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theknightmarket · 1 year

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“Why would I work with you?”

In which Mark and an old friend reunite - this time, with feeling!

[This is a two-parter because it got too long to keep in one, so read it here after this one]

TW: cursing, angst, sexual references

Pages: 23 – Words: 8500

[Requests: OPEN]

Mark was furious. In his mind, righteously so; despite being the primary protagonist in this bound-to-be box office hit, the director neglected to tell him about his co-star. You’d think that being the very person the entire shoot depended on, he’d be the first to be told about any changes or surprises coming his way. Oh, but how wrong you’d be. Now, Mark considered himself to be a patient man, but only a day was left before they fully started shooting that the director could have told him about his partner in – which, to him, was not long enough. So, he listened in on the gossip of two assistants and may have overheard the shocking news that sent him storming through the set.

Currently, those exact assistants were chasing him through the halls of old western Mississippi, inhaling dust and bumping into food carts as they went. They tried to yell after Mark, but he was on a warpath and gunning straight for the director. They barely got out a word, warnings that a temperamental actor was coming up behind him before they skidded into the side of a saloon door. Wrestling with the wooden slats, they watched the scene unfold as he stepped over onto metal plating.

“Patton!” Mark hissed, inches away from his ear.

The director swirled around and looked up at his prized protagonist. Bent eyebrows, a glare that could kill a man twice over, and half-done makeup to boot – he wasn’t sure for what, but Mr. Patton knew he should be scared. Trying to keep up a façade of confidence around the employees, he grimaced awkwardly. The poor attempt at a smile did nothing to placate his anger.

“Is everything alright, Mark?” he asked, knowing full well that something was wrong.

But Mark just parroted, “Is everything alright?” in such a mocking tone that set Patton’s ears aflame. “Let’s see, the costume fits fine enough, my coffee was only three minutes late, and the product-placement is no longer forced into a serious scene…” he trailed off, pretending to tap his chin in thought. The rest of the crew looked on in surprise and fear, some shuffling off to avoid his wrath. They had only been working with the guy for a day, and yet, they already knew of his temperament. “And, if it’s not any of those, I don’t know, maybe it’s the fact that I didn’t know I have a co-star!?”

Mark was so close to the director that he could see the rage building in his eyes, like a bull teased by a flying flag. Taking a step back, he fumbled with his jacket. “Ah, yes, well, we tried to tell you—”

“Hmm, and how did that go? Had I been told?”

Patton sighed. It wasn’t his fault, that much was obvious, but trying to convince Mark of that would be like convincing somebody to jump into a 30-foot-deep pit. So, he just glanced away and gestured for the camera crew to set up. “No, you hadn’t,” he conceded, “but it’s too late to change the roles, and there has to be two people here.”

Mark rolled his eyes, arms crossed, and feet planted in his shoes. “I don’t care about that; I care about who it is.”

Huh. Patton had expected an outrage over having to share the limelight, but his choice of co-star was something different. It spawned a different annoyance in Mark that had him raising an eyebrow. Close enough to see the anger, he was also close enough to see remembrance. “What?” he whispered, “Do you mean—”

His words were cut off by Mark gripping his shoulder. Tightly.

“Don’t you dare say their name.”

Patton closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Having Mark’s name on the poster was a big deal, but he was not prepared to deal with him being like that for the rest of the shoot – he was fine with the yelling, he could cope with pissing him off once in a while but trying to control his choices was over the line.

Promptly, he removed Mark’s hand and spoke, “Look, Mark, you can’t just act like a child and hope to get your way.”

“I’m not acting like a child.”

He was, and everybody was aware of it, even the crew who distanced themselves and pretended to fix cameras or adjust costumes. Patton continued, “So, you’re going to have to suck it up and get along for the next couple months. We’ll keep your shoots together short, but you have to meet me half-way.”

The actor thought it over. It wasn’t an ideal situation – ideal would be shooting it completely alone, but the script demanded two protagonists to go smoothly. He could do a couple months, but that was his limit, and God forbid they need more than five reruns of a scene.

“Fine.” He shrugged, pretending like he hadn’t just thrown a fit in the middle of a set. “But don’t expect me to be nice outside of work.”

Patton let out that breathe and a blanket of calm overthrew whatever tension had been created. Maybe everything would be alright, they could get through the movie without any hiccups. He let a smile shift onto his face.

“No, we wouldn’t ask that much of you.” He arranged a set of scripts in his hands. “We all know how you are when you’re made to step slightly out of your comfort zone.”

Whatever remark the star had been planning to make, though his mouth was open, and his mind was rearing, was cut off by the slam of a heavy door. It came from behind Mark, but he didn’t have to see to guess exactly who it was. The distance between steps, the clacking of polished shoes, the slight chatter as they spoke to whoever they brought with them. He held back on rolling his eyes again, fearing they would fall right out, and he wouldn’t have them stocked up to annoy them when they spoke. Instead, he kept staring straight forward.

Mark had a track record for dealing with co-stars – often times, they would fall one of two ways. They would either start an intrepid affair that would make its way to the printing press, or they would either break apart in a matter of minutes. Arguing and fights were common, and the two would come out of the other side hating the other’s guts. However, and this was supposed to be common knowledge, there was no one that he would hate working with more in the entire world than…

“Sounds like you haven’t changed a bit, Mark.”

You.

Your shoes stopped just next to him, but you didn’t even spare him a glance. You’d seen the posters and the interviews, you knew what he looked like now, and he hadn’t changed in that department very much, either. Same cocky smirk towards every camera, something red on his somewhere, and a jawline for days. When you saw it, you wanted nothing more than to crack it in two.

“And you sound as weaselly as ever.”

Mark held the same sentiments. Staying in one place that was affected slightly by you was a chore, one that he wouldn’t soon choose, and now he was being forced to! It was bad enough his friends still asked about you from time to time but invading his workplace would be getting on his nerves fast.

“God, you are such a brat,” you complained. At your side, the guy you were talking to – your assistant, Toby – handed you a coffee before stepping back to give you some space. You just smiled and replied with a softer tone, “Thank you, love.”

It was painful to not vomit at the interaction, Mark found, and he covered it up with commenting, “Manipulative banshee.”

You were quick to the draw, saying bluntly, “Man-whore.”

“Buzzkill.”

“Princess.”

“Two-timing, two-faced, backstabbing bastard,” he spat, turning away from you.

“Grow up.”

“Get out.”

“This is not going to work,” you stated to the director. He was standing between the two of you, a look of horror plastered on his face. It rapidly melted into distaste, and, clenching his fists, he did more than explode in anger.

“Oh, you’re going to make it work! I’ve paid too much to get you here, and I don’t want to be replacing tables or- or,” Patton latched onto your shoulder and grappled Mark’s arm, guiding you towards the exit, “refurbishing bathrooms just because you two won’t get along. So, you are going to put aside whatever the hell went wrong in your relationship and shoot this goddamn movie if it’s the last thing you do!” You arrived at the door you had just entered through, Toby and, presumably, Mark’s assistant, trailing meekly behind you. “And, please, if you’re going to kill each other, do it out of the sound stage. Things echo, and I don’t want the audio messed with.”

And just like that, you were shoved unceremoniously out of the doors. You were frozen in place as the cold wind caressed your skin, raising goosebumps and getting you to shiver. Mouth open to say something, you realized who you were with and shut it without a second thought.

Inside the studio, another assistant approached Patton. His scowl was fading but the crease between his eyebrows dared people to come closer. Shakily, they asked, “Aren’t you worried about them, sir?”

To their surprise, Patton shook his head and swiveled on his heel. The assistant followed his confident strides, listened as he replied, “Nope. I’ve been in this business long enough to know one of them is gonna be in the other’s bed by reshoots.”

The following morning was big. The first scene was to be recorded, and that meant a forced interaction between you and Mark. As you stepped over the threshold of the set, you practically felt the air flex and bend around you. Everybody was waiting with bated breath to see how it would turn out, the responsibility to refrain from any remarks or insults balancing heavy on your shoulders. You placed your bag and sunglasses on a table, took a swig of a water bottle, and sat down. Your movements were stiff and mechanical, much like the crew, and you kept an eye out for your co-star. It didn’t take long to hear him first.

“Kill me now.”

“Don’t get your panties in a twist, it’s only a few hours,” you responded, flicking through your emails. You needed to act nice on stage, sure, but off-set was another thing entirely, and you thought it better to let off steam now than when you were in the middle of a scene.

Mark fell into the chair on the other side of the table. “With you, it feels like an eternity.”

“Trust me,” you laughed, “I can make it a lot worse.”

You wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing you mad, just blunt annoyance, but Mark didn’t think the same way as you. Instead, he was clearly fuming in his chair, tapping his arm, and, though you didn’t hear it, muttering insults under his breath.

“Okay, you two!” Patton emerged from another room, toting your assistants. “We want our dear Captain by the docking bay and Mark, you’re standing ready to greet them.”

Nodding, you rushed to your station, being careful to focus your mind on your script and away from your relationship with Mark. It only made matters worse that you had to be friendly with him, act like you wanted to hear from him and follow him around, but that was what years of experience helps with. Pretending you didn’t want to wrestle him to the ground and squeeze the life out of him.

With the call of ‘action’ from the director, doors opened before you, revealing Mark, grinning ear to ear, and confidently holding his hands to his hips. Smoke bellowed out around him, just as dramatic as he was, before he started his line, “Welcome aboard the Invincible II, Captain. Glad to have you here. Took you long enough but let me give you the grand tour before we embark.”

He was so punch-able.

By the time it got to his last line – “Oh, and I forgot to mention, it’s not a problem of course, but just before you go to sleep, be absolutely sure, do not—” – and the cameras cut, you were applauding yourself for resisting the temptation. Eve being tempted by the snake would have had an easier time with how many smug looks he shot you when the camera faced away from him.

Still, as you stepped back out of the foggy cabinet, Patton came up to you and smiled placatingly. “Nice work, guys, we’ll take fifteen and then we’re running the next scene.”

With the go ahead, you unzipped your jacket and let cool air flood around your sides. Those things were deceptively hot, and they often left you sweating no matter where you went in the ship. You tied the arms around your waist as you went to grab your bottle again. In the corner of your eye, you saw Juliette, Mark’s assistant, spring from her chair and hand a similar bottle to him.

The crew milled around, the assistants scattering themselves to fix anything that might have tipped or damaged, and the actors spilled off the set. You hummed to yourself to keep occupied and to ignore the slowly approaching footsteps. Intentional, dramatic – you knew who this was before they had stopped.

Mark was the first to speak, letting off the rudeness he had been keeping holed up during shooting by remarking, “You need to speak louder.”

“You grimace instead of smile,” you replied and set the water back on the table.

“When I’m talking to you, I do.”

You didn’t know what Mark’s intentions were. It would be easy to completely ignore each other – better for you, in fact, because you wouldn’t get more aggravated when you were in a scene – and yet he continued to try and start arguments. If he wanted a fight, you would gladly give him one, but you questioned why he wanted to interact more than necessary.

“You weren’t talking to me, you were talking to the captain.”

“Same thing.”

“No, it isn’t.”

Mark scoffed and collapsed into his chair, to which you rolled your eyes. He acted like everything was a chore, as if he had been forced to do this movie. “You’re the one who nearly hit the door on the way onto the ship,” he pointed out.

“And you’re the one whose beret was off.”

“No, it wasn’t!” he yelled, almost indignant. This, you laughed at; you had been staring at it for the better half of an hour, imagining his face when you told him, and it was better than you had thought. But you took generous pity on the poor guy – and you wanted to prove him wrong – so you planted yourself inches away from him and leaned down to fix the hat. Mark’s face exploded in beet red, mouth opening centimeters just for a second of fumbling and stuttering to come out.

“See?”

When you stood straight again, he pulled the beret off entirely and slammed it onto the table. “Don’t touch me,” he grumbled.

You chuckled lightly, saying, “You chose me as your co-star.”

“God, no,” Mark gasped, the idea appearing to physically pain him in how he shot back into his seat, “why would I work with you?”

“Because you miss me.”

If insinuating he chose you hurt him, then implying he missed you sent him into a heart-attack. Almost keeling over, you heard mild sounds of disgust in the form of dramatic retching and gagging. He really was the poster child for actors, and you looked away with embarrassment. People were starting to stare but, for fear of enraging Mark, they kept their whispers to themselves.

“I do not,” was all he said when he recovered from that debilitating illness.

You sat down in your chair again, asking, “Then why am I here if you didn’t ask for me?”

“Patton chose you.”

“And you didn’t argue?”

“Oh, I argued, but I only found out two minutes before you arrived.”

You didn’t know what it was, but that little scenario gave you pause. A pair of emotions battled inside your heart; satisfaction that Mark couldn’t take this opportunity away from you, and strange disappointment. You didn’t care, or you thought you didn’t, but it hurt to have him that resistant towards you. You could chalk it up to residual emotions from your past, but there was a bit inside you that told you it wasn’t true. Even now, there was something buried deep that wanted to repair your relationship with him, but it was obvious he would never agree to such a thing. So, you left it at that, ignored the feelings stirring inside and reverted to being a nuisance.

“And why did you even say yes?” Mark asked from the other side of the table. You almost didn’t hear him with how quiet he was, a surprising turn of events that confused and delighted you.

“I didn’t know I’d be working with you.” And to be fair, you didn’t for the first day after you agreed. Then, you got the call that Mark was to work alongside you, and you couldn’t pass up an opportunity to annoy the hell out of him. Also, it would put your name further up in reputation, and after what had happened, he owed it to you.

Mark replied bluntly, “You still came.”

“You’re still here.”

Despite the conversations around you – about the brightness of the lights, the props needed for the next scene, the door getting more grease – nothing was louder than your own breathing. Mark hadn’t replied, and he wouldn’t for a few seconds, while you thought about it. It was his fault you needed to be here, he couldn’t complain every second that he made himself spend with you, but there he was.

And then he laughed. It was gravelly and smug, and made you want nothing more than to chuck your bottle at him.

“Sometimes I wonder what I saw in you.”

Ow. You knew he was a dick, but did he have to say it like that? You swallowed and bit the inside of your cheek; it didn’t matter, it did not matter to you what he thought of you. If he wanted to be like that, fine, you would be the same and not have any regrets.

You retorted, “Pleasant company, somebody willing to be around you for more than five minutes. Y’know, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

“So, what changed?”

You looked over to him, but Mark was facing away. You didn’t know what he was thinking, but you knew what you were. Sarcastic smile dropping, you grunted, “You know damn well what changed.”

Mark didn’t turn, but if he had, you would have seen the look of confusion melt over his face. Any annoyance or aggravation disappeared into scrunched eyebrows and a small frown. He tried to think of what that meant, but nothing came up, no matter how hard he looked. Eventually, he settled on saying, “You blame me.”

“Yes.” His frown deepened. “Yeah, Mark, I do.”

“Why?”

You froze. Was he serious? You really couldn’t tell. Thinking back to it, he had never brought up what he did, possibly because you hadn’t spoken once since the incident, but you would have expected him to use it against you. Acting ignorant was a stupid move, and it confused you even more than Mark was.

“I can’t tell if you’re actually that stupid, or you’re trying to piss me off.”

His head whipped around so fast you’d think his neck had snapped, but his expression stayed a spiteful anger. “You’re not telling me what I supposedly did, so I couldn’t tell you.”

“You—” Forcing yourself to stop, you sighed. You didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of seeing you so mad, so you just rose from your seat and brushed yourself off. “—I have better things to do than to sit here and argue, and I’m sure you do, too.”

Completely disregarding his change in face, you called out, “Toby!” The boy promptly rushed to your side, sharing a nod that spoke lengths. You wanted to leave, Toby offered your dressing room, you agreed, and you’d both be off.

Mark hadn’t bothered to look up, allowing him to ask, “Who’s Toby?” before realizing that he wasn’t going to get an answer; you were gone in seconds, the distant clicking of your shoes muffled by gossip and orders.

He leaned back in his chair, the cloth curving around him like an embrace. It didn’t comfort him, for reasons he didn’t fully understand. Guilt tapped at the edge of his conscience, he didn’t let it in, but he felt the effects, nonetheless. Although he would never admit it, he was also disappointed that the conversation was over – granted, calling it a conversation was fringing on a lie – but it was… it was nice to hear your voice again.

Pushing those feelings to the back of his mind, Mark gestured vaguely for his own assistant to follow him to his room.

Your dressing room was relatively big, coming stocked with a vanity, cabinet, and a long, long rack for costumes. All of those different universes required a different combination of clothes, some needing alterations on those because of tears or burns. Luckily, Mark got put through the grinder more, so he probably had double the amount you had.

Groaning, you sat carelessly down in the chair before your vanity and stared at your image. You looked tired, despite only having been working for maybe two hours, and it was Mark’s fault. It seemed everything was lately, and only now were you starting to think twice about taking the job.

“I just don’t understand him, y’know,” you muttered, hearing Toby close the door behind himself. You were away from the crew, and that meant you were free to spill all your thoughts while he followed through on touch-ups. “He talks like he doesn’t remember a single thing he did and then I’m in the wrong for being spiteful without cause.” Toby pulled out a small stool and sorted through his equipment. "Or does he genuinely not remember it because it didn’t matter to him in the first place?”

“Eyes closed,” he ordered, but he was soft in his tone to not disturb your thoughts.

In the room over, Juliette prompted, “Eyes open.”

Mark did so, and immediately complained, “I mean, how can they blame me? I remember clear as day what happened, and none of it was my fault. I contributed more to that relationship than they ever had, and I’d never do anything to make my efforts pointless.”

When Juliette had signed up to be Mark’s assistant, she didn’t know what it would include. She guessed all the normal things, like helping with makeup and arranging costumes, which she was actually doing – however, not included was hearing about the relationship issues between him and his co-star, an idea not even the press had heard so deeply about. The first time she had seen you, she thought you were nice, maybe a bit on the self-absorbed side, but what A-list actor wasn’t? It was a shock to hear him say such things, leading her to ask, “You dated, sir?”

He sighed, as if it pained him to admit it. “Yeah, but they weren’t like how they are now.” A tinge of remembrance settled in his mouth, a taste he wasn’t a stark fan of. “At the start, they were kind and calm and witty, and a bit impulsive but I liked that about them.”

Mark wasn’t proud of it, but he had always kept the memories of your relationship under lock and key at the back of his mind. Your infectious smile when you won a game against him, the mischievous glint in your eye when you figured out a loophole, the shallow slack of your shoulders when you were told you couldn’t do something, and the embarrassed chuckle when you did that thing and faced the consequences. Nothing too serious, nothing that made him want to get you back – at least, not when he was fully sober, and his brain actually worked for him – but it was enough that he didn’t storm out when you entered the sound stage.

“Now,” he continued, dragging himself out of his memories, “they’re all bark, no bite, but they still have the nerve to talk back to me when I’m the one carrying this entire production.”

Juliette bit back the remark that, really, he wasn’t. Instead, she ruffled through costumes and removed a slightly damaged replica of the one Mark wore currently.

“And then I’m the one who’s left with the memory of what happened and nothing else to justify how I’m acting that he will actually accept!”

You flopped your head back over the headrest, your captain’s hat falling onto the floor without a sound. You hadn’t discussed the relationship with anyone, and you hadn’t planned to, unless they were involved. Really, that only extended to three people, two of whom were the people in that relationship. The other was your brother, who was only slightly affected by the split, but he warranted an explanation.

It appeared that now was the time to break your silence. “If you don’t mind me asking,” Toby started, tentatively, “what did happen with you two?”

Looking up at him, you asked, “You don’t know?”

He shook his head.

You sighed before starting the story, a poor way to prepare yourself but it worked for the moment. “It must’ve been a year ago, maybe less, but the video is still out there. Mark and I used to be in a relationship, and I thought it was going pretty well, all things considered. Mark’s career was already stable, and I was getting onto my feet doing a bunch of horror movies.”

“They were obsessed with horror movies.” Although he hadn’t been asked, Mark was quick to divulge any information about them in his rant. Once he had been started, he wasn’t going to stop until every little bit was out of his brain. “But I liked romance just as much, so we’d always take turns on movie nights. Of course, we watched each other’s shoots before they came out in theaters, and it was,” he paused for a second, “fun to see them be the characters they adored.”

Juliette folded the costume and placed it on the vanity, soot edging off and falling onto the surface. Absentmindedly, she commented, “I think they came out in that Texas Chainsaw Massacre sequel.”

Mark smiled, the look in his eyes distant. “Oh, that was their favorite. Something about the main guy being pressured and not actually evil.”

“So, what happened?”

“He had to kill teenagers with a chainsaw in Texas, go figure, and his family were cannibals and ate them in this creepy dinner scene. It was actually pretty good for a horror.”

Juliette blinked. “I meant the relationship, sir.”

“Oh, right, that.”

Gripping an eyeliner pencil, Toby moved in close to your face. The scrape was never comfortable, but he had learned a while ago how to stop the skin moving. “Huh,” he mumbled, “I don’t think I’ve seen you in any from back then.”

“You probably haven’t,” you replied, resisting rubbing away the makeup, “not unless you broke into the catacombs. They were buried after what happened, and I don’t think they even got to the big screen once.”

Toby nodded, but you didn’t continue. Your eyes lost focus and it all came rushing back to you. It wasn’t a happy day, when you broke up, but they never were.

“So, it’s a video?” he asked after a few seconds.

You snapped back to what was in front of you, mainly Toby sitting with a concerned but curious expression, and you smiled. You had gotten better since then, but it wouldn’t hurt to think about where you started.

“Yeah,” you began, “Mark had an interview about an action he had just starred in, and the guy asking him questions started shifting it off the movie and onto his personal life. He thought our relationship was plenty interesting, so he kept prying into us.” You fought off a grimace. That very man had offered an interview to you hours after that one, and you were glad you had denied him. “Now, I’m not above giving credit where credit’s due, we had agreed to keep our relationship out of the press’ mouths, and Mark tried. He’d redirect and start relating them back to the movies, but it never really worked when someone as influential as him was taken. Plus, that interviewer would get a lot of money to get the word straight from him.

“I don’t know what happened, I only saw the video after everything was cut up and edited, but what I did see…” you trailed off. You would tell Toby as much as he needed to know to get the full picture, but there were some things you wanted to keep close to the chest - the drop of your jaw, the crack of your heart, and the shake of your hands. It had felt like everything was falling apart around you, leaving you suspended and immobile in a void. You didn’t feel angry, or sad, just there, as if you had been pulled away and dangled as a spectator.

Eyes dropping, you muttered, “It really hurt. Mark was sitting there, slandering my entire career, everything I had worked for, and making himself out to be some kind of victim. He talked about how I never spent any time with him, how I separated him from all his friends and mocked him to my own, how I probably cheated on him when I went to shoot with any other co-star.”

You glanced back up to meet Toby’s eyes, only to see a question that everybody you knew replicated back then. You answered, “I didn’t.”

“Sorry,” he spoke, the suspicion immediately disappearing with just two words. If that had happened before, maybe you wouldn’t be in this mess. Alas, it hadn’t, but you couldn’t say you hated the outcome. It was just… difficult.

Mark, meanwhile, could and would confidently say he despised this scenario. Having to work with you was a nightmare come true, and he would take any opportunity given to him to plead his case. “It was June 12th,” he began, prompted by Juliette’s question, “I had just gotten home from the final shoot for this major action movie I had starred in, and I was so excited to talk to them about it, so I run upstairs to our room – I ran for them, Julie – and when I get there, they’re talking to somebody on the phone.” The sound of creaking wood and laughter stuck in his ears. “I’m a patient guy, and I wait there for a few seconds, until I hear them say how I’ve been out of the house for a while. I’m thinking they’re lonely and I’m ready to go and talk to them, but I hear them laugh and tell the other person how they could share a bed like they used to!”

