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halcyone-of-the-sea · 1 year

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FINCH'S FRENZY (IV)

|| COV MASTERLIST || NEXT: CHAPTER V ||

PAIRING: Kyle 'Gaz' Garrick x F!Reader

WORDCOUNT: 8.7k

WARNINGS: Angst, blood, guns & shootings, canon typical, death, vulgar language, gore, arguments, self-destructive behavior, PTSD, fluff at the end? Maybe?

*I do not give others permission to translate and/or re-publish my works on this or any other platform*

Vividly, you remember the first time your father brought you into the Museum. You’d only been little, then, no more than ten but old enough to form lasting memories that would stick with you. Key moments in the spanning woven tapestry that grew and spread like roots with colors named ‘Happy’ and ‘Sad.’ A memory bank of images that never leave the screen behind your eyes.

The statue had only been there because of the fire.

Made by men’s hands, it really wasn't the responsibility of a Museum of Natural History, but this was a special case. The other, sister, building to this one was far off into the city and had been completely ablaze not a week prior by unknown circumstances. Your father’s friend had burned, along with many priceless artifacts that were housed there. But not this.

The stone statue of the woman. Only here because it needed a place to rest before being sent out of state to a more… appropriate facility. They had flocked to her—marble scorched and covered in ash. Yet beautiful. Heavenly. Long arms reach up, a tiny bird held in the clutch of her stiff hands, presenting it to a far-off sky.

Cameras flash and eyes water.

“They’re calling her dīvīnā, Little One.” You had looked up at him, clutching onto your father’s shirt sleeve in wide innocence. He smiles softly.

“Di–” Your lips sputter and face heats, “Di-ven-a?” A small chuckle makes you huff, your expression souring. The man kneeled down, gripping under your pudgy chin and teasing.

“Not quite. Dee-veen-uh.”

“What does that mean?” You stubbornly shake your head, confused, “why are they calling her that?” A kiss is planted on the top of your head, your father standing back up and laughing, as you once more look at the statue with wonder. Your eyes glitter.

“It is Latin, my Little Love,” that stone bird in her lifeless hands has a broken wing, yet still she prompts it to fly; as if she knows it can even though it’s impossible. “Divine.”

To be loved like a woman in stone was a rare thing.

You’re not quite sure why you remember that when you turn a swift corner, slamming a shoulder into it as bitter tears track your cheeks. The bloody hand that steadies you leaves a trail of crimson behind as evidence. You don’t slow, not even when Gaz’s hat threatens to fly off your head at the break-neck pace you set yourself on.

“The park,” you breathe raggedly, frantic slams of your shoes bouncing off the corralling buildings at your side as you dart out of the tree line and into the city streets. If you had been focusing, you’d realize you have no idea where you are; utterly alone while the violent sounds of firing guns and screams continue to bounce off airwaves. Too close. Too loud. “Oh, God, the people.”

Cold couldn’t begin to describe your temperature. Frigid perhaps; shaking with frozen terror that makes you lose feeling in your limbs. Buggy eyes snap to shadows and trash in the alleyway like they were grabbing at you with phantom intentions.

You don’t know when you lost Kyle—when you’d taken a turn too fast and completely disappeared or something else along those lines. But in your chest, your stiff ribs almost welcomed the solitude. You had looked into his eyes. Stifling a loud sob, you increase the pace as the screams behind you loom over your head like a cloud.

Amber. Meadows. Deathly serious.

“No, no, no…” How had the attackers known you’d be out in the city? On campus? That white Sudan…How?

You miss the rapid calls of your name in the background, equally as desperate as your instincts. Loud and distinctly British. Separated by stone and mirky puddles. You increase your velocity; moving farther and farther away. Run, you just need to run. From everything. From everyone.

But when you rush one last corner, the large form that stands there isn’t a made-up phantom of the past. It isn’t a statue.

Skirting to an immediate stop, your legs quiver from the force and the dragging of your heels; your fingertips wrenching into your aggravated injury in retaliation. Gasping, your leaking eyes widen even farther at the covered face. The few feet of precious separation from the man that also surprised at the sudden arrival.

A dead second of slow-motion thoughts and nothingness that seems like a year ensues. Not a single atom bounces. Had he been waiting for you?

You slowly look down with white eyes to notice the assault rifle in his shifting hands; the nervousness of hips as they rotate weight into a form that would remind you of a football player if you bothered to engage with that thought. The air is stuck in your nose. Blood pressurizes itself forward. You swallow tersely, one shoe shifting to take a step back carefully. No words, no exchange of sentiments.

Only a target and a man holding a gun.

“I…” You trail, lips not responding as the rabid pulse in your ears threatens to drown you with blackness. At the click of a safety, you’re running like a rabbit again, darting back down the same way you came as bullets explode through the corner you rampage past.

“Gaz!” The call bounces to the sky, ringing off buildings. Was it possible to die from adrenaline? Everything burns a bright shade of red in the corner of your vision. Shouts ring from behind, a race of scarlet and duty now taking place with feral implications.

This was what being prey felt like, and you had thought you'd only have to experience that feeling once.

“Gaz!” You scream again, ripping vocal cords, and ducking as a round goes directly above your head, slapping your hands to the cap with gasping fear. How many were out there? Had they set a perimeter if you decided to run?

This was a level of professionalism you never expected from terrorists.

Sprinting past an open turn, a hand snags out, jerking you by the jacket collar as a second covers your mouth. Screaming, you bite down as your heart stops, mercilessly slashing out an elbow into hardened ribs. A sharp hiss meets your ear before the shadows of the inside of a doorway overhang swallow you.

Your back is slammed into the barrier, breath on your forehead as your hand snaps to the pen knife in your pocket like a whip. The shock of electricity down your spine is inconsequential to the hand that flies over your mouth. It tightens before your eyes can adjust properly through the tears; fingers flinching fast past layers of cotton canvas.

Lips dance over the shell of your ear. “Stop moving.”

The struggling of your limbs halts, eyebrows slightly losing the agonized furrow. Heat wafts from the body pressed into your own—great bouts of natural warmth that you hadn’t felt in years from another human being. Your heart skips for it; muscles lessen.

Goosebumps raise the hair on the back of your neck.

You blink rapidly, staring into the nose of Sergeant Garrick with a shuttering inhale behind his grip. Sensing your slowing pulse, his hand lowers, moving back immediately. Long fingers find his lips, signifying silence with nothing more than a tap and a frown. There’s still blood over his visage, splattering up his stubble and along his cheeks like paint as his jaw clenches with meaning.

Wheezing, you shake with both fear and a sliver of ease even as your back aches from the force that the Brit had exerted to drag you back. You swallow down saliva and nod a number of times; completely out of it.

You’re moved behind him with a firm push—a part of you flinches at the sudden chill that overtakes you once more—as the yelling gets closer from beyond your hidey-hole, a bulky thumping over the concrete ground like hail. You stare at Gaz’s neck as he grabs the pistol from his belt, leaning on the part of the wall that juts out with a single shoulder and barely peeking out.

He blinks slowly, not even looking at you as his lips thin. He looks merciless and loose at the same time.

The man sprints past, barely making it a few feet from where you watch with stilled breath before Kyle separates from the wall. One shot is all it takes, and the stranger doesn’t even scream before he hits the ground; a last round being driven between his skull plates to silence any sound.

It all falls silent after the reverberations cease—gunpowder in your nose and burning your throat. But it doesn’t even matter, because you’re already being forced along with a heavy hand on your shoulder before the blood can pool over the ground.

“C’mon.” He speaks blankly, whatever sly teasing and amusement from earlier today completely gone. “Exfil point is a block away—we need to move.”

You can’t do much more than follow, your head screaming at you.

“B-but what about…” Wanting to ask about the people who are back in the park, not quite understanding the horror yet.

Sensing this, Kyle knows it’s better to respond briefly.

“They’re dead.” You flinch at the truth, hearing the bitter reality settle in coupled with the man’s bluntness. Gaz sends a side-eye your way, looking down at you from his lashes.

While not willing to offer any comfort at the moment, he twitches his nose and simply states, “You need to stay focused,” while noticing the far-off look in your eyes; the rapid pulse under his grip.

Humming under his breath, he leads you on ever faster, knowledgeable of the quickly dwindling bullets in his mag. As you both speed walk, he speaks through his earpiece, telling Kit the streets before the far-away man replies with the correct route to the Exfil point.

“How’s the VIP?” Kit asks, and Kyle grunts, not giving anything more than a quick response.

“Alive. We’re nearly there.” He inhales slowly. “Multiple civilians down in the park.”

“Copy, 2-6. Keep en route.” Gaz scoffs under his breath, surveying his surroundings as the wails of sirens fly over buildings. This never should have happened.

This brought him back to Piccadilly Circus; the start of his entire counter with 141 and subsequent approval into their ranks. He’d seen many things over the course of his deployments to the Middle East—when he’d put a target on his back when disrupting Opium supply lines. He shouldn’t be here. He should be with his comrades.

Not with a girl that seems to want to put herself in every dangerous situation known to man.

Even with all the mental strain and uncomfortable scenarios he’d been in…watching innocent people die never got any easier.

He moves you along; muscles wound and gun in a tight grip. Gaz tries to tell himself that you couldn’t have possibly imagined this happening and with how you were acting that would be the truth with no doubt. He’d told you, though, hadn’t he? That’s what really gets his jaw stiff.

I told her. And she didn’t listen. Didn’t even try to think it over.

You shake under his grip, and a part of him feels pity, honestly, but right now the severity of the situation is more important.

“Take a left,” he utters, forcing you on with hardened brown eyes. You nod again, throat closed so tight you’re unsure if speaking is the right decision.

Everything is a mixture of hot and cold—fingers burning yet arms shaking from a lack of heat; teeth chattering.

The both of you were close now, only a few more winding turns left and the van should be waiting with the driver; authorities taking care of the shooters left in the park still searching for you. But these alleyways were like a rat’s maze.

“Keep close,” Kyle offers, “We don’t know who else is—”

“Right!” Your yell makes him turn sharply, knife barely grazing the flesh of his neck as he weaves. Brown eyes flair with anger, gun in his grip just as easily coming up to the armed assailant.

The covered face held no weapon besides a combat knife; another person intent on taking your life. How many were out here?

