#to navigate my preferences :pensive:

[pangyham]

damn.. i have g3nshin thoughts but i dont wanna post them on tumblr because i dont want my posts to show up in anyone's feed or under the g3nshin tag/search filter etc. been thinking about making a priv for my interests on twitter...

[babypandawrites]

Allies, Pt. 12

The Siege of the North, Part Two

Pairing: Sokka x F Reader Warnings: Implications of Death, I think that's all? Word Count: 3,286 Summary: With the Fire Nation waging war on the Northern Water Tribe, you didn't expect things of the past to be brought up, but, when do you expect anything at this point.

Note: And here we have, the final part of Allies :') But don't worry- the story will continue in a sequel 👀 Phew I did not mean for this to take so long, but I was having a really hard time with the end and ended up having to change where the reader was towards the end for me to... actually be able to write the chapter. Thank you to everyone who has enjoyed the story thus far! It means the world to me, really. It's crazy to think about how I've been working on this for four months! I hope you guys will stick with me for the months to come while I write the sequel :') I'll be carrying over the taglist to the sequel since it's the... same story just a different name heh. Let me know if you want to be added or taken off! I hope you guys enjoy this chapter, and that you all have a great day! <3 Also hi sorry bringing this poll back up bc the results are currently tied!!!

-Navigation- | -Atla Masterlist- -Last Part- | -Allies Masterlist- | -Next Part-

Taglist: @boomeraangin | @brokennerdalert

Eyes blinking open, Y/n slowly came too. Her vision was blurry, and her head was pounding. Faintly, she could hear someone talking, but her head was too fuzzy to make out who it was and what they were saying. Her vision clearing, she could see a rocky ceiling, which seemed… odd. Was she in a cave?

When she tried to sit up, she found that she couldn’t move. Her arms were trapped against her sides, and her legs were bound together. Groaning quietly, Y/n twisted onto her side. Aang was on the ground a few feet away from her, hands bound behind his back. He didn’t seem… present.

Observing the situation more, she noted the figure that stood at the entrance to what she was assuming was a cave. They were still talking, and her head was finally clear enough to make out what they were saying.

“I don’t need luck though, I don’t want it. I’ve always had to struggle and fight and that’s made me strong. It’s made me who I am.”

Struggling weakly against her bindings, Y/n furrowed her eyebrows together. “..Zuko..?”

His head turned to the side slightly, an acknowledgement that she was awake, but he didn’t turn to face her. “Don’t bother trying to get free, I’ll just knock you out again.” He paused for a short moment. “Sorry about that, I just.. I knew you wouldn’t give up. You never have.”

Zuko had… taken her too. Why…?

Grunting, she continued to struggle against the rope, stopping only when Zuko rested his hand on her arm. “What did I just say? Did I knock you in the head that hard?” Sighing, Zuko settled on the ground next to her. “I’d prefer if you didn’t make me knock you out again. You probably think otherwise but I don’t want to hurt you.”

Opting to stay silent, she shuffled in place. He watched her carefully, before awkwardly looking about once she stopped moving. He took in a deep breath, when she started shuffling again. “Are you.. uncomfortable?” Being met with silence, Zuko glanced at Y/n to see she was looking at him with a blank expression. “I can sit you up, if you want.”

Not receiving an answer once again, he let out an annoyed breath. “Conversations usually go both ways, Y/n.”

Still, she looked at him blankly. “I don’t think people typically converse with their captors, Zuko.”

“Well, we used to be friends!” Crossing his arms with a huff, Zuko slumped against the cave wall. “I guess the key phrase is ‘used to be’, isn’t it?” He clicked his tongue, before breathing out a sigh. “I didn’t capture you to turn you in, we could… still be friends.”

Y/n took on a pensive expression. “Then why..?”

“Why did I capture you..?” Receiving a nod of confirmation, Zuko shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t… I don’t know.”

“You don’t… know..?”

“No! Okay?! I just-” Breathing out another annoyed breath, he dropped his head into his hands. “Why? Why did you leave? I thought… I thought we had each other's backs and… and you just up and leave?! Just like that?! No explanation, no nothing!? So why?!” Continuing to stay silent, Y/n grimaced internally at the rise in Zuko’s volume. The more he spoke, the louder he got. It was almost hard to imagine that this was the boy she grew up with.

Zuko scoffed, shaking his head slightly. “Fine then. It doesn’t matter anyways- You’ve chosen your path.” He let out a laugh, one edging on hysterical. “You know, I thought maybe I could sit here and convince you to come back, but I can see that isn’t going to work… The Avatar and his friends have won your favor.” He was silent for a moment, seemingly calming down from his outburst. “Uncle told me that I shouldn’t be mad at you, that I should respect your decision to find your own path. How can I do that when your so-called path is going against me?”

Before Zuko could continue, Aang came too, returning from the spirit world. Attention turned to the boy, when he started to struggle against his bonds. After a short moment of futile struggle, he sat up to face Zuko.

“Welcome back.”

“Good to be back.” Aang spoke with a threatening tone, blinding reaching around with his hands- which were tied behind his back -to try and find Y/n’s wrist. Once he was able to grab onto her wrist, he took in a deep breath and blew Zuko away from them while simultaneously shooting both him and Y/n out of the cave. The two landed in the snow outside, where Aang started to caterpillar crawl.

It didn’t take long for Zuko to get to them, grabbing Aang by the collar and lifting him in the air once he did. “That won’t be enough to escape.”

Suddenly, Appa appeared above them, before landing on the ground. Y/n breathed out a sigh of relief. Katara got off the bison, as Zuko dropped Aang back into the snow. “Here for a rematch?”

“Trust me, Zuko, it’s not going to be much of a match.”

Katara blocked a fireball Zuko shot at her, sending a wave of ice towards him. Once the ice reached him, she encased him in a pillar of ice that she raised high from the ground. When she dropped him, he fell to the ground unconscious.

Sokka jumped off of Appa, rushing over to Aang to cut his bonds. “Hey! This is some quality rope!” He commented, before moving to Y/n to free her as well.

“We need to get to the oasis! The spirits are in trouble!” Aang got up, and ran to Appa, while Sokka helped Y/n to her feet.

Everyone was on the bison, ready for take off, but Aang hesitated on leaving, looking towards Zuko’s knocked out form. “Wait, we can’t just leave him here.”

“Sure we can. Let’s go.”

Y/n shook her head softly. “No, Aang’s right, we can’t leave him. He could die.”

Aang jumped off Appa, and grabbed Zuko to bring him up onto the bison. Sokka watched him with a somewhat exasperated expression. “Yeah, this makes a lot of sense. Let’s bring the guy who’s constantly trying to kill us!”

As they started to fly back to the Spirit Oasis, the moon changed to a blood red, casting a red light over everything. This seemed to affect Yue, who held her head in pain, letting out a groan.

Sokka looked at her concerned. “Are you okay?”

“I feel faint.”

Aang, with a hand to his head, looked at the moon. “I feel it too. The Moon Spirit is in trouble.”

Yue glanced at the moon as well. “I owe the Moon Spirit my life.”

“What do you mean?” Sokka questioned.

“When I was born I was very sick and very weak. Most babies cry when they’re born… But I was born as if I were asleep. My eyes closed. Our healers did everything they could. They told my mother and father I was going to die. My father pleaded with the spirits to save me… that night, beneath the full moon, he brought me to the oasis and placed me in the pond. My dark hair turned white, I opened my eyes and began to cry- and they knew I would live. That’s why my mother named me Yue, for the moon.”

They neared the oasis as Yue finished her story, to find Zhao there- a bag in hand and Momo on his head trying to stop him from what he was doing. The group got off Appa when he landed, sans Yue and Zuko, ready to fight Zhao and the other Fire Nation soldiers in the oasis.

“Don’t bother!” Zhao held a knife to the bag he had, which must have had the Moon Spirit trapped inside.

Aang dropped his staff, raising his hands in surrender. “Zhao! Don’t!”

“It’s my destiny… to destroy the Moon… and the Water Tribe.”

Y/n glared at the man, resisting her urge to attack him. “You’re insane.”

“Destroying the moon won’t just hurt the Water Tribe. It will hurt everyone- including you. Without the moon, everything would fall out of balance. You have no idea what kind of chaos that would unleash on the world.” Aang tried to reason with him, but Y/n wasn’t sure words alone would stop the man.

“He is right, Zhao!” Heads turned to Iroh, as he approached.

“General Iroh, why am I not surprised to discover your treachery?” Zhao spoke in a bored tone.

Iroh lowered his hood. “I’m no traitor, Zhao, the Fire Nation needs the moon too. We all depend on the balance.”

Unsurprisingly, Zhao continued to hold his threat on the Moon Spirit, the knife he held at the bag it was captive in not dropping.

“Whatever you do to that spirit I’ll unleash on you ten-fold!” Iroh pointed a finger at Zhao, before taking on a firebending stance. “LET IT GO, NOW!”

After a moment of stillness, Zhao faltered, lowering the bag. He kneeled and released the fish of the Moon Spirit back into the pond. The red light casted from the moon returned back to normal.

Seeing something move in the corner of her eye, Y/n’s attention moved to the right, just in time for her to see a figure sneaking away. Careful not to draw attention to herself, she followed after them, noting that Zuko was missing from Appa’s saddle as she snuck by. He was taking the chance to sneak away, while everyone was focused on Zhao. If she had anything to say about it, he wouldn’t be getting far.

In her pursuit, the moon fell dark, probably thanks to Zhao. It’s not a surprise that he would try and kill the moon spirit, even after letting it go. Keeping her distance and staying as hidden as she can, Y/n continued to follow Zuko- Only stopping when he did. Eyebrows furrowing together, she watched as he shot a blast of flames to a lower area from where they stood- Which was shot at Zhao.

The man stopped in his steps, looking up at Zuko incredulously. “You’re alive?”

“You tried to have me killed!”

He shot several more blasts at Zhao, which he was able to dodge. When he tried to run off in the other direction, Y/n moved quickly to grab her bow and an arrow, shooting it at the ground in front of him. Both Zhao and Zuko were shocked by this, not having noticed her before.

“You tried to have him killed?!”

Zhao’s gaze darted between the two, before primarily focusing on Zuko. “Yes, I did. You’re the Blue Spirit- and enemy of the Fire Nation! You freed the Avatar!” Pausing, he pointed to Y/n. “And her!” His words dripped with venom.

“I had no choice!”

Zuko fired several more attacks at Zhao, while Y/n readied an arrow- though she waited to shoot it until the right moment. Zhao avoided the attacks, removing and dropping his smoking cloak as they subsided. “You should have chosen to accept your failure- your disgrace! Then, at least you could have lived.”

Returning the fire, the two end up in a short exchange of attacks, before Zuko blasted Zhao in the chest, knocking him down. Having seemed to realize Y/n was waiting for the right moment for attack, Zuko glanced at her. “Now.”

Though she didn’t need his signal- In quick succession she fired two arrows at Zhao, one pinning his sleeve to the ground, the other pinning his pant leg. The two jumped down to the lower level Zhao was, landing on either side of him as he struggled to free his clothes from the arrows. Zuko took on a firebending stance, while Y/n pulled another arrow through her bow. They both waited to attack, watching the man carefully.

Finally wiggling the arrow free from his shirt sleeve, he scoffed, looking between the two. “Two traitors working together again, hm? I’m not surprised at this point.”

Y/n narrowed her eyes when the Admiral quit trying to wiggle the arrow pinning his pant leg down free, quickly pivoting on her heel at realization. Twisting to the side, she narrowly dodged the arrow when he threw it at her. This initiated the fight once again, Zuko sending a relentless stream of attacks. Realizing her bow wasn’t going to get her anywhere in a close range fight, Y/n hooked it away onto her quiver, running at Zhao while he traded fire blasts with Zuko. She grabbed onto his arm as he tried to send an attack at the prince, yanking it to the side so the blast shot to the right. He twisted his other arm to send a fireball right into her face, which she was able to duck away from as she released his arm. The momentary distraction gave Zuko the opening to shoot a powerful blast at Zhao, knocking him back a bit.

Unable to keep his attention on both of them at once, Y/n was able to swipe her leg at his ankles while he was focused on Zuko, knocking him down. Not relenting, Zhao shot a blast at Y/n, catching her off guard and knocking her down. She rolled out of the way of another blast, before Zuko helped her off the ground- While firing at Zhao. The two looked at each other briefly, sharing a nod.

Running at Zhao once again, Y/n twisted, ducked and dodged the attacks sent at her, while also giving room for Zuko to send his own blasts at the man. Once close enough, she started throwing punches at Zhao, taking his attention in the fight. The close proximity of the fight didn’t stop him from using his fire, leaving parts of her clothes to be singed. She ducked when he tried to punch her with a blazing fist, giving the opening for Zuko to send another powerful blast at Zhao, knocking him down once again.

He didn’t get up this time, rather looking past the two with a horror ridden expression. “It can’t be!”

Furrowing her eyebrows, Y/n turned to see what he was looking at- The moon. In the heat of the battle, she hadn’t noticed it started to shine bright once again.

Suddenly, water rose up coalescing around the bridge they were on, taking the form of a large fish like creature. It reached out and grabbed Zhao, pulling him off the bridge. He struggled against it, before Zuko reached out to him. “Take my hand!”

For a moment, it seemed like he was going to grasp onto Zuko’s hand, but instead drew back- an expression of hate taking over his features. Zhao was taken under the surface of the water, disappearing. Crossing her arms, Y/n looked at the surface of the water in near disbelief.

Silence lingered in the air, it only being broken when Zuko quietly cleared his throat. Looking up from the surface of the water, she glanced over at him. He took a minute, before speaking up.

“Listen, Y/n… I’m… sorry. For everything. I- Ugh, what am I even trying to say here.”

She raised an eyebrow in amusement. “That you’re sorry?”

“Yes- Wait, I already said that..” He breathed out a sigh, holding a hand to his forehead. Laughing softly, she held out her hand.

“Truce?”

He hesitated for a moment, before grasping onto her hand, a soft smile tugging up his lips. “Truce.”

Tugging him a step closer, Y/n put an arm around his neck, bringing him into a hug. Zuko tensed at the action, but returned it nonetheless.

“We can still be friends..” Mumbling quietly, she broke away from the hug. “But I need to get back to them.”

“I.. understand.” He paused. “Actually, no, I don’t. But… I won’t stop you.”

Offering a small smile, she slipped past him, intending to go back to the oasis. She stopped on the way there, however, seeing that her friends were gathered. Katara waved her over, inviting her into the group hug they were currently sharing. Running over, she joined them, a wide smile on her face.

---

Sea water gently splashed up against the sides of the boat, spraying past the railings. The more Y/n sat with her back against them, her head leaned back, the more the back of her shirt and her hair dampened from the water. Eyes closed, she took in a deep breath. With her terrible track record on boats, she didn’t know that being out at sea could be so… relaxing.

“Can’t sleep?”

She shook her head softly in response. “You can’t either?”

Sokka breathed out a quiet, somewhat tense, laugh. “No..” He paused for a short moment. “Do you mind?”

Opening her eyes to see that he was motioning to the space on the deck next to her, Y/n offered a soft smile. “Not at all.”

Muttering a small thanks, he gave a weak smile in return, before settling down next to her. He sat close enough for their shoulders to press together, the close proximity made her heart race.

Silence lingered over them for a long moment, before Y/n spoke up. “I heard what happened… With Yue.”

Breathing out a soft sigh, Sokka tilted his head back, looking up at the moon. “Yeah… I figured you would.”

“I’m sorry for bringing it up but- I just wanted to say if you ever need someone to talk to, I’m always right here.”

“Thanks..” He paused for a moment. “You know, I went to that shop you were working at once when you weren’t there. I was trying to catch you there, that… didn’t work out- Obviously.” He breathed out a quiet chuckle, digging into his coat pocket. “But I did meet that lady you worked for, and she asked me to make sure this got to you.” He held out a bracelet, the one she’d been looking at in the shop before she started working there.

Her eyes widened slightly. “I forgot about that.”

“That’s why she asked me to give it to you. Let me see your wrist.” He tied the bracelet around her wrist, once she held it out to him.

“Thanks.” She spoke with a smile, twisting her wrist slightly causing the stone to glint in the moonlight.

“It’s no problem.” Smirking, he took on a slightly teasing tone. “I didn’t expect you to be a jewelry person.”

Pressing a hand to her chest, she feigned an over exaggerated offence. “Just because I lived in a forest and can fight better than you doesn’t mean I can’t like girly things.”

He looked at her offended. “You cannot fight better than me!” She leaned a bit closer to him, raising an eyebrow. “You wanna test that theory?”

Falling silent, he gulped. “No, I think I’m good.”

They were both quiet, before breaking into a short fit of laughter. Leaning back against the boat's railing, Y/n hugged one of her knees to her chest.

Once again, silence fell over them. After a few moments, a sudden weight was on her shoulder. Tensing slightly, she looked to the side, to see that Sokka had fallen asleep- His head now leaning on her shoulder. She opened her mouth to wake him up, but stopped herself.

Something in her didn’t want to wake him up… The closeness was… Nice.

Letting her eyes fall closed, she leaned her head back, absentmindedly fiddling with the bracelet tied around her wrist. She felt so calm, but still her heart raced, and she wasn’t sure why.

With certain thoughts and memories coming to mind, however, the pieces started to fit together.

And it was in that moment, Y/n realized.

[cozy-the-overlord]

Dances and Daggers

Summary:   The Summer Festival is upon Asgard, as is the tradition of the dagger ceremony, where each unmarried gentleman chooses a lady to bestow with the honor of carrying his dagger for the night. As Prince Thor’s betrothed, Teki’s only goal is to accept his dagger with grace and hope that her violent stepfather doesn’t find fault with her in the process. But Prince Thor is unpredictable, and when he ignores his engagement on a whim Teki finds herself in a desperate situation. Luckily, Thor isn’t the only prince in Asgard…

Pairing: Loki x Original Female Character

Chapter 12: The Letter

Previous Chapter  |  Next Chapter

Word Count: 1,582

Chapter Summary: The events of the Games have Teki’s head spinning.

A/N:  This is the calm before the storm.

Thanks for reading! 

TW: Mentions of child abuse

Tags: @lucywrites02 @gaitwae @moumouton4 @berriemalfoy

if you want to be tagged, feel free to just send me an ask/message! :)

Read it on Ao3!

Teki picked at the sash of her dress as she sat in her seat on the podium. Before her, the Games continued in all their raucous glory, but she barely registered them. Odin hadn’t spared her even a passing glance when he returned to his seat. Frigga had given her a reassuring smile, but there was a tightness in her face that blocked any comfort she may have intending to bring. Her mind was racing.

What are they thinking? Are they angry? Am I in trouble? Are they going to tell Osvald? Does he know what happened?

And then there was the other thing. The thing that Loki had said just before she went rushing from the tent.

I don’t want you to marry my brother.

Teki didn’t even know how to try to untangle her thoughts on that.

The words still rattled in her head even as she readied for bed that night, once she realized that Osvald was far too drunk to remember whether or not she stayed in her seat the entire day. After helping Brant into his nightclothes and tucking him in, Teki returned to her room in a pensive silence.

I don’t want you to marry my brother.

A secret, selfish part of her had always wanted him to say that. It had been easy to deny when it was hidden away, out of sight. She could ignore the butterflies that fluttered to life every time he smiled at her when it seemed she was the only one who could feel them. But Loki had released them into the wild, and now they were impossible to corral.

I don’t want to marry your brother either.

Tears prickled across her vision. Teki wiped at her eyes in frustration. None of them wanted it. Loki, Thor, Sif, herself—none of them wanted this engagement. And none of them mattered.

She dug under her mattress for her father’s journal. She wasn’t certain that even the familiar script would be enough to soothe her jumbled thoughts tonight, but still she flipped through the pages in search of comfort. The search for her father had been put on the back burner while Loki prepared for the Games, but Teki hoped to continue it as soon as possible. Running her hands down the leather spine, she closed her eyes and imagined him walking through the door for the first time in years, imagined showing him how she had taught herself the pieces he was able to play for her, imagined him meeting Brant, meeting Loki…

Her daydream abruptly stalled when her fingers slipped into a split in the back cover. What? Teki glanced down in surprise. Had she torn the book?

No. There was a flap on the inside cover, a pocket that she had never noticed before. What the Hel? She pulled it open, peering into the grimy leather cavern. It was empty, save for a tiny piece of paper, folded into quarters and yellowed with age.

She recognized her father’s handwriting immediately, although it was a bit more polished than the hurried scrawl she usually found in his journal. It was an unfinished letter, she realized dimly, dated the week before he left, addressed to her mother.

Áslaug—

I understand your frustrations, and I realize your father has put you under considerable pressure. But I beg you to examine why this proposal is so important to you and ask yourself what you hope to gain from it. It’s become alarmingly clear to me these past few months that your highest priority lies in increasing your own social stature, and I fear that you have signed off on this marriage agreement only because of the benefits it would bring you and without a thought given to how it may effect Tekla. I know you argue that it would be good for her in the long term, and perhaps it would, but neither of us can know that with certainty. And in your greed, you would take away her right to choose her own destiny. I cannot allow that. I will not consent to my daughter being used as a bargaining chip for your family’s schemes.

Teki reread the words several times over, their meaning not fully dawning on her for a bit. I will not consent to my daughter being used as a bargaining chip for your family’s schemes. They were talking about her arranged marriage, obviously, but this couldn’t have been her father’s true thoughts. A marriage agreement could not be made official without the wholehearted approval from both sets of parents. He had to have agreed.

Although…

Her father left only a few days before the arrangement was made public. Actually, now that she thought of it, Osvald and her mother’s engagement was announced before her own. She remembered her mother’s frantic insistence that she accept her stepfather into her life as quickly as possible.

We have Lord Osvald, Tekla. He’s your father now.

If he believed Steinn would no longer be in her life, would Odin have accepted Osvald’s word as her paternal consent? Possibly. Probably.

That must have been convenient for her mother.

She remembered Völundr’s hazel eyes, how somber they had grown when Loki asked him if he had heard from Steinn.

I don’t know what happened that night, but I know there’s no way in Hel he left you of his own accord.

Teki closed the journal in a fog, tucking the creased letter within the pages. All at once, she felt as if she was going to be sick.

…

She had hoped for a chance to talk to Loki at some point during the night-long feast that followed the conclusion of the Games. The Great Hall was booming with boisterous celebration. Prince Thor had been crowned champion yet again, the perfect excuse for everyone to get wildly drunk. He certainly was making the most of it—in between overflowing mugs of mead and garbled chants with his friends, he pulled Sif across the dance floor and planted his lips firmly on hers in front of all to see. Teki pretended she didn’t notice the whispers, the scandalized glances as people turned from the Crown Prince to his would-be bride. She waited patiently in her seat for Loki to ask her to dance, fiddling with the sash of her crimson dress.

He danced with other girls first. That bothered her more than it should have. Teki knew of course that she had no claim on the younger prince’s company, but that didn’t quiet the feral growl gurgling in her chest every time she watched him bow to another. Mine. He’s mine.

It didn’t help that for the first several dances Loki didn’t even as much as look in her direction. At first, Teki bristled. Why was he avoiding her? Was he angry? Did he… did he regret what he said to her after his duel?

But as the night went on, Teki began to worry that there was something else going on. His frame was stiffer than usual. His quiet conversation somehow carried over the clamor of the Great Hall. The boy who usually preferred to remain hidden in the shadows seemed to be making a point of emphasizing his presence. She was relieved when he finally made his way over to her seat.

He bowed. “Lady Tekla.”  Teki barely masked a frown. Tekla? Yes, something certainly was off.

Still, she stood and curtseyed as if she thought nothing of it. “My prince.”

��Would you honor me with the next dance?” Loki’s voice was loud, and oddly stilted. Again, Teki felt as if he was putting on a performance. She nodded, allowing him to lead her to floor.

“Is something wrong?” she whispered as they navigated through the throng of merrymakers.

Loki shook his head, almost imperceptibly. “My father,” he hissed under his breath. “He’s had his eye on me all night.”

She glanced back towards the podium without moving her head. Odin sat back in his throne, his disapproving glare fixed solidly upon the two of them. Teki gulped.

“Are you in trouble because of me?” she asked. She thought of the tent, how she had fled first chance she got and left Loki to defend himself alone. Guilt festered in her heart.

“No, no, it’s not your fault,” he said quickly, pulling her farther back across the dance floor. “He’s just… concerned. That I’m getting in the way.” He grimaced, scanning the crowd surrounding them. “You need to dance with Thor tonight.” The words came out stiffly, as if merely voicing them aloud pained him.

“I can’t!” she hissed. Thor was in the corner, surrounded by a group of people Teki didn’t recognize, chugging a goblet of something as they chanted excitedly. “He never asks me.”

Loki followed her gaze, sighing. “He’s a fool. I’ll make sure he asks you.”

The song was nearing an end. She still hadn’t told him about the letter. Teki pulled his arm.

“Loki, I found something else in the journal,” she whispered. “About my father.”

The prince’s eyes widened. “Really?” But the dance was coming to a finish. Loki led her back towards the platform, the two of them wilting under Odin’s stare. “We’ll talk tomorrow,” he murmured as he bowed, giving her hand a slight squeeze.

Teki nodded. “Goodnight.” She sighed as her prince disappeared back into the crowd and returned to her seat, resigning herself to a night of waiting for Thor to remember her.

[themasterisathirsttrap]

Putting Out Fire (With Gasoline) Ch. 2

Guess who’s still alive and just posted a new chapter of Putting Out Fire??

(Still sort of on hiatus, but now having some bursts of creativity, so sorry for the wait and enjoy!

Wow, this chapter took forever. I genuinely forgot how much plot setup happens in the first 10 minutes of 10x11. Very dialogue-heavy from the actual episode this time, but I promise for future chapters should have a better flow. Let me know what you think!

Chapter warnings: Nothing huge this time, aside from violence. But I will place warnings for future chapters))

@twistedgoddessoftimelords

@anteroom-of-death

@justaproudslytherpuff

@hallospaceboyy

@shawtyhadthemapplebottomjeans

--

As you stood huddled behind Missy, flanked on either side by Nardole and Bill, you felt far more apprehensive than you cared to admit.

Despite this, when you caught Bill’s uneasy look in your direction, you gave a small reassuring smile back at her. You moved closer and playfully nudged her with your elbow, causing her worried expression to soften into a small smile.

You could tell your friend was on edge and not keen on the idea of Missy taking the lead for the distress call mission the Doctor drafted up. You felt the thrum of nerves too, but you knew it was important to keep a calm face if there was any chance of showing the others what you had seen in the Time Lady.

It wasn’t even The Time Lady with whom you had something of a confusing relationship with that had you on edge. You had the feeling that she actually was wanting to take on the Doctor’s challenge to be him for a day, and do it well enough to rub it in his face.

Sure, you didn’t doubt she definitely would scare the lot of you just to make you squirm, but the root of your wariness was less the Time Lady and more knowing that you were jumping at the first distress signal the TARDIS picked up.

Despite knowing the Doctor for months now, you hadn’t quite gotten used to his cavalier approach to life-endangering situations. You had truly only been on a few adventures with him in the TARDIS. This partly had to do with the role you had accidentally adopted with Missy, and partly because you preferred your adventures with little bit more research and more calculated risks than jumping in and hoping for the best.

“Don’t you want to at least do a little digging before responding to the first distress call you find?” You had asked as the Doctor locked in coordinates to the distress signal. “Well, they’re in distress, there’s no time,” he responded brusquely, pulling down a lever beside you as you folded your arms. “You have a time machine. How do we not have time?” He huffed at you, turning his head to give a deadpan stare in response at the fault in his own logic, but you couldn’t help but shake your head and crack a smile as he waved his hand in dismissal.