Mark shot forward in his seat, almost spilling out of it in an outraged pile. Juliette made a face of sympathy as she stretched out the sleaves of another costume, brushed the dust off with a concerned sound.

He continued, “Now, I- I was invested in this relationship, and I thought I could trust them, so I was thinking up excuses for them, up until, clear as crystal—” At this point Mark was spitting out venom, “—they tell the person that they love them.”

This got Juliette’s attention. She hadn’t entirely been paying attention, splitting their focus between clothes and his story, but this had her fully turning around to look at him. Unlike on screen, he looked genuinely saddened, even a little bit of betrayal was peaking through. That actor really did a number on him, huh?

“Damn,” she replied, setting down the hanger, “I’m sorry.”

Mark let a breath flow through his teeth and rubbed his forehead for a moment of calm. Talking about it had gotten him stressed, his heart rate rising and blood flooding his cheeks. He wasn’t sure if it was real, but he felt the chokehold of tears in his throat, a feature of retelling the story he wasn’t proud to admit. So, hoping to hide them and force them back down, he leaned back and commented, “There’s nothing to do now but wait until this awful shoot is over and never see them again.”

“Well, there’s plenty you can do.”

He pulled his head back up, sitting straight with his eyebrows folded inwards. “What do you mean?”

“It’s understandable,” you replied, taking a perfume bottle into your hands, and fiddling with the label, “the rest of the world believed him. The next day I got a call from my agent telling me that I was completely fucked, she believed him, too.” You recalled the discussion you had vividly – because it wasn’t really a discussion at all, it was more of her yelling that you were a monster and your personality would tank any kind of acting you tried, but at least she wished you well before dropping you. “Those movies I had coming out were shelved, maybe burned if the studios were that scared people would find out they worked with me. I split with Mark the second I heard her and haven’t regretted it since.”

That was, mostly, the truth, if you put aside the one time you dialed his number in a particularly drunken stupor. He hadn’t picked up, though, which you were thankful for to this day.

“How’d you get here then?” Toby asked while dusting off your fallen hat.

“How’d I end up co-starring with Mark?” you laughed, “Yeah, I’ve asked myself that every minute of this day.” You played it off as a joke, but Toby didn’t laugh. “No, I went home. Got an apartment near my family for moral support and worked at a café to keep the balances afloat. I had money left over from acting, but I wasn’t going to get anything from the unreleased movies or new scripts. It took a while, but after a dozen charity donations, apologies, and begging, I am who I am now.”

And then Toby said something you didn’t expect. You had expected the accusatory look, you had expected the curiosity into your story, but you did not expect him to say honestly, “Well done.”

The small frown that had developed over the course of the tale lightened, and, eventually, a thankful smile cracked over your lips. “Thank you.”

“No.”

Mark’s response was immediate and direct. It left no room for a conversation, or for someone to be able to convince him otherwise. His word was final, and, here, that meant not following through with whatever inane plan Juliette had come up with.

There was a clatter of instruments as she asked, “Why not?”

“I- I can’t. I’d get thrown off this set before I could even start.”

Juliette scoffed. “Mr. Patton said it’s too late to change roles, he won’t risk throwing out his star actor.”

It was a well-known fact that playing to Mark’s ego was a surefire way of getting him to do whatever you wanted. Most of the time, it was small stuff, mostly getting him to leave an issue alone. However, even though it was rumored to be the end-all-be-all of convincing him, he only doubled down.

“Okay, how about, I just don’t want to.”

“Look,” Juliette swirled on her heels, picked up a brush and moved to apply the blush to Mark’s face, “it’s clear to me why you really won’t do it, so why don’t you let me handle this, and you get to reap the rewards.”

He shifted back, a vain attempt to get away from the approaching tool. “But that’s immoral.”

“You seem to do it plenty already.”

“What was that?”

“Nothing, sir.” She stopped in front of him with an assuring grin on her face, not hiding what she planned to do. “But you can trust me to get the job done. That’s a Juliette guarantee.”

Mark had had enough. He had put up with her for long enough now, that being a whole three minutes, but he was done. The brush was dropped to the ground, discarded carelessly, as the actor shot from his seat, followed by his assistant. They both had annoyed but determined looks to them, started by Mark clenching his fists and heading toward the door.

“I don’t want you to get the job done,” he spoke, gripping the handle, “I want you to get your job done. Just… leave my relationship to me and everything will be fine. If something happens, then I’ll consider it, but, right now, it is my personal business, and you should not be interfering where it does not concern you.”

The door slammed, a noise that rocked the studio to its foundations and sent the crew into hiding. A predator was on the prowl and getting caught by him might just be an early death sentence.

When the call for everyone to return to the set was heard, all four of those that had disappeared returned with nary a look nor comment to spare. You and Mark were silent as you climbed back to your positions, you preparing to get shot out of a glorified locker, and Mark trying to appear panicked. Juliette and Toby stood off to the side with the rest of the assistants, who would watch and comment on anything needed to be fixed. Or, they should have, but it was more common for them to gossip and geek out.

As quiet as she could to not get caught, Juliette greeted, “Toby.”

“Juliette.”

“How’d it go?”

“Fine, fine.” The other assistants noticed how formal they were being and quietened down, only to rise back up in volume when they saw a crew member nearly spill their coffee. “How about you?”

“Fine.”

They stayed like that for a second, both wondering if the other knew, and wondering who was going to crack first.

That didn’t matter though because they both spoke in unison.

“They cheated on Mark.”

“Mark tanked their life.”

Eyes meeting when the words processed, they squinted at each other – freakily, all of their movements were in unison, the pulling back, the blinking, the opening their mouths to speak again. Juliette began first, explaining, “I’ve been told they choreographed an affair while Mark was shooting the action film.”

Toby’s eyes widened impossibly so. “He publicly accused them of cheating in a press conference that ended their career.”

The two looked back at you and Mark.

They looked at each other.

They looked back to you.

“Those idiots,” Juliette sighed.

“Yep,” agreed Toby.

Something had gone wrong, miscommunication giving its best performance, and it left you both thinking the other had done something wrong. The most common scenario was neither of you had, and it was up to them to fix this. Well, not really, but they were taking it upon themselves, regardless.

“What do we do now?” Juliette wondered aloud.

Toby shrugged back. “Help them?”

It didn’t take long for her to grip his arm and drag him away from the conglomerate of assistants, saying, “I have an idea.”

“What, now?”

Down the hall and through one of the doors on the left, they were gone before someone could notice they were planning to. Softened shoes skittered down hallways like mice looking for a piece of cheese. That cheese was Juliette’s satchel.

“They’ll occupy themselves with petty arguments for a while,” she explained, “we’ve got an hour, I’d say, and then we can dump them with Mr. Patton, or lock them in a room together until they tire themselves out.”

Stopping to unlock a door, Toby was able to say, “I am so scared of you.”

The key clicked and the wood swung open. She was in and out seconds later, standing ready with her car keys and wallet. “Come on.”

Regretting everything that led him up to that moment, Toby followed her out of the building entirely.

You waltzed down a hallway a couple hours after the last shoot. Having been in your dressing room, memorizing a couple tricky lines and figuring out blocking for yourself, you were still in the studio when you received a text. It was your work phone, something you had bought after getting a myriad of death threats mixed with your friends’ talk of the Babadook, and you had given the number to many people. One of those was Toby, the person who had texted you to get you down to a meeting room. He hadn’t given you any directions, so you found yourself wandering through more than one completely wrong hallway before you got to conference room B.

And you wished you hadn’t ever found your way the moment you opened the door.

“Oh, it’s you,” you all but complained, letting it swing behind you as you threw your bag down next to a chair. Mark sat, staring at his nails, in the only other seat there. The rest were pulled to the side, leaving you two across from each other. You wouldn’t have questioned it if there weren’t a pair of wine glasses perched on either side of the table, or if the fluorescent overhead lights weren’t snuffed and replaced by candles. They flickered and bit at the walls, no doubt a fire hazard that had you grimacing.

“I’m the one who should be disappointed,” Mark replied, brushing off his fingertips. He would only have looked more like an asshole if he took a bite of an apple.

You glanced around the room, finding no clue to where Toby was or why you were there, and spoke, “I’m not disappointed. I’m disgusted.”

Another scoff – you wanted to stuff his mouth with a sock just to shut him up – and he was looking around as well. “Where’s Julie?”

“How should I know?”

“Well, you’re here, she’s not, and she’s supposed to be here, you’re not.”

You relented, admitting, “I don’t know, Toby said he’d meet me here, too.”

He stopped momentarily and stared at you with a cocked eyebrow. “In a candle-lit room with dimmed lights?”

Seriously? You could have laughed at his automatic accusations, like clockwork, except clockwork could be stopped. “You just said you were meeting Juliette here.”

“It’s different.”

“Hypocrite.”

“Liar.”

On the other side of the door, ear up and frowning starkly, Juliette remarked, “That was fast.” It was to be expected, they hadn’t seen you exchange a friendly word since you had arrived, but they weren’t giving up.

“Maybe we should get them on speaking terms first,” Toby offered.

“They’re definitely on speaking terms.”

“Polite speaking terms.”

Disregarding the idea, Juliette pushed in the door. Both of you brightened to see another face, finally not left alone to trade insults. Toby was in second, though you had differing reactions. You were happy to see your assistant, ready to ask him a million and one questions about what was going on, while Mark was doing nothing but pouting. You would have pointed it out, but Juliette started speaking before you could while Toby dropped a bag of takeout in the middle of the table.

“Now, you two play nice, we’ve got to do some errands for Mr. Patton, we’ll be back in a couple of hours.”

They were aware they were treating the two of you like children, but was it really that bad when you acted like ones? Mark completely ignored the tone – you squinted but didn’t comment – and yelled offendedly, “Couple hours!?”

“Don’t worry,” Toby rushed to say, “we’ll try and make it quick, but it’s urgent and we thought it’d be nice for you to talk to each other normally.”

“We do.”

Mouth opening without a thought to tell it to, you realized what they meant and closed it again.

“…oh.”

“What ‘oh’?” Mark asked, turning to face you.

The three of you left him in the dark, Juliette gesturing for Toby to come with her with a simple, “We’ll see you later.”

“Have fun!” your smiling assistant called hopefully.

You replied with equal pep, “We won’t.”

They closed the door behind themselves, all but trapping you in together. At least you had food to cover up needing to make conversation, but, a few minutes later, something else made you want to ask a question. Digging a fork into your food, you thought about it; Mark had been right. The dimmed lighting, the candles, hell, even eating dinner led you to but one conclusion.

“Is this a date?”

Mark spluttered, choked, and coughed his way into focus. His eyes blew wide, and he dropped his utensil onto the cardboard before him. You would have helped but- well, no, you wouldn’t have because you knew he’d be fine in the end. And he was. He shot you a withering glare as he came out of his panic.

“What?”

“I mean,” you drawled, “the lighting, the dinner, the mood… it’s like one of those rom-coms where the exes are forced together through contrived and unrealistic scenarios that only made sense in a movie universe.”

Only gasping slightly at your diss of romantic comedies, Mark moved on to ask, “When did you get into rom-coms?”

“When I had to take all I could get.” It was a simple, true statement that should have killed the conversation dead. However, riffling through your food, you didn’t miss the ever so slightly disappointed twitch of his mouth. So, you decided to entertain the thought of having a polite chat and amended, “No, I started watching them with my friends a couple months ago.”

“Alex and Danny.” You were surprised Mark remembered them, only having mentioned them a couple of times before you split. Sure, you had gone out to bars as a group, but there were plenty of other important things he seemed to conveniently forget.

Packing the spiteful thought underneath a swallow of wine, you replied, “Yep. They got together recently, so it feels weird to third wheel, but I still like hanging out with them.”

Mark nodded. For the next moment, you listened to the flicker of flames and scraping forks. This… wasn’t the worst dinner you’ve ever had. You held some kind of conversation, and the food was good, too. Briefly, you wondered if this was something you’d like to pursue, but that was thrown out quickly.

But it didn’t stop there. Mark asked absentmindedly, “Have you seen Love Actually?”

You didn’t mind the laugh that forced itself through your teeth. It was a shock, sure, but a welcome one, to the both of you. Your co-star found himself smiling just that little bit wider when it met his ears. “Have I seen Love Actually? Mark, look me in the eye and ask that again.”

“So, you’ve seen it.”

You chuckled once more and responded, “Yeah.” Everybody and their mother had seen the thing, but you were in the minority with one thing about it.

“What did you think of John and Judy?” And there it was. Mark always had a knack for knowing what you were thinking about, which, in that moment, was their roles in the movie.

“Honestly,” you rested your pot in front of you, “I think they were shoe-horned.”

“Exactly!”

Confusion swept over you like a flashflood. “You agree?”

“When I first met Julie, she was talking about it, and then she said they were sweet, which I get, but there are such better couples.”

You nodded, happy to find someone who thought the same way. “I think having too many couples made it really complicated, and it drew attention from the more interesting ones – plus, you could blink and miss one of their scenes.”

You knew that talking about work over dinner was taboo, but you couldn’t help it when you worked in such an interesting sector. Analyzing a movie was one of your favorite past times, down to doing it in the shower or when you were brushing your teeth. It was easy and good practice.

“They were definitely just there for comic relief,” Mark continued, “which, again, I understand, but they were shoved between the emotion beats, and it hurt the final product.”

“Totally.”

Although you went back to eating in silence, it had released the tension brewing between you. The dark cloud hovering over every interaction was minimized into a few stray puffs of smoke. You weren’t going to thank your assistants for forcing the conversation, but you weren’t regretting it as much as you thought you would. Maybe, and this was just a thought to hit around in a ballpark, you could do this again sometime over lunch. One on your own terms. Yes, you were well aware that the looming conversation of your breakup was getting steadily closer, but you could enjoy talking to him before it blew up, right?

“Do you want some more wine?” you heard Mark ask.

“Sure.” And when he had returned to his seat, you spoke softly, “Thank you, Mark.”

You missed the quiet relief settling in his heart, the regret washed away, and the realization that, hey, maybe this wasn’t so bad, after all.

#theknightmarket #markiplier egos x reader #actor mark #markiplier egos #markiplier #asshole mark #x reader #reader insert #long reads #wkm #fanfiction

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liploona · 2 years

Text

𝘣𝘪𝘨 𝘧𝘭𝘪𝘳𝘵 | 𝘬𝘢𝘸𝘢𝘵𝘢 𝘯𝘢𝘩𝘰𝘺𝘢

𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴: 𝘧𝘦𝘮!𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘳, 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘧𝘢𝘯𝘪𝘵𝘺, 𝘪𝘯𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘱𝘭𝘦𝘵𝘦

𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘥 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘵: 845

𝘢/𝘯: 𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘺 𝘣𝘢𝘴𝘦𝘥 𝘰𝘧𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘮𝘱𝘵 "𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘤𝘶𝘦𝘥 𝘮𝘦 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘱𝘺 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘩𝘪𝘵𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘰𝘯 𝘮𝘦 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘣𝘢𝘳" 𝘦𝘹𝘤𝘦𝘱𝘵 𝘯𝘢𝘩𝘰𝘺𝘢 𝘪𝘴𝘯'𝘵 𝘢 𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘱 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘥𝘦𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘪𝘵𝘦𝘭𝘺 𝘥𝘰𝘯'𝘵 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘣𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘤𝘶𝘦𝘥 :] 𝘐 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘣𝘢𝘥 𝘩𝘢𝘣𝘪𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘵 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘪𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘴𝘰...𝘴𝘰𝘳𝘳𝘺 :( 𝘢𝘭𝘴𝘰 𝘪'𝘮 𝘰𝘣𝘴𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘦𝘥 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘴𝘰𝘯𝘨

Your gaze was lost in the endless amounts of bottles that decorated the shelves behind the bar you were sitting at. They can’t all be full right…You were in the middle of counting said bottles, almost at 30 when there was a touch to your arm which immediately caused your body to tense up.

Your friend, Hina, left an hour or so ago to tend to her needy boyfriend so who in their right mind would be touching you when the only person you’ve been interacting with since your friend’s absence was the bartender who happened to be at the other end of the bar right now??

You reluctantly turned your head to first glance at the hand that was still touching the back of your arm before lifting your eyes to meet what could possibly be the biggest shit eating grin you’ve ever seen in your life. It could be the four drinks in your system but the guy sporting the grin wasn’t too bad to look at so he was forgiven for touching you without your permission…for now.

There was a bit of silence between you two and somewhat of an unspoken staring contest before you raised an eyebrow and he just laughed. “Can I help you?” You spoke, entirely unamused in comparison to the male in front of you.

“Oh you definitely can, pretty girl.” The roll of your eyes to feign annoyance didn’t quite match the flip your stomach did at the pet name you were given.

“Not interested.” Easily the worst lie you’ve told all day. You pulled your arm away from his reach and turned your attention back to the alcohol filled wall. Might as well start over…A part of you hoped the direct rejection would make the male go away but the other part of you, the part that enjoyed the red flags men gave off, hoped he’d try to gain your attention once more.

The red flags reared their ugly head tonight, it was obvious in the way the guy sat next to you where your friend was an hour ago, a bit closer than she was to you too but you didn’t feel any discomfort when his knee knocked into yours. Your eyes remained straight ahead despite wanting to get a better look at the overly confident man next to you. “Why not?”

It was a simple question, really. One he didn’t necessarily deserve an answer to but it’s not like you have anything better to do. You turned in your chair, torso twisting just slightly so you were able to see the male fully. His face still sported that damn grin and you could feel your brows knitting together as you took in his entire appearance. If he didn’t have such a loud ass smile, his hair would be the next feature of his to keep your attention. It was thick, full and it looked soft. There was a faint redness to his cheeks which had to be from the alcohol he consumed because this man seemed the furthest from shy.

The wide smile had faded to something similar to a smirk once he realized you were checking him out and blatantly so. “You sure you aren’t interested, pretty girl?” He tried his question again, his head tilting down slightly so your eyes would meet his again. You weren’t embarrassed that he caught you downright eyeing him but that pet name did hit different now that he was closer. You cleared your throat and reached for your glass that had no more alcohol in it, only its watery remnants but you’d do anything to save face right now.

“You’re not my type.” Another lie. This pulled a laugh from the male signifying that he didn’t believe you. “And how am I not your type?” You two seemed to be playing 20 questions at this point. You’re too far in now not to answer and your intoxicated side wants to see how far this will go. “You don’t know how to take a hint, obviously.” This man’s lips have been nothing but turned up since he approached you and your responses haven’t changed that.

“I think I’m taking your hints quite well.” Your eyes narrowed in disbelief, this man has got to be delusional. “I mean…your words are saying one thing but your body’s saying another. Which hint am I supposed to be taking?” His eyes glanced down, pointing out the fact that you hadn’t completely moved away from him, his knee still touching yours. It also doesn’t help that he’s been leaning in to your space the entire time, only about a few inches away from your face.

If you were honest with yourself, you’d admit that you were interested as soon as you laid eyes on him but his confidence threw you way off. You weren’t used to guys being so direct, most of them stumbled with their words in front of you and were hesitant but this guy is the opposite. He knows what he wants and he seems determined to get it.

#tokyo revengers #tok rev #tokyo rev #tokyo revengers scenarios #nahoya #nahoya kawata #kawata nahoya #smiley #smut intentions but I can't bring myself to write it hehe

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pandorafallz · 10 months

Text

Vampire AU | To the Forests

Jake kept his gaze on different people as he ate. Mostly the avatar group to see which ones actually were eating. Again, the usual two weren’t. A third wasn’t but that was because he looked near asleep and inhaled the vapours of his coffee with reverence. Not a morning person.

He was still warming up a few ideas in mind but he had no access to proper data he wanted to see possible location. He was sure that…even if Reza said no to coming herself, she’d give him her Samson and claim ignorance than risk him going and stealing someone else’s and possibly getting hurt. He’d certainly needed supplies to go. He had seen vending machines about; he was sure he could get some emergency food and supplies via there or directly at the store cupboards once he knew where those were.

Still, he’d give himself a week to properly get everything gathered.

His attention turned from the table as a shadow moved into the corner of his eye, turning to see a pilot but not the one he knew.

“Hey, you Sully?”

“Uh-hum” he confirmed slowly.

The woman nodded away towards the door “The Coronel wants to see you in the amour bay. Come on.” She patted him in passing as she led the way.

Jake dropped his cutlery and rolled after her.

“I’m Trudy.” She offered as they went, though he felt a mild prickly sensation that… Augustine was watching him but he forced that from the forefront of his mind. Not his problem.

He let Trudy do most of the talking as they went, informing him about her job here, like moving the science ‘sorties’ around Pandora, passing through to the large bay where there were a ton of metal AMP Suits were lined up. Some being repaired or replaced or basic maintenance. Overly large weapons were being moved around and Jake almost got hit by a selection of Samson missiles on wheels.

“There’s your man,” Trudy gutted her chin out to a makeshift gym that was covered mostly by metal cage walls.

He fist bumped the pilot as she left then wheeled onwards to see the Coronel was bench pressing a series of weights. Almost impressive before the reminder that Pandora didn’t have the same gravity; humans would press more to get the same effect of a lesser amount. Otherwise, their bodies would get too used to Pandora and struggle when back to Earth Gravity.

Still, he had a feeling this display was for a show.

“This low gravity makes you soft,” Quaritch spoke, pushing up the last rep. “You get soft, Pandora will shit you out dead with zero warning.” Quaritch racks the bar and sits up, sweating but not winded. “I pulled your record, Corporal. Venezuela -- that was some mean bush. Nothing like this here, though. You got heart kid.” He rose to his feet calmly.

Jake considers what to say for a moment, before shrugging. “I figured -- just another hellhole.” Playing ball would certainly keep off anything on him; no one was expecting him to bail but he wasn’t going to raise any flags if he could help it.

Quaritch chuckled with some level of respect though looked past him out to the suits and made forwards. Jake rolled back to allow the Coronel to pass.

“I was in First Recon a few years ahead of you. More than a few. Three tours in Nigeria, not a scratch. I come out here; day one“ He pointed to his scarred face. “Think I felt like a shavetail louie? Yeah, well they could fix this if I rotated back. Make me look pretty again, but you know what? I kinda like it. Reminds me every day what’s out there.”

Jake chuckled humourlessly, though he could respect the man wearing his trauma how he wanted to. He rolled along towards the lift platform as the Coronel made to climb up the AMP suit’s leg.

“The avatar program is a bad joke –buncha limpdick scientist majors. However, this does present an opportunity both timely and unique. Clear!” The Coronel continued, adding the last to the mechanic to back off from the back exhaust vents.

It make Jake’s eye twitch a little at the insult towards his brother’s job and…another reminder that he was a tool. Sure, he was no scientist and would be in a different sector but this was far different to what he expected; a guard if best if he had any plans to stay.

Quaritch continued as he fit on the AMP suits gloves.

“A recon gyrene in an avatar body. That’s a potent mix. Give me the goosebumps. Such a marine could get me the intel I need on the ground, right in the hostiles’ camp.” Quaritch turned his focus fully onto Jake as he continued, “Look, Sully, I need you to learn about these savages from the inside, and gain their trust. Find out how I can force their cooperation, or hammer ‘em hard if they don’t. Maybe you can keep some of my boys from going home bagged and tagged.”

Jake dropped his gaze down for a moment, his hands tightening on his wheel bars for a moment to consider. A mole. A smart move not going for one of the scientists, they weren’t trained for it and could certainly cave to any pressure Augustine put on them if she suspected them of answering to other people.