“What in the…?” Gaz grunts, but before he can bring the pistol up to pull the trigger, the man’s other hand is grabbing his wrist, twisting it to the side mercilessly and away.

The Brit hisses, throwing out his other arm to block the knife from once more coming down to settle in his neck. These people were many in number, but how was it that they were so rusty? Anyone with combat sense knew it was best to go low before going high when attacking with a knife. Before he can swipe the Bastard’s legs out from under him, locked in that familiar battle of wills, Gaz hopes in his head you don’t run off again.

Starting to gain the upper hand with gritted teeth and sparking eyes, there’s a swift thunking of metal meeting flesh moments later. Blinking wildly, Kyle’s face goes confused, slightly losing grip in that mere second of oddity.

Then he sees it.

“Bloody Christ.” Gaz gasps, gazing at his own reflection in the hilt of a small pen knife stuck in the eye of his attacker who subsequently begins screaming wildly, trying to back up until the Sergeant shakes out of his shock.

The gun levels with a chest, and it was done before the killer could rip the blade from his eye.

Only one bullet was fired until the small click of an empty barrel signaled that Kyle had used up his last round. The man falls into a heap and lays on the floor, a puddle of crimson leaking from his guts as he gasps and coughs.

Breathing heavily, there’s a pause in the air. Gaz looks back at you slowly, eyes wide with astonishment.

You stare back, right hand quivering and twice as bloody then it had been before. You had made a mirror slice on your palm by holding the blade and releasing it to hurdle forward loyally. Not that you knew that.

No words are exchanged as the gurgling from the body falls silent, only the air speaks in brushing breezes that ruffle your jacket.

“2-6,” Gaz’s earpiece speaks, but for a moment he’s stuck gazing into your eyes as you stare at the body, lips parted and jaw slackened. You’d just… “2-6, do you copy? Extraction is waiting for you.”

Brown eyes snap away, feet quickly shuffling to rip your penknife out from the socket and place it in his pants pocket. Later.

“On it, Actual. Keep ‘em ready—we’re coming in hot.”

“Rog. Laswell’s been informed, expect request for a full security unit comin’ the lady’s way.” Frowning, Kyle doesn’t respond, having to physically turn your body away from the scene and move you forward.

His X12 is slipped back into his belt, useless entirely.

“Love,” Gaz speaks to you, trying to see if you’d respond, but your eyes stay blankly ahead; tears frozen in time on your cheeks yet the hysteria is shown in the stumbling of your legs. The racing pulse under your skin makes the Brit concerned. A stiff sigh is released before a decision is made with creased eyes.

You’re being lifted with little warning, carried into a bridal hold as if you weighed no more than a piece of paper. You gasp briefly, sense coming back in a flash of a thrown knife and a wide brown gaze.

“H-hey!” The exclamation is met with a click of a tongue and increased footfalls, Kyle keeping you close to his chest with wind whipping past your ears. But you can’t think beyond the defining moments. The bodies in the park. The man you helped kill. Had killed.

You force down the bile in your throat as Gaz’s warm body encompasses you.

I didn’t…I didn’t do that, did I? You hadn’t thrown that blade. Couldn’t have. That would make you…

Your face tightens, brows creasing like tin foil.

The van was torn open with a loud bark of ‘get us the fuck out of here,’ and a dumping of you onto the back seat only three minutes later; you didn’t have the thought capacity along that short run to tell Gaz to keep his hands off of you, or to stop sending you those glances with his hidden thoughts. All you could do was try and keep back the flooding hysteria.

Kyle shoves himself into the car, slamming the door.

“Go!” He hits his fist on the back of the front seat and the driver peels out of the open alleyway with a screech of tires.

Breathing heavily, you blankly look outside to watch the rushing police cars and ambulances dart past in the opposite direction. The streets were so condensed with fleeing people that they were having a hard time getting through, the flickering flashes of red and blue lights trapped behind your eyelids even as you blink and shake your vision away.

Jesus, how many people are dead right now? How many were dying?

“Take us back to Base,” Gaz’s harsh accent drives a spike into your ribs. Focus on that. Focus on hating him. Don’t think about it. Don’t think about the knife.

You force out through a shaking diaphragm.

“Fuck no,” the air flips; driver sending a wide-eyed glance through the mirror as Kyle’s wound body stills like a flag on a stagnant day. You persuade a sneer to your lips.

Just make him angry. Make him yell at me—distract me. A vile form of self-destruction, sure, but you can’t start thinking about anything that just went down.

You know how it would go if you had time to process. How the first year went after your father met his fate. You’d…You’d…

The Sergeant’s tone comes out in a snarl, “What’s that?”

You’d never thought his file was true about that part. The hardheadedness and the opinionated side. When he was with you he always seemed level-headed; calm. Now though, it was like you didn’t have a grasp on his character like you thought you did.

In the driver’s seat, Private Clancy clears his throat and grips the wheel tighter, not sure where to go.

“You heard me,” he had, Gaz’s ears had twitched at the curse—vulgar language not common from your tongue. “Fuck. No.” Eyes hard on his knee, you glare through very obvious fear. Kyle stares with venom lacing his silver tongue, lungs inflating. “I’m going home.”

“Home?” The Sergeant asks immediately, the car taking a left turn quickly. “Oh, my apologies, then,” he shakes his head, “Do you mean the exact place you’d be ambushed? Perhaps giving yourself up would be more your speed, Ma’am. Private,” Gaz glares into the rearview mirror, “Base, now.”

“You do not get to dictate where I go, Garrick!” You scream, ripping his hat off your hair and pointing a finger with the same hand. A flash of amber replays in the back of your mind. Stop. Please, stop. “I am not going to the damn—!”

“People are dead!” Flinching, your shoulders hunch in faster than someone can blink, and brown eyes burn at you, jaw tight and teeth bared even as self-restraint tries to hold back a more poison-coated octave. The thin line between the two of you breaks. “Civilians!” You see Kyle take down a deep breath, his hands clenching. The next sentence is slow, but deep, “I don’t care what you bloody want because I’m not asking. I’m taking you in and getting a full Unit assigned.” Your heart freezes, lids going back in shock as sweat trails down your back. Gaz scoffs, turning away from you to run a hand over his hair. “Never should have agreed with Laswell and taken you on. I need to be with my team. You don’t listen!”

Opening and closing your mouth, you stutter for an answer.

“Take me home, Kyle,” your voice is breaking, but Gaz doesn’t even look in your direction; his lips firmly sealed as he glares at the headrest with his resting fist tapping periodically on his chin from the window-ledge. “Kyle.”

He shakes his head to himself, and in a fit of infectious rage, you chuck his cap directly at his skull with a strong arm.

“You fucking pathetic twat! I just goddamn killed someone trying to save your useless life!” You bare your teeth and feel your throat constrict, eyes red and holding back a weeping deluge. Kyle growls under his breath as the hard brim slaps his temple, snatching it back mid-air. But his snapping reply stills on his lips when he meets your gaze head-on. His breath halts for a brief moment, recognizing the dwindling sense of control. Your words give him pause, and he doesn’t think you realize you’re looking into his eyes again as you rage. “I should have let the bastard tear your throat open—at least he’d be getting to do what I’ve always wanted since the moment you put a fucking gun to my head! For leaving my family a mess of blood and pain! Do…do you expect me to be thankful? For what?! All of this is your fault! Don’t you dare try and put the blame on me.”

You’re sobbing, and the Sergeant watches silently, lips slightly parted as the driver gets more and more anxious. The car sputters along at a slow pace; everything relies on who wins this volatile battle. Brown eyes are stuck on the blatant brokenness of your gaze, for the first time able to study them without side-eyeing you or sneaking glances when you regard him by looking at his lips or nose.

He’d never seen eyes like yours.

Blame? He didn’t blame you. Not…not entirely. But he was angry at you.

“For the love of God, I will chuck myself out of this car and sprint home—I don’t give a shit if I get shot at, Garrick. You and your little Task Force can go and fuck yourselves. You left my father with a hole in his head; made my mother leave me in a decaying house all alone and expected me to be okay with seeing my dad slump dead and feeling his blood drip off my chin. That fucking house.” Hands weaving through your locks, you wrench your eyes shut and the connection is severed in an instant, Gaz blinking back to the car with an unsteady inhalation of breath. His body is as still as a stone statue, fingers twitching when you finish with, “Fuck!”

Foot stomping to the floor, you hunch forward, wailing in earnest as the blood on your hands makes you want to barf. Your head burns. Your throat aches. Everything felt like you were being rocked back and forth on a violent wave of self-loathing and hatred.

“Stop it,” you rest your head between your knees, mouth open with desperate pants of air, “Fuck, p-please just stop it.”

No one knows what you’re referring to.

The car had parked a while ago—sitting in the parking lot far away from the park. Once a moment has passed, the Private only taps the wheel in the strangled moment of relative silence, and asks above your wet sobs, “Sir, I…Where are we going?”

Kyle stares at you, opening his mouth to speak before it freezes and falls back shut. He swallows down the saliva in his throat before licking his lips, not looking at his cap before numbly putting it over his head with two hands.

“...Mansion.” The tires peel out slowly.

You don’t hear anything above the ringing in your ears; see above the red curtain settling. All you breathe down is death, and all you can think about is what went wrong.

“It is Latin, my Little Love,” that stone bird in her lifeless hands has a broken wing, yet still she prompts it to fly; as if she knows it can even though it’s impossible. “Divine.”

Your nails dig into your scalp harder, lips trying to strangle back sounds of a breaking mind. But you can feel his eyes on you as your face burns, digging deep when ruffling fabric makes you tense.

Everything is so loud—too bright. You can’t focus on calming down…you…you need to—

A bomber jacket settles over your head, the sides draping down to your ankles as you blink back with panic. You’re about to scream before you realize where you are.

Park. Car. Gaz.

The penknife.

Darkness surrounds you, and body heat suggests someone sits close. On the ground, you see a combat boot peak in from the makeshift shroud, shifting from time to time with unease and an inability to stay still. A blessing and a curse. Your bursting lungs begin to slow as you take count of the laces, studying the color and the shine. Letting the calming low-light seep right into your brain as your fingertips loosen.

A throat lightly clears, and they tense again.

