupid ghost lab his parents had in the basement.

Of course they dared him to go into the ghost portal. It wasn’t working. Danny knew that. He also knew it was dangerous. If he could avoid touching any of his parents’ stupid invention for the rest of his life, he would. Which was kinda hard when half of the house counted as one of those inventions.

They called him a coward.

Tucker was one to talk. He was afraid of hospitals for no good reason. Danny could name about a hundred reasons why messing with his parents’ tech or ghosts was a bad idea. It didn’t bother him that Tucker called him a coward. They were losers and cowards and that was one of the reasons they were friends in the first place. Okay, maybe it bothered him a little, but he would never admit that.

Sam, though, it hurt from her. The girl seemed to not be afraid of anything and she was fascinated by all things strange and dark. All the things that pissed off her parents. And as much as Danny told himself she was a friend and he didn’t want to make it weird, anyone with eyes could see the giant crush he had on her.

Sam wasn’t afraid of anything. And even though he could name all those reasons for why he shouldn’t do it, why they shouldn’t be in the lab at all, why he just wanted to spend the weekend playing videogames and raiding his dad’s snack hideouts and why that’s exactly what they should do, none of those words came to mind as Sam goaded him.

He never asked to have a weird family. He just wanted to be normal and deal with just the normal kid problems. He just wanted his friends to understand that unlike them, he wasn’t a weirdo by choice.

Maybe he snapped at them a little. Maybe he raised his voice a little. Maybe he called them just as shallow and image-obsessed as the A-listers. Maybe he called them boring and attention seeking. Maybe he cursed them out a little.

Maybe a lot more than little.

And they left.

He sat in the living room, watching the clock, alone.

Of course he was alone. He yelled at his only friends.

And for what?

Maybe they were right. Maybe he was just a coward. The portal wasn’t working. How dangerous could it be?

As the minutes ticked by and he felt worse and worse about what he did, he got up and headed back into the lab.

He put on one of the small hazmat suits his parents had for him. He had meticulously torn off and threw out all of the stupid patches with his dad’s face that the self-obsessed mad scientist put on them, months ago, in the off chance he was forced to wear one outside or near a camera. He knew that Sam would mock him for it. But with his parents inventions, he’d rather be safe than sorry. Or dead. Or worse – a ghost.

The thought terrified him. If his parents were to be believed, ghosts were nothing more than echoes of human minds, twisted, either entirely animalistic or evil. Monsters, wearing the face of the dead.

He didn’t even believe in ghosts. He had memories of them from when he was a kid, but they could have just been dreams. With how much their parents talked about the stuff, of course his mind would haunt him (ha!) with them in his sleep.

He realized Sam had left her new camera on the table. She had shown him and Tucker how to operate it a few weeks earlier when she bought it.

Danny turned it on, started recording and left it on one of the tables, pointed at the portal.

“Hey, Sam, Tucker… here’s to show you I’m not a coward. I’m sorry for yelling at you earlier.”

He waved at the camera, took a deep breath and stepped into the portal.

It didn’t work. How dangerous could it be?

How dangerous could it be?

He couldn’t get that thought out of his head as he stumbled out of the portal. It hurt. It hurt so much. And he wasn’t himself. Not anymore.

Twisted monster wearing his own face. A monster his parents would probably hunt and tear apart for stealing his face, for stealing their child away from them.

He sat on the couch and cried. He wished so much to just be himself again.

He couldn’t be dead, right? Everything hurt. He couldn’t be dead. Ghosts didn’t feel pain.

He looked at his arm, at the formerly black glove, now snow white.

He just wanted to be himself again…

He watched as white light appeared, first around his waist and then travelling along the rest of his body, turning him back into himself.

But his parents said ghosts could sometimes pose as living humans.

He felt his heart beating in his chest, now.

He couldn’t be dead if his heart was beating, right?

It didn’t just moments ago.

The rings.

A memory came up. A memory he dismissed as another dream.