But, being around soldiers would interfere with his bail plans.

“I still with Augustine?” Of course, being around a vampire was even harder but there weren’t as many of those around so he thought he had better chances.

“On paper. You walk like one of her science pukes, you quack like one, but you report to me. Can you do that for me, son?”

Jake nodded softly, composing himself to look convinced. “I can try, Sir.”

Quaritch moved, the huge suit shifting as he stepped out from his line. The massive suit mimicked the man’s actions as he tested out the range of motion “Look, son – I take care of my own. Get me what I need, I’ll see you get your legs back when you rotate home. Your real legs.”

Jake smiled, “That sounds real good, sir.”

“Well, alright then.” Quaritch nodded, swinging his arm down to bring down the canopy of the suit and walked off with heavy KLUNKs.

Jake’s smile vanished immediately, his eyes dropping down to his failed legs. A mole for legs. If he wasn’t committed to bailing, it may well have been a tempting offer. But that was committing a lot of time and emotional input into the Na’vi people and any failure on his part would lead to the fact the operation for his back would be taken away. They may not like humans but to get into their clan…to be trusted and to stab them in the back…. He could see that would only end poorly. For the Na’vi, they’d lose all trust in humans. Him, he’d lose his avatar. His brother’s avatar.

No, thank you.

He could live with his disability in peace at the cost of nothing. He had his avatar now, after all. He could live through that.

Jake had noticed Augustine’s colder looks which were somewhat amusing as the day went on, given she hadn’t talked to him despite knowing what transpired between him and Quaritch. She couldn’t, not without questions. He counted two others also in the program, other drivers which set his current count to four vampires.

Jake had since realised that…the vampires were doing their best to remain a secret. Not a total take-over just yet. Hence why Augustine hadn’t addressed anything with him, why they looked to put in the effort to be at the mess and… why they were using clearly forged biomarkers on their link-bed readings.

It presented an opportunity he would capitalise on. Their desire to remain secret would be his gold card to escape. They needed humans to survive, and all the humans here, he doubted would be happy to know they were on the menu. He didn’t know all their weaknesses or what was yet true against what was fictional but he had downloaded a lot more books onto his hard drives from the Hell’s Gate entertainment systems that he had missed out on.

The whiplash with interacting with Augustine in either forms was still a very jarring experience. From someone who was cold (in a few ways now) and critical but in her avatar, she was far warmer and open… looking like she had an enjoyment for life. Was she still a little snide today, yes but it wasn’t nearly so obvious as she worked and showed him about their plants in the avatar compound as they kept building up their avatar’s body.

She also gave him a fuck-ton of data-pad books and told him to get reading. He hadn’t but he kept the data pad anyway because she had given him a ton of useful information. Norm had been suckered to his side, probably on her orders to try and start learning the language but the scientist had been far too interested in the plants and telling him about them to get around to it. Jake didn’t seek him out on it either.

It took three days before things happened.

Jake had been stolen…or more accurately, he had convinced Norm to give him a load of dried seeds from a few of the fruits and vegetables from the Avatar compound garden to ‘study’. His mother’s jewellery box was open and a ton of earth seeds in little baggies were scattered about his desk as he inventoried on what he actually had.

Tom was a genius, Jake had realised when he had first really paid attention to this. Tom had planned to take all of these with him, and possibly for his own benefit as well; fresh seeds were hard to come by on earth. He had spent a lot of money to secure these, Jake had seen the amount he had paid for for a small bag of corn kernels and carrot seeds. Thousands of dollars worth of seeds now lay adorned on his bed from years of collection. Tom was a botanist; he was sure that he had a plan for them to be grown here on Pandora.

Jake hoped they’d germinate and grow here as well; if he had human food for his human body, then all he’d need to worry about is Pandora food for his avatar. Which he now had a handful of seeds for as well, also bagged and labelled so he didn’t get mixed up.

All he had to hope for now was…that this planet could actually support Earth plants. He could try a few seeds out and hope to god it worked. He made sure to download the manuals on gardening from seeds.

Jake was just putting them back into his mother’s box before there was a knock at the door.

“Come in.”

Reza stepped in, poking her head in first. “Sup. I’ve got—is that a cocoa bean?” Her sentence diverted instantaneously, coming in and immediately picking up the bag with a single white bean inside. “Oh my god, this is a beautiful sight!”

Jake twitched a little, holding his hand out for it. “If it’s possible to grow them, but I’d rather not just yet.”

“This must have been so…expensive!” She gaped, “Did he sell a kidney to get this?”

Jake gave her a tired look. “No….”

Reza looked away from the bag with a raised eyebrow. “You’re not sounding certain, Jake.” Nonetheless, she handed it back with reverence. “What else does he have?”

Jake slipped the precious bean back into the box, collecting up the remaining packets though didn’t entertain the question. “I take it you’re here for a talk, Nadine?”

She pouted a little but brought her leg up onto the side of his bed and tugged up her pant leg until her metallic leg was exposed. From her pocket, she pulled out a thin piece of metal and shoved it into the side panel and…lifted away a small section of it.

“Contraband, my dear.” She pulled out a thumb drive from the small space inside the mechanics “One stick of weed.” She winked, holding out a thumb drive.

“You keep weed in your leg?” Jake laughed because she did look to have a very small joint on the inside of the panel. “Neat.”

“A girl has to be creative with her severed limbs.” Reza sighed, “Why not for the short thrills?”

“I could do with this, thank you.” He abandoned his remaining baggies and reached for his tablet and held it out for her.

[What’s on it?] He typed.

[A virus. It’ll freeze SecOps external cameras for five minutes before the system detects it and removes it. For when we leave.] She grinned down at him as he looked at her sharply, brightening up.

Reza was going to leave with him. It made his heart skip in relief and excitement. He had better chances and company. He could relax a little bit as well. As much as he hated his limits, he could live with them and there was certainly a benefit with someone a little more able. And…well who was going to suspect a double amputee and a paraplegic escaping.

He just needed to get his avatar away first, lie through his teeth to not only security but to a vampire who would certainly know he was lying—he needed half-truths to support himself there when the questions with her present came up and blackmail to keep her off his ass. He may not have video proof nor was he looking for it but he could install some doubt and have Quaritch look into her or let them see what the group were doing to cover their asses.

Quaritch may be a hard ass but he was head of security; he’d find it a good project if he thought another department head might be ‘corrupt’ or hiding something. Jake could respect the man’s resolve to see it done.

[I’ll try and get my avatar lost once we have a location in mind. I’m planning to go to get more intel tonight.] He typed. [Get packed and ready. Get your Samson stripped of trackers and the black box ready to discard. Try and get it with extra supplies in advance.]

[Can do. But the longer we wait, we have higher chances of getting caught decking out my ship] she reminded, [a link shack isn’t easy to carry either.]

[We’ll make it work, Nadine.] He assured, reaching forwards to pat her arm.

Reza eyed him for a moment, then nodded.

Jake pondered his next move as he pushed his way from the mess one morning before he opted to find Quaritch and talk to Selfridge about his options. If it wasn’t for the fact there were people with super hearing, Jake could have suggested to Quaritch that they set up an ‘accident’ that winds up separating him from Augustine to give him a chance to run and be ‘found’ without it being suspicious on her part that there might be another alternative.

But there were people with super hearing so he had to be careful still on what he said to him. Augustine didn’t have super hearing through her avatar so he’d take advantage of the avatar’s limits on her to make something happen more naturally when they were out taking samples.

“Ah, Sully.” Quaritch’s voice echoed as he entered the control hub. “Just the guy I was hoping to see. You’re with Augustine tomorrow, aren’t you?”

Jake wheeled towards him, “Yes. First day out of the compound and into the jungle. It’ll be nice to see what the fuss of nature is all about given how much the plant nerds keep jumping about when they peek through the microscopes.” He remarked dryly. “I was hoping for a…better debrief of what’s expected of me if and when the Na’vi approach?”

Quaritch looked more interested and then nodded him along towards the holographic table though Selfridge was there, all too happy to see him getting into gear.

“That’s what I like to hear.” Selfridge grinned, “An action man. To put it straight, our mine close to Hell’s Gate is running low on ore deposits, to keep Hell's Gate running and for Earth’s needs, we need a new one. Our next best option, unfortunately, is in Omatikaya territory.” Selfridge spoke, adjusting the image to a huge tree, the 3D scans underneath showing huge veins running underneath. “Now… the best case we can do is get them to move and then no one gets hurt which is where you come in.”

Jake stared at the image for a moment, taken aback by the grand nature of the size. By the structures on the holograph, it was easy to see…it housed a huge village of Na’vi. For a tree to be this big and this big and this well established meant that the Na’vi clan that lived here had been here for generations and generations…thousands of years no doubt.

They were not going to move, short of death. No amount of convincing will even get far and even if he did follow Quaritch’s plan, they’d kill him first and give the RDA plausible reason for burning down this tree.

“That’s one…big tree. Must be thousands of years old,” He whistled, “and a lot of people.” He added, sparing a glance to Selfridge. “It’d take…a lot to even get them to move.”

“You need to figure out what we can do or offer to get them to move. We know Augustine plans for Spellman to be the next go-between given he’s a new face and fits her ideals of communication between the RDA and the Omatikaya but you’re also new and should…also be of interest should you see that opportunity arise.” Quaritch spoke, “We have dozers set to move in, an estimate of three months so you’ll have that much time once you’ve got in to gain their trust and give us a nugget.”

“I see…” He hummed thoughtfully. Three months…not a long amount of time. He knew not to cross them but…if he could help a little, then maybe that might give him and Nadine some breathing room in their territory.

“It’s either….you go in and get them to move or we forced them to move with a lot more heat. I know it looks bad killing the ingenious but there are worse things than bad press and that’s a bad quarterly statement. I don’t make up the rules here.” Selfridge waved off casually as if he wasn’t suggesting the worst possible option that would ruin and kill so many innocent people.

“We have the firepower,” Quaritch added.

“Alright,” Jake agreed, his heart twisting anxiously. “Less amount of bodies, the better. But…if I do this, I need to have a map of the areas, the dozer route, the clans and try and come up with a solution that I can offer them when I get them to go.” He asked though Quaritch looked a little less certain than Selfridge, “Sure, there’s a fuckton of trees but it needs to be as suitable as the old one, or better than the old one. It’d be better to have one not in the way of the dozers either. I don’t know shit about this planet.” He reminded.

Quaritch turned his gaze to Selfridge. “Think it’ll help that much?” but the hesitation was easy to see in his posture.

“Would you rather know your best alternative options than some new guy telling you to leave with nothing else to pull out his ass, sir?” Jake asked, adding the last to be more polite.

Selfridge hummed in agreement, “Alright but I want the tablet back by tomorrow morning before you leave. I can’t let you keep it all.”

“Oh, fair enough.” Jake agreed wholeheartedly with them. He’d see if Nadine could copy it all onto her tablet instead. He didn’t need the original, just a version.

After accepting the tablet, he wheeled off back to his bunk to study.

From the tablet, he looked through to find the abandoned link shacks and their locations first and only focused on shacks that had link beds. From there, the general locations in which they could end up at; a river or lake would be ideal. The flux vortex was a must to cover his ass. He found a viable location and memorised the coordinates.

It seemed that Selfridge in all his occupied glory had forgotten to even log out or secure the rest of the files on his data pad. The RDA Mining plans for the tree, the Bulldozer’s records and schematics and, by gods grace alone, more RDA secrets.

Also, another thing he had Nadine save as well when she had popped in briefly before he gave her his plan of action.

He had a location, he had means to leave and he had a link shack to steal as well. All he needed now was the escape. Twice.

ISV Destiny was dark.

It still thundered on with the velocity of its trajectory outside towards Pandora despite the near-empty fuel tank. The Vault pods of people remained unbothered and only one of the two Valkyrie ships remained where it was. The other was gone and signs of damage were not unnoticed but the ship was surprisingly stable.

“So, to put it bluntly….we have three months before we…crash into Pandora.” The first of the four medical technicians and engineers spoke as they eyed the monitor of the craft and mathematical model of working and compromised systems.

“We can’t stop?”

“We’re two years off course, there’s barely enough fuel to start deceleration nor power for the system to access the emergency fuel supplies or equipment.” The engineer pointed out. “We should send out a distress warning if we’re able to get an ISV to catch up and resupply in motion…we could have a chance. Or give the RDA a chance to stop us before we crash.”

“You mean to kill us?” The fourth medic piped up nervously. “We have a hundred people in cryo! And two avatars!”

“We’d all still die if the RDA did nothing, Teresa. We’re on a collision course with a huge fucking moon.”

“Shut up, Elroy.” Teresa hissed.

The second technician remained quiet as the three continued. Looking over the reports the computer system had pinged up. “We can stop in time.” She announced after a moment. “Cryo vaults are sealed so if we go back into a cryo stasis had have the backup AI aid us. We can turn off life support from the rest of the ship and redundant systems, that’ll give us enough power to access the emergency supplies and keep the AI System running on emergency systems. We’ll stop in time… but the RDA will have to send a ship for more power to activate life support and awaken us and the crew.”

“That’s very risky. We have to help monitor the avatars still.”

“No, we don’t. They’re not been on growth hormones for months; only life support that runs on the same operating system as the cryo vaults, not the ship’s life support. They’ll be fine if you change out the drug systems for a cryo drugs to reduce their metabolism intake and use effectively use the amniotic tank as its own cryo pod.” The second one spoke, typing out their method and idea for the others to check over.

The engineer spoke. “We lost a ton of fuel... We’re still at risk of over and underfiring here…”

“I know,” the second spoke, handing off the data pad to be verified by the others first. “But you’re assuming we’ll be pumping the breaks all the way and the fact we’re still a month behind than a typical deceleration pattern and timings but you’ve not accounted for the fact we were still knocked off course. We start the deceleration as typical and run a slightly tweaked variation to account for being off course and for plenty of warning of the RDA ships that may be in orbit. We’ll avoid the resupply groups.”

“The math looks right,” Elroy spoke out, as he sim red it “It could work. Our chances would be far better.”

They all looked to the first. “Teresa, you deal with the avatars. I’ll get our pods sorted. Elroy, reprogram the greeting chime to inform greeting parties when they attempt to make contact and shut down the pilot’s cryo pods from auto-activation when the manual drive is important. We don’t need them to suffocate by accident.”

“I’ll get our pods sorted,” the third spoke, pushing off down the long corridor.

“Elena, double-check that supplies are secured and run a last check over each vault before we get in. I’ll get the AI systems active on minimum power and see to deceleration has started. Each of us, packs an Exo-mask in case we’re ejected out without life support active. We can’t help each other if we’re dead.”

“Yes, sir.”

As the crew began to power down areas of the ship, the few lights they had started to go off. Areas. The engines started to kick into life as the first vault of two closed before the latter two joined them asleep.

All was quiet. All remained asleep.

Jake had half expected Augustine on his ass the moment he stepped into the bio lab, though instead she was busy and so, he didn’t seek to open the option either as he packed his Avatar’s bag pack; adding his personal tablet into it as well as and subtly adding an extra canteen of water and snacks into it before putting it on the rack to be taken off to the longhouse.

“Okay, we’re on the flight line in ten minutes, let’s get going,” Augustine called as Max jogged ahead to the link room..Her eyes turned to him for a moment, her gaze surprisingly sharp. “However, a word, Marine.”

Norm was quick to finish up his last bag and scurried ahead with a final look back.

Jake swallowed his discomforts, setting his jaw though it did occur to him that Augustine’s lips and cheeks looked far pinker than the day before; it made him queasy thinking about it so he thanked the poor bastard internally for keeping her too occupied to overhear his talking with the bosses.

“As an avatar driver, you’re in my world. Okay. I know what we’re dealing with.” She spoke intently, “We’re about to enter Omatikaya territory. I get you’ve never been in a forest so I’ll cut you some slack but I expect you to behave with a gun. No shooting everything that moves because the chances are, you’ll piss something off.”

Jake twitched a little, feeling very patronised but it certainly coloured how the woman saw him. A jarhead following orders. He’d be offended about that later. “I have common sense, Dr Augustine. I’m not as dumb as you think I am.”

“Did you read anything that I sent you?” She clipped her fingers, gesturing him towards the lab.

Jake forced himself to roll after her, irritated. “I glanced at it.” He answered snidely. “I’m not a scientist, remember. Don’t expect me to be a replacement for my brother. I’m not him.”

Her head turned, her face schooled carefully though she looked more annoyed than anything. “Clearly, but ignorance will get you and your avatar killed. If you get lost or separated, the Omatikaya will kill intruders that aren’t in a travelling group.” She warned. “Avatars and their drivers have died before.”

For a second, he thought she was hinting at him that she knew his plan, his heart lurching for a second but the words were also hardly a comfort if it was true; he was dancing with death with his avatar so he’d have to be quick to make sure to get his avatar safe. She wasn’t even looking at him as she shrugged off her lab coat and handed it straight off to the other vampire technician who didn’t bat an eye.

“Wait, died?” This was Norm, peeking above his link lid in alarm. “Who died?”

“Three years ago, two avatar drivers went missing in the Tipani territory after a clash between the Tipani and the RDA, their avatars as well. A jawbone and rib were the only human remains returned to us that indicated their deaths. Another human went missing but no remains were recovered.” Augustine spoke, her nose wrinkling a little. “René also died in the conflict as well.”

“Who?” Jake asked, pushing himself to sit in the link.

“Dr René Harper. He was…the head of the Avatar Program before Dr Augustine. Clearly, after his death, she got his position.” Norm spoke, “I…did some catch-up reading…and people gossip.” He added, noting both Jake and Augustine’s quizzical look.

“He was a good man,” Augustine spoke though this time she actually sounded genuine. “Tipani were…unwelcoming, yet he was the only one who could talk to them….be friendly with them even. I only met the clan twice. The first time, I was refused.” She shook her head, almost sad but also amused. “One day, maybe we’ll actually start talking to the clans.” Her head turned to Norm. “At least with the Omatikaya, they’ll be less likely to kill you once a dialect is established.”

Norm swallowed thickly though nodded nervously and just got into his link.

Jake remained uneasy, even as they landed in the forest, though he couldn’t deny the forest wasn’t overwhelming… the smell of soil…the plants were one thing. But…the sounds of bugs, and the chittering of animals were equally distracting. His grip on the gun was tight, but he tried not to raise it too much as they walked.

He had heard of the school; the building was run down and decaying and so he stood back to let the two collect shit for their work. He could see the effort put into the place, the books and toys even… the blackboard that still had writing on…that had bullet holes in. Behind the board, the entire blind was gone. It wasn’t until he saw Augustine lean more forwards that he noticed the scar on her back that became visible as the fabric lifted, watching for a moment how she straightened up it was near level with the bullets in the board.

“What happened here?” He asked, after a moment.

Her jaw tightened, yellow eyes narrowing intently. “You gonna help us with this equipment or not? We got a lot to do.”

Fair enough.

Delicate subject.

Jake followed along as Augustine led them through a particular route, pausing briefly to gather slice the trunk of a tree and collected it’s sap then rubbed it into her blue arms and face until it was absorbed and encouraged them to do the same to get rid of the insects and to smell like a predator; to avoid viperwolves. He made note of the tree type as he lotioned himself up.

He stood back as they worked, though it was tediously dull, Jake wondered for a moment how far he could get naturally before he was lost or found a way to make his escape. He could probably blame getting lost after wandering too far…

Jake eyed the treeline around him for a moment, though idly followed his impulse to at least explore a little. He smiled a little, still…amazed at how much life there was around him. He watched for a moment as a jelly-fish like plant seemed to float towards him. Dancing on the wind.

Curiously, Jake followed it, passing quietly through the foliage. Its body was...kinda cute, though he wondered what it’d feel like to touch. He dropped his gun as it stopped, forgetting it wasn’t strapped around him and reached his hands out, palms up for it. It drifted down coming to settle in his hands and its touches feeling like little kisses even, before he realised one thing;

Two huge fucking eyes were staring up at him through the foliage right in front of him. Hungry eyes.

[X]

#avatar #avatar au #avatar james cameron #avatar the way of water #grace augustine #jake sully #norm spellman #avatar rda #max patel #vampire au #vampire grace #vampire #trudy chacon

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rahleeyah · 2 years

Note

Hi Leah! I have a question that you may not have an answer to but maybe your followers may know.

On a few occasions, I have seen some post that say Chris Meloni in the past may have said or tweeted something transphobic. I can't find evidence of it anywhere!

I don't agree with everything he post on Twitter. Mostly the pro cop tweets. Given his job I don't expect anything different. Mariska has posted the same. But Chris for the most part seems like an cool dude. I don't know him personally so I don't have a blinding trust in him but I have yet to see any huge red flags.

Are they confusing Chris for Elliot? Elliot has said some pretty shitty things. But so have all the characters from SVU. I watched the Pose episodes he starred in with Dominique Jackson so I don't get where him being called transphobic is coming from.

Did he say or tweet anything or are antis making this up?

whew ok i debated not answering this at all bc i don't like to give a platform to the random garbage the antis spew, but in this case i felt like i needed to address it.

re: the transphobic thing. i had to look it up, bc a) i'd never heard anyone say this and b) i have a hard time believing that chris "be weird" sex positive ultra liberal meloni was transphobic on main. if you google chris and trans or transphobia, the first thing that pops up is one tweet thread from two years ago. literally just google "chris meloni transphobic" it's the first hit. he retweeted a video of some sort (i can't find the actual video now) and cracked a joke. you can look it up for yourself and decide how you feel about it; i think it was in poor taste, but he's also a (then) 58 year old white dude, and there was no particular hate or malice behind it, and when people called him out for transphobia he tweeted asking why. not whining, he literally said "Ok so I am getting the idea that my honest reaction is transphobic. Why?" the comments in reply to that are pretty divided, as again his words were not blatantly hateful, and people had a variety of responses. it's not a clear black and white. but that's literally the only thing; the next hit for chris and trans issues is an article from the advocate years ago where he talks about raising kids in an "lgbt inclusive" family. trust and believe if there had been more than one incident, there would have been more thinkpieces about it; this one tweet incident spawned several results and at least one youtube video i could find, but there's literally nothing else.

this is really a subpoint of part 1, but elliot wasn't transphobic, either. elliot literally sits beside a trans kid who asked him what he'd do if his son was trans and he says he'd try to understand and love his child anyway.

which leads me really to the final paragraph of your message, sorry i'm out of order here, but. elliot didn't say a lot of shitty things. that's an anti myth. elliot stabler, devout catholic, says things like "when god gives you a uterus then maybe we'll care about your opinion" to anti-abortion priests. elliot is the one in the early seasons who tries to make olivia be more compassionate towards a man with mental health issues. he's respectful of women, he's gentle with children and victims, he doesn't bash gay people or trans people or do any of that socially conservative bullshit. the only victim he ever belligerently didn't believe is in doubt, and the entire point of that case is that neither of the people involved was believable. that's just literally not who elliot is. was elliot violent? sure! liv is too! but the show - bc it is copaganda, so of course it does this - takes pains to show elliot's aggression only being directed towards other aggressors; elliot isn't beating up every random person he meets.

circling back to chris's pro cop tweets; if you search his twitter feed for "police" or "cop" all you find are hits about Uvalde and Jan 6. like. like literally, all the way back to 2013, there's nothing about cops in there beyond "hey jan 6 was bad" and "the police failed those kids". the oldest tweet, from 2013, is someone asking him "has playing a cop changed ur view of crime/punishment & law enforcement" to which he responded "i learned some gnarly stats." he doesn't even say what those stats are!!! like i'm sorry the data simply is not there he's not tweeting pro-cop shit. again unless you count the jan 6 stuff, but i feel like "an armed mob attacking capitol police in an attempt to overthrow the government is bad, actually" is maybe a little more nuanced than "pro cop".

all of that goes to this point: celebrities are human, and fallible, and make mistakes, and should not be held up as some kind of paragons of virtue who say the right thing 100% of the time. but it is important to remember that just bc we hear something doesn't mean it's true; we gotta look for the facts. you won't find a lot of facts from fans on twitter; the antis will keep repeating the same made-up lines that justify their point of view, and hardcore chris fans will refuse to believe he's capable of saying something unkind. you gotta look for the data, and decide for yourself.

but we also gotta remember; we are not all born knowing everything we need to know about rights issues, about communities other than our own, about life and the world and people. we are all gonna hear something for the first time at some point, and we are all gonna be faced with a choice to learn and grow, or continue on the same path as before. we all gotta allow ourselves the grace to say something wrong, hear that we're wrong, and try to be better. if someone doesn't try to be better then we say fuck 'em.