“We…we’re nearly back, Ma’am.” You don’t answer. Gaz sighs quietly under his breath, pressing to the earpiece sitting in his canal. “Actual, change of plans. I need a full Unit to sweep the entire VIP’s property—we’re heading back now.”

“I don’t think Laswell will go for that, 2-6.” Kyle peeks at your hidden form—the way you shake so violently he was afraid you’d shatter like glass. He thinks about what you said, not able to peel his eyes away. Even as he tries to force it down, his heart hurts.

“Do it. I’m not takin’ her to Base.” The Sergeant tits his head down, hand clenched. “It’ll make this worse than it already is.”

“...Rog. I’ll see what I can do.”

“Copy, Mate. Keep me updated, yeah?”

Gaz thinks back to the alleyway and the penknife in his pocket feels heavier than stone. He hadn’t needed help. That wasn’t pride, that was just a fact. The Brit wasn’t as large as Soap—certainly not Ghost—though he was still well above average for what a regular workout would give you. Even if he did value integrity far better than brute strength he wasn’t like a dull blade.

He’d had it under control.

So why had you done that? Even you had expressed confusion over the action. For all intensive purposes, you should have wanted the terrorist to win. It seemed like you did.

“Hell,” Kyle whispers, bushing off the dried blood on his cheeks with the back of his hand as the city falls away to a slower-paced town. The adrenaline was wearing off, and the internal guilt was beginning to form.

He hadn’t meant to yell.

It had been a while since he’d worked Protection, had forgotten how much he should regulate his emotions. Gaz was used to strong bands of brothers—tight-knit groups that went in like a shadow and left with nothing but a whisper. That was One-Four-One; his brothers.

But…brown eyes slowly rove to stare. Listening to the struggling breath like an animal being choked by a collar.

You’d already gone through so much, and although he could grab you by the arm and shake with all his might, it wouldn’t change the fact that you didn’t know how this worked.

He needed to keep his gentle approach, not force you back into the hole you were intent on keeping in. Gaz needed to fix this. Tell you. Show you.

He’d do it tonight and if his honesty didn’t work even a smidge then he’d send in his offer for re-assignment. He’d made a mistake, and he was never one to let that stand.

By the time the van was pulling into the iron gate, held open by a black-clothed soldier, the property was already swept and cleared. Gaz opens his door and steps out, leaving it open on the off chance you would follow him. You didn’t, of course.

“Sergeant,” the man’s face was covered with a balaclava, large of shoulders and chest. A hand is presented, and Kyle takes it with a soft greeting.

“How’s it looking?”

“Everything’s in order, Sir. Laswell took the time to set us up back in town,” there’s a glance sent your way, and Kyle restrains himself from sidestepping and blocking the man’s view. His instincts were still rampant and he shifted his legs restlessly. “Figured the Lady wouldn’t be too keen on letting us stay here—can’t do anything without the inheritor's permission.”

Gaz blinks at that but only adds it to his databank. He knew you had control over who you allowed on the property, but hadn’t known you were the inheritor.

Why hadn’t the estate gone to the wife?

“Good to hear,” Kyle smiles slightly, tapping the side of his fist with the soldiers. “I can take it from here, yeah? See to it your men are comfortable and keep the radio up—we don’t know what else might be going on.”

“Copy, Sir.” When Gaz switches weight, looking into the interior of the car he’s already addressing you with a calm demeanor; ready to coax you out with a good chunk of his gut filled with apprehension.

“Love…can you—” The car was empty, and before Kyle could begin to snap to attention, the black of his bomber jacket slashes his wide vision. A deep sigh falls after a second of exasperation, sarcasm about to be called over the air. Hands rub over eyes before itching at his cheek with a muttered, “Keep it light, Garrick. Sky’s not falling just yet.”

He follows, concern growing steadily.

You had killed a man. Lived through your first shootout. How was he supposed to make this work? You already hated him…what could he say?

Gaz knew for a fact that it hadn’t fully hit you yet, and when it did, he was afraid you would break apart even more. But why was he so conflicted about staying or leaving?

Your feet carry you to the house quickly, head down and extra jacket over your shoulders that you don’t bother to flick off. Shoving past leaving soldiers that give you stiff looks as you pass makes your lungs hitch. You didn’t want them on your property—you didn’t know them.

“Love!” Kyle calls your name from behind, and you hear his jogging feet catching up as your fast-snapping eyes find the black void in the bushes.

The cat.

Green eyes brush against your, slitted pupils corralled by overgrown foliage. It blinks slowly, and you force your head forward once more; un-cut hand snapping to your mouth to keep down the frantic way your lungs jump.

Doors were of no obstacle to you, you shove through them with a hunched shoulder, letting it swing open and hit the wall with a defining bang of oak.

“Hey! Slow down, would you?” Ripping your shoes off, you speed across the foyer, heart distressed. Before long your body points you down the hallway.

Gaz rushes after, heart beating fast as your form disappears down a sharp corner that he grabs to swing himself past.

The black of his bomber jacket is a temporary sight before the barrier of a door slams shut, swallowing you whole.

“I need to…!” Kyle halts to a quick stop, arms at his sides as his button-up stays rolled up at his elbows. Brown eyes close tightly.

“...Apologize.” He places a hand on his head, tilting back his neck, “Shit.”

—

By the time you realized you weren't in your room, it had already been too late to turn back around.

You gradually come back into reality after a fitful anxiety-induced fatigue on your father’s office couch. Hours had passed, judging by the pitch darkness of the room; the temperature was already colder than you usually were used to.

Eyes stare at the ceiling for what seems like an eternity, and it’s sad to think the only time that everything in your head calms down is when you can listen to the pipes in the walls. Creaking wood. Forcing yourself up, you hiss sharply, lids wrenching shut at the zinging pain up your right arm.

Ripping your hand up, you blink rapidly through the achiness of your red eyes to stare down at the dried wounds. The twin gashes across your palm crack as you flex your fingers, crimson lines opening. Even as your sigh builds, you only watch them begin to bleed at the movement; not relaxing your muscles for the single purpose of not caring enough to.

The skin was agitated. Itchy as well.

I sent a knife into a man’s eye. You still, lips parted and numb. I watched people die one after the other because I went outside. This is…this is my fault.

Kyle had been right. You don’t listen. You’re stubborn, vengeful.

“But I can’t be anything else.” Whispers bounce off the walls; the coffee table ahead of you and the gargantuan desk behind where you’d play hide and seek in the gaps.

You’d run to your father's office to try and find comfort you know you’d find nowhere else. Pull it from memories considering it was all you had left.

But you can’t pull comfort for this. Part of you wants to put on the news—know the count of the dead. The other part says that would be worse.

“Because of me.” You mumble, standing on unsteady legs that threaten to buckle. Your body is sore from all the running; fleeing from bullets.

No, not because of you.

Sucking in a slow breath and listening to the creaking of the house, the ghosts, you clear your throat to dispel the mucus.

Because of your father. Mind racing, this event puts a hammer into the stained glass that was your family legacy. Before you could deny it—you could say it was Samson Row that was judge, jury, and executioner; while that was still true, what kind of people would fire on innocent bystanders to try and nail a single target?

Turning, you think back to Laswell as your tongue licks at the dryness of your lips and your eyes move to attempt and paint a picture. You stop to look at the desk.

“Your father had sensitive information that searches of his shipping lot and museum office didn’t offer any leads on. While you’re spending more time at your home, I want you to look for them. Anything that involves other dealers or a location to a hub.”

Taking down a slow breath, the walls were suddenly suffocating you. Your father didn’t…he…he couldn’t have.

Your right hand pulses mockingly.

Without knowing, your feet pad over the floor to his desk quietly, standing behind the chair and over the dust-hidden mahogany. The old lamp on the corner; the strewn papers that have faded ink and old script haunt you as you slide your vision over them.

Museum exhibits that never got installed, bank statements, and more important documents pertaining to his job. You skim over them, bloody fingers leaving streaks in their delirious acts.

Feeling the fiber under your flesh, you push them aside one by one.

Nothing of interest.

Your throat closes for no reason, skin goes slick with perspiration dribbling down your brow. Nothing, see.

Blood drops down to the table as you hold your hand over it, loose and limp at the wrist but violently quivering. You watch. And then you start to open the drawers with a heated fervor, wiping at your forehead and leaving streaks of crimson.

“There’s nothing.” You gasp. “Nothing. They’re dead because of nothing. I killed a man for nothing.”

Guns fire in your mind; people scream like you had when sitting in that chair in a basement. Gaz’s eyes boring into you. You’d looked into his eyes not once but twice—the second of your own volition.

“Nothing?!” Folders are grabbed and slammed to the desktop, exploding with a poof of dust that leaves you turning and sneezing violently before you stifle yourself.

You’re ripping them open one after the other, burning in the back of your nose. A knife keeps releasing from your hand. A shove on your shoulder as a bullet hits a trash can that was used for cover.

The black bomber jacket that had fallen off in your slumber and was now sitting in a heap on the floor.

Innocent people.

Fuck, they were screaming at you.

“There can’t be nothing.” You seethe, trepidation both your drug and your double-edged sword…what if you did find something? “There needs to—”

“Love…?” Air silences. “Are you alright in there?”

There’s a shadow under the door, barely discernible over the darkness as you shiver. How long had he been there? How…how long had you been in here?

Your fingers stop their aggressive tossing and you blink through the dizziness of your brain. Stumbling back a step or two, your hip bumps into the chair. Instantly, the large thing skids over the floor with its wooden legs as an ear-ringing screech as you grab onto the arm to stop from falling. Your skull pounded.

Quick, loud, knocking starts.

“Ma’am? Ma’am!” Breathing quickly, your body shakes at the noise, the sound so similar to the sounds in the park.

“S—,” your voice breaks, “Stop fucking knocking!”

It stops instantly, and you pause there for more than a few moments glaring at the floor; brows tight and teeth biting into your lip. The quiet sound of a hesitant voice echoes after a minute.

“Could you open the door for me?” Gaz clears his throat as you stare at the wooden barrier with glinting eyes. An attempt at a kind chuckle. “...Been getting cramps in my neck from leanin’ back against the wall all night. And I, uh,” you close your eyes, “I think we need to have a conversation, Love. A real one, if you follow me.”

You were tired, incomparably so, but even you knew he was right. What he had yelled at you in the car was true. All of this had gotten put into place with as much consideration as a mallet gives a nail.

