#people are losing their jobs for speaking up. having targets painted on their backs. but guysss not spending money is sooo hardd wahhhh | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

weepingvoidpenguin · 3 years

Text

One of Your Favorites

Jealous Bucky x Reader

Summary: You have an objective. Get Rumlow to confess. Simple enough, right? No. Aside from his usual condescending attitude towards you, Bucky has made it extremely apparent that he doesn’t think you’re capable of - well, anything, but especially not handling Rumlow. And yet, he is the biggest challenge of this entire ordeal.

Warning: T R I G G E R WARNING!! ATTEMPTED SA, DRUGS, language, light smut. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE DO NOT READ IF SA WILL TRIGGER YOU.

Word Count: 8.3k

“We have good intel stating he’s working as a double agent for HYDRA. Selling information, exploiting tactics, even going so far as to tell them where we’ll be and when.” Natasha scanned the room, making sure she had everyone’s attention during the briefing.

You slouched back in your swivel chair and twisted to-and-fro slightly with your hands gripping the arm rests on either side. It took all of your willpower to act engrossed in her words. And you meant every single drop. You’d been paying attention, sure, but the only issue was the dominating presence two seats to your right and directly in your line of sight to Natasha. You rolled your chair to the left to clear the path for the third time, only for him to block your way without missing a beat. The growl that left your mouth was nearly involuntary. Nearly.

How long would this man act like a child? Despite his graceful and seemingly unsuspecting movements, you were fully aware his placement was intentional. This was not the first, nor did you doubt that it would be the last, time that Bucky acted impudently toward you. Frankly, you’d grown bored of his behavior. It was the same thing everyday. He would act a nuisance during the briefings, speak over you whenever he had the chance, steal the limelight from you and invalidate any concerns or thoughts you shared. The whole charade grew tiring and he had been dancing on thin ice for months now.

You averted your gaze from burning holes through the freshly washed, brown locks and switched your attention back up to the redhead. Thankfully, too, because you managed to catch the end of her sentence just as she locked eyes with you.

“And that’s why Y/N is going to be the one to extract the information from him,” she finished.

You blinked, “Wait, what?”

Bucky straightened his posture and threw a quick glance your way, “Yeah, what? She’s got no heat, couldn’t toast marshmallows if we gave her all day. She shouldn’t lead this, she wouldn’t know how,”

“Well, tonight might be a good time to start learning, then,” Steve chimed in, throwing a wink your way. You smiled and appreciated his aid, not because you needed it but because at this point, you were seething and if you opened your mouth to defend yourself this meeting would go south, quickly. Luckily, Steve always believed you were capable of a great deal of things and knew you strove for more experience so any opportunity to lead or expand was one he thought you should take.

“Besides,” Tony spoke up, twirling a platinum pen between his fingers from across the table, “our little double-agent has always had the hots for Y/N so unless you’re gonna be the one to bat your eyelashes at him and get him alone in a room, Mr. Barnes, we have to use his own flaws against him.” He turned to face you and held up a hand, “Not to say that liking you is a flaw, you’re great Hot-Stuff but exploiting him is our best option indefinitely,”

“Do I have to seduce him?” You huffed, crossing your arms over your chest and raising a brow towards Nat, trying your damned hardest to avoid the unmistakable glare the brown-haired super soldier was sending your way.

“The only thing you have to do is extract any information on him that you can. Get him a little drunk, catch him in a slip-up or two, take note of any inconsistent stories and be on your merry way,” she reassured, “How you manage to do that is up to you,”

“Ooh, extortion,” Clint chirped up from the far back corner, his hands rubbing together maliciously around an arrow he pulled from his sheathe, something you noticed he did a lot when he was uninterested; be it a person, mission, or conversation.

“No. Not extortion,” Steve shut it down and you chuckled at how Clint’s countenance fell into one of disappointment.

“Not yet anyway,” Natasha mumbled and you sighed as she walked around the room and handed each of you a folder with your individual objectives inside.

“But he’s such a pervert,” you grumbled.

“All the easier,”

The rest of the day was drudged with Nat while she taught the pertinence of body language (both yours and theirs), verbal ruses, and overall ensnarement. You bat your eyelashes until you were certain you would catch enough wind to fly away, smirked enough that your cheeks began to ache and raised your eyebrows ‘til you felt the impending wrinkles on your forehead. By the end of the drill you weren’t sure you were even going to make it to the company party from the migraine creeping its way on.

“How’s the bait coming along?” His voice alone caused you to roll your eyes but you paid no mind while you rubbed at your temples and stood up alongside Natasha.

“She’s not gonna be able to lie to me any time soon but she can flirt her way to whatever she wants,”

“Benefits of targeting a narcissistic misogynist, they don’t think anyone can fool them.” Tony belted as he sauntered into the room with strawberries, offering them out to you while he munched on one.

“She’ll still mess it up,” Bucky countered, “Make someone else do it,”

You plucked the fruit off Tony’s tray and examined it, trying to figure out whether you were going to consume it or use it as a weapon.

“I really appreciate your words of encouragement, James. Unfortunately, they’re not wanted, nor are they needed.” You bit into the fruit and glided towards the door, looking over your shoulder at the super soldier, “So unless you actually have something to contribute, I suggest you stay the hell out of my way while I get the job done,”

Nat walked out behind you and handed you a tiny, skin-colored device meant to conceal itself and you placed it in your ear.

“The conversation is gonna be recorded so we can catch any inconsistencies. We’ll all be able to hear what you’re saying so tread on delicate waters but don’t be afraid to shake mountains if you have to,”

You nodded and opened your door for her to enter your room knowing she’d want to help you get ready for the event. Natasha, shocking as it turns out, enjoys company while preparing for events. She would much prefer to be surrounded by people than be alone. You never had gall to ask her why that is. Or maybe you respected her too much to ask.

An hour had passed, maybe two, but you enjoyed the silence between you both. There was no need to fill the empty quiet when it was so comfortable and welcoming. You two spoke without words at times and that was probably your favorite personal skill. Eventually, there came a knock on your door and you opened to find Wanda with her flat iron and make-up bag in tow. It’d long since been decided that your room was the gathering center.

Wanda helped you finish touching up your outfit and you waited on your bed while they finished getting ready. Nat occasionally quizzed you on certain situations and how you should act depending on the tones and moods of the conversation. You tried to explain that you didn’t have difficulty reading a room but Nat tested you all the same.

“And if he puts his hand on your thigh?” She called out from your bathroom.

“Then he loses it,” you practically sang in response.

You were met with a flying hairbrush and laughed at the onslaught.

“You’re not the only one with that mentality,” Wanda called out as well, her iron glossing over thin strands of hair.

“Nat knows I can handle myself.” You sat up on the bed and went over to your closet to collect your favorite pair of shoes to go along with the formal attire Nat selected for tonight. “What a coincidence that we happen to have a company party the same night we have to extract information,” you hollered over your shoulder, moving aside terribly worn shoes while you scoured for the pair you had in mind.

“This objective has been in the works for weeks now,” Nat released the tendril of hair from around the barrel and pinned it to her head so it could cool.

“Wow, thanks for the heads up, then.” You gripped the desired pair and placed them beside your nightstand for later.

“The plan wasn’t solid until we knew for a fact that Rumlow was coming. It’s a company party so it’s not mandatory but once he heard you were making an appearance, it didn’t take very much persuading,”

You rolled your eyes and plopped back down on your mattress, “He’s so annoying, I doubt I can hold much of a conversation with him,”

“Take a shot or two to ease your nerves, if he sees you drinking it’ll put him at ease too. He’ll be more inclined to drink,” Natasha recommended. “But don’t act too out of character. If you were always curt and short with him and suddenly you start acting over-friendly, he may get suspicious. He’s an idiot but he’s a paranoid one,”

You nodded, taking a mental note to have a half-empty bottle in your grasp when Rumlow arrives. If he thinks you’ve already been drinking, he might also consider catching up.

“Y/N? Not uptight for once?” Wanda sarcastically questioned. “I can’t picture it,”

“Oh, fuck off,” you grumbled and in turn received laughter from the two girls. “Besides, of all of us I’m by far the least uptight. Barnes takes the cake for that one,”

There was a beat of silence that you didn’t register before you were met with a response.

“Ya know, he’s not as bad as you paint him out to be.” Nat unpinned the curl from her head and moved on to the next section, “He’s got some serious loyalty and always willing to volunteer first for everything,”

You lifted your head to stare at her reflection through the mirror, “What are you talking about? He’s annoying and irate and lacks a filter,”

“Mmm, irate isn’t the word I would use,” Wanda countered, looking over to Natasha.

Nat shook her head in response, “I’d lean more towards . . . over-protective,”

“Much better,” Wanda agreed.

You squinted your eyes at their image and felt the corners of your lips turn downwards, “Over-protective? Since when are you two defending Barnes?”

“We’re not defending him, per say.” Wanda glanced over to Nat, “We’re just trying to give you a fresh perspective,”

“You could give me a brand new pair of eyes and I’d still see him the same,” you retorted, now leaning on your elbows due to the strain on your neck.

They ignored the comment, “And he’s only annoying to you,”

“You’re telling me he doesn’t annoy you at all?” You asked, an eyebrow raised.

“More like . . . he doesn’t go out of his way to mess with us.” Nat applied a nude color onto her lips.

“So you agree that he goes out of his way to irritate me,” you stated rather than asked.

“That’s been made very apparent,” Wanda responded. “But you have to wonder why,”

You huffed a little and sprawled back out on the bed just to result in staring at the ceiling above. If you looked hard enough your mind would create pictures from the chaos of the cracks and shapes began to form. Sometimes, when the night lay still and life seemed to dwindle at the edges of your reality, you could swear a familiar face fashioned together and your imagination ran wild with the images you’d see. Some that brought a warmth to your cheeks even now.

You shot up out of bed and shook the memories from your vision. Ugh. He haunts you even when he’s not actively tormenting you. How he’s managed to crawl his way so deeply within your skin you had no idea but you fought for control of your thoughts whenever you caught them slipping into that hellhole.

“Or slipping into euphoria,” Wanda chimed in.

“Wanda!” You scolded, crossing your arms, “Euphoria my ass,”

“Yeah, he thinks so too,” she continued and you chucked the abandoned hairbrush back their way.

“Stay out of my head,” you jokingly sniped at her but was met with a low chuckle.

“I didn’t even have to be in your head to know what you were thinking of,” Nat defended and caught your weapon of choice.

“Are you guys done yet?” You rolled your eyes and stretched yourself out before swiping up the pair of heels you’d chosen and sliding them onto your feet.

“Why? Are you in a hurry to see a certain someone?” Natasha teased and Wanda let out an eruption of laughter.

“All right, I’m done.” You made a beeline for the door and threw it open, “Lock up when you’re finished!” You bellowed over your shoulder and made your way to the top floor of the building where all the parties are typically held.

You didn’t run into anyone on the way up and you used that time to calm yourself, prying inch by inch away from the invasive thoughts that called for you in the darkest hours of the night. But, then again, maybe those tormenting thoughts weren’t that bad? You mean, he certainly IS handsome, very much so actually. And he has the most knee-wobbling smirk you’d ever come to know, not to mention those little tricks he does with his knives always manage to entrance you. God, did he know how to use a knife.

On more than one occasion had you caught yourself staring at how his hands encapsulated the hilt of the blade. How they clenched and relaxed, drawing out some of the more prominent veins on one of the extremities; of course, you were even more so enticed by the hand he hid as well. You’d imagined what it felt like to have such strong hands grip onto your thighs and coax you into spreading them open with just a few teasing touches here and there. You couldn’t fathom the front you’d put up would last very long, he was stellar at pulling reactions from you. He’d see you break under his caresses and he’d degrade you like he always did but this time it’d emit a different response from you, one that made you whimper and shake. At that, he’d probably call you a good girl, he definitely seems the type to switch between degradation and praise, and would press his mouth up just where you wanted it the most. You’d try your hardest to be quiet but damn the way that tongue moved against you and the way he’d pull you harder against his face at each sound of pleasure you let slip past your lips. He’d enjoy it, too. Eyes closed as he devours you, he likes to put on a show for you to watch. Give you a memory that’ll slick your thighs later that night if he hadn’t fucked you into a coma by then. He’d make you watch him and if you dared to close your eyes you’d earn a firm, cold smack on your ass. He knows you like when he uses temperature play. He growls a little too, he can’t help his innate behavior. Then, just as the accumulation is coming to its apex he’d pull away abruptly and kiss you straight on your mouth so you can taste yourself and that’d earn him another whimper which would result in another smack that leads to that cold metal trailing its way to your core and just as he pushes the tip of his finger inside-

You cough and straighten your posture as the elevator door opens. When had you leaned up against the back wall of the elevator? Oh Gods, you could feel the slick at the apex of your thighs and you squeezed them together as inconspicuously as you could in fear that you were producing a . . . scent that would be rather difficult to conceal. But the slick only grew worse when you locked eyes with the person stepping into the elevator.

Fuck.

“That’s what you chose to wear?” He asked, a certain venom in his tone that immediately calmed the ache in your heat.

“And what would you have me wear instead, Barnes?” You quipped back, your body facing forward as he took his place beside you in the cramped space.

There was a beat of silence. Then another. “Not that,” he responded.

“Well I’ll make sure to ask you next time since you have such impeccable taste,” you retorted, your eyes yet to abandon the sight of the closing doors.

You weren’t sure of all the effects of the Super Soldier Serum that had been injected into Bucky and all that it heightened but you prayed to any God that would listen that his hearing wasn’t one of those things. You were too preoccupied with attempting to settle the hot pulse beating between your legs to worry about how loud your discomfort came across.

“What do you look so nervous about?” Bucky’s gruff voice prodded. “You can’t possibly be nervous about the mission considering how big-headed you are,”

You took a deep, long breath and held it to soothe you. Had you not been so previously preoccupied, you’d have given him hell for the insult. “I’m not nervous about that,” you sniped and rested back against the cool wall to satiate your burning skin before lifting your gaze to him only to find him already examining you.

“Of course not, I just said that,” he retorted, bringing a gloved hand to his face to rub along his jaw, “there’s obviously nothing for you to worry about,”

You scoffed, “And why is that, Barnes?” Cue the dramatic crossing of your arms.

“You’re smarter than Rumlow and significantly better trained. Overall, he really doesn’t hold a candle to your ability,” He paused for a second, his whole frame tensing until he remembered to relax, “But that’s not really saying much considering it’s Rumlow,”

You hadn’t noticed you raised your eyebrows until you felt your face fall, “Ah, there he is. You had me worried there for a second, Barnes. Thought you might actually try something new and display common decency for once,”

A corner of his mouth turned up subtly and he shook his head. You trailed your gaze down to his hidden hand and stared long enough to burn a hole through the fabric.

“If something’s bothering you, Dollface, go ahead and speak up,”

You weren’t sure what possessed you to say anything, especially knowing how touchy the subject was for him but the words left your mouth anyway, “I don’t know why you insist on hiding yourself,”

He lurched his head back, your statement seeming to have a physical affect on the man and you mentally slapped yourself for saying anything.

“I’m not hiding myself,”

“But you are,” you interrupted, your thoughts coming out in pools of candor, “you aren’t your hand. You aren’t your past. You are you. Presently. You’re not the Winter Soldier anymore. That’s not even the same hand you had back then. It’s not tainted and neither are you. I say drop the gloves,”

“And why would I care about what you say?” He growled, his eyebrows furrowed together and his neck tight in potential restraint.

The elevator dinged and you looked towards the opening doors, “You don’t have to but they don’t look right with your suit either.” You walked through the exit and sauntered over to the others who had already gotten the party started, leaving Bucky dumb-founded behind you. “I need a shot,”

“Already ready,” Tony quipped up, holding the small glass in the air for everyone to behold before bringing his cheek to yours in mock welcoming, “This’ll up your tolerance for the next hour, try to get all your drinking done within that time-frame,”

You pulled away with a warm smile after faux kissing his cheek, “Finally!” you displayed and threw the liquid back in one swift motion, your face scrunching together against your will.

“Yeah, she’s got a kick to her,�� he mumbled and handed you a fruity drink to chase it down with.

You went around and said hi to everyone as you recognized most of those present. You made small chatter with those lesser known and drank the liquid in your hand significantly quicker than you’d like to. You excused yourself after you finished the drink and walked over to the bar, scanning the room as you were handed another glass. No Rumlow in sight.

You headed towards the foosball table and gripped the handles after setting the beverage down on the counter beside you. You flinched as a reflection of light caught your eye and at first you thought your glass was the source. Until your eyes fixated on the reflection’s actual origin. To your far right, and up a few steps you found Bucky conversing with Steve, a dull light emitting from his hand. Not a glove in sight.

“So, where’s your boyfriend?” Sam inquired when he filled the opposing spot.

You rolled your eyes, “Bucky’s not my boyfriend,”

“Bucky?” Sam’s tone chirped up teasingly, a knowing look wearing on his face.

Your grip tightened around the handles and you slowly pulled away to throw the little white ball through the circle, your hands immediately twisting the miniscule players around. Your eyes shot back and forth, your sight never leaving the darting sphere. Sam still managed to win the first point.

“Ha!” He shouted in triumph, bringing his finger up as if to scold you, “Don’t think you got away with that comment either, Y/N,”

“What comment?” you questioned and gulped most of your drink before slamming it back down on the table.

You heard your earpiece come to life with quiet static and you tried to keep your face masked. Rumlow had entered. Not a surprise either, the party was finally starting to pick up now.

Sam threw the ball in and you turned the players meticulously this time, brute strength hadn’t helped you earlier so maybe you should take it slow. Steve made his way over to the table and threw his drink back, the liquid trickling down the side of his face before he wiped it away. Sam won the second point.

“I play winner,” Tony chimed, standing beside Steve.

You made a point to catch up and now you two were tied at three each.

“Best out of five?” You proposed, quirking an eyebrow at Sam.

“If you didn’t want to play anymore you could’ve just said that,” he teased and you smirked at him as Tony made a subtle show of handing you another drink and you finished your second. “Loser takes two shots?”

“Deal.” You nodded, knowing you didn’t have much of a choice as a small crowd began to form around you two. Rumlow amongst them.

Your jaw dropped when Sam shot the ball directly into your goal as soon as he’d let the ball go.

“What the fuck?” You shouted, “No fair! That doesn’t count!”

Thor erupted in laughter to your right and you blinked slowly, staring at the gargantuan man.

“It most certainly does,” Sam shouted back, his grin practically touching his ears.

“Sam, take it easy on her,” Bucky muttered from beside him, quickly averting his gaze from yours and his expression loosened, “The brat hates losing,”

“Brat?” You snarled.

Bucky took a swig of his beer, watching you the entire time and you reeled back the fire beginning to form in your chest just to bring your drink up to your lips and chug the entire thing down. You handed it over to Tony who left to replace it.

“Last point,” Sam stated, “It’s not too late to quit now,”

You shook your head and blinked away the feign distortion you were supposed to have. “Just play the ball,”

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” he teased and threw the ball in.

You wanted to win. Desperately. But you had a character to play tonight and she was supposed to be drunk. So you hit your hand against the corner of the table just as Sam happened to make the winning point. You grumbled and threw him a glare when Tony broke through the crowd.

“Coming through,” he shouted, handing two small glasses to you while you gripped your knuckles in pain. “Noooo, you’re not getting out of taking these. C’mon, take your punishment,”

“Yes, Daddy,” you grumbled and cringed at your own words when the realization hit you. Whatever. You were supposed to be drunk, anyway.

“Daddy?” Tony quipped and pulled the drinks back towards himself, “Maybe you should be cut off,”

“What?” You argued, leaning slightly on the table with your hand and snatching the drinks from Tony’s hold, effectively spilling some on yourself. “See?” You lifted up the half empty shot glass, “This barely counts as a shot,”

“I’ll get her a new one,” Rumlow offered and disappeared before anyone could argue.

“She really doesn’t need another-” Bucky tried to interject and take the shots from you but you twisted around and chugged down the one full glass.

Water.

You looked up at Tony and his smirk was barely noticeable. But you could tell. Bucky nearly ripped the other drink from you but Tony blocked his path and you exaggerated your next drink as Rumlow broke back into the crowd, shot in tow.

“Here.” Rumlow’s calloused hand held the drink up above you and you stared at him with a questioning look. “Open,” he ordered and the fire burning in your chest fought to destroy everything in its vicinity. You bit your lip in refrain but tossed your head back and opened your mouth.

Static broke over your earpiece. Don’t drink that! Wanda’s voice erupted.

Your eyes widened as the liquid made its way down but you coughed hard to stop whatever you could.

Why? Steve’s voice came through right after.

You choked on the liquid and shut your eyes at the way it burned its way down. You reached your hand out to grab someone’s drink to ease the burning and grasped a tall glass and tossed it back. The burning didn’t ease up and you felt a hand rest on your back.

“Are you okay?” Rumlow’s voice rang out and your skin nearly recoiled from the contact, “How about we get you some water?”

You looked up at him when the burning subsided minimally and nodded your head, letting him lead the way to the bar. He parted the crowd and someone took step right behind you to follow when the presence suddenly died out abruptly. You turned around to check who it had been and found no one.

Why? Steve asked again.

Where’s Wanda? Bruce broke through.

You lifted your head and flitted your gaze around the room until you found the familiar Sokovian on the couch, laying down with her eyes closed. You pulled away from Rumlow but his grip on your hand tightened and his steps grew in haste. You whirled your head to yell at him but the way the room swayed with the movement cause you to shut your mouth in surprise.

Didn’t Tony say you would have a higher tolerance?

“Couch...” you muttered, pointing over your shoulder just in case your target was curious enough to ask but the message was delivered.

Rumlow hoisted you up onto the bar stool and stood on your open side, using his body to keep you from falling over. Or to cage you in.

“I don’t feel good,” You rested an elbow on the countertop and held your head up.

“I can’t imagine you would. You’ve been chugging those drinks like they’re water.” Despite that, Rumlow motioned to the bartender and asked for two more.

You giggled and your head lulled forward with the action. You let Rumlow catch you from tumbling over. Why did your body feel so heavy? Not to mention the way everything around you dazed about. You couldn’t catch a single action, let alone attempt to read Rumlow’s body language. But you did happen to notice the way his eyes searched the room before coming back to you.

“You okay?” You rested your forearm against his chest and pushed slightly to allow yourself a better view of his face.

A small smirk, “Am I okay? What about you?”

You smacked your lips and brought the ice cold glass to your lips. That’s not water. “I’m doing reeaalllyy good,” you drawled.

Rumlow chuckled and pushed you deeper into the chair, “I can tell.” He took a sip, his attention never faltering from your body, “Just be sure to pace yourself from here on out,”

You made a show of cocking your head to the side and letting a smile sprawl onto your face as you studied him.

“What?” he questioned, a curious lift in his brow.

You shook your head gently and kept your gaze on him over the brim of your glass, “You’re just . . . not what I was expecting,”

“And what were you expecting?”

Don’t forget to bat your eyelashes. “Worse,”

“Sorry to disappoint,” he jeered, his attention once again cast throughout the room before centering back on you.

You followed his action but quickly came to the conclusion that moving any pace faster than a sloth was going to make you nauseous and you could barely keep a thought together. Your stomach began to rise in your chest and the fear seized your throat shut. Why couldn’t you hold onto a thought for longer than a second? It was like you were aware of your lack of consciousness but could do nothing about it because any thought or bout of panic phased through just as soon as it arrived.

“What are you so tense for, Rumlow? You know you’re not currently on the clock, right?” You teased, your head leaning on your shoulder as you spoke.

He brought his drink up to his lips and finished it off in three gulps, “I’m not tense. It’s just hard to turn it off sometimes,”

You nodded slowly and pushed your drink towards him, “Relax. You know everyone here,”

He shook his head and placed your drink back in front of you before asking for another beer.

“And two shots!” You shouted to the bartender, throwing two of your fingers high up and instantly regretting how fast you’d done it.

“Are you trying to get me drunk?” He asked you, a side smirk beginning to form.

You placed your finger over your lips and hushed, “Shh, I won’t tell if you don’t.” You dragged your lower lip down and his eyes fixated to commit the scene to memory. “Besides, I always feel dumb if I’m the only one drunk,”

He motioned to the rest of the party, “Believe me, Sugar, you’re not the only one enjoying yourself,”

“But are you?”

“Am I what?”

“Enjoying yourself?”

Your skin crawled when he placed his rough hand on your barren thigh, “Absolutely,”

Don’t forget what you’re here for. Don’t let the objective slip. Gods, how the fuck were you supposed to retain anything when you were so sleepy? And why was it so warm?

“Hot,” you mumbled, fishing around in your glass for an ice cube to rub on your face.

“Thank you,”

You threw your head back in laughter and nearly earned yourself an up-close and personal view of the floor had Rumlow not wrapped an arm around your waist and held you steady. Once he was certain you weren’t going to toss yourself onto the ground, he parted your legs and stood between them to keep you rooted to your seat.

All the movement had you spinning and you white-knuckled Rumlow’s cotton shirt to keep yourself grounded to something, anything. Red warning lights were firing up in your chest and you tensed with the way your body buckled to the panic coursing through you. Your heart pounded in your ears and danced across your skin, lighting it on fire and making the room too stuffy to bear. Please, no. Not now. Focus. Snap out of it. Come back, stay back. Your breathing hitched and you looked down at the sensation crawling its way up higher on your thigh. Too hot. Everything was too hot, if you didn’t get out of this now you would never-

“Vision!” You cheered, happy to see your friend.

The presence on your thigh recoiled slightly.

“I’m taking Wanda to her room, seems she’s had a bit too much to drink,” Vision informed and you’d only just then noticed the body in his hold.

“Wanda!” You smiled, admiring her peaceful features as she slept in his arms. You poked at her cheek then jerked your gaze back up to Vision. “What? Wanda doesn’t drink,”

She’s not acting, Sam’s voice erupted in your ear and you flinched at the sound.

Vision’s eyes went from you to Rumlow then back to you slowly, “Y/N . . . are you okay?”

You beamed at him and slowly brought up your thumb. “Good,” you responded.

You followed Vision’s gaze back up to Rumlow and smiled at the agent beside you. You guess he’s kind of cute. In a strange, unsettling way.

“She’s had a lot to drink, so we’re just trying to slow down the pace. Aren’t we, Y/N?” Rumlow looked down at you.

You nodded fervently, “Yup!”

Vision hesitated but knew he didn’t pose much of a threat with Wanda in his arms unconscious, so he quirked a smile and walked towards the hall.

Someone get to Y/N, something’s not right, Vision ordered and you lifted your head up to find him. You could have sworn he just left.

“Here.” Rumlow handed you a glass, “Drink this, it’ll cool you down,”

You stared at the glass in his hold and looked up at him, “You drink it first,” you slurred, holding your finger up at him.

He cocked his head to the side but took a swig of the drink and you watched it go down his throat. You shrugged and grabbed at it.

Do not drink that, Nat ordered from somewhere and you looked around in wonder at who she was yelling to.

Bucky, Sit down! Steve growled.

Like hell, responded a voice you knew all too well.

Your smile grew and you looked through the crowd, “Bucky!” You feverishly called, completely expecting to see him before you. Rumlow’s head lifted instantly, his eyes scouring the area.

“I’ve got this, Pretty Boy,” Tony hastily spoke, “How ya doin’, Hot Stuff?” He interrogated and you reeled at the tone.

“Quite well, thank you,” you responded tenaciously and attempted to take a swig of the drink in your grasp.

Tony’s hand shot out and covered the top, slamming the cup back down on the counter and effectively getting the drink all over your dress.

“What the fuck?” You tried to shout but the words came out heavy and required too much energy to speak.

“You’ve had enough for tonight,”

“It’s just water,” Rumlow defended but Tony paid him no mind.

Your jaw dropped open and you glared at the older man. Who the hell did he think he was? Tony’s stare burned through your skull and despite your irritation, you couldn’t help but wonder why he was so pissed.

“Are you mad at me?” You drawled, lulling your head to the side.

“No,” he responded curtly.

“Am I being too loud or something?” You pushed. You couldn’t imagine you were any louder than any other drunken bastard at this party.

“No,”

Get her out of there or I swear to God I will, his voice hissed into your ear.

Your eyebrows rose slightly in excitement, “Mmm, Bucky,” you smiled and Tony nodded.

“’Mmm, Bucky’ is right. Wanna go see him?” Tony offered, sticking out his hand for you to take.

You fell forward into Rumlow’s chest but shook your head furiously none the less, “For what? So he can tell me I’m horrendous at my-”

Oh shit. Your job. The job.

If only your body didn’t feel so heavy and your mind so light.

You pushed off Rumlow’s chest and glared at Tony, “I can handle myself,” you insisted, a new sort of sober tone making its way through that caused him to do a once-over. “I know what I’m doing,”

“How many drinks have you had?” Tony challenged and you fell silent.

Then you felt a tap, and another and a few more.

“Six,” You said, hoping you’d counted right.

Tony, don’t you even fucking consider it, Bucky threatened.

“You could at least change, recuperate and then come back,” Tony offered and you sighed a breath of relief before nodding.

“Deal,” you agreed, “I’m hot anyway,”

Tony gave you one last glance before turning around and blending into the crowd on the other end of the room.

You looked up to Rumlow who’s gaze was still locked on the sea of people, “Don’t you wish you’d taken that shot now?” you tried to jeer, every last word bringing you deeper and deeper.

“Are they always that intense?” He questioned, not turning his attention to you.

“They can be over-bearing,” you admitted, hand grabbing the water from earlier and pressing it up against your forehead, “They consider me the baby so they’re always criticizing and suffocating until I just wished they’d disappear.” You took a gulp, “Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the family and I like that I have a cause but . . . they don’t let me do anything. It’s exhausting,”

You let out a long breath and smeared the condensation from the glass onto your chest. Rumlow studied you then, not just your body but your reaction. He was watching how you dropped your shoulders at the confession and how you faced your back to them to block them out.

You plastered your torso on the countertop and tried to slow your heartrate down. You couldn’t be the only one here unfathomably hot.

“Why is it so fucking hot?” You questioned, fanning yourself weakly.

“There are a lot of people around,” Rumlow offered, “how about we go somewhere else? Tony did say you had to change,”

You peered up at him through half-lidded eyes and meekly groaned in compliance. “Fine,”

You lifted yourself away from the counter and gently placed your feet on the floor. You’d touched the ground faster than anticipated. Had the ground always been so close?

“Don’t worry, I gotcha.” Rumlow threw an arm around your waist and helped you trudge towards the elevator.

Where the hell are you going? Bucky yelled and the sound of shuffling could be heard from his end.

We can’t let you leave with Rumlow, Y/N. We’re not even sure you’re acting anymore, Sam stated.

Rumlow pressed the button when you couldn’t muster the strength to do it yourself. The level that your room was on lit up and the doors began closing. You thought you saw Rumlow wave at someone but the mock smile on his face didn’t make it seem like a warm good-bye.

Your legs had all but given out by the time the elevator reached your shared floor.

“Heavy,” you muttered, letting Rumlow carry your weight fully.