#anonymous #s.vu #e.o asks

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dragon-kazansky · 3 years

Text

Smile for me | Helmut Zemo

Zemo couldn't stop looking at you. Earlier on Bucky had said something that had you and Sam in stiches, and since then he hadn't been able to stop looking at you. The smile that had been on your face was so pure and full of joy. Your laughter rang like music to his ears. He could still hear it now.

You hadn't laughed or smiled since. You had been all serious game since that moment, and Zemo just couldn't let it go.

How long had it been since he was able to make someone laugh or smile like that? Would he even be able to get you to smile, despite how you perceived him?

He would love to find out.

You were sitting on your own at the moment. Sam had excused himself with his laptop to try and find more information on where the Flag Smashers might be. Bucky had gone for a walk, but you weren't convinced that was all it was.

Zemo was the only other person in the room.

You had a book open in your lap, your thumb brushing along the edge of the page slowly as you absorbed the words. This was the most relaxed you had been since you agreed to come along with Sam and Bucky.

Helmut poured some tea for two and approached you. He put the tray down on the table and took a seat next to you.

"You made me tea?"

You had looked up from the pages of your book to the cup in front of you.

"Yes, is that alright?" Zemo asked, amused by the confusion etched on your face.

"Yes, thank you..."

Zemo watched as you closed the book and put it to one side. You reached out and took the cup he had made for you, letting the tea warm up your hands. You sat back and brought it to your lips.

"It's good."

Zemo smiles. You had yet to smile at him, but he would keep trying. Grabbing his own cup, he made himself comfortable next to you. You seemed content enough to sit next to him.

Once your cup was empty, you put it back down and picked up the book again. Despite the lack of a bookmark, you managed to find where you had left off. Zemo let his gaze rest on you as you lost yourself back within the pages.

You had managed to make him smile just by being you.

You only put the book down again after reaching the end of the chapter. This time around you turn so you're facing him. Zemo hadn't moved since he sat down and you felt bad for ignoring him. That was something you expected to feel considering who he is.

"It's a shame we didn't come to Riga under different circumstances." You sigh.

"Oh? What circumstances would you rather be here under?" Zemo's heart leaped at the fact you were even giving him the time of day. He wouldn't confess that though.

"Well, we need to lay low, which means we can't tour the town."

"You want to go outside?"

"I'd like to see more, not that your safe house isn't lovely, it is."

Zemo grinned. His eyes seemed to light up. "Is that so?"

You nodded your head gently, looking into those deep dark brown eyes of his. Why did his warm gaze make you feel so safe? That's the exact opposite of how you should be feeling either him.

"There is a square just further up the road. I could take you that far." He gave a little shrug.

He saw the way you perked up, sitting more upright, your eyes glistening with interest. He's got you.

"Do you want to go?"

You turn your head in the direction of where Sam had gone.

"I will tell him we are going out, I won't keep you long. If I don't have you back in 15-20 minutes, he can do whatever he wants with me." Zemo raises his hands a bit to show he was serious.

"I won't let him do anything to you, but I would very much like to go out."

Zemo smiles as he gets up and goes to seek out Sam. You wait eagerly. When he returns, Sam in tow, he grabs his coat and slides it on. Sam comes over to you, looking like a big brother about to give a lecture.

"If he tries anything, call me. Bucky is still out, so you let me know. I don't trust him, but I know I trust you. If Zemo so much as makes you think he's up to something, call." Sam glares at Zemo.

You get up from your seat and nod, turning to Zemo and gesturing for him to lead the way.

When you step outside, you stand and let the sun hit you, feeling its warmth. The slight breeze that cuts through the street felt fresh against your skin.

Zemo comes up behind you, placing a hand on your back as he gazes at you.

"Shall we?"

You nod and let him walk with you up the street. There are very few about and it's nice. These buildings around you looked old, yet stunning. You could get used to walking these streets. Maybe you should retire from the whole saving the world thing and live in the backstreet of Europe.

You could dream.

The square opens up just ahead. Still few people were wandering about. Zemo led you to the centre and let you look around. You spun around slowly, taking in the few stalls that were set up, the buildings towering over you, the children playing in one corner. It was so peaceful.

"Do you like what you see?" Zemo asked.

You stop and look at him. You nod. Then, thought it's slight and barely there, you smile.

Zemo swears his heart stops for a moment.

"I do. Thank you."

Helmut takes a step closer to you, his hands down by his side. Those deep dark eyes of his are focused on you.

"That's the first time you have smiled because of something I did." He speaks quietly, as if this was a secret only for your ears.

"Oh? I think this is the most we have spoken to each other. I've kind of been ignoring you, haven't I?"

"Perhaps, but I'm not offended," he chuckles. "I'm honoured you have shared with me something so beautiful."

You stare at him.

"Are you blushing?" He laughs, the sound makes your heart skip a beat.

"No."

He raises a hand, a gloved finger lightly brushes your cheek. It was so soft and quick, you're not entirely sure you felt it, but it happened. You step back just a little, turning your head to the side slightly, biting back a bigger smile.

"Is that another smile I see?"

"Nope." You shake your head a little vigorously.

"You wound me."

You glance up to see he has a hand over his heart as he leans back, sort of as if he had been shot with an arrow.

With that cheeky grin on his face, and the way he's messing about and teasing you, you can't stop the laughter from spilling out. It's the exact sound he had hoped to hear again.

You place your hands on his shoulders and push him lightly, trying to get him to stop messing around, but he just grabs your hands gently and brings them to his chest, pulling you closer to him.

"I made you laugh! Such an achievement." He grins some more.

"Is that what you wanted?" You ask, happy enough to stand this close with him. His gloved hands were warm on yours.

"Yes."

You don't even bother trying to hide the next smile. This man has made you feel so comfortable in his presence, all while standing in unfamiliar territory.

"I should probably get you back now, but if you ever find yourself here in Riga again, I shall give you a list of places to go and things to see."

He goes to remove his hands from yours, but you are quickly to hold onto one of them with both of yours as you look him in the eye. You shake your head, causing him to furrow his brow at you.

"What's the point if I don't have my tour guide to show me everything?"

"Your tour guide?"

"Well, aren't you?" You tilt your head to the side. Your melting his heart with every little thing you do.

"I suppose I am, but I doubt we'll ever be back here together. I am a criminal, remember?"

"Yeah I remember. Still, I refuse to come back if my favourite tour guide isn't going to be with me." You squeeze his hand.

"I'm your favourite?"

"Well, technically, you're my only tour guide." You give him your best cheeky grin.

"I see." He steps a little closer. "Do I get anything for showing you the square today?"

"Oh, you want payment?" You roll your eyes.

"Perhaps just a little something?"

You smile softly as you brush your nose with his. The fact you're even considering it makes you think you've gone mad, but there's something irresistible about this man in front of you.

Before you even get the chance to kiss him, a cold metal hand grabs Zemo by the shoulder and pulls him back. You step back and look at Bucky, who is glaring at the man you were so close to kissing.

"What are you two doing?"

"Zemo was giving me a tour. Sam knows we're here. I wanted to see Riga." You look down, embarrassed.

Bucky let's go of Zemo and places an arm around you, guiding you back toward the safe house. Zemo straightened his clothes before following after you, annoyed that a perfect moment was disturbed.

When you get back, Bucky gives Zemo a warning before he goes off to brood in the next room. Sam follows after him to find out what happened.

Zemo goes to pour himself a drink, but you slide up beside him and take his hand back in yours.

"I'd like to pay now."

Zemo chuckles softly. "I was only teasing you."

"I know, but still."

Zemo sits there as you lean in place a delicate kiss to his cheek. You pull away and drop his hand.

"If you want anything more, you have to take me on a proper tour."

Zemo smiles softly.

"Is that a promise?" He asks, whispering to you.

"Yes."

"Then I shall have to do everything in my power to make sure I give you that tour."

You give him the brightest smile you can manage and step away before the boys come back.

Zemo gives a subtle wink.

Now there is NO WAY he is going back to prison. Not unless he disappoints someone so special.

#tfatws #helmut zemo #zemo x reader #helmut zemo x reader #zemo #marvel

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comfyswitcherblanketfort · 3 years

Text

Grunge-Metal Geralt

Hi, im fucking trash for the idea of Geralt being the front man for a Five Finger Death Punch type band and my brain wouldn’t shut the fuck up about it. This music genre is my bread and butter and I think Geralt’s repressed but highly emotional ass would fit right in. Yes im using another Hozier song, no i dont wanna hear anything about it. I’m a basic bitch and ive made my peace with it

Warnings: i honestly have no idea, its a little horny, little emotional, but theres no actual character interaction?, its at a concert venue? idk yall.

_________________________

Jaskier was… out of his comfort zone.

It’s not that he didn’t like the grunge-metal music, he just hadn’t listened to much and he was not used to the energy. People were yelling and screaming and the opener hadn’t even come on yet. He didn’t feel unsafe, far from it. Several people had checked to see if he was okay, seeing as he was the only person in the entire arena wearing a sweater that wasn't ripped or faded to hell. It was just a far cry from the shows he was used to.

He played folky-blues. This was nothing like his shows.

When the lights went down the crowd was deafening, all moving as one to rush the front of the floor, not giving a single fuck about tickets.

The openers were exciting, and Jaskier was surprised by some of the concepts and messages behind the music. It wasn’t what he’d expected at all and he found himself searching them up on Spotify to listen later.

Then came The Witchers.

Eskel and Lambert made their energetic entrance, followed by Aiden calmly walking to his drums and sitting as if he were walking into a college class. But Geralt was nowhere in sight. The one person Jaskier had actually come to see.

He’d seen a video clip from a previous concert where they covered one of his songs, and he was praying they’d do it again. It was lovely in a haunting-almost-threatening way, and the expression in Geralt’s posture alone was enthralling. He had to see it live.

But Geralt was still absent as the band started to build a song. First Aiden with the beat, then Eskel’s bass, then Lambert with a melody on his electric guitar. It built and built and built to a fever pitch, taking the crowd with it. People were already jumping and screeching. Jaskier had to stand on his seat to see the stage clearly.

Geralt’s voice echoed through the venue, low and closer to a growl than singing, but he was still nowhere to be seen.

Jaskier thought he’d been prepared, but his whole body was covered in goosebumps. He briefly wondered if this was what his friends were feeling when they listened to ASMR.

Geralt remained hidden for the whole first verse, getting the crowd even more excited than Jaskier thought possible, only for the band to go completely silent for a whole measure. When the crowd's screams reached their absolute loudest, Geralt dropped from on top of one of the jumbotrons, landing on one of the horse-sized speakers before launching into the chorus.

Oh fuck, he was even more beautiful in person.

He was… well he was a beast of a man. Jaskier really didn’t have another word for the way his muscles bulged and how lithe and powerful he looked springing from the speaker to join his bandmates on the main stage. His thighs filled out his black, tattered jeans and there were clear faded spots where his muscles strained the fabric too often. The thin black tank he wore did nothing but pretend the man was semi-modest. It was so tight, the only thing left up to the imagination was tan lines and the color of his nipple piercings.

Jaskier was most entranced by his long, white, wavy hair falling past his shoulders. As the show continued and he started to sweat, a lot, it got curlier and curlier at the root. Jaskier wanted to give him a mask and some curl cream, but only after a, uhm, rough night of getting to know each other. He’d heard rumors about Geralt from hitting arenas not long after they’d left. He was quite sure they’d have a great time.

As he focused on the lyrics more and more, he was more inclined to want to wrap Geralt up in a hug and worship every part of him until he felt whole again.

Either he’d been shown the shitty side of the genre, or The Witchers were exceptions to the rule of content. Jaskier was almost moved to tears a few different times.

Finally, about an hour into Jaskier mindlessly feasting his eyes on the front man, Geralt leapt onto another speaker and sat down, breathing hard and grinning from ear to ear.

“You still with us?”

The unholy screech from the crowd left no doubt they were just as excited, if not more so, than when they’d arrived.

“Good! Good..” he trailed off, chuckling as he lowered the mic to take a breath, “We’re gonna slow it down for a minute,” he leaned forward and held the mic away as Eskel shouted something up at him to which he laughed and flipped him off.

“As I was saying, we’re gonna yearn for a minute or two and do a cover. Song by Jaskier called ‘Talk’.”

The crowd lost their shit again, various pride flags popping up throughout the stands.

Geralt chuckled and raised his combat boot, showing off the bi flag colored treads, earning another round of screams. If this is what the grunge-metal scene was like, Jaskier had been missing out his entire life. Sure his fans were sweet and supportive and loving when he’d come out. But this was electric and feral and completely addictive.

Lambert struck the opening chord to Jaskier’s song and the crowd settled to a gentle hum, setting the tone immediately, as if they all knew exactly what was coming.

Geralt closed his eyes as he tapped his thigh with one finger, keeping time before his rumbling baritone hit Jaskier like a freight train.

“I’d be the voice that urged Orpheus when her body was found…”

Jaskier could have collapsed right there. He knew he was staring like a lovesick idiot, but hell, everyone around him was too. When the chorus hit and Eskel came in with a heavy bass line he nearly fell off his chair. Geralt’s intensity raised with the addition of the backup but he didn’t move. He stayed seated, swaying slightly, with his eyes closed as he crooned out the words Jaskier had sobbed as he wrote, broken hearted and miserable.

It was surreal.

Sure he’d seen other covers. Sure they’d been lovely. But he wanted to listen to this and only this as he fell asleep for the rest of his life. He’d never play it again if he could only hear it one more time.

After the last verse Lambert launched into a guitar solo while Geralt jumped off the speaker and meandered to the center of the stage to slot his mic back in it’s stand. He gripped it like a lifeline when Lambert held one last note for as long as his instrument would allow and only started singing the last chorus when it was almost silent.

“I won't deny I've got in my mind now all the things I would do

So I'll try to talk refined for fear that you find out how I'm imaginin' you

I won't deny I've got in my mind now all the things we could do

So I'll try to talk refined for fear that you find out how I'm imaginin' you”

His expression looked hopeless and utterly desperate as he crooned out the last two lines. He let his hair fall to cover his face and Jaskier could just barely hear his panting breath over the sound system as the crowd exploded. Geralt tipped his head back and took two deep breaths before straightening up and getting on with the show but Jaskier was stuck.

He was vaguely aware of someone taking a picture of him, but he really couldn’t care less. The fact that Geralt moved right on to a song called ‘Burn Motherfucker Burn’ didn’t matter either.

Jaskier jumped down from his arena seat, whipping out his phone and sending the band a tweet, because apparently that’s what musicians did now?

“Record it. Please. It’s either that or sing me to sleep every night. You choose.”

He stayed for the rest of the show and walked to his car in a haze. Before he backed out of his spot he checked his phone like always and his heart nearly stopped at the two top notifications.

One public reply: “Both? -G”

And one direct message: “If you’re still here and want to grab a drink, I’m just backstage.”

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bangtanloverboys · 3 years

Text

song of the broken hearted // pjm

summary - after finding your boyfriend of two years in bed with another woman, you find yourself wandering the beach at the edge of town. little do you know, there's something in the water, waiting for you. wanting you to join them.

pairing - siren!jimin x female!reader

genre - angst, suspense, mystery, thriller; siren au

word count - 4.2k

warnings - recent break up, mentioned cheating, namjoon is an asshole, mentions/talk of suicide, MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH, drowning, sad ending, murder i guess?

author’s note - this is slightly inspired by the webtoon siren’s lament but not really; enjoy!

Love sucked. Honestly, you don’t know why you kept on trying to date with your history of bad relationships. Sure maybe some weren’t all that bad; right person, wrong time. But for the majority of them looking back, there was a sea of red flags all over. You don’t know how you could’ve missed them. Then again, you couldn’t help but feel you willingingly looked over them. Ignoring them because deep down you didn’t want to be alone.

Whatever the reason might’ve been, you somehow always ended up getting your heart broken.

The last relationship however stung a lot more than your others. Maybe because your exes were upfront with why they wanted to end things with you, which was the usual “not feeling the spark anymore” bullshit. Namjoon, your recent ex, had decided that you were never worth it apparently, seeing as how he admitted to cheating on you and for the entirety of your two year relationship! Worst part was, he didn't even plan on telling you! You’d only found out by accident, having decided to come over to surprise him at his place when you saw him in bed with a girl you’d recognized from his work. Namjoon didn’t even try to defend himself, only rolling his eyes at you while you shouted at him.

Furious and your heart in shatters, you stormed out of his house and just kept walking. You don’t know how long you walked, but it was until you hit the sand of a nearby beach. It was the middle of fall, so besides a few stragglers, it was nearly abandoned.

With the sun setting below the horizon, you shucked off your shoes and kept walking. The sounds of the waves crashing against the shore filled your mind as the salty sea air grounded you. Once you reached where the water hit against the sand, you sat yourself down, watching the tide rise up ever so slowly.

All alone, the realization of what had happened was settling in. Tears began to burn as you blinked them back. You didn’t want to cry. You shouldn’t waste tears on a man who clearly never cared about you. But your heart was weak and your mind wasn’t strong enough to keep it together. Wrapping your arms around your legs, you tucked yourself into your knees, as you quietly sobbed.

You don’t know how long you sat there crying, trying your hardest not to attract any attention to yourself. When you looked up again, it was significantly darker, and a cool breeze brushed over your tear streaked face. Glancing up, you could see the stars just beginning to appear up in the vast darkness of the night sky.

In your mind’s eye, you could still see Namjoon, laying there in his bed unresponsive as you screamed at him, calling him all sorts of nasty names. He’d only shrugged when you asked him why, but his words stung more than any other break up speech you’ve ever heard, and his was only a sentence, “You’re not worth the full commitment.” The statement rang in your ears as you stared over the roaring black sea. Maybe he was right. Maybe you weren’t worth the commitment.

A sob unconsciously ripped from your lips as you hugged yourself tighter. The thought was daunting, but was it true? You were rarely the person who broke up with someone, only having ended relationships back in high school. But was the “not feeling the same spark” just a different way to word that you weren’t worth committing to?

Your mind spiraled with those dark thoughts, not knowing what else to think, when a beautiful voice was heard singing over the thundering waves. Perking up, you looked around, trying to find the singer, but spotted no one. The beach had been completely abandoned. You listened intently to the song, trying to place where it was coming from, but the more you listened, the more you felt at ease. All the muscles in your body relaxed as the singer continued on. A sigh fell from your lips as you rose from your spot on the sand. You had to find the owner of this voice, needed it more than anything.

As you listened on, there was a tingling feeling inside you, telling you the singing was coming from the ocean. Taking a step further, the voice got a little louder. With each step you took, your mind got fuzzier and fuzzier, nothing else mattered but the voice you heard. The cold water didn’t even phase you as it rolled over your feet, in fact the cold felt comforting as it hit against your legs. The further you waded into the water, the louder the voice got, but you saw no one around that could be the source of the singing.

You were nearly waist deep in the water, ready to dive in and swim toward the voice when another deep shout was heard from behind you “Hey!” drowning out the song and pulling back towards reality. “What are you doing out there? Beach is closed!” The voice continued to shout.

Suddenly the freezing water no longer felt as comfortable as it was moments ago. Glancing back over your shoulder, you saw what you presumed to be a lifeguard. You raised your arm, signaling to him you heard and began walking back towards the shore.

Upon reaching the beach, you were approached by the brown haired man, wearing the signature red lifeguard jacket. You must’ve looked like a mess as a look of shock went over his face. “You alright, miss?”

“I’m fine,” you responded, shivering in your soaking wet clothes.

Biting his lip, he shed his jacket and put it over your shoulders, a poor attempt at warming you up. “Are you sure you’re alright? Is there anyone you’d like me to call?”

“I said I’m fine,” you insisted, hugging the red material closer to your body.

He eyed you suspiciously before nodding. “Alright. But I’m going to have to escort you off the beach.”

“Yeah, yeah. Okay,” you sighed, irritation lacing your voice. He turned before started back inland, leaving you alone for a brief moment. You stared back over the rolling black ocean, hoping to hear the voice again, yet all you heard was the crash of the waves.

Two days had passed since you were at the beach and no matter how much you tried, you couldn’t remember the song you heard. Late at night, you’ll stare up at your ceiling and walk yourself through that night over and over again, trying your damnedest to recall the voice, yet you came up with nothing. You couldn’t name a tune, a note, nor even if the singer was male or female. You were beginning to feel like you had simply gone crazy for a few moments, hallucinating the voice. But with the way you remembered feeling when you heard that song, how all your troubles seemingly were whisked away and how free you felt; there’s no way you couldn’t have imagined it.

There was one thing you knew though: you had to hear it again.

Which was how you found yourself staring back at the ocean, the sun hanging low in the sky. You were on a more secluded area of the beach, a small cove surrounded by cliffs; a slight precaution to ensure you wouldn’t be interrupted again. You watched as the waves rose and crashed against the sand, waiting. You weren’t even sure how, when, or even if the voice would sing again. But you sat there patiently.

As the sun fell behind the horizon and the sky grew darker, you slowly began to lose hope. Maybe you were imagining it. Maybe you were so dehydrated from crying for so long and desperate for anything to make you feel any other emotion, you made up the voice to distract you from your broken heart.

With a sigh, you stood up from your spot on the sand. After dusting the sand off, you began to gather your things in preparation for the small trek back inland. As you straightened up again, you heard it.

The song.

Dropping all your stuff to the ground, you turned to face the raging sea. The singing was emitting from the waters, barely audible over the crashing of the waves. You felt the familiar tingling spread throughout your body as you stepped towards the water again. Like last time, the singing got louder and louder the further you went out. You could tell the water was freezing, yet you didn’t feel it. It felt like you were being wrapped up in a blanket, all soft and safe.

Unable to walk any further, you started swimming. Dunking your head beneath the surface, the singing was clearer and louder underwater. Your mind was cloudy, wanting to do deeper, to follow the voice. Back up for air, you took a big gulp of air before diving back down into the darkness. The salt water burned your eyes as you looked around, trying to find the source of the song, but it was coming from everywhere. It was all around you.

Your arms grew tired as you pushed deeper and your lungs were burning for air as you swam further down. Every single fiber of your body wanted you to return to above the surface, wanting to breathe. Yet your mind, all cloudy and full of cotton, wanted you to push on. Keep swimming down. Find the voice.

Farther down, you saw a strange outline in the darkness. It was too big to be a fish, yet it was moving around so fluidly that it had to be some sort of aquatic creature. You weren’t sure if it was your state of mind, or the fact you were slowly losing air, but you knew that whatever that creature was, it was the source of the song.