And Kyle had known all along what would come of it. A sliver of guilt stabs you.

You didn’t have to like him—didn’t have to forgive him, because you probably never would—but you had to begin to listen. That didn’t mean stop pushing back, it just meant that his expertise was needed for the safety of the city as a whole.

The city with the museum that your father had loved dearly.

Feet shuffling, you move around the desk, side-eyeing the now bloody contents atop with a numb expression as you move to the door. You had locked it, apparently.

Not that you remember.

Hand stuttering above the handle, you stop and listen with straining ears. A shifting body calls to the Sergeant’s anxiousness at your non-visibility. The erratic behavior. Resting your forehead over the wood, you truly wonder if there would ever be a time you were used to someone else living in this house.

This house. Your house.

It didn’t feel right for anyone to live here.

“Are you there, Ma’am?” You open the door stiffly.

Kyle’s face is tense, you can tell just by looking at his chin; how he holds his shoulder back like that. There’s a split-second where you both study each other—you, noticing how he’s still just as dirty as you, and him, seeing the focal point of the streak of red blood on your forehead.

“What, Garrick,” you speak as he sees the ruffled nature of your clothes. Defeated muscles. “Here to tell me you were right?”

His legs cease their movements, mouth half-open with apologizing sentiments now snapping shut with a click of teeth. But not from anger. Concern. Why were you bleeding? Had he missed you being injured? Kyle had sworn you were alright—no shots had ever met their mark.

He’s touching you before he remembers to ask first.

You’re being swept back into the room and plopped down on the couch with no warning, and you don’t fight it. Warm hands grip your shoulders and squeeze quickly.

“Bloody hell,” Gaz rushes to the desk to flick on the lamp, “Why didn’t you tell me you were hit?!” Your eyes snap shut, blinking rapidly at the light.

Rays cascade over the room, the dust in the air being sent into dance classes with how they flew. Lids narrowed at the floor, your socked feet shift over the old rug, but you offered no answer over a soft shrug of your shoulders.

Kyle gawks at the back of your head, rushing back over to check you over as he bends on one knee. Hesitating for only a moment, he first looks at your head, tilting it back and forth with a hand under your chin and the other by your ear. You’re cold under his grip and that makes him even more nervous.

How much blood had you lost?

“I need you to tell me where it—”

“Hand.” He blinks, staring at you for a second with surprise. Gazing down he sees the spasming limb with a small inhalation of air.

You let him slowly move back, all digits moving to encompass the afflicted area. But he pauses.

Frowning, you rub the side of your face into your shoulder as you hear the man suck down a sigh. Confusion lingers in your heart, but you care little at the moment.

“May I?” In between the brief palpitations of your most important muscle, you forget for a second who’s in front of you. You forget the Sergeant. The Brit.

Your face softens.

When had someone last asked you that?

Your lids slide open and closed in surprise as Kyle waits, outwardly patient with an internal raging heart.

“You’re already here, aren’t you?” The room is bathed in warm light and quiet creaking. Two people who don’t know how to act around one another suddenly suffocated with too many words. So they say nothing.

Kyle grips your hand so softly that you have to hold your breath in order to keep sane. You want to rip it back from how warm he is.

“Christ, Love, you’re freezing.” It’s a low comment, passing more for a whisper as brown eyes snap up to you. But slowly he shifts your flesh with the dig of his firm fingers, running over the bone to check for internal damage until he flips it over entirely to see the real problem area.

He holds in a sharp gasp. Tries to keep his cool as you stare at his bobbing neck.

“That…this’ll need stitches.” You hum. Gaze sliding to his face you say what first comes to mind as you draw a comparison to his twin scratches. You end up wondering if you’re drunk again.

“We match.” you point casually to Kyle’s left cheek. His were smaller than yours, of course.

Gaz focuses on your eyes even as you choose not to look at him directly.

“Yes, Ma’am.” He attempts a weak chuckle, still holding your hands with the hope that you might take some of his heat for your own. Why were you so cold? “I suppose we do. Why don’t you come with me and I can get you all cared for, yeah?”

You weren’t acting right, and for an instant, the Sergeant misses your snarky attitude. Anything was better than that bitter nothingness living in your expression. He was shocked. The woman who he’d had this iron impression of was using a chisel on it every instant she could.

It only made him feel more and more like a prick.

Fucking hell, Garrick. This is a whole different game.

“How’d you get them, then?” You were in shock, speaking whatever came to mind with a far-off stare dunked in alarm. Kyle had seen it all before and it didn’t matter who it was plastered on. It was his duty to help.

“Tell you what, Ma’am,” he stands, helping you up by the arm and sending a soft smile your way. “We’ll get you all proper again, and I’ll tell you all about my days in the police force. I wager you’d like that. History and all.”

“I like old history,” leading you out the door with a hand over your back that rubs small circles, he traverses the darkness and leads you to the shining light of his room one step at a time.

He sends an amused glance, “That’s my old history. Pretty good, too, in my opinion.”

You shiver again, and Kyle draws you a little closer, frowning tight. Your eye bore into the ground with cold sweat on your temple. He moves for a second to wipe it away but stops himself with a tight closing of his lids.

“Why would I care about that?”

“You just asked me, Love.” He reminds softly, turning the corner slowly as the two of your feet make the floorboards scream. This house was never quiet was it?

“Humph,” your sound bounces off the walls when Gaz makes it to his chosen room, the door already open and the light on.

He moves you to the cleanly made bed and lets you sit down while he walks to one of his bags by the wardrobe. A medical kit is pulled out, yet he keeps sending looks behind him to stare at you.

Legs hanging off the bed, you can’t really tell if you’re here or if this is some strange point between delirium. For certain, though, you don’t feel good.

Bleeding like a stuck pig and trying to keep your vomit down. It was all a state of far off sea-water. A roaring of waves in the back of your head. But there was a realization as Gaz shifts in front of you once more, face creased.

It is the realization that no matter what you do or what you try and change, you will always just be this. Stuck; stationary. Left to waste like the mansion itself—breaking down year after year until all that’s left is rotting wood and shattered stone. Blades of grass in the cracks and termites with fat bellies. But what was even worse was that you didn’t know how to function without this decay in your skin. The quiet rage pulled down beams of sanity. The agony a network of scuffed floors and dented walls. Shut curtains. Abandoned rooms and memories that shutter with every gust of wind. Ghosts in the hallways.

Was it all real, or was it just a pigheaded attempt to find something to relate to? There was truth to it—there had to be.

This was home.

This was you.

This would always be you.

“You asked how I got my scars,” Kyle speaks and you notice his hand back in yours, skin tingling not from the medicated wipe he runs over your palm like a feather, but rather from the sensation of touch.

Warm. It was a blanket of pure silk. A stuffed animal set into the dryer. How had you ever forgotten what that felt like?

You hum an acknowledgment, flinching when the chemicals start to turn your hand numb. Gaz lightly shushes you, squeezing your wrist.

For some reason, your nose starts burning at the action.

“It’ll be okay, Sweetheart.” He stands, grabbing a chair from the corner table and bringing it over to place in front of your knees. The medical bag is placed beside you, various contents being taken out as elastic gloves are pulled over long fingers. “Where should I start then,” Kyle stares at your sad-tilted eyebrows. “The moment it happened or how I put myself into that bloody stupid situation?”

“Situation?” You utter, scoffing without venom, “Sounds pretty serious there, Sergeant.”

“Oh, trust me it was,” the way he places your hand in his lap is deeply intimate, disgustingly so, but even as you want to rage and shove him off, it hurts to think too deeply. “Terribly serious—I was undercover, y’know.”

His soft expression holds you as the first stitch pierces your flesh. Pressure, no more. You frown, rubbing your eyes with your free limb. He pauses and glances your way, finding no pain, he continues on with the second, deft hold creating perfect knots.

“Ever done that, then? All your snooping around, I wouldn’t be surprised.” A smirk comes and goes on your lips. “Certainly seem the type, if you don’t mind me saying.”

“Can’t say I have.”

“Hm, well,” he chuckles. “Anyways, you see, it was a drug bust during my third year with the Blue. Opium. Sizable Mates running that whole operation. They found me out two bloody weeks in.” You blink to slight surprise, shoulders losing their hunch as you now have something else to draw your attention to. “Hoped to at least last a month, to be honest with you.”

“You’re insane.”

“Ah, probably, Ma’am.” Taking notice of the blood staining Gaz’s cap from earlier today when it was on your head, you bite your lip as the story continues. “I was held up in a shipping crate for a whole damn week, and this one fellow,” Kyle moves one hand up and your vision snaps to it, seeing him motion to his chin with a ‘U’ shaped hold, “proper beard on him, tells me I need to give up who I was.”

“...Did you?” Lip quirking, the Sergeant finishes off the first row of sutures, grabbing another wipe and cleaning the area. He was happy you were focusing, at least, but you were still too shaky for his liking.

“Hell no—Bastard sucker-punched me. Happened to have a nice ring on his finger. Can only pray for whoever was married to the bloke. Ripped my cheek open something nasty, enough to make it scar over.” Both of you are surprised by the huff of laughter that jerks your chest.

A pause as Kyle feels his chest go loose. That wasn’t a bad sound at all.

“Well, that’s it,” Gaz admits softly, halfway done with the second, smaller cut, “can’t say it’s all too amazing.”

“Because getting tortured by drug lords isn’t what you consider amazing, apparently.” You cough through your embarrassment, feeling slightly back to normal. Taking down a deep breath, you stare down at your palm as it gets sewn back together again. Hearing how the skin squelches.

“Well,” the Brit holds you delicately, a swelling of pride in his chest, “I’ve done a few bigger things than busting the likes of them. Stuff that meant a great deal more in the moment.”

The rest of the sutures and cleaning is done in total silence, and your lungs are suddenly able to work properly again. Kyle places a thick gauze pad atop the marks, holding it down while taking a roll of bandages; beginning to unravel them.

His thumb is holding the end down when he whispers.

“Why didn’t you want my help?” You ran from him in the park—hid away when you were injured. None of his teammates would do that.

She’s not them.

With a skip to your pulse, you hold your lips shut with an iron rod. That was the question, wasn’t it? You had run from the only person in the world that seemed to care whether you lived or died.

