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slutforstabbings-archive · 1 year

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May I request a scenario of a fem reader liking Corey, but she doesn't let herself be loved (even though deep down she wants to be) and instead hooks Corey up with Allyson instead? Perhaps the fem reader prefers others to have a happy ending over herself, and imagine if Corey came back to the reader like, "But I love you..Why won't you let me love you?". Eventually the fem reader breaks down and lets him, like a heartwarming ending? (Angst, fluff)

sorry for the long wait, but here it is! it's lengthy because I was in the mood for worldbuilding i guess lol.

Corey Cunningham x fem!Reader

5,954 words!

angst, fluff, hurt and comfort, miscommunications, all that stuff. canon divergent, takes place during the first part of the film

beloved taglist: @rebel-blue @nachtmahr666 @vanellygal @cordelium @multifandom--mess @wolvesandvampires

The First of Many

You tap a stack of invoices on your desk, aligning their edges before filing them away. Then you make sure all the customer keys are labeled and hung appropriately. You know they are but you’re trying to kill the last few minutes of your shift at Prevo Auto. You refresh the shop email and no new messages come through. 4:57. Come on 5pm! You look through the window in the front office into the garage to try to see Corey, but you only see your father. You empty the small trash can under your desk.

Dad is how you got the job working Prevo’s front desk, and how you first came to know Corey. Dad was one of Ron’s first hires when Prevo opened up on the outskirts of Haddonfield. You went to the same school as Corey, the only high school in Haddonfield, but you never crossed paths with your fellow Husker. No, you’d see him when work brought your families together, the Prevo Christmas party, you and Dad visiting their house for dinner once or twice (and then never again to avoid spending any more time in the vicinity of Ron’s horrible wife, Joan). A few times in the spring Corey turned 21, when Dad hired him to help out with yard work.

The first time you ever got to really speak to him, you’d been sitting cross legged on the back porch squeezing petunias out of little plastic cups from the nursery and massaging their roots so he and Dad could plant them. He sat down next to you, soil and grass clippings sticking to his sweaty legs, taking a break from the sun. You’d talked a while, the longest and most private conversation you’d ever had with him, and found him extremely likable. He was smart and ambitious and he made you laugh. He was looking really good too, his short time doing landscaping for people in town already adding bulk to his limbs and bleaching little copper streaks into his brown hair, the sun encouraging his freckles.

You found out he’d just turned 21 and didn’t do anything for his birthday, so when all the work was done, you’d brought him a beer and a Hostess cupcake.

“This is your birthday party now,” you told him. One corner of his mouth lifted into a smile before bringing the other side up with it. You ended the day with a little crush on him.

You started your job at Prevo not long after that, hoping it meant you would see Corey more often. Then the accident happened. It fell to you and Dad to keep the ship afloat while the captain was away, running the auto shop the best you could to help take pressure off Ron, who was gone every day for weeks, driving two hours one way with Joan and Corey to Springfield for the trial. You wanted desperately to sit in the courtroom gallery and support him. To be a kind face is the sea of snarls he had to look out into every day. But you knew you were needed at work, that you were supporting him from behind your desk. A couple times in the evenings you delivered a casserole to the Cunningham-Prevo house, wanting to make sure they were eating well despite all the stress and time spent out of town.

Since Corey came to work for his step-father, you’ve become good friends. Joan serves dinner at 6:30 like clockwork and makes Corey’s night hell if he’s late, but Ron cuts him loose at 5, even tho Prevo is open til 6, to give him 90 glorious minutes of free time before Joan can get him back under her thumb for the evening. The flow of customers has usually all but dried up by then, so the ends of your shifts align.

You stand in front of the ancient time clock in the back, hand hovering, prepared to insert your time card as soon as it rolls over to 5:00. A massive pair of hands comes from nowhere to cover your eyes.

“Guess who?” Says a raspy voice in a Northeastern accent. As if it could be anybody else.

“The Easter bunny?” You ask.

Corey chuckles. “Not quite.”

“Okay, then it’s probably… James Dean.”

He scoffs. “No.”

“Shit, okay,” you say, pretending to be disappointed. “Final guess… Corey Cunningham?”

He lifts his hands from over your eyes and steps to stand next to you.

“Third time’s the charm,” he says.

“You’re such a dork,” you tell him playfully as you clock out, at 5:01, thanks to him.

“I learned from the best,” he says, taking your place in front of the time clock.

Corey changes out of his coveralls and washes all the grease off his hands in the bathroom. You check your phone, thinking of texting your friend Allyson. You haven’t heard from her in weeks, maybe months, which isn’t uncommon. But last you heard she was still trying to untangle herself from that scummy cop she’d been with since 2018. You feel like you should check on her. But before you can finish composing your message, Corey comes out of the bathroom. You never look at your phone when you’re with him. You get to spend too little time together to squander it.

The two of you enact your routine for afternoons you spend together. You ride on his bike pegs first to the gas station, then to the part of town where the old Myers house used to sit, a desolate and decaying neighborhood with a park you can’t believe the city still bothers to mow. You sit on the cracked swings creaking from rusty chains and dig your toes down into the ancient mulch, all the way to the rotten tarp underneath. How much Corey wants to talk varies a lot, so you let him set the tone. Although he was playful at work, he seems to have fallen deep into thought on the bike ride, so neither of you says much.

Suddenly you remember something you used to do as a kid. You use your feet to rotate the swing 90 degrees, then 90 more, so you’re facing the opposite direction and the rusted chain is crossed above you. You complete another half turn and the chain braids around itself. You dig your feet into the mulch and slowly turn yourself around, again, and again, getting more and more difficult as the chain kinks, gaining resistance and raising you further from the ground. It makes a scraping sound as the rust grinds together, and a concerning groaning from the stress on the bolts holding the chains to the support structure. Corey watches you skeptically. When you can’t twist the chains anymore you rest for a second before lifting both feet off the ground.

The chains unravel and you spin back the other direction, even faster than you expected, the chain coiling back around itself. You laugh heartily, shocked that it’s still so fun. Corey’s skeptical look changes to delight and he laughs as he twists his own swing’s chains. You both spin over and over, cackling, until you get so dizzy you slip backwards out of the swing and land on your ass.

“Be careful!” Corey says, jumping off his swing to help you.

You’re still laughing. You take his outstretched hand and he pulls you up. You stand there, your hand lingering in his for a moment. Then his alarm goes off. 6:15. Playtime’s over. You dust yourself off before once again you mount his bike pegs. He drops you off at your place before biking the rest of the way home.

“How was your date?” Dad asks from the living room as you come inside.

“It wasn’t a date,” you say, kicking off your shoes.

“Whatever you say, Pumpkin,” Dad replies.

You wish it was a date. The little crush you formed that day on the back porch has only grown in the intervening years. Deepening and strengthening, fueled by your respect for how he handled himself in such a horrible situation, your awe at his inner strength, and your delight to find his sense of humor lingering after everything he’s been through. In the moments at work when you hand him the keys to a car or end up in the break room at the same time, and those short hours when Joan thinks he’s still at work, you’ve fallen in love with him.

You’ve fallen in love with him and it is totally fucking unrequited. Corey loves you, you don’t doubt that at all, but it’s excruciatingly platonic. When you first realized how you felt, you’d tried to pay attention, look for signs that he felt the same way. Sometimes you thought you saw something, in the way he looked at you, or how his hand always seemed to brush yours when he handed you a set of keys. It wasn’t exactly the most compelling evidence. You couldn’t trust that you weren’t just reading too much into things. Corey is shy, awkward, inexperienced. But surely he would do something more obvious if he felt the same as you do.

So it’s not reciprocal. You’ve done your best to accept it. You weren’t meant to be anything more than friends with him, so you just enjoy his friendship. You work hard to be the best friend you can be. Somebody has to look out for him in this town, this world, that seems set on destroying him.

You eat dinner in front of the TV with Dad, then you spend the rest of the night in your room. Listening to music and pacing in the lamp light. Trying not to think about Corey, refusing to indulge the temptation to imagine what a future with him would be like. Instead, you fold your laundry. You rearrange your bookshelf. You remember your half-written text to Allyson and finish it, hitting send but not expecting much. Eventually it gets late enough for you to climb into bed.

In the morning you’re brushing your teeth when you get a pleasant surprise. Allyson texts back. You suggest the two of you grab lunch to catch up and she agrees. She comes to Prevo to pick you up. Her car rattles so loudly it’s hard to hear her music.

“When you take me back, I’ll have one of the guys look at that rattle!” You say, raising your voice a little over the racket.

“It’s not a big deal!” She says. You raise your eyebrows at her and she laughs. “Okay, it’s a big deal!”

“Don’t worry! Family discount!”

You get to the restaurant and are shown to your table. Allyson tells you that her grandma bought a house and they live together now, that she’s expecting a promotion soon at the Mathis Clinic, that her annoying ex has pretty much faded into the background. You’re so happy she’s doing well. After everything she’s been through she could easily be forgiven for giving up, but she hasn’t. You’re proud of your friend.

“Anyway there’s this Halloween party at Velkovsky’s tomorrow. I wanna go because Lindsey works there and arranged the whole thing, but I don’t wanna go alone,” she says.

You’d offer to go with her but you already have plans with Dad tomorrow night to drive across the border into Iowa to visit a giant pumpkin patch he’d seen online. It’s unclear whether the patch or the pumpkins are giant, but he read that it’s popular with influencers so you agreed to leave the night before your visit. The plan is to stay in a motel so you can be there as soon as the gates open. God forbid all the midwestern Instagram girlies buy all the pumpkins before your father can get one.

Suddenly, a brilliant idea strikes you. “I could set you up with someone, if you want,” you tell her.

“Oh jeez, I don’t know about that,” she protests.

“No, no, he’s an amazing guy. He’s really cute and I think you’ll find you have a lot in common,” you tell her.

She thinks, anxiously tapping a chip against the bowl of salsa on the table. “Okay,” she says. “I’m trusting you… if you think he’s a great guy then I’ll give him a shot.”

Instead of dropping you at the gates to Prevo Auto, Allyson pulls into the scrapyard and you show her where to park. You run inside and look for Corey. You find him in the break room, drinking from a glass bottle of chocolate milk.

“Are you busy?” You ask.

“Not really,” he says, smiling.

“Awesome. Come out front with me, a friend of mine needs something quick and I want you to meet her.”

Corey furrows his brows. He hates meeting people. But you do so much for him, he trusts that you wouldn’t bring him to someone who’ll treat him like most of Haddonfield does. He puts the cap back on his milk and sets it back in the fridge. You lead him out into the yard. Allyson is leaning against her car. She’s so pretty and kind, there’s no way Corey won’t be into her, you think to yourself. You never imagined yourself as the friend who plays matchmaker. You feel the tiniest lump form in your throat. You want Corey to be with you. If you can’t have him tho, you know Allyson will treat him right, that she can understand the trauma and tragedy of his life in a way you probably never could. You’ll be the best (wo)man at their wedding, and a devoted godmother for their children if it comes to that.

“Allyson Nelson, meet Corey Cunningham. Corey, Allyson.”

“Hi,” Corey says sheepishly, wiping a broad hand on his coveralls before holding it out for her to shake.

“Nice to meet you,” she says, accepting it.

“Her car’s been rattling super loud,” you explain. “I thought you could take a look at it.”

“Sure. Probably the exhaust system clamp coming loose. It’ll take like, five minutes. Super cinchy,” Corey says.

Allyson looks at you, then looks at him. “Cinchy?” she says. Corey laughs.

“Okay, I’ll leave you to it then,” you say. You hold your arms out for a hug and Allyson leans in. “Always great to catch up with you. Let’s not wait so long next time.”

“For sure,” Allyson says.

Then you drop your voice to a whisper. “Invite him to Velkovsky’s!” you say into her ear. Then you let go. You clap Corey on the back reassuringly as you walk back into the office.

The phone has a blinking red light. You listen to the voicemails left while you were at lunch and take notes, but your attention is split. You keep looking through the office windows to watch Corey and Allyson. You wish you could hear them because they keep making each other laugh. He puts her car on the lift and rolls under it on a creeper. She keeps talking to him while he works. He rolls back out from under the car and lets it down from the lift. Attila, one of the other mechanics, comes to return a customer’s keys and update the log of what’s been done to their car. When he walks away you can’t see Corey anymore and Allyson’s car is gone.

At 4:55 Corey is already at the desk, waiting for you to do your last minute organizing and email checking.

“Allyson’s really nice,” he says.

“Yeah,” you say, smiling. You hope it’s convincing. “She is.”

He gives you a strange look, like he’s studying you, but he doesn’t say anything else. The two of you don’t talk at all, all the way to the gas station, through buying snacks, and to the park. While he locks his bike against a tree, you cross to the old merry go round. It’s covered in dry orange leaves and you dust a spot clean. You lay on your back with your legs hanging off the edge, looking up into the gray autumn sky. Corey comes and cleans a spot across from you so that when he lays down your heads are next to each other.

“Do you ever think it’s weird that we didn’t know each other in high school? Well, nobody knew me. But do you think it’s weird that I didn’t know you?” Corey asks.

“Nobody knew me either,” you say. “But I wanted to know you, from seeing you at work stuff. I just never saw you in the hallway or anything.”

“You wanted to know me?”

“Well, yeah. Dad told me stuff about you that Ronald told him. And it would’ve been nice to have someone closer to my age to talk to at the Christmas party and shit. I was always too shy to say anything when we were actually at the Christmas party tho. I wanted to have a class with you or something so we could talk that way.”

“I didn’t know that,” Corey says. A few times it seems like he’s going to say something else, but he stays quiet the rest of your time together until he says goodbye when he drops you off at home.

Later that evening you get a text from Allyson, letting you know she took your advice and asked Corey to the party. Then you get a text from Corey, a rarity since his mom still looks through his phone, confused and surprised that Allyson asked him. You encourage him to go. You feel bad about it, but you craft your replies to make it seem like you’re going too. You hate to even be kinda semi-dishonest with him, but you know he’ll say no if he knows you can’t make it. You hope Allyson won’t mention it. If he just shows up, you know he could have a good time. It’ll be a costume party, no one even has to know it’s him. They’ll have a blast and before the night is even over, they’ll agree to a second date.

A smile comes to your face, but your eyes fill with tears. Nothing could make you happier than imagining Corey happy. Your deepest wish is that you could be the one to make him happy, but you have to let go of that eventually. Grow up, move on. They’ve both suffered so much more than you have and they both deserve the best. You’re lucky just to be on the periphery, and you should feel honored to be the one who introduced them. You feel sick to your stomach instead.

The next day at Prevo is super busy, and you’re thankful for it. You don’t want Corey to ask you about the party in person. You haven’t actually lied to him, and you won’t do it if he asks you directly, so it’s easiest if you just don’t talk to him all day. He does wander into the front office a few times, but you’re on the phone or ringing a customer up every time and he doesn’t interfere. When 5 rolls around you can’t avoid him anymore, but luckily all he says is that he has to go straight home to get ready. You tell him you do too, and that technically isn’t a lie either. You still have to pack your overnight bag for the pumpkin patch.

“What’s the matter, Kiddo?” Dad asks as you approach the state line. As far as you can see in either direction, the road is flanked by the dry remnants of this past summer’s crops.

“Corey’s on a date with Allyson Nelson right now,” you say.

“Allyson Nelson? How did that happen?” he asks.

“I set them up.”

“Well, why’d you do that? I know I tease you about it a lot, but I was really tickled that you two have gotten so close.” Dad’s always been fond of Corey too, it’s not news to you that he’s a fan of your friendship.

“Yeah well, I’m tickled too, but he’s not.”

“Why would you think a thing like that?”

You shrug and slouch in your seat. “He hasn’t said anything or done anything to make me think he’s interested in me like that.”

Dad laughs and sighs your name. “I think you’ve been a little blind. Corey adores you.”

“Platonically,” you amend.

“Have you asked him?”

“No,” you say quietly.

“Well Pumpkin, I think you found the problem,” Dad says.

“I just… What if that fucks our friendship up? He doesn’t have anybody else.”

“I know Corey’s important to you, but that doesn’t make him your responsibility. He’s an adult. And I hope your friendship is strong enough to handle a little status update conversation.”