You swam even harder now, wanting to get closer to it to see it. But dark spots started creeping through your already blurry vision. The pain your body was in sent a small shock through you, clearing your mind just enough to realize that you needed air. As you pushed yourself back up towards the surface, you heard a faint “Stay with me” echo around in your head.

You gasped once you broke the surface, air filling your weakened lungs. Your limbs felt like they were made of lead, like you were going to sink back down. Yet your body floated, being pushed around by the waves back towards the shore. Despite just hearing the song, you were unable to recall it yet again. Like your mind had erased the singing from your memory. However, you could still recall the voice, speaking out for you, wanting you to stay. You must be some sort of delirious, as you wanted to follow the request, even still debating on going back down.

Your weak body washed up against the sand. You were so tired. You didn’t think you’d be able to stand up, let alone walk all the way back home. Crawling away from the water, sand clung to your soaking body. You couldn’t even be bothered by it, you were just too exhausted. Your arms gave out once you reached your things, the sand was warm in contrast to your cold body. With a shiver, you curled up on your side and let your eyes fall shut. You’ll sleep for a few minutes, letting your body regain its lost energy.

You were back underwater, your vision a lot clearer than before. The shadowy figure still below you, appearing so close yet so far. However, as you swam deeper, you swore the creature was coming towards you. Reaching out for it, a slimy slick hand grabbed yours. Just barely you were able to make out the features of the creature. You weren’t quite sure what you were expecting as it faced you, but you were surprised nonetheless. A male human-like face looked back at you, his skin a ghastly grey color. His eyes were almost completely black, looking up at you like you hung the moon and the stars in the sky. Dark locks swirled around him, framing his face delicately.

He was the most beautiful man you’ve ever laid eyes on.

Plump lips melted into a smile as he hand moved to cup your cheek, his clammy fingers brushing against your cheeks. As you leaned into his touch, the song filled your mind. Your head felt all cottony and soft as the singing echoed amongst the water surrounding you. You reached out with your own hand, but as your fingers grazed against his skin, his loving gaze turned sour. His lips parted, and he hissed as he lunged forward.

You awoke with a start, gasping loudly. Above you, the morning sun was shining brightly behind heavy clouds. It was just a dream. Your heart was still beating wildly in your chest as you sat up, the ocean raging even louder than last night. With a stretch, you got yourself back to your feet. Your clothes had dried overnight, yet they were stiff and coated with sand, not making them any less uncomfortable. Thankfully, it appeared that no one attempted to steal your things while you slept as your belongings were still on the sand next to you. Gathering up your stuff, you began the walk back towards your home.

As you made your way back to the more populated side of the beach, you saw the brown haired lifeguard from the other night making his way toward the cove. When he saw you walking away from that section of the beach, he stopped in his tracks. He had a puzzled look on his face before slowly turning to approach you.

“Hi, I’m sorry to bother you but. . . did you sleep on the beach last night?” He eyed you up and down, taking in your sand covered body.

“Yes. . .” You responded cautiously, hoping you weren’t going to get in too much trouble.

“Okay, because someone reported a body to be over in that area and uh, no offense-”

“I look like a dead body?” You raised a brow at him.

“Yeah, I’m sorry.” He chuckled nervously. “But this beach is common for suicides, so I wanted to make sure-”

“Wait what?”

“Uh, police like to keep in on the low but several people have washed up on this beach after drowning. They’re all ruled as suicide because there’s no signs of any struggle. But if you ask me,” he leaned forward, lowering his already deep voice to a whisper, “someone or something is luring them out there.”

You furrowed your brows as you remembered the singing and how it drew you out to follow it. “What do you mean?”

“Well, I’ve looked into it a bit. These so-called ‘suicides’ have happened several times over the past 50 years or so, all on this beach. And they never have any history of mental health issues, or depression,” the lifeguard explained as the two of you started walking away from the water and towards the tower.

“Why are they getting labeled suicides then?”

“Because days before they’re found, they all had a really bad break up.” Your eyes widened at him as he continued to talk. “So the police think they just couldn’t take it, thus suicide.”

“Did they. . . say anything before they died? Leave any notes?” You questioned further.

“I mean, most of them died the night of the break up. But there’s one that did leave something, I wouldn’t classify it as a note though.”

“Why?” You asked.

“Because it didn’t say anything about the break up or wanting to end their lives, it was just ramblings about some song.” He shrugged as you reached the tower. “Pretty sure you could find it somewhere on the internet, there’s a small conspiracy surrounding it all. But everyone agrees with the police.”

“Right, thank you.” You nodded, feeling a bit sick to your stomach.

“Y-you wouldn’t happen to know something, do you?” His voice was laced with concern.

He reached out to you, but you pulled away from his grasp. “I-I need to go.” With not a second to lose, you turned on your feet as you made a beeline towards the end of the beach, the lifeguard calling after you, but unable to follow.

You felt like your whole world was spinning as you entered your home. You could barely think straight with the knowledge you were given. The mere thought of how close you came to being one of those mysterious suicides was nauseating. You wouldn’t have thought anything of it until the lifeguard mentioned the note about the song. . . Then you remembered how your lungs ached and burned from last night, it was impossible to deny that you had barely slipped away from whatever was calling out from the ocean below.

Stripping yourself of your sandy clothing, you made your way towards your bathroom. You needed a shower. No longer able to think or be in the clothes you nearly drowned in. Hot water ran down your back as you leaned against the wall, trying to wrap your head around it all. There was one thing you knew for certain, and that was you could not return to the beach.

As the water rushed down your body, you were able to get some semblance of peace. You gave a sigh of relief as you felt your body relax against the warm water. Shutting your eyes, you leaned your head back underneath the stream of water.

Then you heard it again.

The singing.

Eyes snapping open, you turned to look up at the showerhead, the water still gushing out as the song echoed against the tiled walls. Was it coming from the pipes? As you peered up into the silver nozzle, the warm water suddenly turned ice cold. With a yelp, you shut off the water. Unlike before, the song still played on in your mind. You could still hear it perfectly.

Not even bothering to grab a towel, you scrambled over to your phone and connected it to your speakers, blasting the loudest rock song you could think of. The shelf your speaker was resting on shook with the base, unable to take the booming music. Yet the eurythmic tune still rang in your ears. To your horror, the blaring music melted into the strange melody , getting louder and louder until it felt like your ears were bleeding.

Tearing at your hair, you let out an ungodly scream. You fell to your knees, curling up on the floor, stuffing your fingers in your ears to try and block out the song. The song still played on in your mind to no avail. As tears welled up in your eyes, threatening to spill, it all stopped. The only sound you were able to hear was the muffled noise of the sock music you’d turned on against your covered ears.

Unplugging your ears, you could hear a faint knocking on your front door. With shaking limbs, you pushed yourself up right. Grabbing your phone, you turned off the music, the knocking still persisting at the door. You scrambled back to your bathroom, quickly wrapping yourself up in a towel before making your way over to answer the front door.

Peering through the peephole, you spotted your neighbor standing before the door. Pulling the door open a crack, you gave her a smile. “Hi Mrs. Kim.”

“Is everything alright? Someone said they heard a scream,” she asked, sounding genuinely concerned for you.

“Oh uh, that was me,” you confessed, “m-my boyfriend and I were having sex. And he, uh, got a bit carried away.” You internally cringed at the lie, but you knew you couldn’t exactly reveal you were hearing a mysterious song that was driving slowly beginning to drive you insane.

She furrowed your brows at your answer. No doubt assuming you were in danger, she lowered her voice. “Honey, do you need me to call someone?”

“No! I’m fine. We’re good. I’m so sorry for scaring you, that’s why the music was so loud.” You chuckled nervously as you began to shut the door, but she placed her hand on the door, ceasing any movement.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, Mrs. Kim. Again, sorry for the disturbance.” Then you slammed the door shut, not giving her any other chance to question you further. You held your breath until you heard the clicking of her shoes as she walked down the pavement, away from you. Once she was gone, you slid down the door. Hitting the ground, you let go of your towel, letting yourself sit naked on the ground as you let your body calm down from all that had happened.

You weren’t sure exactly what to do, or how you were supposed to move on from this because clearly avoiding the beach won’t be enough. For a split second, you considered moving further inland; get away from large bodies of water, or maybe water all together, but the idea was ridiculous. You couldn’t avoid water for the rest of your life; you had to hydrate, bathe yourself, hell what would happen if you started crying or sweating? It was an impossible thought to simply avoid water as a whole, but moving further inland wasn’t a bad start.

Getting to your feet, you started packing a bag. You couldn’t care exactly what clothes you were going to wear or for weather you should prepare for, just stuffing the bag of your belongings until you deemed yourself done. Bag packed, you dressed yourself in some of the clothes still remaining in your dresser. After you put your shoes on, you made your way out of your apartment.

Immediately, you were greeted with rain pouring down. With a sigh, you walked out from beneath the overhang, ready to walk to the nearest train station. Soon as you stepped out into the rainfall, the singing again filled your mind. You froze as the overwhelming urge to return to the beach slowly grew in the back of your mind. Yet your body refused to follow through, like it knew what was going to happen if you went to that beach. Your grip tightened on your bag as you resisted the pull of the song, but it grew too much. Dropping your bag, you began walking back towards the beach.

Each step you took, the louder the hypnotic melody grew. By the time you’d reached the sand, you were all but consumed by it. The beach was empty as you crossed it, no sign of any other human being. Sand clung to your soaking wet clothes, as if it was the world’s last ditch attempt to tether you to the earth, but the sand simply washed away as you stepped into the water.

The intoxicating song reverberated around in your head, drowning out the smatter of the rain as you walked further out into the water. No longer able to keep walking, you took a deep breath and dove beneath the waves. You kicked and kicked down until you spotted a familiar outline.

It was the creature!

Unable to contain yourself, you pushed your limbs faster in an attempt to propel yourself deeper. As you swam further down, you noticed the shadow was getting larger; it was swimming towards you, just like in your dream! Reaching out, you felt the familiar thick slime of the hand as it wrapped around your wrist, pulling you in towards its embrace. Despite the darkness surrounding the both of you and the blurriness of your vision, you knew deep in you that this was the same man from your dream. The source of the song.

His other slick hand came up to cup your cheek, and again, the same voice from the other night echoed in your mind. “Stay with me.”

You opened your mouth to respond, ‘yes’ but immediately water flooded in. Before you even began choking on the salty seawater, the man covered his mouth with yours. You stilled for a moment, a split second of clarity hitting you before you felt his lips begin to move against yours. Your eyes fluttered shut as you returned the kiss, ignoring the burning in your lungs as air slowly slipped away. Completely and utterly drunk on his song and his lips.

He didn’t pull away from you as the man leaned back, pulling you down deeper into the ocean. You never felt the kick of his legs as you were taken further into the fathomless darkness.

Pressure began to accumulate on your temples before slowly spreading over your head. The pain grew too much and you pushed yourself away from his kiss, bubbles escaping past your lips. Opening your eyes, you could no longer see anything, the darkness having completely surrounded you. Yet you knew he was still there, holding onto you as you felt his grip on your tighten as he pulled you deeper.

Wanting to fight back, you raised a fist, but your body was weak. You were running out of air and the pressure was becoming too much. You felt your entire body go slack in his hold. It was hard to tell in the endless blackness, but dark spots began to dance around your vision. You weren’t sure if you’d even closed your eyes or not. How long had it been? Were you out of oxygen yet? You slumped against the hold of the mysterious creature. You could feel its chest vibrating; humming the song to lull you into sleep as your body was pulled into the abysmal darkness.

#btsghostie #jimin x reader #bts x reader #bts angst #mermaid jimin #siren jimin #bts siren au #jimin fanfiction #bts fanfiction #reader insert

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allisonbaelfire · 3 years

Text

NYX

Pairings: Bucky Barnes x Reader

Summary: Nyx was a legend, others referred to her as a myth of a bygone era, but so was the Winter Soldier once. The two shared a common past and now a common mission. However, their feelings for one another could danger their goal.

Word Count: 4,403

Authors Note: This story is inspired by the Marvel Comics with Bucky Barnes and Natasha Romanoff and Falcon and the Winter Soldier Series.

+ nyx = /Nýx/ - the Greek goddess (or personification) of the night. A shadowy figure.

____________________________________

“I was their secret weapon...or at least I was one of them. She was another. Something about her touched what was left of my humanity. Buried under all that programming.” Bucky touched the back of his neck. “A long time ago, Y/N made me remember what it was to feel human.”

____________________________________

MADRIPOOR - Low Town:

After several weeks of looking for clues to the "Flag Smashers", your way brought you to Madripoor. One of the most criminal cities in the world. If you didn't want to be robbed or even die here immediately, you had to be someone and have made a name for yourself. It's good that you already had that.

“Nyx”, Your informant greeted you. “Where’s my money?”

You smirked. “Do I have to remind you what happens, if you keep talking to me in that tone?”

You wanted to take a sip of the bourbon you had just ordered, but your informant knocked it out of your hand and the glass broke on the floor. Before the glass hit the floor, you grabbed him by his throat and pushed him down on the counter.

The bar owner, Jerry, wanted to interfere. His bar was the only one in Madripoor with zero tolerance against violence, if you wanted to fight you should do it outside.

You raised your finger and showed the owner that he should wait, he also knew who you were, which was why he repected you.

“Do you know how hard it is to find a good bar with my favorite bourbon in Madripoor?” The guy shook his head while you gripped tighter. “No? now let me tell you - it's as hard as really doing anything with your expensive information.” You let go of him.

“I-I told you everything, I know.”

“I-I” You laughed. “Remembered who I am, huh?” You ordered another Bourbon. “So, first of all, this drink, you’ll pay for it.” You took a sip and smiled. “Next, you’re going to tell me all you know about Kali and then I’ll pay you.”

You didn't get an answer, but you realized he still knew something when he nervously looked at his phone. You rolled your eyes, stood up, and turned around. "Jerry, I'm really sorry but I tried the nice way." You slightly pulled your dress up and took out your gun, turned to the informant and released the fuse.

“Phone,” You winded your eyes, “now!”

You rolled your eyes, still pointing at the guy. “Zemo - High Town, you’ve got to be kidding me.” You put your gun back and broke his phone. “I’m very disappointed and our Deal is over, don’t make a mistake - don’t follow me.” You spoke serious. “Or it's the last thing you'll ever do.”

____________________________________

MADRIPOOR - High Town - Brass Monkey Saloon:

High Town in Madripoor was way different than Low Town. More drugs, weapons sex, rich people and power. The petty criminals were no longer represented here; criminal elite were gathered here.

“Nyx,” The Bartender greeted you. “Long time no see even though you look stunning in that dress (X), thought you were done with this life.”

“Well, a girl has to eat,” You smirked. “And to drink.”

The bartender smiled and brought you your favorite bourbon. “Did you hear the rumors about Zemo?”

“Heard he’s back in town.” You took a sip of your glas.

He raised his eybrow. “This Bastard is accompanied by the Winter Soldier.”

You choked. He patted you on the shoulder. After you were sure you hadn't misheard, you inspected the club more closely.

You looked at the Bartender, “You never saw me.” he nodded.

You nervously went to the ladies' room. You’ve heard that James was still alive and that he now had a part of his memory back, so you thought he had stopped being the Winter Soldier and started a life of his own outside of H.Y.D.R.A.. But now that he was Zemo's company you thought about following them and finding out what that their Partnership was about.

You checked whether there was anyone else in the toilet besides you and when you were sure that you were alone, you took a deep breath and turned on the water. You suddenly got a slight headache and grabbed your head, when you looked at yourself in the mirror, your flashbacks started.

____________________________________

Ages ago - Red Room:

You were one of the best and yet you always had to prove it. After you had defeated each of your fellow campaigners, your leaders were still not satisfied and they let you fight the Winter Soldier - again

“AGAIN!” The Winter Soldier shouted and you fell you arm would break if you’d hit him again.

“AGAIN!”

“James, I-I need a break.”

“What did you just call me?” He asked as he noticed the penetrating looks of the other woman and you remembered that nobody should now.

The Winter Soldier knocked you out.

____________________________________

After James knocked you out, you were brought to your room, you woke up hours later. You touched your head and noticed the bump he gave you.

"Stupid, bastard." You mumbled.

“I’m sorry, you know I had to.” You recognized his voice.

You looked around and saw his silhouette sitting in the corner, presumably he came through the window into your room again, like so many times before.

You shook your head, “No, I am sorry. I've put both of us in danger”

Bucky got up and went to you. He let his right hand slowly slide up over your arm to your neck and finally to your head, he too felt the bump. You felt his guilt, but you knew he would never really hurt you.

“Stop it.” You wrapped your arms around his neck. “James, you know I could’ve easily taken you down.” You smirked.

Because of him, you could endure the whole ordeal at all. If he just looked at you, you lost yourself in his blue eyes and if he held you in his arms he gave you a warm home. He was your anchor to carry on every day and you were his.

“I told you to call me Bucky.”

You pulled him closer to you, “I’m glad that you start to remember who you’re.”

He put his hands gently around your waist and pulled you closer as he slowly leaned in to kiss you.

____________________________________

After cooling your wrists and neck, your pulse calmed down and the flashbacks were gone.

“Thankfully I have often had to look out from above in this God-forsaken place.”

You jumped on one of the sinks and pushed a panel of the roof aside. You pulled yourself up and crawled back to the dance floor so that no one could see you but you could see everyone.

You spotted Zemo, so it wasn't a rumor and he really was back, but you haven't been able to locate Bucky yet. But it was strange for Zemo that his companion was smiling Tiger.

You were a little rusty in lip reading but you understood that he wanted to talk to Shelby. This would have been your next step too. The mood in the club began to turn. People started staring at Zemo as one of Powerbroker's bodyguards made himself known.

“Зимний солдат атака” Zemo ordered.

“No” You covered your mouth with your hands.

Bucky stepped out of the shadows and was now clearly in your field of vision. He didn't see you, it seemed as if he only saw what he always saw first - an order and his mission. He was ready to comply. He attacked the men who were trying to get Zemo.

Elegant and graceful like a cat, you glide silently along the steel girders, and watched every movement of James, did Zemo really manage to turn him into his personal puppet?

Bucky knocked down man after man as if they were nothing. Your pulse went faster and your movements on the steel beams became more uncontrolled as you followed his fight. Your heart felt the urge to intervene, you reminded Bucky so many times who he was - not any ones weapon, that you stopped counting and seeing him like this again felt like you had failed him.

When you were almost about to fall, people simultaneously pulled out their guns. James stopped fighting and was called back by Zemo. You regained control of your heartbeat and your body relaxed, which helped you to find your balance again.

The bartender informed Zemo that the three would now be welcomed by Shelby.

You couldn't follow them any further without getting into the line of fire. You waited until they left and slowly made your way down from the steel girders and landed on the floor. People looked at you questioningly.

“What? Lady’s stay out of meaningless fights.” And with that you left the bar.

____________________________________

After a few minutes outside the club you got a message, but it seemed you weren't the only one. Cell phones all around you started chiming, people were chatting and looking around. Shelby placed a pretty high bounty and now everyone would be looking for James

You heard gunshots, “Great.”

Of course, instead of being smart and running away from the gunshots like every other person, you couldn't help but run to exactly where they came from. You hadn't seen Bucky in a long time, but everything in your body demanded to find him before someone could place a bullet between his beautiful ocean eyes.

You saw the bikers who drove behind Bucky and smiling Tiger, you pulled out your gun and fired at them. Two fell, thanks to you, the last one was taken out by a sniper.

“You seem to have a guardian Angel.” Zemo spoke breathless.

“Not quite.”

Bucky recognized this voice, but couldn't place it exactly on a face. He was just sure she wasn't a threat.

A blond woman showed up, “Nice shot. I take it from here,” she looked behind the man. “and you can crawl back into the darkness.” You smirked and nodded.

Before the men could turn around you had already disappeared into the shadows.

____________________________________

Within seconds you were on the roofs of Madripoor and on the way to your hotel. Being so close to Bucky clouded your mind and made you lose sight of your goal.

It helped you to walk over the rooftops in the middle of the night, it was like a release for you. In the night, in the deepest darkness, it was easier to order your thoughts, this is how you had been taught, how he had taught you to focus in case you should lose your way - switch everything dark and only listen to your inner voice.

You remembered him saying those words to you, “Your voice is what makes me lose my focus.” you held your neck and climbed into your Hotelroom through an open window.

After you were in your room, you inspected every inch for cameras, microphones or intruders of any kind, after this you closed every window, every door and every curtain.

“Finally.” You sighed as you pulled of your dress.

You looked even more threatening under your dress. There were small knives on both sides of your ribs and two different guns on your legs. You took everything off and put your weapons aside, all but your favorite gun (X).

“Your place is here.” You spoke soft and placed it under your pillow.

You went to bed and closed your eyes. The room was dark and absolutely silent while your thoughts and memories yelled at you.

____________________________________

“Can we just stay here forever?” You asked while laying in Buckys arms on top of the roof the Academy.

You looked up, the stars merged with the dark night and they seemed to be in perfect harmony.

“Whenever we’re separated, I look at the stars and I think of you. You are my night and I'm your star, he looked at his metal arm,” He tried to make the gun on his body positive. “even if we are often apart from each other, I cannot be without you-”

You lifted yourself up to look at him. “And I cannot be without you.”

____________________________________

MADRIPOOR - High Town - Unknown Place

It was already very late when Bucky, Sam and Zemo arrived at Sharon's apartment. They all wouldn’t have expected that Sharon had such a beautiful and safe hiding place in the middle of Madripoor, plus a successful business.

“How’s the new Cap?” She asked curious.

Bucky sat down on the couch, "Don’t get me started" he said with an annoyed voice.

Sharon scoffed. “Please. You buy into all that stars and stripes bullshit.” She sat next to him. “Before you were his pet psychopath, you were Mr. America!” Sharon chuckled as she noticed Zemo questioning look. “Cap’s best friend.”

Bucky was suprised by Sharon's words, none of them knew this side of her before.

“Wow. She’s kind of awful now.” Bucky mumbled.

Sam gave them an side eye, “Kali Morgenthau and at least seven others have taken the super soldier serum.” He sat down. “We won’t leave until we find the one who cracked the code.”

Sharon turned and stared out her window, “That’d explain her appearance. Either she wants to take it or destroy it.”

“Who?” Zemo asked.

“Nyx” Sharon stood up and got herself a drink.

Bucky stood up and he looked petrified. It was as if he had forgotten how to move or even show any kind of reaction within seconds. As he thought more and more about the day, he had felt her penetrating gaze, even though she was nowwhere to be seen. His heart was racing. Bucky’s eyes ran through the room, every dark corner was inspected, but she wasn’t called NYX for nothing.

Sam noticed Bucky's tense body, everything about him seemed like he was hopelessly overwhelmed with something that piercing his head.

“Hey man. You okay?” Sam gently touched his shoulder.

Zemo looked worried like Bucky would snap again any minute. “What is going on with him?”

Bucky went to Sharon and got worryingly close in her space. “What do you know about her and how can I contact her?”

Bucky's posture was tense. For someone who didn't know him, they might have thought, he would attack Sharon at any moment. But Sharon didn’t step back. She recognized something in his eyes, that she had once seen before, as she looked in Steve Roger’s after her Aunts dead - pain and a broken heart.

“This can’t be.” Sharon raised her eyebrow and crossed her arms. “You’re her-”

“What the hell is going on?” Sam interrupted.

“-Star”

Bucky's eyes blurred, his head started to ache, and he held on to the wall to keep from falling.