Peering at your palm, you speak the only truth you know, “Because then I’d have to admit something was wrong.”

There are more things you want to say to him—horrible things; pleas and nonsense—but in the end you just turn to stare at his neck with blood on your hand and stitches stuck in your flesh.

Kyle’s eyebrows peel up, holding your hand in his own and suddenly more in tune with you than he ever had been before.

“I…” He starts but doesn’t finish. Not for a long while. “I’m sorry, Love. For all of it. But you need to start listening to the things that I tell you—I’m here to keep you alive. It’s my first and my only priority. You need to be able to live with that.”

He wasn’t sure there was more he could say. Your lips pull in, pressure living in your chest like an infection.

“I hate you,” you say, eyes watering. Blood on your forehead.

“I know,” he responds, slowly, softly; wishing for a moment you’d look into his eyes again so you’d realize he’s finally starting to understand.

TAGS:

@fatunn, @mh073099, @littlegaypng, @untitled69555, @babybooday, @caffeine-anxiety-and-randomfacts, @underrated-youngster, @jupiterredolent, @idocarealot, @karnellius, @latteisaqueen, @petrat97, @jade-jax, @roosterr, @escapefromrealitysm, @renaich, @kysa32, @human-turtle, @aurora-basin, @terumisworld, @violet-phantoms, @xxfeelmylovexx, @neelehksttr, @nezukos-number1fan, @20forty9, @mdjenjen, @marrianena, @angeldaisyy, @alhaizen, @homicidal-slvt, @emerald-valkyrie, @raissadoesthingslmao, @misfne, @hollyhopesworld, @wasteland-babe, @330bpm-whiplash, @anna-banana27, @justherebecausesafarisucks, @sunnynomoar, @doggydale, @thecrispypotatochip, @74478328, @blueoorchid, @das-conk-creet-baybee, @dragonfruit1985, @chestnutsandcurls, @vamqyr3, @lavalleon, @nebula67, @urfavsunkissedleo

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dc-polls · 10 months

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"That Really Happened?!" DC Comics Tournament Entry #33

Catwoman and the Penguin Cure COVID And Run Away Together

[ID: Four comic panels of Catwoman and Penguin in a round bed, curled up facing each other and holding hands as they tenderly look into each others eyes. Catwoman says, "Saving birds... saving kids... what's next?" Penguin responds, "They'd burst at the seams, oh, puss of my dreams... if they only knew... our love is so true." /END ID]

What Happened?

Have you ever wondered why the DCU doesn't have coronavirus? No? You just assumed it had to do with it being a fictional universe with aliens and superheroes? Well, uh ... the Gotham City Villains Anniversary Giant (2021) has an explanation for this thing which totally didn't need an explanation, anyway.

We start with Catwoman and the Penguin. They're so in love! (Were Catwoman and the Penguin in love before this? Glad you asked. They absolutely were not.) They save some kids from getting hit by a car! But they want to do more to secure the future of our planet. They plan some sort of massive heist, which they fund using the proceeds of smaller heists that involve things like carting massive pallets of gold bricks away in also-stolen helicopters and dosing.

Gasp! It turns out they were plotting to steal the entire world's supply of COVID vaccines! They do this using "hundreds of circus performers wearing surgical masks," for some reason. However, it turns out to be for a good cause, as they merely wanted to distribute the vaccine to the entire world in an equitable manner, using high-velocity winds at the tops of mountains for . . . some scheme that I honestly don't understand after reading it.

After they inoculate the entire planet, they adopt six kids -- three kittens, three baby penguins. The end.

Tournament polls will be posted after all entries are up. As always you can find all posts related to the tournament using #dc-polls-trh

#dc-polls-trh #dc comics #catwoman #selina kyle #the penguin #oswald cobblepot

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willtheweaver · 3 months

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Alpha-write

Thanks @agirlandherquill this sure does look interesting

Rules: For every letter of the alphabet, comprise a sentence/short paragraph beginning with that letter

A- “All systems go. Let’s she what this new ship can do.”

B- Barely anything was standing on the planet’s surface. All around were huge craters and mountains of crumbled rock and dust. What water there was was as corrosive as hydrochloric acid. What kind of weapons could do this, and what kind of people would turn such tools of death on themselves?

C- Candles, beeswax, 50 count, the label said. So why was the box so heavy?

D- “Don’t move!” I stopped when I heard those words. Fearfully, I looked down at feet. One of them was right on top of a rune trap that was concealed in the leaf litter.

E- Everywhere was the sickly sweet smell of death.

F- Faith shall ne’re forsake me, when iron proves as feeble as flesh.

G- “Goblins can’t resist shiny stuff, you said!”

“Well if you weren’t a cheapskate and put some of your jewelry in the trap, we would have caught him!”

H- “Hake, extra crispy. Chips with salt and vinegar, extra curry sauce on the side. What does it all mean?”

“I believe that is his Friday takeaway order.”

I- Inside was totally different. Whereas the exterior was a grey and austere cube, the interior of the building was bright and decorated to the point of being gaudy and over the top.

J- Just lost contact with the rearguard. Radar has picked something up. It’s—[remainder of transmission incomprehensible] /end recording.

K- Kelp! If I could just make it…

L- “Ladies and gentlemen, remain cool, this is a robbery! Handover all of your valuables and no one—hey! You with the Nickleback shirt! That is not cool!”

M- “Must I remind you that it was your idea to drill holes in the bottom of the ship?”

N- “No man is more accursed than he who violates the sacred law of hospitality.”

O- “Open the door!”

“No.”

P- “Purple was never my color anyways.”

Q- Quiet. No wind, no sound of birds. Nothing.

R- Rust covered the steel beams and rebar sticking out of the cracking and failing concrete.

S- “Single malt, aged twelve years, heavy smoke with hints of seaweed. This was distilled in Islay.”

T- The order came up. Three shots espresso, ten ounces 2% steamed for exactly eighteen seconds, one pump vanilla, three caramel, one chocolate hazelnut, and the foam has to be cold and not mix with the coffee. WTF!?? I wanted to quit them and now.

U- Union pamphlets were everywhere. No doubt about it. Their meeting place had been found.

V- “Velocity is still over 5000 kph! We’ll burn up in the atmosphere unless we find some way of slowing down!”

W- “We’re with Witness Protection. You are in grave danger.”

“Me? I’m just an ordinary person!”

X- “X-rays can’t go through lead!”

Y- “You had to say something, didn’t you?!”

Z- Zzzzzzzzzzz.

“How can anyone sleep so soundly in a time like this??”

Whew! Made it through that one!

Tagging @diabolical-blue @darkandstormydolls @leahnardo-da-veggie @poethill @honeybewrites

@theeccentricraven @splashinkling @smudged-red-ink @mysticstarlightduck @eccaiia

@corinneglass @tildeathiwillwrite @fortunatetragedy and open tag

#tag game #open tag #writing #creative writing #writer #writers #writers and poets #writing community #writer on tumblr #writeblr

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cephalog0d · 2 months

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20 questions for fic writers

Thanks for the tag @babblingbookends!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

89! (tbf a lot of them are drabbles XD)

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

62,284. Higher than I thought!

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Mostly Batfam, occasionally branching into other DC, occasionally gift fics for others and original work.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Bomb Sing Se (arguably the fic that got me to actually write and post things instead of just keeping stuff to me and a couple friends)

Comfort Food

Bower Birds

Relation

Bat Math

5. Do you respond to comments?

Absolutely! I try to respond to every comment I get, I appreciate every single one so much.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Well Relative Velocity is the only time I've ever used the "Hurt No Comfort" tag so.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Most of what I write is silly humorous nonsense so I think most of them are happy endings? I like the fluffy siblings ending on Midnight Snack a lot.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Not anywhere I've ever seen it, luckily!

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Nah, not really my thing.

10. Do you write crossovers?

I've done fandom fusion ones like Venom!Steph but I don't know if that counts as a crossover since it's still all characters from one setting, just with setting elements from another property.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I'm aware of, luckily!

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Not that I know of, but that would be super cool!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Not yet! But we'll see. :)

14. What's your all-time favorite ship?

Uhhhhh I'm gonna say Leverage OT3? (I don't really have a lot of strong "this is my thing" ship opinions.)

15. What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you will?

*quietly sliding my giant WIP/fic idea spreadsheet under the rug to hide it* I have too many. So, so many.

16. What are your writing strengths?

I like to think I'm good at the banter thing. I really enjoy writing back and forth dialogue, especially for humor, but also for serious conversations. It's often the part I think about the most and spend the most time on. (I think I'm also pretty good at world building stuff, but that doesn't always come up with fanfic.)

17: What are your writing weaknesses?

The focus to finish plotting/writing long stories is definitely one I'm not great at. I have the ideas, but my brain sees another shiny new idea and goes "but what about that". It's something I'm working on.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

It depends? For one thing there's the whole thing of having the knowledge/resources to actually have accurate translations, which may or may not be difficult to do, but also I think it depends on who the POV character is. If you put in dialogue in another language people can look it up and see what it means, so it can be a fun way to have a little easter egg that the audience knows and the POV character doesn't, but if you don't want to give stuff away it's better to just say they're speaking X language, or maybe POV character recognizes a word or two but not the whole statement.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Batfam stuff is what made me actually start interacting with fandom instead of being a weird internet lurker talking to my friends about things I like so.

20. Favourite fic you've written?

Oh boy, I don't even know...I'm gonna say Finders Keepers because I really love that AU and that's the one that started it.

And that's that!

No pressure tags for @outtoshatter @2dents @teleportationmagic @kayrielwrites @sepia-stained-sunset !

#tag game #ceph writes things

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m-t-nester · 15 days

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Pelipper mail! A dream. A good dream.

You're five years old, and you're wearing an awfully stiff blue gown that swishes across the ground. No matter— you're plenty used to it, but it is rather annoying to run in. You prefer your cotton pajamas.

Today, you have all the time in the world to read in the library! "Slow down," Mother keeps saying, because you're practically hurtling through the winding corridors with no regard to your surroundings nor how you keep coming dangerously close to tumbling over the laces of your skirt. Naturally, that becomes your demise.

Your stomach drops as you trip at the top of a stairwell and fall into open air, but you feel quick, firm hands catch your midsection, pull you back, and turn you around to face your panicked mother's expression. "And this is why we walk, alright, darling?"