He must have been really small, one of the first times uncle Vlad was watching him and Jazz. He was making smoothies in the middle of the night.

Danny wanted to see what was going on and he saw uncle Vlad, with those same rings around him. His normally silver hair seemed pitch black, before the black rings swept across him and turned him into his normal self. He was too young to have gray hair even now, and more so then. His parents explained that it was because of an accident back when they were in college. And accident with a portal prototype…

Vlad gave him candy to promise to never tell anyone what he saw that night. Danny did very distinctly remember eating it all at once, because he was a four-year-old given an irresponsible amount of candy, and how sick he wound up being after.

He thought the whole thing was just a dream. And maybe it was.

When he looked at his hand, he couldn’t see it. He still felt it there, it still made a dent in the couch pillow, but it was invisible.

Something was very, very wrong and he needed to solve it before his parents got home.

And there was only one person that might have the answers.

He called uncle Vlad.

***

Vlad told him to not panic.

That was easier said than done.

He tried to. He tried to keep himself occupied. He took off the stupid hazmat suit.

He other him was still wearing his.

He wanted to watch the TV, but after the remote phased through his hand and fell beneath the couch, he gave up on that.

He could just go to bed. Vlad lived a few states over. It would take him a few hours to arrive.

Maybe he would wake up in the morning and find out it was just a bad dream.

It couldn’t be. Bad dreams don’t hurt.

Most of the pain had faded by now, though he still felt sore, especially in his own body. The other him didn’t hurt that much – but Danny was scared if he fell asleep in that body, he would never wake up. Not as himself anyway.

He was staring at the living room ceiling as the sun set outside. His whole body felt numb. He was tired, but in a different way than needing to sleep. He didn’t have the energy to get up and turn on the lights.

As the darkness crept up more and more, he realized that he could see in the dark a lot better than he did before.

He felt cold, he realized. Not horribly so, just barely colder than would be comfortable.

Cold like the dead.

A horrible thought crossed his mind.

His parents said ghosts could possess human bodies. Maybe he was already dead, his body growing cold slowly, but he just refused to leave it.

Maybe if he closed his eyes, he would never wake up. He could just let go.

Uncle Vlad would arrive in the morning and find his dead body, laying here on the couch.

A shiver run down his spine, and he would swear a cloud of mist escaped his lips.

Maybe it was just cold in the house, and he was freaking out over nothing.

Then, the light turned on.

He jumped up to see who did it.

Uncle Vlad stood by the door leading from the kitchen, looking him up and down.

It took Danny a moment to realize he was floating and that he didn’t have legs.

Instead, there was a wisp-like tail, moving with a mind of its own.

He may or may not have screamed in shock and moments later, he was back to his old self and hit the couch.

He poked his leg. Solid. Normal.

He gulped and looked up at uncle Vlad.

“Danny…” the man whispered. Danny knew his uncle. His voice was always comforting. It was now, too. But there was something else, that he couldn’t put a finger on. Vlad breathed in as if he wanted to say something, but he didn’t.

He sat down next to Danny and pulled him into a hug.

Uncle Vlad was always warm. Too warm. And he was always super weird about it. But right now, Danny felt the chill that had plagued him since he stepped out of that stupid portal melt away. For the first time since that scream left his throat, he still felt it hurt, he felt like he could breathe properly.

For a moment, it didn’t matter what happened, or if he was some kind of monster now. He felt safe.

He began to cry. He cried into Vlad’s stupid fancy suit, because the man apparently didn’t own any other clothes.

He felt his body tingle the same way it did when he dropped the remote and he feared he would slip from Vlad’s grasp. But he didn’t.

“If you don’t want to hug, you can just say that.” Vlad muttered.

Danny sniffled and looked up at him. “What… what do you mean?”

“Intangibility. But I think you didn’t do it on purpose, did you?”

“I… I don’t know.” Danny admitted. He didn’t want to let go, but he felt like a baby sobbing into his uncle’s chest like that. Vlad run his fingers through Danny’s hair.