“He thinks it’s more fun that way, ” Missy teased. To which the Doctor shot an annoyed look in her direction, but didn’t otherwise correct her.

“Figuring out what’s really going on is half the fun. If the Doctor wants to see how I do playing as him, we might as well go with full authenticity. Complete lack of foresight and all.”  Missy offered with a sly grin and spun her umbrella with a flourish.

The Doctor had rolled his eyes at her before letting them rest back on you. “It’ll be fine. I promise,” he assured with a quick pat on your shoulder as he passed you.

Yet, now, standing in quiet anticipation as the TARDIS landed, you felt far less sure.

Maybe you were being ridiculous. The Doctor had done this god knows how many times, and it clearly had worked out for him.

But you’re not the Doctor.

You tried to shake yourself off that sudden, stark thought.

“Showtime, ladies,” Missy announced, breaking you away from your thoughts. She met your gaze for a long beat, a smirk playing on her lips as she adjusted her feathered hat to tilt further forward on her head, and tapped the floor with her umbrella for emphasis.

You almost wanted to say something, but didn’t know what. The moment passed as she turned away and swung the TARDIS door open. Upon her first step out its doors, she struck an exaggerated pose, her hand resting on her hip with confident ease.

“Hello. I'm Doctor Who,” Missy said, drawing out the name and pausing for dramatic effect. She stepped out of the TARDIS with a small hop. “And these are my plucky assistants, Thing One, The Tolerable One, and the Other One.” She continued, seemingly addressing no one in particular into an empty control room.

The three of you step out of the Tardis behind Missy. Even you stop yourself from rolling your eyes, but otherwise remained quiet as you reached up and adjusted your, clunky earpiece that fit pressed uncomfortably against your ear.

Nardole sighed behind you and stepped to the side, gesturing to your little group. “Bill. Nardole. Y/n.” Nardole said in a flat tone. “--We picked up your distress call,” she continued, ignoring the bald android and offering an exaggerated wink towards the security camera above as it mechanically adjusted and appeared to zoom in to examine you and your companions.

“—and here we are to help, like awesome heroes.” Missy added, clearly enjoying herself as she swung her umbrella around and gave an extra twirl across the room as she approached the center. She must have felt your eyes on her, as her head suddenly whipped back towards you with a smirk and sent another wink in your direction.

“Yeah, we're not, we're not assistants—“ Bill corrected flatly, annoyed and unamused, but knowing that her words would likely have little influence on the Time Lady.

“Okay, right, what, so what does he call you? Companions? Pets? Snacks?” Any retort you might have tried to muster immediately died in your throat as an alarm began to blare around you, the room’s lights flashing from blue an ominous red. “Oh, someone's watching.”

Evidently unphased by the new development, Missy began to sway back and forth to the tempo of the alarm, kicking her heels out with each step to the rhythm. “Well, that's quite a good beat, really, isn't it?” “—Yeah. Maybe we should be moving on?” Nardole piped in, his wary voice a stark contrast from Missy’s apparent nonchalance.

“Yeah, and he calls us friends,” Bill cut in defensively, visibly shifting from annoyed to mildly offended. “Ew, Doctor. But think of the age gap. “

You knew she said it to irritate the Doctor. But that didn’t stop the quiet huff of indignance from slipping past your lips. It stung a bit more than you cared to admit, your heart sinking slightly at the comment.

You folded your arms across your chest and subtly angled yourself away from her in hopes that she didn’t catch a glimpse of your disheartened expression.

Missy set her parasol down on a nearby chair and unpinned her hat. “Stop mucking about and concentrate.”

The Doctor spoke up again through the earpiece. “Nardole, do something non-irritating. “

“On it, sir!” “Time Lords are friends with each other, dear,” Missy continued, ignoring the Doctor and sounding almost bored as she looked at her reflection in a glass panel. She paused at the reflection and adjusted her hair and examined the state of her makeup, before blowing an exaggerated kiss into the air.

“Everything else is cradle-snatching.”

At that statement, you were truly bothered.

“Sounds a bit limiting,” you shot back, an edge subconsciously creeping into your voice. You still avoided looking in her direction and studied the surrounding control room panels and monitors with feigned interest.

“Glad to hear you think so highly of our company,” you added, furrowing your brow.. Maybe it was stupid to think she saw you as a friend.

You only had visited her nearly every day for the better part of a year. You didn’t realize that you hadn’t even made her species requirement for friendship.

While attempting to mask the layered emotions connected with that realization hitting you, you barely even registered Nardole and the Doctor’s voices as you attempted to keep your expression mostly blank.

Part of you knew that she was likely saying it just to get under Bill’s skin. Yet, you couldn’t help but note that she spoke the words with a little too much conviction to make you think it was entirely a lie.

“Oh, it's a big one. Ship reads as four hundred miles long.”

You tuned out mentally from the rapid back and forth over the earpiece and quietly moved to sit on the nearby chair, ignoring the weight of Missy’s gaze on you.

You didn’t bother looking up and reclined into the seat, propping your elbow up on the armrest and supporting your head on your hand. You dimly realized you might have resembled a bored child as you kept your blank expression, your gaze drifted across the room and looking everywhere but at the Time Lady.

“And a hundred miles wide,” Nardole added. “It's big, even for a colony ship,” the Doctor’s voice sounded through the earpiece

“Anything else?” Your attention shifted again as Missy looked upward, something suddenly catching her attention. You followed the direction of her gaze and your eyes widened.

“Oh, wow.” “It's heading towards a black hole. “ “No….” Missy’s voice suddenly sounded pensive, as she stared up at the black hole through through the circular glass window. Her attention broke away from the black hole and you cursed yourself quietly as you made the mistake of meeting her eyes.

Her words were directed at the Doctor, but her gaze lingered on you. She studied you for another long beat, something unidentifiable flashing in her eyes as her lips twitched downward into a frown.

Whatever silent moment you might have just had passed as the Doctor chimed back in through the earpiece.

“No, it isn't!” “It was,” Missy corrected, studying the ship’s navigational readings overhead. “--heading towards a black hole, until somebody noticed. Now they're trying to reverse away from it. Engines are on reverse thrust, see?” Her tone came off a little less biting than before. You found yourself nodding idly and gazing up at the ominous vortex swirling above you.

“Oh. Well, it's succeeding,” Nardole noted. “Yes...very, very slowly. “ Missy added, seeming to almost float towards where you sat with a casual, predatory grace.

“Explains the distress call, I guess.”

“So, a four-hundred mile ship, reversing away from the gravitational pull of a black hole. Are we having fun yet?” The Doctor asked.

Missy hummed in a pleased sound of agreement, and you nearly jumped at her voice being suddenly close to your ear, teasing in a light voice. “See? We’re having fun. You can stop pouting now, pet.”

You blinked in surprise, tilting your head back and opening your mouth to retort, but a sudden crackle drew your attention back to the wall in front of you.  A large screen buzzed to life and the face of a man appeared on the monitor, his voice heavily distorted by static. “Hello? Who's there? Hello? Please report status. “ Missy had already darted half-way across the room towards the screen. You stood, your curiosity getting better of you.

“Oh, hello,” Missy chimed, “What have we got here?”

She studied the man on the screen, casually resting an elbow atop what you assumed to be a pilot chair.

“You're probably handsome, aren't you? Well, congratulations on your relative symmetry. “

You couldn’t help the scoffed laugh that emitted from you at the comment,  earning a sidelong look from Bill.

“Who are you?” the man on the screen said, almost accusatory, scrunching his face in confusion.

“Well, I am that mysterious adventurer in all of time and space, known only as Doctor Who,” she said with one arm raised in a dramatic gesture and gusto that wouldn’t have surprised you if she had rehearsed.

You had moved beside her to get a better look at the screen  and blinked in surprise as she suddenly wrapped an arm around you and gripped your shoulders with a squeeze. “And these are my disposables, Exposition, Sidekick, and Comic Relief. “ “We're not functions,” Nardole said with a grimace. “Darling, those were genders. “

“--Please, stay exactly where you are for your own safety,” the man on the screen continued, sounding unamused by Missy’s explanation.. “He likes me. So exciting,“ she looked to you with a conspiring look. “I'm coming through,” man on the screen said before the feed abruptly cut-out.

You looked towards Nardole and Bill in alarm, but Missy seemed not at all phased by the man’s brusque announcement. “Hurry, my stallion. And if I'm in the shower, just bring me some beans on toast. That's roughly human flirting, isn't it?” Missy offered you another wink, and you slowly shook your head in skepticism. Her hand briefly brushed across your shoulder as she stepped away. Bill’s face scrunched in confusion. “So, why do you keep calling yourself Doctor Who?” Missy tilted her head, hand resting at her hip as she narrowed her eyes at Bill’s question. “Because I'm pretending to be him. Because that's the whole point of this ridiculous exercise.” She spoke slowly, the scottish enunciations in her voice stronger with each word.

“It's not an exercise, it's a test.” The Doctor said, jumped back in, his voice distorted by a crunch heard on the other side of the line.

“Are you eating?”

Again, the amplified crinkle of plastic through the earpiece. “No. “ The Doctor countered unconvincingly like a child caught in a lie. “Yeah, well, don't test me eating crips!” Missy snapped in irritation at the notion.

You wandered over by Nardole to peer at the screen of the computer he was typing away at with a stern expression.

You couldn’t make sense of what any of it meant, all unintelligible numbers and alien code you didn’t understand, but it still felt more engaging than the listless banter that already was giving you a headache.

“—Yeah, but he's called the Doctor, so….” Bill continued, revisiting Missy’s prior  statement. Missy didn’t miss a beat, “--He says, I'm the Doctor, and they say, Doctor who? See, I'm cutting to the chase, baby. I'm streamlining. I'm saving us actual minutes,” she added, leaning into each movement and  snapping her fingers at each word for emphasis.

“Yeah, okay, whatever,” Bill scoffed, turning away from her. “—Also it's his real name.” “It's what?” Bill said, abruptly spinning back to face the Time Lady. You actually did roll your eyes that time at Missy toying with Bill. Missy slid into the seat beside her, ignoring Bill’s question.

“Slow today, Missy,” the Doctor commented. “All those screens have been angled to a single viewpoint. But not originally, they've all been moved. “ “Which means? “ “Giant ship, single pilot, but not designed that way. Something's happened to the others.” “Yes. And now It's time for you to figure out what. “ With an electronic whirr, the group’s attention shifted to the CCTV cameras moving abruptly and settling onto them. “Uh oh...Someone else has noticed us.” Nardole’s voice remained low, but he rose to his feet in alarm, glancing around with caution.

“Look’s like Big Brother’s not happy…” you attempted in a weak joke, eyeing the camera warily.

“Sorry, what do you mean, it's his real name? Nobody knows the Doctor's real name. “I do, because I grew up with him, and his real name is Doctor Who.”

“-Bill, she's just trying to wind you up.”

“--Chose it himself, you know, trying to sound mysterious.”

“And then he dropped the Who when he realised it was a tiny bit on the nose.”

“--and Mistress isn’t?” you countered. Missy raised a brow, regarding you and your sudden cheekiness with mild amusement. “Well, yes it’s my name, but I go by Missy now so it’s not the same, is it? It’s called subtlety. ”

“Missy, we both know subtlety isn’t in your vocabulary. Now stop teasing them and focus.”  “Is she serious, though, Doctor? Is your real name Doctor Who?” Bill pressed and you half-groaned, hoping they would just drop it and figure out exactly who or what was coming. As if on cue, you heard the soft ding of an elevator and looked up as a set of mechanical doors slid open at the far end of the room. You took a harsh  intake of air as a bald man with blue skin emerged through the doors, decidedly not friendly, as he raised a  gun and pointed it immediately in the direction of your group.

“Oh, you're blue! Nice. I should go back to blue. Ow!” Nardole began in a far-too cheery voice, causing you to jab your elbow harshly into his side to possibly improve your chances of not being shot.

“And armed…” you added under your breath, careful not to make any sudden movements as he visually swept the room and rounded the control panel. You now noticed his erratic, jerky movements as he circled back again, training the gun at each of you.

“Stay where you are!” he ordered. There was a desperate, wild look in his eyes.

You froze, eyeing the man cautiously  before stealing a glance at Missy. She appeared calm, but her expression was decidedly stoic. “Stay calm. He's very frightened,” the Doctor warned, his voice mostly even, but betraying his alarm at the situation.

“Deary me, I thought you were handsome, and now you've gone all cross and you're pointing a gun at me,” Missy’s voice dropped from teasing to low and threatening.

“Is this the emotion you humans call spanking?”

If you weren’t fearing for your friends and your own safety, you might have blushed at the way Missy’s eyes lingered on you at the word ‘spanking’.

But the moment was unfortunately undercut by the unhinged alien man pointing a gun at you.

“Are there only four of you? Are any of you human?” the man raised his voice at the word, an an anger and fear in his voice that made your stomach churn.

You sucked in a sharp intake of air as he stepped forward, jamming his gun in front of Nardole’s face. Nardole immediately held his hands up and started shaking  his head.

You cast a worried glance at Bill, who met your eyes with fear that you had no doubt was mirrored in your own.

Dragging your attention back to the man, you now noticed the sweat beading across the man’s brow and the slight tremor in the grip on his weapon. Behind his efforts to appear in control, you began to suspect that something happened here that had left him utterly shaken.

“What has happened to this ship and how long have you been here alone? You're looking very sickly,“ Missy pressed. “Two days,” he replied before turning towards Missy in an accusing tone. “Are you human?” “Oh, don't be a bitch.”

The man grimaced. “How did you get on board? Is that your capsule?” “Yep,” Missy replied without hesitation, pointing her thumb over her shoulder at the blue box.

“No.” the Doctor countered.

The man shifted away and up to one of the display panels. You realize  that he’s staring at the illuminated numbers above another set of metal doors.

“There, look!” the man pointed across the room, rushing towards a set of display panels.

You knew none of you were out of the woods yet, but you couldn’t help but release a breath you hadn’t realized you had been holding at the new distance between you.

Now that he had taken his attention elsewhere, your eyes urgently surveyed the room. You needed to find something to distract him for at least long enough to knock his gun away to buy time. “Three lifts. They're coming,” the blue man spoke again, his voice laced with panic.

He appeared to be right. One hovered at level 0718, and the other two on 0930. “Who’s coming?” you ask. “Super-fast inertia lifts,” Missy noted, nodding towards the display. “Well, what's inside? What's coming up here?” “Things. I don't even know where they came from,” the man shook his head in dismay,  fidgeting and becoming more visibly agitated as the numbers dropped with each second. “One of you must be human. They only come up if they detect human life signs.”

Floor 350

“What for?” Bill asked. “They take them away,” the man replied.

“Away to where…?” you pressed, eyeing the man with skepticism. “I'll be right with you.” The Doctor announced abruptly, doing little to ease the growing dread in your stomach.

“Which of you is human?” the man shouted again, causing you to jump at the sudden intensity of volume and emotion in his voice. Training his weapon on each of you with an edge of desperation in his movements. you didn’t dare make a sudden move.

The doors of the TARDIS abruptly  swung open, the movement making  the blue man pivot and retrain his weapon towards the new arrival. You watched as the Doctor emerged, his arms raised and movements slow, but his keen gaze acutely trained on the danger in front of him.

You froze at the unexpected voice that spoke up. “Me. Me, me. I'm human,” Bill began, and your eyes snapped towards her in alarm. Immediately she locked eyes with you for a brief moment with a loaded look, making the sounds of protest die in your throat and fade into a mortified silence.

“I'm the only one. Just, just me,” Bill continued, her voice firm and assertive despite the fear evident in her eyes.

You bite your tongue. It was all you could do to stop yourself from shouting at her to stop talking and let the Doctor convince the man his systems must have made a mistake. Even that wasn’t enough to stop yourself from the mounting desire to tackle the man while he was distracted. Just to do something to stop this stranger from pointing a gun at your friend.

The only thing that muted the impulse was a sudden sharp sensation at your wrist. A sensation like a vice grip of needle points pressed against the flesh of your forearm and you didn’t need to look back to realize just who was responsible.

Missy stood silently beside you, her movement  obscured from the stranger’s view, and her grip stung as she dug her nails down with near bruising insistence. A silent warning to not do anything impulsive.

It was almost sweet, coming from her. But only when considering how little regard you knew she held for human life. You didn’t doubt your arm would be adored little half-moon bruises when she let go. Grimly, you realized you’d be satisfied with simply living long enough to even see them form, given your current predicament.

The Doctor froze at Bill’s proclamation, fear now morphing his shocked expression to one of horror. He nearly leapt forward in desperation, pleading with the blue man. “Please stop this. Stop right there, now.”

“I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, but you're the reason that they're coming. “ The man raised his weapon again. “Put it down. Put that down now,” the Doctor repeated, his voice calm despite his fearful expression. The man shook his head, holding the gun steady with resolution. “They won't come if she's dead.”

Floor 45

“You don't need to do this,” the Doctor pleaded, slowly moving closer with his hands raised to show himself as unarmed. “I can get her off this ship. I can shield her life signs,” the Doctor continued his attempt at persuasion. “You know what, Doctor? I said this was a bad idea,” Bill said quietly, tearing her eyes from the man with the gun and addressing the Doctor directly.

Floor 26

“Please, listen to me. Look at me. Go on, look at me. That's good. That's very, very good. Now, do you see this mad woman sitting in this chair? Her name isn't Doctor Who. My name is Doctor Who.” “—It's not, is it?” Nardole muttered and you fought the urge to slap the friendly android in that particular moment.

The Doctor nearly stood within reaching distance of the man. You suddenly recognized something in this careful posturing that gave you a spark of hope for the situation.

The Doctor aimed to disarm him. Now, he just needed to buy a couple more seconds. Your eyes flicker back to the number display as the lift seemed to pause between floors 8 and 7.

Floor 7

“—I like it. You don't know it yet, but in a short time, you will trust me with your life. And when I save you and everyone on your ship, one day you will look back, and wonder who I was and why I did--”

Both you and Doctor knew he was rambling to buy time, but the sound of the lift’s ding at arrival caused the blue man to suddenly flinch.

You heard the gun discharge before registering what had happened, and your stomach dropped in horror.

“—Bill!”

“—You fucking bastard.”

[constant-and-immovable]

Are.... The tags..... Referring.... To.... a fic.... in particular?

This tag? #I'm going to put these two in such awful situations and then they both escape and there's only one bed ?

Not in particular. It definitely was written more in line with my Treasure Island stuff than the Darlinghook. The latter I feel only really works in my head if it's on Wendy's terms, in Wendy's world, under semi-specific circumstances. I swear I didn't give up on "The Scent of Memory" I'm just Going Through It still, my new job that was supposed to free up so much time ended up being a grueling 10 hour shift, zero breaks, weekends required kind of place. I'm looking for something else already.

ANYWAY...THE TAG:

Definitely referring more to my fics for Bryony Lavery's adaptation of Treasure Island, I have a dearly beloved mutual who comes up with gorgeous, tragic headcanons for them and I wish I could commit to such emotional and wrenching-yet-beautiful works, but I can't. At the end of the day my preferred method of coping is to pull something out of the dirt that's warm and tender. Make characters feel loved, feel comforted, regardless of what was done or who they've been, or what they deserve.

Said mutual and I were tossing around the idea of an adult Jim who goes to see Silver in prison, after finding out that he's scheduled for execution, and trying to break him out. I remember reading once that there was a form of torture that involved hanging a prisoner, but not letting them die, just letting them dangle on a short rope, then cutting them down for the real execution. So I thought to put Silver through that horrific trauma and have Jim more or less kidnap him, and then take him to wherever she's been staying between sea voyages until the prison fever lifts.

Various AU's other than ones I've written also included Jim as a navigator, either after the aforementioned episode with the prison or without it, and traveling with Silver, telling her prospective new captains "If you hire me you also get the best cook in Bristol." An AU where Silver finds Jim as an adult and kidnaps her to make her take him to wherever they've stashed the gold--she lies, to save her friends, by saying that the bulk of it was still buried there, awaiting their return. Tells him on the island that she lied, expecting him to kill her, but again--if I get involved in something it has to have a happy ending. Not even hopeful, bittersweet, pensive, literally it has to be happy. Maybe because (absolutely because) my real waking life is such a trainwreck of misery that I like getting that little warmth of secondhand affection from the characters.

With them in particular, there's this...I feel like Silver shouldn't "get the girl" because he doesn't deserve her, because he likely doesn't even care, because he'd never realistically stick around anyway, but writing the angst-with-happy-ending stuff is never really about him. Jim 'deserves' better than what she gets in everything I've written but I don't want to watch her grieve again and learn to move on and convince herself to learn to love somewhere else. I want to see her get what she wants, even if what she wants is a bad idea, so I give him to her, over and over, to see her say the ocean handed you to me on a plate, because even if she deserves the world, she deserves to get what she wants, and if she wants him, I'll make that work.

TO EVERYONE WHO SHOWED UP FOR THE DARLINGHOOK FIC: WENDY'S FLAT ONLY HAS ONE BEDROOM ANYWAY. I KNOW IT'S BEEN A LONG WAIT (all my fics have been a long wait, the longest wait in a year, but Memory is he only fic that gets attention) BUT YOU'LL GET IT, I PROMISE.

to The Terror crew who've shown up recently because of my One Popular Post...I'm sorry that I've written like three pages of a Terror crackfic and nothing else. Welcome aboard, but I don't think you joined up to the right ship.

[kinetic-elaboration]

August 5: 3x02 The Enterprise Incident

After several weeks of being in like a TOS desert (Assignment: Earth; Spock’s Brain) finally we get to The Enterprise Incident, one of the best episodes, possibly of all time. Why was D.C. Fontana so good??? How??

McCoy narration! How unusual. I like how it contributes to the generally jarring opening, with Kirk acting so out of character and so on. All of the crew being fooled and the audience too.

I’d say this scene is the only one Kirk haters have ever seen--where he’s all arrogant and impatient and mean--but he’s not being slutty enough.

When you need intel, you go to Uhura.

This is an interesting ep because the Enterprise is being uncharacteristically sneaky. Usually, they’re obviously doing the right thing in the straightforwardly right way, but this really is an espionage mission, which includes, in addition to the garden variety lying, major stuff like uh treaty breaking.

Wow, a Romulan with a name. Unusual. Is he the first named Romulan?

They want the Enterprise. They want his lady!

Hmmm, you have a Vulcan on board, do you? Very interested in that. It’s pretty funny that the Commander calls up as soon as Tal mentions Spock,like she has a sixth sense that picked up on a potential hottie on the enemy ship.

Oh no, Kirk and Spock aren’t getting along. Trouble in paradise...

Spock looks very disapproving. And Kirk is acting downright despotic. Hot.

Imagine being the Romulan hostages lol. That’s awkward. “Go their ship and uh sit in their brig, nbd, we’ll bring you back.” (And then later one of them is unceremoniously stripped naked.) (And then later still they’re completely forgotten about!!!)

Scotty’s face when he sees the hostages is very funny. Like “oh I know what to do with YOU.”

I love the Female Romulan Commander already.

Wow Kirk is such a liar. Just say it loudly enough and it will SEEM true. Navigation error etc.

“It’s no myth that Vulcans can’t lie,” Spock lied.

“It’s not a lie to keep the truth to oneself.” Feel like I gotta outright steal that.

Oooh, the Commander has a temper.

Kirk is “a highly sensitive and emotional person.”

He’s living for the drama.

This must be all very confusing for the crew.

I love Captain Scotty. He’s so intense.

“You make a brave noise.” Burn.

Spock’s been an officer for 18 years. I’d do the math on that but I’m not sure when one becomes an officer specifically.

“Do you like Captain Kirk?” (I don’t even remember why I wrote this down, but uh, yeah.)

...Damn this whole scene is so good.

“I don’t make house calls.”

Except for Kirk.

It’s bizarre that the Romulans are in Klingon ships (that look like Federation ships on the inside) for pretty much no reason but I do like the design of them in general.

Funny how “Attend me” sounds an awful lot like “My wife, attend.”

Lol at the crocheted board shorts on the male Romulan officers. The Commander is MUCH more stylish.

“Are the guards invited on our date?”

“It would be illogical to assume that all conditions remain stable.” What a F L I R T.

Very bold of her to basically declare “Spock, you’re Captain now.”

Kirk looks like the drunk friend, swaying in the background, gearing up to something.

“Vulcan death grip” lol. Sounds like made up Vulcan nonsense to me! (And it is.)

Even if it weren’t, Spock is an adult Vulcan and a trained Starfleet officer, he would never just accidentally death grip someone.

And now it all comes out. Because Chapel was nosy. Love that she just casually knows all this stuff about Vulcan abilities.

They told Bones pretty late about this whole plan. I feel like Scotty and Bones should have been in the original loop.

“You’re lucky they didn’t start an autopsy.”

Love that part of Kirk’s transformation into a Romulan was putting on eye shadow.

Also love Scotty’s face journey when he sees Romulan!Kirk.

Look at these decadent Commander’s quarters. Spock must love them.

Recruiting inducements lol--is that what the kids are calling it these days?

“Don’t beam me into a bulkhead.” Don’t even joke.

Spock hasn’t sent the coordinates because he’s DISTRACTED while on his DATE.

I love their little square drinking glasses.

“I do... appreciate it.”

“If you don’t tell me your name, I’ll have to make one up for you.”

TOS Spock apparently more smooth than AOS Kirk.

When she stood up, that mini-skirt basically became a shirt--barely.

His lady leaves the room and he immediately call his man--what a slut.

The Commander’s “casual” outfit is easily one of the best TOS costumes. So pretty! 10/10 would wear today.

“Stimulate...our discussion.” Sure. Your discussion.

He’s been moved emotionally.

Dammit Tal! Stop cockblocking the commander.

Love how obvious it was that she and Spock were hooking up--she's dressed up, he appears dramatically from behind the flowing white curtains in her frankly huge quarters.

The cloaking device looks suspiciously like Nomad again.

“How could you do this to me?” Girl, you’ve known him for an hour. Calm down the drama.

Also love the earrings.

That was a weak slap. She should have sent him sprawling with her Romulan strength. I guess her heart wasn’t in it.

Romulans are Vulcans but with unfiltered Drama.

I like her jellyfish chair.

Now Spock shall fillibuster his own death by reading a very long prepared statement.

She hears the phrase "historic tradition" and sighs like "this is gonna be the longest 20 minutes of my LIFE.”

Silly of Kirk to assume they wouldn't fire on the commander and/or that she wouldn't ORDER them to fire.

“Alien contraption.” Scotty enjoying himself.

Hmmm, the Commander was bragging to Spock off screen about the cloaking device--what else might she have said that we didn’t hear?

Mr. Spock will escort you to your quarters--more like Mr. Spock will escort you to HIS quarters amirite?

She would like his weaponry.

“Military secrets are the most fleeting of all.” Well that line didn’t have to go that hard.

“It was the only choice. You would not respect any other.” Where’s all the talk about loyalty and oaths now?

“They do not look aesthetically agreeable on humans.” Textual evidence for my theory that Vulcans, though humanoid, have some sort of indescribable Alien Aura quite apart from the eyebrows and ears.

That was such a good ending. Last major dialogue scene was a serious one between Spock and the Commander, but then there’s a little humorous coda, too--a good shot of Spock looking pensive, but also the peanut gallery having a little laugh.

