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Vincent Price publicity shot for The Tingler (1959)
#vincent price#the tingler#photo edit by me#needle#syringe#doctor sir!!!#poke me with your *redacted* and fill me with your *redacted*#hes so sexy#fuckkkkk#you must see this movie#its so good and hes hot#bicon#bisexual#god#photo#horror#old horror movies#vintage#movie#actor#handsome#classic horror
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Unique and Powerful
It's here. It's done. I forced my mother to help me proofread it. (I'm trying to get her to simp for Vega. Idk if it's working.)
CW: Light angst, semi comfort, Vega being protective of Warden, Warden being stubborn, GN listener character, Actually proofread for once (thank my mother)
Redacted Masterlist
Ao3 Link
Summary: Someone hurt his Warden, and Vega would be damned if he didn't find out who and make them pay for the sin they had just committed
Word Count: 2054 Words
Taglist: @angel-shaw @itsyourstarboy @puffin-smoke @pinksparkl @duskdusk05 @mar-the-magician @redactedbloop @teafairywithabook @clover-46 @soup-scope @genderfluid-bastard
Vega looked at the clock, his aura pressing against the ward that held him in place. He couldn’t be sure that the clock was actually accurate. For all he knew it was another childish ploy by the Department to try to drive him into confessing or whatever they wanted from him. He doubted not knowing the time would help with rehabilitation.
It was funny that he never really cared about human time until now. He only paid attention for the small details of his projects or when to go out to feed. People thought that the cover of night helped obscure their sins and the more violent tendencies. (Spoiler, it didn’t.) And yet here he was, staring at the clock. He tried to tell himself that it was all because he had no other entertainment. When he wasn’t allowed to feed (by the Department. Everyday whenever an enforcer came close enough was feeding time.) and when he wasn’t talking to the little inchoate who had been tasked with him… he had nothing else to do.
The lock beeped and his eyes slid towards the door, a lazy smile curling his lips as he sat in the chair they had oh so graciously provided him. A familiar head poked itself inside the cell, eyes meeting his own. He leaned forward, leaning his arms on his knees as his hands clasped together in front of him.
Oh, do come in Darling. He said. He watched them take a deep breath (An unnecessary behavior they had adopted.) and enter the room. The door closed behind them and they held the clipboard close to their chest. His little inchoate, always self conscious about how much space they took up. He waited for them to take their usual seat, but they remained standing, teeth chewing on their lip. Careful Warden. You might split your lip open.
“Right. Sorry.” They were always so quick to apologize. He shrugged, leaning back in his seat as his legs crossed. He could feel their anxiety radiate from their aura, strong enough to break past the shimmery material of the ward. Something had ticked them off, he was sure. What he was less sure of was whether or not they were planning on sharing. Although knowing his Warden, they would be happy to keep it close to the vest and pretend it had never happened. For someone so curious and detail-seeking, they were a very private demon.
He inhaled deeply, filling his useless lungs with unneeded air. The inchoate’s gaze was pulled towards him. Good. He liked having their focus on him. He raised an eyebrow, waiting for them to say something other than an apology. They stayed quiet, just staring at him in a manner humans might dub as awkward. He waved a hand, dexterous fingers summoning a thread of magic that had a spark of light kissing his fingertips.
What’s wrong darling? Have you grown weary of behaving creaturely for the Department? A well worn path of a topic, but one that often had the inchoate quickly denying the claim. They sat down - on the floor - and set their clipboard in their lap.
“Can we discuss something else besides your dislike of my profession, Vega?” They asked, voice tired. He narrowed his eyes and leaned forward once more, hand dropping from the air and letting go of the thread of magic he had been playing with. Something was wrong, he already knew that. But what he was trying to find out was what. Usually Warden entertained his theatrics and musings, believing they would lead somewhere useful for their rehabilitation practices and studies (It wouldn’t. He made sure of that.) but now they were barren of that determined curiosity.
Fine. Let’s discuss what’s going on with you then. You’re my entertainment as of late, and yet something is acting as a barrier. And I’m not speaking of the ward, before you attempt to use that as a deflection. He said, watching as the other demon frowned a little at the serious flatness his tone provided. He didn’t often defer to a more serious tone (He favored teasing tones with Warden. Or threatening ones, watching weak hypocritical humans shiver as their fear brushed against his skin like a lover’s caress), but for now he was willing to. They shook their head, a smile grasping their lips to expose their teeth. He grimaced in return. How very insincere of you. Their smile dropped.
“It’s not important to your treatment, Vega. We’re here to focus on you. I thought you liked being the center of attention.” They snapped. His grimace turned into a smile and he stood up, moving closer to the edge of the ward that separated him from his Warden.
Ah. So I do. He hummed, mocking hurt. Regret and guilt made a lovely combination on their face and they sighed, hanging their head. He watched as they buried their face in their hands, any words he might have said going silent. His smile faltered at the way their shoulders started shaking and their despair pressed against his aura. Darling. Tell me what’s troubling you. You don’t need to be so stubborn.
“You were right earlier.” They said, their voice muffled through their hands. Not for the first time, he found himself wishing that the ward would just fall. Just for a split second. He stayed quiet, waiting for them. “I am tired of it. I’m tired of the long hours. I’m tired of the hostile work environment. I’m tired of the pressure, of the social obligations that no matter what I do, never seem to perfectly fit. I’m tired of the looks that they don’t think I notice. I’m tired of everything.” The words started to spill from their lips, much like how he suspected tears spilled down their face. “I’m just trying to do my job, but it never seems to be good enough for them.” He sat down on the floor across from them, expression blank.
Someone was harming his Warden. More than just someone. And he was stuck behind a ward and staring at a clock while they were trying to shoulder every expectation and every word of criticism against their behavior. Behavior they tried to emulate for the humans. Ungrateful little pests.
What would you have me do? He asked. Comfort wasn’t his expertise, so guidance was required. The inchoate lifted their head, eyes reflective with their tears from the overhead fluorescents. He felt his jaw clench as… some kind of emotion moved through him. He had been walking through this plane longer than many, experiencing the darkest of human emotions and sensing the others. And yet he wasn’t sure what emotion was causing his anger.
If anyone was allowed to make his Warden cry, it was him.
“You can’t do anything.” They whispered. He frowned and leaned forward, placing his palms flat on the floor of his cell. He stared intently as they wiped away the tears on their face, hardly being gentle with themself. That irritated him further.
You know I can do many things, Darling. I can be a weapon for you, but I need you to point me in the direction to those who must be punished for making you feel like this. He wasn’t going to drop this. Warden stared at him, hands now gripping the clipboard in their lap. He could easily read the surprised shock on their face, he didn’t need their emotions brushing against his aura. His expression fell into a more grim one. I know no one else has offered this to you. But I am now. Let me help you, Darling.
“You’re just trying to corrupt me again.” They whispered, even as they tried to hide and mask their hesitance from him. He moved closer to the ward, feeling the sizzling as his aura almost brushed against it. He ignored the sensation, eyes locked on the inchoate in front of him.
I’m trying to help you, Warden. Contrary to what you might believe, I don’t enjoy you suffering at the hands of others. Especially since you throw away so much, give up so much of yourself, simply to please those who will never properly appreciate the sacrifice you give them. I want to make wherever you are a place that actually is grateful you deign to show yourself before them. He watched their eyes grow wide and a smirk tugged at his lips. He continued. I want to make your walking places have humans recognizing the power and threat you hide so well under a meek exterior. Tell me how I can do that for you, Darling.
They shook their head, and Vega wished he could feed on the doubt that rolled off of them like an overspilling sink. His smirk tugged wider into a smile. “You don’t need to do that. I don’t need that, Vega.” They tried to insist. Unfortunately for them, he was more stubborn. But it was clear they were insistent on not telling him. Which left the two demons at an impasse. He stood up and returned to his seat. His Warden stayed where they were sitting on the floor. The sadism demon stared down at them, his expression masked into abstract interest.
The body they had chosen for themself upon arriving to Elegy was strong. He knew that. But in that moment, sitting on the floor and staring down at the clipboard in their lap that only held empty papers, they appeared so small and strained. Prone to break at the lightest touch.
I decided what I wish to discuss. He said finally, giving the inchoate something that could ground them. If they refused to outright tell him who had been the final straw that broke the camel’s back, he would play this game. He would gently pry the information out while offering truths and lies about himself. A game he had been playing from the first moment he had met the other demon. They lifted their head, and he almost licked his lips at the desperation - to cling to the lifeline he had thrown - clear in their eyes.
They were so expressive, wearing their fragile heart on their sleeve. He was going to help them protect that heart, whether they wanted him to or not. And he was far more willing to get his hands dirty for that task.
“What is it?” They coaxed, wiping their face with the edge of their uniform sleeve. He felt pity for them. They ran away from solutions to their more negative-thinking emotions to bury themselves in a work that didn’t appreciate them and treated them like they were replaceable. They weren’t.
I want to talk about the treatment from the enforcers here at this prison. He said, reading for any reaction. Had an enforcer put that crack in the inchoate? He had a few guesses of who could have had the gall. But they didn’t show any reaction that answered his question. So it must have happened outside this containment facility. That certainly made it more difficult to find the specific person and cause.
“Has it not gotten any better? I’ve put in several reports to have the enforcers under review.” They said. Sweet, naive little inchoate. Those reports were probably sitting in a pocket veto on some higher-ups desk as they pretended to deal with issues they deemed more important than the care and living conditions of Department-dubbed criminals. Only the bleeding hearts of this government actually cared.
They’re feeding me more, which is appreciated. Unnecessary, but still appreciated. But that doesn’t mean they’re kind. Or even decent. Surely, you’ve seen it. A nudge, but not playing his full hand.
Unfortunately, it seemed his Warden was more perceptive than usual. They looked up from their clipboard where they had begun taking notes.
“I’m fine, Vega.” They insisted again. He nodded, summoning that ball of light again. He stared at it, putting on a nonchalant air.
I never said you weren’t, Darling. That didn’t mean he would give up. And it didn’t mean that he was going to let go of the transgression of hurting his Warden. It was just another wound that would need to be returned to the Department tenfold. Tell me, is that clock in the corner accurate?
#redacted asmr#redacted audio#redactedverse#redacted fanfic#redacted vega#redacted warden#redacted comfort#technically speaking#ive been talking about this fic for a bit
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@thelegendofjenna replied to your post “me, poking kurt and blaine with a stick: do...”:
if you want someone to bounce ideas off/vent frustration to, you can always message me!
I have my plot points mapped out. Jen @1908jmd actually figured some out in an ask that she sent (*wink wink nudge nudge*) (although, Jen, you're still in for a surprise, but some were close) (I'm not publishing the ask to avoid spoilers, but what you said about [REDACTED] hit the nail!). I just need to fill in those plot points and it is quite annoying to see a clear direction for where the story is heading. I've been seeing that direction for months, but ya know *gestures around* writing.
I did poke Kurt and Blaine hard enough to have them watch RENT, because why not? I'm currently stuck in a part of the next chapter where I just... need them to do something for the middle. Welp, RENT it is. I almost went for Legally Blonde but ssssssh that is Quinn's favourite movie. So yes, Kurt, Blaine, watch RENT and do something!!
#OKAY LOOK#the RENT thing... i am a bitch for RENT and unapologetically so#but i also love putting daltonfic references in my fic because i can and at this point klaine loving RENT is a meme#once again thank u daltonfic for giving me some crumbs#myosotis is filled with them#ANYWAY#replies#thelegendofjenna
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Hellooo!! Was wondering if I could put in a request for a redacted fic please. Hopefully, sweetheart/milo or Sam/darlin? Up to you though
Dosent matter the genre smut , angst , fluff
Hello, @thegoldenlittlerose, Anon, and @gumballsrightfoot! Thank you so much for your requests. Thegoldernlittlerose, I was so thrilled to see someone request from that list, and you picked such great selections! And then, Anon, when I saw your brilliant suggestion for a story featuring wolf cuddles I knew I had to combine these prompts. Just as I was about to start drafting, gumballsrightfoot’s request came in and while I was not aiming to fill any new requests for awhile, I noticed you asked for Milo/Sweetheart, so I inadvertently filled your request, too. Hope all three of you enjoy!
Rating: T, WC: ~1.8K, Prompts: “Stay with me, don’t you dare close your eyes,” cradling one in the other’s arms, Wolf Cuddles, Milo/Sweetheart
Sweetheart felt their vision begin to go dark around the corners, shuddering with every breath. The bruises that marred their body were painful, like a constant ache that slinked its way up and down their body. Sweetheart’s head pounded. Their chest was too tight. Their gut was practically on fire. Their legs felt like they’d shatter if they even tried to stand. The stealth fought through the dizziness and confusion to remember where they had been and what they were doing that led them to this state.
Someone’s arms tightened around them and they instinctively bucked. “Get off, get off!” they said through split, swollen lips. “No!” Just as Sweetheart began to pull at the meridian to wield a magical defense, a soft voice stilled their frenzied movements.
“Hey, hey, hey,” Milo Greer whispered. “It’s okay, Sweetheart. It’s me, Milo. I’m right here. Don’t move. Don’t want you to hurt yourself.”
Sweetheart let themselves lean back into Milo’s embrace. They were still dazed and confused, but at least they knew they were safe because Milo was there.
“Wh’t happened?” they asked, keeping their tired eyes open to search for Milo’s.
He quickly caught their gaze and gave them a slight squeeze, a tangible reminder he was there with them. “Some nutjob must’ve waited for you on your walk home and attacked you,” Milo explained. “A dreamwalker, from the looks of it. He got the jump on you, but you fought him off. Seems like the son of a bitch didn’t bet on me coming by to surprise you with a ride since I got off a little early tonight.”
Sweetheart swallowed, focusing on Milo’s soothing voice to ignore the growing roar echoing in their ears. “Y’okay?”
“Fit as a fiddle,” Milo winked. “Don’t you worry about me,” he assured. “I shifted and pulled him off of you. He was so stunned and, let’s face it, I am one formidable wolf when provoked. And even when I’m not. Let’s just say the only way that bastard is going to be able to make a move without pain is in his dreams.” Milo pointed to his car. “When he was unconscious, I took the liberty of grabbing your magical-dampening cuffs and locking him in the trunk. I reported the attack to D.U.M.P. and they said they’d dispatch a few people to us tout suite, including a healer.” Milo sighed. “Though they seem to be taking their sweet time with it.”
“Hmm,” Sweetheart responded, bits and pieces coming back to them as Milo spoke. “I remember now. He’s with CloseKnit.” They bent their knees to bring their legs a little bit closer into their chest. “Wanted me to back off from poking around in their stupid cult. He was trying to… To…” They began to cough.
“Okay, okay now,” Milo soothed, rubbing their chest until their coughing fit passed. “Take it easy.” He was relieved that no blood was coming from their mouth as they did so, but he was still anxious for D.U.M.P. to show up to get Sweetheart some help.
Sweetheart blinked owlishly, barely able to grasp the thoughts that seemed to float up and out of their head. Another wave of exhaustion hit them. “I’m tired,” they said simply, letting their eyes slip shut.
“No, no, no!” Milo yelped. “Sweetheart, no! You’ve got to stay awake.” He hesitated for a fraction of a second, reluctant to cause Sweetheart any more pain, but he knew how dangerous falling asleep could be after they had fought with a dreamwalker who no doubt hit them with sleeping magic during the attack. If Sweetheart fell asleep before his magic could be removed from them, they were risking falling into a dreamscape controlled by that maniac. Milo didn’t know what exactly that would entail, but he knew it would be nothing good. Dreamwalkers were notoriously creative and once in a dreamscape, the sheer potential of their powers was practically limitless. As distraught as it made Milo to see Sweetheart broken and wounded, he knew that letting them fall asleep would be the most dangerous thing for them. “Stay with me, don’t you dare close your eyes!”
Somewhere in the deep recesses of their mind, Sweetheart knew that. “Mmkay,” they agreed, trying valiantly to hang onto consciousness if only for Milo. They held fast to that goal, although the pull of sleep kept a tight grip on them. “But it hur’s. An’ I’m so tired.” They wished they could’ve kept the slur out of their voice.
“I know it does, and I’m so sorry, but you gotta hang in there a little longer.” Milo’s heart nearly broke in two as he heard his mate’s pitiful pleas for a respite. “I wish I could heal you myself, but I’m worried the healing magic will put you to sleep. The last thing you want is to be at that cult-freak’s mercy. I won’t let that happen.” He clutched them a little tighter, letting their head rest on his chest as he cradled them in his arms. “C’mon, Sweetheart. You gotta stay strong. You can do this. I know you can. Stay awake now. Talk to me.”
Sweetheart's head lolled to the side as they clumsily grasped for Milo’s shirt, as if the haptic sensation could help keep them awake and aware. “Talk?” they said, drawing out the single syllable. “Talk ‘bout what?”
“Anything!” Milo burst when he saw how Sweetheart was struggling. Between the energy they had spent in the fight, the injuries they had sustained, and the dreamwalker’s magic still buzzing around in their body, Milo knew that the fact that Sweetheart had not yet fallen asleep was a testament to their fierce determination. He also knew that at some point, Sweetheart was going to collapse. They had hung on for so long. Milo knew he had to help them keep up their strength until a dreamwalker from the Department could protect Sweetheart from getting ensnared in a dreamscape controlled by one of CloseKnit’s devotees. “Tell me about that time you phased into the kitchen of that fancy sushi joint.”
“Ummm…” Sweetheart mumbled, growing more dazed and confused by the minute. “Lotta fish…” they recalled. Their muscles quivered at the effort it took them not to collapse in a heap against Milo’s broad frame. “Please, I just wanna sleep…”
Milo quickly realized that having Sweetheart keep themselves awake with a story was not going to work. “Sweetheart!” he lightly tapped at their face, careful to avoid the bruise forming under their left eye. “Don’t go to sleep now!” he encouraged, trying to keep the panic out of his voice.
“I’m trying…” Sweetheart answered. They were more tired than they could ever remember themselves being. No all-nighter at D.A.M.N., training-heavy day at the D.U.M.P. Academy, or a late-night lead on a case had ever pushed them this far towards sleep without going over the edge. “B-but…” Sweetheart’s eyes filled with unshed tears as the frustration and misery built up inside them. “I’m so tired. I don’t know how much longer I can…”
“Okay, okay,” Milo hushed, searching his brain for an idea to keep Sweetheart awake. “Don’t worry, Sweetheart. I won’t let you go,” he vowed before closing his eyes and shifting back into his wolf form. “I can keep you awake all day long if that’s what you need.”
Milo carefully supported Sweetheart with his body, curling his face around theirs. He began to enthusiastically lick Sweetheart’s face, hoping his cool, moist tongue would keep them awake. His tail wrapped up flicked up and down their legs, another tactile sensation that could keep them awake and safe. He nuzzled his head close to Sweetheart. They couldn’t resist the urge to bring their hand up to Milo’s snout so they could give him the chin rubs that they knew he loved so much. The feeling of their fingers brushing along Milo’s soft fur and sturdy body distracted them from their overwhelming desire to sleep. Milo whined happily, continuing to lick their face and wag his tail when he saw Sweetheart’s eyes open wider.
After a few moments, wailing sirens approached. Milo howled and kneaded his paws in excitement and relief at the knowledge that help for Sweetheart was arriving.
“That’s them!” Sweetheart whispered through a sleepy grin.
“Hey, Investigator! You awake?” a familiar voice rang out. Sweetheart slowly recognized the voice as Syd, a rookie dreamwalker on their squad who they knew was more than capable of defending them in any dreamscape. “Damn,” he said to himself. “You are awake! That’s amazing.”
Milo growled a bit, still in his wolf form and pressed into Sweetheart.
“Got it. Not the time for accolades. Yup, yup, yup,” Syd quickly assuaged, kneeling beside Sweetheart and putting his hand on their sweaty forehead. “Your mate filled us in on what happened when he called in the report. I’m going to help you now, okay? Just relax.”
The last thing Sweetheart remembered before finally slipping away into blessed unconsciousness was feeling Milo’s steady heartbeat as he protected them with his soft wolf-cuddles.