“I know, Sugar. We’re almost there,” he soothed and you conceded to the fatigue wearing you down.

Your head hung low and your arm dangled uselessly at your side. The familiar sound of your door sliding open caught your attention but you did nothing. You couldn’t.

“How . . . know . . . my room?” You questioned, each word causing you to pull from an empty well of energy.

“I’ve been here before.” Rumlow tossed you onto the bed and sprawled you out.

“Oh. Ok.” You tried to turn on to your side but strong hands gripped down onto your ankles.

Rumlow sighed and slipped the heels off your feet, examining the pair like he wanted to wear them. You extended your feet until you felt every muscle in your leg stretch to its capacity and let out a groan of pleasure at the release. Those shoes hurt so bad.

“You seem . . . intelligent, Y/N.” Rumlow dropped your shoes onto the floor and slithered to the side of your bed, standing beside it with his hands tucked into his pockets.

A bead of sweat trickled down your forehead, “Hot . . .” you croaked and he nodded.

“You’re right. It is getting kind of hot.” He brought a hand up to his neck and ripped off the tie hanging around it.

Get the fuck out of my way, a growl erupted in your ear.

We’re going with you, Buck, Steve responded before knocking something over.

“So, what I have a hard time understanding is. . . why you’re here?”

You groaned a weak ‘huh’ but even that didn’t sound right.

“You’re good at what you do, you finish every mission successfully and yet you’re underappreciated.” He took a seat at the foot of your bed and placed one of your legs into his lap, “Why do you allow them to treat you like that? We wouldn’t,”

The shuffling in your earpiece halted.

“We?”

He began to massage your calf and brought your knee up to his lips, peppering light kisses on it. “We could use someone with your skillset, babe. We’d take real good care of you,”

The shuffling started again.

Rumlow had made his way onto your thigh at this point and you let out an involuntary moan when he skimmed over a delicate part on your inner knee.

“Ya like that?” he questioned but didn’t wait for a response. He brought a hand up to his temple and grabbed the earpiece. You figured he just hadn’t taken it out from his earlier shift but when he pulled it apart, you understood why he always kept it on him.

“Flash . . . drive earpiece?” Your weak tone tilted a little. “W-why tell . . .”

“I figured I’d give you the option to leave since you seem so . . . suffocated. If you said yes tonight then I would remind you tomorrow. If you didn’t,” he chuckled, “well, you wouldn’t remember anyway.” His hands trailed to your mid-thigh and you squeaked. “I’m impressed though, I’ve never given anyone else as much as I’ve given you tonight. The drug usually works so quickly on others, but not you. It’s kind of hot, actually,”

Sick fuck, Natasha growled through a ragged breath.

The world around you was slow or maybe it was you that was slow? You couldn’t tell, honestly. But when Rumlow moved as if he could predict your actions before you could make them, you wondered whether you were moving at all.

“Don’t worry, it’ll be over soon,” Rumlow sighed.

You shook your head, or thought you did but despite the way your body was live-wired, it remained still against all desire.

Fight. Move.

You managed to push your legs shut but his hand slithered between and spread them open similar to opening a door, but this required much less force.

“Kill,” You threatened and the sinister smile that crawled its way onto Rumlow’s face was vile enough to sink your heart into your stomach.

“Kill is fucking right.” Someone snarled and your door was ripped from its hinges.

Rumlow’s hand jerked away from your body and Bucky seized his open palm, intertwining their fingers and pushing Rumlow’s so far back that they touched the back of his own hand. The cracks were sickening onto themselves but had you not been so weak you would’ve turned from the sight altogether. You really couldn’t fathom how his fingers were still attached at all.

“Lay another hand on her and you won’t be able to use it again.” Bucky spit.

Despite Rumlow’s pain, the sinister smile remained sprawled on his face, “You should’ve heard the noises she made,”

Bucky’s grip tightened and the bones in his palm broke next, “I did,”

Natasha flew in right behind Barnes but completely dismissed the two and headed straight for you with a needle in hand. Your eyes shifted from the needle to Nat’s face and back again until she stabbed it into your upper arm. Ouch.

“Wha-”

“Shh,” Natasha hastily hushed, “Keep your strength, you should be back to normal soon,”

Steve came behind Nat and scooped you up to lead you out of the havoc going on in the room. Nat turned her focus to Bucky and reached over to grab the earpiece from Rumlow. Who knows if his nose will ever heal back normally. You held one finger in the air as Steve stepped over the splintered door.

“Goddamit, Y/N,” Steve huffed, jogging towards the elevator and pressing the floor that led to the infirmary.

“We won,” you croaked out, a small smile on your face and Steve shook his head.

“I’m never going to hear the end of this,”

Steve looked you up and down for bruises but couldn’t find any and you promised you weren’t lying to him when you told him Rumlow did not get very far in his ‘advances’ at all. You had to swear the mid-thigh was the worst that it came to.

Bruce was the one that took a few blood samples and made sure everything was reversing back to normal. Apparently, as soon as Rumlow took you to the bar Tony handed Banner the shot glass that Rumlow gave you and Banner ran analysis on it. The cure was pretty easy to find.

After being given strict orders to lie down for the next hour or so, it had been decided that Rumlow was to be turned in considering all the evidence required to make the arrest was in the flashdrive and everyone was to gather together for a ‘family night’. Whatever the hell that meant.

You were in the middle of debating which movie to pick with Steve when the infirmary doors flew open.

“Where is she?” Bucky nearly shouted upon seeing Bruce.

“That’s my cue.” Steve stood up just as Bucky rounded the corner, “If you need anything me and Banner will be right over there,”

You smiled and thanked him then turned your attention to the super-soldier who just arrived at the foot of your bed.

He didn’t say anything for a while, just looked at you. No, not really. Not at you but through you. A few painstakingly slow seconds went by that way.

“You owe me a new door,” you joked, a half-smile on your face.

“Are you okay?” He asked, finally registering your presence.

You nodded slowly, “I am,”

Then a few more seconds.

Bucky turned his gaze down to his hands, both of them barren and on display for the world to see, before shifting his weight between either foot, “Did he- did he touch you?”

“Not really. Just really liked my legs for some reason,” your attempt at another quip didn’t reach Bucky. He stared back up at you waiting for an answer, an honest one. You sighed, “The damage is more mental,” you admitted, now you were the one not able to look up, “I didn’t like being in this altered state of mind. It’s invasive and . . . scary. He could’ve done things, much worse things but it never got that far or that bad. It was more realizing that I wasn’t completely conscious or present and having that state of mind be taken advantage of, that mostly frightened me. Ya know?”

“More than anyone,” he answered immediately.

You looked back up towards him, finally making eye contact, “But I’m fine now, really. Just a little spooked. Steve wants to do a movie night tonight and I would actually prefer that over being alone.” Your eyes fixated on the way his hands clenched and unclenched on the bar by your feet, “If I’m alone then I’ll get stuck in my head about it. Besides, I consider this a hard victory with a few bumps in the road,”

He chuckled, lulling his head a bit, “You’re too stubborn for your own good,”

You shrugged, “Maybe. How’s Rumlow?”

Bucky hissed and moved over to the side of the bed where he took a seat, “He’s unconscious. And has a hand that he’ll never be able to use again. But other than that, he’s fine,”

You chuckled and Bucky watched how the laugh met your eyes. He liked that look on you. It was one of his favorites.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” You questioned once it fell silent between you two again.

“You called me Bucky earlier,” he remembered.

You scoffed, “I call you Bucky all the time,”

“Not to my face,”

“Not to your face,” you agreed, a teasing smile dancing on your lips and Bucky had one that mirrored yours.

“It was nice. Hearing it, I mean,” he admitted and a wave of warmth made its way to your face.

“I see your hands are exposed,”

He looked down as though he weren’t aware that he’d taken off his own gloves, “These bad boys? A friend of mine reminded me that I’m not my past. I’m my present. Why hide my growth?”

You twiddled your thumbs together, “She sounds smart,”

Now he scoffed, “Oh, it wasn’t a girl, it was some old buddy of mine.” He quirked up a brow, “Unless the person being a girl would make you jealous because in that case it was most definitely a girl,”

You fought against the natural tug at the corners of your mouth, “Is she at least pretty?”

“Stunning,”

“Smart?”

“Genius,”

“Good at her job?”

“Amongst the best,”

“Then consider me jealous, Barnes,”

Bucky chuckled and you watched how the laugh met his eyes. You liked that look on him. It was one of your favorites.

1K notes · View notes

beinmybonnet · 4 years

Note

hmmm ok, joe/nicky "colour"

(classic seeing colour soulmates au BECAUSE ALL THE TROPES FEEL NEW WHEN YOU’VE GOT IMMORTALS)

- you see the world in black and white until the day you touch your soulmate. when they die, you lose the colour they brought to your life -

“Oh, that’s beautiful.”

Nile comes up on Joe’s right shoulder, mug of tea cupped between her palms.

“Thank you.” He shuffles over so she can sit beside him on the bench, moving aside his paints. She’s studying his work intently.

“The shades here are perfect,” she tells him, eyes darting between the painting and the view before them, “it’s like the shadows are lifting off the canvas. What colours have you used?”

Joe’s smile is wide, and he flips his paintbrush to gesture with the end. “Here, whites and greys for the houses at the bottom of the hill. Here,” he points the handle higher, “yellows with pink, and then some red here, just as the sun rose.”

“So, that would be orange right here? Pale though?” she points at the right splash of colour and Joe turns, brow lifting in surprise. “Art History with a focus on colour differentials,” she says proudly. “My professor said I had the best monochromatic eye he’d ever seen.”

Joe promptly slides the paints across the bench and picks his spare canvas up off the grass. “Join me?”

“Really?” Nile grins, bright and eager as he hands her a brush. She hovers over the paints for a moment, chewing her lip between her teeth. Her eyes rove determinedly over the unlabelled paints and the sky, before she plucks up a purple pot. Joe has to resist the urge to wrap his arm round her shoulders.

Back when Joe had first leaned to draw, colour had meant nothing to him. He’d had chalks and charcoals as a child and had lost hours to sweeping strokes across paving stones. He’d learned to differentiate between subtle shadows and muted tones, blending new greys between his fingertips to smudge over his clothing.

Black, white and the thousand shades between them were comfortable and sure. Colour was just, unnecessary. As he grew, he was gifted graphite and dark inks and a roll of rough parchment was always tucked against his hip. He could recreate everything his eye could see and his mind could form with the two fundamentals in his hands. All his most treasured early memories remain this way; his mother’s shining ebony hair, the smoky shade of her skin. The bright white of his father’s teeth as he spun her around in front of their home.

But there’s still no denying that colour changed everything. Colour that had come into his world with all the subtlety of the man at its source. Suddenly his life had burst into bold tints and fierce hues; endless possibilities for him to explore with paints and oils and pastels. Nine hundred years to experiment with the vibrancy of the world around him.

He and Nile reach for the blue together and smile.

Nicky’s got his eye pressed tight to his scope when everything fades.

He’s dialling left, settling his weight into his hips and then a curtain of heavy grey drops across his view. He rears back rubbing at his eyes, trying to force the colours back.

“Shit… just- Book, hold up!” Andy’s voice crackles out of the earpiece Nicky’s placed on the rooftop beside him. He scrambles to jam it back in.

“Andy-”

“Take the shot Nicky.” There’s shouting coming from below and Andy is swearing vehemently. “I’ve got him, just take the shot!”

He lurches back into position trying to clear his mind. It’s all wrong though, the shadows too dark and his depth perception is ruined -he’ll have to start all over. The dilution of his vision is making his heart thump erratically, and he has to count breaths in his head to keep himself still enough to reline up the shot.

Seconds later, the target steps out of the blackness and Nicky fires. The bullet cracks off the window frame, striking home at a cruel angle. He swears under his breath; it wasn’t clean, but he doesn’t care – the job’s done. He just needs to find Joe.

He takes the stairs at a speed that leaves his knees numb. At the extraction point, the van is already moving away as the door slides open. Nicky hurls his gear in and leaps after it. He gets the briefest glimpse of eyes too dark, and thick pewter stains across a torso before the door is slammed shut and he’s hauling Joe into his arms. They collide with a thump and Nicky quickly tucks his face against the grey skin of Joe’s neck with his eyes clenched shut. A hand burrows under the edge of his tactical gear until he feels the warmth at the small of his back.

Nicky pulls back to open his eyes and relief has him sagging further into the arms around him. Warm tawny skin shines against the dark khaki of Joe’s vest. He drags his mouth up the rich line of his throat, reluctant to break contact.

“Sorry.” Joe’s expression is chagrined when he lifts his head. “Got pinned down.”

There’s a smear of blood at the corner of Joe’s mouth, the newly crimson stain brash and mocking. Nicky rubs at it with a gloved thumb until the skin is clean and then presses his mouth gratefully to his favourite colour.

“A lilac ribbon in her hair. First colour I ever saw.”

The slight waver in his voice makes Nile wonder if she’s over-stepped again, if she’s put her foot in some unknown no-go zone and she opens her mouth to apologise. But Booker’s smiling, and that in itself is rare enough that Nile waits.

“It happened in a crowd. Must have been a hundred people in the square, easily…” his smile is widening. “God, it would have been so easy to have missed her. Soldiers were separating people, everyone was running and pushing and we just… brushed hands.”

Booker lifts his hand from his lap and turns it over slowly. “The back of her hand touched mine as she ran past. That was all.” He touches that spot, a glance of his finger. “I looked back, and her ribbon was lilac. But it was so busy, I lost sight of her in the rush.”

“But you found her again?” Nile has her head propped on her hands, trying not to sound too eager. Booker laughs gruffly.

“She found me. Came back for me.” He’s gripping his own hand tightly now, nails biting at the skin. “Lilac ribbon, hair like honey. Everything else came after that.”

“She sounds lovely.”

Booker looks up at her properly, and Nile’s acutely aware that whilst now they see the world in the same shades, it wasn’t always that way.

His voice is soft. “She was.”

Joe barely has time to shout before his world is plunged back into negatives, colour leaching from his vision. He’s scrambling, sliding in the pool of viscous grey he knows is blood as it spreads around Nicky’s skull.

He moves to cup Nicky’s face and can’t bear it. The sharp edge of his cheekbone throws dark shadows over his too pale face. Flecks and streaks of black over his skin; blood or dust or ash, Joe can’t tell anymore and the panic is rising in his throat. He can’t look at Nicky’s colourless eyes – he can’t- he’ll carry the sight with him too long.

He tears his head away, his own eyes clenched shut – but before he has time to pray, to plead, Nicky is gasping beneath him. The breath Joe releases is sticky and harsh, and he’s curling forward in his relief. Their hands collide quickly against each other’s forearms in an instinctive, accustomed clasp, and colours start seeping back immediately. The first to return are the shades of blue; bright aegean tones bursting in Nicky’s wide eyes, chased into existence by familiar notes of green. The weight lifts off Joe’s chest and for a moment he just breathes, air that tastes sweet and smooth as his other senses adjust to the disruption.

Then Nicky’s rolling. “Let’s go, Andy.”

They’re stood close enough to see the tremble in Andy’s arm as she reaches for Quynh’s face for the first time in over four hundred years.

Joe is frozen at his side, and Nicky’s breath is jammed somewhere in the base of his throat. He can’t believe this is actually happening.

Andy’s hand falters just shy of Quynh’s cheek with a ragged sound, fingers hovering. She opens her mouth to speak but Quynh reaches up and clamps the hand desperately to her face with her own. They shudder so violently Nicky wonders for a moment if the ground has physically quaked.

He knows the sensation well; that fierce swoop in the stomach. Like he’s stepped into free fall as the world saturates around him at Joe’s first touch. When they can reach each other quickly after a death, colour comes back in slow, precious increments; the shining browns of Joe’s eyes, or the dusky pink that rises in the shell of his ear. The longest they’ve gone after a death was four days. Four days in an east Indian jungle trapped in wet, translucent tones of black and white, the frustration building until he’d screamed at the sky. When he’d finally gotten his hands on Joe, grasping desperately at his bared shoulders, colour returning was an immediate detonation that had left his whole body throbbing for hours.

Nicky can’t even begin to imagine what Andy and Quynh feel in this moment.

They go down as one, limbs folding together as they collapse into the dirt. Clutching at each other as their worlds transform. Quynh has Andy’s face trapped between her own palms now and is sobbing, laughing, trying to pull her closer. Andy’s tears are silent, but steady. Her eyes flitting over Quynh’s face in awe while she runs trembling fingertips over rosy cheeks she can see.

Joe is squeezing his hand so tightly his fingers have gone numb, but the rush of joy in Nicky’s chest is golden and fierce. To stop himself moving forwards to pull Quynh into his own arms, he steps behind Joe and tugs him back, arms looping firmly around his middle.

“See? We are meant to find each other,” he whispers. Joe chuckles wetly against him.

On the ground, Quynh is smiling through her tears. “You’re beautiful Andromache,”

Andy hums hoarsely and runs her hands over Quynh’s arms, coming up to cradle her collar through the thick fabric of her coat. Her fingers rub at the material and Nicky knows the scarlet shade must be iridescent to her eyes. Andy lifts a thumb to Quynh’s lower lip.

“Red always was your colour.”

adriana i’m so sorry this took so long. i physically couldn’t stop it getting longer and longer and then i got really stuck and it was a whole mess.

#the old guard #the old guard fic #joe x nicky #andy x quynh #soulmates au #userkayla #usermarwan #usercacau #tuserceleste #userbones #userlyde #usershan #tusermj #idk what happened here #can't write 5 sentences like a normal person #mine #prompt

542 notes · View notes

sabraeal · 3 years

Text

Provocateur, Prologue

[Read on AO3]

Written for @krispy-kream in honor of her birthday. Many years ago, back when I first joined fandom, I came up with the idea for an Obi Works For Izana AU, and both Sharon and I ended up writing small pieces of a much larger whole. And now FINALLY...I’m actually writing the very beginning 🤣

When it comes down to it, in terms of area and amenities, the royal dungeons has some of his last few flats beats.

There’s light, for one. He’s never liked basement apartments-- he’d take a stifling attic room over a place with only one exit any day-- but the windows here are high up on the wall, enough that he can watch the sun paint his cell floor as the hours pass. They’re ground level, at least by the foot traffic outside of ‘em, and with how loud these guards gossip, he’ll know whose girlfriends are pregnant and who’s nursing a nasty boil by shift change. Just like sitting in a tavern for a few hours, only with less ale.

There’s a cot too, straw-stuffed and a little too soft, with a blanket that doesn’t even itch. Seems like it might be warm too, for when the nights get cold. Not that he has an intention of testing out that particular hunch.

The guard down the hall is decent in the way authority figures never are; when he calls out to ask where his piss bucket is, the man-- boy? It’s hard to tell beneath those helmets-- ushers him down a hall to a water closet, and when he pops out, reminds him to take care to wash his hands. He’s prompt about mealtime too; when supper comes, the man says to expect three square and leaves him with with a dinner that would put most publicans to shame.

All in all, this isn’t the worst trouble he’s gotten himself into. Worlds better than that stint he’d had in Eurikenna’s gaol. Or that night in Port City.

Still, he’s got no plans to linger. No point in sticking around for a punishment when he's got no interest in redemption. But he’s got a prince to wait for.

Oh, His Highness might say he’s above getting his hands dirty, might look down that noble nose at a man like him who makes his living in trade, but he’d seen his look. Not the first, when his little mistress was watching, all puffed cheeks and disapproving brow, but the second, that glance over his shoulder as the Big Man frogmarched a dirty rat down into the dungeons.

That one was a man who had found the right tool for the job. Hands don’t stay clean without gloves to cover them, especially if they mean to hold a mistress who collects trouble like some ladies collect hairpins. If he wants to keep his side piece quiet, it’s only a matter of time before he’ll have to make a statement. And nothing says don’t touch what’s mine like a few accidents. All he has to do is wait out a royal conscience.

The light fades as he waits, just the last stretch of dusky light yawning on the sill. It’s almost time for all good little princes to be in bed, but this one-- this one will be working instead. The hand that grabbed him had been stained with ink and calluses both; the kind of man who longed for action but was stuck behind a desk. He’ll be up late, managing men and supplies miles away on paper, but in his head--

Oh, in his head, he’ll be thinking about the man he’s left to rot in the dungeons. The one that might be just the right fit for what he needs, for the jobs he can’t give that giant or the pretty girl at his side. It’s the sort of idea that’ll eat at him when the lamps are low and the night is quiet, and oh, how a conscience can gnaw when there’s no more work to feed it. There’s a reason he’s never idle. Not usually, at least.

He casts a long glance down the silent hall; the guard sits at his table, log book spread in front of him, another smaller one laid atop. A novel, by the slack-jawed look that’s slapped across his face. In Eurikenna, his reputation had preceded him, and they’d bound him hand and foot, bolting his wrists to the wall and his feet to the bench. Viande had put him in a cell with a single window and stone on all sides, his only escape leading into a moat rumored to be prowled by sharks.

Here he has a single guard and bars he could probably squeeze through if he skipped a meal or two. It’s insulting to be so underestimated-- or it would be, if he wasn’t already planning to stay. He’s paid out his room at the inn for a week; a few days to enjoy the impeccable food and passable mattress he’s got here won’t hurt-- just as long as he makes it back before the innkeep tosses all his worldly goods in the gutter. And if he does need to make a quick escape--

Well, it’s hardly the first time he’s slipped the noose. But it won’t come to that. Younger Highness is on the hook.

The door to the dungeon clanks open; it’s a softer sound, barely loud enough for him to hear, but he hasn’t made a name for himself by being the sort of person who only hears what he ought. The guard’s gone-- book too-- and his hand itches to have something that ends with a point in it. He should have known, this was all too easy.

A shrouded figure sweeps through the threshold, prowling with the easy confidence only men born to power possessed-- or a professional. His hands flexed, too empty. He’s a loose end, an embarrassing stain on a proud man’s reputation, and there’s only one thing to do with that-- rub it out.

“You’re not the prince,” he says, keeping his voice even, maybe a bit petulant. Boldness wins a bluff; all he needs is time. Just a second, a hesitation--

Which he gets; the figure’s boots scuffing to a stop. Its head cocks, curious. “Is that so?”

It’s a man’s voice, higher than he expects, but resonant. The sort that people listen to when they’re not looking for a way out. The sort that won’t care for a man turning his back on it.

“You’re too tall.” He saunters to his cot, the mattress sinking under his weight. Not quite the attitude he’d been hoping for, but close enough. Gives him enough time to realize his cloaked friend isn’t talking-- no, instead he catches the barest tremble of cloth before a gloved hand tugs it smooth.

“How...astute,” the man hums, a strange lift kicking that first vowel before he smooths that out too. Everything about this man is slick, from the shine of his boots to the way he says, “That must be the observational skills that tempted even the marquis to hire you.”

His grin flicks into a grimace, but habit wipes that all clean before he says, “I wasn’t hired by anyone. Just wanted to...advertise my skills. In case anyone with a fat wallet found themselves needing a problem taken care of.”

Another pause, this one heavier. “And this girl seemed like a likely target?”

“A commoner nosing around a prince?” A laugh huffs out of him. “What about that isn’t a problem? At least when it’s a lady, she doesn’t have pockets that need filling, but some little herbalist girl? There’s a long way between lady slippers and slippers for a lady. And not everyone wants to kiss hems to get a mistress in their pocket.”

Not when it’s just as like to be covered in mud. If there’s one thing he’s learned about these bluebloods, it’s that they only suck up, not down.

The shroud shifts, arms folding across a chest too slender to be called broad, and shoulders too wide to be scrawny. Lithe, perhaps, the perfect size to slip through a man’s guard.

“The job is over, you know.” Boot heels clack as the man draws closer, just enough to see a defined chin beneath the shadows of his hood. “There’s no need for all this cloak and dagger. Haruka has already confessed to the crown that he was the one to hire you.”

His fingers flex behind his head, longing for something besides bristle to cross his palms. “Don’t know why he’s going through all the trouble. I don’t know him.”

This isn’t his first interrogation, but it’s certainly the slowest. The man stands silently outside the bars, a single finger lying along his diamond-cut jawline. No questions, no speculation, just a shadow staring out of a hood, observing. This must be what it’s like to be boiled alive; put in the pot when it’s barely a simmer, the heat raising so gradually that it’s not until his chest is near bursting to speak, to fill the silence, that he knows he’s been cooked.

“What would you have done?” the man says, finally. “If you had your way with the girl.”

The girl who, in the face of danger, tore an arrow from the wall rather than run. “Nothing permanent.”

What little he can see of the shroud’s mouth curves. “How very vague. So many unpleasant things only take a moment.”

“The job was to scare her off,” he admits, wondering why his belly quivered in his gut. There’s bars between them, and his hands are faster than any nob’s, no matter how good the costume. But still, his muscles lay coiled against his bones, ready to strike. “Seduce her, if she seemed...amenable. Bribe her if she didn’t.”

“And what then?” It’s a quicker response than he expects, but the man isn’t agitated-- far from it, he’s never seemed calmer. “If the girl proved impervious to your more...gentle measures.”

There’s a question in that, one the shroud won’t voice. But he hears it, loud in his ears as a bell’s gong.

“I’ve killed before,” he says, each word on thin ice. “And I still sleep at night.” Barely. “I could have done it again.”

“But would you?”

For once, he hesitates. Imagines looking into those bright eyes, the ones that flamed so fiercely in defiance, and with the flick of a wrist, snuffing them out.

“It’d be a waste.” His hands tremble where they cradle his head, a command he hasn’t given them. This is the last thing he needs right now, losing control. “That girl’s got a lot of pluck. And if rumors around the pharmacy are right, a lot of brains too. Besides, bodies make more talk than bribes.”

“That they do.” There’s a lilt to those words, almost amused. “You know, you called it a job. Implying that you received compensation for your services.”

It’s a sting to realize he’s slipped. “Doesn’t mean it was the marquis.”

“It certainly doesn’t,” the man agrees, and if this room weren’t so dark, if this conversation wasn’t so serious-- well, he’d be tempted to say this guy is laughing at him. “Do you have a name?”

He turns to him real slow-like, one utterly dubious brow arched toward the guard’s register. “You want me to believe you can’t read?”

That shadow of a mouth lifts again. “Am I to believe a man of your skill gave your birth name to the royal guard?”

His mouth cocks into a grin. “You must if you think I’m gonna give it to you.”

The man comes closer still, one gloved hand wrapping around his bars. He’s visible to the tip of his nose; a long, patrician one.

“Of course. But you must have something you would like to be called.” His lips-- bowed, the most fashionable in Clarines’ court-- twitch toward a smile, but fall perilously short. “An alias, if you will.”

“Obi.” It’s too short, too quick, but already he likes it. It’s a more playful name than he’s had in a long while. Easy to lose, too, if he needs it.

“Well then, Obi.” His arm rests over one of the cross bars of his cell. “I believe I have a proposition for you.”

“Haah.” He hops to his feet, hoping to seize the high ground. “I appreciate the interest, but I’m already waiting on an offer.”

To say the hood recoiled would be an overstatement, it merely pulls back, barely more than an inch. “An offer?”

“Well, maybe more like...I have prospects.” Obi restrains his grin to little more than a twitch. “I just gotta see if they’ll pan out.”

The hood stills, thoughtful. “What if I could guarantee you a better offer?”

“You couldn’t.”

The man hums, amusement changing his pitch. “I quite sure I could.”

“Nah.” Obi shakes his head, almost wishing it weren’t so. This guy seems like he could be real fun, if he got his hands on his reins. “I don’t think so.”

“Please.” He opens a hand; an invitation. “Try me.”

“Fine.” There’s nothing to lose by telling, besides some face, if he’s wrong. Which Obi knows he’s not. “I got a feeling the next guy through that door’ll be His Highness.”

The man rocks back, like he’s been hit. “Zen? You think...?”

Obi expects some bargaining, some disbelief, maybe even some haggling, but--

He does not expect the laugh.

“Oh,” the man coughs, lifting a hand as if he might wipe tears from his eyes. “I promise you, I can give you a...far more attractive offer.”

Now that’s a rich one. “What could be better than a second prince?”

The man’s hand raises past his eyes, right to the edge of his hood. With the barest flick of his fingers, the cloth falls back, baring bright gold and Wisteria blue.

“Why,” drawls His Highness Izana Wisteria, crown prince, soon to be first of his name, “the first.”

#obiyuki #akagami no shirayukihime #snow white with the red hair #obi works for izana au #my fic #ans #listen it's obiyuki as a WHOLE but in this chapter there's just little hints #but truly this is just our excuse to have:#1) obi work with the smartest man in the manga and have his whole skill set utilized #2) enemies to friends to lovers #also torturing zen and obi with the friendship that could have been #that too #you know how it is

30 notes · View notes

lastsonlost · 4 years

Text

Many of the women promoting the “cancellation” of men in comics, and demanding they post the recent empty promise known as #ComicsPledge, are in fact hypocrites. In this article, I’m going to present evidence of lies, collusion, rumor spreading, and, in my opinion, defamation and contract interference.

I personally know that they’ve colluded for YEARS to take down men. Specifically those with conservative politics and philosophies. This is an ongoing, coordinated effort. How do I know this?

Because I obtained access to their PRIVATE FACEBOOK GROUP.

This is Part 1 of the #Hypocralypse leaks

There is simply too much to put in one leak, so I will make the following three points for now.

1. The so-called Comic Book Whisper Network, which has been dismissed as conspiracy since 2016, is real, and I have hundreds of screenshots to prove it.

2. The Whisper Network has been targeting men and trying to destroy their careers, and use their connections in the comic book media to do so.

3. Whisper Network members have acted unprofessionally and unethically at best. At worst, they have engaged in what I believe could be illegal behavior.

MY STORY

I first heard about the Whisper Network back in mid-2016 from folks I knew at Image, DC, Marvel, and later, Valiant. Depending on who I chatted with, sometimes the group was called ‘The Women’s Network’, other times ‘The Whisper Network’, occasionally ‘The Whisper Campaign’, and eventually there were more conspiratorial names used mockingly (a friend called them a gender-swapped 4Chan, which became ‘FemChan’ to some insiders).

Regardless of the name, it was all the same group.

The same five or six names kept popping up in conversation over and again. As time ticked on, I noticed a trend on Social Media: half a decade of rumors, false allegations, cancellation attempts , and they almost always traced back to these same five or six people. The goal of this Whisper Network, according to industry folks, was simple: choose a target, smear them until they lose their reputation, their income, and are ultimately blacklisted – opening up job opportunities for the same people who started these smear campaigns in the first place.

Behind the scenes these “cancellations” are painted as morally or politically motivated, but in the end it’s all financial. As time passed, the group in question seemed more and more like a reality. I saw their influence. I saw things I knew to be verifiably untrue go viral online, appearing in what I thought were legit news sources. I felt angry and helpless seeing innocent people getting attacked, but did not know what to do.

A few years passed and by 2018 almost everyone I interacted with in the industry seemed to know about the Network, from top level editors right down to the letterers. It was an open secret, but no one was willing to speak up for fear of being targeted themselves. They knew the consequences.