I love that episode so much. I love how... difficult Spock is to read. On the one hand, I do think he was really attracted to the Romulan Commander. I also think he was hiding a lot of the truth about why he didn’t join the Romulans--I mean yes, that was never a real option and it would certainly be wildly out of character for him to do it. But he also talks exclusively about loyalty to Starfleet, his oath, his uniform, as if but for the happenstance of these things, if he were making a decision for himself instead of following his duty, he might prefer to be with her and the Romulans. But what about the obvious other factor--Kirk himself? What about “A starship runs on loyalty to one man, and no one can replace it--or him?” I feel like his connection to Kirk is like the unspoken undertone to all of this. Especially because, as Captain and XO, they were the only ones to know about this plan from the beginning, and probably came up with the details of it themselves. But we also know that Spock takes the mean things that Kirk says to heart, even if they’re only said as part of a mission or larger ploy. And we also know that he truly desires belonging, and that being part one thing and part another often makes him feel as if he belonged nowhere. But the Romulan Commander didn’t seem to care about his human heritage. She asked him what he was, and only mentioned the human part one other time, not in a negative way. I do see the temptation for him.

It’s also interesting that Kirk initially refers to the Commander as “he,” implying he didn’t know specifically who was in charge of the ship. That means that while he and Spock clearly planned for Spock to undermine and then “kill” Kirk, and almost certainly to play on Romulan/Vulcan cultural connections, they probably did not plan on Spock seducing anyone. He did that on his own.

This would reboot so well. Like, aside from the S/U aspects, it’s a perfect candidate: a spy narrative that has a little bit of the gray morality they’re so attached to; Kirk and Spock tension; Kirk being Dramatique; cool aliens--and it would have been very interesting to see this story play out in the context of the destruction of Vulcan. (More generally, I think completely forgetting about the Romulans after the first reboot film was a huge mistake but whatever.)

Mmmm, I just... I want to watch it again lol. D.C. Fontana was truly the queen of alien world building. That sense of alien-ness that I get in the Spock and Commander scenes is like what I’m going for in some of my own stuff.

[whenimaunicorn]

The Heart of Admiration - Part 2

Charles Vane x Reader, slow burn adventure/romance, written in a series of short scenes.

Part One Here

This episode’s prompt: “ “I thought they’d killed you. I lost my temper.”

The sea spray leaves the taste of salt on your lips as the ship crashes through another unexpected wave. It feels good to be sailing again, even with a crew you were all but press-ganged to join, and even with the weather now threatening to turn dangerous.

You had pled for mercy for Captain Fisher’s life, and those of his men. They had been your crew for going on five years, and though the plan to steal the cargo from Vane’s ship had been a foolish one, you couldn’t just let them die for it. That moment in which you watched Captain Vane’s eyes smolder while he considered your plea had been the longest one of your life. “So long as they leave Nassau,” he had finally said. “They leave, and you stay.”

You watch your new captain now, down on the deck below, alternately barking orders at the men and peering up at the darkening clouds moving in from the southeast. His heavy brow and bold cheekbones give his face a rugged sort of handsomeness, like he was carved by gods more primal than the Christian one, out of tougher stuff than other men. No one in Nassau knew where Vane had come from, only that he rose through the ranks of Blackbeard’s crew and barreled through the island like a storm.

He catches you looking at him, and responds only by calmly staring back. He looks at you too much. He has not yet been crude, but you fear you know what it means regardless.

It’s hard for a woman to survive as a pirate without becoming somebody’s woman. It would be safer that way, too. Easier. Anne Bonny may be an absolute hellcat, but surely the place she’s carved out on this crew stays comfortable because everyone knows she’s the quartermaster’s woman. It would be easier to have that kind of protection yourself, too, but the idea rankles you. You joined the pirating life because you wanted independence. You made it on the last crew because of your quick wit, and because your skills with celestial navigation were unique and indispensable. Although it helped that the captain was married to your sister and treated you like kin.

You had assumed those skills were the reason Vane wanted you for his own crew, as well. Very few people in this life are educated enough to read the charts and almanacs, to decipher the celestial bodies and figure a precise location in the middle of the ocean. But he looks at you too much. This may be an uglier trap than you had thought.

A lock of hair that escaped your braid flies across your face. The prevailing winds are changing. Perhaps the only thing this particular long look signifies is Vane’s awareness that this storm means the course you’ve been marking out for him will have to be corrected. The course that, if the weather doesn’t blow you too far off from, will take you to meet the intended course of a merchant vessel, whose schedule just happened to fall into Vane’s hands, much farther out from land than most pirating crews would ever hope to be able to find.

You’re already up here to take the noon measurements, but the sun is not quite at its zenith. Once you have the number, a flurry of calculations will follow, and you’ll give Vane your course corrections based on precisely where on the open ocean this ship is located right now, and where the other ship is most likely to be. But you’re already feeling extra tension in your chest looking at those thick clouds; if they cover the sun before you’re certain it has reached its apex, your faulty measurements could throw your course off by miles. And if that storm catches the Ranger, all you can do is wait for the skies to clear to figure where the hell it has blown you. Your chest tightens further when you see the captain mounting the steps to come up to your deck.

Even though you had intended to wait a little longer to take the next measurement, you find yourself lifting the backstaff toward the horizon again while you listen to Vane’s boots approaching you from behind. It’s careful work, to line up the sun’s shadow as the deck rolls in the waves. And it’s only getting more difficult as the nearby storm makes the sea choppier.

“Nineteen point three, and…” You mutter the numbers under your breath as you get them, not wanting to forget the figures before you have a chance to write them down. “Eighty-two point four.”

“Is that what you were expecting?” Vane is standing so unexpectedly close behind you that you jump at the sound of his rumbling voice.

You step away from him, quite deliberately, as you answer his question. “I’m not certain that’s the precise number we’re looking for, but yes, I believe we are still on-course.”

Vane closes a little of the space you had drawn between your bodies. But not enough to be worthy of further correction. “You look worried.”

The last thing a woman trying to hold her own on a ship should do, is admit vulnerability. You roll your eyes at him. “Fuck off. This is not my first storm at sea.”

A smile cracks the captain’s stony face at your response. “Fair enough.” He looks to the south. “We should be able to skirt the edge of that one without much difficulty.” His heavy gaze falls back on you, a sudden gust of wind pulling at his long, twisted locks. “But it will take us off the course we’ve been plotting.”

Usually you have no trouble looking a man in the eye; it’s something particular to Vane that has you dropping your head. You draw your little notebook from its pocket to excuse the movement. “Now who’s the one that’s worried? It’s no problem. I can correct for that just as soon as we get another sighting after it’s passed.” You flip to an open page, and lift your pencil. 19.3, you write, and then… “Fuck me, what was that last number?” Normally you have a good memory. The captain is just being too damn distracting.

You hear Vane chuckle. You refuse to look up. “If I tell you, do I get to?”

It takes you a half a second to run back through the precise words you just said, and catch his meaning. Your voice turns acid. “If you are not going to be helpful, then get out of my way. I am attempting to do the very work you pressed me into service on this ship in order to perform.”

Vane rocks back on his heels. “Is that what I did.”

Your exhale is a sharp burst of irritation, on many, many levels. “You can’t say you gave me much of a choice, about joining this crew.”

You risk a glance directly at Vane’s face again. He looks pensive, behind the general air of aggressiveness that usually suffuses his features. “You’ll be happier here,” he growls out after completing his thought.

You arch an eyebrow at him, just about as high as it will go.

“You were wasted on the Starling.”

 ~*~

 Every pirating crew hopes to avoid violence. They ready themselves for it, bristling with threat and menace as they wait for the ships to close tight enough for boarding, but the most preferable option is negotiation, always, with a prompt surrender on the part of their quarry before any blood is spilt.

That ideal outcome is not playing out today. This merchant vessel’s crew must have been largely made up of former naval soldiers, given the competence with which they are resisting Vane’s vanguard, and the discipline you are observing in their ranks from atop the Ranger’s quarter deck.

“Get belowdecks,” Jack Rakham, standing by your side and watching the battle just as closely, suddenly urges you.

“What? Why?” you bristle on reflex.

Jack interrupts himself to bark orders across the locked sides of the ships: “Watch those riflemen! Aft!” Three men peel off the main fighting to interrupt the knot of sailors that Jack had spied franticly reloading near the back of the other vessel.

You raise your chin as one of Vane’s crewmen severs a man’s arm at the elbow with a deft strike of his axe. “I assure you, I am not squeamish.” You are accustomed to observing the fighting from one of the higher decks with your old crew. On just about every run, unless… Jack’s fingers close tightly around your elbow. With a little shove, he directs your gaze.

A knot of enraged seamen are pushing through the Ranger’s men, dangerously close to one of the gangplanks connecting the ships. “If they get across, you’re a target,” Jack says sternly. “Seeing as you are not disguising your sex. Hide yourself. Now.”

You’d been held hostage once before. It was not a pleasant experience, for you or for your crew. You forgive Jack for shoving you as you start to make your way down.

The fear starts to set in as you scramble toward the ladder that leads to the lower deck; enemy boots stomp onto the Ranger just before your head disappears down the hatch. You hope that Jack, or some of the other men still aboard, notice in time to resist them, but that officer’s eyes landed on you with heavy interest as you scurried away. It seems likely they are indeed intent on a hostage.

The long knife you keep belted to your waist is in your hand as you scurry through the belly of the Ranger. You whip your head and turn back and forth in the muted light belowdecks, changing your course more than once in a way that you are dimly aware signifies panic. This is not your ship. This is not your home. You don’t know where to hide in this unfamiliar place.

Booted feet are pounding somewhere behind you. No way to know if they are friend or foe. And would your new crewmen even care enough to defend you? You duck into the doorway ahead of you and then put your back to the wall beside it, clutching your knife to your chest and readying to ambush anyone that comes through after you.

Your eyes land on a bed, bolted into the bulkhead. You’ve somehow chosen the captain’s cabin in which to hide. Not that it means much more than that you ran straight to the back of the ship. You’re much more concerned with getting your breathing under control, until your great gasps are not making quite so much noise, so you can listen to the sounds of approaching feet.

A figure steps through the door, and your knife flashes out with barely any choice on your part. You bury it almost to the hilt in his chest. You may not be one to ever storm another ship in the vanguard, but you’ve been training to defend yourself for years. You wrench it out of him and blood flies as the startled man stares down at you, not even realizing he’s already dead.

His last earthly act is to attempt to grab you about the arms, which unfortunately means that when his body sags into dead weight, he’s falling directly into you. You had got the knife free to stab again, but that’s not going to help you against his two hundred pounds of inertia. You have to twist with him in a macabre dance, his life’s blood still spurting, in order to not be knocked directly to the floor.

Which, unfortunately, puts your back to his fellows, rushing into the room after him. You hear a couple of enraged voices screaming at you and then a sharp crack, which instantly creates a thundershock of pain reverberating up from the back of your skull before everything goes dark.

 You wake to shouting, then screams. Ugly, ragged, tortured ones, of men too far gone in pain to retain either sense or hope. You feel your body, laying flat on the deck, and a splitting headache that rouses you quickly to consciousness. The sun is harsh against your eyes. Somehow you’ve gotten abovedeck again.

You lift your head; you don’t quite feel ready to move anything else. Your eyes focus dully on a dead man’s face in front of you, his cheek wet in a pool of blood that’s slowly expanding. You don’t know him.

Somewhere past your feet, you hear a voice call “Mercy.” The only response is a bestial snarl and then the wet sound of something slamming over and over again into meat.

You know that snarl. There’s only one voice in the West Indies pitched like that, rasping over blown-out vocal chords. You push up on your hands and look over at the men fighting less than two paces away from you.

The fight is over. Vane hacks once more with his cutlass and the head of the man who was just begging for his life drops to the deck and rolls.

It looks like most of the crew is back on the Ranger. How long had you been knocked out? “Captain…” comes the voice of Jack Rakham, and he’s pointing at you.

Vane’s face is feral as he turns, his long hair matted up with other men’s blood, sweat glistening on his exposed chest. His eyes widen, and your name falls from his lips. He takes a long step toward you, and drops to his knees at your side.

“Are you wounded?” His voice is low, and you’re surprised at the concern you see in his steady gaze.

You push with your hands so you can sit up on one hip, then reach up to the back of your head. “Quite a lump here,” you report, wincing.

Vane reaches to your chest, pinching up a bit of the fabric of your shirt. The whole front of it is soaked red with blood.

“That’s not mine.”

Vane lifts one scarred brow.

“You’ll find the first of the men that came after me belowdecks, with a hole in his chest.”

Your captain nods, looking pleased.

You notice that several sprawling corpses surround you on the deck, each one a red ruin, hacked more brutally than would have been needed to kill them. The would-be hostage takers? You look back at Vane for answers.

“When I saw them dragging you up here, covered in blood, I thought they’d killed you.” Now it’s your turn to raise an eyebrow at him. “I lost my temper.”

Your chest fills with some unexpected emotion that feels rather too complex for you to even attempt to sort out. “You can’t be losing the asset you just went to such lengths to attain for your crew,” you say wryly.

Captain Vane fixes you with eyes as blue and deep as the sea. “No one else could have guided us this far out to meet the prize,” he acknowledges. “But I have a feeling I’ve only barely begun to discover your worth.”

Part 3 Here

Notes: if you liked this, thank @acebreathesfire too, she’s my source on navigation facts and basically has been co-creating this OC with me. If not for her encouragement none of this fic would have happened!!!

Taglist is open: @acebreathesfire @kind-wolf @that-was-not-supposed-to-happen you are all pressganged into this ship but anyone else is free to request to be put on the list!! Also I am creating this series entirely out of prompt fill drabbles, so if you come across any dialogue prompts you think would inspire good chapters, please pass them my way!!

Link to More Vane Action

[scapegrace74-blog]

Saorsa, Chapter 22

A/N  Here is the next installment of Saorsa.  At long last, after dragging things out for 21 chapters (21!), I’m finally sending Jamie and Claire on their honeymoon, with all the bow-chicka-wow-wow that implies.  Although it’s pretty tame, by my smut standards.  Why am I still writing?  Go read it!

Rather than link to all previously posted chapters, I’ll just direct those of you wanting to catch up on your Saorsa-reading to my AO3 page, where the fic is posted in its entirety.

Thank you to each of you liking and reblogging!  It does my little fanfic writer’s heart good.

The honeymoon was Claire’s idea.  After two weeks of painfully polite coexistence in which she felt they were both acting the parts of a newly married couple for an audience of two, she suggested the getaway.   Jamie had never heard of such a thing.  She insisted time spent cloistered away from their everyday lives was now the norm for newlyweds, and he begrudgingly agreed.   They left as soon as Murtagh returned from his visit home to the Isle of Lewis.

Jamie was an uneasy automobile passenger, and he refused to learn how to drive, so it was Claire who navigated onto the ferry that crossed the narrow channel to the Isle of Skye.

“Are you alright?” she asked as Jamie clutched the door handle in a white knuckled grip.

“Aye.  Jus’ no’ fond of ships, is all,” he answered, eyes pointed out the windshield as though he could bring the looming island closer with the strength of his stare.

“Just a few more minutes, an duine agam,” she assured, taking his clammy right hand in her left.

“Who’s been teachin’ ye Gàidhlig, Sassenach?” he asked, distracted from imminent sea sickness.

“Murtagh.  Just a few words, here and there.  I thought it would be useful, so I could speak it to the baby once he or she is born.”   As it usually did, her free hand came to rest on the softly rounded swell of her belly when she spoke of her child.

There was silence from the passenger’s seat.  She glanced over only to be met by a look of stunning intensity.  She felt naked before so much bridled emotion, but she could not break away.  The only movement between the two of them was the clenching of a muscle high in his jaw.

“Claire, I…”

Whatever Jamie was about to say, it was interrupted by the shunt of the ferry as it met the shore.  They both looked away, and the moment was gone.

The drive to their inn at Dunvegan was shrouded in low-lying clouds.  She could just make out the lower slopes of mountains robed in snow.  Jamie had once again fallen silent but seemed content to gaze at the passing scenery.  She parked carefully on the side of the main road in the tiny village, just two lines of tidy single-story stone cottages, a café and their inn.  

Jamie rose awkwardly from the car and stretched before walking to the boot to gather their shared suitcase.  As he did, a pair of women exited a nearby cottage, talking in loud, animated voices.   He froze, then spun around.

The women turned right at the pavement and continued walking and chatting.  Seeing the tall, handsome red-haired man standing near their path, they both uttered a polite “feasgar math” before continuing on their way.

“Feasgar math,” he responded belatedly, bowing slightly at the waist out of habit.  He turned around, slack-jawed, as the scene came into sharper focus.  The signage above the café and inn was in Gaelic.   There were horseshoes hung above every door and tartan decorations festooned a nearby fence.   Sheep bleated from the fields beyond.  Apart from their car and another parked across the street, nothing in view would have been out of place two centuries before.

She stepped onto the pavement beside Jamie and touched his chest.

“You see?  The Highland culture did not die.  It fled, far to the north and over the sea, but it survived.  Here,” she gestured around them.  “And here,” pressing her hand against his breastbone.  “It takes something tremendously resilient to face that sort of hardship and endure.”

Jamie’s mouth moved, but no sound came out.  She could see that he was struggling against tears.

“Come on.  Let’s check into our room, and then you can show me around.”

The matronly innkeeper greeted them in a waterfall of Gaelic, to which Jamie answered in kind.  He seemed taller suddenly, although perhaps it was the low, timber-beamed ceiling that made him appear so.   She heard him say “Claire Fraser, mo bhean”, while looking at her with pride.

If the innkeeper thought it strange that the tall Scot and his obviously pregnant English wife were making heart-eyes at each other across her lobby, she did not let on.  She led them up a steep stairwell into a hallway so low that Jamie had to duck to avoid banging his head.  At one end was a gabled room with a merry fire already lit.  It wasn’t large, having room for just an immense four-posted bed, two wooden chairs facing the fire, and a window with views across the slate roofs to the slate-grey sea beyond.

Thanking their hostess and promising to come downstairs later for tea, they stood facing each other from across the room with nervous expressions.  It was strange.  They had shared the laird’s bed chamber in the days since their wedding, but the idea of being alone in this strange room felt more intimate.  There were no routines or distractions to mask the fact that they were now man and wife.

Jamie spent an inordinate amount of time placing their luggage on a low stool, and then stared out the window like he was searching for answers.

“Did you want to take a walk down to the castle?” she suggested timidly.

“Aye,” he agreed eagerly.  “Tis a braw day for a ramble.”

She glanced at the fine drizzle that had begun to fall, shrugged and grabbed her Macintosh.

**

Jamie was like a giddy schoolboy upon entering the ancestral seat of Clan MacLeod.  The castle itself was not open to visitors, but they had the grounds to themselves.  He capered about the battlements, pointing out one feature after another.

“What eejit built those turrets?  They’re no’ big enough for a wee lad to enter, ne’er mind a marksman,” he commented, looking up at the main stronghold’s façade.

“I imagine they were added recently, merely for decoration,” she replied, smiling at his outraged tone.  “I understand the current Chief Macleod made significant improvements, prior to the war.”  Jamie replied with a truly Scottish noise that expressed dubiousness and concession in a single, guttural sound.   He spun around, taking in the whole view.

“I always heard it was the bonniest castle in all of Scotland, but I dinna believe it.  Now that I see it wi’ my own eyes, weel…”  Jamie scuffed his boot on the gritty rock, looking guilty for a moment.  “I still prefer Lallybroch, ye ken, but this, this is…” he trailed off, at a loss for words.

Jamie face grew pensive, a deep furrow bisecting his brow.

“What is it?” she asked, stepping closer.

“It’s only… Tormod MacLeod fought on the side of the English at Culloden.  I didna ken it at the time, but I read in yer husband’s books that the MacLeod attacked the lands of Jacobite supporters after the Rising, causing much suffering.  And yet here their laird abides, twa hundred years on, while the Frasers are nought but names on graves…”

She stepped towards him, wrapping an arm carefully around his broad back.

“Listen to me, James Fraser.  You fought bravely for a cause that you believed in, even though you knew the odds were overwhelmingly against you.  There is honour in that, and honour is stronger than any castle wall.   Also, you are my husband now.  I’d thank you to remember that.”

He wrapped an arm around her slim shoulders in return.   “Duly noted, Sassenach.”

They stood there in the drizzle, leaning slightly into each other until she interrupted the moment with a vital clarification.

“Oh, and Jamie?  I never said that a laird lived in this castle.”

He leaned back to gaze at her face, eyebrows lowered in confusion.

“Flora MacLeod of MacLeod, twenty-eighth clan chief of the MacLeod since her father passed away in 1935.”  She grinned smugly, watching the perplexity transform to amazement on his expressive face.  He let forth a burst of laughter.

“Dhia, I hope she looks fairer in a kilt than Tormod.  That man was a hairy beast.”

**

After a light meal of crusty bread, sheep’s milk cheese, dried sausage, and tea for Claire (“why do ye English insist on polluting water wi’ wee leaves, Sassenach?”), they retired to their room to warm themselves in front of the fire.

Jamie was quiet again, pulling at his lip as he stared into the flames.  She sensed he was working something through in his mind and gave him room for silence.  She allowed the warmth and crackling pop of green logs lull her into a state of suspended awareness.

“I havena been entirely truthful wi’ ye, Sassenach, and tis vexing me greatly,” Jamie began without taking his eyes from the fire.   Her stomach dropped, trying to imagine what fact was so awful that even his absolute candor bowed to the demand that it remain unspoken.

“When I asked ye tae be my wife, I told ye it was on account of yer bairn, how t’would be… practical for me tae be its Da, and tae help ye in the running of Lallybroch.”

“Yes.  I remember,” she said hesitantly.  “It’s a little late for second thoughts, Jamie.  The Catholic Church isn’t any fonder of divorce than they were two hundred years ago...”

“Ifrinn.  That’s no’ what I mean at all.  Christ, Claire, would ye let a man speak for once!”  He rose and began pacing the small room in tight circles.  His speech hurried to catch the cadence of his steps.

“Tis no’ that the reasons I gave were untrue.  Tis just that t’werenna the only ones.  No’ even the main one.  I asked ye tae be marrit, weel, because I wanted tae be yer husband.”

Running out of words, he stopped near the bed and looked at her.  At his apparent inability to continue, she ventured, “You are my husband, Jamie.  And I’m very grateful for…”

“No’ a husband in body.  Only a husband in name.”

“Oh,” she breathed.  “Oh!”  She felt her cheeks reddening, even warmer than the glow of the fire.  “Are you saying that you would want to be a husband… in body… to me?”

“Aye.  Och, look at ye, Sassenach.  What man wouldna want tae lie wi’ ye?  I’m only mortal.”

She tried to imagine how she looked to Jamie.  She was wearing a practical cotton dress, cut a little loose to accommodate her expanding waist.  Her cheeks were no doubt flushed from the walk in the rain, the fire, and Jamie’s sudden revelation.  She was certain her head was surrounded by a veritable Gorgon of curls.

His confession expelled, Jamie was once again able to meet her eyes, and what she saw there ignited a spark inside her that she was certain had been extinguished forever.  She rose gracefully and made her way to where he was standing.  In her stocking feet, she had to look up into his face. When she did, she felt electricity prickle her skin.

“Well, it is our honeymoon.  I suppose it would be the… traditional thing to do.”

Her hand came to rest on Jamie’s damp linen shirt.  Underneath, she could feel his heat and the tremor of muscles held tightly in check.  A broad palm cupped her hip.

“I dinna mean this verra minute, Claire.  Ye can take yer time tae consider.   And wi’ the bairn…”

She ignored him, plucking gently at the fabric.  “Your shirt is damp.  You’ll catch a chill.  You should hang it… by the fire…” she finished as he disposed of the offending clothing in a single move.  Her hand now was free to rest against bare, gold-hued flesh.  

She paced a tight circle around his body, stopping behind him where the firelight and shadows emphasized the lacerated surface of his back.  Jamie’s shoulders stopped rising and falling as he held his breath, obviously nervous for his scars to be so closely observed.  Before he could comment or grow restive, she pressed a careful kiss along his spine, teasing her fingertips over the sensitive skin of his flank as she completed her turn.

“Yer dress is wet as weel, Sassenach.  I wouldna wish ye tae fall ill.”  His voice, deep normally, was positively cavernous, pulling her pulse deep into her belly.

She spun away and lifted her hair from her neck, presenting the zipper.  After a moment’s pause, Jamie’s fingers fluttered across her nape.

“What do I do?” he asked in an entirely different tone.  Gone was his brash confidence, and she reminded herself anew that he was only twenty-two, five years her junior, and came from a world unaffected by modern notions of love or sex.  Not wanting to embarrass him by calling attention to his inexperience, real or perceived, she determined that if Jamie was in want of guidance, he’d ask.   As he had just done.

“You pull downwards on the little tab.  It’s called a zipper,” she whispered back.  A metallic tearing noise, and her dress loosened.  Moist breath blew against the tiny hairs of her back, causing them to rise in greeting.

“Verra practical wee fastening, Sassenach,” he muttered as the garment cleaved in two, held up by the precarious slopes of her shoulders.

She turned back to him, and the sparks in his eyes rivalled those in the hearth, hot as ingots with a pulsing blue glow.  A ratchety breath stuttered from her lungs.

“Ye dinna have tae do this, mo bhean ghaoil.  Imma verra patient man.  I’ve already bided twa hundred years just tae meet ye.”

Her lips twitched at his beautiful, though not entirely accurate gallantry.

“Mo bhean ghaoil?” she asked as she let first one, then the other shoulder dip.  Her dress fell easily to the floor.

“My beautiful wife.” The words withered away to air as the vision of her body unfolded before him.  Undulating ribbons of amber and shadow caressed the ivory of her skin, broken by the pale satin of her long line bra and maternity girdle.

“That’s where ye’ve been hiding yer corset,” Jamie muttered, half to himself.  They were both drawing hungry lungfuls of breath, the space between them fraught with an oncoming storm.

Very slowly, as though certain she would startle and flee, he raised an outstretched hand until it met her breastbone with the pressure of a feather.  She could feel the tremors that shook within him as he dragged each fingertip downward until they gathered in the warm valley between her breasts.  The air in the room suddenly felt thick, too heavy to breathe.

Just as it seemed Jamie’s hand was about to venture below the edge of her undergarments, a memory assaulted her addled senses.  Jamie, unknown to her as anything other than a mysterious and gravely injured patient, lay sleeping on his side in her room at Lallybroch.  He was still fevered, and she had lowered the sheet to his waist, allowing night air to caress his wounded back.  The firelight caught the powerful lines of his shoulder and pectorals, lighting each russet hair that bisected his torso so that he glowed like a lazy sunrise.  She had been flooded by a sudden desire to know where that trail of hair led.

“It’s my turn,” she asserted, reaching for the belt holding up his trousers.

The buckle clattered to the floor without heed as Jamie pulled her roughly upwards into his descending mouth.  It was a kiss without introduction or politeness, a tactical assault on her senses launched through the breach of his open mouth.  It bore no relation to the few chaste kisses they had thus far shared as man and wife.  She had evidently pushed him past the breaking point of his ingrained courteous behaviour.

They parted, stunned speechless, wet mouths agape.  He angrily pushed his trousers past his hips and the two collapsed onto the high mattress in an inelegant flop, limbs battling and grasping anywhere for purchase.   Her legs fell open instinctively to cradle the long, muscular arc of his body.   A cool button nudged her inner thigh.  Calloused hands pushed desperately on the unyielding structure of her girdle.  A coarse abrasion between her legs.  Heat.  And then an urgent plunge, both familiar and foreign.

His forehead was pushed into the pillow above her shoulder.  Untutored, laboured grunts echoed in her ears.

“Jamie,” she gasped.  “Jamie, you’re crushing me.”