When Sweetheart finally woke up again, they were tucked in their own bed under two blankets and one sprawled-out Aggro at the foot of their bed. Their injuries had been healed, their psyche protected, and their cultist suspect thrown behind bars for attempted unlawful dream manipulation. Hopefully, his arrest would lead to a crack in CloseKnit’s seemingly impervious defense.
But Milo didn’t want to worry about any of that right now. All he wanted to do was take care of his mate as they recovered from their attack and reassure himself that they were safe, secure, and right by his side.
He offered them a steaming mug after helping them sit up against a stack of pillows. “Brought you some tea,” he said, his voice laced with a bit of gravel.
Sweetheart gratefully accepted the mug, the hot liquid warming them from the inside out. “You kept me awake,” they said, in awe of Milo’s ability to help them defy a process as natural and innate as sleep. “I was so tired and you kept me awake.” They nearly sobbed as the gravity of the situation hit them. “Thank you.”
Milo tipped his forehead to meet theirs as he curled a hand around their neck. “I said I’d keep you safe no matter what. I meant it.” He brushed their cheek with a kiss. “I love you so much, Sweetheart.”
“I love you, too,” Sweetheart replied honestly.
“Now, the healer said sleep was going to be the best thing to get you back to 100%,” Milo advised wisely, already beginning to work himself out of his sweatpants and T-Shirt. “I promise I won’t drool all over your face this time.”
Sweetheart giggled as Milo shifted into his wolf form. “You can drool all over me if you want,” they declared, opening their arms to let Milo fit himself beside them. Sweetheart let themselves relax as they lazily gave Milo ear scritches. “Goodnight, Love. Sleep well,” they hummed before settling back into the pillow to join their mate into a safe, content slumber.
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dedicated to the lovely @himboksj happy (very late almost criminally late) bday present! so whew... there’s a lot happening in this one! return of jock!jk and his wonderful girl oc now featuring!!: squirting, creampie, oral (fem receiving), mild choking, biting, boobs in face!!, anime tiddy mentions, praise kink galore, multiple orgasms, the use of a vibrator, jaykay is sick actually, over-stimulation, mild spit kink, dommish!jk, (redacted) pet name, mentions (and watching) of porn, everybody is in love and horny, crying cause the dick too good, fingering but not really. 5k of words that should have never left my brain. listen to continuum & nothing without you by tanerelle (kindly check masterlist for the pretty boy drabble mini masterlist if you want to read the rest of this au!)
Jeongguk didn’t mean to go snooping through your things. It was 100% accidental. He just remembered that you kept some athletic tape in your drawers because Jeongguk usually needed to wrap his knee or ankle after practice and you ensured that he always had some near (in case he came crashing at yours instead of going back to his dorm after Coach brutalised him during drills). And, anyway, you were at a point in your relationship where Jeongguk didn’t necessarily feel the need to outright ask you if he could poke around your drawers. Of course, he respected your space, but it’s not like he wasn’t nosy when you were best friends. You were in the shower too, he didn’t want to bang on the door and ask where you kept the tape.
Imagine his surprise when he reached the final drawer in your dresser, idly rummaging around for the blue athletic tape he knows is buried somewhere, and his fingers latch around a silky cloth instead. He knew what it was immediately, the shape a dead give-away. A discreet bullet vibrator, stuffed under your unnecessarily large collection of fluffy winter socks. Perhaps he stopped breathing, the twitch in his loose workout shorts undeniable. He’s not surprised that you own one and yet, his brain can’t fathom you using it. Even now, Jeongguk’s still growing used to seeing you come undone around his length, the feeling of your walls tight on his cock as your mumble his name. It drives him mad. He’s seen you in every kind of state; sobbing hysterically, laughing until tears slip from your pretty eyes, stumbling drunk in the streets, eyebrows furrowed with anger at him, that soft tiny grin you grant him on good days, the pout your lips settle into when you don’t get your way. He never fathomed he’d ever see you in that way, skin flushed with heat, eyes cloudy with ecstasy, your heat pressed against his own. He finds new ways to fall in love with you every day but it reaches new heights when he’s deep inside of you. Maybe he’s mildly obsessed with seeing you unravel, but that’s a secret he keeps to himself.
He does take a peek at your toy though, a soft velvet-like purple vibrator. It’s cute actually, something you would definitely purchase. But then the sound of water hitting the shower tiles slows down and Jeongguk swiftly tucks the toy back into your drawers.
“Oh?” You say when you open the door to him standing stiff in your room. The steam from the shower wraps around your figure in gentle wisps, sunlight filtering in from the window behind you, the image of an innocent angel appearing right before his eyes. “You’re here.”
“Practise ended early,” Jeongguk returns, his gaze trailing the droplets of water that slip down your skin. You smell good, just like that vanilla and peach shower gel that you dearly love. And the towel hiding your body is loose. It’s not his fault that he’s hard in his pants. When he moves to hug you, your face contorts, a downward tug at your lips that Jeongguk longs to change with a kiss.
“I’m wet,” you whine, brushing past him. “Go shower, you always stink after practise.”
He huffs, strong arms catching your fleeing figure and quickly wrapping you into his chest. “No. Don’t want to. I missed you and you can’t even hug me? You’re so mean to me.”
“Guk-” Jeongguk cuts that complaint with his face in your neck, lips colouring your skin rouge with a kiss that intends to leave a mark. “You can’t,” you mumble, but your fingers settle on the nape of his neck, tangling in the growing strands of his hair. “I have to get to work soon.”
“It won’t take long,” Jeongguk returns, feathering kisses across your skin as he nudges you to the bed. “I promise. Let me do this, I’ve missed you, bunny.”
Your towel is discarded somewhere in the amble to your sheets, your thighs wrapped around Jeongguk’s face a second later. He watches your body carefully, teasing your clit with purpose before he allows himself to slip his tongue deep. He notes the twitches in your thighs, the way your buck your hips against his face. He ignores his desire, for the time being, nose buried at the apex of your cunt, tongue covered in your slick, his lips latched on your clit. You like it fast, purposeful sharp flicks that make you squirm until Jeongguk has to pin your hips down, the lave on your heat brutal. His brain can’t help but wonder how you’d behave with your toy grazing your clit and his cock burrowed deep. You’re so sensitive, response to even the softest kiss he lays on your cunt. Would you be wetter than this? You’re already dripping down his face, his mouth glistening with your desire. But he wants to see if you can do more than this, squirm more than this, make a bigger mess than this. The thought surfaces as he feels your body lock, the tension in your limbs drawn high as your hands reach for his. You cum on his face with your fingers intertwined, his name falling from your lips as the afternoon sunlight hits your skin. It’s then and there that Jeongguk decides, with his mouth wet from your release, he’s going to see you squirt one day. For him and him alone.
He waits for the moment to naturally strike, silently scheming wicked thoughts every time you crawl into his sheets. It happens one evening, an empty bottle of wine at the foot of your bed and hentai porn playing brazenly on his laptop screen. Somewhere between downing the bottle and cuddling in his sheets Jeongguk had mentioned an uncanny resemblance between your gigantic chest and the anime boobies he’d grown fond of since his introduction to hentai. You’d immediately dismissed him, whacking him hard on the head and then Jeongguk had to prove it to you, opening his favourite website and pulling up a video that had your jaw-dropping.
“Your boobs do that, you know,” he says. Which grants him a sharp kick to the shin.
“Jeongguk, what is wrong with you?” He can tell you’re not annoyed, but there’s a lilt in your voice that makes him pause, doe eyes flicking to your face. You may be kicking him under the blankets but your eyes are stuck to the video, a distance glaze colouring your gaze. He can tell by the way your thighs draw together that you’re not as averse to this as you pretend to be.
“Turn it off,” you mumble.
“Why? I can tell that you like it.”
“Jeon, I’m not joking.” There’s a glare paired with that sentence, but he reads right through it.
“Fine,” Jeongguk offers, fingers already typing what’s been on his mind since the day he discovered your vibrator.
“What are you—oh.”
There’s a quiet lull. He clicks on a video that’s more familiar to him than he’ll ever willingly admit out loud. It starts the way Jeongguk prefers it to, with a man on his knees, his head buried between the thighs of a girl.
“What are you doing, Guk?” A warning. A question. Jeongguk is not sure what you mean by that and he’s too hesitant to take a look at your face to decipher the tone in your voice just yet. He takes the jump instead, hoping you don’t mind the fantasies of his mind.
“Have you ever squirted?” Somewhere between the exchange of words in Jeongguk's room, the man on his laptop screen slipped two fingers into the girl. It doesn’t help that your boobs are falling right out of your loose camisole, resting right on his bare arm.
“Jeongguk,” you return. “Answer my question.”
“Answer mine first,” he looks at you then, trying hard to read your eyes. There’s no heat in your face, just an innocence that colours your features. Wide eyes, your legs draw together, a hard swallow that he sees in the low lights that illuminate the room.
“No,” you say, bottom lip caught between your teeth. “So why are you showing me squirting porn?”
It’s then that Jeongguk realises he wants to ruin you. As horribly cliché as it sounds, he longs for that. And the urge for it doubles when your gaze falters, flicking quickly for the screen before drifting back to his. The couple is still fucking on his screen, hard quick loud thrusts that travel to the pit in his stomach fast. He’s hard in his briefs, a painful throb ebbing through his length when your hand drops to his chest.
“Guk?”
He shuts the laptop, the moans cut off, a heated silence taking its place. The bed feels too big when he gets up, ignoring the confused look you give him.
The vibrator is exactly where he left it, oddly comforting because it means you don’t use it. You have him after all. But he needs the toy for tonight.
“What? Guk? What’s go—when did you find that?” You’re embarrassed, he knows it from the way you squirm under the blanket. He glances down at it, finger pressing the switch that turns it on. A quick run through shows ten decent vibrators at different levels, it’s rather intense even in his hands, the low buzz that it emits filling the room forbidding before he shuts it off.
“A couple of weeks ago,” he says. You groan, your head dropping into your hands.
“Put it away, Guk! And don’t go through my stuff ever again.”
“Why? I think it’s cute.”
“Cu—what is the point of this, Jeongguk? I don’t get what you’re trying to do?” And there you go, staring at him with those wide ingenuous eyes. So trusting, so clueless. He draws closer then, considers taking his underwear off so you can see just what you do to him. But when your gaze drops he halts. It’s not about him tonight. It’s about you.
The bed dips under the weight of his as he says it, the toy still in his hands. “I want to see if you can squirt.” He sees the way your back stiffens, the raise in your brow.
“I’ve never done that,” you splutter, falling back as Jeongguk crawls over you.
“I know. But you can.”
“I can’t, Guk. I don’t think I can.” Your pretty lips are drawn into a reluctant pout, but there’s a bright curiosity sparking through your gaze that Jeongguk knows all too well.
“See, you don’t think you can. You said that before. And then I made you cum five times in a row.”
“No that was different—”
“We’re just seeing if you can. We don’t have to if you don’t want to but I think it’d be fun to try.”
You pause, trying to ignore the heat blooming between your legs as you weigh the decision before you. There were times when you thought you were about to, an edge in your orgasms that felt dangerous. But your body never let you go there fully, drawing back from your slipped from heights you couldn’t handle. You can tell Jeongguk won’t grant you the same precautions. His eyes a dark, toeing a line that feels forbidding. The covers are gently pulled from you, Jeongguk staying silent as you ponder. But the moment the cool night air hits your skin you know what he’s asking for. It’s a strange level of vulnerability, a bareness that makes your skin prickle. He wants something that you’ve never given anyway else — not even yourself. It’s a lot to ask for and his directness makes you pause. The hesitation crumbles when his hand settles on your thigh, wide warm palm gently nudging your clasped legs apart.
“We really don’t have to, if you don’t want to,” Jeongguk says, honey eyes locked on you. You know he’s being honest; he wouldn’t push it if you said no. And yet, something twists in your stomach. You want this. The realisation is sudden and you don’t know if it’s because of how perfect Jeongguk looks tonight. Chestnut curls a messy halo on his head and his shirt hanging loose from his broad shoulders. Or maybe it’s how he looks at you as if this is the only he’s ever really wanted in the world. As if you’re the only thing he’s ever really wanted.
“I want to—I mean I want to try.” You let yourself fall open then, something clicking as Jeongguk slots right against you perfectly, your sleeping shorts bunching up when his hips roll with intent. His lips land on your neck a moment later, a kiss so soft that you don’t feel it at first, lost in the way he hits your clit when he bucks into you. Jeongguk draws you back with a bite, one sharp enough to leave you gasping, your back arching from the sheets. He lets his hands slip under then, the vibrator momentarily forgotten as he maps your skin, lips feather-light once more, kisses gentle enough to leave you delirious.
“So good to me,” Jeongguk mumbles, eyes drifting to your lips. He draws close then, mouth fitting yours in a dreamlike perfectness. It’s flavoured with wine and want, a clear hunger in how he parts your lips. The hands that grip you are hard but his lips are gentle, savouring the taste of you against his mouth as if he wants to commit it to memory. The softness of the act has your skin tingling, bright and wild yet slow like the turning of the Sun. When you part, the air is different — charged, the current that swims through the atmosphere finding a home in your body as it settles in the depth of your gut. Jeongguk doesn’t give you time to ponder, mouth trailing from the corner of your lips to the hollow of your neck where he bites. It hurts enough to shock your senses, sweeping you back from the heavenly haze to the alarming reality of what he’s about to do to you. Your whimper hits the air as his tongue presses into the mark, painting your skin dark. A pointed reminder. You’d thought Jeongguk would be possessive, but sometimes he surprises you with it. The purposeful touches, the harsh bruises he likes to leave high on your neck. Or anywhere on your body, really. There are times he’d press his fingertips into them when you’re willing enough to let him choke you, the flash in your eyes spurring his hips forward.
For now, he busies himself with breathing a new one to life, one you know he’ll play with tomorrow — or later tonight if you give him the chance. Your brain can’t think that fair, zoning out as his mouth works a claim on your skin. Eager fingertips are drifting down your thighs, brushing past the band of your sleeping shorts. It’s expected that you’re already wet, but Jeongguk delights in his find with a muted moan in your neck. His fingers don’t go further though, grazing light against the damp fabric of your underwear. The swivel of your hips is automatic but Jeongguk quickly stills it with a hard press of his palm into your skin. You’re forced into the mattress, freezing when he finally wanders from your neck to your chest. So slow, wet lips idly trailing until his face lands between your chest.
“Gukkie,” you hadn’t realised how gone you already sounded until you spoke, voice wavering. He hums in response, non-committal, his hands shifting from your hips as he focuses on freeing you from your top so he can get your boobs in his mouth.
“Don’t tease me today.” You’re trying to sound firm, pliantly raising your arms so he can get you bare. But that firmness shrinks when your eyes land on his. So dark in the dwindling moonlight bleeding through your half-open blinds.
“Why?” There’s that smile of his, one corner hung higher than the either. You’ve sunk yourself in a sea brimming with sharks. “You sound cute when you whine, bunny.”
“Jeong — fuck.” There’s no point in protesting when he’s buried himself between your chest, tongue already toying with your nipple. Too many guys before him had misunderstood how to touch you there, but Jeongguk knew — he had learned. Studied your body so that he knows when to nip or kiss, shifting from pain to pleasure until the line blurred and so did your vision, until the only sound filling the room are harsh breaths and the quiet murmur of his name. Your hands eventually stray to his head, the heat in your core demanding attention as you guide him down. Jeongguk complies, not because he doesn’t want to tease you any further, but because he loves tasting you too much to ever say no.
The sight he finds sends an ache down his length, already hard but now leaking into the fabric of his grey sweats. You spread yourself so easily for him, light pink panties coloured dark with your wetness.
“Cute,” Jeongguk whispers, falling naturally into his place between your legs. It wasn’t meant to grace the air, but he’s glad it did when he notes the bashful smile tugging at your lips and how you twist to shift your head into the pillows the closer he gets. Which, honestly, makes him pause. He wants you to watch, needs you to. Something in the base of his brain needing constant affirmation that he’s making you feel good driving his next set of movements.
The hand on your chin is unexpected and adamant. You can’t help but give in, wide-eyed when Jeongguk forces your gaze onto him. “Need you to look bunny, can you do that for me?” The nod you give him is instinctual, heat blossoming in your bones when Jeongguk smiles, satiated and proud. Perhaps you should have put up more of a fight, but how could have known what he would do with only the tender touches he’d lift as your guide. Even the quick kiss he plants on your clothed cunt revealed nothing of what’s to come. So gentle as he pulls he fabric down your hips, discarding it somewhere in the sheets, his eyes never leaving the wetness on your lips.
“My pretty girl,” he says, nipping the inside of your thigh. You squirm at that, futile because Jeongguk just held you closer. “All mine, right bunny?”
“All yours,” you return, voice far and your mind slipping from your hands. Jeongguk apparently takes that to heart because he devours you, nose burrowed in the apex of your cunt, breathing you in as his tongue mapped the velvet of your walls. It doesn’t take long for your legs to wrap around his head, back raising from the bed and the drip of your slick coating your inner thighs. Yet, Jeongguk relishes it, forgoing breathing as he eats you open, toying with your clit as if that was his sole life purpose. You forget the world with a speed that should concern you, thighs trembling with each determined swirl of his tongue over that bud. Again and again, until you spill into his mouth, wet and creamy, creating a mark of your own on his lips. He keeps you there, unrelenting even when your whines hit high and your chest heaves. There’s a ringing in your ears as the high wanes away, which is swiftly placed by a quiet mumbling that sinks into your skin.
“Tastes so good,” Jeongguk murmurs, licking between your folds. “So fucking good.”
“Jeon,” Something twists in your gut when he drops a final kiss onto you as if he was thanking you for letting him do that when you should be the one on your knees thanking him. When he softly drops your leg to the soiled sheets you decide it quickly, already shifting onto your elbows.
“Yes?” Such innocent eyes staring back at you like he didn’t just fuck you open with his tongue.
“I want you too,” you’re already shifting but Jeongguk is quick, fingertips hard on your jaw when he halts you. He knows what that means, reads it in how your gaze drops to the crotch of his pants, wet just like you were. But that’s not what he wants, besides, he’d rather save that for other places.
“No.” When he says that you almost deflate, but then Jeongguk drops his hand from your jaw, swiftly dragging his shirt over his back and off his body. There’s nothing that can suffocate the desire that blooms in your chest. He’s so beautiful, hard lines and warm skin, kissed by the Sun herself. There’s an itch in your palm instantly, and you hastily register that if you don’t touch him you might die. Yet, your eager hands are pinned over your head, wrists wrapped tightly in the grip of one of his wide calloused palms. There’s a brief moment where his attention is caught by the bounce of your chest before you’re suddenly overwhelmed by the fact that you’ve never asked Jeongguk to fuck your tits before. But as you stow that away for later concern, Jeongguk’s other hand drifts to the discarded vibrator, sinister now in his command.
“Don’t want to fuck your mouth, bunny. It’s not about me tonight, it’s about you.”
“But—” Jeongguk swallows that protest with a quick kiss, the taste of you on his tongue igniting a fire that crackles and consumes until you feel nothing but heat and want, all fuelled by your erratic lovesick heart. You kiss until the only thing filling your lungs is him, like a heavy smoke that envelopes you, travelling through your body until you pull away, warm chest flushed against his. There’s a stupid twinkle in his eyes and it makes you feel sick, swaying dangerously when he shifts away. You don’t want him to go, but you don’t move when he gives you that look. The devastating ache dissipates when his pants drop from his hips, hard cock meeting the cool air. The twitch that travels down his length echoes between your walls, eagerly clenching around nothing. Jeongguk just smiles, stripping bare leaving himself vulnerable to your eager eyes. You wait, behaving good because you want to for him and Jeongguk notes this, delivering a pleased slap to your cunt when he pulls you close, one hard enough to jolt through your spine when his palm hits your clit.
“I’m kind of sensitive,” you whisper, shy again. Which is funny because weren’t you begging for his cock down your throat a second ago?
“I know,” Jeongguk returns, uncaring. The vibrator comes to life a moment later, buzzing low through the room. He knocks it up to the second-highest level.