“It’s okay. It takes time to learn to control it.” Vlad said. “And I’ll help you in any way I can, little badger.”

“Do you… do you know what…” Danny paused, looking for words, unsure of which question to ask first. “What happened to me?”

Vlad seemed to have just as hard of a time finding words.

“Am I dead?” Danny whispered after a moment.

Vlad sighed. “Yes. But you’re also alive.” Vlad run his hand along Danny’s left arm, where he still felt echoes of the electricity that went through it not so long ago. The electricity that killed him. Vlad let go of him and moved away. Danny didn’t want to let go. He didn’t want to go back to the cold. “I want to show you something.”

“Oh… okay.” Danny muttered, letting.

Vlad took Danny’s hand and placed it over his own heart. Then, he laid his own over the center of Danny’s chest, where the cold was coming from.

“Like this, we’re still alive. Our hearts are beating. We need to breathe. We need to eat and sleep like any other human.” Vlad paused for a moment. “Can you transform?”

“I think so.” Danny nodded. He had tried turning back and forth a few times while waiting for Vlad. All it took was a thought.

Vlad turned, too.

If he looked closely, he could still recognize his uncle. The shape of the nose and face, the stupid goatee. But if he didn’t look for his uncle, he probably wouldn’t see it. The ghost had blue skin, red eyes with no whites or pupils, pointed ears and when Vlad spoke, Danny could see sharp fangs glint inside of his mouth. Even the shape of the body was different – mom said uncle Vlad had never fully recovered from his accident and the resulting hospital stay. It seemed that the ghost half of him had no such problem, and probably much more resembled the shape the man had been back then. And if his human body had been a little too warm, this one was basically a walking space-heater.

“Like this, no heartbeat.” Vlad whispered. “No need to breathe and no need to eat human food, either.”

“What about sleep?”

“Unless you’re in the ghost zone, yes.” Vlad nodded. “But you can’t stay in one form for too long. If you stay human for too long and don’t use any of your powers, they will simply happen on their own, whether you want it or not. And if you stay as a ghost for too long, your human body will weaken.”

“Will it go away?”

“No. This is you, now.” Vlad sighed. “But you’re not alone in this. I’ll teach you. I’ll help you.”

Vlad turned back to his human form again and Danny followed suit. He could now name the feeling that happened when he did. The suddenly loud thump of his heart, the need to breathe.

“What was that… tail thing?” Danny asked. It had been bothering him the whole time.

“Sometimes, ghosts do that, when we’re flying. Not all and not always, but it does make flying a little more effective.”

“Am I a monster, now? Mom and dad said all ghosts are monsters.”

“Your mom and dad are too obsessed with being right that they get a lot of things wrong about ghosts. Ghost are much like people. Some good, some bad, and most just kind of in-between.” Vlad said. “They are… different, though. Their society, their rules and traditions, it’s very different from human ones.”

“Why do I need to know that? I’m not planning on hanging out with any ghosts… except you, I mean.”

“Some of those customs and values are inherent to being a ghost. It will not be right away, but your view on those things will likely change to a more… ghost-like one.” Vlad explained. “But we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.”

“Vlad… do mom and dad know about you? What you are?”

Danny saw Vlad’s eyes flash red. He had seen it before, though he was sure he was imagining things. Often whenever his accident was brought up. Or when dad said something stupid and insensitive – so most of the time dad talked.

“No.” Vlad said after a moment. “No, they don’t know what I am. And they must never find out about either of us. Nobody living can.”

“Why? I mean… yeah, they are ghost hunters, but I’m still their son and you’re still their friend.”

“Are we? Or are we monsters wearing stealing their faces?” Vlad shook his head. “Your parents have very hard time accepting they were wrong about something. What you are… what we are… goes against all of that, all that they think they know. You might be right. Maybe their love for you is stronger than their stubbornness. And maybe it is not. It’s better we never find out.” Vlad sighed, pulling Danny closer to himself again, seeing the boy shivering again. “And they are not the only ghost hunters out there. Even if they do accept us, the others would not be so forgiving. We must be careful to not leave any evidence of what we are.”