Sheepishly, you nod, but you can't stop a snort from escaping you. You bite your lip and cover your mouth, but soon enough the both of you are giggling as Mother hoists you up and carries you to the library.

"What do you want to read today?" she asks you as she lets you down and the two of you wander along the walls of books.

"Ummm..." Your eyes scan the bookshelves. They land on the section for physics and history of technology, and you point up excitedly. "Physics! Technology!"

"Should have guessed," Mother laughs, and pulls out a hefty textbook. She leads you to a reading area, ambient and lit by warm lamps, and lets you read along with her as she says all the words aloud.

"What is the distance formula?" she suddenly quizzes you after a little while of reading. "It's alright if you don't—"

"Change in position equals initial velocity times change in time plus one half of the product of the acceleration and time squared!" you say in one breath, and she blinks rapidly.

"You memorized that already?"

"Yup!"

You both start to laugh again (more quietly, as to not disturb the library), and Mother kisses your forehead. "Never change, little bird. I am so proud of you."

Huh. Sometimes I think I was switched at birth and my real mom was a monster too. Cause I’m just a parasite on her after all. I wonder if things would have been different. But love isn’t something that should be wasted on a husk like me. It’s okay. I know what I am.

Ah, but I think they’re planning something that they want me for…

#the unwanted child

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honeybeezgobzzzzz · 5 months

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⚡ Birds of a Feather: Flock Together

Flock Together: Vanessa Hunter, part human and part hawk, has felt love and hurt, friendship and hatred, and had sworn off all men since the one time she allowed her heart to get stolen resulted in said man running off with it and never returning. She is now cold, calculating, and every bit of a bird of prey as the one she fused with. With her wings now fully matured, Ness is a force to be reckoned with, and God help anyone that she sets her sights on.

Warnings: Language, Fighting Sequence, Gore.

To Note: Eobard Thawne x NAMED!Reader.

Word Count: ~5.0k

Previous | Masterlist

“I’m sorry, what part of ‘let me handle it’, did you not understand?” You questioned in your radio as you stood on top of Central City's tallest building, one foot up on the ledge of the roof. Cisco and Barry stammered over the radio while Caitlin started laughing at their expense.

“But Ness, I’ve dealt with them before, what’s so different about dealing with them this time!?” Barry whined at you while you rolled your eyes so hard you could have sworn you caught a glimpse of your brain.

“Remember what happened last time you tried to take them on?” You queried. “Pretty sure that involved a broken leg…”

While Barry floundered for an answer, your eyes caught sight of the movement you were waiting for, a getaway van in the middle of a bank heist headed your way. Several cop cars were in pursuit behind it as it swerved through the city.

“Getaway car is headed your way,” Harry’s gruff voice said over the squabbling and laughter of your friends. “You have eyes on it?”

“Yep,” you replied, focusing your sights on the swerving car. “Intercepting in ten.”

“This puts you ahead by eighteen, I guess that means Allen and Ramon are going to owe you even more Big Belly Burgers.” Now that put a smirk on your face, even after working with those two for a few years, they still bet against you. At this point, you would have thought that they would have learned by now you were always going to come out on top.

“Well, I’m not complaining,” you returned, your smirk growing as you shifted your weight onto the leg that was on the edge of the rooftop and propelled your body into the air. Falling through the air at high velocity as the van got closer and closer, you snapped your wings out at the last minute, softening your landing as your feet hit the hood of the van, and your body weight and momentum had the car screeching to a stop.

Crouching on the now very ruined hood of the van, you stared at the driver of the van who was clutching his bloody face from slamming into the steering column. Standing up as the back doors opened and armed robbers tumbled out in various disarray, you stepped off the van and landed on the balls of your feet.

Guns went up and they started firing at you, your wings snapped forwards blocking out the gunfire with the air of Cisco’s shield tech. Flattened bullets tinkered to the ground for a few seconds before you were moving. Grabbing the shirt of the first robber, you threw him hard into the side of the van, denting the car and making him grunt in pain before flopping to the ground.

He made the terrible mistake of getting back to his feet. Your nails elongated into talons as you shot forwards, sinking them into his shirt and tearing the material. This time you slammed him up against the van and went full on hawk in his face. He let out a scream as you brought your talons back and slammed them into the paint job of the van, tearing into metal and dragging them down.

“That will be you if you so much as move,” you hissed at him, his eyes were wide as he nodded quickly and your ears picked up on the sound of him pissing himself. Giving him one last shove and twirled around.

Dropping into a low spin, you swiped your leg out to catch the next robber's ankles and knock him off his feet. While he was on the ground, you grabbed his arm and flipped him onto his stomach, twisting his arm around until he cried out in pain. Snatching his other wrist, you jerked them together before slapping a set of cuffs on him.

“Stay put,” you ordered the moaning man before rising and looking for the last robber. He was currently booking it down the street. Flaring your wings out, you leaped into the air, gaining about twenty feet before diving for the runner. You were on him in seconds, sending him crashing to the asphalt face first. While he was groaning in pain, you slapped your last pair of handcuffs on his wrists.

“Don’t you know running from a bird of prey does little good?” you questioned him as you hauled him to his feet. Police cars finally came screeching around the corner and surrounded the ruined van. Dragging the struggling robber over to the police officer, you passed him off before assessing the damage done.

The van was totaled by you jumping on it and crushing the engine, but other than that, there was not property damage, and no civilians had been injured. While the police officers locked the robbers in the backs of the police cruisers, you went to the back of the van to take stock of what had been stolen.

It was the usual bank heist items, money, jewels, a few bars of gold, and a few watches from the civilians unlucky enough to get caught up in the heist.

“Well get those watches returned to their owners and see that the bank gets this back,” A cop said as he walked up next to you and took a peek into the van.

“Please do,” you responded shortly before turning away and walking so you had space to take off without hitting anyone with your wings. “Heading back, CCPD taking control.”

“Good, maybe you can get these two to shut up,” Harry huffed back at you while you tolled your eyes. “And we’ve got company, not the good kind.”

“What has Barry gotten us into this time,” you growled out before taking flight, startling a few police officers at your sudden exit. Fast tracking your way to the lab, you closed your wings a few feet from the ground, dropping the rest of the way down. Your boots hit concrete and bouncing up, you strode into the lab, noticing a strange humming sound echoing in the night air. It was probably related to whatever company you had.

Feeling the air condition your neck and blow the hair that had slipped from your tight bun, you stalked your way towards the cortex, your senses already picking up on a change in the air. Your bird senses were shrieking that someone was in your nest who shouldn’t be.

Slipping your hand under the high collar of your suit, you rub your hand across the prickled hairs on your neck. It had been years since you had felt this on edge, the day when you found out that your boyfriend, with whom you shared several intimate moments, wasn’t who he said he was. You had felt betrayed, angry, hurt, but nothing hurt more than when it felt like he had run off with your heart when he was erased from existence.

You were over it, you had to be. It wasn’t that hard to do; you let the bird in you go free, and she ripped through meta like they were cheese until you both had fully matured into a fully grown Cooper’s hawk. Gone were your speckled and striped brown wings, replaced with steel blue-grey wings and red-striped under feathers.

With maturity came coldness, calculation, and an innate ability to observe and strike long before your presence was even known. You knew that your friends found it off-putting at how hawkish you seemed at points, but sometimes it paid not to feel rather than shrivel from the sting of a broken heart. Then again, sometimes you felt like you didn’t have one… Eobard, for all intents and purposes, had run off with it. Coming to a silent stop just outside the cortex, you could already pick up on the presence of several people you didn’t know.

“…and I’m telling you, she is going to tear your throat out if you so much as piss her off,” Harry grunted smugly at someone. Your lips ached to twitch into a smirk, but keeping them pressed into a flat line, you stepped out of the shadows.

“Anyone I know?” you enquired, your eyes quickly scanning the group of people, noting those you didn’t know, before looking at Team Flash, and how defensive they seemed.

“Good, you’re here,” Cisco sighed out in relief before pointing at you. “This is Nike, she is the most badass woman on this planet, and as Harry explained, piss her off and she’ll rip your throat out before eating you.”

Who knows what was going on, but you found this interesting so you decided to play along.

“Hmm, I prefer to start with the kidneys rather than the throat,” you draw out with an air of haughtiness and give them a predatory smile, your tongue swiping across your teeth in a sensuous yet hungry act. “Fresh is best after all.”

Cisco blanched at your words while Barry actually went white. Caitlin looked uncomfortable with your words, and Harry had a small smirk on his lips, he too was enjoying this. Moving your eyes to scan the group that had your friends so uptight, your eyebrow shot up.

“Well, look what the cat dragged in,” you muse, putting a hand on your hip and scanning each man with your gold eyes.

You knew Leonard; you had met him before when you were still a fledgling, and he was gawking at you, his eyes telling you he liked what he saw. Moving on, the next man, wearing a full suit, Malcolm Merlyn of Star City, Oliver’s enemy. Intense light blue eyes met yours with cool curiosity; you sensed something about him, he was no ordinary man. Lastly, your eyes flickered over the leather jacket-wearing blond man your bird was shrieking in your head at.

He had the same energy around him as Eobard; you guessed he was a speedster, a smug arrogance to him that also told you he was intelligent. Yes, you think you knew exactly who he was just by staring at him, but years of meditation and practicing control helped you keep all your emotions bottled up.

“Anyway, try to cross us and I’ll sic her on you, she’s got the talons to do what she said she’d do…” Cisco finished as you started walking over to Harry. As you passed him, you caught his eye, giving him a look that said ‘we need to talk’. Harry got the hint, and relaxing from his rigid, arms crossed position, he followed you out of the room.

“So, this is the shitstorm Barry got us caught up in?” you questioned, pulling down your scarf that covered your face up to your eyes. Harry let out an agitated huff.

“It would seem, it's bad enough to be stuck in a room with the man who pretended to be me,” he growled out before running his hands through his messy hair. “There’s a threat to the timeline again; it involves some immortal. They’ve come to ask if we’ll help them and the Legends.”

“And why aren’t the Legends asking us instead?” you questioned, raising your eyebrow. “You know, the actual good guys who we trust?”

He huffed at you once more.