And after all, this was a secret network. Without proof, there was no point in going public because members would just deny its existence, and use their media connections to smear anyone who challenged them.

THEN THINGS GOT INTERESTING

December 16, 2018, Whisper Network member Gail Simone, who joined the Network 6 years ago (4 years before the following tweet was posted), mocks “doofuses” who speculate that a “whisper campaign” exists.

At this point in late 2018, I was still skeptical of the Whisper Network’s existence. I’d heard many stories of individuals spreading rumors and lies, and plenty of malicious behavior was going on behind closed doors. Though I wasn’t ready to believe it was a coordinated effort, or collusion was involved. Then, certain people began openly mentioning the Whisper Network and my attitude changed.

March 26, 2019, Heather Antos, a member herself, did not outright mention the Whisper Network or her involvement, but she made what some took as a veiled threat to those who got on her bad side.

Heather “milkshake girl” Antos’ colorful backstory at Marvel, and later at Valiant, is notorious in the comic industry. A conversation about office rumor-spreading and bullying is never complete without someone bringing up a juicy Antos anecdote. Everyone has one.

Up until then, I still hadn’t seen ACTUAL PROOF of a larger scheme. But then, something changed in 2020.

January 8, 2020, Alex de Campi, who I would discover is one of the most active Whisper Network members, openly admits there is a Network. I have no idea if this was a slip or a brazen attempt to show off her power and influence, but this appeared.

Eventually, everything I had heard and read was confirmed beyond any shadow of a doubt after I gained access to their private Facebook group.

I WAS INSIDE THE WHISPER NETWORK!

This is the place where the Whispher Network has been colluding for years. And although their activity is not confined to just this site, from what I can tell, this was where they first met, and started their coordinated campaigns.

Members of the Secret Group called “Comic Book Women”

At present time, there are 440+ members of the secret Facebook group, called COMIC BOOK WOMEN. From what I can tell, a few are regular users, though many of them have never posted.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/comicbookwomen/

*unless you are a member, this will not show up in a search

Secret Facebook groups offer the same level of privacy as closed groups, but operate under a cloak of invisibility. No one can search for secret groups or even request to join them. The only way to get in one is to know someone who can invite you. Everything shared in a secret group is visible only to its members.

This secret group includes a list of members whose actions and connections speak for themselves. Members such as:

Zoe Quinn

Gail Simone

Alex de Campi

Heather Antos (aka Heather Marie)

Mags Visaggio (aka Magdalene Francis)

Mairghread Scott

And several key members of the group are women who work in the comics media and can be used to run damage control, including women like Heidi MacDonald of Comics Beat. They have contacts outside of the secret network as well, with some male allies in both comics and the media.

Just the fact that all of these folks were secretly linked in a private network came as a shock to me, considering their reputations and the accusations that they’ve made. Immediately I began to connect the dots…

They’ve denied for YEARS that they coordinate their actions in private. And yet they always coincidentally appear on Twitter, retweeting and amplifying each other’s accusations, signal boosting one another, and helping them gain traction. And their allies in media – Bleeding Cool and CBR specifically – will turn those same tweets into stories almost instantly & with no fact-checking or verification, sometimes within the hour.

I’m going to start explaining who the key actors are, and, from my perspective, how they coordinate these attacks.

KEY ACTORS

There are too many people to focus on at once, so I will have to break this into several posts, but I will start with one of the clear group leaders IMO.

Alex de Campi is well connected, despite never being part of the Big Two (since, from what I’ve been told management is well aware of her bullying, harassment, rumor-spreading and unethical behavior that goes back years, and depending on who you talk to she’s almost as notorious as Antos or Tess Fowler). She just wrapped up a graphic novel campaign on Kickstarter with David Bowie’s son, the Hollywood film director Duncan Jones. It grossed over $366K

All the while she makes baseless accusations while demanding transparency from everyone else.

Now, I’ll take you into their private network.

Two years ago, on May 13, 2018, De Campi launched a private campaign to target an independent creator, claiming she was using her connections to have Simon & Schuster cancel their book.

In addition to contacting the publisher, others in the Whisper Network coordinated their efforts to contact media outlets to have the narrative changed, according to the posts in this thread. Again, in my opinion, this could end up as a defamation or tortious interference case, and has many implications regarding media bias as well.

The following month, on June 23, 2018, de Campi posted private text messages between herself and writer Max Bemis in what appeared to be an attempt to damage his career. Despite Bemis being mentally ill (diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 2014), de Campi still posted the private messages with malicious intent IMO. According to US and UK law this is an actionable offense: posting private texts without both parties consenting.

430 notes · View notes

bi-writes · 4 years

Photo

notorious: reboot — chapter eight genesis

This is our genesis, and ours only; once we start this chapter, what will end it?

type: series, alternate universe detail: mob!tom word count: 12.7k warnings: mature language and themes, mature sexual and nsfw content included in this chapter (oral fem!receiving, unprotected sexual content, overstimulation, cum play) series masterlist music playlist by mood, curated just for notorious

There were many things you could tell about a person from looking at their hands. They could be dirty or clean, adorned with jewels or nothing at all, nails painted or chipped or bare, cut or bruised or scratched or completely, utterly soft. Sometimes they wore wedding rings, sometimes they didn’t, sometimes they had ink circling around their fingers. Hands were interesting storytellers, and oftentimes you found yourself finding more about someone from the way their hands were kept rather than listening to them speak. Sometimes people lied. Their hands couldn’t lie, all they could do was simply be.

It was so quiet here. You could barely see anything in the darkness, but there was a sliver of light coming from the candle in the far corner of the room. The wax had melted almost all the way, the wicker barely lit, but it was enough that you could still see clearly what was beside you, who was beside you.

Your head was propped up on a soft pillow, but Tom’s hand was beside it, palm flat against the bed, and you could hear his gentle breathing. You brought your hand up to trace Tom’s knuckles, which were slightly split. They had bled, you could tell that much, and there were yellow and purple bruises dotting the dry, cracked skin there. His nails were well groomed, but you could tell he picked at them because of how his cuticles were ripped a bit, the edges of his nails a bit rugged.

Hands of a killer. So why doesn’t it hurt when he touches me with them?

You turned his hand over, following the callous along his palms. Blistering, dry, and used, Tom’s hands were a reflection of the dirty business you both had chosen to run in. It didn’t matter where you were in this business, it took something from each and every being inside of it. You and Tom were young, but you had been thrust into a world of secrecy and anarchy where your worth was determined by nothing more than where you stood in a line of hundreds, blanketed by tradition, ritual, and kings without mercy.

You had seen too much, but it was enough that you were numb inside at times. Death did nothing to you any longer. Blood was nothing but a stain, and guns were just accessories. Judges, cops, and lawyers were the men and women on your payroll, and funding amateur killers was just a part of your work. Love was a luxury, children became heirs, and money was your lifeline. One mistake could cost you your head, one wrong move could dismantle your operations, and without a throne to sit on, there was no need for you except to bleed you dry of what you had and to leave you for the earth to swallow whole.

Daughters become enemies.

Only ruthless, cold individuals that were truly dead inside could sit on thrones made of bones. You had to be willing to do anything to put the crown on, and even then, it could slip right off of your head in a moment.

Rivals become lovers.

You had never known anything else. You had never tried to be anything else. Your mother loved you, but she didn’t try and take you away from this life; she had thrust you into the world headfirst, and she made you who you were.

Sweet faces become killers. She made you a killer.

You wondered who had made Tom. Staring at the soft tufts of curls on his head, you wondered who had taught him to hold a gun, to point it at his target, and to not hesitate pulling the trigger.

You wondered what kind of burdens he carried on those broad shoulders of his. You wondered what hid between the curves of his muscles, what truly defined the scars along his back, and what kind of blood had been spilled against those crackling knuckles of his. You wondered who had taken the light inside of the little boy he had once been and crushed it. All kings and queens had lights inside of them once, even you.

We lose them, and then we spend forever trying to find it inside of others because of what is broken inside of ourselves.

There was a map on his skin. From the tips of his fingers to his toes, Tom had a map. Scars and the occasional tattoo, indentations and uneven patches of skin, defined muscles that ached and stretched and breathed. Some people were meant to be kings, and Tom was one of them, but there was a part of you that wished that Tom had never seen the metal of a gun or the inside of someone’s body or the way life left someone’s body slow, then quickly all at once.

I wish you never knew what it looked like when there were stars in their eyes, right before they saw a vast nothingness.

There were people inside of you, souls that wanted to be discovered, but you and Tom had buried them so deep that neither of you knew who they were anymore. Tom had mentioned once that he used to watch movies until his eyes were red from the glare of the television screen. He mentioned once that he had felt the vibrations from dancers on a stage, the echo of voices across the emptiness of a theatre, and he mentioned once that there had been light inside of him once when there were spotlights warming up that single spot reserved onstage.

Tom would never know that little boy. Tom would never see what that little boy could become, and he would never get to tell him that he was meant for so much more than this dirty, dirty business. There were songs inside of him, but he would never get to sing them, and for that, a part of you hated whoever had taught Tom to be who he was. They had robbed Tom of every good thing he could’ve been, and now here he was, with scars on his hands, cuts along his back, and a light inside of him that would never, ever be allowed to illuminate whatever soul was buried underneath all of the death and destruction he had built up for so long.

Boys become assassins, and girls become paper dolls.

You wondered if he would hate your mother for the same reasons.

You leaned over and kissed Tom’s forehead before slipping out of bed. You opened the door to your bedroom, going into the kitchen. You were at your apartment this time, and Tom had come with you that night, and he simply didn’t want to leave.

You and Tom had been through hell hours before, but there was something different between you now. There were no secrets between you, and now, it felt strange. For so long, you and Tom had been pretending, lying to each other and falling for each other at the same time.

One and the same.

It was still dark outside. The city lights glowed at night, so bright and awake even in the dead hours of night, and that was how it always was.

You noticed something by the door. There was a white envelope on the floor, as if someone had slipped it underneath the door to get it to you. You bent down and picked up the envelope, turning it over in your hands. The envelope was meant to be white, but it had yellowed from age, and it was dry and crinkly in your hands. There was no return address, just a scribbling on the back in handwriting you thought you recognized but couldn’t decipher.

my baby is all the back read.

You slipped your finger into the opening, ripping the envelope open. Inside was a letter, written on blank copy paper. It was written in scribbly black ink, smeared occasionally, as if it had been written in a rush. You looked around, to see if anyone was around, because it felt as if you were being watched. The apartment was quiet, and there was nothing around you.

You looked back down at the letter, opening it up all the way, smoothing out the folds.

To the only love I’ve ever known,

I don’t know when you’re going to be given this letter. I don’t know if you’ll ever receive it, but if I never write this, then there is a chance that you will never know the truth. I can’t leave this place knowing you might always be kept in the dark.

There is too much I’m going to miss. I tried to do right by you all these years, but now I fear perhaps I’ve just given your father the weapon he’s always needed. He has no ambition, none at all, to do right by his men. Your father is a coward, and he always will be. He takes advantage of even the most precious things in his life, and he has neglected you since the day you were born.

There is going to be a day when he needs you. There is going to be a day when your father will not be able to say no to you, and that day I fear more than anything else in this world, even death. I tried to give you the tools you would need to succeed, but I fear that my time has run out to finish the difficult job I started with you. I’m not finished. I want to keep doing more for you, but my time is running out, and even writing this letter is wasting what little I have left, but I need you to know the truth.

Your father will never understand what it takes to run this kingdom he’s built. I have tried for years to get him to listen to me, but anything I say, he ignores. One day, it’s going to get him killed, but that is the least of my worries. My worry is what comes after, what continues after your father is gone. As much as he wants to pretend it isn’t true, you are going to be the one sitting at the desk. You will be the one left when the dust settles.

I dreamed of being able to sit there myself. When I lived in New York, I was used to being the princess. After marrying your father, I had to get used to being what was left behind. My hatred for him grows every single day, and if I had it in me, I would be done with him. It would be him instead of me, but I’m not meant for those kinds of things. It isn’t in me, and I don’t think I’ve ever been meant for this kind of life. I hate myself for getting involved, and even more, I hate myself for bringing the most beautiful angel into this life.

I’m sorry. I’m sorry I did this to you. I should’ve left, I always knew I should’ve left. I should’ve taken the only good thing to ever happen to me and dragged her far, far away.

I planned on letting you live a normal life. Your father never wanted you to follow in his footsteps, and I planned on letting you grow and learn and go to college and live the normal life that I always dreamed for you, but you were my only hope. You were the only weapon I had against your father, and I’m sorry. What I did was selfish.

I made you like this because I wanted you to be better than him. I wanted you to be better than all of them. Everyone in this world is lonely, ugly on the inside and out, and incredibly stupid. They lack all the good qualities that soldiers should have, because that is what living in this hell is like. You will always be at war, and I wanted you to always have the tools to survive in the disgusting world that these men have built for us.

I needed you to be better.

Your father tonight is going to tell you that I left. You are going to find the drawers of my clothes empty, you are going to find most of my things gone, and you will never see me again. He’s going to tell you that I went far away, perhaps, maybe even to the fucking moon. Your father is going to tell you a lot of things tonight.

All of them will be lies.

Your father is going to kill me tonight, and I’m going to let him, because if I don’t, you will never become who I need you to be. I’m being selfish again. I fear I might hate him more than I love you.

Don’t trust him. Ever. Even if he seems like he is on your side. He will never learn until it’s too late, and by then, nothing will be able to save him. It’s you, and it will always be you, and I hope he dies knowing it.

He doesn’t deserve you. And he never has. He never will.

I love you more than anything in this world.

mama

You put the letter down slowly, running your hands through your tangled hair. Your hands were shaking a bit, and you felt like there was something stuck in your throat, making it hard to breathe.

She made your bed. Now you have to lay in it.

You picked up the letter again and went into the bedroom. Tom was awake, sitting up against the headboard, an unlit cigarette in his mouth.

“Was wondering where you went,” Tom said lowly, striking a match to light the cancer stick. You came towards the bed slowly, still holding the letter, and Tom finally looked at you, standing there with a strange look in your eyes. “What’s wrong?”

“This…this came. Someone slid it…u-under the door,” you said softly, putting the letter onto the bed. Tom switched the lamp on, and he picked up the paper, holding it in front of him. He took the cigarette out of his mouth and let out a slow breath, his eyes running over the page. The silence was killing you.

“You said your mum disappeared,” Tom said finally, tapping off a bit of ash.

“That’s…that’s what my dad told me,” you whispered, sitting on the edge of the bed. “It’s why I left New York. Why I left…Ri.”

It changed everything. It changed me.

“Your mum says otherwise,” he muttered, narrowing his eyes. “Is this real? Do you believe this? I mean…who would just put this under the bloody door? How could this just appear on your doorstep? Timing is right suspicious, don’t you think?”

“It’s my mom’s handwriting, Tom, I’d know,” you said defiantly, taking the letter back. You folded it up again, putting it into the bedside drawer. You slid back into bed, scooting close to Tom. He put his arm around you, letting you lay your head on his chest. You were silent again, the room was silent again, and it was enough time for you to have a single tear falling down the length of your cheek, your whole body feeling cold all over.

“Your father’s a lying twat,” Tom scoffed, and you stared off into the distance.

“He killed…my mom,” you said weakly, and Tom stubbed the cigarette out, putting a hand to your head and kissing your forehead. It was tender, but it was not warm enough to stop the tears that followed quickly behind, dropping silently onto the pillow. “H-He killed her, Tommy.”

And she killed me.

You weren’t sure how to feel about the letter. Your father had told you your mother had left, that she was gone, and even though you knew that those kind of antics could never be that of your mother, you believed him, or at least you forced yourself to believe him.

Because you weren’t ready to face any other alternative.

You had cried over her, mourned over her, and then you had let her go. Part of the coldness of your personality was trying to steel yourself from losing anyone else. You distanced yourself from Mariposa after, changing your number and refusing to go back, making it your mission to focus all of your pent-up anger and aggression and sadness to becoming whatever kind of heiress your father needed you to be.

Nothing in that letter was really a surprise to you, but it felt like a slap on your face knowing it came from her. Your mother had truly seen through every single lie, and just like your father, she had used you to do her bidding. She made you feel like she was on your side because she needed you to be somebody for her. A secret weapon, a key hidden under a mat, an iron sword that had rusted over and been long forgotten. She had been waiting for the perfect moment to polish you clean, reveal you to the world, and she stepped face-first into death to do it.

She can call it whatever she likes. She can call me a savior, a soldier, a daughter. I suppose mothers use their daughters just the same; this business rubs off on even those we admire. On those that we think we love.

“He made plans with you, yeah?” Tom asked gently. You blinked, coming out of your thoughts. “Plans for Saturday night, didn’t he?”

You nodded slowly, “yes. We made plans for…how it would go, yes.”

Tom smacked his lips a bit, clenching his jaw. “You’re going to tell me every detail, y/n. Don’t leave anything out, no matter how small or insignificant you think it is. I have a feeling your father is going to fuck the both of us over. And we’re not letting that happen, yeah?”

Has it rubbed off on you, Tom?

“Yeah,” you breathed. “Okay.”

Will you use me just the same?

Tom moved your head, making you look at him.

“You and I, love,” he murmured, and you nodded again, putting your hands over his. You shared a tender kiss, and you pulled away with a smile on your face. The lack of distance made you warm all over. Tom knew everything. There was nothing black between you, nothing holding you both down. You had been so lost before, and there was an uncertainty that weighed inside of you. You weren’t sure how to deal with your father, to deal with whatever feelings had grown in you, and although you had worn a straight face, there had been nothing but panic in you.

There was nothing to be afraid of anymore. Tom had you, closer than he ever had you before, and you knew he wouldn’t let go. Tom was going to take care of you, and you had to trust that, because otherwise, you were as dead as you were the day before.

“You and I, Tommy,” you said softly, and skin against skin, you knew he had you, because you could feel the tenderness in his touch. There was nothing to fear anymore. There was nothing worry about.

Because I am yours. And you are mine.

You met his eyes in the mirror. He looked incredibly handsome, freshly showered and smelling sweet, a beautiful suit on him. He was wearing black tonight to match you, and he ditched the tie and unbuttoned his dress shirt underneath, just enough to see a glimpse at the chain he was wearing. You remembered when you and Mariposa used to get ready like this, smiling at each other in the mirror, but now it was Tom, and he wasn’t shying away from checking you out. He was adjusting the watch around his wrist, his dark eyes running up and down your figure.

“You should close your mouth, baby,” you said softly as you smoothed out the front of your dress. “You’ll catch flies.”

Tom chuckled lowly, shaking his head, and you hiked up the skirt of your dress to slip your thigh holster on. He clenched his jaw at that, and he couldn’t help himself. He came close to you, pressed up against you from behind, and you bit back a smile as he smoothed a hand down your back, over the curve of your hips.

God, who said she was allowed to look like this?

“Jesus, fuck,” Tom muttered, watching you secure the gun underneath your dress. “Couldn’t get any more beautiful, and then you pull shit like this.”

“Shut up,” you laughed a bit, putting your dress back down, much to his dismay. “Now you’re just saying things because you want something.”

The word was in the air, but Tom pretended not to see it. He liked the chase. He had never had to chase anyone before, but it was fun. Having you so close yet so far away made him ache all over, but the look in your eyes told him it would be worth it.

Tom grinned at you in the mirror, “of course not, love…never. I’m simply commenting on how absolutely mad you drive me when you do things like this. If it happens to turn you on…” Your smile broke out as he kissed the side of your neck, “perhaps it’s just a bonus.”

You let Tom tilt your head to the side more, let him kiss the skin there. There was something possessive about it, and after a few minutes of wet teasing with hungry kisses, you pushed Tom off of you and grabbed your jacket, laughing to yourself.

Tom guided you to the elevator of your building, and he kept a hand on the small of your back as you walked. He always kept a hand on you now, a sweet, small detail that you appreciated. You both got into the back of the car he ordered, and while you sat on opposite ends, he had a hand on your knee as he looked out the window.

You remembered meeting Tom here. As he helped you out of the car, the familiar doorman gave you and Tom a nod as you passed the line. Tom went for your hand this time, and you looked down in surprise as he intertwined your fingers. You bit back the smile on your face as he led you by the hand. His touch was warm. You liked this, more than you thought you would.

People had always talked about you being Tom’s girl, but the label always made you spit at them. You had a name, and you expected them to use it. You didn’t need to be behind a man for it to mean something, for you to matter, and you made that clear from the beginning. Tom liked that, he knew from the start that he adored your independence. It was attractive and fresh, and for once, a woman with personality had stood up to him, and she was absolutely full of fire. It was one of the reasons he fell for you so fast and so hard. You were beautiful like that, always steady on two feet.

A queen, Tom had thought to himself. A righteous queen, and her eyes are hungry, just like mine.

You noticed Mariposa wasn’t at the table. Harrison was sitting there, and he looked incomplete without Mariposa beside him. He looked on edge, staring out into nothing, and he was bouncing one of his legs impatiently.

“Harrison,” you greeted him as Tom shooed his brothers to the side for room to sit in the booth. “Where’s Ri?”

Harrison sniffed a bit, shaking his head, “don’t know. She was supposed to be here a few minutes ago,” is all he answered. You let go of Tom’s hand, and at that, his head turned to you.

“I’m going to go take a lap, yeah?” You assured them. Tom tugged you back with a hand on your wrist, and you were surprised when he put both hands on your face, capturing you in a kiss that caught you off guard. The boys at the table shifted nervously as you kissed, even Tom’s men watching intently as you embraced without shame. Eyes closed, hands in your hair, Tom had you in just a few tender kisses, lowering yourself to sit beside him to give him a better angle. Harrison smirked a bit as he watched, shaking his head as Tom licked over your bottom lip dramatically. Tom pulled away casually to light a cigarette, letting you go finally, and you sat there dumbfounded for a moment, taking deep breaths as you fought the smiling growing on you.

“Be careful,” is all he said, his face unbothered as he reached over and took a sip of Harrison’s drink. You stood up on two feet again and smoothed out the front of your dress, avoiding the knowing looks from Tom’s brothers.

You left the table to make your way around dancing, sweaty bodies and through flashing lights. You were looking every which way for her curls. Maybe she got held up at the bar, or there was a line for the ladies room.

That’s a stupid thought. There are no lines for Holland girls.

You spotted her curls finally, done up in a glamorous bun, strands of her dark ringlets falling to frame her pretty face. She had her legs crossed, showing off the sparkling heels she always wore. You knew they were hers by the scuff at the bottom of the heel. She had been wearing the same stilettos for months, a gift from Harrison, and she never wore anything else, despite having a closet full of shoes. You followed the curve of her bare arm, adorned with a few golden bracelets and her fingers decorated with rings to match. Her nails were long and manicured, a deep red color that she always preferred. She had a fierce smile on her face, fluttering her long lashes as she spoke to whoever was across from her, and you could tell she wasn’t flirting by the way she sat up straight.

Mariposa had two ways of talking to men. The first way was distracting them, and she would twist her curls around her finger and lean forward so they could peek down the neckline of her top. She was beautiful, and they would always stare, and she would always get what she wanted. This time, she still had her jacket on over her corset top, and she was talking, her eyes narrowed and her posture straight and tall to convey her confident nature. She was saying something that was meaningful, and whoever was across from her needed to listen to whatever she had to say.

You came closer, and when she noticed you, her entire face fell, and she paled a bit. You stood at the end of the table, and you blinked when you noticed who was sitting across from her. You almost pulled the gun out from under your dress, but laughing voices from the table over reminded you where you were. There was nothing you could do but hope the candle on the table caught the sleeve of suit on fire and consumed his deranged soul in a fiery death.

“y/n—” Mariposa tried to explain, but you caught her off.

“Johnny boy,” a bitter smile grew on your face. “Mmm…you love being in places you don’t belong, huh?”

His eyes brightened a bit when he saw you. He looked older, much older than you last saw him. His face had sunken a bit, maybe a few more wrinkles there. His eyes were still bright and green and warm, and his hair had darkened just a bit from the dirty blonde it used to be. He still kept his hair a bit greasy and slicked back, and he still wore suits that were too big for him, a watch you knew he couldn’t afford, and a smile on his face that didn’t belong there.

Giovanni was the Sicilian man your father always wanted you to end up with. You called him Johnny to insult him, because you always knew how much he hated being American, and he preferred being called by his name in Italian. You refused him that, always calling him “Johnny baby, Johnny boy,” and each time making him angrier than it had the time before. He didn’t even know how to speak Italian. He was always trying to impress those above him, and your father was the man whose ass he kissed most frequently.

When he should’ve been kissing yours.

Your fears about an arranged marriage were valid. When your father told you the news about your mother and you had hurried back to California, mourning your mother wasn’t the only thing your father expected of you. When you had left for New York, your father knew you as someone that liked to get in trouble but would fall in line if he needed you to be. He had no idea what New York had done to you.

You knocked on your father’s study door, adjusting the leather jacket over your blouse. When you heard his voice, you came in, your boots sounding on the creaking wooden floorboards of the old house, an awkward sound in the deep silence that surrounded the walls of his office. You stood there frozen as the door closed behind you.

Your father was standing up from his seat behind the desk, De Luca beside him, and his lackeys lined up along the walls. Giovanni stood there in front of the desk, his own father holding him there with a hand on his shoulder. You brushed your hair back a bit, coming forward to stand in front of the desk.

“What’s going on, daddy?” You asked, crossing your arms over your chest. “You called for me.”

“Well, y/n…things have been complicated in business lately,” your father explained, gesturing big with his hands. “We lost 20% of the ports in Italy because of some of the raids, and Giovanni’s father has generously agreed to get to work on acquiring the land back again on a few conditions.”

“That’s great,” you smiled bitterly. “What does that have to do with me?”

The men in the room shifted a bit, and you looked around at them all, turning back to your father when you had read the room enough.

“Oh, daddy,” you let out a breath. “No, you didn’t.”

“You know, y/n, there are things we do for business that make—”

“20%?” You scoffed. “That’s what you value the rest of my fucking life? My life is worth 20% of your Italian coast, yeah?”

“y/n—” Your father was mortified. He had never heard you speak like that, nor talk back to him like that. here were a lot of things you learned how to do in New York. One of those things had been to use your voice. You weren’t a little girl anymore, and you were adamant on standing up to anyone that got in the way of your interests.

Giovanni? That was against your interests.

“No,” you interrupted him. “Find another way.”

“There is no other way,” your father growled. “I made my deal, now it’s your turn, y/n.”

“y/n, c’mon, I’ve known you as long as I can remember,” Giovanni spoke up, coming close to you. He even had the audacity to put his arm around your waist, pulling you towards him. You looked up at him, your mouth opening in disbelief, and you felt his fingertips digging into your back, slipping under the fabric of your jacket. “It wouldn’t be so bad, yeah? Can’t say you haven’t thought about it.”

He was grinning, like he had won something, and you scoffed a bit.

“You’re right, Johnny boy, I have thought about this,” you leaned forward a bit, your face close to his. You moved your arm around to put your hand over his on your back, and you smiled sweetly at him before grabbing onto his wrist and twisting his arm enough to hear something crack in it as you pried him off of you.

Giovanni screamed loudly, and your father put a hand to his forehead as you held Giovanni by his arm still, holding pressure there as you continued to pull at his arm. You turned to his father, narrowing your eyes.

“Make a different deal,” you demanded. “Now.”

“You can’t just—”

Giovanni screamed in agony again as you pulled back his arm, using your leg to kick Giovanni onto his knees.

“Make a different deal,” you said again. “Or I’m going to make sure Johnny can’t even wipe his own ass again.”

“God, Dad!” Giovanni cried, doubling over as you held onto his arm. “Fuck, just do it, Christ!”

“Son—”

“Do it, do it!” Giovanni begged as you heard something crack violently as you bent his arm just a bit more. You were using the heel of your boot now, and using the weight of your body, you strained the length of his arm, the sounds only making your point more serious. “Jesus, fuck!”

“Perhaps, Mr. y/l/n, we can decide on a price instead.”

Giovanni walked around with a dislocated shoulder and broken fibula for months. Your father was furious with you, but he had no right to be. You had been so insulted that your father thought he could get away with something like that, and for a while, you made his life a living hell with his business partners. You had one message to get across to your father.

Don’t ever try and control me again.

You weren’t going to roll over and obey like the rest of his men. You had a purpose, not a position, and marrying you off to a misogynistic bastard wasn’t going to work. It was the beginning of your pursuit to be heard and seen, not used. That beginning had your father thinking twice about whether or not to barter you off like property, and it had started the growing, fiery mutual hatred between you and Giovanni.

You never expected Giovanni to grow a pair and come all the way to New York to entice you, but Giovanni was also absolutely terrible and would do anything to try and get the upper hand on you. He had been for years, and you were foolish to think he’d stop now.

“Hey, baby,” he greeted you, his eyes darkening and falling over the length of your body. He whistled a bit, lowly, rubbing his chin. “New York has done you well, y/n. Is this your new look now? I like it.”

“Ri, I think you should get a refill,” you said firmly, grabbing the glass of wine out of her hands and downing it. You handed it back to her, empty, and she stood up slowly, her fingers wrapping around the stem of the glass as you sat across from Giovanni. “Go on.”

Mariposa looked between you two before walking away, and Giovanni followed her, his eyes watching her as she disappeared into the crowd.

“Hmm…I see you and Miss Muñoz are still friendly,” he winked at you, “and I can’t blame you. I mean…fuck, look at her.”

You scoffed a bit, “you’re still as much of a dickhead as I remember. Whose ass did you kiss this time to get yourself here?”

Giovanni tsked, “y/n, don’t be that way. I came all this way to see you, I thought you’d be happy,” he leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table. “I wanted to see my baby girl before she got all done up…all ready to take on Holland territory. I mean, that’s why we’re here, isn’t it? Gonna marry that piece of shit, aren’t you?”

You tapped your fingers on the table, clenching your jaw, “you know, I don’t remember my father inviting you in on family matters,” you smiled knowingly at him. “I don’t ever remember one of his…lackeys being in on operations like this. I seem to remember that only people that matter, only people that could contribute, got to sit it on important meetings. It’s bad for business when men at the bottom know about things like this, so I’m sorry, Johnny baby, that information is…classified.”

He laughed a bit, licking his bottom lip with a roll of his eyes. “Your father promised me a lot of things he’s yet to deliver on. Maybe bringing me with him is how he plans on giving me what I deserve finally.”

“Promises he had no way of guaranteeing,” your eyes were sparkling. “My father was simply mistaken, and he had to learn from those mistakes.” You stopped tapping your fingers, tilting your head to the side as you met his eyes and didn’t back away from his glare. “I do as I please, Johnny. Nobody tells me what to do, nobody can.”

“And what are you doing here?” Giovanni raised a brow. “You’re nothing but a whore for your father, letting the Hollands degrade you…all for your dad to get New York again, I think that’s what he said.”

You sniffed a bit, shifting in your seat, leaning forward more.

