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schmem14 · 2 years

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Master List of all works by Schmem14

Dramione fics:

When Malfoy Met Granger… (29k): In 1998 Hermione and Draco share a contentious train ride back to Hogwarts for eighth year, during which they argue about whether men and women can have strictly platonic friendships. They part ways, but then find themselves meeting several times in the years after school, putting their theories from that first day to the ultimate test. Inspired by When Harry Met Sally. Rating: M

In for a Knut, In for a Galleon (30k): Hermione is in trouble, and Draco has a wild idea that will keep them both safe. A murder, a marriage... and a happily ever after? Gossip columnist Watching Witch is on the case... Written for the “You Know You Love Me” Gossip Girl prompt fest 2022. Rating: M

Short Stories from the Library of Hermione and Draco (Ongoing): Collection of short one-shots featuring Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger perpetually falling in love. **Chapter 1 is index of all works, relevant ratings, pairings and warnings included for each story.** Ratings vary by chapter

Inheritance (14k): Draco Malfoy inherits 12 Grimmauld Place when Harry unexpectedly passes away, but there’s a catch; He has to let Hermione Granger stay. Rating: M

Dear Hermione (19k): Hermione and Draco return to Hogwarts after the war and become friends, but the lack of apology weighs on both of them and Draco finds himself falling in love even as he struggles to say sorry. Rating: T

What the Portraits Saw (4k):**Embedded with art by Hero//regretful-prince** Portraits are meant to be seen and not heard, or so you've been led to believe. Verity the Virgin is merely the portrait of a simple girl painted into an unimaginative pastoral scene. Her world is upended when she catches a mysterious thief trying to make off with some Malfoy family valuables. Written for the Double the Trouble Dramione Fest 2022. Rating: M

Pumpkin Spice Smorgasbord (7k): Single mother Hermione Granger has been crushing on widower Draco Malfoy for far too long. Will fake dating Theo make Draco jealous enough to act? Dramione and Dratheomione included. Rating: E

Draco, Ron, & Harry:

Draco Malfoy and the Sparkly Green Boots (4k): Draco x Harry. The tale of a serendipitous meeting between former classmates in the least-likely place imaginable; the strip club where Draco works. Draco’s luck is about to change for the better when Harry takes him home after. Muggle AU. Unapologetic smut piece written for the QQQ Pride Fest 2022. Rating: E

Lost at Sea (4k): Ron x Harry. Harry is helplessly in love with Ron Weasley, has to watch him marry Hermione and start a family with her, all while Harry spirals into madness, getting with the other Weasleys in order to dull the pain. Will Ron ever choose Harry? Rating: E

From Sunset to Star Rise (7.5k): Ron x Harry. Ron and Harry move to New England to get away from the aftermath of war, buy a cozy cabin in the woods, and fall in love under the stars of an autumn sky. Written for the Pumpkin Spice Fic Fest 2022. Rating: M

Flying on Ice (7k): Ron x Draco. Ice Hockey/Muggle AU, Draco tries to deny his feelings for his teammate. Ron is a little too open with himself and Draco doesn’t like to share. Rating: E

Ron and Draco Go on an Island Adventure [Gee Thanks, Hermione] (15k): Ron x Draco. Draco loves Ron. Ron loves Harry. And Harry's getting married to Theo, which leaves Ron on the verge of a full-on mental breakdown. It's up to Draco to keep Ron company during these trying times.[Oh, and did I mention, Hermione sneakily banishes the two of them to a tropical island for a month?] Written for Dronfest 2023 Rating: E

Mastermind (10.7k): Ron x Harry, Harry x Draco, Draco x Ron. Written for Dronarry fest 2023. This story features a dark, possessive stalker Draco who is determined to wheedle his way into the Golden Trio, first by dating Hermione, then by winning Harry and Ron over. Mind the tags! Rating: E

Monster Mash, Graveyard Smash (8.5k): Ron x Draco x Harry A vampire, a werewolf, and a zombie meet at the Halloween Ball... Written for the Pumpkin Spice Fic Fest 2023. Rating: E

Firebolt fics:

Solace (9k): Harry x George fic where George finds solace in Harry’s arms when coping with the loss of Fred. Rating: E

93 Diagon Alley (30k): Harry x George are broken after the war. They find themselves moving in together. A slow-burn friend-to-lovers fic written for the QQQ Pride Fest 2022. Rating: M

Peeling Potatoes (0.5k): Harry x George- George is still grieving Fred. Harry offers a moment of peace. Rating: T

Mistletoe, or Die F***ing (2k)- George x Harry x Fred- What happens when Fred and George fuck around with magical mistletoe and sex pollen after one too many dubious brownies and bottles of Molly's homemade egg nog? Poor “Father Christmas” is going to have to be the one to find out… Rating: E

Other HP Pairings:

How to Catch a DILF (10k): Albus Severus x Draco. The cat’s out of the bag—Albus has been in love with Mr. Malfoy for ages, and everyone seems to know about it except for the man himself. When the opportunity arises for him to make his fantasies a reality, will Albus have what it takes to seduce the DILF of his dreams? Written for the CMD fest 2023. Rating: E

Heart in a Box (15k): A cannon-divergent Luna x Harry fic that explores the possibility of things going differently during Slughorn’s Christmas Party in HBP, and how things progress for years after. Rating: M

All’s Fair in Love, and War, and Paintball (35k): A multi-ship 8th year Hogwarts Fic that pays homage to TV series Community’s paint-ball episodes with a last-man-standing paintball competition that breaks out during the Halloween feast. Ships include and are not limited to: Dramione, Panville, NottPott, and Ron x Padma x Parvati. Rating: E

The Golden Trio is Mine (3.5k): POLY Draco x Harry x Hermione x Ron. Three friends find themselves catering to Draco’s every need one night. Ron wears a crown, Harry crawls like a dog, and Hermione makes a lovely musical cock warmer. There may be an inappropriate use of the Firebolt. A crack fic featuring Dom Draco and lots of kinks. Rating: E

HP Cocktober 2022 Collection (24k): Multiple pairings. A collection of flash fics (1000 words or less) written for the HP Cocktober 2022 prompt series on Twitter. Chapter 1 is index of all works, pairings and warnings. Rating: E

HP Kinkuary 2023 Collection (28k): Multiple pairings. A collection of flash fics (1000 words or less) written for the HP Kinkuary 2023 prompt series on Tumblr. Chapter 1 is index of all works, pairings and warnings. Rating: E

One Small Eternity (10k): Ron x Pansy- Pansy is back from a five-year stay in Paris. She hopes to renew her standing among the wizarding elite, only to find that Lucius Malfoy has a business proposition that could either spell success or disaster, maybe both.Through it all, Pansy finds love in the most unexpected place and with someone she can never have. Will the timing ever be right for them? Rating: E

How to Care For Your Monster Book: A Guide by Rubeus Hagrid (8k): Hagrid x Monster Book of Monsters- Hagrid finds many uses for his new course textbook... some of them may shock you. A crack canon compliant story detailing Hagrid’s first year of teaching and what really happened with that strange textbook he assigned. Rating: E

The Seven Sexcruxes of Tom Riddle (2.5k): Hagrid x Tom Riddle- This crack story taken seriously explores the unlikely romance of a troubled dark wizard and the man he’s definitely NOT in love with. Mostly funny, very filthy, and a tiny bit sweet. Rating: E

Bedknobs and Broomsticks and Enemies You Shouldn’t Sleep With (20k): Oliver x Marcus- Retelling of the Prisoner of Azkaban from Oliver’s POV. Twist: he’s secretly been shagging his Quidditch Rival Marcus Flint. SO MUCH SMUT. Enemies and Lovers. You get the gist. Rating: E

Harry Sandwich (3k): Draco x Theo x Harry- This is a short, filthy snack of a story in which Harry James Potter, of mostly sound mind and body, gets to be the meat in the middle of fresh hot slices of Draco and Theo. 8th year crack fic. Rating: E

Of Vines and Fiendfyre (5k) Hermione x Neville- This fic features a Voldemort Wins AU, a captured Hermione, Dark Neville, and a whole lot of horrifically sex-spore fueled sex. MIND THE TAGS on this DD:DNE. Rating: E

There’s Something About Ernie (4k)- Ernie x Draco x Harry- Draco is back at Hogwarts for his eighth and last year of school. He wants Harry more than he'll ever admit, but when he's snubbed, he decides to exact his revenge by fucking the one person who has the power to take his mind off of his heartbreak.Too bad Harry has the same idea. This PWP is a masterclass in manipulation. Enjoy! Rating: E

HP Saffics Summer Exchange 2023 (2k)- Multiple Pairings - This is a collection of microfics (exactly 200 words each) written as gifts for the exchange. Wide range of femslash pairings and prompts. Rating: T-M

Atonement (5k)- Percy x George- Percy feels guilty for Fred’s death, and it seems he’s the only one who can get to George. Written for HP Cest Fest 2023, mind the tags. Rating: E

A Merciful Alternative (4k)- Draco x Lucius- Draco learns that there is no easy way out after his failure to kill Albus Dumbledore atop the Astronomy tower. The Dark Lord promises to humiliate the Malfoy family in every way possible before the night is through. Written for the HP Cest Fest 2023, mind the tags. Rating: E

Iris (6k)- Alice x Neville- Neville’s always been infatuated with his mum, but falling in love with her was never part of the plan. Written for the HP Cest Fest 2023, mind the tags. Rating: M

HP Kinktober 2023 Collection (32k) - Multiple Pairings- A collection of flash fics (1000 words or less) written for the HP Kinktober 2023 prompt series on Tumblr. Chapter 1 is index of all works, pairings and warnings. Rating: E

Peculiar Prompts Collection (Ongoing)- Multiple Pairings- Submit a peculiar prompt to my asks box and I might write something for you! details HERE. Chapter 1 is index of all works, summaries, pairings, and warnings. Rating: T-M

31 Days of Weasley Collection 2023 (19k) Multiple Pairings- Written for the Weasley Jumpers 31 Days of Weasley fest for tumblr. Chapter 1 is index of all works, summaries, pairings, and warnings. Rating: T-E

Fucking Perfect, Actually (9.5k) Ron Weasley x Cormac McLaggen- That time Ron Weasley took forever to realize he's secretly in love with his meathead hockey rival, Cormac McLaggen. Ice Hockey AU, Muggle AU. Written for HP Rare Pairs Fest 2023. Rating: E

Forever in Your Debt (4.6k) Ron Weasley x Mary Cattermole, Mary Cattermole x Reginald Cattermole- Ron has been trying to make amends with the Cattermoles for years with no response. Mary finally decides to write back because it turns out she does want something from Ron after all. Written for HP Rare Pairs Fest 2023. Rating: E

Podfic:

For Sale by Owner: Rose Weasley Granger’s Virginity (3.5 hours): Written by Vukovich. Rose Weasley Granger x Draco Malfoy Original Story and Summary here. Rating: E

Like a Brother Would (30-45 min): Written by wolfpants. Ron x Harry. Original Story and Summary here. Rating E

Yes, But It’ll Cost You (30-45 min): Written by mintaminta. Draco x Harry. Original Story and Summary here. Rating: T

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itspdameronthings · 2 years

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Starting Over ( On the Road TF crossover)

Summary: Here is the first part of this fic idea i previewed few days ago. Kudos to @artemiseamoon for inspiring me to watch on the road. Btw, yall need to watch the movie so you know what happened. Some sexy movie scenes. The plot is where Dean wonders the streets to find a warm place to warm up. Never thought he would meet a familiar face.

Dean is beside himself. Sal doesn't want to see him. In his mind he is all alone. No longer married. Haven't seen his daughters. As for family? Not wanting to think about that now. Sure his brother William said he would be there for him. Where was he? Oh yes. In the Army. Haven't heard from him since he retired. Walking around the town, and get warm.suddenly he hears music playing . Nothing he hasn't heard before. Good beat,and yet soothing. Going inside to see a familiar face at the bar. William is older, but still looks the same. Blue eyes,and blonde hair. Only thing different is a tattoo on his left arm. Sitting on a barstool . Clearing his throat, " Fancin seeing you here. Thought you be back in California. " Turning around, " why would I do that? Wanna be like you? Using people ? Not knowing you have people that love you. Have news for you. I'm willing to help your sorry ass. Yeah I know all about it. Sal has been my regular customer. " leaning against the counter. Practically in his brother's face," what did he say? I wanna know!"

Will just had enough of his mouth. Tugging on Dean's arm. He looks at his other friend, " Mind the bar Frankie. Need to talk to my brother. " Frankie nods, You got it man. Good luck with that." The waitress comes over to the bar. Looking at the direction Will went. Taking a breath, " Nothing to worry about Lizzy, by the looks of things? Things might get a wee bit hairy."

Frankie was right. Things got hairy. Will reached upstairs to his apartment. One of four. After pushing Dean inside the apartment. Will slammed the door," Sit your ass down, and listen to me! I'm not gonna tell you nada till you explain something to me! Why would you leave Camille and your daughters?! They love you dammit! " Dean got up from the couch," Had my reasons! Wanna find our dad! Okay! Guess ya never thought about him! All you could think about is defending our country more than your family!" Rubbing his face. Pacing around. Will calms down, " let's get one thing straight. I needed to leave. Need to make a new life for myself. Thought you would join me,but noooo… you want to be a bum! Answer to your question about finding dad? Check the graveyard. Yeah, he died in prison for the very thing you were doing with that 16 year old. "

Dean was in shock. No wonder no one ever told him the truth. Chest heaving," shit! For years of looking! All I could have done was to look you up. As for my mistakes. Don't know if she wants to see me. " Will sit down on the other side of the couch. Looking at his brother, " never hurts to call her. Tell her how you feel. Might take pity on your soul." Dean nods," I'll do that now. Not till you tell me what Sal said."

That's something Will doesn't want to tell him. Doesn't want him to know who Sal has been seeing. Actually gonna marry.Marylou. She didn't marry the sailor. Her heart belonged to Sal. Taking a breath, " Sal felt alone. He needed you when he was sick. Then it dawned on him that it was time to start over. Clean slate. Ment meeting new people. Ment letting go of how I can say this without hurting you. " Dean finally got the picture. Sal doesn't want to be around him anymore. Taking a breath, " I'm gonna call Camille. Can ya give me some privacy?"

Meanwhile downstairs the bar comes to life again. The band played lively music. People dancing around enjoying themselves. Lots of dancing and hollering. Will comes downstairs to see his friend, Santiago playing guitar. Singing songs he has written himself. Lizzy leans against the counter next to Will," how did it go upstairs? Did you accomplish anything? " looking at her with loving eyes. Hugging her to his side," Told him about my father, and what Sal told me. Actually not the real reason why he doesn't want to see Dean. Want him to see from a different pair of eyes. Thinking about giving him a job here and a place to stay. He could stay in the vacant room." Kissing his cheek as she goes to take more orders to the customers, " You are a good man Willam Moriarty. Glad I married you. "

The call to Camille didn't end the way he wanted. She still wants to see him. Only if he cleans up. Have a steady job. To him it would be a hard thing to do. If he wants to see the babies ,and her again? He would do anything. Heard noise downstairs. Same kind of music that was playing earlier. Venturing downstairs to see what was happening. Sitting on the step watching everyone having a good time. Especially a vision on the floor. Dancing in a way he had never seen before. So expressive. Her movements tell a story.

" You must be Dean. " looking up to see an older man with dark hair with wavy hair. Sitting next to him, " I'm Frankie by the way. Served with your brother. One playing the guitar is Santiago. Ladies love him. A chick magnet. Will told me you are working here. There are some rules you need to know. No weed here. Even in the apartment. No prostitution. We are doing this for you. Want you to sober up." Dean sighs," Thanks. Wanna ask you somethin. Who is that girl near Santiago?" Frankie nods in that direction, " someone you shouldn't be around. That's his baby sister. Nona. She is a firecracker. My advice? Stay away from her. If you want to accomplish your goal. "

Dean watches her move around the room. Way she sways to the beat is like he does. More he watched, the more turned on he got. Sadly , the music ends. Lucky for him since she went outside to get some air. Naturally he followed her out. The boys and Lizzy see him leave. Knowing what might happen next.

#Triple Frontier #on the road #dean Moriarty #Charlie Hunnam #Garett Hedlund

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gay-fandom-menace · 2 years

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A little blurb inspired by me watching Anne With An E and discovering Amybeth McNulty has a rather nice singing voice. Alternatively, how we can still win and get some cast members singing in Season 5.

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“Oh f u c k.”

Vickie looks to Robin who is staring down at the Walkman in her hands—the Walkman which somehow holds once-good now melted batteries. Beyond the two of them, chaos swirls. Demobats fly and screech, the girl with a shaved head is fighting a wrinkly bastard, and various members of her high school are each becoming puppets—eyes rolled to the back of their heads. Including Max, a redhead Robin is very fond of and who Vickie has felt a growing affection of her own.

“Robin, what is it? What’s the Walkman for? H-how’s it supposed to help,” she gestures anxiously at the mess around them, batting away a small demodog with a folded chair, “with all of this?”

Vickie almost regrets asking as she watches Robin tear up and tighten her grasp on the broken machine. “It keeps him away from her. I-I- Kate Bush. Vecna was tripped up by his dad’s favorite song playing and it kept Max safe at the graveyard but now the Walkman is busted and I don’t know what we’re going to do because it’s all gone to shit and I can’t lose her—I can’t lose any of them—and I don’t know what to do-”

“What song?” Vickie interrupts. She heard everything Robin said but she only really understood one thing: music screws over the bad guy.

“Wh- Running Up That Hill.”

Vickie looks around and runs over to a plastic bucket, kicking it back to where she and Robin have been standing guard over the milk eyed innocents. She bashes a demobat a few times on her way over. “Give me a 4/4 beat.”

“Vick-” Robin must register something—Vickie doesn’t really have time to wonder—because she clamps her jaw shut with a shake of the head and begins beating the pseudo drum at a tempo fairly close to the underlying rhythm of the song. Band kids for the win, Vickie thinks with a smile before taking a deep breath and opening her mouth.

“I-it doesn’t hurt me,” Vickie sings out on a shake, hands trembling. “Do you want to feel how it feelsss?” The stakes are pretty high—they don’t think they can break the spell on folks- “Do you wanna know, know that it doesn’t hurt me?” (That’s a freshman’s job for some reason; you don’t argue with group accepted superpowers though, even if you are new) but they are trying to keep them from going serial killer victim. “Do you want to hear about the deal I’m making?”

Vickie’s terrified, really. Everyone seems less on the verge of… whatever it is that happens, somehow, but maybe that’s just her imagination. Maybe a single shaky voice doesn’t matter enough. Stupid, stupid, stupid plan-

“-And if I only could,” Robin cuts in—overlaps her—and Vickie’s heart stutters, “I’d make a deal with God-”

“-I’d get him to swap our places,” they sing together. Oh now that’s a nice thought. Together. A strange yet familiar concept in the unsettling scene of a veritable apocalypse unfolding before them all. Maybe alone wasn’t something she’d really ever been; maybe alone wasn’t enough to stop the world from ending; maybe an act of together is what stops something angry and twisted from winning.

As they near the end of the vocals, the puppets begin to sing, restarting the song from the beginning again. It flips Vickie’s stomach like curdled milk at first; it’s hardly comforting to witness still beings sing on rusted throats. Then it registers in her brain as something of a miracle when the ground around them starts to tremble and quiver as if its guardian seeks to shake off the vileness that had taken root and split its charge open.

And through all of it there is Robin, singing right alongside her, beating a bucket with great fervor in hopes of encouraging more voices to join, more blows to fall against an enemy she personally didn’t see at the moment. Vickie can’t help it. She smiles broadly as she sings. She’s hopeful again (that candle of future possibility blowing out for a short while when the sky darkened with ashy snow). Maybe when this is all over… maybe then she’ll take the chance on this slow-blooming warmth in her chest. But for now? For now Vickie will sing along with the chorus before and beside her and pray a harmony of souls will be enough to help a young girl defeat a monster. It helped her once, didn’t it?

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Last sentence there is a bit of a self projection of music/singing + friends helping me through some hard times. We all have them so I figured Vickie, a band kid, would most definitely have some memories where rough times were soothed by good tunes and hopefully a buddy or two as well. Anywho, hope you enjoyed!

#fanfiction #ficlet #fanfic #vickie stranger things #robin buckley #robin x vickie #rockie #stranger things #my fic

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sarah-dipitous · 9 months

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Hellsite Nostalgia Tour 2023 Day 243

The Witch’s Familiar

It was both a mistake and a wonderful decision to move my Sherlock viewing. It was completely necessary, but it did fuck up the schedule quite a bit (so did forgetting that I don’t have to watch Supernatural on federal holidays. I never said this was an easy schedule to follow. Because I’m still kind of ridiculously behind on Doctor Who from imdb forgetting like five whole episodes. It’s fine though because i gave myself a LOT of time off at the holidays and I can just plop an episode or two on those days)

“The Witch’s Familiar”

Plot Description: The Doctor is trapped and alone on the terrifying planet Skaro

One thing I forgot from last episode, I know I’m now in uncharted DW territory for me because the Doctor has his stupid sonic sunglasses or whatever now. And I remember a friend of mine telling me that has happened when I first fell off and thinking that was the dumbest sounding thing I’d ever heard. This was, of course, before Season 4 of Sherlock aired (THANKS MOFFAT)

Oh thank god Missy’s back IMMEDIATELY this episode. I do not know what I would do if I had to actually mourn the temporary loss of my two bad bitch milfs for longer than 24 hours. Clara is also back

Why did they do this to poor Clara? This is the least flattering angle I’ve ever seen for her. She’s absolutely gorgeous, but why would they do this?