He rose immediately onto his elbows, relieving the grinding pressure on her chest, but seemed unable to halt the tidal surge of his body into hers.   In a moment, it was moot.  He froze, letting loose a shuddering moan that scaled his spine one vertebra at a time.   Collapsing sideways onto his back, his face was a portrait of mute astonishment.

She lay beside him, staring at the beamed ceiling, and tried to gather her thoughts.  It wasn’t as though she hadn’t invited this very thing.  And while the… encounter had been ephemerally brief, she could not deny that she’d enjoyed it.  Enjoyed being the recipient of so much passion, no matter how short-lived.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Jamie’s ring finger bouncing, tapping a morse code of disquiet against his chest.  Awkwardness was a palpable third presence in the bed between them.  She wanted to say something to ease his nerves, but words floated away as she tried to wrangle them into coherent sentences.

“Claire, I… please tell me I didna hurt ye.  Ye or the bairn.”

His quiet anguish snapped the cord that had been holding her tongue still in her mouth.

“No.  Jamie, of course not.  I would have said something, if you had.”

“I didna ken it would be sae… fierce,” he confessed.

That certainly answered her earlier question about his prior experience.  She couldn’t help feeling a flutter of… something… deep in her belly at the thought.

“It can be.  But my body is designed to protect the baby.  It will probably become more awkward, as I grow larger.   I’ll tell you, if anything doesn’t feel…nice.”

Jamie rose on an elbow, peering down at her.  His face was now alight with novice curiosity.

“Ye liked it then?  Men gossip about these things, ye ken, and I had heard that most women dinna like it.”

It was too late, and her nerves were too taxed to launch into a conversation about female sexual pleasure and a man’s role in assuring it.  She hazarded it was a better lesson to learn by example, in any event.  But she didn’t want him to go to sleep disappointed in himself.

Instead she told him the truth.

“I did like it, Jamie.  Very much.  I’m tired now, but perhaps in the morning…?”

He grinned like a Cheshire cat.  Shucking his trousers carelessly, he splayed naked across the bed with his hands tucked behind his head, looking for all the world like a piece of toppled Grecian statuary.  It suddenly hurt to breath.  The simmering warmth low in her belly threatened to burst into flame, but she was truly exhausted.   What she needed most was sleep.

Turning modestly aside, she unhooked her bra and unzipped her girdle before quickly donning a white nightdress.  She could feel Jamie’s eyes run over the bared skin of her back.  

“Cuir stad air do cheann, Sassenach,” he said softly as she once again settled beside him.

He lay behind her, fingers trailing through her hair and down her arms like spider webs.   She fell asleep to his quiet Gaelic mutterings, a lilting lullaby.

**

an duine agam - my husband

feasgar math - good afternoon

mo bhean - my wife

mo bhean ghaoil - my beautiful wife

Cuir stad air do cheann - Rest your head

[kbstories]

Axiomatic

ax·i·om·at·ic (adj.) Self-evident; unquestionable.

The best part of battle is the afterparty.

(Or: Kidd wears a fur coat, Killer is thirsty. Zoro is there until he isn’t.)

Tags: Established Relationship, Drinking, Fluff and Smut, Blow Jobs, Anal Sex, It’s a PWP what can I say?

Read Chapter 1 here. Post-Wano setting. Content warning for mentions of Body Dysmorphia (relating to Killer).

***

Killer is drunk.

Technically he’s tipsy and on-his-way-to-drunk. There’s a bottle of sake in his hand, half-full or half-empty depending where his head is in a given moment. The straw between his lips is growing brittle, already frayed at the edge – he’s been toying with it rather than drinking for a while now, distracted by the feast running its course below.

With his ass firmly planted on the stone weight of one of the roofs – the inn’s, perhaps? Killer can’t recall why he got up here, much less which house it is – he’s got a view over all of Okobore Town, from where the outskirts are swallowed by the Wasteland to the pitiful square still lit by the bonfire’s embers. Whoever’s in charge of feeding the flames has obviously left their post or followed the siren song of free booze. They wouldn’t be the first to do so, the streets littered with those passed out or making out or both, somehow.

It reminds Killer a little of home. Well, the place they used to call home, him and Kidd, a town so small it isn’t really worth considering it one. Nothing more than the scrapyard of the bustling capital right next door with the people to match: Too poor to live, too stubborn to die and so they got carried along, forgotten by history.

Same bullshit, different island, Killer muses via the wisdom of too much sake in his blood. Different ocean altogether, and there’s no fondness in that.

Home isn’t a place for Killer but a feeling, the one he gets with full sails fluttering above and Kidd up front, hair wild in the wind.

Freedom’s a fickle thing, as quickly lost as it is gained with how complacent the masses tend to get. At sea it’s just them and their ship against the elements, life and death a matter of seeing the storm coming and having the guts to spit in its face.

Alone on that roof, Killer grins around the straw. That’s the shit worth living for, day after day after day.

Down there is Kidd, the red flash of his hair one Killer seeks out by sheer habit; his silhouette against the dying bonfire is imposing, that ridiculous coat hanging big and imperial off his shoulders. If he focuses, Killer could probably make out what he’s yelling about with… Strawhat’s navigator? Killer squints, infusing his sight with Haki where the dark and the holes in his mask fail him.

Yeah, that’s Nami. She says something, hands on expensive fur. She’s grinning, innocent and cunning all at once and that’s why they call her a cat, huh?

Killer considers cranking up the audio sensitivity on his helmet. Considers it, and tosses the thought right out the metaphorical window. Kidd’s a big boy, he can defend his precious coat from a thief. Nami, presumably, also knows what she’s getting into, poking the bear like that.

A long sip of sake later and Killer nods to himself. A good, rational choice.

His bottle is decidedly past half-empty when Roronoa Zoro finds him. Killer is not surprised, has felt him wandering around for a while now – there are two bottles of sake in his hands, his gait utterly steady despite the rosy tinge to his cheeks.

A heavy drinker, Killer’s heard that. He polishes off his drink to gesture to one of Zoro’s.

 “You’ve got good timing, Pirate Hunter.”

“Who says it’s for you?”, Zoro asks with a snort, and gives him the second bottle anyways. When he sits, he does so with the kind of controlled grace many of Wano’s people wield, that flawless rigidity speaking of a life of discipline.

The way he drinks is the exact opposite of that. Interesting.

Killer concentrates on getting the straw through the narrow neck of the pitcher for a moment. The first sip proves it’s decent stuff; Killer’s mouth shapes itself around a pleased hum.

“You ever think about why the Marines call us what they do?”

It certainly makes Killer pause. Zoro doesn’t seem like the kind of guy to dabble in meaningless small talk – then again, what does Killer know? He turns his head to be able to see the look on Zoro’s face, watches the man nurse his sake with a pensive expression.

“‘Pirate Hunter’… Been a pirate longer than I was hunting ‘em. They could get the hint, y’know.”

They’re doing this, then. Pretending they weren’t at each other’s throats a mere week or two ago, like Zoro didn’t witness the side of Killer he loathes enough to hide it, always.

Fine. Killer can roll with that. “Which would you prefer? ‘Demon of the East Blue’?”

Zoro laughs and it’s so easy for him. “Now that’s one I haven’t heard in a while. You’ve been snooping, huh?”

“Sure as fuck not going into an alliance blind”, says Killer and it’s a bit pointed, a bit of a warning. They came back from war mere days ago but there’s room for blood when it comes to protecting their own.

“Mh. Wonder what that’s like.”

… Right. The guy’s the right hand of Strawhat Luffy, after all.

They drink, and Killer watches his captain. “The Marines don’t know shit, anyways.” A low hum to his side, prompting. Agreeing, perhaps. “Incompetent bastards thought I was the one to look out for when we made ourselves known, back in South Blue.”

“So ‘Massacre Soldier’ was, what, a misunderstanding?”

That makes Killer chuckle, a low ff ff ff sound. “Nah. Just that Kidd’s worse.”

“Ah.”

And it seems whatever else Zoro wants to add to that will have to wait. Even from afar Killer can feel it when Kidd’s eyes land on him and he sighs. “Speak of the devil. You might wanna get out of here.”

The sake stops on its way to Zoro’s mouth. “Huh?”

“Just giving you a fair warning, ’s all. Kidd kinda hates your guts over the whole”, a vague gesture to his own chest, “thing. He likes to keep grudges.”

“… Huh?”

Killer shrugs. It’s too late anyways. “Here he comes.”

“Hey! You!”

It doesn’t matter if he’s tipsy or drunk or whatever: Wrangling Kidd is something Killer grew up doing, and he stares him down now as Kidd pulls himself towards them by the metal in Killer’s mask. Hands up, no hesitation – Killer catches Kidd by the scruff of his coat, an arm winding around Kidd’s waist with enough strength to crush a smaller man and barely enough to drag this particular fool away.

To his credit, Zoro stays exactly where he is, his face blooming into something strangely close to delight. “Hah! You weren’t kidding.”

“Never am”, Killer tells him. He’s wheezing a little with how hard Kidd is struggling against his grip. “Captain! Fucking hell, you promised.”

“Didn’t promise shit”, Kidd hisses, a distinct slur to his words that Killer recognizes without trouble. Wasted indeed. “Roronoa! Hands off my partner!”

Zoro laughs – not the best of moves, Killer thinks with a wince – until his swords start vibrating. The smile drops real fast, then, becoming more of a tense smirk as he grabs on to that white katana of his.

“Oi, Spikey. Play nice now.”

All Kidd does is redouble his efforts, a whirlwind of bulging muscle in Killer’s arms and oh, Killer has had it. He presses his face against Kidd’s neck, his mouth only an inch or two away from his ear where they’re separated by Killer’s mask.

“Eustass fucking Kidd”, he growls. “Stop it or I will end you.”

Wasted or not, a shudder goes through his partner at that. It always does when Killer says his name like that. Killer knows, whatever happens now:

They both have a long night ahead of them.

*

Frantic hands, gasps of breath, lipstick smeared beyond hope between one kiss and the next. A moan, quiet against the sounds of belts being undone.

Killer pushes Kidd, gaze on him and only him as he bounces a little on the bed – their bed – and stares up at Killer. Eyes red as dusk, shining with the feral grin on his lips.

Killer gets on his knees for Kidd, always for him, and even if his blood wasn’t a-buzz with residue anger and alcohol, the way Kidd says “Fuck, Killer, yes” would get him there for sure. Trembling with it, Killer’s fingers hook into the waistband of Kidd’s pants to pull him closer, just where he wants him.

Kidd’s boots land on solid ground with a wooden thud. Legs splayed and Killer in the middle.

“You always have to make a mess”, Killer tells him, holds him down with one hand and the other working on his fly, “always so reckless”, and fuck, Kidd’s hard already. Hot and velvet-smooth in Killer’s palm and Killer forgets about chewing him out, for a moment.

It’s been weeks. Weeks since they’ve had time for this, hell, since Killer could even think about needing Kidd beyond the comfort his mere presence brings. With that infernal smile on his lips and his lungs clenching around the need to laugh, nothing would’ve come of it anyways.

Killer leans over and breathes Kidd in, gives him a gentle kiss, over the delicate vein that throbs under his lips. “We’re not done”, he lets him know, voice having lost most of its edge; Kidd laughs, runs a hand through the messy bangs falling into Killer’s eyes.

“I sure hope not. C’mon, don’t–”

Whatever Killer isn’t supposed to do gets lost in a moan. Kidd is big in Killer’s mouth, big and so familiar and Killer feels Kidd’s fingers tighten where they make a desperate grab for his hair. It makes him groan around the cock sliding over his tongue, again as he swallows around him and Kidd’s thighs jolt under the weight pinning them down.

Kidd is loud, it’s who he is, but there’s something about the cut-off calls of Killer’s name that gets to him. That makes him throw any sense of taking things slow to the wind and suck cock like he means it, lids fluttering shut and painted lips wide as he takes his captain as far down as he can get him without choking.

It’s been a while and it feels so good.

“Just like that, K. Keep goin’ just like that, don’t stop, fuck–”

And Killer feels his muscles shift under his hand, fingers splayed across Kidd’s abs straining with the need to move. Later, he might let him – can feel his own cock ache in too-tight jeans with the thought of Kidd holding him down and using him until he’s sated.

For now, he wants to get Kidd off, to hear his voice crack as it only does when he’s trembling on that edge.

It doesn’t take long at all, Killer’s lips and tongue and mouth dragging him there with no mercy for how breathless Kidd gets. “Kil”, Kidd gasps a warning; Killer hums, pulls off to catch the tip between his lips and jack him off the rest of the way, his hand easily gliding over spit-slick skin–

Kidd comes just like that, spilling into Killer’s mouth in twitching spurts. Given the garbage Kidd calls a diet he doesn’t taste the best but it’s Kidd, it’s the man Killer has hardwired his brain to adore no matter what. Killer moans softly, reaches down to rub himself as Kidd’s fingers release their death grip and sort of… pet him instead.

“Fuck me, darling, next time I’m horny I’ll just piss you off on purpose.”

Wiping his mouth, Killer huffs, “You already do that”, follows the trail of red leading up to Kidd’s navel with his lips. “You’re insufferable.” Licks along the valleys of his ripped stomach to kiss away the sweat gathering in the scar bisecting his pecs. “And we’re not done.”

Kidd rumbles a groan, pulls Killer into an open-mouthed kiss. The cold touch of metal worms its way under Killer’s shirt, in stark contrast to the need in Killer’s veins. It makes him shiver. “Kidd”, whispers Killer into that filthy kiss and it sounds like please, like more.

“Mh, I got you. Take this off, baby, let me see you.”

A demanding tug to Killer’s jeans. Killer doesn’t think twice about it: It’s a relief to get rid of them, the fabric starting to cling to his legs with how hot he’s running, and Killer throws off his boots and shirt to places unknown while he’s at it. Rolls his shoulders where they’re still a bit stiff from carrying his scythes all day.

Kidd is watching him, a hand on his own cock even if it won’t get hard quite yet. Leaning back in a sea of fur with the effortless grace of a king and the look of arrogant expectation to match. Killer meets it as he ties his hair into a loose knot to get it somewhat out of the way, nodding at him.

“You too. Or do you want me to tear ‘em off of you?”

How dark Kidd’s eyes can get. Those are his favorite pants though – Killer decides to be nice about it, unties Kidd’s boots enough for him to kick them off and save the rest of his clothes from an untimely demise.

Well, most of them. When Kidd makes to shrug off the coat Killer stops him. “Keep it.” His hands are on those suede-clad shoulders he’s been salivating over for hours now. “Keep the fur, Kidd”, an order he has no right to give, fingers clawed as they burrow between that softness and a heat that’s all Kidd.

It gets a look of genuine surprise out of Kidd. That, along with a pleased smile, closed-lipped. “Like it that much, do ya?”

Killer hums, “It’s soft”, kisses him, hides his own smile against demanding lips and the warning bite of teeth. “Makes me want to fuck you on it. Got a problem with that?”

“Shit, you kidding? Let’s ruin it.”

As much as he’s an impudent little shit anywhere else, here, coming alive under Killer, Kidd is all eager compliance and greedy hands across Killer’s back; it shouldn’t be as addicting as it is, the notion that this – the needy panting in his ear, the flush high in Kidd’s cheeks and spilling down to his chest – is all Killer’s. Only his, nobody else’s.

Killer slows down, then. Once Kidd has scrambled for the slick they keep around and Killer’s got his hands warmed up, he takes his time. Pushes one of Kidd’s legs to the side, keeps him there while he stretches Kidd finger by finger and fuck, he’s tight, clenching impatiently where Killer pushes in knuckle-deep.

“You’re killing me”, Kidd says, whines really, easily worked up by the twist of Killer’s fingers in him. Kidd’s prosthetic clings to Killer’s shoulder, his other hand in his own hair and tugging. “I’m ready, just – get in there!”

Killer is willing to rush a lot. Not this, though, never this.

“Shut up and relax”, he grumbles but he kisses Kidd, too, along the jagged edges of the scar down his face and his neck to suck on his clavicle. Kidd moans shamelessly, hips bucking into Killer’s curling fingers as he adds another.

Seeking that burning stretch before Killer can stop him. Killer curses, pulls out.

“Don’t complain later. You wanted this.”

Kidd tosses his head back into the covers and laughs. “Yesss. Fuck me, c’mon.”

Smug asshole. More slick, dripping from Killer’s cock to the fur below. The glide of his hand as he spreads it is already a lot, the sight of Kidd’s muscular neck bared and vulnerable hitting Killer somewhere instinctive, primal.

Deep down, Killer doesn’t want to wait either. He props himself up on one elbow, a mere inch or two separating their faces – and he stares at Kidd when he guides himself inside. At the way his mouth goes a little slack with it, the flare of his nose at the threadbare breath that follows.

“Good”, Killer tells him, catches Kidd’s gaze that’s barely past half-lidded. Licks over his bottom lip and kisses him, chaste as to not distract him from that first, long thrust.

“Doing so well, Kidd, almost there.”

Kidd feels sinful around him, warm and fluttering with tension that melts under the gentle thrusts Killer opens him up with. Leaning up to nip at Killer’s beard, his chin, and Killer indulges him, pushes his tongue into his mouth, slowly, languidly. Swallowing the soft noises Kidd makes as Killer hoists him up higher in his lap, Killer’s knees sliding apart in sleek fur.

He fucks him just like that, arms steady around Kidd and locking him in place when Killer finds a pace he can keep up for a while. Kidd fights it at first, he always does, not the kind of man to lie there and take it – Killer nuzzles his jaw, “It’s okay, let go, let go”, words that he knows Kidd needs to hear, cocky as he may act. Kidd’s breath shudders out of him and he does, finally relenting against the angle that makes him come undone each and every time.

Letting Killer sink in to the hilt and he groans, bites at Kidd’s throat and the pulse thundering there. “Good, so good for me.”

He rocks them both, hard enough to make Kidd shift against the fur. Kidd’s legs tighten where they’re tangled with Killer’s and he whimpers, far enough out of his head not to care what he sounds like anymore. A sound that burns in Killer’s gut, his chest, mouth open and panting over Kidd’s skin as he does it again and again and again.

It’s Kidd’s fingers going for the bundle of Killer’s hair and holding on; the feeling of Kidd’s prosthetic drawing red, stinging lines down the length of Killer’s back. “Kidd”, Killer mutters, demands, “Kidd–”

Kidd pulls at blonde strands coming loose, hard. “Whatever you want, K. Whatever you want, please–”

Voice gone, hoarse with the things Killer is doing to him.

Something in Killer snaps. The coat is torn open: Killer hears some of the seams pop in some places and he doesn’t care, mind and soul focused on turning Kidd around and getting him on his hands and knees.

“Fuck”, Kidd half-gasps, half-moans, “fuck–”

Then Killer is inside him again, sweating skin slapping against sweating skin, and his lips trace the shivers racing up Kidd’s spine, the faint freckles dotting Kidd’s shoulders. Kidd, Kidd, Kidd, his senses sharp as knives and hands roaming over what’s his, all his.

Whatever sounds Kidd is making, they are beyond words as he drops to his elbows and bends his back, pushing back into every hard shove of Killer’s hips. Killer moans, loud and breathless – feels Kidd clench around him and he gets a hand on Kidd’s cock, hard and leaking all over the coat, that fucking coat.

For the second time Kidd’s voice trembles, breaks apart on a high ah! as Killer squeezes him tight, so tight. Kidd comes around a choked noise and Killer keeps fucking him, his own peak tantalizingly in reach, not quite–

Kidd goes utterly boneless but there’s determination in the sliver of his eyes, the rasp of “keep goin’, want to feel ya”, and Killer grabs onto his hair just to tilt his head to the side and kiss him.

Over and over Killer takes him, covering Kidd with his bulk and it melts his brain, how Kidd just lets him. How Killer doesn’t have to hold back with him, going as deep as he possibly can and barely coming up for air until he loses himself in it, in Kidd.

Shaking apart above him, head bowed against the nape of Kidd’s neck. Killer rolls the last few thrusts just to feel how slick Kidd is, how well he takes him like this.

After that: A head full of static, numb limbs, cooling sweat.

“Hey, Kil.”

It’s Kidd’s voice that guides him back, “You there?”, the gentle motions of Kidd’s hand brushing the tie out of Killer’s hair and letting it fall around them. Killer pushes into that touch, humming. So comfortable.

“Babe, I kinda need to breathe here.”

Killer laughs and it’s fine like that, low and muffled against Kidd’s neck. “That so?”, he mumbles but he gets the hint, pushing himself to the side with a tired groan.

“Mmh. My head’s all fuzzy.”

“Yeah?” A hand slaps down on Killer’s chest, rough knuckles rubbing over the half-healed wound there. “From drinking or from fucking me to oblivion?”

Ff ff ff, Killer makes. He feels so light.

“Both, probably.”

Yeah, Killer is allowed a little smugness, too: Kidd’s hair is all mussed, lips red from kissing, neck covered in fresh, rose-colored bruises. Well used and looking like he doesn’t plan on moving even if the Punk’s cannons started firing around them.

Definitely worth slaying the coat over, Killer decides.

Still, when Killer takes Kidd’s hand in his, it’s all tenderness. Killer’s thumb brushes over Kidd’s knuckles, the same spot he presses a soft kiss to. Kidd lets him, squeezing back.

Their fingers entangle without really having to think about it, years of partnership in a single touch; and with the Punk's gentle sway all around them, they allow themselves to drift.

[obutsuwrites]

A Little Wicked (overhaul x reader)

Summary:  “Are you denying yourself your innermost wishes? Do you not quiver for my touch?” Overhaul countered, his gruff voice shrewd. The sorcerer tried to hide his morbid pleasure. Lips curled into a lustful grin. The knot in his stomach was hot. Touch-starved fingertips excited.

warnings: non-con~!

word count: 3,460 xxx basically a self-indulgent overhaul smut fic~! oops,,

my ao3 for more shitposts

my ask box is also always open 4 requests or wateva

Notes: 

numinous (adj.) - describing an experience that makes you fearful yet fascinated, awed yet attracted--the powerful, personal feeling of being overwhelmed and inspired

nemophilist (n.) - a haunter of the woods; one who loves the forest and its beauty and solitude

The young adventurer navigated through the overgrown forest, screeches of owls echoed over head; sounds of nature after dark. Thick trees obscured the woman’s vision. Mother nature was finally reclaiming lost land. However, this particular forest held a secret as precious as new life. A powerful sorcerer was said to inhabit this jungle of trees and predators. She knew man-eating animals roamed this land. The woman had grown up on heroic tales of would-be heroes besting creatures of the night. Heroism. Adventure. Glory. Tales she idolized. Titans of old seemed almost god-like to her. Abilities she had prayed for every night. However, her pleas fell upon deaf ears. 

After enduring this for years, she realized she must manifest her own destiny. The allure of magicks too tempting for her quest. She knew it was wrong. No respectable explorer had stood on the back of giants. No. They started small; stories eventually amassing to celebrity. Folk tales repeated for generations. The ultimate means of being remembered, she acknowledged. Mortality no longer applied to them. They gained immortality through legends. 

The young woman sighed. The lantern was her only light source in the decrepit grove. Thick roots ran along the leaf scattered earth. She had already tripped once, her lantern almost shattering. Tonight, even the moon hid. Just like the predators. The hoot of owls were the only sound in the moonlight. She wondered if the fabled Sorcerer of the Forest even existed. The tales of him on par with legends of heroics. Was it possible the man didn’t exist? The land showed no sign of recent travel. Untamed earth. 

She stopped. The sudden thirst hit her senses. Her mouth was like the desert. Quickly, slender hands grasped the gourd that sat upon a leather belt. The woman drank deeply; water trickling down exposed flesh. After a swallow, oxygen-starved lungs greedily inhaled. Earth and pine wafted through her nostrils. 

Suddenly, a twig snapped behind her. The rhythmic pounding of her heart threatened to leap out from her bosom. Primal fear seeped into her body. Goosebumps painted into her skin. The dame paused, her hand at her side, clutching the gourd. 

Breathe, she told herself, You are brave.

“Who is t-there?” The explorer called, her tone momentarily faulting. Anxiety ridden eyes waited. Could be a rabbit, right?

A gruff voice broke their silence, “Filthy mortal. You have been searching for me, haven’t you?” The man sounded perturbed. As if her very presence was a nuisance. “Well, here I am.” Ungrateful.

The woman blinked. Surely, this wasn’t the Sorcerer of the Forest? The male sounded no older than her. Far too youthful to be such a myth. 

“I don’t t-think you’re him,” she replied, slowly turning to face the owner of the voice. 

Foreign eyes observed her, his nose crunched with disdain. The young man was adorned in black; a pulled hood and avian mask blurring his features. A pristine cloak hung around his wiry frame. Leather gloved hands fidgeted. His posture betrayed his voice, uncomfortability spread throughout his spine.

“A sorcerer. You mortals ask for such frivolous things,” the masked man replied. Despite his age, the Sorcerer of the Forest never quite understood mortals. Useless stories amused them. Inspired them. This caused a problem for him. Rarely the man would receive dim-witted guests to his side of nature. Naive mortals that didn’t understand his terms. They would agree to his services, not realizing the peril. 

A laugh escaped from the woman, a nervous habit. Clearly, this man was mortal, too. Just has a little superiority complex. It wasn’t unexpected. Such a talented display of magic was too prideful. Like a secret to be shared. 

“...okay. Wait. You know what I need?” 

The words hung in the dusk. Disgusted eyes still trained upon her, memorizing her. He looked almost pensive. A leather gloved hand rested against a clothed elbow. The masked man’s dark brows furrowed together.

“Moronic girl,” he chastised, “you desire a strength potion. It’s rather bold to assume I’d stoop to such a vile practice.” The man was a sorcerer, not a desperate apothecary.

Another laugh bubbled from her. Genuine sounds. “You’re a sorcerer. Surely, you mix potions?” 

The woman’s tone was immature. Naive wonder spread across her face. She prayed he would remove the formerly intimidating birdlike mask. It’s shape provoked a primal fear within her. As if she should run as far as her legs would carry her. Instincts screaming.

The man stepped forward, dead leaves crunched under his boots.  

He scoffed, his eyes darting from her. The mysterious man smoothed invisible hairs along auburn hair. His hair looks soft, the woman noted. Perhaps he was an Adonis underneath the beak. With the distance between them shortened, she noticed brass goggles upon gilded orbs. The same contempt within them. 

“Do you even carry a sword? Perhaps a dagger. Oh, I know. You don’t do you?” he quizzed. The man clearly taking delight in her vulnerable form. 

The maiden softly gasped and dropped her gourd to the ground. Her hands now wrung in doubt. No legend about the Sorcerer of the Forest told of his scorn. He was the un-sung hero; the powerful force that provided the hero a winner’s edge. 

She didn’t reply. Horror locked the adventurer in place. Her eyes trained on the man before her. 

He closed the gap between them, the linen of his cloak brushed against the woman’s shirt. “What you desire will cost you.”

Xx

The young explorer had followed the mysterious, angry man to his hut. The design was simple, but presistine. Not a single ingredient or amulet out of place. His shack reminded her of the shaman huts in her village. The after smell of incense a permanent fixture. 

The two discussed their deal. An insistent voice spouted a word vomit of myths. Her eyes alight with passion. The possibility within her hands now. 

“...and that’s why I need this potion, talented Sorcerer of the Forest! I don’t care about t-the consequences.” The maiden stuttered, her excitement had gotten the best of her. 

“I have told you, mortal. I am Overhaul. This fantasy of the ‘Sorcerer of the Forest’ doesn’t exist. Merely stupid childish stories,” the man corrected. His tone stern. 

Overhaul.