“If you think I’m a whore, then you’re as blind as you were years ago,” you said lowly. “That’s not how it works here. If I ask something of the Hollands, they do it for me. And no, it’s not because I sleep with any of them. It’s because unlike daddy’s business, where boys like you are running errands, there’s only men here, and they don’t ignore women because their dicks are too small.”

Giovanni snickered a bit, “you know, I don’t think I would’ve liked to have you as my wife anyway.”

You smiled a bit, gripping his collar and pulling him close. “You’re right, Johnny. I wouldn’t want to embarrass you in that relationship.” He swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing as you licked over your bottom lip. “You know…cause my dick is so much bigger than yours.”

Poking at his insecurities was always your defense because it worked every time. Giovanni was the equivalent to a child and commenting on the size of him always seemed to get him angry enough to do stupid things.

Giovanni stood up abruptly after you let him go, but he was forced back into his seat when he bumped right into Tom. The color ran out of his face when he realized who he was in front of, and he scooted back into the booth, away from him, and Tom snatched the drink right out of Giovanni’s hands, tipping his head back and swallowing it all. You bit back the smile on your face as the glass hit the table, and Giovanni was visibly sweating.

“Mm…” Tom scrunched his nose. “Vodka and seltzer? What a terrible choice in liquor, mate.”

“Holland,” Giovanni straightened out his jacket, and you saw all the fight drain out of him. Intimidated by Tom’s glare, he held out his hand for Tom to shake. “I’m…Giovanni. I work for y/n’s father.”

“Mmm…so you work for y/n,” Tom corrected him, and Giovanni just pursed his lips. You watched as Tom pulled a chair out and took a seat, spreading his legs a bit as he pulled out a pack of cigarettes and slid some matches your way. You stroke one of the matches, leaning over to light it for him, and you dropped the match into Giovanni’s glass. Tom took a few puffs of the cancer stick before passing it to you, letting you take a drag.

Giovanni watched the entire time. His eyes darted between you and Tom, watching intently as you both looked at one another, as if you were communicating silently, understanding one another.

“He just came to say hello, Tom,” you said finally, letting out a breath of smoke, and Tom turned to finally grace Giovanni with his eyes. He leaned back in his chair, holding the cigarette between his index and forefinger as he looked Giovanni up and down.

“Oh, to say hello, eh?” Tom was taking up space with the way he sat, knowing exactly how to intimidate others just by the way he positioned himself. “Mate, I can’t help but notice the way you look at y/n. I think…” he leaned forward and blew a breath of smoke into Giovanni’s face, “you should have more respect for my fiancé. Because being disrespectful to my fiancé means you’re disrespecting me, and I don’t bloody care for men that don’t respect me, do you understand what I’m saying?”

Your heart tightened a bit in your chest. You didn’t need Tom to stand up for you, and he knew that, you had been doing it for months yourself. But hearing him do it anyways, it was sweet. You had yet to hear Tom tell you that he loved you, but there was no denying it now, not here.

Giovanni shifted in his seat, brushing his hair back. He nodded finally, fiddling with his fingers.

“It wasn’t…it wasn’t like that,” Giovanni assured him, his voice breaking, and Tom tilted his head to the side.

“Are you calling me a liar?”

“No! N-No,” Giovanni shook his head adamantly, “I meant…y/n and I, we go…we go way back. We’ve known each other a long time.”

“I see,” Tom laughed a bit, looking between you and Giovanni, his smile so sinister. Giovanni laughed with him nervously. “I see, so…because you and y/n know each other, it’s alright for you to act like a bastard, yeah?”

Your eyes glowed as you watched Tom break Giovanni down like a wall made of glass. Giovanni was scared, and you adored seeing him like this. You adored Tom, who was spitting venom in his ear, all for you. You couldn’t do much except stare at him lovingly.

“I think…you should apologize,” Tom said finally, and Giovanni gaped at Tom, blinking in disbelief. “I think your father would appreciate that, wouldn’t he, darling?”

“Mhm,” you agreed, standing up. Tom brought his hand around your waist as you took a seat in his lap, and he passed you the cigarette as you met Giovanni’s eyes. “Let’s hear it, Johnny. What do you have to say to me?”

Giovanni was proud, so proud. He had an ego even bigger than Tom’s, and he hid behind your father to throw insults at you. But here, in New York, your father wasn’t in charge anymore. What a Holland said was how it went, and there was no viable contradiction to it. Your father was not here to back up Giovanni and his unrealistic desires, and Tom was in your corner now.

I am yours, and you are mine.

Tom squeezed your hip, kissing your bare shoulder before trailing up and planting soft kisses to your neck. You smiled at Giovanni, reaching up and tangling your fingers into Tom’s curls to encourage him. Your eyes were dark and alight with contentment, and Giovanni could do nothing anymore. You were untouchable here, and there wasn’t a thing he could do to bite back at you.

“I’m sorry, y/n,” he hissed through his teeth, and you blew Giovanni a kiss.

“Mmm…submissiveness suits you, Johnny,” you purred, standing up from Tom’s lap. You tapped off the cigarette as Tom stood up from his seat, straightening out his suit. “Tell daddy I said hello, and that I hope all is ready for tomorrow. Nine o’clock, right?”

Giovanni grimaced, biting back the words he was dying to say to you, but Tom was still listening, a look on his face that dared him to open his mouth. Giovanni simply nodded slowly, and you stubbed out the cigarette onto the table, tossing the ashes at him. Tom watched as you started walking away, smirking as he took a handful of your ass in one hand, following you. You let him, licking your bottom lip as he squeezed, and you grabbed onto his hand as you backed up into the wall, bringing him with you.

“Thank you,” was all you said, and Tom just pursed his lips, glaring down at you. He wasn’t angry, that wasn’t it. If he was, he would’ve gotten you both alone, in private, and he would’ve told you exactly what he wanted you to hear. This was different. He was seething, his chest rising and falling heavy, but he wasn’t angry.

“Who was that?” Tom demanded, touching under your chin. He wanted answers, clearly. You smoothed out the collar of his dress shirt, fixing it over his jacket. You sighed a bit, shaking your head.

“Nobody,” you said softly. “One of my father’s…I don’t even know what to call him. Tried to marry me off to the guy once upon a time,” you were pulled away from him abruptly as he pushed away from the wall, “wait, Tom—”

Oops.

You sat in silence in the car, sitting on opposite ends in the backseat, but this time, Tom didn’t have a hand on you. He was staring out the window, bouncing his leg, a hard look on his face as he ran a hand through his hair, fluffing the curls out of the product that kept them tidy. Tom had been acting this way all night, something itching at him, something bothering him, and it kept his head preoccupied.

“You didn’t care to tell me about that fucking tosser, eh?” Tom asked finally, his voice hard. You took a deep breath.

“Tom, honestly, I didn’t think I’d ever see him again,” you explained, shaking your head. “I definitely didn’t think my dad was going to let him go on a trip with him, especially here, when we’re getting…married and all.”

Tom laughed a bit, “you know, y/n, I thought we were on the same page. I thought we were going to stop fucking lying to each other when the situation at hand is so fucking sensitive, that I could lose my bloody head!”

You scrunched your nose a bit as he raised his voice, and you smoothed out the skirt of your dress.

“Tom, I didn’t know,” you said again, sighing. “He surprised me just as much as he surprised you. Don’t yell at me.”

You rode in silence again, staring down at your painted nails as the car stopped and drove in the congested Midtown traffic. After a few minutes of Tom silently brooding, you were taken back when Tom reached over and grabbed both sides of your face, pulling you to him and kissing you hard. It was the same way he always touched you, always grabbed you, where his fingers slightly tangled in your hair and his palms were warm against your face and his grip was tight and firm. He pulled away shortly, licking over his bottom lip as he stared down at you. The touch of his rings cooled your face just a bit, but you still felt hot all over from his kiss.

He pulled back completely and sat straight again, resuming his previous position. He didn’t say anything or acknowledge how passionate the kiss had been, and you were grateful, because you were still recovering from it. You turned away from him, reaching up to touch your lips, and you smiled to yourself. Tom wasn’t upset with you; no. Tom was jealous.

When you looked down at your hands again, you paid attention to Tom’s diamond band, still on your ring finger. He had yet to get you an engagement ring or something of your own, but he never asked for his ring back, and you continued to wear it. Smoothing your finger over it, it was almost symbolic. You had taken it right off of Tom, but he was content in you having it and keeping it because he trusted you.

Because he loves me.

You hoped everything of his was that way. Once you took his name, you would have a whole other position to take on, a whole other empire to think about. He would give it to you, but there was no tension or fear between you because he trusted you, and you trusted him. In just a few days, you and Tom were not just business partners with benefits. You were connected to him, and he was connected to you, and nothing in your life had ever felt so seamless, so complete. It had to stay that way.

It just has to.

You turned your head to look at Tom. He was still looking out the window, but his nervous leg had stopped bouncing, and he was still, his legs spread a bit as looked at the city that belonged to him. His jaw was a bit hard, and he kept flexing and unflexing his fingers, curling them into fists and out of them. His mannerisms were calm and slow, but something was bothering him still. Perhaps the same thing that was bothering you.

From the moment you met Tom, you knew he was going to be hard to resist. You were a woman, and women had needs, of course they did. Tom was insufferable, a complete arrogant, egotistical, and excruciating pain in your ass, but God, was he beautiful and God, did he dress well. Tom exuded the money he made, he cleaned up like it, and he acted like it. You had always hated that personality in the men you met, but for Tom, he did egotistical and arrogant far more sophisticated and far subtler. He was good at being bad, he was good at being rich, and there were days when you just wanted to slam the door to his office shut and force him against it.

I mean, aren’t you marrying him?

Truthfully, you had no idea what you were doing. You squeezed your eyes shut for a moment, shaking your head. It wasn’t the time to think about those things. You and Tom had work to do, and none of it involved ripped clothes and tangled sheets.

You’re trying to merge kingdoms, not get hot and heavy with him. Focus.

The car stopped, and Tom opened the door. He stood on the sidewalk, waiting for you, and he held out his hand for you to take. You intertwined your fingers, and Tom shut the door behind you, helping you onto the sidewalk. You looked up at your apartment building for a moment, and even though there was a chill outside, you kept Tom there, not moving from your place on the sidewalk.

Tom sighed, letting go of you for a moment to light a cigarette. He took your hand again as he put the lighter away.

“What is it, y/n? What do you have to say?” Tom asked, as if he knew there were words itching to be spoken. You swallowed a bit, stepping closer to him. You reached for the ring on your finger, taking it off and holding it up for him to look at.

“Is this…what are we doing?” You wondered, a bit breathless. “Tomorrow, we’re supposed to…get married. That was the plan, it was always the plan, but…things are different now. There’s no secrets, Tommy, that changed things.”

“Nothing’s changed,” Tom countered, and you pursed your lips.

“You’re an idiot if you think nothing’s changed, Tom,” you argued. “I just…I just want the truth, Tom. That’s all.” You met his eyes, shaking your head. “I just want to know that…even if being married to me isn’t what you want, that…that you’ll still have my back.”

Tom let out a slow breath of smoke, away from you, before taking the ring out of your hands and putting it back onto his own finger. Your face softened a bit, and you swallowed hard, trying to fight down the feeling crawling up inside you.

No, no, no.

Tom reached into his suit jacket, pulling something out of one of the pockets. You looked down as he opened his palm, and you let out a shaky breath as you saw it. There, in his hand, was a thin solid gold band with a single rectangular diamond. He took your left hand in his, dropping the cigarette and stubbing it out before slipping the band onto your ring finger. You had nothing to say as he brought your hand up to his lips and kissed your knuckles before intertwining your fingers again and tugging you towards the building.

The silence told you enough. Tom had always planned on going through with it, and even though neither of you were sure about the future, you were sure about each other. Tomorrow night, you would marry him, and he would marry you, and even though both of you would be pretending, the vows would be real.

The beginning would be true.

You punched in the code for your door and used the key to unlock it, opening it. Tom held it open as he came in after you, and Tom shut the door as he backed you up against it, resting both of his forearms on either side of your head. You swallowed hard as you met his eyes, barely able to see him with the lack of lights on. The moonlight peeked in through the windows, but it was only enough to see half of his face.

“Tom,” you said finally, “what are you—”

He captured your breath in a kiss, pressing you up against the door. You dropped your purse onto the floor, hearing it clatter as you wrapped your arms around Tom’s neck, pulling him closer to you. He nipped at your bottom lip, enough that you let out a little laugh. All the tension in your body rose as one of Tom’s hands left the door and came up your neck, wrapping around your throat, gripping it firmly.

Oh, you have me, Tommy. I’m all yours.

You swallowed again, something dry, as Tom’s thumb trailed along the length of your jaw and up, tracing the outline of your lips. His touch was soft and hot, and his eyes were watching your reaction. You didn’t move, not at all, not until his thumb went into your mouth and you could wrap your lips around it, your eyes going up to meet his again.

“I’ve seen a lot of things tonight I wish I hadn’t, y/n,” Tom said lowly, chuckling darkly. “And you with that bastard was one of them.”

So jealous.

You gasped a bit as his grip on your throat tightened, forcing you back into the door, his wet thumb rubbing along your chin now.

So possessive.

“Bloody disrespectful that was,” Tom’s lip twitched angrily, and his eyes were so dark, you couldn’t see anything in them. “But you know what pushed me over the fuckin’ edge tonight, darling, eh? You know what it was?”

All mine.

When you didn’t answer, Tom shoved you into the door, your head hitting it a bit hard, and you grunted a bit, letting out a few heavy breaths. You were shivering all over from his touch, thinking about the last time you were underneath him. This time, just his fingers wouldn’t be enough, you knew that much.

“It was you, y/n,” Tom breathed, shaking his head. “You, thinking that I didn’t want you as my fucking queen. And it got me thinking, love.”

You let out a harsh breath as he shoved his knee between your legs, his thigh just ghosting the place you needed him the most. If you weren’t wet before, you were drenched now, hot all over, and completely shivering. Finally, Tom Holland had you at his mercy. He was enjoying every second of it.

Every curve, every dimple, every piece, it’s mine.

“It got me thinking that perhaps you don’t bloody understand what you mean to me,” Tom murmured, licking his lips. “But you will, darling. You’ll understand. I’ll make sure that you understand.”

You cried out in surprise as Tom gripped you by the waist and turned you around, pressing you up against the door again. Your cheek rested against it as he pressed his hips into your backside, dipping his head to the crook of your neck as you felt him, hard and strained against the zipper of his trousers, all for you. Tom kissed under your ear softly, his breath warm as he dragged his tongue up the length of your ear and kissed the edge of your earlobe.

“You’re a princess today, y/n,” he growled. “And tomorrow, I’m gonna make you a bloody queen.”

With everyone on their knees for you.

You were rendered speechless. Tom was whispering in your ear, his hands were falling down your sides, and you were completely, utterly useless. You whimpered as he gripped the hem of your dress and hiked it up, his hand cupping one side of your ass generously, squeezing. He almost moaned himself seeing the holster strapped around your thighs, your gun nice and snug against your leg.

“Bloody fucking hell,” Tom chuckled. “Look at you, darling…” You leaned your head back against his chest as you felt his fingers tug at the lace of your panties, moving between your legs before he touched between your thighs. He whistled a bit, lowly, “shit, baby, you’re bloody soaked…”

That was an understatement. Your panties were ruined.

“God, Tom—”

“You’ve wanted this,” he observed, gripping the waistband of your panties and sliding them down your thighs. “You’ve wanted me, sweetheart, but you never said a word. You don’t have to hide anymore, y/n. If I’m going to be your husband, you’ve got to be honest with me, eh?”

You couldn’t concentrate as his hands moved between your thighs, and you cried out a bit as he spanked you firmly. Your head was spinning, all you could think about was the ache between your legs and how hot your whole body felt. You knew you were dripping when Tom grasped the handle of the gun, pulling it out of its place and unbuckling the holster so it fell onto the floor. The metal was so cool and hard against your skin, and you froze as he released the magazine from it, the bullets scattered across the floor now. He dropped the gun, and it clattered onto the floor.

God, he’s going to make me come, and he’s barely touched me.

“Answer me, y/n. You’re going to be more honest with me about what you want, yeah?” Tom demanded. “If my wife is bloody needy,” you groaned as he tangled his hand into your hair, forcing your head back again, “if my queen wants something from me,” you sighed with relief as he kissed your neck, “I expect her to say so.”

My wife.

“Yes, Tommy,” you cooed, and you felt him smile against the skin of your neck.

“Good girl,” he whispered in your ear, and you had to bite back a moan. You felt so submissive, so out of your element, but you had never adored the praise more than right now. This was the attractive, hot, kingpin that the city was afraid of, and he was calling you his good girl, his princess, his queen, and you didn’t realize how much you loved being worshipped until right now. You didn’t realize how much you needed someone to take care of you.

You closed your eyes as Tom started to kiss over the back of your neck, one hand sliding up your waist again as the other toyed with your clit, circling it gently just to keep you occupied as he felt up the body he loved more than any other. He had his eyes closed, and he was trying to memorize the curves of your skin, how often your breath skipped as he touched you, how warm you were. You smiled a bit as he fingered the zipper of your dress.

“Go ahead, Tommy,” you said softly. “I want you to.”

Good girl.

Tom unzipped the back of your dress, his knuckles dragging along your spine as he did. His touch was electric, each time his skin met yours was like a bolt of warmth that cascaded all down your back. You closed your eyes again as he began to kiss down your back, butterfly kisses trailing from the back of your neck to between your shoulder blades to the base of your spine, a trickle effect of shivers moving through you. Tom got down onto his knees behind you, and you groaned a bit as he bent you at the hip a bit. He put both hands on your ass, kissing the skin there, biting even.

“You couldn’t get any more beautiful,” he said lowly, and you let out a soft whimper as you felt his curls tickle your skin. It wasn’t long before your knees began to give out, an involuntary response as Tom dipped his head between your legs, his tongue poking out from between those wet lips to slip inside you.

“God, Tom—” You gasped, holding onto the wall for support. Tom put one hand on your hip to steady you and used the other to touch you teasingly. He started out slow, lapping through your folds, humming as he collected the sticky, sweet wetness onto the surface of his tongue, swallowing before delving in for more. With two other fingers, he massaged your bud lovingly, coaxing the most beautiful moans out of you. Tom was smirking like a bastard when he noticed your knees were shaking a bit, your body trembling as you gave into the sensation. “Tommy—”

“Mmm…you’ve got such a sweet cunt, darling,” he murmured, kissing your thighs, his voice a bit muffled against your skin. “Bloody wonderful.”

You leaned your head back, one hand leaving the wall to grab at his stiff curls, pulling on them hard. Tom chuckled a bit, his lips wrapping around your clit, his tongue moving in rhythm as he slipped two fingers inside of you, stretching you nicely, making your eyes roll back in your head as you rocked your hips a bit, feeling a sweet knot forming in your belly.

“Mm, princess, you’re so bloody tight, yeah?” Tom breathed, pulling away to catch his breath. “You’re close, eh?”

“Tom, Jesus!” You squealed, forcing his head back between your legs. “Don’t stop, what’s w-wrong with you?”

Tom didn’t stop. He stood up from his knees, grabbing you from the waist and hoisting you up into his arms. You held onto his neck as he carried you into the bedroom, setting you down on the bed as he shed his suit jacket and kicked his shoes off. You stopped him from moving too fast, slipping your heels off before sitting up on your knees on the bed, tugging Tom to you by the fabric of his shirt, meeting his eyes as you slowly unbuttoned his dress shirt.

Tom undid the clasp of his watch, tossing it onto the floor on top of his jacket. He undid his cufflinks as you finished undoing the buttons of his shirt, and you slid the fabric off his shoulders, revealing his muscular torso. You couldn’t see much in the dark, but your fingers ghosted over flexed muscle and soft skin, and you let out a breath as you scratched down his stomach. Tom was a sight for sore eyes, and despite the scars and marks that you could feel, his skin was the most kissable surface you had ever seen.

“It’s alright, love,” a gentle noise escaped you as Tom gripped your chin hard with one hand, the other unbuckling his belt and working on his trousers. “I know…it’s hard to fathom how fit your husband is, isn’t it?”

“You’re not my husband,” you said defiantly, and Tom clicked his tongue.

“After tonight, m’love, you’ll never need anyone but me.”

“Bite me, Tom.”

“With pleasure.”

You heard the fabric of your dress tear as he pushed it off your shoulders roughly, grabbing the hem of it and shimmying it down your hips. He forced you onto your back so he could pull it off and toss it behind him, and Tom grinned as he looked down at you, scooting back on the bed as you kicked your panties off your ankle. There you were, like an angel sparkling in moonlight, all bare for him to admire.

All fucking mine.

He caged himself over you, getting on top of you, and you cupped his cheeks, kissing him warmly as you both settled back against the pillows. Despite how dominating Tom could be, this was gentle, this was sweet, and there was no rushing now. Tom brought you up to sit, rolling over until you were straddling his waist, his back against the headboard as you both kissed warmly, your thighs still shaking and damp from Tom’s unbelievable mouth. It wasn’t long before your fingers were threading through his curls again as you grinded down on his lap, chasing your high even though Tom had yet to remove his boxers.

He wasn’t stopping you. Both of his hands were on your bare back, his palms pressing you close as you moved your hips, both of your mouths still focused on each other, kissing, biting, breathing. You were chasing a high that Tom had denied you, not caring how desperate you looked as you leaned your head back and moved.

Your moan was feverish and shaky as you came, falling onto his chest for support as your hips slowed their pace. Tom gripped you by the hair and flipped you both over, getting on top, and you reached down between your grinding bodies to feel the front of his boxers, feeling how damp and sticky they were.

“Mmm, did you make a mess, baby?” You teased, and Tom pulled at your hair roughly, and you smiled at that, to his delight.

“Aye, you bloody adore that thought, eh? Getting me off without so much as fucking touchin’ me,” he chuckled a bit, and you hummed as he grabbed your leg and wrapped it around his waist securely. You held onto him as you felt the tip of him against your thigh, warm, wet, aching to be touched. You stared right into his eyes as you lowered your hand, finding his cock and wrapping your nimble fingers around him, your lips parting as you felt him for the very first time.

Tom gripped one side of your face hard as you stroked him, your fingers exploring the parts of him you had been deprived of for too long. Tom was lengthy, hard, and throbbing, and he thought you were being cruel with how slowly and tenderly you were touching him.

“Look at me,” you breathed, and he grunted as he met your eyes again, licking his lips as you slowed your fingers around him. You leaned forward, giving him a kiss beside the mouth before kissing him firmly, hotly, sloppily. “I’m going to make you unstoppable, Tommy. I know what you want, baby, and I’m going to give it to you. You want the world, Tom, and I swear…it’s yours.”

As if I’m not already fucking hard for her.

You couldn’t remember how long you kissed for, but your lips were swollen, red, aching by the time Tom gripped your hips and pushed into you. You arched your back at the feeling, still sensitive from your previous orgasm, but that didn’t stop Tom from sinking into you slowly, not stopping until your hips touched. You clawed at his back, your nails digging in hard. Tom didn’t move, but you could feel him pulsing, aching, dying to do something, anything.

“And I,” Tom sucked at the skin at the edge of your jaw, taking the skin between his teeth as he kissed to nibble and bite, “I’m going to give you the fucking power you deserve, princess.”

What I deserve.

You moaned in his ear as he finally lifted his hips, grunting as he pressed his body as close to yours as possible, the tip of his cock grazing somewhere inside of you that had you crying out in pleasure. Tom grabbed your face again, holding it tight as he moved his hips against yours, watching as your mouth gaped open wider and wider as he found his rhythm.

“Everyone is going to know your name, y/n,” Tom growled, rutting his hips up into yours, his breath faltering when he could feel you tightening up around him. “You’re going to be a fucking Holland, aren’t you, love?”

“Yes!” You gasped, dragging your nails down his back.

“Say it,” Tom gripped you by the throat this time, forcing your eyes on his as he quickened his hips, starting to lose control. “Fuckin’ say it.”

Mine.

“I’m a—” You moaned loudly as he dug his fingers into your hips, a forceful grip that had you shaking all over. Tom was relentless in his drive to get you seeing stars, and the tip of his cock was hitting the same sweet, aching spot over and over again inside of you. Once he found it, he didn’t stop searching for it, his focus solely on making those sweet eyes of yours milky and white with pleasure.

“Say it, princess,” Tom demanded, becoming breathless and hot as he moved on top of you. There was sweat lining his forehead, and your nails dragging along his back had become clammy with the sweat dripping down the length of his spine.

“I’m a Holland!” You cried out, biting down on his shoulder, and Tom slowed his pace a bit, picking you up until you were upright with him. You put your hands on his shoulders to steady yourself, leaning your forehead against his as you both moved as one, your hips meeting deliciously, getting faster and sloppier every second you both held onto to one another. Tom was hitting deep inside of you, and you needed to feel more, you had to feel everything, because it had been so long since you had felt anything.

All mine.

Tom smoothed his hand up and down your back, your panting breaths mingling as the pace quickened again, the knot in your stomach building up sweetly and intensely. Tom was fucking you raw, and you were loving every single moment of it.

“I need you, Tommy,” you breathed, and he nodded in response, not stopping the quick thrusts he had built up so well.

“I know,” he whispered, pulling at your sweaty hair, hugging your chest close to his. Skin on skin, the only sounds being Tom’s cock moving between you and your sweet breathless moans as you held onto him. “Be a good girl for me, y/n.”

You whimpered as he said it again.

Good girl.

It was a command you couldn’t help but obey. For so long, you had tried so hard to be anything but good. Good never got you anywhere, and no one cared about good girls, no one in this business listened to good girls. They ignored good girls, tossed aside good girls, killed good girls.

But here, now, in this bedroom, Tom needed you to be good, and it wasn’t because he wanted to toss you aside, it was because he needed you to be good to give you whatever you wanted. Tom didn’t need you to be good for anyone else except for him.

Your whole body froze as you came around his hard length, your hips stilling and your voice faltering as your vision turned a bit blurry for a moment. Everything was so silent and pleasurable for just a few moments, Tom’s hips slowing their pace but not stopping as he reached his own high. You gasped a bit as you felt him, filling you up and almost making you collapse. It was almost like a second high, feeling him like that, and Tom had to hold you upright as you tried to swallow down all the wonderful feelings inside of you.

You both panted hard, sweaty and exhausted, but neither of you wanted to move. Tom’s cock had softened, but you stopped him as he tried to pull out.

“Just a minute,” you breathed, closing you eyes. “Just…wait.”

The truth was that you had never felt more vulnerable or closer to anyone than this moment. You wanted to hold onto it for as long as possible. Tom nipped at your neck as you relaxed in his lap, and you let out slight gasps as he moved every once in a while. Finally, slowly, you urged him to pull out, and Tom was quick to collect everything dripping onto your thighs and slip those fingers into your mouth, watching you hungrily.

“You’re mine, y/n,” Tom said finally, brushing the hair out of your eyes. You looked down at him, perched on his lap, and you nodded slowly. “Your father is going to have to pry you out of my dead bloody hands to get to you, yeah?”

“Don’t say things like that,” you whispered, shaking your head. “The only way we get out of this, Tommy, is together.”

“You and I, love,” Tom echoed, his forehead against yours again. He left a chaste kiss on your lips. “My ride or die.”

“Two sides of the same coin,” you cooed, and Tom leaned in close enough to kiss you again.

“One and the same,” you both said at the same time, smiling wide at one another, so enamored with each other that it was frightening.

You tried to remember how Tom looked like this. His handsome features only lit by moonlight, the sweat along his brows, the smile ghosting his swollen lips. Tom was pretty in this light, almost gentle, and you adored being able to see him like this. No one else would ever be able to admire him in this light, and you didn’t care if it was selfish. You didn’t know what tomorrow would bring, and you tried so hard to swallow the fear in your throat. Tom couldn’t know how nervous you were, how scared you were. You had to show him that you were capable of doing this for him, that you had it in you to sit on thrones that weren’t made for you and to take on challenges that were never designed for you to succeed. You had to be better. You had to be more.

You need to be you.

Tomorrow would be the first chapter in a book you had never planned on writing. For so long, you were sure about where you were supposed to stand, but now you were struggling where to even put your feet as every step felt shakier than the last. Looking into Tom’s dark eyes, you were certain that this was the calm before the storm. Time and time again, your father proved he couldn’t be trusted, and there was something inside you that knew even the things he told you must’ve been a lie.

“He will never learn until it’s too late, and by then, nothing will be able to save him.”

Your father would only see through you. He would never be able to see you for what you were. You would have to take everything from him because you were certain that he would never give you what you were promised. You would have to take it, and you were relying on Tom to be there to catch you when you did.

“It’s you, and it will always be you, and I hope he dies knowing it.”

This had to be the beginning, your beginning. It couldn’t be anything else. This love, this happiness, it all had to be for a reason, and the right reasons. You had fought so hard to get here, to finally feel in control, and finally, someone was looking at you. Tom was looking at you, and he was in love with you, and you needed to protect it from the world that you were never meant for. You knew it would do anything to tear it away from you, to make you believe that you weren’t worthy of it all, but you had to be better. You couldn’t let this be anything more than the start. It couldn’t be the beginning of anything else. Not the beginning of losing, not the beginning of being alone, not the beginning of the end.

It has to be the beginning of me.

read chapter nine

#wowie its here #i hope it was worth the wait #tom holland imagines #tom holland imagine #tom holland fanfiction #tom holland fanfic #tom holland fic #tom holland x you #tom holland x reader #tom holland au #tom holland series #tom holland x y/n #mob!tom #tom holland smut #thnsfw #notorious

317 notes · View notes

sugarandspace · 4 years

Text

Déjà-vu of the Worst Kind

My @malecsecretsanta gift for @brightasstars! 💙

Summary: Even after five years, the memory of Alec laying on the ground with a deadly injury on his chest is strong and vivid. Especially when their lives lead them to a situation much too similar to that. The only difference is that this time, Magnus is able to help. And he's going to do all he can to make sure Alec stays alive.

Warnings: blood, serious injury, near-death (everything ends happily)

Read on AO3

It didn’t matter that they’d been living in Alicante for nearly five years, New York would always be a home for Alec. So when Isabelle called and told him about the threat the city was facing, it didn’t take long before Alec was canceling all his meetings for the next few days and organizing a trip to the New York institute.

All it took was one phone call before Magnus was canceling all his appointments so he could go with him.

It didn’t matter when people in Alicante tried to argue that they were too important to join a fight that could be handled by the Shadowhunters of New York. Their friends and family were in danger and there would be nothing that would stop them from helping them.

So less than two hours after Isabelle had called Alec, Magnus and Alec were standing in the operations center of the New York institute, surrounded by familiar people.

“So this is where we think they are hiding,” Isabelle says and points to a spot on the hologram map. To Magnus’ relief, he notes that it’s far from the city center, in a less populated area that looks to be full of warehouses. “There have been spikes in demonic activity around this area, and our patrols have had a significant increase in demon sightings inside this circle.”

Isabelle’s painted nail follows the red circle on the map, about a mile in diameter.