“Jeongguk! Start low then work it up. I can’t take it like that directly, it'll chafe me.” Which is right, your clit is already feeling dry, slick staying solely between your walls. Jeongguk notes that, pausing before sinking two of his fingers deep. You squeak, hips lifting when they brush against that spot in your walls. He works you open deftly, pleased when you grind your hips into his hands, spurred on by the feeling of something finally inside of you. But it’s fleeting, Jeongguk dragging his fingers out and over your clit before raising his fingers to his lips and licking them clean.
“Now it won’t,” he states, and before you can open your mouth and deliver a retort the vibrator is pressing against that bundle of nerves, tremors echoing in your bones as your legs squeeze shut in an attempt to get away. Jeongguk pins them open, cock leaking against your thigh and he rolls the edge of the toy over your clit, before you jolt so hard the sheets shift and he knows exactly where to place it. He works it out of you, praise naturally falling from his petal lips when you give in, eyes shut tight and your heart stuck in your throat. The vibration feeds the heat in your gut, drawing it to the surface of your skin, sweat beading along your forehead and a dampness forming down your spine. It feels both quick and slow, coaxed out of you with steadfastness. Jeongguk’s gaze never strays from your pussy, locked there as he etches this moment into his memory. You look gorgeous, whining and twisting underneath him. He can tell that this is a lot for you, judging from how you bury your face away from him. He would have forced your eyes on him, if he wasn’t already so enthralled by how perfect you look like this, moans low colouring the air bright with their sound. His own want multiples when your body freezes, strung tight, the edge beckoning you over.
He pulls the vibrator off then, depriving you of your release because his brain demands that he feels this one around his length.
“Jeongguk!” You’re on your elbows, eyebrows furrowed together in frustration. “Why-w-why would you do that?” There’s a waver in your tone, a lilt so pretty he can’t help but smile.
“When you squirt you’re doing it on my cock.” He states it like it's final. And it is from how he draws you close, vibrator momentarily lost in the sheets, the head of his length brushing against your wetness.
But what catches your attention is when. A loaded promise. A determined one.
You spread your legs open, shifting until he slips past walls stretching to accommodate his welcoming presence. “Okay then, make me.” You say it with your gaze on his, watching as his eyes glaze over hips already bucking deeper, before your words register in his brain and Jeongguk’s gaze shifts into a dangerous glint.
He tugs you hard, pulling close enough so that he sinks in deep, cunt already moulding to the curves of his cock. “With pleasure.” Those words are warning, painted right into the heat of your skin as he sheathes himself inside of you. The groans in the air belong to both of you melting into one distinctive sound. It’s cut by the lewd squelch of your wetness coating his length, one that settles in Jeongguk’s gut, release already creeping into the corner of his vision. But he holds it back by knocking your legs further apart, mouth returning to the bruise he left earlier, teeth sinking into the sensitive skin. You arch into him, shifting as pain bleeds through your nerves. The motion allows the last inch of him to slip past your walls, spearing you open, before Jeongguk draws himself out and returns with a hard slow thrust. He fucks you deep, right into the bed, the frame creaking with each loud meeting between the two of you. You can’t do anything but cling onto him, eyes fluttering as his cock drives into you, determined with every piston of his hips to see you unravel. And you do, with a sickening quickness, already weak with the remembrance of your past edge. You feel soft underneath him, pressed against his skin like you hope you find a home for yourself there. And Jeongguk provides — lips mapping your skin gently and a pride in his tone that makes you want to do anything for him.
“That’s it, good girl.” You can’t say anything but his name, whining with every drag of his length along your walls. “So good to me,” he whispers, sweet, unlike his unforgiving hips. “Pretty girl and she’s all mine.”
“Yes,” you gasp, wanting this more than ever. “All yours—a-all—hnghhhh—y-yours! Jeongguk, please! P-please, please, please.”
He slows, smiling into your neck. “What bunny? What do you want?”
“Wanna cum, Jeongguk p-please let me cum.” When he moves away you feel your gut drop. The vibrator is flicked back one, humming dangerously. “Guk—” you start; he shushes you with a purposeful thrust.
“You said you wanted to cum. Remember what you promised me, bunny?” You nod, slow, nervous but your need overriding your fear. Jeongguk just smiles, shifts himself a little deeper, and then places the vibrator where you need it most. It’s not instant, but it’s quick and violent, travelling through your bones and Jeongguk rocks himself deep, curls damp on his forehead and his shoulders tense but his body still giving. You match his movements with your own, shuddering the closer you feel it creep, ripping itself right out of your limbs, drawn to the surface with no remorse, your eyes falling shut and hips seizing. The vibration paired with the feeling of Jeongguk fucking you full is intoxicating, and unlike you he doesn’t hesitate, playing with your clit unforgivingly.
You don’t even hear yourself, mouth agape and your back high from the sheets, all you know is heat, burning from the inside out. No air in your lungs as it spills from you, right onto his length, walls drawn tight. It hits his abdomen, leaving his muscles wet and glimmering as the moonlight greets his skin. Jeongguk shuts down, hips moving automatically, the vibrator thrown aside, still buzzing forlornly. He couldn’t give a damn about it, bending your legs back and fucking into you hard as you coat his cock in your wetness. If it was loud before, it’s obscene now. The nails in his back spur him further, a need he’s never felt before consuming him whole. It’s already there, the white of his desire clouding his vision, but his brain suddenly stills.
Jeongguk’s hand on your chin draws you back to Earth, mind nothing but mush as he continues to fuck you open. They’re erratic thrusts, and with them, you slowly release that your cheeks are wet. Jeongguk realises it the same time you do, thumb gingerly brushing the tears falling from your eyes away. There’s a strange new awareness buzzing through your body, like your bones feel new, limbs reformed. But nothing could prepare you for that thumb on your cheek travelling down, grazing your lips until they fall open. He slips it past, lets you flick your tongue against it, before demanding. “Open.”
And you do, because what wouldn’t you do for him.
“Can I?” He questions, and somehow you know what he is asking. Another claim. Something else you’ve given nobody but him.
“Yes.”
There’s a fall in his shoulders as if he was afraid you would deny him. But how could you ever? His thumb leaves your lips, hand drifting until it settles on your neck, pressing firmly but not tight. And then his own lips part, hips unwavering, for what he sends down your throat. You swallow, oddly thrilled by it while Jeongguk watches silently, almost in marvel. It does something to you, the way he stares, like he cannot believe you’re his. And you feel that sentiment in how he kisses you next, desperate, pleading, thankful. You return it, tongue soft against his as you feel his back draw taut, a low groan spilling down your throat when Jeongguk finally snaps, euphoria bleeding through his brain. You feel it hit your walls, warm and wet, painting you white, a strange satisfaction settling through your body.
When he eventually rolls over, quiet like he’s still recovering, you can’t help but squeeze your thighs together, an attempt to keep his love locked in. His hand cups your own, guiding you back into reality with a gentle squeeze.
The still buzzing vibrator is what you hear first, followed by the joint panting of your lungs. You move to grab it, hoping to hide the revelation in your eyes by glaring at him. Jeongguk is still too lost to care, face flushed a vibrant rouge.
“Turn this stupid thing off,” you mutter, legs still stuck, fused to the bed from the shock of your orgasm. Jeongguk snatches it up, waving it through the air as he turns it off, before giving it a fond kiss.
“Gross,” you comment, smacking his hard chest.
“No,” Jeongguk returns, dropping it. He plants a ginger kiss on your forehead. “I quite like it actually, we should order another one. Do you think they do vibrating panties?”
You hit him again, rolling over until your leg swings over his. He keeps looking at you like that, and it keeps clawing right through your heart. “You’re so sick and evil,” you say instead of the annoying comments that flutter in your delirious brain. You want to call him pretty, beautiful, perfect, maybe the best thing you’ve ever had. But you can’t let Jeongguk know he has all that power over you — not when already made you squirt and spat down your throat in one sitting. “Can you clean me up? I’m getting sticky.”
Jeongguk stills like he’s suddenly remembering what he just did, where he just came. And then you feel the rise of his chest, gaze flicking up to meet his. Bright and full of something akin to adoration, before he blinks it away.
“Give me a moment, I think I just saw God.”
#jungkook x reader#jungkook smut#bts x reader#bts smut#btswriterscollective#btswritingcafe#jungkook fanfic#jungkook drabble#jungkook scenario#bts fanfic#bts scenario#au: jock!jaykay
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hello i have an offering in these trying inversion times in the form of sam/darlin fluff (it’s a little angsty but happy i promise!!). i can’t promise very good writing but i can promise shenanigans and ensuing softness. this is very self-indulgent but i hope others enjoy it!!
also this is the first time i’ve posted writing online and my first post in the redacted tag though i have been lurking since last summer, so hi!
word count: 1461
Darlin finds a secret stash of novelty cowboy hats in Sam’s bedroom and sincerity ensues.
~~~
Darlin knew something was up before they even arrived. Sam had been short on the phone. Not angry, mind, but short in the most literal sense of the word. Single utterances, quick answers but slow words. He wasn’t one to mince his words normally but this was something else. He had assured them that he was fine, but he was just as bad with deflecting his problems as Darlin was.
Needless to say, Darlin was worried. And rightly so, they decided, as they were welcomed in. Sam looked awful. His eyes had great bags beneath them and his walking was strained. His hand was permanently attached to the side of his head as Darlin directed him back to the couch.
“Headache,” he admitted in an attempt to wave them off.
“Did something happen?”
He said nothing, just as stubborn as Darlin.
“Sam.”
The man sighed, leaning back on the couch enough that his head faced the ceiling.
“Pushed myself too hard with healin’,” he explained. “Member of the clan got in a fight and Will called me to pick up the pieces.” He turned to face them. “They were in a bad way, Darlin’.”
Darlin had suspected that this was the case. The only times he’d ever complained of a headache was after healing others.
“I wish I could heal it away, I’m sorry,” they started, guilt roaring at them.
“Hey now Darlin’, don’t you go apologisin’ none.” He reached for their hand, entwining it in his.
“If you really want to help, you can get me some painkillers please-” they looked up- “I should have some ibuprofen in the table by the bed.”
“In your bedroom?” they confirmed.
Sam nodded, wincing as he did so. Darlin hesitantly removed their hand from his and stood up, heading for the kitchen and coming back with a large glass of water. They didn’t know if vampires needed to hydrate but it was worth a shot, they supposed. They set it down on the coffee table and made for the bedroom but halted before they reached the corridor.
They turned to face the figure on the couch once more. ‘Vampires can take ibuprofen, right?”
Sam scoffed. “Yes, vampires can take ibuprofen, Darlin’.”
With that, the shifter began to walk hastily to the bedroom.
“Why would I ask for ibuprofen if I couldn’t take it,” they could hear him mumble to himself.
Darlin pushed open the door to the bedroom and weren’t surprised to find it as spotless as the rest of the house— It couldn’t be less like Darlin’s own home, human, or rather shifter, hurricane as they were.
They meanered their way around the red flannel lined bed to get to the small table beside it, but before they could reach their destination their balance was tested by a large cardboard box poking out from under the bed. It looked like it had been hastily pushed there, almost neat but not entirely out of the way. Darlin looked for a second into the box, attention captivated by the appearance of a pastel pink shade jutting from the opening.
Confused and curious, they bent down on their knees and pulled the corner of the box just enough to see the offending object, slowly as not to let the vampire next door hear. It took but a few seconds for it to be revealed— A novelty cowboy hat, pastel pink and bedazzled with tiny purple sequins about the rim.
Darlin was immediately captivated, picking up the hat to examine it further. As they did so, another hat was revealed, and another, and another. A pile of hats filled the box to the brim. Darlin placed the pink hat by their side and pulled out the next available item. A classic stetson was next, dark beige and expensive-looking. Darlin placed it on their head and moved on.
The next hat was black, velveteen and laced around the rim with blunt silver spikes. They laughed when they pulled it out, an almost childlike glee filling them at this unexpected box of wonders.
Were all of these hats Sam’s? He really was living up to the cowboy nickname with this. There must be at least ten or so in the box from what they could see, each as bizarre as the next.
Darlin heard a shuffling next door— Shit, they forgot about the ibuprofen.
They hurriedly piled the hats back in the box and shoved it quietly back under the bed. Standing up, they scrambled for the bedside drawer and quickly located the pills. They hastily left the room, closing the door behind them, and made their way back to the living room.
“Sorry I took so long, they were hidden under some— what?”
Sam was staring at Darlin with a wild-eyed expression, though he wasn’t looking at them, but rather above their head. Oh shit. They paused in place and the two stood in silence a moment.
“Where did you uh,” he cleared his throat, “where did you find that?” His voice was strained and ever so slightly higher pitched. Darlin imagined that if he were human, his cheeks would be bright red.
“Found it,” they replied, pursing their lips, willing them to not upturn into a smile. They could feel a laugh bubbling in their chest, their stomach contracting to keep it at bay, air pushing out of their nostrils in quick bursts.
Sam said nothing, only kept his eyes locked on the offending garment.
Darlin could hold it no longer. A first, sharp, chuckle left their lips and then bellowing laughter replaced it. Their free hand gripped their knee as they tried to keep themselves together, giddiness escaping them unbridled.
After a minute Sam said, “you laughin’ at me?”
Darlin paused, amusement fading as they moved toward him quickly.
“No, no— of course not, I’m just surprised is all, it’s not every day you find a box of novelty cowboy hats in your partner’s bedroom,” they explained, sitting gently beside him, trying to keep a light tone.
Sam looked away. Oh.
“Sammy, I’m not laughing at you.” They moved closer to face him. “I think it’s endearing, just another part of you I love.”
“Then why—”
Darlin looked down, fiddling with the box of pills in their hands. “I’m sorry I laughed, Sam. It just, it made me happy is all, reminded me of when I was a kid.”
They looked up to meet the vampire’s eyes and took a breath.
“First halloween after I joined the pack, I uh, I dressed as a cowboy. I didn’t want to go with the other kids but Milo made me borrow the hat and I don’t know, I guess it was just nice feeling normal for a while,” they said softly, as if the memory would fade just by speaking it.
“Just, you know,” they breathed, “good memories before everything went to shit.”
The pair let silence hang between them. Not uncomfortable but contemplative. Darlin leant to put the pills down on the coffee table and slowly sat back up to face the vampire once more. After a pause they placed their hand over his, running soft circles over the flesh where his thumb and index met, encouraging whatever Darlin knew he wanted to say.
“They’re from Vincent,” Sam said quietly after a moment.
Darlin said nothing, allowing him to speak his peace.
He continued, “He gets me one every year, on my death-day.” He let out a long breath. “It started as a joke, something to make me laugh when I needed it most. As the years passed and that day got easier, it became somethin’ of tradition.”
“He’s a good friend.”
Sam nodded slowly. “He’s my best friend. I wouldn’t be here without him.”
“So,” he started nervously after his admission had simmered a while, “you don’t think it’s off-puttin’?”
“Off-putting?” Darlin said, “you think your hat collection’s gonna drive me away? After you’ve put up with my bullheadedness? You’re not getting rid of me that easily, cowboy,” they smiled, tone soft and gaze warm.
They knew Sam wasn’t just talking about the hats— It was everything: the trauma, the baggage, everything he hid behind his cool and calm facade. Darlin wasn’t going anywhere, would be there for as long as would have them.
The shifter brought their hands up before him, allowing him time to nod. Their calloused hands braced his face, thumbs resting gently on his cheekbones, pinkies just tracing the back of his neck.
“I love you Sam, you don’t have to hide anything from me.”
Darlin pressed their lips gently to his, a ghost of a kiss but the sentiment just as sweet as any they’d shared before. Darlin leant back softly to run their thumb faintly over his skin. Sam was blissed on love, the care and gentleness Darlin provided, something which with he was entirely unfamiliar with in past relationships.
Darlin smiled at Sam’s half-lidded expression, heart bursting with affection.
They hummed, “now take your medicine, cowboy.”
#redacted asmr#redacted sam#redacted darlin#fun fact: this fic was named 'cowboy surprise' in my docs which sounds a lot less wholesome than it actually is#gender neutral pronouns for darlin#i'm sitting on so many half written fics it's obscene#i don't think any tws apply but if i missed something please let me know and i'll add!#i'm posting this before i can talk myself out of it
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Give and Take
Summary: You and the Sheriff have an agreement.
Pairing: Lee Bodecker x f!Reader
Warnings: Smut (oral m/f receiving, vaginal penetration). Swearing. Mentions of drinking and smoking. Slight dom and prostitute-like behavior. (18+ only please).
Word count: 2,956
A/N: Well this happened. I’m a bit nervous about this since it’s my first time writing for this character, so please bear with me while I learn and explore! I don’t think this is too dark or triggering, but if there’s something described that you feel should be included in the warnings, please let me know! Anyways, hope people enjoy! 😊💜 gif not mine.
Evening often finds you freshly showered, a quick meal cooking in the oven, and finishing any chores you put off from the day before. Tonight, you’ve chosen a light cotton nightgown to lounge around in. It’s a shorter one, coming to just above your knees. The navy silk robe you wear covers a bit more, loosely tied around your waist to keep the cool early summer air off your skin.
There’s a soft knock to the front door, your attention shifting from the small pile of mail you hold to the mass of dark wood. A small smirk begins to tug at your lips as you walk over to it, knowing who would be on the other side.
Opening the door, Sheriff Lee Bodecker stands before you, shoulder leaning on the frame and a somewhat unimpressed look on his face.
“Sheriff,” you greet with an impish smirk.
A small flick of the Sheriff’s tongue darts out of his mouth when he moves the toothpick it holds to the other side, jaw clenching for the briefest of moments before he responds.
“When are you gonna learn to drive the speed limit, hm?” He questions, a hint of annoyance curling around the syllables. He pushes off from the doorframe, harshly removing a folded up white piece of paper from his back pocket before handing it to you.
Already aware of the reason behind the Sheriff’s visit, you’re not surprised when you unfold the paper to find a copy of the speeding ticket you received a few days ago. Across the middle of the form is a stamp with the word ‘REDACTED’ in big red lettering, and satisfaction settles in as you fold it back up.
“Maybe one day.” You shrug with pursed lips.
Stepping away, you leave the door open as an invitation for him to enter. And he does. He always does.
The door closes with a faint click of the lock, and your nerves already begin to tingle with anticipation of what’s to come.
“Beer?” You offer over your shoulder, sauntering to the kitchen.
A pause while the Sheriff quietly grumbles to himself. He doesn’t like when you tease him—not like this anyways.
“You know I’m trying to quit,” he huffs. There’s a soft thud when he plops himself down on your couch. “Just get me a water.” He ponders before adding, “and any candy you got.”
Rolling your eyes, a quiet chuckle passes through your lips as you get him his glass of water. Before you exit the kitchen, you grab the small bag of sweets you keep around just for him.
“Thanks, darlin’,” he says, taking the drink and placing it on the table beside him. The sound of a crinkling wrapper fills the otherwise quiet space when he opens a piece of hard fruit candy. Removing the toothpick, he pops the treat into his mouth and gives you a wicked grin.
You raise an eyebrow at him when he reaches for your hand.
“Now, I think we need to talk about your reckless driving,” he drawls, pulling you down onto his lap.
The soft cotton of your nightgown rides up as your legs part to straddle him. Large hands run over your silk covered back, bringing your body closer to his. The Sheriff’s pudgy belly pokes against yours, and you place gentle hands on his shoulders.
“You’ve been causing me extra paperwork down at the station,” he says, hands finding their way to your backside and giving it a light squeeze. “And I don’t like it.”
“Mm,” you hum in affirmation, a sly smirk lingering on the cornering of your lips. Your hands move from his shoulders to the back of his neck before they make to remove the uniform hat he still wears.
The Sheriff brings his hands to your front, fingers slipping under the silk robe to remove the cloth from your shoulders. A low growl rumbles in his chest when he gets a better sight of your cleavage, the deep V of the nightgown low enough to show the dip in your breasts. Soft lips begin assaulting the skin of your chest, head rolling back as the sensations of little nips and sucks tingle your body.
A quiet mewl falls from your mouth when the Sheriff’s calloused thumbs caress your hardening nipples through the thin fabric. Your hands begin moving on their own accord, palming his growing erection over the brown pants of his uniform. Flashbacks of that very first night you had it in your mouth appear in your mind.