Instantly, the woman realized the mistake she had made. The man before her was not the great Sorcerer of the Forest, but his antithesis; Chisaki Kai. A rumored lesser demon in fables. Overhaul being his preferred title. His deals the catalyst for despair in his epics. The being a play on devil’s advocate. A strong occultist that dealt in absolutes. In his parables, the heroes would receive their most intimate desires, but at the grievous cost of their humanity. Their soul.

Her features were clouded by concentration. The temptation mulled over in her mind. Is… Is it immortal to sell my humanity for the greater good? Surely, heroism cancels out sins.

She offered her hand in a show of solidarity. “Please.”

A good handshake was the cornerstone for any business transaction. Even the resident smithy had a crushing grip. A truth the maiden had learned early, the concept of goodwill familiar to her. 

Golden eyes stared at her. His indifferent glare almost seeing through her. 

“Handshakes are informal. If you weren’t so naive, you would know.” Naive laced with venom. Ignorance was a sin to him. Cretins were beneath a messiah. 

Stand tall. Make your demand known.

The nervous woman straightened her back. Eyes meeting Overhaul.

“Sorcerer or lesser demon; I humbly request the potion. Please,” she asked, her hands clasped in prayer. Stubborn hands with steadfast faith. Illusions of adventure plagued her. The poison deep in her bones. She could taste her immortality in fiction. 

Overhaul almost pitied the woman before him. Feminine graces for deceit. The ghost of a smile stretched across his features.

“As you desire.”

Xx

The aspiring adventurer had inquired about a strength potion. A rudimentary task that would only require several days work for Overhaul. The reply caused a grin to break out upon the young woman’s face. Her face… almost cute. 

While working, Overhaul caught flashes of the maiden’s frightened expressions. A sick delight taking root into him. His psyche was a chasm of perverse thoughts. The mixture of worry and dread intoxicated him. Like an inch he couldn’t scratch. 

He felt on fire. 

Xx

She wandered aimlessly, soft footsteps echoed through the abyss of trees. This was her ritual now. Naively calling for Overhaul. The beaked man was behind on his promise. The confident woman’s belief in him wavered. A gourd still hung from her belt; a failed lesson. 

“You can be so damn loud. Do you realize that?”

The naive mortal’s expression tightened; the intimate reaction caused a flush to scatter across him. Foreign anxiety and a rush of dopamine through his body. Hot breath huffed against the hollow of his beak. The fervor burned like a wildfire. 

She averted her eyes; the earthen ground her chosen subject. Overhaul’s aura engulfed the young woman in anxiety. Instincts feral. 

The nemophilist beamed; fangs bared for prey. Sadistic glee painted into his face. Amber eyes studied her. Victim no match for an apex predator. 

“Sorry… I’m happy I found you, I think. You’re behind schedule, Overhaul, but it’s for good reason, right? Maybe you ran into a lack of ingredients?” the woman hoped, her heart unable to conjure the alternative. Panic surged through her nerves. A feeling she couldn’t ignore. Body hot with anxiety.

“Follow.”

Xx

Yet again, the young maiden found herself in the wooden cabin of the occultist. A scent of wood and flowers assaulted her nose. The smell less pleasant than before. 

Overhaul held the vial; gloved hands gingerly guarding her desire. She felt a pang in her bosom. The promise of immortality dangled before her. Breath caught in an eager throat, words cramped. 

“Please. I have money. Gold. I can pay you.” Desperation covered her tone. The zealous woman features pulled tight. Eyes glued to the vial. The key to her quest. 

The masked man laughed, placing the vial on the wooden table between them. His eyes stuck to her. Selfish eyes fixated. Overhaul’s chest hitched; the anticipation of her fear tantalizing. He felt drunk from her presence. 

“No… No money. As Overhaul we both know I’ll claim my due. For someone that prides themselves on mythos; you genuinely are stupid,” he sneered. His words overrun with acid. The man was merely prodding for her adorably fearful visage. An image that haunted him. Perhaps, he could coax the emotion out of the meek woman via insults. Overhaul knew the power he held. His veins burned with it. 

The woman nodded. Distinct horrible stories flooded her. The sparks of misery burning into her psyche. A terror she prayed to avoid. “Whatever, Overhaul. We made the deal. So drop the act. It’s embarrassing.” As soon as the words tumbled from her mouth; the ignorant mortal understood the weight of them. The nervousness in her back. 

“Take it before I change my mind.” 

An empty threat, or so she thought.

Xx

A week passed. The young explorer still felt as before. No obvious strength stockpiled within her. It took her three days to deduce that the willowy man she met had been a pretender. Merely a man fascinated with Overhaul. She was familiar with the insanity of it. The very same thing motivated her to find the Sorcerer of the Forest. A pretend man. 

Life for her was stagnant as before, too. No excitement lived in the heart of the village. Routine a sacred theme. Mundane. 

Despite this, the steadfast mortal had continued her prayer. Feverish belief burned in her chest. Perhaps faith was the secret to immortality in mythos. 

Xx

Soft knocks echoed through the woman’s door. A late night visitor. Panicky fear settled in her bones. After dusk visits only brought tragedy. Slowly, she rose from bed. Anxiety flowed through her muscles; simple movements a struggle. 

Delicate feet dragged across wooden floors. Tired eyes in a haze. She reached for the door knob, the brass cold against her. The young explorer cautiously opened the door. A sheepish plastered. One must be strong in misery. 

The exhausted mortal’s eyes dropped; Overhaul curiously before her. The man barely an inch from her. Just as before. The kindling of a blush erupted across her face. Pink, squeezable cheeks.

Overhaul’s urge to touch such a filthy creature was almost overwhelming. And yet, he restrained himself. A promise of fulfilling her desire fueled him. He ached to see her afraid again.

“What are you doing here?” She was unprepared for the gravity of her choice. No soul was worth heroics. Not even a naive mortal’s. Humanity was the last shred of chaos the woman had. Every aspect of her life routine. 

A smirk took root. “Moronic girl. I’m fulfilling your greatest desire. Follow.” 

A phantom hand guided the woman’s numb body through the village and into the forest. Overhaul only a few paces ahead. A haze developed over her; the extent of her actions a mystery. 

Xx

She had no memory of adventuring to the occultist Overhaul’s hut, yet, here she was. A dressing gown clad body sat across from gold eyes. The ghost of a smirk still lingered on his face. Her distressed frame was the source for his perverse joy. A sick knot settled into his stomach. 

“Do I give you my soul?” she inquired, a sniffle in her tone. Tears building inside her chest.The reality of her agreement attacked her. 

Overhaul stifled a chorkle. An unrealistic expectation mortals held. So side-eyed. He assumed nothing less from her. Naivety was an illness. “No, idiot. Strip.”

Her mind glazed over. Robotic limbs carried out the sorcerer’s demand. Dark magicks at work. 

“Please… stop. I don’t desire t-this.” The maiden stood before him; horror in wide eyes. She cowered. No memory of disrobing; her heart in her ears. Had he drugged her? Was the vial a love potion? 

Gently, gloved hands removed the avian mask and goggles; Overhaul’s face on display. She did not expect him to be handsome. His features carved from stone by da Vinci. The ironic nature not lost. How could a vile man be so beautiful? 

“Are you denying yourself your innermost wishes? Do you not quiver for my touch?” Overhaul countered, his gruff voice shrewd. The sorcerer tried to hide his morbid pleasure. Lips curled into a lustful grin. The knot in his stomach was hot. Touch-starved fingertips excited. 

He licked his lips. Pining yellow eyes burned into her. The man known as Overhaul drank from her vulnerability. The woman’s soft body was a treat. Only for him. 

The mortal blushed. Crimson obvious in the moonlight. “Not like t-this.” She was attracted to him, but every instinct screamed at her to flee. The man was suffocating. 

Overhaul reached out, pinching her flesh between his fingers. Tense skin responded to his touch. She shivered. 

“A brat like you doesn’t deserve to use my title, don’t you agree? Refer to me as Kai.”

The woman felt helpless beneath him. Even his thin frame towered over her. The height difference only incited Chisaki Kai. Her vulnerability was a luxury. A privilege. She shifted, a futile attempt to escape him. 

Kai suddenly grasp the woman; his hands finding purchase around her wrists. Her skin was a map of goosebumps. He pulled her to him; the heat of her body melted into him. A delicate form for him to break. He shuddered at the thought. A tapestry of bruises. Lilac suits you.

“O-Kai. Kai, please let me go. I won’t tell anyone. It hurts,” she pleaded, as purple blossomed on her wrists. The beginning of a bruise. Gloved hands ignored her cries. The filthy mortal’s request only riled up Kai. A throbbing ache formed between his thighs. An urge to bury himself inside her crawled from the back of his psyche. 

Lecherous eyes scanned her body. Kai’s body snug against the frightened woman. Clean linens. A faint bouquet of clean linens drifted to him. This must be the essence of the disrobed body before him. Simple fabric separated Kai from eden. The garments weren’t flattering, he convinced himself. That’s why a gloved hand detached from her wrist; her arm falling limp as the sorcerer examined dull cloth between disinterested fingers. Florcets of pink rested twisted into pure horror. Traces of anxiety now settled in her ribs; the woman’s throat choked shut. The lack of sound a disappointment to Kai. The inch on fire with arousal for terrified looks. 

“You don’t need this,” Kai whispered, his breath hot against the woman’s exposed skin. Unceremoniously, Kai ripped the brassiere. Fabric ripping the only sound between them. Quick, short breaths followed. The occultist felt overwhelmed. His fantasy before him. Saliva pooled; the man’s mouth flooded. 

Delicate skin winced in the biting chill. A free arm shot up in a frantic attempt to cover shame. Chisaki Kai frowned. Adonis features twisted. Fangs threatened in a snarl. “Show me.” 

She held steadfast, a lilac now settled into her wrists. The naive explorer refused to allow an erratic man the pleasure of her stripped bosom. A right reserved for lovers. Not a cruel con man. 

Gloved hands swiftly detached from her. He harshly pulled off the leather gloves and pathetically tossed them behind him. Kai was finally able to feel her. Feverish hands returned to exposed flesh. Sadistic hands roughly grabbed the numinous woman. A yelp sounded from her, his impatient touch a cause for surprise. In her nerves, she felt a spark.

Yellow eyes marveled at the beauty before him. Inspiration. 

“On your knees.” 

The mortal woman before him obeyed. Dread flowed through her body. Images of violence danced before her. Promises of Chisaki Kai’s power.

“Not such a bitch, now are we?” Kai teased, a cruel smirk upon his face. Satisfaction from her blind devotion. Warmth tightened against his pants. The compassion he held for her. A little gift for not misbehaving. Kai couldn’t spell his excitement; his chest heaved in anticipation. 

“Isn’t t-this enough? I’m begging you; please stop.” A chorus of no’s followed after as Kai pressed the dame’s face against his crotch. His throbbing need now stimulated by the friction. He moaned, the sound deep and guttural. Animalistic. 

Satisfied, Kai released her face. Feverish hands unbuttoned his pants. The furor caused slender hands to shake. “I don’t care. You desired this, wicked girl.”

The scared woman audibly gulped, terror and arousal swirled in her mind. Gentle hands found his hard cock. Length throbbed in her palm. The man’s very body craved her touch. She began to tenderly stroke him; her hand exploring veins. 

Kai growled, instinctively bucked into her. No time for shame. He could chastise the adventurer later. Her hands were heaven sent. Curiosity mingled with lust. A free hand snaked to her panties. The woman teasing herself. A whine fell from her lips. The syrupy sound encouraged Kai; the sorcerer’s sentence spilling out. 

“Suck my cock.”

She stopped pumping him, her hand poised around his head, foreskin pulled down. Innocent eyes viewed the brown haired man. A meek air engulfed the woman. Moist hands now covered the grove of rose upon her cheeks. The heat devouring her. Was she on fire?

Breathe.

Plump lips wrapped around his cock, veins pulsating. Kai’s pleasure was obvious. The flustered woman began to swirl her tongue around him; her hands caressing his manhood. He melted into her touch. The man’s bucking now at a  sweltering pace. An idea presented itself. 

He knew he had to be quick. Otherwise, she could bite him. A degloved hand shoved her head down him. The wet chasm of her mouth coupled with gagged sent Kai into ecstasy. The knot branded into his stomach, working its way to his chest. An orgasm approaching. 

“Don’t fucking stop,” the auburn man mewled. Spit spewed from the asphyxiated woman; droplets decorating his hips. She needed to breathe, he reasoned. Hands clawed at thighs in a vain attempt for air. He released her.

Hungry lungs inhaled; the aroma of wood and flower heaven sent. 

“No more…” she rasped. Voice hoarse from the man’s violent bucking. Snot leaked from her nose, eyes brimmed with tears. 

She looked so broken, Kai realized. The fire within him a roaring blaze. A dire need exploded in his chest. The man roughly grabbed the woman’s face, shoving her against him again. 

An anxiety fueled mouth played with his length. Muffled cries juxtaposed against moans. Tiny streaks of fear now displayed down her cheeks. Pink cheeks shining. 

Orgasic euphoria burst from Kai. The abrupt event caused her to gag; a sloppy spray of hot cum and saliva ran from the woman’s chin, the final droplets resting against her bosom.

[aestheticmaria-blog]

a short story i wrote:

Your broken leather boots plunge from puddle to puddle, the droplets of rain providing shiny solace from the dirty, grey streets you’ve been walking for what feels like eternity. A fat pigeon breaks your pensive mood. You drop the cigarette you can’t remember lighting into a puddle. Looking up, you notice people surrounding you, rushing hurriedly up and down the street. The smokey, charred walls of the city begin to glow with bright neon colours, and flowers bloom from potholes. As you gaze intently at a now emerald cathedral, it grows into a quadrilateral obscenity. Your surroundings turn to abstract shapes and you look with panic at the pigeon, hoping to find familiarity in its wings, but it has contorted into a plane and glides away through the sky full of figures.

Your legs have been moving without your permission and as you look down you realise you’ve been tirelessly trekking on a treadmill, whose screen has symbols you can’t comprehend dotted all over it sporadically. As you lean to peer closer at the hieroglyphics you trip and fall, melting into the screen like a droplet into an ocean.

Tumbling down and down, your head spins and twists, the walls of mud around you become more apparent. Veins of roots adorn the tunnel. You land with a thud. A glass table sits in the centre of the room and you notice a heart shaped sweet on top. EAT ME is engraved on its surface. As you lift it, you are hit with a not-so-distant memory.

Loud music plays as you stumble into a dimly lit room with a stranger. She kisses you and hands you a tablet. You grin and swallow it dry. The little source of light in the room is quenched and the memory ends.

You place the heart shaped sweet in your mouth, following its commands, and chew. The world goes black again.

Opening your eyes, you groan. Your muscles are cramped from lying in one position for too long. You try to stretch and fail. A cloak of darkness covers whatever claustrophobic container you’re trapped in. Always a quick thinker, you reach into your pocket for your cheap plastic lighter. Lighting the flame, you realise how suspiciously coffin-shaped the box is. Fuck, you think, what did that girl in that one movie do? You grab your trusty blade from your pocket, probably one of your only belongings with real value. You set to work carving a fist sized hole in the ceiling of the coffin. You hit it until your fist bleeds and it begins to give way. Dirt falls on your face, covering your eyes and it cuts to black.

Sick of opening your eyes to new horrors, you feel around first. Soft. Warm. Smells like home. Home. That word doesn’t seem to belong in your head. Certain wires aren’t connecting. Giving in to curiosity, you look around. Sure enough, it’s your childhood bed. You roll out of it, staying vigilant for your next mission. In your eye-line is the top of the radiator and the bed frame. You notice how much lighter you feel. You remember the broken mirror that used to be in your landing. Jumping to reach the doorknob, you enter the hall and look in the mirror. You sigh a defeated sigh. Just my luck, you think to yourself, I’m a fucking six year old. Having learned from the absurdity of this world - or whatever is it you’re experiencing, you touch the mirror. It moves like mercury. Of course, you think, why wouldn’t it(!) A gust of wind pushes you through and the pool of silver-esque mirror gloop clears to become water.

The streets around you are grey once again. The dirty puddle still holds your cigarette and you ponder whether you’ve imagined it all. You stand under a nearby building to shelter yourself from the rain.

Once again, the fat pigeon waddles by. It cocks its head at you. You move your head in response in a fairly pathetic attempt to intimidate it. In return, it intimidates you. Opening its beak, it speaks. “I can fix this.” A rather towering voice for such a blob of a pigeon. It hops forward and pecks you. Memories rush in.

Laughter. The room explodes after you make a snide comment. Someone slaps your back as they wheeze. The faces of the people around you light up. A familiar warmth fills you.

Hurt. You gaze down at your wrists in disbelief. Blood oozes and yet you can’t feel a thing. You collapse back into your bed and let out a raspy sigh.

Excitement. A grin is etched on your face as you hand over a wrapped box to a woman with blonde hair. ‘But first,’ you beam, ‘your card!’ Passing her an envelope covered with glitter, you feel yourself being embraced.

Loneliness. You pull your head up and look yourself in the mirror. Wipe your nose. Sniffle a bit. Finally a kick; the words echo in your head. Music reverberates through the bathroom as the band begins playing next door.

These images flash through your mind, only glimpses of moments, never full memories. They feel like clothes that don’t fit anymore. You’ve grown too high and too wide for such fanciful things. Realising what just happened, you look to the pigeon for answers.

“I can take you home or free you,” the bird says. Consumed with confusion, all you manage to utter is a weak “Who are you?” The words feel too small for such a heavy question. The pigeon, now gazing into the puddle, replies.

“I am everywhere. Omniscient. Ever-watching. Never stopping. I take form as whatever I wish to. I am Death, pleased to meet you.” Noticing your hesitation, he continues. “I have taken pity on you, which I rarely do. But your soul is built with material too highly coveted, I couldn’t take you without asking. I can take you home or free you.”

The doors to the building behind you swing open. One emanates a strong perfume of roses and dry ice, or fog.. You don’t know which. Inside is a bed laden with black linen and covered by a veil, accessorised with mesh pillows and white petals. Following your eye-line, Death says; “this is the doorway to death. I prefer the term ‘eternal peace’.” Curious now, you look through what you assume to be the ‘Life’ doorway. A rough frothy ocean and a shoddy rowing boat. Sounds about right, you think, glad that you’ve kept your sense of humour. “Over the horizon is Joy and Laughter,” the pigeon seems to examine each word carefully before committing to speaking it aloud, “but you’ve got some Loneliness and Hurt to navigate first. But that’s Life.”

You let your heavy heart and aching bones collapse onto the floor with you for a second. “No time like the present,” you begin, and the birds proverbial face lights up, hoping to see a sliver of resilience in you,“for a cigarette.” Not what the bird expected to hear. You pull a slender cigarette from your bruised packet. It’s seen better days, you suppose, but so have you. Lighting it with your almost broken blue lighter, you laugh, realising you still don’t know where you are. Purgatory, maybe? God knows. If God’s even real. After a couple minutes of painfully tense and overly long pulls of your cigarette, you stub it out on the wall beside you and throw it into the puddle.

God, life is pointless.

You stand up and glance between doors. The sea spray hits you and the sickly sweet roses implore you to choose them...

You kick off your shoes. “When you’ve lived the life I have,” you say to the bird, your eyes still darting from door to door, “you learn pretty quickly how to swim.”

Memento mori.

[thedistantstorm]

Project Compass 17

Read along on AO3 Here

<< Previous Chapter <<     >> Next Chapter >>

This time: Thrawn and Ezra receive their orders. Tensions rise.

Next time: Vah’nya teaches Ezra something new. Thrawn miscalculates.

-/

Vah'nya hugged the last of the departing Navigators before they separated, the younger girls bound on a shuttle for Csilla to be sent to their next training assignments. When the shuttle hatch hissed closed, she stepped back beside Ivant, who was also dressed in uniform.

"I wish we could keep them all," She said. "I feel like they would be more successful, even if they aren't good candidates for the project. It feels like admitting failure."

Ivant put a hand on her shoulder. "I know," He said. "Perhaps in the future we'll be able to focus on a larger group, but for now it isn't feasible. Besides, that many navigators on a ship with a human in command was dicey enough. The Admiralty wasn't happy about it in the first place, even if you were the one actually overseeing them. For now, we've gotta try to fly under the radar."

"I know," Vah'nya turned her head into the cool breeze, enjoying the contrast of it with the warmth of the sun. She liked Copero's temperate climate, though she far preferred the eerie perpetual twilight and crystalline views of Csilla. "It is better that they think little of us, for now."

"Yes," Ivant agreed. "And it is safer if we do not have more Navigators aboard should anyone target us."

"You think they will," Vah'nya accused, but there was no heat behind her words. She was thinking the same thing. There were already infiltrators aboard their Admiral's ship…

Eli nodded, his lips set in a grim line. "I have no doubt they'll try."

-/

The remaining few days they spent docked on Copero were pleasant, more or less. The remaining Navigators, Vah'nya, Un'hee, and four other girls of miscellaneous age, spent a great deal of time apart from the others in a library on the uppermost level of the estate that overlooked much of Copero City. By the time it was over, Ezra found himself almost looking forward to the lessons and structure that came with the CDF's military.

Really, it’s more likely that he’s looking forward to being occupied. To action and learning. To purpose. The reprieve was nice, but Ezra truly didn’t know what to do with time that was his own anymore. At least, not unless that time came in brief, precious moments between his responsibilities. He found himself slipping away to a secluded corner of the Mitth estate to pass hours in mediation several times. He didn’t necessarily feel more centered for it, either. If anything, the slight information he’d learned from Vah’nya as an explanation for having his traumatic vision gave him the impression of pressure. He couldn’t help but feel like something was coming.

They returned to their quarters midway through the second shift. The Compass was slated to follow the Steadfast for the next week, according to the orders on his datapad. That seemed pretty standard. Ezra checked his message logs. There wasn’t much. Standard communications and notifications, an odd message here or there from some of the younger soldiers that Ivant had suggested he train with when Thrawn was unavailable. He wouldn’t call them friends, exactly, but since Vah’nya was the only other person around his age that he talked to, it was something.

Thrawn was pensive as they went about their shared space, and Ezra was content to slouch on the small sofa in their common room, reading some holonovel in Cheunh that would probably be a lot more interesting if he didn’t have to constantly open a new tab on his datapad to look up some wildly descriptive word.

A small, urgent ping jolted him from his most recent hunt for knowledge - really, the Chiss language was absurd, Ezra thought to himself - and he tapped the page to bookmark it before he closed it and pulled up what was surely updated orders.

Before he tucked into reading the message, he heard Thrawn moving around in his quarters. He'd approached the doorway to the common room, the one right across from the sofa, no doubt already having read the orders. Ezra didn't need to look at the Chiss to feel the anticipation wash over him.

Ezra scanned the directive. “Second shift?”

“That was your takeaway?” Thrawn asked mildly. His eyebrows didn’t even go up, but on a more overtly expressive sentient, he suspected they would have by now.

He kicked his legs to sit up from where he lay, gesturing to the tablet. “I mean, obviously we’re going to be on the bridge. And my lessons are discontinued - wait. They’re discontinuing my lessons?” His voice rose, pinched. “I can barely speak semi-fluent Cheunh!”

“Your accent does need some work,” Thrawn agreed, “And you still stress incorrect syllables on most words you do know-”

“Yeah, thanks for the vote of confidence, buddy,” Ezra rolled his eyes.

“But that is why you have a translator,” The Chiss finished. “I also happen to know the mechanics of every item you could possibly be tasked with. I suspect such skills will be a valuable resource to you.”

“Yeah,” Ezra huffed. “I know it will. But why the bridge crew? And why second shift? We’ve always had first.”

“Perhaps the assignments rotate,” Thrawn speculated. “However, for the Chiss, this is the preferred shift. It allows for a decent lie in, and is the one during which the more experienced staff as well as the Commander are at the helm. In the Empire, it would have been Aurek Shift. In any case,” The far more experienced Chiss took on his dry, patented teaching tone, “I don’t suggest that you ask our superiors as to why your assignment has changed. I am sure they have a good reason.”

“I’m sure Ivant has a reason. I just don’t understand why this is happening now.” He slid an innocent look in Thrawn's direction. “All of a sudden we’re being stationed on the bridge during the busiest shift of the day. Seems suspicious to me, is all I’m saying. We spend a couple of days in close quarters, and then, all of a sudden we’re made to report to the bridge every day?”

Thrawn didn’t roll his eyes, but he did give Ezra his best unimpressed glower. “I do not think it matters, so much as we will be able to determine what is going on with the situation with the Grysks. That was our primary objective in bringing you to the Ascendancy, in case you’ve forgotten.”

“How could I?” Ezra shuddered. “I’m not looking forward to it, but they clearly need to be dealt with.”

“Quite,” Thrawn agreed. “For now, I would suggest you consider the best way to rearrange your schedule to accommodate your newly altered sleep schedule.

“Yeah, okay, fine,” The young Jedi shrugged, then gave Thrawn a look. “But still, I gotta know: D’you think this is because you made up with Eli?”

The Chiss’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “I do not know what you mean,” He said.

Ezra smirked. “Right. Well, all I’m saying is now you two are friends again - or whatever, I heard all about your after hours breakfast thing - and now we’re being put out into the open. I’m wondering if you earned his trust back.”

Stroking his chin, Thrawn turned away, considering for a moment. “No,” He said slowly. “I do not believe he trusts me. In fact, I believe he trusts me less.”

“Why?” At this, Ezra frowned, confused. “You two talked. I heard it was a good encounter.”

Thrawn inclined his head. “It was perfectly neutral. Amiable, even. But the Captain will not tell me anything related to his mission,” Thrawn’s eyes had a pensive aloofness to them that concerned Ezra, just a little. “By keeping us - me - closer, he dictates the flow of information surrounding a project he very much did not wish to speak about during our… discussions,” Thrawn added, having had enough time to process the emotionally challenging portions of said discussions and review the rest for the relevant clues and patterns.

“And you need to know what his project is… why, exactly?”

“I believe that Captain Ivant’s project is precisely what is preventing you or I from being involved in the kind of affairs that I suggested bringing you to the Ascendency for. We are not engaging the Grysks because the Chiss are on the brink of civil war. Perhaps Admiral Ar’alani is keeping me here under Captain Vanto because she doesn't want me to create an incident.”

“You? Create an incident,” Ezra huffed under his breath, then met Thrawn’s gaze, brow furrowed in confusion. “It doesn’t seem smart to start a war among the Chiss when the Grysk are so close, though. And I don’t really think you’re after that. You just left one civil war - er, you know.”

Thrawn’s eyes flashed. “Indeed,” He said. It was true. Thrawn did not desire war. But battle is in a warrior’s blood, is the natural way of things. And battles were indeed on the horizon, for all of them.

“Okay,” Ezra sounded almost convinced. He rose from the couch, picking up his discarded datapad. “Here’s my counter argument,” The Jedi said, looking up into Thrawn’s calm blue features and contrasting crimson eyes. “We could ask Admiral Ar’alani to transfer us over to the Steadfast. That way, you can have your Grysk battles, and Ivant can keep on with his project and chasing after pirates or whatever it is we’re actually doing.”

“An interesting proposal,” Thrawn allowed, “But I was asked not to intervene with their plans.” He crossed his arms. “So for now, we must watch, and see what information we can glean.”

-/

There was a sense of hostility on the bridge. It wasn’t obvious, exactly. At first, it seemed more like things were busy, like they were in the midst of an urgent campaign. Which, in a way, they were. They were following the Steadfast at a safe level of distance, and, despite what Ezra (and to a lesser degree, Thrawn) thought, they were not after pirates. They were trailing several Grysk vessels. Three smaller, one midsize, with the idea that there was a much larger ship or base somewhere nearby.