“I think it is but I’m just not 100% sure. I really don’t want to lose him.” Your voice cracks.

“So you set him up with Allyson to keep him?” Dad asks gently.

“My brilliant plan doesn’t sound so brilliant when you say it,” you tell him, and laugh a little. “But it’s too late now.”

“Well why don’t you just wait until we get home and tell him how you feel before you decide that.”

Because he’ll already be falling for Allyson by then, you think but don’t say out loud.

Your phone hasn’t had service for basically the whole drive, and you still can’t get anything to load or go through when you get to the motel. They have wifi, but they charge extra for it. In a way you’re relieved. You don’t want to know how it went yet. You just turn your phone completely off and lay in the stiff motel bed, listening to Dad snoring and the endless episodes of Ancient Aliens on the vintage motel TV.

Allyson picks Corey up on the corner, down the block from his house. He doesn’t want Momma to see him getting in a car with a girl. He didn’t have a costume so she brought him a mask. He expected you to be in the car with Allyson, all three of you carpooling, but he’s disappointed to be her only passenger.

At Velkovsky’s Allyson orders them drinks and Corey sips his apprehensively. She tries to get him to dance and the alcohol has lowered his inhibitions just enough for him to reluctantly agree. Surely you’re on your way and he just has to have a good time with a new friend until you get there. Inside his mask he’s overheating, and the alcohol whispers for him to take it off even though he knows it’s a bad idea. But he’s having fun and you’ll be here soon, so he slips it up over his head and drops it on the pool table.

Allyson is pleasantly surprised to see Corey’s face. You were right, he is really cute. He’s sweet too, and of course she knows what he’s been through. It touches her that his ordeal doesn’t seem to have made him hard the way it sometimes feels like her trauma did to her. She can’t help but wonder why you’re not his girlfriend. She’s heard the admiration in your voice when you’ve mentioned him over the years. Maybe she had just been mistaken about the kind of affection you have for him.

Corey approaches the bar to order another drink, leaving Allyson on the dance floor. He doesn’t notice Theresa Allen slumped on a bar stool nearby. Unfortunately, she notices him.

“You!” she says, sitting up. “You just here dancing, having a good time with your friends?”

Corey flinches. “I’m sorry,” he mutters.

“Oh, sorry? You’re sorry!? For killing my son?” She slides off her bar stool to get in Corey’s face. He backs away, trying to find the exit behind him. “I wake up every day and I can’t get past the pain. It kills me, do you understand?” Corey’s back finds the wall and he’s trapped. “No, you don’t understand if you think you can come in here and take off your little mask and have a good time with your friends.”

Lindsey appears from behind the bar and grabs Mrs. Allen, pulling her away from Corey. But that doesn’t stop her from screaming. “The judge might’ve said you were innocent, but I know you! You pushed my little boy because you got mad and lost your fucking mind! Innocent people don’t do that!” Corey finally finds an exit behind him and makes a break for it. Allyson hears all the commotion and turns in the direction of the chaos just in time to see Corey slipping out the door. She rushes after him. “Evil people do!” screams Mrs. Allen. “Evil!”

Corey runs blindly across the yard outside the bar. Allyson follows him, screaming his name. He gets to the street and a car flies past, nearly hitting him.

“Corey, look out!” Allyson shouts, voice breaking.

He stops and she catches up to him.

“Where is she?” he wails.

“Mrs. Allen?” Allyson asks, confused.

“No!”

Then Allyson realizes. He means you.

“She went to Iowa with her dad for that pumpkin patch,” she says. “Didn’t she tell you?”

“No! I thought they were going tomorrow. I’ve been waiting for her to show up. I don’t…. I don’t do things without her.” Corey sobs and balls his fists.

“You didn’t think this was a date?” Allyson asks. She feels a little stung but she’s trying to understand.

“A date!?” Why would he think it was a date? His mind swirls. Traffic rushes by. Suddenly the October air on his sweaty skin makes him cold.

“She told me she was setting us up…” Allyson says.

Then it dawns on him. “Oh,” he says, in a much quieter voice. He takes Allyson’s hand. “I’m so sorry. You seem really cool, I’d like to get to know you better. But I… I’m…”

“You’re in love with her?” Allyson finishes for him.

Corey nods. “I’ve been trying to build up the courage to tell her. I guess I waited too long and she gave up on me.” He collapses in on himself, his already usually stooped posture worsening, broad shoulders almost parallel to the ground. He puts his head in his hands and sobs.

“Corey,” Allyson says soothingly. “Hey.” He looks up at her. “I was surprised too. She’s always seemed to really care about you when she’s talked about you. For like, years. I think you should just talk to her.”

Allyson leads Corey back to her car and drives him almost home, dropping him off on the same corner that she picked him up on. He opens his door, then closes it.

“Hey Allyson? Could you not talk to her until I get a chance to?” He asks.

“Sure thing,” she says.

“Thanks for being understanding. Maybe the three of us can hang out sometime.”

“I’d like that,” she says.

When Corey comes inside Momma is waiting for him. She demands to know the details of his night, but he does something he almost never does. He ignores her. He walks straight up the stairs and into his bedroom, locking the door behind him. Momma follows him up the stairs, pounding on his door and yanking on the knob, cursing and complaining. Eventually getting no reaction wears her out, and she goes into her room and closes the door.

Corey lays on his back in bed, bathed intermittently by the red light from the radio tower coming in through the window. He thinks of trying to text or call you but he doesn’t know what he’d say. He kicks himself for not being more proactive. Is it too late now? If you’re setting him up on dates with other people does that mean you’re not interested in him the way he is in you? The way he has been since the spring he turned 21?

He remembers so clearly how scandalized you’d looked when he told you he didn’t do anything for his birthday. How you insisted it was a milestone worth celebrating, even tho Corey had never done much of anything for his birthday except to spend the day even more smothered by Momma than usual. How you’d thrown him a “birthday party” on your back porch with a beer and a snack cake. It didn’t take a lot of effort on your part, it didn’t cost you much of anything. But the fact that you’d cared enough to do anything, to make any kind of deal about it, really mattered to him.

He couldn’t believe the effort you and your dad put into helping his family during the trial either. During the darkest part of his life, the worst thing that ever happened to him, you’d been there. He hadn’t spoken a word to you for months, but he’d felt the same care eating the casseroles you’d prepared that he had felt when you brought him that beer. He mattered to someone other than Momma and Ron. He’d never felt that before. And he’d never properly thanked you.

Now it’s his turn to show you how much you matter to him. He just has to figure out how.

You wake up to the screaming of the old analog alarm clock on the table between the beds in the motel room. Dad reaches over to it and slaps it blindly a few times before turning it off. It’s still dark outside. The TV, never turned off last night, plays an infomercial for some kitchen gadget or other. You reach over to look at your phone before remembering that you turned it off last night. Oh. Right.

You and Dad get breakfast at a Denny’s inside a truck stop across from the motel before heading to the pumpkin patch. When you get there, there’s already a line, but it’s not too bad. The sun starts to creep over the horizon as you wait, and by the time you get in it’s fully light. It’s a gorgeous day. You keep your phone off, trying to just enjoy marveling at how truly giant the pumpkins are, to drink coffee and eat a pumpkin donut without thinking about Corey and Allyson.

At the far end of the field there’s a little platform with several hay bales sitting in front of it. You spin Dad to look in that direction, where some people dressed very conspicuously like cowboys are setting up amps and a drum kit. You pick your way through the mud and the pumpkin vines and sit on a hay bale right up front. You overhear that it’s a country cover band and get excited. This will either be a group of people so genuinely talented you can’t believe they’re playing a show at 8:30 am on a Saturday for a fucking pumpkin patch, or so genuinely terrible you can’t believe they’re playing a show at all. Delightfully, it’s the former, and you manage a whole hour without feeling like you’re on the verge of tears.

When the band’s done, two employees load the pumpkins you and Dad picked onto a big wooden cart and push them to the car. They’re so heavy they make the backseat think someone’s sitting there and you have to buckle them in to make it stop beeping. With the children secured you head home.

Corey dresses in the gray light from the window, picking an outfit that he hopes looks nice. He slips down the stairs, wanting to be gone before Momma wakes up. Ron’s asleep on the couch so Corey goes out the back door instead of the front. He rides his bike to your house. He has no idea what time you’ll be home, but he’s prepared to sit in the rocking chair on your front porch until he has to leave for dinner. The sun rises. He starts getting hot in his jacket, so he takes it off and drapes it on the back of the chair. He’s hungry, but he doesn’t think about it. He has to sit here until you get home.

When you get close to Haddonfield, you finally turn your phone back on, knowing you’ll have a signal and fearing the messages that you assume have been waiting for you all last night and all this morning. Gradually all your notifications load, and there are a lot of them. You hold your breath as you watch for something from Corey or Allyson to appear, but there’s nothing. Somehow that feels like the worst option. You don’t want to cry, so you just close your eyes.

“Hey Kiddo,” Dad says as he turns onto your street. “Looks like you’ve got a guest.”

You open your eyes. At the end of the street you can see someone sitting in the rocking chair on your front porch. Someone in a flannel with the sleeves rolled up, someone with a familiar mop of curly brown hair. Why is Corey here?

“I’ll just go inside and leave you to it,” Dad says as he pulls into the driveway. He parks the car and climbs the stairs. “Afternoon, Corey,” you hear him say as he unlocks the door.

“Sir,” Corey replies, inclining his head in Dad’s direction.

You sit in the car. When the front door closes Corey stands from the rocking chair and walks to the edge of the porch. His jacket falls off the back of the chair, but he doesn’t react. You make eye contact with him from the passenger seat. You can’t read his face. Why did he come here instead of trying to call or text you? How long has he been waiting? You open your car door, and he comes down one step. Your heart pounds in your ears. You get out of the car and close the door.

Corey comes down the rest of the stairs and crosses the driveway in three huge strides to pull you into his arms. He gets to you so fast his momentum almost knocks you over, but his arms keep you upright. You hold your arms out awkwardly, startled and confused, before relaxing into his embrace. He nuzzles his face into your neck, holding you like he can’t believe you’re real, like if he lets go, you’ll disappear. Your knees go weak at the amount of affection, getting from him what you’d always wanted but barely dared to imagine.

The hug goes on forever, but when he pulls back, it feels painfully short. He takes a single step away from you.

“Why did you do that?” He asks, and his voice sounds wounded. That wasn’t the emotion you were expecting at all, and suddenly you feel extremely guilty. You can’t look at him. “Why would you think I wanted that?”

“Because I… I just thought…” You begin to sob.

Corey takes your face in his hands, gently making you look at him. He uses his thumbs to wipe the tears off your cheeks, despite those that fall from his own eyes. “I’ve wanted to tell you, but I thought you already knew.”

“Knew what?” You say, voice creaking.

“That I love you,” he says. “I’ve been in love with you the whole time.”

You half sob half laugh. “I love you!” You say. “But I didn’t think you felt the same way.”

Corey pulls you back into his arms.

“Is Allyson mad?” You ask.

“No. She understands.”

You reach up to Corey’s face and wipe his tears from under his glasses. “Wanna come inside?”

“Please,” he says.

You hold hands as you ascend the stairs to the porch. Next time you hang out after work it will be a date. Before you open the door, Corey leans down and plants a gentle kiss on your lips. The first of many to come.

#corey cunningham #corey cunningham x reader #halloween ends #corey cunningham fluff #mine #ask

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thisfairytalegonebad · 12 days

Text

Strictly Diplomatic - Final Fantasy XV

Written for Zibe Time Vol. 4, Hot Mess Express. You can download it (and all previous zines) right here, completely for free. The zines are multifandom and anything goes (warnings are provided if applicable). There's a whole bunch of different fandoms in there, so do check it out, it once again turned out great <3

Fandom: Final Fantasy XV Relationship: Ravus Nox Fleuret/Ignis Scientia Word count: 4.4k Summary:

“I have not… asked him yet,” Ravus admits. There are other things he would like to say, none of which being appropriate to say to the leader of a country with which one is maintaining diplomatic relationships. “He does not know I have an… interest in him.” “Oh,” Noctis says. He looks mere seconds away from laughing at him again. “Okay. Start with that, then. Tell Ignis first, and then you can figure everything else out together.” It sounds embarrassingly simple when put that way. It is anything but, of course, but when laid out like this, it does not seem like a task quite as daunting as Ravus has envisioned it to be. It sounds like Noctis believes there is a chance that Ignis will not outright reject him, which is more than he hoped for when the King started laughing.

Ravus has been sitting on his feelings for Ignis for ten years. He decides it's finally time to do something about them.

Read the first ~1.3k below the cut and the whole thing on AO3 here.

Ravus strides down the hallway towards the throne room with purpose. By now, he is familiar enough with the building that he no longer requires an escort. And besides, today, he is here not on a diplomatic mission but a personal one.

If Noctis is surprised to see him, it doesn’t show on his face, though his eyes glint with curiosity when Ravus comes to stand in front of him. Amicitia stands guard at his side, watching him with a similar sort of interest.

Their eyes on him do nothing to ease the tension in Ravus’ shoulders.

He’s loath to admit it, but he has been plagued by nerves all morning. Around the young king, he feels out of his depth, not yet freed from the guilt over all the grief he’s caused the man nor familiar enough with him to be at ease in his presence.

“Your Majesty,” he starts, and immediately corrects himself, choosing the more appropriate way of address for the matter at hand. “Noctis.”

The King’s eyebrows rise. “Ravus.”

Ravus straightens himself and looks Noctis in the eyes, determined to see this through the proper way.

“Noctis,” he repeats. “I stand before you today not as a Son of Tenebrae, not as a delegate of the Queen, but as a man who wishes to discuss a personal matter with you.”

Noctis nods. “Of course. Alone?”

“Please.”

Noctis signals to Amicitia, who nods in return and vanishes quietly.

Ravus does not miss the way he looks at him as he passes. He has no doubts that his audience will later be discussed at length with the King’s most trusted.

Well, let them discuss. If he were ashamed, he would not be standing here right now.

“During the past ten years, I have had the fortune of forging a great many bonds with people from your kingdom, bonds I value greatly,” he starts.

The words, rehearsed as they are, come to him easily and sincerely. They are, after all, nothing but the truth.

The next part is no less true, but it takes considerably more effort.

“However, there is no one I value quite as dearly as your advisor, Ignis Scientia. He has become a precious friend to me. One to lean on in times of need and one I will gladly do the same for, shall he require it.”

Noctis watches him with startling intensity, his face betraying nothing.

The image of a quiet, round-cheeked child in a too-large wheelchair springs to Ravus’ mind. For years, that image has haunted his memory, convinced that his sister was dying for this small, powerless child and it would all be for naught.

Looking at Noctis now, the thoughts he used to have fill him with shame and it takes everything to hold the King’s gaze.

“In Tenebrae, it is tradition for a man to stand before the mother of the one whose hand he chooses and ask her permission. But given that Ignis has no family left, I stand before you instead, Noctis, who are as close as a brother to him.”

Once, during a starlit night in the safety of a haven, Ignis told him of the uncle who had raised him, dearly beloved and long gone. He did not mention his parents at all, and that told Ravus all he needed to know. It was then that he had resolved to wait however long it took Noctis to emerge from the Crystal, the person who came closest to being family to Ignis.

Noctis stands, slowly descending the stairs. His golden knee brace clicks softly with every step until he comes to stand in front of Ravus.

The sudden proximity, while well-intended – Ravus has made it clear that he’s here on personal business, and Noctis is respecting his wish by speaking to him at eye level – only serves to make him more anxious.

“So you’re… what, asking me for Ignis’ hand?” Noctis asks. The corner of his mouth twitches.

“Not in marriage!” Ravus hurries to clarify, then backtracks when the implication of his words registers – Ignis, a mere affair, not worthy of marriage – and adds, “Not yet, that is, perhaps never unless he wishes to– I simply– for the moment, I only wish to court him.”

A few agonising seconds tick by, and then Noctis says sternly, “Well, then you should ask Prompto and Gladio too. They’re as much his brothers as I am.”

Only years and years of practice prevent Ravus’ expression from crumbling.