Driving twenty over the speed limit, you weren’t surprised, but still miffed, when the bright red and blue lights flashed in your rearview mirror. However, a mischievous smirk curved the corner of your lips when you saw who it was that pulled you over. It just so happened Sheriff Lee Bodecker was working highway patrol that fateful night, and you used your knowledge of the Sheriff’s crooked ways to your advantage.
He asked you to step out of the vehicle, citing suspected driving under the influence as his reason, but you knew he just wanted a better look. Several moments passed with trivial exchanges, then he threatened a ticket until you offered a compromise.
You were on your knees and the Sheriff’s cock was in your mouth, hard and aching, behind his patrol car. He didn’t last long, and when you got back in your car, he said he’d let you off with a warning.
The Sheriff’s hands wander down to your thighs, pushing the clothing farther up your legs, and you’re pulled out of your dizzying state.
“Ah, ah, Sheriff,” you say teasingly, “not until I’ve had my wine and cigarette.”
The Sheriff feigns annoyance, groaning in frustration when you leave the spot on his lap. But you know it’s just for show. He enjoys the anticipation just as much as you do. It seems the unspoken deal the two of you have is the most exciting part of both your lives at the moment. A quid pro quo type situation.
You break the law, and the Sheriff gets you out of any trouble.
It’s not that you’re going around robbing banks or anything, but sometimes you drive with a lead foot and think speeding limits are more of a suggestion rather than a rule. Not to mention the countless parking tickets you seem to rack up. Anyways, it’s not your fault the town lacks feasible parking near the places you need to go.
So more often than not, the Sheriff is showing up at your house with an adjusted ticket and you let him fuck your brains out in return.
Luckily, the place you call home is located a little ways outside of town; therefore, neither of you have to worry about prying neighbors. The towns folk are always looking for the next bit of juicy gossip to spread like wildfire and you’re keen to not given them any.
The gossiping is something you’re used to, though. The older people seemed to take an interest in the fact you’ve made it to the second half of your twenties still unmarried and childless. An outrageous concept to the traditional beliefs of this podunk place. Unofficially deemed an outcast, you tend to keep to yourself for the most part. Besides your co-workers at the diner and the Sheriff, there aren’t many other people in your everyday life.
Settling into the lounge chair beside the couch, wine in hand, you feel the intense stare of the Sheriff prickle your skin. Crimson red, pungent and bitter, burns down your throat when you take a sip before gently placing the glass on the coffee table. A bright glow of orange illuminates your features, flames dancing from the end of the lighter as you ignite your cigarette. Taking a long drag and exhaling slowly, your eyes catch the glint of gold wrapped around the Sheriff’s ring finger as he plays with a candy wrapper.
“Where does your wife think you are when it gets this late?” You ask, blowing out another puff of smoke. It lingers a few seconds before dissipating into nothing.
“Working a double,” the Sheriff replies matter-of-factly.
“Mhm,” you hum around the tip of rolled white paper, eyes narrowing just a moment as you consider his response.
Six months has passed since your arrangement with the Sheriff unofficially began. The first exchange came and went, then not even a week later you received another ticket after you parked in the handicap spot by the post office. You were only going to be a minute; it wasn’t your fault you had to wait for the teenager to run to the back to get more stamps.
The parking ticket was set and ready to be paid, but the next day the Sheriff arrived at your house unexpectedly. White paper in hand, signatures and redacted claims on the document, you got off scot-free…again.
And the Sheriff got sucked off…again.
But then a few weeks went by without anything, and you would be lying if you had said you weren’t hoping for something to happen to bring the Sheriff back to your doorstep. So maybe there were a few times you broke the law on purpose, knowing you would get caught and the Sheriff would pay you a visit.
However, as weeks turned into months, there were a few times the Sheriff visited you on his own accord. Touch starved and with the taste of you still on his tongue, he wanted more. The first was to inform you there was a broken taillight on your car. The second time he brought your jacket you left at the diner by mistake. And the third time he came with the hopes you just wouldn’t turn him away.
And when you didn’t, the lines of your arrangement began to blur. Not that you complained. The Sheriff’s company was something you started to learn you liked, for some reason or another.
Hot ash is crushed into olive glass as you press the butt of your cigarette into the ashtray, the end smoldering as it cools. The rest of the wine is finished in one large gulp.
“Be right back,” you say to the Sheriff as you stand.
Entering the kitchen, your wine glass is placed on the counter with a soft clink. The remaining food from your dinner still sits on the stove and you grab a container to put it away. Engrossed with what you’re doing, you don’t hear the Sheriff step into the kitchen. It’s not until you feel his doughy belly pressing into your back, hands wrapping around your front to cup your breasts, that he makes himself known.
“C’mon, darlin’,” he says, nose running along the column of your neck, voice low in your ear. “That can wait.”
“I need to get this in the fridge or it’ll go bad,” you reply, taking any opportunity to rile him up.
“I think it can wait,” the Sheriff firmly states, hands squeezing just a bit harder to warn you he’s not in a patient mood.
Eyes closing and bottom lip catching between your teeth, your hands grasp the edge of the stove when he pushes you into it. The stiffness of his length is felt against your backside, and the throbbing between your legs intensifies.
“Someone’s excited,” you giggle, moving your backside from side to side and you feel him twitch just the slightest.
“Darlin’, if you don’t stop teasin’, I’m going to bend you over this stove and take you right here.” The words are playful, but they’re covered in a darkness.
What the Sheriff wants, the Sheriff gets.
And right now, you know he wants his cock in your mouth, and he’s not opposed to doing whatever it’ll take to make it happen.
Leaning against his larger frame, you wordlessly guide him towards your bedroom—one of many places the Sheriff has taken you. There’s been the backseat of his patrol car, the hood of his patrol car, the kitchen at the diner when you were left to close up, just to name a few.
“On your knees,” the Sheriff says, gruff and demanding.
The mattress dips under his weight, springs squeaking from the extra strain. He sits expectantly, eyes dark with desire as he watches you sink to your knees between his opened legs.
Running your hands along his clothed thighs, you make a point to gently brush his hardened length before getting to work on undoing the constricting belt of his uniform. The noise of the clanking buckle encourages you to hasten your movements—you’re just as needy and desperate to have him in your mouth as he is.
Zipper humming as its lowered, peeling back the bothersome clothing, the Sheriff’s member springs free. Thick and meaty like the man it belongs to. Gentle fingers wrap around it, your thumb lightly sweeping along the glistening tip, and there’s a pained hiss from above you.
“Go on then.”
Eyes locking with the Sheriff’s, your tongue licks at his underside, a small taste before you devour him. Wide and wanting, his cock disappears inside your mouth and you let out a delighted moan of satisfaction. Sweet and salty, just like him.
A juxtaposition of the tough Sheriff persona and the gentle, affectionate companion you’ve come to learn he can be.
He hits the back of your throat, and your eagerness to consume him has you gagging slightly before regaining your composure. A dominating hand comes to rest on the back of your head, gripping just enough to communicate how he wants you to take him.
Cheeks hollowing out, your tongue runs along every veiny ridge, relishing the feel of his shaft filling your mouth.
The Sheriff moves his free hand to push your robe down, removing the strap of your nightgown to fondle a breast. The sensation of his hand on your bare skin excites you, prompting you to suck harder and bring your other hand to massage his balls.
You can hear the Sheriff attempting to stifle a moan as his legs tremble under your touch. Heat rises in your body, pussy aching for him.
“Enough,” he says, pulling you off by the hair.
His hold on you remains, bringing you to his lips. Teeth clanking and tongues swirling, strawberry flavor mixing with the taste of red wine. He slips a hand under your nightgown and you find it difficult to restrain your desperation to have him inside you.
A feral groan erupts in his chest when he finds you aren’t wearing any underwear, and thick fingers run along your damp folds. The light from your nightstand catches the glistening of your arousal on his fingers after he removes his hand.
“I do that to you, sweetheart? Me and my cock?” He asks teasingly, almost to taunt that he’s able to get you so riled up with little effort on his part, but you have a feeling he also enjoys the idea of being wanted, desired.
You watch as his tongue darts out from his mouth to taste the wetness on his fingers, and his eyes momentarily flutter shut as he savors it. Then in an instant, his eyes snap open and a carnal need takes over.
Ripping your robe off, he pushes you down onto the bed. He hastily works to remove his uniform. The buttons of his shirt easily pop open from the strain over his protruding midsection and he tosses it somewhere on the floor.
He drags you to the edge of the bed, kneeling with his arms wrapped tightly around your legs. His tongue eagerly licks a single strip along your folds before his mouth encases your clit. Slurping and sucking, the Sheriff devours you with no mercy. One finger, then another, push inside you, body beginning to tingle from your impending orgasm.
“Sheriff,” you whimper as your climax rips through you.
In one swift motion, the Sheriff removes his pants and slams into you. Any remaining breath is stolen from your lungs at the sudden fullness, your velvet hole swallowing him to the hilt.
Unrelenting, the sound of skin slapping against skin echos off the walls as the Sheriff pounds into your throbbing heat. His growls mix with your cries as he secures his arms under your knees. The leverage he gets from standing repeatedly hits the sweet spot inside you, the bulging of his stomach rubbing against your clit with each thrust.
“That’s it, give it to me,” the Sheriff pants, not once letting up on his harsh movements, a sheen of sweat building on his forehead. His eyes take in your figure—legs wide and breasts bouncing, flustered and whining below him.
When he catches sight of his cock disappearing in and out of you, he has to control the urge to come right then. The clenching of your walls around him tells him you’re close, and he finds enough energy to pound into you a few more times.
Clawing at the sheets, you’re desperate for something to hold onto as another orgasm hits, legs reflexively wanting to close, but the Sheriff holds them in their place.
His hips stutter as he nears his peak, and he quickly pulls himself out of your weeping cunt. One hand squeezes your leg as the other vigorously pumps his shaft, and with a loud groan, he finishes. White ribbons cover your abdomen, and it’s a vision you think you’ll never grow tired of seeing.
“Fuck, darlin’,” the Sheriff chuckles breathlessly, knees buckling the slightest, and he leans against the edge of the bed for support.
“Sorry, Sheriff,” you say with a coy smirk. “Now can I go put my dinner away?”
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Part 2 of Barry and Taako team up fic [Part 1 here]
He needed to keep it together. Barry was trying to keep it together, but it was easier said than done.
He’d managed enough to get them away though, to get them set up with a small camp (they’d have to get to town, neither of them exactly had time to grab supplies before leaving) and put a temporary protective charm around them to keep from being tracked. It was a start, he told himself it was a start.
“Okay, we should be safe here. No one should be able to find us for now,” he said, checking over the barrier again. Taako nodded, staring blankly at the fire in front of him. It was-
Barry was trying not to focus on that. On how unfocused Taako was, the obvious confusion there, the numbness. It was terrifying.
“You mean that lady?” he asked, and Barry tried not to flinch at that. He couldn’t remember who Lucretia was either. As furious and pained as Barry was at her actions right now, that still hurt too.
“Y-yeah. Her, and others,” he said, letting out a sigh and coming back towards the fire. “Maybe... maybe I should have tried to grab the others? I could try to go back, but no, Lucretia knows we know, she would have moved them already. They wouldn’t know who I am either, it’s- but we just left,” Barry debated, and he’d been thinking about this all day. He’d been so panicked, it was all he could do to grab Taako and teleport out of there.
What was she going to do with them? He didn’t think she would hurt them, never that. But they would have no way of arguing with her, of knowing that what she said was a lie. Where would she take them? He didn’t know.
“What do we know, exactly?” Taako asked, and Barry sighed.
“We know that the woman you had seen before did something to affect our memories. She erased part of them. I can remember because I’m dead, you- you left us with a fighting chance to fix this Taako. That’s what we know,” he said, hoping that all of that got through okay. From the slight nod the elf gave him, he guessed enough did.
“And who’re these others you keep talking about?” he asked, and Barry was starting to hate that word. Who. He wasn’t going to take it out on Taako though, this wasn’t his fault.
“Our family. Magnus, Merle, Davenport? Those names ring any bells?” he asked, spirit sinking when Taako shook his head. “Well, just know they’re important. We’ll get em back soon,” he insisted. It was quiet for a bit then, Taako poking the fire occasionally with a long stick.
“Hey uh, you wouldn’t happen to have any food in that spooky robe of yours, would you?” he asked after a long moment. Barry shook his head, and at least that was already on his to do list.
“No, sorry. You’re gonna have to transmute something until we get to town,” he said.
The incredulous little tilt of his head that Taako gave him at that was not the reaction Barry expected.
“What, you mean like with magic?” he asked, and Barry nodded very slowly.
“Of course I mean with magic Taako. You do transmutation magic, it’s your specialty,” he said, but his brother-in-law didn’t look the least bit convinced.
“Well, that must’ve been flushed with the rest of my brain then,” he said, and it wasn’t like Barry didn’t already know the redaction was bad. It took away Lup, of course it was bad. Every new bit that came out just made it worse and worse though.
“Shit,” he said, because what else could he say. Waving a hand, he conjured up some bread and floated it over to Taako. “Okay, it’s not gonna be as filling because it’s conjured, but we’ll get to a town in the morning,” he said, and Taako nodded, not seeming too bothered by it.
It was quiet as he ate, and Barry took the time to just sort of... stare at Taako. He wasn’t trying to be creepy, but it was so strange. Barry knew him better than the elf knew himself at that moment, but at the same time he felt like a complete stranger.
“Hey, can you tell me about yourself Taako?” he asked, getting a skeptical raise of an eyebrow at that.
“Shouldn’t I be asking you to tell me about myself?” he asked back, and Barry couldn’t blame him for that.
“Maybe, but I just... I want to know what’s still there. I want to know who you are now, what- what she left you,” he explained. Taako seemed to think it over for a moment, before shrugging casually.
“Yeah alright, don’t see why not. I’m Taako, ya know, from... from... New Elfington. Yeah. Fuck it. I’m Taako from New Elfington, and I’m a baller cook. I uh, I traveled a lot. Caravans and shit. I uh, I...” Barry could see him trailing off, his eyes unfocusing as he tried to pull up memories that just weren’t there anymore.
“Anything else?” he prompted, Taako’s frown deepening at that.
“I’m alone,” he said, the words coming out almost involuntarily, like they were a surprise even to him. It felt like a knife in a chest Barry didn’t have anymore.
“We’ll fix it,” he said, some of Taako’s gaze seeming to solidify at that. He nodded, and at least that was something. At least Taako still trusted him. He would earn that trust.
No matter what happened, he was going to fix this.
#taz#the adventure zone#taako#barry bluejeans#i've had an absolutely shit of a day y'all#so here's a second part#to Not-Red-Blue-Colorblind
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Daredevil, Crackfic challenge.
@call-me-sammy @do-androids-dream-ao3acc @whumpdoyoumean
Matthew Murdock was walking silently, focusing hard on his -available- senses to find what he was looking for.
Unfortunately, the solo vigilante couldn't seem to find it and, thus, turned to the next aisle.
As it turns out, enhanced hearing and physical abilities are not exactly suited for looking through an Aldi for clothes.
Matt passed quickly through the current aisle he was in -as all he could smell was soup- and turned to the next with the hope of finally finding the shirts he was looking for.
Why do they always change the layout of this place? He thought, annoyed.
At long last, Matt picked up the scent of new clothes, freshly out of whatever garage they were kept in before being put on the shelves.
Slowly and meticulously, he felt the cloths to check the material.
He would have to ask an employee about the colour of the shirts he was picking since he didn't want a repeat of that time; Foggy still cried with laughter when remembering that incident.
Matt held out his white cane in one hand and a shirt in the other and set to find any employee to help him.
Thankfully, he didn't have to look far as one rushed to him, immediately asking if he wanted help.
"Yes, could you tell me what colour these shirts are?" He asked, presenting the clothe to the worker.
"White." The employee said with a little too much excitement.
First day, Matt thought and asked for the size of it.
The shirt in his hand was in his size, luckily, and he went back with the same employee to get more of them.
Lord knows how easily they get dirty, so it made sense for the lawyer to buy them in bulk.
"Would that be all, sir?" The employee asked, basically balancing on the balls of their feet, in his hands were five shirts that they insisted on carrying.
Matt thought for only a second before he decided to ask about what kind of clothe detergent would be appropriate for hard stains.
The employee lead him through the building and into an aisle that had a suspicious lack of the usual scent of chemical cleaning products.
"These do wonders for all kind of stains and odors!" The worker said as Matt stood there, very much unable to see whatever 'these' were.
"Oh, shit!" Matt heard being whispered and next thing he knew there were small, odd textured balls in his fist and a slight scent of vinegar wafted in front of him.
"Throw these in with the clothes and they'll be just like new!" Matt could practically hear the worker's excited smile, just like a salesman he had seen on television one late night when his father hadn't yet returned from the ring.
Matt put on his best smile and thanked the employee before he was lead -more unwilling than not- to the checkout after saying that he didn't need anything else when he was asked.
It didn't take long for the cashier to scan his items and soon, the lawyer was on his way to his apartment to drop his things off before heading to work.
It was still early enough that he didn’t have to run but Matt didn't want to dawdle for long.
After all, he had customers waiting for him.
Unfortunately, it was while thinking of one customer that he missteped, tripping over the little crack on the pavement and falling onto the ground.
As both his hands were currently occupied, Matt didn't have a way to break his fall, unless he wasn't against using the perfectly placed trash bin beside him.
Well, he was, and thus opted to fall to the ground.
And, this being New York, the ground was the worst choice that won you four different kinds of tetanus and more importantly, dirt. So much dirt.
So, it wasn't surprising when Matt's perfectly clean-and-ready-for-lawyering shirt went from white to a nice brown-gray almost immediately.
Instantly, the people on the sidewalk on his side came to a stop, looking at the downed blind man for a moment and promptly walking away.
This is fine, Matt thought and picked himself -and his bags- up by seeing through his fire-filled world.
Once up, Matt decided to grab a fresh shirt while he left his bags at his apartment; walking a little faster since he didn't want to be late for work.
It wasn't long before he had the fresh, clean smelling, shirt on and running out of the door as quickly as a 'blind' man could without bumping into every corner.
A relatively short walk took Matt right outside the building's main door and through their office's one.
He greeted his coworkers, Foggy and Karen, as per usual and sat down on his own desk to get started on reading some new cases they debated taking.
It wasn't until an hour later that Matt got up to get [something]. The [whatever] was above his head and Matt reached his hand up to grab it, already hearing Karen getting up to help him if needed.
Foggy looked up from his own papers for a second, bit did a double take fast at the red colour on Matt's white shirt as his suit jacket lifted with the movement of his arm.
He got up and slowly walked over, Karen still looming behind the blind lawyer while said lawyer held [REDACTED] in his hand.
"Matty, can I speak to you for a second?"
Matt tilted his head slightly and nodded, allowing Foggy to lead him over to his office before closing the door.
Foggy let Matt's forearm go as soon as they were inside the small room and sighed;
"It's way too early for this, Matt."
Matt frowned in confusion at the, what felt like, scolding that was brewing inside Foggy's mind.
"It's 12 P.M., Fog, we both decided on the time to come into work." He said, genuinely confused.
"What? No, I don't mean that it's too early for work, I'm saying it's too early for all your-" Foggy waved his hand around like he was performing a spell, -Matt would have laughed, had he... you know-, "-vigilantism."
"I wasn't vigi- I wasn't fighting bad guys before work, Foggy!"
Foggy's silence said so much to Matt as he could feel the dubious side eye he was getting.
"I wasn't fighting bad guys before work today, Foggy."
He heard Foggy huff at that but he seemed to relent.
"Why are you bleeding, then?" Foggy whispered angrily.
"I'm not bleeding." Matt said, seriously confused now.
"Yes, you are." Foggy insisted.
"No." One word to kill a man.
"Matt! You have blood here!" He said and poked his finger right where the 'wound' was, absolutely taking into consideration that that could have hurt. Absolutely.
Matt felt the poke but it didn't hurt so he put his own hand above the spot Foggy had pointed at.
He felt an odd texture over the spot, unlike the texture of the rest of the shirt and realisation hit him.
"This... is an old shirt." He said quietly, "Shit, I grabbed the wrong shirt."
"Let's just go to your apartment to grab another one." Foggy suggested, "Unless you can produce one from thin air." Matt couldn't.