Admiral Ar’alani checked in with Captain Ivant every second hour. So far, they were only tracing emissions and the occasional debris found from decimated freighter vessels in the sector. They weren’t anywhere near the core worlds of the Ascendancy. Ivant had explained to a curious Bridger that they currently traversed his equivalent of the mid-Outer Rim territories. It did not seem like a terribly daring venture, but there was a very real cause for concern, any threat that cropped up would necessitate a swift strike.

And when the need rose, Thrawn admittedly found himself impressed. He hadn’t seen more than a cumulative shift of bridge operations in all the months since he and Ezra had been stationed aboard the Compass. And it had never been in battle.

There was no hesitation. No second guessing. He’d known - had seen this evolution of his former aide - and yet it was nothing compared to the real thing in combat. Every time Thrawn would pick up on a tactic, identify a pattern, Ivant was already there, adjusting his battle plans, anticipating the next move with startling accuracy.

Vanto was calculating. Merciless. Steady-handed.

Thrawn found it enticing.

This was a man who knew his enemies. Who had seen what was inside their minds. Where Thrawn could deduce and analyze patterns, could process the pieces he’d seen in his extensive military career and put together an appropriate plan to negate their efforts and overtake them, Ivant flipped tactics as easily as breathing. It was clear he’d taken what he’d learned throughout the course of his own experiences and put it to good use, his adaptability a helpful tool to overcome the gaps in his experience. And, of course, whatever calculations he made were swift and accurate. At more than one juncture the Admiral herself had called upon him for lightning-quick computations and analysis.

It was not to say that all his orders were carried out to perfection. There were degrees of error. Commands not executed with the level of finesse delicate situations such as these required. These were noted, Thrawn realized. There was a sharpness to Ivant’s gaze. No facial heat, and only a mild flaring of the nostrils when something had the propensity to result in disaster, but it was rare.

And then came the day in which one of the lieutenant commanders attempted to override his command. Thrawn understood it was a risky maneuver. It wasn’t one he would have attempted himself, but a subordinate must trust and obey his superior’s commands without question if success - and therefore, victory - is to be achieved.

“Lieutenant Commander Vres’mad’indi,” Ivant said, when the action had resolved, and recovery teams from the Steadfast and Compass had been dispatched. There was no inflection to his tone. It was almost a purr.

It drew Thrawn’s - and the other officers’ - attention in an instant.

“What in the hell are you doing?” His voice crested, and there it was, the lilt, the residual Wild Space drawl bleeding into otherwise flawless Cheunh. “I gave you a direct order.”

“If we roll the ship at this velocity, we will not be able to-”

“Which part of my order to roll the ship immediately was lost on you?” Ivant’s fists clenched and unclenched, then fell loose at his sides. His eyes burned despite their lack of luminescence.

The Lieutenant Commander’s eyes were dull, but there was defiance written into his posture. “The Steadfast’s plasma spheres were being launched!”

“Do you think I was unaware of that detail?”

The Chiss under Ivant’s scrutiny grumbled under his breath. At the helm, Vah’nya twitched microscopically before bowing her head.

“If you have something to say,” Ivant said, drawl retracted, “Say it. It’s nothing you won’t say the moment you’re out of sight.”

“A human does not deserve this place,” He snarled. “Your kind are a blight on our people. The Chiss do not need you or your endangered sorcerers.”

Ivant nodded. “I see. Have you shared your opinions with the Admiral?”

He straightened, red eyes blazing now, fury just barely restrained. “I have.”

“And here I stand,” Ivant said, gesturing to his place on the command walkway. “A suggestion, Lieutenant Commander: If you do not like my orders and do not feel comfortable asking me, take it up with the Admiralty or the Aristocra itself after the action has ended. If you ever endanger my ship and its crew again, a public dressing-down for insubordination will be the least of your concerns.” He turned his back, shoulders falling loose with released tension. “If you’d been monitoring the board, you’d know that the Steadfast was moving upward to point seven-three. When we rolled, the shield deviation would have put us just far enough beneath our flagship that we would have been out of range of the plasma bursts.” He turned to his second who stood beside his command chair, watching the situation with heavy eyes. “Get him out of my sight.”

“Yes sir,” Newly minted Commander Wes’las’handi dipped his head and approached the insubordinate Lieutenant Commander. “Come along, Lieutenant Esmadi,” He said. Thrawn noted that a low, displeased note hidden in his tone. Around them, the bridge settled back into standard after-action activity. Ezra remained stiff beside him, no doubt feeling off-kilter as he happened to be human, too.

Esmadi threw up his hands and held them out in front of him. He’d leave the bridge of his own volition. Prideful, all the way to the end. Thrawn wouldn’t be surprised to hear of the man’s transfer and demotion for such a stunt. He took a moment to scan the rest of the faces, to note the reaction and posture of everyone else on the bridge, trying to get a glimpse of how far down this discontent went. Typically such officers weren’t alone.

“Commander Esmadi is a new transfer from the Steadfast,” Ezra said into his thoughts. “Navigator Vah’nya told me yesterday.”

“I see,” Thrawn said. “He took Commander Slasha’s place following his promotion,” He speculated. Ezra nodded. “Do not put yourself in a situation where you are alone with him.”

“Yeah, I don’t plan to.” Ezra said. “I thought everyone on the bridge was loyal to him,” The Jedi murmured.

There were many kinds of loyalty. Loyalty to a person, an organization, a belief. There were many reasons for loyalty. Loyalty to a person was earned. In outsiders like Vanto, it was possible to find divides in which an individual was loyal to the greater whole - in this case, the Ascendancy - but not loyal to their commanding officer, a human outsider.

Vanto’s eyes met his, and one eyebrow went up in a silent question. Thrawn frowned. At that, the Captain approached. “Your thoughts, Commander Thrawn.”

Unlike the previous days and weeks before, there was no childish mouthing of ‘Commander Thrawn’ from Ezra who always managed to position himself in Ivant’s blind spot. Thrawn was careful to speak softly. “Is this a frequent occurrence?”

At that, Vanto laughed, his anger from the situation already fully diffused. His smile was almost fond, remembering something, eyes crinkling at the edges with new lines brought on by age and stress. “Not anymore. We’ve had some personnel changes since we docked,” He raised his eyebrows. “Happens. They get over it or move on. The Admiral loves pulling them back into her remedial programs.”

“I recall,” Thrawn said. “How much of a threat is this to Bridger?”

Ivant inclined his head to the Jedi. “None,” He said, but his eyes said something else entirely. His eyes were guarded, cautious. “They may meddle with him,” Ivant whispered in lilting Basic the rest of the crew did not understand, “But their ultimate target will be me.”

[burned-to-the-void]

can u do lion for the ask thingy? I will love you forever

Hiya there :D I feel like I gotta try a lot harder than this to earn your eternal love but here you go!

things I like about him:

This one’s weird because things that gave me not so great first impression about him became the main reasons I like him now aka his flaws and bad choices and the general mess he made out of his life. He appears to be a confident, almost arrogant person but probably there’s some self-loathing and shame buried somewhere in his mind, and it makes him a complicated, interesting character. Also he’s trying to own up his mistakes and fix them instead of running away from them, gotta give him some points for that. This feels off-topic for some reason but I love his physique as well.

OTP:

Doc/Lion, of course. I can never resist a ship that starts with hatred and misunderstanding and gradually grows into something else entirely. Though even after the worst of their dispute has ended, I imagine they’d still argue a lot over things, both big and small. And sometimes Lion would do things purely to annoy the hell out of Doc, like cracking his knuckles (I credit @pensive-buggo for this wonderful idea) or drinking straight out of a milk carton. I find it very adorable I think I’m broken.

And yes Bandit/Lion is my guilty pleasure, it hadn’t even crossed my mind before I read a series of fics that shook me to core (you probably know which one) and I was like “god this is really unhealthy” while positively inhaling it. So yeah, there’s that.

brOTP: 

With Montagne. I like to think that Montagne can usually make him back down when he’s pissed and ready to fight (and possibly being a jerk) with a simple “Olivier, no” and if it doesn’t work he will stop him physically from punching somebody in the face, knowing he’d regret it later when it backfires. Overall he's quite tame around Montagne, because with him he never feels cornered, or judged. Montagne would try to make him socialize with other people as well, from time to time. The results vary, depending on who the "other people" are.

random headcanon:

He reads a lot and isn't picky about the genre, while he cares about the quality. He prefers novel, ranging from all-time classics to pulp fictions, but his personal favorite is science fiction. He sometimes tells Montagne about the books he recently read and Montagne, having noticed his preference, informs him about the fact that IQ is actually writing some. Lion shrugs it off in front of him but stores the information in his head.

He has a questionable sense of direction when he's off duty. He enjoys driving, loves the wind in his hair and the music booming from the speaker, but he ends up getting lost so many times he asks Twitch to check his GPS navigation one day. Twitch, after a short test ride with him, advises him to stop ignoring the directions the system tells him to take.

He has some old presents he bought for his son when he was younger but couldn’t get up the nerve to send because he felt like he didn’t have the right to act like an actual father. Now their relationship is much better and they see each other on a regular basis, but Alexis has become too old for those particular presents, so he just keeps them. The idea of throwing them away never even occurs to him.

[missnmikaelson-main]

Of All People, It Had To Be You, Part 1 of 3

Word Count: 5478

Warning: SMUT in this chapter 18+Only please

If she were going to give Klaus Mikaelson a title it would have been ‘colossal-pain-in-the-ass’, and if anyone ever mentioned his name her first thought would be: Oh, Klaus: the royal pain in my ass. Yeah I know Klaus, and I really wish I didn’t. She hated him on principle. She hated him, but unlike her predecessor she possessed common sense along with self-preservation. She could fight back, turn, run, forgo everything she wanted in life and spend eternity looking over her shoulder, or she could give him what he wanted.

Klaus could be civil when she played along, so she went along with him, but this time he had gone way too far.

“So you’re not gonna talk to me then?” Kol cocked an eyebrow.

Elena cast him a sideways look. He held her attention for less than a second before her eyes snapped back to the road… what she could see of the road.

Water poured over the windshield faster than the wipers were able to remove it. She saw the hood of the car, water and then the hood of the car again.

He slowed the vehicle to a crawl. Unable to see more than a few feet in front of the car, he came to a stop and turned on the four way flashing lights. He didn’t see the point. In the rain nobody would be able to see them anyway, but the steady click-clack of the lights calmed her heart.

“Come on, love, say something,” he reached for his phone.

She stared at the steady waterfall for a moment before turning to face him. She twisted in the seat and uncurled her stiff fingers from the car handle.

“You kidnapped me.”

“I do believe you and Nik came to an agreement, darling,” he clicked through the apps on his phone, coming to the map, “he allows you to live as you wish and you allow him access to the sweet ambrosia running through your veins.”

“That deal involved him coming to me every few months,” she glared at him, “it did not involve his baby brother kidnapping me and dragging me across country.”

“You came along willingly,” he pointed out, squinting at the map.

“Because if I didn’t Klaus would have thrown a fit, and I’m not stupid. I know better than to tick him off.” She crossed her arms and sat back with a huff. “And you went along with it and now we’re stuck in the middle of nowhere in the center of a hurricane.”

“I’m not happy about our current situation either, love, but my options were to pick you up and take you to New Orleans,” he plugged the GPS coordinates into the navigation system, “or take a nap of an indeterminate length.”

She peered at him through narrow eyes. Sarcasm laced her tone.

“Dagger threats? Isn’t he sick of those?” She turned her attention back to the windshield. “If I were Klaus I’d be sick of my own voice.”

He tried to refrain, but his head fell back as a loud laugh tore from his throat. The sound startled her, but after a moment her resentment vanished and she joined in his mirth.

She took a breath and exhaled slowly. Her eyes dropped to the large red arrow directing him to a nearby exit.

“I know New Orleans isn’t that close.”

“There’s a bed and breakfast five minutes away…” he glanced out the window, “… maybe thirty.”

“Admitting defeat,” she teased.

“You know better than to anger Nik, darling,” he drawled, “but I know better than to drive through a hurricane with his precious doppelganger.”

“You know I have a name right?” She reached for the handle above her head as he moved back on the road. “I have a name and it’s not ‘love’, ‘darling’, ‘doppelganger’, or ‘darling blood bag’. It’s Elena.”

“As you wish, darling,” he smirked.

Thirty-seven minutes and six ‘Kol-slow-down’s later he parked the car outside a three story house with a blue sign impossible to read through the heavy rain. She still squinted.

He got out, flashed around the side of the vehicle, grabbed the bags from the trunk and opened her door. He moved faster than she could see, but when he stilled the water had plastered his hair to his head.

She took a deep breath, steeled her nerves and stepped out into the cold. Water soaked through her shirt and jeans, saturated her sneakers and seeped into her socks.

She let him take her hand for no other reason than she couldn’t see the path to the door.

She shivered under the jangling bell and crossed her arms.

A young woman came out from a room she took to be the office and cast a look that told her she looked like a drowned sewer rat. Her features morphed into a brilliant smile when he set the bags by the desk.

“Good evening, love,” he flashed a charming smile. “We’ve managed to get caught in the rain.”

“It’s the hurricane,” she blushed.

She rolled her eyes.

“She’s nervous of driving through the storm, so we need a place to wait it out.”

She approached as he tilted his head.

“Could you oblige us,” he glanced at her chest to read her name tag, “Ruby?”

His accent washed over Ruby.

“I should be able to help with that,” she turned to her computer. Every few seconds she would steal glances at him.

She rubbed her upper arms and curled her toes. A chill set in her bones.

“You are in luck,” she swiped a card through a reader, “we have one room left. Will that be alright for you and…” she glanced at her again, “… your sister?”

“That will be fine, love,” Kol passed her a black card, “and she’s not my sister.”

“You and your sister in close quarters usually leads to a dead body,” Elena muttered under her breath.

He took the key card and picked up the bags before she could bend over. With a hand on her hip he steered her towards the stairs. Once out of ear shot he turned to meet her eyes with a mischievous grin.

“There would have been more than one body, love.”

“You’re not gonna…” she trailed off.

He slid the key card through the lock and twisted the doorknob.

“I promise to be on my best behaviour,” he met her eyes, “unless, of course, you would prefer a more deviant attitude.”

His eyes roamed over her upper body.

“I wouldn’t,” she cocked an eyebrow and made a point to ignore the tingle in her stomach that his smirk encouraged.

“Give it time.”

He backed into the room.

She froze inside the door. The mustard yellow walls, steel grey curtains and marble fireplace failed to gain her attention. Her gaze zeroed in on the lone queen bed with its mountain of pillows.

They shared a sideways glance.

“Are you sure about that deviant behaviour, darling?”

She shook her head and reached out for her bag. Disappearing into the bathroom she stripped out of her wet clothes and dug through the duffle for a pair of sweats and a camisole.

++++

“Seriously, darling?” Kol propped his body up with the aid of his elbow.

“Yes,” Elena slammed a pillow in place. “I don’t trust you to keep your hands to yourself.” Her eyes lingered on his chiseled abs.

“I promised I’d be on my best behaviour,” he smirked.

“What does that mean for you?” She flopped down and drew the blankets up over her chest.

“I suppose you’ll have to find out,” he chuckled.

Climbing out of the bed he moved to her side. He crouched, stoking the dying embers into a gentle fire; the muscles in his back rippling with the movement.

He stood, turned around and caught her gaze.

Her heart stuttered.

“At least I’m not ogling you like a piece of meat,” he snickered. Climbing back in the bed he winked. “Not that I mind.”

“Shut up, Kol,” she drew the blanket over her head.

It surprised him how quickly she managed to fall asleep, but then again she had shared a bed with a vampire before and the drive had been stressful for her. He didn’t exactly obey the laws of the road.

Somewhere between the state of awake and asleep he jerked awake. For a long moment he stared at the ceiling and attempted to understand what had woken him. Everything in the room remained the same as when he had closed his eyes.

He shook off the feeling rolled on his back fully prepared to sleep, but then the bed shifted. The mattress dipped and a pillow hit him in the face.

His eyes flew open.

He lifted his upper body in time to see her nose crinkle and the last pillow hit the floor. Elena rolled in her sleep.

He settled back against the mattress, folded his right arm beneath his head and closed his eyes. He was half asleep once more when a light weight landed on him.

He peeked out through his eye lashes confirming what he felt to be true. Her left arm and leg covered his stomach and thighs, and her head was on his shoulder.

A deep chuckle rumbled through his chest. Carefully he rolled her back to her side of the bed and closed his eyes.

++++

She wrinkled her nose and tightened her arm over the pillow. A warm sense of protection washed over her from the heat on her lower back and beneath her ear. She opened her eyes slowly and blinked at the rippling shadows on the wall. A contented sigh moved to escape her mouth but died on her tongue.

It was not a pillow under her head.

She swallowed a lump in her throat and moved her head up until a chiseled jaw came into focus. Carefully she pulled her limbs free and slipped from the bed.

Kol didn’t move.

The sound of the closing door roused him from sleep.

++++

“I can’t believe you ran out on me this morning.”

Elena froze with the fork halfway to her mouth. A flush stained her cheeks.

Kol joined her at the table and sipped a cup of coffee. His eyes sparkled over the rim of the mug.

“I do so enjoy waking with a beautiful woman on top of me.”

“What happened to best behaviour?” She chewed her scrambled eggs.

“This is best behaviour,” he smirked.

“You’ve got a drop of blood,” she pointed to the corner of her mouth.

He lowered the mug and wiped his mouth with a napkin.

She gave him a reproachful look.

“Relax, darling,” he held out his arms, “Ruby is very much alive and unaware of the fact that she was my breakfast.”

++++

A flash of lightening illuminated the room and the pensive expression on her face.

She chewed her bottom lip.

“I know that look,” Kol emerged from the bathroom. “If you’re not careful, love, you’ll give yourself frown lines.”

“Maybe I like frown lines,” she drew in a deep breath.

“What are you thinking so hard about, darling?” He leaned against the foot of the bed, surveying her profile.

“I’m wondering how comfortable that chair would be,” she ran her fingers over the yellow fabric.

“You are not sleeping in the chair, and neither am I for that matter. There is a perfectly good bed right here.” He patted the comforter.

She spun, hands on her hips and met his eyes.

“Why would I want to sleep next to someone who tore apart my pillow wall?”

“Is that what you think happened?” His lips lifted in a smirk; genuine amusement danced in his dark eyes.

“Yeah, that’s what I think.”

He stood and scooped her in his arms. He ignored her outraged cry and carried her to the bed.

“You are the one who moved the pillows, darling,” he met her eyes. “I moved you back three times last night before falling asleep. Relax, love. There will be no funny business. Nik would dagger me if I tried.”

++++

The bed shifted under her every few seconds. Every few seconds a sharp jolt traveled the length of her spine.

Elena’s eyes snapped open. The blinking digits on the alarm clock displayed the offensive hours of the morning.

A low sound rumbled behind her. She sat up and twisted on her hips.

Kol was flat on his back. A thin sheen of sweat covered his brow. His features twisted in a deep frown reflecting the fear leaking into his voice.

“Kol,” she shook his shoulder. When that didn’t work she cupped his cheek.

Electricity raced up her arm. The room disappeared and she was left staring at Klaus. Terror paralyzed her as much as the dagger.

She came back to her body and shook him again, violently.

“Kol!”

She called his name a few times before he sat up with a gasp.

Fear, stark and vivid, glittered in his eyes. A moment passed where he stared at her and drew in ragged breaths.

“It’s okay,” the gentleness in her voice surprised her. She gathered him into her arms and directed his head down until his ear rested over her heart.

“It’s okay,” she smoothed back his hair.

He shook against her body and followed her down, wrapping his arm around her waist.

“It’s okay,” her fingers stroked through his hair again and again. “It was a nightmare. You’re okay.”

“You saw it,” he breathed against her breast. Her presence in his head had been unmistakable.

Her hand paused on the nape of his neck. Her voice came out quiet, hesitant.

“I didn’t mean to.”

She waited for him to pull away, but when his body continued to shake she resumed her hand’s motion. The tension in his shoulders melted.

He clung to her slim body and drifted off to the soothing sound of her steady heartbeat. The strains of the recurring nightmare vanished in the warmth of her arms.

He hadn’t slept for long when her heart sped up under his ear. He sat up, careful and slow.

“Darling?” He touched her shoulder.

She gasped for air. Her limbs thrashed against the mattress.

“Elena?”

His superb hearing allowed him to hear the quiet whimpers as she cried for her mom and dad. She wouldn’t wake up.

He shifted onto his back and drew her trembling body with him. Covering her with the blankets he pressed her ear to his heart and his left hand to his temple.

He closed his eyes, took a deep breath and slipped into her head.

The water weighed him down, crushing his limbs and burning his lungs. Peering into the gloom he swam towards the submerged vehicle.

She sat inside struggling against the restraints to get to a man he could see wasn’t breathing.

The door tore away in his hand with a wrenching sound. The seatbelt snapped in his grip. She fought blindly against the arms he closed around her waist.

He swam upwards and it was only after several minutes that he realized there was no end to the crushing waves. He had hoped for an easy rescue that wouldn’t involve manipulating her mind further than entering her head, but that was not an option.

He exhaled and watched the bubbles float upwards until they broke the surface. The rippling water morphed into the reflection of the moon. The moment he saw it he swam towards it and didn’t stop until they broke the surface and Elena drew in a gasping breath.

He spun her around and forced her to meet his eyes.

“It’s alright.”

Kol’s deep voice rumbled under her ear. Her eyes snapped open and darted wildly around the room before finding his steady gaze.

She wondered if he had really been in her head, or if her subconscious had conjured him up when she started the nightmare.

“Go back to sleep Elena,” he smoothed her hair from her face. “You’ll have pleasant dreams. I give you my word.”

++++

The second morning in the bed and breakfast emerged as grey and dismal as the first. From the courtyard windows she could see several tree branches had broken off in the heavy winds.

“Weather network says it’s supposed to stop tomorrow,” he came up beside her. “We should be on our way by noon.”

“One more night,” Elena slid her hands into her back pockets.

“Sick of my company already, darling?” Kol pretended to be affronted. His voice lacked the usual teasing quality it held around her.

She tilted her head, looking up at him; an unreadable light shone behind his eyes.

“Ask me again tomorrow.”

They passed the day in a companionable silence until she stifled a yawn.

“Will I have to fight to get you in bed again?” He glanced up from his book.

++++

“Kol, pick up your bloody phone. I know you understand twenty-first century technology perfectly. When you see my name on your phone you answer! Pick up and tell me where the hell my doppelganger is!”

Elijah leaned in the study doorway and cocked an eyebrow. Surprise etched into his features when the phone didn’t shatter on impact.

“Kol is with Elena?” He cocked an eyebrow.

Klaus glared in his direction.

“Kol is transporting her to New Orleans. They should have been here this morning.” Rage flashed in his blue eyes. “If he’s done something to her I’ll stick him in a box for the rest of eternity.”

Elijah calmly straightened his jacket.

“He picked her up from school, I presume?” He waited for Klaus’ nod with all the patience his thousand years had given. “Have you forgotten that a hurricane has covered much of the coast, including the states Kol would have to drive through?”

++++

Elena woke up in the middle of the night facing the wall. A harsh, low sound came from behind her. She rolled enough to look over her shoulder and spotter Kol facing in the opposite direction; no doubt in an effort to give her space and avoid the result of the previous nights.

His consideration would have been appreciated, but all Elena could muster was an eye roll.

“Kol,” she grumbled, nudging him with her toes. “Kol, you’re snoring.”

She was amazed the sound hadn’t woken those in the surrounding rooms.

Elena lacked the energy to roll over so she hooked her foot over his leg and tugged, hoping his brain would get the message. He didn’t snore on his back.

The first tug yielded zero results, but on the second he rolled over.

He kept rolling.

The mental cheer cut off in her head.

His arm slung over her waist.

She should wake him up, or at the very least roll him back over, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it for three very important reasons.

Number one: she was tired. If she moved she would lose the perfect position her body had found on the mattress. Number two: he stopped snoring. Her eyes drooped in the silence. And number three: his body rested against her back, warm and solid. The steady beat of his heart against her skin lulled her into a deep sleep.

When she finally woke up the next morning the sun streamed through the window, warming her face. A bright smile lifted the corners of her mouth, and she snuggled backwards into the broad chest.

A tiny wiggle of her hips snapped her back to reality, but the arm around her waist was stronger than iron.

“Kol?” He pressed against her firm behind, but the only verbal response she got was a deep sleep-laced hum.

“Kol?”

His mouth dragged over her shoulder as his arm tightened around her waist.

“Kol,” she sighed.

He rolled his hips. His grip loosened. His fingers dragged down her stomach.

“K…” her voice dropped off in a strangled moan. Tendrils of heat followed his hand to the waistband of her sweatpants and her eyes snapped open. “Kol!”

The sharp cry startled him. She took advantage of the confusion to roll over and straddle his waist, pinning his hands above his head.

The futile action couldn’t have stopped him, but the dazed look in his eye told Elena that he might not have been quite awake.

“Pleasant dreams?” She tilted her head.

With difficulty he struggled back to consciousness, chasing away the fragments of his dream that resembled his morning.

“Reality is much better,” he teased, recovering from his shock. He gave a pointed look to where she held his wrists. “And surprisingly dominant.”

Elena’s brows shot up, but she didn’t release his hands.

“That was a joke, darling.”

He surprised her with a sincere smile.

“I do apologize if I’ve made you uncomfortable.”

“I didn’t think you knew what an apology was,” she smirked. “I’m alright. What were you dreaming about anyway?”

Kol hesitated when he met her curious gaze.

“I think you’ll be offended if I tell you.”

A line appeared between her brows before an exasperated sigh slipped from her mouth.

“Don’t tell me you had a thing for Katherine too.”

“What?” He sat up quickly, wrapping his arms around her waist to keep her from tumbling off the bed. “I assure you darling, I do not now, nor have I ever possessed a ‘thing’ for Katerina Petrova. She’s too – and forgive the expression – bitchy for my taste. She was not the Petrova haunting my dreams.”

His eyes widened at the slip.

“Oh,” she breathed.

He thought the disappointment in her eyes was well placed until she opened her mouth again.

“Tatia, then.”

His eyes widened.

“Elena Gilbert,” he clicked his tongue and held tight to her waist, “I’m going to let you in on a little secret that my brothers were too blind to see.”

She frowned, but nodded for him to continue; curiosity winning out over her mortification.

“Tatia Petrova was worse that Katerina. She was a manipulative bitch who tore people apart for her own amusement; at least when Katerina does it she acts in the name of her survival.”

“Well then who…” she trailed off when he looked at her, “… oh…” her knees buckled causing her thighs to tremble and her body to drop a few inches. “Oh…”

Her body connected with his.

Kol gritted his teeth. Heat spread down from her body. Through the layers of fabric he felt the slickness of her arousal.

“You were dreaming about me? How long have you been dreaming about me?” On instinct she shifted her hips.

“Who said it was you?” He groaned.

“You didn’t say it wasn’t,” she tilted her head.

She should move, disentangle her body from him and let him go into the bathroom to take care of the very obvious problem he was having. She should move, but she wanted an answer.

“How long, Kol?”

He took a deep breath and met her eyes. The anticipation grew the longer his silence lasted until it was almost unbearable.

“The night we met,” his eyes flickered to her lips. “I saw you walk into the ball, and you stole the breath from my lungs.”

“You never said anything,” she breathed. The familiar rush of heat swirled low in her abdomen. “It’s been three years and you haven’t said a word.”

“Oh, but I did,” he murmured. “I told you that you were off limits.”

“I thought that meant Klaus said you couldn’t hurt me,” her eyes narrowed.