Of course – Amicitia and Argentum are as close to Ignis as anyone could be, yet it hasn’t even occurred to him that they, too should be asked.

Argentum, he imagines, would be easier. It is in no small part thanks to Argentum that Ravus wears a new, scourge-free prosthetic arm, and he gets along decently with the man. Certainly, he could be reasoned with.

Amicitia, however.

He and Ravus have long since buried the hatchet and are on fairly amicable terms these days, but their interactions, with very few exceptions, have been strictly business. And Ravus has once visited Lestallum with particularly ill timing, arriving just in time to bear witness to Amicitia questioning an unsuspecting young woman on her intentions with his sister. That is, until said sister struck him up the head and told him in no uncertain terms to stay out of her love life.

His face must give something away despite his best efforts, for Noctis’ serious expression breaks and he – laughs.

Ravus searches for words but comes up empty. Perhaps he has not quite thought this through, but to laugh at him feels needlessly cruel – perhaps he has misjudged the King after all.

“Sorry, sorry,” Noctis wheezes, struggling to contain his laughter. When he speaks again, a playful smile remains on his lips. “That was a joke, sorry, that was mean. It’s just, you don’t need my permission to date Ignis, you know. That’s his decision and his alone. If he wants to be with you, he should.”

“Oh,” Noctis says. He looks mere seconds away from laughing at him again. “Okay. Start with that, then. Tell Ignis first, and then you can figure everything else out together.”

It sounds embarrassingly simple when put that way. It is anything but, of course, but when laid out like this, it does not seem like a task quite as daunting as Ravus has envisioned it to be. It sounds like Noctis believes there is a chance that Ignis will not outright reject him, which is more than he hoped for when the King started laughing.

Ravus nods and bows stiffly. “I will. Thank you for your time.”

He’s halfway to the door when Noctis calls his name. Caught by surprise, he turns to face the King once again.

“I didn’t mean to dismiss Tenebrae’s traditions like that or make fun of you. You don’t need my permission to date Ignis, or anyone else’s except his, but you do have my blessing. All I ever wanted for him was to be happy, and I think you two would be good for each other.”

Startled by the sudden sincerity in Noctis’ voice, Ravus’ words fail him once more. Noctis has seen right through him, has seen how much his approval means to Ravus, and has given it freely and without hesitation.

“Thank you, Noctis,” he answers finally. “Your blessing means more to me than I can say.”

----

Read the entire fic on AO3 here!

#final fantasy xv #ffxv #fleurentia #ravus nox fleuret #ignis scientia #thisfairytalegonebad's writing

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dc-said-bi-robin-rights · 9 months

Text

BEEP… BEEP… BEEP

Jaime Reyes, the superhero known the world as Blue Beetle, lazily throws an arm over his face as the alarm continues to go off next to his ear. He doesn’t wanna get up. It’s still so early…

“Jaime Reyes,” his Scarab chides, its flat machine-like voice perfectly audible even with the loud, insistent beeping in the background—which makes sense, given that’s its not actually speaking, but rather communicating directly with his mind. “It is almost—”

“I’m going, I’m going,” Jaime groans out loud, sitting up and rubbing the bleariness out of his eyes. He looks at his alarm clock, and his eyes widen. 3:15 in the afternoon. Damn.

“Tres y quince,” he mutters out loud, kicking the blankets away and leaning over to turn off his alarm clock. He missed breakfast, he knows, and is about to miss lunch too if he doesn’t hurry. “Conchale, Khaji, y porque no me despiertas?”

If it was possible for sentient alien WMDs to be irritable, he’s certain Scarab would be shorter-tempered than even Cassie is these days. “Jaime Reyes—”

“Ya, ya, ya,” he interrupts impatiently, waving Scarab off with a sweep of his hand and getting up to walk towards the closet. “Olvidalo, da igual, me visto y ya. Hormiga de miercoles…”

The Scarab mercifully doesn’t bother correcting him, and before long Jaime is sitting down in the living room across from Cassie and Tim, neither of whom spare him a glance, with Tim too busy with his tablet to even bother looking up and Cassie just melancholically glaring down at her food like it is the reason for the mess they’re all in. Jaime isn’t really surprised—no one on the team really spoke to each other all that much anymore after the incident down at the docks two months ago, but it still rankles him for reasons he can’t fully verbalize. Cassie killed someone. They should be trying to figure out what that meant, together, as a team, not closing themselves off in their own little worlds to process what happened by themselves.

He tries to just keep his head down and get with the program, he really does, but after ten long minutes in complete silence the awkwardness becomes too unbearable.

“Soo,” he tries, absentmindedly picking at his food with his fork. “Nice weather we’re having, huh?”

Great start, Jaime.

Cassie completely ignores him, which isn’t a surprise, but he does succeed in making Tim at least raise his head. “Do you need something, Jaime?” he asks neutrally, his eyes cool in a way they really shouldn’t be.

“I… no, I guess not,” he says uncertainly, off-put by the sudden coldness that came over Tim’s demeanor over such a bland, inoffensive statement as the one he just uttered. “Just…”

“Just what?” he asks.

It’s not aggressive.

It’s not Tim, either.

“Nothing,” he replies, swallowing thickly before getting up from the table. “I think I lost my appetite.”

“Did you?” He sounds so… bored. With Jaime. With everything. “That’s too bad.”

Jaime gathers up his plate and half-turns to the kitchen, getting more and more creeped out by the moment. “Right. I, um, I’m just gonna go, if that’s alright with the two of you.”

“Fine by me,” Tim says simply, lowering his gaze back to the tablet. “Just clean your plate before you put it in the dishwasher. We don’t want a repeat of the Bart incident.”

“Sure thing,” Jaime mutters absently as he turns and walking away, feeling Tim’s gaze burn into his back despite the fact he’s not even looking at him. “I’ll get right on it.”

He shakes his head as soon as he’s out of the room. What the hell was up with everyone lately?

“And don’t do it again!” Eddie roars in a strangely deep voice, slamming the door in their faces. They hear it lock a moment later, and an awkward silence engulfs the hallway for a good ten seconds as he and Bart try to process the fact that Eddie Bloomberg just screamed at them over them knocking on his door to invite him to play video games.

“He’s…” Bart tries, before falling silent. Jaime doesn’t know what he was gonna say. Stressed? In a bad mood?

“Yeah, I bet he is,” Jaime mutters, not even completely sure of what he means by that, before tapping his fist against Bart’s shoulder and walking away. “Sorry, hermano. Another day.”

“Yeah,” Bart says quietly, still standing there staring at Eddie’s locked door like it held the keys to some great puzzle. “Another day.”

Jaime holds a fist to his mouth in an attempt to stifle his chuckling as he walks towards M’gann room. In his hand he holds a long, rambling letter from his conspiracy nut uncle warning him about some supposed behind-the-curtain happenings in the military—generals being quietly sacked and replaced with no justification overnight or going missing outright, whole weapon caches disappearing from the official logs, tanks and airplanes being found irreparably damaged from one day to the next, that sort of thing. It’s nonsense, and it reads like the sort of thing a QAnonist might come up with. Jaime wants to do a dramatic reading of it in front of M’gann—he has a feeling they both need more reasons to smile these days, and the last time he read out one of his uncle’s fiery letters the sound of her helpless giggling made him unable to stop smiling for a whole week. Goofing off like that again will do them both good, he decides.

“Hey, chica, come look at this!” he calls out, knocking on her door twice in quick succession.

There’s no answer.

Jaime’s brows knit together in concern. “M’gann?”

Nothing.

“M’gann, come on!” he calls out, knocking frantically on her door, despite the fact that he knows he has to be in there—no one has seen her leave her room in days. “This isn’t funny!”

No answer. He tries the door. Locked.

She’d been burnt after the crisis, Jaime remembers. She’d said she’d be fine. She’d promised.

Please, not another one. We can’t take another one.

“Jaime Reyes,” the Scarab says, and he extends his arm as the left side of his suit materializes over his body. Thanks, Khaji, he thinks, flexing his fingers before curling them into a fist and smashing through the door with a single punch. He gropes blindly for the handle on the other side before his fingers settle around it. He twists, opening the door and walking inside.

The room beyond is empty and devoid of color, completely unlike what it had been the last time Jaime was here. All of M’gann’s belongings are gone, taken. There’s no body, no evidence whatsoever of a fight or of a wound gone bad. It’s as if she simply… vanished.

“M’gann?” Jaime whispers.

The curtains flap in the wind through the open window, the only movement in the lifeless room. It is his only answer.

“Hey,” he greets Rose as he passes her in the hallway, handing her the coffee in his left hand but keeping the one in his right for himself. “Sleep well?”

“Not really,” she admits, taking it from his hands with a grateful nod. “You?”

Jaime sighs. “Not really.”

Nothing more needs to be said—what happened last night was horrible enough without needing to discuss it.

And still… he feels the urge to cover for his kind-of friend, even if what he did was seriously shitty, accident or not. “Listen, I’m sure Eddie thought he was being sweet when he… you know. Are you sure you want to drop him over it? You two were like best friends, right? Maybe if you ju—”

“If the next words out of your mouth are anything like what I think they’re about to be, it’s gonna be you that gets a broken nose next,” Rose warns, closing herself off so fast Jaime has to swallow hard to vanish the sudden dryness in her throat. “Drop it.”

“Fine, okay, sorry,” he says quickly, holding up his hands in surrender. “I won’t bring it up again.”

“Good.”

There’s a long silence, and then, “What are you going to do, then?” Jaime asks, biting his lip. “About Eddie, I mean.”

Rose snorts. “Whatever the hell that thing is, it sure as hell isn’t Eddie anymore.”

Jaime’s eyebrows rise his hairline. “The heck’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing, nevermind,” she says, moving on before Jaime can press the topic. “I… probably punch someone who cares about me really hard, knowing me.” She pushes her hair back with one hand and sighs, a little bitterly. “It’s what I do best, it seems like.”

Jaime doesn’t dare touch that last part with a five foot pole. “You mean Cassie?”

“Might be best,” Rose agrees, taking a long sip from her coffee cup and licking her lips afterwards… before suddenly grinning widely at him. “Mmh, this is good. Thanks for making the trip, by the way. I know it wasn’t a short one.”

“I was going there anyway,” Jaime lies, wondering why Rose was acting so nice to him all of a sudden. Maybe it was the coffee? He might need to fetch her a cup more often if it meant she’d be nicer to him in the future.

“Uh huh,” she snorts, turning to walk away. “See you around, Jaime.”

“You too, Rose,” he replies, before something suddenly occurs to him. “Hey, wait a moment, actually.”

Rose stops, turning her head to look back at him. “Yeah?”

“Are you sure it’s a good idea to spar with Cassie right now?” The image of her glaring furiously down at her plate for no reason at all flashes through his mind. “I don’t think she’s in a good mood today.”

“Worried about little old me now?” Her tone turns bitter again all of a sudden, so fast Jaime’s head spins trying to keep up with her sudden mood shifts. “And here I thought I ‘scared the poop out of you’.”

Jaime has the decency to look sheepish. “You… heard that, huh?”

“I did. So why don’t you keep your advice to yourself and let me worry about my own girlfriend, huh?” she sneers, walking away before Jaime can come up with a reply.

“Oh, come on, I didn’t even…” Jaime trails off. Wait. Girlfriend?

Huh.

That’s new.

Guess they finally got it over with.

And yet… hadn’t Rose told Cassie to never lay a hand on her again after they’d pulled her out of that vision? What was that about? Did they…

Oh, whatever, he thinks, mentally cutting himself off. It’s none of my business anyway.

He doesn’t think much of it until later, when he walks into the unisex bathroom on the fifth floor and sees Rose standing in front of the mirror dabbin at her face with a makeup stick in the dark.

“Uh,” he coughs, taking a step back towards the door. I didn’t even know Rose wore makeup. “Sorry, I didn’t know you were in here. I’ll, just, um—”

“Go in the stall,” she cuts him off, not turning to look at him. “I’m just using the mirror.”

“Uh, okay,” he says, too taken aback to argue. He turns towards the stall, but as he does so, he catches sight of Rose’s reflection in the mirror—and pauses misstep, his eyes widening.

Rose’s one good eye was encircled by the blackest, nastiest bruise he’d ever seen, so large and ugly the eye itself was nearly swelled shut. Jaime starts—he didn’t even know Rose could get bruised, had always assumed her healing factor would take care of any minor injuries like that before they became notable. He’s certainly never seen her with a bruise. Cuts, yeah. But bruises? Nope. Not once.

“Are you…” Jaime starts, his voice trailing away when Rose makes an annoyed noise in the back of her throat.

“Sparring injury. Don’t worry about it.”

“Sparing’s not supposed to leave injuries.”

“Well, it did this time,” Rose says impatiently, turning her head to glare at him. “Do you mind? I’m trying to do something here.”

Her words from earlier run through his mind. “Did Cassie…?”

Every muscle in Rose’s body tenses so suddenly he visibly flinches. “Did Cassie what?” she grinds out, her tone the angriest he’s ever heard from her.

Holy poop, I’m gonna die, he thinks first, quickly followed by, no, wait, Khaji, I’m fine, don’t deploy the suit.

“Well, did she, uh…” he starts, trailing off. It’s such a ridiculous thought he can’t even bring himself to voice it. Cassie can be pretty intense at times, sure, passionate, yeah, stubborn, absolutely, angry, definitely… but she wouldn’t let herself seriously hurt fellow Titans no matter how on edge she was. He quickly change tracks. “Y’know, go overboard a bit by accident?”

Rose relaxes so quickly it gives him whiplash. Her shoulders loosen, her features soften, her fists unclench… it’s like some higher entity flicked her anger switch off and reset her to an earlier mood. Before he can comment on this, she turns her face back to the mirror and goes back to dabbing at it with the stick. “It’s nothing I couldn’t take.”

That’s… not reassuring, either.

“You know you don’t have to ‘take’ anything from a teammate, right?” Jaime asks slowly, not only kind of alarmed now but quite frankly disturbed. A nagging voice in the back of his head keeps telling him something about this just… isn’t right. Rose has been so… off lately. It’s like someone crawled under her skin and found it a too-snug fit, like someone was sat down and told to study a list of all of Rose’s mannerisms and speech-isms without bothering to provide them with the context to them. “Much less from someone who’s supposed to be your partner in… well, everything.”

“Uh huh,” Rose says disinterestedly, turning her face this way and that to observe herself. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

There’s something strangely familiar in the way she’s…

A memory flashes in his mind’s eye. He had once walked in on Traci standing in front of the mirror, dabbing at a spot on her cheek with a stick just like the one Rose is using now.

“What’s that?” he had asked, pointing at it.

“Oh, this?” She had held it up. “It’s…”

Concealer.

It’s not makeup, he realizes with a start. It’s concealer!

Rose isn’t giving herself a foundation, she’s trying to cover up the bruise!

He… he shouldn’t point this out. He shouldn’t. He knows he shouldn’t, after how Rose just reacted to him even vaguely implying Cassie might have hurt her on purpose.

And yet…

“If it’s really just a sparring injury,” he says, very carefully, “why are you trying to cover it up?”

Rose stiffens. Very slowly, she drops the stick into the sink—Jaime can hear it clank against the marble—and grabs the edges of it. Then she just… stays like that, staring down at the sink like it was a divination pool in one of those shitty mmos people swore were supposed to be fun. Jaime waits, and waits, and waits, and just when he has given up on her ever answering and turned towards the door she speaks again, her voice quiet. “It made daddy feel guilty.”

His hand freezes on the doorknob. “What?”

“Looking at it,” she elaborates, like that explained anything. Jaime hears the creak of her gloves as her fingers tighten on the sink. “She… she didn’t mean to. She told me so.”

There’s a very long pause as Jaime turns around and just… stares at Rose.

“What did you just say?” he finally asks, just to make sure it wasn’t his imagination.

For a moment, nothing happens, and then Rose slightly turns her face, her one eye piercing Jaime with its intensity. He can’t move. He’s pinned in place, speared through the heart by the cold blue ice swimming in its depths. “What do you mean?”

“I… what you just said, it was…”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Rose says cooly. “I never said anything to you.”

