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pascalpanic · 3 years

Note

request please? lately i have been having a lot abandonment anxiety when it comes to friendships and i was wondering how you think javi or din might help someone with an anxious attachment style? thank you lovely 🥰

Irrational (Din Djarin x f!Reader)

Summary: above ^^

W/C: 2.8k

Warnings: language; talk of fighting and weapons, reader has a panic attack PLEASE be aware that it’s coming and somewhat descriptive.

A/N: I really really love this! I hope you guys do too :) as always, thanks to my beta reading babes!

Din Djarin has been abandoned before. Often on a mission, sometimes on a lone planet with no credits or ways out. He always survives, of course, and vengeance is taken. One thing he absolutely can’t fathom is abandoning someone he loves, or more specifically someone who loves him.

Abandonment isn’t an issue when you’ve never had someone to be attached to. Din spent many many years with absolutely no one. When his parents died, it felt like he was abandoned, sure, but it was clearly not their decision to leave him. When he was taken in by the Mandalorians, they kept him at an arm’s length. He was a foundling; they cared for him well, taught him The Way and The Creed, fed him well. But he was never adopted into a specific clan, rather passed around the covert like the communal task each family had an obligation to fulfill.

Then he became a bounty hunter. The life was solitary and lonely, cold and bleak. It was rare that Din would team up with other bounty hunters, really only when forced to. The Razor Crest became his baby, his only possession and love besides his blasters and beskar. The thing was a piece of bantha shit, but he kept it in good shape.

Then came the kid. Din knew it was wrong. Bounties are to be turned in and paid for, then you forget the job happened. But when that little green thing stared up at Din, the big brown eyes seeming to stare through the dark black of his visor, he knew he couldn’t. This was a child, a baby with no family and no way to protect itself. He certainly couldn’t turn it over to the hands of the ex-Imperials.

Din experienced his first real attachment with the child. He cares for that little thing more than he’s ever cared about anything. He’d cross galaxies, kill and maim and injure for the sake of the little green baby.

Oh Maker, then he met you.

Din had never seen anything like you. You were playing with the kids in the marketplace, laughing as they ran and played around you, before you squealed in delight at the sight of a little green toddler wandering up to you. He’d climbed in your lap, looked up at you with those big eyes, massive ears twitching. You’d stroked his head and cooed to him before you looked up to find his father; subsequently, you felt your heart fall into your stomach at the sight of the Mandalorian man.

“You’re good with kids.”

Well no shit. You nodded. “Yes. I love them. Is this your son?” you ask, looking back down at the three green fingers wrapped around your thumb.

He nods. “He is a foundling under my care.” He watched as the baby grabbed at the golden armband encircling your bicep. You’re absolutely gorgeous. The armband glows against your skin, your beautiful body evident even through the loose and flowing clothing you wear. “Do you take care of these children as a job?”

You shook your head. “No. We don’t have jobs here, necessarily. They just wanted me to play.” You scanned the man, searching for skin. You found none. “Are you green under there too?”

The Mandalorian did not answer. “I’m looking for a caretaker for the child while I hunt bounties. You’d stay in my ship and care for him. I pay well and you’d get to travel the galaxy.”

“You barely know me,” you laughed, removing the little green baby’s fingers from their tight grip on the gold band on your arm.

He gave a half shrug. “He likes you.”

And you’d agreed. And it’s been almost a full cycle now, a cycle of living in the beat-up ship and caring for the little green baby. You’ve seen the most beautiful and the ugliest of planets, experienced extreme heat and extreme cold. You’ve been to beautiful cities, unique jungles and forests and ice planets.

In that time, you got to know the Mandalorian too. It took quite some time to crack his beskar shell. He hardly talked to you in the first month. Then your persistence had loosened him a little, then a little more, then just enough. You know more of him than any other living being does. He’s told you his name: Din Djarin, a name that flows and stops and radiates the power of the bounty hunter. He told you the story of his childhood, of hunts gone wrong and hunts gone right.

You love listening as he tells you and the child the story of the child’s rescue from the ex-Imperials. The baby snuggles against your lap as his father regales the two of you with the epic battles, the fights Din went through for this little child. You both applaud at the end, and put the baby to bed with a kiss between those big brown eyes.

He’s a wonderful man. You’ve formed an easy friendship with him, one that has honestly progressed on your end. At night, you find yourself fantasizing about what he looks like beneath his armor, how the muscles of his broad shoulders move when he climbs the ladder to the cockpit or lifts the child. You like to think he may feel the same for you, but you don’t push it. You don’t want to push him away.

Din has been away for far too long. He always highballs the dates he gives you, saying that an assignment will take three days when he knows it will only take two or a week when it will only be five days. This is a pattern you’ve come to notice; Din is alway back “early”, but now he is late. Really late.

Before he left, Din had opened your bunk compartment, causing you to groan at the light filtering in. You’ve been sleeping since the Crest made a rocky landing on Nevarro a few hours earlier. “Cyare,” he’d murmured, a rare ungloved hand warm on your bare arm, contact broken by your metal armband. You don’t know what the word means. You hope it’s something good.

“What is it?” You groaned, rolling onto your back to look at him. “Leaving?”

He nodded, the silhouette of his helmet-covered head against the soft light of the hull. “Leaving. I’ll be back in four days at the most.”

You offered him a sleepy smile, one that he could see in the warm glow of the lights you’d installed in the ship to navigate easier at night. “Good luck. May the Force be with you,” you teased, making the normally stoic man chuckle a little.

“Go back to sleep. I’ll see you soon.”

You didn’t protest, rolling over and letting the heaviness of sleep drag you back under.

Now, you really wish you’d have talked with him more then. You’re almost certain you’ll never see him again.

You’re not exactly sure what it was in your brain that triggered the thought. Maybe Din just actually took the amount of time he’d said for once, you thought on the fourth day. But now it’s been eight days, double the amount that he’d told you he’d be gone, and you’re stressed.

He always makes good on his word. He should be back by now. He always does. Did he get injured or killed, maybe captured by the bounty he was stalking? You ponder your ideas aloud as you pace back and forth in the hull of the Razor Crest, the little green baby tucked in his soundproof pram to sleep.

There’s likely a rational explanation. You’re sure there is. Maybe the bounty jumped ship, completely threw Din off of his tracks. Maybe the bounty is more clever than anticipated and Din is working extra just to find them. There’s surely a reason, but a little nagging voice in your head says that something is wrong.

In the first few days following Din’s date to return, your primary worry is that he’s hurt or dead somewhere on this barren planet. There are many other bounty hunters here, in this haven for Guild workers. What if one of them discovered Din still has the baby? What if they were coming for you here next?

Maybe you should go look for him. Maybe he’s injured and needs your help. He could be held by another hunter, or by the ex-Imperials- you can’t even bear to think of them harming Din for taking their precious cargo back. The thought makes you squeeze the little green baby tighter to your chest, even after he gives a whine of annoyance at the pressure.

But Din would never forgive you if you put yourself in harm’s way for him. This planet is dangerous, full of bad people who will do what it takes to get their credits. Most importantly, you can’t leave this ship with the kid. Certainly people here are looking for him. Someone would spot him and you’d be in for disaster. The anxiety fills your days and even seeps into your dreams, making you sleep less and more fitfully. On the eighth day, perhaps the most terrifying idea strikes you: what if Din just... left you?

Of course, there are plenty of signs why he hasn’t. The ship is one of his rare material possessions. He’d never give up the machine that’s been a home to him for the last however many years. Weapons are part of his religion, and he only took a sparse amount with him for this hunt. His prized pulse rifle still hangs in his armory, with an abundance of whistling birds he didn’t take either.

Most importantly, you’re still here with the kid. The baby is practically Din’s son. He adores him… but what if it’s all too much? You’ve become like a little family. That may be too domestic for him. Maybe he’s sick of the responsibility, of caring for two beings when so much of his life has been solitary. Even worse, maybe he’s just sick of you.

There are plenty of rational explanations. You know it. The baby can sense your anxiety, can feel the tension running through the air surrounding you, and he feels it too. He’s fussy, requiring more snacks and more attention. He tugs far too much on your armband and it pinches now, his little claws getting too long. You don’t mind- it’s a distraction, really- but your mind is never fully on feeding the baby, rather hyper analyzing Din’s mind as you know it and hoping he’ll return.

The hours pass. Din doesn’t return. You become more and more certain that he’s abandoned you for good. He isn’t coming back, ever, because he hates you. He was nice to you as a courtesy, nothing more, only as a protector of his child. This type of family is too much for the lone-wolf style man. He can’t do it anymore. You’re on your own.

In your head, the thought of him abandoning you is too much. It weighs heavily on your self-esteem, convincing you that this is all your fault and you’ve done too much, or not enough, or something wrong in general that sent Din packing and gone. He did it because you’re annoying, because he’s sick of you.

Rational thoughts are pushed to the furthest corner of your mind. Your brain is occupied by self hatred, by terror, by a sickening buzzing feeling in your head and chest that feels like a parasite eating you from the inside out.

It’s too much. You fall to the floor, sliding your back down the metal wall. Your rear contacts the floor as the tears fall from your face, your emotions drowning out your senses. You can’t use any of your senses, just think and process the agony your brain is putting you through.

Burying your face in your hands, you finally allow the tears you’ve been holding in all week to flow. It’s a relief, the hot tears streaming down your equally hot face, blood rushing to the surface. The anxiety buzzing in your head has reached a breaking point; you’re sure the tension is boiling your brains, making it bubble and roil as the thoughts pull you down and down so far you feel you’ve fallen through the floor of the Crest and into the dry Nevarro dirt.

You nearly wail, wheezing in air only to expel it in harsh sobs as the fear wraps your body and constricts it. You’re enveloped by it, trapped in a coffin mixed with a tornado mixed with a firestorm and a hurricane.

Then it all stops. The heat is broken by something cold- beskar. You force your eyes to see and they finally perceive that Din is in front of you. Then you feel again, feel the chilled metal all over your skin as he wraps his arms around you. You smell him, his faded soap from whenever he bathed last, his sweat and the smell of the Nevarro dust. You can taste your salty tears. The last sense to come back puts you most at ease: his voice. “Talk to me, please,” Din asks of you.

You nod and try to speak, but you’re still gasping for air, your lungs unable to fill. When you slow down and make yourself breathe, you’re finally able to manage words. “Thought you were gone forever. Thought you left because of me.”

The beskar helmet tilts to the side, taking you in. You’re sure you’re a mess; eyes bloodshot, face tearstained, snot probably all over you as well. Din’s quiet for a moment. “Why would you think that?”

“You said four days. You always come back early, but you were gone for eight days.”

His chest rises and falls slowly beneath the beskar plate. “I know. I’m sorry. But why would you think I’d leave you?”

The tears return. “I don’t know, Din, I-”

“No, shh,” Din murmurs and wipes your face. “No more tears. I’m here.”

Din stands and takes you with him, his arms wrapped tight around your body to bring you to your feet. He walks you to the edge of the bunk and hands you a canteen of water to drink. You look at him and he looks back. There’s a silence and an unspoken battle between the two of you over who will break it.

Din breaks first. “I got the bounty easily. I was late because of… something else.”

Your face falls into a frown. “You took double the amount of time and didn’t tell me? Whatever this ‘something else’ is, it better be worth it.”

Din breathes in and out deeply before producing a soft fabric bag. “I didn’t leave you. I’m back. And… I got you something to show that I’ll never leave you.”

From the bag, his leather-covered hand produces something silver. Your eyes, blurry with tears, take a moment to perceive it: an armband of some silver material- oh, it’s beskar. It’s cold to the touch but you take it from him to admire it and find it is emblazoned with an insignia: a mudhorn. “The symbol of Clan Djarin,” he says gently, though he’s sure you know. It’s on his pauldron. It’s on the baby’s necklace. “We… are a family, aren’t we?”

You don’t respond; rather, you throw your arms around his neck and the tears return, but happily. “We are,” you whimper, your throat constricted by a sob. You cry into his neck, staining the fabric of his cowl and cape with your tears.

He understands they’re good tears, and so he lets them flow. His arms wrap around you and rest on your back, gently rubbing it as you cry into him. As the sobs calm, the tears end, you remain in his arms. Din holds you tight against his chest. “I’ve never made a better decision than hiring you. It was supposed to just be a babysitting job, but… I fell in love.”

Your heart stops and you pull back. “You’re in love? With me?”

Din nods. “I… yes. I am.”

A smile crosses your face, the joy emphasized by how wide your smile is in the presence of your tears. “I love you too,” you manage before your throat squeezes off your words, making you cry happily and hug him yet again.

With your face buried in his neck, you nuzzle your face in and are rewarded with a soft patch of stubbled skin beneath the tip of your nose. You can feel his throat vibrate when he speaks again. “We are a clan of three now. I promise you, I will never leave you. Don’t even entertain the thought again. Understand?”

You nod, not wanting to move your face and lose contact with this intimate spot of him, the first humanness you’ve been able to get beneath the beskar. You kiss the skin there softly. Din knows it’s your answer: understood. I love you.

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therealvinelle · 3 years

Text

What are vampires?

(Yes, I changed the title from “What is venom?” a week after publishing and after a whole set of sorry souls reblogged the post. I’m very sorry, but as I sat down to write the follow-up piece I realized that this meta is about vampires, not venom, and the title is no longer appropriate. My perfectionism got the better of me and I’m sorry.)

There’s been a lot of speculation on that in this fandom, here comes my take. It’ll split into four parts, this being part one where I look at what venom does to the human body. In part two I look at hybrids, part three I speculate on what venom is, part four I treat possible origins and raisons d’être of venom.

So, this first part is mostly me regurgitating facts. We won’t get anywhere if we’re not all agreed on what vampires are.

Also, I get very pseudo-scientific in this meta, but I have no education in biology or medicine so I could be wrong about everything. I tried to use good sources, though, so I can’t be entirely off-base.

With that out of the way, LET’S DO THIS.

To create a vampire, you infect a human with venom. This venom spreads throughout the body, altering every cell. The process is complete when the heart stops beating. If the human was injured at the time of infection, they will be healed, as long as the heart keeps beating.

Let’s go through that.

How does the venom spread?

When Bella was bitten by James, Edward was able to suck the venom out. Several minutes passed from she was bitten until Edward sucked the venom out, yet the burn was only reported to be in her hand. By contrast, anyone who’s ever had pharmaceutical administered intravenously knows that blood travels quickly. If venom travelled like any normal fluid, Bella would have said «My hand is on fire. No wait, my arm! No, wait, my torso! No, wait-» and Edward wouldn’t have been able to suck it out.

Additionally, Bella has that scar left by James. The venom had already altered the cells at the entry point.

To me, this sounds like the venom is like Pac-Man, spreading through the body by altering one cell at a time. It’s the only explanation for why it’s so slow. More on that later, though.

How does it alter the cells, and in turn the human body?

Physically, their skin is made impervious and perfectly even, their teeth are straight, razor sharp and white, their bodies impossibly strong, fast, and precise, their senses heightened to an insane degree yet they feel no pain from most physical injuries. Their digestive system is altered so they can only consume blood, preferably human blood, anything non-blood is regurgitated. They’re much more attractive than they were in life. They’re not reliant on oxygen, and their blood doesn’t circulate. They produce their own venom.

Mentally, their minds function at the capacity necessary to even utilize a body like this. They are able to process their heightened sensory input (for example, it’s the brain that interprets visual input from the eyes. For vampires to be able to see better than humans, both eye and brain have to improve), process though much faster than humans, they forget nothing, and they feel emotion and physical sensation more strongly than humans do.

Let’s go through these alterations one by one.

Skin

Frequently likened to marble, vampire skin is as hard as stone. When Bella becomes a vampire, she’s stunned Edward’s flesh now yields to her touch. Before, if she pressed her finger on him, his skin would not yield. The shapeshifters can kill vampires because their fangs are sharp enough to pierce their skin, without that advantage they couldn’t do it. No ordinary weapon could injure a vampire.

The stone skin is an armor, protecting them.

Teeth

As us humans get older, the enamel in our teeth is worn away, revealing the tooth’s underlying yellow color (the dentin). Vampires can live for thousands of years, yet their teeth remain that perfect blinding white. What changed? I see two possible explanations, one being that vampires still have enamel, and it’s too strong to ever be worn away, or they don’t have it because their teeth have been altered to the point where they don’t need a protective layer anymore, and their composition is something completely different from that of human teeth.

I think it’s the latter, as there are two other major changes reported. Their teeth have changed shape, they are now sharp enough to pierce through human or vampire skin. They’re also venomous (more on that later), able to inject anybody they bite, fellow vampires included, with venom.

There’s also the fact that vampires are changed on a molecular level, but more on that later.

Strength, speed, and precision

Meta I wrote on vampire strength disparity.

Vampires are ridiculously powerful, no upper limit (as in, «Newborn Emmett can carry 500 tonnes») is given, but whatever it is it’s high. Alice might just be the physically weakest vampire in the saga (Jane is physically smaller, but she eats properly. Alice lives on a subpar diet), but to Bella it makes no difference, Alice blows her out of the park anyway. Edward, a malnourished and not too strong vampire, is easily able to pick up entire trees by the roots, and then throw them at a small target.

As for speed, vampires move faster than the human eye can register, which according to this article means they can reach a speed of 38 146 mph! (61 390 km/h for us metric people) (Also, the traveling object used for this calculation was a ball, and the article specifies that it would be different for bigger objects. Alas I’m not going to bother my physicist friend with this, so we’re using the ball number.)

When it comes to precision, vampires exercise perfect muscle control. They’re so graceful their steps can’t be heard by humans, Edward can famously stroke a soap bubble without popping it, and they’re able to perfectly mimic the handwriting of others (a task anyone who’s ever googled forensic calligraphy will know is next to impossible). Much of this appears to be instinctual, like a downloaded .vampire package. Knowing how to attack prey, where to bite, that all happens on autopilot. So too does running, jumping, walking (funny how their default mode, even Carlisle’s, is to walk too quietly for their designated prey to detect). Snarling, hissing, and growling are also distinctly non-human manners vampire adopt.

Senses

Heightened sight, hearing, and smell is extremely useful. It makes them much more effective hunters. The smell especially is useful here, but really, all their senses are invaluable in this. It’s great for dealing with fellow vampires as well, they can see, hear, and smell their kind coming from a far distance.

There’s an added advantage, though. As I got into here, and here, if a vampire’s memories of their human life is dull and washed out compared to their brilliant new existence, dismissing humans as equally deserving of life becomes that much easier to justify. Heightened emotions serves this same purpose, though considering their longevity I think this is another form of survival, that they’re wired not to grow bored with life (but this is really for a separate meta).

There’s also the fact that their senses have to be tuned up to 11 to fit their other enhanced abilities. There’s no use in super-speed if you can’t see where you’re going.

Vampires’ heightened senses make them more efficient predators, and help them become the bloodthirsty sociopaths we know and love.

Pain receptors, or lack thereof

Vampires feel pain when they are thirsty, when their limbs are torn off, when they are bitten by other vampires (it appears to be the venom that stings), or when subjected to a gift that induces pain (Jane, Kate). They don’t feel pain like humans do, nor do they feel discomfort (they can sit indefinitely in any position, never feeling the need to shift around.

Interestingly, it looks to me like pain serves the same function for them as it does for humans. The brain registers pain to tell us something, a biological error message. Don’t walk on that leg, it’s injured. Get your hand off the hot stove and don’t put it there again. Pain is useful.

Vampires, by contrast, are not going to get injured from someone hitting them. There are no blood vessels that can burst, no soft tissue that can burst nor bones that can break. So, no need for their brains to register that as pain. Humans need to change positions every now and then for the sake of our circulation and so we don’t develop pressure ulcers (and I’m sure there are more reasons), vampires have no circulation and, as mentioned above, their skin is armor. No pressure ulcers.

What they do need pain for, is to let them know to feed. That’s the big one, and in turn the strongest one. The pain of the thirst is unbearable, as it has to be to turn a human who was infected with venom into a killer. It’s survival. Same goes for feeling pain when their limbs are torn off, or their bodies damaged by a bite. Their pain receptors let them know to avoid this next time.

As for Jane and Kate’s gifts, this may not serve a purpose for other vampires, but it serves a purpose for Jane and Kate. It protects them. So, sucks for everyone else, but that’s what gifts do, they give the gift-haver a leg up on others.

Digestive system

Carlisle had spent many years attempting to understand our immortal anatomy; it was a difficult task, based mostly on assumption and observation. Vampire cadavers were not available for study.

His best interpretation of our life systems was that our internal workings must be microscopically porous. Though we could swallow anything, only blood was accepted by our bodies. That blood was absorbed into our muscles and provided fuel. When the fuel was depleted, our thirst intensified to encourage us to replenish our supply. Nothing besides blood seemed to move through us at all. (Midnight Sun, chapter Home)

Ignoring the horrifying fact that the context for this quote is Edward wondering if Bella’s tear could stay in his system forever, this here is extremely interesting and I agree. Partly because I can’t think of anything better, partly because Carlisle is an in-universe medical genius who’s had access to far more data than I have. He can run experiments, I can’t. Even if I came up with a theory I thought was better, if blood absorption through porous tissue is Carlisle’s best theory then there must be evidence in favor of this which I don’t have access to. So, porous tissue it most likely is.

(Also, my «Carlisle totally volunteered for vivisection fun times with Aro in Volterra» theory survives that first paragraph. Vampire cadavers might not be available for study, but live ones absolutely are, you just pick them apart and put them back together after, and bring in Corin and/or Alec so the guinea pig has a good time too. There’s no way that never occurred to Aro. Even if it didn’t, it’s bound to have occurred to someone over the years, and Aro touches a lot of people. And we know he and Carlisle discussed what vampires even were, that they were best friends and all about that science.

We also know that sometimes, your weird science experiments involving dismemberment and tripping on Corin in Volterra, stay in Volterra. The tissue is porous, Edward, DON’T ASK ME HOW I KNOW.)

This has huge implications. What happened to the digestive system they used to have?

It’s still there, but non-operational.

Middle solution: it’s recognizably there, but welded shut. At some point, whatever the vampire ingests hits an untraversable boundary, and from there the blood is absorbed while any other matter remains, undigested (though possibly dissolved by venom) until regurgitated.

The vampire’s inner anatomy is unrecognizable from that of a human. Vampires have no need for livers, bowels, gall bladders, and so on, and so these organs no longer exist, or have even been replaced by other organs (assuming vampires need any, more on that later).

My vote lies with the third option, though both second and third are possible. The first one, not so much, as it means that in theory, they could force something through their system. They can’t.

More, vampires are nothing if not extremely efficient and economical organisms. They don’t need to feel pain from a physical blow, so they don’t. Why carry around these organs they’re not using?

Then there’s what they even need their digestive system to do. Humans need the nutrients in our meals not just as fuel, but as- well, everything. We need the building blocks for our cells. Our bodies are constantly renewing themselves. Vampires, by contrast, don’t appear to do this. There’s no waste of any kind, and their skin doesn’t get flaky. Edward specifically says blood is fuel, and I think that’s a literal interpretation.

Now we’re veering into speculation territory, and this isn’t the place for it just yet as we’re veering into what venom is and does, but I think whatever digestive process vampires have, serves to turn their blood to venom. I don’t think there’s any particular organ for this, I think that’s just because that’s what happens when venom comes into contact with blood. We see it happen when humans are bitten, and I think it’s fair to assume that the same thing happens when venom comes into contact with ingested blood.

This also helps explain why animal blood isn’t equal to human blood. Animals can’t be turned to vampires, it’s blood but venom and animal blood aren’t on the same FM, so to say. So, with no better option, yes venom can make do with animal blood, but it won’t perform as well as it would with human blood. The vampire is now weaker, with the frankly terrifying side effect that their eyes change color. We’re so used to this that we just go «oh, yeah, animal blood means their eyes turn yellow. It’s like a LED light letting you know which diet the vampire is on!» when in any other organism, a chance of color like that is usually the sign of something being wrong. Blue lips, yellow sclera, red urine, all color changes that point to something not being not as it should be.