“Have any patrols been able to inspect the warehouse?” Alec asks, obviously talking about the warehouse in the middle of the circle, glowing with most demonic activity.

“One patrol,” Jace says from Alec’s right.

“They didn’t make it out of there,” Clary finishes for him.

“And that’s why we need a plan,” Isabelle says, her voice that of a strong leader. “We can’t just storm in there without one. We have very little information about the situation but we have to make do with what we have. The levels of demonic activity are rising every day and it’s our best chance to act as soon as we can.”

“What do we know?” Magnus asks, and their friends and family start filling them in.

-.-.-

“Do you think our plan will work?” Alec asks from beside him. They are on top of a shipping container that’s near the entrance of the warehouse, Alec with his bow and Magnus with his hands sparking with magic. The higher vantage point gives them a better opportunity to help others. The sun is just rising above the horizon and when Magnus looks around the group on the ground and on the shipping containers around them, he sees a lot of familiar faces among the ones that are new. There are a lot of Shadowhunters, but since the alliances with Downworlders are stronger than ever, there are a lot of them there as well.

Everyone is ready to protect their home against a common enemy.

“I hope so,” Magnus replies and takes one last steadying breath.

Alec nods at Isabelle who’s standing at the ground level with her whip, and Isabelle nods back.

“NOW!” She yells and four arrows fly and land on the large doors in the front of the warehouse. The lights on the arrows blink a few times before the arrows explode, blowing the doors off their hinges.

It takes less than a second until the demons start pouring from the doors.

Magnus loses the track of time, his only focus on keeping the others safe. Alec is a solid presence next to him, shooting an arrow after an arrow, all of them sinking to their targets. It’s been a while since they’ve taken part to a mission that intense, their jobs at Alicante vastly calmer than their jobs in New York ever were. But it seems to go smoothly, the spells coming to Magnus from memory.

He loses his focus when he hears Alec scream.

He turns around immediately and sees that one of the demons has climbed up the side of the shipping container, trying to get to them from the back. From the looks of it Alec had placed himself in between Magnus and the demon, and now the demon is claws deep in Alec’s chest. Alec’s hands are by his sides, an arrow laying next to his hand.

And he screams in agony.

Magnus sees red, and the force of the magic he throws towards the demon is so strong it turns the demon to dust immediately. Magnus casts a protective shield around them to prevent any more demons from sneaking to them and kneels next to Alec.

“Alexander,” he says as he looks at the state of Alec’s chest.

Alec is still conscious, but obviously in too much pain to speak. His hand comes up to take a hold of Magnus’ jacket, and the bloody fingers curl into it tightly.

“It’s okay,” Magnus says, convincing himself as much as he’s trying to convince Alec. “It’s going to be okay.”

“Magnus what is going on?!” Jace screams from the ground level. He’s obviously felt his parabatai getting hurt.

“Alexander is hurt!” He tells him while his hands spark with healing magic. He starts pushing the magic towards Alec’s chest and it sinks into the wounds fast.

“Can you help him?!”

Magnus hears Jace ask the question but he doesn't know how to reply. He wants to yell yes, wants to promise Jace that his brother will be fine, but his throat feels thick because he can’t say if it’s the truth or not.

Apparently, Jace isn’t happy with not getting an answer because a second later he’s climbing on top of the shipping container. He staggers in his steps when he sees Alec laying on the ground, his chest so bloody it’s hard to see the wounds. Magnus’ protective shield lets him pass easily, and Jace kneels on the other side of Alec.

“Magnus?” Jace asks, and Magnus shifts his attention from the wounds to briefly look at Jace’s terrified face, and Magnus’ own look must be an answer enough because Jace takes Alec’s hand and eases the fingers from the white-knuckled grip he’s squeezed them in, and they both turn their attention back to Alec.

“It’s going to be fine,” Magnus says, like saying the words will bring them to existence. “It’s going to be fine.”

He’s not going to let it end badly.

The situation brings memories to the surface. Memories from over five years ago when they were in a badly lit alley in a similar situation, Alec bleeding on the ground with Magnus kneeling next to him. But this time something is different, this time Magnus has his magic, and this time he’s able to help. And he’s going to do all he can to make sure Alec will survive.

His hands shake from all the power that’s coursing through them, and he can feel exhaustion creeping in. He can also see how Alec’s eyes threaten to slip closed despite his efforts and despite the iratzes Jace keeps drawing on him, so he keeps pushing. Alec’s grip on his jacket loosens and Magnus’ eyes threaten tears.

All his focus is on Alec, so he startles when he feels Jace slip his hand to one of his.

“Take my strength,” he says.

Magnus holds the hand tightly and pulls, and the new rush of energy makes him jolt a little. He can see the wounds start to knit themselves slowly closed, but he fears it might be too late, that Alec might have already lost too much blood. He focuses on the labored rise and fall of Alec’s chest and keeps pushing.

He has enough mind to let go of Jace’s hand when he knows he’s about to pull too much.

But he doesn’t stop. He knows he doesn’t have much to give anymore, but every last bit of magic he finds, he pushes to Alec’s body. He won’t be able to live with himself if he loses Alec and knows he didn’t do all he could.

“Magnus,” Jace says carefully, but Magnus ignores him.

Magnus starts to sway, and he has no idea how the fight is going around them but he pushes and pushes, ignoring the way his vision starts to blacken around the edges. All his focus is on Alec until he falls next to his husband, unconscious.

-.-.-

When Magnus wakes up, he knows immediately that he’s not at home. It takes him a moment to realise why he’s at the infirmary in New York Institute but when he does, the heart monitor next to him starts to beep like crazy. He looks around the room and doesn’t see Alec anywhere. His eyes land on the only other person in the room. Catarina.

“Where is he?” Magnus asks. He refuses to phrase the question in a way that would leave room for the doubt if his husband is alive. He has to be.

“He’s alive,” Catarina says, getting straight to the point, which Magnus appreciates immensely. He lays back against the bed and lets out a sigh of relief.

“Where is he?” Magnus asks again. He pulls the wires from the heart monitor away and tries to snap his fingers to change out of the infirmary clothes. A few sparks come out but nothing happens, aside from the dizziness Magnus can suddenly feel.

“Don’t try to use your magic,” Catarina says and helps him sit steadily at the edge of the bed. “You used so much of it to keep Alec alive that you’re seriously depleted.”

“How long was I out?” Magnus asks because he knows how his body reacts to magic depletion, and based on how weak he feels, this truly must have been the worst case yet.

“Three days,” Catarina answers him. Magnus had expected to get the answer in hours, so three days really throws him off. It also makes fear spark in his chest anew.

“Where’s Alec?” He repeats his earlier question.

“In the room next to yours,” Catarina says. “It’s taking him a while to heal completely.”

“But he’s going to heal fully?” Magnus asks. “There’s no lasting damage?”

“No damage,” Catarina says. “But they are running some tests on him.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Magnus asks. “What are they testing?”

Catarina is normally not one to skirt around any topic, so her troubled face gives Magnus more anxiety than he’s able to take when they are talking about his husband.

“I need to see him right now,” Magnus says and starts to get up. Catarina puts a hand on his shoulder and pushes him down gently so that he’s sitting on the edge of the bed again.

“There’s something you need to know before you do,” Catarina tells him.

“Just tell me already!” Magnus says, starting to lose his temper. He wants to see Alec and he needs to know what’s wrong with him.

“You pushed a lot of magic into his body,” Catarina starts to explain. “A lot more than you should have, one could say. I’m not saying you shouldn’t have tried so hard to heal him, because your magic is the reason he’s alive, but I’m saying that normally warlocks aren’t able to give that big of a portion of their magic to someone else. The strength with what you pushed saved his life, but it also had some side effects.”

“Like what?” Magnus asks. He feels lightheaded for a whole new reason. What has he done?

“The magic did more than just healed him,” Catarina says gently, her hand a comforting weight on Magnus’ shoulder. “Some of it stayed in him, became a part of his body. By the tests we’ve done, it doesn't seem to be fading. It’s tied so strongly to his life power that it has become a permanent part of him.”

“What does that mean?” Magnus asks, fear in his voice. He’s never heard of something like that happening and doesn’t know what effect it has on someone, especially if that someone is a Shadowhunter, with his own kind of magic already in him.

“Alec is immortal,” Catarina tells him.

Magnus’ world tilts on its axis. He doesn’t know how to feel. Disbelief is strong, and a part of him thinks he heard wrong or that he will wake up later and find out this was all a dream. There’s a part of him that’s happy, elated to know that he’ll get to have Alec for longer than a short human lifespan.

Above all, he’s terrified.

Immortality is not something you force on someone else. It has its downsides, plenty of them, and there have been times when Magnus has cursed it, wished he never had it. What if Alec hates him for what he’s done, no matter if it was unintentional? Magnus feels guilty for the happiness he feels for the slight chance that Alec might welcome it.

“I need to see him,” Magnus says, his voice shaking. This time Catarina helps him stand, and Magnus is grateful for the support. Catarina leads him to the hallway, and then through the door next to his. Magnus comes face to face with Alec who is sitting in his bed, smiling widely as he talks with Isabelle who sits on a chair next to the bed.

“Alexander,” Magnus breathes out. He doesn’t know what to say, how to start this difficult conversation they are about to have.

“Hey Magnus,” Alec says, still smiling. “Did Cat tell you?”

“You’re immortal,” Magnus says and nods. His voice is monotone, not giving away anything he feels. He doesn't know how he should feel. Catarina is still helping him stay standing, the magic depletion affecting more than just his powers.

“You’re not happy?” Alec asks, his expression deflating.

“You are?” Magnus asks, cautious to get his hopes up.

“Only if you are as well,” Alec says, the smile replaced with worry.

“I’m really happy,” Magnus confesses, his eyes tearing up at the relief. There’s still some embarrassment in the confession, a voice in the back of his head saying what he did was wrong, no matter if it was intentional or not. He takes a step further into the room and Catarina helps him until he’s standing right next to Alec’s bed. Catarina lets go of him as he leans to embrace Alec, his tears finally falling.

“I’m sorry,” he says, because he has to. “I’m sorry I did this without asking you.”

“It’s okay,” Alec says. “I’ve had a few days to think about it, and I get that it has its downsides as well. But I’m being honest when I say that I’m happy. No time I could spend with you is long enough. I’m never going to leave you, Magnus.”

Magnus is unable to answer with words, but he holds Alec with all the strength his weak body has, and he cries harder against his shoulder. He doesn’t even hear it when Isabelle and Catarina leave the room to give them privacy.

“Did you know this was going to happen?” Alec asks after a while, his hand brushing gently up and down Magnus’ back while he slowly calms down. “I’m guessing no, because Cat said this is something she hasn’t ever heard of before.”

“No,” Magnus answers as he pulls away to look at Alec. Alec lifts one of his hands to brush some of Magnus’ tears away and Magnus leans to the touch. He feels like he shouldn’t be the one being comforted. “I’ve never heard of anything like this either.”

“Well,” Alec says, the smile returning to his lips. “I’m really happy it did.”

“Me too,” Magnus replies and returns Alec’s smile. “I love you so much.”

“I love you too.”

Magnus knows the topic isn’t fully settled, that they need to talk about this more when things have calmed down and they’ve both had time to process it. There will be bad times ahead, moments when Alec really feels the weight of immortality, but Magnus swears he’s going to be there for him through it all. The future ahead of them is hopeful, and the most important thing is that Alec is alive and breathing next to him.

#malec #shadowhunters #alec lightwood #magnus bane #my writing

24 notes · View notes

rosecorcoranwrites · 4 years

Text

Censorship and Banning Books

As I mentioned in my last Rant Rave Review, as of last Monday, six books by Dr. Seuss are now officially out-of-print, and they are out of print due to supposedly racist, offensive, and/or stereotypical images. The company that owns the rights to these books is no longer publishing them and some websites are no longer selling them. People who do own the books, or who swooped into stores and bought them the day of the announcement, are now selling them for hundreds or thousands of dollars. So, what are we to make of all this?

Is Dr. Seuss Racist?

There are actually three questions here: is the man racist, are his books racist, and are those images racist? The answer to the first is, he kinda was, and then he got over it. During the war, he was openly against the Japanese, and in favor of the internment camps, then went to Japan during the occupation and realized, hey, maybe these are just people. Apparently, he wrote Horton Hears a Who in response to the US occupation and dedicated it to a Japanese friend. People can change, if you let them.

Okay, well, what about his books? This is an obvious "no". Race basically doesn't come up in Dr. Seuss stories, except "The Sneetches", which is actively against racism. Which, in some people's fevered imaginations, makes it racist. Yes, in some Olympic-level mental gymnastics, saying that whatever race you are isn't important, ie being against "racial essentialism" means that you are a racist. Such people think that the story doesn't address "structures of power" and "systemic oppression". This is true. It's instead a story about a sleazy businessman who goes in and preys on existing racial biases in order to make a buck, constantly telling people to think of their identities in terms of their outward appearance. You'd think the racial essentialists would appreciate the representation.

But I digress.

What about the images themselves? Are they racist? Not having seen all of them, I can't say for sure, but some are definitely cringy. Take the yellow skinned "Chinaman who eats with sticks" in And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street. Though one could argue that the entire book uses only five colors: yellow, red, blue, and touches of purple and green, this man is the only human whose skin is colored at all. Later editions of this book have actually changed the image and text:

Honestly, I think this is fine. The meter still scans, and the image isn't straight-up removed. I mean, we could maybe discuss whether it's okay to alter an author's work, but he was alive when at least one of these these changes was made, so I think he allowed it.

Next we have some from If I Ran the Zoo, like this one, of some Asian dudes who "all wear their eyes at a slant":

I think, in this case, the text is the problem, but not the picture. Though some describe this image as "exotified", I think it's more just exaggerated, as are most of Dr. Seuss's characters. He doesn't do things half way. Aside from that, the picture is kind of cute and silly; nothing in it is derogatory or mean to the helpers. The text on the other hand... oof. Yeah, I would say this is a true example of something "offensive". I could see changing that (as long as the meter still scans!).

And then there are the fellows holding the tufted mazurka:

That's pretty bad. So bad that as a child, I don't think I actually registered that those were supposed to be humans, but rather other Seussian creatures. It doesn't help, again, that in his color pallet, people that would ordinarily be brown are now black-black, not unlike the most racist images of yesteryear. But the fact that their lips are left uncolored, I think, is what gets me. It's a little too close to black-face for comfort. Again, I think it would be okay to alter the image: color in their lips, change the shading. I know some people quibble with their costume, but some peoples do wear little amounts of clothing, so I don't think thats the issue here.

I can't speak to the other books, because I haven't seen those pictures, but I would say, yeah, some of the images and phrasing are problematic. I don't think that means the books are racist. Seuss isn't saying the Asian helpers or the African mazurka wranglers are less than the white child running the zoo. He is exotifying them to some degree, but the degree to which that is being done can, I believe, be fixed with very minor alterations.

Should the Books Be Banned?

Again, I think there are a couple questions here: are these books being banned, and should they be banned?

In our increasingly-willing-to-cancel culture, people like to talk about the difference between government censorship vs. corporate censorship, which is a valid topic. But when it comes to huge corporations like Amazon banning books from their website for hate speech or Ebay halting the ability of vendors to sell certain titles on their platform, to say "it’s a private corporation, so it's not censorship" is disingenuous. Maybe it doesn't violate the First Amendment, but it is censorship. A single bookstore refusing to sell a book, a single library refusing to carry a book, is censorship.

A single company that owns the rights to a book refusing to sell it is 100% censorship. I'm personally offended by the idea of any book being out-of-print in the day and age of print-on-demand, but I'm especially sickened when companies pull this nonsense. This is similar to foreign companies who refuse to publish novels, games, and videos in English copyright striking fanlations; they are not losing money, so why do they care?

In the case of the Seuss estate, or whoever owns the rights, all that they are doing is denying poor people access to books. That's right, if you can shell out $786 for a children's book, you can read these delightful stories. What's that? You're a single mom who works two jobs? Well, sucks to be you.

What's really vile is that people are saying, "It's only six books. You still have the others." First off, this is admitting that those six books are now censored and unavailable. Secondly, this is a stupid argument. It's like saying, "Well, the Nazi's didn't burn every book in Germany. There were plenty of others." What if I wanted to read the ones that were burned?

And that brings us to the question of whether or not those books ought to be banned. Heck, should they even be altered? Some of you might have balked at my saying I was fine with the images being changed; isn't that censorship? I think that would take it's own blog post, but here I'll just say that I don't think the changes I discussed would really alter the content, message, or meaning of the work. That being said, I don't think you have to change the images either.

That is, I think it's okay to publish, purchase, own, and read problematic material. As many commentators have pointed out, no child is going to be made into a racist by reading these books or seeing these images. Any racist or even iffy overtones are going to go right over their heads unless parents point them out. If, in the one in a million chance, your child actually notices anything wrong with the images, like "why is his skin yellow?" or something, then you can have a conversation about how sometimes, back in the day, people drew some not-so-nice pictures of Asian people and thought their skin should be painted as yellow, but we don't do that anymore, but this book was written a long time ago, etc etc. If they ask about what a Chinaman is, say it's an old word for a Chinese person, but you should never say it, because it can hurt people's feelings. Talk to your children; it isn't hard.

Should Any Books Be Banned

If you've been paying attention to what's been happening in book land lately, you'll know that Dr. Seuss's books are not the first to be put on the chopping block. Last year, Abigail Shrier's book, Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters, was removed from Target due to requests of trans activists. It was returned after backlash. Now I think it might be banned again? Who can even keep up anymore. Similarly, When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment, by Ryan T. Anderson, has now been removed from Amazon for being "hate speech".

In the microcosm of the library world, I've had some people take issue with certain controversial books. When processing our new books, my part-timer picked up Irreversible Damage and asked, "Did someone request this?" as if we shouldn't have ordered it if they didn't. Both that book, and White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism, by Robin DiAngelo, were face out in our new book area, since they were the newest books. The former was turned backwards or put spine out with the older books multiple time by patrons, the latter turned backwards once. During the election, I found books for and against Trump hidden behind other books.

My question for people who do this in the library, and for corporations who do essentially the same thing on a massive scale, is who exactly do you think you are helping? Do you think anyone's mind is going to be changed on Trump? Or transgenderism, or white fragility, just by reading a book?

If the answer is "no", then why bother banning or hiding them? If the answer is yes, then that means you think books have the power to change minds, but you want to deny that opportunity to people. Rather than debating ideas, or writing a better book, or showing people why they shouldn't think a certain way, people are increasingly trying to banish certain ideas entirely. How dare an author question X, Y, or Z idea? How dare people be allowed to have an opinion different from the one we say they should!

What's so frustrating about cancel culture and censorship is that people think they really are trying to do the right thing. What they don't realize is, the people they cancel also think they are doing the right thing.

Take Irreversible Damage: obviously, those that want it banned think that trans kids will be hurt by the ideas expressed in the book, that they will be denied hormones and surgeries and so forth. I'm sure Abigail Shrier believes that trans kids would be hurt by no one examining the idea of wether or not they should be given hormones and surgeries as minors. Both sides care about kids. Both sides are trying to figure out how to help people. If you think that Shrier is wrong and her book is dangerous, then write a more compelling argument explaining why she's wrong.

An example of the right way to go about this is with White Fragility, a book that some people see as problematic, if not racist against white people or black people or both. People have written books specifically refuting the ideas in the book. Others have compiled titles that handle race more tactfully and that can be read instead. And that's the thing; you can choose what to read. You can choose never to read a book deemed problematic, but you have no right to take that choice away from other people.

Where Do Libraries Fall Into All This?

That "right to read" is one of the pillars or librarianship. The reason libraries exist is so that all people, regardless of money, have equal access to books, movies, and other aspects of our shared culture. We librarians understand that books are important not just for education, but also entertainment and escape. Stories are how we as humans process ideas, and everyone has a right to expose themselves to ideas--even controversial or dangerous or flat out wrong ones. They have the right to examine different sides of an issue and form their own conclusions. To try and control what a person reads is to try and control what they think, and no government or corporation has that right.

Thus, libraries don't ban books, wether those books are literary classics, modern treatises on current events and ideologies, or silly picture books by Dr. Seuss.

So it was with some concern that I got an email saying that our county library district would be taking the six Seuss books in question out of circulation. The rationale was that, given that a single book was selling for hundreds or thousands of dollars, some sticky-fingered patrons might steal then from the shelves or "lose" them after checking them out.

Though this logic was sound, I still had misgivings, especially because of incidences of library censorship in the past. Yes, even libraries have not been immune to the scourge. During the Cold War, some libraries would keep books about communism behind the reference desk so that people would have to ask to read them in the library. Not only did this potentially help identify commies, it also discouraged people from reading the books.

Thus, when our new policy is to keep the Seuss books "at the desk" and only let them be read in the library, is that not censorship? Is this accidental censorship, or perhaps intended by the very cancel culturists who want all problematic books to be sent down the memory hole?

No, I don't think it is, because--despite what the very mob who’s in favor of all of this would have you believe--intention matters. Reasons matter. We are not trying to make the books harder to read; we're trying to keep the books from becoming impossible to read. By protecting the books from theft, we're ensuring that the poor as well as the rich can enjoy Dr. Seuss's stories. This, in my mind, is similar to chained up bibles: it looks bad, until you remember that books were rare and expensive, and illuminated manuscripts even more so. If someone steals a book, no one gets to read it, but if a book is under lock and key, some people still can.

Of course, everyone could, if companies would simply stop censoring books, if stores would stop banning them, and if well-intentioned but short-sighted activists would stop digitally burning them. But maybe that's too much to hope for at present. For now, we librarians will have the books safe and sound for when you want to read them. You have only to ask.

13 notes · View notes

brokenjardaantech · 3 years

Text

absorbance of the deep (chapter 3: schemes and promises)

written for a mermay prompts challenge. my prompt is ‘monochromatic.’

previous chapter can be found here.

also on ao3

content warning for near-death experience.

---

Time passed. Simon grew closer to both Josh and North as they all grew up and going to school became much more isolating. Daniel grew increasingly rebellious now that North had shown him what life outside the village looked like for the average people, and although he never took out his anger on Simon and Simon knew that he didn’t mean it, the tension in the lighthouse did get suffocating a lot of the times. ‘I just want to get out, see the world a bit instead of trapped in this -’ Simon remembered watching his twin brother clutch his head as he paced their room, their room that seemed so small and constraining now that they were teenagers with their awkward limbs and stretching bodies - ‘this shithole! No offence to you, Si,’ the next sentence was spoken much quieter and calmer. ‘I know you like it here. It’s just not for everyone, you know?’

Simon could never understand the appeal of a noisy city, but that didn’t mean that he couldn’t observe his surroundings and see how things had changed: the young moved out to explore the world and job opportunities, the old remained while their outdated and repetitive crafts would likely perish within the next generation, and even their parents were talking about leaving the lighthouse to Simon as soon as he was able to take up the job and then move to somewhere else, leaving him behind so that they wouldn’t be recognised for their embarrassing son who had a tendency to jump into the sea and return with a smile on his face and his cheeks flushed from mirth. Not everyone had someone like Markus. i - understand, he answered by flipping the dictionary.

‘And it doesn’t even cost a thing to transfer schools,’ Daniel went on. ‘I can use my pocket money to take the bus, we’re in the same area so the syllabus is the exact same thing, our current school is looking for an excuse to expel me anyway, I fucking know it. It’ll save so much energy for all of us.’

Simon didn’t understand the concept of energy either because he could always retreat to the ocean to calm down if not even spending time with North and Josh on the beach could do the trick, but who was he to think that he could understand everyone? Not even his own parents bothered to know him as the person he was. is - there - any - way?

‘To transfer? Not that I know of. But getting myself kicked out, however…’ Daniel rubbed his hands together in a familiar gesture that always meant he had a plan. ‘North has been beating up so many people these days. Time for me to have a taste.’

Using me as bait? Simon wanted to ask, but he kind of placed the target on himself a long time ago so it wasn’t exactly his twin brother’s fault that he wanted to get some use out of it before his parents eventually pulled the two of them out of school. He had passed his junior secondary exams thanks to Josh; he was eligible for the job guarding the lighthouse. OK, he flipped to the page containing the exclamation, and Daniel dropped into his bed with a satisfied huff. ‘Just watch,’ he declared. ‘I’m not getting stuck in this damned village.’

Their parents must have heard Daniel’s side of the conversation, because when Simon woke up later still tired and dizzy, he could hear shouting from downstairs and the other bed in his bedroom was empty, his parents’ and twin brother’s voices so loud that the entire house was shaking. He didn’t like it when people shout because they hurt his ears. He also understood that Daniel had to talk to their parents, like it or not, and him being there would only force the conversation to cut short and therefore ruining everything. He wanted to get out, but that would mean going through the living room and therefore exposing himself, so there was only one way to escape from here.

He never tried to sneak out before because there was no need to, but if there was anything Daniel taught him that he could actually use, it was climbing out of the window of their bedroom and reaching the pier below safely. One day his twin brother approached him with a bundle of wooden planks asking Simon to decorate them, and he, wanting to create something to remind himself of Markus’ when they couldn’t see each other, accepted the offer immediately even though it took him three sleepless nights and an aching head by the end of his marathon painting session to complete it in a week, and he had watched as Daniel looked for suitable spots to place them in so that they could go out at night without alerting their parents. At that time, sitting on the warm wood of the pier with a pair of sunglasses protecting his eyes and a hat to shield his face from the sun, the only thing Simon had paid attention to was the tendril of seawater holding his hand through the pier and the presence of the sea in his mind observing his twin brother through his eyes. He had gone reluctantly to Daniel’s so-called climbing lessons, but now, as he climbed off the wall barefooted swiftly and silently, he tried to remember to thank his brother later for them.

You’re late today, the sea said. Something went wrong?

Simon quickly padded to the edge of the pier and slid into the water so that he wouldn’t alert the people in the house. Not that they could hear anything other than themselves when they were making so many themselves, but he wasn’t going to risk it by underestimating his family, especially Daniel whose Simon-detection skill had been honed to an all-powerful form that even North was envious of, and it was when he was certain that the sea was supporting and guiding him towards his cave that he recalled the conversation he had with his twin brother and snippets of the argument he only vaguely heard so that the sea, the ocean, Markus - they were all the same for Simon - could understand his sudden call.

Markus? he asked when the waves slowed down and the water grew darker from something other than the depth. What are you thinking about?

Later.

Okay.

Markus was waiting for him on the sand in the cave. Just like Simon, he had grown, except while the human grew more awkward and strange, the sea evolved to something more divine, more ethereal, his muscles more definite, his skin dark and glowing with power, his green eyes large and piercing as if he could see through Simon at any given moment. And when Markus stood up from where he had been sitting to greet him by holding his hand and kissing him, it was with the reverence between lovers on both ends, the smell of earth and the sea blending together into a unique musk that belonged to Markus and Markus alone, one that Simon had come to associate with devotion, with protection, with attraction. He knew that he would have the ocean’s total attention for the next few hours, and he couldn’t help but feel wasteful knowing that he would spend most of it sleeping and replenishing his own energy. It was then that Markus pulled away and placed a finger on Simon’s lips even though he wasn’t speaking, the gesture more symbolic than literally silencing the human.

‘Don’t be,’ Markus breathed into Simon’s knuckles. ‘I cherish your very presence on the planet no matter what you are doing.’ Then he tugged Simon’s hand so that the two of them could lie down on the sand and feel its warmth. He even slid a pillow of moss under Simon’s head, an addition that he made a long time ago after Simon told him that the people living on land sleep with one most of the times. ‘Now, tell me all about your brother’s plan.’

Simon projected the scene to Markus once more, this time with as many details as he could remember because they knew that there was little to lose at this proximity, and he did not like the frown appearing between the ocean’s brows.

‘I don’t like his plan, starlight,’ there was a slight tremor in his voice. ‘He’s using you. What if he doesn’t get to you in time? What if you suffered through it for nothing? What if you get hurt? How can he promise to deliver you back to me safely?’

He doesn’t even know that you exist, Simon argued. Daniel and North saved me plenty of times before. Why should this time be different?

‘Before, it was your bullies who were in the wrong; this time, he will actively induce pain in you to achieve his goal. They are two very different things.’

But -

‘I’ll be on guard,’ Markus declared in the end, leaving no room for argument on Simon’s end. ‘Just speak my name when you need me.’ He leant forward until their foreheads touch. ‘I’ll be there for you.’

Okay.

A few minutes of silence during which they breathed the same air and Simon closed his eyes to block out some of the distractions that were preventing him from truly connecting with the ocean, with Markus. Markus’ heartbeat was the tide. Markus’ breaths were the slow return of the water after they kissed the shore. Markus was so powerful but still took the time to create this small safe haven for Simon, on isolated from the rest of the world and would never be contaminated by the outside world, and for that, he was grateful.

‘Watch the moon rise with me?’

Simon nodded, and they started floating upwards as if both of them were weightless beings in the vast universe heading towards their next location far, far away. Gliding across his skin smoothly, the seawater at this depth was cold regardless of the season, but Markus was holding him, guiding him slowly towards where they would go, and the contrast between Markus’ tenderness and the sea’s true power and warm versus cold sent a shiver down Simon’s spine. He knew Markus had something to do with all this because normally he would’ve died already at his current state. He placed his arm on the sea’s shoulder and buried his face in the crook of his neck, feeling his gills flutter along with the tempo of the ocean and being nuzzled by his nose, and he was reminded of a promise made many years ago. Almost ten years now, he realised.

‘Not yet,’ Markus’ chest rumbled. ‘Not until your suffering is over. And it comes with a price.’

Don’t care.

‘I do.’

And it was too close, too close to a vow that he wasn’t sure if either of them had the capacity to make yet, but it made him think of the future, a future with Markus, a future where there would be no longer stolen moments with the ocean he loved and cared for so much. There would only be the two of them. Maybe he could even bring Markus to the lighthouse, let him experience a bit of his life on the surface world. Markus had shown him so much of the sea; he should do something to pay him back or at least make it an equivalent exchange -

‘We’re here.’

They resurfaced in what seemed to be an endless expanse of sea. There was not a single piece of land in sight when Simon turned himself around which meant that when he finally looked up and his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he could see every single star in the sky and the waning moon just peeking out from below the horizon. He had had a lot of opportunities to stargaze before but he never took them, either because he was easily tired from simply existing or because of the group nature of the event, but now, with only himself and the sea, he could take in everything at his own pace, focusing on one of them because of its colour and unpredictable twinkling. There was no one to recite astronomical facts to him, no one shouting in his ear to go to bed. He could enjoy the moment as it was.

Markus wrapped his arms around Simon from behind. ‘Sometimes, even I get lost in the vastness of the ocean,’ the words, although spoken right next to Simon’s ear, were neither loud nor intrusive like normal people’s speeches did. ‘I used to use the stars to guide myself back to where I should be. Now I have you, Simon. I’ve never gotten lost since I met you. You are my guide just like the polaris in the sky.’

Is that why you call me that? Your polaris?

‘Yes.’