Do I wish Missy and Clara could talk about anything other than the Doctor? Oh my god yes. I understand they’re trying to find him and all (and he thinks he’s going to die) but literally every conversation they have is about him. The talks they DO have are fun and interesting but I’d love some expansion. It’s not every day you get a team up of the Doctor’s companion and one of his greatest foes

Why is the Doctor sitting in Davros’s chair/like…lower half of his body?? Hang on why isn’t the Doctor back in Davros’s past like he was at the end of last episode. STEVEN! You have some explaining to do. Or is that HOW he gets to the past? He steals that and has a bunch of Daleks nearly exterminate him

Dalek sewers are SLIGHTLY ALIVE?! No because…I love that she gets to just be unrepentantly evil. Absolutely amoral. She just pushed Clara down into the sewer to gauge how far down it went

Skaro is horrifying….why is the Dalek word for sewer and graveyard the same, STEVEN? Make that make sense

Here’s the thing I like even less than the sonic sunglasses…at least the sunglasses were a step even further back from a weapon…why’s the Doctor holding an actual weapon, STEVEN?

Missy telling Clara to get in the Dalek…outer shell…ominous. Makes me wonder if they’re going to close that circuit of how we first met Clara or if whatever the fuck happened at the end of season 7 negated that, started a whole new timeline

Ooooooo, it’s been a moment since the Doctor’s been tempted to commit genocide. Allegedly, pulling on one or more of these cables would kill Davros, which would in turn kill every Dalek on Skaro. Do I believe it? I dunno, but the Doctor is at least interested

THAT’s more like it. He came here because Davros is sick and he asked. Because on a good day, he’s not some time lord who ran away, he’s the Doctor (I’ll admit, those were some good lines, Steven)

I’m not mad at Missy but omg I’m about to fucking sob at the Dalek outer shell closing up around Clara and hearing her words in the Dalek voice. I hate it. I hate it I hate it I hate it.

It’s terrible to hear “exterminate” come out when Clara is compelled to say three word she said she’d never say to anyone ever again. I know Missy couldn’t have had that context, and she’s having fun experimenting with what this Dalek armor actually does but GOD…

I’m trying so hard to not trust this very emotional scene from Davros. It’s BARELY working. Not knowing exactly what happened on that field or how he got there in the first place as a child IS muddying the waters

I did not expect to get worked up over Davros asking the Doctor if he did the right thing, if he was a good man. What the hell

I BET this nice moment gets ruined when the Doctor takes him outside

Of COURSE it was too good to be truuuue. I don’t know why the Doctor would give up ANY REGENERATION ENERGY TO DAVROS. Now, it’s being sapped out of him

Thank god Missy can be brutal and use weapons. Not that it has seemed to make much of a difference, but I suppose it could be worse??? I don’t know how. The Daleks have been made more powerful through gaining that regeneration energy

Of COURSE the Doctor already knew what Davros’s plan was….SOMEHOW. And how to combat it…SOMEHOW. (The Daleks in the sewer/graveyard also gained the regeneration energy and are now seeping into the walls of the city)

Omg…Clara is trying SO HARD to tell him it’s her and Missy’s trying equally as hard to deceive the Doctor

I don’t know how she’ll get out of that, but I know Missy will

Oh finally. We’re back to the end of last episode. He DID save Davros as a child.

#hellsite nostalgia tour 2023

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daryl-dixon-daydreams · 3 years

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Words: 5,229 Pairing: Daryl Dixon x Reader Reader pronouns: she/her Era: Alexandria Warnings: Language, typical TWD stuff A/N: This is Part 7 of a series! Find the previous parts on the Masterlist! Summary: Daryl continues to worry about Y/N and wonder about her past, but they continue to bond inside the safe walls of Alexandria.

Your name: submit What is this?

From that day forward, you and Daryl were almost inseparable. The growing closeness between you was obvious and spending your time together was like a subconscious habit you couldn’t break.

When he wasn’t around you, Daryl felt like something was just missing and it seemed you always ended up together, even if it was just to do nothing.

Not too long after your last bad run-in outside the walls, Deanna insisted on having a town get-together as a morale booster. There would be food and a bonfire and supposed comradery. You were lying on your couch when there was a knock on the front door earlier in the day. You winced from the continued soreness in your ribs as you climbed to your feet and when you rounded the corner into the hall you could see Aaron on the front stoop.

You immediately gave him a look when you pulled open the front door.

“Y/N,” he said with a smile. “How are you feeling?”

You nudged your head as a way to say “come in” and Aaron stepped inside. You walked back up the hallway and stood in the kitchen, waiting for him to follow. “I know that isn’t why you came by,” you said.

“It is too!” he argued. “Well… it’s at least one of the reasons…”

“Uh huh.”

“Tonight—”

“No,” you interrupted.

“But just—”

“Aaron, you know I hate this pretend bullshit…”

He sighed heavily. “It’s not pretend. It’s real. This place is real.”

“And so is what’s out there!” you argued back. “Daryl and I just almost died. That just happened! Am I supposed to forget about my busted ribs or this,” you asked, gesturing to the bruising on your neck, which thankfully was starting to fade at last.

Aaron’s face softened and turned apologetic. “No. Of course not. But if we stop trying, if all we do is think about what’s out there… what’s the point of living?”

Goddammit. He had a damn point. You sighed heavily and closed your eyes for a moment. You shook your head. “I hate you,” you said sarcastically.

He smiled. “Love you too. Starts at 7. I’ll wait for you to show up, and if you don’t, I’m going to come get you, okay?” He started to head toward the front door but turned around halfway. “Oh—and hey, maybe think about bringing Daryl with you?”

You narrowed your eyes at him. “…what’s that mean?” you asked suspiciously.

“What? Nothing! Just—you two are kind of alike in some ways. You know he won’t go unless someone drags him,” Aaron said.

“Uh huh…”

Aaron only grinned back at you. “I’ll see you tonight,” he said. You heard him open the front door and returned his shouted goodbye.

“Fuck,” you said aloud. You needed a shower and something to wear that would hopefully cover up worst of the bruising on your neck… At least you could count on dim lighting conditions since it was a bonfire.

That evening, Daryl was sitting on the steps of the house hoping, waiting to see if you would step outside. Finally, he saw you coming out onto the porch, shutting the door behind you. You were wearing a long sleeve thermal, with the sleeves partially pushed up to accommodate your wrist brace and the still balmy evening air. You had a light scarf looped around your neck, and Daryl knew that was purposeful. He got up as you came down the stairs and strode toward you.

You saw the archer and couldn’t help but smile at him as he approached. He had that stride, leading more strongly with one shoulder and foot than the other.

“Hey.” There was something about his deep voice that instantly put you at ease and you paused in the middle of the street.

“Hey,” you returned. You noticed again that his hair was shiny and looked soft, clean. He’d obviously cleaned up. “You going to this thing?” you asked.

He rubbed a hand over the back of his neck and shrugged. “I dunno. Was thinkin’ about it. You’re goin’?” he asked.

You nodded. “Gonna try. I guess,” you said with a laugh. “Aaron talked me into it…”

“Yeah, uhh—yeah, he came by here earlier, too.” Daryl rocked on his feet a little bit. He wished he was better with words because he really wanted to tell you that you looked beautiful, even just in your jeans and thermal, bruises and broken wrist and all. “Well, if you’re headin’ there I’ll walk with ya.”

You nodded and Daryl fell into stride beside you. As you approached the center of Alexandria, you could already hear loud laughter and conversation and there was a warm glow from lanterns and the bonfire. Kids were running around playing the kinds of games you did when the world was free—Ghost in the Graveyard and Hide and Seek. You shook your head as you took in the scene, your feet faltering a bit. “Surreal, isn’t it?” you said vaguely. Daryl couldn’t help glancing at your expression. Far from looking content or like you were enjoying the domestic scene, your brow was furrowed and there was a faraway look in your eyes.

“Mhm,” he acknowledged. “C’mon. Let’s get a drink at least.”

You followed him through the crowd, feeling somewhat more at ease, more okay with him beside you. Daryl handed you a cold beer and grabbed one for himself, nudging his head over toward the reservoir just outside the circle of firelight and bubble of conversation. As you left the refreshment area you snagged a bottle of whiskey too. You collapsed down onto a wooden bench with a sigh and stared toward the water. You took a long drink from your beer and drummed your fingernails against the glass. Daryl was standing nearby, his blue eyes narrowed as he stared out over the water.

“Hey,” you said, drawing his attention. “Come on and sit by me at least. Then they can’t accuse us of being totally anti-social.”

He let out a small snort in place of a laugh and rolled his eyes. His stomach fluttered a little as he complied and took the other seat next to you on the wooden loveseat, spinning his beer anxiously in his hands. The bench was small; your shoulders were almost touching.

“Look what else I got,” you said, reaching down and lifting up the bottle of whiskey. Instead of the reaction you expected, Daryl just gave you a calm but perceptive glance.

“Ya plannin’ on gettin’ drunk?” he asked sharply.

You stared down at the bottle in your hand and your eyes fell again on the brace on your wrist. “Maybe,” you said quietly, not even really sure you had said it aloud.

Daryl’s brow furrowed more deeply. “Why?” he drawled.

You shrugged. “Does there have to be a reason?”

He licked his lips and leaned back in his seat. “Usually is one, whether or not there needs to be.”

He was annoyingly observant. You’d known him a matter of weeks and he always seemed to see right through you. But you simply uncorked the bottle and took a pull. It burned your lips and left a warm trail all the way down into your stomach. You chased it with another sip of your beer and tried to distract yourself by just staring out at the water again, looking at the glowing orbs of porchlights in the distance reflecting there. Every so often you could feel Daryl’s eyes on you.

“What?” you said, finally turning to face him. You were only a few inches apart. You thought you saw his cheeks grow a bit pink for a moment, but in the dim light you couldn’t be sure.

“Nothin’,” he said, turning away and gazing out across the water the way you had been just a moment earlier.

You sat together in silence for quite a while and although it felt tense at first, both of you relaxed into it. You alternately sipped from your beer and took pulls off the whiskey, a dangerous pattern because you weren’t paying any attention to how much you were drinking and you were a lightweight even before alcohol was a rare commodity.

But the longer you sat, the more you felt like there was a bubble in your chest, growing bigger and bigger and waiting to burst. Finally, you couldn’t hold out in the strenuous anticipation any longer and spoke what was on your mind. “You ever wonder how this place is going to fall?”

Your words were quiet and definitely a bit slurred. Daryl’s eyes snapped over to yours which were already on his face, surprising him as they flickered back and forth between his, holding his gaze steadily. He gulped and nodded. “Yeah,” he admitted.

“Or when…” you added.

“Yeah…” he agreed again. “I do.”

You sighed and turned back to look at the water. “I think about it all the time,” you said softly, and Daryl thought he heard your voice break. You stood up abruptly and whipped your empty beer bottle into the water, watching the ripples expanding across the small pond. You wavered a little on your feet and Daryl jumped up, hands extended in case you needed to be steadied.

“I think ya better slow down on that booze,” he growled.

You simply gave him a defiant look and took another pull from the bottle. You held it out to him but he only stared you down.

“Nah. If you’re gonna be stupid, then I’m gonna be sober. And I’m gonna get ya some water,” he said, turning to leave. His momentum stopped when he felt your hand gentle on his arm. He looked back at you in shock and couldn’t help the kneejerk way his body stiffened. But it was only from surprise. A split second later his stomach flipped at the feeling of your hand there and he wished you would never take it off. But you had obviously perceived his tension and you withdrew it quickly.

“Sorry,” you mumbled, sinking back down onto the bench, wanting to kick yourself for grabbing onto him.

The archer was left puzzled and chewed his bottom lip as he considered you a moment. “I’ll be right back.”

You were alone on the bench, waiting for Daryl to return, your head more than a little hazy from the whiskey, when footsteps approached. You knew they weren’t Daryl’s. They didn’t have his cadence and his footsteps were almost silent, even when he wasn’t hunting or tracking. You turned to see Spencer and internally groaned.

“Isn’t right that you’re over here all alone,” he said, walking around and sitting in the seat that was Daryl’s without any invitation.

“I wasn’t,” you snapped, leaning away from him.

“Look pretty alone to me,” he said, downing what was left in his drink glass and actually taking the bottle of whiskey from you to refill it with a healthy share.

“Yeah, well, that seat—the one you’re in—it’s reserved. Already taken,” you said, snatching the bottle back.

He scoffed. “What? By that redneck? Seriously?”

You shot a sharp glare at Spencer, but knew the sting was likely diminished by the glazed look in your eyes on account of the booze. “You know his name. It’s Daryl Dixon. Not ‘that redneck’.”

“Whatever,” Spencer laughed. “Guy’s a nobody. Who cares?”

“I care. Now get the fuck out of his seat,” you growled.

Spencer only smiled back at you. “I think you’re just afraid that if you let me sit here, something might actually happen between us… Come on. You know there’s something here—as much as you fight it. Some spark.”

You stood up abruptly and stepped away from him, scoffing. “What the hell is wrong with you? I feel like I’ve been perfectly clear with you over and over again. Did you forget that I punched you out?” He seemed impervious to your refusal and only stood up too and stepped closer to you.

“Come on, Y/N. You know you want this,” he said, reaching a hand out and trailing his fingers down your arm.

You shrugged him off. “Don’t. touch me. I won’t tell you again.”

He soured somewhat immediately. “What is your problem? Is it seriously something to do with that hick you’re always hanging around? You have something going on with Daryl?” he said, mockingly. “Seriously? What a fucking joke. He’s a mess. Just some—dumb redneck. You deserve way better than him. You deserve someone with their shit together, someone who will string together more than two words at a time. Someone like me.”

You physically recoiled from him again. “You’re a fucking joke. Everything you’ve ever had in life has been handed to you and you’ve turned out to be a spineless, spoiled dick. You have no idea what’s out there and you wouldn’t last a day. You’d be lucky to ever be even a quarter of the man Daryl is.” Your jaw was set. “Now fuck off and go find someone else to bother,” you growled. “Try one of the other sheltered suburbanites. They’d probably fall for your bullshit.”

“I can’t believe this shit,” he muttered angrily, but you heaved a sigh of relief as he stalked off, hopeful that he would finally get the fucking hint for once and leave you alone for good. You turned back to stare at the water in front of you, gentle ripples still bouncing off the shore from when you’d tossed your bottle in. Your uninjured hand went to clasp around your wrist brace absently.

You didn’t know that Daryl was only a few feet away, returning with some water for you, and that he had been watching the entire interaction. And Spencer’s words had stung. Sure, Daryl knew Spencer was an idiot and he certainly had no high opinion of the moron but Spencer had also just verbalized some of Daryl’s own deepest insecurities about himself and even… about you and how you felt about him… and that had stung him deeply. But then came your words… and he felt complete disbelief, sure he had misheard. He felt paralyzed for a long moment as he puzzled over what you had said and how you had said it. But you had been forceful and purposeful. Daryl hadn’t imagined that.

He was so shocked that his boots were rooted in place. He stood there with that cup of water in his hand, dumbfounded, before he finally snapped himself out of it and went around the bench to stand beside you. “Hey,” he said, holding out the water. “I just, uhh—I just saw Spencer stalk off. He looked pretty pissed. Was he botherin’ ya? Are ya alright?”

You accepted the glass and drank deeply from it, suddenly realizing that you actually were pretty thirsty. You rolled your eyes. “I’m fine. And maybe now that fucking asshole will finally leave me alone… Idiot,” you mumbled, looking back at the water.

Daryl shifted awkwardly on his feet. His heart was racing as he thought about what you had said. He watched with concern as you took another drink of whiskey from the bottle, this time grimacing a little at the burn. “Would ya quit that?” he asked, drawing your eyes to him.

You studied him for a moment. “Wanna get out of here?” you asked, glancing back at the crowd around the bonfire. Daryl followed your eyes and then looked back at you. His expression was unsure. He was trying to guess at your meaning. “Just—go for a walk or something. We can at least tell Aaron we came,” you said.

He chewed his bottom lip for a moment before nodding. “Yeah, alright. Somebody oughta babysit ya anyway,” he snarked. You pulled a face at him in response and one corner of his mouth twitched up.

“Alright then, chaperone. C’mon,” you said. Bottle in hand, you started to follow the edge of the reservoir, moving away from the glow of the bonfire and the loud laughter and conversation. Daryl walked next to you, content just to walk quietly. You ended up on the other side of the pond from the party, leaning on the railing of the dock and looking back across the water. Daryl walked past you to stand at the end of the dock. You meandered over to him and took in his broad shoulders and muscular arms. You couldn’t help biting your bottom lip. Oh, fuck You are in trouble… you thought to yourself. “Can you swim, Dixon?” you asked him suddenly. He had just enough time to snap around to look at you before you were grinning at him and pushing him hard, your uninjured hand flat in the center of his chest. He went plummeting into the water backwards and came back up gasping as you laughed hard at his expense.

“Are ya frickin’ kiddin’ me?! The hell is wrong with ya?!” he barked at you, treading water. His long hair was plastered to his face. “Oh, yer dead,” he growled at you.

“I’m dead? What are ya gonna do?” You slowly paced backwards on the dock, a wide, genuine smile crinkling your eyes, and the sight of that was enough to make any real annoyance Daryl had evaporate. He couldn’t resist that megawatt smile. “You made it so easy! You were just standing right there at the end!” you said back. “What, I was supposed to just not take that opportunity?”

Daryl let out a chesty growl and pointed a finger at you. “You and whiskey should not mix.” He pushed his wet hair out of his face and swam back to the edge of the dock. “Well…” he said expectantly, staring at you.

You laughed again and shrugged. “Well?”

“At least come help me get the hell out of here,” he rumbled.

You let out a loud laugh. “How stupid do you think I am? I know you just want me to come over there so you can pull me in or splash me or something! Besides, I can’t pull you out. Wrist? Ribs? Remember?”

Daryl muttered under his breath and pulled himself out on the dock, his wet clothes sticking to him, complete with sopping wet boots. He stared down at the water pouring off him onto the wooden deck.

You pressed your lips together in a pleased attempt to stifle more laughter.

“You’re dead,” he growled again, looking up at you. “I ain’t babysittin’ your ass no more. I dun care if ya do fall in and drown,” he barked, starting to stalk toward you to leave the dock.

“Oh, come on, Daryl. It’s pretty funny. I mean, if it were reversed—”

“My damn boots,” he interrupted, giving you another glare.

You stared down at his feet and grimaced. “Right… well… come on. I’ll walk you back to your house so you can change. It’s the least I can do,” you said, trying hard to stifle more laughter at the glare the archer was giving you.

“I should throw ya in right now,” he said. “Maybe it’d sober ya up,” he said, shaking the water from his arms.

“Hey—I probably shouldn’t be swimming! I’m a cripple, remember?”

“Uh huh. Convenient,” he muttered. He started down the sidewalk, leaving wet footprints. You jogged a little to catch up with him and although he could feel your eyes on him he was determined not to look at you, trying to pretend he was still mad. It didn’t last long and when he next looked up you saw that one corner of his mouth was quirked up in a half-smile. Your grin widened. “Ya are gonna pay for this eventually, ya know,” he said gruffly.

“Worth it.”

You walked with Daryl in a comfortable silence all the way back to the house he was sharing with many of his group members, although some had split up and moved in to the other house by now. You froze suddenly at the bottom of the stairs as Daryl climbed them.

“Woah,” you said. You pressed a hand to your head.

Daryl glanced back at you and rolled his eyes, letting out a sharp exhale. “Whiskey?”

“Yeah, it’s like it all just hit me at once.”

He let out a gruff laugh. “It ain’t hittin’ ya at once. Ya been slurrin’ for over an hour now.” He came back down the steps and gently grasped your elbow, his heart jumping as his fingers made contact with you. “C’mon. Let’s get ya some more water.”

You smiled at him a little abashedly as he led you inside. It was the first time you’d ever been in their house and you looked around, taking in Rick’s spare pair of boots by the front door and Judith’s high chair at the table.

“Here,” he said, shoving a full water glass into your hands. “I’mma get some dry clothes and rinse off this pond smell all over me. Thanks to you…” You laughed again and shrugged.

“You look good all wet though,” you said, the words surprising you even as they slipped out.

Daryl’s blue eyes narrowed and he ducked his head, mumbling a gruff “whatever” before disappearing downstairs to retrieve some clothes, completely baffled and unable to come up with any response to that. He hoped you hadn’t been able to see the warmth he certainly felt in his face. He came back quickly with a towel over his shoulder and some clothes under his arm and pointed at you vehemently. “Now just sit down and quit with the damn whiskey. Don’t go anywhere.”