Now, to go further here would mean getting more into what venom even is, which is best saved for part three. I’ll say this, venom appears to be the only fluid in the vampire body. It’s moistens their eyes (and melts their contacts), pools in their mouth, is injected through their fangs, and the application of venom to a wound makes them heal faster. Venom is the substance they rely on, more so even than blood, their elixir of life. (My speculation on how Edward was able to impregnate Bella is reserved for the hybrid/what is venom metas).

Also, on what vampires carry over from their human bodies, I do think they’re economical enough to not fix what ain’t broken. I think this because the human nervous system is absolutely brilliant, and indeed Bella regains sensation during her transformation where her spine had once been broken and unable to communicate with her brain. Question is, of course, was this because her new vampire body still uses the human nervous system, or did Bella regain sensation because her transformation had gotten to a point where this was no longer the case?

Beauty

The beauty part has gotten some very valid criticism, as beauty is very subjective and venom makes it out to be an objective, empirically measurable unit.

To caveat first, we see in canon that not all vampires are gorgeous. James was an ugly human, and so as a vampire he’s no beauty. Maggie was emaciated and not particularly attractive, so she’s bony and not hot by vampire standards. The Cullens, by contrast, were attractive humans. Human Bella is a hottie, she pulls all the guys without issue. If she were as plain as she thinks she is, she wouldn’t get male attention. Being new is only gonna get her so far. Jasper was turned because Maria thought he was a cutie, and same goes for Emmett with Rosalie.

(There’s also a certain inherent bias - I imagine attractive people have a much higher chance of getting turned than uglies.)

More, understand that vampires don’t look human. They’re flawless, desirable, perfect, yes - but they are very distinctly not human, and humans know as much instinctively:

Like any normal human, suddenly standing just a foot away from a vampire would send adrenaline racing through his veins. Fear would twist in his stomach for just a fraction of a second, and then his rational mind would take over. His brain would force him to ignore all the little discrepancies that marked me as other. His eyes would refocus and he would see nothing more than a teenage boy. I watched him come to that conclusion, that I was just a normal boy. I knew he would be wondering what his body’s strange reaction had been about. (Midnight Sun, chapter 21, page 547)

Vampires are beautiful in the way the Nefertiti bust is beautiful. It’s perfect, otherworldly, timelessly beautiful, but looking at it you know this is a bust and not a living human woman.

With that in mind, I think some of the vampire’s unnatural beauty is… not circumstantial, but happy bonuses to their other qualities. Their perfect skin, for instance, goes a long way towards making them beautiful. Perfectly smooth, a glowing white, no disruptions like blackheads, scarring, or sweat. At one point Bella describes Rosalie as looking airbrushed. Their perfect teeth, impeccable grace, these features also help.

Now, I think when venom makes a human more beautiful, I think the big thing it does is make the features perfectly symmetrical. This by itself is immediately inhuman and unnatural, more computer generated than human, just perfect enough to tick off the uncanny valley box. This would explain the flawlessness Bella keeps describing in vampires. It also explains the disparity in beauty, the features Rosalie had to work with and get symmetrical were lovelier than the ones James had, and why they can look completely different from each other yet share that same kind of uncanny impeccability. It also explains how people of wildly different face types and ethnicities can all be beautiful, the venom won’t erase the features you had but rather refine them into the best they can be.

I do think that refinement, in addition to symmetry, happens. If it didn’t, the change wouldn’t be so radical from human to vampire. More, all vampires are described as having sharp features, Esme stands out for the fact that she retained some of her human softness. So, the venom appears to make features more angular and, well, sharp.

Aro’s description is in favor of my interpretation of vampiric beauty:

I couldn't decide if his face was beautiful or not. I suppose the features were perfect. But he was as different from the vampires beside him as they were from me. His skin was translucently white, like onionskin, and it looked just as delicate (New Moon, page 234)

His features are flawless, meaning symmetrical. He should be beautiful, so it’s the skin that gives her pause.

There’s also the matter that beauty is observed in the body, not just the form. They all look strong and limber, even the tiniest of vampires. I imagine some of this is simply texture, that vampires are made hard, smooth, and perfect, but we have this from Bella looking in the mirror after waking up a vampire:

She was fluid even in stillness, and her flawless face was pale as the moon against the frame of her dark, heavy hair. Her limbs were smooth and strong, skin glistening subtly, luminous as a pearl. (Breaking Dawn, page 261)

Fluid even in stillness, her limbs smooth and strong. This woman was starving to death when she died. Combined with the fact that Edward, who was a sick 17-year-old, has muscle definition, it seems venom does body sculpting as well. Though it’s worth noting that hydration goes a long way towards muscle definition for humans, so the change in fluid composition in vampires could have something to do with it their limber appearance.

Then there’s the other vampire beauty markers.

Their voices are described quite unusually, with words like wind chimes, bells, or feathers. They’re beautiful, but, like everything else about vampires, inhuman. When Carlisle calls Billy on the phone, Billy immediately recognized the voice as somehow wrong, it’s too clear and sharp.

I mean, I think in part this is because their vocal cords aren’t made of soft human tissue anymore, but most likely stone. No matter what they’re made of, though, it’s no surprise that we’re not getting human voices out of them.

Their scent is appetizing to humans and other vampires alike, and serves a duel purpose. Humans are attracted to them (well, vampires are too), while vampires are able to use it for tracking purposes. It’s tremendously useful for keeping track of your territory, as randos can’t walk in and eat your food and sneak off again without leaving a trail. It’s also good for meeting up with friends, we see Carlisle and Siobhan use it for this purpose in Midnight Sun.

Circulation

The purpose of blood is to carry oxygen and nutrients to the cells. Apparently, this isn’t a need vampires have. All they need is venom. The theory that their tissue is porous adds to this, as it would mean blood travels through their body in a different manner. The porous tissue replaces circulation.

So, no circulation for vampires because they don’t need it.

This meta is now getting ridiculously long, so I’m putting the venom production section in the venom meta.

The transformation

The transformation is complete when the heart stops beating. The former human is now a vampire, and no longer reliant on a heartbeat, nor oxygen. In this they are different from hybrids.

As for the process itself, I think that as the venom spreads, it starts multiplying on its own. This is why it took longer for Carlisle than it did Bella, she was bitten and injected multiple times and on every part of her body while Carlisle was grazed on the arm. Bella had more venom that could work on her, Carlisle did not. These facts support my theory of the slow spread of venom.

I’ve played with the thought of the transformation happening in stages, where the first act is the spread of the venom, which then spreads throughout the body and heals the body to put it at default, the second act is the bodysculpting, and the third act the finishing touches. It doesn’t quite fit with venom transforming as it goes, though, so I’m very hm on that.

A few observations:

Activity level doesn’t appear to help spread the venom. Carlisle exerted himself, and his transformation took far more time than normal (though lying still instead of contorting in agony probably doesn’t help in that regard). Bella laid still as a corpse, and her transformation took far less time than normal. The venom spreads in its own time, regardless of what the blood circulation is up to.

Going by the accounts of the Cullens, while the pain is constant, the transformation hurts increasingly as the venom spreads.

Bella was severely injured, and needed to be healed before she could even feel all the pain. Her broken spine, for instance, meant she couldn’t feel below the waist.

Carlisle said it’s «easier if the blood is weak» (cryptic much?! Not making it easy for me, dude. Though as this was said in the context of Edward explaining that Carlisle would only turn someone already dying, I do think he’s referring to what it’s like for vampires, though, that humans are not so tempting if they’re half dead.)

Healing

Now we’re veering into the venom meta, but: the transformation fixes anything that could impede the vampire’s function. Bella would get nothing done with her post-birth broken body, and so she’s fixed up for her. Alice’s emaciation means she’s thin and less strong than others, it doesn’t physically prevent her from doing anything.

The venom, it appears, heals the human not because it’s being altruistic, nor to make the vampire more appealing to others, but to make the human into an ideal host. BUT MORE ON THAT IN THE VENOM META.

With that, my god we’re done. And this meta is words in total, an ugly number.

Lastly, I know that putting a read more at the end of a 4k long meta is the worst joke in the world (RIP to you poor souls scrolling past this. My reason for not being a read more kind of gal to be found here)

Nothing yet, I’m afraid.

#long post #had to delete immediately after posting because i hadn't actually written anything in the skin section #so i deleted rather than having people reblog before it was ready #ops #twilight #twilight meta #twilight renaissance #twilight vampires #twilight venom #twilight biology #vampire biology #also i am very proud of the way my ship snuck into the post #sorry not sorry but it's a bedbug ship #it won't stay out of my stuff #edit: can't count. wrote five parts

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janghoefett · 4 years

Text

Bedside Manner (Din Djarin x Reader)

You and Din get stuck on an ice planet and he offers to keep you warm, so you cuddle and then you accidentally give him a boner and then you admit your feelings for each other????????

Rating: Mature (18+) Words: 1.2k Pairing: F/M (Originally posted on AO3 - I’m new to Tumblr btw, lmk if there’s anything I’m missing on this post and feel free to say hi!)

“We’ll have to wait till there’s light. We’ll freeze if we try right now,” says the Mandalorian upon examining the damage to the Razor Crest. The gash in the side has left the hull exposed to the elements of this ice planet. A biting chill blows through the metal ship as the warmth quickly disappears.

“Are you sure we can fix it?” you ask, teeth chattering. “We don’t even have power.”

“The Crest has seen worse,” he says calmly. “We can probably patch her up enough to get to the nearest post, but we might as well try to get comfortable for the next few hours.”

You grab a thick blanket and settle against the wall, across from Din who does the same.

“You gonna be okay?” he asks after a moment.

“Yeah,” you breathe, unconfident in your response, trying to wrap yourself thoroughly. “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight,” he returns with a slight nod of his helmet.

————————————————————————

You don’t know if you ever truly fell asleep. You lie there for as long as you can, for what seems like hours, trying your hardest to remain unconscious. The cold is torturous, leaving you shivering and numb in your hands and feet.

A rustling startles your eyes open.

“I can see the cold on your skin, girl.”

You find the Mandalorian is kneeling at your side. You’re quiet, trying to collect yourself, as you sit up straight. “My body is the warmest thing on this ship,” he continues. “Would you like me to lie down with you?”

Perhaps your brain had slowed down, or perhaps it was the shock of the proposal coming from Din Djarin; either way you think you misheard. “Wh.. what?”

“We need to get you warmed up. Let me do this for you,” he insists. “I’d hate to see you lose any toes.”

You smile softly at the Mandalorian’s bedside manner. “You—you’re going to take off your armor?” you stammer.

“Yes,” says Din, as he helps you to your feet. “And my suit. You should take off what you are comfortable with as well. We’ll lock ourselves in the sleeping compartment, I’ll bundle us up together and… we’ll be warm.”

You nod in agreement. The Mandalorian moves to collect the couple of blankets he has, spreading them out on his cot. You’re frozen as the Mandalorian removes his beskar. He places it carefully in the net above the cot before unfastening his heavy suit.

You strip down to your undergarments with caution, wildly aware of being nearly nude in the presence of the man you were painfully in love with. But he doesn’t gawk or say anything. Instead he turns away respectfully, wearing only his helmet and a pair of plain boxers, and climbs into bed.

Your body shudders at the intense chill.

“Come. Come quickly,” Din says, offering a hand. You join him eagerly, laying down at his side under the covers. Din closes the compartment door.

“I’m going to take off my helmet. Can I trust you to close your eyes for a moment?” he asks.

“Of course.”

Butterflies flood your stomach, unsure of what was to come. But you don’t question it and close your eyes.

“Open.”

His voice is crystal clear... so human. You open your eyes to find yourselves submersed in pitch darkness, with the Mandalorian closer to you than ever before.

“Put your back into my chest,” says Din. You lean back into him tentatively. He’s warm. Surely he wasn’t only warm in comparison to your frozen skin… no, he had that kind of radiating heat that comes from within. You shudder as you sink into him, relieving the chill in your spine.

“There you go, that’s it, mesh’la,” he soothes. The hairs on the back of your neck stand up at the sensation of his breath on your ear. Built arms wrap around you, settling your head on his bicep, as his warm hands grip your icy ones.

“You can warm your feet against my legs,” he continues, aware that you were too timid to ask for anything beyond what’s offered. “It’s okay.” Your feet brush along his shins tentatively. Hair scratches against your soft skin and his knees come into the backs of yours, entwining your legs.

Though you continue to shiver slightly, the relief is great.

“Is that better?” he asks.

“Yeah. You’re so warm,” you sigh. “Thank you…”

Din’s thumb begins tracing a small circle around the back of your hand. “I couldn’t let my girl go cold on me,” he says softly.

My girl.

You could lie here in his arms forever. You knew the Mandalorian was gentle in nature, but this was such a beautiful gesture, done with such care.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were so cold?” he asks.

“I don’t know, I thought I would be fine,” you answer, embarrassed. “I didn’t want to bother you either.”

“You’re not a bother to me, cyar’ika.”

You smile softly, intrigued by the nickname, as you close your eyes to sleep.

-----------------------------------------------------

A few minutes pass.

“You’re shaking again,” Din says in your ear.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know why I’m still so cold,” you respond, turning around to burrow your face into his chest.

“Do you trust me?”

“Yes...” you breathe.

“Then I’m going to try something else.”

The Mandalorian rolls you on your back and moves with you, pressing nearly his full weight on you. You understand why; you were absolutely sealed in his warmth.

“Oh, Din,” you sigh in relief, sneaking your arms around the contours of his back. He holds you tightly.

“You’re like ice, sweet girl. Wrap your legs around me.”

You do so, nearly whimpering at the satisfaction of being completely enveloped by the Mandalorian.

How many times had you yearned for this closeness? Your hand comes up to his cheek without thinking; you freeze, fearing you had done something wrong. But his face leans into it, turning to a place quick kiss into the flesh of your palm under your thumb. “You’re going to be okay,” he whispers.

Din nestles in and relaxes his body. Your face warms against his neck and the sensation of your combined breathing lulls you into a calm. As you settle in, your legs adjust around his. Your foot moves up his leg slightly, arching your back to adjust, and your hand moves to rest around his back and keep him close. Contently, you throw your head back against the pillow.

“I— I, uh… sorry,” Din grumbles a few seconds later, lifting his head up.

“What?” You shift slightly, confused, and—

Oh. That got him stiff.

Thankful for the darkness, your jaw drops and your cheeks flush at the feeling. “Din, I understand, it’s really okay,” you’re quick to say.

“It’s just that—”

You shush him, in need of no explanation, and steady his face with your hands. “It’s okay!” you laugh quietly. “It’s okay.” The embarrassed heat retreats from his face. “Are you sure you’re comfortable like this?”

“Yes,” he laughs softly.

A dead silence fills the air. “Din?”

“Hm?”

“You’re the kindest man I have ever met.”

Din sighs, bringing his hand up to cup the side of your face. He doesn’t say anything for a moment and runs his thumb over your soft skin. “You don’t know the things I’ve done, sweet girl.”

You shake your head. “It doesn’t matter to me... I love you.”

Warm lips press against yours gently in darkness.

“Do you know how much I have always loved you, cyar’ika?”

#din djarin #the mandalorian #fan fiction #din djarin x reader #fluff #the mandalorian fanfic #the mandalorian fan fiction #din djarin x you #star wars fan fiction

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yandere-wishes · 5 years

Text

Just my type //Yandere Lilia Vanrough x reader//

A little present for @yandere-romanticaa who said she wanted to have a drink with Lilia, also tagging @terrors-of-nightraven and @briarrosescurse who are also big Lilia fans, enjoy you guys!!

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The club was filled with the lively buzz of chatter and laughter. Night Raven students flocked in large groups, sharing stories from class and laughing carelessly as they enjoyed the alcohol-free drink that the director had provided. It was truly a magical and delightful evening...

You smiled brightly as you slipped from the currently straw, you drink sparking small tingles throughout your mouth as you swallowed the black liquid. Sitting directly in front of you with a smile to rival your own was Lilia Vanrough. His eyes were pricked with tiny tears as he recounted a story from Malleuses childhood.

"And then the throw bushes started growing from his head, his head (y/n)! He came running to me screaming with tears in his eyes! Oh, I miss those good old days before he went in his...what do you humans call it again?"

You tried talking through your laughter, chuckle after chuckle emerging from your moist lips. "Call...haha!....call what haha?"

Lilia fought through his own laughter, he was oddly happier than usual, it kinda made a pleasant aura radiate off of him.

He was just so happy! That should have been your first clue.

"That period where kids only wear dark clothes...and heavy makeup and are always pouting." Lilia waved his hands around dramatically as if trying to snatch the forgotten word from the cheerful air surrounding the two of you. It took you a few moments, brain racing trying to recall the word. "Oh..you mean an Emo phase!? Right?" The ancient fae snapped his leather-bound fingers. "Yes, that's the word! Malleus has been stuck in his "emo phase" for the past six decades! You think he'd mature a little bit."

You bowed your head a bit, slipping the twisty straw between your pink lips. You gulped down the foreign flavored drink. Lilia had ordered it from the "bartender" claiming it was a drink who's recipe came from the fairy civilization's he'd grown up in. Though kind to think of it he had never mentioned what was in the bizarre brew.

Clue number two

"So enough about Malleus." Lilia slowly took a sip from his own twisty straw, his eyes closed and an ecstasy filled sight left his mouth as he leaned back in the chair. " Tell me how is it going with that guy...the one who never stops smoking?" His eyes magenta eyes grew darker, a sinister twinkle igniting in them. There was a certain pitch in the question, you couldn't tell if he was concerned or entertained.....

or jealous.

Your gaze twirled across the shiny waxed floorboards and the poster covered walls. Anywhere, anywhere at all as long as it wasn't him. You took another slow sip of your drink to realize you. It didn't work the once smooth chilly drink, burned your mouth, spat on your tongue like molten lava. Your eyes began to tear up and your brain shut down for the moment. It felt like swallowing razor blades.

"Um he's well...we kinda stopped seeing each other..." You prayed he wouldn't pry any further, the wound was still rather fresh.

"Do go on!" dame it

You sighed and took another sip. You didn't know which was worst the sheer embarrassment mixed with the menacing smirk you just noticed was on Lilia's face or the drink that seemed to transfigure into razorblades and lava and chili peppers once it made contact with your mouth. In the end, you figured you could handle the "magical" drink so long as it promised temporary silence. You painted a brave face and swallowed the monstrous concoction.

"L-Lilia" Your voice was cracking, it was dying in your vocal cords or maybe your throat had gone too numb to push out the sounds needed to form letters and words. The black and pink-haired fae raised an eyebrow, he entwined his fingers and settled his chin ontop them. "Feeling alright darling?" That smirk was back, darker and more threatening then before "Is your drink bothering you?"

Clue three

It hit you

Your eyes widened, fat tears rolled out landing on the wooden table. Your hands wouldn't move, your legs were glued to the floor. No matter how much your foggy brain screamed at your paralyzed corpses to move, it wouldn't. Slowly your controlling organ started to shut down, black dots danced in your already blurry vision. Had he planned this? Wasn't that what all the signs were pointing too? Your head began to bob, the thoughts too heavy for your head to contain. The last thing you remember was that dammed smirk on your "friend's" face and the sharp pain of wood on the side of your head.

There was a throbbing pain in the side of your head, it reverberated throughout your skull. Your neck was in no better condition, it felt like someone had twisted it keeping the bones intact but stretching them out against they're limits. Sluggishly you cracked open an eye then the other, flinching when you noticed a familiar face inches away from your own.

It took your mind a few minutes to recognize just who it was. You screeched once you noticed it was Lilia, you tried to push him off, but something exceedingly heavy pulled your wrists back. You let out another scream or at least attempted to, once you parted your lips Lilia locked his lips with your own. Tongue slipping into your oral cavity and dancing around familiarizing himself with every part. One of his hand sneaked under your shirt, leather dancing across your bare tender flesh leaving goosebumps in its wake.

He broke the kiss once he realized you might be in need of some air and some explanations.

"Oh darling, you have no idea how long I've been waiting to have you all to myself! How much I've longed to feel your fragile skin under my fingers. I want to devour you! Explore every part of your body and claim it! But...you're not ready for that yet, times like this call for a little bit of true romance. I don't want to break you too badly, you are a precious rare little doll. You're just my type!"

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sherrybaby14 · 5 years

Text

Roar

Summary: Valentine’s dinner with Steve gets crashed by an unusual guest

Warnings: Smut, violence, background death

Words: 1700 (Just a drabble)

A/N: I was doing all those sabotages, and in a weird mood, so enjoy this piece of crack. Happy Valentines Day!

The classical music drowned out the sounds of the workers cleaning dishes in the kitchen. You took another sip of your wine and eyed your paramour across the table.

“What?” He leaned back in his chair and folded his arms.

“You’ve been acting strange all night.” You set the wine glass down. “You know they probably want to close soon. We’re the last table.”

“Well maybe I’ve been acting strange since I am nervous.” Steve picked up his glass and took a chug. “And the only open reservation they had was for the end of the night. They shouldn’t have taken one at all if they were going to kick us out.”

“Back up.” You crossed your legs and you leaned forward. “Steve Rogers is nervous? Do tell…”

“We’ve been together for about six months now.” Steve ran his hands over his hair. “And to some that wouldn’t be a long time, but for me...well I’ve lost so much time, I don’t want to waste another second.”

Your stomach began to flip at what you thought he was going to ask you. You had to break eye contact, not sure you wanted him to continue. You looked at the window behind him, trying not to freak out.

“You’re a special girl. I trust you, and I trust myself around you. We have a deep level of comfort with each other. A peace I’ve never known before.” Steve took your hands.

There was a movement on the street. Strange. This wasn’t a busy area. Was that a car? Were you imagining it? You tilted your head and squinted your eyes.

“I know this might take you off guard, but heck, I try to be open with you.” He let out a deep breath.

“Steve…” Was that what you thought it was? You blinked.

“No, don’t let me lose my nerve here. I need to finish.” Steve squeezed your fist.

“Steve.” You stood up from the table. The ground shook.

You looked at the plate on the table bounce. Steve rose with you and pulled you closer.

“This is important.” He grabbed your chin and tried to focus your vision. “What I’m trying to ask is…”

“STEVE!” You grabbed his chin and turned it to the window.

“WHAT THE????” Steve grabbed your hips right when the window shattered.

ROOOOAAARRRRRR! The noise was loud enough the glass shattered. You both hit the floor with a smack and crawled on instinct to the back of the room.

Razor sharp teeth began to snap and a shriek left your throat as you slid across the floor. Your chest was rising and falling at a rapid rate as you slid under a booth. A giant snout following your movement.

The creature was too large to make it further into the establishment, but you and Steve both tried to curl into the far wall as another roar left the thing’s mouth.

“Huh?” The door from the kitchen swung open.

“NO!” Steve shouted.

“RUN!” You added.

But the beast had noticed. It’s snout moved away from you and the last thing your heard was the worker’s scream before giant jaws crunched his bones.

“THAT’S A FUCKING T REX!” You grabbed Steve’s hand and dragged him out of the booth.

“HOW???” Steve ran with you as the monster lifted it’s head, slamming it into the ceiling of the restaurant.

The two of you dodged it’s tail as you made it on to the street. Another roar went loose as the creature swung back to the street, taking out bricks and collapsing the building with it.

“RUN!” Steve kept pulling you.

“NO!” You couldn’t pull him to a stop as you heard the giant footsteps behind you. “Haven’t you seen Jurassic Park? It’s vision is based on movement.”

“Jurassic WHAT?!?!” Steve turned you down an alley.

“You don’t run! You hide.” You dove behind a dumpster. “Stay STILL!”

The T-Rex was at the alley entrance way. Steve’s chest was heavy.

“Captain America doesn’t hide.” His eyes flashed at you in the darkness.

“You can’t fight a fucking dinosaur!” You tried to pull him back down by you.