“I know you’ll always be with me!” You chuckled and looked into the dark blue night. “You’re my star, you watch out for me.”

He remembered a feminine and warm voice.

“What if they catch us?” You asked him worried.

Bucky gently touched your cheek, “Then I’ll fight them all.” he kissed you.

He remembered the texture of her soft skin and her gently touch.

“You’re not a Monster, no matter how many times they try to convince you - you’re not.”

He remembered how you tried to protect him.

“If you want him, you’ve to kill me first.”

He remembered how you fought for him...

...and how you lost the fight.

Bucky took a deep breath. He came back to himself. He remembered a part of his past that H.Y.D.R.A. left buried deep. A part that made him turn off the Winter Soldier again and again.

His guilt grew. “I need to go.” He mumbled.

Sam came in his way, “Wait!” he sighed. “Talk to me, Buck.”

Sharon scoffed. “One Weapon wants to find the other. NYX is a Myth all around the world, like the Winter Soldier was.” She winked at him. “She’s as strong as an Army, fast like a cheetah, she knows the most diverse fighting techniques and speaks multiple languages-”

“-Okay and?” Zemo rolled his eyes.

“I was the secret weapon of H.Y.D.R.A. ...or at least I was one of them. She was another. Something about her touched what was left of my humanity. Buried under all that programming.” Bucky touched the back of his neck. “A long time ago, Y/N made me remember what it was to feel human.”

Sam held his head. “She saved us today. Well, saved you but-” he shrug with his shoulders.

“And now she has become a shadow. She works alone, always clean leaving no hints behind. I don’t know how to find her but maybe I can contact some people who might know what her next mission is.”

____________________________________

MADRIPOOR - Next Morning:

Your alarm clock rang but you had been awake and still lying in bed for hours. That you would wake up before your alarm clock was nothing special, but it was unusual that you were lying there instead of going to work immediately.

Your heart beat irregularly, and a slight nausea came over you every now and then. Seeing Bucky again without him recognizing you hit your psyche more than you wanted to admit to yourself.

Your phone rang, a new hint for the super soldier serum.

You sighed. “Ohhh f*ck this.” you put your pillow on your face.

But a mission was a mission. You took the pillow from your face, sat up straight, and took a deep breath. Even before you knew that Bucky was back, the mission was important to you personally and Bucky wouldn't be able to prevent you from destroying the serum - no matter what.

Your cell phone rang again and one of your informants wrote you where you could find the scientist who had recreated the serum. Buccaneer Bay.

You looked at your gun. “Hopefully I won’t need you for him...” You spoke and put on your weapons.

____________________________________

MADRIPOOR - Buccaneer Bay

Your body was still tense because of Bucky, but it was also he who learned to suppress your own emotions. When you arrived in Buccaneer Bay, your way led you to the top of the container. A better view and you wouldn't be noticed right away.

“With that bounty on your head, the longer you’re in Madripoor the less likely you’re ever leaving.”

You rolled your eyes as you recognized a female voice. “I should’ve known.”

You leaned a little over the container you were standing on and noticed Sharon, Sam Wilson, Zemo and of course Bucky.

The four of them ran through the individual containers and it seemed as if they were looking for the same thing as you. Slowly and silently you went after them until-

Sharon stopped. “-Container four-two-six-one.”

Bucky looked uncomfortable. He looked around in every direction. It was as if you could literally feel that someone was watching him.

“I’ll watch while you guys talk to Nagel.” Sharon handed them some earpods. “But hurry. We’re on borrowed time.”

“What’re you up to?” You asked yourself as you looked at her.

The container door cracked open, you waited until Sharon was far enough away to get to the next container and on to your destination.

The men went in and you heard them open another door inside. You waited 2 minutes, after all, Zemo and Sam were accompanied by the Winter Soldier, who would double-check everything. When you were sure that they were gone you went into the container.

____________________________________

As you followed them you heard how they drew their weapons. That wasn’t your way, while they first thought of pulling out their weapons, you thought of securing the container and waiting until the men thought they had nothing to worry about and were alone with the doctor.

“Doctor Nagel?” You heard Sam.

The doctor turned and went pale in the face. “Who are you? What do you want?”

“We know you created the super-soldier serum.”

You walked slowly into the room and decided to hide yourself first.

Nagel walked past them, “Get out of my lap.” until he noticed Bucky.

“You know who he is right?”

Nagel didn’t dare to move any further than looked deep into Bucky’s eyes and didn’t grimace. Sam grabbed Nagel by his jacket and pushed him at a wall.

“How about a counter proposal?” The Doctor grinned. “Make me a better offer and I talk.”

Bucky's body language spoke for him. He must have heard something, they weren't alone anymore. He pulled his gone and pointed at Nagel. You got nervous, was this Bucky Barnes or was it the Winter Soldier? Whoever he was, nothing should happen to Nagel.

Nagel began to explain how he managed to reproduce and modify the Super-Soldier serum. In your opinion, he was a bit arrogant.

“I was god.” He smiled and you rolled your eyes.

Zemo started walking around, you couldn't tell what he was going to do so you decided to get closer. He found a gun under a desk and went near Sam and Bucky. You heard the container door open again and you were ready to fight, but Sharon stormed in and for a second you couldn't keep an eye on Zemo, a shot went off - Nagel was dead.

You had to act immediately, you came out from behind Sharon and hit her hard on the head, she fell over like a stone. Sam held Zemo tight, his gun fell to the ground. You ran up to Sam, he was so surprised that it was easy for you to ram your elbow in his face and make him fall to the ground too. You pulled out your two guns, one aimed at Zemo and the other at Bucky.

“Y/N?” Bucky sounded confused.

“Its been a long time since I heard that Name,” She sighed. “Did you miss me, Soldier?” You gasped.

“Do you want the serum for yourself, my dear?” Zemo asked hands up.

Bucky shook his head, “She already has it.” He came closer to you.

“Ah-Ah-Ah, don’t make another move.” You were still aiming at Bucky. “I need the serums, I’ll destroy them so that no one can ever use it again, can use us like they please.”

Bucky's gaze softened. The whole time he was wondering what had become of you, but even if H.Y.D.R.A. or the KGB wanted to make you monsters, you were one of the monsters who worked for, instead of against, people.

He came closer and even without touching you he could feel how much your heart was beating. But what he didn't know, would you shoot him to get to your goal?

He put his hand on yours with he gun, “Y/N...”

____________________________________

Before you could react to Bucky or even think about your next step, you were hit by a bomb that destroyed half the container and knocked you and the others to the ground.

“Y/N,” Bucky groans.

You heard heard the alarm blaring and glasses clicking, everything was shaking but you seemed unharmed as you could stand up on your own. But your eyes couldn't see that much, everything looked blurry. You could barely stand on your feet.

“Did anyone see Zemo?”

Bucky helped the others up. You shook your head and slowly came to yourself. Bucky came and took your hand when another explosion destroyed the container, you all were lucky and made it out just in time.

“All right! Wait for my signal!” Bucky ordered.

You heard gunfire and placed yourself in front of him to take a shouter out.

“Too slow old man.” You came out from behind the container and started shooting the other shooters. Sharon and Sam followed your example and helped.

“Damn it, Y/N!”

You could hear how one after the other fell to the ground but it seemed to get more and more.

“Hey?!” You looked at Bucky. “Do you remember Budapest?” You yelled.

Bucky did remember Budapest and shook his head. “Its too dangerous!”

Another explosion happened and smoke came up, it was perfect to cover you. You got out of your protection and Bucky ran behind you. You were standing back to back and started shooting around you and taking one by one until there was no one left.

Sam and Sharon were speechless after what they just witnessed. A super soldier and a spy who killed 20 people at once without even blinking. But it wasn't over yet, Madripoor was not known for criminals who would give up so easily.

“Okay come on!” Sharon spoke and you followed her into another container.

“So you two?” Sam started and Bucky and you gave him a death stare. “Okay, okay.” He grinned.

Bucky rammed open the door on the other side of the container and you could hear car tires screeching.

“Supercharged.” Zemo smiled.

“You’re going back to jail.” Sam replied.

“Do you want to find Karli or not?”

Bucky crossed his arms, “He’s right, we need him.” he opened the car door.

“Fine.” Sam clenched his teeth. “But if you try that shit again.” He placed himself on the backseat.

You looked at Bucky and he realized you weren't going to come with him. He took your hand and pulled you closer to himself.

Everything in Bucky demanded to stroke you, kiss you and just feel you but he couldn't even find a word.

“I’ll find you.” You looked into his eyes and smiled soft. “even in the darkest nights.”

He placed a kiss on your forehead. “Don’t do anything stupid.” Then he went inside the car.

You nodded to Sam to show you trusted him to fight by Bucky's side. Then you turned around and walked past Sharon while you rammed her shoulder hard, once around the corner and you were gone.

Bucky put his head in his hands, wondering if he should have stayed with you or persuaded you to come with him. But it didn't seem to be the time for it yet. Sam touched his shoulder to comfort him. Zemo started the car and Bucky felt your gaze on him, he turned around and this time you allowed him to see you.

He knew you’d see each other again, he still hoped for a better reason but the Serum was still out there - and your mission wasn't over yet.

_______________________________

Thank you for reading - Please share and leave some love here <3

#Bucky Barnes #bucky barnes gif #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes imagine #bucky barnes one shot #Winter Soldier #falcon and winter solider series #tfatws #tfatws imagine #marvel #marvel fanfiction #sam wilson #sam wilson imagine #Sam Wilson fanfic #sharon carter #madripoor #natasha romanoff #captain america

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batarangsoundsdumb · 3 years

Text

guess fucking what? my inbox is so fucking full right now i'm unloading all of this shit in one post.

For the 11th gotham memes: gothamites react to bruce being jacked in a tiktok he made with kids, like super yoked, ripped as hell

fucking hilarious thanks. i think i did it in one meme post, but i genuinely don't remember which one

i dunno which of the batfam would do this but one time i was sleeping over at a friends house and ended up on the floor bc the bed was so very small and i just stayed there because the rug was soft

that's a drunk jason move i don't know what to tell you

tim and jason are "i listen to pop punk" solidarity. whenever jason highjacks the batmobile theyll go on long ass car rides blaring mcr and paramore and then never talk about it again

as they should!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! tim: no jason it's my turn using the aux cord i gotta put on my jams jason: don't you dare put on weird shit tim: don't worry, you're gonna love this *plays fearless (taylor's version)

hear me out hear me out, red hood stans 🤝 nightwing stans t h i g h s

holy shit yes.

SNL au: Bruce breaks character when pretending to superman and says something like "I'm not superman! You've seen his gps!! It's from 2001!!!" @sabeanybabe

superman flies past the snl building the next day just to say 'actually it's from 2005, i'm not a heathen'

does your back hurt from carrying the batfam fandom

it hurts more from the exotic rock collection i keep in my backpack, but thanks for the concern.

I love your posts by why would you always leave the best parts in the tags?

as a treat for the people that check the tags ;) (and also because i'm committed to the short post aesthetic)

somehow your playlist was everything i never knew i needed. i mean it. this is my new favorite playlist.

and don't you dare get a new favourite playlist!

babe ur stoner tim playlist is exactly too perfect, earth is literally blessed by ur existence

babe thanks so much! i love my stoner tim playlist because it's just my usual playlist but people think it's an artistic choice that i put taylor swift and britney spears in there, when it's just what i unironically like listening to

JANDKSKDK BILLY RAY CYRUS ON THE STONER TIM PLAYLIST I LOVE IT IT

again it's not even an ironic choice, i know every single word and i genuinely like the song

The last chapter of Fundamentals of Casework has me crying at work. Thanks I love it @dudelookitsalesbian

oh babe, i'm sorry, but also, not sorry i love chapter 4 so much it's my lovechild with the 'mental illness' tag

soooo....stumbled on your tumblr by some stroke of fate??? read your DC fanfic first. which is PHENOMENAL btw. then found all the batmemes; the funniest thing EVER bc everyone forgets about regular old gothamites. kept scrolling and your blog pops up as recommended. clicked on the ao3 for shits and giggles and waddaya know?!?!? it's YOU!!! you're LEGEND!!!! ever seen that meme? it's a video of a cat that got into a baseball field and the two announcers get really invested in his escape attempt and start giving a play by play of the cat instead of the game. memeable moment: "GREAT stuff from the Cat!!!"

i seriously think about this ask every single day and it's so fucking funny to me that i've never seen the meme you're referencing, but i still find myself going 'GREAT stuff from the Cat!!!' whenever i see something funny. but wow i'm glad you liked this steaming pile of garbage

Fav dc character overall? And fav batfamily character?

don't ask me to pick between the loves of my life, but i can tell you i've cried about every single batfamily member and also wally west (my beloved)

What's your opinion on fans having a problem with batfam being "too big"? And some even claim that batfam is just "Bruce Alfred Dick Damian" and the rest of them are just "friends and allies" (source: reddit) Personally, I like batfam because of this reason but idk

stupid. a family can never be too big. i'm not that big a fan of like huge batfam stuff with everybody from every single universe, because as much as it's funny for bruce to have like 30 kids, it just feels a little too OOC for me.

This is the best tag I've seen involving the batfam, thanks for thinking of it

This is canon now @nctxrejects

lmao yeah i think at that point alfred has had to sit through like at least a dozen coming out talks and just has a pride flag collection in the attic that he pulls out whenever a kid comes out

idk why batfam hits different as compared to any other superhero family

bc it's found family and usually the other superhero families are almost all genetically related in one way or another

I don't know if you watch the umbrella academy but I saw your last post about batcest and saw the similarities. But the thing is (although I think it's weird) in TUA, they addressed it by saying "they were raised as weapons, not siblings" or something along those lines, which is simply not the case with batfam.

yeah i watched tua but i also thought it was ridiculous and they still treated each other as siblings so i didn't like the luthor/allison thing, and am glad they stopped doing that shit bc it fucking sucked.

Hot take: Batcest shippers are the same people who believe adopted siblings are not actual siblings

smoking hot take: batcest shippers are the people who watch 'my sister got stuck in the washing machine' porn

Duke was adopted by Bruce?

not technically no, but do i, tumblr user batarangsoundsdumb, look like i care?

True story but I had to change my freaking name because it used to be "Damien" and most people would go "OH LIKE DAMIAN WAYNE" like please I'm just tryna live

true story, but i don't actually think of damian when i hear the name damian, literally the first thing that pops up is damian darkh like bruh what?

apparently dc comics company supported comic stores by giving out new titles and stuff during the beginning of the pandemic to help them run and I just think that's wholesome

ah yeah that's so fucking cool, still don't like dc, the company, because this world is a capitalist hellhole and we're all owned by warner brothers or disney with no in between.

ayo looking at tumblr head canons and finding out bruce is actually a terrible father is a punch in the gut

lmao yes, in like 50% of comics bruce is a terrible father and it gives me whiplash

oooh I just saw the jason todd vs winter soldier post and the real question is: batman vs iron man

while iron man has like hundreds of cases of armor, batman could throw out an emp and have the guy dropping out of the sky in 2 seconds.

dickfast = fastdick = quickdick = quickie

magnum hot take

hey bata(?) just thought I'd let you know I have copied the obnoxious emoji and Billy Ray post for use on simping men going forth

thank you 😘🌷 (@spacebarsidecar)

why would you do that to your followers???? i get why i did it, but why would you???

what is scarecrow made the nightwing funko pop himself, like those diy-ers that paint over other ones

oh god no, horrible take, horrible take, that's a disgusting thought oh no

I see your HC that Bruce and Oliver fucked and raise you this: Dick and Roy ALSO fucked

yes they did and it was a horrible moment for jason to find out dick has fucked both of his best friends

"at this rate bruce adds like 1 child to his family every decade or so" Duke is introduced in 2013, Damian as Damian, not as an unnamed child, in 2006. And he is already 14 years old, Robins rarely remain Robins after 16 😬 It looks like a new Robin and Batkid will appear in a couple of years

i mean i can't wait? but somebody will probably die first tho, we're due for another major character death. my money's on either cass or duke this time.

BRO you're so right all of your Bruce's ex headcanons are amazing but they aren't ships, that's kinda wild. Like I don't want any peeks into how their relationship was I just want to see everyone make fun of them

lmao YES it's just i love bruce being a slut, like good for him.

I am in love with your posts your honour thank you

omg thanks are we like,, gonna kiss now?

The justice league needs to have a meeting to discuss how many of their members/partners have slept with bruce. Because through a combination of cannon & fannon (if DC wasn’t homophobic) we have AT LEAST: 1) clark 2) lois 3) oliver 4) dinah 5) john

Thats not counting villains or random civilians @dudelookitsalesbian

yes yes yes, they'll have a yearly meeting about how many of their collective exes could be out for revenge and batman's list just keeps getting longer.

tim was like "i'm drake now" and everyone was like ahh so your fursona is a dragon and tim was like pffffft no. ducks.

and what about it?

when steph's fighting livewire and she zaps her with lighting and nothing happens and then they both just. stand there awkwardly for a second and talk. yeah i couldn't stop laughing at that batgirl steph is the BEST

oh yeah that was fucking hilarious and i think it would be so cool and sexy of dc to give steph a little comic series,,, as a treat

Hi I absolutely adore all of yours "Bruce and Oliver very badly pretending they didn't fuck each other" memes

lmao i do too

I need you to know that “Bruce Wayne had frosted tips” is one of my favorite Bruce takes of all time it’s so galaxy brained. you’re right and you should say it

he also painted his hair blonde once when he was travelling and in conclusion, this is why he's being blackmailed by the gotham gazette.

you know my thing about gordon being branded as the only good cop in gotham is its a load of shit like arguably he's a good person and not working to screw people over or anything but the fact that he also works w. batman makes him a shit cop. like yea batman is better than the mob but its still illegal its still an abuse of power he just not making bank

babe, all cops are bad cops. (but yeah youre absolutely right, working with vigilantes makes you a shit cop, but also working against vigilantes just makes you an asshole cop yanno?)

ruh roh i think i’m about to add “so not yeehaw” every time i don’t like something

that's a very good vocabulary upgrade

somehow i feel like steph already knew. like babs obviously knew but i feel like bruce got high/drunk in front of steph and started telling his boarding school stories and steph was just like “oh you fucked up i’m never gonna forget this”

steph and bruce have weird uncle/rebellious niece dynamic and they just hang out sometimes and bruce will be like 'i once broke my arm when i tripped over a hedge when i was drunk so oliver drove me to the hospital on an electric scooter' and steph will just have to sit there with that knowledge in her head.

Hello I just wanted to tell you you are So right in all your steph opinions bc she is, in fact amazing and I think that's very sexy of you. Ps. Your Bruce/Oliver fic is hilarious

babe, thank you so much and yes steph is amazing and i love her and she deserves the world and she's the best member of the batfam hands down. also thanks

In Supersons we see a couple of kids that are implied to be Damian and Jon's children and the boy has laser eyes and can fly, so I asume he's not adopted. The girl, who calls Bruce grandpa, can also fly, btw. So it's canon (probably by accident) that Jon can have kids and he must have married one of Bruce's kids. (I'm hoping for Damian, mostly because any other of his children would be waaaaaaaaaaaaay too old.) @artemisa97

lmao that was probably an accident seeing as jon is a 17 year old superhero in the year 3000 (by the jonas brothers)

You know, I'm a die hard fan of your memes, but I gotta say one thing: if Gothamites actually took gas mask everywhere with them, then the Scarecrow would just be a weird dude in a weird costume, and not a villain oh so scary. DC really should just takes notes from you.

bold of you to assume there's no gothamite anti-maskers

How does it feel being the funniest person on this app?

horrible, next question.

I can't listen to Green Day or Billy Joel without thinking of your post about how Bruce got arrested at a Billy Joel concert @nightwings-kid

yeah that's your mistake, i on the other hand can't enjoy billy joel without thinking about the glee rendition of 'uptown girl'

I've FINALLY been watching the Batman animated series and I gotta say, after watching "the gray ghost" I am CONVINCED that Batman is a closeted super hero geek who was 100% freaking out the first time he met Superman and is just REALLY good at hiding it.

superman: so what do you do in your free time? batman, thinking about the superman fanfiction he's writing on the batcomputer: i have no free time

bruce and oliver be like boyfriends to co-workers 401k (do the justice leagues get 401ks??? not that bruce and ollie would need them, but-)

lmao yes just 400 thousand words of bruce realising 'oh dip oliver is such a fucking dumbass' (also i don't know what a 401 k is but i assume they don't?)

Gothamites would totally boo superman as he saves Gotham while batman is out. @meenje

he's like 'okay think about that next time you want to be saved from an alien octopus'

I just took long break from dc comics and I come back to see ric grayson ??

i think it's very cool and sexy of dc to see dick and just think 'you know what? let's just give him a traumatic brain injury' and then didn't develop his character in any real way

SPEAKING OF RIC GRAYSON, gothamites making confused memes out of ric grayson is much needed

'dick grayson is my taxi driver? can anyone explain what the fuck happened he looks like an italian plumber?'

i hate to say it but batfam are def "marvel characters" in that sense they are characters who are human but become superheroes unlike most dc characters who are gods trying to be human maybe this is why I like batfam

fair enough

#this is only like half of it #but at least you can get like a few answers #yanno fuck it #bataranswers #ask #asks #anon

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aellynera · 3 years

Text

Word of Mouth (Santiago Garcia x Reader)

WORD OF MOUTH

(This has been sitting in my WIPs for-ev-errrrr and I finally got in the mood to finish it, since I haven’t written Santi in a while and I missed him. It’s nothing too involved, just a slice-of-life kind of deal, but I do like the way it turned out. Comments, likes, and reblogs always appreciated!)

I think this one came out as GN!Reader (I’ve read over it a few times but if I’m wrong please let me know.)

Word Count: 2340

Summary: It’s not that Santiago is mad about it, exactly; it’s more that he doesn’t like the way it happened.

Warnings: Some cursing. Some angst. Some fluff. Argument. Two people being stubborn. As always possible lack of proofreading.

Santiago comes off duty and returns to your on-base housing, and he stays quiet for far too long. Usually he greets you with a kiss, or at least a hello, but this time he doesn’t do anything. He doesn’t say a word as he goes into the bedroom, peels off his fatigues, and changes into a plain black t-shirt and plain khaki cargo pants.

He doesn’t say a single word.

“Um, hello to you too,” you call out, getting up to follow him. “How was your day?”

He just shrugs and shakes his head slightly. You get the same response when you ask him if anything interesting happened today, how training went, or if he’s hungry.

You haven’t seen him for most of the day, different assignments and different meetings keeping you apart while on duty, but you just know. From his silence and the way he’s acting, you just know. You’ve been trying to find the right way to bring it up, the right time to mention it, and clearly, that time is going to be now whether you like it or not.

He’s found out.

Even when different assignments keep you apart, you do work on the same base and everyone knows you’re together, even if you never officially said anything. It’s really no one’s business but it’s not really a secret, and you live together, so people just assume. And anything work-related was never unknown for long. Word has gotten back to Santiago, and from the looks of it, it has also gotten to him.

The fact that you can’t actually read his expression is what concerns you the most.

You sit down on the side of the bed and sigh again. “Frankie told you.”

Someone who had been in that early morning meeting with you, a particular someone Santiago identified as a best friend, certainty couldn’t keep it to himself. You make a mental note to have a very, very strict conversation with one Francisco “Catfish” Morales the next time you see him.

Santiago considers calling Frankie, so he can repeat exactly what he told Santiago this afternoon, after you’d already gone back home for the day. Instead he finally decides to answer you, his voice flat and dangerous.

“Are you out of your mind?”