Both man grabbed their suitcases before making a beeline for the exit when Karen stopped them.
"Where are you going, guys? The office is swarming with customers right now." She said as she pointed it to their very, very empty office space.
"We won't be long, Ms Paige!" Foggy announced, practically dragging Matt behind him.
-
The two avocados found themselves in Matt's apartment soon and instantly Foggy raided the closet for a clean shirt for his friend to wear while Matt took off the dirty one and threw it in the washing machine.
Foggy stopped looking through the clothes -or lack thereof- when he heard strange scrunching sounds.
The man really got a kick when he saw Matt trying to open a plastic bag with some kind of nuts in it.
"Matt..." He called out, "What have I told you about making sure you eat in the morning?"
"This isn't breakfast, Fog." Matt said while still struggling, "This is for the washing machine."
"Your washing machine is hungry?" Foggy whispered, perplexed.
"No." Double homicide.
Foggy walked closer to Matt and saw more clearly the little baggie.
"Oh, walnuts! I thought they were out of season." Foggy said in a moment of enlightenment.
"They are not walnuts, they're soapnuts!"
"They're what now?"
"Soapnuts. They're supposed to be great at cleaning even the hardest stain."
"Uh, even blood?" He sounded doubtful, as he should.
"Well, the worker at the store said they work wonders."
"Okay, but. Blood, Matt. That does not come off easily as you know."
"We'll just give it a try, Foggy." Matt said and threw some of the nuts in the washing machine before starting a half-hour cycle.
Foggy mumbled a variation of 'alright' and went back to the closet.
He grabbed a shirt that seemed new and threw it at Matt who was busy "staring" at the wall right next to the washing machine.
Matt caught the shirt moments before it fell to the floor after hitting his face and put it on with a 'thanks, Fog.
The half-hour washing cycle turned out to take up three quarters of an hour, so that was a fucking lie, and Matt got the wet shirt out of it, holding it up;
"Perfect!" He exclaimed and heard Foggy shuffling next to him.
"Matthew?" His friend said slowly, carefully.
"Mhm?" Matt replied, eloquent as ever.
"The shirt is white, right?"
"Yes. Isn't it?"
"Uh... Pastel pink has some white in it, I guess."
"Well, yes. Pastel pink has to have whit- Wait a minute!" Matt stopped abruptly, "This shirt isn't white anymore, is it?"
"Nope!" Foggy popped the 'P' like he was a 14-year-old girl getting ready to be lawfully abducted by a boy band.
"Damn." Matt sighed.
"Careful with those damns, Matthew."
"Sorry, Father- FOGGY!" Matt shouted, scandalised.
Foggy snorted as he and Matt put the, now, pink shirt away and grabbed their things to head back to the office, wondering how Karen is doing.
-
Karen sat on her desk, typing away at her computer all the people she saw today with new cases.
It was a busy day with more customers that usual.
Two.
~end
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Part two of the Caleb and Loth-wolf concept! I am tentatively planning for this to be a five things fic, but I am absolutely unwilling to commit to that at the moment. This follows part one; technically it’s backstory for The Starry Crown, but its relevance there isn’t in any of the posted chapters and it stands on its own.
About 4.7K below the break.
***
When Caleb had a question about anything, which was often, because he didn’t like not knowing things and he liked the satisfaction of having a proper explanation to fill empty spaces in his knowledge of the universe, his preferred method was to pester the crèche masters until he was satisfied by their responses. But this time he didn’t want to let Master Krell know about Rroshaal, since if Rroshaal had wanted Krell to know about him he would have stayed with Caleb instead of disappearing.
So instead, Caleb went to the library.
Caleb liked the library. It was quiet and while sometimes the Knights and older padawans working there looked askance at his presence, no one had ever kicked him out, though he had on occasion been steered away from some of the more restricted sections. Master Nu, upon once finding him struggling to fetch out a holodisk shelved out of his reach because he was intrigued by the symbols on the spine, had shown him how to use the computers to search the Temple databases. Caleb’s log-in was keyed to his DNA and he hadn’t yet figured out how to get around that, so his access was fairly restricted compared to what even an initiate or older youngling might have gotten, but it was better than not having it at all, and he could lose hours scrolling through seemingly endless amounts of information. Sometimes he didn’t even recognize the redactions where information that wasn’t appropriate for his level had been hidden.
He waited impatiently through his last few lessons for the day, which he normally liked but wasn’t in the mood for, then practically ran out of the classroom and towards the library. Caleb made his way through the mazelike corridors of the Jedi Temple with the ease of long practice. He could have done it blindfolded; younglings trained and played that way, placing their trust in the Force and their other senses so that they didn’t become overly reliant on their eyes. This time he didn’t bother.
It was late enough in the day that most of the diurnal species in the Temple – the majority of them – had gone to dinner, either to eat in their rooms or the crèche or one of the big public halls or the gardens. Caleb bounced excitedly into the library and looked around for a free computer. The few Jedi still there looked around at his entrance, indulgently amused at his arrival. Caleb waved at them cheerfully and went over to the nearest computer, raising the seat up until he could see the screen clearly. He poked at the keyboard with his index fingers, trying to think of what the best search terms for Rroshaal’s species were.
Half an hour later, he had found all sorts of canines and felines and other mammals which varied from adorable to terrifying, but nothing that matched his memory of Rroshaal. They varied on the sentience scale, and if Caleb hadn’t been so focused on finding Rroshaal’s species he might have dropped everything to go beg the crèche masters for a miniature hamerlok puppy, but as it was he filed that away to think about later.
Caleb ended up in the library often enough that he knew better than to waste time searching for something when he didn’t know the best way to do so or didn’t have the necessary access. He looked around for one of the librarians and saw Master Nu coming towards him; she had found him on one of his research spirals a dozen times before and knew his pattern. He waved at her and she smiled at him.
“What are you looking for, Caleb?” she asked, resting a hand on the back of his chair.
Trying to sound as grown-up as possible, Caleb turned towards her and said, “I’m trying to identify another species, but I haven’t been able to find him – them.”
“A sentient species?”
He nodded. “But not a humanoid.”
“Someone you saw here in the Temple?”
Caleb bit his lip. Technically he had seen Rroshaal in the Temple, but he didn’t want to admit to Master Nu that he had been in the underlevels, and that wasn’t what she meant anyway. She was asking if he was talking about another Jedi, or maybe one of the civilians who were in the Temple sometimes. “I had a vision?” he said tentatively. It was partially true, after all; Rroshaal had shown him his species through the Force, and that was sort of like a vision. And he had seen Rroshaal with his own eyes, which was technically vision even if it wasn’t a vision. “I read a holobook,” he added, almost immediately afterwards. He read lots of holobooks.
Master Nu looked amused, but didn’t comment on the two contradictory explanations. “Do you know what this other species of yours looks like?”
Caleb nodded firmly. “Big. Furry. Sort of like canines – maybe like lupines. I don’t understand the difference,” he admitted. He pointed at the screen, which was still open on the image of the miniature hamerlok, which was a domesticated subspecies of an Alderaanian predator. It looked a little like Rroshaal had, except much smaller and less fluffy, and the wrong color, though the entry said they came in lots of colors. “Like that. But not. And they can use the Force. And they live in grasslands.”
“Hmm,” Master Nu said. She thought for a moment, then leaned over his shoulder. “Has anyone shown you how to use species identification software?”
Caleb perked up. “That exists?”
“It’s often used by law enforcement, but many Jedi find it useful for other purposes as well,” Master Nu explained. “Most Jedi don’t have to use it until they’re padawans.”
Caleb bounced excitedly at this new information, moving his chair to the side so that she could bring up the program. She had to enter her own ID and log-in information, then adjust the access levels so that Caleb would be able to use it without having someone else log him in. He watched excitedly as she showed him how to cycle through different physical traits, slowly building an image on the screen of Rroshaal as Caleb remembered him. When he was finished, the program offered him a list of possible species that matched the criteria Caleb had inputted.
“Do any of these look right?” Master Nu asked. “From your holobook?”
Caleb shrugged. “No, Master. Can we look at all of them?” There were fewer than a dozen, ranked in order of most to least likely.
“That’s usually the best way to do it.”
Caleb carefully put his finger to the first option, which read TUK’ATA/SITH HOUND (MORABAND). As soon as the new window opened, he shook his head, but read the entry anyway, fascinated, then looked up at Master Nu. “They can’t really all be evil, can they? I mean, if you got a pup and raised it here in the Temple – or away from the Sith worlds, anyway –”
“I can’t recall whether anyone has ever attempted it, but looking up their history might be a good research project for you,” Master Nu said, bemused. “It does seem like the sort of thing someone would have tried, especially during the aftermath of the Sith Wars.”
“I want to try,” Caleb declared.
“That is the sort of experiment that will have to wait until you’re at least a padawan,” Master Nu told him firmly. “Since you would have to go to Moraband to find one – every attempt to traffic them offworld has failed. That’s something else you could look up another time.”
Caleb nodded and closed the window. He touched the next item in the list, LOTH-WOLF (LOTHAL), and as soon as it opened, said delightedly, “That’s him! But they’re not extinct?” he added, seeing the first line of the entry.
“Why do you think that?”
“I saw him. I talked to him.” Caleb remembered abruptly that he didn’t want to explain how he had done so and said quickly, “In my vision.”
Master Nu quirked an eyebrow at him. “Do you want to tell me about your vision?” she asked. “Or perhaps talk to one of the masters who specializes in seeing?”
Caleb shook his head so rapidly that his learner’s braid hit him in the nose. “I have to figure it out on my own,” he said with as much dignity as he could muster when he was lying through his teeth. He copied the information carefully to his data storage account, then went back to get the tuk’ata information too while Master Nu went to find him some more books on Loth-wolves, after first making him promise that if he had another vision he would bring it to her or one of the other masters. Since if he ever actually did have a vision that was more than the flashes of precognition that gave Jedi their reflexes he was planning to tell everyone he knew, Caleb promised this solemnly.
Master Nu came back a few minutes later with a stack of holobooks for him – one a survey on Force-sensitive semi-sentient creatures and non-humanoids, one a travelogue from a Jedi Master who had mapped out many of the known Force-strong worlds, and one a history about Force-users who partnered with non-humanoids or semi-sentients. Caleb quietly thought that both “semi-sentient” and “non-humanoid” didn’t describe Rroshaal at all, but he wasn’t about to tell Master Nu that. Well, the non-humanoid part was true, but it didn’t really sum up what Rroshaal was.
He put the books carefully in his bag, noting that the history book was past his usual access level and wondering why, thanked Master Nu, and hurried off to the nearest dining hall. Dinner was still being served; even if he had missed it there was always food available somewhere in the Temple, though sometimes you had to do a bit more searching to find it. He wrapped a dozen meat pasties in a napkin along with two pieces of his favorite spice cake, then wrapped them in another napkin before putting them in his bag and making sure his water bottle was still mostly full. No one paid him any attention – he had found one of the dining halls that was mostly used by Knights and masters, a few of whom he knew, but everyone in the Temple was used to everyone else occasionally doing odd things. He waved at a Kiffar Knight who was one of his teachers in staff-fighting and left, grabbing a jogan fruit from a bowl as he did so.
He had to pause outside the hall and think about the best way to get down to the underlevels, since he wasn’t supposed to go there. After getting caught down there the previous day he probably really wasn’t supposed to go there, but it wasn’t like every youngling didn’t do it at one point or another. Like almost everything else in the Temple, there were lots of ways to get there, but Caleb thought that it was probably best if he chose one of the entrances closest to where Rroshaal had left him. He wanted Rroshaal to be able to find him again, but he didn’t want to get caught by Master Krell or any of the other crèche masters, either.
Decision made, he went trotting off. It took him longer to reach the underlevels than he had expected, since he was coming by a different route, but eventually he reached the bottom of the last staircase and hesitated, looking around. He had taken care to bring a glowstone with him this time so he wouldn’t get caught in the dark again, even if he couldn’t shake the feeling that it felt a little like cheating. What Caleb should have had was a lightsaber, but he wouldn’t have a lightsaber until after he had had his Gathering, and his cohort wouldn’t go on their Gathering for at least another two years, maybe even three or four.
“Rroshaal?” he called into the quiet, waiting dark of the underlevels. From here it just seemed like empty, unused space, but Caleb knew that it wasn’t. Further away – and further down – the underlevels deteriorated into a series of mazes, layers and layers of ancient temples built on top of each other. He’d read a book on it – well, he had run across it in a history, but when he went looking for more books he had found that they were beyond his access level, and Master Nu couldn’t be convinced to give them to him anyway. Caleb thought he might ask again, now that he had the excuse of having been caught down in the underlevels. He might as well use it for something. Maybe he could convince Master Krell and Master Nu that having to write a report on the history of the underlevels was an appropriate punishment.
“Rroshaal?” he called again. “It’s Caleb Dume. Rroshaal?”
There was no response. Caleb hesitated, wondering if he ought to go further in and away from the stairs. Maybe Rroshaal wouldn’t want to come this close to the entrance to the rest of the Temple, even though he had brought Caleb back yesterday.
He stood there for a few minutes, calling occasionally and hoping both that there weren’t security cams down here and that no one could hear him from the next level up.
There was no response.
Caleb stood there on the last step, feeling heat gather in his cheeks from embarrassment. He’d thought that Rroshaal had liked him. He was on the verge of going back to the crèche to palm off all the pasties on his crèche-mates when he thought suddenly, no. He had been acting like Rroshaal was a dumb animal, like the charhound pup one of the older initiates was fostering. Not that the charhound wasn’t very intelligent, but it wasn’t exactly a person, and Rroshaal was.
He reached with the Force, concentrating on his memory of Rroshaal’s strong sense of personality, and let his mind sink down into the vergence the Temple was built on. He knew that he wasn’t supposed to do that because vergences were dangerous – even Knights and masters weren’t supposed to do that – but Caleb thought that because he more or less knew what he was doing with it that he probably wouldn’t lose himself in the Force. He remembered what Rroshaal had told him yesterday, about the vergence where he lived and being able to move between that vergence and the one under the Temple. In a way, every vergence in the Force was one. They were unique – but at the same time they were also one.
Rroshaal? he thought, layering his memory of Rroshaal’s strong personality onto it. With rare exception, Jedi weren’t telepaths, but for their first few years in the crèche they didn’t have to speak to each other with words, either; they had the Force for that. Rroshaal, it’s Caleb Dume. He added his own mental signature to that, the emotional overtones in the Force that would tell another Force-user that it was him, Caleb Dume, and not someone else.
He could feel the weight of the Force as he opened himself to it. It was like the lake that he had seen on Alderaan when his cohort had visited the planet the previous year, the deep lake that was actually a rift in the planet’s surface and was more than ten kilometers deep. It pulled at him, at the surface of his mind; Caleb was aware of it – of it fluttering at the edges of his consciousness, bits and pieces of things that had happened in the past, that could have happened in the past, that were yet to come, of people who were long dead or were yet to be born or might never be born, of his people and the enemy of his people and all of those who touched the Force in their own way, whether they were Jedi or not.
He had never gone that deep into the Force before. He hadn’t meant to do so now.
He fought aside his instinctive panic, knowing that, like the lake, if he panicked he would drown. Caleb concentrated hard on his memory of Rroshaal, forcing himself to ignore the insistent whispers of almost-sound and the flickering almost-sight at the edges of his mind. Jedi were will. He wouldn’t let himself be swayed from his intention, now that he had set himself upon it.
Jedi were the Force. Whatever it was trying to show him, he already knew – he already was, or would be, or could be. All things were true at once in the Force.
Not trying to show him, he thought, a little dizzy. Do or do not. There is no try.
Caleb stopped fighting the almost-visions and let them pass through them instead, still keeping his mind on Rroshaal. He felt – bigger, somehow, older, as if his body no longer quite fit him in his dim awareness of his own physical form. But it wasn’t not his body, either; there was nothing unfamiliar about it. Caleb accepted that and let his call to Rroshaal roll out again, noting absently that there were layers in his mental signature that he had never been consciously aware of before. But they had always been there, of course.
He felt an instant of sleepy surprise, then acknowledgment.
They came from outside himself and were accompanied by a strong sense of place; Caleb tasted prairie winds and the rock-smell of an unfamiliar world, the warmth of lazing in a sun he had never stood under.
Certain that he had been heard, Caleb dragged himself uncertainly out of his trance. Reality fluttered around him; Caleb could feel it flexing, as if someone had shaken out a sheet and each fold held a different possibility, a different time, a different place. Then, before he had time to panic, it settled again, leaving him gasping in the dim light of the underlevels.
He sat down heavily on the steps.
After a moment he dug in his bag and came up with the jogan he had grabbed in the dining hall, which he ate slowly. One of the earliest things that younglings were taught was to eat or drink something after an intense meditation session, because it reminded them that while they might be the Force and full of light, they still had physical bodies. Caleb ate the jogan in small, neat bites, concentrating on its taste and how it felt in his mouth, and eventually got out of his datapad to read the database entry about Loth-wolves that he had gotten from the library computers. He had finished both and set the datapad aside so that he could wrap up the jogan pips to throw away later when he heard the soft click…click… of approaching claws on the marble floor.
He saw Rroshaal’s glowing eyes first, coming out of the darkness of the underlevels.
Caleb stood up to greet him, momentarily startled by how big Rroshaal was – he’d somehow forgotten. Rroshaal came up to him and ducked his head to nuzzle thoughtfully at Caleb’s hair, then licked Caleb’s face in a greeting.
“Hello!” Caleb said happily. “You came!”
Rroshaal licked his face again. He had been napping, he told Caleb; it was the middle of the day on his homeworld, and most of his people slept then. Caleb got the brief impression of windswept grasslands, too hot under the summer sun for Rroshaal to want to be out in.
“I didn’t mean to wake you up,” he said. “It’s dinner time here. I’ve got dinner,” he added. “If you want?”
Rroshaal made an inquisitive sound and lay down as Caleb dug in his bag for the pasties. He laid most of them down on the cloth for Rroshaal to sniff at, but kept two for himself, watching Rroshaal eat each one in two bites. Interesting, was his observation when he was finished.
“It’s ronto, I think,” Caleb said; he was only halfway through his first one by the time Rroshaal had finished. “Do you have rontos on your world? They’re saurians, they live on desert worlds mostly, and a lot of ranchers breed them for meat.” He pictured the holos he had seen; he hadn’t seen one in person yet.
Rroshaal’s response was in the negative. Hoppers, he replied to Caleb, along with a strong sense of a big four-legged mammal that moved by leaping from its hindmost feet; it used its front legs more like arms and Rroshaal had a strong, vivid memory of being punched in the nose by one during his last hunt. The memory was accompanied by a strong, gamey taste of raw meat that made Caleb blink, a little startled. Lopers. This seemed to encompass several different kinds of hooved herbivores, some of which were nearly as big as Rroshaal and some of which were much smaller. They moved in herds and ran fast, leaping across the grasslands when the pack hunted them. Horrible birds. These were flightless birds two or three times as tall as Caleb, taller than Rroshaal, with toothed beaks and talon-like feet; Rroshaal showed him the scars another Loth-wolf had from being attacked by one some years earlier, but added that they were tasty after you brought them down. Others. He got a flickering sense of what his instructors would have called “a healthy ecosystem,” and recognized a few species he had seen in holos before. Or relatives, anyway, but you saw convergent evolution on many worlds, and colony worlds especially.
Rroshaal sensed the thought and made a little whuff in the negative. Too much prey, he told Caleb. Horrible birds kill some, but only on one continent. Used to be more hunters. Caleb got a hazy impression of several kinds of big felines and avians; the haziness was because they were extinct and Rroshaal had never seen them himself, only through the passed-down memories of other members of his pack.
“Colonists killed them?” Caleb asked, remembering one of his classes. It happened a lot.
Rroshaal made an affirmative sound. Others, he said again, showing Caleb several animals he recognized.
“Those are nerfs,” Caleb said. “They’re all over the galaxy. People breed them for meat and fur. And the little saurians are nunas. They’re meat animals too. I can’t remember what the fluffy ones are, but I’ve seen holos of them before.”
Tasty, Rroshaal observed, licking his lips. Then he laid his chin down on his paws and added sadly, Not enough pups.