“I’m going to get it’s attention.” Steve touched your cheek. “You sneak back and call for help.”

“No!” You tugged at his arm. “That thing will eat you!”

“I can take him.” Steve was too strong for you. “Get help.”

Before you could object he pressed his lips to yours, the man much too strong to hold back.

“HEY!” Steve waved his arms as he went back in the alley.

Your boyfriend was about to take on a dinosaur. What world were you living in? How was this happening?

Whatever help Steve imagined you calling for was probably well on it’s way and besides that would just result in more deaths. You looked around the corner in shock as Steve ran full speed at the thing. It’s jaws opened wide and it bit at Steve, but he dodged it, ran for the leg and climbed up.

The T-Rex started growling and chomping, trying to knock Steve off, but your boyfriend managed to get up to it’s neck. He started to punch at the thing.

Was this a dream?

“YOU THINK YOU CAN RUIN MY VALENTINES DAY?” Steve kept hitting. “EAT MY WAITER?”

This was it, the most bizarre situation your brain could think of. You were probably dead and hallucinating. That was the only rationale explanation.

A glittery red circle began to form out of nowhere. Was this the gate to the afterlife? Coming to summon you to the otherside. A floating man came out with a giant green medallion.

“Apologies for the interruption.” He looked at you. “HEY!”

The man waved his arms and both the dinosaur and Steve stopped to look.

“FOLLOW ME!” He was getting the T-Rex attention with a bunch of crazy movements.

He ran through the circle and the monster followed, with Steve gripping on tight to it’s neck.

All three went through the portal and it sealed shut. The loud sounds silenced and you found yourself alone in the alley, sirens approaching.

“What. The. FUCK???” You hit your heel into the ground.

The glittery ring began to appear again. You walked to the front and saw the portal head on. There was sun on the other side and you had to hold your hand over your brow.

Steve walked out. His dress shirt and pants gone. He wore a pair of tight shorts. The clean shaved face you saw seconds ago replaced with a full beard. There was a handsome jagged scar on his cheek.

“I’ve missed you.” He walked right up to you and grabbed your waist, pulling you in for a deep kiss.

Strong, demanding even. You gasped into his mouth, but he didn’t ease up as his tongue coaxed yours. You had so many questions, but Steve commanded your attention on the kiss. You moaned into his mouth as your adrenaline mixed with confusion. Finally he broke the kiss, pushing his forehead to yours.

“What is happening?” You ran your hands over his beard.

“It’s been seconds for you.” He kissed your neck as his hands ran up your body. “Two years for me.”

“I...I don’t understand.” Steve dug his fingers into your hips before flipping you around. You braced yourself against the brick wall of the alley as he pushed the bottom of your dress up over your hips.

Steve being adventurous? Public sex?

“I know you don’t.” His hand rounded your ass before yanking your panties down. The cool air made you gasp, but his finger traced your slit before teasing your hole. “Strange needed my help in the past. Jurassic era. We fixed everything. The world is still here. My world.”

“Wha….”. You squealed as he dipped a finger inside of you and brought your mouth to your hand, biting down to stifle your noise.

“You always were so ready for me.” Steve pushed his shorts down and you felt his cock smack your ass. “I’m glad nothing has changed.”

“Changed?” You felt your eyes roll back as Steve kissed and bit your shoulder, his cock sliding inside of you.

“You’re so tight Doll.” He moaned as he bottomed out. “Better than any memory.”

None of this made sense, but your brain was too clouded with thoughts as Steve started to rail into you in the alley. Your body took over. You began to push back against him, the sound of you two smacking into each other echoing off the bricks.

“You feel so hot.” Steve grunted as his hand snaked forward and found your pearl. He started to rub as he fucked. “Deliciously inviting. My world.”

A haze settled over you as you fucked against him, loving the way his cock filled you and his hand worked you. Then his other palm came up and found your breast. He began to squeeze over your dress as he nipped at your back.

“I’m going to cum.” You began to hump wildly against him with no pattern or reason other than your own finish.

“Cum on this dick baby, your dick.” His teeth dragged your skin away.

“Fuck.” You moaned as you came undone, exploding around him while falling into the wall. Your head spinning with pleasure.

“So good.” Both of Steve’s hands went to your hips as he pulled you down against him and thrust up.

The stretch of his cock burned in such a pleasing way you let out a purr as he filled you with his cum. You tried to get your breath when he started to pepper your back with light kisses.

“What were you going to ask me?” You looked over your shoulder at him.

Steve licked his lips and brought his finger to his mouth. He sucked the digit in hard and you got a tingle in your core at the sight. It was like he was a new man.

“I’m not going to ask.” He held his glistening finger out and brought it behind you.

Your eyes shot open as he started to circle your rear passage.

“You’re going to love it.”

#Steve rogers x reader #steve x reader #fanfic #fanfiction #marvel #marvel fanfic #maravel fanfiction

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cajunroe · 4 years

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sledgefu + paranormal!au ft. ghost hunter!sledge + demon!snafu ↳ever since they met, gene’s noticed little things about snafu that give him pause and make him wonder about the man’s past. but he doesn’t want to lose the friendship and companion he’s gained. not to mention the fact that snafu was the only person who showed genuine interest in gene’s dream of ghost hunting. the occult had always interested him but everyone else in his life thought he was crazy for trying to pursue the goal of finding proof of the paranormal. and as they reach two years of ghost hunting, gene thinks they might be right because every time something has happened, snafu had been at the ready with a logical (mostly) explanation. then, on what’s supposed to be a normal investigation, gene finds out the paranormal is all to real and all too close by.

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Gene always thought there was something odd about the ease in which Snafu handled terrifying situations.

When they were stuck in a house supposedly haunted by a murderer, Snafu did nothing but laugh every time Gene jumped when he swore something tried to grab him.

When investigating an abandoned asylum with tons of recorded activity, and Gene was certain he heard someone whisper his name, Snafu just claimed it was an open window and continued walking like Gene’s heart hadn’t nearly exploded in fear.

And now, in the middle of what was a routine investigation, where a chair has clearly flown across the room after Gene asked for a sign of a presence, Snafu’s only reaction is:

“Gravity is a strange thing, Sledge.”

Gene’s on the ground staring at the broken chair, mouth open, and heart-pounding.

He looks up, and as Snafu shrugs, Gene loses it.

“What in the goddamn hell is your damage, Snafu? That chair nearly took off my damn head and I know you didn’t throw it at me! Could you cut the skeptic shit for one second and just help me figure it out?”

He knows it’s harsh, but he can’t stop freaking out long enough to care.

They’d been doing this for two years and Snafu’s calm indifference had slowly been driving him crazy, not to mention the fact that it’s the reason Gene’s slowly fallen in love with the man.

He wipes his eyes harshly and when he opens them, Snafu’s in front of him, holding onto his arms.

“It’s alright, Sledge,” Snafu states, concern evident in the way he says Gene’s name.

“No, it ain’t Snafu! Whatever is here just tried to kill me! I won’t even be right again.”

Snafu stood abruptly then and when Gene looked up, he swore Snafu’s eyes were as pitch black as the night outside.

“You’re right about one thing there, Gene,” Snafu replied with cold intensity, the cadence in his voice making is deeper, darker, and making Gene’s hair stand on end, “Whatever is here did just try to kill you.”

Gene’s certain his heart will stop because there’s no way it can handle the major fluctuations it's experiencing tonight.

There’s no way Snafu just admitted to something paranormal, supernatural happening.

They’d been doing ghost hunting for long enough for Gene to be 100% certain about one thing: Snafu didn’t believe in ghosts, demons, or anything paranormal. As a die hard skeptic, Gene was always curious why Snafu had been so ready to join Gene on his mission to find proof of the paranormal. Even when they met at an occult bookstore, Gene wondered why the man had stopped to ask him what he was reading. He thought he was trying to pick Gene up, but when Snafu made no move, Gene launched into what he was looking for. Snafu had listened to him for hours, the day they met, and they’d been friends ever since. Still, despite being so close, Gene always felt like Snafu was reticent like he was hiding something. When he thought too hard about, late at night in another dingy motel room, Snafu asleep in the bed beside him, he chalked it up to his natural speculative nature and would eventually fall asleep.

Now, though…now he’s wishing he’d looked deeper.

Snafu is circling the room, feeling different spots of the wall like he’s searching for something.

“Snaf, what’s going on?” He wishes his voice were steadier, but the fear suddenly gripping him tight won’t allow it.

“Gene, you have always been honest with me. Seems only fair I’m honest with you.”

Gene swallowed heavily, his instincts telling him to run, but his curiosity forced him to stay.

“I ain’t who you think I am.” He declared as though the statement managed to be Gene at ease in any way.

“For once in your life, Snafu, make some fucking sense. Please.”

He watches a fond smile form on the brunette’s lips and despite being scared shitless, Gene’s still in love with him.

“My name’s not really, Snafu.”

“No shit sherlock.” Gene snaps, he always got ornery whenever Snafu was intentionally invasive.

And Snafu, he just laughs and keeps searching the room.

He stops suddenly, crouching in the middle of the room, hand running along the floor.

Snafu looks up quickly, smile bright, but feral as he lays his hand firmly on the ground.

But Gene can’t recognize anything beyond the fathomless pools of black that encompass Snafu’s eyes.

“My real name is Seire, Eugene. I’m a demon.” Then Snafu’s hand disappears into the floor and when it reemerges and Snafu stands, he’s gripping a creature. Half it’s head is missing and its skeleton is covered in the thinnest, greyest skin Gene’s ever seen. He can’t breathe, can’t look away and when it snarls and reaches its razor-sharp claws towards Gene, he doesn’t even flinch.

Snafu holds it in his grip, with ease, by the throat as it tries to scream but fails.

“This looks like one of, hmmm,” Snafu turns his head to the side taken in the creature as though deep in thought, “one of Raum’s little leeches, huh?”

The creature gets one ear-piercing shriek out before Snafu tightens his grip again.

“Guess the rumors about him trying to move up were true. Thought he’d have enough gall to face me himself.”

The creature tries to speak and Snafu lightens his grip just enough for it to speak.

“Not you.”

Gene both hears it and doesn’t hear it, like a whisper passing by him.

Snafu’s eyes shift from Gene and back to the creature in sudden understanding.

They weren’t after Snafu, they were after Gene.

“Little pet. Weakness.”

Snafu’s face turned serious, severe and he tightened his grip again and Gene watched as the man he loved held demon spawn in his grip like it was nothing. He’d never been more attracted to Snafu since they met.

“You’re wrong.” Snafu replies, a torrent of barely controlled anger held in tense shoulders.

He pulled the spawn closer to him, watching as the creature snarled and tried to escape Snafu’s grip.

He looks to Gene with a soft smile then looks back at the creature.

“Love is strength.”

Gene’s heart skips a beat and Snafu must be able to hear it because he laughs like he always did where Gene was concerned.

“I have a message for Raum when you get back down there.”

Gene hears another whisper that sounded have of a snake’s hiss and a surprised “What?”

Then the creature bursts into flame and without a sound, it’s gone, and Gene is left alone with Snafu. His best friend. The one he loves. A demon.

For the first time in his life, he’s the one in doubt, the one questioning what’s real or not, what he saw with what he knows.

He doesn’t know why, but the first thing he needs an answer to is…

“So, you love me?” He asks, still trying not to lose his mind.

He hears another laugh, this one breathy as though the demon was nervous.

“You find out I’m a demon, Prince of Hell, as a matter of fact, and your first question is whether or not I love you?”

Gene presses if only ease his mind of this one thing.

“You didn’t answer the question.”

Snafu sighs and its wistful nature makes Gene look up and stare.

“Hard not to, Gene. All my time in existence and I’ve never wanted something as much as I want you.”

Snafu replies gently, like someone who’s seen too much but is still in wonder with the world.

He sits down on the splintered, dusty floor in front of Gene who was still attached to the corner he was in.

Gene takes a deep, shaky breath, shocked more at his acceptance and handling of the last half hour than over the fact that the man he loved for two years loves him back and at the fact that the man who loves him isn’t entirely a man, but a demon.

Still.

“A lot of things about you make a lot of sense now.”

“Like what?” Snafu asks, voice lilting at the end in genuine curiosity.

Gene smiles at that.

“Your indifference to all of this,” Gene gestures around the abandoned house, “the way you talk sometimes like you’re adopting speech from another time, your overt politeness.”

“That’s just a southern thing, Sledge, not an immortal thing.”

Despite his better judgment, Gene laughs as he grabs Snafu’s hand surprise to find it can be just as gentle as it is deadly. The heat of the touch warms Gene from head to toe.

“I don’t know if I like your real name so much, though.” He states with a grimace ad smiles when Snafu rolls his eyes.

“Neither did I, at least not up here. Snafu was the first nickname anyone ever called me up here and it just stuck.”

Gene links their fingers, mind racing and following eight thoughts at once, the greatest of these being –

“Hell of a nickname.”

Gene’s eyes widened when he realizes what he said, but Snafu just looks at him with intense adoration and fondness.

It's easy then, to shut off his brain, and follow his heart.

He crawls the little space between them on his hand and knees, then watches as Snafu just waits for Gene to commit. It heady and the way Gene’s heart is racing is making him dizzy with lust and power. He lifts Snafu’s chin an inch higher and locks their lips together harshly. It’s an aggressive and powerful first kiss with biting teeth and hot breaths, and Gene feels like not even the fires of hell could be so hot.

He breaks apart with a gasp, reality crashing in at the worst time, but not keeping from holding a breathless Snafu close.

“Are there gonna be more of those things?” He asks, breathless himself, but demanding.

Snafu looks ashamed for the first time in all the time Gene’s known him.

“Yes and it's my fault, Gene. I’m sorry, but I couldn’t stay away from you and you wouldn’t leave no matter how hard I tried to get you to because I couldn’t.”

It all clicks and Gene pushes Snafu so hard he falls back onto the floor.

“You asshole! All the hauntings? That was you?!”

Snafu looks guilty but still satisfied, and how Gene never saw the bit of the devil in Snafu, hell never know. Love truly must be blind.

“Tricks of the family trade,” Snafu shrugs, humble and shy. Gene has to take a moment to let that sink in. A demon, shy and humble at their supernatural abilities.

“But yeah, it was me Gene and you’re so damn persistent and brave that you just kept coming back for more. You’re a reckless idiot and I fell in love with that.”

Gene laughs despite himself, disbelieving but full of so much happiness, lust, and lingering fear, that he could hardly believe this was his life.

“Guess I’m gonna have to add exorcist to my resume.”

Snafu stares for a long moment before bursting into laughter. Gene joins him after a moment and he’s never felt lighter.

Despite it all, the love that Gene feels for Snafu is sacred.

And while Snafu may have more oddities than most, his love for Gene is the most natural thing in the world.

They would make it work, make it last, even if it meant going through hell itself.

#sledgefu #sledgefu week #My writing #my edits #my stuff #ugh i wanted to write more but i didn't have the time today #still hope it's good #:) :) :)

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floralguccistyles · 4 years

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six: imperial death march

I had always found the bright yellow walls of Doctor Thorne’s office comforting.

My first appointment with Doctor Thorne, the walls had been the first thing I noticed. I had never been to a therapist before, although I probably should have when I was younger. Doctor Thorne wasn’t an intimidating woman by any means, but I think the idea of having to see a therapist was daunting enough for me to be terrified walking into her office on that first day. I had been expecting clinical and sleek. Instead, the walls were yellow, she had colorful art littered around the room, and the chair I sat in was velvet and blue.

I was sitting in that chair now, ankles crossed and body sat up straight to assure her I was listening.

“Has he tried to contact you since?”

Right. The topic of conversation had, inevitably, strayed to Harry. Just as I had gotten over talking about the trauma he caused me in secondary school, he had appeared back into my life, seemingly intent on proving that he had changed. Doctor Thorne didn’t mind. But I did. I felt like I was allowing him to invade into my thoughts. Last session, we had talked about my small bout of insecurity when I had run into Jeff and Glenne, and now we were discussing how I felt when Harry contacted me about the Lord of the Rings books, which had been about two weeks ago.

“No.”

“Do you think you’ll respond if he does?”

I didn’t know the answer to that. Honestly, I think it would depend on my mood. If I was having a good day, I might have replied. It would have been short and not very communicative, but I had told him on his birthday that I hated holding onto this anger and hurt and I had meant it. But I also hadn’t forgotten the many nights I had spent crying over him and his friends. I told Doctor Thorne as much. “I don’t know, honestly. I want to get over this, but...it’s difficult.”

“I’m not expecting you to find it easy. Ultimately, the choice is up to you, Petra. If you decide it’s best for your mental health that you want Harry out of your life, you get to make that choice. If he’s changed, like he said he has, he’ll understand.”

Doctor Thorne was right, as always. Lately, we had been working hard on putting myself first without feeling like it was selfish for me to do so. It was taking some work, but I think with Melody and Doctor Thorne, I was getting better at it.

I left Doctor Thorne’s office with the promise of seeing her two weeks from today. Her office was fifteen minutes from the yoga place Melody and I usually attended, so I usually took the tube there. I would be going to yoga alone today. Melody usually joined me, since she had the time slot right before me at Doctor Thorne’s office, but she had to rush out and get back to work because Trennan had, like usual, messed something up and needed her help. That meant it was me, the tube, and the small cereal bar I had in my purse in for the long haul.

When I walked into 360 Yoga Fitness Center and Spa about twenty minutes later, the woman behind the front desk smiled at me. She was used to me coming every time I had a therapy appointment. She signed me in easily and I made my way into the usual yoga room, setting my mat down on the floor and taking the time before class started to stretch. Melody had texted her apologies for not being able to make it earlier, but I honestly didn’t mind doing yoga alone. I would have preferred having her here with me, but there was something relaxing about it just being me alone with my thoughts.

My phone buzzed quietly from my bag. As there were only a couple people in the room and the instructor wasn’t in yet, I figured it was okay to check it really quickly. Pulling it out of my bag (and remembering to silence the alert vibration while I was at it), I spotted the message from Harry easily enough.

harrystyles: What are you doing today?

He must have had burning ears. I stared at the message for a second, crinkling my nose in distaste. I hadn’t been lying to Doctor Thorne when I had mentioned Harry hadn’t tried to get in contact with me since those messages about Lord of the Rings, but to be completely honest, I didn't expect him to try it again. I had hoped my running into Harry and his new friends might have been a part of my life that was slowly coming to a close, but alas, I guessed wrong.

Not bothering to respond, I tossed my phone back into my bag as the instructor walked in. Hopefully Harry would get the hint that I didn’t exactly want to talk to him.

“Good morning everyone!” My instructor said, much too peppy for my taste but that was because Melody usually made everything a little more palatable. “We’re going to start nice and easy today. Let’s go ahead and do some basic stretches first.”

I was happy that none of the poses during the hour long class were too difficult, like some of them had been in the past. Once the session was over, I packed up my stuff, sweating from every pore I could ever imagine on my body, and pulled out my phone to text Melody that I was on my way to my flat in case she wanted to come over after fixing whatever Trennan had managed to muck up.

harrystyles: It’s important, promise.

I rolled my eyes. Nothing could be more important than the hour-long shower I was going to take when I returned to my flat. The passengers on the tube looked at me with wrinkled noses because I was sure I smelled less than pleasant, but I didn’t care. Once the twenty-three minute ride was done, I hopped out and immediately beelined for my shower, waving quickly to Ms. Wilcox as I passed.

Shedding my clothes almost immediately, I hopped into my shower and started scrubbing my skin vigorously. Melody had a key to the flat, so I wasn’t worried about her not being able to get in if she came around, so I decided to take my time and maybe shave my legs. It had, admittedly, been a while since the task had been done. I had long since been out of actual shaving cream, so I just lathered my generic body wash onto my leg, the smell of vanilla overpowering my senses. My razor was in my hand, dragging up my leg when I heard the knock on the door.

It made me jump, and consequently, cut my leg. It started bleeding almost immediately, and I threw the razor onto my soap dish and started cursing at it. The water cascaded over the cut, providing a little stinging sensation but not nearly enough for it to be super painful.

“Coming!” I shouted, turning off the shower. I wrapped my hair in a towel and threw on my bathrobe. My plasters were in my kitchen cabinet, so my leg would bleed until I could get the door and hobble to the cabinet. “Shit,” I groaned when I stepped out of the shower, nearly slipping on the water that had sloshed onto my floor in my haste to get out.

I made it to my front door with minimal injuries, despite the fact that blood was now dripping down my leg at an alarming rate. When I pulled the door open, I can honestly say that seeing Harry Styles with two iced coffees in his hand was the last thing I expected to see.

“Hi, sorry, I know you probably don’t want to see me, but—” he cut himself off, eyes actually zeroing in on what I was wearing. “What are you doing?”

I narrowed my eyes. “What the bloody hell does it look like I’m doing? I was mid-shower, you asshole.”

“You’re bleeding,” he announced stupidly, his eyes locked on the blood on my leg. It was really unfair how much blood came out of a razor cut. I didn’t even feel the sting of it anymore, but the amount of blood it was producing was as if someone had taken a hammer to it. “What happened?”

“Christ, just come in.” I grabbed his wrist, the one holding the iced coffee with the least amount of liquid in it, and pulled him roughly inside my flat, closing the door behind him. While he stood dumbfounded in my foyer, I made my way to the kitchen and grabbed a plaster. “Why are you here, Harry? And how did you even get my address?” Lifting my leg onto the counter, I wiped the blood away with a wet paper towel.

“You weren’t answering my messages. I asked Bailey for your address.” He appeared in my kitchen suddenly, setting the coffees on the counter. “Is your leg okay?”

And then, with a delicateness I wasn’t aware he would even possess, he gently put his hand on the back of my knee, inspecting the cut. It was starting to turn red with blood again, so he reached out his hand to grab the plaster between my fingers. “Stay still,” he ordered, tongue poking out a little in concentration. He folded back the plastic on the plaster and methodically stuck it to the cut on my shin, patting it with his finger once he was done. “There.”

I didn’t bother saying thanks, due to the fact that I still didn’t know why he was here and I briefly had lost my breath.

“I’m sorry for interrupting your shower, but you weren’t responding and I knew you’d hate me forever if I didn’t tell you. John Williams is at the studio I normally record at, and he wants to meet me.”

It took me a few seconds to process what Harry had said. My thoughts were still on the gentleness in which he had applied the plaster to my cut. When his words did catch up to my brain, my eyes widened. “John Williams is in your studio?”

He nodded enthusiastically. “Jeff’s with him now. But he’s only going to be there for another thirty minutes, so we’ve got to go.”

“John Williams,” I repeated, just to confirm, “as in the guy who did the musical scores for Jaws, Indiana Jones, and the entire Star Wars series?”

“Yes, Petra. So get clothes on and let’s go!”

Normally, I would never voluntarily put myself in a car with Harry Styles. It was setting myself up for nothing but negative emotions and feeling bad about myself. But this was John Williams he was talking about. The guy who single-handedly made some of my favorite movies awesome because of his incredible music scores.

Which is the only reasonable explanation that I shouted “OH MY GOD!” in Harry’s face before making a beeline towards my room.

My hair still had conditioner in it, my legs were only half shaved, and I was pretty sure I hadn’t rinsed all the soap off my arms, but I wasn’t going to let that stop me.

I threw the towel on my head somewhere on the floor of my room and slammed the door shut so I could strip off my bathrobe. I figured with my hair still wet and me generally looking like a wet rat, there would be no problem with wearing casual clothes. Plus, Harry had been in jeans, a graphic shirt, and Vans. Hurriedly drying my legs off so they wouldn’t stick when I tried to slip into jeans, I slid them up and over my thighs with only minimal stomping around. I briefly debated on wearing a Star Wars shirt, but figured that was maybe a little too “crazy fangirl” so I settled on a striped shirt with a bralette under it.

“Petra, we’ve go to go!”

“I haven’t brushed my teeth! I can’t meet John Williams without having brushed my teeth!”