Markus let go of him and helped him float on the water with miles of water underneath his back before floating next to Simon as well, intertwining their fingers so that wherever the current brought them, they would stick together, and as Simon drifted under the sea of stars with the other sea he loved with all his existence, he felt like nothing could tear them apart no matter how far they were, and that was why he willingly asked Markus to bring him back to the lighthouse when the edges of the horizon just turned a lighter shade as the first sign of dawn. Spending his time with Markus was nice, but he didn’t want to worry Daniel either, which meant he must return to his room before the time Daniel usually woke up, and this time, instead of ordering the waves to send Simon back, Markus accompanied him all the way back to the pier the sea usually placed him on. The sight of the representation of the ocean peeking his eyes out of the surface while his remaining body remained submerged was oddly adorable.

This is the first time I see where you live with my own eyes, he projects directly into Simon’s mind. I would like to say it’s a lovely home but… your parents and brother.

It will be lovelier with your presence, Simon replied. Though I suppose this isn’t the right time.

No, it isn’t.

In an act that surprised Simon, Markus emerged from the water until it was just enough for him to lay his arms flat on the wood of the pier and place his chin on the edge. His gills sealed themselves shut in scar-like slits on both sides of his neck. He placed his hand on Simon’s feet, and a cool sensation spread from the site over his body. Remember my promise, he said. Call for me when you need me. I’ll be watching over you.

Simon took his hand and kissed his knuckles just like the many times Markus did for him. I know.

Markus tilted his head and gave him one last frown before letting go of the pier and sliding into the water, the reflection of the sunlight on the sea meaning that Simon couldn’t see him as soon as he was beneath the surface. Markus belonged to the deep sea where everything was deep blue anyway, so he couldn’t imagine him liking to stick to shallow waters unless it was for something like they did just now. He got up, climbed into his room through the open window of his room, and managed to get about three hours of sleep before he was woken up again by Daniel to go to school.

It started off as usual. North and Josh were waiting for him at the front door and the four of them went in together, then Daniel broke off to his classroom while the rest went to another classroom, then they stayed there for both the first and second lesson because both of them were taught in their home class. North handed him the headphones again, and although reluctant, Simon put them on if not for North’s peace of mind. It indeed made the noises other students create more manageable, however, so he kept them on. Josh was the attentive student, North was the one who couldn’t help but make puns and snarky comments, and Simon was the one the teachers ignore which meant that he got to read about the sea again, this time about how tectonic activities could change the sea in all the different ways he couldn’t even fathom. Did Markus drink chemical soup from underwater volcanoes when he was young? Did he ever feel the temperature difference between the deep sea and right when an underwater volcano erupted, or was everything the same to him, or would the lava burn him before eventually cooling off into rocks? Had he ever been to the subduction trenches and watch the seabed disappear in front of his eyes? He wrote down all the questions he had for Markus with his oversized handwriting on a blank worksheet he would not return to the teacher anyway and put it into his backpack so that he could ask the sea all of them the next time they meet. Then the ground trembled so he looked up, and he saw most of the students pushing their chairs back and standing up while the teacher bolted out of the classroom so that she wouldn’t have to wait for dozens of students to get out before she could again. He stood up as well, wanting to find somewhere quiet in the school campus to cool down alone.

However, his classmates seemed to have other plans.

He only heard them after taking off his new headphones, but it was already too late. One moment he was beginning to relax his eyes by staring at the sea in the distance, and the other moment he was being tackled onto the ground painfully, his arms wrenched back, a heavy weight pushing onto his back and making it hard to breathe, and the noise - oh, the noise - piercing his eardrums and consuming his brain together with the harsh rub of soil on his cheek. Before he could even process what was happening, the weight on his back disappeared just to be replaced by the scratch of thick rope over his head, and that was when the panic set in. He wanted to struggle but he couldn’t move because his limbs were painfully held in place as someone else placed the noose around his neck before tightening it, there was more shouting, the pressure on his body was suddenly gone and transferred to the rope tightening around his neck, and his feet were swinging in midair, a familiar face that he couldn’t quite name because he was too busy clutching at the noose started speaking, something about how he was treated differently and given an easy way out while the rest of them suffered, but he wasn’t listening, his heartbeat was thundering and crashing in his ears like the coast at a stormy night, therefore the only thought he had before he felt his vision darkening was -

MARKUS!

#simarkus #dbh simon #dbh markus #dbh daniel #dbh #detroit become human #detroit: become human

5 notes · View notes

ontheoddoccasioniwritestuff · 4 years

Text

Bare Oneself and One’s Soul (Bi!Spencer Reid x Male!Reader)

Summary: Sex workers and strippers are being killed in Portland, Maine. The BAU team investigates the fourth and attempts to build a profile. But with part of the puzzle still missing, the reader contemplates offering to revisit a previous profession of theirs - the oldest in the business - to draw out the unsub.

AN: My first fic for Criminal Minds! I started watching the show about two weeks ago and I cannot stop. I’m on series 4 so no spoilers for me please! I would like to open requests soon, still wanna write more diverse readers hence why this is my first entry into this fandom.

Thank you @imagining-in-the-margins for inspiring me with your Bi The Way fic and answering my queries! You’re the bee’s knees!

Feedback and requests to be tagged in specific fics are welcome

Word count: 6.9k words

Content Warnings: Descriptions of violence, descriptions of dead bodies, homophobia, threats of outing, stripping, lap dances (mild NSFW), Gone Girl spoilers. Please let me know if I have missed anything!

Your name: submit What is this?

“Dancing, at its best, is independence and intimacy in balance.” ― Donna Goddard, The Love of Devotion

---> ---> ---> ---> --->

It was already hard enough with this job. But someone targeting sex workers and the like, that was going to make things harder. The victims were anonymous in the eyes of the general public, subhuman, not worthy of being reported to warn others in their profession. Furthermore, the associates of the victims were not likely to talk to law enforcement.

Emily, Derek and Y/N returned to the temporary base of operations, having already faced this reality with the limited responses garnered from very few witnesses.

Only the recycling guy who found the latest body was willing and that was a stretch on the definition.

In the police station, Hotch was sifting through the security tapes he had access to, JJ at his side trying to spot the unsub. Spencer was building up a geographical profile and Rossi was out speaking to the family of the latest victim.

Y/N helped Morgan hand out the coffees they’d picked up, dropping a hefty amount of sugar packets and a disposable stirrer on the desk beside where Spencer was working. He stared up at the map and tried to clear his mind in case an epiphany decided to pass by.

The fourth victim was exactly like the three previous. The body was found down the back alley of a local nightclub, this one called Red Effort, and it was sat up daintily in the corner made of the building and a dumpster. A plastic bag was over the head. An expensive silk tie for a gag left in the mouth. Evidence of another used to tie the wrists together but that tie was gone. Other than that, the body was stripped naked.

“The bag wasn’t used in the suffocation; it was put on after death. The unsub couldn’t look at the victim after he’d killed him,” Y/N theorised, “But the nudity has a statement of sadism.”

Derek pointed to the photograph of the fourth victim’s neck, “Bruises around his neck show that strangulation killed him. Some kind of rope, possibly a belt about inch and a half wide, just like the others. But the tie is what gets me. Why leave one in the mouth but not the other around the hands? And why not leave the belt?”

“Herm��s is an expensive brand,” JJ said, “But if it was cost the unsub was worried about, they wouldn’t leave the other behind. It must be something sentimental about that tie but not the other items used.”

Moving on, Spencer’s geographical profile highlighted the clubs’ connections. Utopia, Pulse Point, Move, and now Red Effort had tacks in them, standing out over the map. His “colouring in” highlighted clearly the MO of the killer they were after: it was someone local stalking the clubs over the last two weeks.

“The previous attacks show that they are only in the city and the unsub doesn’t hit the same club twice - at least so far. The next target is likely to be one of these three clubs in the radius: Focus, Potential, or Encore.”

“Anything in the CCTV?” Rossi asked.

JJ pinched the bridge of her nose, “Nothing so far from Garcia.”

“Well, I think we’re ready to present the profile to your officers, so if you could get everyone together, we can begin.”

When the group of officers had their notebooks at the ready, Hotch began:

“We’re looking for a man in his mid-thirties to late forties. When he’s in these clubs, he will seem confident and charming, even if he is a lone man amidst multiple women.”

Then Prentiss took over, “He is voyeuristic, hence why he is targeting strip clubs instead of approaching a prostitute. He likes to watch his victims perform, see them with other men before he makes his move.

“Outside of the club, he is less confident,” said Y/N, “He may present himself as heterosexual, probably married which is why he can’t target these men during the day. Going into the city likely means that he lives in the suburbs.”

Morgan continued, “His sexuality is warped; violence is what produces sexual release in his mind. The strangulation method, using a belt, shows that he doesn’t have enough strength themselves to take out their victims. He has to get their complete vulnerability before he can strike.”

Spencer turned away from his map to point to the evidence board, “He is targeting young men, strippers. Some of his victims were prostitutes. They were all brunettes, slim build, all performed on a stage in a nightclub the night they died, and witnesses have confirmed that they gave dances to men and women.”

“This unsub is escalating,” Rossi concluded, “The first attack was five days apart; the last was only two days. These are vulnerable people who need our help. Let’s catch this guy before he hurts any more people.”

A few hours later and Y/N was paired up with Emily at Focus. Drinking water in opaque glasses, they moved subtly to the music with their eyes steady across the club’s topography. The debrief played over and over in Y/N’s mind.

Although, his mind did stray to the fact that it was odd being in one of these clubs again. Being on the other end too, as a “customer”. Not disconcerting, just odd.

“Leather jacket, three o’clock.”

Over the rim of his glass, Y/N followed Emily’s direction and found their suspect. He was looking at a woman who was giddily on the receiving end of a lap dance.

No.

He was looking at the dancer. The man who was sporting some body paint that blended well with his tiger print shorts.

“You got eyes on him?” Emily spoke under her breath.

“I do.”

The suspect passed the dancer gradually, sauntering whilst making steady eye contact. Then his head snapped in the other direction and he walked right out of the club, still unhurried. The dancer’s stare lingered after him before he finished up his routine, flirtatiously thanked the ladies for their generous tip. He walked in the direction the suspect had gone.

Without speaking, Emily and Y/N were next to leave after the suspect. Their guns were drawn once the cool air of the night hit them through the back exit. A streetlamp’s light threw the two men’s identities into silhouettes. Emily and Y/N approached with as much stealth as the bare alleyway would give them before Emily made the call.

The suspect reached out to the dancer and Emily shouted, “FBI! Hands where I can see ‘em!”

The suspect looked more annoyed than surprised or scared of the guns pointed at him, “Hey, woah, what’s going on?”

“Hands up!” Y/N repeated sternly.

Y/N got the suspect in handcuffs not seconds after complying, Emily moving over to the dancer to check that he was alright.

“Derek?” The suspect screwed his features up, straining to turn and look Y/N in the eye.

Y/N cut him off, “Shut up.”

But still, as the suspect was dragged over to the cop car parked at the kerb, he remarked, “You’ve grown into your big boy pants.”

---> ---> ---> ---> --->

Rossi unlinked his fingers and pressed them into the case file, pushing the photograph across the table to where Fabian O’Conner was sitting. The Encore club’s new manager had kept up his act of being more irked with the officers than intimidated. He was sloppy in his body language, especially after only five hours sleep in a cell and another hour in that uncomfortable chair, not taking any of Rossi’s questions seriously. All Fabian talked about was his club and how shit things were for him in the last fortnight.

“I’ve had three cancellations alone this week!”

Behind the glass, Emily looked to Y/N, “Why’d he call you Derek?”

Y/N was about to lie through his teeth when Hotch’s mobile trilled on the desk.

“Hotchner… OK… alright, we’ll be on the scene right away.” Hotch hung up and looked grimly at his team, “There’s been another murder, at Potential.”

JJ pointed at Fabian who was swinging on the chair’s back legs, “Well, it wasn’t him, so either he has an accomplice or we got something wrong in the profile that meant the unsub slipped past unnoticed.”

“Prentiss, JJ, Morgan, let’s get to the scene,” Hotch instructed, “Reid, Y/N, stay here, keep us updated on what Rossi gets out of this guy.”

As he watched his colleagues exit the building, Y/N wiped his cheek with the back of his left hand, “I’m gonna make more coffee, Spencer, you want any?”

“Please,” Spencer replied, looking over his shoulder with that white people smile he’d nailed over the years. Tossing a thumb’s up in his direction, Y/N headed off to get them their drinks.

“Why would he kill at the risk of losing business himself?” Reid asked him when he returned, sliding the paper cups onto the desk.

“That’s what doesn’t make sense to me,” said Y/N, “Fabian’s all about business. Plus, he’s the straightest guy I’ve ever met, don’t think he’d be within fifty miles of comfortable leaving these bodies naked.”

Before Spencer could ask how Y/N would know something like that, his phone rang out and he placed it on speaker phone.

“Garcia, whatcha got?”

“An update on that evidence of yours yesterday,” She spoke, “The tie is a very specific kind. Limited edition at Hermès, bought recently online. The paper trail leads us to a Mr Andrew Lowenthal who lives not a mile away from the city. Prentiss and Morgan went to go check out his home.”

“Brilliant, thank you.”

“You’re welcome, boy genius.”

She hung up before Spencer could but Spencer was already off on a tangent: “Limited collection, they’d stand out to the owner, so maybe they’re left as a message for someone.”

“But who?” Y/N asked the obvious.

He tapped his pen against the post mortem report that hid the corpse’s photographs. Something about those ties just stick in Y/N’s head. They kept reminding him of the ex-boyfriend in Gone Girl, his aversion for all the ties Amy bought him. The same ties Amy used to ruin his life, and that same ex-boyfriend couldn’t say anything at all about it.

Unfortunately, Rossi couldn’t get much more out of Fabian and he was let go. The alibi he’d given was checked out and found to be watertight. Apparently he was just looking in his competitor’s club for a dancer who had left Encore a week ago.

The investigation proved to be more fruitful outside of the station however when, a few hours later, JJ appeared with her notebook, “This girl Emily and I interviewed yesterday, she won’t tell me her real name, but she was there today at Focus. Says she saw a woman this time, a woman walking with Daniel into the alleyway behind the club.”

Hotch’s phone was heard entering the building before he was, buzzing in his palm before he promptly answered once in the room, “Emily, you’re on speaker.”

“So Andrew Lowenthal was home. Get this: he’s gay.”

“What?”

“We caught him packing his things to move out. Andrew came out to his wife Marcie recently and she reacted badly, threw a fit, accused him of cheating. Andrew says he’s been meeting with a man, a stripper, he won’t name him but he says they’ve been working through understanding his sexuality. Who can say if he’s really cheating or not, but this all came out a fortnight ago.”

Morgan continued, “Right when the killings started. Marcie won’t ask for a divorce, she’s threatened to out him though. She’s been staying out late as well on the nights the murders happened.”

Hotch looked at the case file in front of him, up at the geographical profile up on the board.

“Alright, thank you. Come back to the station.”

“The reason the unsub got away is because we thought the unsub was a man,” Y/N sighed as Hotch hung up.

Hotch was quick on the contradiction, “We can’t rule out Andrew yet. All the witnesses so far have said the victims were seen a man.”

“Yes, while they were at the club, but they were killed after work in the alley, not in the private rooms they rented!” Spencer pointed out the security tracking the movements of the victims next to his map, “After she, the unsub, had confirmed that these men would dance and, in her mind, sleep with other men!”

“He’s right,” Y/N supported, “It’s how the unsub would verify that her next victims were involved in homosexual activities. I should have thought of that sooner.”

Garcia was up on the phone immediately, searching for Marcie Lowenthal amidst the security footage. The genius that she was, it only took her a minute to find the new suspect at every single crime scene. The clips appeared on the laptop screen and played, this time with a box around the woman’s face to bring her out against the rest of the image.

“Marcie Lowenthal,” JJ pointed to her image on the screen. Garcia was correct, she had been right there, at the corner of each photo printed off from the other clubs

JJ carried on as the conversation between Daniel and Marcie unfolded onscreen, “Around the middle of the night, approaches Daniel, arranges to meet him outside in the alley once he’s finished work.”

“And we thought she was just too nervous to instigate a dance with them,” Derek bit his lip hard, “So what do we do now? She’s not at work, she’s in the air until she kills again. She’s been escalating, so she’ll kill again tonight.”

It was then that Y/N decided to jump in with the idea he had been brewing since his second cup of coffee:

“I could go undercover in one of the clubs.”

Hotch stared for a moment at Y/N, clearly caught off guard by the outburst, before speaking in that collected drone of his, “You can’t be serious.”

“I am. Each club is hit once, Encore is one of two potential spots left, the unsub is escalating so they will be at one tonight. It’s “Boys in the Buff’ at Encore tonight, so likelihood of them being there is high compared to Potential’s ‘Dollar a Drink’ gimmick, OK? It’s just a suggestion. If we have another plan, I’m all ears.”

“You fit the MO, but how would you even blend in?” Spencer asked.

The next bit came out a lot easier than when Y/N had expected.

“When I was here during college, I used to be a stripper at Encore, before I worked in the FBI. ‘Derek’ was my pseudonym. Fabian was a bouncer at Encore before he became manager.”

The wave of expressions changing throughout the room were significant: jaws slacking; a little lift in an eyebrow; most notably, silence.

Rossi walked into the room, completely ignorant to the tone set by Y/N’s revelation, “Marcie Lowenthal’s next move is at Encore. She’s building up to Focus where her husband has been going. Garcia tracked his car’s GPS to that club five times in the last month.”

“So, what you’re saying is that Encore is the next step and then Focus,” Y/N fidgeted with his pen.

Hotch turned back at Y/N and in his usual calm and collected tone he spoke, “Tell us what you need for this.”

“I’ll need an hour to warm up, a slot on stage, and a guy to dance with then take to a private room. And some hot pants.”

---> ---> ---> ---> --->

Encore was empty, the stage free from dancers, the bar barren.

It was always weird to look at a club when it was empty and all the normal lights were on. Even more so that it had been redecorated in Y/N’s hiatus from Portland, highlighting how surreal it was to be back.

Y/N climbed up onto the stage and surveyed the empty seats. Then he began to warm himself up. A grunt escaped him every now and again, fighting against his stiff joints. Thankfully, the BAU was another job that kept fitness levels high as a necessity.

Humming his chosen song, Y/N began to test his flexibility against the pole. Muscle memory brought back his techniques one after the other. He repeated one of his old routines in broken segments, saving the transitions for last before he was ready to properly rehearse it. With a sigh, he took off his button up, leaving only the tight spandex that wrapped his crotch in a deep cherry red.

“Nice package.”

Mimi was watching from the side of the stage, her heels dangling by the straps on the tips of two fingers. A fond smile played on her lips, one that grew into a toothy grin filled with genuine glee as she approached him.

“Hey!” Y/N finally retorted, though there was that same playfulness in his voice that meant he didn’t take the comment on his junk to heart.

“Hello,” Mimi gave him a warm embrace, “What are you doing back here, you idiot?”

Y/N settled for the excuse of needing a few extra bucks and figured it would be nice to join in the gender equality of male strippers. Mimi didn’t seem convinced.

“You choose that now? When all those guys in the other clubs are getting murdered?”

“I’ll be sure not to follow anyone the alley. Are you doing ok?”

“All good.”

“Really? I’ve seen you at some of the crime scenes, talking with the FBI.”

“I’m safe, especially with my girls.”

“Speaking of, it’s ladies’ night, what are you doing here?”

“Just picking up something I forgot,” and she poked him in the centre of his chest, “Good luck tonight.”

Y/N rubbed that spot as she left the club, “Thanks.”

Not much else happened between Y/N finishing up his rehearsal and the club opening. The conversations in the dressing room was soon drowned out by the din of eager customers waiting.

To say that Y/N was more nervous about dancing in front of his co-workers – his actual co-workers, not the other dancers – than performing in front of a serial killer would be an understatement. He had gone to the toilet three times in the last ten minutes. And that was saying something; the men’s loos were beyond disgusting.

On the steps up, he could see Emily was at the bar with JJ. They looked normal enough. Two gals on a night out to a strip club. A quick scan found Derek near the door with one of the bouncers. Hotch and Rossi were hidden in the security room, and the other agents at their aid were outside with civvies over protective gear. Everyone was watching as the announcer introduced him as “Derek” for his walk across the stage. Whoops and whistles followed him as he preened for the women in the seats down below.

Then he found Spencer. For once, he was dressed like he was from Las Vegas. Loud colours splashed across his shirt, clashing with the strobe lights. But he definitely stood out as one man amongst tens of women.

And thus began behaving “normally”. Y/N’s head space allowed him to move with ease throughout the groups of women to make it towards Spencer, who had already locked eyes on him.

His hand was shaking a little as he touched Spencer’s shoulder going past. It was a repeat of an action he’d seen on one of the tapes: keeping eye contact with a potential wallet he could dance for before pretending to drop interest.

The look between them was another matter. Eye contact was something that made the both of Y/N and Spencer nervous, but not when it was with each other. That comfort that was oft shared across the table at a meeting still comforted Y/N as his hand fell from Spencer and back to his side. The warmth of it spread through his body and gave new life to his confidence. He was safe. His team were all here. He was going to be fine. He was going to be brilliant.

The first up on the stage to perform was a man, taller and buffer than Y/N, dressed as a fireman. He swept a woman from the audience off her chair in the middle of the routine.

The second was a trio of oiled up men, weaving in and out the front row between exaggerated erotic dance moves. It was a bit of a laugh, goofy with the hen do at the front egging them on.

And now it was his turn.

“Should we just search romantic comedies on Netflix and then see what we find?”

Y/N took his time stepping up to the pole, using the sultry slow beat of the music to his best advantage. Knowing most of the club had their eyes on him was horrendous and enthralling simultaneously. The next four minutes were crucial for attracting the unsub.

He performed a reverse grab to face his audience dead on. Hung gracefully upside down, still moving around the pole.

The murmurs of awe were appreciated but not what the unsub was looking for.

Time to up the ante.

Dismounting the pole, Y/N dragged a chair into the centre of the walkway. He pretended to survey everyone at the front of the stage before landing on Spencer. There, he knelt forward and held out his hand. As soon as his grip reached Spencer’s wrist, Y/N pulled him up and onto the chair.

In position, he ignored all the women screaming in the crowds, ignored the fetishization at their expense. He focused on Spencer. And that awful shirt.

He kept an inch between them for now, but Spencer wasn’t tense as he had imagined. No, Spencer was lounging back, and basking in the performance. The smile on his face, it was daring Y/N to move closer.

Spreading his legs to stand between them, Y/N touched him first. He could feel the padding of Spencer’s bulletproof vest beneath his shirt’s soft fabric. At the ends of those lovely arms (the ones often hidden beneath those cardigans) Spencer’s hands twitched.

Y/N backed up against him like he had done with the pole. A cinematic parallel the women definitely appreciated. Bringing those long legs back together, Y/N made himself comfortable on his lap, a fingertip facing the threat of being cut as it dragged along Spencer’s jaw. That prickle of stubble sparked against him. Their faces so close that his lips so close to brushing over Spencer’s, barely any space for the crooning of the possessive lyrics to reach between them. Straddling Spencer gave Y/N even more confidence. He continued to tease Spencer, taking in the smell of the sweat from the light’s heat and his skin’s flush, bolded in bright pink. His lips at his throat, they dragged across the swell of his Adam’s apple that quaked beneath him as Spencer swallowed.

They heard a whistle from the crowds that was almost definitely from JJ, spurring on the crowd to react louder. But over their roars, Y/N heard a gasp fly from Spencer. His eyes instinctively drifted down to look at Spencer’s open mouth, down further at where he was sat. Even if Y/N couldn’t feel everything, the trousers were doing nothing to hide how Spencer was feeling.

Bills were flying onto the stage floor. Y/N continued to play his part, arching his body to ripple against Spencer’s. But Spencer caught his hip, his bottom lip now bitten as he let out a groan, low enough to not be heard over the music’s closing bars. But it was clear that his reaction sparked something in the audience. Y/N leant back to survey his handiwork, twirling a loose lock of Spencer’s hair around his finger in the space between them. Then his hand drew away and left that hair in his face before climbing off him and walking off the stage with a blackout - bar one pink spot left on Spencer.

The second he was off stage, Y/N turned around and watched from the wings. Spencer rose from the chair and took a little bow. He bowed again much to the pleasure of the crowd. As he walked down the steps, Y/N could see that he was very clearly aroused.

Y/N made his way out as soon as the audience’s attention was on the stage. He knew the unsub would still be watching Spencer, now stood at the bar and sipping from a glass. It was hard not to feel the sting of a serial killer’s stare as he approached Spencer with a coy smile.

“Hey.”

Turning to face him, Spencer finished his drink before speaking, “Hello, Derek.”

“Hope you enjoyed yourself up there.”

“I did.” And he leant against the bar leisurely, his hand pulling out a wad of cash from his pocket, “Any chance of another round? Without the crowd this time.”

Plucking the money free with one hand, Y/N beckoned with the other, “Right this way, sir.”

Both men could see the unsub watching them in the reflection of the ceiling, following them until they filtered through the beaded curtains. Spencer went into the private room first. Y/N closed the door, trapping them in a room of mirrors and flooded pink light over a disco ball - music only muted slightly on the tiny speakers. The epitome of sleaze.

“The unsub followed us here,” Y/N dropped his act and the dollar bills onto the couch arm, falling into one half of the seat.

After a moment, Spencer sat down beside him. The cuffs of his trousers hitched up, revealing the Reid Special that was mismatching socks. He fiddled with his fingers for a moment.

“Uh, what happened out there…”

Spencer struggled to find the words so Y/N jumped in, “Don’t even worry about it. You’re not the first guy to pop a boner when I’m dancing.”

Even with that reassurance, Spencer was tenacious in explaining himself, “I want you to know I wasn’t creeping on you, and that I was focused on the situation at hand. It’s just, when an attractive man is mostly undressed and dancing like that right in front of me -” he paused to look at Y/N for the first time since they’d entered the private room “- Well, that was the most natural response.”

“I get it. It’s all good.”

Spencer, the germaphobe, perching on a couch that was definitely not up to any kind of sanitary standard, wearing that horrendous gaudy shirt, decided to strike up conversation.

“Why’d you do it?”

“Do what?”

“Become a stripper.”

“Kept me fit during college and the tips were good.”

“Then why’d you quit?”

“I wanted to be an agent more than I wanted money.”

Eventually the wordless drone of EDM faded and Shook Me All Night Long began to beat across the room. Y/N jumped right up onto his feet, his hands open and out for Spencer to take, “Come on, up. No way to pass the time like dancing. And I’m not talking the kind from onstage!”

Spencer’s frown was hilariously contradictory, “We are tracking a serial killer, who likely has you for her next target.”

“I know, but we’re in a private room, and we’ve got another fifteen minutes at least to pass. We can’t do anything else, so up!”

“Y/N, I don’t dance. You know that.”

Sighing, Y/N’s head lolled back then rolled around to look Spencer dead in the eye, “Think logically. You need to leave this room, looking like you’ve just gotten the lap dance of your life, all hot and bothered. Either you get up and dance, or I’m gonna have to get in your lap again.”

Spencer blinked, “I know you think that’s a threat, but it’s really not.”

That caught Y/N off guard, and again when Spencer stood up and began a very awkward, very out of time two-step. Y/N let Spencer’s words go to focus on getting him more pumped.

“There we go! Let your body do all the talking.”

“My body is telling me to sit down.”

“Well… Ignore it then. It’s just us!”

Now, when his dances were coordinated like the one he had performed on stage, Y/N was rather good. Dancing outside of the stripping profession however was not his forte. One might even say he was worse than Spencer in this regard. Somehow the random arm movements alongside the bouncing on the balls of his feet were classified as “dancing”.

Spencer couldn’t laugh; his efforts, once he matched the energy, were no better. His curly hair jumping just a little delayed, that one lock that Y/N had pulled onstage still separate, he tried the headbanging like Y/N suggested. It was somewhat terrible, but not completely.

It was midway through the second song that the men fully allowed themselves to enjoy this silly moment in the sea of seriousness.

Only when Locked out of Heaven faded into more EDM did they stop for breath. They went halves on the couch and soaked up the temporary respite.

“Can’t imagine if it was Hotch in here instead of you,” Y/N panted. Spencer let out a little wheeze at the notion as he continued, “Not to undermine the importance of the job but I was glad it was you I was going undercover with. And I think you’re quite attractive too.”

It only took a fraction of a second for Spencer to understand what Y/N was referring to at the end. With a surge of confidence, he replied, “Only quite?”

“No offence to that exploding rainbow of a shirt, but I prefer you in your usual button-up and tie.”

They shared so much in that moment. Smiles, breath, honesty, the couch, endorphins. It went beyond the eye contact across the conference room’s table.

In a spike of nerves, Spencer reverted back to a constant in his life: facts.

“You know, dancing is meant to improve problem solving skills and reduces cortisol – a stress hormone – in the body. Furthermore, Dr Lovatt proved that dancing helps with social bonding. The synchrony involved in dancing to a beat along with other people is a powerful way for humans to connect.”

Y/N propped his head against his hand, arm leaning on the back of the couch as he watched Spencer’s facts unfurl.

“I didn’t know that,” He said quietly, “But it explains why it made me feel better about going back out there.”

“You weren’t nervous though. You weren’t tapping.” And Spencer pointed to Y/N’s hands, still as the rest of him.

Flexing his fingers before relaxing again, Y/N dared to look at Spencer again, “It’s why I said I’m glad I’m undercover with you.”

Spencer held that look, just for a little longer than before, checked his watch, “I guess we should get going if we wanna catch Marcie Lowenthal.”

“I suppose we’ll have to do our jobs,” sighed Y/N, only half joking.

Just before he was about to leave, Spencer was stopped by Y/N, who proceeded to untuck Spencer’s shirt and pull the end of his belt out of the loop.

“Make sure she sees you looking like this.”

Spencer gave him an incongruously polite nod before exiting. Once in view of the unsub, he made a show of adjusting his appearance before going to the bar to get another drink. Y/N took his time before coming out with the stack of bills tucked into his hot pants.

His dancing continued but back to its regularly slutty program. It was an hour with a hen do, six women who were tipsy and very liberal with their dollars. Sometimes Y/N found JJ and Emily while he was blending in, and though he couldn’t smile, and neither could they, he felt that safety net secured. Safer still when he passed them by on his way to the bar where Marcie Lowenthal was nursing a beer in a flower-patterned shirt and black skirt.

She was the one who initiated contact, stroking over Y/N’s arm to get his attention as he passed.

“Hello,” Marcie leant over to speak in his ear, “I enjoyed your dance earlier.”

“Thank you.”

“You versatile?”

“I can be anything you want.” And Y/N touched her waist, “I can make you feel good.”

With a catlike grin, Marcie leant in to whisper, “When do you get off?”

“Doesn’t matter if I do, it’s all about you, darling.” She let out a bark of laughter before Y/N managed to answer her question properly, “I finish in an hour.”