That reminded Caleb. “I read about you!” he said. “I looked you up in the library. You’re a Loth-wolf.”
Rroshaal flicked an ear, bemused by the name. The People, he said instead.
“I know, but most species call themselves something like that. I’m a human.”
Rroshaal raised his head and snuffled thoughtfully at Caleb’s knees for a moment before saying doubtfully, You’re People. You feel like People, even if you don’t smell like People.
Caleb put his hands out for Rroshaal to sniff, then lick clean of lingering crumbs. “I’m a Force-user – a Jedi. Maybe that’s it.”
Rroshaal whuffed again, dubious.
“You’re supposed to be extinct,” Caleb said, then hesitated, unsure if he had hurt Rroshaal’s feelings. Instead he just felt the Loth-wolf’s resigned weariness.
Not enough pups, he said again. It took Caleb a few moments to sort through the flurry of information that accompanied the words; Rroshaal had been the only pup in his pack to live more than a year in the last decade. Pups had been born dead or had gotten sick and died soon afterwards. He had heard that other packs were just as badly off.
Caleb said shyly, “We – the Jedi – are having problems too. I heard the crèche masters talking about it with Master Windu and Master Yoda once. There used to be thousands more Jedi than there are now – there are whole sections of the Temple that are shut up – and the cohorts keep getting smaller and smaller. Even two hundred years ago you’d have cohorts of dozens, but mine is only three people, and the ones after me are the same. About twenty or thirty years ago all of a sudden the Temple started getting large cohorts again – large by current standards – and that lasted for about twenty years before they suddenly started dropping off in size. The senior padawans now are from the last few large cohorts. The masters don’t know if not as many Force-sensitive younglings are being born or if they’re just not being found.”
Rroshaal made an inquisitive noise.
“I don’t know all of it,” Caleb admitted. “When babies are born in Republic medcenters, they’re required to have a lot of tests run, and one of those is for midichlorian count. That gets passed onto the Order if the parents consent, and if it’s high enough then someone – usually the Sector Watchman – will check on them regularly. Just because you have a high midichlorian count doesn’t mean you can be a Jedi, though, so the Watchmen have to keep checking, and of course if the families refuse then they won’t. Outside the medcenters it’s mostly just the will of the Force.” He stared longingly at Rroshaal’s soft-looking ears, wondering how rude it would be to ask Rroshaal if he could pet them. “I was born in the Temple.”
Rroshaal’s ears flicked forward, interested.
“It’s not usual,” Caleb admitted. “It happens once or twice a generation, but usually even if one or both parents is a Jedi then the baby won’t be strong enough to be one too. I was. That’s not rare, but it’s not common, either.” He shrugged in response to Rroshaal’s question. “I don’t know. It doesn’t really matter who they are. If I hadn’t been strong enough in the Force to be a Jedi I would have gone to one of their birth-families if they wanted.” He hesitated, then admitted, “I heard once that one of them is an old military family on Coruscant, but I don’t know if that’s true or not. And it doesn’t matter anyway since I’m a Jedi.”
People, Rroshaal insisted.
Caleb spread his hands for Rroshaal to see. “Not People, not like yours,” he said. Then he got the cake out of his bag and offered one piece to Rroshaal, who sniffed it with interest, then sneezed. “It’s spice cake,” he explained. “It’s my favorite.”
Rroshaal ate it out of his palm in several delicate bites, then lay licking his teeth thoughtfully as Caleb ate his own piece of spice cake. Good, he decided finally, then gave Caleb a grin, tongue lolling out of his mouth. Different.
He licked Caleb’s hands clean when Caleb held them out again, then flicked one ear back as if he had heard someone calling him. I have to go, he said regretfully. My mother wants me.
Caleb had the brief impression of a bigger version of Rroshaal, brown and with a scarred ear, whom Rroshaal regarded with occasionally frustrated adoration. He said wistfully, “Can I see you tomorrow?”
We’ll be away, Rroshaal said, and Caleb could tell that he genuinely regretted it. Embassy to another pack. He thought, then said, Nine days?
“How long are your days?” Caleb asked, then realized that Rroshaal probably didn’t count time in hours. “I’ll look it up.” He hesitated, then added, “Can I hug you?”
At the affirmative response, they both stood up, and Caleb carefully put his arms around as much of Rroshaal’s furry front as he could manage. He was just as soft as Caleb remembered from the previous day and smelled of clean fur and unknown winds, a little musky. Rroshaal tucked his muzzle down against Caleb’s back, then licked his face after Caleb released him. Caleb curved the backs of his knuckles against Rroshaal’s cheek, carefully stroking the short fur there, then giggled as Rroshaal rubbed his cheek against Caleb’s smooth one.
Soon, he promised, then, Bring more of the cake-thing.
“I will,” Caleb said.
Rroshaal licked his nose, then backed away. Caleb must have blinked, because one moment Rroshaal was there, then the next he had vanished into the shadows of the underlevels.
Caleb sighed regretfully and rubbed the back of his hand over his nose, the scooped up the discarded cloths and stuffed them into his bag. He had a lot of reading he wanted to do before he saw Rroshaal again.
#cut scenes and concept writing#caleb and the loth wolf tag#comics caleb is a tiny nerd#as always comments are appreciated#eta: yes I DO have a partially written concept for caleb's extended birth family; the forbidden backstory
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Is it Empiressona Time? I think it's empiressona time
(I kinda went overboard with this so uh... yeah. Have a quick rundown of my convoluted in the form of a convoluted case file. Huzzah. Also @closerthanmosttoyou's oc is in here, Splotch! Teeth come get your slime kid.)
Subject number: S-R 041804
Subject model: Separation or leveling of alternate realities (SolAR)
Timeline of origin: F-804
Timeline of residence: E-M-12
Occupation: Royal Redstone-mechanic of Mezalea.
Observations: The subject of interest, by all accounts, should be dead. We had shut down the 000 [REDACTED] of F-804 for worries of becoming self-aware. It, as well as approx [REDACTED] others, went missing, we have reason to believe they were stolen. The last ping was somewhere over T-M-14
The [REDACTED] have managed to find S-R 041804, and 54 others, scattered across multiple timelines. The [REDACTED], however, has decided that we are to watch and observe how they live and react to the real world. It seems to be self-aware, either by the feat of its own or through tampering.
Ovb (cont.): Found in E-M-12 on [REDACTED], was found and taken in by King Lady-Beans, and was put to work as the royal Redstone mechanic. Its services have been used by the Cod Empire and Pixandria. It is unknown if S-R 041804 is aware of its creation, as it became self-aware after its escape. It seems to be aware that it is not human as found in a diary entry recovered by TL-T-F-T. Day 26: The Codfather is much nicer than I've heard. He just… not the brightest. He has a kind heart and has a lot of room in it. When King Lady-Beans sent me to help, the Codfather was ecstatic to have "someone who knew what they were doing". He also stared. I don't mind, the Mezaleanites stared, too. But anyways- I know I look different- I've seen my reflection in the water and the glass. I know I'm not human. And the way the Codfather would poke and pride and make curious noises didn't bother me. I'm glad he's not afraid of me. I think some people are. But no one in the Cod Empire at all was, they'd smile at me and wave. My Mezalean garb is enough for them to show that I'm a friend- and I'm grateful for that. I've been working on the Codfather's new salmon sacrifice door, but I've run out of sticky pistons- the Codfather has asked one of his farmers to get me more slime. I told him that it wouldn't be an issue, I had plenty back in Mezalea, but he insisted I take a break- I've hardly even started. Speaking of, the slime farmer is here.
---
In a wondrous turn of events, it seems I have a new friend. A short, fairly well-built farmer, covered in slime, came up to me, wringing hands. Splotch was Splotch's name and, bless, had no idea what a pronoun was. I will simply call Splotch, well, Splotch. I don't blame the Codfather, the slime-children didn't have outward appearances that matched any identity in Mezalea- terrakits or mossers or concrits, it was quite fun to watch them work. Anyhow, Splotch comes around the corner, four sticky pistons in Splotch's hands. They created me as 'Wise wrangler of the red dust' which I found quite endearing. Splotch apologized, saying that the slime farm Splotch used was broken, and of course, I offered my services. Splotch was almost adamant that I finish the Codfather's door, but I explained that I'd need about six to finish it. In actuality, I only needed two, as I had put four in already. It was quite a simple fix really, just replacing a powered rail and getting the mine cart back on track. It started back up almost immediately. Splotch was overjoyed, grabbing slime balls as soon as the chests filled in, and dumped about twelve in my hands. They're just slime balls, but there was something about Splotch's unapologetic excitement that reminds me why I'm doing this. You step on a pressure plate and the fireworks go off and just seeing the wonder and child-like awe on people's and slime/cod-hybrids' faces is all the payment I need. Needless to say, Splotch joined me to finish the door, and I taught Splotch a few basics just in case anything breaks. The Codfather stopped by just as I put the last blocks into place. We tested it, and Splotch's joy was mirrored on the Codfather's face- what I could see from under his cod mask. He gifted me a cod head, more than I needed, and Splotch walked me to the border and saw me off. I might go back soon, I miss them already. I've got the cod head mounted on the wall above the desk I'm writing thin on- I've framed one of Splotch's slimeballs, which is also sitting on my desk. I've put the others in my enderchest- I don't want to loose those- it's the first token of friendship I've gotten. King Lady-Beans has another job for me tomorrow morning in Pixandria. I need to get to sleep. I think I'll sleep better tonight.
#empiresona#empires#empires smp#esmp#SolAR#empires oc#empires sona#empiressona#my oc#gremtalks#gremfics#does this count as a fic?#i dunno who cares
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Red Lightning (Part 3)
(Part 1) (Part 2)
---
Lucretia looked through the bars at her friend with grim contemplation.
She had disarmed Lup and moved her from the floor to the thin mattress provided inside her cell, and was now simply waiting for her to wake up, and considering what she would do when she did.
Giving her a similar position to Davenport was out of the question. Redacted or not, the boys would notice the woman’s striking similarity to Taako. She could find something for her in the bowels of the facility, out of sight of the Reclaimers, but even then, the risk-
“Hey?”
Lucretia jumped and struck her staff on the ground in surprise. Lup had risen to her elbows while still prone on the bed, and was looking at Lucretia with decreasing grogginess.
“Are you- in charge here?” she asked, swinging her legs over the side of the bed, “Cause whatever I did to get in here- okay, I was /definitely/ framed, first of all, and also like super drunk. Like I don’t even remember anything that happened…” she looked to the side, “Basically ever, right now? I must have partied /real/ hard last night but anyways, the point is I’m innocent and also I don’t think you can legally keep me here without telling me what I’m in for.”
Lup was about a foot in front of the bars now, holding her hands out in front of her where she’d been gesturing. Lucretia stared at her.
“You can talk,” she got out flatly.
Lup blinked at her, then snorted. “I- Yeah??” She looked around herself. “Why- Was I that out of it whenever- whatever happened?”
Lucretia stood there, marveling at how she could have taken so much from their Captain unintentionally whilst not inflicting the same on her friend when she intentionally tried to erase her existence. It was a relief, obviously- she hadn’t wanted to reduce Lup to the sound of her own name, but she had expected it, accepted it as a necessity, and planned around it. Now-
She checked the lock on her cell to make sure she hadn’t left it open in her indecision. There would be no moving her from this spot now that she still had her wits about her. As much as it pained Lucretia, she could not allow her friend to roam free if there was any possibility she might resume interfering with her mission.
“What’s happening?” she asked, looking worriedly at Lucretia’s hand as she secured the padlock and then tapped her staff to the ground, reinforcing the magical barriers around the cell as well. “You- you have to tell me what you think I did.”
Lucretia looked levelly into her eyes. “You have done something- horrible. Unspeakable. Even if you… didn’t mean for it to be. What’s done is still done. And you will remain here until- Until I decide those crimes have been repented for.”
Lup opened her mouth to argue. Then, before she could, Lucretia saw some unknown thought enter her eyes, and then some of the light dimmed from them.
She waited, watching the grim, zoned-out look on her friend’s face for only a moment longer before she turned on heel and exited into the elevator.
*
“Taako?”
Lup blinked, turning to the source of the voice- a halfling man, poking his small head through the bars of the cell next to hers to get a look.
“Nope,” she said flatly.
“Oh, sorry,” the halfling said. “I could have sworn he has that skirt.” He tilted his head. “And that face?”
She sighed. “It’s Lup,” she introduced herself curtly, hoping it would change the subject. She didn’t know who this ‘Taako’ person was, but getting mistaken for a man was one of the few things that could make today worse.
“Oooohh, sorry sorry sorry, cool cool cool,” the halfling man said, nodding. “My name’s Robbie, but my old roommates called me Pringles.”
“Why?” she asked.
Pringles tugged on his shirt collar. “I have a deficiency.”
Lup pursed her lips and let her head fall back onto the stiff pillow. She didn’t know how long she’d been in the pokey, but it couldn’t have been too long, because everything in the room seemed brand new and unused.
“So what’re you in for, Pringles?” she asked.
“Uuh,” he drawled, “Espionage, I guess? Except I didn’t do it, like, intentionally. Maybe an accessory to espionage? A vessel?”
“Huh,” she said. “So you like, accidentally let in a spy?”
“I… guess it was something like that,” he said. “I don’t actually remember most of it. What about you?”
Lup stared at the gray-blue ceiling of her cell.
“I think I killed someone,” she said, still not looking at her cellmate.
“Oh,” Pringles answered, sounding unimpressed. “Well, that’s kinda like, the adventuring MO. Not your fault you ran amok of someone with arrest powers.”
She didn’t even catch his comment about the moon. She continued staring hard at the silvery blue of her cell.
“I think I killed someone I loved.”
Pringles blinked a few times. Then most of his face was no longer visible, it seemed like he’d changed the stance he was standing at.
“Oh,” was all he said. It was a long few moments before she heard him pad quietly over to the bed of his cell and hop on with a creak.
*
Lup had the same dream every night.
No matter what she did, how she ate, when she slept, however many of her limited options she explored, it was always the same. If she tried trancing, the memory would still play through her head relentlessly, almost more real than if she just went to sleep. If it weren’t for the companionship of her odd but chill jail-mate, she might think she was living the same day over again.
She knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that it was a memory. The only memory she had of anywhere outside this cell. Anywhere /outside/ at all. She wouldn’t know what the sky looked like, blinding blue with puffy white clouds and streaming golden light, without this memory.
She doesn't know why, but she’d expected it to look different.
*
You were in the sky. The clouds around you were close enough to touch, and the green below you was so, so distant. You could only see it over the silver rails of this- ship. You were on a ship, a boat, by the looks of it. Why was it in the sky?
Every time, before you had the chance to wonder this any further, you locked eyes with the figure sitting on the railing. No, you realized. He wasn’t sitting. He was bent over it at an odd angle, half of him dangling off the edge like he’d just been blown to that point by force.
He was wearing glasses. They were cracked.
You had no idea who this man was, but when you felt his gaze, saw his weathered human face, looked over his faded old blue jeans, you felt like you were home. You felt safe, and loved, and warm.
That warmth boiled over into the heat of panic when you noticed the blood pouring from this man’s stomach. Suddenly it felt like the world was burning around you, and you wanted to go to him, but you couldn’t. Your body felt frozen, your mind felt like it was full of cotton. No. Of static.
You met the man’s gaze again because that’s all you could do. You felt your knees going weak.
The man smiled at you with love and sorrow and-
He fell. He fell all the way over the railing, and you felt yourself moving, felt something warm and wet on your cheek-
And you wake up, gasping, and touch the tears streaming down your face. Every morning. You call it morning because you do not go back to sleep after this, but the fantasy fluorescent lights of your cell have not yet come up.
Every morning, without reprieve, as you lower your hand from your tear-streaked face, you see the smallest strokes of red lightning glowing between your fingers in the darkness.
***
“Where is she?”
Barry Bluejeans looked down at his three best friends in their red nullsuits. He had come here to warn them- to use the cosmoscope this kid had created, to try to explain with visuals instead of words and see if that could get through to them.
But there were only three of them. For whatever reason, Lup hadn’t come along on this mission. At first, he’d assumed she was a part of the party they said they’d been separated from, but now they were reunited, and still no Lup.
He probably should have waited to ask. There was probably a fine explanation- maybe Lucretia had wanted to keep a reclaimer in reserve for if this place went up in crystal? Sure, that made enough sense. He almost moved on to another question, but his nonexistent stomach dropped when he got his answer.
“Who?”
“Taako-” he’d be furrowing his brow if he could. It was immediately apparent to him that this wasn’t a goof. He knew Taako well enough for that.
“Taako, your-” dread was welling up in him. “Your sister. Your sister, Lup, Taako, where is she?”
“Oof,” Taako tilted his head. “Don’t got one of those, buddy. You must have the wrong T-a-a-ko.”
“No,” he said. He floated closer, and Taako raised-
The umbrella. He had Lup’s Umbrastaff with him.
“You have to know,” he said, and he could feel necrotic energy arcing off of him like electricity. “You have to know where- you have to know who she is. She only erases people when they’re-”
And suddenly, his energy calmed. He floated placidly in front of Taako, wide-eyed and weapon drawn.
He felt relieved. And then guilty for it. If Lucretia had erased her, that meant she was dead. But that also meant she was out here somewhere as a lich. Memories intact. Finally.
He melted away from the crystal laboratory and resumed time as he reappeared in his cave. He pulled out a drawer to his desk and filled up an old scrying bowl he used to use to keep tabs on everyone when he didn’t feel safe enough to go outside.
When the image in the bowl came into view, there was no phantasmal, resplendent figure of light and magic. Instead, there was a living mortal figure lying on a bed, sleeping restlessly, what he recognized as energy from her lich form arcing out through her hands in response to whatever Emotion was enveloping her dream.
“Oh,” he said aloud. Not disappointed. Determined.
Zooming out, he could see the bars of a cell, and even further, the outline of the floating headquarters of the Bureau of Balance. He shut the drawer and turned towards the map he had laid out on the desk itself.
The body cooking in his pod wasn't quite done yet. That was fine. He’d prefer not to burn it now, anyways. He’d find his own way up to the Bureau again, holy symbol be damned.
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My Mind Turns Your Life Into Folklore
My Mind Turns Your Life Into Folklore
COPYRIGHT DISCLAIMER: Any recognizable elements belong to Attack on Titan.
NOTES:
Monday January 18th
song played on mikasa's computer that is sang by mikasa and eren: coney island-taylor swift & the national
the game they are playing is card against humanity and I just googled random card to get that one.
chapter twenty-one: coney island
The video began to play on Mikasa’s laptop.
-------------
They were nineteen in the video.
Far before everything went to hell after Grisha’s death.
In the video, they were in Eren’s bedroom. He was gently strumming a guitar as he sat on his bed.
“Tell your dad to buy a piano over here,” Mikasa called from off screen.
“Shit, this won’t line up right,” Eren grumbled before adjusting the camera.
“Why are you recording this anyway?” Mikasa asked off camera.
“So when you go famous, I can sell it on the internet,” he grinned. “Get in frame.”
“Why? Then no one can confirm it’s me.”
Eren set his guitar down and dragged Mikasa into frame. She was laughing as he pulled her into his lap. He held her there.
“Now there’s proof. Okay, drag your keyboard over here and let’s do this,” he smiled at her.
“Fine,” she grumbled.
The screen went dark.
--------------
There was no more video but the audio continued to play.
Mikasa heard the playing of the piano.
“Is that me?” she asked as she looked over at Eren, taking her eyes away from the screen.
He nodded.
She began to recognize the music.
But this wasn’t the same song that her nineteen year old self had written.
No, this song was much more recent.
It had been the last song she had worked with Eren on.
Her eyes widened at the realization.
“{lyrics redacted due to copyright} ” Mikasa’s voice filled her bedroom from the speaker of the laptop.
Eren looked scared.
Like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming truck.
“ {lyrics redacted due to copyright}.”
Mikasa reached across the bed but stopped from taking Eren’s hand again as her own voice cut through her thoughts and feelings.
“ {lyrics redacted due to copyright}. ”
She had been so lost back then.
Maybe that was why she had proposed.
Maybe that was why she thought the only clear answer was to commit more to Eren.
Maybe if she did then he would be okay.