He shook his head and slipped his hands under her shirt to trace the base of her spine.

“He knew the moment he caught me looking at you that I’d never hurt you.”

She gasped when he found a sensitive spot in her back and arched into him. Her hips ground down.

“Bloody hell,” he hissed. “I’ve been alive for a thousand years, darling, and have excellent restraint, but if you keep that up I’m going to find myself in an embarrassing situati

“That doesn’t say much for your restraint,” she teased.

“Now who’s acting deviant,” he grasped her hips.

“I never promised to be on my best behaviour,” she accentuated the point with a roll of her hips. She wasn’t sure what had come over her. She’d had a crush on him since first seeing him on the grand staircase in the Mikaelson mansion, and now he was telling her he had felt it too.

Her gaze met his. The intensity in his eyes stoked the fire between her legs. She was powerless to resist his hypnotic stare.

His large hand slid up her spine, dragging the tight camisole to the middle of the back before coming free of the fabric and continuing the journey to her cheek. He held her face gently and searched her eyes, giving her plenty of time to pull away.

His breath fanned over her face and she wound her arms around his neck.

He hovered over her mouth for a long moment and summoned every ounce of self-control he had to wait for her to make the next move.

She bit her bottom lip and closed her eyes to silence the voice that said going through with it was a bad idea. The worst move she could ever make. Tilting her head an inch she pressed her lips to his.

The first kiss was slow, tentative, and surprisingly gentle. They explored each other’s mouths before he pulled away to give her much needed air.

Her breasts brushed over his chest with every quick breath in.

“Elena…” he met her dark eyes.

The reality of the situation passed between them. He could find himself locked away for the rest of her natural life that his brother would ensure was a living hell for her.

“I know,” she licked her lips. “There is a saying; you might have missed it in the last century.”

“Oh?”

The touch of his hand became almost unbearable in its tenderness. Her fingers slid into his hair.

“What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas,” she breathed.

Elena slipped out of his arms and reached for the hem of her camisole. She tore it over her head, taking her hair with the fabric until it fell over her shoulder in a dark waterfall.

She swallowed and met his eyes. Her teeth sank into her bottom lip. Rejection stung her, but before she could move to cover her chest or make a beeline for the bathroom to wait out her mortification he gathered her in his arms and held her to his chest.

“Are you sure?” He searched her eyes. The moment she nodded he recaptured her lips in a harsher kiss than the first one.

He flipped her over and pressed her into the mattress.

Her body tingled under the exploration of his hands. The touch of his lips on her skin was delicious.

His lips left hers to nibble at her earlobe and sear a path down her neck. He teased the rapid pulse in her throat with blunt teeth until she moaned and arched her hips.

She threaded her fingers through his hair as he moved down.

His tongue darted out, tasting the stiff nipple of her left breast. He moved to her other side as his hand seared a path down her abdomen to the band of her sweatpants. His lips followed the path of his hand.

He paused at the band of her pants.

Elena propped herself on her elbows and met his eyes. She nodded, lifting her hips.

He hooked his thumbs into the sides of her pants and underwear, sliding the fabric down her legs.

She drew her knees together to make the process easier for him.

He tossed the last of her clothes on the floor and caressed her leg, running his fingertips over the length of her calve. His eyes drank in every last inch of her body, memorizing her as he would a photograph.

“You’re overdressed,” she sat up.

“A fact easily rectified,” he stood up.

Her eyes darkened when he divested himself of his sleep pants. He gave her a moment to ogle him and then gently turned her so her legs dangled over the side of the bed.

He sank to his knees.

Her expectations were low. Caroline raged about the pleasure a guy could bring with his tongue, but she had yet to experience it herself.

He teased her thighs with slow kisses and blunt teeth until a hot flush crept over her skin. The smell of her arousal spread through him. Meeting her eyes he stuck out his tongue and licked a long stripe through her glistening folds. The taste proved more addicting than he had anticipated.

Elena tried to keep her eyes open to watch him, but her low expectations were quickly surpassed. He broke up the long licks of his tongue with quick flicks against her clit. The lashes tightened a spring in her belly.

He added a finger, slowly entering her tight body.

Her eyes fluttered closed.

He crooked his fingers and took her clit in his mouth, sucking hard.

The coil snapped. A soft cry tore from her swollen lips.

Her walls fluttered around his finger.

As she came down he guided her back with gentle hands and moved to hover over her. He slipped two fingers into her and pumped slowly, bending to catch her lips in a passionate kiss.

She moaned at the taste of herself on his tongue and dragged her nails down his abdomen until her fingers curled around his hard length.

It was difficult to concentrate with his hand between her legs and his tongue in her mouth, but she managed to find a rhythm that pleased him and dragged rumbling moans from him; she lost it when he pushed her through a second orgasm.

Her fingers slid upwards, around the smooth expanse of his waist; muscles quivered under her hands exploration of the strong muscles in his back.

A strong thigh hooked over Kol’s waist; he flipped over on his back.

Elena dragged her lips over his jaw and down his throat, quickly locating a spot that drew a ragged moan from him. She rolled her hips in time with the sharp thrust of his hips.

Her teeth nipped at his carotid artery. She licked and kissed across his shoulders, memorizing the taste and feel of his body.

His hands slid over the silken skin of her back to her hips and around her thighs.

One hand left Elena’s body and she sat up as his cock trailed through her wet folds. She planted her palms over his abdomen and sank down, gasping as he entered her.

His hands roamed over her skin, cupping her breasts; the nipples hardened under his palms. He smirked when she took his hands and pinned them to the mattress over his head.

She moved; slow at first, and picking up speed to match the upward thrusts of Kol. Her fingers slid over his wrists and slotted between his.

When the pace stuttered he flipped her at vampire speed and let go of one of her hands to hook her leg over his waist. Elena arched upwards as he moved, but keeping up with him proved impossible as the snap of his hips became too fast to be considered human.

He felt her muscles tense and slipped one hand between their bodies to rub her clit. Her pulse hammered in her neck. The veins under his eyes darkened. He gritted his teeth, burying his face in her neck to hide his features but he couldn’t resist running his teeth over the fluttering artery.

Elena tilted her head and grasped the back of his neck. Her voice came out in a breathy moan, but the meaning was clear.

He shook his head. He wanted to sink his teeth into her throat, but his heart stuttered at the thought of potentially hurting her, so he kissed her instead.

Elena ran her hands down his back and felt the muscles in his back tighten and strain right before her vision went white. When she came back down Kol was still and she tasted copper on her lip.

The flush stained her body from head to toe. With great reluctance she unhooked her legs from his waist. Her body followed his.

She laid her head on his chest. Her fingers traced the length of a faint scar over his chest. She paused when he pressed his thumb to her bottom lip.

She eyed the red bead of blood on his skin, but opened her mouth. Nobody could see the puncture over her lip.

A thin sheen of sweat clung to her skin.

Safety that wouldn’t last encircled her with his arms, but their tiny bubble broke; shattered by the sudden buzz of her cell phone.

++++

@elejah-wonderland @elejahforever @eternityunicorn @morsmornte @fandomrulesall @xanderling @cry-btch @kol-and-elena-fanfiction

[unboundpen]

Pandemonium [2/3]

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Fandom: Batman

Characters: Jason Todd, Damian Wayne, batfam appearances

Pairing: JayDami

Rated: T

Warnings: Damian is aged up, should be in college.

Summary:

In which Damian is way too oblivious and Jason suffers. 

Read on AO3

A/N: So I haven’t picked up a DC comic since Damian died in Nu52 timeline. So everyone in the batfam follows pre-Nu52 here.

Tonight there was something off about the kid. They'd hit a dead end with their case yet again, but Robin was more annoyed to have that happen. Usually, he would be fine with calling it a night or go off to patrol on his own if it was early. Red Hood would often join him if the kid decided to stick around his part of the city. Even now, as Jason surveys the scene before him, it isn't very hard to see that the kid was using more force than necessary. More than necessary for Batman, not enough for Red Hood. But hey, he was trying to work within the limitations he was given. If Robin wants to break more bones than needed, then that was his prerogative.

However, with hours of fighting bad guys, Jason can tell Robin was going to run himself ragged. It was nearly two in the morning, and Red Hood had only jumped in to help once. Robin's stamina was impressive and his fighting was always exhilarating to watch, but even now, when the last baddie drops to the ground, Jason can tell that the kid was going to get hurt if he continued like this.

Any protests Robin gives him are ignored and only cease once they're in one of Batman's safe houses, one with a communal shower, and clothes and within walking distance of Jason's favorite diner in the city.

"I don't see any reason why we have to go out for food, Todd," Damian glowers across the booth at Jason

After the two of them had showered and changed, Jason had dragged the kid back out into the night for some grub.

"Can it, Babybat. I'm willing to bet if I had sent you on your way back to the manor, you'd be a lot worse than you are now."

Damian shakes his head, now glaring at his menu that was laying flat on his table. “I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself."

Jason sighs before taking a long, noisy sip of his milkshake. Damian takes the straw covering Jason had removed, and fiddles with it, eventually rolling it into a ball.

"Must you?" The kid growls.

The older man savors the taste of his milkshake, smacking his lips, "Must I what? Drink my shake like how I'm supposed to?"

Before the Damian could make a comeback, a shadow casts over them. “Decided on what you want to order, sonny?”

“Onion rings and French toast with extra powdered sugar. I also request an empty ketchup container with my food, thank you.” Damian’s tone is cold while he hands the menu to their server and then slouches against the window with his arms crossed, looking pensive as he looks out into the city night.

“Don’t mind him, Merv,” Jason says to the big guy, “Kid’s in a mood.”

The other guy chuckles, “No worries at all. I get all walks of life at this time. Believe it or not, your friend there is part of the better half.”

Jason raises his glass to him, “Well, you’re always good company.”

“You have to say that for the milkshakes.”

“Best in the city, Merv, best in the city. Better yet add two more shakes to the order."

Jason smiles brilliantly while their server walks away to get started on their order. His eyes slide back to his companion him study him. “Wanna know how I came across this place?”

“Not particularly.”

“It was sometime in the fall of the year I turned sixteen,” Jason continues, completely ignoring Damian’s snide answer, “after having one too many arguments with B, figured I needed more time to cool off.”

“Let me guess, you walked past and decided to come in for food?”

Jason taps his glass patiently, “Nope, now don’t interrupt story time. Anyways, I was getting into fights just like you were doing tonight, just not as Robin -all in civvies. Got into a nasty fight with one baddie in particular and we just so happened to be trading blows right outside of this place. Guy got ahold of me and actually threw me through the same window behind me.” His right-hand goes up to point a thumb at the booth behind him.

Damian’s eyes flicker past Jason’s shoulder with intrigue then looks back at him, sitting up straight.

“My arms were pretty cut up, this one especially,” Jason flexed the fingers of the same hand that he had used to point, “So I couldn’t get a good hit on the other guy, who was pretty much pummeling my face at that point. Hurt like a bitch, but I didn’t pass out. Merv was actually the one that pulled him off of me and turned him into the police. He was gonna hand me over too but saw that I was just a kid. So he sat me down at the counter, handed me a shake and patched my arms up. Turns out he worked medical during the Korean War.”

Damian, at that point, was giving Jason a skeptical look, “What about the window?”

“I got B to pay for it and hire some quick workers to replace it. Technically, he was the one responsible. Wouldn’t have broken that window if he wasn’t on my case about everything that night. I’d come in from time to time, help out Merv if the place was swamped with customers or help clean tables and sweep the floor, but eventually, it was the milkshakes that got me coming back.”

Merv comes back with their orders, setting Damian’s steaming plate of French toast before him and the onion rings next to it. The shakes come clinking in after, this time in front of Jason. “Enjoy,” he states before moving to a booth that had called him over.

Jason takes a meaningful sip as he watches Damian primly cut his French toast in strips with a fork and knife then reaches over to take the syrup container and pour its contents into the empty ketchup container he asked for. Jason’s eyebrows raise up when Damian takes a strip and starts dunking it.

Hmm.

Elbow on the table and chin in hand, Damian takes a bite.

“So, Bruce issues?”

The kid looks up at Jason with a blank expression as he chews.

“Look, as an experienced veteran of navigating through the complicated waters of your dad’s disapproval, it’s not that hard to figure out that he’s the source of all of your…this.” He gestures to all of Damian.

“That was quite...poetic of you, Todd, but if it’s all the same to you, I would prefer not to talk about it right this second.”

Jason holds up both hands in surrender with a bitter smile, “Hey I get it. I’m not Dick. Sometimes talking makes it worse if you’re not up for it. I’m just here to keep you company and for when you are ready to talk about it. In the meantime,” Jason slides one of the milkshakes across, “unwind and enjoy the food."

And for the rest of the night, they eat in comfortable silence. This was nice. Jason wouldn’t mind getting used to doing something like this on a more frequent basis. For the most part, living on his own left him craving companionship. It’s also why he had Kori and Roy as teammates. They were two of the most affectionate people he knew, aside from Dick.

From there his thoughts wander, how would they feel about him potentially being with Damian? Better yet how would they interact with the demon spawn overall. Now that would be a very interesting thing to witness.

xXx

It's been about two months, closing in on three, of them working together on this case and Jesus Lord Almighty, Jason was frustrated in every conceivable way. Yes, there is the never-ending sexual frustration -which he doesn't even want to delve into right now, lest he gives himself continual blue balls...again- but he's aware that this thing he had for Damian was going further than just sexual attraction. It's so bad that he's so close to swan diving off of one of the bridges in the city.

But no, that would be the easy way out, and while he was lazy for the most part, this wasn't something he was trying to half-ass. Especially with how fucking clueless Damian was with everything he's been doing. If Jason did anything subtle, it went over the kid's head.

Jason has to resort to his biggest move. Yeah, it’s gotten that bad. So here he was, on a slow day, and arms full of groceries, walking up the steps of the manor, per Alfred's request. He would reach down to get his own set of keys, but why struggle when the doorbell was a lot more accessible.

Jason didn't have to wait long for the door to open, and who was at the door but none other than the owner of the manor.

"Jason?"

The look of surprise on Bruce's face was something the younger man appreciated. There were a few things that could take Bruce Wayne by surprise, and even less for Batman.

"Uh yeah, just here to..." Jason fumbles over the next few words in his head.

To get your son to like me by cooking him his favorite foods so that hopefully I can get in his pants?

"Get a few recipes off of Alfred," he finishes slowly.

Bruce's face relaxes back into neutral and holds the door a bit wider so Jason can enter. Half of the bags are taken from his arms as Bruce shuts the door, and they make their way to the kitchen.

Bruce hums in reply, "How's the case going? Damian hasn't said much on it."

"Because there isn't much to say to be honest. We're looking into any leads we come across along with stakeouts on their warehouse." Which was true, yeah they have the location for drug storage, but they weren't searching for the drugs. It was the child trafficking Jason was trying to put a stop to. Old habits of some of the criminals on his side had resurfaced while Jason was away. Five months of operation may not seem like much, but that's still one too many kids out there.

Bruce nods as they enter the kitchen and places the food on the island, which Jason copies. Then they just kinda stand there, the air turning awkward. Jason's skin starts to crawl from the way Bruce is not so secretly studying him. While their relationship may have gotten better, this stagnant air between them would always be the norm when they weren't talking about something related to crime fighting.

"Hey, I'll be making enough for everyone in the manor, probably even more than that. So you can let the others know if you want." There, now he can claim that he tried.

Jason would be lying if he said he wasn't blinded by Bruce's sudden smile. And just like that, Jason was brought back to the more happier times of his teenhood. Jason wasn’t an exception to the need for approval from Bruce Wayne. There was a reason why once you’re a part of the batfam, no one can never really leave. You become hooked and once you're flying high on it, he can take it all away for weeks, even months. However, another result is actually leaving for a time. Dick, Jason (obviously), Tim, Cass, and Steph, even Babs. They had all left at some point, but even from those breaks, the wash of Bruce’s approval was imprinted. Jason had fought that instinct for so hard and so long that all his relationships would never go back to what they were. Eventually, everyone comes back to try and coexist with it.

It was only a matter of time before Damian had to pass through the final leg of this long endured initiation into the batfam. But to Jason, he hopes that the kid can maintain this somewhat decent relationship with his father.

“The last time everyone was here for a family dinner was Thanksgiving three years ago.”  

Jason’s eyebrows raise, “Everyone?”

Bruce nods confidently, “Barbara is visiting, Stephanie is back for spring break, and Cassandra -as I’m sure you’re aware- has moved back almost half a year ago.”

“Oh wow, full house tonight.”

The older man looks wistful. Jason watches Bruce get that far off look, where he can only imagine how Bruce’s ideal family dinner unfolds. Thankfully, Alfred chooses that exact time to push through the kitchen’s swinging door.

“Well then,” Bruce clears his throat, broken out of his reverie, “I guess I better tell everyone else to stay for dinner.”

“Splendid idea, sir,” Alfred responds smoothly then turns to Jason as soon as Bruce leaves the room. “I’ve taken the liberty of pulling out the recipes we shall be using tonight. Although, I do have to say this may be a bit…much.”

Alfred pulls out a stack of index cards from his coat pocket with an amused look. Jason whistles, “The kid likes to eat.”

Alfred places the stack on the island, “To be fair, Master Jason, you did say all the food he likes. That is a very broad guideline to go by.”

The younger man grins and starts to take everything out of their bags. “Would it help if I said his favorites then?”

Alfred taps the pile thoughtfully, “That does cut this down considerably…."

Jason stops moving and steals a glance at Alfred who was studying him. He was somewhat prepared for the questioning that may have come with the request, he just wasn’t prepared for it this early. He was hoping that he would be busy prepping at least.

“Is there a particular reason why we are only cooking food palatable to Master Damian?”

“Not really.” Yes, yes he is very aware just how higher pitched that sounded.

Alfred lifts an amused eyebrow at Jason, but the younger man does not budge. A moment of silence later and the butler concedes with a sigh, “Very well then, Master Jason. Shall we get started?”

xXx

Jason had to say that this dish was the most unique thing he’s ever attempted. This was apparently Damian’s favorite by far, and the whole recipe was copied down word for word straight from the kid’s mouth. And according to Alfred, that was from the first night Damian started living with them. Oxblood was something he never would have expected to cook in his lifetime. However, the smell was pretty appetizing.

That was one conversation he attempted with Damian on one of their nights together. Considering that the kid had gone vegetarian, was he going so far as to go vegan? The answer had been that the kid was not opposed to eating meat if they were killed humanely and all body parts were used, but considering that this was a hard thing to keep track for each and every animal, vegetarian was the easier option for now.

When I was younger, mother had a specialty soup made with oxblood.  Thankfully, Pennyworth has a source where the animals are not killed for it.

So like donating blood to eat, interesting. What about lab-grown meat?

-Tt- I've tried the impossible burger. If they make lab-grown meat without it tasting like liver, then I will consider it an option.

He gives the stew one final stir and then covers it to let it simmer. He sidesteps to the setup beside the stove and picks up where he left off. Alfred had left him to deal with the manor’s laundry. Considering that the manor was almost at full capacity, it would be a while before the butler came back. But before Jason could get lost in the motions of making dolmas, there was some commotion outside one of the two doors to the kitchen.

“Alfred is definitely cooking up a feast. I wonder why-”

The door swings open and in walk Dick, Tim, and Cassandra, with Dick and Tim freezing at the sight of Jason standing there surrounded by steam, hands full of lab-grown meat filling, and covered in an almost frilly apron. For a moment, he freezes too. Of course, Bruce had said everyone was here, but another thing he did not mentally prepare for was actually interacting with his siblings until dinner.

“Not Alfred,” the second eldest in the room states and sidles up comfortably next to Jason. That wasn’t much to go by since they were about the same age anyway. She uncovers the oxblood soup and basks in the smell before she takes up stirring.

Tim is the first of the other two men to unfreeze, inspecting Jason’s handwork while walking up to the island.

“Soooo,” Tim drags that word on for a bit, “what’s the occasion?”

Jason, without missing a beat, places his finished dolma onto the forming stack located slightly to the left. “You don’t gotta worry your head about that.”

He hopes that he looks at least collected on the outside, but his nervousness rises as he watches Tim look around, studying all the food that Jason had made or was preparing. It wouldn’t be long before he figured out what Jason was doing, and he curses the kid for it.

Dick, the last to recover, follows Tim and sits at one of the bar stools opposite of Jason and Cassandra.

“It’s sort of a big deal when it’s you that’s cooking, Jay,” Dick says, reaching over to pluck one of the piping hot potstickers out from the steam basket.

“Hah!… Hah,” Dick breathes through his mouth while he fans at his face.

Tim nods in agreement, ignoring Dick’s sounds of pain. “This all seems to be Dami-”

Jason coughs loudly, catching Cassandra’s small smile of amusement. She’d probably already deduced it too.

“Maybe I just got tired of the taste of beer and ramen every night,” he spouts, then directs his gaze to the woman standing next to him who had taken a spoon to taste the soup, “Cass had the right idea, you guys could make yourselves useful and help me out with these. Ah, except you Dickie-bird, you’re fine right there. Just don’t eat everything.”

Tim shrugs, not objecting before he washes his hands and takes one of the wooden cutting boards from a shelf. The smaller man situates himself on the other side of Jason, who had rearranged the station so the growing pile of dolmas, the grape leaves, and the filling were between them.

“And why can’t I help?” Dick whines, once he manages to swallow a bit of the food in his mouth.

“Because you burn what you cook.” Jason doesn’t hold back the laugh that comes tumbling out of his mouth. Cassandra’s childlike bluntness always took him by surprise while Dick’s pout was just the additional cherry on top. The eldest takes another and suffers through the burning sensation, much to everyone's amusement.

"You remember that Damian is vegetarian right?" He says once he's able to talk again.

"It's made in a lab."

"No kidding?" Dick holds it up into the light like it was a diamond to inspect it, "It tastes like it's real pork. He's okay with that?"

Jason shrugs, "I mean technically, it still is pork. As long as it doesn't taste like liver, he should be cool with it."

And then Jason shows Tim how to prepare one before they fall into an easy silence. He had made about five different dishes for tonight, with this batch being the last of it. The thing was he had already steamed a lot that the leftover ingredients were for him to take home and prepare for himself and a few for Alfred to make at a later date.

After about half an hour of Dick eating half a dozen potstickers, Cass sampling the other dishes, and Tim obsessively making sure that the grape leaves were secure (Jason has to admit that the atmosphere was actually really pleasant), he sees a flash of light across the room followed by the distinct sound of a shutter flash.

Whispers and giggling coming from the other side of the door before the culprits burst through. Barbara wheels herself in followed by a grinning Stephanie Brown, her wrist flicking in the air as she fans the polaroid she just took.

Jason rolls his eyes. “Just need the two actual Waynes in here and then it’ll be a true reunion.”

“It’s a sight to see when Jason is the one that’s cooking. What would be even better is if Dick actually manages to make something without ruining it that isn't cereal,” Barbara teases.

“Ouch, Babs.” Dick gives her a weak smile.

“Well,” Stephanie singsongs, coming around to be beside Cassandra to hip bump the other woman, “she ain’t wrong there, Dick.”

Dick grabs one of the cooled potstickers he had plucked out and handed it over to Barbara, which she takes thankfully. “Alright, that’s three against three.”

“Actually,” Tim cuts in, “make that four.”

Jason nods, “Five.”

“Aw, screw all of you,” Dick shoots back without malice.

Stephanie frowns at the pot in front of Cassandra. “Uh, Jay, you do know that Damian and Cass are the only ones that really eat this, right?”

“No worries, there’s plenty of other food.”

“Yeah about that,” Tim starts.

“-all of this stuff is what Dami likes to eat,” Stephanie interjects.

Jason goes still, avoiding eye-contact with all of his bat-siblings, then rolls his eyes upward and counts the tiny speckles on the ceiling tiles. The underlings of the Greatest Detective in the world...of course, one of them was bound to say it out loud. His skin really starts to itch from everyone's eyes on him. Once he finally gathers the nerve to look around, the range of expectant faces overwhelms him and he feels his face start to heat up. Gone were the familiar conflicting emotions on some of their faces, which made his chest tight from giddiness?

Welp, that was new.

“You guys could set the table,” he grits out.

None of them move, much less say anything. And fuck, Jason knows he can’t avoid not talking.

“This is to say thanks for helping out with the case we’ve been working on.” Even now it sounds really weak to his ears.

Babs crosses her arms under her chest and gives him a pointed look over her glasses, “There’s gotta be more than that, or else you’d have been cooking our favorite meals for ALL of us for a while now.”

“Yeah, last I checked, I didn’t get a homemade meal courtesy of the Red Hood-” Stephanie gasps and clasps her hands to her mouth, eyes comically going wide at Jason. The raven-haired beauty between her and Jason gives an imperceptible nod, while Tim’s grin grows sharp within Jason’s peripheral.

Jason swears and wipes his hands on his apron roughly. He turns around to get the pot he used earlier and turns back with a not so subtle bang on the counter to Dick and Barbara leaning in a lot closer than before, unflinching at the sound.

“Why can’t you guys mind your own damned business?” He puts the prepped dolmas into the pot none too gently.

Dick has his head in his hands, staring intently at Jason. “The only time I’ve ever seen you cook food was for that one girl that came over for dinner when you were a sophomore in high school.”

Babs glances over at Dick with curiosity while Tim finishes his last roll and pops it in next to the one that Jason put, deftly avoiding Jason's jerky movements.

“If I remember correctly, you had this huge crush on her and wanted to impress her with your cooking,” Dick furrows his brows in thought, “but that wouldn’t be right. You don’t like Damian, and you certainly don’t have a…crush…on Damian.”

Dick pauses, then lifts his head off of his hands, locking eyes with Jason, and then straightens in such a way that you'd know he'd been around speedsters for a certain amount of time. “Unless you do have a crush on Damian.”

Jason tries to keep his face neutral, but his silence was answer enough for the rest of them. The air gets thick before all chaos breaks loose. The barrage of voices came from all sides of the room.

“Oh My God, you like Damian?!” “How long have you liked him?” “It was pretty obvious.” “Called it.”

Jason places a plate on top of the food in the pot before he fills it with water. “I do not confirm nor deny having a crush -of all things- on the demon spawn.”

Stephanie pushes away from the island and points at Jason in accusation with the corner of the Polaroid, the picture half-formed, “Oh you so do.”

“There’s no hiding it, Jason.” If Tim’s grin got anymore sharper, Jason could probably use it to chop more vegetables. Jason chuckles at the thought of banging Tim's head on the counter repeatedly but stops when he sees that Dick has not budged at all.

“You,” Dick emphasizes by holding his hands out towards Jason, then he moves them to the side, lost in thought, “and Damian.”

Barbara adjusts her glasses and gives Jason a rueful smile, “Odd pairing, but it makes sense.”

“Right? Your immediate reaction would be like ‘Woah!’ but then if you think about it, they would be good for each other.” Stephanie says with animated hands.

“Fuck. Me.” Jason mutters under his breath.

“Nah, Damian could do that,” Tim counters.

“Or Jason to Damian,” Cassandra adds.

This time Jason snatches a clean towel from the counter and hides his face in it, knowing that it was way beyond the suitable normal color of pale. He hears the loud, ringing smack of a high five behind him, followed by loud giggling from the two.

"I swear, I will shoot each and every one of you in the foot.” Was his towel lessening the threat? Yeah, but it was a better option than looking at any of them at the moment. Then hears a snort from Barbara.

Ah crap,

Poor choice of words, but she was always a good sport when it came to her injury. If there was one thing she was fond of with Jason, it was his anger towards the one that caused them the most hurt. He-who-must-not-be-named, if you will. Yeah, he took that from Harry Potter. Voldemort wasn't the only unspeakable name.