“The camera.” Danny exclaimed suddenly.

“What camera?”

“I… I was recording myself when I went into the portal. I wanted to show my friends I was not a coward.” God, he felt even dumber saying that out-loud.

“Is it still in the lab?”

“I think so.” Danny nodded. Vlad stood up and headed there immediately. Danny followed him.

He always knew Vlad seemed to make no sound while he moved. For the first time, Danny understood how.

“High ectoplasm can mess with electronics. If we’re lucky, the recording doesn’t show anything.” Vlad muttered, seemingly talking more to himself than Danny. The camera was still recording while he picked it up. That was not a good sign.

Vlad began to watch the playback of the video. Danny cringed at the awkward intro he did. And then, moments later, a piercing scream echoed through the lab. Danny felt a sharp stab in his chest at the sound. Even through the recording, it was awful.

Vlad’s features seemed to be made out of stone, but somehow, Danny was certain the man was furious. As the figure of ghost Danny emerged from the portal, Vlad closed the camera and his palm erupted in magenta flames.

Danny stepped back.

“You could have just deleted the video.”

“There are ways to recover deleted videos. This is more certain.” Vlad said, the poured the charred dust from his hand into the hazardous waste disposal. When some of it refused to come off, Danny watched Vlad’s hand change – it seemed almost like static on a TV, but in real life. Vlad’s hand was now perfectly clean. “I’ll buy you a new camera.”

“It was Sam’s actually.”

“I’ll buy her a new camera.” Vlad corrected himself.

“Can you teach me how to do that?” Danny asked.

“It will not be possible right away, but once your core settles a bit, it should come naturally.” Vlad nodded. “I promise, I’ll teach you everything I know. But first, dinner. I’m sure you have a million more questions. You can ask them while I cook.”

***

Vlad Masters was not a father. Not that he knew of, anyway.

And Vlad Plasmius wouldn’t even consider exposing himself to such a weakness.

But cores are as fickle as they are stubborn.

Vlad wasn’t Danny’s father, and perhaps in a different lifetime, that would have mattered to him.

It didn’t in this one.

It mattered that the boy he had watched grow up was dead, because of his parents’ negligence.

It mattered that he was alive, stuffing his face full of pasta, badgering him with questions about a subject he had no interest in until that day.

By human law, he was the boy’s godfather and the assigned guardian, should something happen to his parents, just as he was for his sister. Some days, he was tempted to make something happen. Today was one of those days. But he looked at Danny, remembered the conviction with which he claimed his parents would accept him, both of them, even as the abominations they both were now. The boy would mourn. The boy would break. The boy loved his parents, because he was a child and that’s what they do. It was for that look, that conviction, that Vlad held back the inferno rising through his body. The Fentons were lucky their son Remained – had that scream in the portal truly been the boy’s final breath, Vlad knew there would be no holding back.

By ghost rules, however, the boy was his child. Nobody, living or dead, had a greater claim to Danny than he did. Danny couldn’t understand it yet, but the trust he had put in Vlad, the love he held for him, and whatever it was that Vlad felt for the boy in return, had bonded their cores. Perhaps the boy would never realize – his core was so soft and new when the bond formed and would be such a natural part of it by the time Danny would start to understand his core that he wouldn’t even notice it.

Vlad wasn’t sure what he felt for Danny could be called love in the human sense, but after ten years of fighting it, he knew it would be recognized as such by ghosts. Ghost love was like that. Possessive, obsessive, a powerful and unbreakable bond, built on strength and devotion.

Danny was his.

He had let go of his old obsession long ago, perhaps on that fateful night, but he knew the parts of him that still clung to the rage of death would rest easier from now on. In the battle between himself and his ghostmaker, he had won.

[writing0305]

Butcher x F reader with the angst #2 prompt.