“I…”

“Did you hear something, Jaime?” she asks slowly, and something about her voice makes Jaime feel like the bug his persona is named after.

“I…uh, I…”

“Did you?” she insists, her gloves creaking again, and suddenly Khaji Da is screeching alerts into his mind, demanding he summon the suit, threatening him with assuming direct control if he doesn’t comply. He forces his alien ride-along back as harshly as he can and takes a step back, then two.

“No,” he says, his voice almost a whisper, but he can’t for the life of him make it louder. His throat is so dry…

She looks amused. “No?”

“No, I didn’t,” he breathes. “I never heard you say anything.”

“I thought not.” Her lips slowly curl into a half-smirk, and like a switch, it’s Rose again. “See you later, Jaime.”

“I… see you later, Rose,” he breathes, blindly groping for the door knob, unwilling to turn his back to her after whatever the heck that was about. His fingers close around it and he hails it open, harder than he meant to, and he has to consciously slow down to cover up the terrified action before Rose is tipped off to his rapidly rising terror. He holds the door open with his foot and slowly starts exiting the room, keeping his eyes on Rose the entire time, like she’d change again if he looked away.

He waits until he hears the door shut behind him to breathe again, only now feeling the way his heart is pumping a mile a minute.

What the actual duck?

He’s fully convinced himself the entire thing in the bathroom was some kind of cuckoo hallucination by the next day, despite Khaji doggedly insisting it wasn’t and requesting permission to label Rose as an enemy in his systems.

“For the last time, Khaji,” he says out loud as he pushes open the door to the gym—Cassie had gotten rid of the automatic doors some days ago, for reasons Jaime couldn’t really understand—something about buying newer, more reinforced models. “Rose isn’t…” he trails off, catching sight of the titular ex-mercenary running on her personal treadmill near the back wall, her hair pulled back, a towel slung around her bare shoulders. He smiles, reassured by such a normal sight; he’s scared poopless of Rose by his own admission, but just because he knows she could totally crack his skull like a watermelon if he put his head under her foot while she was running doesn’t mean he’s not still glad to see someone acting normally around here for once.

“Jaime Reyes, nothing about this situation is normal,” the Scarab warns, it’s robotic voice sounding actually frustrated. “Do not go near her. I repeat, do not—”

“Hey, Rose,” he calls out as he walks past her, receiving only a grunt in response. “What’s up?”

Khaji Da screeches it’s displeasure into his mind, but he pointedly ignores it.

“Nothing much,” Rose replies in between bouts of heavy breathing. Jaime looks at her machine’s display and sees she’s running at an average speed nearly twice that of Usain Bolt at his prime. “You?”

“Nothing much,” he says, reassured by how normal she’s acting that the whole thing in the bathroom was just his imagination. “I just felt like doing some weights today.

“Good for you,” Rose pants, a grin in her voice. “You could use some bulki—augh!”

Jaime turns to see something impossible—Rose Wilson collapsed on the ground, clutching her leg, having fallen off the treadmill like an amateur.

“Uh, you okay?” he asks hesitantly, more confused than concerned—he’d been pretty sure Rose was biologically incapable of being clumsy up until now.

“Fuck… off,” Rose spits, gritting her teeth and trying to stand… only to fall on her ass a second time with a pained grunt. It’s kind of embarrassing, actually.

“Hey, I’m just wondering if you’re okay,” Jaime protests, instead of voicing that particular out loud, because he’s not in fact suicidal.

“Well, stop wondering—I’m fine,” she snarls, trying to stand up again and failing for the third time. “Just… tripped. I…”

“Jaime Reyes,” Khaji Da says in his mind, making Rose’s voice fade into the background. “I have detected information you might want to hear.”

“Spill,” he says out loud, cutting Rose off mid-sentence and earning himself “The Look”—his name for the weird looks people always gave him when he started seemingly talking to himself.

“Subject Rose “Ravager” Wilson has a severely torn muscle in her lower left calf,” it reports, “likely due to to significant overtaxing over a very short period of time.”

“That’s…”

“Not all,” the Scarab interrupts. “She also has several slightly older injuries that would typically require medical attention, including two cracked ribs, a bruised pelvis, and a fractured leg.”

Jaime rounds on Rose, incredulous. “You were running forty two miles an hour on a broken leg?!”

Rose scowls up at him. “How did you…?”

“Nevermind that,” Jaime interrupts, kneeling down in front to Rose and offering her his hand. “Are you insane or what?”

Rose slaps aside his hand and slowly, painfully, gets up on her own. “You don’t understand,” she grinds out, teeth gritted against the pain.

“Then help me understand,” he demands, reaching out to steady her as she stumbles. “You’re gonna kill yourself at this rate.”

“She needs me,” Rose snarls, pushing him away. “That’s worth a little pain.”

“Who, Rose?” he retorts, exasperated, feeling like he’s going insane. What the hell was up with everyone? “Who needs you so badly you’d kill yourself to help them?”

“Hey,” a familiar voice says, and he turns to see Cassie standing in the doorway. “Everything okay in here?

He doesn’t miss the way her eyes jealously linger on the closeness between him and Rose for a moment longer than excusable.

Jaime opens his mouth to say something like, “Did you do this to her?”, but Rose beats him to the punch.

“Everything’s fine, da—dear,” Rose assures her, and it’s so obviously such a not-Rose thing to say that Jaime seriously contemplates whether he’s actually still asleep and this isn’t some really weird dream.

“Good,” Cassie says, her eyes flickering again to Jaime before they round on Rose, “cause I was wondering if you wanted to spar again today.”

A flash of dread crosses Rose’s face, so obvious and unveiled even Cassie must have plainly caught it. “I’d love to.”

“Great!” Cassie beams, and the world’s not only gone off its axis, it’s detached completely and is currently heading towards a black hole. “Training room 3A?”

Rose gives a pained grin. “It’s a date.”

Cassie’s smile widens, and she turns and walks out of the room. Jaime turns to Rose, aiming to silently implore her not to go… only to find her already following after Cassie, trotting a bit—fractured leg notwithstanding—to keep up.

I’m in a freaking madhouse, Jaime realizes.

Jaime taps his fingers against his leg, carefully not looking at either Conner or Bart, who are seated on the floor in front of him playing a fighting game. It’s his turn next, but try as he might, he finds he just can’t concentrate on that with everything that’s happened.

He tries to dismiss the urge to ask the others about it, but it eventually it grows too strong for him, and he concedes to it. “So… Rose has been acting pretty weird lately.”

There’s a long, pregnant pause.

“Has she?” says Conner, too curiously for it to be genuine. “I haven’t noticed.”

His heart skips a beat for reasons he can’t entirely articulate. Conner probably notices. He tries not to think about that.

“Hmm,” he says noncomitally, his eyes flickering over to the other boy. “What about you, Bart? Have you noticed anything?”

There’s an even longer pause.

“Nope,” Bart says slowly “Can’t say I have.”

“She’s just stressed,” Rose tells him later, as they both sit on the roof looking at the stars. It had been her and Eddie’s favorite spot once, he knows, but Eddie never comes out of his room anymore. “Fighting me helps her, lets her gauge how hard she can go on normal opponents now that she’s not holding back as much anymore. She’s been doing a pretty good job of pulling her punches back so far.”

He’d be more inclined to believe her if it wasn’t for the brand-new cast over her wrist, the sheer white of it at a stark contrast to the thin strings of Rose’s blue bikini. “If you say so .”

“I do,” she says plainly, taking a long puff from her cigarette with her free hand. When she exhales, she blows out the smoke in a perfect ring. She watches it rise high up in the air for a moment, before wrestling a small stone free from the railing and handing it to him. “Throw it.”

“Huh?” Jaime says intelligently.

“Throw it. Through the ring. It should be pretty easy for you…” She grins. “…unless it’s actually the suit that does all the aiming for you.”

Jaime’s feels his lip curl into a smile. “What do I get if I do get it through?” he asks, cocking his arm back.

“You’ll see. Throw it.”

He does. It gets through. His smile widens.

“What’s my prize?” he asks, turning to Rose… before his smile fades at the look of dread on her face. “Rose?”

“I thought… I thought it was just a dream,” she murmurs, more to herself than to Jaime. “That…”

“Thought what was just a dream?” Jaime asks, frowning.

Rose turns her head to look at him. There’s something in her eyes he can’t quite place. She doesn’t say anything for a long moment, but just when Jaime opens his mouth to speak again, she says, “Don’t do it tomorrow.”

“Do what?”

“You know what. Don’t do it tomorrow,” she says, before standing up and walking away without another word.

Jaime blinks. “Rose?”

She does not look back, but Jaime swears he can hear her mutter, “Trust me.”

“Ok, let’s see what you’ve been hiding,” Jaime says, cracking his fingers and getting to work on cracking Tim’s encryption.

I took a hacking class in high school. How hard could it be?

Very hard, as it turns out. Jaime’s on the verge of giving up when he finds a note taped to the bottom of the desk that reads, “New password is SpoilerAlert. Don’t forget this time. You owe at least that to her, you utter failure.”

It’s written in Tim’s hand. Jaime decides not to think too hard about it.

“Ok, let’s see what the hell is going on here…”

As he logs into Tim’s private files, the grandfather clock set against the far wall of Tim’s office chimes with the coming of the hour.

Tick

“—this is mercy!”

He shuts his eyes when Eddie starts screaming. Goddamn it. They should’ve realized…

Tock

“You made me do it. You made me.”

Tick

There’s a horrible squelching noise as the thief’s head yields beneath the force of Cassie’s fist, spraying pink matter and bits of flesh everywhere. The video wobbles as the person holding the phone steps back in shock, an action mirrored by everyone in the small crowd of criminals… until the screams begin.

“No, wait!” Cassie yells as everyone in the crowd save for the mysterious recorder starts to run, holding her hands out in a gesture of peace—which might be more effective if the dead thief’s brains weren’t still dripping from them. “I didn’t mean to! I…” she trails off, looking down at her hands like she’s never seen them before, like they belong to someone else. “I didn’t… I didn’t mean to.”

Tock

The clock chimes again by the time Jaime stops vomiting.

Tick

“If you’re seeing this, it means I’m leaving,” M’gann says into the security camera. “Please, Tim, show this tape to the others. I don’t want… I can’t say goodbye in person after what I just saw in your mind, but…”

Tock

“Ravager, huh?” The thing that wasn’t Eddie asked, grinning at the picture on his phone, which is pincered carefully between two massive red fingers. “Mmmh, I’d like to ravage her. I think she’d make a wonderfully feisty bride, wouldn’t you agree?”

“What, uh, makes you think that?” asks Tim, who is clearly uncomfortable with the situation… though not uncomfortable enough to leave it, clearly.

“Call it a feeling,” Not-Eddie says, his grin widening. “I have several, you know. I know these things.”

“Several…?”

“Brides,” the demon clarifies, his eyes literally blazing with mirth. “All of them beautiful and very happy with their place in life, I’ll have it said. I’m nothing if not a sensitive and attentive husband.”

“Right…”

“How much for the Ravager?” he asks, leaning forward and placing his palms on the desk, unaware or uncaring how his fiery hands singe the wood black underneath them. “You mortals do still like gold, don’t you?”

“Uh…”

“Or perhaps… it is power you seek?” Not-Eddie presses, his grin widening. “I can see your desires… you think yourself intelligent, little boy, but I can give you a mind that would dwarf all others. Would you like that?”

Jaime wishes he couldn’t tell Tim was tempted.

“I… no,” he says finally, swallowing thickly, as if mourning the opportunity he’s just rejected.

“No?” The demon raises an eyebrow, then shrugs. “Hmm… perhaps I misjudged you. It happens sometimes, it must be said. Very well, I could also offer you…”

“No, I meant…” he trails off, and for a moment Jaime thinks it’s because he’s struggling to think of a way to explain the concept of women having rights to a demon before Tim’s next words smash that optimistic hope to bits. “I meant, she’s really not mine to sell in the first place. She’s Cassie’s thing, not mine.”

Jaime’s breath stutters in disbelief. What the actual…?

“Oh?”

“Yeah, and even if she knew about your, uh, transformation, she’d never give Rose up after all the trouble she went to keep her around, even though it’s obviously the pragmatic thing to do. Sorry.”

“I see.”

But, um,” Tim starts, licking his lips. “That doesn’t mean I couldn’t get you… other things, if you made it worth my while… and didn’t tell Cassie.”

The demon looks intrigued. “Go on.”

Tim leans forward, a greedy glint coming over his eyes. “Well, you demons like making deals with desperate people, right?”

“You could say that.”

Tim’s lips slowly curl into a smile, and something about it makes Jaime’s mouth go dry. “How would you like to get your hands on a few supervillains?”

Tick

“Oh, G-God, Tim, I-I actually d-did it,” Cassie sobs into Tim’s shoulder, nearly incoherent with regret. “I-I did it, and… she… she didn’t even wake up! She… she trusted me, subconsciously, and I… I…”

“Hey, hey, don’t do that,” Tim says softly, rubbing soothing circles into Cassie’s back. “You had to. She left you no other choice.”

“That’s b-bullshit, and you know it!” Cassie yells, pushing away from Tim and wiping furiously at her eyes. “Great Hera, what have I done? I… I… I’m worse than Slade.”

Tim rolls his eyes. “Oh come on, even you don’t believe that.”

“And why not?” Cassie snaps, furiously rounding on Tim, tears running down her cheeks. “At least Slade had the decency to look her in the eyes when he did it! I snuck up on her while she was sleeping! Like some… some coward!”

Tim sighs. “Look, we both know we couldn’t just let someone with as much intel on us as Rose just walk out of here weeks before the operation… and if it makes you feel better, I condensed the formula so that you would only have to do it once instead of every weeks, like Slade.”

Cassie sniffs, wiping away a tear in the corner of her eye with her finger. “I… I need to tell her.”

Tim’s face visibly twitches in a way that makes Jaime’s heart fearfully skip a beat. “You’re kidding.”

“No, I’m not,” she says fiercely, blinking to clear the moisture in her eyes. “This is wrong, Tim. What I did was… horrible. I knew how scared she was of being controlled like that again… and I still did it!” She wipes at her eyes and turns towards the door, and for a moment it seems everything is gonna work out okay. “I can’t stand it a moment longer. I have to tell her.”

His eyes flicker to the date of the recording. It’s nearly a month old.

Rose had still been acting weird less than a day ago.

Dammit, he thinks, squeezing his eyes shut. Goddamn all you people, you’ve all gone insane.

He suddenly wants nothing more than to be at home with his sister, and his parents, in that place he grew up in, where everyone speaks Spanish and there are barbecues every Sunday and things are simply and easy and people he used to care about don’t turn out to secretly be massive douchebags, and—

“Do what you want,” he hears Tim say, seemingly uncaring. “I’m just wondering if you’ve thought the consequences through.”

Don’t stop, he feels himself thinking, even though he knows full well she is going to stop. Don’t listen to him. Keep going. Tell Rose. Make it make sense again.

“What do you mean?” Cassie’s voice asks hesitantly, and he doesn’t need to open his eyes again to know that she’s stopped. He still does it anyway.

“I mean, what do you think is gonna happen when you tell her you drugged her?” Tim asks sardonically, chuckling a little when Cassie’s expression tightens. “See, even you know I’m right. Remind me, how many times has she tried to kill Slade by now…?”

“I…”

“Four? Five?” He grins. “And like you said, at least Slade had the decency to look her in the eye when he did it. You… not so much.”

“I… what are you saying?”

“I’m saying, if you tell Rose what you did, you lose her forever,” Tim says, a bit more gently. “I mean, she was gearing up to leave even before you drugged her. She’s not ever going to forgive you if you tell her. You know that, right?”

“That… that doesn’t matter,” Cassie says, too firmly, like she’s trying to convince not only Tim but herself too. “What I did to her was wrong. I have to make up for it.”

Tim looks at her, then sighs, standing up and walking towards the medical cabinet in the back of the lab. “Okay.”

“I… really?”

“Yeah,” Tim says, pulling open one of the drawers and pulling out a long, thin syringe filled with an unfamiliar green liquid. “This is the antidote. You give this to Rose, she’ll be back to normal within the hour.”

He turns around and holds it out for Cassie to grab. “Take it.”