You saluted him and affected a serious face, resulting in him rolling his eyes at you again. But you left the whiskey bottle on the counter and took your glass of water into the living room with you. As you sunk down on the couch, you heard the shower turn on. You unwound the light scarf from around your neck and tossed it down carelessly. Daryl’s crossbow was sitting on the coffee table and you picked up one of the spare bolts from where it was laying on the table and spun it absently between your fingers. You collapsed back on the couch so you were laying out flat and stared up at the shapes of the shadows on the ceiling. They shifted a little as your vision seemed to spin. You planted a foot on the floor to ground yourself.

You knew it was stupid to get drunk… but sometimes you just wanted to try to forget.

That’s where Daryl found you when he came back out, now in his change of dry clothes. “Y/N?”

“Over here,” you said, still spinning his crossbow bolt between your fingers. He looked over the back of the couch at you, leaning on his forearms.

You smiled up at him, just a small one, but it sent his heart fluttering. He was always amazed that that smile was just for him.

“Well, I think I smell a bit less like pond now,” he drawled.

You leaned up on your elbow a little, ignoring the twinge in your ribs. You dramatically sniffed in his direction and he gave you a look. “Less pond,” you said. “For sure.”

Leaning up closed half the distance to Daryl as he looked down at you and you felt suddenly like the air was charged. Probably just the alcohol, you thought to yourself, gulping at the sudden lump in your throat.

Daryl felt it too and he suddenly couldn’t hold your gaze any longer, running away from the feeling. It was magnetic. But he told himself there was no possible way you were feeling the same thing and he straightened back up and just like that the electricity, the heaviness in the air evaporated.

You glanced down at his crossbow bolt in your hands with a fluttering in your chest. “Probably shouldn’t leave these lying around with a baby in the house, ya know,” you said, waggling the bolt at him.

“She ain’t crawling much yet. But yeah… you’re probably right.”

“It’s pretty amazing, isn’t it?” you said. Daryl gave you a questioning look, one eyebrow raised. “Judith.”

Daryl smiled and looked down at his hands on the back of the couch. “Ya. It is.” You liked the way his expression softened at the thought of her.

You strained to sit up straighter, an arm wrapping around your ribs. Daryl watched the tight expression of pain take your face over and then pass and he felt another hot flash of rage about what had been done to you outside the walls. And he had so many questions he wanted to ask you, so many worries… but you were so closed about it…

You spoke again, interrupting his thoughts. “You’re lucky. You have so many people, good people, and—they all obviously care about you. A lot.” Your voice was soft and Daryl finally looked up again and met your eyes with his. He felt a rush of nerves.

“Ya. Don’t make any damn sense, really,” he drawled.

“Makes perfect sense to me.”

Daryl felt those annoying butterflies flit to life in his stomach again. God, you hardly had to say anything, do anything for that to happen. What the hell was wrong with him? “Ya got people, too,” he said. “That care about ya.”

You let out a somewhat wry laugh. “I’ve got Aaron and Eric. Aaaand… that’s about it,” you said. You discarded his bolt back on the table.

“Nah. Ya got more than that.”

Daryl’s response drew your eyes back to his in surprise and you swore that his gaze was flitting between your eyes and your lips. Your lips parted slightly of their own accord. You felt suddenly breathless and the space between the two of you was charged again.

You gulped at the tightness in your throat suddenly and looked away, running scared. “I’m just—I’m not good at letting people in,” you whispered, not meaning it to come out so softly.

“And ya think I am?” Daryl laughed gruffly. “People have a way of gettin’ in anyway. If they want to.”

You were struggling to come up with something to say to that when the front door suddenly opened. Daryl straightened up and you let out a breath you didn’t realize you’d been holding. You suddenly remembered you weren’t the only two people in the world.

“Oh, good! Daryl, you’re—oh!” It was Carol. “I didn’t realize we had company!” Her voice had been much more relaxed, much lower when she first spoke, but her tone and face suddenly brightened when she realized you were there.

You climbed to your feet and gave her a tight smile. “I was just heading out actually. It’s late,” you said, shooting a glance over at Daryl. He rubbed a hand awkwardly over the back of his neck.

“Ya, alright. I’ll walk ya out,” he murmured. He could feel Carol watching the two of you all the way across the kitchen and up into the front hall.

You stopped in the entryway to turn and give him a small smile. “Thanks. For tonight,” you said quietly. He gave you a dumbfounded look.

“I didn’t do anything,” he murmured. “’Cept not kill ya after ya pushed me in the damn pond.”

You laughed at his confusion. “Yeah. You did.” You turned to leave but froze once again with your hand on the doorknob. “Oh—and you can tell Carol she can knock off the suburban sweetheart act with me, okay? I’m not buying it. I’ll see ya, Daryl. Goodnight.”

Daryl spun around to see Carol standing at the end of the hall, her eyes narrowed as she stared at the space you had just occupied. “Did ya hear—”

“Huh,” Carol interrupted. “Yeah. She’s the only person to figure that out so far.” She crossed her arms over her chest and nodded before looking back at the archer. “I like her.”

Daryl rolled his eyes. “Ya, she’s annoyingly observant. Rick tell ya she knew he was a cop immediately, too?”

“Well, sorry to interrupt your date,” she said with a small smile. “She didn’t have to leave just because I showed up.”

“Would ya quit?” he rasped gruffly. “Wasn’t a ‘date,’ alright? We’re just—” he shrugged and Carol raised her eyebrows at him knowingly.

“Wait—why is your hair all wet?” she asked, moving closer to Daryl.

He groaned and rolled his eyes again. “She fuckin’ pushed me into the damn pond,” he admitted in a low growl. Carol let out a loud guffaw.

“Oh, yeah. I definitely like her,” she said with a grin. “You should bring her around more often. Let everyone get to know her.”

Daryl rolled his eyes again and headed for the living room to collect his bow. “Quit tryin’a meddle, would ya?”

Carol laughed and tried to look affronted. “I haven’t done anything! God, you’re so sensitive,” she teased him. “What’s that?”

Daryl’s hand closed around your scarf, which you had discarded carelessly on the floor. “Y/N’s.”

“Little warm still for scarf weather isn’t it?” Carol asked, peering at it curiously.

“Ya. She was—she was wearin’ it because of the bruises on her neck. One of those assholes was—” he broke off as he remembered turning the corner and seeing the guy on top of you with his hands around your neck. He felt another hot flush of rage. “When we were outside the walls, one of ‘em was choking her. She’s got marks all around her neck. Probably didn’t want anyone else seein’ em.”

“God. I couldn’t see them in here. It’s too dark,” Carol muttered. “That’s horrible,” she said. Daryl nodded, feeling the soft fabric between his fingers.

“Mhm.” He gave one more nod to Carol. “G’night,” he said, heading immediately for his space in the basement, the scarf still dangling from his hand. He flopped down on his back on the bed, running the soft fabric between his fingers. His stomach was turning as he thought of you, that brilliant smile you gave up so rarely staying in his mind’s eye. He squeezed his eyes shut and chewed his bottom lip, trying to banish it. The hell were all these damn feelings? The archer finally let out a frustrated sigh and set your scarf down on his bedside table before putting out the flame of his lantern and rolling onto his side, chasing sleep.

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spencers-renaissance · 3 years

Text

a touch that never hurts

Summary: a rewrite of the Tobias Hankel aftermath, in which Spencer gets plenty of cuddles and physical affection from his father figure

Tags: aftermath of torture, hurt/comfort, platonic cuddling, whump, protective hotch, dad hotch, fluff, angst TW: brief mention of the non-con drug use that occurs in the Hankel arc, as well as the physical torture Spencer underwent

Pairing: Aaron Hotchner & Spencer Reid; Platonic

Word Count: 1.7k

Masterlist // Read on AO3

Happy bonus fic Thursday :) I wrote this because I noticed how gentle and kind Hotch always is to the victims he rescues, and I was in the mood for some good, mushy Dad Hotch fluff. Title from Charles Dickens' Hard Times: "Have a heart that never hardens, and a temper that never tires, and a touch that never hurts."

When Spencer Reid falls into Aaron Hotchner’s arms — his feet whipped and bleeding, his veins throbbing with dilaudid, his body bruised and aching — he decides that he never wants to let go.

He’s spent countless hours at the mercy of three different personalities, only one of them even close to resembling something kind, and all he could think while he was tied up in that chair was how much he ached to be held and comforted by the man he trusts most in this world.

So when Hotch saves him — and he does; he sent that message directly to him and it was heard loud and clear — he can’t help that he breaks down, that he cries into his shoulder in front of the entire rescue party, that he falls apart in the most painful way possible, until he’s not sure he can ever be put back together again. But when Hotch speaks soothingly into his ear, caressing his hair with the gentle touch of a father, he thinks that maybe he can be. Maybe he’ll somehow make it out of this in one piece.

He’s driven promptly to the hospital, of course. He’d anticipated an ambulance, but apparently it’s harder than you’d think to get an ambulance to a crime scene at 3am with absolutely no notice in deep, rural Georgia.

Derek drives, eyeing him anxiously in the rearview mirror, and Spencer sits glued to Hotch, refusing to be separated from him for even a second. He considers vaguely that he should probably be embarrassed of that fact, but he can’t find the energy. Not when Hotch is sitting just as closely; seemingly matching his need to be comforted with his own need to protect.

“It’s gonna be okay, Spencer,” Hotch murmurs, a little too quiet for Derek to hear over the noise of the car engine. “I promise.”

Spencer doesn’t say anything. He’s not entirely sure he believes him. Instead, he just burrows closer into Hotch and hides his face from the soft illumination of passing car lights and the sporadic street lights of rural Georgian roads.

He accepts the wheelchair Derek runs in to grab from the hospital because his feet are suddenly screaming in agony. When he’d had to stumble through the graveyard behind Tobias Hankel’s cabin, the adrenaline had prevented him from feeling the true extent of his injuries, but now, with the adrenaline seeping out of him like a river through a broken dam, he can feel every single fractured bone, bruised patch of skin, abused and broken tendon.

Panic immediately arises when he sits down in the chair, though. All of a sudden, he doesn’t have that connection he’s had to Hotch since he was rescued, and he’s almost instantly on the verge of hyperventilation until Hotch crouches down in front of him.

“Hey, Spence,” he says gently, patient and soothing in a way the team doesn’t often get to see. “I’m right here, okay? I’m not going anywhere. How about I hold your hand?”

Spencer nods, and Hotch smiles at him encouragingly before giving the nod for Derek to push the chair towards the Emergency entrance. Hotch’s hand clutches tightly at Spencer’s, and he squeezes his eyes closed against the panic, against the memories, against the fear of what’s to come, and focuses all his energy on the firm, unwavering connection he has to Hotch.

It makes the minutes that it takes them to cross the parking lot bearable, and he’s grateful for that much.

As soon as Hotch explains the situation to the ER doctor that greets them at the door, Spencer is rushed into an examination room.

“I’ll wait outside, Spence,” Derek promises. “I’ll be right here.”

Hotch doesn’t let go of his hand.

They examine his feet first, using a portable x-ray machine to find three broken bones overall. Spencer cries when he hears that. Knowing they’re broken doesn’t change how much they hurt or how scary the situation feels, but it is a tangible acknowledgement of the torture he’s just been put through, and he thinks that that’s probably enough to make most people cry.

“It’s alright, Spencer,” Hotch soothes him, laying his palm on his forehead and smoothing it over his hair gently, slowly. “I’m right here. The doctors are going to help you out.”

“The good news is that most of the fractures are fairly minor,” the doctor explains. “You’ll need a cast for your right foot since the damage to the metatarsal bones is much more significant, but most of the damage overall appears to be torn tendons and bruised muscles, which means plenty of rest and a simple brace or boot on the left foot should do the trick.”

She smiles encouragingly at him, but he barely reacts. He’s so tired. It feels like he’s not even in the room; the only tether to reality being the soothing hand in his hair and the occasional whispers of support.

They treat his feet before sending him off to a CT scanner to check that the rest of his injuries are minor enough to heal on their own, and rule out internal bleeding. Spencer cries the whole twenty two minutes, because this time Hotch can’t hold his hand. He’s stuck watching through the observation window, trying not to cry himself as he listens to Spencer’s sobs over the intercom.

Thankfully, he manages to stay still enough to ensure clear enough images of his body to confirm that rest and pain medication should take care of the rest of his injuries.

A specialist comes round to talk to him about withdrawal. He’s been moved to a room on the assessment ward, which is at least a little more comfortable than the bay in the Emergency Room, but it still feels foreign and frightening, and he’s had quite enough of that in the last few days, thank you very much. At least Derek’s been allowed to join them now. He feels safer with both of them as close to him as humanly possible.

“The good news,” the doctor starts — and God, Spencer wishes they would stop associating any of this with the word ‘good’ — “is that you haven’t taken enough doses to become truly dependent on the drug, which should make your withdrawal easier. I’m prescribing buprenorphine, clonidine, acetaminophen, and ondansetron, which when combined, should make your symptoms significantly more bearable. We do advise that you stay with somebody—”

“He’ll be staying with me,” Hotch interrupts firmly, both of his hands clasped warmly around Spencer’s as he eyes the doctor with an unwavering gaze.

“Well, that’s perfect, then,” the doctor says cheerily. It feels grossly misplaced. “You’ll need to prepare for the coming symptoms and ensure that he has no way to get his hands on more dilaudid.”

Spencer resents the doctor for saying that. He has no desire to inject more of that poison into his veins: it might have been a pleasant distraction when he was being whipped and beaten and forced to choose someone to die, but now that he’s back with his family, now that he’s safe, the last thing he wants is to keep reminding himself of that god-awful man in that god-awful cabin.

He doesn’t say anything, though. He just closes his eyes to try and smother the turbulent emotions threatening to show on his face.

“That won’t be a problem,” Hotch confirms.

They wait for an hour in relative silence, Spencer enjoying the solace of a safe, quiet room with the people he considers protectors both holding his hands and soothing him when panic threatens to overwhelm him, before the discharge doctor comes round. She checks him over one last time, before helping him into a wheelchair, handing him his medication, and wheeling him towards the entrance.

Derek goes ahead once they reach the airstrip where everybody’s been waiting to go home and herds them onto the jet first to give Spencer some privacy going up the stairs.

“Are you okay for me to carry you?” Hotch asks as he climbs out of the car first, speaking gently as he has done since he rescued him.

Spencer nods. Of course he is. It means he’s even closer to Hotch.

Hotch carries him the short distance between the parked jeep and the jet before ascending the stairs as carefully as possible, making sure Spencer’s feet don’t so much as brush the railing. He sets him down on the sofa, but Spencer clings to his hand, looking at him desperately as he tries to get him to understand what he needs. Thankfully, he’s obvious enough that Hotch simply smiles and sits down on the sofa with him.

They get settled in a horizontal position, Spencer resting his head on Hotch’s chest as he revels in the feeling of safety that having both of his arms wrapped around him provides. A gentle hand finds its way to Spencer’s hair again, and he closes his eyes against the relaxing feeling, exhaustion finally catching up to him.

He vaguely hears some quiet laughter in the background, and he’s been with the team long enough to predict the raised eyebrows and teasing expressions on their faces.

“You’ve gone soft,” Derek accuses warmly, making sure to keep his voice down, and the others chuckle in agreement.

“Wait until Penelope hears about this,” JJ teases quietly.

Hotch laughs, and Spencer feels the pleasant vibrations against his cheek. It makes him feel even warmer inside than he did before. “You wouldn’t dare.” Spencer imagines the smile on his face and burrows closer to him.

“It’s a good thing, Hotch,” Emily chimes in, her voice bright and easy. Spencer really likes her. “It’s nice to see this side of you.”

“Well, you’d better savour the moment because it won’t happen again.”

He must feel Spencer’s panicked tensing, the way his muscles go rigid and his breath hitches, because he rushes to add, “unless Spencer needs it of course.” His hands resume their gentle caresses of his back.

“I’d do anything if Spencer needed it,” he murmurs, and the team might hear, but the words aren’t for them.

Spencer hears them loud and clear, and somehow — when he thought only hours ago that he might never be put back together — he falls asleep feeling calm and safe, with a small, hopeful little smile on his face.

taglist: @criminalmindsvibez @suburban--gothic @strippersenseii @takeyourleap-of-faith @negativefouriq @makaylajadewrites @iamrenstark @hotchseyebrows @temily @enbyspencer @reidology @spencerspecifics @bau-gremlin @tobias-hankel @hotchscotchh @oliverbrnch @physics-magic @sbeno22 @im-autistic @anxious-enby @kuolonsyoja @reidreids @cmily @notevanbuckley (add yourself to my taglist here!)

#my writing #criminal minds #aaron hotchner #spencer reid #cm #criminal minds fic #criminal minds fanfic #criminal minds fanfiction #dad hotch #criminal minds gen fic #aaron hotchner & spencer reid

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sallysoot · 3 years

Text

↱ IT’S A CONVERSATION. ↲

in the drift, the two of you are made equal.

[ pairing ; (pacific rim AU) philza x reader ] [ stats & warnings ; 3.3k, second person, general angstiness warnings apply + some descriptive-ish kaiju death! ] [ notes ; this one’s pure self-indulgence, but i SUPER wanted to write it regardless. i tried to make it pretty easy to understand whether you’ve seen pacific rim or not, though i don’t know if i succeeded. OTL also i cannot write action at all don’t come for me with the kwoon combat scene 😭 ]

if your mind has ever shown you kindness, its most gracious act is when it buried the memories of the day the kaiju crawled from the depths of the ocean and laid waste to your hometown. only a child, then, you were much too young to understand that the earth shaking beneath your feet was the same rumble of impending doom that had sunk californian cities and crushed lives in its rubble. when you hear others speak of that day, it sounds to you like a simple fairytale with its terrible, grim ending left intact. hastily written history calls it abedus. those that mock your personal disaster with comedy on live television call it toe-biter. you wonder what you had called it, in those memories that your psyche keeps locked away.

you think it might have been monster.

an overfed orphanage replaced your childhood home, when help finally dragged you from your hiding place in the aftermath. the dark fog around your recollection subsides when you think of those times, with little to eat and the ever-present sound of children crying for parents that, for the first time in their short lives, never came back. a girl in her late teens had seen you, shellshocked and unresponsive, and took it upon herself to be the first one to care about you. her heart ached for the loss she shared in kind with you; something that your own heart could yet to bear the worst of. her name was benji, and she told stories as expertly woven as handmade tapestry. benji had promised you that when she left the orphanage, it would be to enlist in the jaeger academy. she even swore on her life that she would become a pilot to fight humanity’s latest foe.

‘the kaiju will never hurt you again, okay? if any of them try, i’ll beat them up! they’d never get through me.’ she’d say, pretending to throw a punch at the air. you laughed, back then, at her pretending you were a kaiju and tickling you to death to demonstrate just how easily she’d emerge victorious. in your heart, though, you had hoped she’d never walk that path. the media made it seem glamorous, treating jaeger pilots like celebrities. but even as young as you were, you knew better than to think of it so casually.

your silent prayers that benji would never graduate went unanswered, in the end. you saw her do it all, through the lens of the tv in the orphanage’s common room: graduate, fight, win, do interviews, become famous, promise to protect the people of the earth.

then, in the end, you watched her die a death so horrible that there was nothing to recover or bury. her partner was dragged up from the ocean in mangled pieces, but they still had enough of him for a funeral, you heard. their jaeger, adder paladin, is laid to rest in its own graveyard, too. more people seem to mourn the mech than they do its pilots; you resent them for that.

only months later, you outgrew the orphanage, too. benji’s optimism had taken her down a path with an untimely end, and you never shared the same blind faith she did. instead, you had resigned yourself to this: if it is inevitable that the kaiju will wipe out humankind, someday, you’d far rather meet your own demise fighting than face it hidden away in a bunker with a hundred terrified strangers.

so you ghost through the jaeger academy. for four years, you are a specter taking tests and doing drills without leaving a trace of your presence behind. your scores speak for themselves when you refuse to; those numbers that summarize precious years of your life are what place you on a list of partner candidates for a man that you had thought much too legendary to be real, until you see him standing before you.

phil zagami, notorious first for his victory streak and second for his vanishing act on the day it ended, stares straight through you. through everyone, really. his demeanor is heavy, its weight leaning into you as another candidate steps forward to challenge him. the last one before you, you realize. phil’s disinterest is palpable. he steps back, showing a respectful bow to his opponent— just a split second before he sweeps his staff under her leg on the first strike, sending her to the floor with a startled gasp. the time is called out from across the room. two point four seconds, and her chance had ended.

as she collects herself and leaves the mat, phil looks to you. this time, he sets his gaze upon you instead of looking beyond. his winter-blue eyes pierce holes into yours; they invite you silently forward. so you move, gripping your staff in clammy palms and letting your feet sink into the mat. phil bows to you, so you return that respect to him.