“It’s my job,” you reply evenly.

“It’s your job if you get assigned to it,” he runs a hand over the back of his neck. “It’s not your job if you volunteer for it. That’s a choice.”

You furrow your brow at him. “Semantics.”

“Selection,” he responds, voice clipped.

You rest your head on your fingertips, four on your forehead and thumb on your cheekbone. “I’m the best person for this mission. and.. it’s not like it’s never come up before. We’ve had this conversation, Santi, we’ve talked about this exact scenario, and you even said that no one was more…”

Santiago raises an eyebrow. “Hypothetical and actual are not the same thing.”

“So, hypothetically, I’m not actually qualified to do this?”

“Actually, you should let someone else be the flag-waver this time.”

“The flag-waver?”

“What, now this hypothetically has nothing to do with being a goddamn hero?”

Your head snaps up and your eyes narrow at him. He glares in return.

“Actually,” you start, but Santiago’s short, humorless laugh cuts you off.

This time, your words drag through the tension like dull razors through styrofoam. “Actually,” you repeat, “this has zero to do with being a fucking hero and everything to do with the fact that no one else could get this done the right way and it is my goddamn duty to do what I signed up for.”

“There is no right way that this isn’t going to be an absolute shitshow.” The venom in his voice is like ice in your veins.

“Thank you for having so much faith in me and my abilities, Santiago.”

Silence falls on the room for a few long minutes as you both fight to check your emotions. You understand he’s angry - and maybe scared, although he’ll never admit it - and he knows you’re absolutely right on all accounts - although he is not ready to admit it.

You break the silence, voice tuned down and level. “Look, I wanted to tell you myself, but I didn’t see you all day. I didn’t want you to find out like this. Frankie shouldn’t have gotten involved. But I am going on this mission. I...I don’t want you to be mad about it.”

He looks at you for a moment, and this time you can read his expression, but it almost makes it worse. It’s a combination of worry, sadness, understanding, and yes, traces of anger. It’s not a look that suits him.

You shift in your spot on the edge of the mattress.

“I’m not mad. I’m disappointed,” he says softly, then turns and walks from the room.

Oh. Shit.

***

The rest of the evening passes in a thick, uncomfortable silence. It’s been hours since your confrontation in the bedroom, and the fullness of night has fallen without a single other word being spoken between you.

You spend the night in bed alone, and Santiago makes himself mostly uncomfortable on the couch.

Morning breaks and you pull yourself from the confines of the comforter. Not that you had been sleeping very well anyway. It was warm under the covers, temperature wise, but it somehow felt so cold, and you haven't slept well. Your mind refused to calm down.

You shower and dress, going through your morning routine almost on autopilot. As you wash your face and glance into the mirror, one side of your mouth pulls up into a sad smirk as you recall Santiago’s last words from the night before.

Not mad, disappointed.

Your parents used to say that, when you’d done something against the rules, potentially stupid, and possibly morally questionable. It always seemed to hurt more than actually having them be mad at you, and you wince as you realize adulthood has done nothing to change that feeling.

You and Santiago have your fair share of arguments. Usually they’re not serious, even kind of playful. You both like to talk and you both like to be right, so a little verbal battle isn’t uncommon. But you’re still running the previous night’s...it wasn’t a conversation, but was it really a fight? Was it even an argument? No category really seems to fit, and this one just feels different.

You go downstairs and expect to find Santi on the couch, it’s still early, but as soon as you hit the bottom of the steps, the smell of freshly brewed coffee assaults your nose.

He hands you a mug full of the dark brown liquid as you enter the kitchen. You take it with a nod of thanks and he nods back. But he still doesn’t say a word.

It’s a good sign though. At least, you hope it is, anyway.

You sip from your mug as he turns back to the stove, pushing some stuff around in a frying pan. It smells like bacon and potatoes and your stomach grumbles in protest, and you’re not sure but you think you can see the corners of Santi’s mouth turn up just a little.

Also a good sign. Maybe.

You sit down at your usual spot at the table and play with the handle on the mug. You offer him a singular glance and then stare back into your drink. Clearly he’s not going to be the one to talk first. You sigh.

This is not the first time he’s done this. Santiago is a good man, the best you know, and he’s honorable and decent and so fucking kind, but if there’s one thing you’ve learned since living with him, it’s he’s damn stubborn and can be a petulant brat when he wants to. And in typical macho hero Santiago Garcia style, he will not be the first one to cave after an argument, especially when he thinks he’s right.

You’ll give him shit for it later, when all the animosity has worn off, but for now, you’re going to have to cut the tension. You’ve never been good with silence and it’s only been one night and now this brief bit of morning and it’s starting to get to you.

And okay, maybe you’re not always the best at communicating with him, either. So you’ll be the first to break, this time.

You sigh again. “Santi…”

He turns his head slightly, away from his work at the stove, and glances at you. An eyebrow goes up.

“Are we going to talk about this? For real?” you ask.

He shrugs and turns back to the contents of the pan.

A frustrated growl erupts from your chest as you push your chair back and take the three steps over to the stove. You grab the handle and push the pan off the heat, snapping the burner off as you do, and then whirl and stare at Santi. He narrows his eyes and takes a step back, crossing his arms and leaning against the counter by the sink.

“Please say something to me,” you bite out. God, he’s so frustrating sometimes. “I’m sorry I didn’t talk to you about it first, but you cannot be upset with me for doing my goddamn job. For doing what I signed up to do. Just...fucking talk to me. Please.”

This time it’s Santi who sighs, and he runs a hand through his hair and massages a spot on the back of his neck. “I told you, I’m not mad.”

“Okay,” you nod, “but you really also can’t be disappointed.”

“I’m not.”

“You can’t just be...wait, what?”

“I said,” he says, uncrossing his arms slowly and reaching for one of your hands, “I’m not.”

You just blink at him and bite your bottom lip.

“I just...I don’t like the thought of you being out there without me.” Your mouth opens to retort but he holds up a hand to stop you, and you close it again and he continues. “I know you can do this, I know you’re totally capable and you can handle yourself, you could probably kick my ass on any given day in sparring, but...I just…” his voice trails off and he turns to stare out the kitchen window.

You squeeze his hand firmly and pull his attention back to you. He looks so handsome, his hair still tousled slightly from sleep and his t-shirt wrinkled from being on the couch all night, but he also really does look troubled and it makes your heart drop. “What is it, Santi?”

“There’s always a danger with any mission,” he says softly. “And it just kills me that I can’t protect you. I just want to protect you and have you come back safe.”

Then he’s pulling you into his arms and burying his face in your neck, and you feel wet spots on your collarbone and it makes tears prick at your eyes too. Santi shakes slightly in your arms and you whisper soft, soothing words into his hair.

He’ll never admit it, but you know. He’s scared.

Because he’s not wrong. This mission has the potential to go sideways and tits-up at the same time, and then flip over backwards for good measure. And you have to admit, although you’re not going to admit it to him because that would likely make it so much worse, that you’d give anything to have him on this mission with you. But you can’t. You can just do your job and do it well, prepare for the worst and hope for the best.

A common mantra in your line of work. One that you always stick to.

But you have so much more to lose this time, and Santi does too, and your breakfast is forgotten as you take him by the hand and drag him back up to your bedroom. You lead him to the bed and lie down on your side, pull him down with you, and curl up into his side. He just wraps his arms around you and holds on like you’re a lifeline.

“I’m sorry,” you whisper.

He shakes his head. “No, I’m sorry.”

“I’m going to come back to you,” you trace your fingers over his dog tags.

“I know,” he kisses under your ear.

You hope you’re telling the truth. He hopes you’re telling the truth. You both hold each other like it might be the last time, even though it won’t because you’re not leaving for several days, but you’re both acutely aware that you have no way of actually knowing when it might really be the last time.

So you just hold each other silently for a while, until a thought occurs to you and you huff out a gentle laugh.

“What?” Santi asks you, peering at you with heavy lids and stupidly long lashes.

You lean up to kiss him on the nose. “Wanna help me run some strategy?”

His answer is cut off by the very insistent complaint from your stomach. He quirks an eyebrow. “Wanna have a breakfast meeting?”

You giggle. “Probably a good idea.”

Santi plants a kiss on your lips and then gets up, holding out a hand to pull you off the bed and you stand, stretching your arms over your head. He goes to the doorway and says, “I’ll go finish making the food. Meet you at the table in 20, Lieutenant.”

“Sure thing, Captain,” you smile at him.

He moves to leave, and then calls out, “Oh, and Lieutenant?”

“Yes, Santiago?” you roll your eyes, another giggle escaping your lips.

He sticks his head back in the door, just for a moment, just long enough to take all of you in with a look of adoration, and mouths the words “I love you.” Then he turns and goes downstairs.

And you know you can handle - no, you will handle - anything that might happen, and your heart soars.

~end~

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chazukekani · 3 years

Text

Previous // Next

Summary for Code:03 is here! I hope you guys will enjoy (spoilers, not really!)

Recap: Murase-officer was killed by Verlaine, so Chuuya and Adam were going to find out why he had become Verlaine's target.

From the blue mobile phone acquired from Murase-officer's pocket, Adam believed that the phone was not the original but got replaced by someone, and hence Adam inferred that Verlaine was the one who did this in order to wiretap his call, and Adam was able to get the recording of the final call on Murase-officer's phone.

'It's me, brother,' that's the voice of Murase-officer.

'The gravity guy is here, just like what you said. Wait! There is one more person! Who is this? What's his relationship with Chuuya! Call me when you hear this!" and that's the end of the call.

This recording took place shortly after Verlaine invaded the police station.

'That's very interesting,' Adam was sure about something, 'With reference to my record, his brother was supposed to be dead already.'

Murase-officer's brother, was dead in April 14 years ago. He died in an accident while conducting an experiment. His name was not on the official record, nor there was any photograph of his appearance, so let's call him N for now.

'Officer-san's brother, participated in the research of Arahabaki?' Chuuya said.

The creator of Arahabaki...? Adam could not handle such surprise in his mind. The trio (Chuuya, Adam and Shirase) continue to deduce the hints they have. They supposed N was probably the only survivor as all scientists were dead during one explosion of the experiment. Now they know, Verlaine's next target was N because he was the only one left who knew the secrets behind Chuuya. Henceforth, they have to find N now.

'Hey, you...' Shirase looked at Adam with a terrified face as if seeing a ghost. Adam was confused, but the next second he realised, that was Adam himself talking.

'I am the one who needs your help,' Adam's mouth moved, 'Adversely, you need my help too. I am the one whom you called N.' The man who called N hacked into Adam and delivered this message.

'I can no longer speak to you in such a way, come here, I want to meet you. I will leave the address in this machine.'

'Hey, wait. Meet us? What do you know?' said Chuuya

'Everything, Chuuya. Everything about you.' that voice spoke as if a god with a very calm voice, 'I am looking forward to meet you,' and the connection was lost.

They have arrived at their destination. It was a huge and broad place underground, as big as a tennis court, and there were firewalls built in the surrounding with guards guarding the front gate. Chuuya, Adam and Shirase were stopped by the guards and demanded to do a blood check before they could proceed for security purposes, but of course, Adam was spared from it.

After finishing the check, they finally saw N. That person that stood in front of them, was exactly the one who stood next to Chuuya in the picture that the Flags gave him.

'I am the director of the Arahabaki Project. The military named me as N because this is the initial of Nakahara.'

'I am your father.'

'What do you think ability is?' The group were in a corridor of the facility.

'We, researchers, frankly speaking, don't really know what ability is. How embarrassing,' N proceeded.

But there were few things that were confirmed. Other forms of life apart from humans, such as animals or plants, are not able to possess ability. Also, when the human dies, the ability that he has will together vanish from this world. Every ability has a maximum of output of power, and the military wanted to know so badly how we could break the limits. Yes, there is a way to break the limit, and that's called ability singularity. This is a phenomenon that occurred as a result of two or more contradicting abilities interfering with each other. Which means usually it requires at least two ability users to create such a phenomenon.

However, there is one type of ability user that is able to create an ability singularity on his own. They are able to do so because their ability itself consists of theoretical contradiction. The first person who discovered this was a German scientist, and he named this type of ability 'self-contradicting ability'. To be precise, this ability allows the user to amplify the output of their own ability. Since the user can continue amplifying the power of their own ability, it gives them an unlimited source of power, which breaks through the limit of ability. However, this user also needs to take the risk because once they are granted infinite power, the high density of the energy will create a distortion in space and collapse it into a gravity vortex, and can never go back.

There was an intense competition between Germany, France and Britain on investigating this subject. Since Japan was the ally of Germany, Japan also acquired various techniques and reports regarding this topic. Since most of the countries were running out of resources by the end of the war, they were eager to take theories into practice, and the most advanced country on this topic was France. They successfully weaponised ability singularity, and they found out that the most effective way to control it was heart, in other words, the human's soul. Yet with such huge energy, it was afraid that ordinary humans were not capable to manage it, but ironically, only humans are capable of possessing ability. Therefore, the French scientists came up with a solution, and that is to create a homunculus with a soul, and that’s how Paul Verlaine came. Years later, the Japanese government also obtained the related information and hence proceeded to conduct a similar experiment, which later what was known as the Arahabaki Project.

N wanted to show Chuuya something, but it was considered top secret. So he asked Adam and Shirase to wait while he and Chuuya would go somewhere else.

While going to another room, Chuuya told N that he recognised this place. However, N told him that it was just the No.2 Laboratory which had the same design as No.1 Laboratory, and it was destroyed during the Arahabaki Project. So what Chuuya remembered was actually the environment of the No.1 Lab. Meanwhile, Chuuya recalled some of his memories in this facility. He recalled that he had been staying in darkness for a long time. Yet, he heard 'Invaders!' 'Lock area 8 and 15!' one day. He used to be inside a cradle and locked from the outside world. But that day, someone broke the cradle and a hand touched Chuuya. That's Rimbaud's hand, and next to him was Verlaine.

'You are a miracle, Chuuya,' said N.

N showed something to Chuuya, and that's a cylinder which has a size similar to Chuuya. The container was transparent, and it had some blue and black liquid kept inside it so it was quite difficult to see through.

'Who is inside!' Chuuya yelled, but N didn't say a word.

N pressed a button via a remote in his pocket, and the liquid began to drain, and Chuuya was shocked to see what appeared in front of him.

What inside the cylinder, was Chuuya.

The Chuuya inside the container had his eyes closed, and quite thin. His leg was locked by two chains respectively that linked to the bottom of the cylinder.

'May I introduce, your original,' said N.

Chuuya's jaw dropped.

Suddenly, the teen inside the cylinder was in pain, and could not breathe. He cough badly and almost had his organs cough out.

'Hey! Are you alright!' Chuuya yelled.

'No way he would be alright,' said N, 'he had his living-saving fetal aqueous solution drained after all.

Chuuya grabbed the controller from N and pressed all the buttons on it, but nothing happened. Shortly after, that teen died, and his body including his skin, flesh melted together into a blue-black liquid.

All of a sudden, Chuuya felt dizzy and fell down.

'I designed you, so I know you the best. No matter how strong you are, you are incompatible with poison,' said N. Chuuya realised that poison was injected during the blood check. He was furious and tried to punch N. Yet, a bullet hit Chuuya's forehead, and he lost his consciousness immediately.

On the other hand, likewise, Shirase also felt dizzy. Adam noticed Chuuya might be in trouble as well. After keeping Shirase in a safe placed, he proceed to search for Chuuya.

In a room of nothing, Chuuya's upper clothing was deprived, and he was bleeding. The most serious injury he had was on his chest. His hands were locked up by chains that connected to the ceiling, and electricity went through his body via this chain. Under the order of N, Chuuya was injected with midazolam, and continued being tortured.

N revealed that Chuuya was the only experimental product in the country that consisted of a safety measure - in order to activate his full ability, a spell was needed. Once Chuuya said the spell, his personality will be erased and overridden. Such that Chuuya would be free from pain and darkness. And the spell was-

'O grantors of dark disgrace, do not wake me again! I will endure my solitude, arms seemingly already useless,' N said the spells.

'O grantors of dark disgrace, do not wake me again...' Chuuya repeated after N as if an automatic robot. This was the result of the midazolam.

'Very well,' N smiled

'I will...WHO ARE YOU?' Chuuya yelled.

'Raise the power,' N ordered the assistant to give Chuuya another electric shock, and Chuuya screamed.

Chuuya was not in a stable state of mind. He saw different kinds of illusion. He saw Dazai, Piano Man, Albatross, Ice Man, Lippmann and Doc, and the members of sheep. He was blamed by such an illusion, and his value of existence was denied.

The last person who showed up was Verlaine.

'I will kill this researcher,' said Verlaine in Chuuya's illusion. He gave his hand out to Chuuya and said, 'come here,'

'Why...' said Chuuya

'Didn't I tell you when we first met? I am here to save you,' Verlaine replied, 'Go, my brother. Kill N and take your soul back from this crazy world.'

Adam was dealing with the soldiers that were attacking him. At once, a teenager showed up in front of Adam, and he's Dazai.

'Nice to meet you Mr Inspector,' Dazai greeted, and he continued, ' "Why are you here?" I believe that's what you wanna ask me. I will tell you. That's a stage of the plan. "What's the plan?" you may ask, and I will tell you, everything.'

Dazai explained that the documents that he gave to Verlaine was the information about Murase-officer, N, and everything else. The purpose behind this was to save time, because Verlaine's initial first target was Mori. Hence, by manipulating the information, Dazai can squeeze out extra time and assassinate Verlaine back.

'According to the plan, Chuuya will kill N, and will not be a human anymore. However I want to see Chuuya as a human, so I am here to stop him,' said Dazai.

A fight broke out in the laboratory where Chuuya was staying, and other people were evacuated from the facility.

Chuuya had immense hatred towards N.

'W...wait! I can't help with it! It's all work! I never ever once wanted you to suffer on my own!' N cried and tried to escape from Chuuya.

'Don't listen to him Chuuya,' Verlaine showed up in the entrance.

Chuuya was holding a chain on his hand tightly, and threw it out with the speed of sound and stabbed the target: Verlaine's chest.

'W...what?'

'Didn't see that coming right, Verlaine. It's true that the researcher is harsh, but you killed Piano Man and the others after all,' Chuuya said, and the 'brothers' had a fight.

There was a mass explosion everywhere inside the room. The punches were able to create tiny suns and the gravity made the room collapse.

Amid the fight, N, who was injured nearby, yelled to Verlaine, 'If I died, you would never know your secret!'

' I am not joking, everything. Including the one you wanna know most - the Secret of the Gentle Forest,'

'How do you know this!' Verlaine shouted.

But there was no spare time for them, All of a sudden, a skeleton appeared. That's Chuuya's original, and that's what the body left after dying and melting in Chuuya's arm just now. It was connected with the tube and wearing a coat. The skeleton was under the control of N and launched attacks towards Chuuya, and he couldn't move

Shirase, who woke up and found Chuuya, surprisingly appeared and saved Chuuya by plugging out the tube from the skeleton. A while after, Adam and Dazai also found where Chuuya was. The battle was paused.

All of a sudden, the light in the room was turned off, but turned back on a few seconds afterwards. Yet, Verlaine and N were gone, and the ceilings of consecutive multiple floors above were gone as well.

Code 3 ended

#bungostraydogs #bungoustraydogs #bsd #boungo stray dogs storm bringer #bungou stray dogs storm bringer #bsd storm bringer #bsd nakahara chuuya #bsd paul verlaine #bsd adam frankenstein #bsd dazai osamu #nakahara chuuya #paul verlaine #adam frankenstein #dazai osamu

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hepalienstuckyrecs · 3 years

Text

Hidden Gems Stucky Fic Rec

Amazing fics with <10k hits

raise the flag by mcwho [M, 1k]

Slice of Life, PWP

Steve had made the mistake of laying on the sofa lengthways, on his stomach, so of course as soon as Bucky walked into the room he was all over that

Heart by @concavepatterns, everandthe [T, 1k]

Fluff, Love Confession, Post CATWS

"You're not my friend, Steve."

softer than whispers by @spacebuck [E, 1.4k]

Fluff, PWP, Table Sex, Rimming

"concept: steve fucking bucky in knee socks bc thighs and long sweaters"

Concept: The sweater hangs down nearly to Bucky’s knees as he walks past the couch Steve’s sprawled on, the hem swaying a little with each step. Steve doesn’t recognise it, realises Bucky must have gone out of his way to get something too big for him, and smiles just a little to himself. Bucky’s oblivious to his presence in the way a content cat is. Steve’s his, so he belongs.

i want it, i got it by bornes [T, 1.5k]

Fluff, Humor

Ten minutes into their impromptu mall adventure, Steve has offered to buy Bucky a designer sofa he had sat on briefly to rest his legs, a $600 headband, and a diamond-encrusted butterfly clip

more under the cut

no grave can hold my body down by @biblionerd07 [G, 1.9k]

Bucky Feels

Bucky has died more than once, but he never stays that way. Companion to let me give you my life.

Not the Needle, Nor the Thread by @steebadore [E, 2k]

Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Sex

Bucky wakes to a noise.

No, Bucky wakes to the noise. It's not the hoarse shout of nightmares born of battlefields and blood that so often tear them both from sleep. No, this is smaller. Bitten off. Choked back. A furtive, strangled keen, nearly silent but pitched at a frequency that would raise Bucky from the dead.

in the morning i’ll be sober and you’ll still be mine by mcwho [T, 2.2k]

Drunken Confessions, Kissing, Light Angst, Team fic

Steve always marveled at how people lost all their inhibitions after they got a little alcohol in them.

And then Thor gets him drunk on Asgardian liquor. Events unfold.

tutorial by @belovedmuerto [T, 2.4k]

Modern AU, High School AU, Practice Kissing, Fluff

“I’m pretty sure I’m a terrible kisser,” Steve mutters, mostly to his pencil and paper.

black eyes, bandages and bloody knuckles by @concavepatterns [M, 2.7k]

5+1 Things, Post CATWS, Prewar Flashbacks, Hurt/Comfort

Five times Bucky says “Jesus, Rogers” out of pure exasperation, and one time he means it in a completely different context.

Gorecki by @ataraxetta [M, 3k]

Hurt/Comfort, Soft, Post CATWS

Steve has a crummy mission. Bucky has a crummy dream. They cuddle it out.

hold some dirt with those hands by magdaliny [T, 3k]

Post-IW, Fix-it

It had sent him to his knees.

I Had a Marvelous Time Ruining Everything by fallendarlings (@pressrestartwrites) [T, 3.2k]

War Era, CATFA, POV Steve, Hurt/Comfort, Mutual Pining, Love Confessions, Light Angst

“I’m not worth all that. Not worth your life.”

“You’re worth everything to me.” And there it is, the secret truth. There’s no way to interpret it as anything but what it is. Steve’s heart, held out in his hands. The one that didn’t work right, ugly all over from damage. The one that was Bucky’s first, has always been Bucky’s. They say his new one is perfect, but he knows the truth. Even if they fixed everything else, they can’t fix this. Every inch of his heart, scarred with Bucky’s name. Over and over and over.

(Not Quite) All The Small Things by @leveragehunters [T, 4.1k]

Prewar, Post CATWS, Magical Realism AU, Fluff, Bucky POV

Bucky was used to finding Steve in alleys. Not every day, thank baby Jesus and all the saints or he’d be as grey as Mrs Milligicutty, but often enough.

The thing about Steve in alleys was, it meant finding Steve in fights. Or finding Steve after fights, bloody and bruised, picking gravel and dirt out of his skin, having come off third best in a two-person punch-up. Sometimes, not often, but sometimes, it meant finding Steve standing, bruised but unbowed, glaring down some hapless meathead who’d underestimated just how much sheer goddamned never-say-die was packed onto those skinny bones.