He would understand that he was committed to her.
It was Eren’s voice that sliced through her thought this time.
“ {lyrics redacted due to copyright} ”
He had turned her song into a duet.
That was what he had been nervous about.
He was staring at her.
He was waiting for her reaction.
Her eyes met his.
“ {lyrics redacted due to copyright}.”
Neither of them moved.
Neither of them said anything.
In the audio, Mikasa’s voice joined Eren’s.
“ {lyrics redacted due to copyright}. ”
The chorus began, with both of them singing after that.
Mikasa’s head was swimming.
She had purposely forgotten about this song.
She was sure that somewhere around here she still had the lyrics in a journal.
An unfinished journal for an unfinished song of unfinished relationship.
Another move out of desperation.
If she had made so many moves out of desperation, how many had Eren made?
“ {lyrics redacted due to copyright} ”
Mikasa knew exactly the place Eren was singing about in the song. The place where they had played as children, snuck away to make out as teenagers.
“ {lyrics redacted due to copyright}.”
The DUI.
Her?
He had seen her when he had almost died?
He had still wanted her then?
Of course he had, they had already been through this.
So as the song continued, Mikasa put her hand in Eren’s.
He smiled.
She pulled him towards her and he rested his head on her chest. She hoped he wouldn’t notice that her heart had sped up a little.
They stayed like that, even after the song had ended.
A CRASH came from downstairs.
“I think they’re back,” Eren muttered.
At some point, Mikasa had begun absentmindedly running her fingers through Eren’s long hair.
“Probably. Glad I shut the door.”
“So, do you hate it?” he asked finally.
She shook her head. “I love it. I loved that you were here to listen to it with me. I don’t think it would have been the same without you.”
Eren nodded.
“Why were you so scared?”
“It’s your music...I didn’t want you to think I ruined it or anything.”
“You’re wrong. It’s your music too. I didn’t compose it. You did and I loved it.”
He sat up.
Mikasa was disappointed that he moved away from her.
“If you actually hate it...you can tell me…”
Her hand grabbed his shirt, pulling him towards her.
“I love it.”
Was she going to kiss him now?
Would that be a good idea?
This whole situation was a mess.
“I’m...glad..” He mumbled.
“Eren, I don’t know if we should kiss yet or not. I don’t know how to go about redoing this whole….”
Her sentence was cut off by his lips on hers.
She sighed into the kiss as she kissed him back. Mikasa would have been lying if she said she hadn’t missed this. There was something about kissing Eren Jaeger that just made her feel so drunk and addicted. Maybe it was the way his lips moved on hers or how his hands were always in her hair. Maybe it was the way that no one else could ever make her feel this alive. Her heart was racing and any thoughts or worries seemed miles away as moved her hand from the front of his shirt to wrap around his neck.
When they were kissing, there were no other worries for either of them.
And maybe that was the moment that Eren realized he had been blowing this whole her listening to his song out of proportion. If it had led to this, this feeling of having her back in his arms. This feeling of her soft lips on his.
He was so weak for her.
And he didn’t even care who knew it.
Finally, when they both needed air, they broke apart. He rested his forehead on hers.
“Too soon?” he asked.
She shook her head. “We waited too long to do that again.”
Eren grinned. “I’ve got a lot of time to make up for.”
“Should we go see what they’ve destroyed downstairs?” she asked him.
“Probably or they’ll come looking for us to assume the worst,” Eren sighed as he pulled away from her. He stretched as he stood up.
Mikasa got off the bed and her hand slipped into his as they made their way out of her bedroom and downstairs.
“SQUISH IT AGAIN!” Historia yelled from her perch on the couch.
“I’m trying!” Ymir was chasing something around the couch while she was holding a frying pan.
“Is it dead?” Sasha asked as she poked her head out of the kitchen.
“NO! Ymir, kill it!” Historia cheered.
“What does it look like I’m trying to do over here? Take it on a date?” Ymir asked as she continued her chase.
As Ymir moved to the back of the couch, Mikasa and Eren saw the largest spider either of them had seen.
“Nope!” Eren yelled as he jumped into Mikasa’s arms.
“Where did that come from?” Mikasa asked.
“No idea. I threw my clothes in the laundry and this thing came out,” Ymir explained.
“Yeah, it tried to kill us!” Sasha called while standing in the doorway of the kitchen.
Ymir swung at the spider.
It jumped.
Ymir missed. The frying pan made a CRASH noise as it hit the floor.
The spider ran under the couch.
“MOTHERFUCKER!” Ymir shouted as she stood up.
Levi came down the stairs and passed Mikasa and Eren. Eren was still in Mikasa’s arms with his arms thrown around her neck.
Levi went into the kitchen and pulled out a vacuum cleaner.
“Move,” he said as he came back into the kitchen.
Historia got off of the couch which Levi quickly flipped over.
The spider charged at Levi who pushed the vacuum straight for the spider.
At the last moment, the spider swerved and ran under Levi’s chair.
“See?!” Ymir said as she pointed towards the chair.
Levi was not going to be defeated. He dropped the vacuum to the floor. He picked up one of his steel toed boots and pulled it on. No one laughed as he made his way over to his chair. Levi flipped the chair and immediately stepped on the spider.
The spider was dead.
“You’re my hero, Levi,” Sasha said from the kitchen.
“Clean that up,” he said as he pointed to the remains of the spider left on the floor.
Annie came downstairs. “What did I miss?” she asked as she ran a hand through her hair. She clearly had just woken up from a nap.
-----------------------
After the carpet and Levi’s boot had been cleaned, they put the furniture back together.
“I think I’ll go shopping for a new couch,” Mikasa said as she flipped the couch over.
“We do need a new one. It’s so small,” Historia agreed.
Sawney and Bean came downstairs.
“Babies! You’re safe!” Ymir said as the dogs ran towards her. “Why was that spider so large?”
“Probably had a good food source if I had to guess,” Sasha shrugged.
“Great. Well, it’s dead now,” Ymir said before sitting down on the couch.
“Should we just order dinner?” Mikasa asked before she sat down on the floor.
“Sounds good to me. I don’t really feel like cooking. A bakery bought all of our eggs today and we had to load them all into the truck,” Sasha collapsed next to Ymir.
-------------------
Pieck had another glass of wine and sat down on Zeke’s couch.
“You’re worried about Eren,” she remarked.
“Am I doing the right thing?” Zeke asked her.
“What?”
“Moving him here. Selling his childhood home. Is that the right thing?”
Pieck sipped her wine. “The fact that you’re questioning it says you are. It says you care. I don’t think Grisha sat around and thought about whether or not he did the right thing. From what I know, I think the bastard just did whatever the fuck he wanted. Look at how that went for him.”
“I have a theory we all crave love. I wrote a paper on it. My mother...she loved me. She always made sure I knew she loved me. But my father...he never gave me that.”
“Dina was special. I miss her. How many years has it been?”
“Nine. Ten this year,” Zeke said before he looked down at his hands. “I was twenty-three. I can see her...all those machines hooked up to her.”
Pieck put her hand on Zeke’s shoulder.
“But after she was gone, well, you know how crazy my grandparents were. And then when I found out Grisha was dead….I thought Eren would be looking for a family like I was but...he was not. He already has a family. I feel like I am taking him away from that. I don’t want him to resent me for that.”
“You crave love from family,” Pieck concluded.
Zeke nodded. “I have had my fair share of relationships. They grow old for me, boring. Predictable. But to have someone who loved me and asking for nothing more….that would be good.”
Pieck hauled back and slapped Zeke in the back of the head.
“PIECK!” he yelled at her.
“You dumb fuck! I love you like that. Don’t you dare say we aren’t family. You say Eren and I are fucking stupid but you’re even more so. You think I don’t love you? What about Porco or Marcel? Or Gabi or Reiner? What about Falco, Udo, Zophia? Bertolt? EREN?” she slapped him again.
“Ow!” Zeke said as he rubbed the back of his head.
“I don’t care. Don’t you ever say you don’t have a love of a family, you dumbass!”
“You hit hard,” Zeke said as he continued to rub the back of his head.
“Good. Now bring me a pile of blankets so I can sleep here.”
“I love you too, you know.”
“Fuck off. Too little, too later, Jaeger.”
“But Pieck...you are my best friend,” he teased her.
“Go die in a hole,” she told him before taking another drink of her wine.
“You do not mean that. You would miss me.”
“Unfortunately for everyone involved, that is true.”
“What does Jean think about our friendship?”
“At first he thought you and I were dating,” Pieck replied.
“I know you said that but the idea….”
“Is absolutely ridiculous? I know. Maybe in another life but you know after you ripped my dolls head off and threw it back over the fence, I think our fate was sealed.”
“You kept throwing it at me!”
“I still haven’t forgiven you for that.”
Zeke just sighed.
“Go get my blankets so I can make my nest.”
“Fine….”
--------------
Levi was always the last one to go to bed.
Sawney and Bean followed behind him as he made his way towards his bedroom.
“Oh man! Come on, Ymir!” Eren’s voice came from Mikasa’s room.
“I told you! I own this game!” Ymir’s voice rang out.
Levi couldn’t stop himself from taking a few steps back to look into Mikasa’s room.
There was Ymir, Historia, Sasha, Annie, Eren, and Mikasa playing some sort of card game.
“Okay, you’re not getting the card this time. It says Jar Jar Binks is better than blank but not by much,” Eren read.
“Oh! I’ve got the perfect card for this one!” Sasha exclaimed.
He knew he should probably say something about them having work tomorrow. He couldn’t help but be happy for all of them. They had had it rough, all of them. Sasha’s family almost losing the farm, Historia being Rod’s kid, Annie with the constant pressure from her father, Eren losing Carla and Grisha, Ymir having no family, and Mikasa losing both of her parents.
So let them be young and reckless for a while.
Levi smiled to himself as he made his way into his bedroom.
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the disappearance of [REDACTED] ch.1
miya atsumu/reader
Summary: "MISSING: MIYA Y/N" It reads. Underneath is a picture of yourself. Age, height, weight. Everything important is listed. How embarrassing.
Genre: angst/mystery
Warnings: missing persons, time skip spoilers
Notes: crossposted on ao3 https://archiveofourown.org/works/28726002/chapters/70432233
chapter one: love is so short. forgetting is so long
He wakes up painfully aware that your weight is missing from his arms. It’s a little unusual. Most mornings, you two end up dragging each other out of bed. He’s not a morning person and you’re more than content to occupy him with your entire body weight. The flutter of your breath on his face and the gentle, but firm way you play with his fingers is soothing. Eventually, responsible thought wins out and one of you will bribe the other with a hot shower or an omelette. Usually.
But not today. His feet land on the floor after a good horizontal stretch and Atsumu yawns. He squints at the clock. 10:24 AM. “Hey, babe? Didja screw with my phone?” He calls, getting up from bed and heading towards the kitchen.
There’s a muffin and a bottle of iced coffee sitting on the kitchen counter, which he hungrily digs into. A part of him is resigned and ready to get caught red handed, scarfing down something which you were saving , but the second the banana flavor hits his tongue he knows it’s intended for him. Your distaste for the flavor is something even ‘Samu hasn’t been able to sway.
His eyes wander around the messy apartment you two share while he lazily munches away on his muffin and throws back the drink. Even through the mess, his gaze lands on a neatly folded slip of paper that’s stuck to the fridge with a Hello Kitty magnet. (And as much as he insisted to everyone ever invited over that it was yours, you both knew it was his. A leftover remnant of his childhood collection of random festival prizes.)
It’s a reach from his seat at the counter to the fridge, but he makes it without standing up or tipping over his chair. The coffee still slips from his grip and shatters on the floor.
“Fuckin’ hell.”
The safety hazard is ignored as he forces himself to reread it slower.
You’ve signed your name at the bottom, but the ink is blurred. It’s just a single drop, and he’s always known you to shed tears at the drop of a hat. He wonders what could’ve restrained you to not have wet stains all over the page.
It’s a joke.
It has to be.
The wedding ring on his finger suddenly feels tighter, like his blood flow is being constricted.
Your phone number is his first call.
He doesn’t know what he expects, but the vibrations of your phone on the table by the front door isn’t it. Whatever. Move on. He calls your parents house, but they haven’t heard from you. And you’re not at work either. In fact, when the boss gets on the phone, he explains he got a text early this morning that you quit out of the blue.
A myriadic list of other people to question is filling up in his head but he can’t quite bring himself to call.
The Jackal’s manager is buzzing him next. It’s rude, but he sends him straight to voicemail. Who cares that he’s late to practice?
He’s much too busy wondering where you’ve disappeared to.
Which is how he ends up nervously twiddling his thumbs in a police precinct.
The officer is rude. Actually, he’s not. He just thinks the guy is being a jackass because he’s not being particularly helpful.
“We’ll be happy to search for signs she was taken against her will, but judging by the note she left and that you found no signs of a break-in, it sounds like she left of her own volition.” And the absolute gut punch of, “Miya-san… Are you sure she didn’t run off with another man?”
He can’t wrap his head around it. The detective recognizing him barely makes him feel better. “Miya… MiyA-SENSHU? We’ll have our best investigators on this, I promise you! Can I get you a cup of coffee? Did you walk here? Someone will drive you home.”
He watches absently as the officer who drove him back pokes around the apartment. Pictures are snapped and locks are inspected. Your hairbrush is bagged as DNA evidence and Atsumu silently notices your sneakers and his favorite hoodie gone from the closet.
It doesn’t seem real. You should be on your lunch break right now, sending him a text or even calling to ask if he wants to go visit his parents next week.
When the man finally leaves, Atsumu’s pocket starts buzzing once again.
His breath catches when it turns out to be your phone and not his. The number isn’t listed and he stops breathing entirely at that. A desperate part of him hopes you’re on the other end of the line as he brings the phone up to his ear.
“Hello?”
“This is Kitano Medical Imaging Center, I have information regarding scans for Miya Y/N.”
“She’s-” He chokes from the lack of air. Isn’t breathing supposed to be something he doesn’t have to think about anymore? “She’s not available at the moment. M’her husband though, I can pass it along.”
They’re silent for a moment. “I’m sorry, but I’m unable to release medical information to anyone but the patient at this time. Thank you and good day, sir.”
He chews on his bottom lip at that. The hell did that mean? What name had they given? Kitano? Osaka General was closer.
And what about these scans you had gotten done?
Knocking at his door busts him out of his head. What was it now? He considers ignoring it but, “C’mon, open up ‘Tsum-tsum!” Bokuto isn’t one to be easily discouraged.
But the shattered glass still lying on his kitchen floor steals his attention and mutes the shouting, if only slightly. Bokuto will have questions that Atsumu doesn’t care to or just doesn’t have the answers to. Instead, he lets his teammate tire himself out while he sits at the kitchen counter, staring blankly at the hazard he has yet to clean up.
He shows up to training half an hour early the next morning, getting a headstart on lat pull-downs before anyone else has even arrived. The team trickles in slowly and it would be a lie to say he didn’t notice the little glances they keep giving him. Everyone is on edge and the scowl marring his face probably doesn’t help the mood.
“Whaddya’ mean it’s written all over m’face?” He frowned, shouldering his bag.
“Atsumu.” Even though your back was to him, he could tell you were rolling your eyes as you locked up the gym. “You’re chronically easy to read.”
“Am not!”
You rested a hand on your hip, narrowing your eyes. “C’mon, I think it’s cute how you wear your heart on your sleeve,” The door clicked shut and you swung around, keys and lanyard in hand. “If you want, I’ll let you in on the secret of how I mastered my poker face.” You offered, elbowing him.
“Hah! Yeah, right! Last week ya cried when Kita-senpai said ya weren’t good at cleanin’ water bottles.”
It was true, you had burst into tears. “Please. Fake crying is a much more advanced skill. I’m talkin’ about a good ‘ole blank and neutral expression—”
“Wait, ya mean ya did that on purpose?” He threw an incredulous look your way.
You rolled your eyes once more. He was so naive. “Senpai did end up washing the whole crate for me, didn’t he?”
Atsumu stared at you, jaw slack.
“Atsumu?” You waved a hand in front of your face.
“Atsumu, you good?”
“Huh?”
“I asked why you went AWOL yesterday.” Meian’s brow furrowed and Atsumu forced out an answer he had decided hours ago.
“Just a family issue, sorry I didn’t get the chance to call, man.”
He could almost hear your voice now, congratulating him on keeping cool. He feels sick. Like a kid who’s eaten too much for their lil’ stomach to handle and is about to vomit all over the floor. That exact thing had happened to ‘Samu once. It was someone’s birthday in their middle school class —he couldn’t remember who— and the idiot had eaten five pieces of cake while nobody was looking.
It wouldn’t have been a problem on it’s own. The glutton wouldn’t dare waste food by throwing it up. The problem came when he washed it all down with spiked punch.
The class had gotten in so much trouble for that.
Nobody had seen it happen and the culprit wouldn’t come forward. The entire class was forced to endure cleaning duty for a month and they were banned from participating in the sports festival. He had been so pissed.
Now it’s just a bad memory in the bad of his mind. Thoughts absentmindedly trailing back to you, (like they always seem to) he wonders where you had been during that incident. You hadn’t been friends with him yet. He didn’t even know your first name at that point. But you had been in his class. He distinctly remembers arbitrarily voting you for class rep because you were pretty.
And, now that he really thinks about it, he remembers seeing your arm slowly rise.
“It was me. I did it. It was a really bad joke and I’m sorry.”
He’d been sitting a couple rows behind you, so he couldn’t see the look on your face, but he knew it must’ve been painted with shame.
Nobody believed you. Without missing a beat, the assistant principal had kindly told you it was noble to try and take the fall. Your friend had tugged on the edge of your skirt, beckoning for you to sit down. Just like that, it was over. He’s surprised he can recall it. The whole thing, start to finish, must’ve been less than fifteen seconds. He doubts anyone else remembers but you.
He considers your words from back then. How you had said it was just a bad joke.
His immature ass, having stomach pains from laughing so hard, would beg to differ. Your jokes never fall flat.
He finishes his set and moves to the leg press.
Desperately, he needs to believe the past twenty four hours have been a joke. That you just left to visit a friend, or needed some space. But the items on the list keep adding up.
His eyes start tearing up and he wipes the sweat from his forehead.
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State of Chaos
Hi folks! Been awhile since I did this (and I meant to do it yesterday, whoops.. *pretends it’s still Wednesday* 😅).
So as usual, I’ve wound up working on a lot of random stuff instead of getting all the languishing WIPs done 😂 But I have wrapped up a few things! Also, it’s almost November and I have something I’ve picked to try doing for NaNoWriMo… It’s already making me nervous because 1,667 words a day is rather a lot AND my idea has way more plot than I usually write (still porn too though, fear not). Anyway, I have no idea how well it’s gonna go but I can at least give it a shot! So if it actually goes well, I’m unlikely to be posting as much fic for the next little while.
Oh! There are a couple new fandoms in the mix now too. Namely, the Thrawn Ascendancy novel as well as Stargate Atlantis, thanks to an exceptionally fun rewatch with Leif and DD 😁 I’m just horribly fixated lately on John Sheppard and his should-be-illegal pants… and now Ronon is there too, I may not survive 🤤 Backstory, I adore stargate SG1 and Atlantis, grew up watching it, but this is the first time I’m watching any of it since learning about fandom sooo… I’m having fun lol
(p.s. In case anyone was wondering, my little dumbass cat successfully learned how to use her fancy feeder. It’s adorable watching her nose it open, and Unauthorized Greedy Pet is extremely put out any time he tries to go steal her food now 😆)
Assassin’s Creed
Diletto
Shelved for now— not abandoned, just haven’t been feeling the het smut lately.
The skills of Assassins
I’ve gotten a bit stuck on chapter 4 of the Ezio/Mario fic for some reason, but I did make some progress on it! So that fic update is still coming, just… slowly.
Other
I started some Shaun/Desmond AC3 cavern sex but got stuck and haven’t finished it 🙈 Also vague outlines written out for potential sequels to both Not Here (Desmond wetting himself in the Animus) and Demands and Desires (AC3 HaythCon filth). And I have been poking at the Witcher crossover fic too!
Posted
Demands and Desires - HaythCon smut; contains incest and ManipulativeAsshole!Haytham. Explicit.