“let’s talk,” he says, a hint of light melting through the ice of his stare.

a cold chill runs through your right shoulder, down to your fingertips. wide-eyed, you narrowly dodge phil’s first strike on that side. electric currents spark under your skin, guiding your foot forward to swing for his hip. he blocks you, turning on his heel to hook his foot under your knee while that foot is lifted. you lurch to that side in an attempt to force your balance. when you manage it, somehow, you swing the staff down, over his head. he clutches his own in both hands, blocking the attack with a wooden clack.

feeling the path of his next move, you block his return towards your chest. when you step forward, he steps back; you, to the side, him, to the side with you, circling the mat.

it’s a dance, percussion kept in time with every breath and resounding noise of colliding weapons. the weight of his presence becomes light. his grim expression shifts into a smile and you think you might be smiling, too. phil catches you off balance on the next turn of your waltzing, catching the crook of your knee on his staff and jerking backwards.

your back hits the floor, the wind leaving your body with it. as you lie on the floor, trying to catch your breath, phil stands over you. his chest rises and falls in time with your own. perfectly in sync, like co-pilots should be. he leans forward with his hand outstretched. you take it, letting him pull you up from the ground. when you’re upright again, he doesn’t let go right away; instead, he raises your joined hands to the air.

the once-hopeful candidates watching your ‘conversation’ offer their support, clapping and cheering for you both. for the first time in a long time, you don’t feel like a ghost. phil saw you, when you danced, in a way no one has before him. you wonder if this is how benji felt, the moment that she and marley had chosen each other.

phil chose you. so you choose him, too, then and there.

with your first dialogue over, you move swiftly to the second, that night at dinner. the chatter of the room goes quiet as you focus on him, listening to his voice like it’s the only thing that matters.

“where did you go when you retired?” you ask, curiosity taking its hold.

“i’d hardly call that retiring. i didn’t get a 401k or anything,” phil replies with a little shrug.

“okay, not retired... left, then?”

phil looks away, suddenly finding the contents of his plate much more interesting than you. “you’ll find out, won’t you?”

“what do you mean?”

“when we drift,” he says. “you’ll know everything, then.”

realization washes over you. you’d almost forgotten that your designation as co-pilots is far from over. you shudder to think of him trawling through your memories, seeing every embarrassing moment and failure you’ve ever lived through. you know that it’s a necessity, in order to sync your minds to one another and the jaeger, but you wish it could be any other way. “right...” you murmur.

“don’t go getting all reluctant on me, now. it’s not as bad as you think.” phil pushes the rice on his plate around for a moment and takes in your palpable uneasiness. “the psychologists that made the whole thing say that the ‘modesty reflex’ is one of the main reasons people aren’t able to drift. they panic and hide things, so it fails. we could get it out of the way now, if you want.”

“uhhh-” you raise a hand, shaking your head in panic.

“here, i’ll go first,” phil proposes. he doesn’t gve you the chance to interject before continuing, “when i was a recruit, i had this one picture from a magazine of megan fox. i liked it. i mean i really liked it, so-”

“ew! okay, okay, no, i’ll just wait for the drift to get a load of that image, thanks.” you try to sound a bit serious, but it’s all for show and you start giggling. when phil laughs, too, your suppressed laughter gets loud until you’re cackling in the corner of the table with him. your sides feel like they might split, and it isn’t until someone from another table exclaims ‘shut up!’ that you quiet down. when phil looks at you a split second later, though, you get carried away all over again.

that night, after practically getting heckled out of the cafeteria, you stare up at the ceiling and wonder how the drift will go, when the time comes. the next few weeks pass in a hurry; fourteen-hour training sessions in the combat room leave you tired but nonetheless fulfilled, and your skills become rounded out with the help of phil’s experience. soon, perhaps too soon, the time comes to drift with him.

phil tries to keep your spirits high with laughter and reassurance, but he can’t hide the unease in his own form, either. he looks different, in the drivesuit; he looks like the man that you saw on tv, the one that took on impossible odds and won. there’s that hollowness to his face,though, that makes him recognizeable to you, as your friend and co-pilot.

you’ve never truly set foot in a jaeger before now, and its sheer scale becomes all the more apparent as you’re brought to stand in the cockpit with him. phil looks to you as the suits connect, locking you in to the fate that you’ve chosen. “they told you already,” he says, “but don’t chase the RABIT. they’re just memories, alright? don’t linger on any of them, no matter how real they feel.”

“...i don’t remember things that happened, when i was young. will you see them?” you ask. “will i?”

“yes, i’ll see them. do you want me to tell you what i saw, when we’re done?”

“no, i... don’t want to know,” you decide, settling back and taking in a deep breath. some things are better left forgotten. you close your eyes and wait for the drift to begin.

the robotic, tinny voice overhead tells you: neural handshake initiated. all at once, you’re dragged through what feels like a pane of glass, thrust into a shattering field of blue over your vision. you see yourself, young and untouched by the cruelty of the years ahead, laughing on a swingset with once-familiar hands pushing you forward. it goes blank, dark, until you re-emerge on the other side in the orphanage with benji. you see yourself stutter over a presentation in your second year of high school, and the time your first date stood you up. you see your failures laid out so plain and simple that it stings. all at once, those are overtaken by the crushing weight of watching the last news report about benji that ever ran. your memories play out like cinema, taking phil with you through each set of grief and embarrassment and every ‘first’ you remember living through. every time you want to hide, you force yourself to keep the wall down; you want this. you want to be a jaeger pilot with phil and continue the legacy that was promised to you.

the kaiju will never hurt you again, okay?

the memory passes by, too, but you wish you could cling to it. you want to live in that time again, when there was only you and the promise of a future that was too distant to think of as reality just yet. when you leave this place, for the first battle that you will take on, will you be afraid? will phil be afraid, with you?

just before your side of the neural load stabilizes, phil sees a memory of only weeks ago, of you reading through old articles about him and the battles he’d won. you nearly try to block him out of it at the moment you see yourself go red, flustered by the thought of him. of all the embarrassing things, you dread to think that had to be among them. even so, you let him walk through it, and for the first time, you have been seen. so truly and deeply that every vulnerability is exposed, handed over to him with faith that he won’t exploit it. your trust belongs to him alone. so much that parts of yourself invisible even to you have been handed over to him to keep safe; even the hours upon hours spent training with him couldn’t have prepared you for being flayed open with your heart rendered bare.

so when phil lets you in, you think you’re ready to be shown the very same thing. his childhood is warm, and the gentle comfort of it doesn’t subside until later than in your own. you watch a kaiju tear up the seaside town he’d called home. the ground splits apart with all the struggle of eggshells underfoot, and his mother is swallowed by the earth seconds after she pushes him away from her. you see him try to reach for her into the darkness of the pit, knelt by the edge and calling down to her in a voice shattered by overuse. he turns to look at the ocean when great calamity stirs up even more noise; a jaeger you don’t recognize rushes the kaiju, wrestling it beneath the surface of the water. its hands go violet-hot as it grips the head of the kaiju, squeezing and squeezing while the thing screeches, writhes, until its skull bursts open. toxic blood and brain matter sizzle away on the hands of the victor while phil watches in silent awe of the power before him.

he lives with his grandparents, always thinking of the pilots that had saved the survivors of the wreckage, until he enrolls in the same academy you had attended. you see him surpass his classmates, until he graduates with incredible honors and goes straight to combat with his co-pilot: a pretty woman with silvery-white hair. you see the two of them get married a year later, then have a son a little after that. when she dies of sepsis in the aftermath, your heart aches to watch him raise the boy alone. even so, you feel the adoration in every moment they spend together. you watch him grow up and follow proudly in the path of his father.

wilbur becomes a pilot with an ego and the skill to back it up. he’s quick-thinking, showing the effects of his training since youth. he and phil become co-pilots, taking on battle after battle and coming away with glory. there’s a crack of thunder that marks the change in memory; you’re inside of the jaeger with them, now, and there’s flashing lights and flying sparks that tell you everything has gone wrong. with a horrible screeching sound, a long spike spears through the cockpit.

and through wilbur. he chokes and gasps for air while phil shouts at him, watching the lifeblood pool at his feet. he’s in agony unspeakable, but you can hear it in his voice when he begs, “dad, it hurts- fuck just kill me!”

so he does, sobbing as he takes a loose-hanging tube from the ceiling and slips it under wilbur’s helmet. your confusion turns to dreadful understanding; toxic gas will kill him even faster than bleeding out, it will make his passage less painful.

phil pilots the jaeger alone, in piercing agony as he shares the burden of wilbur’s death with him, feeling all the pain and terror until it goes dark. the neural link is severed, there’s a complete void and emptiness where it should be. he’s not been truly alone for so long. he finishes off the kaiju in a furious twist around its neck. the beast dies, and phil nearly goes with it; the neural load is too much for one person, after all.

he has a stroke the very moment he crashes upon the shore. it leaves him weak and useless for months. you feel his rage and frustration, trapped in his own mind and unable to speak. his body recovers, he regains his full capability in what doctors call a miracle. though his body heals, his heart does not, and the anger makes him a vicious man until they ask him to pilot again. he doesn’t want to lose another co-pilot, you hear in his protests; they eventually die out as he finds that he hates kaiju more than he fears another loss.

memories of the past months flicker by easily, until his side is stabilized, too. it feels as though you’ve lived through years, yet you know it’s been only moments. synced with one another and the machine, you think to reach a hand out and phil does it with you. you can feel the weight and power you’re controlling with every move, even as you turn your hand upright and give a thumbs up. phil looks to you with a wide smile. you feel his excitement and his exhaustion like it’s your own-- and it’s exhilerating to be one with another person.

when the test is over and you’re released from the jaeger, you stumble giddily down the platform next to phil. “amazing,” you breathe, nudging your shoulder up against his. “you’re amazing. everything you did was.”

phil shrugs, but you see him trying not to smile. “all of it was what i had to do,” he replies.

you hesitate a little before slipping your hand into his, interlocking your fingers. “okay, mr. humble. would you rather i focus on the megan fox thing, then?”

he laughs and rolls his eyes. “no, no, i’m good.” phil turns to you as he pauses on the platform, squeezing your hand. his expression goes a bit somber as he says, “we’ve both lost a lot, already. but i don’t want to lose you next. so when we go out there, for real... don’t be stupid. or overconfident, or whatever.”

seeing the time for jesting is over, you nod. “i won’t.” you lean back against the wall and he follows, heaving a sigh as he does. “we’re in this together. we’ll win, together.”

phil lets go of your hand to hug you, instead, pulling you close. “and losing?” he murmurs.

you rest your head against him, arms wrapping just as tight around him. “that, too. together, from now until the end.”

he rubs the small of your back with his palm outstretched. “you’re supposed to say we won’t lose.”

“fine, then. we won’t lose,” you concede. it feels as though you’ve known each other for far longer than a number of weeks; more like a lifetime, after having seen each other’s. you tip your head to look at him and see that he’s already looking at you, and the two of you move in sync even without the aid of the drift. phil runs his fingers along your jaw, leaning down to kiss you.

it’s a dance, too.

#mcyt x reader #philza x reader #mcyt fanfiction #reader insert #sally writings

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thephantomessoftheopera · 3 years

Text

Notes on Gaston Leroux’ “The Phantom of the Opera” - Chapter 6: “The Enchanted Violin”

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Artwork by @coatntails on deviantart

“The Enchanted Violin” introduces us to the childhood friendship of Raoul and Christine - but first, we learn that Christine did not continue to triumph at the Opera, but only sang once more in society at the invitation of the Duchess of Zurich and, after that, cancelled everything including a charity concert. She was apparently terrified by her triumph during the gala night, and didn’t “recognize herself” anymore when she sings. Before, she was emotionally distant and indifferent because she had shut everything out so she could cope with the grief of her father’s death. The amount of passion and feeling that Erik’s lessons had to rekindle in her must have felt terrifying and perhaps even painful to her. Plus, baring your heart and soul on stage like she did is, by itself, something that can indeed feel terrifying! In this chapter, we learn that Raoul has indeed been watching her performances at the Opera for some time, but also felt that she seemed indifferent to everything and everyone - until her soul finally came alive again with her gala night performance.

Philippe de Chagny has even tried to further her career with the managers to please his little brother, but Christine does not wish for him to do so. Raoul tries to seek her out, but without success. One morning though, Raoul receives a letter from Christine, assuring him that she has not forgotten the “little boy who fetched her scarf from the sea”, and informing him that she will be going to Perros-Guirec to visit her father’s grave on the anniversary of his death. Perros-Guirec is a seaside village in Brittany, quite far from Paris.

Raoul doesn’t lose time and rushes to the Montparnasse station to follow her, but fails to catch the morning train and has to wait all day for the night train (Raoul tends to have a bit of bad luck following him around).

This chapter also gives us a short biography of Christine Daaé. In the novel - contrary to the musical - she is described as blonde and blue-eyed, slender and somewhat short-sighted, which would presumably give her a bit of a dreamy, unfocused expression if nobody hands her a pair of glasses (I guess Erik wouldn’t mind her short-sightedness either!). She was born in the village of Skotelof near Uppsala in Sweden. Her father (who does not have a name in the novel) sang in the church choir and taught Christine to read music before she could read books. He also had a well-known reputation as the best violinist in Scandinavia, and was often requested to play at social gatherings. Christine’s mother died when she was 6 years old, and her father became a travelling musician and took Christine around the country. They were discovered by Professor Valerius and taken to Götheburg, where Christine received her training. His wife, Mama Valerius, treated Christine like a daughter. When the Valerius family moved to France, Christine and her father accompanied them. Papa Daaé did not adjust well to life in Paris though, and often found solace in his music only, locking himself in his room for hours at a time. The only time of the year he enjoyed was their yearly trip to the seaside town of Perros-Guirec, because the ocean reminded him of his native Sweden. Missing his nomadic lifestyle, he decided to once again to spend some time every year as a travelling musician with Christine - which is how Christine came to meet Raoul, who was then staying with his aunt - the one that kindled his love for the sea. Raoul heard Christine sing and was so utterly captivated by her angel’s voice that he started following her around with his governess. One day, at the bay of Trestraou, the wind was so strong that it blew Christine’s scarf into the sea, and Raoul ran after it fully clothed and rescued it. They became friends that summer and played together often, and Christine’s father also gave him some violin lessons.

Bay of Trestraou, where Raoul rescued Christine’s scarf from the sea (image from france-voyage.com)

Both Raoul and Christine loved listening to ancient tales and legends, especially the ones that Papa Daaé told them. Among those stories is the famous “Little Lotte”, who loved listening to the Angel of Music while she fell asleep. It’s a little funny that while they listen to the story, all Raoul does is look at Christine’s golden hair and blue eyes, imagining her as “Little Lotte”, and Christine’s thoughts are focused on how lucky Little Lotte was to hear the Angel of Music. So Raoul dreams about Christine while Christine dreams about the Angel of Music, which kind of foreshadows the setup of the love triangle in the novel.

To be honest, I can’t really blame Christine for thinking she was indeed hearing the Angel of Music in her dressing-room, since the description given fits Erik perfectly:

“No one ever saw him, but he made himself heard to those predestined to hear him. It often happened when they least expected it, when they were sad and disheartened. Then they suddenly heard heavenly harmonies and a divine voice, and they would remember it all their lives. People visited by the angel were left with a kind of flame burning inside them.”

I guess her father couldn’t really find the Angel of Music in heaven, so he sent her the next best thing that was available… Erik might not have been a heavenly angel, but the effect he had on her amounted to the same that is attributed to the Angel of Music in her father’s stories.

After their parting following the first summer that they spent together, Christine and Raoul saw each other again three years later, when they were “no longer children” - perhaps 13 to 14 years old, which would put their first meeting at about age 10 to 11. Professor Valerius has died in the meantime, and Christine’s father has started suffering from a cough. Raoul and Christine’s meeting is a little awkward this time - both seem to be developing tender feelings for each other, but are also very reserved. Their current relationship has now outgrown the sweet and carefree friendship of childhood. Raoul is quite infatuated with her, but he is also badly affected by his jealousy plus the unresolved issue of a peasant girl like Christine not being a suitable choice as a wife for a Viscount - and Christine being acutely aware of that. So yes - it’s complicated between those two. Afterwards, she tries to forget him and dedicate herself to her career instead. But when her father finally dies, her soul and her voice die with him, and even though her talent is still enough to gain entry into the Paris Conservatory, she cannot not bring any more enthusiasm to her studies, and just goes through the motions to please Mama Valerius.

Christine apparently travelled to Perros by herself, staying at the “Auberge du Soleil Couchant”. Raoul is looking forward to speaking to her alone without interference. Despite having sailed around the world, Leroux describes Raoul as “pure as a virgin” and overwhelmed by his love for Christine, who occupies his every thought - in fact, Raoul seems to obsess over things a lot in the novel, not just about Christine. When he finally meets her as she returns from mass, he jumps straight to the point and tells her that he loves her and cannot live without her - which is unfortunately not “what she wanted to hear”. Their conversation goes totally wrong and as his jealous temper gets the better of him, he behaves terribly and they get into a fight (over Erik, of course) to the point where she runs off and locks herself in her room.

Raoul, saddened by the way his meeting with Christine turned out, wanders off towards the graveyard to pray for Christine’s father, and finally sits down, looking out over the moor where he and Christine used to look for goblins when they were children. He never saw any, while Christine always saw lots despite her lack of proper eyesight - which shows that despite both of them being described as “dreamy”, Christine’s imagination is a lot more lively than Raoul’s. She finally comes out to make another try of confiding the secret of the Angel of Music who speaks to her to Raoul, but when she feels he doesn’t take her seriously and questions her virtue, she storms off again, truly angry this time and refusing to come down for dinner.

At night, about 11:30 pm, she finally sneaks out to visit her father’s grave at the Perros graveyard and meet the “Angel of Music” (aka Erik) there. This is obviously the scene which inspired “Wishing you were somehow here again”, though the original context is a little bit different. Raoul climbs out the window and follows her to the graveyard. Raoul’s account of the graveyard scene is given via a transcript of Raoul’s testimony to Commissary Mifroid a few weeks later, after Christine’s abduction. The use of this “source” is one of the things that have given rise to the theory that this is a “detective novel”, however Leroux uses it more like a historian would use a source - it’s just one of different documents that he uses (or claims to use) to prove that his story is indeed true.

Christine doesn’t notice Raoul following her. Her rendez-vous with the Angel of Music is supposedly taking place at exactly midnight at her father’s grave, so Christine is in a bit of a hurry to get there in time. It is still winter, so the graves are covered in snow and lit by the clear moonlight. Christine, who apparently has nerves of steel since she has no qualms about going to graveyards at midnight and then sitting down calmly next to a pile of actual skulls and bones, kneels down to pray when divinely beautiful violin music is suddenly heard, but no player is seen anywhere. The sounds of the piece, the “Resurrection of Lazarus” are so enthralling that Raoul himself is reminded of the legend of the Angel of Music.

When the music finally ceases, Raoul hears a sound from the pile of bones, and assumes that the invisible musician might be hiding there. Christine leaves, and suddenly the skulls start rolling towards Raoul, and he sees a shadow enter the church. He chases after him and manages to grab his cloak, and when the shadow turns around, he sees a terrifying death’s-head with burning eyes which shocks him so much that he faints. I assume that Erik was not wearing a mask here, and that his unmasked face was weapon enough to take Raoul out without any further need for fireballs or swordfights.

The next morning, Raoul is found half-frozen in the little church, and Christine and the landlady of the Inn both take care to revive him.

Historic images of Perros-Guirec from phantomstheater.weebly.com

Artwork by CoatNTails on deviantart

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#lerouxreadingguide #phantom of the opera #poto #leroux phantom #gaston leroux #erik the phantom #the phantom of the opera #erik x christine #christine daae #raoul de chagny #leroux

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idontmeantosoundrudebut · 3 years

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From what I’ve heard, Zoro has yet to say Sanji’s name. And when he does, it has to be a big deal, like a scene that makes the reader/viewer gasp, makes them suffer from shellshock, makes every Zosan Shipper lose. their. god. damn. mind

Here are two examples that I have cooked up, please feel free to add you own hah lol bruh -

-- N . 1 --

An epic battle is at its climax. The foe is awfully strong and Zoro is losing, god, he’s dying. He’s hurt and bleeding and fucking dying but he doesn’t stop, he can’t, wouldn’t even if he wanted to. Everything he loves is at stake. He can’t lose. But he can’t win. It’s like Kuma all over again, but Kuma had the decency to take his offer, take his head, take his life, in exchange for Luffy’s. This foe is not human, nor are they a beast. Even animals know mercy.

The other’s are not here, except Curly. They bickered for a time, but Zoro made it clear that this was his fight and no one else’s. The cook understands and only watches from a safe distance, unseen by the enemy. Fuck, it is Thriller Bark all over again. Zoro promised the crew that he’d kill their foe, swore it, and they trust him, they believe him. He’s going to lose and he’s going to die and his dream, Kuina’s dream, will die and he promised them, promised her. Everything is breaking from his bones to his dreams to his promises.

Zoro is kneeling in soil damp from his blood. He’s dripping it, fuck, he’s choking on it. He feels the broken bones in his left arm grate against each as he tries to lift Enma but the weight, the pain, is too much. He drops her to the wet dirt. His teeth are cracked, tight around Wado, he feels a few of them move loosely. Everything hurts. Moving, breathing, living hurts. Kuma had been kinder.

The foe looms over him like a mountain, a God, a thing. Their weapon is high in the air and they grin with victory in their lusting eyes.

He can’t move.

Zoro, for the first time perhaps ever, is full of terror. He is so afraid tears flood his eye and his busted lips wobble and Wado falls from his quivering mouth, his whimpering and keening and bleeding mouth. His heart screams in his chest. He has never been afraid to die before, dying is easy.

But he doesn’t want to die like this, not like this. He’s going to die a failure who is hurt and afraid and alone-

Cook. Curly. Dart-brow. Pervert. Blondie. Shit-cook. Moron. Noodle-

“SANJI!”