Failures.

Pairing: Billy Butcher x F!Reader.

Summary: Butcher is angry with you after you left the boys for a brief while and upon your return to the group, he makes things difficult for you. One mission causes an argument and you both say things to hurt one another.

Warning: Butcher is kinda mean. Swearing.

Prompt: Angst - 2. "You couldn't live with your own failure, and where did that bring you? Yeah, right back to me."

----

I hope the vibe of this one is what you were hoping for! Thank you for the request.

You had been part of the boys for a long time. Not long enough that Butcher could have come up with another name for the group, but still long. You had joined after the death of your sister. She had been killed by a supe and you went down a spiraling warpath to avenge her.

But years later, you couldn’t deal with the way Butcher did things anymore. His warpath was far more dangerous than yours. The risks became unbearable and you left the group. You decided to do things your own way. The safer way. You worked with a branch in the FBSA.

One night you went on a solo mission that took longer than expected and at the time you were moved back into your parents' house. They grew worried when you never returned home, knowing you were on one of your more dangerous missions. They went out looking for you that night and got hit by a drunk driver.

After the funeral of your parents, you went looking for Butcher and rejoined the boys. You knew it didn’t matter how you did this, someone always ended up dead. At least this way, your family members were safer not knowing what you were up to.

Ever since your return, things between you and Butcher had been rocky. Before you left, you two were close and you often found comfort in each other’s beds. You confided in each other about a lot and often leaned on each other for support.

It was gut-wrenching for Butcher to have all that ripped away from him. And till this day, the man still held a fucking grudge against you for it. He was angry at you, and everyone could tell by the way he treated you now in comparison to before you left.

He gave you a hard time about everything, micro-managed and criticised your work, gave you one of the harder tasks and he was a cunt to you nearly half of the time. But you took all of it with grace.

Until one day, when he decided that you had to go into a supe party that was dangerously fucking close to Herogasm. It didn’t have a big name or hundreds of people wanting to join. But it was still a lot of supes fucking willing and unwilling people. It was Herogasm on a smaller scale.

Butcher insisted it would be simple. You just had to go in, get some information on a certain supe you guys were targeting, and then get right back out. He looked past how fucking dangerous it was to send you in there with a bunch of horny super humans.

Frenchy didn’t look past the danger. His eyebrows were tightly knitted together as he shook his head. “I do not like this plan.” He said as he scratched his chin, staring at Butcher with bewildered eyes. He was curious to know if Butcher would truly do something like this to you.

Your jaw clenched as you glared at Butcher, your arms tightly crossed over your chest. “Yeah, me fucking neither.” You agreed with a shake of your head as your eyes squinted at Butcher.

Butcher inhaled sharply as he glanced between you and Frenchy. “Yeah well, when you two starts callin’ the shots around here, ya can start fuckin’ callin’ the shorts around here.”  He snapped as he pointed between you and Frenchy.

“Yeah and who made you boss?” You snapped back at Butcher as you raised your eyebrows, your head tilting to the side.

Butcher’s lips tugged into a lopsided smirk as he leaned in a little closer towards you. “I did luv.” He replied in a low voice as he pointed a hand towards his chest.

You let out a scoff of dry amusement as you shook your head.“This is fucking stupid.” You muttered, still glaring at Butcher.  “I’m not going undercover into a fucking supe orgy party.” you refused with another shake of your head.

“You’re the only one not on every fuckin’ news channel, being called a murderer,” Butcher argued with you. After you had left, all of the boys got burned for killing a supe, and now while they were hiding out in a dusty old basement of an abandoned arcade, nearly every law enforcement in America was searching for them. “So you’re doing this.” He insisted.

“No, I’m not.” You denied with a firm shake of your head, giving Butcher a challenging look as you stepped a little closer to him. “You’re not fucking in charge here, Butcher.” You spat in a low voice.