Ache - Drabble smut about Ezio jerkin’ it; 100 words for my 100th fic 🎉. Explicit.
Midsomer Murders
MM x Wallace and Gromit crossover
I’ve been thinking about this one recently, I’m gonna try and get access to s14 and 15 of Midsomer and maybe start working at it again! It’s the most long-running WIP I have… Actual Story is HARD 😭🥺
Star Wars
The self-indulgent Chiss-human orgy fic
It’s very close to being done! I’m hoping to get it finished up with Jewell before too much longer 😊😏
[Title redacted]
Still working on this filth fest with Rev. It’ll be done some day, we just have too much we want to put into it where is the brain-to-fic machine already dammit 😭
Other
Someday I intend to get that part 3 of the Pinned (Thranto) and the Stripped (Thrawn/Thrass) series written. I also have a plan for another Thrakif fic, too damn many plans to continue the Inappropriate Places pissfic series, and a delicious kinky little Thranto prompt still in my askbox here that I am definitely going to fill sooner or later 😏
Posted
A Moment in Private - Thrakif smut; Cadet Thrawn getting off while fantasizing about General Ba’kif. Explicit.
A rare thing - Thrawn/Ziara fluff and cuddles ficlet. Teen and up.
Breathless - Thrakif breathplay; prompt fill with lots of desk sex and light Dom/sub. Explicit.
(Come) Ride With Me - Thrawn/Eli/Thrass smut. I finally finished the chisscest-y Biker AU!! Explicit.
Discoveries - Part 1 of Eli peeing in inappropriate places and Thrawn getting turned on by it (well, so does Eli). Explicit.
Zombie / what’s in your head - A rare angst-tacular Thranto fic. MCD and heavy subject matter. Mature.
Stargate Atlantis
Nothing specific in progress; it’ll be whatever I get inspired to write as I keep watching through the show! My personal rule for these is that I can write whatever grabs my interest so long as I don’t take too long working on it 🙈
Posted
Of rituals and birthday presents - Sheppard / Keras implied-smut. Light-hearted stuff featuring aural voyeurism and a very flustered Rodney McKay. Teen and up.
The smart thing - dark!Sheppard / Kolya, includes fear-wetting and noncon facefucking. Mind the tags. Explicit.
The Witcher
I don’t have much Witcher fic on the burner at the moment. Kinda waiting for s2 at this point, really, and someday I’ll play TW3 and probably get some more inspiration from there! I have been picking at the Witcher x AC Gerezkier (Geralt/Ezio/Jaskier) crossover with Levs, though! I’m slowly getting more comfortable with the smut-to-story balance as we work out where it’s going 😁. Other than that, I have a few things still kicking around my ideas list that I might pick up at some point when brain decides it wants to randomly start something new instead of working on WIPs.
Posted
Flagrant Indecency - I did manage to get the final chapter of this finished and posted for the Finish Your Fic deadline! 🥳💦. Explicit.
Don’t Stop - Geraskier somnomo prompt fill. Juiced-up Geralt, somnophilia, and watersports; some consent issues. Explicit.
#star wars#stargate atlantis#assassin's creed#the witcher#midsomer murders#multifandom#long post#chaos babbles#state of chaos#chaosfic#wip wednesday#in spirit anyway#aka updates no one asked for#thrawn ascendancy
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Private Island [location redacted] Fiji, South Pacific 17 August 211
BANG!
Relena jumped out of her skin, half-asleep. “Rise and shine!” Hilde cried as she burst into the room through the now-open door and jumped on the bed.
Relena groaned and collapsed back against her pillows. She dared to glance at the bedside clock and groaned again. “It’s three in the morning. What the hell…?”
“We’ve got places to go,” Sally answered as she came into view, Noin poking her head around the door jamb behind her.
“Where—?”
“It’s a surprise!” Hilde said. Sliding off the bed, she unceremoniously shucked the comforter off. “Come on! Up! Dressed! Let’s go!”
With great reluctance, Relena dragged herself out of bed and stumbled bleary-eyed into the attached bathroom to find a set of hiking clothes already set out and waiting. Dread slowly wrapped itself around her brain. A hike. Before dawn. Relena took a steadying breath and changed, muttering half-hearted curses to herself.
When she emerged she found her de facto entourage in the kitchen. Sally, Hilde, and Noin hovered over what looked like a map while her mother and Une stood nearby, filling water bottles at the sink and checking headlamps. “We’re really going out this early?” Relena asked, stunned.
“Only way to catch the sunrise,” Mareen told her.
“Are you coming with us?”
Her mother scoffed. “Oh no. I’m heading back to bed. But you need to catch the sunrise. Now off you go!”
*****
Whispers and stifled laughter alerted Wufei to the impending onslaught. His skin itched as he allowed his assailants to draw in close, tiptoeing towards his bed. He kept his eyes shut, until he sensed a body hovering just over his head before giving himself away with a dangerous growl. ���Don’t you fucking dare.”
Laughter met his warning and he opened his eyes to find Quatre standing over him, air horn at the ready. Wufei’s eyes went wide even as Quatre tipped his head back and laughed, withdrawing several paces.
“Ah damn, he’s awake already!” Duo hissed, standing toward the foot of the bed next to Trowa.
“Can I still hit him with the horn?” Quatre asked.
“You may absolutely not,” Wufei answered, sitting up in bed and pushing his back up against the headboard, almost defensively. Quatre just laughed harder. It was then that he registered Heero hovering by the door. “Yuy, you encouraged this?” he asked, offended.
“From a safe distance away yes,” Heero admitted.
“From outside of the kill zone,” Trowa amended.
“So he thinks,” Wufei answered, glaring at his once-roommate and turning his attention back to Quatre who had started sneaking in closer again. “Don’t.” Quatre wilted, giggling.
“Come on,” Duo said, clapping his hands before him. “Up and at ‘em. We’ve got a lot to do today and a very strict schedule to do it in, lest we run you two lovebirds into each other. Let’s get a move on!”
*****
The sun swept in over the horizon in bands of red and gold, burning away the violet twilight as the ocean shimmered beneath. A stunning sight from the highest point of their bit of land in the Pacific.
They had spent the better part of the morning trekking through the pre-dawn forest, the hiking trail lit only by their headlamps. Still half-asleep, Relena had trudged up the side of the peak in the middle of their single-file line and had spent much of the walk wishing to go back to her warm bed.
But when they had reached the peak and the overlook worn flat with time, Relena breathed deep and sighed even deeper. “Alright,” Relena admitted as the sun rose before them, “this was worth it.”
“So worth it,” Hilde agreed.
The crew set down their packs to simply watch the dawn in silence for a time, captivated. Once there was enough ambient light to see without the headlamps, however, Une unfolded a blanket and Noin opened her pack to withdraw the makings of breakfast. Fruit and pastries and a thermos of coffee made the rounds among them while they laughed easily and stifled yawns.
“This is fun,” Relena said, her eyes on the sky as it gave way to hints of the blue to come.
“That’s the idea,” Noin said.
Relena could hear the smile in her voice and it made her grin.
*****
Wufei’s morning had been spent weaving through the trees in parallel to the beach before turning up a path that led further inland as the early morning sky climbed higher in the sky. He and his group navigated the slick trail until it opened out onto a clearing before a waterfall and a pool that glistened as the sun crested the tree canopy. It was something out of a storybook, though Wufei would never say as much and bit the inside of his cheek to keep from giving himself away.
They had wasted no time removing their packs and clothes, dropping them unceremoniously at the edge of the water before jumping in for a swim. Before long they were goading one another to climb the waterfall. Barton was the first and all but volunteered—repeatedly—for the honor, but others soon followed, including Wufei himself after a time.
Refreshed and relaxed, they eventually returned to the shoreline and dried off, unpacking their supplies. They made short work of their breakfasts, tossing playful barbs between each other as they ate. It had been a pleasant start to the day, and certainly not anything Wufei had expected when they left the plantation and its bungalows behind.
Which made him suspicious. “I’m fairly convinced this is all a trick and the worst is yet to come,” Wufei said, eying Duo.
“Ah, come on. Would I do that?”
The four other men agreed unanimously: “Yes.” The response only made Duo laugh.
“You do have a bit of a sadistic streak,” Quatre added.
Duo smirked. “Speaking of…” He pulled a piece of paper he’d sealed in plastic and checked the watch he had stashed in an outer pocket of his bag. His grin turned devilish. “This would be a great time to send a message to the fiancee.”
Beside him, Heero groaned.
*****
“Incoming,” Sally declared with a wide grin.
Relena looked down the line of her compatriots as they carefully made their way deeper into the forest from the rockier peaks. Up ahead she could see flashes of color between the heavy green leaves and someone darted up the trail toward them. As the runner closed in and rounded a corner, they found themselves face-to-face with none other than Heero Yuy. The man huffed as he reached them, cheeks red and skin glistening from the exertion.
“Your boyfriends an asshole,” Une declared to him.
“A sadistic asshole,” Noin added, sounding at least somewhat apologetic.
“We were just discussing that, yes,” Heero told them between gasps. He swallowed and took a deep breath, slowly exhaling it through pursed lips as he walked to Relena’s side. When he spoke again, he seemed to have recovered. “Message for you.”
He passed her a glass bottle with a cork stopper. Inside were what looked like several sheets of loose leaf paper curled tightly around themselves and bound with a red ribbon. A pen rattled beside them. Incredulous and endeared, Relena took the bottle and looked up at Heero, “Really?”
Heero huffed a laugh. “Yes, really.” He stepped back and withdrew a water bottle from his pack and took several large gulps.
Relena meanwhile uncorked the bottle and shook out both the paper and the pen, untying the ribbon to see what her fiance had seen fit to send her.
---
Rumor says your morning started much earlier than mine. I hope you’re enjoying yourself. Try to send Heero back in one piece.
Miss you. Love you. Excited for tomorrow.
W
---
Relena felt her cheeks warm and laughed softly, running her thumbs over the paper in her hands. How domestic and sweet, she thought. She bit her lip and considered her reply. And then—“Hilde, drop your bag. I need to borrow your back so that my handwriting is at least somewhat legible.” The request garnered some amused laughter from her cohort. Heero only secured his water bottle once more and started to stretch.
---
I can assure you Heero arrived in one piece, but I take no responsibility for the state of his return.
The group woke me at 3AM to go on a hike. I don’t plan on doing that again. The waking up before dawn piece, I mean. The hike we should do again together, once they’ve all gone.
I don’t know where you are or where we’re going next, but if the start of the day is any indication I think I’ll sleep well tonight.
Maybe that’s part of their plan...
Miss you. Love you. Excited for tomorrow.
R
--
Satisfied, Relena twisted the pen shut and recurled the pages, binding them once in their red ribbon before dropping both items into the bottle. She tapped the cork into place and passed the bottle to Heero.
He took it with a nod and turned to walk back down the hill from which he’d come. “You know where you’re going?” Noin asked as he passed. Heero gave her a half-hearted salute before breaking out into a steady run, his feet pounding the soft earth beneath him. And then he was gone, lost to the forest.
*****
Wufei and the rest of his escorts burst out of the cover of the forest canopy and into the midday sun on the beach. Far away from the plantation, they meandered along the beach. Low tide had left rocky outcroppings exposed and crabs scuttled across swaths of sand.
Eventually, they reached one such outcropping that was larger than the rest and tucked up against a cliff face. Only when they reached it did Wufei realize they were staring at the mouth of a natural grotto, exposed only due to their good timing. Safely tucked away from the blistering heat, but close enough to the waterline that the shallow cave smelled like sea salt...but not oppressively so. It smelled ancient and alive. Rich.
As the rest of the group stepped inside, chatting excitedly about the lucky find, Wufei cast his eyes to Duo. He found him watching him closely, as if waiting for a reaction. Wufei smiled; Duo winked. And then they both stepped inside the grotto.
They spent their lunch tucked away in the cave, trading food and stories and making friends with the small sea creatures that had joined them in the cave. From the mouth of the cave they watched the waves, so far away but near enough to spot the gulls and—Wufei suspected—a few dolphins.
As the sun dipped toward the west and the tide started to creep back up the beach in lazy waves, they ducked out of the grotto and headed down the beach once more. But as they walked, they spied a lone figure running in their direction. “Looks like Wufei has mail,” Quatre observed.
The group met Sally en route, to her apparent relief. “Oh good, you’re still here!” Sally sighed, her cheeks puffing with her hard exhale. “I was afraid I’d miss you.” She slowed to a walk and passed the glass bottle to Wufei. “Message delivery.”
Wufei plucked it from her fingers and opened the bottle as the others gathered together off to the side so as not to intrude. He flipped through the pages to find Relena’s new note.
---
I’m told I’m allowed to tell you that the waterfall was beautiful, which means you’ve already been here! Who was the first to jump from the top? I have to assume it was Trowa. Hilde was our first but you would be proud: I was our second!
Miss you. Love you. Excited for tomorrow.
R
---
Wufei chuckled. “She went off the waterfall?” he asked.
Sally smiled. “Seconds after Hilde. Seconds. She was right at her heels.”
It was hardly a surprise, Wufei knew. Relena was as fearless or as crazy as the rest of them. Perhaps she was both: crazy and fearless. She was marrying him, after all. That gave him something to work with.
Twisting the pen between his fingers he asked Sally, “Do you mind.” She nodded—clearly this was not the first time she’d served as a writing desk—and flattened her shoulders as he pressed the paper down and started to write.
---
Nicely done on the waterfall. It took more…“cajoling” they’d call it to get me to do the same. Not sure where we’re off to next.
Miss you. Love you. Excited for tomorrow.
W
PS: I could have deployed some horrible play on ‘taking the plunge’ or a ‘leap of faith,’ but I shall refrain.
*****
After all the trekking through the dense tropical foliage all day, Relena was happy to see the beach and its white sand. She threw her arms to the side and closed her eyes, content to let the cool sea breeze hit her cheeks and flow through her hair. It had been a wonderful day. And ending it here, out in the open with the waves crashing and the sand sun-warmed beneath them was perfect. Just what she needed.
“We’ve still got some sunlight left,” Noin informed the group, checking her watch. “If anyone cares for a swim, recommend we do so now before sunset.”
Relena never stripped so fast. Laughter chased her to the water, the others not far behind her as the group of them jumped into the crystal clear surf.
Before too long however, Hilde pointed back to the beach. “You’ve got mail, Relena!”
Relena groaned and would have been happy to make Heero wait if it didn’t mean taking him away from his own bit of fun. “He has the worst timing,” she muttered, silently cursing her fiance.
“I think that depends on what he wrote.”
She begrudgingly had to give them that. It did depend. And every message in a bottle that Relena had gotten throughout the day had made her heart lighter, her smiles brighter. With a final dramatic sigh, she drudged out of the surf and back up the beach to greet Heero at their piles of clothes.
“Sorry,” he said, as she took the bottle from his hand.
Relena gave him a dry laugh and shook her head. “It’s fine. How are your legs holding up.”
“Fine.”
“Don’t tell Duo that.”
Heero considered this and paled. “It...it may be too late for that.”
Relena laughed as she uncorked the bottle. “Best of luck to you then.” Sliding out the sheets of notes, she unspooled them all and read the latest.
---
Do you remember Iceland, and all the walking we did? I think I’m having flashbacks. My feet hurt so much. I would kill Duo if we didn’t need him tomorrow.
More importantly, I think I want to go back to Iceland. Or go elsewhere really. I haven’t seen enough of the world, and I definitely haven’t seen it with you. Come with me?
Miss you. Love you. Excited for tomorrow.
W
---
Relena bit her lip and felt her cheeks burn. “Good one?” Heero asked her, and when she looked up, she caught the knowing smile that graced his lips. He turned then, offering his back without being asked.
Recovering, she laughed. “Clearly a common request?”
“Today at least.”
Relena pressed the paper flat against his shoulders and wrote her reply.
---
I do remember Iceland. And yes, I want to go back.I want to go everywhere with you. I can’t wait.
Miss you. Love you. Excited for tomorrow.
R
PS: Don’t kill Duo. He’s the only legally certified minister on the island.
*****
Wufei read the note in the middle of the trail and smiled to himself. Duo had been granted a stay of execution thanks to his fiancee and ESUN law, and he’d never know. He gnawed on his lip for a moment thinking of a reply.
---
I think we’re ending the day on the summit, judging by the steady incline. I can only assume you spent your sunrise up there. I hope you had a wonderful day.
Missed seeing you.
Missed talking to you.
Missed hearing you laugh.
I love you. Excited for tomorrow.
W
---
He slipped the paper and pen back into the bottle and handed it to Heero. “Off you go.”
Heero took the bottle but seemed numb and tragically disappointed. “But I just got here.”
Wufei clenched his teeth to keep from laughing. “Are you seriously going to whine about it? The sooner you leave, the sooner you get back.”
Their runner turned to Duo—clearly hoping for a reprieve—but Duo only returned a dark smile. “Off you go.”
Heero glared at him. “You might be sleeping on the couch tonight,” he threatened while Quatre and Trowa snickered off on the sidelines.
Duo made a dramatic show of his acceptance of this blow to their relationship status with a sigh and a shrug. “I’m willing to take one for the team.”
Realizing he had already lost, Heero hung his head and turned to head back down the trail towards the beach.
“Bye Heero,” Quatre said as the man passed. They didn’t hear Heero’s exact reply, but all four of them were confident it wouldn’t have been appropriate for polite company.
*****
Wine imbibed and dinner demolished, Relena and her half of the wedding party were delightfully buzzed as the light faded around them on the beach as laughter flowed freely between them. Relena tucked herself into Noin’s side, surrounded by what she imagined a sister’s love felt like. It made her heart warm and she closed her eyes for a moment to focus on the sound of the ocean, Noin’s heartbeat against her cheek, and the voices that danced around her.
But then there was a tap at her shoulder and the group around her erupted into surprised elation. “Heero!”
“Heero what are you doing here?”
“They sent you out again?”
“Want some wine?”
Relena turned to indeed find Heero jogging their way, glass bottle in hand. Pulling away from Noin’s embrace, she dusted off her hands and stood to meet Heero in the sand. “They’re making you work for it,” she said.
“You could say that,” he sighed, passing her the bottle.
Relena considered him. “You’re going to help me get the final word, Heero. Come Hell or high water,” she said, determined, and uncorked the bottle.
*****
“Hey you made it!” Duo said, causing the rest of them to turn back.
They found Heero making his way up the last couple meters of rock to the summit to join them. On trembling legs, he crossed the remaining distance to Wufei and handed off his precious cargo. “That is the last one,” Heero said, promptly sitting down and undoing the laces on his shoes. “I’m making an executive decision. You can suffer through until tomorrow.” He then collapsed backward with a tremendous sigh, spread-eagle, to the rest of their great amusement.
While the others laughed, Duo walked over and tapped his beau’s hip with his toe. “And you were so worried about missing out on training for that marathon you want to do…” Heero only groaned in reply.
Stifling his laughter, Wufei opened the bottle and slid out their notes that had accumulated over the course of the day and rifled through to Relena’s final word of the evening.
---
The wine my cohort brought out to the beach is having its intended effect I think.
I missed you today. They say absence makes the heart grow fonder. Maybe there’s something to that...
I love you.
Good night. Sweet dreams. Till tomorrow.
R
---
Tomorrow. It really was tomorrow. Wufei pressed his lips into a thin line to keep them from trembling, suddenly overcome with emotion. They were getting married. Tomorrow.
As he curled the pages up and slid them back into the bottle, he became aware of the pregnant silence around him. Looking up, he found himself the center of his friends’ undivided attention. “Yes?”
To his horror, they all responded in unison, “Aw…” Even Yuy, who still lay prone in the middle of the summit.
“Oh please,” Wufei said but then sniffed, which didn’t help his cause. The others only chuckled and approached from the sidelines.
They shepherded him towards the edge, high over the tree canopy below and the group of them sat down together to watch the sun set. Together. The thought reverberated through Wufei and nearly made him shudder with its force. As the sun dipped further below the horizon, and the sky lit up in reds and violets, he chanced furtive glances at the men around him. Again that word: together. Wufei smiled and let his eyes drift to the sunset. “Thank you for being here,” he murmured. “For all of this.” Nothing more needed to be said.
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