It was then that he realised Marcie was gripping his arm tight, “Meet me outside, in the back alley, in fifteen minutes.”

The team was right; she was escalating, devolving now that she was planning the murder before the night was done.

Y/N kept up the mask of intrigue, though he was cringing into himself underneath. “In here not good enough for you?”

“I like it dirty.”

“Alright then. I’ll see you there.” He winked before heading towards the dressing room.

His palms were a bit sweaty. That soon changed as he stepped outside in just his pants and a button up he’d brought for this very occasion. The alleyway seemed empty, aside from the unsub waiting by the dumpster. But Y/N kept faith that his team was ready and waiting nearby as he approached Marcie who was wrapped up in her leather jacket.

It was when she reached for something in her pocket that the hem lifted and Y/N saw the belt around her waist, hoisting the skirt up over her hips. About one and a half inches wide.

From her jacket pocket, Marcie procured a silk tie, “I like my men seen and not heard.”

“My safe-word is ‘alligator’,” Y/N said before opening his mouth.

Silk never was his favourite form of gag; it was too soft, too soggy once in the mouth. Marcie tied it roughly around the back of his head, causing Y/N to grunt and again when she tugged again with another around his wrists. Then he felt it. The cold tip of a blade pressed against his stomach.

“Turn around,” Marcie spoke through gritted teeth. A glance behind her and Y/N could see the shadows of his fellow agents gaining on them. Complying, he turned around as slowly as possible. The tip of the knife dragged across his skin.

“FBI! Marcie Lowenthal, drop the knife!“

Derek’s booming voice caught Marcie off guard, the knife breaking the skin of Y/N’s lower back.

“Drop it!” Hotch stated with less volume but just as much authority, “You don’t have to do this.”

“Drop the knife and step away from him,” Emily backed up from the other end of the alleyway, taking a step towards them.

Seeing that she was surrounded, Marcie crumbled and dropped the knife. It clinked away somewhere to the right. The team swarmed on her.

“Hands in the air, on your knees!”

The grind of handcuffs snapping around her wrists was the cue. Y/N ripped the gag from his mouth and began untying his hands; he was quick to pass the agents and officers to get on the street. There, he placed the tie in an evidence bag on his way out of the alleyway. Spencer, FBI vest atop his stripy shirt, held out Y/N’s coat for him. He thanked Spencer. He kept his “now I look like a flasher” comment to himself.

Lowenthal did not go quietly, not even as she was forced into a cop car to be driven to the station.

“Straight people are fucking headcases,” Y/N muttered to himself as he ducked around various onlookers.

“The tie,” Emily remarked as she saw the second one being examined, “It was her first anniversary present to Andrew. The others were ones purchased after he found out he was gay.”

“And Andrew couldn’t say anything about her behaviour or else she’d out him,” concluded Y/N.

With a nod, Emily touched his shoulder, “You alright?”

“Yeah, thanks,” and Y/N squeezed her hand before heading over to the club – hopefully for the last time. By the corner of the building, he found Mimi waiting and watching.

She spotted him and spoke quickly, “You take care of yourself.”

She pulled him into a hug. Y/N had enough time to say “you too” before breaking away and joining the team to drive back to the station. Mimi had already vanished from the scene by the time Y/N was looking out the passenger window, driving by the hubbub of Encore.

---> ---> ---> ---> --->

Thankfully, Y/N was granted the opportunity to change before getting on the jet home – as was Spencer. Both were in their comfort clothing: a hoodie and joggers, and a cardigan paired with slacks respectively. Claiming the couch, Y/N curled up around his pillow and rubbed over the bruise that he could feel growing on his shin. His friends were occupied with their own activities. Everyone was too wired to sleep.

“Get many tips?” Emily joked about fifteen minutes into the flight.

“I did alright, and no wank stains on ‘em either. Makes you rethink your career choices?”

“No stains? That’s how you know you’ve hit the big time.”

“I’m a luxury few can afford.” A pause followed as Y/N thought on the money tucked into his bag’s front pocket, then he addressed the cabin, “Y’all better not think any less of me because I used to strip.”

“Of course not,” JJ spoke up immediately, and a wave of agreement swept through the cabin.

“We’d never judge you for that,” Rossi added.

“Good,” Y/N stood up in the middle of the aisle, “Feel free to judge me for keeping these though.”

And he dropped his joggers to reveal a pair of hot pink hot pants with “BABY SLUT” in sparkly letters on his rear – just visible below the hem of his black FBI hoodie.

Instantly JJ and Derek exploded into splutters, Derek fumbling with his phone to take a photo. Emily was well on her way to laughter as she gawped and grinned. Spencer was hiding behind his book, his eyes peeking over the top. They were crinkled at the corners so Y/N could tell he was smiling. Even Rossi and Hotch had the tiniest of smirks that lit up their eyes with mirth.

“Look at you, Hot Stuff!” Derek cheered.

“Think this is a better uniform than the vest? Alright,” Y/N held a hand up to Hotch who had either opened his mouth to speak or had just forgotten to control his jaw, “I’m putting them away.”

Just like that, he pulled up his jogging bottoms again and fell back onto the couch, as if nothing ever happened. He was pleased as punch that he could joke about this with his co-workers and not at his expense.

A spare glance landed on Spencer, who had dropped his book into his lap and was suddenly very interested in the cuff of his left sleeve. Y/N made no comment but felt very pleased that he’d gotten another response from the doctor.

Sitting in silence, he folded his arms around the pillow, pulling it into his chest. That silence continued until they had landed and were back in the office to drop off the paperwork, ready for revisiting tomorrow. That was when they were alone, when Y/N made his move to speak to Spencer.

“Hey,” he started, drawing Spencer’s attention away from his shoulder bag, “I am sorry about all the touching on this case. I know you don’t like it.”

“Oh, I didn’t mind.”

As soon as the words left his mouth, Spencer’s eyes widened and his hand reached out as if to grab them from the air and drag them back, “I, um, I mean I understood that you had- it was necessary for your cover to remain intact; you don’t have to apologise.”

Y/N couldn’t really do anything other than blink. It felt a little formal after their previous interactions, more awkward after the “attractive” comment they had shared.

“Good, no bad blood?”

“Not at all.”

Walking away from the desk when Spencer dragged Y/N’S attention back with a burst of words, “A-And I wanted to say I don’t care that you were a sex worker. In fact, I think you’re brave. Not just on this case; going up to on that stage when you were in college, dancing for all those people, and doing that with a serial killer last night, that took a lot of guts. I really respect that. You, I respect you, Y/N.”

God, that was attractive. That flow of words that were often statistics or fact Spencer had tucked away in that brain of his, something Y/N never wanted to interrupt and it was admiration, understanding, for him.

“Thank you, Spencer.”

Then Y/N remembered something else. The front pocket of his bag was unzipped and he held out the bills to Spencer, “Kept your private room refund stain free.”

The brushing of fingers during the exchange of money filled Y/N with more butterflies than the entire outing in the club.

“Thank you.” Spencer tapped the bills between his thumb and forefinger, looking back to Y/N, “Maybe I could buy you dinner some time, with this stain free money.”

Y/N bit the inside of his cheek to restrain his glee, yet still a comforting smile beamed at Spencer, “I’d like that.”

---> ---> ---> ---> --->

“Real intimacy is a sacred experience. It never exposes its secret trust and belonging to the voyeuristic eye of a neon culture. Real intimacy is of the soul, and the soul is reserved.” ― John O'Donohue, Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom

#spencer reid #spencer reid fanfic #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x male reader #spencer reid imagine #criminal minds #criminal minds fanfic #criminal minds x reader #criminal minds imagine #my writing #wc: 5k+#imagine #r: male

142 notes · View notes

kyogre-blue · 3 years

Text

@voltaicdragon

I didn't really take the same message as you away from the McGilded thing - to me it always read as the issue being that McGilded clearly forged evidence and forced false testimony from Gina. Van Zieks was aware of this but couldn't prove it, so the issue was always that Ryu didn't get it and fully supported McGilded - which to an outsider would have looked like "he knows but he chooses not to acknowledge it/prove it".

Of curse this is weakened by Ryu's ability to dispute the verdict even in case 3, but by then he's already used the fake evidence and testimony.

So the issue isn't "Ryu defended a guilty person", it's "Ryu defended a guilty person using forged evidence and now admits that that evidence was forged which implies that he knew even back then".

Of course this isn't true but the normalized racism in the game always stacks the cards against Ryu. (I don't super mind the normalised racism because the game does go out of its way to state and show that the racist attitude is full of shit later on, so I read this more as a case of "we're driving home how shitty these people are and are overdoing it with the name-calling")

I think saying McGilded “clearly” forged evidence might have been the intent of the game, but it’s not at all expressed in this way.

This evidence was all presented by the police initially. It doesn’t occur to most of those present that it might have been tampered with during the small period when everyone was ushered out. There’s really no reason for Ryunosuke to think this, especially since AA cases are... well.

We routinely pull evidence out of god knows where. The first case depended on steaks presented by an inspector who took them off the scene illegally and then held onto them for iirc like three days. Very firm and trustworthy evidence, but everyone is totally fine with that.

Not to mention, this is the case that the Chief Justice himself told us to go do. Speaking of which, he described it as a case where we couldn’t possibly lose and wouldn’t even need to do anything in. McGilded said the same. To act like Ryunosuke’s action mattered is a bit silly, at best.

And, as you say, we are repeatedly made to protest that we think this is fishy, once the possibility is brought up. Aside from the prosecutor, Ryunosuke raises the most protests about what is happening, while it is the judge who rules that we can’t proceed and should just stop.

I mean, does anyone blame the prosecutors for repeatedly bringing in witnesses who lie outrageously? Seriously, the game completely paints itself into a corner where placing almost any blame on Ryunosuke is just pure nonsense.

If it was just the other characters who don’t know the details... well, this would still be stupid, since Ryunosuke clearly states in the trial that he arrived in London that day and had no idea what was going on. But it’s not even that. Ryunosuke himself and also the game’s general tone acts like this is his fault for ””””trusting”””” McGilded.

What was he supposed to do? He agreed to do the defense because McGilded had no one and would otherwise be executed. Rather than potentially risking an innocent man’s life, of course it’s better to act as his defense?? EVERYONE has the right to a defense counsel. Was he supposed to then quit halfway through the trial? Very professional, that would be, especially when the outcome wasn’t at all clear. Stand there in court silently without doing his job? What? It’s just such a stupid scenario. On top of the fact that the trial got called off because the evidence was now inconclusive. Once it was tampered with, the outcome would always be the same, regardless of Ryunosuke’s actions.

The client forged evidence when it was in police custody, this is clearly the lawyer’s fault, and not... the police... who let a teenager in with a smoke gun, and didn’t bother just photographing the “crime scene” thoroughly to begin with.... Or you know, the client for doing this, or whoever he bribed for it, etc, etc

(I mind the racism bits a lot because they’re just kind of annoying and basically everyone does this, and it happens every sentences, and there’s no point to it. It probably wouldn’t matter too much if I didn’t have so many other issues with the game though. I guess I also just kind of find it strange because I don’t generally think of Japanese people as being common targets toward racism. Coming from a Japanese team, it really feels like... what is the implication here...)

#watching ace attorney

2 notes · View notes

witchfall · 4 years

Text

universal constant

Rated: M Words: 5,711 Read it on AO3 (Wolgraha. Mild sexual content within)

beta’d by @vaniccio

G’raha’s world ends. She dies. And then, inexplicably, she doesn’t. The Echo, he comes to realize, is a callous master.

-----

The first time G'raha sees her go down in a fight, he forgets how to breathe.

It is only a fraction of a moment. The air is knocked out of her in a thick cry. He hears the skid of her feet against mud and stone and the clatter of her bow upon the ground, even amid the heavy rain.

She becomes a wet pile of leathers, unmoving for just a moment too long.

An imperial mech bears down on her, but G'raha’s feet move automatically. He hurls his body over her and then he throws up his arm, summoning a shield of light just as a gigantic sword crashes toward them both. His arm vibrates so hard from the blow that his teeth clatter. His off-arm digs deep into the dirt. His eyes water -- and then Alisaie sets the enemy alight with red flares. Metal explodes in fiery flints over the field. He ducks under his shield so that his forehead nearly brushes Izzie's, and the battle stills, if only for a moment.

He opens his eyes (when had he closed them? Everything moves too fast for him to remember) and is met by Izzie staring up at him, her sea glass eyes bright against the mud smears on her face. Gods, he thinks, gods and wicked white and every curse, of course she is fine. Of course. The thought alone is cooling as a salve. He remembers to breathe.

But then she is suddenly, impossibly close, her breath hot against his face. She yanks him up by the biceps. Her fingernails dig into his skin, even through his clothes. She shakes him fiercely, yelling something, and it happens so quickly he doesn't process what she is saying until--

"--so don't fucking do that!" she shouts over the rain. "Some blows aren't meant for you!"

"Izzie--" Her name spills out of his mouth, but the rest of his words clot in his throat. Am I supposed to just stand here?

She shoves him away before he can finish.

The fight swells and her fury becomes magnificent to behold. He loses track of her, but never completely. He would hear her over the loudest of dins; whether via the lingering mysticism of the Crystal Tower or this young body's constant yearning, her soul has left deep marks on him. Its aura presses like high tide, smothering and heady in its power. Arrows fly. Her voice rises to haunting crescendo. Magitek scatters to blue sparks and flame. Only later when she vice grips his shoulders does he see the sickness that drives her into reckless battle. Her eyes scan him so thoroughly he would have blushed if he had the energy.

"Okay," she breathes. She shakes and shakes and shakes. Heavy rain plinks on dead metal. All else is silent. He could hear her bones chatter together, if he listened hard enough. "Okay," she says again. "We're fine."

She sways on her feet. He wraps his arms around her taut waist and pulls her close, but she resists him, tensing in his arms, turning her face away from him. Blood and ceruleum and ash drip from her pale skin as rain showers them both. He rubs her forehead with his thumb, but his gloves are dirtied with battle, and so he simply leaves another smear.

"Izzie, look at me."

"I'm fine."

"I know--"

"I just need..." She sucks in a breath between her teeth. He would give her anything she asks. The moon and every star in the sky. "Just give me a second."

He purses his lips. He pushes her hair from her drenched forehead and tests her tension. "I don't think I'll ever get used to it," he says.

She bristles in his arms. Her nails dig into his wrists. She is a bow string near to snap. "So?"

He blinks. "What?"

She sniffs heavily and still won't look at him. "This isn't new."

But he had never been in the field like this, never felt the slick of dirt and grime on her like this, never smelled blood and gunpowder in her hair like this. He drinks her in, how small she seems now, soaked by rain. He is well aware that she is only in his arms because she allows it, but the dichotomy between Izzie of the Fight -- the Izzie the stories sing about -- and the Izzie of the Aftermath is discordant. He fears one of them may shatter from the sound.

"I'm sorry," he says. "You're right."

A heartbeat passes between them. When she finally turns to speak into his shoulder, her voice is near lost in the rain. "...Just let me do my job."

He sways in place, holding her in his arms. He knows that tone -- the determination, the resignation of it. The stubborn will to stand in the storm so no others will. It is the only way she knows how to seize control.

An old frustration makes his tail thrash.

There is no time here to hash it out, not as the other Scions begin to approach. There is no time for him to spill his heart on the floor for her -- to explain just how each blow she takes is one for him, too.

"Alright," he says, picking his battles. "Alright."

-----

It isn't always like that. But he does learn just how terrible of a chirurgeon patient she is.

After another engagement at Bozja, Izzie lays her head in G'raha's lap while Krile sews up the re-opened gash in her side. Izzie grits her teeth. You’re here as a distraction. And a focus. So she remembers not to throw me across the room, Krile had said, blasé, and G’raha couldn’t tell if she was joking. Izzie’s body jerks as Krile begins another stitch. Her hand grips his tightly enough his mouth pops open in shock.

“Sorry,” Izzie hisses out. She lets go immediately. “Sorry.”

“I fear this is my doing." He manages a light tone despite the throttling nature of the pain. He opts to let his thumbs linger at her temples, instead. "For making you laugh too hard.”

“Shame on you.” She smirks up at him, wobbly and disjointed, and affection floods him, warm and rounded. She jolts again.

He brushes hair from her brow. “Are you sure you--”

“Nope,” Izzie says quickly. “I’ve had worse.”

Izzie, he discovers, hates pain medicine -- hates the way it blurs her thoughts and stunts her movement, even for something as routine as stitches, and he realizes he is there to shine like a sharp light through the sensation of Krile digging into her flesh.

“Prepare yourself, Warrior,” the lalafell says, and she goes for another stitch.

Izzie almost thrashes out of G’raha’s lap. He presses his palms into her shoulders, startled. He would soothe her with a healing spell but he’d been yelled at by Krile enough for that; such spells interfere with chirurgeon work by making the body repair along bad seams.

“Bitchass motherfucker, Krile !” Izzie seethes in his lap, eyes watering. “You’re doing this on purpose!”

An old, silent war rages as Krile meets her patient’s gaze. It doesn’t have to be like this, Krile would say. We live in a society with medicine. And Izzie would insist upon it because her stubbornness is near a sickness of its own. He frowns.

She is a horrible patient for one who must be treated so often.

Even so, she is not the only one with hurts -- and despite everything, he comes to cherish the moments late in the eve when both lay in bed, beaten and bruised and tired and together. He relishes the way her body melts into his when he smooths his hands over her shoulders, healing aether warming his palms. The way she presses messy kisses into his chest, his wrists, his jaw. The rejuvenating rest allowed two people, waking in shared soreness, beneath the soft dawn light.

It’s not so bad, he thinks; it’s all he ever wanted. It is a deeply survivable thing, to share these burdens.

Until, sometimes, it isn’t.

-----

Her striking shadow slices the beam of Garlemald’s fearsome weaponry, a flare in the negative against roiling light. He stands struck by her glory.

And then his stomach curdles as her shadow scatters, like grass eaten by locusts, beneath the assault.

He doesn’t even have time to scream.

She's gone.

He feels outside his own body, staring blankly at the scorch mark left behind on the ground where she stood. His feet move on their own.

Thancred shouts for him to hold the line. The man's voice barely registers over the white noise buzzing in G'raha's ears. What line is there left to hold? Was it really doomed to end like this? Even with the balance of the Universe reset by centuries just to--

Wait.

A figure appears amid the smoke and shadow, and he has to blink back the blurred edges of his vision.

She’s... there.

She stands, whole, where she should not be -- a filagree of light against the dark. Silence rolls across the field. It’s as if she’d never been gone at all.

She turns toward him, face blank. His throat is hoarse. He realizes he is screaming her name. The world skips past him like a broken orchestrion roll until he has her in his arms, pulling her down from the outcropping that made her such an obvious target.

She doesn’t resist him. “Raha?”

Hate surges through him then, suddenly -- a fear so poisonous it cripples him -- and he realizes the hate is not for Garlemald or even the killing blow but for the heroic image she strikes despite the damage it clearly ekes. She blinks helplessly, eyes reddened and bloody. Burns seep away from her skin like paint under rain, disappearing before his eyes. She gropes in desperation until she finds his chest and her hand wraps around the edge of his scarf. Her dirt-caked nails leave grimy splotches on the fabric.

“Do I have my bow?” she manages.

He can’t speak. Her hands reach for the weapon anyway.

His heart rips. “You shouldn’t--”

“I’m okay, darlin’.” Her voice is an unusual, knowing calm. “You shouldn’t be this far afield.”

And she turns away. She somehow returns to the fight. No one asks. They don’t need to.

He looks toward the backline and sees the rest of the Scions watching him.

They deal with it in their own ways, he realizes then. It's why Alphinaud focuses so hard on healing and the reason Alisaie throws her all into her offensive battery. It’s one of the myriad reasons Thancred took up his position as the group’s shield. Why Y’shtola turned from conjury to the most fearsome of black magics. Why Urianger brought the power of the stars to bear.

If they are enough, she doesn’t have to go through that.

The battle ends, largely a stalemate but slightly in their favor. Even Izzie tires. G’raha’s body protests but he ignores it; he half-carries her back to the camp and does not let her out of arm’s reach until they’ve regained enough energy to teleport back to the Rising Stones. Even then he feels she could too easily slip from this coil.

He knows she is not feeling right because she doesn’t rebuff him.

He fears his uselessness. A habit from a century of living with want. While he quietly helps her out of her armor and into a bath, he ponders what the Echo has wrought. He sprinkles healing salt into the water.

She died. She died! Her body flipped like a switch to a moment before her demise, shivering and burned, gasping for air.

He wonders at its function alongside her connection to the Ancients. It’s different from revival; she was disintegrated. The Echo made it not so. He knows she can die. He lived centuries to prevent that very outcome. But which deaths are final? Which can she shrug off? How many does she get?

Does she exist outside the usual laws of time and space? A paracausal existence, where cause and effect do not matter in ways comprehensible to the Spoken mind? If Hydaelyn and Zodiark are merely primals, the most powerful of all meant to rewrite the laws of science, is it possible that glimpsing the power of the Ancients makes it so the most Blessed of Her heart can only be felled in the most horrific and reality-twisting of ways?

Why? Why would that be Her solution?

He jolts when her wet palm settles against his cheek. “Hey.”

He breathes deep. Her soap smells like lavender and honey. He presses his mouth into the grooves of her hand and squeezes his eyes shut. “I’m sorry.” His throat tightens. “Today, I--”

“No,” she says, so soft. “I’m sorry. I know the...the weird thing happened.”

He somehow never had seen it. The weird thing. The Weird Thing. He’s shaken by this term. “Do you know when it will happen?”

She lets out a shattered sigh. “I don’t.”

“...do you...remember what happened to you?”

“Not really,” she says. A primal memory of the muscle, but not of the heart or mind. He feels deep relief right alongside revulsion. “I just know no one likes it.”

His mind buzzes. He has a thousand questions. He sometimes wishes the song of the Tower was clearer in his head, like back on the First. Perhaps the Allagans had known of this phenomenon; they seemed the type to cultivate such a talent. But he knows, too, the history of their avarice and he feels a spike of protectiveness at the thought of exposing her even to their memory.

The water splashes as she sits forward in the tub. “Raha?”

He meets her gaze and is lanced to the ground. Her eyes threaten tears.

“You just can’t think about it, okay?” She looks every which way. “Are you...does it…”

He leans forward and cradles her face between his palms. He kisses her hard enough that their teeth clash. His hands are still dirty. He would have to wash her face again. But he kisses her until her wet hands settle on the back of his neck and he feels her relax into the water.

“No,” he says. “It doesn’t change anything. Nothing could.”

His world nearly ended today. And then it didn’t. He would, for her sake, do his best to forget.

-----

He sees the blood spray from her arm. He watches her stumble and drop her bow. His body’s response is near automatic, summoning cool aether to weave a healing spell even as smoke fills the air. But when he charges forward to find her through the morass, she is not there.

He spins. He thinks of the blood rolling down her bow arm, sticky and dark.

“Izzie!”

Figures collide in the corner of his eye. He turns and turns and turns but her fiery hair is nowhere to be seen, wholly devoured by the chaos. He swallows down the building panic in his gut.

And then--

A thick silence descends, before his hair stands up and air sucks away from his ears and he dives to the side but it is not enough--

He stumbles to his knees from the concussive force and acrid stench of a fire bomb. Smoke burns his eyes. His ears ring from the biting kerang of gunfire. His shield nor his barriers are ready; the other Scions are scattered across the field. The Garleans must be catching on, he realizes, dark and heavy. They’ve had enough of the Scions’ tricks.

A war machina bears down on him. He spins to the side but the damn thing feints.

Raha!

In one moment, he is upright. In the next, he is on the cold ground. The world spins and spins and spins. His mouth fills with dirt; blood paints his teeth. Warmth trails down his chest and sticks to his tunic. Pain, dull at first, crescendos in the back of his head until it is shrieking.

A familiar voice rises over the din.

Fuckers! You’ll pay for that!

He opens his eyes. Blue-black debris flies overhead and then--

“Raha. Raha, look at me, okay? Look at me.”

Slick hands touch his face and turn his head until all he can see is the sea green of her eyes and the red flare of her dirty, war-tangled hair. He blinks. His limbs feel malms away. He can’t move fast enough to stop her from attending to him right here in the middle of a fight. Izzie’s hands slide up and down his chest until her fingers dig into his wound and he bucks in pain. His shoulder feels...incomplete. Bitten off. Wet and gone. Bits of fire dig into his skin. Shrapnel, perhaps.

“Okay. Okay. Okay. I can...no, can’t tourniquet there...cloth...pressure…”

She’s talking to herself.

He hears the tearing of cloth. Her stilted hands press a ripped part of her tunic into his shoulder. He cries out in agony as she pushes and pushes and pushes to try and stop the bleeding.

Her breathing is sharp and watery in his ear. “What the fuck were you doing,” she hisses. Her eyes are wide as saucers. “Where did you go?”

He braces himself to grunt out a few words, but he can’t form them.

“No. Don’t talk. Just focus on me. I...I don’t...” She takes a sharp breath and remembers her linkpearl. She pleas for a healer over the line, her voice shaking even as she barks out their location. Her hands are rough and seizing as she hoists him onto a field stretcher, but that is all he remembers before he wakes up under Krile’s care back at the safety of their camp.

He is laid out on a soldier’s cot, groggy and hazed, and he feels a strange anger simmering just below the medicinal fog. He hears his father’s laugh, cruel and thoughtless and drunk. You’ll never understand. None of us ever has.

Izzie sits in a chair, staring at the thin line revealed by the tent’s flap. Her face is still smeared with black oil and dirt. Her head is tilted slightly, like a garden ornament about to fall in the rain. His heart tumbles strangely.

“Where had you gone?” he croaks.

She jumps a foot in the air before she spins in her chair toward him. Her eyebrows creep near her hairline. In the next instant, she leans over him, hands hovering over his injuries. “I’m right here,” she says.

He thinks to tell her she hadn’t been. She hadn’t been where he thought she was and he thought she died, again, and he couldn’t bear it. Doesn’t she know that? Doesn’t she feel it, too? But her eyes are so wide and blown out and her skin shines so wetly he fears she is sick with fever.

So he buries the anger, deep and dark, and focuses on the feel of her fingers in his hair.

-----

He has sworn to love a wildfire. But wildfires are not known for their fairness.

The anger, simmering between them, spills out the next morning. She pushes open the tent flap and a warning klaxon sounds off between his ears, seeing the paleness of her brow and the darkness around her eye sockets. She had not slept. Yet her gaze glimmers, dangerous and lucid, and she says to him as she hands him a tray of rations: “You’re not doing this again.”

He squints up at her. Krile had said he likely won’t be returning to this particular engagement, but something in Izzie’s tone feels heavy and final. “I’m sorry?”

“We’re going back to the Stones.”

He sets the tray aside. “I understand I need to recover--”

But she won’t let him finish. “A warfront isn’t for you. You’re too...you’re too reckless.”

For a moment he forgets how to speak, struck dumb by her sheer audacity. “I’m reckless?”

She glares down at him. Challenging him. “Yes.”

She’s baiting him. He knows this.

“Izzie.” He bites out her name. She doesn’t flinch. “You were injured. It’s my job to protect you. You know that. You agreed to it.”

“It was just a small cut. You exposed yourself for no reason.”

He remembers the blood splatter. Anger, thick as sludge, makes his lungs hurt. “No reason? Izzie Nenelori, you took a hit that would have taken the arm off of any other man!”

“That’s my job!”

“It is, emphatically, not.”

She purses her lips. Her eyes glitter. He should fear this face, he knows, but he can barely see through his own fury, red and vile.

“You don’t know anything,” she hisses. “You know what I can do. What I can survive.”

Some dam in him breaks. He doesn’t think. He snakes out a hand to seize her by the wrist, as if that might prevent her from proving the power of the Echo here and now, and his heart stutters when her eyes widen. But he glares, intent. “Don’t. Do not even think to joke about that in my presence.”

“Or what?” Her eyes flick to his fingers wrapped around her arm. Her voice is desiccating. “What will you do.”

“Do you have any idea what it feels like?” His eyes burn. “To watch you throw your life about as if it holds no worth? Do you have any concept of the hole you would leave in our lives, in my life, if your Echo failed you once?” He can barely speak for the lump forming in his throat. “What it does to me, every time you shrug off a hit that should flatten you?”

She is silent for a single, heavy beat.

His throat burns as he resists breaking down in sudden, furious tears. “Do you?” he presses.

She tears her wrist from his grasp. She balls her hands into fists.

“How fucking dare you.” She takes a watery breath before her voice rises like the tide. “I watched you near die some three times already!”

His ears ring. Her words hang in the air, dripping and cruel and right.

“You think I don’t know?” Her cheeks glisten. “What it’s like to watch everything you love in the world fade? Are you really that godsdamn stupid?”

His mouth slackens. His shoulders sag. Tears leak down his face. He remembers, vividly, Alisaie flicking him on the forehead for openly considering his sacrifice for all their sakes. He had been so cavalier. He felt the circumstances had required it, then, and that Alisaie’s reaction had been driven by something a little illogical...

But Alisaie had been protecting Izzie’s heart. Because he hadn’t considered the possibility of the harm he could do to her, even then.

He grips the blanket, cursing his foolishness. Always the idiot boy in her presence.

“You’re right,” he churns out. “I...I’m sorry. I am.”

She turns away from him but she doesn’t storm off. He reaches, gently, for her hand. She does not pull away, but she does not loosen her fist.

“I struggled to remember, then, that I was...I was still...close enough to a Spoken man for it to matter, and…” He struggles to breathe. “I worry that you think the same thing. That you forget you are still a Spoken woman.”

Her shoulders crumple. Her hands fly to her face. She does not say anything for a long moment and he feels like a monster writhing in chains as he swallows down the desire to sweep her into an embrace. She would turn him away. She must come to him first.

“Am I?” Her voice shakes. “Am I?”

She sits at the end of his bed. He waits until her first sob breaks free before he pulls her to him, tucking her tightly under his chin. He strokes her back and hides his own tears in her hair. His shoulder be damned.

His lips brush her skin as he whispers his adoration. “You are.”

She is the girl he met in Mor Dhona, bright as seltzer. She is a rarity and fleeting and real -- like any girl, yes, but his.

-----

Even injured, he still tames her.

His hands rest at her bare waist as she reveals herself to him, word by word. She leans over him until her ruby hair pools in the cave of his collarbones and her taut arms frame his head. Her lips brush his jaw. “I just go crazy, thinking about it,” she admits, quiet, as if it is only the moon watching. “I survived a world without you, once. I don’t...I don’t think I could do it again.”

Before he can reply with words of his own, her teeth graze his chin and seize his lip. She eggs him on. Tell me, she would say, but don’t speak.

He flips her over him and pins her to the mattress. He buries his nose in her scent. Runs his hands down her naked body. Maps her sharp curves and deep scars, presses his thumbs into the dips of her hip bones, mouths her until her chest heaves -- even as she fights him.