“I have Listerine strips in my car!”

Figuring that was the best I was going to get, I slipped my feet into Vans without even bothering to put socks on (which I would scold myself for later, but John Williams was waiting) and ran into the living room, where Harry was staring at the picture on my little shelf.

It was when my grandmother had come to visit. She had her arms wrapped around me so tightly that I thought I was going to pass out, but I hadn’t ever wanted her to let go. She was a beautiful woman, with dark hair and eyes so brown they almost looked black. “Is that your grandmother?” he asked, touching the corner of the frame reverently, like it was a piece of artwork he needed to preserve.

“Yeah.” I swallowed roughly. I never really looked closely at the picture because it always made my eyes fill with tears. It reminded me that I’d probably never see her again, or see Cuba in my lifetime. “Her name’s Yelina.”

“You look like her.”

I wasn’t emotionally ready to unpack that statement, especially with Harry. “Let’s go.”

Harry drove an ostentatious and expensive looking Mercedes Benz. I couldn’t decide if the color was a very light gray or light blue, but I didn’t pause to debate over it too much before I was yanking the door open and plopping myself down into his passenger seat. He made his way to the driver’s side way too slowly for my taste, but he eventually wiggled into the driver’s seat and handed me the iced coffee he had gotten for me. “I didn’t know what you usually drink, so I just got you the same thing I get.”

It was coffee, but I could taste lots of caramel and vanilla in it as well. It was a little too sweet for my taste, but it would do. Also, the more I drank it, the less I had to talk to Harry. That was a win-win for me.

Harry looked over at me and grinned. “Your hair is still dripping.”

“I look terrible and I’m about to meet John Williams,” I commented, letting out a nervous laugh and taking another long sip of the coffee.

“You look beautiful, Petra.”

I looked over to him and snorted. His mouth turned down at the corners when he heard the sound. “Harry Styles calling me beautiful? Never thought I’d see the day.”

“Yeah, well I was an asshole when I was younger. You’ve always been beautiful.”

The lump in my throat made it hard to talk. So I didn’t try. I simply leaned back in my seat and stared out the window, avoiding Harry’s gaze and the tension that sat between us. His hands gripped the steering wheel until his knuckles were white, and I wondered if he was thinking about all the shit he had said to me when we were younger.

Harry’s studio was about ten minutes away driving, which left us about twenty minutes to meet John. When Harry pulled into the parking lot, I had to restrain myself from throwing the door open before he’d come to a full and complete stop. He handed me a Listerine package and I took two, barely even noticing the stinging taste of the alcohol as I ran my tongue back and forth over them to get them to dissolve faster. Then we were out of the car and walking towards the building, Harry slipping shades on over his face despite the fact that it wasn’t sunny out. I wondered if he knew that putting sunglasses on did nothing to hide his identity.

Jeff was standing in the lobby of the recording studio, standing next to an older gentleman with white hair, a matching white beard, and glasses perched on the tip of his nose. I felt myself stop breathing (and stop walking) and only remembered to inhale when Harry put his hand on my back and pushed me forward slightly. “Jeff,” Harry said, and the two men turned to look at him, “sorry I’m late. You must be John.”

“The man of the hour,” John replied, giving Harry a twinkling smile. I wanted to cry, but figured that would be a bit unprofessional. “I just listened to your solo album. It’s incredible, son. My great-granddaughter is obsessed.”

“It’s an honor to hear you say that, sir,” Harry said, shaking John’s hand. I saw the moment John’s eyes flitted over in my direction and think my soul might have ascended. “This is my friend, Petra. She’s a fan of your work and I knew she’d want to meet you.”

John smiled at me, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “Pleasure to meet you, Petra. Are you in the music industry too?”

“I...I run a podcast, actually,” I managed to stutter out.

“How interesting. What about?”

“Various things. Mostly I have guests that worked on big franchise movies or books.”

I didn’t realize Harry hadn’t taken his hand off my back until I felt him squeeze my shoulder reassuringly. I wondered if he could feel me shaking. “Petra’s writing a book herself. Her podcast is absolutely incredible to listen to.”

“I’ll have to listen sometime. You ever talk about Star Wars?”

“We’ve discussed Star Wars a lot. We actually had one of the costume designers on once. It was incredible.”

“Next time I’m here in London I’ll have to drop by. My grandkids listen to podcasts and they’re always trying to get me into new ones.”

“We’d love to have you,” I assured. Inside, I was trying to keep myself from doing something embarrassing.

John and Harry chatted for a little while longer, but it came time for John to leave for the airport to catch his flight back home to America. He shook Harry and Jeff’s hand and even gave me a hug. Harry rolled his eyes behind John’s back when he saw the tears gathering in my eyes, but gave me a smile to assure me that he was just joking about it. Then, John left and the three of us stood in the lobby of Harry’s recording studio in silence for approximately five seconds.

And then I burst into tears.

Jeff looked horrified. If he had grown up with me, he might have known how incredible that moment was for me. As he hadn’t grown up with me, he probably was wondering what the hell was wrong. Harry didn’t hesitate for a single second to grab tissues and press them into my hand so I could wipe away my tears.

“I’m sorry,” I said, directed more towards Jeff since he probably thought I was absolutely crazy.

“You don’t have to be sorry, Petra. It’s overwhelming, I know,” Harry said, rubbing my arm comfortingly.

I hated crying in front of Harry. There was a prickling to my skin, like I was hyper aware he was watching me geek out and be an emotional nerd. He had seen me cry over things when we were younger, and back then he had given me shit about it. Now, he just stared at me and gave me soft smiles. I didn’t know which one was worse. Because at least I expected his taunts. The smiles I didn’t really know what to do with.

“Sorry,” I said again to Jeff after I finished crying. I was sure I looked a sight, with my wet hair and tear-streaked cheeks, but Jeff just smiled.

“S’alright, Petra. You okay?”

I nodded, unable to speak.

“Thanks for inviting us, man. I’m gonna take her home.”

Jeff waved us goodbye and Harry and I left, walking to his car in silence. My coffee was still in there, though it was so cold that none of the ice had melted. I buckled my seatbelt in silence, still feeling like an idiot for crying in front of him but also feeling elated because I had just met John Williams. Harry handed me another tissue that he kept in his middle console and I took it without speaking.

The drive back to my flat was incredibly awkward.

He pulled up to my flat parking structure in record time, but he didn’t make a move to get out of his car. He simply turned off the engine and sat for a little while, giving me time to gather my thoughts. “You okay?” he whispered.

I nodded. “It was...really nice of you to think of me. I appreciate it.”

“Then why do you look like I just told you I was gonna kill your dog?”

I snorted. “I don’t have a dog.”

“You know what I mean, Petra.”

I was embarrassed to tell him, but I knew that after the massive favor he had done for me today, he deserved the truth. “I was embarrassed to cry in front of you, especially about something like that. It just reminded me…”

“Of when you cried reading the last Harry Potter book and I made fun of you,” he answered when I trailed off. “Shit,” he mumbled out, his body slumping into his seat. He threw his hand over the bridge of his nose, pinching it with his index finger and thumb. We sat in silence for a little while longer. “I...I feel so fucking ashamed. How is it that I’ve managed to fuck over someone so completely that they’re afraid to show any emotion?”

“I don’t know,” I whispered, unable to refute his words.

“I’m so fucking sorry. I don’t even know why you came with me today. If I were you I would have given up on me a long time ago.”

I wanted to. I wanted to be angry with him, to stomp out of his car and slam his door shut and never speak to him again. I wanted to talk to Melody and call him a raging twat and curse the ground he walked on. But I thought of today, of how he had gone out of his way to introduce me to John Williams. I thought of him sitting alone in his house, watching the Lord of the Rings trilogy and I thought of him sending me those flowers after my disastrous date with Peter.

“I want to,” I decided to tell him. He deserved honesty. “But...I think deep down, I do know you’ve changed. It’s just going to take a long time to get over the past. I’ve been talking about it with my therapist.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. We’ve been discussing ways to help with my self-esteem and confidence. We're trying to work on forgiveness too. She says that I should only let you back into my life if I’m sure that it’s a good idea.”

“She sounds like a smart lady.”

“She’s the best.” I looked over to him, finding his eyes already on me. “It’s taking me time, Harry. It’s as much me as it is you. I’ve got to feel confident enough to let go of the past. But...I really appreciate today. And I appreciate you trying.”

He nodded. “I’m proud of you, going to therapy and all that.”

“Thanks. I just need to work on being proud of myself.”

I unlocked the door and opened it up, grabbing my iced coffee cup so I wouldn’t leave the trash in his car. “Thanks for thinking of me today. I’ll see you later, yeah?”

“See you soon, Petra.”

Once I shut the door, he started the car back up and backed out of my flat complex. I stupidly watched his car drive away before I walked away.

When Melody had first told me about Cassandra and Vera, I had thought she was exaggerating. I figured no roommate could really be as awful as Melody was making them out to be. The first time I had met them, I was optimistic that they would prove Melody was just being picky about friends.

She hadn’t been.

I had only been to Melody’s flat a handful of times, due to the fact that mostly, we spent our time at my place. Her flat was more grandiose than mine, with three big rooms and two bathrooms, but it was cramped with Cassandra and Vera’s things. I couldn’t even see a touch of Melody in the foyer of the flat, which was where I was standing because when Vera had lazily answered the door, she had given me the barest of greetings before gesturing me inside and retreating back to her room. I could hear Cassandra prattling around in the kitchen, but couldn’t see her because I hadn’t actually been invited inside and unlike Melody being comfortable at my place, I wasn’t comfortable at hers.

“Melody’s coming,” Vera said, appearing almost out of thin air. In the two minutes she’d been done, she’d changed into leggings and a workout tank, but her eyes still looked sleepy, like she’d much rather go back to bed. “Cassandra’s making smoothies if you want some.” Before I could express my gratitude and politely decline, Vera whispered, “They’re shit. She puts kale in them.”

“Oh.”

Melody came out of her room and I don’t think I’d ever been so grateful to see someone in my life. I hated talking to Vera and Cassandra. At least Derek, Vera’s creepy boyfriend, wasn’t here to stare at my boobs. “We’re headed out. Please don’t set the flat on fire.”

Vera sneered, an ugly expression on a rather pretty girl. She had pretty auburn hair that verged more on brown than red until she was in the sun (which was rare in London). She had moved from Canada to go to school in London because her boyfriend had already completed his first year of uni. She was taller than me but shorter than Cassandra and had hazel eyes. “I’m not a child, Melody,” Vera snapped.

“Who’s there?” I heard Cassandra ask from the kitchen. She trailed into view, clad in nothing but tiny pajama shorts and a tank top that had a strap falling off her shoulder. Cassandra could have been a supermodel if she’d wanted to be. She was toned from playing volleyball since she could walk and had long blonde hair. The second her eyes landed on me, her mouth dropped open. “Oh my God, Petra! Is it true?”

“What?” I asked dumbly.

Cassandra rushed over to me with the speed only she and Usain Bolt could possess. “Is it true you’re dating Harry Styles?” she screeched. I think I may have lost hearing in my ear. “You’re everywhere! People got pictures of you in his car yesterday. Everyone’s trying to find out who Harry’s new mystery girl is, but the second I saw the photo, I knew it was you.”

“You were with the raging twat yesterday?” Melody asked, raising an eyebrow.

Cassandra tried to say “he’s not a raging twat!” at the same time Vera snorted out a laugh. Meanwhile, I was processing what Cassandra was saying.

There were pictures of me with Harry. I knew logically there were probably paparazzi that followed him around everywhere because of his career, but I hadn’t even thought of the possibility that we had been photographed. “Can you show me the pictures?” I asked Cassandra, who eagerly nodded and pulled out her phone, scrolling through twitter. #HarryStylesMysteryGirl was trending.

“Christ, Petra,” Melody mumbled under her breath as we scrolled through the Twitter tag. “Do you know how many people have to be tweeting about that to get it trending?”

I didn’t want to know.

Melody seemed to sense I was either going to pass out or throw Cassandra’s phone across the room, so she gently pried it out of my fingers and handed it back to her roommate. “Right, well, we’ve got to head out. See you later,” Melody told her two roommates, grabbing me by the elbow and tugging me towards the door.

“Say hi to Harry for me, will you? And if you could get his autograph, that would be ace!” Cassandra called before the door to Melody’s flat shut behind her.

“You see what I have to deal with?” Melody asked, pinching the bridge of her nose. We stood there in silence for a couple of seconds before she eventually let out a deep breath. “Okay. Want to start at the beginning?”

That’s what I loved about Melody. She let me explain things at my own pace. I told her about the events leading up to the pictures that had apparently been taken of us, on our way to meet John Williams. I told her about the weird moment Harry had bandaged my cut and how he knew my grandmother’s name was Yelina. I also told her about our (technically second) hesitant truce with one another before he had driven off.

She listened quietly. And then, she sighed. “I know it seems like he’s trying, Petra. And maybe he really is. But you’ve got to be careful, okay? The things he and his friends said about you...those aren’t things someone easily comes back from. If his fans knew about some of the stuff he’d allowed that dick Nathan to say, they’d burn him alive. And now there’s pictures of you out there and fans are nasty.”

“I promise I’m being careful.”

“That’s all I can ask for. Also, don’t go on Twitter for a while. At least until the hashtag dies down. I don’t want you to see anything negative.”

Another thing I hadn’t thought about. If fans saw the picture of me with Harry, I knew most of them would be supportive even if there was absolutely nothing going on and there would never be anything going on. But some fans would be nasty and make fun of me simply because they were jealous. This was a promise I could easily make to Melody. “I won’t.”

“Good. Now can we go get food? I’m starving.”

We stared at each other for a moment before we started laughing. It was always nice to know Melody and I were usually on the same wavelength.

My phone beeping woke me up.

I had been folding laundry on my couch while the old Wonder Woman show played on the telly. I guess mid-fold I had fallen asleep on my couch, which would explain why the piles of clothes I had worked so hard on now looked like clumpy messes. The telly was still on, but it was some other show now and my phone was lit up on the table in front of me. I blearily glanced at the time, cursing when I realized I had fallen asleep around seven and therefore probably wouldn’t be going back to sleep anytime soon, since it was already one in the morning.

harrystyles: I’m so sorry Petra.

Blinking, I tried to go over in my head what he had to be sorry for (besides the obvious). Why? I typed back, still feeling a little sleepy and more than a little confused.

harrystyles: They got pictures of us and found out your name. You’re all over Twitter.

I had known they had pictures of me, but last I checked I was still the “mystery girl.” Despite the promise to Melody, I opened up Twitter and saw my name was trending. I didn’t dare click on it for fear that I would find nasty tweets that I didn’t need to see.

harrystyles: I totally understand if you’re upset.

Not your fault, I typed back. I figured if he was feeling bad enough to message me about it at one in the morning, I should at least cut him a little slack. Plus, my message was true. It wasn’t his fault. He had been in such a rush to get me to John that he had forgotten, for a moment, who he was and what the consequences of that were.

harrystyles: Still. You okay?

I’m fine, I replied. Don’t worry about it.

harrystyles: I just don’t want this to ruin our chances of ever being friends.

For Christ’s sake, Styles, stop blaming yourself. Don’t you have better things to do at one in the morning?

He never responded, but I assumed he had fallen asleep. As for me, I decided to finish up the laundry, fixing up my piles that had been crushed underneath my back. It was a rare night when Melody wasn’t staying at my place, so the flat felt quiet without her there. Once I finished up with my piles, I walked them down to my room, glancing down at my phone when it beeped again.

harrystyles: I’m outside.

Outside where?

harrystyles: Your place, obviously.

Sure enough, I heard a knock on my door fifteen seconds later. When I looked out my window, there was a different car in the lot than the Mercedes. I guess it made sense that he would have more than one, but seeing another expensive car made me wonder just how much money Harry made doing his music. I padded my way over to my front door, opening it up. I was sure I looked a mess, with my glasses askew on my nose and my hair in a terrible messy bun that resembled a rat’s nest more than hair, but I couldn’t bring myself to care. It wasn’t like I was bombarding someone at one in the morning.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” I asked, crossing my arms over my chest.

“I wanted to make sure you really weren’t mad at me.” He had one hand slung in the pocket of his joggers and was wearing a black sweatshirt that actually looked really comfortable. His other hand was behind his back.

“You couldn’t have done that at a normal time of day?”

“I figured we were both up. I brought you something.”

Raising a brow, I waited until he pulled his hand out from behind his back. Once he did, my tired eyes widened. In his hands was a tiny little potted succulent, a pretty green flower that also looked like a cactus. He shoved it into my hands like he was a nervous teenage boy, the hand that was holding it immediately retreating back into his pocket.

“I know you liked the other flowers and this one is harder to kill,” he explained.

“I didn’t kill the other one!” I was slightly offended. Did he think I just went around killing plants? “I’m a great plant mum.”

His small dimple appeared when he lifted the corner of his mouth in a grin. “Well I didn’t know that and I didn’t want it dying on you.” I moved to put the little succulent on the table near my front door. “You’re really okay with the Twitter thing?”

“It’s not ideal,” I said, shrugging my shoulders, “but there’s nothing we can do about it now.”

“I know your own Instagram’s on private, but try not to post anything too personal to the Alien Crossing account. Don’t look on Twitter. I don’t know if you already have or not, but sometimes people say nasty things.”

“Harry, believe it or not, I’ve got practice with people saying shitty things about me in regards to you.”

I said the sentence without really thinking about it. I think I had meant it offhandedly, like a kind of last minute joke or something, but I knew the second it left my mouth that it was the wrong thing to say. His shoulders slumped, like he was a helium balloon that someone was slowly draining, and the grin dropped from his face almost immediately. “Right,” he said in a cold voice. “I’d better go. Just wanted to check in.”

Even with our small truce, we still found a way to fuck things up. His reaction made me annoyed. What right did he have to that kind of reaction? He was the one who had said the shitty things about me. He didn’t deserve to feel chagrined when I tried to make a joke out of it. “Probably,” I said stiffly, my voice a couple of degrees colder.

He opened his mouth like he was going to say something, but thought better of it. Without so much as another blink in my direction, he turned on his heel and walked back to his car.

I had to remind myself to unclench my jaw as I closed my front door. I don’t know why his reaction had made me so angry, but it was just a reminder that Harry Styles, at his core, was selfish. He only cared about himself and how my actions made him feel. How I made him uncomfortable when I brought up how awful he had been. My steps were heavy with anger when I marched back to my room, opening up my laptop with a little more force than necessary.

Here’s something one should know about me. When I felt like I was being attacked or I had made someone upset, instead of trying to cheer myself up, I wanted to know all the nasty things people were thinking about me. Doctor Thorne called this “bad validation.” Like if Harry thought I was being mean for making that joke, suddenly I had to see someone else saying my voice sounded annoying on AC. It was like this terrible reassurance that I so badly didn’t want to seek out, but I couldn’t help it.

Which was why I opened Twitter.

My name was the first trending hashtag.

I had never once Googled myself. Googling myself felt weird. Also, I had never really had a reason to. While AC was popular, it wasn’t so popular that I could walk in the street and be recognized. Mostly, it was my voice that people recognized. This meant that I had never really seen people commenting on my appearance, which was why most of my self-confidence issues were about my actions and personality.

Until now.

She looks way too plain to be seen with him. Please tell me they aren’t dating.

Gross. She looks like a drowned dog.

Who the fuck is this bitch? And why does she go out in public looking like that?

I slammed my computer shut.

My room was silent, save for my angry breathing and the beating of my heart. Standing stiffly from my desk chair, I walked back out into my living room and to my couch, where I still had some piles of clothes that needed to be put away.

The echeveria plant stared back at me when I looked up at it.

I didn’t like the fact that my heart stuttered a little when I looked at it. It just reminded me that he had come, at one in the morning, to make sure I was okay. And then everything had gone wrong, like everything in my life inevitably did. Forcing myself to walk over to it, I picked up the tiny white pot it was in and set it next to my shelf, where I had the picture of my grandmother.

And then I sat on my couch and tried not to cry as I folded the rest of my laundry.

#ac #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles ou #1dff

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buckyreaderrecs · 5 years

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Blood

Summary: Bloody Mary; a ghost who appears in a mirror when called by name three times.

Words: 2235 Pairing: Bucky Barnes/Reader Characters: Bucky Barnes, Steve Rogers, Sam Wilson, Shuri Additional Tags: Infinity War and Endgame didn't happen, Stark Tower is still a thing, recovering Bucky Barnes, Winter Soldier Bucky, a bit angsty, mostly canon compliant, Bruce Banner and F.R.I.D.A.Y. are mentioned but aren’t in the story, I love Shuri SO MUCH, female pronoun Reader Warnings: death/dying, blood, description of body decomposition, nightmares

Note: This is my submission to @waiting4inspiration's Myths, Folklore and Legends writing challenge! Hope you love it, Jess!

Tag list (open): @darlingtholland @browngirlmagic

Blood

Bucky Barnes doesn't believe in ghosts. In this day and age, it's more likely that a ghost is just a loved one brought back to life. Reanimated to fight on the wrong side, kind of thing. Or maybe the ghost is a clone. A hologram. A science experiment gone wrong. If you are lucky, the ghost could simply be a hallucinatory symptom of brain disease. But, no matter what, there is always a scientific explanation.

Bucky Barnes doesn't believe in ghosts because the existence of them implies the existence of an afterlife, some sort of potential of God. Of meaning and purpose. If he thinks about that too much, he unravels. So, he chooses to not think about it.

Bucky Barnes just does not believe in ghosts, so when he sees you standing behind him in the bathroom mirror, he runs straight to Steve.

"Something's wrong with me," he blurts out.

Sam and Steve look up from conference room B's table. Case files are open and spread across the room, spilling down onto vacant chairs and placed in chronological order on the carpeted floor.

"Gonna have to be more specific, Buck," Steve replies, eyebrows furrowed.

Sam considers making a joke, but there's a darkness splashed across Bucky's face that warns him away.

"I'm… They… I don't think they got everything. In my head," Bucky tries to explain.

"What happened?" Steve asks, pushing away from the table and assessing Bucky's body language. He's cagey, almost afraid.

"I saw… someone… She's dead. She's dead but I saw her,"

"Happens a lot around here, man," Sam offers.

"It's not like that. I was in the bathroom. She was in the mirror,"

"Like, in the mirror?" Steve asks.

Bucky shakes his head, annoyed but aware that he's not really helping them help him. "No… I was shaving and…" He tried to think. What exactly happened? When did he notice you standing behind him? There was blood…

…

The small cut would heal before he left the bathroom, with only the few drops of red blood in the porcelain sink left as evidence that he'd been distracted enough to cut himself shaving at all. You'd been in his head again. The nightmares had started on the day that would be your birthday.

Somewhere in the middle of being The Solider, the people around him made the mistake of not seeing him as sentient. They spoke around him, conversed and told secrets to each other, thinking he couldn’t understand. That's how he learnt about your arrival at the facility. Your name. Birthday. Power.

Bucky had nightmares about a lot of things, but you were often there. Sometimes you were centre stage with your sad eyes and painful defiance. Sometimes you lurked in the shadows, having being taught by The Solider how to do it so well. Nightmares and restless sleep were synonymous with being an Avenger, a hero. It was a high price, but Bucky considered himself to be in enormous debt.

The blood in the sink reminded him that he was still there, alive, human. He watched it slowly seep downwards, sighing out loud to himself. "Fuck," he muttered, shaking his head and trying to move the haze from his head. "Y/N," he said, then stopped. Your name had slipped through his lips straight from his unconscious. It didn't sound quite right. "Y/N," he tried again, adding another sigh like it was the last syllable of your name.

Bucky looked up, studied his reflection. He wondered what you'd think of him now.

"Happy birthday, Y/N," he whispered, his attention returning to the razor and shaving cream.

The bathroom light flickered, freezing Bucky entirely. Without moving, he glanced out the open bathroom door. The hallway outside was still. He couldn't recall if the light had flickered out there too.