Do it. Come on. Please. It’s right there. You can fix everything if you just take it. It’s right there.

Cassie hesitates. “The serum… it’s not really mind control, is it?”

Jaime can Tim’s lips quirk up slightly. He’s just won, he realizes. “Nope. It just enhances feelings that are already there.”

By which he means it sends all of her emotions into overdrive and makes her extremely unstable. Goddamn it. How are you falling for this? You’re Wonder Girl. Use your freaking brain.

“Maybe… maybe it would be best to wait a bit before giving her the antidote,” Cassie says slowly, looking like she herself doesn’t believe what is saying. “Just to make sure the whole… thing is not as raw as it would be right now. Besides… since it’s a new version, it could have side effects we don’t know about, right? Maybe it would be best to stand back and study her case for a bit to make sure we don’t accidentally put her in distress by ‘curing’ her.”

Tim’s lips curl into an open smile. “I knew you’d come around.”

Tock

Operation Titanomachy.

It’s a strange name for a file.

Jaime clicks on it, more by curiosity than anything else, and his eyes widen at what he sees inside. There are plans for a full takeover of the government, graphs showcasing “military infiltration levels”, monthly political pie charts that are steady turning more and more extremist with every month, blueprints for state-run super-weapons, everything and anything an up-and-coming supervillain would need to—

An alarm suddenly blares in his head, and he turns, his suit materializing around him as the smoke pellets roll along the floor and hiss open, expelling what Khaji labels a deadly neurotoxin into the air. It’s about as dangerous to his suit’s air filtration system as a pebble and about as useful, though, so Jaime simply switches his vision settings to thermal and blasts Tim straight in the chest with his hand cannon. He flies back, out of the cloud of smoke and into the far wall, which he collapses against with a pained moan. Jaime marches right over to him and grabs him by the cape before he can recover, dragging him along the floor as he marches straight to the conference room.

One way or another, this insanity ends now.

“Jaime Reyes, this course is I’ll-advised,” the Scarab warns him, but he doesn’t care anymore. Six months. Six months of sitting there like a lamp, watching his friends turn into murders, and for what? For them to plot to take over the government? For Tim to sell incarcerated supervillains to a demon—and not just any demon, but the one that had killed Eddie? For Cassie to drug Rose the exact same way her father drugged her? No. He’s not stopping to consider a better option. He’d already let this go too far.

“J-Jaime,” Tim gasps, but it isn’t Jaime he’s speaking to anymore, it’s Blue Beetle. He has just enough time to squawk out a “w-wait!” before he founds himself picked up and lobbed through the door, which breaks under his weight and deposits him on the floor amidst a pile of broken wood.

“Nobody moves!” Blue Beetle snarls, his arm cannon raised and pointed at the room’s inhabitants, who look up in shock at his entrance. “I’ve had just about enough of this!”

The conference room is a little different from how it was the last time he was in here. The table is new, a holographic map of the world with several places outlined in red. At the back, Wonder Girl’s chair, recognizable by the ‘W’ symbol on the back of it, has been placed on a slight dais, all the better to look out over the contents of the map… and, perhaps unintentionally, down on the people around it.

Looks like they’ve already gotten started on all the fascist imagery. Figures.

Not that there were all that many people around the table—for whatever reason, only Wonder Girl, Superboy, and now Red Robin were in the room with him, with Rose obviously absent and Impulse nowhere to be found. As for Superboy and Wonder Girl, they were both seated some distance apart, but jumped to their feet at his entrance.

“Jaime, wh—” Wonder Girl cries, before she is cut off by an energy blast hitting the wall an inch from her ear. “Hey!”

“I know. I know what you’re plotting,” he reveals, taking a step forward, his helmet retracting rom his head so he can look her in the eyes. “And I know what you did.”

Wonder Girl visibly swallows. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Liar,” he accuses, lips twisting into a scowl. “How does it feel knowing you betrayed everything you stood for? That you betrayed the one person who’s never going to forgive you for it?”

Wonder Girl looks stricken for a moment, before her eyes flicker to his cannon hand.

“Jaime, think about this,” she warns, in a tone usually reserved for stupid, misbehaving children. “We’re your friends. We don’t wanna…”

“Lady, I don’t know who the hell you people are anymore,” Blue Beetle interrupts, priming his cannon, “but you’re sure as hell not my friends.”

Wonder Girl’s eyes flicker again, this time to something behind him, and by the time Blue Beetle thinks to turn two fiery-hot hands have clamped tightly onto his face from behind. A sizzling noise fills his ears, and it takes him a moment to register its his own flesh that’s burning. He screams, feeling his face boil beneath his assailant’s fingertips, and turns, shoving away the thing that wasn’t Eddie and then sending him crashing back with an energy blast. The massive demon—for, it seems, Red Devil had been metamorphosing somehow in his room and has now emerged as a muscular, eight feet tall version of himself—lets out a grunt and lies still as its back hits the wall, but Blue Beetle doesn’t let his guard down; he turns and transforms his left hand into a blade just in time to block Wonder Girl’s descending fist. Sparks fly as the alien metal clashes against her steel bracelet, but Blue Beetle doesn’t lean into the lock, knowing Wonder Girl is much stronger than he is, instead choosing to send a kick quick to her stomach to get some distance in between them and turn to face his other opponent—not fast enough, though. Superboy tackles him around the waist and flies them both into the wall, prompting a pained gasp from Blue Beetle as all the air is forced out of his ribs, and he doesn’t stop there: hits start raining down on his head, one after the other, so hard his helmet starts cracking, unable to protect his head from the powerful blows until… now, Khaji! His chest opens up, expelling a highly concentrated beam of energy that sends Superboy crashing into and through the ceiling, going up and up and up at an angle until he is blasted well out of the Tower. There’s no time to catch his breath, however, as Wonder Girl’s lasso suddenly snaps taut around his wrist and pulls him, first into the wall, then, as he crashes down, into a punch that completely shatters his helmet and leaves him seeing stars on the ground.

Ouch. He needs to—

He rolls back, jumping to his feet and into the air as bomb pellets explode on the ground beneath him, summoning his wings and manifesting an energy shield to protect himself from the blast. The force of it crashes against his shield, and he can feel the searing heat ford around him like a stone in a river, but he is unharmed, and a moment later he makes Red Robin pay for getting up by strafing him with his energy cannon. He dodges the first, the second, but not the third blast, and Blue Beetle lands on the ground to finish him off… only to find his cannon hand pulled away by Wonder’s Girl lasso at the last moment, directing his blast into the floor instead. He turns and yanks on the lariat with his free hand, aiming to pull her off her feet in a move he once saw Rose use in one of her and Wonder Girl’s sparring matches, but he isn’t Rose, and this isn’t sparring; Wonder Girl not only keeps her feet, but pulls back, and the short tug of war ends the only way it could—with Blue Beetle speeding through the air straight into Wonder Girl’s grip. She wastes no time raising him high into the air before turning and smashing him down into the fancy new holographic conference table, which breaks under his weight, leaving him dazed in a pile of broken glass.

Okay, might have beaten bitten off a bit more than I could chew here, he thinks, shaking off his discombobulation and dodging just in time for Wonder Girl’s fist to leave a crater where his head had been a moment prior.

Looks like Rose was right, she really is pulling her punches. Not.

Cassie doesn’t let up, her fists surging towards him with the speed and accuracy of homing missiles, and he—he—

He feels his neck be seized from behind, and knows in that moment it’s about to be snapped.

No, that can’t be, he thinks inanely in his last moments of life, reaching up to grab futilely at the arm around his neck. Rose said don’t do it tomorrow, and I didn’t, unless… he focuses his gaze on the window. There is light coming from underneath the curtains.

It’s morning.

“Oh, he breathes, and he hears the crunch long before he feels it.

There is a very long silence as Eddie stands over Jaime, panting.

“Eddie,” Cassie breathes, feeling a pit open in her stomach. “Eddie, what did you do?”

Eddie looks up… and slowly smiles.

“Doomed boy,” the wind whispers in their ears as it fled them, like the crowd had fled Cassie after what she did. “Doomed, doomed, doomed.”

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archersxartxblog · 1 year

Text

Master Post

See I told you I was working on it. :)

Chapter 25

"Snee" the Lady of the Cliffs huffed a bit as she pulled her Warden to a safer location, as he slowly started coming round.

She wasn't even sure what had happened.

One moment, they had been slowly sneaking their way towards the summit of the mountain, and he had been fine. The next he suddenly stumbled before collapsing, nearly falling down the side of the Cliff.

Luckily, Sneasler had caught him before it was too late.

"Wha…where…" her Warden’s voice drawled sluggishly as he came to, glancing around as if trying to remember where he was. "This isn't Gear Stati…" The words died on his lips.

but Sneasler paid him little mind as she continued to check him over, in search of the cause of his sudden collapse. It would do no good if that were to happen further up. Besides, He would come back to himself soon enough.

After a short moment, Ingo forced himself up into a sitting position and brought a hand to his forehead, pushing his hat up in the process and gently batting her claws away from his face. “Apologies, Lady Sneasler,” he muttered, rubbing at his temples. “It would appear that I once more have become derailed.”

He paused, letting his hands fall back to his sides as he took a moment to just sit with his eyes closed.

“But we have a schedule to keep.” his eyes snapped open and his hands came up to his hat, adjusting it as he attempted to stand.

But Lady Sneasler was having none of it, as she pushed him back down. She wasn’t about to let him continue this climb until she knew the cause of his earlier collapse. She would not be able to forgive him, let alone herself if he managed to accidentally fall off the mountain and leave his kits parentless.

“My Lady, please.” once more he pushed her claws away. “I appreciate your concern, and need to complete all safety checks, but…” he looked up at her, his frown pulled tight. “And I do not say this lightly…”

“This way! Quickly now! We can’t afford any damage to the supplies until we are at the summit!”

The two quickly ducked low into some bushies, watching as a large group of humans dressed in bright red carried large crates up the steep sloops of the mountains. Leading them was none other than the owner of the Wallflower, Beni.

So more and more followed.

“I am far less concerned about my safety, and far more worried about what is happening at the Summit” Ingo continued, looking towards the sky and the seemingly ever-growing rift. “And what exactly the Commander hopes to accomplish with this small army of his.”

The Lady of the Cliffs couldn’t help the growl that passed through her teeth. She hated to admit it, but her Warden was right.

These Galaxy humans were coming in mass.

But what could they hope to do when they could barely help the frenzied nobles?

“Come, let us move with swiftness, not haste.”

“Snee”

—

“Are you sure you’re alright? Cabala’s camp is not far from here, it would not take long to get there from here.”

Ingo looked up at the clan leader as they moved quickly across The Mirelands.

This wasn’t the first time Lady Irida had asked him if he wanted to head to the old healers rather than the next lake. He was honestly starting to wonder if she wanted to leave him there because he was slowing her down.

He didn’t even remember passing out.

All he could recall was the battle with the Alpha Goodra and waking up in the Mirelands while being carried on Irida’s back.

Apparently, during that time he missed, he’d spaced out for several minutes and then collapsed with no answer as to why.

Honestly, Ingo was tempted to blame the whole mess on Mesprit, as legendary Pokemon tended to do as they pleased most of the time and it wasn’t all that strange for psychic types to mess with the minds of others.

“I’m fine.” he finally answered, holding his hood in place and the wind picked up a bit. They couldn’t risk getting caught by the Galaxy team now of all times. Even if their numbers seemed to be shrinking. “But thank you for your concern.”

“You are a member of the Pearl clan, as its leader it is my duty to care about the well-being of all who wear our crest,” Irida stated proudly, her head held high, as the child had suggested otherwise. Yet a smile still crept onto her face as she looked down at him. "But even so, I am glad you are okay. I don't think I'd be able to face your father if anything were to happen to you or your brother."

Ingo let out a low hum at the mention of his twin. "Speaking of which…I would like to get back to Emmet as soon as possible." They were starting to get closer to the lake. "I'm more worried about him, then I am my own health."

"Do the two of you not like being separated for too long?"

"N-no…well yeah. But we're able to get by if we have to. we've been apart before." The boy answered with a strug. "But that's not what I'm worried about."

"Your brother is a skilled Pokémon welder. Both of you are," Irida stated. "I am sure he is fine, besides Akari is with him. He couldn't be in safer hands."

"But Akari has other things to worry about right now." Ingo added, keeping his focus on the lake.

Just a little further.

"Besides, it's not her I distrust."

The waters edge was only a few feet away, and Ingo reached for Gyarados's pokeball to help them get across the water, only to be stopped by a hand resting on his shoulder.

"Ingo"

The boy nearly jumped at the stern tone in the young woman's voice, as he slowly turned to look back at the clan leader behind him.

"You and your brother don't seem to trust Volo. Please do not try to deny it." Irida stated plainly, looking down at him. "Back at the Fabled springs, and at the retreat, then again after you collapsed back at the lake. You and your brother act differently around him." The grip on his shoulder tightened slightly. "To my knowledge you have only just met Volo. And while I know that I have not interacted with the two of you much since you came to us, but not once have I received a report of you two acting like this towards someone new." she paused, taking a deep breath before continuing. "So what is going on between you and the merchant?"

Ingo's frown tightened as he forced himself to look down towards the lake. "I-I don't know…I could be wrong…I don't really have any proof…"

"As the leader of The Pearl clan, the safety and health of my people are my top priority." Irida spoke gently. "And I know the Pearl clan has not been kind to your family, but so long as you wear that tunic you will always be a member of the Pearl clan." Ingo dared a glance back up at the young woman, only to see her give him a soft smile. "So Please, if something is bothering you, do not be afraid to speak up."

The boy bit his lip, his nails digging into his palm as he clenched his fists.

Was it really okay? Even if he and Emmet were wrong?

He didn't want to risk accusing someone without any evidence. That was currently what was happening to Akari, right?

And now really wasn't the time to draw riffs in the sand.

But…

Their Uncle always encouraged honesty, and that seemed to be all that Irida was asking.

"O-okay, I'll tell you."

—

Akari took aim and tossed the balm as hard as she could, not even bothering to check if she hit her target before reaching for another balm.

That definitely wasn't the hardest challenge she'd faced since she came to Hisui, after all, she'd been doing this with the Nobles practically since day one.

Plus, She just needed to hit the Pokémon in the cave once.

Easy.

At least Azelf wasn't trying to kill her like the nobles had been.

But this was definitely more… physically involved than the last.

She almost goes as far to call it frustrating.

Worse still, Irida and Ingo still hadn't arrived yet. poor Emmet had been rather upset about it, but the kid had been doing his best to put on a brave face.

Though she had been unable to check on him since the challenge started and he had been rather quiet. Not that Emmet being quiet was all that strange.

Emmet…

If what Mesprit said was true, was there another Emmet out there?

What happened to him?

Did that mean there was another Emmet out there missing his brother too?

Was he Ingo's man in white?

And if Lil Ingo was Warden Ingo, then was Warden Ingo okay?

Did he collapse as well?

Or was he okay?

What about Lil Ingo?

"You appear distracted… Perhaps you wish to stop." The lake guardian taunted, stopping for a moment to regard her.

Akari didn't even dignify that with a response, instead taking the opportunity to chuck another balm at the pokemon.

"Then we are to continue."

Akari gave a sharp nod, taking a brief moment to lightly smack her cheeks, before she reached for another balm.

She needed to focus.

The faster she got this done, the faster she could move on to the next lake, the faster she could fix the rift and get things back to semi-normal.

She missed again.

She grabbed another.

Then she could focus on finishing the pokedex, which tied into what Arceus wants her to do.

Missed.

Then she could worry about what Mesprit told her.

Another miss.

Then she could worry about how to get everyone home.

Missed again.

She just had to do this.

Missed.

Just one hit was all she needed.

Missed.

Just one.

Missed.

Then she could worry about the possibility of her uncle and his 'son' being the same person.

Missed.

The balm hit the ground in front of the lake guardian. the Pokemon looked down at the little bag before looking back up at her, tilting its head.

"Are you sure your heart is truly in this?"

Akari stopped for a moment, looking around at the balm bags that littered the cave floor, then back at Azelf.

Why couldn't she do this?