“I asked the same thing; they’re busy setting things up in other cities, the Legion of Doom I think they're called. Snart, Merlyn, Darhk, and Thawne, Legion of idiots if you ask me… they came with some device that will act as an energy dampener to mitigate his power. We need to get it to the highest point in the city.”

“Hmm, that would be the weather array on top of the Merickson building,” you mused, thinking about all the places you liked to brood on.

“That’s what I was thinking,” Harry responded in agreement. “According to the schematics of the array, there will be an assembly box near the tip where several sensors are. You can attach the device there and use the electrical from the weather array to connect the data back to the lab.”

“Sounds like a plan,” you echoed before tapping your fingernails on your leg. Harry narrowed his eyes at you before spending a few moments studying you.

“You okay, Vanessa?” you chewed your lip before shaking your head.

“My bird is going to give me a migraine with how much screeching she is currently doing, and I feel like tearing someone's throat out with my teeth,” you explained dryly. “I’d really rather not talk about how I’m feeling when my ex is in the building.”

“Yeah, I figured you’d pick up on who he is,” Harry grunted before nodding his chin at you. “If you need to skip out, Jesse is always up for a visit from you.”

“Tempting,” you respond, your lips curving slightly. “But I don’t run from my problems, I tear them apart.”

“And as pleasurable as I would find that, I don’t think ripping him apart would do you any good.”

“Well, what else am I supposed to do about it?” you question, flinging a hand out. “Preen and pine like a love-sick bird? News flash, Wells, I’m a bird of prey, I don’t do sob stories.”

“I’m not saying that’s what you need to do, I’m just saying that you giving into your hawk DNA isn’t helping you. You’re losing yourself, and I may be a grumpy, cynical, conceited ass, but I don’t want to see you go down that road.”

“It may be already too late for that, Harry,” you answer honestly, your gold eyes flickering up to his. “Because it’s so much easier to give into my bird, than continue living knowing I poured everything I had into one man who wasn’t even real.”

“You know I do worry about you, Ness,” Harry says as you turn on your heel and start walking back towards the Cortex.

“I’m aware!” you toss over your shoulder. “And you shouldn’t, I’m not worth your time.”

Leaving Harry to grumble and stew about your noxious, self-destructing behavior, you enter the Cortex and march right up to the city map on one of the computer screens.

“You and Harry figure this out?” Cisco asks, bouncing over to you as you pull up the engineering schematics of the Merickson building.

“Yes,” you answer as you magnify the top of the weather array. “Our plan is to attach the device to the tip and connect it to the weather module; we can get access to the device through the building’s electricity.”

“Cool, cool,” Cisco responds as Caitlin walks over and peers at the screen.

“That’s the highest point in the city?”

“I should know,” you remind her before glancing up and looking at the four men. “I don’t suppose you had the brains to bring the device with you?”

Leonard snorts and gives you an eye roll as the one you deduced to be Damien Darhk pulls out a box in the shape of a hexagon, no bigger than a half gallon of milk.

“Hmm, maybe you aren’t all idiots after all,” you muse under your breath, making Cisco snort. Walking around the desk, you head for Darhk, taking the device from his gloved hand as you pass. “I’ll get to it then,”

Naturally, everyone starts following you out to the back entrance you had made your landing and take-off pad.

“If you don’t mind, Miss Nike, would you care to explain how you plan on getting that device to a building hundreds of feet into the air? Do you plan on growing a pair of wings?” While his words seem flippant, he does genuinely seem to wonder how you are planning on getting this device attached to a weather array over six hundred feet in the air.

Stepping out so you have room to stretch your wings, you glance over your shoulder while twisting your lips into a curved smirk.

“As a matter of fact, Mr. Darhk,” you reply, equally flippant with your answer as you pull up your scarf to cover your nose and mouth. Unfurling your wings, you watch in satisfaction as faces morph into surprise and awe. “I do.”

With one last teasing smirk, you turn around and give your blue wings one heavy beat, slingshotting yourself into the night sky. En route to the Merickson building, the radio in your ears crackles to life.

“That was awesome!” Cisco bursts out in glee. “Like a total mic drop moment, Ness!”

“Glad you approve, Cisco, I’ll be at the array in thirty, get Harry on the line and I’ll get my specs ready.”

“Copy that,” Flapping higher and higher, you finally get sight of the long array sticking off the Merickson building, and with careful percussion, you fly yourself straight for the tip, wrapping your legs around it so you are secure while you work.

“Ready?” Harry’s gruff voice crackles in your ear. Reaching for your belt, you pull out your special specs for when it rained, which also contained a camera Harry should use to see what you were doing, and slipped them over your eyes.

With Harry speaking in your ears, you manage to get the device attached in under half an hour, being careful not to cut or nick any existing wires, or mess with anything else for that matter. When Harry is finally satisfied with your wiring job and that the device is stable on the array, you push yourself from the tower and flap your wings, sending you up and out.

“You coming back to the lab?”

“No, I’m heading home for the night,” you respond. “Haven’t gotten my dark brooding in for the night.”

“Alright… just think about what I said, will you? You are one of the only people here that I actually like.” Harry sighs, and you can practically imagine him rubbing his forehead.

“Night, Harry,” you reply softly before ending the call and removing the specs from your face. Angling your wing, you swoop to the left, gliding lightly in the direction of your house. Two minutes later, you are dropping through the air, your feet touching down in your backyard.

Pulling your wings into your back, you head for the back sliding glass door while pulling out the key to unlock it. Stepping into your house, you pull your scarf down and run a hand over your hair with a heavy set sigh. Heading to your bedroom, you quickly strip yourself out of your Nike outfit and change into a tank top, sans bra since the things were uncomfortable, and a pair of comfortable shorts.

You fix yourself one of Caitlin's shakes that she had concocted for you to fulfill your bird nutritional requirements and sit at your dining table. Sipping on your shake, you turn your eyes to the book on bird genetics you had left open this morning. You spend a few minutes reading before your senses pick up on the fact that you are no longer alone.

“You have a lot of gall to show up here,” you murmur quietly, your hands slowly closing the book before you get to your feet.

“I’m aware,” His voice rings out as he steps out of the shadows. His blue eyes study your thin figure, and you can’t figure out exactly what he is thinking, but you know he is assessing you.

“Then why are you here? Because the urge to rip out your throat is one I’m feeling inclined to indulge in.” You coolly spit at him, your sharp eyes narrowing.

“Ness—“

“You lost the right to call me that,” you hiss, your eyes flashing brightly. “News flash, Eobard! I hate you! I hate you so much that I would gladly let my hawk rip your throat out and feast on your organs like some backwater Buzzard!”

“Vanessa,” Eobard corrects himself. “I know I hurt you, but I never wanted—“

“Hurt me?” You scoffed. “I loved you, I gave you everything I had and look what happened! It was nothing but lies and deceit! Well, I won’t ever make that mistake again.”

“This isn’t you, Vanessa, you are not vicious. Not like me, not like this,” you let out a cynical laugh and shook your head.

“You don’t know me, Eobard Thawne,” you told him darkly before shooting forward and sinking your talons into the front of his jacket. With a firm grip, you spun in a circle and threw him as hard as you could into the painting above your dining table. He crashed into the wall, shattering the glass and breaking some of the drywall.

He was on his feet in an instant, hands up in surrender.

“Vanessa, please, you are the most compassionate, caring person I have ever met, please—“ Your eyes blazed with fury and your blue wings extended from your back, crashing into furniture as they went.

“You don’t know me, Eobard Thawne,” you repeated in a voice not your own before shooting forwards once more, talons extended and ready to run through more than just fabric. He was moving too, trying to grapple your body. Twisting around, you punched him in the chest, sending him staggering back.

Going to kick him in the chest to really throw him back, Eobard caught your foot and pulled. You flared your wings out as far as they would stretch, not caring that you had sent a lamp crashing to the floor and broke it. With your right foot still in his grasp, you slammed your other foot into his face, catching him in the chin.

Eobard released your foot, allowing you to land back down on the floor, your wings beating behind you in anger. There was a red mark where you had kicked him, and that made you smirk in glee. Before you made your next move, he was rushing forwards, grabbing at your shoulders and trying to pin you against a wall.

Your back hit drywall and groaned in protest while you hissed at him. Reaching for his arm, you dug your talons into his flesh before jerking sideways, reversing your position and trying to get your hand around his neck. You were in full-on kill mode and a veil of red had fallen over your eyes, your bird would not be happy until you held his heart in your hand.

Your talons bit into his neck and left scratches that lightly bled, fueling your bloodthirst.

Eobard shoved you hard, making you fall backwards and slide on the floor, Broken wood dug into your shoulder and scraped it up while your skin took a beating. But you weren’t backing off. Using the momentum from his shove, you completed the backwards roll, tucking your wings close to your back before springing back to your feet.

“Vanessa, please, we need to talk about this, this bloodlust, it isn’t you,” Eobard said, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. “You are not a killer.”

By now, he was bleeding in multiple places from your talons, and your skin was scraped and turning a variety of colors from your proclivity to bruise, yet you felt a burning desire to continue, even if it meant death. So with a low, hawk-like screech, you grabbed the overturned leg of a side table and broke it off, twirling the splintered wood in your hand.

“Sorry, Vanessa hasn’t been home in quite some time,” you drawled out manically, your very being consumed with rage and a lust for blood.

Confliction in his eyes had your dark smirk widening as you started stalking forwards. Hesitation on his part would be your victory. Bringing your arm around, you threw the broken piece of wood right where his heart was. He zipped away before it could hit him, making the wood lodge into the wall behind where he had previously been standing.

Ducking into a low spin, you narrowly avoided his hands as he tried to grab you once more from behind. Clamping your talons into his wrist, you jumped up and twisted your body, catching his neck between your legs. Continuing your twist, you sent the both of you tumbling back to the floor, releasing his arm and trying sink your talons into his chest.

“You are not just your hawk!” Eobard yelled at you while his hands strained to keep your talons from puncturing his chest. He still wasn’t using his full power, most likely for fear of seriously injuring you, well, that would be his downfall. “You are still Vanessa Hunter.”

Snarling, you pushed harder, your talons scraping against the soft material of his shirt. Eobard let out a noise of frustration before zipping up to your feet and throwing you as hard as he could. You crashed into your bookshelf, one of the iron prongs on your deer antler bookend piercing through your shoulder.