It’s a scream that is wet with blood and fear and desperation. He hasn’t screamed since Kuma. It echoes into the sky, a prayer. It tears his throat and the blood from his mouth mixes with the tears and the snot. God, help me. Sanji, help me.

Sanji saves him, all fire and black legs and cigarette smoke. And Zoro watches, still trembling from agony and terror because he's still afraid. Sanji will die and it was Zoro who called him, begged him, to his grave. But then its quiet and there's a corpse too big to be Sanji’s lying on the ground, sautéed and tenderized.

A gold eye and a blue eye meet.

“We’re alive, Zoro,”

Zoro grunts, nods, then passes out.

-- N . 2 ---

Zoro is tired. All of them are. But that Cook, stupid Baka-cook, looks dead. It’s been a hard few days. Three days ago they’d gone through something that was similar to fighting Thriller Bark and Arlong Park and Water 7 and every other shit thing within the span of 24 hours. Curly suffered the most, physically and mentally, that shit-cook suffered bad. The other’s are knocked out on the gentle grass on Sunny’s deck, wounds bandaged and sleep dreamless. Though the cook is bandaged, his sleep hasn’t been dreamless. Zoro has heard him at night, a whispered name, begging not to die and a symphony of unintelligible agonized sounds. It was awful what happened, it was awful to see the cook beg a dead person to wake up.

Dart-board is in his kitchen, his home, his solace. Zoro stands in the doorway, arm in a sling and torso gauzed up. Cook is, well, cooking. But he shouldn’t be. Chopper prescribed a high dose of medication that needs to be partnered with bed rest, not zipping around making some sort of stew. Zipping, more like limping. Ero-cook should be on crutches for his injured legs, muscles and bones strained from the damn-near fatal battle they fought in. He’s got burns on his calves too. Chopper has cried and begged and that noodle fuck tells him he can’t cook properly if he’s on the crutches. Stubborn and cruel and stupid.

Zoro should shout at him, order him and fight with him till he goes to bed or uses those damn crutches but he’s too fucking tired, too fucking hurt. Plus, despite probably being tired like hell, the last thing the cook wants to do is sleep. Sleep means nightmares, memories. So, Zoro watches over his back.

His hands must of been shaking too much from the medication. The knife slips as he pulls it from it’s sheath and there is a splash of blood and a panicked yell. Zoro is there instantly, grabbing hold of his injured hand. Its a deep, neat gash going across his palm. Blood pours like red water. Zoro looks at Cook’s face and his blue eye is dilatated and darting around wildly, fucking Hell, he’s barely lucid on all these fucking pain meds. He’s cooking on auto pilot. The shadows beneath his eyes are awfully dark and his lips are chapped and his skin is pale like death and God, is this a corpse?

He guides Curly to the table and they sit there with fresh gauze. Chopper will kill him, but Zoro removes his fractured arm from his sling and professionally wraps the cut palm. He’ll take him to Chopper when he wakes up, he’ll need stitches. When all is done, they just sit.

It’s quiet like a graveyard.

Cook is staring with his white, mad eye at his gauzed hand like its something dreadful. It is, to Curly though, his hands are his everything, more important than his legs. His drugged up head is probably fucking with him and he can see it in the tremors that rack his bruised body and the faint moving of his peeling lips, like he’s muttering a word, a name.

Zoro, fed up with all of this pain and sadness, cradles Cook’s cut hand with both of his. The trembling stops and the lips cease to move and Dart-brow looks at him with that wide eye of his. Zoro holds his gaze.

“Sanji,”

Sanji nods, as if remembering that is his name.

“Zoro,”

Zoro nods too. They say the names like an answer to an unasked question.

“You’re alive,”

“You’re alive too,”

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THESE ARE JUST MY STUPID IDEAS! I LIKE THEM YOU DO NOT HAVE TO! I WROTE THESE AT 2 AM! HAHA LOL BRUH!

#zosan #one piece #roronoa zoro #zoro #sanji #black leg sanji #headcann #ideas #its gay #and thats okay #I hope Oda makes a big deal about Zoro saying Sanji's name #Like i did

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monstersandmaw · 4 years

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Male vampire x male character - Part Two (nsfw) (Halloween ‘surprise’ Patreon story).

Edit which I’m including in all my works after plagiarism and theft has taken place: I do not give my consent for my works to be used, copied, published, or posted anywhere. They are copyrighted and belong to me.

I'm really pleased that you and my Patrons enjoyed the first part, and that folks were keen for more. I’ve had more interaction with this post on Patreon than many of the others, which is surprising given how mlm stories are usually much less in demand than m/f ones. Thanks for that!

Anyway, here's more of our favourite oblivious dork Alec and his obviously-not-a-vampire crush... Part Three is on the way too (tomorrow), despite this having been planned as a quick porn-without-plot one-shot, as it were. Oh well?!

Hope you enjoy.

Part One

After his initial - admittedly strange - meetings with Sebastien, Alec didn’t see him on campus at all for the rest of the week, and he wasn’t quite sure how he felt about that. Yes, the guy had been a bit of a pompous arsehole in the library, but he’d made up for it by coming to the art room and apologising, engaging him in conversation — even if that conversation had been slightly… odd? — and being so god-damn-fucking beautiful too.

He overheard his students gossiping about ‘Dr. Dulac’ earlier that afternoon while they all carved the pumpkins he’d bought for them at the local supermarket, and it seemed that the general consensus was that Sebastien was single, unfailingly polite (even in the face of Janette Hilton, the English Department’s longest-serving and least sympathetic lecturers), hotter than any celebrity you cared to name, and a specialist in the poets of the First World War like Sassoon and Brooke, among other more esoteric interests.

After an hour of clock-watching in his tiny little office in the Art Department on Friday, he abandoned all hope of concentrating on his last few bits of admin, and shut down his laptop. After clearing up yet more pumpkin seeds that he’d somehow missed on the last two sweeps he’d done of the studio, he stepped outside, never wanting to see another bloody thing again. Too bad he had a whole bloody cardboard box of them waiting to go into the boot of Kay’s car for her party that night. Still, he was almost sinfully proud of the carvings he’d done on them. One was decorated the whole way around with the foliate style engravings usually reserved for the steel on antique guns, with different depths to create the highlights and shadows, and another particularly spherical one had been cut away in squares to resemble the Death Star.

The October air outside bit into his lungs as he drew a deep breath - the spicy, fragrantly damp scents of autumn filling his nose - and his eye was drawn to the twinkling lights of the little coffee cart that still lingered in the park, selling tea, coffee, and hot chocolate to chilly students leaving the university campus for the night. With a black coffee for himself in one hand, he made his way to the Engineering Department, warily holding another frothy concoction in his other. It was apparently called a ‘London fog’ and it smelled of earl grey tea and lavender. He thought it sounded (and smelled) disgusting, but Kay perked right up when he deposited it on her desk five minutes later.

“Bless you, Alec Twayblade,” she grinned, taking the plastic lid off and inhaling it like it was the best thing she’d ever smelled. “Oh my god. How can you not like this?” she said after taking a huge gulp and moaning obscenely.

Alec didn’t bother to reply, his eye-roll speaking volumes anyway. They’d had this discussion so many times that they were both probably playing it out silently in their heads right that second. When Kay glanced up and saw that he certainly was, she snorted and grinned. “I love you, Alec,” she laughed. “You’re still coming tonight?”

“Against my better judgement,” he growled, leaning his weight on her desk and folding his arms across his battered, blue cable knit sweater. He had a huge daub of yellow paint on one elbow from that morning, and a small burn hole in the bottom from a failed attempt at pyrography a few years ago. It was the most comfortable jumper he owned, and he would probably wear it until it unravelled around him.

“You’re still not going to wear a costume, are you?” she added as she stood, pouting.

He shook his head. “I draw the line at that.”

“But you’d be so good making one!” she countered. “You helped me with that bat costume when we were at high school… Don’t you remember how fucking awesome it was?”

“I do,” he chuckled. “But I’m not going to wear one myself.”

She sighed, shoulders slumping. “Too much attention, huh?” she said softly. “Well, you know you’ll stand out more if you’re not wearing one tonight…?”

He shrugged. Honestly, he just couldn’t be bothered to dress up. Halloween had rather lost its shine for him anyway. “Not if I hide in the kitchen all night and make too-strong cocktails for everyone,” he said, flashing her his most roguish grin. “Plus, I spent much of today carving pumpkins with nattering eighteen year olds who are far too old to be carving pumpkins on academic time, but —”

“— you’re an awesome teacher who understands the need to let off some steam on the holidays,” she interjected. “Plus, it’s good practice anyway… working with a new medium…”

He allowed his lips to pinch upwards into a tiny smirk and let her have that one. “It’s nice to see them having fun,” was all he said.

An hour or so later, just as he arranged the last of the pumpkins down the garden path of Kay's Victorian semi-detached house, a voice murmured from behind him, “I can see the hand of a master at work in these carvings.”

Not having heard anyone approaching, Alec jumped, cursed, and dropped the pumpkin - thankfully with the candle still unlit. It rolled in a semicircle until a black boot gently stopped it, and a familiar face dipped into view as the owner of the boot bent to pick it up. To his surprise, it was Sebastien, and he was in costume. Probably anyway. Hopefully? Fuck. Alec’s brain stalled at the sight of him.

His eyes raked up Sebastien’s body and his jaw went quite literally slack.

The slender man was wearing thigh-high boots and leather pants so tight they had to have been spray-painted on, into which was tucked a loose, old-fashioned, white shirt with a good bit of flounce at the collar. “Holy shit,” he whispered, and Sebastien chuckled softly, a low, amused sound in the back of his throat.

“You recognise the costume?” he asked, seeming innocently amused. The long, dark coat, accented with gold brocade and bright gold buttons, opened briefly in a soft gust of wind that made the lit pumpkins flicker and lifted his loose, silver-white hair back for a breath as well.

“I…” he swallowed. “Uh, you’re Alucard,” he croaked. “From the Castlevania games…” A wry incline of Sebastien’s head told him he was correct, and then Alec blurted stupidly, “Shouldn’t you be shirtless though?”

Sebastien’s smile grew from pleased to deeply amused, his eyes glittering, and it was only then that Alec noticed the contacts burning a bright gold in his eyes and, as his lips peeled back and Sebastien began to laugh, he saw long, tapering, white canines befitting a vampire costume. “It’s a little cold for that, don’t you think?” Sebastien asked, still laughing quietly as Alec flushed crimson.

“Sorry,” he blurted. “I know. I just… forget it.”

“Where do you want it?” Sebastien asked, and Alec’s poor brain went blank.

“What?”

“The pumpkin,” Sebastien deadpanned and Alec’s poor, blank brain melted out of his ears with embarrassment.

“Uh… there’s fine,” he said, pointing at the little wrought-iron garden gate.

Sebastien placed the pumpkin down on the flagstone path so that the carved graveyard scene glimmered and flickered with appropriate spookiness, visible to anyone approaching along the quiet, suburban street. Enormous London plane trees stood sentry every few paces, heaving up the tarmac pavement with their roots, like a sleeper shifting a blanket with a restless turn, and sheltering the cars snuggled and parked beneath them. A carpet of leaves clung to the gutter in a long, golden line, melting into nothing in places in the glittering puddles. It would have been beautiful, had Alec not been faced with quite literally the most beautiful thing in the entire universe.

“Am I early then?” Sebastien asked, dusting off his palms and turning back to face Alec, who had barely managed to make his legs work long enough to stand up straight again.

He shook his head. “No. Henry’s inside already,” he said, running his fingers through his scruffy black hair. “With Rachel and Alison. I just forgot to put the pumpkins out earlier.”

“No costume?”

With a roll of his eyes, he shook his head. “Nope.”

“Too bad,” Sebastien said, eyeing the front door. The contacts were really creepy, shifting in the light that spilled down the stairs as the front door suddenly opened and Kay stepped out before he could worry that he’d been the only one to dress up. He could probably brush it off anyway, Alec supposed, and tried not to envy the man’s quiet confidence.

Silhouetted starkly against the hall light, with her high ‘Dracula’ collar on prominent display, Kay shrieked with glee and clapped her hands when she saw Sebastien. Apparently the two of them had been getting along rather well, while Alec had sequestered himself away in the Art Department like an ascetic.

“Bastien! You look amazing oh my god!” she blurted, rushing forwards a step or two before halting abruptly. “Wait, does that make me your father for the evening?” she cackled. “Wow, your teeth are really good! Mine wouldn't stay in for more than a few minutes…”

Sebastien’s gold eyes flickered sideways to Alec but it happened so briefly that he almost missed it. “Custom made a long time ago,” was all he said. “Shall we go inside? It’s freezing out here.”

“Yes, of course, come on in,” she said, waving them all inside, Sebastien first. As Alec passed her last, she slapped him hard on the backside in rebuke and hissed, “Told you you should have worn a costume! You look like a big dumbo!”

“No different from any other night,” he quipped back, and she growled something indistinct at him. Perhaps a werewolf costume would have suited her better. “You could have told me you’d invited Dulac…”

“Why?” she retorted. “So you could suddenly decide that an evening moping alone with your PS4 playing Rocket League with strangers was more appealing? No fucking chance. Get inside. Sebastien’s right; I’m freezing my tits off.”

The distant murmur of voices in the living room made him veer off instinctively into the kitchen, and while they began to watch some old Hammer horror film, he made drinks. That, at least, he was good at.

Entering a while later, he found that Sebastien was seated on the sofa beside Henry, who wore an enormously fluffy wolfman costume - mostly a repurposed Chewbacca onesie with a latex wolf mask. He’d pushed the mask up onto his head in order to eat the Halloween themed nibbles on the coffee table, and the effect rendered him entirely ridiculous. Another reason not to wear a costume: it’s impractical, and gets in the way, and washing ketchup out of matted fake fur is a nightmare. Alison and Rachel sat practically in each other’s laps, one a zombie and the other a ghost, both squeezed into one groaning old armchair.

After half an hour of Christopher Lee’s admittedly creepy Dracula, Alec slid from his seat at the periphery, and ducked out again into the kitchen. Straightening from fishing a beer from the back of the fridge, he heard the soft click of the door and turned to find Sebastien standing there.

“Get bored with late 1950’s horror too?” Alec asked. “Beer?”

Sebastien inclined his head in a way that said he wasn’t a beer drinker and held up his almost-empty wineglass as an excuse as he moved a little closer. “If you don’t like cheesy horror films, and you don’t seem to like Halloween either, I wonder why you came at all tonight?”

“For Kay,” he said, as if it was the most obvious answer in the world. “She loves this shit.”

At that, Sebastien paused, a delicate smile on his face. In the soft glow of the under-cupboard lighting, his tanned skin seemed to shimmer, and Alec wondered fleetingly if he’d put some kind of glittery body powder on. Next, he wondered what on earth Sebastien was doing in here with him, looking at him like that.

“You are a good friend,” Sebastien said quietly, seeming perhaps a little sad around the edges.

“She’s done more than her fair share of looking after me,” Alec sighed knowingly. “Not that I’m doing it because I owe her,” he added, twisting the cap off the bottle and leaning back against the counter to drink deeply from it. As the malty froth washed over his tongue, he felt eyes on him and looked over at the other man.

Sebastien tilted his head slightly to the side, the false golden light in his eyes making him look like a cat in the dark. “You said she was trying to set you up with someone…”

Alec snorted, nearly shooting beer out of his nose. “Yeah. Well, she seems to think a good fuck will sort my mood out.”

“But you think otherwise?”

“You offering?” he asked bitterly, taking another swig and feeling uncharacteristically bold, though absolutely not expecting the answer he got.

“Perhaps.”

His eyebrows shot up and this time he did cough a little. “You can’t be serious.”

“You think someone who looks like me is entirely straight?” he asked with a wry smile, and Alec had to hand it to him. Not many men he knew could pull of long, luscious, white-blond hair like that, or would have the confidence to wear fucking thigh-high boots and whisper-tight leather pants…

“Still… you don’t really know me… That’s all I meant…”

“Doesn't mean one couldn’t engage in — how did you call it? — ‘a good fuck’. Not that I’m averse to getting to know you better, before or after.”

Alec swallowed another enormous gulp of frothing beer and blinked. “You’re serious?”

With a melodramatic smile that revealed his vampire teeth clearly, ‘Alucard’ purred, “Deadly.”

And Alec burst out laughing. The spell was shattered and the two men shared the remnants of their drinks and their laughter together before Alec sighed. “Your place or mine?”

At that, Sebastien seemed to falter, as if he hadn’t thought through to that point. After a moment’s hesitation, he said, “I assume yours would be alright?”

Alec shrugged. “Sure, if you don’t mind smacking your head on the ceiling and being able to touch two opposite walls at the same time…”

Sebastien’s lips hitched into another wry smile. “I’ve fucked in tighter spaces, I’m sure.”

“You know what?” Alec said as he rinsed out the beer bottle at the sink and half-turned to look at the other man over his shoulder. “You’re absolutely not what I expected.”

“Nor were you,” he shot back, still smirking. “And it’s been a while since I was assaulted by someone in a library.”

“Bring back happy memories, did it?” he snorted.

“Not exactly,” Sebastien murmured, and Alec realised he hadn’t actually been joking. “But I must confess that — despite my behaviour — I was pleasantly surprised by the sight of you when you rounded that bookshelf…”

Turning, Alec approached him cautiously. If he was genuinely serious about his proposal, Alec would find out now. “Pleased enough to seek me out afterwards…” he said, raising his eyebrows. He couldn’t do that ‘one brow at a time’ thing that Sebastien could, but it seemed to get his tone across all the same.

Unusually for Alec, Sebastien had an inch or two on him in height, and as Alec paused in front of him, close enough to catch the faintest hint of a woody cologne, the man angled his face just perfectly for the light to dance along his high cheekbones. Fuck, he was exquisite. The urge to kiss him rose in Alec; to feel his lips against his own, to have those elegant hands scrunch his hair…

As if reading his mind, Sebastien slowly, carefully, raised his right hand and brought his index finger to Alec’s chin, tilting it upwards just a fraction with the lightest pressure. The intensity in his eyes was almost too much, and it left Alec breathless. Again. Panting slightly, he parted his lips and then swallowed thickly.

Sebastien’s eyes darted instantly to the motion of his throat and for a second, Alec could have sworn he saw a vibrant red light reflected in his eyes. Sensing his moment of hesitation, of tension, Sebastian frowned. “What?”

“Nothing,” Alec breathed. “I thought your eyes went red but it must have been a car on the street outside or something.”

“Indeed,” he murmured, but then blinked rapidly. “Do you still wish to continue this?”

“Yes,” he whispered. Don't stop now. His whole body was thrumming in a way it hadn’t ever before with casual encounters. He felt alive for the first time in months.

Sebastien stepped back, turning his face away a little more. “Should we make our excuses…?”

Alec shook his head. “Nah, Kay will know what’s going on anyway, and I don’t want to face her smug looks until tomorrow at the least.”

With a softly amused chuckle, Sebastien stepped back and allowed Alec to leave the room first. The hair on the back of his neck prickled as the other man followed behind, but he didn't turn around or look at him until they were outside on the main street.

“It’s a bit of a walk…” Alec said, only realising then how long the walk would be. “I’m way over on the other side of town by the station…”

The continuing intensity of Sebastien’s scrutiny was beginning to shift from a turn-on to just marginally unnerving, but he told himself that an esteemed professor at one of the country’s finest universities, with more letters after his name than anyone his age had a right to possess, was unlikely to be truly dangerous for a one-night stand… right? There was something about the way he stared at Alec — an unmistakable hunger in his eyes — that made his skin prickle and his heartbeat jump instinctively. Like a deer before the gaze of a tiger, he was entranced.

Unexpectedly, Sebastien’s easy stride slowed at the brick gateway to a small, gravel park that sat between an old church and a chemist, the latter closed at this time of night. “May I kiss you?” he breathed, still gazing at him unblinkingly, as though Alec were the pretty one in this equation, not him.

Alec couldn’t help grinning. The way Sebastien’s eyes bored into him then drove all thought of threat and fear from his mind, and he nodded.

The man’s hands were chilly from the night air, but the moment they cupped his jaw and drew Alec toward him, he forgot about that. He forgot about everything at the meeting of their lips. Sebastien began tentatively, merely brushing their lips together, but when his golden eyes fluttered closed, he deepened the gesture, tongue just begging entrance, teasing him before withdrawing, retreating and returning.

Searing want shot down Alec’s spine and he arched into Sebastien’s taller body, hips seeking contact through his jeans. He moaned, deep and guttural, and it seemed to awaken something in Sebastien, because the man grabbed hold of the back of Alec’s hair and pulled his head slightly to one side to begin to kiss along his jawline, down to wards his neck. For a heartbeat, Sebastien froze there, nose pressed to his rabbiting pulse point, his teeth just grazing skin, before he exhaled harshly and stepped back. “We shouldn’t get carried away,” was all he whispered, stepping slightly out of Alec’s dazed field of view. “My place is nearer though.”

“Ok,” Alec said, still reeling. “Sure.”

When they reached the apartment building, his steps faltered in amazement. “You live… here?”