She'd hit abras just about to teleport before. She caught Starly flying through the air. She managed to calm the fast and furious Lord Arcanine.

So why couldn't she do this?

Azelf wasn't even out of breath.

"Perhaps you wish to stop?"

Her chest was heaving, and her throwing arm was sore from overuse…

Maybe she just needed a…

"You can do it Akari! You Got it!"

Akari gasped.

–

“Come on, you got this.” Akari whispered as she handed over another Pokeball to the ten year-old crouched next to her. The boy was panting hard, she could easily see his hands shaking with frustration. All around them were broken Pokeballs from failed attempts at a catch. A frustrating scene for any pokemon trainer. “Can’t give up now.”

She had only known the twins for a day and a half, and already she had decided to take the two under her wing. Taking them out into the fieldlands to get them used to catching pokemon in Hisui, much like Rei had done for her.

A feat she found easier when they separated.

As it turned out Emmet seemed to enjoy teasing his older brother, and as quiet as Lil Ingo was he could be quite…vocal when he was worked up.

It had taken both her and Rei to pull them apart before one of them got hurt.

So after sending Emmet off with Rei, Akari had handed the remaining brother a pokeball and set off to find a good pokemon they could start with.

The twins were amazing battlers, if Akari didn't know any better she might have thought they were gym trainers. But she almost expected as much from Ingo's kids.

But as she looked around at the broken pokeballs that lay scattered around them, she was starting to wonder if there was a reason the two only had one pokemon each.

Akari was willing to give the benefit of the doubt, the pokeballs of this time were very different. They weren't smooth, they were smaller and fit awkwardly in your hand, and they were slightly heavier making it so you had to adjust your aim accordingly.

But she couldn't help but wonder if Lil Ingo was capable of hitting the broadside of a barn. Maybe Litwick had been a lucky catch, or he had befriended the pokemon beforehand.

When the ball remained in her hand, she looked over at the kid.

Lil Ingo's face was almost impossible to read, even his father's face held more expression. But there was almost something sad about his body language, his hands shaking, his face downcast as he panted, and that ever present frown pulled even further downward.

She really couldn't blame him, this had to be frustrating.

"You can do this, Ingo." She whispered again, taking the kid's hand and gently pressing the ball into his palm. "You got this."

Ingo turned to look up at her, his mouth opening as if to say something but the words seemed to die on his lips.

"Just Breathe." She added, forcing the boy's fingers to curl around the ball's surface.

She turned his attention back to the pokemon in front of them. A Goomy that had wandered in from the Mirelands.

Ingo hadn't been sure about catching one but Akari needed one for her pokedex, so she would hold on to the pokemon for now.

"Just breathe. And wait for the right moment." She couched, placing a hand on the boy's shoulders, carefully adjusting his stance.

They sat and waited for several moments watching the goomy slowly move about the grassy field, until finally Ingo let the ball fly.

Akari flinched slightly when she saw the ball hit the ground with a crack before splitting in half and startling the pokemon but luckily not scaring it off.

But it was close. Only a few inches off.

She could feel the boy’s shoulders tense under her hand and she gave them a gentle squeeze. “It’s okay, just try again.” she pressed another Pokeball into his hand, glad that she had made a bunch of them beforehand. “Just breathe and focus on the Pokemon. There’s no rush.”

Once more she watched as the kid lined up his shot, before letting the ball fly once more.

turning around to see Irida and Ingo had finally joined them, though how long the two had been there she really didn't know.

Ingo was several steps closer than the others. his brother held tightly against his chest, but his eyes were locked on her. "Just breathe, Akari! You got this! You can’t give up now."

Almost on instinct Akari took a deep breath, and suddenly it felt like a fog had lifted.

Letting her shoulder relax, the teen let out a content sigh, before turning back to the guardians on the lake.

"So, are you giving up?"

"Not a chance!" a smile spread across her face as she reached for another balm.

Slowly, Azelf started to move around the cave once more and Akari carefully tracked its movements around the cave.

She slowly took a breath in, waiting for her moment before tossing the balm… only for it to once more hit the ground.

But it was close, closer than all her other shots. Only inches off.

“It’s okay! Just try again!” she heard little Ingo echo her own words back to her as she reached for another balm, adjusting her stance. “Just breathe and focus on the Pokemon. There’s no rush!”

Once more she watched the lake guardian closely, adjusting her stance and weighing the balm in her hand as she lined up her shot before throwing the balm once more.

The satisfaction was instantaneous when she watched as Azelf recoiled from the hit, letting out a small cry of surprise. She couldn’t help but give a small little fist pump as the lake guardian shook its head. All of her missed shots and distracting worries no longer seemed to matter as Azelf flew over to her.

“You have proven your unyielding willpower. Now take this piece of the spirit to bind the world once more.”

Slowly her prize floated down towards her, and Akari reached up and took hold of the fang, clutching it to her chest.

—

“That looked exhausting…but now we only have one more lake to go.” Emmet could vaguely make out Lady Irida’s voice. His ears were still ringing from his brother’s yelling, but that was okay.

“Bravo! You did it, Akari!” he almost flinched as his brother cheered right next to his ear, but at least that meant that Ingo was close.

“Thanks, that was harder than I thought it would be.”

He guessed that that meant that Akari had done it then, so they could move on.

He wanted to congratulate her, to join in on the bravos his twin was throwing her way. But he was so tired, and he didn’t want to pull away from his brother’s shoulder.

Everything from the past little bit had started to blur. The only things that seemed to stand out in his mind was the rising panic of having to hold onto his brother or risk losing him, and the voice in his head that seemed to try to encourage him to let go.

“You're tired, why not let go?”

“He’ll be fine, just let go?”

“Your arms must be getting sore, just let go?”

Just thinking about it made him tighten his grip on his brother, fearing that if he didn’t Ingo might disappear then and there.

So he just remained where he was, listening to the voices of the others around him.

“The two of you really took your time getting here.” he heard the merchant speak up, and Emmet tried not to cringe. “Any longer and we probably would have been halfway to the next lake before you got here.”

“Yeah, I was starting to get worried?” Akari added. “I hope everything is okay?”

He felt Ingo open his mouth as if he was about to say something, but he was cut off by Lady Irida. “Yes, everything is fine. I’m afraid we were side-tracked slightly but all is fine.”

“I see.”

“Well, as long as you're okay. How is Emmet?”

Ingo’s arms tightened around him slightly, adjusting his hold as Emmet pressed his face further into the plush fabric of his twin's hood. “I think he’s fine, just tired.”

“If you want, I can take you both back to retreat.” Emmet’s grip tightened despite the protest of his arms, at the sound of Volo’s words. “I’m Heading that way any-”

“No!”

Emmet’s eyes shot open at the intensity of that yell. Even Ingo went tense.

But Irida quickly cleared her throat, regaining her composure. “No. Young Ingo and I were speaking of this on the way here. They will travel with me.”

“I’m sorry Lady Irida, once again I have to point out that that would put you in a dangerous spot.” Volo argued. “I’m sure it was fine traveling with one of them, but both will definitely be noticed by one of Kamado’s flunkies.”

“Perphase if we were traveling by foot, but young Ingo has tamed a powerful Red Gyarados, whose scales match the red sky.” Emmet heard the pearl clan leader reply, noting the slight aggressive tone she was using. “Gyarados are known to fly around the tops of the highest waterfalls, and seeing as we are heading to the Icelands it would be faster to fly.”

“Fly?”

Emmet wasn’t quite sure how he felt about that idea.

“Yes, Akari has the assistance of Lord Braiary and we will use Gyarados. It would be faster from up and besides there even if we were spotted there would be little the commander and his men could do about it.” Irida explained further, and Emmet couldn’t help but notice that Irida had failed to mention how Volo would follow them.

Not that Emmet would mind if the merchant was left behind.

“I see…” the Merchant sneered.

“I guess that makes sense.” Akari agreed. “But what about Volo?”

“Surely, he has a pokemon of his own capable of flight or knows of another way of getting to lake Acuity.”

There was a moment of silence and Emmet could feel the tension before Volo finally spoke up.

“Of course. I’ll meet you all there.”

Emmet could only see Volo move towards the cave exit, but his view was blocked by Irida standing between the merchant and him.

#warden's twins #submas #subway bosses as kids #pokemon au #subway boss ingo #warden ingo #au #subway bosses #pokemon fanfiction #fanfic writing

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raiderlucy · 2 years

Photo

⬆✨My literal face right now while i’m making this post ✨⬆

So it’s official, i hit 2.5k i think sometime last week (woohoo 🥳), i said it in my follower celebration last year that i never thought i’d get this amount of followers but i’m saying it again now, and knowing how long i’ve been on this site (10 long damn yrs on and off) some of those followers are probably inactive at this point but yeah i just wanted to say thanks to everyone who follows me, interacts with me and loves the gifs i create as it motivates me to want to create more and learn more (even when i get annoyed about how bad the like/reblog ratio is nowadays haha)

So i’m gonna take the opportunity to thank you guys (new and old) for sticking with me through the years and through all the fandoms and my multifandom mess blog, i know this place has definitely become more stranger things centric this past year but yeah, it’s still a multifandom mess haha.

I wanna get some gif requests going and maybe some other stuff too.

So if you wanna take part send me some things:

✨ + a colour palette + character/ship/show/whatever i post about

🎨 + 2 colours + character/ship/show/whatever i post about (i know that sounds similar to the colour palette meme but it’ll be different i swear lol...)

🌵 + 2 things and make me choose between them (mix it up doesn’t have to be characters, could be outfits etc.)

⏰ + show ep/movie and i’ll blindly pick scene from them for a gifset

⚡ for some other general gif requests maybe (idk maybe you have an idea of a particular steve harrington scene you want me to add to my growing endless steve gifs - or maybe just well anything related to what i gif?)

🎵 i’ll put my Spotify on shuffle and make 5 song playlist for you

(dunno what to ask for? take a look at my last celebration/ my gifs for some insp)

Some mutual only things:

💜 and i’ll give you a compliment for your blog (i won’t lie it’ll probably end up being something generic from how bad i am at complimenting people but i’ll give it my best shot)

and for my gif/editing making mutuals

⭐ i’ll list my 3 of my fave edits of yours and why i like them

I think that’s all i had? I’m not sure i’ve been typing and re-typing this for hours now so who knows?

Gonna tag some mutuals new and old in no particular order under the cut, i know i don’t actually talk to well over half of you and i’m probably just that rando mutual you see sitting alone in the corner at parties but hey, feel free to promote or not completely up to you i’m not fussed.

@himboharringtxn @agentjemmafitzsimmons @ne8ula @mattssmurdock @spacejesusobiwan @babygirlspector @natasharomanovf @spookyharrington @alivedean @bebecas @pegsccarter @deanncastiel @nikolatexla @tomhollandd @achingly-shy @emziess @werewolfsteve @finalgalnancy @kamala-khann

i know i’ve missed people and if i didn’t tag you i’m sorry, i just never know who to tag in stuff like this

#aimz talks #aimz2.5k

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ouchthathurts · 1 year

Text

❥ ⋮ SAVE THE CONGO AND PLAESTINE !

❥ ⋮ BASICS

♡ I'M OUCH ⋮ 18 YRS, AFRO LATINO WRITER, ANY PRNS, MULTIFANDOM, SPIDER ENGINEER, DIVISION 4'S BABYSITTER, NANAMI'S WORK WIFE, REIGEN'S EMERGENCY CALL, XINYAN'S 0.001% LISTENER, HANGE'S BELOVED PARTNER

❥ ⋮ DIRECTORIES

♡ NAV ⋮ ABOUT ME / TAGS | RULES | M.LIST | REQ RULES

❥ ⋮ STATUS

♡ REQUESTS ⋮ OPEN

♡ CHAT ⋮ OPEN

♡ SOCIALS ⋮ AO3

❥ ⋮ WORKS

♡ RECENTS ⋮ ❝ OUR FIRST DATE ❞ - NANAMI KENTO x GN! READER

❥ ⋮ A promise you made back to Kento back in Junior year finally comes to true fruition!

❝ BEWITCHED ❞ - WORK-HUSBAND NANAMI KENTO x FEM! IDOL! READER

❥ ⋮ You’re a team leader of an awful office, and thanks to your boss, you’re now stuck with a man whose exhibits everything you want to be in this office. You hope he’ll be your ally in all of this mess.

❝ FRAGILE ❞ - WANDERER/SCARAMOUCHE x GN! READER

❥ ⋮ These feelings may be too human for this puppet

♡ SERIES ⋮ ❝ WHAT DOES SATORU WANT? ❞ - GOJO SATORU x FEM! READER

❥ ⋮ One of the strongest Jujutsu Sorcerers can't admit his feelings for you.

♡ WIP ↴

❝ APPLE SLICES? ❞ - REIGEN ARATAKA x BLACK! FEM! GUITARIST! READER

❥ ⋮ Your feelings for Reigen become more and more apparent as the years go by, you hope to tell him real soon after high school graduation.

❝ FALLING BEHIND ❞ - TAMIOKA GIYUU x GN! READER

❥ ⋮ Giyuu's feelings for you have become more than he's able to bottle up, will he be able to confess to you in time before the battle of the infinity castle?

❝ I'M NOT IN LOVE ❞ - SHINAZUGAWA SANEMI x GN! READER

❥ ⋮ Sanemi can't stand how you treat as if he's the most ignorant man in the world, he goes out of his way to prove to you how much better he is than what you perceive him to be, it's not like he'll fall apart if you don't see it.

!! SPECIAL THANKS TO @cafekitsune FOR THE DIVIDERS !!

©ouchthathurts please don't translate, claim as yours, redistribute and/or plagiarize in any way. likes, comments, and reblogs are greatly appreciated!

#rules #random information #read more #navigation #ouchlovesthem #ouchinfopages

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wesleycrushers · 1 year

Text

prev. urls: vansmontgomery, axllheck, jaikelso

You can call me Zelda!

tracking: #userzelda (we don't have to be moots for someone to use my tag <3)

if y'all could please tag for blood, body horror, and gore I'd super super appreciate it <3

I usually try to tag for common triggers, but sometimes I forget or I don't know the tag, so if there's anything specific you need tagged, please please let me know! You can even tell me on anon if you'd feel more comfortable that way.

nsfw posts will be tagged as #spicy. my talk tag is #zelda talks and #zelda makes a psa. Feel free to blacklist if you'd rather not see my ramblings/complaints/personal updates. I often reblog my own gifsets for increased exposure; those are tagged as #sr if you'd like to blacklist as well.

t*rfs get blocked on sight. You're not welcome here and never will be. if your blog is completely empty, you're also getting blocked

If you found this blog through @zackmartin, @daisysjimenez, or @zresources I kindly ask that you do not follow if you are under 18. If you choose to go against my boundaries, understand that you are doing so at your own discretion.

Accidentally deleted my old blog; used to be mambofivehargreeves

Adult | bi | white | she/her/he/him (switched up as much as possible) | multifandom mess mixed in with personal posts

my gifs

requests: open! • I reserve the right to refuse a request if it's one I'm uncomfortable with. • Be aware before sending one in that I have a severe chronic illness that's in a terrible terrible flare, so it may take me a while to complete it, or I may not be able to complete it at all if things get too bad. (in that case, I will let you know. But, that's only in the most extreme cases, such as if I become hospitalized again) • Please don't let that deter you from sending one in! I love love love getting requests, I just want y'all to be aware so you don't think I'm like. ignoring you or something • Also, please be as specific as you can <3 • I usually like to keep the ask in my inbox until I complete the request, otherwise I'll completely forget 😬 So all my current projects can be found HERE

And that’s all you really need to know, hope you enjoy your stay 💝

#about #pinned #things added periodically

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serenescribe · 22 days

Note

🦋 👻 ❤️

Fanfic Writer Ask Game

🦋 Which character is your favorite to write?

multifandom chaos means multifandom answer!

for fantasy high, i haven't been able to try all their povs yet, but i would say, unsurprisingly, i do like writing adaine a lot. actually, i like writing all three bad girlies a lot (adaine, kristen, fig), they're just so good. twisted wonderland, i mainly write diasomnia, so it's a toss up between lilia and silver. last i answered this, i think lilia edged out ever so slightly, but they're more or less on equal ground with each other.

other characters i had fun writing over the years... i LOVED writing morgan from fire emblem: awakening for a fic i never finished and never posted. she's so scrungly i love her lots. writing espresso and madeleine in "we've got history," for however much it felt like fighting a boss battle, ultimately ended up really fun because they're both fucked up messes. i also have an extremely soft spot for maki harukawa from danganronpa v3 because of my long multichap project (that has been on hiatus for a while unfortunately)

i think basically if i keep writing a character, they become a favourite because i get more used to them, and it gets more fun!