“Oh, but I am.” He replied as his lopsided smirk returned to his lips.“I call the shots, luv.” He reminded you as his head tilted to the side. “Me, not you.” He said as he pointed at himself before pointing at you.

“Yeah, and that’s why we’re fucking here right now.” You replied with a slow nod of your head and in your peripheral vision, you could see Frenchy and MM share uncomfortable looks with each other. By now they knew when an argument between me and Butcher was about to break out.  “It’s because of you, no one can fucking show their faces.” You snapped as you jabbed your finger against Butcher’s hard chest.  “This is your fucking failure!”

“Oh you want to talk about my failures, do you?”  He questioned as he shifted on his feet, quirking an eyebrow as he stared down at you. “Let’s talk about yours because there is a fuckin’ lot, luv.” He replied in a low voice.

“Hey Butcher, easy man,” MM spoke up as he took a step forward and held a hand up to signal Butcher to stop before he’s even had the chance to rip into you.

Butcher slowly shook his head, not even sparing MM a look as his gaze remained on you. “No, she wants to talk.” He said before spreading his arms out by his sides. “Then let’s fuckin’ talk.”  He insisted.

“Fuck you, Butcher.” You gritted out in a low voice. “This is why I didn’t want to come back.” You whispered as you slowly shook your head. You saw how Butcher could be and you saw how angry he was when you decided to leave. You knew coming back wouldn’t be easy and for a second you hesitated on the decision.

“Then why did ya?” He asked as he raised his eyebrows, an angry expression on his face.

You inhaled sharply, your gaze diverting as you slowly shook your head. You couldn’t bring yourself to admit you needed him or his help. You couldn’t admit to him that he was right when he told you not to leave. “I should have never come back. Not to this group and especially not to you!” You yelled as your finger jabbed against his chest once again.

“Yeah well ya fuckin’ did.”He snapped at you as his jaw clenched. "You couldn't live with your own failure, and where did that bring you? Yeah, right back to me." He taunted you without thinking about his words first. He regretted them immediately.

Your face dropped at his words and he, Frenchy, and MM realized he just fucked up badly. Tears filled your eyes and Butcher’s heart ached at the sight. “Fuck you.” You whispered before turning around and storming upstairs to the abandoned arcade, sitting down on one of the benches.

MM turned to face Butcher with a frown tugging at his lips. “Hey man, that wasn’t cool.” He muttered with a shake of his head, “We need her, you need her, so go fix that shit right now.” He demanded as he pointed towards the stairs. “And she ain’t going to that fucking party.” He demanded with a shake of his head.

Butcher stared at MM silently for a second before sighing deeply. He turned around and followed you upstairs. He watched you as you silently sat on the bench. “Y/n…” He called out softly as he approached you.

You closed your eyes at the sound of his voice, sniffing away your tears. “Just fuck off, Butcher.” You pleaded softly as you shook your head at him.

Butcher didn’t listen. He approached you and hesitantly sat down next to you. He clasped his hands together and stared down at his feet. “Look, I was bein’ a dick in there, I’m sorry.” He apologized softly.

Your eyes fluttered open and you silently stared ahead of yourself. A single tear slipped down your cheek. “You’re right…” You whispered as you pursed your lips.

“No-” Butcher began speaking up as he shook his head but you cut him off before he could say anything else.

“Yes, you are.” You argued with him as you shook your head as well. “I thought I could do all this differently. I thought I didn’t need you or any of the guys.” You whispered as you sniffed, wiping at your teary eyes.  “And that just got my parents killed.” You muttered.

“It wasn’t ya fault.” He insisted as he reached out and placed a gentle hand on your thigh. His touch didn’t make you uncomfortable, it only reminded you of all the old times when he could barely keep his hands off you.

“Yes, it was.” You argued again. “They went looking for me because I was on a fucking suicide mission. If I just…stayed away, they wouldn’t have worried about me, gotten into the car…they wouldn’t have been hit that night.” You began ranting as your nose scrunched up and the tears began running down your cheeks as you sighed softly.