That was Steve in alleys. Not this hunched over sack of glare, facing down a mangy orange tom cat that was glaring right back and trying to dart past his legs.

My Kind’s Your Kind by @callmejude [M, 4.1k]

Prewar, Practice Kissing, Smut with Feelings

Steve's beginning to get self-conscious of the fact that he's never been kissed.

let me give you my life by @biblionerd07 [T, 4.3k]

5+1 Things

Five times Steve chose to live when he could have died. Companion to no grave can hold my body down.

To Seek a Nood-er World by jehans (@lafbaguette) [E, 8.2k]

Misunderstandings, Humor, Sexting, Canon Verse, First Time, Idiots in Love

Send noodz

Steve has been staring at his phone for the last six minutes, eyes narrowed so much they’re almost closed at this point, trying to figure out what the hell Bucky means. Noodz? What the fuck are noodz?

Listen, Steve is at least marginally aware of modern pop culture. He’s heard of nudes — not that nudes are exactly a modern invention; artists have been creating them for millennia — and he does know that people tend to misspell words to be cute or funny. They did that when he was young, too. Because time is a flat circle, apparently.

But, wait—does that mean…?

No. Not possible. Bucky isn’t asking Steve to send him…nudes.

Right?

TBC (taking care of bucky) series by @steebadore [T, 8.6k]

Domestic, Fluff

It starts, as most things do, with spite. The problem is, it doesn't end there.

Glad to love you, Steve Rogers series by @maddiewritesstucky [E, 9.2k]

Modern AU, Stripper Bucky

Steve’s first thought is that he knows this song.

His second thought is little more than a stream of expletives, as the male embodiment of Fuck Me walks out onto the stage. Although, ‘walk’ seems an entirely inappropriate word…the man struts, stalks, and all at once the frenzied reaction of the crowd makes perfect sense.

If Steve had known this was about to make an entrance, he’d have been screaming for it too.

_____

In which Steve Rogers is promised a night of highly-skilled dance performance, and gets exactly that...just not in the way he expected.

Strange Human Mating Rituals by @liionne, art by velvetjinx [E, 13.7k]

Post CACW, Canon Divergent, Bucky Recovery, Sexting, Fluff

Bucky doesn't have a job. Steve assures Bucky that there's no pressure for him to do anything; Steve's army back pay and his avenging days mean they're taken care of. Bucky's a kept man, and whilst he loves that, he isn't much of a house husband. So he goes out, and that's how it happens. He's sitting on the subway when he sees the magazine, garishly pink with a woman flashing big pearly white teeth on the front cover. He can't help himself. Letting himself do things he wants to do is one of the things the Wakandan healers had taught him, so maybe it's a step in the right direction.

The magazine turns out to be a little less factual than Bucky’s usual reading material, but he loves it. He reads an interview with some actress he's never seen before, then an article on how to get the perfect brows (and he looks up at his reflection in the subway window then to find that his brows are-- what does the magazine say? on fleek already), and then he gets to something interesting.

Sexting 101: What your man really wants to hear

Now that is something Bucky wants to know more about.

#stucky #stucky fic #stucky fic rec #stevebucky #stevebucky fic rec #reclist #hidden gems #changed the title because this seems more fitting

150 notes · View notes

scuttling · 3 years

Text

(You Want To) Make a Memory

Fandom: Criminal Minds Pairing: Aaron Hotchner/Latina Original Female Character Word Count: 19,858 Chapters: 5 of 5 Complete Tags: 18+, NSFW, Amnesia, Anxiety attacks, Sex dreams, Dom/sub, Daddy kink, Praise kink, Unprotected sex, Vaginal fingering, Dirty talk, Choking, Biting, Hickies, Oral sex, Making love, Angst and feels, Shower sex, Size kink Summary: Sophie gets amnesia while working a case and forgets everything from the last two years: her friends, her job at the BAU, and her boyfriend, Aaron. Note: This is a reformatted, previously published work. :)

Link to AO3 or read Chapter 1 below!

The thing Sophie finds most complicated about her work at the BAU is that it’s their job to predict the unpredictable. Yes, they are all highly educated, knowledgeable profilers, with decades of experience between them, and human behavior typically follows patterns that are easily discernible if you have the right training. But even armed with all the information, all the statistics, all the data, there’s one thing they can never really know for certain: what a desperate person will do in the heat of the moment.

The unsub they are looking for is a white male, aged 25-35, who lives alone, has a steady daylight job, drives a red pickup truck, and has a problem with older female authority figures. Sophie could go on and on about this particular type of unsub—she could tell you where he shops, how he spends his evenings, his favorite sport/team/player, probably even what he’ll eat for dinner tonight—but there’s no way she can know how he’ll react to the FBI at his door, or the consequences his actions will have.

The team is canvassing the neighborhood they believe the unsub resides in, and she and Spencer were assigned the four hundred block; they each take a separate side of the street, and work their way down house by house trying to find someone who fits the profile, or knows someone who does.

“Any luck?” Sophie asks Spencer when they meet back up at the end of the the block. He grimaces, uncertain.

“There was one guy, but…” She gestures toward the SUV and they walk toward it together.

“What happened? Profile didn’t fit?”

“He was the right demographic, the vehicle fit, but he wasn’t disorganized. In fact, his home looked like it belonged in a catalog: photos on the walls, decorative items, nothing out of place.” She frowns a little, because it’s clear this guy has raised some red flags for her partner, and she trusts his intuition when it comes to stuff like this.

“And he lives alone?” she asks, confirming. That’s a pretty big part of the profile, considering what he does to the victims. He nods.

“Yes, no indication of a girlfriend or wife living there.” Sophie blows out a breath, leans against the side of the SUV.

“Okay, let’s brainstorm. Maybe... he hires a housekeeper.” Spencer shrugs.

“He didn’t seem like the type, but I guess it’s possible.”

“Alright, well… Okay, so our profile is of a man who kills older women because he has an issue with an older woman who is an authority figure in his life. We thought maybe his boss, but what if it’s his mother?” she asks, face lighting up a little. This theory makes more sense, actually. “What if she comes over while he’s at work, cleans the place up, redecorates, just takes complete control of his life, even his private space, and he loses it?” He nods enthusiastically.

“That is extremely more likely. Now that I think of it, all the photos were of him and an older woman who could be his mother.” Sophie pulls out her phone, gestures over her shoulder with her thumb.

“Let’s head back there; Hotch and JJ are just around the corner, I’ll let them know we might need backup. 412?”

“Yeah—hey, that’s the truck. That’s the truck,” he says with more urgency, pointing down the street at a rapidly approaching red pickup truck that matches the description of the unsub’s. Shit.

“Okay, get in the car, call Hotch,” she instructs, and they both barely make it in before the truck rear-ends the SUV on the driver's side; Sophie’s head hits off the steering wheel hard, and the car rocks, and she looks over at Spencer, a little disoriented, to make sure he’s okay. He’s holding his wrist, like maybe he hurt it bracing himself.

When she gets her bearings, she starts the car, throws it into reverse, ready to apply a little force and potentially keep him from striking again, but he backs up, speeds up, and cuts the wheel to go around them, striking her door and driving past. It’s then that another SUV cuts him off, and Hotch and JJ jump out, guns drawn; the unsub raises his hands, surrenders, and it’s over as quickly as it began.

“Sophie?” She can hear her name, but her head is swimming. She touches the cut above her temple, pulls back a hand covered in blood, but she knows head injuries bleed heavily, so she’s not worried. She’s more worried that she can’t tell where that voice is coming from. It’s like she’s in a fun house, sounds echoing from all sides. “Sophie, can you hear me?” She hums in response.

Kind hands are on her face, turning it toward the sun, and she scrunches her eyes at the brightness. She knows the hands are trying to help, but her head already hurts, and the light isn’t doing her any favors.

“Gotta… get up,” she mumbles, and the hands hold her waist, help her out of the car. Her left foot hurts when she puts her weight down on it, and she almost folds, but the hands hold her up, and she thinks she smiles.

“Reid—is she okay?” That voice is a voice that makes her want to answer immediately, even if her brain hasn’t quite caught up. She stumbles over her words.

“‘M okay. Just my… head.” A different pair of hands hold her up, and her brain is working enough to recognize that she loves the smell of the person attached to the hands. They are serious hands, and one of them sweeps gently over her face.

“Can you open your eyes for me, baby, please?” that good voice asks, and she wants to do anything the voice asks, but her eyes really hurt. She must say that out loud, because the voice says softly, “That’s alright, don’t strain yourself. Medics on the way. You’re going to be fine.”

“Tell him…” She is placed back in the car, can feel the softness of the seat against her back, and it’s nice. “Tell him that was mean… and not to do it again.” She feels lips on her face, turns toward them, sighs when they brush over hers. “Mmm. Or I’m going to… tell his mother.” When Sophie wakes up, she feels like she’s been repeatedly punched in the head, thrown down a flight of stairs, and then run over by a truck, so, naturally, she groans. She doesn’t dare open her eyes at first, can already see the fluorescents flickering through her eyelids, but her mouth is dry, and since she knows she must be in a hospital, she knows that there’s a little plastic pitcher of water somewhere within her reach.

Cautiously, she cracks one eye, finds the pitcher and a kind looking woman with fair skin and dark bangs staring back at her.

“You’re awake!” she whispers excitedly, and she leans forward for a hug, which Sophie does not return, because she doesn’t know the woman. The woman must feel the tension in Sophie’s body as she sits, arms at her sides, and waits for the hug to end, because she pulls back, concerned. “Are you okay? Did I hurt you?”

“No,” she begins, unsure of how to put this politely. Her voice is dry, rough, and the woman pours her a glass of water, which she takes gratefully. “I’m sorry, I just… I don’t… Do I know you?” Her face falls, and she looks confused, and then abruptly worried.

“My name is Emily. Prentiss. Does that ring a bell?” Sophie thinks back, tries to navigate around the pounding in her temples, and ultimately shakes her head.

“No, I’m sorry. And I mean no disrespect—I meet a lot of people for work, so sometimes it’s hard to keep track.”

“Where do you work?”

“I work for the FBI. Intelligence.” Sophie takes in the woman’s outfit—black turtleneck, gray pants, boots, government issued handgun—and tilts her head curiously. “And you?”

“FBI. Behavioral Analysis Unit.” She pulls her bag closer on the seat beside her, pulls out her credentials, lets Sophie hold them. “Have you heard of it?”

“Sure, of course. I have an interview there next week, actually.” She hands back the badge with a smile. “Small world. Uh, do you think that what happened to me occurred because of a crime, or something? Is that why you’re here?"

Agent Prentiss gives her a sad smile, then stands, pulling out her cell phone. “You know, we’re really not sure what’s going on. Excuse me for one moment, I need to make a call. I’ll get your doctor while I’m out there.”

“Okay. Thanks,” Sophie calls as she heads out of the room, and she pours another glass of water.

When the agent returns with the doctor, she looks tenser, but the doctor just shoots her a kind smile. “Hello, Sophie. I’m glad to see you’re awake.”

“Thank you; I’m glad to be awake. How long have I been out?”

“About two days. You were in a car accident, do you remember that?” She’d catalogued her injuries while alone—laceration to the head, some pain and swelling there; aching wrist, sore but unbroken; bruised ankle, tender but okay to put pressure on—and they are consistent with a car accident, but she shakes her head.

“No, ma’am, I don’t remember.” The doctor frowns, an expression the agent behind her mirrors.

“What’s the last thing you do remember?”

“Um.” She closes her eyes, thinks hard for a moment, but it hurts her eyes. “I was driving home from work, I think? Or about to leave for the day. It’s kind of blurry.”

“That’s alright, don’t press too hard. It should come back to you in no time.” She steps around the bed to pull her chart off the wall, skims it briefly. “We’re going to have to run some scans; I’ll give you a moment with Agent Prentiss, and then I’ll send someone in to take you down to the lab, okay?”

“Sure. Thank you, doctor.” The woman smiles and walks out of the room, leaving her with the clearly unhappy agent. “Is everything okay, Agent Prentiss? You look about as bad as I feel.” The woman sighs, drops back down into her seat, folds her hands in her lap.

“The doctor believes you’re suffering from retrograde amnesia. You don’t remember some things you should remember. Quite a bit of time.” Her throat goes dry again, her heart beats rapidly in her chest.

“That’s not possible. I remember driving home from work… or, getting in the car to drive home from work, just the other day.” She shakes her head like she’s not sure what to say.

“I know, Sophie, but that’s not a recent memory. You don’t work at the Grant building anymore.”

“What do you mean? I’m the Intelligence liaison. I mean, I applied for the BAU job…” She’s wanted to work there since she found out about it, to put her degrees to good use; to get an interview is almost unheard of, everyone told her, but she made the cut, even bought a new suit to wear. It’s still hanging in her closet.

“And you got it,” Prentiss says gently, reaching forward to take her hand. “You and I have been working together at the BAU for almost two years.”

Sophie can’t be blamed, she doesn’t think, when she leans over, reaches for the wastebasket, and promptly vomits. “So I’m a profiler, and I’ve been one for two years. I work with you and we’re friends,” Sophie repeats as a bit of a recap. Prentiss nods.

“Yep. Those who profile serial killers together, stick together.” She says it with a smile that doesn’t touch her eyes.

“Wow. Okay. I’m really sorry I don’t remember you.” She shrugs it off, and Sophie sighs. “Any other major life events I should know about? Did I get a cat, go vegan?”

“You don’t have time for a pet, and you like cheese too much,” Prentiss jokes, but that does sound like something she’d say. Her face gets serious after that, and she even looks nervous. It makes Sophie nervous, too. “You have a boyfriend.”

That raises her eyebrows.

“I have a boyfriend.” She smiles softly, nods.

“Yes. He’s… it’s funny, because he’s actually... our boss.” Sophie blanches. Talk about a close-knit group.

“I’m sleeping with my boss? That is not like me.” She barely sleeps with anyone, too busy focusing on her career and not that into one-night-stands, but her boss of all people? That’s just plain stupid.

“It’s really not like that, trust me. You two are in love.” Okay, she’s heard enough. Maybe Prentiss is a prankster, playing some wildly hilarious joke on her amnesiac pal.

“I’m in love. Did I actually say that?” She knows herself pretty well, flaws and all, and she’s been a vehement skeptic when it comes to love for… god, as long as she can remember—no pun intended. Prentiss nods, looks very serious.

“Yes, I’ve heard you say it many, many times. You two live together.”

“We live together? For how long?” This can’t be right; one of the things she values most is her privacy, her solitude. She lives a quiet, simple life, aside from being an FBI agent, and she likes it that way.

“About six months,” she answers carefully.

“We’ve lived together for six months? How long have we been dating?” Her voice sounds a little shrill even to her own ears. Prentiss is being very cool about it all, doesn’t so much as blink.

“It’s a year next week, actually. He’s been trying to come up with a surprise for your anniversary.” Sophie feels a little lightheaded.

“Anniversary. Fuck.” She squeezes her eyes shut, which hurts, opens them only so the pain will go away. She knows they’re teary, can’t help it, but she doesn’t want Prentiss to see her like this. She hates being vulnerable, always has. “I can’t remember two years of my life. I can’t remember my own boyfriend, my own job. My friends.”

“I can tell you about them, if you want,” she offers cautiously. “The doctor said it could help, but if you feel like it’s too much, let me know.”

Sophie nods carefully. She wants to know, she needs to know.

Prentiss—Emily—is so genuinely kind. She sits there for an hour, tells Sophie about work, and their team—their friends, because the group is very tight, gets together for dinner and drinks, and they all support each other’s non-bureau endeavors, and she feels so sad that she can’t remember them, can’t recall anything Emily is rattling off so easily it’s like she doesn’t even have to think about it.

She talks about some tough cases they’ve worked on, and how they always end with a cookout or a family dinner so they can remember why they do the hard things, why they keep fighting. She talks about people they’ve helped, saved, brought comfort to. She talks about flights home on the jet, how sometimes they sit in quiet, companionable silence and other times it’s all teasing and laughter and the good things in life.

Then she starts talking about Aaron—the boss/boyfriend—and Sophie does cry, a couple of tears rolling slowly down her cheeks. She’d never imagined in her life that she would be as loved as she is, if Emily’s stories are true, and the fact that she can’t remember any of it is like a knife to the gut. She wants to scream, to make someone pay for what she’s missing, but she knows none of that will bring her memory back, so she dials back the rage as quickly as it came—huh, that’s new.

Usually, her particular brand of anxiety attack would happen right about now, always worse when she’s afraid or angry. She anticipates tightening in her chest, shortness of breath, ringing in her ears that takes forever to go away, but it doesn’t come. She’s able to calm herself with a deep breath, and despite the fact that the rest of her life is a dumpster fire right now, this feels kind of good. It feels like progress, not a story told through someone else’s eyes, but a tangible feeling she can hold onto and think, I am a different version of Sophie than I was two years ago. A better version, maybe. But at least different. That, above everything else, makes it real.

A nurse walks in to take Sophie down for scans, and Emily just smiles, a bit sadly, and tells her she’ll be there waiting when she returns.

It’s a small comfort, something she holds onto as she’s taken down to the lab. When Sophie makes it back to her room, Emily is waiting there as promised, and she has a duffle bag sitting on the bed. “The doctor says you can go home while they wait for the scans,” she says with a smile; she probably thinks it will make Sophie happy, and it does, but the idea of going to a home she’s never been to is a little unsettling. Still, it’s nice to know there are people who care about her who will help her through it, that she’s not alone. That’s not something Sophie of two years ago would have been able to count on.

She smiles back, and Emily helps her change into clothes that somehow still smell like the hospital, but it feels better to be dressed and not stuck in the flimsy hospital gown that always makes you feel weaker and sicker, more injured than you really are.

She hears a voice from out in the hall, a voice that catches her attention immediately, and she walks over to the door, peeks her head out to see if she can find the man it belongs to.

She does, and he is almost too good-looking to be real. Somehow, she both instinctively knows that this man is Aaron, and can’t see how that could possibly be true.

“Emily. Is that Aaron?” she asks to confirm, pointing to the tall, serious-looking, frankly smoldering hot man having a conversation with her doctor at the end of the hall. She peeks her head out the door too, looks toward him with a smile.

“Yeah, that’s him. Do you remember him?” Her tone is guarded but hopeful, and Sophie sighs.

Remember him, no, not in the way she means, but every cell in her body feels alive and on fire just from catching a glimpse of his face, so she’s pretty sure Emily is right and she’s crazy in love with him. And his suit. Who looks that good in a suit?

Her boyfriend, apparently. Who she lives with. Who she’s been with for a year. Her mind is still a little blown.

“I don’t recall any memories of him,” she whispers, as if he can hear her from down the hall, “but, uh. I think my body remembers him.” Emily looks at her, eyebrow quirked, and she blushes. “Or, you know. Parts of it.”

Realization dawns, and Emily grins. “Okay yeah, that tracks. You two are kind of all over each other. It’s an intense vibe.” Sophie takes a moment to imagine that, what it would be like to be in a relationship with this man.

He looks intense, which can be good or bad, with the kind of mouth you could kiss forever, smile against. He’s taller than her by about a foot, which thrills her, and broad, as evidenced by the jacket stretched across his shoulders, which really thrills her. He’s older, maybe early forties, which she doesn’t feel particularly strongly about one way or another, with gorgeous dark hair and eyes, and when he shakes hands with the doctor, silver wrist watch gleaming under the fluorescent lights, her mouth practically waters.

“Earth to Sophie. You’ve got a little drool, there,” Emily teases, pointing to her own mouth, and Sophie groans.

“You didn’t prepare me. You didn't tell me he was hot.” Aaron turns away from the doctor, starts walking down the hall toward her room, and she ducks out of the doorframe, Emily following suit. She puts a hand to her forehead, not in physical pain, but mental pain for sure. “God, this is going to be so awkward. I’ve got a total lady boner for the guy I’m in love with that I can’t even remember.”

“It might be a little awkward at first, but you guys are sweet together. He’s going to be so caring and understanding, give you all the time you need.” She puts her hands on Sophie’s arms, grounding her. “We’re going to focus on trying to get your memories back, but the doctor said you shouldn’t stress.”

“That’s easy for her to say,” she mutters, crossing her arms, “she didn’t forget her big sexy boyfriend.” She hears a soft chuckle from behind her and instantly flushes, which makes Emily grin.

“Sophie, this is Aaron.” She physically turns her, and Aaron is smiling gently, which makes him look even better than when he was serious and expressionless. Her heart thrums in her chest.

“Hi. I’m sorry I don’t remember you. I want to.” She sticks out her hand for a shake, feels dumb instantly, but he takes it anyway, holds it for a moment. His hand is rough, so much bigger than hers, and part of her hopes he never lets go.

“That’s alright. Dr. Bracken is confident you’ll recover all of your memories in time. She’s given me some instruction on ways we can try to jog your memory, but no stress, like Emily said.”

“I guess we’re not considering the fact that losing two years of your life is a little stressful,” she counters, and he laughs again.

“You haven’t lost anything. Just misplaced them for a while.” He steps toward her, like he wants to touch her, comfort her maybe, but freezes, thinks better of it. She’s torn between wanting to get to know him better first and wanting to jump into his arms immediately, so she decides to let him set the pace. “So… Do you want to come home with me?” His voice is soft, hopeful, matching his eyes. “Garcia—our friend, another coworker of ours—has offered to put you up at her place if you’re not comfortable with that, so no worries either way. You have a place to go.”

Her stomach sinks a little at the thought of being anywhere but home, even though she has no idea where that is, and she looks back at Emily, who smiles encouragingly.

“I think I want to go home,” she decides after a moment, and she turns back to look at Aaron. “Is that okay with you?” He nods seriously.

“Yes, of course. I want you home with me. I just wanted you to know you had other options.” Emily slips past her, a hand on her elbow, and finishes gathering up her belongings while they talk. “The rest of the team is going to come over for a little bit, if you’re okay with that. The doctor said it would be a good idea, since you spend most of your time with them, but if at any point it gets overwhelming, let me know. No hard feelings if we send everyone home.”

“Okay,” she breathes, her head already swimming a bit just from talking to Aaron, and he does step forward, then, giving her her space but indicating that he wants to come closer, if she’ll let him.

“May I put this on you?” he murmurs, and opens his palm to display her rose necklace, the one she wears, must still wear, everyday. At least that hasn’t changed. “The EMTs gave it to me when they brought you in. I’ve been holding onto it for safekeeping.” She nods, turns around, and he slips it around her throat, clasps it, brushes a careful hand over her neck to move her hair out of the way. “That’s better,” he says, his breath ghosting over her skin, and she sighs, wants to sink back against the heat of his body; she just knows how comforting it would be, how safe she would feel. Instead, she turns and smiles softly.

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” They hold eye contact for a moment, and then Emily appears at her side, making a face like she knows she’s interrupting something.

“Ready to get going?” she asks, handing Sophie’s duffle bag over to Aaron. “I’m going to stop at home and then I’ll head to your place.”

“Absolutely. Thank you, Emily,” Sophie says sincerely, stepping forward to pull her into a tight hug. “I appreciate everything you’ve done for me. I hope I remember more about you soon.”

“I’m happy I could be here, and I know you will. Just give it some time.” She pats her on the back, and then leaves the room.

Aaron carries her bag and leads her out to the parking garage, toward a standard federal issued SUV, and he opens the door for her, closes it behind her with a gentle smile.

Time to go home.

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