👻 What is your wildest headcanon?

oh my god i am like. the worst person to ask about this. i really don't have concrete headcanons. i just write whatever the hell i want based on whatever au or fic idea is floating around my head. i'm very "fuck it we ball" when it comes to characters and i don't usually have headcanons static enough to consistently show up in my fics

god okay the only thing i can think of rn is "fig definitely read the spyre equivalent of warrior cats as a kid" and that's all you're getting because force-thinking headcanons feels like torture ahfndhgdf

❤️ What is your favorite line that you’ve written in a fic?

i've written a lot of fic over the years, and unfortunately i am also forgetful enough that i often don't remember lines years later. that being said, this bit from "something borrowed, something blue" is still sticking with me weeks after first writing it ♡

#ask box #thewiglesswonder #thank you!!! :D #i still love smt borrowed smt blue and i think people should Read It if they havent already #ALSO if anyone else sends in smt for the ask game i will answer it tomorrow it is late!!!

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honeyhippiie · 1 year

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💜 About Me 💜

Hi, dear stranger, welcome to my blog!

૮꒰ྀི ˶ᵔ ᵕ ᵔ˶ ꒱ྀིა

I sincerely hope that this multifandom mess will cheer you up somehow or at least, please your eyes with some aesthetic pics.

But, who am I? 🌸

♡ Sarah

♡ Canada

♡ August - 2001.

♡ ENTJ

♡ Virgo ☼, Aquarius ☾, Libra ⇞

♡ I speak French & English, and I want to learn a bunch of other languages like Korean.

♡ I want to become a doctor and maybe more specifically an orthopaedic surgeon.

♡ History (Victorian era, antiquity, WW1-2), Medicine, Art, Books (classical, sci-fi, history, essay, a bit of everything!), Poetry, K-pop.

Farewell, stranger, I hope you’re having a beautiful day no matter where you are on this planet!

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

P.S. Enjoy this lovely song, one of my favourites, as a gift for reading all of this…

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youtube

#About me!#2023 #Youtube

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ricardian-werewolf · 1 year

Note

11) what aspect of your writing do you think has most improved since you started writing?

24) have you ever become an expert on something you previously knew nothing about, in order to better a scene or a story?

Ooh, thank you for asking.

something that's defiently gotten better over my almost 7 years of writing is my expanse of my stories. I have a piece of fanfic I wrote when I was young where I crashed all my hyperfixations together and it's a mess that's 45,000 words long. Contrasting that, 6 years later, with my current work that's nearly 80,000 words long, and it's cohesive, multifandom, but there's a plotline. 24. Hmmm, oh, yes! I wrote a babylon berlin fanfic (it's still in my drafts!), wherein I had to promptly ask my father for secondary sources on the changing political landscape of weimar republic germany. A more well-known example is the obsessive knowledge I now possess about the intricacies of nuclear winter, radiation and radiation sickness.

#harriet rambles #tw nuclear war #harriet answers #i take texts telegrams and bird shaped messages but do not ever call me

0 notes

slutforstabbings-archive · 1 year

Text

The Penpal

Only an hour an a half late to my own party! lol Here's my fic inspired by my news article about survivor!Corey and my conversations with @cordelium and @toxicanonymity!

survivor!inmate!Corey Cunningham x fem!Reader

As someone who grew up with awareness of Michael Myers despite not living in Haddonfield, you were gripped by the news of what happened on Halloween 2022. You reached out to Corey with a letter, and your correspondence became more than you ever dreamed it would.

contents/warnings - descriptions of prison, court, etc, family angst, handjob, riding, rough doggy

6,264 words

@rebel-blue @nachtmahr666 @wolvesandvampires @multifandom--mess @ethanhoewke @hersweetrevenge

18+, minors dni

Corey Cunningham. The man, the myth, the legend. The psycho babysitter, acquitted of aggravated manslaughter. The Michael Myers copycat who survived several severe injuries to become a celebrity during his murder trial. And, officially this afternoon, your husband.

You made the long drive to Chester from Chicago yesterday and stayed in a hotel overnight so you would be well rested for today. You go down to the hotel lobby in sweats and smash the continental breakfast before returning to your room on the third floor to get ready. As you wait for the tub to fill with water and steam clouds the bathroom, you reflect on the past year and a half, how a single letter changed your entire life.

<3 <3 <3

On November 1st you woke up to a barrage of texts from your cousin Kristin who lives in Monmouth, 20 minutes from a cursed small town. Growing up she was always so obsessed with The Boogeyman of Haddonfield, a mixture of fear and fascination. As teenagers she would always call you when she was babysitting, after the kids went to sleep. You would stay on the phone with her, just in case, even when it wasn’t anywhere near Halloween. You opened your eyes to a crisp fall morning, looked at your phone, and saw the messages.

11:30

HE CAME BACK AGAIN

HE CAME BACK AGAIN AND THEY KILLED HIM AND HES ACTUALLY DEAD THIS TIME

HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT

I don’t have any other details yet but they fucking did it!!!! They killed the boogeyman!!!!

12:15

Oh my god they put him in an industrial shredder of some kind????

They turned Michael Myers into fucking ground beef!!!

12:48

Corey Cunningham is involved somehow!??

There’s a lot of rumors and conflicting information but

it seems like he either killed someone or was killed by someone who thought he was Michael??

1:03

Okay not much more clarity on the Corey Cunningham thing, we still don’t know how what happened to him relates to Michael but he was shot AND stabbed and they found him in Laurie Strode’s house!? But he’s ALIVE and they airlifted him somewhere up by you. What a wild fucking night. Jesus Christ.

Kristin had told you all about Corey Cunningham. You remembered the news articles she’d sent you, the photos of him they ran in the local paper. You felt deeply for the guy, what a horrible case of wrong place, wrong time. And it couldn’t have happened to someone more gorgeous, which felt like it increased the tragedy, even though it shouldn’t. His face still lingered in your mind all this time later, coming to you as soon as you read his name. While you were very interested in what could’ve led to Michael Myers being turned into “ground beef,” you were much more concerned with what would happen with Corey.

In the following days and weeks, Kristin kept the updates coming. Much of what she told you wasn’t supposed to be public knowledge, but she had a loose lipped friend of a friend in the Warren County Sheriff's Office. Michael’s final rampage had left 12 dead. It would be 13 if Corey didn’t survive, he was in the ICU in a medically induced coma. Laurie and her granddaughter Allyson had killed Michael and taken his body to a junkyard to drop it in the metal shredder.

Then, suddenly, the police weren’t so sure all 12 victims had been Michael’s. They weren’t sure any of them had been. They found Corey’s fingerprints and DNA, clear as day, incontestable, on a glass door at one of the scenes. Everyone who died was connected to him somehow, including both of his parents. Laurie gave a statement that Corey had stolen Michael’s infamous mask and emulated him in a murder spree for days leading up to Halloween. When he woke up, if he woke up, he’d be arrested.

He occupied your thoughts for the whole month of November. A sick obsession you couldn’t shake. For years Kristin had told you about the way people talked about him, how even though he’d been acquitted, people treated him like he was just as bad as Michael. You read everything you could about him. It wasn’t hard for you to understand how being told you’re evil every day could make you snap — they wanted it, and he gave it to them.

The cops were keeping the hospital Corey was in out of the news, but when word came along the grapevine that he had woken up and been moved out of the ICU, you asked Kristin to find out. She gleefully delivered. You wrote him a letter. Really you wrote so many letters you lost count, trying and failing to express your sympathy, your hope that he would recover and beat the charges, struggling to decide what tone the letter should take. Finally you felt like you had done the best you could, and you dropped it in the mail. You weren’t sure why you did it, or what you expected to come from it. Something in you just needed to reach out to him. To let him know, even after everything, he wasn’t alone.

<3 <3 <3

You sink into the bathtub. You never thought you would get married. The whole thing always seemed so hokey and archaic. But only spouses and children are entitled to unsupervised family visits at the prison. You can’t keep spending every visit you make with a guard breathing down your neck, barking at you every time you dare to reach across the table for Corey’s hand, timing your hugs when you get there and when you leave. Sporadic phone calls and driving 6 hours to sit across from him for 45 minutes once a week aren’t enough. It was a hell of a lot of paperwork, and you feared that the publicity your relationship had received during the trial would lead the warden to prohibit the wedding, but after months of red tape, you finally got the word. The marriage was approved.

You slather your legs in gritty body scrub, massaging scratchy circles. When you trust that all the dead skin has been obliterated, you plunge your legs back below the surface of the water. Bubbles plume around you. You want your skin to be silky for Corey. You know he’s touch starved in there. Affection between inmates is highly frowned upon, and he doesn’t have many friends anyway.

The other prisoners resent his notoriety. More than once you’d come for a visit and his beautiful features were hidden from you under bruises and swelling from getting jumped again. When you expressed your concern, Corey just smirked. “You should see the other guy,” he told you. You worry about him, but you’d be lying if you denied feeling a little pang between your legs when you think about how dangerous he is. You believe the other guy looks much worse.

<3 <3 <3

11 days after you sent your letter, you stopped in your apartment building’s mail room after work. Your mailbox was stuffed with what looked like the usual stack of garbage, but as you shuffled the envelopes on your way up the stairs something different caught your eye. A handwritten address, and not one of those bullshit fake handwritten ones from the cable company. You broke into a sprint, zooming up the remaining flights of stairs to your apartment. You slammed the door behind you prompting your roommate to shout at you from their bedroom. The sound of their protests barely registered. Hands trembling, you opened the envelope.

You read Corey’s response, and then you read it again. And a third time, still leaning against the front door of your apartment. The officer assigned to guard my room is writing this for me. I can’t move my arms yet, he began. Your letter meant a lot to me. I’ve been awake for two weeks today and you’re the first person who isn’t a nurse, a cop, or a lawyer that I’ve heard from. The letter was brief and a little stilted, but that was understandable. He probably had to be very careful, especially since he was dictating directly to a cop, not to say anything that could be used against him in court.

You sent your reply the next morning. After that his response came quicker, and again you sent something back right away, including a photo of yourself at his request. A few days before Christmas you heard from Kristin that Corey’s address at the hospital had gotten out, been published somewhere online. In his next reply Corey himself confirmed it. I’m getting a ton of letters now… They want me to write a book and turn the book into a movie… I’ve never gotten this much attention before… I always look for something from you first. But the most interesting part of that particular letter came at the end.

You’re so pretty. I had them prop the photo you sent up on my bedside table. I can move a little more now, so I can actually look at it. I hope that’s not weird. I talked to my lawyer about putting you on my visitor’s list. You should get a letter from his office soon. He’ll help, if you want to come see me. That’s all I want for Christmas.

<3 <3 <3

Fully clean, exfoliated, and conditioned, you rise from the tub. You’ve had butterflies in your stomach all morning, but they multiply as you dry off and look at yourself in the mirror. You’re starting to realize why more traditional brides tend to have huge entourages around them. Despite your disdain for marriage as an institution and your unconventional circumstances, you still wish there was someone here. Someone who was happy for you and could make sure the back of your hair looks okay. But nobody in your life even knows about this except for Kristin. The prison doesn’t allow guests at weddings, so she stayed home. You still should’ve asked her to come, to be there before and after.

You do your hair and makeup under the bright vanity lights. You always try to look your best when you visit Corey, but today is a special occasion. If not the wedding, then what happens after. Your first time getting more than 45 minutes with him in months, your first time alone with him in longer. You think about his hands. What a special pair of hands. Broad and freckled and strong. A huge, gnarled scar across his left palm. The hands that wrote you all those letters. The hands that took 10 lives and have broken countless bones in the other inmates’ faces, but would never ever touch you with anything other than love. You finally get to feel them on your skin again today. And that makes everything worth it.

You go to the closet and take out a long garment bag. You lay the bag on the bed and pull the zipper down. You can’t help but laugh. When the wedding was approved, the prison sent you a massive list of requirements, including a ridiculously long and yet somehow vague dress code. Nothing too full skirted or too heavily beaded. No cleavage. No trains. No veils. That was all fine with you, a cupcake shaped Cinderella gown doesn’t exactly seem appropriate for a prison wedding with no guests, even if the rules allowed it. You just picked something simple, and as sexy as possible without violating the rules. Corey doesn’t know anything about the dress, you tried to talk to him about it and he shut you down. “The groom’s not supposed to know anything about the dress until he sees it,” he told you. Well if he wanted to find room to be a little bit traditional, you could do that too. Turns out you look pretty good in white.

<3 <3 <3

It took until a week into the New Year because everyone was out of the office for the holidays, but you gave Corey his Christmas present. It was extremely awkward at first, sitting in the hard chair next to his hospital bed, a cop leaning against the wall in the corner, pretending not to be listening. He was handcuffed to the bed, just like in the picture you’d seen in your newsfeed that morning. He beckoned subtly for you to lean in towards him and he whispered to you. “My lawyer took that photo. He leaked it himself. He thinks it’ll help people see me sympathetically.” The cop in the corner yelled at him for whispering. You leaned back away from Corey, but he smirked at you. You loved being his conspirator.

The photo of him in the hospital worked. It sparked massive outrage that someone in his condition would be handcuffed. Where did they think he was gonna go? It seemed needlessly cruel, even for a murder suspect. It succeeded in making him more sympathetic with everyone… except your family.

When they found out you had written to him, they could understand why you might want to send a letter or two. They knew about Kristin’s fixation on Michael Myers and that you two were close. Everyone had felt bad for Corey and rooted for him during his manslaughter trial. Around letter number three is when they started to be weird about it. The case against him was mounting, more details were being released. Some of the victims died in really horrific ways, didn’t you understand that it wasn’t just a terrible misunderstanding happening to a handsome young man this time?

They were the ones who didn’t understand. The more you learned about Corey, from the news, from his letters, from the old coverage of his manslaughter trial that you’d been revisiting, the more you believed in him. Not in his innocence necessarily — you didn’t know how to feel about that, going back and forth from being certain he did to to being certain he didn’t. But you believed in his heart. If he did it, he did it for a good reason. That DJ that died had spent years promoting insane theories about him being a part of a cult that worshiped Michael or some bullshit. You couldn’t imagine what that would do to even the kindest of people.

When you got home from the hospital, they were waiting to confront you. Visits were the last straw. It was one thing to be a murderer’s penpal. It was quite another to hang out with him. What could you stand to gain from this, they wanted to know. Apparently genuine connection with another human being was not the answer they were looking for, and hybristophilia wasn’t a funny joke. You just stopped talking to them about him. They knew, or at least suspected that you were still visiting him, that when you were “busy” every weekend you were really with Corey. But if you didn’t talk about it, it wasn’t a problem.

When he was discharged from the hospital, Corey’s lawyer worked to get him on a pre-trial release program where he could be on house arrest instead of in jail until the trial was over. He wasn’t supposed to have visitors unsupervised, but you did spend a few glorious hours alone with him, once. He’d been in pre-trial release for a few weeks and realized his release officer was overworked and underpaid and would not be paying very close attention to him. Corey had a short term lease in a shitty apartment building, the only place his lawyer could find with a landlord that agreed to host an alleged murderer on house arrest.

You stood on the stained, threadbare carpet outside his apartment, heart beating in your throat, vibrating with anticipation. You’d planned your visit in innuendo, pretending to tell each other about books you’d been reading, things you’d been up to. The building is really old and drafty, but at least I don’t have bugs, he’d written. The b in bugs in cursive, despite his usual cramped print. Bugs. He’d checked to make sure he wasn’t being listened to. In his coded way, he told you not to knock. So you stood there, kneading the floor with your sneakers, trusting he would check for you through the peephole soon.