“Is there a reason to be this loud?”

The only person -or well, one of the two people who would have made the situation much worse had stepped in.

“Nothing, no reason at all,” Barbara responds way too quickly for Jason's liking, “Cass, Steph, why don’t you guys help me set the table. Better yet, you two too.”

“Todd?”

Jason sighs and lowers his arms to the sight of the other batsiblings filing out with plates and cutlery, which had been set there by Alfred. They were all abnormally silent but each one of them with shit-eating grins. His gaze slides to Damian whose head was tilted in a questioning manner as his eyes sweep over the scene before him.

“Uh, hey, Damian.”

“What’s all this?”

Jason replaces the pot of oxblood with the pot full of dolmas. “I was getting tired of the taste of my usual recipes,” Jason does a one-shoulder shrug, ignoring the heat of his probably red face, “I figured that since I was here, I may as well cook for everyone.”

The kid’s face was really unreadable.

“With Alfred’s help…of course,” he adds.

Jason’s breath hitches when Damian comes around to his side, peering at what was on the stove. The kid was close enough that Jason could smell what hair product and body soap he had used. It wafts and mixes with the other scents in the kitchen.

While most cologne would counter the scents of the kitchen, the smell of lemongrass is fitting with the smells of the Asian dishes that Jason had cooked up. Jason starts to drown from the kid's presence, his smell, the water droplets that dripped from his hair and trickled down his neck. He gets lost at the thought of following those water trails with his tongue but snaps back to Earth when he hears Damian's voice.

“I doubt you would have much of a taste for seonjiguk.”

“While I do go for the more traditional chili dogs and pizza, I’m not opposed to trying new food.”

Damian hums absently, then reaches down to take the spoon that Cassandra had used to sample the soup with and dips it into the pot to taste. He would have warned the kid about the used spoon, but one, he was still nervous with the kid's close proximity, and two, all of them have shared food with one another that sharing germs wasn't much of a concern anyway. However, he was envious that Cassandra had just shared an indirect kiss with Damian.

Jason balks at the ridiculousness of that thought. Indirect kiss? What was he ten?

"This," the kid starts thoughtfully with a fond smile, "tastes the closest to my mother's."

"I uh-," Jason clears his throat, "made sure to go to Alfred's place so it's ethically to your standards. All the other dishes that have meat in them actually contain lab-grown meat. So those are also ethically safe."

Damian reaches across to get one of the leftover potstickers that Dick left out to cool. Unlike the eldest Robin, he takes a bite into it rather than stuffing the whole thing in his mouth, and Jason almost groans at the sight of the younger man’s lips wrapping around the appetizer. There was a light glistening on Damian’s upper lip from the grease of the filling, and Jason goes cross-eyed when he sees Damian’s tongue follow the trail. It seems his eyes have been doing that every time the kid was around.

Damian takes no notice in Jason's discomfort as he savors the taste with his eyes closed. With each methodical chew, the kid’s face softens.

“Decent.”

“Thanks,” Jason gulps. Two compliments in a row. Jason feels his pride wash over him and his pants go tight until he hunches over in hopes that his pants aren’t tenting that much. God, is the addictive nature of Bruce Wayne’s approval genetic? It had already been a confusing time for Jason and his hormones when he was Robin, but getting turned on from praising words from Damian Wayne?

“Why don’t you help me take the food out to the table?” He suggests, ignoring how gruff his voice sounds.

Damian’s eyes open and it feels like the kid already knows what’s going on, and Jason’s breath catches in his throat.

“You made rice, yes?”

Jason deflates and then snorts, “After the rant that you and Cassandra gave. How could I not remember to?”

Damian nods with no joke. “Good.” Then he takes one of the plates and heads out of the kitchen. Jason sighs and shakes his head then takes deep breaths, trying to calm his beating heart. He knew it was pathetic, but there wasn’t much else to do other than bulldoze forward. And he thought he did pretty well with bulldozing since the kid should have definitely caught wind of Jason’s interest. It was pretty obvious.

He walks around and picks up the sweet and sour eggplant dish.

Maybe he'll see after this family dinner.

xXx

How?! How the fucking how? Three fucking days and not one word, not one inclination that Damian was aware. Hell if he did something obvious, the kid would still not notice. At this rate, he would probably have to kiss the kid to get his feelings across.

The dinner had been torturous, the constant teasing from everyone while Bruce and Damian were oblivious as to why. Well, maybe even then Bruce caught on, but Jason didn’t want to even think about that possibility. The focus was on Damian and this case of course. He can face daddy’s wrath once he gets the kid. And even then that was a very small chance.

But now that all of them knew, they went out of their ways to bring it up as much as possible. Even earlier this evening, he had received several texts within the batkids family chat, with all but Damian in there.

“Hey,” he starts, still laying on his back on the rooftop ledge, even now he knows that his phone is getting messages from the chat. Hell, there probably was a comm-link opened with them plotting several different ways to take him down with embarrassment via his attraction for Damian.

“You ever just think about not being in the gig anymore?”

Robin lowers his binoculars and places the mask in his direction.

“Not at all.”

Jason sits up slowly and pops his back before picking up his cigarette again. "That's gotta be a lie.”

Robin’s lip purse in the thought, then softly, “I was created for this. It is all I’ve known.”

Jason notices the kid's choice of words. Created...not born...

“Come on, Babybat. You have to have some frustrations with being Robin.”

Damian’s cheeks twinge with movement before he turns back to face the warehouse.

“Frustrations, yes, but none that I cannot deal with on my own. They have been new…relatively speaking.”

New frustrations for the kid?

Jason takes in Robin’s frame and notes all the tiny clues: stuttering breathing, rapidly beating pulse and avoiding eye contact. The kid was embarrassed.

Oh.

OH.

Jason swallows with difficulty. “Everyone gets that at one point or another on patrol. Best is to just find release before you start swinging again.”

“I do,” the kid admits quietly.

Oh okay, so he could not breathe properly. Jason can only hear the blood rushing through his veins. And it’s a while before Jason can even utter another word. Maybe now would be the best time? Maybe not? God, would it be creepy if he did?

Fuck it.

“So, I’m just gonna go ahead and say it,” Jason curses under his breath before continuing, and what comes out is just babbling words. “I’ve been doing this for a few weeks now, and it’s like you’re not noticing what exactly I’m doing. It’s obvious, so obvious that everyone else knows. I mean I cooked a dinner of your favorite foods. How is that not hint enough for you? But for Superman’s cape, which mating dance do I have to do for you to realize that I like you?!”

He’ll admit, he does sound hysterical near towards the end there. His chest heaves with the exertion of finally telling the brat outright.

Robin directs his gaze back at Jason. “-Tt- Of course, you like me.”

His mouth drops open, speechless. Wow, that was said so simply. As if it was the most obvious thing. He had to hold back a laugh, a laugh he would have no control over. Oh, it was over! Now was just to wait for the kid’s acceptance or rejection, and if Jason were at all honest with himself, he'd take either option. They were a lot better than Jason continuously up in feelings limbo.

Robin’s lips stretch into a fond, close-lipped smile. “We are partners after all.”

The shock is instant. Jason isn’t sure how the kid could be this clueless. Then the too familiar act of free falling towards the dirty street flows around him. Jason's instincts kick in, with his hands reaching for his grappling gun before shooting it in a random direction. His body flips once more and then jerks with the sudden change of momentum. The gun reels him in, only for Jason to realize that the warehouse was coming in way too quickly, and he struggles to get his other grappling gun to shoot.

BANG

Thank god for the fucking helmet, is his first thought, but then it’s quickly overpowered by a sharp pain in his left shin. While there was a bang from his helmet connecting with the long windows of the warehouse, he vaguely recalls that it was one of his legs connecting with the ledge first. There’s no way he can move right now, however, he feels his arm lifting then a smaller body presses up against his side. Jason feels an arm wrap around his torso before they’re moving upwards.

His eyes closed and all he can just focus on is breathing through the blooming pain. It may also be the growing paranoia, but he thinks his leg is swinging in a place that should not be swinging. Just from that, it takes all his might not to throw up in his helmet.

It was always a bitch to clean whenever that happens.

Pretty soon they land, none too gently, a good 50 rooftops away from their location. The kid was fast on the line.

Jason throws off his helmet and falls onto his palms, leaving no weight on his injured leg, before he starts throwing up. While his pain tolerance was fairly high, unexpectedly (potentially) breaking his bones can get him to upheave his dinner.

Through his retching, Jason hears Robin tsk in disgust beside him. “I did not take you for an easy fainter, 'Hood.”

Jason spits away the bitter taste left in his mouth when his body stops, then wipes away any bile from his lips before he scowls up at Robin. “I didn't faint,” he grits out, maneuvering himself until he’s sitting and blinks away the involuntary tears that come from throwing up.

Robin’s expression screws up in concern, then he crouches down, reaching out for the older man’s leg.

“Don’t touch,” Jason snaps.

The kid frowns, dropping his hand, but keeps crouched next to Jason. “Don’t be even more of an idiot, Red Hood, it may be broken.”

“Oh,” Jason chuckles darkly, “more of an idiot?”

“Yes,” Robin stresses, “your carelessness alerted them of our presence.”

The older vigilante sucks in a breath. Then struggles to his feet, favoring one leg over the other. He notices that Robin stands up with him, but doesn’t try to reach out to help him again. Instead, the kid opts for crossing his arms over his chest.

“I’m heading home.”

Robin nods once, “I suppose it would be best to call it a night. Do…Do you need assistance returning home?”

“No, the idiot can manage just fine, thanks.” Jason knows his sarcasm is scathing right now, but he couldn’t care less, even when the kid straight up scowls at him.

“Fine,” Robin responds icily. Then doesn’t wait for Jason to be the first one to leave.

Once Jason is sure that he’s gone, he spends a good minute cursing loudly up at the sky. Of all the outcomes that could have happened, it was just his luck that it would be something like this.

xXx

He could say he is ashamed of how he’s been. After that disastrous confession that made him feel like he was in middle school again and almost breaking his leg, which would have left him out of commission for a good two months -thank god that wasn’t the case, just a very ugly bruise that took up half of his leg- he had not seen the kid since. His phone had been blowing up within the chat group, but instead of light teasing, there were concerned messages all around. After that night, Jason’s mood wasn’t the only one that had turned sour. Sure it may be a petty thing, but it did lighten Jason’s mood knowing that the kid was bothered too.

But after some coaxing from Roy and Kori, Jason had finally mustered up the will to get changed and went to where the kid had texted to meet him. Since this was in a place with a lot of foot traffic, it would have brought them more attention if Jason went out as Red Hood. The kid was probably out undercover too.

Jason rolls his shoulders under the jacket he had chosen for tonight. He muses that this was a jacket he had gotten before his trip to space. Oh well, it’s not like he’s strapped for cash anyway. He makes a mental note to go to proper clothes shopping.

Just then he feels the full force of someone trying to barrel him over. His hands reach up to steady the person and himself. Damian’s scent is what he registers first before he looks down at Damian’s annoyed glare.

Before Damian could say anything, sounds of heavy running came from around the corner. The kid pulls both of them into an alley next to them. It was a bit too forceful of a pull since Damian’s head hits the brick wall hard enough to make his teeth chatter.

The sounds of footsteps get louder.

Damian’s eyes flitter over Jason’s shoulder then zing right back, wide with panic. “Kiss me.”

“What?” Jason blurts out, which gets Damian to roll his eyes before he grips Jason’s shoulders with both hands and pulls him in until Jason feels the surprising softness of Damian’s lips.

Oh fuck. Oh fuck. Oh fuck.

The kiss wasn’t even a kiss by Jason’s standards, it was purely the basic definition of the act. Lips touching lips. And once Jason realized that his eyes shut close from the pure bliss he was enjoying. It was scary that all the worry and bad juju feelings he had for the past week all seems to evaporate. Nonetheless, he lets himself get lost and unconsciously initiates more of the kiss.

The older man hunches over Damian, unconsciously putting all of his weight against the kid, who doesn’t protest at all. This was all too much and happening too fast for Jason’s mind to keep up. The scent of lemongrass and herbs ropes around Jason, binding him that closer to Damian. With every breath he takes through his nose, he gets even more lost. The flat hand above Damian’s head adjusts so Jason’s weight was on his forearm instead, allowing him to completely cover Damian’s body with his own.

Once he’s situated better, Jason angles his head then slowly deepens the kiss. He almost stops when Damian moves underneath him, feeling lithe hands grab fistfuls of his shirt. The anticipation, the expectation of being pushed away, it levels Jason from the weightlessness that is quickly spreading throughout his body. But it never comes. Instead, the kid tentatively kisses back.

Jason knows he’s shaking from the adrenaline. Not like he cares at the moment though. Especially when he can reach up to cup the kid’s neck and jaw. Damian goes rigid for a second, most likely the fighting instincts preparing to attack back, but Jason caresses the kid’s cheek with his thumb.

God, it’s so fucking smooth. If given the chance, Jason could probably keep stroking that spot for hours.

Damian’s hands flatten to palms on Jason’s chest, then slide around Jason’s torso to pull Jason in until they are flush against each other.

Welp, there’s no hiding the erection now.

The kiss is suddenly broken, with Jason following after the kid’s lips for a split second. He inwardly groans. Not opening his eyes at all, he rests his forehead on the hand against the wall. Damian’s ear is right next to mouth, so he’s aware the kid can hear his ragged breathing.

“I believe they are gone now. They saw me around the entrance, hence why I needed you to kiss me.”

Jason takes pleasure in the fact that Damian’s voice was husky.

Wahid

Talatha

“Todd?”

“Give me a moment, Babybat,” Jason whispers hoarsely, but his mind blanks when the kid shivers against him. So he starts again, out-loud this time.

“Wahid…talatha…khamsa…saba,” the older man trails off, wracking his currently putty-like brain for the next number.

“Ahad ashr.”

Jason startles out of his thoughts, then backs off a little to look at the kid. He was a sight that Jason appreciates: pupils dilated, eyelashes long and curling to frame the baby blues with one eye slightly closed from Jason’s thumb still stroking his cheekbone, face darker from the flush of his skin, and his lips full and plump. However delectable Damian looks in this exact moment, his face is neutral.

“You’re counting in prime numbers?” Jason nods. "Eleven is ahad ashr.”

“Oh, shukran.” May as well thank the kid in his language anyway.

Jason doesn’t want to pull away, especially not when Damian gives him a smile that makes his eyes crinkle at the corners. To his credit, Damian doesn’t seem to be making a move to push Jason away either, just that his arms drop from the older man’s body.

“Do…do we have to go after them?” His hand drops away to hang awkwardly at his side.

“No.”

It’s at that instant that the floaty, post-kiss air dissipates and Jason can see the kid remembering the last time they were together. He sighs but doesn’t take a step back just yet.

“Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t faint. I also didn’t mean to be an ass-“

Damian snorts and Jason glowers back at him, “I’m trying to fucking apologize here. Not like it was entirely my fault.”

The kid looks aghast. “I understand I was…difficult when I first came here but-“

“No. No. Nono. That’s not…” Jason sighs, “Do you remember what we were talking about before I fell off the roof?”

His face scrunches up in concentration, “We were discussing our mutual respect for each other.”

Jason sighs again, this time with his whole body, “Not exactly. I said I like you.”

“Right, which is necessary for two people to work together.”

“No, you dipshit." Jason gives the two of them more distance between by stepping back a few more steps and quickly continues before the kid starts swinging, “I like you, Damian…like you like how Bruce likes Selina."

So the thing with assassin babies, and their beaten in assassin training, was that when trying to process new information, they were good at maintaining a poker face. And Damian wouldn’t be Damian if he wasn’t doing that right now. To cope with the silence, Jason amuses himself with the thought that Damian’s head was record-scratching back to what he had just said and Damian’s brain melting from it.

The kid then starts to blink rapidly, getting Jason to think maybe he did break the little Wayne.

“So,” Damian starts quietly, so quiet that Jason strains his ears to hear, “that was what Grayson and the others were talking about."

"I don't know what they said to you exactly."

"All those looks and jokes they were making to each other. They knew. And I was the last to know?" Damian questions incredulously.

This time Jason bursts out laughing. It's a laugh mixed with hysteria, absolute amusement, and just a smidgen of relief. He brings his hands up to his face and presses his bare palms to his eyes and continues laughing for a good moment.

By the time Jason is calmer, he drops his arms back to his side to the view of Damian looking petulant. It was cute.

Jason can't even erase the grin on his face, making the kid's pout even deeper. "It's not like I was trying to hide it. I've been trying to tell you that I like you for a few weeks now."

That does nothing to stop Damian's sulking.

"I literally told you I liked you last week. I even specifically said I made dinner with your favorite foods, which I did. Considering that everyone caught on that all of those dishes were the food you like, we all would have thought you'd have caught on. But for the actual biological son of Batman, you can be incredibly dense."

Well, the sulk does turn into a scowl, and it's fitting. "Is that how you talk to someone you like?"

"Yes."

It's interesting to actually see the kid blush from embarrassment. "But...how? Why?"

This time Jason steps closer to Damian, forcing the kid to look up at him again. "Can't really explain how. Not now anyway. I don't want to scare you off with that info. But for the why?" Jason's tone is soft, "I think out of everyone I know, you've understood me best. Sometimes I get into those moods and you just understand that that happens, and you don't bug me about it. Not everything has to be talked about, not for every time anyway. Trying to explain to someone who hasn't been resurrected so violently like we have, that the violence and anger and frustration that we have is like telling B to go kill someone with a gun." He smiles wryly at that and the kid does too.

"Not to mention how much hotter you've gotten."

Damian rolls his eyes.

"Right, yeah, can't make you blush from compliments since you already know how attractive you are." Jason runs a hand through his hair in exasperation.

"Todd...Jason, I..." Jesus, Damian looks like he's constipated with his loss of words.

"Don't strain yourself," Jason responds in bemusement, then after a beat sigh, "Look, you don't have to answer me right away. I know you never really considered me or anyone for that matter-"

"Not true," Damian cuts in sharply, then his cheeks turn a few shades darker. "That is to say, it is not true that I have not considered you romantically, nor are you the only one. However, those few times were brief thoughts."

That brightens Jason's mood greatly. "Well, again, you don't have to answer right away."

The younger man nods, "I cannot make an immediate decision based solely on those few times."

"Right, but now that you actually know," Jason steps closer to Damian, bringing one arm above Damian's head to lean on the wall, almost getting as close as they were when they were kissing, "would it be okay to kiss you again? I was actually holding back before. I wanna give myself a more lasting impression, ya know?"

It's a lot easier to seduce someone when they actually know Jason's intentions, and with Damian, it is a lot more amusing. The kid was so caught off guard, having really only used his own charms and seduction as a means to achieve a goal. His lack of experience was endearing.

His other hand comes up to cup Damian's jaw again, and his breath hitches just the tiniest bit.

Jason, in his element now, leans down until his forehead touches Damian's, his hooded eyes boring into Damian's, as his thumb slowly caresses Damian's bottom lip, soft lip. God so soft.

The older man says nothing else, knowing that this slow seduction was working for him. He makes no other movements, just his thumb running over Damian's lip over and over.

This time when Damian says, "Kiss me, Todd," it's the barest of whispers.

[joiedecombat]

OC Interview: Maia

I was tagged by @the-sith-in-the-sky-with-diamond!

The rules are simple: pick an OC, and then answer these interview questions in-character for them. Then tag five more people to keep it going! 

I... can’t think of five people to tag, but if anyone wants the creative exercise or just to show off their OC, you can claim I tagged you!

(Set as of completion of Jedi Under Siege / Hearts And Minds.)

1. What is your name?

Maia Shan. Most of the galaxy still knows me as Maia Sunder, though. At this point it's simpler to stick with the name people know.

2. Do you know why are you named that?

I don't. If there's any particular meaning to my name, I've never heard it.

3. Are you single or taken?

I'm married. [smiling] So, very much taken.

4. Have any abilities or powers?

I've always been strong in the Force. It enables me to do many things people would say are impossible.

Aside from that, I've been trained extensively in combat and leadership. As a Jedi, I was often expected to lead troops in battle. [pensive] The more things change...

5. Stop being a Mary Sue.

I have no idea what that is...?

If you have a grievance, we can talk about it.

6. What’s your eye color?

Blue.

7. How about your hair color?

Brown.

8. Have any family members?

...I don't actually know. I came to the Jedi Temple as a young child, so I don't remember much about where I came from before then. A Jedi is... better off without those kinds of attachments, or so they tell us.

I may have family out there, somewhere. Perhaps one day I'll try to find out. Even if there's anything to find, though, we'd be strangers to one another after all this time.

My family is my crew, the Alliance. The people who've stood by me through the worst the galaxy can throw at us.

9. Oh? How about pets?

[brightens] I have two akk puppies - Tala and Tor'ika. They were a wedding gift.

10. That’s cool, I guess. Now, tell me something you don’t like?

[watch that face fall, man] Something I don't like--

Dark Lords I have personally killed coming back to life and causing more problems for everyone. That's a big one.

Also, unnecessarily powerful superweapons designed to do more damage than anyone could possibly justify, and all the pain and loss caused by people fighting over control of them.

......Too much?

You did ask.

11. Do you have any activities/hobbies that you like to do?

Hobbies, hmm... It's hard to cultivate many pastimes when you stay as busy as I do. I used to enjoy gardening, back at the Temple when I was still in training. Cultivating something and seeing it grow bit by bit, adding a little more life to the universe... there's satisfaction in that.

Now that I'm actually based planetside for the forseeable future, I could try my hand at it again. I'm still in space for long periods of time, though, so I really wouldn't be able to give it the time it needs.

Does meditation qualify as a pastime?

12. Have you ever hurt anyone in any way before?

[softly] Too many, I'm afraid.

I'd... rather not go into specifics. All I can say is that I regret the hurts I've caused, and I hope they can be healed in time.

13. Ever... killed anyone before?

Yes.

I'm not proud of it, but there are times when there's no other option.

14. What kind of animal are you?

I've never thought about it before. An akk dog, maybe? 

--ha, or probably a tauntaun, now that I think about it. Hardy, stubborn, frequently relied on as a beast of labor in impossibly extreme circumstances... [amused] that sounds about right.

15. Name your worst habits?

People don't usually see themselves clearly enough to know their own worst habits. I doubt I'm an exception, but I'll give it a try.

I have a hard time refusing when someone says they need my help. I'm not good at deception, and people have told me that I trust too easily. I'm not sure those really count as bad habits, but they have caused trouble in the past.

[pause; she tilts her head, listening for a moment]

--ahem. I've been instructed to tell you that my worst habit is "rushing ahead into trouble on my own and making everybody else panic." That's probably right.

[pointedly] Even if the source is the last person I want to hear that from.

I also have a terrible sense of direction. You'd think I'd be able to find my way using the Force, but it doesn't work that way. If I don't have someone navigating for me, I get lost far too easily. [soft, embarrassed laugh] Not exactly a "bad habit," but it's definitely a weakness.

16. Do you look up to anyone at all?

Yes, of course. There are a lot of people I admire.

If I had to name one - I'll always look up to Master Orgus Din, the Jedi who mentored me. He's gone now, but I still strive to live up to everything he taught me.

17. Are you gay, straight or bisexual?

Mmm, straight, I suppose?

18. Do you go to school?

There's always more to learn. I try to keep an open mind when it comes to picking up new things. But as far as formal education, no, I haven't attended lessons in a long time.

19. Ever want to marry and have kids one day?

I'm already married, so there's that.

It's hard to imagine having children with things as they are... but then again, if you'd asked me a few years ago I'd have said I never expected to marry. Life's full of surprises.

As long as we're on the front lines of this war, though, it doesn't seem wise. I wouldn't want to bring children into all of this.

20. Do you have any fangirls/fanboys?

Apparently. It's odd to think about, but whether I like it or not I've become a very public figure.

I can only hope I make a good example.

21. What are you most afraid of?

Even though serving as a leader in battle was one of my duties as a Jedi, being the Commander of the whole Alliance is more than I ever saw myself taking on. There are so many lives riding on the decisions I make, these days. It’s a lot of pressure. I don’t think there are many decisions I make any more that don’t come with the fear of making the wrong call, and of what could happen if my judgment’s off.

And still, even more than that...

...Jedi are taught to avoid emotional attachments, that the fear of losing those we care about will unbalance our judgment and lead us to the Dark Side. I’ve never entirely agreed with the Order on that... but I can’t say that they’re entirely wrong, either.

I have people that I love, that I never want to lose. I’ve been faced with the possibility, and it terrified me.

I know I can’t let that fear control me. If it came down to it, though...

[quiet]

22. What do you usually wear?

[tugs awkwardly at jacket, looking embarrassed] 

Practical clothes, mostly. Things that I’m comfortable in, that won’t restrict my movement and will hold up to a lot of punishment.

Jedi robes are good for that, but it feels off to wear them these days. I’m not sure I’m qualified any more. I still wear them around my room sometimes, though.

23. What’s one food that tempts you?

When you’ve been living on ration packs for a while, anything else starts to look appealing. Fresh fruits are my favorite - Alderaanian starblossom is delicious, but it’s hard to get out here in Wild Space.

24. Am I annoying to you?

Not at all. Asking questions is a way to learn.

25. Well, it’s still not over!

Then by all means, let’s continue.

26. What class are you (low/middle/high)?

That’s hard to answer... or at least, I don’t think I’ve ever thought of myself in those terms? And as I said, when it comes to my origins I don’t really remember what kind of family I came from.

A Jedi isn’t supposed to care about that kind of thing. It doesn’t always quite work out that way, but - well.

27. How many friends do you have?

Many. I’ve been very fortunate in my friends - I’d never have gotten this far without them. If I started listing names, we’d be here all day and I’d still probably leave someone out by accident and feel terrible about it. 

...there is one I should mention, though. Kira Carsen. She was with me almost from the beginning, longer than anyone but Teeseven. We went through a lot together, and she always had my back.

I wish I had a way to know how she’s doing now. Just to know that she’s all right.

28. What are your thoughts on pie?

Pie is always a good idea. 

29. Favorite drink?

I prefer tea. I was introduced to a Gatalentan blend recently that I’ve been enjoying quite a bit.

30. What’s your favorite place?

Just one? It’s hard to say. One of the great things about traveling the galaxy the way I have is all the different places I’ve been able to see. Even on the harshest worlds, like Tatooine or Hoth, there are places of beauty.

I’ve formed more of a connection to Odessen than I expected. I suppose in a way, it’s become “home” for me, more than many of the places I’ve lived. There’s a spot I came across not too long ago, a little spring-fed pond tucked away in the woods across the canyon...

...well, anyway.

31. Are you interested in anyone?

Still married!

32. That was a stupid question...

There are no stupid questions. [laughs] All right, maybe a little.

33. Would you rather swim in a lake or the ocean?

Either, really. I don’t know that I can claim a preference, especially since it’s not very often I get the chance to go swimming just for fun. That spring I mentioned, in the Odessen woods - that was nice. Very cold, but refreshing. 

On the other hand, there’s something to be said for the power of the ocean. It reminds me of the Force, a little: it’s so vast, you can’t fight against it. If you try it’ll just swallow you up. But if you learn to understand and work with it, to gain a feel for its flow, it can take you places you’d never have reached on your own.

34. What’s your type?

My type...?

[pause, listening to earpiece] “Idiot disaster sp--” Theron, I can’t say that!

...Let’s just move on.

35. Any fetishes?

That’s a little too personal, isn’t it? [blushing] Anyway I don’t have any.

Next question!

36. Camping or outdoors?

Aren’t those the same thing? 

If you’re camping indoors, I think you might be doing it wrong.