A slight flush seemed to warm Sebastien’s cheeks as he stepped up to the main doorway, only to have it opened from the other side by a man in livery. “Good evening, Monsieur Dulac,” said the friendly doorman instantly.

“Good evening,” he replied. “This is my friend, Alec Twayblade.”

It was impossible for the doorman not to realise that his ‘friend, Alec Twayblade’ was going to be a little more than that for the night, but he never let a flicker of judgement pass across his face. From the concierge desk - Sebastien’s building had a fucking concierge desk too - another man looked up and wished them both a good evening as they headed for the lifts.

“Does the English department also sell diamonds or drugs or something? How the fuck can you afford a place like this on a lecturer’s salary?” but even as he said it and the doors closed with a soft chime, he realised the truth of it. Sebastien’s aristocratic features and bearing were not merely a persona. They were truth. He stared up at him while Sebastien turned a key in the lift panel.

“Are you secretly royalty or something?” he whispered, only half joking.

The man shot him an amused look and shook his head, silk-white hair whispering against the rougher wool of his costume coat. “No, of course not, but I do have some inherited wealth.”

Some? “So you don’t actually have to work at the university at all then?”

He made a so-so motion of his head and said, “No, not really, but I genuinely enjoy teaching.”

“Your students certainly seem to enjoy you…”

“You don’t enjoy teaching?” he asked as the numbers on the dial climbed and climbed.

Please don’t say you live in the fucking penthouse too, Alec thought, already suspecting it might be true from the whole ‘special access key’. He glanced at the number pad and saw that the button labelled ‘PH’ was illuminated. Fuck. “Most days I enjoy it,” he admitted. “But I kind of fell into it a while back and just sort of…” he shrugged, “Stuck with it.”

Sebastien asked no more, and the lift finally stopped on the top floor. The doors drew back to reveal an apartment beyond that Alec could only gawp at. It was like something from the set of an Architectural Digest photo shoot. Nothing was out of place in the hardwood floor paradise, with clean, crisp lines and white marble counter tops in the kitchen off to his left, while a comfortable, and yet still clinically modern, sitting area sat to their right. Deep, fluffy rugs dotted that part of the penthouse, and a wide balcony stretched out over the city beyond, complete with a little table and chairs for warmer evenings.

“This place is incredible,” Alec breathed, the reason for his even being here completely forgotten.

Clearly sensing that, Sebastien smiled bashfully and said, “Would you like something to drink?”

Alec cleared his throat and hoped he wasn’t going to be faced with a choice between very expensive wines that he’d never heard of. “Sure… thanks.”

“White, red, beer, or whisky?” he asked, walking towards the kitchen and dumping his ‘Alucard’ coat over the back of a white sofa as he went. Alec’s mouth went dry as he watched the point where his narrow hips met the flowing material of the white shirt. Dear god, an arse like that shouldn’t be… well, it just shouldn’t be. And yet there it was. Clad in leather and looking positively delectable. “Or a soft drink?” he added when Alec remained silent.

Aware of where his gaze had landed, Sebastien halted and looked back over his shoulder, long, loose, naturally straight hair already losing the curls that had been worked into it for the Alucard costume. Definitely not straight, if he owned hair curlers.

“Uh…” Alec said, unsure what the question had even been now.

“I’m going to pour myself a whisky, if that helps…?”

“Yeah, sure.”

Sebastien smiled, looking almost endeared by Alec’s inept stuttering. Surely he couldn’t be unused to such a reaction? “Make yourself at home then.”

With a smoky, peat-tinged whisky in a wide, heavy-bottomed tumbler set on his glass coffee table, Alec watched Sebastien turn the gas fire on, and, to his surprise, he came to a halt directly in front of him. Setting his own whisky down on the table with a deliberate, and yet delicate, clunk, Sebastien turned back to him and raked his eyes down Alec’s body in a way that made him flush hot all over. His cock twitched with interest and he tried not to preen under that gaze.

Sebastien’s eyes and teeth were back to normal now, with no hint of the golden contacts or the vampire fangs, and Alec fleetingly assumed that he must have removed them at some point between getting the whisky and appearing in front of him looking like he was about to ravish him. Oh dear god, please let him be about to ravish me, he thought with a big, dumb grin spreading across his face.

Seeing his reaction, Sebastien reached down and knelt facing him on the sofa, running his palm over the already-growing bulge in Alec’s jeans. Alec let out a deep grunt and rocked his hips up into the contact, throwing his head back against the soft, open weave of the white fabric. “Oh fuck,” he hissed.

Sebastien’s fingers found the button of his jeans and deftly undid it, but he paused. “May I?” he asked, and Alec found himself nodding before he’d even worked out what Sebastien wanted.

He found out a moment later, when his jeans were around his ankles and Sebastien was kneeling on the floor between his knees and licking a long stripe up the length of his rapidly hardening cock.

“Oh god,” he panted as the wet heat of Sebastien’s mouth engulfed half of his length and then drew back to leave his wet tip exposed to the slight chill of the apartment air. The contrast stole his breath for a heartbeat, but Sebastien returned his attentions to his cock, gently sucking and working him to full hardness in a matter of minutes.

Pleasure sparked through Alec’s whole body and he strained not to thrust back into Sebastien’s mouth, even as Sebastien took him right to the back of his throat, the tip of Alec’s cock nudging against the silky resistance of his throat.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck…” he chanted as Sebastien’s fingertips just teased and caressed the underside of his balls too, and Sebastien hollowed his cheeks and sucked a little more insistently. “Oh fuck…” Really fucking eloquent here, Alec, he thought vaguely, but one look down at the vision kneeling between his legs and sucking him off drove even that thought from his brain.

The suck and slide of Sebastien’s mouth was incredible, and while he had no idea quite how much time passed, it felt like mere seconds as the heat stoked in him until he could feel the orgasm threatening to crash through him. “I’m… I’m really close…” he gasped as Sebastien moaned against his cock, sending little vibrations thrumming through him and tipping him even closer. The sharp prick of his teeth every now and again was a perfect counterpoint to the slick heat of his mouth, and it was never enough to hurt. Normally Alec wasn’t one for including teeth in this, but with Sebastien, it felt perfect.

Sebastien pulled back just as Alec felt himself beginning to coil up, his lips swollen and glistening from the exertion of bringing him that close, and he smiled. He looked radiant, and Alec’s cock twitched enthusiastically in his hands as he let out a soft whimper. The air was cold and his tip beaded pre-come freely, which Sebastien thumbed away with a surprisingly tender gesture, only to watch as more pearled immediately at his slit. Using just the tip of his tongue, Sebastien lapped at it delicately and Alec’s whole body shuddered.

His thighs shook at the tiny, intense stimulation, with Sebastien's fingers gripping the base of his cock in a tight circle, and he gasped, chest heaving. It was too much and not enough, and as he found his perineum teased as well, he bellowed and trembled. He was half a heartbeat away from coming harder than he could ever remember coming in his life, and Sebastien wasn’t going to let him have it. He roared and ground his teeth, bucking his hips, which made Sebastien laugh softly.

“Alright,” he heard him murmur, before he swallowed him down to the back of his throat again, and Alec shattered with a yell.

When he finally blinked his eyes open, he found that Sebastien had risen and was sitting on the small sofa beside him, whisky in hand, staring openly at him. He didn’t look smug exactly, but there was a quiet satisfaction to his brown eyes that made Alec flush, at which Sebastien’s beautiful lips drew back into a smile. He noted again those slightly larger canines, but they were nothing like the vampire teeth he had worn earlier.

“What do you want?” Alec asked, voice hoarse. God, he sounded wrecked. Had he really shouted so hard he’d made his throat sore?

Sebastien’s dolorous, dark eyes crinkled slightly at the corners. “What do you want?”

“To watch you come,” he said immediately.

“And how would you like me to come?” Sebastien replied, sipping nonchalantly at the golden liquor as if the were discussing what Alec would like Sebastien to wear. As it was, his leather pants were constricting his obvious hard-on in a way that had to be painful for him, and his shirt was open at the neck to reveal delicate collarbones and a glimpse of his beautiful olive skinned chest.

He was an absolute vision. “Fuck, you’re so beautiful,” he blurted in a whisper before he could stop himself, and to his surprise, Sebastien laughed. The sound was bright, delighted, and oddly self-conscious, as if he hadn’t been expecting a compliment like that. “Sorry,” he added, looking away. “Look… if you’ve got condoms, I’m… I’m good to… you know…”

“You want me to fuck you?” Sebastien asked, his gaze sharpening again.

“Yes?”

“’Yes?’ Or ‘yes’…?” Sebastien asked, seeking clarification.

“Yes. But I don't understand your question.”

“Look at me,” Sebastien said.

“Hard not to…” Alec quipped back, still feeling utterly wrung out.

“Most people assume I’m going to be the one taking it…”

Alec’s eyebrows rose as realisation settled. “Oh. And, what, I look like a top?”

Sebastien’s lips twitched. “Conventionally more so than I do, with your rugged looks and the rough shadow around your jaw…”

“So… do you want me to… you know…? Or…” Fuck, he felt like a teenager again, struggling to articulate himself and not get his sentences in a tangle while this breathtaking creature just sat there and watched him make an idiot out of himself.

“I very much want to fuck you,” Sebastien said at last. “If you’d like that as well.”

“Yes,” he said instantly.

Sebastien set down his glass and rose in a single, elegant motion, and then held his hand out to Alec.

His skin was still cool, especially next to Alec’s searing body, and his hold was steady as Alec heaved himself to his feet and allowed himself to be alternately tugged and kissed into the bedroom.

___

Part Three

Behold, plot has appeared to go with the Halloween porn I had planned. Alec’s family will come up in the next chapter.

___

I really hope you folks enjoyed this one! Don’t forget to let me know if you did enjoy it by leaving a like and/or reblogging it!

#vampire #male vampire #male vampire x human #exophilia #vampire boyfriend #male vampire x male human #male monster #mlm #mlm exophilia

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trentsleatherboots · 3 years

Photo

Carach Angren, interview translation Dutch > English

Published in the magazine Rock Tribune, edition June 2020, nr. 192.

Text by Morbid Geert. Fotos: Stefan Heileman.

WILL THE REAL FRANKENSTEIN STAND UP NOW?

At the end of last year you could already read about how we kept close watch on Carach Angren. Back when they were still heavy in the production process, on Halloween Day we went over to Ardeks homebase and studio to see the first glimpse of their new work and later Rock Tribune got invited to listen to the album in Germany. Now it's almost time for 'Franckensteina Strataemontanus' to be shown to the world and that's why we wanted to take an even deeper look. Weaponed with an oil lamp and shovel we went onwards towards the graveyard to uncover the soul stirrings of Ardek. (Text: Morbid Geert)

---

Ardek, the last time I talked to you the songs were still in a very early stage and what we heard was more of a pre production. Did you tinker more afterwards to come to an end result or did you purposely keep your hands off to avoid overproduction?

"In terms of song structures and lyrics not much changed on the premature songs that you heard. What followed however was another production-finish, where especially the mix and mastering made a big change. That last stadia really lifted it all to another plane and you can really hear that."

A FRESH LOOK.

As far as I knew, Patrick Damiani was still fully onboard working on the songs at Tidal Wave Studio in Germany. How important was it for you to pull an extra producer into the process? After all, you are very much at home with that as well? Or maybe not as much as you'd like?

"Back then he worked on drumediting and played the basslines, but his role is way bigger than that. We've worked together a lot and now we're doing something for L'Âme Immortelle, where we vibe together perfectly and know exactly how to handle such a project. When he takes on production for Carach Angren however, I notice how much better he controls it. He has so much knowledge about drum sounds, mixing,... and he's really specialised in it. It is nice to add that knowledge, it brings a lot of added value. These days a lot of bands record at home and that all makes it a lot cheaper, but a good producer brings a lot of experience and equipment, it ends up with a whole different result. Besides, we left the mix and mastering to Robert Carranza."

That last one is a pretty big name, who among others worked with Marilyn Manson. I can imagine that has a big impact on your budget, but was it worth it?

"I think so. When I listened to 'Killing Strangers' by Marilyn Manson on headphones and heard the bassline, it went so deep that it turned me upside down. Apparently Robert Carranza mixed that album. Furthermore he does a lot of different things such as make latin music and win grammy's, but in the extreme metal scene he is totally unknown. However, he wanted to help himself to our record and yes, the price was steep, but I managed to convince both the band and the label… even though that wasn't without some doubts, since all eyes were on me for a bit. I had a good feeling about it and shared it, with the result being having a record now that doesn't sound like the others. He had a fresh look on our work and thus we could avoid the recognisability of the average metal producer. There are too many records that when you hear them you know exactly who had their hands on them and in which studio they were recorded. Contrary to what you might think, there was constant contact with him (Robert) and a lot of talking about how we wanted it to sound. In particular the clarity of the sound is massive and gives it a bit more of a cinematic effect. There was no compression applied where everything sounds constantly loud and where as a listener you'd get easily tired, but the dynamics were preserved."

DIDN'T FEEL LIKE IT ANYMORE.

To refer back to Patrick Damiani: if he does so much and even plays the basslines, do you see him as sort of a 4th band member or is that just a bit too much credit?

"That's not how we see him. He's an amazing producer and musician, who gives us his opinion and helps us out. On the other hand he is not part of the creative process and he isn't on stage with us… but it is a relationship that's been going on for 12 years and something we get a lot out of."

Now I'm saying '4th band member', but after the recordings of your new record ended, your brother and drummer Namtar left the band. Can I ask what happened and if you saw this coming, or whether it was a bolt from the blue?

“In November he recorded his drum tracks and back then everything went fine, but then there came an offer to play at '70000TONS OF METAL'. Since we always looked at the financial side of the band together, we talked about the offer and he was immediately against it. I thought that was strange and to me it seemed better to sit around the table with three to talk about it. Then it became apparent that he'd been wrestling with it for sometime and in brief didn't feel like it anymore. We offered him to take a break of a few months instead of just throwing away what we've worked for the last 20 years, but that wasn't a solution. It wasn't an easy decision, but afterwards we saw it had been an issue for a long time and at that point you rather put a stop to it. That hit us hard, but you can never force somebody to stay in a band. To keep our motivation high we played '70000TONS OF METAL' after all with Michiel van der Plicht of God Dethroned as replacement. That pleased us all and he's willing to help us out in the future."

Michiel van der Plicht in indeed an amazing drummer. Are there any plans to keep him in the band permanently or is this an emergency solution and is there an offer still standing?

"I discussed that extensively with Seregor, but together the two of us stay the core of the band. We already have an extra guitarist live and in the studio we will definitely have those people join again, but all decisions will be made by us two in the end. We want to avoid that other people leave a mark on the band, causing us to lose our individuality (personality). It's about so much more than just making music: the stage decor, our own stage outfits,... for us it is very clear and it's going well, so we only need help to fill in with the music in the studio and during lives."

MILKED OUT?

Let's get to the core of business. At the end of this month is the release of your 6th album, 'Franckensteina Strataemontanus'. Now lends the Frankenstein story itself perfectly for a horror metal band, but I wondered if the story isn't too milked out by other bands… unless you do it with a completely new vision. After all, that's what you did with 'This Is No Fairytale', where Hans and Gretel were transported to the now and the horror became bigger than ever.

"When we started, I had the same feelings about the Frankenstein story, but there's a twist to it. Everything started for me as a dream, where I flew through an old house. There, I heard dissonant piano tunes and I got sucked into a room where a portrait of an old man hung on the wall. Later I made a drawing of that portrait and it got stuck in my head. When I began doing research for the album months later and even read Mary Shelley's amazing book 'Frankenstein', I found out that there is a theory that when she wrote her book she was influenced by Johann Konrad Dippel, an 18th century alchemist. Then when I looked him up, he turned out to look like what I had seen in my dream, which personally motivated me to dig deeper. Dippel is an unknown figure for the masses and that's why it seemed fascinating to us to do something with it. There is fiction and truth mixed in our story. By the way, Dippel lived in Frankenstein Castle near Darmstadt, where he was looking for the elixir to eternal life. He was also a theologist, but he clashed with the church and was therefore cast away. Because he also did experiments on cadavers and sought life extending resources, he would've inspired Mary Shelley for her story. What we did was make a concept around the source of her story instead of following the clichés. That monster with screws in his head, we've seen it already before…"

Yet it doesn't seem like a concept album, because I notice that you address very diverse subjects.

"It is definitely a concept, since all stories are connected to one another, even if it's not noticeable. 'Operation Compass' is about the North-African desert war between the Brits and Italians. In official documents the Brits were ordered that if there were to be a fallback, to make all sources unusable for the enemy with 'Dippel's oil' (a nasty substance that made water undrinkable but did not poison it, so it was in battle with the Geneva protocols). In our story it leads to a demonic outburst that went towards the soldiers. So you see, Dippel comes back throughout different moments in history. 'Der Vampir von Nürnberg' is about a real figure that is still alive. He committed necrophilia, killed people and drank their blood, … but is now at large. In our story he lost his ways after reading Dippel's books, which once again links it with the core story. 'Here In German Woodland.', the opening song, is about a boy that gets lost and dies in the forest surrounding Darmstadt, but later comes back and eats his parents. In the closing song 'Like A Conscious Parasite I Roam' it all comes full circle: Dippels life elixir only works for his soul, and his body rots away, so he searches for a guest body and his spirit creeps into that little boy."

In a few songs, some German lyrics show up. Is that besides the concept also because of the grim sound of the language or is it simply because you live so close to Germany and it has a certain impact?

"The subject lends itself to it of course and Seregor speaks German very well, which made things easier. And yes, the sound does play a certain role. 'Der Vampir von Nürnberg' sounds way better than the English translation, it immediately sets the right tone."

Some of these stories are the result of reality, but are often at least as gruesome as many fantasy stories: such is the bonus song 'Frederick's Experiments' about the sick science experiments of emperor Frederick II, a man who apparently was not inferior to the Nazi doctors?

"Yes, you can say that he set a good example! Seregor came with the idea and somewhere the story did fit within the total picture, even though we couldn't fit it into the big story. Our label Season Of Mist however asked for a bonus track and that's how we managed to include the song after all."

CROSS-POLLINATION.

What I noticed with the first sneak preview, but what has become clear now, is that Carach Angren this time worked very innovative musically. Watch out, it is immediately clear that it is from Carach Angren, since you already have your own sound, but at the same time there are noticable things we haven't heard from you before. The title track has a considerable industrial touch and we also hear something from Laibach in it, just like 'Monster'. Is that something you've only recently been getting into or have you maybe secretly been an industrial fan for years?

"It is more recent, even though I've always been appreciative of it. By also collaborating with Till Lindemann for his project Lindemann, I also came into contact with it more and started taking it up unconsciously. Afterwards I got to experiment with it for my solo project and that's how I came up with the song 'Monster'. Seregor tested some things out for singing for that song and it just made sense. It was very cool to experiment like that, which you should when you're making a record based on Frankenstein…"

It became a musical experiment instead of scientific experiment, but you do create a parallel, yes.

"Inside Carach Angren we like to put a lot of variety in the songs and if you can also give that a different look, then that is something you should try. We ourselves are absolutely crazy about it! Some fans will have to swallow when they hear those songs, but for them there are plenty of old school songs on it."

To come back to Lindemann: he and Peter Tägtgren got you involved since you are so good with classical orchestras and arrangements, but in the end it seems to have become two-way traffic, doesn't it? Have you learned a lot from it and developed other visions?

"We worked together in a very awesome way and you do learn a lot from that. You grow as a componist, as musician and as producer. It made me compose more compactly and I sometimes pursue slightly less complex songs, like the two more industrial based songs. Always great to be able to take a different approach."

Both those songs have an easier buildup, but in the other songs you go back to the complexity that you left out purposefully 'Dance And Laugh Amongst The Rotten'. Is it a way to generate more contrast?

"In some ways yes, but it depends on how it works out in a song. We tried to make the title track a bit longer, but then the effect fell away and it didn't feel right anymore. But strangely enough I write a complex song like 'Der Vampir von Nürnberg' easier than a less complex piece like 'Monster'. With less arrangements it quickly becomes hard to keep it exciting(engaging), but seeing as you want to keep the concept to level, you need to have enough variation. The industrial songs sound a bit less complex, but there is a lot happening in the background and they are full of tiny details that make the difference."

MIXING COLOURS.

With the new approach you have opened some doors to maybe do more experimenting in the future. Is that actually your goal or is there nothing reasoned behind it and do such new influences pop up sooner when they seem to be able to improve the song?

"It all almost comes down to what the concept of the album requires. Back when we wrote 'Death Came Through A Phantom Ship' we added swirling waves and custom/adapted sounds to it. With the new record the 'marching' of the pulsing industrial beat seemed to work the best with our Frankenstein theme. You have to see it like a painter who is mixing colours to make a new colour to fit his vision. We don't do any different and we would love to experiment more in the future. If we see what we've already tried with singing now … in the long run we were completely out of control trying to do crazy things."

The singing is indeed a very remarkable part of 'Franckensteina Strataemontanus'. We always thought Seregor had a good black metal voice, but we were very impressed by the way he twisted his voice this time around and helped set the mood.