Then the door swung open, and there he was. Standing up! No spinal halo, no neck brace, in sweatpants and a t-shirt instead of a hospital gown. His survival was so miraculous, you kind of never thought you’d get to see him like this. Heat flooded your cheeks as you made eye contact with him. He reached out and grabbed your wrist with his giant hand, gently pulling you into the apartment and into his chest as he closed the door. You were so unprepared for that first hug. You’d never gotten so wet from just a hug before, but feeling his arms slide around your waist made you gush.

He couldn’t stand up for very long yet, so he led you to the couch. He sat in the corner, half against the back, half against the arm stacked with pillows, and folded one leg towards him. You sat sideways to face him. He asked about your job, what was going on in the world out there, you asked him how he was adjusting to life outside the hospital bed. The arousal you felt from the hug refused to subside. You found yourself struggling to focus on the conversation, inching closer to him, watching his lips while he complained about how uncomfortable the ankle monitor was.

“Can I see it?” You asked.

“If you want to,” he said. He pulled the hem of his pants back on the leg folded on the couch between the two of you, and there it was, a little green light on it blinking. Your nails were longer than Corey’s and your fingers were more slender, so you slipped the tips of them under the strap and scratched. His lips parted in a sigh.

“Be careful. It has a sensor thing, so they know if you’re fucking with it.”

“Okay,” you whispered, scratching and rubbing all the way around his thick ankle, trying to jostle the monitor as little as possible. “Is that better?”

You looked up from his ankle to his face, and caught sight of an imprint in his sweatpants on the way up.

“Yeah, much better. Thank you,” he breathed.

You leaned in to him, pulled as if by a magnet. “No problem,” you said, face only inches away from his. You hovered, basking in the tension between you, until he brought his hand to cup your jaw and urged you towards him, closing the gap.

The warmth of his lips set your whole body alight. Your heart raced. You wanted to pounce on him but you had to be gentle. It was painful to restrain yourself, and you could tell he had the same problem. But you would take him any way you could get him. You took his top lip into your mouth and ran the tip of your tongue across it, following its gorgeous arch. He sank his teeth into your bottom lip. You moaned into his mouth, and he groaned back, reaching out to put his hands on your hips. You could tell from the way he dug his fingers in that if he had the strength, he would be yanking you into his lap, so you hurried to straddle him.

You hiked your skirt up to set your soaking panties directly on the bulge in his pants, rocking your hips ever so slightly.

“I’ve wanted you since you sent me that picture,” he said in a strained voice. “I hoped you would be pretty, but I didn’t expect you to be so pretty.”

“I have you beat. I’ve wanted you since I saw your mugshot in 2019.”

“You have?” He asked, looking at you in confused wonder.

“I thought you were devastatingly hot, and it’s even worse in person. I was almost your 14th alleged victim the first time I saw you in person.”

His face changed from awestruck to a cocky, almost creepy smile. You leaned back from him, standing up off the couch and his smile only got bigger as you took off your shirt and dropped your skirt to the floor. In just your underwear and a simple bralette you sunk to your knees in front of him. You put one hand on his thigh and the other on his cock, wrapping your fingers around the shape of it through the fabric, stroking him slowly. His smile fell as his face went slack with pleasure. He put his hands over yours, encouraging your stroking hand, weaving between the fingers of your free hand, and you clenched your thighs together as he moaned your name.

You relished making him feel good, treasuring every second with him, so it was extremely difficult to resist just making him cum, sitting on your heels, looking up into those beautiful eyes. But this might be your only chance to feel him inside you, ever.

“I brought a condom,” you purred.

“You- ah- you did?” he panted.

You slipped the fingers of the hand not stroking him out of his grasp and reached behind you into the pocket of your skirt. You held the little foil packet up for him to see and he made a deep, guttural sound. With some shuffling yourselves and the pillows around, you wound up straddling Corey’s lap again, naked and hovering over his latex-sheathed cock. You planted your hands on the back of the couch on either side of his shoulders and lowered yourself down onto him. You let out a long, high whimper as you settled onto his length. For a moment you just rested there, mentally pinching yourself to make sure it wasn’t a dream. You were really doing this, getting this close to Corey Cunningham.

You had to ride him carefully, deliberately, not to hurt him. Every nerve in your body strained as you fought your desire to fuck him, until the frustration itself became erotic for both of you, intensifying the sensations of your gentle movements. When his hands went from resting on your hips to grabbing them, you knew he was close. The thought alone pushed you over the edge and you dropped your face to his shoulder to muffle your whimpers, letting out the ecstasy vocally rather than in frantic spasms that might jostle him too much. Hearing you, feeling you clench, Corey followed suit, cursing and calling your name.

“Is the state paying for this?” You wondered, looking around. You’d both put your underwear back on, but didn’t get any more dressed than that, wanting to maintain skin contact as you sat together on the couch, enjoying the post-sex haze.

“I am. My life’s savings,” he sighed. “It’s not like I’m gonna need it.”

“Don’t say that. You don’t know that.” You admonished him, but really you were saying it for yourself. You couldn’t let go of the tiny sliver of hope that he would beat the charges.

“Do you think I did it?” Corey asked after a few moments of silence.

“What?” You replied, caught off guard.

“Do you think I’m innocent? Or do you think I’m guilty?”

“I… don’t know. The evidence I know about is… pretty damning.” You said falteringly, shifting uncomfortably against him. You’d considered what all the potential outcomes would mean to you. Could you keep seeing him if he really was a murderer? You knew the answer, had known since you heard about the boy who died with the torch in his mouth. Kristin had shared the crime scene photos with you. They were truly grisly, and for days afterwards, the specter of that burnt out face lingered when you closed your eyes. But even being fully confronted with the reality of what he - allegedly - did to those people, you felt nothing but affection for him. Still, you didn’t like the conversation. It seemed inadvisable. He’d checked for bugs but you still couldn’t quite relax.

“Would you be afraid of me, if I told you I really did it?”

“No,” you barely whispered.

“Jeremy, the kid I was babysitting? That really was an accident,” he began. And then he told you everything. Everything, everything. His whole life story, all the things it was too risky to say in his letters. You were still nervous about surveillance, but once he started talking it was like he couldn’t stop. And you couldn’t stop listening either. It was such a rush to hear him describe the kill. You felt all his emotions with him as he spoke. Heartbreak. Elation. Rage.

“You shouldn’t have told me all that,” you said when he finished. You adjusted your position on the couch to look at him better. “I’m so glad you shared it with me, but… They know we’re close. What if they call me as a witness?”

“I’m gonna make sure they don’t need to,” he said, eyes darkening.

“How?”

“You said it yourself. The evidence is pretty damning. The case against me is strong, and I can help the jury decide I’m guilty. The state won’t add you as a witness at the last minute if they feel like they’re winning.”

“Does your lawyer know you’re planning something?”

“No. He told me they didn’t have a case at all. Because of Michael complicating things. So I plead not guilty. But now they have a case. My fingerprints and my DNA at every crime scene. Even though I didn’t shoot Ronald, they’re charging me with that too. My fingerprints were on the gun.”

“Were you going to kill him?” You asked, morbidly curious.

“I hadn’t decided yet,” Corey admitted. “If he had just stayed in the office… It doesn’t matter now.”

For a moment you looked at each other in silence.

“How are you going to help the jury?

Corey chuckled a mirthless, black chuckle. “I’ve been researching all these other famous killers. Gein, Gacy, Dahmer, Bundy, Ramirez, the Manson Family. It’s practically a tradition to do crazy shit in the courtroom. The papers are all calling me a copycat. Why not keep copying?”

“Corey, that’s insane,” you protested.

“I am the psycho babysitter.” He took your hand and stroked your knuckles. “Do you want to help me?”

“Help you get life in prison on purpose?”

You remembered when he whispered to you in the hospital, how good it felt to conspire with him, to tuck his secret into your pocket, where not even Kristin would know. The idea of going to such lengths with him was so tempting, but you wanted him to put up a fight, to argue that the cops already had it out against him because of his history. All he needed to do was give them one little reasonable doubt.

“Look, I’ve been through this before,” he reminded you. “It’s hell. I already know I’m guilty in most people’s minds. There is no getting off this time. There’s only a guilty verdict, or a hung jury, and then I have to do it all again. I want it to be over quickly. I don’t want to wait two weeks for a verdict again. I wanna rip the bandaid off.” His gaze was so intense, you knew he meant it.

“Okay,” you agreed.

<3 <3 <3

When you pull up to the prison, you follow all your usual rituals. Turning your phone off and putting it in the glovebox, giving yourself a pre-pat down pat down to make sure you didn’t slip up and bring something prohibited. You check your hair and makeup in the rearview mirror one last time before heading inside.

You and Corey aren’t the only couple getting married today. The prison does weddings in batches. You’re shuffled into the visitation room with two other women, and a man. They’ve arranged the cafeteria style tables to somewhat resemble an aisle and an alter, and the prison chaplain stands at the far end of the room, prepared to officiate, assembly line style.

You sit anxiously on the edge of your seat, waiting for the prisoners to be brought in. A loud buzzer sounds and the door on the other side of the visitation room swings open. There he is, shackles around his ankles, handcuffs on his wrists, shuffling behind the other inmates. When he sees you his jaw drops in disbelief. You smile and wrinkle your nose at him.

Luckily the two of you are the second couple in line. When it’s your turn, a guard removes the cuffs from Corey’s hands, but not the ones around his ankles. You meet him at the end of the “aisle” and you’re thankful for all the experience you’ve had restraining yourself with him, holding back the force of your affection to be within the rules. Practice has made perfect.

The prison chaplain runs through the standard wedding vow script. You sign the marriage license and hand the pen to Corey. You just got fucking married. You’re allowed one brief kiss. Then a guard comes over with a polaroid camera and takes two pictures, one for each of you, before they put the cuffs back on Corey’s wrists and lead you out of the visitation room.

Rather than going through the prison, you’re escorted out into the yard and around the side of the building. The guard buzzes you through several doors and leads the way down a long hall. Finally you come to a door that sits ajar. Inside is a little room that reminds you of the dorm you lived in as a freshman in college. More than just a bedroom, but not quite a whole studio apartment, full of simple, sterile furniture. The guard releases Corey from his restraints, both sets this time, then locks you into the room with him for the next 6 hours.

You stand motionless next to Corey as the sound of the guard’s footsteps retreat down the hallway. When you can’t hear them anymore, you turn towards him and break into a massive smile.

“Hi,” you say.

“Hey,” he replies, grinning back.

Then you collide. Kissing messily, hungrily, violently. He wraps his arms around your waist and crushes you against him with surprising strength. You cling to him, desperate to get closer, wanting to eliminate the space between you all the way down to the molecular level.

Within seconds his thick fingers are roaming, trying to figure out how to get your dress off of you. Still kissing him, his tongue filling your mouth, you put the bottom hem of your dress in his hand. He gathers it up around your waist and holds it in one big fist while the other hand cups and kneads your ass. You feel a hot flood between your legs, and your clit throbs. You rake his scalp with your fingernails as you step out of your shoes.

He hooks his thumb in the waistband of your underwear and yanks them down to your thighs, before returning to get a handful of ass cheek. You can feel his rock hard cock against your stomach. You push against him, trying to get enough space to actually get undressed, but he won’t let you get farther away from him than a centimeter.

“Corey,” you say against his lips, “We have all night.”

He groans, but he lets you pull away from him. You pull your dress up over your head and drape it over the back of one of the chairs at the little table in the room. Then you step back into him and take over undoing the buttons on the front of his jumpsuit. You get all the way to the bottom and push the sleeves off his shoulders and halfway down his arms before you look away from his face.

“Holy shit. When did all this happen?” You hiss in awe.

When you had been with him before, he was weak from his time in the hospital. Not small, he wasn’t built in a way that would let him be truly small, but he’d lost a lot of muscle just laying there for weeks. You could tell he’d bulked up some since then, but the jumpsuit obscured the true extent of his progress. You squeeze one of his biceps and he flexes it in your hand. The muscle hardening under your hand makes your clit throb.

That isn’t the only surprise though. He’s got tattoos. So many tattoos. He’d mentioned to you on the phone that he was trying to figure out how to build a tattoo machine, that he liked the intellectual challenge presented by his limited resources, but you had no idea it was going to be used on him.

“I guess you got that tattoo machine working.”

He laughs. “I was gonna tell you, but when we started trying to get married, I thought you might like the surprise.”

“I do,” you half moan, half giggle.

You squat in front of him and pull the jumpsuit the rest of the way off of him, leaving him in a tight thin tank and his prison issue briefs, already so wet with precum they’re see through in that spot. You ache to have him inside you. You rub your hands over his thighs, then slide them under his shirt as you stand back up. He reaches behind you and unhooks your bra. You let the straps slide down your arms and drop it to the floor.

Corey grabs your hips and pulls you in for a hard kiss, then uses his grip on you to spin you around, so your back is pressed against him. The desire to grind back against his cock overtakes you immediately, and you thrust your hips into him hard. He reaches under your arms to grab your tits, massaging them, pinching your nipples. Your underwear are still pulled halfway down and you can feel his wetness on your skin. You let out a deep moan.

The room is narrow and it only takes a gentle push from Corey for you to be on the bed on your hands and knees. He pulls your underwear the rest of the way off and finishes undressing himself. You requested condoms on one of the hundreds of forms you filled out to get married, and the prison provided three in silver foil on the little table. As Corey unwraps one and slides it over his raging erection, you wiggle your hips, putting on a show for him.

“Fuck,” he huffs, stepping toward the edge of the bed.

You feel the mattress sink as he kneels behind you, lining himself up. He rubs the tips of his cock against your pussy, tracing circles outside your entrance. You look back over your shoulder at him. His chest and face are flushed a deep red and his eyes look almost black. The sight is too much to take and you jerk your hips towards him. He takes the hint and slides himself in, all the way in.

You both cry out in unison. Corey pulls almost all the way out of you, then slams back into you, so hard you both lurch forward. Your knees slip out from under you and you end up flat on your stomach with your arms pinned under your chest. He comes down with you, but catches himself with his arms on either side of your head.

Corey pounds you. You thought you’d been fucked before, but you had been mistaken. This is fucking. With every thrust, the bed hits the wall and bounces off. He’s so deep, hitting just the right spot, so fast and so hard your moans all blend together into one long wail. He presses his forehead between your shoulder blades as he slams you into the thin mattress. It feels so good, all your other thoughts completely dissolve. You get one arm out from under you and wrap that hand around his veiny, freckled forearm. Your fingers don’t even make it halfway around.

Your long, unbroken sound changes from a moan to his name, spelled with 100 O’s.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he grunts.

It feels so insane, you don’t think it could possibly feel better, but the pleasure builds and it does. It feels better and better and better until you unravel completely, knowing you're screaming but unable to hear it, the orgasm ravaging your whole body. And it doesn’t stop. Corey keeps thrusting and you keep cumming, your vision going white until finally, with a growl of your name, he collapses the rest of the way, all his weight crushing you.

You take the deepest breaths you can with him pinning you down, your brain completely fried, until you’re brought back to earth by him pulling out and standing up. You roll onto your back and groggily watch him remove the condom, tossing it into a small trash can under the table. A shy smile crosses his face when he sees you watching. He lies down next to you and puts his arms around you gently, all the animal lust gone from him for the moment.

“I love you, Corey Cunningham,” you say.

“I love you too, Mrs. Cunningham,” he says. You both laugh.

Your eyes fall onto the clock on the wall behind him. You have five hours and two condoms left and you intend to get everything you can out of them.

end note:

While writing this, I found out that Illinois actually does not have conjugal visits or any kind of private spousal or family visitation for prisoners. Most states don't. And many prisoners never even get letters. If you have the time and inclination, I highly suggest getting in contact with a service that provides prisoners with pen pals. Many of them let you choose to only write letters to people serving certain types of sentences for your comfort, for example if you want to write to someone serving life, or if you'd prefer to only talk to those convicted of non-violent offenses. No matter what crimes they may have committed, prisoners are people and people need connection and support.

And if you think the whole system is broken, I highly recommend reading about prison abolition.

#corey cunningham #corey cunningham x reader #corey cunningham smut #mine #smut #fan fic

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