Butcher stared at you silently for a second before moving his hand off your thigh and then wrapped his arm around your shoulders. He pulls you into his side, rubbing your arm like he always used to when he was comforting you about something. “Ya couldn’t have known.” He whispered as he rested his head against yours.

“After my sister, you told me how important it was to keep the people you love, as far away from this shit as possible.” You muttered softly as you rested your head against his shoulder. “I didn’t listen and I failed.”  You admitted your fault.

Butcher unwrapped his arm from your shoulders and cupped your face between his hands. “Y/n, look at me.” He demanded as he tilted your head back until your gaze met his. “It wasn’t ya fault.” He insisted with a firm shake of his head.

You stared into his hazel eyes through blurred vision. “I need you, Butcher.” You admitted softly. “Because if I do this on my own…more people are going to die.” You insisted as you sniffed again and slowly shook your head. “I know that…it’s why I came back.”

He stared at you silently for a second before nodding his head in understanding. His arms wrapped around you and he pulled you into a warm hug, resting his chin on top of your head.

“And together, we’re goin’ to make every last one of those cunts pay.” He assured as one of his hands rubbed your back.

You nodded in agreement and stayed in his warm embrace for a while longer before you pulled away. “I just need a dress for to-” You began speaking as you went to stand up.

Butcher cut you off by grabbing onto your hand and pulled you back down to sit next to him.

“Nah, you ain’t goin' to that fucking party.” He refused with a shake of his head, knowing how wrong it would be to send you there. Knowing he’d never forgive himself if anything happened to you in a place like that. “Not with those filthy bastards.”

You turned to look at him, pursing your lips. “It’s the only way we can get the information we need.” You muttered softly as you slowly shrugged your shoulders.

Butcher shook his head again as he reached out to rest his hand on your thighs. “Just like you sometimes need to do things to protect the people ya love…you sometimes gotta not do things, to protect the people ya love.” He explained softly as he gave your thigh a squeeze.

You silently stared at him for a while, your lips parting, eyes squinting and eyebrows furrowing. And then a smile tugged at your lips. “Is that you being…sweet?” You asked softly, a hint of teasing in your voice.

“Don’t ya fuckin start.” He huffed softly as he bumped your shoulder with his own. You chuckled softly as you glanced at him. He stared at you, offering you a brief smile before it disappeared as he sighed, lowering his gaze to the floor. “I’m sorry what I said in there.” He apologized softly. “You ain’t fail anything or anyone.” He insisted with a shake of his head.

You reached out, placing a hand over his. “I’m sorry too.” You whispered as you wrapped your hand around his, holding onto it.

Butcher’s gaze diverted to your hands, being reminded of all the old times. At that moment, he fucking hated himself for how angry he had been with you. But he also realized why he was so angry. He didn’t want you to come back. He wanted you to abandon this life altogether. “You were right about one thing.” He muttered softly.

Your eyebrows furrowed as you turned your head to look at him. “What?” You asked softly, your voice filled with confusion.

“Ya shouldn’t have come back.” He voiced his thoughts as he slowly shook his head. “You’re too good for this shit.” He insisted as he met your gaze.

You shook your head. ”I need to do this too.” You insisted as you sighed deeply.

Butcher nodded in understanding before briefly shaking his head. His hand moved up from your thigh and cupped your cheek once again. His thumb brushed over your skin. “I ain’t want you to get hurt.” He admitted softly.

Your heart fluttered at his words and you slightly leaned into his touch. The softest smile tugged at your lips. “You’re really getting into the sweet thing, huh?” You asked softly as you quirked an eyebrow at him.

Butcher rolled his eyes, visibly biting back a smile that wanted to tug at his lips. “Fuck off.” He huffed before wrapping his arms around your shoulders and pulling you against his chest once again. You rested your head on his shoulder, your hands reaching out to hold onto his coat.

Things between you and Butcher would not heal quickly, but this was the start of something. And neither of you would ever allow it to go this bad again.