"We are very happy about that ourselves. He delivered an excellent job and we really pushed everything to get to that point. We actually took several weeks to make sure my home studio was in perfect condition and sometimes Seregor had to redo a certain part up to 10 times to get the result we wanted, but he did it without struggling. A lot of singers that ask so much from their vocal chords are dead on their feet after an hour, but then there is Seregor who gets through the day without complaining, even while screaming his lungs out. While recording 'Operation Compass' we did however find out it is better to record a deep grunt in the early morning, since your voice is still a bit slow and heavier from sleep.”

MUSIC AS A BOOST.

The whole corona crisis made it so that as a band it is way more difficult to promote an album now, since all concerts got cancelled. Did that have a big impact on Carach Angren or can you make it?

"I myself am very concerned with the people who are really affected by the disease and that is why I can partially ignore the inconveniences for ourselves. Nevertheless, it has a serious effect on the music industry, although that is secondary to me. We are dealing with a pandemic, people are dying and we all have to work to keep everything under control. In addition, it is strange to release an album in a full crisis, but we decided to go for it anyway. It's a cool record and we already started the promotion, so we just keep going. For now, tours are not planned, but that does not mean that we will now stream all kinds of performances to attract attention. We are not that type of band… what is a shame is that our plans for a very cool video clip are now also being abandoned. We had to go to Germany and there are also the social distancing rules, which make such a recording impossible. But should we really want that and turn it into drama? Of course it sucks to have to promote the release like this, but the whole world is just not what it was a few months ago."

Do you have any alternative ideas to bridge that gap? I know that you guys always have enough visual ideas and there already is a lyric video for 'Monster', but I can imagine that there is more to come.

"We are working on that yes, because last month we made one for 'Der Vampir von Nürnberg' and next month we might take another song in hand. We will keep doing those sorts of things together with some 'making of-' videos that we recorded in the studio, that way we can give the album some extra promotion. Nothing for us to worry about so… by the way, there is something about releasing a record in times like these. The people have been stuck at home for months and have nothing to do, so if we can give them a new piece of music to listen to to get through the day, then that is awesome too. It would be disappointing for the fans if we just put our new work on the shelf because of this pandemic. Every band should do what they think is best, but we had already started our press campaign anyway and we would also be a lot less driven if we only had to arrive 'with old stuff' within six months or later."

Carach Angren already has a few beautiful video clips which are build up with a real story and don't only have something musical to offer. In addition, there are also the lyric videos, where certainly those for the complete album 'This Is No Fairytale' with comic images by Costin Chioreanu stand out from the crowd. Have you never thought of bundling everything on a DVD?

"We've honestly never thought about that, but that's actually a really great idea! I think it would be nice to bundle everything together and that way we immediately remove some (away) from youtube. That can always be a good idea for the future."

LEARNING SCHOOL.

As songwriter of Carach Angren you may have previously absorbed a lot of influences that shaped you into the musician and songwriter you are today. Can you list the five most essential records or artists that shaped you personally and what exactly were their interests?

"That is a good question that doesn't let itself be answered very easily. In the classical field and orchestras I think Tchaikovsky and Stravinski are very important. They both had a lot of influence on me as a componist. Another important inspiration to me in that respect is John Williams (modern componist famous for his film scores for Star Wars, Jaws, Jurassic Park..) They helped shape me even more when it comes to layered composing, although I don't come close to what they do. As a child I followed keyboard lessons for 8 years, I did a year of conservatory and studied a year of music and media, as well as cinematic orchestration. Those last two were online, but on a serious level and you really had to write pieces for an orchestra. I learned a lot there, but ever since then I kept learning by actually doing it myself, looking through books and analyzing musical pieces. But if I hadn't gotten the theoretical basis I had as a child, I would've never been able to do this today. On production level I have to mention Nine Inch Nails and, something you'd might find strange, Michael Jackson! If you see how well their albums are produced, and how many layers are incorporated, it's amazingly well done! You can say about Michael Jackson's music what you want, but the way the songs are built up and how much dynamics are in there thanks to the arrangements by Quincy Jones, it is absolutely astounding. There is no lack of bells and whistles and sometimes, for example, the snare drum comes in in four layers, something you don't hear so loudly even in extreme metal. I mainly listen to those albums as an audiophile to analyze them and see what I can get out of it as a producer. Last week I checked the solo record of Roger Waters, in which I heard effects that seemed to be situated outside the loudspeaker field. Then I want to know how that is done and whether I can integrate it with Carach Angren. That kind of thing is the reverse of the compression they use too often today and you wonder why we don't all go in that direction anymore."

---

Translated by Jeordie/Trentsfishnets.

(For the record, if this interview already exists in English, I will just see this as translating practice C:)

#carach angren #metal #death metal #black metal #european metal #carach angren interview #carach angren 2020 #corpse paint #new black metal #Dennis Droomers #Dennis Seregor Droomers #Clemens Ardek Wijers #Clemens Wijers #Seregor #Ardek #Ivo Namtar Wijers #Ivo Wijers

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pfreadsandwrites · 3 years

Note

congratulations on 100+ followers!!🥺❤️✨ bless you and your quality content ahhhh and thats a really good list of prompts there i actually had trouble picking one... but, since im truly a sucker for angst at heart, can i please have a number 15 with Kakashi?👀 please hurt me lmao thank you, and congrats once again!❤️

100 follower celebration

Yes, i used this mangacap.

Anyway, ahh @enchantedpendant, I’m so sorry I’ve kept you waiting so long for this! I know you expressed excitement over me writing something angsty way back when I first began the celebration event and ugh I’m just sorry it’s taken so long. And thank you for your support as well. You’ve been so amazing and encouraging right from the start and I’m so grateful :) I really hope you like this... if ‘like’ is the correct word.

Oh - also, to the anon that also requested this exact prompt (great minds think alike, huh?) I’m planning on writing a different version for you! But yours is the penultimate or last one so I’m hoping this’ll tide you over in the meantime!

This is my first piece after being unable to write for a while - forgive me if it’s rusty. I worked hard on this but I also struggled to all hell with it. It’s a circular-ish/montage-y piece. And I could have made it short, focusing on the scene itself, but I wanted this to have an emotional impact, ya know? I hope it worked! Please let me know what you think. Or if there are any mistakes.

warnings: character death, angst, miscarriage, sad feels all around, female reader, mild violence and sex mentions but nothing explicit, 2.9k

taglist: @madaras-housewife @datblobbyfish @praisingkuroosbedhead @allthingskakashi @enchantedpendant @ibukiirisha @cinam00n @feelingsandemotionsnotexplored @tachibrii @drunkenfists

15. “Don’t die on me - please.”

Why did it always feel too soon, each time he let you go?

You remember it, the first time it happened.

How could you not? Little, insignificant, as it might have been to some - to him, if he could convince himself - to you, it was momentous. Lasting only a second, where his calloused fingers had brushed against yours, softer than his, yes, but no less enduring. The normally aloof eye, the only one he seemed to show without hesitation, was intent, the obsidian endless in its depth.

But - out of courtesy to him, or some kind of self-preservation - you’d paid it no mind. Or kept up that pretence, anyway. You found your footing as quickly as you’d lost it, stumbling away from his support no matter how reluctant you were to do so. The gratitude you’d muttered was enough and it seemed like you’d made the right choice; when that quietly shrewd eye of his turned away from you and his strong hands let you go in the same movement. He never let you bask in your own clumsiness, but that somehow made you feel worse. His nonchalance was excruciating. As if he hadn’t just saved you and made it look effortless. As if his touch alone hadn’t frozen you in place.

As if it never happened at all.

(It never should have happened at all.)

But still, you remember it. The moon’s luminosity the perfect backdrop, illuminating that wild silver hair as he turned away from you.

(It was all so disgustingly poetic.)

It took longer than it should have for you to turn away in kind. But you did. Eventually. You made the awkward trek back to camp before him, the internal rambling of your self-berating your only company. It grew louder each time you looked back, stealing little glances against your own will.

It was so loud that you didn’t notice much else.

Not even Kakashi stealing glances back at you, for instance.

***

Why did your breath hitch, even when the air had never been more tranquil?

You remember.

How he always did that, you still don’t know. Perfect timing, though you never appreciated just how perfect until he was gone again.

(You should have learnt to count your blessings.)

Without a trace, and so quickly, unceremoniously, that the entire encounter might well have been a mirage. It still might have been.

(Maybe it’d been better that way.)

You’d had enough. You didn’t think it through much further, and your desperation triumphed over your cautiousness as you sought out the bar exit. The mission, against all odds, was a success. And, against all better judgement, you were dragged along to the accompanying celebration. The atmosphere should have been infectious, you should have smiled more, you should have enjoyed yourself.

Then again, you couldn’t find much to celebrate. Mistakes - your mistakes - had piled up. Your team completed the mission despite you, not because of you. The liability, not the heroine.

(In hindsight, would it really have been so terrible if things ended for you there?)

You’d exhaled dramatically as you made your escape, a feeble attempt to expel all the guilt and shame you’d retained, or tried to retain, up until now.

You still remember the lilt of his voice, smooth and somehow jovial, but never losing that gravelly undertone, as you walked around the corner. How could you ever forget it? No matter how lax he sounded, or tried to sound, the severity lurking underneath always cut you deep.

Are you alright, he’d asked, already knowing the answer. With that signature one-eyed smile, he pretended to believe your response. And you pretended, in turn, that his smile didn’t have had the effect on you it did.

You didn’t exchange that many words as he walked you home, but somehow, it was enough. Though he was always careful with what he revealed, it was enough. He understood - much more than he let on, you suspected - but it was enough.

You didn’t hate yourself quite as much anymore, and - well, it wasn’t too much of a stretch - it didn’t seem like he hated you either. Something in the way his hand squeezed your shoulder, lingering for a moment, just before he saw you off. Was he reluctant to let go?

Maybe.

You slept better that night.

You’d find out later, that, miraculously, Kakashi did too.

***

Why did you feel so secure, sharing in all that suffering?

You remember.

(Why had you been so stupid?)

You’d almost dropped your flowers, when you saw him standing there, facing the memorial stone. It shouldn’t have been shocking; you’d heard gossip, in passing, about how much time he spent here. You’d also heard, in passing, how late he tended to be. Putting two and two together, you never held the latter against him.

You understood, after all. You'd understood all the more as your eyes bore into his back. Something in the way he curled and uncurled his fists, the way he sighed, the way his straightened back gradually hunched.

As far back as you could recall, your attitude to graveyards was… ambivalent. You’d avoid them whenever you could, not out of any tendency to be spooked or anything like that. You just couldn’t bring yourself to leave. It was peaceful, to be immersed somewhere so solemn, with such dense air - but the gravity of it also chained your feet there like an anchor. You knew each time you were there, regardless of your own volition, wouldn’t be the last. So if anyone were to empathise with this particular way he chose to punish himself, it was you.

(And now you would take it on twofold in his stead. What a joke.)

“You don’t often come here,” he’d said quietly, matter-of-factly. Devoid of judgement, though he didn’t bother to face you.

“No. I probably don’t spend as much time here as I should…,” your voice trailed off, and found new confidence, when you watched him stare at that stone. Hopelessly. You didn’t know all the details. But you didn’t need to. All you knew that it was simultaneously frustrating and pitiful. “And you probably spend too much.”

This time, he glanced back over his shoulder. You couldn’t exactly see through his mask, but he seemed… amused? “How do you figure that?”

“Call it a hunch.”

He chuckled, satisfied, and stepped back to give you room. “Then, I guess we balance each other out.”

“What a pair we are.”

“Right. Well, I better-“

You still don’t know why you decided to grab his wrist that day, when he turned to leave. You still don’t know why you couldn’t bring yourself to let go, either.

You still don’t know why Kakashi decided to stay.

***

Why did you flit so rapidly from anger to elation, and why was it always because of him?

You remember.

In hindsight, it had been your fault.

(What the fuck else was new?)

Retreat. Get out of here. It had been a simple order. But it had felt impossible, when the enemy appeared from behind, jutsu blaring, its raw power visible, that disgusting snarl on its wielders’ face - aiming for him.

You didn't think. You couldn’t think. You leapt in front of the attack within seconds, and your plan ended there.

The same couldn’t be said for your captain. With his signature finesse, with a rare scowl - you couldn't tell who it was aimed at - you were moved away, and the enemy deflected, in the same movement.

The battle had come to an end shortly after, through no fault of your own. It took all you had, but you bit your tongue as he scolded you, in front of your comrades, quietly healing your wound.

You had acted for his sake.

(How futile.)

Apparently, that meant nothing to him, not even worthy of acknowledgement. It wasn’t like you had expected gratitude - but for a man known for his stoicism to blow up, and because of you - it made you livid in turn.

The journey back had been silent, seemingly just so you could bask in your own shame.

So, when you were back in the sanctuary of your home, nursing your injury, your failure, and your pride - you hadn’t expected to hear a knock.

Nor had you expected him. Headband missing, brow furrowed and glaring at you in that way you couldn’t understand, much less accept. You’d made a mistake - of disobeying orders, of recklessness, of caring - but why the hell did he care in turn?

“What?” You had hissed, unable to contain the outrage of his interruption of your little haven. Not that it made it any easier to look at him. “You’re here to admonish me again?”

“What the hell was that?” He growled in turn. “You disobeyed my orders and almost got yourself killed.”

“I-,” your voice shook, tears pricked your eyes - he was right, even if it pained you to admit it, but it wasn’t fair. The space between you had shrunk. He was so close now that you saw the rise and fall of his broad chest beneath his vest - apparently just as outraged as you. You had never seen him like this before. “Why are you so mad at me? I was just trying to - I thought-”

“Am I supposed to factor in every one of your impulses? Why did you do that?”

You remember how you heard his heartbeat, pounding - pounding just as loud as yours was. And it depleted your inhibitions. “Because - because you were in danger, you asshole!”

You remember how he had gently grabbed your injured wrist, just as you were about to shove him. You’d anticipated his reflexes, but you couldn’t have anticipated his expression, when you finally met his gaze. You remember how swiftly he’d pulled down his mask, but you couldn’t have anticipated just how breathtaking he’d be, either. Nor how it could feel when he kissed you - finally.

When Kakashi moved to pull away, of course, of course, you moved to pull him right back.

***

Why did you always let him leave?

You remember.

(If you knew how it would end, you never would have let him. Better still, maybe you never should have let him enter in the first place.)

Safe.

You’d never felt so safe.

When he’d appear and reappear at your apartment - the window, never the door, despite your half-hearted protests - waving with that stupid, adorable, one-eyed smile. He knew you’d saunter over, sliding it open with a matching grin, every time without fail.

(You always did. That much, you did.)

When he’d laugh, when you told him about your mishaps. You’d laugh at his in kind - though it didn’t suit you, and you replaced it with your usual sympathetic ear. When you’d accompany him to the memorial stone, and pull him way just at the right time. When he’d pull you away, too.

(What a fool.)

When he’d unmask himself around you, and you pretended not to notice, like it didn’t floor you. When you watched him struggle to decide whether he was relieved or offended. When he kissed you, in that indescribable way that wavered between tentative and determined, soft and powerful, usually choosing the perfect time to flit to the latter, making your knees buckle in the process.

(What a fool.)

When he’d undress you, and no matter how desperate he’d seem, how he always paused to take you in. When he’d move in you, filling your heart and body so much that you thought you might burst. When he’d hold you just that little bit closer, tighter, longer every time.

(What a fool.)

Even when he’d leave, sometimes after you’d fallen asleep, sometimes before - sometimes in the morning - when he’d leave for a day, a week, a month - you felt safe.

Because you knew, in the deep recesses of your heart, that each time you saw him wouldn’t be the last.

(What a fucking fool.)

You remember the first time he said it. Quietly, earnestly, unceremoniously.

“I love you,” Kakashi had murmured into your ear one night, when he was so, so sure you were sleeping.

***

Why did you ever dare think you had any cause for optimism?

You remember.

The two lines, glaring upwards and through you, from that unremarkable little piece of plastic. They’d ran parallel - you thought it apt, just like your trepidation and your excitement. The lines would never meet, though.

(How apt.)

You’d been happy. That was what had shocked you most, save only for the very fact of you being in this situation in the first place. But behind the fear, there it was. A little glow, a nucleus of hope and future nascent deep in your centre, spread through your heart and speckled to your fingertips, your face, your smile - that paired flawlessly with the little bundle of meaning, the combination of you and him budding in your belly.

(Buds drop off before blooming all the time.)

You thought it’d be easy.

(How stupid.)

You thought you could share it all with him right away.

(You wished.)

But there was a part of you that faltered, when he’d show up at your window in that deceptively lax way. The words stuck in your throat, whenever he asked you if you were alright. The ease of his question didn’t match the weight of the truth. It almost felt… cruel.

Maybe his fears would eclipse yours, and all that euphoria you’d harboured would dissolve. Maybe he’d be angry, though you suspected that even if he were, it’d be short lived. Maybe you’d end up keeping him from his duty.

(Maybe you were just a coward.)

Regardless, your hands would float to your stomach whenever they weren’t occupied. Regardless, your mind would conjure up a future, remiss of your own will, an idyllic scene of a child, a marriage, something so sickly sentimental that you wanted to scold yourself. Regardless, it gave you hope.

It was enough, you’d decided. You'd get over it, face him and your fears, because what was waiting on the other side was so good that you’d forget that you had any in the first place. You’d do it.

You’d tell Kakashi the next time you saw him.

***

Why did it always feel too soon, each time he let you go?

You remember it, the last time it happens.

How could you not? The moon’s luminosity the perfect backdrop, incandescent, illuminating that wild silver hair, that crimson eye, that tired eye. His blood gleams under its splendour, under the green light that emanates fruitlessly from your delicate, shaking fingers. Softer than his, but no less enduring.

It’s all so disgustingly poetic.

He refuses to scream, or shout - just whisper your name, in that restrained, ever-abiding tone. It’s never made you want to scream out more in his turn. You would have done anything to absorb it all in its stead.

“What are you doing here?” he demands, as if he has the energy to. As if you can answer. As if you don’t see the wounds, the bloodshot-eyes, that compliance of his own mortality. His hand - the one that you were stupid enough to trust in, to think was strong - clenches around yours, calloused, then weakens, loosening its grip. He follows it with another impossible, familiar order. “Get out of here.”

“Shut up. Don’t die on me - please,” you beg, coughing up your words in between the sobs that spill forth, onto his face. The ache, the deep, sharp cramp in your hips, the agonising spark that spreads throughout your lower body, and you repeat your futile mantra two-fold.

(It hurts. It hurts so much.)

“Y/N, I- I’m sorry,” he begins, moving to use his dwindling force to brush away your healing fingers, “it’s too late for that. Just get somewhere safe. Please.”

“Shut up,” you repeat. You gasp hoarsely, reinforcing your grip. The pain deepens, in the pit of your throat, your heart, and in your womb, amalgamating together inextricably in some hellish concoction just for you and you alone. “Shut up.”

“I’m sorry,” he repeats. His eyes lid, and suddenly that scar never seems so cutting. It’s all so obvious. He just looks so tired, so… resigned. As if he’s been waiting for this. “I love you.”

“I love you too. So you can’t-”

“It’s over. You know it as well as I do.”

Somewhere, somewhere deep down, you always knew. You knew, but never wanted to admit it. He’d made his peace with dying, long before you ever met, and you can’t hold him back any longer. It almost feels… cruel.

(Not as cruel as him.)

His hand drops, dropping with a graceless thud against your damp thigh. “Y-you’re covered in blood. That’s all mine…?”

“Yes,” you lie, voice as thick as the mixture of blood and tears that stain both you and him. “Don’t worry about me.”

He stops - and you almost think he’s going to call you out, like he’s done so many times before.

(You wish he would.)

You’ve never been able to dupe him. But instead, his eyes crinkle at the corners.

(You love him. You love him so much.)

He smiles that hidden smile, one last time.

His fingers that fight with yours give up, one last time.

He whispers your name, one last time.

Why did it always feel too soon, each time Kakashi let you go?

#kakashi x reader #kakashi hatake #kakashi #hatake kakashi #naruto #kakashi imagines #kakashi fanfiction #pfwrites #next up is the Yamato one eeeek #i ain't never written yamato in my life send help #WHY DOES MY STUFF NEVER SHOW IN TAGS??

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tuagonia · 3 years

Text

mistletoe - adam du mortain x f! detective

Pairing: Adam du Mortain x f!detective Summary: The detective catches an unsuspecting Adam under the mistletoe during the division’s holiday party. Rating: G/T (to be sure).Pretty tame, just fluff. Warning: alcohol mention. Word Count: 2.3k Note: I just really really wanted to write this scene that cropped up in my head during a f u n bout of insomnia. I’d like to think this takes place teetering on the edge right before the deep romance sweeps these two fools away. Anyway i used this fic as a way to get over my fear of writing for twc and to get to know my detective... before i launch into the other ideas i have.

—

It’s not that she’s drunk.

No. Not drunk.

Happy, most definitely, and loquacious. More than the usual amount of conversation that he’s used to. And more laughter.

Definitely more laughter.

It’s an unrefined, rough, pitched-at-the-end sound he’s grown used to (fond of?) over the last year.

Where the more uncouth the subject... the more untamed it becomes, and fighting the stiff edges of his mouth to remain in place becomes an active task.

There’s something so unsuspecting about it too, like how everything concerning her has been up to now.