He felt it then. He wasn't alone.

His eyes moved fast, up to the mirror. You were there.

Sad eyes. A strange fragility despite being possibly the most dangerous thing in Stark Tower. Alive.

He bolted. The razor clanked into the basin and the bathroom door slammed shut behind him.

Steve… Find Steve, Bucky thought.

"There's something wrong with me."

…

"We talked about this. It's normal to se-"

"It wasn't like that," Bucky interrupted Sam.

"We can look at the CCTV. I'll ask F.R.I.D.A.Y. to-" But Steve was cut off too.

"She's dead, Steve. There's no way… She's dead, alright?"

"I would have said the same about you," Steve softly tried to reason.

Bucky could vividly remember what it felt like to lose you. He chewed his lip and crossed his arms across his chest. "I watched her die. She… she died in my arms and nobody came for us for three days. Alright? She was dead in my arms for three days."

Sam and Steve glanced at each other.

"Okay… Okay, Buck. I'll talk to Shuri. See what we can do," Steve agreed.

"If I'm- I'm seeing shit, I should be-"

"Come on, man," Sam stopped him, moving to hold his hands on Bucky's shoulders. Bucky felt the weight of each of them differently. "If you're seeing shit, you're like every other vet out there. Something's wrong, we'll cross that bridge. Ain't no use walking around all gloom and doom… We need a break anyway, right, Steve? Let's go get some pizza."

…

In Bucky's nightmare, the three days turn into a week. Then longer. He sits as still as a statue in the corner of a boarded-up room of an old snowed-in cottage. It's a Hydra safe house, and it contains the bare essentials to keep someone alive. Not you though. You're too hurt. It's bad. There's so much blood. He can see your insides and shoving everything back in and holding his jacket hard to the wounds isn’t helping.

You cough up blood as you watch The Solider panic. It's rare to see any emotion, so you feel grateful in your final moments. When you die, The Solider shuts down, like a computer malfunctioning. Hydra would have to do one hell of an 'alt ctrl delete' when they finally come for him.

It's cold, which is good. But you're an open corpse, which is bad. The blood hardens and turns dark. He can smell your organs as they begin to decompose. The whites of your eyes turn a sick colour, but The Solider never tries to close your eyelids. If he does that, he's alone. The inside of your mouth goes darker and darker, and the weight of your body on his continues to change.

In reality, that's about when Hydra arrived. Any longer and you would have started to fall apart very literally. In his sleep though, that's exactly what happens.

Your body begins to bloat, small blisters appearing along the surface of your skin. Parts of you liquify, find their way out, soak into The Soldier's clothes. It happens slowly at first, then within dreamstate minutes your muscles and organs and skin tissue turn to goo. Sometimes The Solider just sits in the human muck, counting the teeth left behind. Sometimes he's frantic, scooping you back up and trying to hold you together; it makes it worse.

And, although he hasn’t seen a single fly in the safehouse, there are hundreds of maggots infesting the deepest cavities of your body.

When Hydra came to claim their property, The Solider fought back. He clawed and kicked to get you back close to him. He screamed your name in every language he knew. That's where the memory stops. Often too, the nightmare.

"Y/N,” Bucky whines in his sleep, almost sounding like he's drowning in sticky, syrupy blood. “Y/N!” It is louder the second time. “Y/N!" Bucky yells, shooting up in bed and almost tearing a pillow in two.

He tries to breathe in, but the air is icy cold. Bucky only then notices the door. The balcony door is open. And you are standing there, hair moving in the breeze. Suddenly the room is bright, and warm palms are dragging his head to face away from the balcony.

"Buck?! Buck, are you okay? You’re screamin’ again,”

"Yeah, yeah," Bucky replies, pushing Steve's attempts at emotional first aid away. "Just a dream… nightmare… whatever."

He looks back for you, but you are gone.

Steve stands and watches Bucky crawl out of bed and move across the room.

"You hate the cold," Steve laments, concerned.

"Did you-" Bucky goes to ask, but stops himself too late.

"You saw her again, didn't you?"

…

Wakanda is beautiful. It's the closest thing to peaceful Bucky's ever known. Before making his way to Shuri, he visits old friends. The goats don't seem to remember him, but the children promise the White Wolf that they do. They show Bucky how well they've been caring for the goats, and they show him all the things they're learning in school. They ask if they can be Avengers too. He smiles sadly, and tells them, "Not yet."

"Ah! Bucky Barnes! My favourite broken White boy!" Shuri greets while pulling Bucky into a hug, then immediately focusses on his left arm. "So, your boyfriend says you need a check-up?" she asks as she opens a panel and frowns.

"It's not my arm, Shuri. That's workin' perfect,"

"Of course it is!" she laughs, yet doesn't stop tinkering. "But there can always be more. Be better."

When Bucky fails to reply, Shuri studies his face, then nods. Softly, kindly, she says, "Come, my friend. We'll have tea."

Shuri is easily one of Bucky's favourite people. She listens, which is already more than she has a responsibility to do. Bucky knows she's just a kid, but he also knows better than to stop a kid with that much genius and tenacity.

...

When all physiological and psychological avenues have been explored, Shuri shrugs at Bucky. "Maybe she's real,"

"She can't be," Bucky replies quickly.

Shuri makes a face. "You, of all people, really gonna stand there and say it's impossible for the dead to come back?"

"She was… very dead,"

"The dead are never truly gone, White Wolf. Not really."

…

Bucky hasn't seen you in a couple weeks. Sam says to him, "Two's only a coincidence, man. Three times, then we'll worry, yeah?" But Bucky remains worried nonetheless.

The mission they've been preparing for, the one that has taken over conference room B, is on Bucky's mind. He finds Steve sketching away, curled into an armchair and looking a lot smaller than he actually is. For a second, Bucky almost catches himself missing the 1940s.

"I shouldn't go," Bucky declares, dropping to the floor in front of Steve, back resting on the armchair and head falling back.

Steve looks down at his friend. "Nobody's going to make you do anything you don't want to do… But you are okay, Buck…"

Bucky looks up at him, exposed and vulnerable. Slowly, he shakes his head. "If I see her again while I'm meant to be focussed… I don't wanna screw anythin' up,"

"Okay. Sit this one out," Steve replies, brushing loose strands of hair out of Bucky's eyes. "But you gotta promise to be here when we get back."

…

The floors occupied by the Avengers are quiet. Bucky’s almost alone, save for F.R.I.D.A.Y. and Banner who is basically living in his lab. Bucky doesn't ask why he's not on the mission, and Banner returns the favour.

The irony isn't lost on Bucky; he haunts the spaces he shares with Steve, silent and invisible like a ghost. Part of him is waiting for you, he knows. The other part is genuinely terrified in a way he hasn't felt in decades.

He kills a few hours in the pages of a book, then finds himself lingering outside the door of the bathroom.

It's a little past two am when he gives in, stands in front of the mirror and closes his eyes.

"Y/N?"

He listens.

There are sounds but none of them you.

"Y/N… I… If you're there… alive… I'm sorry…"

His voice is shaky and he feels stupid, but he's started and now he can't stop.

"I'm so, so sorry… I… tried. I tried but I couldn't… And we were… If you're here, if you're here, please… just… Are you still…? Are they still out there?"

Bucky can't collect his thoughts. Each shatters into ten more, then those explode into even more, until there are hundreds of unanswered question in a web of confusion and emotion.

"Y/N…" Bucky's voice cracks.

It hurts you to hear.

You listen to his uneven breathing, listen as he tries to calm himself, hold back tears.

Bucky stands up straight, stretches out his neck muscles. He opens his eyes.

Those stormy blue-grey eyes.

"Hi," you say as softly as you can.

There is a split second where Bucky almost turns, an automatic movement, but he stops himself from spinning and stays firmly planted where he is. He's afraid that if he moves, you'll disappear again, like you had before.

"…Hi," he replies.

"You know my name… My real name. I didn't know that you knew it…"

Bucky nodded, slowly. The Soldier had never called you by your name while you were alive, just like you had never said 'Bucky.'

His blood gets pushed faster and faster around his body when his heart rate increases. The top of his cheeks flush pink.

"I know your name," Bucky says.

#mine #Bucky Barnes fanfic #Bucky Barnes #Bucky Barnes fic #Bucky Barnes/You #Bucky Barnes/Reader #Bucky Barnes/Y/N #Bucky Barnes x You #Bucky Barnes x Reader #Bucky Barnes x Y/N #mythsandlegendschallenge #waiting4inspiration #Marvel fanfic

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lena-in-a-red-dress · 5 years

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Lena, Paragon of Humanity (a Supercorp alt. Crisis story), Part 1 of 2

[Warning for blood, violence, assault & battery, character death (temporary, but not resolved in this installment)]

---

Appearing on the Waverider and being declared the Paragon of Humanity is a shock for Lena in and of itself. If she had her preference, she'd be back on the Legion ship helping the so-called superfriends than be here among strangers facing an insurmountable challenge.

But that shock wanes when-- with a sharp twist of the knife still lodged between them-- Kara volunteers even more information. "There's something you should know--" "Hey, sis." Ever the slave to his congenital need for dramatic flair, Lex thwarts Kara's voluntary truth for a second time by strolling into the too-bright room, hands tucked in his pockets with a shit-eating grin. "Miss me?"

Lena's blood runs cold as she stares, stunned, at the apparition of her brother. She's allowed a single heartbeat to wonder if the verse-warp scrambled her brains. There's no precedent that she knows of for reality jumping on the scale she'd just used-- sudden onset schizophrenia isn't beyond the realm of possibility.

But Kara's jaw tightens irritably at his entrance, a confirmation that she sees the apparition as well, and her deep loathing for the ghost walking among them. "The Monitor revived him," Supergirl tells her, an explanation that explains nothing. "I don't know why but--" "I killed him, Kara," Lena whispers. "I swear to god I shot him in the chest I watched him bleed out--" "Never been more proud of you, ace," Lex supplies, with a grin that would almost be genuine if not for razors edge lurking beneath it. "It's rare that anything surprises me, but you did. Brava." Kara grips Lena by the hands and tugs her into the corridor, out of Lex's line of sight. As soon as his spell is broken, Lena's capable of conscious thought again, and she pulls away with a muttered curse, this time not meant for the hero. "What the fuck is he doing here," Lena demands, anger overwhelming her shock. She clings to it for dear life, because she's afraid of what will be left if it fades. Nothing, is what she fears. "What the fuck, what the FUCK," she mutters all the way down the corridor to the lab she'd first arrived in. "What the fuck, Kara!" "I know," Kara says quietly, having followed her pace for pace. "I almost killed him myself, but the Monitor says--" "Lex Luthor is still of use," the Monitor delivers himself, appearing in a flare of white light. "Fuck you," Lena snarls at the stranger, too angry and too shattered to be daunted by the display of extranormal abilities. Seven billion people on Earth-38 about to die, and you chose HIM?! A literal monster?!" "His resurrection was necessary--" "Anything he can do, I can do better. If you have me, you don't need him." But the Monitor is not swayed. "Neither of you alone can undo what has been done. If you are to return the universe to its rightful form, you must set aside the bygones--" "Bygones?" Lena exclaims. She shakes her head. "No. In fact, set aside this: your 'paragon of humanity' refuses to stand in the same room as him, let alone work with him. Either he goes, or I go." In the end, it's Kara who smoothes things over. She gestures for the Monitor to let her have a shot, and he disappears to give them a moment of privacy. Lena braces herself heavily against the console with both hands, trembling with more than just fury. When Kara finally gets a glimpse of her face, it's heavy with despair. "All those people," Lena whispers. "All those people, and he's the one who cheats death." "I know it's not fair..." "We don't know if James made it to a ship," Lena says abruptly. Her eyes close against sudden tears. "Boarding was such chaos, there's no passenger manifest for any of the ships that made it through. No one knows if he made it." Kara's heart lurches, but she remains calm. Strong. She places a warm hand on Lena's shoulder, and to her surprise, Lena doesn't pull away. "If what the Monitor says is true... if you can bring the universe back-- don't you think it'll be worth it? You're his sister..." Lena doesn't respond right away, and when she does her voice shakes for a whole other reason. "All my life, I was an orphan. But I wasn't. I was Kara Danver's best friend," she mutters, half under her breath. "But I'm not. Then I was the woman who murdered her own brother. But now I'm not even that anymore." Lena shrugs. "If I'm none of those anymore...what else am I?" But Kara doesn't say that. She curls a hand around Lena's wrist, silently willing to look at her. "You're Lena Luthor," she tells her friend, offering a small but genuine smile. "And you're still all of those things. For better or for worse. And you're still my best friend. That never changed, Lena." Lena shakes her head against the claim, but her fingers grip Kara's tighter. With a soft huff, she straightens to face the challenge at hand. "Right. I still killed my brother in cold blood," she says, her voice sharpening into a new edge, "and that's not a thing Lex Luthor forgets. Has your Monitor considered the fact that he'll return the favor the first chance he gets? His still of use Lex Luthor will murder his paragon of humanity?" Kara wraps Lena in a firm hug, one that Lena finds herself returning after a moment of silent hesitation. She's still angry, her chest still hurts with the ache of Kara's lies, but their world was just destroyed, and Lena's identity feels like it's following on Earth-38's heels, and the warm circle of Kara's arms feel like the only thing keeping her atoms together. "I won't let that happen," Kara vows. "I promise." However intimate their moment of reunion, it's still the end of the world, and at the end of the world heroes and paragons have greater duties than promises to each other. While Lena works with Lex in the lab, Kara and the remaining paragons fulfill their own roles. It pulls Kara away from her watch dog duties, pitting her against the anti-monitor while Lena finds a way to restore the multi-verse. The solution is relatively simple. They have the Book of Destiny, but not someone guaranteed to survive the encounter with their sanity intact. Of course, Lena has someone who can. Hope. Lena and Lex restore the AI saved on the thumbdrive, and then divide & conquer to alter Hope's programming while generating a means to let her interface with the Book of Destiny. Lena suspects that the ordeal will fry Hope completely (along with every other electrical component in the lab, if not the entire ship) but Hope is ready and willing. It is what she was created to do. Working with Lex while being completely devoid of any softness towards him is a new experience for Lena. Her wariness gives her new independence, and allows her to interact with him on equal footing. Their banter is familiar, but sharp, and her new ease with herself gives Lena a new sort of comfort. It feels almost... normal. When Hope is ready and Lena pushes the button, she and Lex are alone on the ship. The others have taken a jump ship to face the anti-monitor directly, and honestly, Lena believes it's their best chance for survival, considering that even if their plan works, the energy wave from the Book of Energy could tear the ship apart. The surge of energy rocks through the ship. Sparks fly, the lights go dark, and it's a long moment before Lena can believe they're still alive. "Gideon?" It takes a long while, but Gideon comes back online with a garbled voice but some external sensory capability. "All matter-based realities have been restored." Elation bubbles up inside Lena, and she turns to Lex with a broad grin that shines with triumph. "It worked! We did--" She turns into her brother's fist as he shoves it deep into her abdomen. The blow knocks the breath from her, and Lena's ears ring as she slowly comes to the realization that Lex hasn't punched her. Fists clutching at his lapels, Lena turns her gaze down between them, where his hand curls around the bloody hilt of the knife protruding from between her ribs. She gasps, staggering, only to be steadied by her brother's gentle grip. "You did it, ace," he delivers. His voice is devoid of emotion-- of rage, of pride, of hate. His tone is perfectly congenial, and it chills Lena to the bone. "I knew you would. And now that you've served your purpose--" With a vicious tug, Lex pulls the knife from her flesh. A grunt pulls from Lena's throat, only to be strangled once more when Lex plunges it back in. "No one will miss you." When Lena sags, Lex props her up, tipping her chin up so their eyes meet. She stares into his fathomless gaze as it regards her with disdain. "The Paragon of Humanity," he sneers, but then softens with rationality. "I suppose it's fitting. You certainly embody all that it is to be human. Fallible. Weak. Governed by emotion." Each point is punctuated with another thrust. Each one drives more of the breath from Lena's chest, until she has nothing in her but an empty hollow. "You are alone, Lena," Lex murmurs in her ear, holding her close. "And more than that, you are mortal." With a final twist of the knife, Lex rips the blade free and tosses it aside. It clatters into the shadows, far beyond her reach. He releases Lena as well. A small shove sends Lena staggering against the console, but her efforts to catch herself are immediately thwarted by hands that grip her head and slam it against the pedestal. Lena hits the ground blindly, her sight stolen by the darkness and ebbing consciousness. Lex's foot slams into her belly. Once. Twice. And then there's utter stillness, broken only by Lena's own grunting gasps for air. "I congratulate your tenacity, Lena. Watching you pulling that trigger-- it was the most Luthor I'd ever seen in you." Lex crouches beside her, stroking the side of her head. Lena doesn't even have the strength to flinch from his touch. "When I negotiated your survival in exchange for availing my services to the Monitor, I won't pretend that it wasn't because I needed your intellect. You are truly brilliant. The efficiency of your mind, your intuitive leaps of logic-- you've come a long way from the little girl I taught to play chess." Lena blinks against the throbbing of her skull, dislodging the tears that have gathered on her lashes. They drip across the bridge of her nose, and fall soundlessly to the floor. Her brother's fingers brush the hair from her temple, smearing blood across her skin. After a moment, his hand tightens cruelly. Her mind has disconnected from from her body-- Lena imagines she can see herself as Gideon must: a pathetic, pile of flesh and bone bleeding out under the heel of a monster. But then her imagined gaze catches on the dark shadow encircling her own wrist: a watch. The beacon. She watches her fingers reach blindly for the watch face, and then blinks back into her body just in time to see her brother offer one last kindness. "In the spirit of that efficiency," he delivers smoothly, "know that I would never condemn to you outlive your purpose." Just as the tip of her finger brushes the sigil on her watch, Lex picks her head up with both hands and slams it against the floor. There's no pain. No fear. There's absolutely nothing. --- Kara returns to the Waverider with victory in her throat. Their communications with the ship have been disrupted, but they can see that it's still intact, and when they dock, the newly awakened hope inside expects to find Lena on the far side of the door. What they find instead is a dark and empty ship, utterly silent save for the ear-splitting alarm only Kara can hear. "Lena." Her heart pounds thunderously, pulsing against her vision as she strains to look through the bulkheads that stand between the docking bays and the lab. The energy wave has disrupted something in the make up of the metal hull-- Kara can't see through it. She starts to run, panic overtaking her as she realizes that the only heart she can hear beating over the beacon's shriek is her own. The lab's door won't open-- sabotaged by Lex on his way out. Kara punches through it with her entire body, and the metal tears like aluminum foil under the impact. Inside she finds silence, blood, and Lena. Kara knows before her hands make contact that she's too late. Lena's too pale, too silent, and when Kara scoops Lena's upper body into her lap, her friend's body feels empty. "No," Kara's vocie shakes. "No, no, no, Lena, please..." A flash of light pierces the darkness, and the Monitor appears, his features grim and impassable. Kara glares up at him through her tears, her anger reaching for its only available target. "She told you this would happen..." she croaks. "SHE TOLD YOU!" A blast of heat vision crackles ineffectively against his breastplate. The rest of the crew fills in around him, and murmurs of dismay cloud the air around them, shocked at the violence visited on one of their own on the cusp of victory. "She told you," Kara echoes, hugging Lena close to her chest, "and you still insisted on keeping her killer here. Because his use outweighed the threat he posed." "Lena Luthor's loss is tragic," the Monitor intones, bending to one knee to meet Kara's gaze. "But she fulfilled her purpose, as did her brother." "Yeah, but it's her brother who gets to keep breathing?" Kate demands, catching Kara's anger and fueling it with her own. "Where's the justice in that?" "Lena dealt the first blow," comes the flat reply. "I am not responsible for the actions between mortals--" Kate grabs him by the cowl and hauls him up, away from Kara. Away from Lena. Scowling, she shakes her head. "This time you are! YOU brought him back, YOU insisted on keeping him alive! Lex may have been the one to murder her, but Lena's blood is on your hands too." "Kate," Kara breathes, her chest quaking with the effort to keep her wits about her. "The book... bring me the book." An electric surge of hope surges in Kate's chest, and she releases the Monitor to sweep towards the interface, where the book lies under a neat of sensors and wires. Just as she reaches for it, it dematerializes like so much ether. "What the fuck--" She whirls to face the Monitor, who draws himself unapologetically to his full height. "The Book of Destiny cannot erase the sins of the mortal world. It's power is too dangerous--" Kara coughs a laugh, her cheeks streaming with tears. "Lena used that book to save the universe. ALL the universes. She of all people--" "I am sorry for your loss," the Monitor cuts in. "But my task is now complete. It is time for me and the book to remove ourselves from the timeline, before reality is forever altered." "No, wait--!!" He disappears without another word, leaving Kate to tackle nothing but air, and Kara reaching for a hope just out of reach. They stare at the vacated space he'd just inhabited, and not for the first time wonder if they'd been helping a good guy after all. It certainly doesn't seem like it, when the engineer of their salvation lays dead in her hero's arms. Kara's features fall, a mask of stunned and empty disbelief. For long minutes no moves. No one speaks. Finally, Kara numbly reaches for the watch on Lena's wrist. Her fingers brush cold skin on their way to the el mayarah still pulsing with a faint glow. With a single press, the sound in Kara's ears cut out, silencing the beacon for the last time.

#supercorp #angst #character death #assault & battery #blood #lena paragon of humanity #alternate crisis story #crisis adjacent #crisis spoilers #my hot take

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brinnygetsstabbed · 4 years

Text

[ DEADLY AGREEMENT // MOUSE’S MEMORIES]

She made a promise.

She made a promise to get herself into the woods when she could. Be it after Trial or when the others drifted away to do their own thing. To return to that hidden place, where nothing useful is. The edge of survivor territory.

It’s dangerous, and she knows it’s dangerous. It’s just not compared to the doom looming over her if she doesn’t put herself in danger. There’s no choice. She’ll be hurt either way, it’s just a matter of postponing the pain. But, if she does this now, if she goes, maybe she can escape it for a bit. Make him happy, keep him calm.

Just fulfill the promise.

Her legs tremble with each step, the further she gets from the fire, the darker the world around her gets. Brin hates the feeling of being so alone, yet so surrounded at the same time. She has no bubble, no shield around herself to hide behind. Exposed, an easy target. Still, she pushes forward, going by uneven memory.

Lots of deals, the concepts of arrangements were vaguely thrown onto the table. She does something for him, and he lets her go. He lets her go and with that, he offers a mocking version of security. It’s easier to see the light when he’s not snuffing it out, when she’s still got her eyes. She can see how awful he is. How terrible she is for even listening, for not turning to her real friends for help. This will just isolate her more, only leaving him. The only person she’ll have left to turn to is the person who is hurting her.

the person who is using her. She knows it.

Yet still, she is walking.

The air shifts, the little pocket comes into view. A small area missing trees, a rock sits right in the center. The canopy still acts as a weird roof to this space. She doesn’t feel safe, but at least there’s no immediate danger. Not until he shows up, and he will. She knows he will. He always does.

Brin holds her arms tightly around herself, a slight shiver clings to her bones. Just wait.

Time gives her room to think, to consider. To figure out a way to escape this, escape him. The game she fell into. It's a trap, and she curses herself for not seeing it sooner. What was so special about him anyway? She shouldn’t be so hooked on a killer’s attention, but she is. And he knows it.

Her thoughts trail off to analyzing him, again. Probably for the hundredth time, despite how much she hates it. Everything about him is so wrong, because it’s so normal. He can be nice, funny, caring. It’s all a goddamn lie, though. He doesn’t care. He can’t. He’s a killer, he’s killed her, several times now. And each time, it’s only gotten worse.

Like a knife dragging up her spine, Brinley’s mind screeches to a halt. Panic surges, the shaking and trembling is much worse. She’s exposed- actually exposed- now. Her eyes dart everywhere, looking for that white mask.