His mouth is kind even as he manhandles her. His grasp is gentle but firm; she desires boundaries to rail against and he will give them to her. He drives her body into the mattress. He whispers sweetness into her ear as he does it. My star. Beautiful and glorious. I will never tire of your body under mine. He pulls her hair to expose her neck to his chastising teeth. Do you know how long I've wished for this? How lovely you look, laid bare and taken and mine?

It is the greatest honor he knows to have her like this, to break her open so the ache comes free and she can fill her heart with joy again. There are some hurts she need not bear. Pain need not be her only constant.

And it is thrilling to remind her who she belongs to.

He treats these moments like arcanima proofs. Through them, he describes the unknowable with what tools he has. His fingers, his tongue.

“I... Raha, I…”

Her voice saying his name sets his core alight. He is driven harder and harder until the pressure between them crests like a mad wave.

But when she finally cries out her pleasure and falls lax beneath him, he is the one who feels split in half. He leans over her, spent. His mind keens. His shoulder throbs. Her voice sends him a thousand different places -- to memories and fantasies that are both ancient and new, sometimes the same memory at once. A shattered kind of Echo.

She brushes the hair from his brow. He opens his mouth to speak but nothing comes out when he meets her gaze. Her lingering silence pressurizes the room. He feels lightheaded. She’s holding something back and he no longer has the mind to figure out what, exactly; it may as well be dripping from him along with his sweat.

Her hand cups his cheek. He closes his eyes.

He would not survive another separation, either.

“It’s not just losing you,” she says. “It’s losing...losing me. Losing the people who remember who I am. I don’t know who I would be.” She looks up at him, wide-eyed and small. “If no one...if you weren’t here to...remind me...”

He lays down and pulls her in against his chest. She presses herself entirely against him, bracing him. His arms tighten around her waist. His fingers thread through her hair.

“Sometimes I fear I’m no longer tethered anywhere in time,” he confesses, throat tight. Ghosts linger in his blood; that is the true curse of Allag. “That I’m a mistake in the tapestry...and that all could be unwoven in a blink…”

She pulls back just slightly and brushes the backs of her fingers down his jaw. His eyes swim, overwhelmed by the sweetness of her face and the bruising of her lips.

“But we’re here,” he says, voice breaking. “And if I am a mistake, so be it. I will fight for my place. To remain here, with you, as long as I can. Even if that means I must take a hard risk now and again.” His shoulder throbs, as if to be the declarative point on his sentence.

Her answer is simple and shattering. She just says his name. “Raha…”

He pulls her into a kiss. Her voice is what he had followed when all else failed. He named the Musica Universalis after her -- the beating heart of the city, the center of their strange star and the harmonies within. The place where merchants and birds gathered and sang their hopeless, hopeful songs.

She pulls away. Her back is taut, but her hands are gentle, reaching up to rub his ears, and he is helpless before her.

"Let me show you something. Tomorrow." She turns her face into his neck. "It might help you understand."

-----

Ishgard splits the horizon like Halone’s Spear, painted in light and heavy stone. Coerthas’ mountains swell just behind it. From here, everything feels worlds away, even as the wind sears freezing gashes across his face.

But the gravestone feels too small.

Izzie stares at the broken shield, eyes threading seams into the hole, and G’raha feels a rock slowly sink into his stomach.

"That," Izzie says, "is why people can't take blows for me."

A moment passes. And then she tells him everything from the day Haurchefaunt died -- the details Lord de Fortemps could not bear to put in his memoirs. The warm twilight sky. How she and Haurchefaunt only needed share a single look before they both sprang into action. How they moved in sync, down a walkway gilded in purple and gold.

How he said he couldn’t bear the thought of losing her, instead. How she watched the light leave his eyes.

She doesn't say it, but G’raha can feel it in her thoughts. It should have been me.

He guards her from the worst of the chill with his shoulders. "You could never know for sure. What might have happened if he hadn't been there."

Izzie's gazes upon the gravestone with a heaviness only worn by those who have made the same calculation over and over. "And Edmont wouldn't want me to think this way. I know. But I'm always going to wonder."

G'raha purses his lips. He remembers something a first generation settler of the Crystarium once told him. "That's the curse of the living, I'm afraid."

She eyes him. He can't pin if it's suspicion or annoyance or concern, her face half-hidden in a scarf.

"He knew who I was. Beyond the Warrior of Light. Like...someone else I once knew." She shoulder checks him hard enough that air rushes from his lungs, but he deserves it, teasing or no. "I was in a really bad place for a really long time before you found me again in another world. But even you…" Her gaze slides away and he snakes an arm around her shoulder. "...well, you know," she grumbles.

Even he almost died for her.

"So that's why it makes me crazy. When people try to help me. It's just easier for you to...not."

"But it isn't," he says softly.

Her hat re-shapes as her ears flatten.

"You've seen so much loss,” he says. “But what does that mean you'll do? Will you love others and receive none in return, in the hopes of sparing them some dark fate?"

She grumbles something, which signals to him he's right.

"It doesn't work like that, my love," he whispers into her ear, hiding the words from the icy wind. "And you, more than anyone, deserve the fullness of affection people have for you."

She bunches her gloved hands near her face, clawing at her cheeks before hiding her eyes in her palms. He thinks perhaps they've reached the end of it when she says: "I know you're right."

His heart jumps. "I do so love to hear it."

She gives the smallest snort of a laugh. He smiles into her wool cap.

“Ma always said the world doesn't owe us anything." Her shoulders bunch forward. "So it feels stupid to say I'm due for something." She pins him with her eyes. The heat in her gaze turns his frozen legs to water. "But maybe I am. I think I've paid for it enough."

She curls in around him against the cold. She suddenly sucks in a breath. It mists in the frozen air, like his own words inside his head.

"I want you with me forever," she says. "I mean it.” She hides her face against his neck and he's shot through with golden light. “Rings and everything.”

He feels dunked into champagne. Thoughts short out in a fizzy fog.

She leans back and searches his face. “Raha?”

“I want it very much.” His words spill out fast. “I want to be tied to you in any way I can manage. I never want to make the mistake of separating myself from you, ever again.” The cold air in his lungs grounds him. “If you’re willing to have me, of course.”

She stops her strange searching and her eyes land on the grave. She laughs like she has been surprised by what she sees. “Sorry,” she says. “I know that’s sudden.”

“Don’t apologize,” he says, perhaps too quickly. “We’ll do it right. With all the pomp and circumstance you deserve.”

He gets the reaction he seeks. Her head leans back in offended shock, eyes dancing over his face.

“No.” She glares at him. He grins, helpless. “No! I’m gonna do it my way and you’re gonna like it.”

“You sound very certain. As if I might not be scheming anything of my own.”

She scans his face. “You’re not.” Despite these revelations being fresh, her voice rings with uncertainty. She looks so concerned -- her brow so furrowed in consideration -- that he pulls her into a kiss. He can’t stop smiling. He is dumbstruck.

He feels a conviction so dense that he is, for a moment, cleaved to the universe.

When he pulls back, she is beaming.

#ffxiv fic #g'raha tia x wol #wolgraha #ffxiv #g'raha tia #in which i ponder the horror of the echo and come away frightened #you can blame masq for this #izzie nenelori #otp: upon an eternal wind #kathryn writes

24 notes · View notes

whitewolfandthefox · 5 years

Text

The Black Blade

Anonymous: omg pls pretty pls for me write scenario 10 w/ geralt x reader!!

Prompt: After stalking their prey and tracking their movements for so long, assassin CHARACTER has begun to fall in love with them.

*check out my new series inspired by this fic! The Black Blade Masterlist

Words: 5.5 wow this one got away from me

Warnings: mentions of poison, blood, gore, killing, fluff, tiny bit of angst

Masterlist

Add yourself to my taglist

Summary: Y/N is an assassin known as the Black Blade. She has taken to a contract to kill Geralt of Rivia, the White Wolf. She spends months tracking him, learning his habits and patterns in order to complete her contract, and falls for him over that time.

The Black Blade

It had been months of tracking, months of hiding, slowly learning his habits. You had never met him, but you knew him intimately. You knew that he talked to his horse when he was lonely, that he had given her the awful name of Roach. You knew that he travelled alone, and preferred this. You knew that he was an awesome warrior, and that he would be a challenge to apprehend. You knew he slept lightly, or not at all, having learned this particular fact when you made your first attempt.

He had woken before you had even made it into his camp, coming to his feet with his sword drawn, golden eyes piercing the darkness as you dropped to the forest floor, staying as still as you possibly could to avoid detection.

You had spent months following the Witcher known as the White Wolf. Normally, you wouldn’t spend this long on a contract, but the coin had been too good to turn down. You hadn’t met your employer, working through mediaries who had given you a handsome fee when you had agreed to take the job, promising even more when you delivered on their request.

They wanted you to kill Geralt of Rivia.

You were a renowned assassin, the name Black Blade known through the underworld. You had gained that name through your signature black daggers, made out of a dark metal so as not to reflect any light when you hunted in the shadows. You were a shadow, in and out without leaving a trace, and the colour of your blades reflected this. The whispers that accompanied your name were full of fear, speaking of the ruthlessness with which you dispatched your victims.

You had just completed a difficult contract when you were approached with this offer. Kill the Butcher of Blaviken. We will see that you can retire and live handsomely should you be successful.

A Witcher was a daunting task, they were known for their enhanced senses and their fighting abilities. You were good, but you didn’t know that you were that good. The reward was too enticing though, after a short day of deliberation, you reached out to your contact and told them you would do it.

Shortly, you were provided with funds enough to buy new equipment, a new horse, hunting clothes, and supplies enough for a long hunt. You were delighted to find that you had enough coin to custom order a long, black sword. Your favoured weapons were your daggers and garrote, but a sword was better in a fight, and was better against monsters. Although they were not your primary work, you occasionally made a stop to dispatch a particularly bothersome one, though always for a price. You had had such a sword before, but had lost it when a job had gone sideways. You completed the contract but lost your weapon, so you were delighted to find you could now have a new one made. That alone made this job worth the effort.

You had made several attempts on Geralt’s life so far, but none had been successful so far. The first attempt, you had misjudged the Witcher. You had only been following him for a couple of weeks and had decided the best time to make your move was at night. He travelled alone and slept alone, you figured it would be an easy in and out, slit his throat in the night. You still hadn’t figured out what gave you away, the man had shot up as soon as you had gotten within fifteen feet of his camp, sword in hand. You had spent the next several hours motionless, your hood up to cover your face as the Witcher sat next to his fire, gazing into the darkness.

You had learned your lesson after that. You hadn’t realized that Witchers’ senses were so enhanced. Even when you were riding far back, the man would occasionally stop, suddenly turning to look behind him. You would dive for the treeline at these points, and after Geralt had performed this maneuver several times, you took to riding close to the trees.

When in town, you would try to approach him unnoticed, possibly slip a knife between his ribs, prick him with your poisons, slip a potion into his drink. No matter what you did, you were unable to get close to him. He was always alone, no one would approach him, making it difficult for you to do so. Even when was in a crowd, he always seemed to know you were there, and you were reluctant to tip your hand.

The most recent attempt was somewhat closer, taking place in an inn. You had dressed in a tight red dress, the fabric hugging your curves. The dress flowed off of your shoulders, highlighting your collar bones and pale skin. Long sleeves adorned your arms, ending in silver wire bracelets that could quickly be turned into a garrote. The skirt was long, a slit running up the side to just below your hip, hiding the dagger strapped to your thigh. The back of the dress was laced tightly, allowing various small knives and other weapons to be tucked into the fabric. You had lined your eyes with kohl and painted your lips, highlighting your sharp features.

You had spent the night fending off the advances of other men, waiting for your target to let his guard down. He had stayed at his table, eating and drinking all night. He didn’t even glance at the other working girls in the tavern, much less you. Though you tried, you couldn’t get close to him all night without seeming suspicious. Every other girl ignored him after the first was blatantly ignored. You could feel him looking at you occasionally, but not with any interest, just a professional courtesy to see who else was in the room with him.

Frustrated, you went to the bar in search of a mug of ale. The next time a man sidled up to you, complimenting you on your beauty, you smiled and fluttered your eyelashes at him, allowing him to escort you out of the inn.

Once outside, you were quick to snatch one of your daggers, striking him in the temple and slowly lowering him to lean against one of the buildings, retrieving your belongings from your room and slipping off into the night.

***~*~*~*~***

Before you could make your next attempt, a problem made itself apparent. Namely, in the shape of a lively bard. Although you were an assassin, you still had morals. Unlike the mercenaries who would kill anyone and anything, you chose your victims carefully. Only those who were truly deserving of death’s embrace received the kiss of your blade. Jaskier, as you discovered he was called, was guilty of nothing except an overindulgence in fine wine and fine woman. Nothing that you would determine to be a crime worthy of your touch.

The bard travelled with Geralt for the next few weeks, their paths seemingly going in the same direction. While you were frustrated at this interruption, it gave you a chance to learn more about Geralt’s mannerisms and habits.

You learned that he hated showing feelings, but had certain tells. His lips would turn up just the slightest at the corners when he was amused or happy. For the most part his face was still, but you had been trained to read people. The slight wrinkling of his eyes, the tip of his head, this man was very emotive. Even his single word responses told much, depending on the inflection, he could communicate interest, happiness, displeasure.

His body language was very expressive as well. He would remain alert, but you could see the exact moment when he turned to alarm. When he was frustrated or sad, his posture would tense. This would happen often when he was thrown out of a town just for being a Witcher. You sympathized with him, when the people would discover who you were and what you did, you were often leaving a few hours later with your tail between your legs.

Just like you, he never unpacked his bags, even when the two would camp or stay at an inn for longer than a day. You always had to be ready to leave, to be prepared for the worst. Often, Geralt would leave beige Jaskier, waiting in the woods for him when the villagers started to get twitchy.

You learned that he cared more than he wanted to. Just the fact that he would wait for Jaskier was a sign of this. He would put up with the bard’s singing for hours on end, even when you were starting to question your decision not to harm him, Geralt would only grunt in response to Jaskier’s endless questions, would never lose patience at the incessant chatter.

Your view of the Witcher changed drastically after he fought and killed a Selkiemore, putting himself into danger to save a town and then refusing the coin offered to him. You could see how thin the children were, how worn the villagers’ clothes were. You felt guilty there, dressed in your good hunting leathers. You left several gold coins in that town before you left.

You could hear Jaskier berating Geralt for not taking the coin as they travelled down the road. Geralt just grunted in reply, trying to dismiss the conversation. Jaskier wasn’t leaving it though, continuing to pester the Witcher before he spun in his saddle to pin the bard with a piercing glare.

“Did you not see the state that those people were in? They could barely afford to feed their children, much less pay me. I will not take coin from those who need it.”

The bard was shocked into silence, though only for a moment until he burst into song once more. You could hardly hear Jaskier’s singing as your thoughts whirled around your head. Everything you had been taught about Witcher’s was slowly being dismantled the longer you followed this man. They were said to have no feelings, yet Geralt was more expressive than any other man you knew, in his own way. He cared more than the lords in charge of the land, did more for the people than anyone else did. He frequently put himself in danger when no one else would, taking the most dangerous jobs and occasionally refusing payment when he didn’t think the people could afford it.

He was the complete opposite of you.

You thought you only killed those who deserved it, imagined yourself a saviour to their victims, an avenging angel. You realized you were what the people thought Witchers were, killing only for coin, killing to survive.

Killing because they enjoyed it.

You didn’t realize you had stopped moving until Jaskier’s voice had faded to almost nothing. Shaking yourself to rid you of the thoughts gathered in your head, you hurried to catch up to the pair, making sure to stay out of sight.

That moment changed you, and you found yourself wondering at how much truth you had been given when your contract outlined why exactly they wanted Geralt dead.

***~*~*~*~***

In the next town, Jaskier and Geralt parted ways. You should have felt happy that the bard was finally gone, that you had a free shot at the Witcher, but you found yourself hesitating to strike. The morals that had formed your shield had suddenly been shattered, leaving you reeling and unsure of what you were killing for. The one was seen as unfeeling and cold cared more about the people he saved, regardless of what they had done or might do. You chose your victims based on a set of rules you had decided on. What made you better than him? What gave you the right to choose who lives and who dies?

You spent your nights guarding the man, patrolling the forest to keep the beasts who would venture near away. The men who came together to throw Geralt out of town were quickly disbanded. A few threats and a showing of your daggers were all that was needed, it rarely took force to make them leave. When it did, you left them unconscious, dispatching them quickly and neatly, not even unsheathing your blades.

It has now been almost 6 months since you had taken the contract and you needed to finish it soon. Your employers are starting to get impatient, a mediary meeting you at an inn where Geralt had stopped on a job.

“It seems that your abilities were grossly overestimated when you were recommended to us. My employer didn’t think it would take this long for you to complete the kill.” The man kept his hood up at the table where the two of you sat, tucked away into a corner.

“I ran into some complications. A bard was travelling with him, and you know my terms. No collateral damage, I kill only those who I have selected.” Your stony face hid your raging emotions. The last few weeks had seen you reluctant to go through with your kill, wondering at the truth of the accusations leveled at Geralt. Everyone had heard of the butcher at Blaviken, but you had come to the realization that there might be more to that story. It had been blown so out of proportion over the years that it was more of a folk tale than a true retelling of the event.

“We know your terms, that you think that just because you kill criminals you are not one yourself. Finish the job, before we put a contract out for the both of you.”

With that, your contact stood, dropping a small bag onto the table with a clink. “For your troubles, and a reminder of what waits for you at the completion of your task.” He turned and walked away as you stared at the bag, conflicting emotions raging within you.

You were startled out of your revery as the man in question came down the stairs, a burst of chatter before a moment of silence following him in. As you watched him, you saw Geralt’s face tighten at the silence. You felt a sharp pain in your chest, recognizing the distrust the people had for him, the feeling of rejection and hatred. It was the same they had for you.

Stop it, you chided yourself, get this job over and you will be paid enough you won’t have to worry about it anymore. You can choose your jobs, take the ones where they won’t drive you out, where they will thank you for ridding them of one more problem.

But do I really care so little that I would kill the man who was saving others?

As you came to your decision, the door to the inn flew open and a woman staggered in, sobbing. Being the one closest to her, you grabbed her as she stumbled, depositing her into the chair you had just vacated.

“My baby,” she wailed, “my baby! She’s been taken by a monster!”

“What monster.” You started at the rough voice that came from over your shoulder. Turning your head, you were met with golden eyes. You quickly focused back on the woman, ignoring the feeling in your chest that accompanied the eye contact with the Witcher.

“There, there is a monster, it’s- it’s covered in scales, it’s huge! It took my little girl, Witcher, it flew away with her, you must help me!” The woman gripped your arms as you supported her.

“A description, woman, I need a description! Did it have wings, claws, teeth? Where was it? How big was it? I need to know what I am facing if I am to get your daughter back.”

You shot Geralt a glare, taking the woman into your arms, gently shushing her as you stroked her hair. “How big was it? Let’s start with that.”

You could feel the Witcher’s glare burning a hole in the back of your head. Ignoring him, you coaxed more information out of the hysterical mother. It was a hunched black creature that had flown down and grabbed the child out of her mother’s arm. Covered in scales and feathers, the thing had two hind legs and massive wings, standing taller than the average man.

Having passed the exhausted woman over to the matronly innkeeper, you stood and pivoted to look at Geralt. “It sounds like a Shrieker. You will need help.”

He scoffed, “Not from you. I will be fine.”

Surprised at the abrupt rejection, you shook your head and stepped back, silently gesturing at the door. You didn’t look at him as he studied you closely before turning and heading into the night. As the door shut behind him you turned on your heel, racing for the stairs that led to your room. Once there, you donned your armour and buckled your sword to your waist, a combination of ungalvanized steel and silver, made to fight monsters but to still have your signature black colour. You also grabbed your bow, slinging it and your quiver across your back. Once outfitted, you descended the stairs and headed for the stables to retrieve your horse, not allowing yourself to think of what you were heading to do, whether you were going to help or to hinder. You passed the weeping mother on your way, sparing her a glance before you were out the door, mounting your horse and following the Witcher’s path.

***~*~*~*~***

The battle had started by the time you arrived, you could hear the shrieks from the creature as well as the screams of the child. You ignored the sounds of battle, instead following the sound of the child, deciding that that was the safest thing to concern yourself with at the moment. You were conflicted, unsure what you would do when faced with the Witcher.

The Shrieker had landed in a large clearing below a cliff, sheer stone walls on one side and trees on the other. You could see various shelves on the wall, covered in small bones, blood dried from where it had run down. The dirt was churned up with claw marks from the comings and goings of the creature. The Witcher was currently engaged with the Shrieker, ducking under its wings when it slashed, attempting to make his way to its undefended back, not quite able to duck away long enough to do so.

You quickly found the little girl, cowering against the stone face. She was unharmed but for long scratches on her arms. There were small blood trails running from some of them, but no fresh blood was weeping from the wounds. You gently lifted her into your arms, intending to make your way back to your horse and to leave Geralt with the creature when you sensed a presence at your back.

Without thinking, you tucked the girl against your chest and dove to the side, tucking your body around the child’s to protect her, rolling on your shoulder before coming back up to your feet, the girl still in your arms. You dodged again, avoiding a swipe of the creature’s wing in your direction, moving as quickly as you could to where Geralt was getting back to his feet. A quick glance showed a slice to his armour, the gap weeping blood. You were unable to see the wound, but based on the amount of blood he was losing, you didn’t think it was too deep.

“I told you not to come,” he growled out, glancing at you with black eyes. You started slightly, before remembering what you had learned about Witchers in your training. You guessed he had taken an elixir to help in the fight, which had turned his eyes black.

“You didn’t seem to be doing very well by yourself, so I stepped in. You should know from your craft that the most effective attack method against Shriekers involves two people,” you shot back, stepping slightly behind the man as he swung his sword to catch the next swipe of a wing. He grunted, glancing back at you.

“Get the girl out of here, she’s in danger the longer she’s in the clearing.” He continued blocking attacks, not moving much in any direction. He released a shout as a wing clipped him, causing a trickle of blood to run down the side of his face. Realizing he was giving you a chance to get away from the creature, you gripped the girl tighter as she cowered into your shoulder, running to where you had left your horse. You quickly hoisted her into the saddle and handed her the reins. “You can ride, yes?”

At her nod, you turned the horse in the direction of home and safety, jabbing him in the side to force him into a gallop as the little girl clung to the pommel, crouched low over the horse’s neck as it ran. You cinched the bracer on your left arm tighter before reaching behind you to retrieve your bow. You ran back towards the battle, retrieving an arrow and notching it to the string as you went. As you came back to the clearing, you set your feet, aiming for the creature’s eyes. As it turned towards you, you shouted “Down!”

Geralt dropped to his stomach and rolled out of the way of a claw as you released your arrow, allowing it to fly and pierce one of the Shrieker’s eyes. It released a scream, flapping its wings as it reared back on its legs, swinging its head to focus on you. You darted away as it lunged, the spike on its head just missing your ribs. You ran to the side, again sighting and releasing, missing the creature as it turned to go after Geralt who had just struck at its exposed back.

It screeched and staggered in pain, away from Geralt and towards you. As it turned, it slashed at you with a wing, causing you to leap forward, rolling under its wing, forcing you to drop your bow as you went. Coming to your feet, you backed up until you were side by side with Geralt. You unsheathed your sword, ignoring the widening of his eyes as he saw the distinctive colour of the blade.

“You go left, I’ll go right and make noise, try to get it to focus my way. Geralt grunted his assent, readjusting his grip on his sword.

“Now!” you shouted, leaping to right as you continued to yell and move in sharp, jerky motions, trying to draw attention. You kept one eye on Geralt as he moved to the back of the creature and one eye on the Shrieker itself, bobbing and weaving under the spike and wings as it lunged at you.

You hissed as you felt a wing slice through the leather on your back, hot blood beginning to run down the skin. You hadn’t moved quite fast enough. You swung at the offending wing, catching it and leaving a deep gash in the skin. It roared and swung its head at you, catching you in the chest and throwing you against the stone cliff.

You hit hard, sliding down to sit dazed at the base of the wall, watching as Geralt shouted and leapt, landing on the creature’s back before slashing down its spine. It screamed, thrashing and throwing Geralt off, turning and leaping at him before he could get out of the way. You screamed as it claws opened deep lacerations across the Witcher’s chest, dropping him to the ground as if he was a doll whose strings had been cut.

The world crystallized around you as you forced yourself to your feet, your sword gripped tightly in your hand. Sensing the new threat, the Shrieker ignored the injured Witcher at its feet and spun to face you as you ran towards it, ducking under its blow, rolling and coming up at its back. You thrust your sword forwards, aiming for the slash Geralt had made earlier. Your blade struck home and you pulled down, further injuring the creature as you severed the muscles to its wing.

It pulled away, attempting to crawl to the edge of the clearing, its wings flapping in vain. You followed it, dodging the claws and ignoring the burning line down your back as you chopped at it, finally ending the fight when you struck home and twisted, severing the Shrieker’s spinal cord.

It hadn’t even collapsed before you had dropped your sword, turning and racing back towards the crumpled man, turning him over onto his back to find a paler than normal complexion and closed eyes. Using one of your daggers, you cut away his armour to get to the wound below.

You thanked whatever gods were out there for Geralt’s Witcher constitution. The bleeding had already started to slow. You exhaled sharply at the sight of the mangled flesh, ripping a piece of his ruined shirt off to press against the wound with one hand as you released your harness with your other, searching for the catch that would reveal the fake bottom in your quiver.

You quickly reached for the items kept there, thread, a needle, and a healing potion. Pulling the cork out of the vial with your teeth, you poured half of it in Geralt’s mouth, massaging his throat to ensure he swallowed before dumping the other half over the wound. You ignored the low moan that came from the man at your actions, taking the needle and thread and stitching the wound closed.

That finished, you left him lying on the ground and went in search of his horse. You had run yours off with the little girl, but you were sure that Roach would be around here somewhere. Finding her, you led her back to the clearing, soothing her when she balked at the stench of the Shrieker.

Taking the bags off her side, you returned to the Witcher to find slitted golden eyes, the black having faded away while he was injured. Relief coursed through you at the sight of him conscious. He watched you with suspicion as you rifled through his bags as you searched, finding what you were looking for. You turned back to him and held up a roll of bandages before gesturing at him, sliding a hand behind his back as he struggled to sit up. Without speaking, you wound the bandages around his torso. You refused to meet his gaze, feeling his eyes on you the entire time you worked.

You stood, turning on your heel and starting towards the edge of the clearing, trusting that the man would be able to get himself back to the town.

“Wait.” A raspy voice came from behind you, freezing you in your tracks. “I know who you are, Black Blade.”

You looked down at the ground before slowly turning to face him. He was sitting on his own now, staring at you with an expressionless face.

“I know you were hired to kill me.”

Refusing to meet his eyes, you shook your head, releasing a sigh. “Yes.”

“Then why didn’t you? You had the chance.” He sounded confused, as if he had expected to have died at your hand.

Looking to the side, you debated your answer. Geralt waited patiently, still staring at you with those golden eyes you had come to favour. “I don’t know. It felt wrong.” You glanced at him out of the corner of your eye, surprised when you saw him lift and drop one shoulder before wincing.

“Thank you.” Startled, you turned to look at him fully.

He must have recognized the shocked look on your face as he chuckled, slowly shifting as he struggled to get to his feet. You didn’t move as he approached you, invading your personal space. You tilted your head back slightly so that you could meet his gaze.

“For helping me. You trusted me enough to guard your back, even though you had no idea what I would do. I knew who you were, I could have taken the opportunity to kill you just as much as you could have as well.”

You shook your head at this, denying that he would have harmed you. “I knew you wouldn’t, you look out for people, you don’t hurt them.”

He caught you with his gaze, “And how do you know that?”

You hesitated, debating how much to tell him. “I have seen you forgo payment in poorer towns, you will often spend more money on items than you really need to so that you can help those who need it. You are a good man, Geralt, better than I am. I am as bad as the monsters that you hunt.”

“You say you are a monster, yet you didn’t harm Jaskier while he was travelling with me. In fact, you stopped attempting to harm me at all. I have heard stories of you, Black Blade, and you don’t hurt those who don’t deserve it.”

Shocked, you stared at him. “You knew I was making attempts?”

He nodded, “I also knew that after the first one or two they stopped being real attempts. You left signs, they stopped surprising me after the initial attempts. I must have changed your opinion of me. You have a good soul, you won’t hurt those unless they hurt others. I am glad that your opinion of me changed.”

You looked away, thinking of the day when you saw him stop and buy a meat cake only to give it to a child who had been staring at the cart hungrily. At that moment, you realized that you wouldn’t be able to kill him.

You didn’t realize tears had started to run down your face until Geralt took a step towards you, bringing a hand to your face to wipe them away. He gently placed two fingers under your chin, turning your head to look at him, his golden eyes soft and open.

“We have met before, you and I, though I don’t think you realized it at the time. It was many years ago, you saved my life. I had been imprisoned by a king for being unable to free his daughter from a curse. He had gone mad, ravaging the country and killing his people for no reason. I was the next one to be hung when you intervened. You made a public display of him, a message to those that would hurt others that the Black Blade is always watching and is ready to step in. I never forgot that to this day.” He smiled softly. “You saved my life, and you have spared it again.”

You attempted a watery smile, before the expression dropped from your face. Your heart sunk as you remembered the threat. You would never again be free, you would always be looking over your shoulder, waiting for someone to come out of the woods after you. Your name and reputation wouldn’t protect you for long. They also wouldn’t protect Geralt, you realized. As long as you had been hunting him no one else would, for fear of your retribution. Now that there would be contracts out on each of you, you would never be safe. You realized you wanted him to be safe.

“I haven’t saved it, I have condemned it. Now that I have failed to kill you, my employer will come after us both.”

Geralt chuckled, “I would like to see them take down the two of us.”

Hope flared in your chest. “The two of us?” you questioned.

He gently tucked a strand of hair behind your ear. “Of course, mouse. Just as you have been watching me these past months, I have also known you were there. Not all the time, no, you are very good at your job, but I would see you occasionally in town. I always wanted to get close to you, but I was worried I would spook you.”

Your heart fluttered at his words as you reached up to gently grasp the wrist of the hand that now cupped your face. You smiled gently up at him, “Then together, we can keep each other safe.”

His breath ghosted over your lips as Geralt slowly leaned down, “Always.” His lips captured yours as his arms came around you, pulling you into his chest. You were careful to avoid his wounds, placing your hands on his waist as you melted into his embrace, savouring the feeling of physical affection, something you rarely received.

Panting, you separated, leaning your forehead against his. “Together then.”

“Together,” Geralt agreed, before leaning down to capture your lips once more.

**~*~*~*~**

Add yourself to my taglist

Taglist: @riviawitch3r @jensensjaredsandmishaslover @ayamenimthiriel @uncoolcloudyhead @secretsthathauntus @vintage-mind-young-body @creamysacrilege @hina-chans-stuff @ronnieissupermegafoxyawesomehot

Send me an ask or drop a comment letting me know you are interested in being added to my taglist!

212 notes · View notes