Olivia dances with Felix and Nate, and his oldest friend attempts to teach her how to move with the steps that feel like a lifetime ago. Where her shoulders, ankles, hips twist and she turns on the spot.

She sways with the motions of days gone past, as if she’s caught time in her hands — the elixir to it in her mug of wine clasped firmly in her grip — and Nate praises her.

Adam didn’t catch the name, he didn’t care for it six decades ago and he doesn’t think he’ll bother remembering it now. But he’s certain it’s something as ridiculous sounding as it looks... if she weren’t doing it surprising justice.

When she spins in Felix’s arms, the silver, sparkling discs of her dress catch in the station’s white light and he’s dazzled...more than he usually already is.

No. Not drunk.

Just happy.

In the handful of instances she stops by him during her social rounds, she asks if he wants anything -- a refill of the uninspiring wine? -- and his responses are short. Yes. No. Good. Hmm. And when he doesn’t have the words he manages a slight shake of his head or a passive shrug.

Too distracted by the smile on her face, the mischief he can see twinkling behind her eyes. Sometimes, he can believe it. That she was a troublemaker, up to no good with too much time on her hands, and not this...woman...this decorous facade of pencil skirts, unscuffed heels, and neatly ironed blouses.

He can hear it in the deep, unearthed tone she takes when she lands a passing, unassuming, coquettish comment.

The reason he keeps his answers mono-syllabic.

He watches as she hovers over the snack table, where the food has undoubtedly gone cold, compiling a paper plate of random assortments and grabbing a tin of soda. And when he can no longer see her, he follows the sound of her heels out of the main floor towards the entrance -- barely visible from the wall he’s been hugging all night.

Olivia places the plate on the officer’s desk currently on graveyard duty. He's been longingly listening to and watching the party taking place just a few steps away. But he thanks the detective kindly, playfully clinks tin against mug of wine.

She meets his eye on the way back -- brief, ever so brief -- before turning her gaze downward.

“You should come,” she said, directing her attention to the rest of the group. She avoided his stare, almost always avoiding his stare when it came to matters of bypassing his jurisdiction. But flitted reflexively to him, and then swivelled back to Nate and Felix (briefly over Mason), and she repeated. “All of you. You’re practically honourary members of the division.”

And although she didn’t say it to him, Adam knows (hopes?) she expected him to answer the invitation.

Earlier in the evening (much earlier because how long is this going to go on for?), Nate asks him if he’s enjoying himself and Adam muddles together a gruff answer.

His response, with the words “work commitment” hardly audible, prompts bark-like laughter from the second-in-command and claps him on the shoulder before heading back towards the crowd.

At the end of the night, which finally arrives right when Adam decides he can’t take another rendition of the tracklist that’s been on loop for the past four hours, he stays behind to help the detective clean up.

He sends the rest of the unit home, much to Mason’s relief and much to Felix’s displeasure, and volunteers to make sure the detective catches her cab and gets home safely.

Or, at least, that’s what he tells himself after Felix winks at him, corralled out of the station by Nate.

And then they’re alone... save for the officer who’s gone on his break.

She moves about space, clearing paper cups and forgotten plates of food in a large garbage bag. And she talks, and talks, and talks.

Adam loses track of what exactly, he’s just too busy listening to the quality of her voice. A little hoarse after all the chatting over the music and enthusiastic laughter. It gives it a new edge, one he could grow to like -- the sudden deep, tender quality of it.

Definitely not drunk as she launches into a spiel about something or other Nate taught her last week.

She tends to do this, jabber on about absolutely nothing in particular when it’s just the two of them. And although he prefers silence, he welcomes it. Because sometimes she’s not actually talking to him, instead using the stoic agent’s still presence to bounce ideas off of.

Not like he minds.

He’ll be whatever she needs him to be.

Adam tenses, unaware of where the thought could have surfaced out of so easily. He shocks himself out of his trance, out of following the detective around the room with soft, measured steps. Out of the unconscious non-committal noises he punctuates breaks in her speech with.

He stops just short of the doorway of the kitchenette.

Olivia turns to face him after dumping a number of coffee cups in the sink. She quirks an eyebrow, wiping her hands in a tea towel before casting it aside. Her mouth opens, but whatever witty remark she has ready dies in her throat.

Adam can’t decipher the zoetrope of emotions that flicker then disappear, hiding and lurking behind a wily smile. Her mouth is the colour of wild berries, purples and reds, and the crisp jasmine notes in her perfume remind him of a frosty mid-afternoon -- low winter sun in his eyes as he wades through a forest.

He can’t look right at her.

Gleaming winks of silver, a peek of white teeth, and a twinkle behind a dark curtain of hair.

“What?”

He can scarcely recognise his voice, mostly a husky and unexpected croak.

A full view of pearly teeth and the stretch of Mondeuse Blanche shiraz-coloured lips.

Adam almost misses the throw-away manner she points a finger up in the space in between them. For a fraction of a second, he’s distracted from the sudden kick of her heart and flickers his gaze to where she’s directing him.

Obnoxious oval-shaped gold leaves, thickly crowded plastic branches, and pearly-coloured fake berries hover in the space he’s decidedly placed between them. His stomach lurches in immediate recognition of the artificial plant.

“Mistletoe,” she chuckles an airy sort of sound. Different from all the crass, rough gleeful noises she made all night.

A sound, maybe, she might wield against his sanity?

Adam’s gone rigid, the heat he’s been staving off all night makes a mockery of him, only egged on by the tugging of her lips when he glances back down at her.

She steps closer and he can’t react fast enough, genetic mutations damned under her vexatious gaze. Her heart thumps a little heavier, a chaotically determined sound he can’t fend off.

His own heart starts up that racket he’s grown to call reckless.

“I heard,” she begins, so close now he can see the little scar on her nose from an old piercing. Tannin, oak, and jasmines -- the sparkling and sweet scent of violet from her lipstick, “that it’s bad luck...to refuse a kiss under the mistletoe.”

The click of the ‘k’ and the hiss of the ‘s’ in that word hanging so heavy in the air, the breath of its remnants brush his cheek. Faintly, his mind wanders between two realms. One of old wives tales and superstitions where a kiss is required for every berry in the bunch and, the second, how, if it weren’t for those heels, where would that breath have landed instead?

Her sly grin is tickled by his lack of response, the stiffness creeping into his muscles and his conflicted expression.

“Commanding Agent, do you -- maybe -- want to help me…” she begins, another step closer and this time he doesn't think he wants to move, “fight off any unnecessary misfortunes?”

Adam doesn’t recognise himself. He doesn’t know where it comes from, or how he’s sanctioned the movement of his body. It’s minimal, but to Olivia, who has spent the last year fighting off the hunger from the nearly nonexistent mementoes, it’s colossal.

The smug smile on her face nearly slips.

It’s the tiniest, faintest, barely discernible half-nod as his gaze refuses to leave the curve of her lower lip. Fuller, rounder... he’s thought of the seam of her mouth longer than he’d like to dwell on.

She moves forward and there are no thoughts just the drumming in his chest that pounds a deafening beat. Her hand finds his first, a comfort from the heat roaring inside him, and he responds by tracing the lines of her palms with jittery fingertips.

Olivia shivers and why does that thrill him? He wonders how long until she decides to put him out of his misery.

Please. Please. Please. The thumping against his ribcage wants to meet the erratic pulse of hers.

Roused by his response, her other hand so warm and soft draws a curious path up his arm, over the swell of his bicep and past his shoulder before it hesitates to fully press at the back of his neck where he knows she can feel fevered skin.

It takes her an eternity, staring up at him with hooded eyes, dark fluttering eyelashes almost touching the tops of her cheeks. And he’d wait until whatever comes after that eternity.

This is the closest she’s ever been to him and he can’t help but revere the details he once took for granted.

Olivia rises and the hand behind his neck cautiously coaxes him to meet her.

And then, right as he thinks the world beneath his feet as he knows it will be thrown off its axis, she tilts her head a fraction and the hot press of her mouth meets his blushing cheek instead.

She lingers and everything amplifies.

She is a dizzying bottle of Chianti, left out in the sun too long, and warming him all the way down with each indulgent sip.

A field of blooming shrubs of jasmines.

Warm, brisk, spring morning sun.

He hears her deeply inhale, and does he have the same effect on her like she does on him?

His heightened senses register the moment she parts and moves away, suddenly cold and left with the weight of the cream of her lipstick.

Her touch is deliberate, soaking up the feel of his skin, the fine hairs at his nape, under her gliding palms -- and she settles back on her heels.

The imprint of her lips remains on his cheek, willing it to singe him -- mark him -- so he never has to forget what they feel like. The pressure of her mouth, the moment her breath shuddered.

Olivia makes to touch his cheek, to wipe away all evidence with the sweep of her thumb, but Adam stops her. He catches her wrist with reflexes she’ll never get used to.

He closes his eyes and he tunes in to the demanding call of his heart, thundering, thundering, thundering. And it won’t still.

Just a moment longer.

Is what it would ask.

Just a moment longer, so he can memorise the feel of her mark on his skin -- of the instance she cherished him, made room for him, during a fleeting blip that will be her life.

Olivia moves again, fighting against the gentle strength of his hand, and she rubs the pad of her thumb once, twice, three times. Until the smudge of her affection is reduced to a memory.

She smiles, unlike the smiles she shared earlier. There is no arrogance, no teasing, no playful ridicule.

She smiles -- with those lips that have touched him.

A sharp ringing echoes in the tiny kitchenette and, like he’s waking from a deep sleep, he blinks away the haze of their bewitchment.

As if nothing happened, Olivia digs into her purse, sources her mobile and answers. The conversation is brief, he doesn’t follow any of it, still reeling from her magnetism.

“My cab’s outside,” she says when she hangs up.

Still paralyzed, Olivia meets his eye and grins, before she drops her gaze to the floor.

She shakes her head and releases a small, anxious laugh. She touches his arm when she moves past him, out of the kitchenette, and heads for the exit.

He watches her leave, listening to the light click-clack of heels, still shaking her head and-- he practically hears the smile in her voice when she calls out behind her.

“Happy holidays, Commanding Agent du Mortain.”

Note II: Yeah, it’s The Twist. Nate was teaching Felix and Olivia the twist....because I said so and because i hc N being really into the 60s/70s music scene....long legs.....in....flared....jeans. So many typos. But if I didn’t post it when I did I was never going to post it.

#the wayhaven chronicles #a du mortain #adam du mortain #adam du mortain x detective #i wrote this in a haze of sleep deprivation ...bone smack the teeth #writing #y’all see typos you look away I’m too fra jeel e.#the amount of #repetition is astounding lol okay I’m done rereading before I go 🍌#I really loved an italicized word huh #tuagonia writes twc

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dandy-writes · 3 years

Text

The Graveyard (Crowley x Reader One-shot)

“Okay,” Dean whispered. “This is where we split up.”

The four of them were standing outside the now-opened entrance to a previously secure mausoleum. It was a November night, the cold driving itself through Y/N’s sweater as wind rattled the branches of nearby trees. They bleakly thought to themselves that the noise was not far off from what they imagined the clatter of bones might sound like. This was the first time that Y/N had ever accompanied the boys on a hunt, and their unease with this was only heightened by the tagging along of the King of Hell himself. He stood next to Sam on the right side of the doorway, across from Y/N and Dean.

“Someone needs to stay here and make sure that security guard doesn’t come poking around while Sam and I are down there finding Crowley’s ‘precious’ artifact,” The latter of the two continued. “Y/N, do you think you can handle that?”

“Yeah, probably,” They frowned slightly. “But… I mean, don’t you think I could handle going with you guys inside, too?”

“All the sources we found on this mentioned it having some sort of ‘guardian’ protecting it,” Sam replied, tone caring. “We don’t want you getting in harm’s way -- you’re not used to dealing with this kind of thing.”

They huffed out a sigh, breath momentarily visible in the air. “I guess.”

“Don’t worry, darling. I’ll be here to keep you company.” Crowley’s words brought the attention of Sam and Dean, who glared at him with furrowed brows.

“What? No, you’re hauling your ass in here with us. No way in Hell we’re leaving you alone with them,” Dean said, voice raising.

“Alright, keep it down, Squirrel,” Crowley smiled. “I can’t go in there, remember? Any demonic presence inside will set off all sorts of magical alarms. Thought you’d recall, from the ‘sources’.” He looked pointedly at Sam, though his amusement was clearly not shared.

“Okay, then Crowley can stay out here and I’ll come down with you guys,” Y/N butted in, nudging Dean. He looked down at them, then to Sam’s expression of concern. Setting his jaw, he took a few steps towards Crowley before leaning down slightly and raising a pointed finger towards his face.

“If you touch a single hair on their head while we’re down there, I will not hesitate to hunt you down and tear you limb from limb. Understand?”

Crowley merely scoffed. “Come now, Dean. I’d never dream of hurting them.”

“Yeah, right,” Dean grumbled as he straightened himself up. Turning back to Y/N, he put a hand on their shoulder. “If he tries to pull anything at all, you don’t hesitate to call us, alright?”

They nodded, a mix of nerves and excitement pooling in their veins as they watched the brothers finish collecting all of their equipment and head inside the mausoleum, being careful to ensure the door was not fully closed behind them. Once they were out of sight, any sounds they made muffled by the thick walls separating them from Y/N and Crowley, an air of silence descended upon them. The awkwardness already pervading their thoughts, Y/N turned away slightly from the demon, taking a step off of the paved area circling the mausoleum and onto the grass of the graveyard itself. However, much to their dismay, they soon heard Crowley following after them.

“You know, darling, we don’t usually get time to ourselves like this,” He cleared his throat as he reached their side, voice maintaining a cautiously low volume. “What with the Winchesters constantly peering over our shoulders.”

“It’s almost like they don’t trust you or something,” Y/N remarked, causing the demon to smirk.

“What about you?” He took a few lopsided strides around Y/N, forcing himself into their line of sight. When they met his stare, he continued. “Do you trust me, kitten?”

Their expression, previously only mildly concerned, quickly morphed into a frown. “Well…” They paused, then glanced away. “No.”

“Really?” He stepped towards them, eyes narrowing. He brought his right hand to their chin, lifting their head so they were facing him fully. “You certainly seem to trust me more than the Winchesters do.”

Y/N, caught off-guard by his sudden closeness, merely blinked at him for a second before reorganizing their thoughts into a response. “That’s not a high bar to reach, Crowley.”

His smile widened as he chuckled. “No, I suppose it isn’t.” For a few moments, the two remained motionless, contemplating one another. Then, Crowley brought his hand back to his coat pocket and turned slightly, leaving Y/N to mentally reprimand themselves for not having moved away earlier.

After a minute or so of tense silence wherein Crowley watched a flock of crows take off from a distant tree and Y/N became suddenly fascinated by the grass beneath their feet, the hunter finally spoke up. “Why’d you come along, anyways?”

He turned to face them, brow knitted. “What do you mean?”

“Well, you knew ahead of time that you wouldn’t be able to go into the tomb,” Y/N reasoned. “So… what was the point?”

He paused before opening his mouth to speak. But before he could say whatever he was planning to, his focus shifted to a spot behind Y/N. “Bollocks.”

“What is it?” They spun around to follow his gaze, and quickly noticed the issue; the security guard who they’d managed to avoid when they first entered the graveyard was coming back around, and at this point he would spot them very soon -- if he hadn’t already. “Shit,” they muttered before turning back to Crowley. “We can’t let him inspect the mausoleum.”

“No,” He agreed. “We’ve got to make a distraction.” He hesitated before continuing, and Y/N could practically see the cogs turning in his head. “Darling, you’re pretty good at improvisation, no?”

They blinked. “Well, I guess--”

“Good,” Crowley moved towards them. “I’m going to prompt you. Whatever response you choose, I’m sure it’ll create a good enough scene to work with. Alright?”

“Okay,” They stammered as he continued his advance, backing up in response. “What are you--”

Simultaneously Y/N felt both their back hitting the wall of the crypt as well as Crowley placing his hands upon their cheek and waist. Their breath hitched as he leant in slightly. “Make your choice,” He murmured. His breath fanned against their skin, matching the heat Y/N felt spreading through their face. For an instant, they locked eyes, and Y/N knew they’d come to their decision.

Bringing both of their arms up to wrap around his neck, they pulled Crowley down into a kiss. He reciprocated quickly, his beard scratching against their face in a pleasant sensation, and Y/N found their pulse racing; they may or may not have imagined this scenario several times in the past, but the real thing truly exceeded their expectations. Deepening the kiss, Crowley pushed himself against them more fully so that they were trapped, the heat of his body contrasting with the cold of the stone behind them. The demon’s hand on their cheek moved to the back of their head, carding through their hair and causing their heart to leap.

For a short while, it was bliss. But unfortunately, all good things must come to an end.

“Hey! You two!”

Crowley was hesitant to pull away, but when Y/N slid their arms down to his chest and pushed him slightly, he loosened his grip on them. Painting an expression of shock onto their face, the hunter turned to see the security guard walking towards them down the path with his flashlight trained on them.

As he neared them, he stopped and put a hand on his hip. “Graveyard visiting hours are over, lovebirds.”

“What?” Y/N blinked dumbly before looking up at Crowley. “I thought you said--”

“No, that can’t be right,” Crowley interrupted, slipping his hand in Y/N’s as he did so. “What time is it now?” He glanced at his watch.

“Eleven o’clock,” The guard replied. “Graveyard closed for the night at ten-thirty.”

“Ten-thirty?” Crowley’s brow furrowed.

“You said it closed at eleven-thirty,” Y/N whispered, making sure they were loud enough for the guard to hear.

“Right, because it does,” His gaze turned from Y/N back to the man before him. “There must be some mistake.”

“Nope,” The guard squinted pointedly at him. “Ten-thirty.”

“You’re sure.”

“Positive.”

“I--”

“Babe,” Y/N hissed. Crowley glanced down at them, brows raised. They ignored this and started addressing the guard. “We are so sorry, we really had no idea.” They smiled apologetically. “We’ll be out of your hair now.”

The guard sighed, scanning his flashlight over the general area. Y/N prayed that he wouldn’t spot anything off with the mausoleum, and felt Crowley squeeze their hand lightly. “Well, you two seem innocent enough.” He looked back at them. “You haven’t seen anything suspicious tonight, have you?”

“Suspicious how?” Y/N cocked their head.

“Well, anyone else around,” He sighed slightly. “It is, after all, after-hours.”

“No, not that I can remember,” Crowley said, looking utterly exasperated.

“Well,” Y/N paused, trying their best to feign well-meaning uncertainty as their focus shifted between the guard and Crowley. “There was that group of kids earlier. Teens? You remember.”

“A group of teens. Where about were they?” The guard asked.

“I think they were headed that way,” They pointed at the clump of headstones farthest from the mausoleum. “Probably four or five of them. I didn’t think much of it, ‘cause, uh…” They gestured and laughed nervously. “You know.”

“Right,” The guard looked at the two for a few seconds, expression unreadable. Then he let out another huff and continued. “You folks better get going, now. Thank you for the heads-up.”

“Of course. Take care now,” Y/N smiled politely and turned to go back down the path, Crowley in tow. The two stayed silent as they walked, still holding hands, but after a few minutes this was broken by Crowley chuckling. They looked up at him. “What?”

“‘Babe’,” He mimicked, causing them both to start laughing quietly.

“Hey,” Y/N said, beaming. “I was just playing my part.”

Crowley hummed in agreement. “And you played it very well.”

“Thank you,” They glanced behind them. “I hope that whole ‘teen’ thing wasn’t too suspicious.”

“No, no, it was some good quick thinking on your part,” He cleared his throat. “But that’s not what I meant.”

“Hm?” They frowned.

“I meant before that.”

“The… the whole ‘we didn’t realize we were trespassing’ gimmick?”

“No, before that as well.”

Y/N remained quiet for a moment, eyes locked on the dirt path. Then a blush spread across their cheeks and they turned back to him, using their free hand to smack his arm. “Shut up!” He only started to laugh again, clearly amused by their dramatics. “You’re awful, you know that?”

“I try, darling.” Despite their harsh words, they couldn’t help but grin. “You know, I didn’t really expect things to go that way.”

“Oh?”

“No. I largely expected for you to slap me the second I got near you.”

They chuckled. “Me too.”

He raised a brow. “Then why didn’t you?”

They slowed their movement until they came to a halt, Crowley circling in front of them while still holding their hand. Finally, they shrugged. “I dunno.”

“You ‘dunno’?” Crowley smirked. “Maybe it’s because of my devilish good looks.”

“Crowley--”

“I’ve been told I have a naturally charming aura.”

“By who?”

“Several people, actually.” Y/N started giggling again, and Crowley took a step closer. “What, do you disagree?”

“About your ‘aura’?” They laughed. “No, that seems pretty spot-on.”

“So, if I were to, say, do this,” The demon cupped their cheek and leaned forwards. “How would you react?”

Y/N paused, before raising their head up slightly. “Probably the same way I did back there.”

That was all the encouragement Crowley needed to lower his lips to theirs once more. Pulling Y/N flush against him, he could feel them smiling against his mouth, and he was soon doing the same. This was one hunt that neither of them regretted going on.

A/N: Hope you guys liked this! I've got a few ideas for longer Crowley x Reader fics, but I have no idea how long those might take me. In the mean time, I hope I've satiated you all with this one-shot. :]

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