She hears his sigh of satisfaction before she sees him, “Good, just making sure I’ve got your attention.” His voice is muffled, but finally he steps into view. He’s been hidden, probably watching her for at least a minute now. Bastard.

Her shaking is as bad as it could be, Brin swallows the ball of fear in her throat, only preparing to speak. Don’t say anything, yet, don’t set him off. This can be easy, just… Wait and listen.

He approaches so casually, stopping at the side of the rock, leaning against it. His hand pats the top of the dark stone, very politely asking- probably telling- Brin to take a seat next to him. With so much reluctance, she does. Her muscles tense, coiled like a spring, a bullet ready to fly; she’s ready to bolt. She wants to run away so bad, but being around him makes her crumble instead. She’s exposed anyway, running will only turn this into a very bloody discussion.

“You’re early, that’s good,” He comments, tone unbearably gentle. Before saying anything else, the mask comes off, and is set on the rock, “I’d hate to have to chase you down outside a Trial, really.”

Liar. He’s already done that.

Brin says nothing, her eyes are glued to the patchy grass. Only a hum of slight acknowledgment is let out, just to signal she’s listening. He has her full attention, well, her unharmed attention. It’s the eye contact that really hooks her brain. He’s terrifying. Something about silver eyes is so… Intense. It’s migraine inducing.

Of course that’s not good enough for him, though. No, the selfish prick needs more than her everything. Still maintaining the delicate demeanor, his finger nudges under her chin, bringing her gaze snapping up to his. The reaction is more than immediate. No touch, bad touch, she’s already overwhelmed. Fine, he wants 101% of her attention? He’s got it.

As always, his eyes pierce her, his presence digs into her soul. Like a magnet, she’s pulled in, regardless of the struggle she tries to put up. He looks too smug, too happy with how easy it is to throw her brain into a paper shredder. For a moment, he simply scans her, his face changes to concerned, worried maybe, “Aw, Sweetheart, why are you shaking?”

He should know why, “I- It’s… I’m just nervous, Jed, it’s fine.” Brin struggles to find her voice, when it comes out, it’s weak, just barely a few squeaks of an explanation.

The vibe changes, with it, a chuckle rumbles in his chest, setting her nerves on a razor's edge. She wants to run, to escape her own skin, but she’s locked in place by conditioning. Fear tactics and pain, but with the glowing lure of the catharsis of comfort. He’s able to turn on a dime, shifting from monster to some sort of guardian. It’s wrong, it’s so unbearably wrong and it hurts, but she can’t get away from it. No matter how hard she tries, “Relax, bunny, I'm not gonna hurt you, I just wanna talk.” He’s facing her more now, looming closer, “I’ve got a little job for you.”

A… Job? Jesus, what the hell does that even mean? The flicker of actual fear in her eyes makes him hum, “Don’t worry, it’s easy.” His reassurance isn’t convincing, “We’re both new here, aren’t we? Why don’t we help each other, then? All I need you to do is act as a sort of… Tracker.” Now she’s just confused, “Stick to a teammate, accidentally damage generators, don’t touch the totems if any are lit. Don’t waste your time trying to get them off hooks.” Ah, so he just wants her to lock herself away and be useless? Her heart hurts at the idea.

Brin’s eyes finally fall, her head turns away, her arms hugged tighter around herself, “I can’t.” She murmurs, finding speaking much more difficult, “I can’t betray them like that, I'm sorry…”

Again, the emotions in the air grow agitated, all this altering is giving the survivor whiplash. This conversation could go a lot faster if he just gave a clear order and left, but he’s never that simple. Quietly, a cooing hush comes from his lips, “Hey, it’s ok. They won’t know, they don’t need to know.”

… She shouldn’t feel relieved to hear that.

“I can just make them think it’s all me. They’re mean to me, Brinny. Them and the other killers.” Jed’s tone gets hurt, dull, melancholic, “Didn’t the other kids out there push you around? Help me out, sweetheart. In return, I can let you go more often.”

Cynicism mixed with the hatred of death makes this offer sound lovely. It’s not, it’s wrong. Everything about what they are is wrong. He’s a killer, a murderer and a stalker, and she shouldn’t be so willing to talk to him. To be near him with no one else around. Realistically, it’s horrifying, but in the moment, so many different emotions mix into something she can’t describe.

Is he even actually bullied by the other survivors? Sure, she’s not always there to see it, but she shouldn’t feel empathy so quickly either. Jed, being bullied? That doesn’t really make him seem scary, just pitiful. Her brain is tearing itself apart just to figure out what he’s trying to do. Is he trying to get her emotions? He already has that. Is he… Trying to seem human? Weak? Is he trying to earn her pity so she’ll help him? Or is he trying to make her dislike the other survivors? To dislike even other killers?

None of it makes sense.

She can’t answer, she can’t do much other than sit and fester in her own panicked confusion. She wants to know which game he’s playing so she can try and outsmart him, but the possibility of more than one game is what’s throwing her off. It’s already hard enough to constantly have to remind herself that she’s being played in the first place. She’s so desperate to feel something other than danger, and with him having given her that, she just wants it back. She wants the nice Jed, the Jed that serves as the personal bubble she lacks.

But this isn’t nice Jed. He’s scheming and plotting and if she threatens his plans, he’ll get angry.

And when he gets angry, he gets violent.

Brin doesn’t want violent Jed.

A brow is raised at her silence, his outward presence seems to get stronger just by him willing it so. How does he do that? He hasn’t moved an inch, yet somehow he feels so much more intimidating than before, “Ignoring me now, are we?” His tone is subtly scolding, that’s never a good sign.

It makes her practically jump from her spot, taking a wary step back just to have room to think. It’s so hard to think when he’s that close, all attention is glued to him just out of self-preservation, “N- No! Just… I'm sorry I don’t know… I wanna help, I do but-”

“But what, Brinny?” He asks, cutting her off sharply, “I don’t like it when you lie to me. You don’t want to help me, you just wanna make sure your little survivor buddies keep caring about you.”

Tears bite at the corners of her eyes. The air is hot, it’s thin but so heavy and it’s getting harder and harder to breathe. She’s cowering, another step back, “J- Jed, no, please just listen.” Brin pleads, trying not to cry, “I can… I’ll help, yes, but- But I can’t betray them, I need to help them.” Ok, ok. Her voice finds a slight levelness, the shaking in it isn’t as noticeable. Her desire to help her true friends is helpful in combating the fear his now harsh stare inflicts.

But, like with everything good, it’s short lived.

He strides closer, brow creased in apparent irritation, “Who do you want to help, then?” He questions, “You can’t get greedy and do both, Brin. It’s them or me.”

God- she’s backing up as he gets closer, soon there won’t be anywhere else to run. The ultimatum is agony. He doesn’t have any right to do that to her, she doesn’t- she isn’t his item. She isn’t a knife, she’s not some tool. She isn’t a spy for his bullshit. Justified anger mixes with fear, leaving a bitter taste in her dry mouth, “Don’t- you can’t… That’s not fair, don’t make me choose.” Please. She can’t do that, she just can’t. That’s why she goes to the others to guide her.

Whatever she said, it clearly snaps something inside his head. His hand shoots forward, grabbing her roughly by the jaw and pulling her forward, “I’m giving you options here, sweetheart.” Jed growls, glaring right into her soul, “Them or me. Who can really protect you from the other killers?”

That’s not a rhetorical question. She wishes it was, though, because now she’s only got so many seconds to come up with an answer, “...You.” That’s not what she wants to hear. Sadly, that hardly matters now.

“And who can get you out of more Trials?”

“...” For a moment, her brain refuses to speak, only breaking under the pressure of his grip tightening on her jaw, “You.”

“Who can get you better food?”

It might seem silly, but food matters here. In a different way, obviously. It keeps the occupants of the Fog sane for much longer. Keeping sensations alive, keeping the concept of life itself alive, “You.”

Finally his hold relaxes, as does his posture, “I do. So won’t you just do this little favor? I’ll still let you go, Bunny, just make a few simple mistakes.”

Brinley can’t make herself look at him anymore. All of that mental training crumbles under the stress that his eyes bring. She could look into them all day, if only he wasn’t so goddamn terrifying.

Her hands instinctively grabbed onto his wrist, not even looking to try and pry him off, just clinging to support. Her stomach is tied into knots, those knots are in other knots. She’d puke if she could, but sickness is strange here. So, she’s left with queasy nausea. She can’t do this, not to them, she just- think of the good. The stories, the laughing around the campfires. The little celebrations after they all get out of a Trial together. Those little moments where they’re all just humans, suffering together. Calm silence, small gestures.

That’s what she should be holding onto, that’s the good. Not this, not a killer. If she just told them about what was happening, they’d help. They’d all be there for her. Right? How could she have even considered the concept of working with the enemy just to survive?

“...N- I just…” Her main objective is escape, just she’s not willing to pay the price. She can’t accept this offer, he’ll treat it like a bloodpact. It practically could be, given all the blood he’s drained from her. No, she won’t be trapped in that agreement, because if she fails at it, he’ll probably torture her worse than before. Worse than a mori. Nothing is worse than being the only one left in a Trial with him, “Please, I- I can help in a different way, I just need time to think.”

Now she’s done it.

Attempting to toss out another, much less scary idea is impossible. His hand shifts, clamping down on her throat. Her own hands grip his wrist harder, nails digging into the cloth of his shroud, “Tick tock, Brinley.” Shit. Full name. No nicknames. Never did she think she’d prefer to be called ‘Brinny’ over her regular name before now, “I’m not interested in anything else. You do this favor, or I’ll hunt you for sport, even outside the Trials.”

No amount of good memories can keep the streak of selflessness going. Trials are already hard enough, sometimes other killers already give her enough hassle. She can’t speak, but she can try, nodding as she does, “O- o… Ok. Ye...s”

The guilt is agonizing, but if she didn’t answer, he’d probably strangle her to death. Brin wants to keep the dying to Trials, as much as she can.

Her response seems to please him enough, anyway.

Jed hums, letting go of her neck, gently holding her face after she coughs and wheezes for a moment or two, “See? There we go, it’ll be easy, I promise.” He’s back to being sweet. Fear does something wicked to her brain. Sweet means good, no pain, no danger. Fear also makes her want to break down. No pain? Time to go looking for something secure to crumble against. He can see it, too. Fuck, he can probably even sense how close her brain is to shattering completely. Indigo eyes shine with overflowing tears, all it takes to make them roll down her face are more gentle words, “Hey, you’re ok, Sweetheart, you’re ok.”

She’s not ok, but she can be.

Swaying forward, her eyes squeeze shut, her shoulders twitch in tandem with muted sobs. Nothing matters anymore, she doesn’t have the energy to care about what she just signed off on, she just needs to hide. Jed is the only thing to hide against.

So, she lets herself break down. He’s been particularly good at putting her back together. And then tearing her apart. Over, and over, and over.

Though, maybe with this, that’ll happen less.

God she hopes so.

#Moments from the Fog;; oneshots/shorts #//not so short #//for some context on Brin and Jed's history.#//He pretty much just forced her into sabotaging trials to make his job easier #//and in turn; isolated her from the other survivors #//fun times #//cut for length

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mandadoration · 5 years

Text

primary objective

summary: After your ship has been fixed, you go to Nevarro to turn captured mercenary Din Djarin in with the intent to move on and forget about those hours trapped in space together. Turning in bounties was a story you were all-too-well accustomed to. No second guessing, no doubts, just move on to the next job, and repeat.

Shit, how does this story go again?

word count: 3, 604

pairing: bounty!din djarin x mandalorian!reader

warnings: canon typical violence

a/n: feat. a hound easter egg? or am i just lazy? Maybe both

Read this on AO3

Your glare is piercing under your helmet at Greef Karga slides over a sizable amount of credits towards you, but the look Din Djarin is shooting you through the windows of the cantina as grunts shove him along is straight-up murderous.

“Good job, Mando,” Karga congratulates. He leans back and sips his drink. “You’ve made many people very happy.” You tuck the credits into your pouch, but not before counting them quickly in your head. When you had contemplated charging Karga more for your services after your ship had broken down, you were serious. You had to haggle, but eventually Karga gave in and gave you 20% more to cover the cost of repairs and extra effort on top of the two ingots of beskar. If you were anyone else, he probably wouldn’t have budged, but you’ve been working with the Guild for far too long and have become too valuable.

“And some unhappy,” you note.

Those 1000 standard hours up in space seemed like eons ago. Something in your chest is suffocating, making you uncharacteristically anxious as you sit in the booth pushed against the far wall of the cantina. Karga shrugs.

“Comes with this line of work. You should know more than anyone,” he says.

You force yourself to be casual. “Of course.”

“The Drellis Syndicate will no doubt be returning,” Karga says. You tilt your head.

“They’re the one that called in the bounty?” you say mildly. “What happened to upholding secrecy?” you ask. He huffs, the look on his face that clearly indicates that it was an accident, and you wonder how many drinks he’s had before you arrived. The Drellis Syndicate was a criminal group that was based on Nevarro, avid supporters for Imperials, but a small group. Nonetheless, a pain in the ass. You had no idea how they managed to scrape up the funds to call in someone as lucrative as Din Djarin, but file away the information for later.

“I trust you, Mando,” Karga says in lieu of an actual explanation, but you know that’s a lie, and that the relationship you two share is a precarious one.

You wonder briefly if there’s ever a time he would be at the receiving end of your blaster.

There’s a loud racket that comes from somewhere behind the cantina where you have no doubt it’s Din Djarin stirring up trouble. There’s some shouts, a few pulses of blaster fire, and another loud clank. You hate to admit it, but the muffled crack that your helmet manages to pick up makes your heart stutter and guilt rise up to choke you.

You clench your hands under the table, scowling as you force yourself to tear your attention away from the thought of Din. He’s a bounty, just like any other, and you’ve gotten paid handsomely because of it. If anything, you should be thanking him, not worrying. “Any other pucks?” you ask Karga. With a nod, he pulls out three more.

“Not as interesting as the fabled Din Djarin,” he says, “but should be an easy paycheck.” You slide them over to your side of the table, turning them over in your hand. The racket outside has quieted.

“I’ll take them all.”

---

It was standard procedure to return tracking fobs after a bounty was done as a preventative measure. No loose ends.

You know this.

And yet, you’re staring at Din Djarin’s tracking fob in your hand.

As soon as you had gotten the pucks and tracking fobs for the new bounties, you had left the cantina to get to the Skip Tracer, flicking your gaze over to the dark alleyway where they usually took the bounties. There had been a twinge of disappointment when there was no one there, but a stirring of something else, something nasty, when you spot blood on the ferrocrete of the cantina. There was no doubt in your mind that it was Din’s.

Still, you had headed for your ship, the intent to forget echoing in your head all the way until you’re sitting in your pilot’s chair, and all the way up until you pull out the tracking fob that’s beeping slowly and faintly.

No matter how insignificant the Drellis Syndicate was in the scheme of all things, if you were to go back and get Din Djarin out of there, people would know. People would talk.

You aren’t the most inconspicuous person in the galaxy.

It’s not like bounties have tried to endear themselves to you to get out of their situation before. If they weren’t kicking and screaming or trying to guarantee that “whatever they were paying you, I’ll triple it”, they were making themselves cute or trying to seduce you. They've always been brushed off or gotten stuck in carbonite if they got to be too much. But the thing is, Din didn’t do that.

He was nasty and spitfire, edges and all, kicking and screaming or trying to piss you off all the way up until the ship had broken down, and even then he had tested your temper with his razor sharp words. He complained about the few mercies you had given him. Made you angry enough that you had to leave before you did anything drastic. You honestly should’ve put him in carbonite the moment he stepped foot onto the Skip Tracer with the reputation he had. But your mind betrays you and flickers back to the moment of him laying on the floor, laughing with a brightness that made you ache after you’ve dropped him unceremoniously on the floor, and then immediately to the comfortable weight of him sitting on your lap, blushing and stammering like a new bride as you rest your hands on his hips. How he had managed to worm his way into your heart, you have no idea.

What you do know is that you’ll regret it for the rest of your life if you didn’t go get Din Djarin right now.

You heave a big sigh as you get up and head down to the hull to grab your weapons, tucking the tracking fob away as you fight the logical part of your brain saying that this was a very bad idea. Who knows what the Guild would do? Blacklist you from your only somewhat-steady source of income at best, send other hunters after you at worst.

Actually, the more you think about it, it seems as though it’d be more appropriate if you switched those two around.

But you’re strapping on your blasters and checking to make sure your vibroblade is still tucked away in your boot before you leave the ship and throw a few of the credits you’ve just earned at a poor merchant to rent a speederbike before you can second guess yourself.

It’s a clunky old thing, but it’s faster than walking, and soon enough, you’re going over the lava fields where you know the Drellis Syndicate’s hideout is. The tracking fob blinks faster the closer you get, so at least there’s some hope still that they haven’t taken him off-world or killed him yet. You’re sweltering in your armor, sweat dripping down your face and hair sticking to the back of your neck, but you’ve been through far worse, and will no doubt see worse things still. Especially since you were jeopardizing your entire life going to take back a bounty that was, through the laws of contracts, rightfully the Drellis Syndicate’s. You don’t even know how Din would react, especially after encountering one of the coldest shoulders in your lifetime.

After the Andaloriaan Sea had dropped you off at the starport to get your ship checked out, he had ceased to talk with you, avoiding eye contact and only speaking when spoken to, and even then he was curt with you. That tenderness and compassion he had shown you while straddling your lap had vanished as if it had never happened. You didn’t press the issue. If you did, it would only prove to him and yourself that the mercenary had somehow gotten into your good graces. You were the damn Mandalorian. No bounty mattered more than yourself, and you proved that when you handed him over to the Guild.

As if it were really that easy.

You know it’s not because of who he is, but something had happened on that ship that had caused you to second guess yourself. He was disarmingly charming, that much was true, but whatever facade Din Djarin put up when facing the world was down the moment you pulled him close enough to see the whites of his eyes.

There’s doubt trailing after you all the way over the burning hot hills and valleys, past the open cracks in the earth where the magma glows bright red, all the way up until you soar over the last hill to speed down, shooting the three guards at the entrance of their building with your blaster before they have time to properly react. You suppress whatever feelings of apprehension or second thoughts that are forming, focusing instead on making sure your aim stays true. Four more grunts swarm out from the entrance in the commotion, scowling and training their blasters on you. You make quick work, shooting the closest one straight through the head and firing your flamethrower to scatter the rest. Grimacing through the added intense heat, you shoot two more through the fire and kick in the knee of the last one charging towards you, grabbing them by the collar and slamming their head against the wall. Now you’re glad you decided to leave your amban rifle on the ship, too large and clunky when speed is your friend here.

You bend down to pick off a key card from a stray body, scanning it to open the door. Blissfully cool air wafts out, and you carefully make your way in, sticking close to walls with your blaster still in hand. The lighting is a low red, accompanied by a faint alarm buzzing through the hideout. There goes the element of surprise, you think, but actually…

There’s not a whole lot of guards. Or people.

As you wind deeper into the bunker, you notice how eerily quiet it is. There’s no gang members rushing at you, nor are there any simply patrolling the halls like you thought there would be. You highly doubt the seven you had taken down at the entrance were all that was left. You don’t think their loyalty runs that deep.

Just as you were beginning to think that maybe you should get out before you find out what had wiped out the entire gang, a loud commotion erupts from a room down a hallway tucked away, and it’s then you see a trail of bodies. It’s a messy scene, with the putrid smell of flesh burnt by plasma stinging your nose despite the filtration of your helmet, and you quickly make your way to the door. You shoulder it open, grimacing as you hear the awkward squelch of you pushing past the dead bodies, and spot Din Djarin, teeth bared, blaster-whipping a goon with a sickening crunch. He turns to you, blaster primed, but falters when he spots the familiar gleam of beskar.

“Mando?” he says, confused, but he’s a welcome sight despite the blood trailing down the side of his head. He’s definitely seen better days, a cut above his brow and his clothes singed or cut through. Din leans heavily on one side, taking in shallow breaths as his brows contort in muffled pain. “What are you--”

The momentary lapse in attention is all one last member needs before the weapon in Din’s hand is knocked out and a bloodied arm is wrapped around his throat, the muzzle of a blaster pressed against his temple. Golden eyes gleam at you from behind Din. You know him.

You know him because you brought in his brother Desdre for a small sum a few months ago. And you had brought him in cold.

There’s a feral look in Pretre’s eyes as he drags Din down, forcing him to bend backwards due to the fact Din has a few inches over him. Your aim falters, but you steel your nerves. Negotiation isn’t your strong suit. You preferred to shoot first, ask questions later, but the safety is off on the blaster next to Din’s temple, and you suspect the blood running through Pretre’s veins are as volatile as his dead brother’s. You open your mouth.

“I’m--”

“I know who you are.”

Makes things a little more complicated.

“Then you know why I’m here.”

A tilt of the head. A cloying smirk that makes your stomach roll with nausea. Pretre adjusts his grip on the blaster against Din’s head with an ease that makes anger bubble up in you.

Pretre gives you a wicked grin. “Why are you here, Mando?” he asks, voice lilting with a sing-songy cadence that would’ve otherwise been pleasant to listen to if it weren’t for the fact that there was poison dripping from his words. “Here to kill me like you killed my brother?” he asks, “or are you here for him?” Pretre tightens his grip, and Din makes a choking sound, hands going up to grip on his forearm. “You know the Guild Code. You took the commission. You accepted the payment. Din Djarin belongs to us,” he says. Then he scowls, marring his handsome face. “Or at least, what’s left of us.” You internally sigh.

Why were they always keen on monologuing in front of you?

You shoot out your grappling line, tangling the wire around Din’s ankle, and yank him forward so that he goes down and out of Pretre’s grip with a yelp. The blaster goes off where his head was moments ago and leaves a scuff on the wall, and Pretre shouts a filthy swear at you in Huttese, bringing his blaster to train on you, but you shoot him square through the chest before he can do anything. Soon enough, all is quiet save for Din’s heavy breathing and the steady beeping of the warning alarm in the background.

“That was anticlimactic,” Din says from his position on the floor after a moment. He sits up and untangles the wire, huffing as he stumbles up and brushes the dirt off of him. You shrug and rewind the wire back into your vambrace.

“Looks like you took care of most of them before I got here,” you say dryly, holstering your blaster as you go over to help Din stand. He pushes you away with a scowl.

“Why are you here, Mando, hm?” he asks. “What’s your objective?” Din limps over to Pretre’s body and picks his blaster off the floor. He pats Pretre’s pockets, pulling out a few keycards and stray credits before he moves on to the next body, doing the same, picking around as the light bathes him in a red glow. You grimace. You aren’t much for looting bodies. “You here to turn me in for another bounty? Who is it this time? Another Imperial?”

“More of a rescue mission,” you say. Din whirls around, pointing a finger at you with brows drawn in anger, and ah, there’s that spitfire you saw back on the Skip Tracer.

“I had it under control, no thanks to you,” he hisses. You sigh and push his finger out of your face.

“I don’t doubt that,” you say mildly. “I saw your work out there.” You tilt your head, and you’re glad he can’t see you smile. “I was impressed.”

“I don’t c-- What?”

“Impressed,” you repeat slowly. “You do know what that means, right?” An angry flush starts creeping up his neck.

“Of course I know what it means,” he scoffs, but he puffs out his chest a little, wincing as he does so. “I’m not stupid.” You snort.

“That, I do doubt.” You easily sidestep Din’s swipe, chuckling as you do. Din’s scowl falls into a more unreadable expression as he peers at you.

“What… what made you change your mind?” he asks you, almost reluctantly, as if he forced himself to say it before he second guessed himself.

“Change my mind about what?”

“You coming back here,” he says. “That asshole was right,” Din continues, motioning with his head at the body of Pretre lying on the floor. “I know the Guild Codes. What you did--”

“-- was of my own volition, and you shouldn’t worry about it,” you smoothly interrupt. But uncertainty crawls through your chest at his reminder. You click your tongue and kick away the bodies blocking the door. “C’mon, vulture. Let’s get out of here.” Din furrows his brows.

“‘Vulture’?” he echoes. You nod.

“You heard me. We have no time to be picking carcasses,” you tease, but there’s a seriousness in your voice as you open the door and check the hallways for any lingering Syndicate members that might’ve been hiding out. As you do, there’s a thump behind you. You glance over and just barely manage to stifle the laugh that bursts out.

“Not a word,” Din mumbles. He’s tripped over a dismembered limb and fallen on his ass. He tries to get up, but his leg buckles underneath him and sends him tumbling to the ground for the umpteenth time. You walk over and scoop him up bridal style, shushing him when he tries to protest.

“Not a word,” you parrot. “It’s faster this way, and you have a habit for falling.”

You’re trying not worry at how he’s gained a sickly pallor and how you can feel blood soaking your clothes.

---

Din Djarin has to continue swallowing his complaints because you’ve only brought one speederbike, and you were not about to carry him all the way back to your ship.

“How did you expect me to bring two bikes?” you ask him over your shoulder. His arms are wrapped around your midsection, gripping tight as you speed over the lava fields back in the direction you came. Despite the sweat beading at the back of your neck, you find that you don't mind the extra warmth.

“I don’t know,” he huffs, straining to make his voice heard over the whistling wind. “You’re the fucking Mandalorian; figure it out.” You roll your eyes, and speed up just enough that he yelps and holds you tighter.

“‘Figure it out’,” you mock under your breath.

The rest of the trip is silent, or rather you think it is. You don’t know if Din tries saying anything else because the wind picks up, sending gusts of hot wind and filling your helmet with annoying static.

When you get back to the Skip Tracer on the outskirts of Guild settlement, Din is woozy from his injuries, and you have to carry him back up the ship. There’s no complaints this time, just faint mutters as he fights to keep his eyes open. His armor doesn’t protect much in terms of blaster fire, and Maker knows what beatings he endured in the short span you weren’t there. You lay him down on your cot, taking off his armor and gear and sliding his jacket off. His shirt is torn at the side, revealing a wound that’s been clotted over and the bruising along his ribs. Din definitely looked fine half an hour ago. Looks like his clothes did a good job at hiding it. Now you wonder if his cinnegar weave armor was brown because he dyed it, or the blood has stained it.

“Shit,” you hiss.

“This sounds familiar,” Din slurs, letting out laugh that dissolves into airy hacks. “Did-- did the ship break down again?” You ignore him in favor of cutting through his shirt with your blade, smearing a thin layer of bacta gel over the gash on his side and wrapping gauze around his torso. You flick your gaze up to his face, where you frown at how his glazed-over eyes roll back and flutter shut.

You infer it’s a combination of his injuries and lack of sleep that’s causing him to slowly lose consciousness, but you give him your only e-bacta shot just in case once you figure that none of his bones are broken too badly to warrant a visit to the nearest medical facility. Din makes a confused noise at the slight prick of pain, picking his head up to look at you with hazed eyes.

“Relax,” you murmur, pushing him back down. “It’s a bacta shot. Heal you up and get you sleeping.” The shot is what pushes him over the edge, his head flopping down as his breathing starts to deepen and even out. You sigh and sit down at the foot of your cot, staring at the blood covering your gloves. You can’t exactly go anywhere right now. Din needed to rest up, and you don’t think he would respond kindly to you taking him anywhere in the galaxy without his knowing. The best place for you to take him would, unfortunately, be the covenant underground, and you couldn’t do that until Din was up and walking around. You had to figure out a plan or a cover story at some point. Your saving grace in this whole mess of a situation was that there were no survivors to tell the tale of you storming into an already-infiltrated base of Imperial sympathizers, giving you a generous buffer of time that was already being eaten away by the ex-bounty sleeping in your cot.

Ex-bounty.

You hadn’t just broken the Guild Codes; you had shattered them.

A heaving, mechanized sigh.

“Fuck.”

---

a/n: someone explain why I’m so into animal-based nicknames???

---

Forever Tag: @mabelleen @mando-vibes @isaissafail @adikaofmandalore @lavenderl3mons @jokersdoll @creamysacrilege

#mandalorian reader #mandalorian x reader #mandalorian x you #din djarin reader #din djarin x reader #my writing #din djarin #the mandalorian #mandalorian #mandalorian imagine #bounty au

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flatfootmonster · 4 years

Text

Running Past Empty

(read on A03 here)

Red seeps into my sweater. I didn’t even have time to use my newly honed anger because whoever ran into me, and spilt whatever this is, is long gone. I can’t even see the cup they must’ve been carrying. Whatever it is, it’s sticky. But it can wait. It has to wait. Voices and horns build to an overwhelming chorus behind me but it’s dampened by a fog that I summoned. I can’t focus on noise right now; I have to cross the road.

“Fuck. Fuck. Are you OK?” One of the voices is a panicked buzz in my ear—and too close. Much too close. I feel sick. “Jesus.” That sound hisses between teeth; steam escaping a kettle that boiled too long.

“I’m fine, I need to go,” my words are thick, stammered through numb lips. Sangwoo was just there. I can catch up with him. He’ll probably scoff over the state of my sweater, say that I’m a baby that needs looking after. I don’t mind when he teases though.

A shackle attaches itself to my arm. “You’ll stay there.” The buzzy-buzzy bee is persistent. I think I hate it.

There’s no time to look at whoever this fuck is that won’t listen, and I won’t reply either. I pull away with so much force his hand might’ve come clean off because his grip is still there as I leave him behind. When did I get so strong? I’m moving now, that’s all that matters. I’m moving fast and it’s OK. The bee follows though, like the memory of the hand, but the fog cuts in front of those sensations. I’m blocking them out because I have somewhere to be.

My feet beat the pavement, each step smooth and measured. I don’t think I’ve ever felt this coordinated before. It’s because of Sangwoo, I’m sure of it. He gave me things; I can shout now, and I can pull away, I can run. He never said it would hurt though. Pain jolts up my legs—a familiar hurt but this time it spreads, it bleeds from bone to vein to nerve ending. When I find him I’ll rest, and catch my breath, too. Lungs shouldn’t be so difficult to inflate. Maybe I need more exercise. That’s probably it. Does he play sports? I should know that.

Skidding to a jittery halt, I take a second to find my bearings. It’s no surprise the buildings that tower over my head are unrecognisable. They choke out the sky with dirty fingers of brick. I get disorientated a lot, you see. Plus, I was running towards the point I last saw him rather than pay attention to this road or that. Yet he seems to slip around the next corner when I think I’m gaining ground, the only thing I catch is a glimpse and even that is on the peripheral—right on the edge of the earth. Can’t he hear me? I’ve been shouting, haven’t I? Maybe this is a game.

“Did you call them?” Someone snaps those words out and they snatch my attention. I turn to find a mother looking down at a child. He’s holding skis. That seems odd but what business is it of mine what a stranger chooses to carry around? He used to carry me around a lot—Sangwoo did—and no one said anything about that. “Did you?” she presses, fear in place of impatience. What is she scared of? The shadows the buildings cast make their faces dark, features as indistinguishable and ruddy as the bricks. I can’t even see which direction their blackened eyes are pointing.

“Yes, yes. I did. I can’t make them get here any faster,” the kid replies but the voice belongs to the bee—it’s still stuck in my ear. When I blink their faces are pressed to mine, breath hot and sickening as their words decompose in their mouths. But there’s still no detail. The expanse where their features should be is pale, cold, and blank—a human-sized dead worm. I don’t want to look at them. My stomach squeals as my heart thuds once against my ribs in protest and they’re back in the shadows, merging with the buildings, voices melting and flowing into the cement that links brick to brick to brick. They are inconsequential—irrelevant to life; dead worms wriggling back into ashy soil.

If I stopped to catch my breath maybe they’d come back into focus, I'd find detail and explanation, and perhaps the buzzing would subside. I could maybe help with whoever it is they need to call—or mediate their disagreement. But I don’t want their faces so close to mine or their breath misting my vision—I have to go. Time is running out. It’s ticking away, it itches beneath my skin.

It’s a narrow alley next, I chose it simply because this way avoids streets and voices and worms and bees. There’s only one voice that I’m looking for—I’m desperate for it because I’m drowning and it’s a diving bell; I need it to get to where I’m going.

A man stands in a cobwebbed archway, phone pressed to his ear while glasses slide down a greasy, porous nose. He mutters, again and again, the same thing, “keep breathing, keep breathing, keep breathing.” His eyes don’t focus, they skitter this way and that like a spider, roaming the scratched wood behind him and the grey concrete beneath him. His face is grey, too, and when his eight-legged eyes find me the greyness spills over him. He’s a statue now and I’m glad because his gaze crept and crawled along my skin, his voice was needle scratching vinyl. A broken record. A broken, tired, useless record. Does he even understand what the fuck he’s saying? I know I don’t. It’s nonsense.

The narrow walls give way to a square but it’s empty, all I can hear is an alarm coming from somewhere—everywhere. It echoes from concrete planes the same way it bounces around the walls of my skull. Ignoring it is as simple and irritating as muting the agony throbbing in my veins. I still don’t recognise where I am. Slowing, the pain embeds itself deeply in bone, my marrow vibrates with every serrated inhale. Razors are in my lungs trying to cut their way out, climbing up my throat; the scores they gouge ooze with frigid sap.

There’s a stand. It was empty before, I’m sure of it, but this won’t be the first time I’m wrong. It’s a cake stand, too far away to make out details past that. There’s a girl, standing with her back to me. Something about her stance is familiar but memories are on the other side of the fog, I can reach them if I want yet I have no desire to. She’s fumbling around in her pockets frantically. Behind the counter, there’s a blank slate of a man and one red round cake sat between them. He holds a bag of white icing in his left hand.

“His name? What’s his name? Isn’t there any ID?”

“I couldn’t find any. There’s nothing,” her voice is the bees' voice as well. Too low to be authentically hers, it’s familiar but not in the same way her stance is. It should be odd, and it is, but I’m used to slipping and sliding around the wet tiled surfaces of reality. I’m used to things not making sense. And I’m used to being solely focussed on one thing so that it didn’t matter how reality is consumed by my abstract senses.

The man sighs, looks down at the cake before addressing it mournfully. “OK sweetheart, it’s going to be OK. Hold on,” he reassures the sticky, red surface beneath his bulbous nose. I suppose it’ll stay unnamed unless they’re going to write sweetheart on the top. Why doesn’t she know the name of the person she’s buying a cake for? And why is the bee still stuck in my fucking head?

My body jump starts, every atom eager to move. I lurch forward, transitioning into an easy run, eating up the ground in long strides. Between the waves of discomfort and crushing loneliness pressing down on my sternum, I feel fluid and capable. My form flows and slips, if I just trust in the magnetism pulling at me I’ll find the sensation of belonging that my atoms are begging for. I’ll slip down the right cracks when I find it; I’ll write the correct letters; I’ll outrun the concrete.

I need to catch up with him. There was something off—for days and days it was off. I did something, or he did, and I can’t unpick it. I don’t know where the stitching went wrong to unthread and rework. If I catch him I can, I’m sure. If he just listens…

I promised, you see. Wait. What did I promise? No—that’s a stupid question; It doesn’t matter if my brain cells can’t recall because my body seems to be making up for that ignorance.

A wall towers above the building in front of me. It doesn’t seem to be a part of its surroundings; there’s no adjoining structure or roof to give it relevance within this rigid environment. It’s a misfit—I can relate. There’s only one thing that marks it useful. Up top, an old advertisement is plastered down with crumbling, infertile glue. Its corners are peeling, weather-worn, dull, and barely discernible. But I can make out a pair of bulbous eyes in a green face—I see a squat animal. There’s my compass. I’ve found my bearings.

An alarm’s going off again. It’s different somehow, in the way one hymn is different from another but when you’re outside the church—when you’re skulking around in the graveyard—it simply sounds like another incessant drone. I cover my ears, it needs to be blocked out. It can’t dictate my route. But it’s loud. I don’t like it, and—just like the composting heat of the stranger’s breath and the stinging, grabbing bee—I don’t want it.

My skin prickles under the scratching hands of ticking minutes and seconds, counted out by a silent omnipotent force, pressing down on my sternum. My surface area needs to be peeled off because it burns. Everything is so fucking distracting. If my lungs were working like normal I’d sigh as all those things dull once more; the fog is back. It looks more like a veil now—cascading and shimmering in its divisive nature.

I round a corner where those spherical eyes were beckoning. This area is flattened. A building was demolished here and all that’s left is gravel, dust, and rocks. The debris forces its way into my mouth and fills my throat; I am the ground—desiccated and ruined. But I’m not sad because this is where I’m supposed to be, it’s how I’m supposed to be. I’m sure of it.

But how do I find belonging?

There’s a new sound, a beeping when my lazy heart thuds against my rib cage. Maybe it’s a timer about to go off, but if it does go off and I don’t find him, then what? I can’t let that happen. He’ll be gone. Gone forever. I’m losing time, running on empty.

My gaze devours the gravelly tarmac and the bare walls, desperate for the merest taste of a clue. It’s just dust, everywhere is dust and nothing—like me. Where do I go? There should be an opening somewhere, maybe on the floor, steps leading down. There’s nothing though. There’s only stillness but I swear I hear him, his voice saying my name, muffled like he’s hiding in this silly game we’re playing without rules. He’s the childish one.

The wall.

In the centre of the ruins, where the frog sits on top, there’s an old bricked up doorway. It’s the only entrance—or exit—and I can’t go back the way I came. I just can’t.

Bum.

There! It’s not a bee. It’s him. And now I know.

Logic slips away, just like that mother and child did, as I run at the wall and throw all my strength at it. The barrier punches right back, sending me flying away from the threshold. The floor hits, if there was any air inside of my body I’d be winded. Hesitation doesn’t weigh my mass down so I scramble to my feet and run towards that same spot. Those nondescript breeze-blocks will give way, they don’t know how strong I am now but I do. I’ll prove it.

My chest bursts again. The beeping stopped—the timer is done. In its place there are footfalls, bouncing from the concrete behind me, voices reverberate and buzz—a stampede of chaos that I’m trying with every last molecule to outrun. I never did understand it and now I don’t have time to learn. I don’t want to understand, not anymore.

“Hold on, sweetheart.”

Bum!

He’s here. He’s waiting for me.

“Stay with us.”

Maybe the statue came to life or the child became solid again, maybe it’s the girl with the cake or the man selling it. Maybe it’s all of them. I don’t want them, I don’t need any single one of them—

This time the explosion makes everything reverberate, the ground shudders beneath my feet as buildings sway in a sickening dance. Brick fingers are pushing into the sky, choking the sun. Cracks appear between the bricks and there’s light there—on the other side. I will do it, they won’t catch me. They can’t catch me.

The light says this is my last chance.

When I collide on the final assault my lungs tear themselves apart under the force of a silent scream. It’s been clawing at my throat, dying to be freed. It sets fire to salted rivulets the razors made before heat surges to a flashpoint. I’m turning inside-out. My burnt skin is splitting, the marrow is lava. The air in my ruined chest is ash.

I’m combusting but no concrete punch lands; the floor doesn’t hit my back;

Four, twenty-eight PM, the fifth of the eighth.

Water sloshes manically, slopping against a surface it found to break the cascade. It’s cold—the water is, and so is the air pouring down my throat. Haggard breaths send ripples across the crystalline surface, it’s the first thing to break through static-filled vision, pale and unblemished skin is the second. Everything is bright—pure.

“Bum?!”

Sight recovering, my gaze devours mint green tiles. I can’t grasp why it feels so desperate; notions and memories of panic and pain are slipping away like sand through my fingers. A squat green shape, two bulbous eyes staring at me from the sink, becomes the focal point as the black and white dots fade. It’s a ceramic frog, two toothbrushes and a half squeezed out tube of toothpaste sticking out from its back. It’s clean and simple, a faint smell of genuine pine lingers underneath the tang of generic shower products. Nothing is out of the ordinary, everything is exactly as it should be, so why does it feel like I’ve been pulled inside-out? Or maybe outside-in.

“Bum! Where are you?”

He’s calling—that’s all that matters. That fact didn’t change in whatever seismic shift occurred. “Sangwoo?” My voice trembles, lips and tongue feeling as unpractised as an infant’s, but it doesn’t hurt to speak. Why would it hurt?

If the water is cool, it’s nothing compared to the tide of relief that pulls me under, leaving my skin tingling and the fine hair on my body upright when he bursts into the bathroom. Why would I be relieved? He’s always here. We’re never far away from each other, people gossip over how inseparable we are.

His face. I can see his face. It’s close to mine as he kneels, breath warm on my pebbled skin but it doesn’t twist my gut. There was something nauseating in that dream.

“I’ve been calling you for… for I don’t know how long. I thought—I don’t know what I thought. It was silly to worry. But I’m sure I checked here…” he stops, bowing until his forehead is pressed to my shoulder and huffs a laugh. He shakes his head, the imbalance of understanding that we’re sharing is echoed in a weak laugh.

And, powerless to the forces that move me, I reach for him—we’re magnets, we can’t be anything else. “I promised,” the sentiment tastes familiar, spawned from the crumb of a memory that slips beyond reason. What did I promise? Worry ebbs away and nerves soften because he feels right: skin clear, hair soft, and his heartbeat is so strong—like it usually is, like the rest of him. But maybe the vehemence in his grip says he understands the words, that somehow, in the hangover of an abstract dreamscape, it made sense to him. If anyone was going to understand the things I say that I don’t even comprehend it would be him. It’s always been him.

“I think maybe it was a bad dream,” he sighs.

“Me too. Maybe we were stuck in a nightmare together.”

He looks up, the troubled tightness in his face melting away and leaving only easy, weather-worn memories in their place. “Like when we were kids?”

Humming, I stroke through his hair. I’ve sat here long enough for my fingertips to wrinkle. The darkness seems vague, another era—another universe entirely. Yet, at the same time, it lingers over my shoulder, hidden only by a veil. The urge to look behind is dwindling, just like any solid dream fragments I could share. What does it matter anyway? “I think I spilt something on myself but—” I stop and frown at the floor. Apart from the small puddles of water, it’s clear. “I don’t know where my clothes are.”

His mirth turns rueful. “Probably kicked them off somewhere that I’ll find later. Cmon, the dryer just stopped, you can put something fresh on.”

I try to sit but my muscles are infantile, too. “Whatever that dream was, it zapped my energy,” I sigh. Even my lungs are exhausted.

He shakes his head, fingers dipping into the tub. “It’s cold. How long have you been sitting here?” he tsks the question to a close. We look after each other, it’s just what we do. “You’re gonna freeze if you stay here any longer—and it’s dangerous to sleep in the bath,” he tuts again as one arm slides around my shoulders, the other beneath my knees.

I’m not given time to disagree but I try anyway. “You don’t have to—“

“Shush. You’ve done this enough times for me—well, for the five minutes you were bigger than me anyway.” He grins down while plucking my mass from the water with casual ease. Contrary to my words, I soften against him. We have different strengths that we lend each other, you see. It’s always been that way. I know that. I remember.

The journey is a quiet ceremony; we migrate from one room to another before I’m eased into a kitchen chair, wrapped in a fluffy, white towel. The clothes are still warm, Sangwoo stays centred and focused as he helps me dress. I’m quite capable of doing it myself, just like I could have walked here on my own two feet, but he’s persistent. There is always a dire plea in his eyes when he silently lends his hands to whatever task needs doing, and it’s fulfilled with a gentle touch and stern focus. It feels like repentance or supplication, and so earnest that I can never fight it.

He’s always been determined, since the day we first met. Gripping tight to my sleeve, Sangwoo wailed until my mum came to investigate and forged an alliance with his mum. The rest is history. He can’t possibly remember that day but that doesn’t stop him from swearing otherwise—says he knew we were soulmates and that it was a matter of life or death to hold on with stubby, sticky fingers. After all this time I’m schooled to the silly, sweet things he says, letting them be without anything more than a grin and a shake of my head. Yet there’s something shiny about that memory. It shimmers in the ancient light of a summer evening and, for whatever reason, I forgot about its existence; slept too long and lost track of identity and time and place. Seeing it there, reflecting true warmth, drapes a comfort blanket over my consciousness; I want to bask in our history.

Those same fingers that gripped my sleeve back then now drag a sock up my calf, but they possess a few decades of knowledge beneath their fingerprints—they are no long stubby or sticky but calm, attentive, and skilled. He smoothes the wool flat and tugs at the seam over my toes to make sure it sits perfectly.

“Do you wanna listen to something?” His movements effortless, Sangwoo turns to the fridge and items are taken out and placed on the countertop: eggs, milk, butter, a bar of chocolate—flour and sugar joins them from the cupboard. I’m transfixed by every last detail and action, every syllable that falls from his lips without it being translated within the confines of my upside-down skull. My body is righting myself and so I’m simply happy to sit here, snug in warm, fresh clothes and absorb. “Maybe the tape you made last week, or—I don’t know. Which one is your favourite today?” There’s a note in his words that proclaims years of experience when it comes to my quickly evolving, and perhaps fickle, favourites. And, of course, there would be.

There’s no radio up here, we’re too far out to get signal, and so when we go to the lake to fish or swim we take the old cassette radio with us. A blank tape will be ready in the cassette slot to record songs as they’re aired. We have a kitchen drawer full of compilations, Sangwoo’s precise scrawl can be found on the case of each to note the date and song list. His methodical ideology doesn’t just stop at me, there’s notebook after notebook of days gone by filling shelves around this small home. Moments are recorded in detail as if to prove our existence in this world; we are here in this universe and this story will be left. It never fails to cast a spell of enchantment over everything.

“Bum?” Feet planted before mine and a crease between his brows, he’s observing me. “You’re spacing out,” he mutters before pressings a palm to my forehead, “but you don’t have a fever. Do you need some fresh air?”

I think he’s right. Air sounds good. I like the air where we live—it tastes freshly baked as opposed to the staleness lingering everywhere else in the world. “OK.” He weighs me up with his measuring gaze when I get to my feet but there’s no reason to worry, strength is restoring itself and even the memory of pain is unintelligible now. “I’m OK.”

“I’ll bring you some tea.” With that, he’s back to whatever it is that’s being conjured, and I’m trusted to get on with my own job—as simple as it is. A kettle full of water is placed on the stove while I retrace the path he made carrying me in his arms.

Just past the bathroom is the front door. I say door but it’s mostly window; two large panels that make up top and bottom of the portal are crystal clear. It’s flanked by massive windows, too, because why wouldn’t it be that way up here? Where a panelled wall is required you have it, but if there’s any chance to capture a living portrait you do just that.

Wood clanks against wood, the door swings shut as I venture out onto the porch. That sensation of experiencing something for the first time settles again, like a dewy web, yet it’s not discomforting. It doesn’t spark curiosity either because I’ve known since we came here that I’ll never get tired of the stretch of cosmos that wraps itself around these stone walls. It stretches this way and that. Green trees that sway in the breeze, dancing to a silent tune, build behind the house, rising to lofty peaks. There’s a handful of hiking routes that wind their way up there. Before me, the pines subside and flow towards the lake. The body of water below glints and shimmers; a mesmerising world of fluid secrets. The amber-blue sky stretches on forever, when the sun sets its understudy arrives and millions of diamonds provide a twilit reverie. Every day is like the first, and at the same time utterly unique. The secrets whispered are always slightly different, the shapes the stars make are always evolving.

This place might not seem much to some, or most for that matter, but it’s everything to me. Eyebrows tend to rise when people know we live together out here, like a couple of hermits, but we’re beyond caring about the thoughts or assumptions they paint. There were times we tried to be apart, building independent lives, but things would spiral into chaos and confusion; bad things ultimately happened. It was never worth the discomfort of trying to squeeze ourselves into empty slots in a puzzle when we never came from the same box in the first place. We found this peace right here, our belonging, and it really doesn’t matter what the world outside thinks.

Besides, we’re not hurting anyone.

“Here.” I didn’t hear the door open and neither do I flinch with his apparition.

My gaze shifts from lush, green leaves to earthy, rich irises. The pleasure found there is fertile enough to coax a smile. It feels like the most natural thing in the world, and why shouldn’t it be? The mug offered is steaming—chamomile by the smell of it, probably with a little too much honey.

“Thank you.” It’s sighed while I inhale the scent and let it wrap around me along with every other element within reach that’s whole and perfect.

“And there’s that smile,” he coos the gentle tease. I’ve always loved the way he teases. His humour is mildly provocative but it soothes instead of stinging, the worst side effect being blushes. It makes up for my quiet demeanour and—if anything—he preens under the laughter that always comes easily from his audience of one. Sometimes my rare sarcasm trips him up, too—it’s served extremely dry. I have to admit a hunger in my gut is fed when his knees buckle under unforeseen hysterics. “You look much better,” he adds, expression mirroring the one he just shone a spotlight on.

“I feel much better.” To prove the point to myself, my toes wiggle within their thick, woollen confines. Everything feels as it should again—better than it should. Energy coils itself deep in muscle and bone, eager to spring into action. Reaching out, I sate that desire. My fingers brush against his cheek while a pinprick of panic plucks at my imagination over what I’ll find. There was no need to worry, there’s nothing other than him. Past the stubble, he’s warm and smooth—soft even. Most wouldn’t attach that adjective to Sangwoo but, then again, no one knows him as I do.

He sighs, his eyes close, his head tilts into my touch. Yes, he is soft.

“I’m glad.” Hand finding mine, Sangwoo’s grip weaves around my fingers until they are entwined with his. There’s a ring he wears, a gift from me. It’s never been removed no matter what graft is demanded. There should be no surprise in seeing it where it belongs. “If you stay out here too long you might catch a cold.” To highlight the gently presented advice, and with an added chuckle, he ruffles my damp hair. “At least get dry first if you want to take a walk.” A light kiss is pressed to my forehead; a full stop for his nurturing thought. I bookmark the moment, recording every last atom vibrating around and within. I’ll return to this page—over and over and over. I just know it. “I have a cake to make,” he adds, taking a step back. A new spark of enticement kindles in his gaze, hoping that he’ll provoke some curiosity—or at the least hunger.

Where I know him well, he matches that—step for step, word for word, breath for breath.

“Cake? What kind of cake?” I can’t hide the eager giddiness in my voice, I wouldn’t attempt to either.

“Chocolate.”

My stomach rumbles on cue. “What’s the occasion?” Honestly, I don’t care, I’m already fantasising about the dessert induced coma I’ll fall into later, regardless of the reasoning behind it. Sangwoo is a magician in many things and baking is one of them.

A casual shrug is offered as a response before words follow. “It just felt like a cake kinda day.” Taking another step backwards, he’s halfway over the threshold. “If you’re around in about twenty minutes there’ll be a bowl and spoon to lick clean.” There’s another grin, full of mischief, and eyebrows that quirk before he disappears back into the warmth of our home.

I’m caught up in the sweetest quandary. My legs long to pace earth and my fingers ache to touch pine, but the cosmos isn’t going anywhere right now… whereas that bowl and spoon might.

His argument is compelling; Sangwoo knows my weaknesses. But we’ve never truly needed anything to persuade ourselves or convince the other. Nothing binds us here aside from free will, shone and reflected back in equal measures. He is me and I am him. We can’t breathe alone.

#killing stalking #fanfic #post canon #yoon bum #sangwoo

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junkyardlynx · 4 years

Text

As the wind stroked his boyish face, Gran found himself smiling softly. Not one of previously unrealized joy, nor the fragile countenance of someone on the edge of sorrow. No, it was a smile of resignation. Not over anything huge, really, but more a persistent fact of his strange life.

He would always be underestimated.

The breeze’s affection turned fickle and slipped away, leaving only stillness and birdsong to fill the tree he was perched in. The light armor he wore fit him well - a black ensemble, decorated with geometrical splashes of red and trimmed in gold. The plates were near-weightless, but they were tough enough to take all manner of punishment; the master artisan six islands back claimed the whole set was forged from adamantite. The matching gauntlets fit him like a second skin, responsive and pliable and even as he leaned forward on the spindly branch, the greaves gave not a creak or a groan.

By all accounts, the armor was fit for a majestic king, or perhaps a revered general. Not a boy who barely looked sixteen summers. So, who then? One would be forgiven if they mistook him for a prince, or perhaps an up-and-coming knight-commander. His features were handsome, if boyish, and people always told him that he had a “very dashing” air to him. As if that actually meant anything.

No, Gran was none of those things. By birth, he was a nobody from the edge of the known sky, left with his friend that was definitely not a lizard. By trade, he was a skyfarer captain. By destiny, one who shared his life with the Girl in Blue. And by effort? Well, that was the one he was most happy to share. Not that anyone ever believed him at first.

By effort, he could be summed up in four words.

Conqueror of the Eternals.

A boy of sixteen, now going on twenty-two, was the one who bested all ten Eternals in single combat? Even to himself, it sounded like a nice story and nothing more. Even though he lived every moment of it. The more spectacular details, like the defeat of the Erste Empire and his rejection of the True King’s offer were public knowledge. Though, well, it was true that they tended to draw his likeness a bit taller, and his face a bit more rugged. Artists paint what they feel, even if they don’t know it, even if they try and hide it. The bias creeps in. Surely whoever performed these fantastic deeds couldn’t be a sixteen year old kid. It was probably a part of the tale added later to spice it up and make it marketable for local papers.

Well, they were sort of right. When he rejected the “True King” and his poisoned wish, Gran was just about to turn twenty-two. Four months later, he now found himself intervening in a messy war between two kingdoms with his friend and crewmate Altair.

Six years. Six years had passed. Six years that showed nowhere on his face, his countenance. Nowhere save his eyes.

It started six years ago. He’d died protecting a terrified girl. A girl he didn’t even know. Even now, if Gran was left to his own devices, he could taste that choking pain -- not the way his lungs seared from the hydra’s flame, nor the gash in his side from the hydra’s claws. No, it was the pain of being powerless. The pain of not being able to reach his hand up to the sky and ask his father in hated grief if he was proud. Proud that unlike his old man, Gran didn’t abandon a child in their time of need.

So when that girl in blue did something impossible, he made two little promises inside of his weak heart.

One, never let anyone hurt her again.

Two, never feel that way again.

Six years and four months showed only in the tone of his muscles and the strength of his gait. The softness of his steps, the way he would round a corner like a prowling lion due to the endless combat he found himself engaged in. How long was it until he figured out the peculiarities of his resurrected body? His hair and nails grew, he still had to eat and sleep and still smelled awful when covered in silverslime after a successful hunt. Open wounds bled and illness forced him to bed.

But he didn’t age.

He probably realized it after teasing Rackam about his patchwork scruff one day. Rackam had lost his razor and was pilfering through the kitchen for a spare, muttering about the “damn gremlins” who “sneak aboard even though people are on watch duty.”

The exchange wasn’t noteworthy, really. Rackam had laughed and jabbed his index finger into the captain’s cheek, wondering when his peach fuzz would finally pack its bags and leave for more hairy locales.

Rackam’s voice echoed in his head.

“C’mon cap, aren’t you eighteen now? You gotta have more than this in ya!”

---

Weird how such a statement could open a can of worms. Last he checked, he wasn’t in the worm business, either. Well, unless Altair’s little solo mission for me involves worms somehow.

Gran hadn’t honestly asked for details since Altair didn’t seem to think they were important. The gist of his part in the greater plan amounted to “stop the western advance.” Simple and concise, really. The field he was scouting below the tree was still and peaceful, seemingly unaware of both the passage of time and the rumblings of war. The breeze kicked up again, carving gentle waves through the grass, and memory pulled him back under.

---

After that, it was impossible for Gran not to notice everything strange thing going on with his body. Despite nearing the age of nineteen, not a single hair managed to grace his face. Meanwhile, he could still tan (and burn) under the blazing sun and if he chose, he could grow the hair on his head as long as he liked. As an experiment, he’d left one toenail to grow as long as it could, just to see what happened. Other than a supremely stubbed toe one early morning followed by a string of swears angry enough to make Eugen blush, nothing came of his experiment.

If was as if nobody has given his body the blueprints for life after sixteen, as if the existence of “Gran as a person” was tied to his current general appearance, as if something altogether removed from natural biology had decided that “this” was Gran. Whatever was supposed to come after simply...didn’t. Naturally, Gran lost his mind a bit. Only a bit, though. He had the good sense to seek out the famous alchemist and self-proclaimed cutest girl in the world, Cagliostro. She’d joined the crew a while ago and had a keen intellect when it came to matters of the body and it’s intricate workings. After all, she’d made one for herself, probably countless times. Her verdict?

She was stumped.

Apparently, senescence - the process of cells deteriorating after copying themselves over long amounts of time, leading to aging - had stopped in Gran. Sort of. The truth was much stranger. She’d been having him report to her little workshop on the Grancypher twice a week, taking blood and tissue samples much to his immediate and mildly painful dismay. This process continued on for three months before her exasperation and wonder lead her to discuss her findings with “cute, baffling little Gran.”

“Basically, captain! You’re aging just right for the first eight samples. The only way to tell is to be able to “find” the itty bitty little bit of info that goes missing from the blueprint of “you” every time your cells divide. I imagine the Astrals put it in as a sort of safety fe-errrrr, moving on! So! Being the inimitable genius I am, I noticed something about the ninth set of samples. They’re alllllmost the same as the first. Way too close. You don’t just get that bit back for no reason, and you really don’t get THAT much back for any reason.”

Gran nodded slowly, already onto what she was talking about. However, knowing that Cagilostro loved a.) having a captive audience and b.) herself, he let her continue.

“I didn’t say anything because I wasn’t sure, and positing a hypothesis that early on when I might have just mixed up the samples would be irresponsible. So I waited until that Saturday when I got to stab and slice you again, triple-checking that alllll the samples were out of my workshop. Same result! They looked just like the second sample, even fresh farm-to-table.”

She turned an adorably calculated and seemingly malicious smile to Gran as her explanation ended. Though it wasn’t exactly news, her words were still unnerving. After all, his cells were basically rolling back the clock of aging every four weeks. You know, normal things.

“You know how much I’d give to figure out your secret? Even ignoring the fact that it certainly has to do with whatever Lyria did to you three years ago, this is a discovery so amazing you’d think I’d invented it. Your body is pretty much just removed from time! It’s almost envious enough to make me cry. I can’t believe you, making a genius cry. It’s honestly ridiculous. You can obviously still put on muscle mass and your brain isn’t fried like one of those Golden Friday SHRIMP.”

For a bit there after that, Gran lost a...well, a bit more of his mind. If he had to be honest. Three days locked up in his room, not letting anyone in, not even Vyrn. He poured over alchemical texts, medical documents, arcane and state secrets, anything the Grandcypher had that might be pertinent. After three days of intense study, stopping only for the necessities of life, Gran came to an answer. Well, his answer.

Did it matter?

Had his sword arm stayed the same over those three years? No. Was his cut not deadlier, his stab not sharper, his fist not faster? Had his body not taken on the tone and muscle of someone who fought primals -- and prevailed? The difference between the weak Gran of three years ago and the Gran of today was immeasurable. The young man who had once fallen to a single tortured hydra now found himself battling ancient primal beasts of war and guile on a monthly basis.

He may not ever have a thick Draph-sized mustache and his cheeks might permanently retain their tender charm no matter his age, but his body was fit to fight. To protect. To chase his absent father until the end of the sky. That’s what mattered. Though he was quite sure Cagilostro would tease him endlessly for his answer.

With newfound determination, Gran threw himself into what the rest of the crew considered hellish training simply because he knew he could endure it. It was a way to prove himself - even after death, even after abandonment, he was worth something. He had value and merit and talent, but also the drive and yearning to turn it into something. In the wake of this new regiment for himself and his little visit to a certain alchemist on board, rumors crept up. Slow and steady at first, they soon burned like wildfire through the decks of the Grandcypher, spreading out of context and control. He finally became privy to a good chunk of the downright goofy rumors via his afternoon footwork training on the vast open deck.

His footwork training was simple. He would empty his mind and fill it with visions of attackers, then repel those attackers as they came at him from all sides and angles. Though it didn’t hold up to real battles, it offered a sort of vision training and group combat scenario that duels never quite could and best of all, it could be performed anywhere with ample space as the only thing required was himself.

Being simple in those relative terms, it provides opportunities for a capable multitasker to easvesdrop things they shouldn’t, like the hottest Grandcypher gossip. On one such afternoon, in the early days of summer, things came to a head as crewmates found themselves unable to contain the rumor mill around their captain any longer.

“I heard the captain’s immortal!”

Not entirely inaccurate. His nonexistent blade swung a tight arc, lopping off the head of something never there. With his arm extended, he challenged the thin atmosphere between the islands. Nothing came.

“Yeah, I heard he was like a six thousand year old primal beast?”

Missed the mark a bit there, he quipped internally. It seemed both directed at the conversation and himself as he danced between the attacks of no ones and nothings. His sweeping kick, though near-flawless in form, barely grazed the torso of his last imagined attacker in that scenario. With a click of his tongue, he noted to himself that an actual attacker couldn’t simply stop on a dime like the one he imagined did. Even in his mind, he was tough on himself, as no one else seemed to want the responsibility. With a little consternation, he ended up giving himself the point for his made up little game. The points didn’t matter, but they made him feel better.

“We have a few of those in the crew, so it makes sense.”

It would, but that’s not the case. Gran’s feet shuffled to and fro, dancing softly across the wooden deck of the Grancypher. To the casual observer, it almost appeared as if he was simply rehearsing one of the dances Anthuria had choreographed with him. He ducked under an imaginary bullet, fist rising from below to smash the jaw of the illusory gunman.

The nothings and nobodies fell to his invisible sword strikes, his matchless kicks and punches, to the spells he snap-conjured between the thrust of a lance and the flight of an arrow. Finally, panting hard with exhilaration and the flow of combat, Gran slew the final “attacker” with a quick reversal and stab to the gut, ending the dream with its own weapon. Nothing and no one fell, other than comfortable silence, but he still felt a measure of success as he picked up the warmed vacuum flask that had his lunch in it.

“No, no, he’s only thirty-six and he’s the son of that one legendary adventurer. It’s his hero’s blood. I hear his dad bathed in the entrails of the primal beast he slew, though, so maybe that’s what caused it in the end?” Why would a hero be forced to stop aging before he could legally drink? The snort of his barely contained laughter sent soup up his nose, straight from his vacuum flask. Hot soup. Hot, spicy soup.

“That makes a lot of sense.”

More than the six thousand year old primal beast bit, yes.

“He’s still our captain, so who cares? That’s good enough for me.” Oh. Ah. I...

That last overheard comment had humbled him, but the clear ring of all the affirmations that followed from crewmates in it’s wake shook him to his core. Somehow, he’d gained the loyalty and friendship of some of the most accepting people under the great blue sky. His training, already considered to be a form of self-punishment by the rest of the crew, grew in scope and desire. If there was a mountain in his way, he would cut it. If there was a river in his way, he would part it. If even the great ocean of stars spanned the distance, it would be crossed.

For all the things he could still protect.

For the dreams he had thought beyond him.

For the sake of surpassing the absent father that had abandoned him long ago, leaving only a note.

When still a boy in a backwater nothing, Gran wielded a simple short sword and fancied himself a sort of knight as he grew up. Wearing a slightly ragged blue tunic with a hood, a few pieces of spare platemail strapped to his right arm, and holding a sword containing more rust than blade. Training with Vyrn in the forest every day, the boy dreamed of something bigger. A fighter, a protector, a guardian of what he loved and treasured, not a bandit that cut and run from his family. That’s what he wanted to be... That dream was, for lack of a better term, driven from his chest. By a hydra. Just so we’re clear.

He abandoned defensive posture after that, seeking to end fights as quickly as possible. An axe found it’s way into his hands and for a time, he was satisfied by the devastation it wrought. Teenage postmortem angst seemed to be quelled by a felling cleave to an enemy’s collarbone, and chunky plate scraps held together with red leather and white fur served him well enough as protection from the elements and the enemies he faced.

Nothing so simple satisfied for long, though. Gran took to himself in a sort of hermitage for a while, studying magic under the occasional tutelage of his talented crewmates. There was a certain ripple of insecurity in his scouting party’s mood when he’d shown up late one day, his usual armor stripped down to basic protection and his axe nowhere to be found. They tossed light jeers at his green cloak and the staff he carried, even as they set off for their destination - a bandit camp they had been hired to uproot. Peace talks were attempted by the bandit’s leader and an Erune comrade of Gran’s, one better suited for diplomacy than the boy-faced captain.

Things deteriorated quickly. Gran had quietly stepped forward once the leader made it clear he had no intention of retreating peacefully. With the green hood still covering half his disappointed face, Gran slashed the tip of the staff in a dismissive motion to the right, as if telling them their time here was over. Before they could protest or retaliate, wild magic burst into life around them, sealing off all escape and action. Concentric rings of frost and fire cradled in the stony embrace of the earth, carved into being with the fierce wind tore at everything inside the bandit’s camp. With the oxygen burnt out, the earth lashed and the encampment in shambles, the dazed and injured bandits were easy prisoners.

No one jeered after that.

As his prowess grew and the crew took on more work, that cloak had weathered with time. It faded to an almost dull grey, and with this Gran had added a black half-mask to the ensemble. Admittedly, it was mostly to hide his youthful features and force enemies to take him somewhat seriously for once, as the sting of his blessed curse grew more apparent as he approached his twentieth year.

For combat, a middle ground was found. He embraced not pure swordsmanship, nor did he place his trust only in magic. Instead, he channeled his power into debilitating his opponent’s often unworldly vigor and vitality, then coaxed those weaknesses open with his unmatched swordplay. Victory after victory piled up at the crew’s feet, and the legend of the “boy captain” grew.

It also provided the fodder for what Gran considered a highly embarrassing piece of “art.” Somebody had caught him resting his right hand on his jaw, leg crossed over the other almost lazily as he read a scrap of paper in his left. It was a failed betting ticket, so close to winning millions of rupees, save for the upset victory in the sixth match. An enterprising somebody, who’s name begins with L and ends with -unalu, had committed this terrible and dreadful sight to memory. She then committed that memory to paper with her talent.

Only, well.

She’d used her license of artistic interpretation to replace the slip of paper held in contempt with a comically oversized sword. Stabbed unceremoniously in the ground. The barstool? That was now a throne carved of stone. The title of the piece, an unknowing and fortunate soul might ask?

“Chaos Ruler.”

The print she made was reproduced and sold to more than a handful of people on and off the Grandcypher. Copies of it hung from stray support beams and walls on the ship, as if to lovingly taunt him and people switched their mode of address from “captain” to things like “my liege” or “ruler” or “chaos kid” for the better part of a month. Gran said nothing, choosing to keep what little of his dignity he felt he had left.

Nobody saw Gran wear that outfit again.

In hindsight, he had to agree that the metal half-mask was a little much. But, ah, Ejaeli and Predator had convinced him it was cool. They made masks look cool, after all. The palpable disappointment from them almost made him walk back on that decision. Almost.

From then on, he’d taken to wearing a simple outfit when on duty, reminiscent of his teenage years. Having turned twenty some time ago, he decided to make a simple blue hooded tunic the mainstay of his combat attire. On top went a basic but functional steel breastplate, covering his heart and ribs. His arms were covered in gauntlets of the same make, and steel greaves offered his feet and shins ample protection as they went on over a pair of loose beige pants. What it lacked in flair it made up for in comfort and capability. A sensible choice. It gave nothing about his combat style away either, other than the obvious caveat that he might engage in it at some point.

---

Funny to say teenage years, he supposed, looking down at the peaceful field. Fires were beginning to rise and march in the distance, headed this way. An army. For now, though, he had time, and the world seemed to move so perilously slow. Memory reeled him in once more, as if the grass and the trees of this island made him long for another time and another place.

---

Thinking seriously on it, the reason his legend had spread as that of the “boy captain” probably had to do with two things. One, the Grandcypher traveled an awful lot between three different skydoms, and two? The crew of the Grandcypher loved events.

It probably had to do with a third thing, too.

His crew really, really loved to tease him about his age.

Every birthday, it’d be “Happy sixteenth, Cap!” They reused the same banner six times now, adding a tally mark just above “sixteenth” every single time. It was as endearing as it was maddening. Eugen and Rackam pulled the same thing at every new bar, ordering three beers and then pretending to flip out at Gran when he took his. It caused its fair share of problems for Gran, so sometimes Gran would flip the script before they got the chance and get angry at his “dad” and “brother” for getting drunk while “mom” was at home alone.

Some of the Grandcypher ladies would tease him with lines about “when he was older” and what an “earnest young man he was” if they saw him during the more romantic holidays, much to his chagrin. He learned to reverse that too, going on the offensive by playing the straight man to their act. He paid them straightforward compliments with toothy grins and presented them with chocolates during White Day as a form of playful revenge.

A few times every year, the crew would be called to an ancient island where a sort of...war game took place between skyfaring crews. An Astral experiment run amok meant that otherworldly and ferocious beasts overwhelmed the singular island now and then, and their presence courted the attention of primal beasts. As the people of the skydoms always sought to turn misery into growth, they established a way to turn it into a competition. Extremely rare treasure was brought in from all across the skyrealms and the monster problem on the island was handily taken care of in what they called Guild Wars.

Ten times, the Grancypher emerged victorious. Each time, for his troubles, the Captain would receive an ancient weapon of unparalleled power, power that courted disaster - and inevitably the attention of those that would protect the sky from unparalleled threats.

The Eternals.

Ten times over the years, Gran wore his convictions on his sleeve and fought the strongest people in the sky, all to prove that he would remain himself in the face of that dread power. In truth, Gran didn’t plan to use those relics of war. He simply reveled in the chance to face those brilliant, blazing souls in single combat.

It was a way to prove himself. Both to those who he had grown to admire after hearing their legends, and to his eternally absent father. Surely, even his father would have to notice if he conquered the ten strongest people in the sky--

He didn’t, but it didn’t matter.

In the end, the people he met and bonded with mattered.

After an incident involving the mafia bearing down on Stardust Town, the Eternals got together and presented Gran with a suit of armor and his own cloak, signifying his status as the eleventh Eternal, an irreplaceable part of their group. While Siete was still the de-facto leader and Uno was the first of the Eternals, Gran - given the new title of Jedenáct - was the end-all-be-all when it came to pure combat strength. As they had joined the Grancypher’s crew, they wanted him to join the crew of the Eternals and share in that camaraderie.

He might have felt sixteen behind those misty eyes when they draped the white jacket over his shoulders and popped the celebratory drinks open, but he’d never admit it. Openly. Nio knew, because of course she did. His heart’s plaintive melody was clear to her ear from the moment they’d met. He’d been seeking a place to belong, a place that respected him since the day he understood that his father had abandoned him. Between the Grancypher and the Eternals, he’d finally felt like part of a family.

A family more real than the blood that spawned and abandoned him, all the while burdening him with purpose.

This is where I belong.

---

Of course, it was just after this heartfelt moment that Altair had been roped into this awful and brutal war. As a member of the Grancypher family, Altair’s problems were Gran’s problems. And now, that advancing army was coming into ambush distance. Concentrating his mana for a second, Gran summoned forth an ethereal bow, shaped like the one Song used but made of pure, blue light. Standing up on the branch of the tree, he took aim at the ground some twenty metres in front of the enemy general’s advance. Luhua was said to be a fearsome combatant, and Gran secretly hoped for a chance to resolve things with a non-fatal, honorable, one-on-one duel. The best kind of fight.

Of course, he would always be underestimated. There was a chance that no such duel would be found, and it might turn into a bloody melee.

Either way?

Time to keep the sky’s sweet peace.

#granblue fantasy #gbf #gran #fanfiction #writing #my writing #self-indulgent bullshit

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