Gasping out from the sharp pain in your left shoulder, you looked down at the pointed metal still just barely out of your skin. Your eyes flickered up to Eobard, who now had a horrified expression on his face.

“Ness, I—“

“Well, well, well,” you cooed out, your list twisting into a canary smile. You jerked your shoulder forwards, pulling yourself from the heavy metal bookend. “Look who finally decided to put up a fight, that’s the Eobard I know.”

Reaching back, you grabbed the bookend and lobbed it at his head as hard as you could. He dived out of the way, the antlers lodging themselves in the wall behind him. You pranced forwards, ignoring the sting in your shoulder and the blood that dripped down onto your spaghetti strap top and skin. Eobard let out a growl of irritation before zipping again.

Feeling his arms wrap around your body from behind, you tried to slam your elbows back into his gut, or at least claw at his body with your talons. His grip was strong, so you resorted to method two, your wings sprung from your back, separating your bodies.

Spinning around, you slashed at his throat with your extended nails, wanting more blood to be shed to sate the ever-present thirst. Your hand was batted away and Eobard lunged for you once more, only this time he didn’t go for your shoulders, but your wings.

You jerked backwards, trying to keep them out of reach, but he was faster. His hands clamped down on them with enough pressure to make you draw them in, and in seconds you found yourself pinned to the floor by your wings, your eyes flashing.

“Will you listen to me damn it!” He yelled into your face as you struggled beneath him.

“Go to hell Thawne!” You snarled in his face, trying to kick at his legs. He managed to pin those down with his own.

“I still love you, you obstinate, frustratingly beautiful woman!” Eobard bellowed in your face, your struggles paused as his words circulated in your brain. He sighed out and released your wings and arms, giving you the chance to rip away if you so chose. “I have never loved anything as much as I love you, and that is a fact that will always remain constant.”

The red haze clouding your judgment dissipated, leaving you feeling hollow from the emotions of rage and anger. That allowed the old emotions of pain, torment, and heartache to hit you like a tidal wave as your bird all but slipped from your body.

Your wings retracted as tears started running down your cheeks, and reaching up with your talonless fingers, you pressed the heel of palms into your eyes as you cried your heart out. The gut-wrenching feeling of loneliness was crippling and had you feeling exactly like how you had felt when your wings first came in.

Scared. Hurt. Alone.

“Ness…” Eobard’s soft voice only had your tears coming faster as your nails dug into your scalp and you sucked on every shuddering breath.

“I just want things to go back to how they were before I ever found out who you really were.” You sobbed, your throat feeling thick and your hands shaking. In less than a second, you found yourself standing in your ruined living room, your face buried in Eobard’s partially shredded shirt with his arm around your body as you sobbed.

Your fingers pressed against his chest, your human nails digging in this time while he ran a hand through your hair like he used to. His face pressed down on the crown of your hair while he repeated apologies, over and over. Gradually, your sobs turned to sniffles and your eyes had no more tears to shed.

“I tried so hard to hate you, but I can’t even do that,” you whispered as you lightened up your grip on his shirt. Slowly, Eobard slid his hands from your body to gently hold your cheeks, his thumbs brushing the wet tracks from your tears. Your red-rimmed eyes stared up into his unfamiliar face, yet familiar eyes.

“I have a feeling I will be apologizing for the rest of my life, and even then it won’t be enough,” Eobard said gently before pulling your head up and connecting your lips. It was almost too much to be kissing him again, you had spent so many nights wishing that you could just forget the way his lips felt against yours. It was in this moment that you realized how stupid you were to think that. Harrison Wells, Eobard Thawne, whatever he called himself, he was always going to be the tether that kept you connected to the ground, to your human side. Best friend, closest confidant, lover.

You know what they say about birds: Birds of a feather, flock together, and you wouldn’t have it any other way.

Date Published: No Idea

Last Edit: 4/29/24

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#eobard thawne x y/n #eowells x reader #eobard thawne x reader #eowells #eobard thawne

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romanceisdeadbutimnot · 2 years

Text

The Harpy Pt. 2

🪶

Hawks x reader

Fantasy AU

Word Count: 7k

Warnings: Violence, a minor sexual harassment

Part two of the Harpy: 3 short stories

Pt1 ao3

🪶

Word had gotten around that harpies would snatch wrongdoers from the earth and take thier soul to be tormented. Those with the black spot would become restless taking to the open air in search of thier doom. You weren’t much of an adventurer yet, but becoming a legend did suit your fancy.

Still you weren’t ever quite sure what Keigo was after, though you were more inclined to give him your heart than your soul. Some days you weren’t even sure if you fell in love with monster or man. There were times that Keigo seemed so human, that if it’s wasn’t for the fields of red that expanded behind him you’d never of thought any different. Sometimes he was frightening. Something completely different from you, and those days you tried hard to love him anyway.

There was no denying that when you fell for him, you fell hard. You plummeted from the sky, approaching the ground at velocities above sound, but when you reached out your arms he was always there to grab them. He cradled you from the harsh winds cushioning your descent on plush wings. Still, you often forgot he was no more man than monster. Despite your love, despite your trust, he made you afraid. Three weeks after he plucked you from your village was one of those moments.

“Do not move from this tree.” Keigo had placed you on a rather large tree, in the middle of a large branch. He admired your tenacity. It was one of the qualities that drew him to you, they way you didn’t give up, your insistent on doing whatever you had sought out to do, but sometimes it bit him in the ass. Especially when you set out to do the exact thing he warned you not to.

It wasn’t like he wanted to leave you alone, in fact he dreaded it. You were quite prone to trouble, and although he often indulged you, he feared that one day he’d be too slow. So he picked the safest tree to place you on, and prayed that you’d stay put so he could find dinner. Though it seemed you were in a disobeying mood.

“You can’t just hang me on a tree every time you want to do something!” You were pouting, and though he was tempted to give into your sparkling eyes and soft lips he had restraint.

“You’re loud, smell like humans and are easy prey. I don’t have the patience to babysit you and catch dinner.” He leans in slowly, seductively, backing you into the treetrunk.

“You don’t need to babysit me. I can handle myself.” You were defiant today, not easily swayed flirtation. He frowns a little, your skin was so tempting, he half wanted to abandon his hunt in favor of a different feast.

“Stay put.” Keigo pushes you back toward the trunk, giving you a quick peck on the cheek before taking off.

He disappears from your sight in seconds. You huff, cheeks tinted a shade of pink. He was an incorrigible bird man, and though you knew he was looking out for you in his own way, it still frustrated you. You had gone with him because you craved adventure, not because you wanted to be coddled by a very attractive bird man -though that was a definite benefit.

You buy some time, looking a long the horizon to see if he was on his way to scold you for disobeying him. Although you had only known him for a couple of weeks he was frighteningly perceptive and seemed to know what you’d do before you’d even done it. When you couldn’t see any speck of red, you made your way down the tree.

Knowing Keigo meant you needed to familiarize yourself with the tree tops. You were getting better, you were, but that didn’t mean you wouldn’t fall hard on your ass. Which you did. Overall though, your descent was a success.

Your plan was to head into a small town that you passed on your flight over, trade some furs for money and be back before Keigo even knew you were gone. The small town was a little ways down a nearby road. You weren’t stupid enough to wander into the woods by yourself, but you doubted the village posed any harm.

It wasn’t a long walk, and entering the village was very rewarding. Almost immediately the towns children flocked to your form, asking you all sorts of questions on where you were from and what sort of adventures you had seen. You smile at them, remembering a time when you too flocked to travelers hoping to hear their stories of wonder and peril. They’re giddy with excitement when you propose an exchange of a story for directions to someone who would buy animal pelts. They agree, tugging you by the hand into town. You tell them about the time Keigo had saved you from a monster, careful to use his alias, not wanting to piss off your human averse companion. They take you to a leather worker who examines your pelts and offers you a pouch of coins.

Although your skinning skills could definitely use work, you were proud that you prevent your bird from tearing into the poor animals long enough that you could skin them. You had little way to make money otherwise, and who knew when you’d need bandages or lodging for a night.

You tell the children another story on your way back out of town, having trouble saying no to their precious faces. You tell them of the time you’d seen this magnificent waterfall, beautiful and clear. You told them how cool the water was and how the strong current pushed against you.

You leave town with a little wave, not wanting Keigo to learn of your excursion until after you’d arrived back safely. Your walk back was peaceful, with the sounds of birds singing in the trees and the warmth of the sun on your back. As you walked, figures were approaching on the horizon. Initially you were ecstatic to see other travelers, but as they got closer you felt a vague sense of unease. Instead of the friendly smiles you were used to seeing travelers in your village wear, these men looked angry. You kept your head down, quickening your pace towards the tree Keigo had left you in. You don’t respond as they jeer at you, passing quietly. You almost breathe a sigh of relief as you make it past them, until a hand harshly grips your shoulder tugging you backwards.

“Hand over your money.” The one who grabbed you demands. The two men behind him glower swinging their axes near the ground. You new it was an intimidation tactic, and it worked.

“I don’t have any money.” You lie through your teeth. You were half convinced it worked until he shoved you over.

“Yeah right. I’m sure you have something of value so hand it over before it gets ugly.”

“I told you I don’t have anything,” you scan the skies for any sign of red. You’d hand all your money over if it meant sparing your life, but you weren’t sure they’d spare it anyway.

To say that Keigo was mad, would be an understatement. He had finished his hunt, and brought you back two rabbits. He was even carful not to puncture any holes in its pelt, just for you. But when he made it to the tree to find you missing his heart dropped. He takes to the sky, scanning every inch of soil for your form. He hears your screams before he sees you.

The leader was visibly frustrated with you. You briefly think back to the medicine woman, and her advice on the open roads. You had naively believed that thieves weren’t as common as people thought, and surely you’d never run into them. You were sorely mistaken.

“Hold ‘em.” He stalks over to you, grabbing you by the hair as you scramble away. He tosses you towards his companions who are quick to grab your arms. You lash out kicking and screaming.

“You’ll regret this,” you spit at the leader who approaches you brandishing a knife. You hoped Keigo had finished hunting. You hoped he was on his way to scold you for leaving the tree. You prayed he was coming for you.

“Really? I don’t think I will.” He holds the knife up to your chin, pressing it into your skin. You feel a slight stinging sensation as the tip of the knife digs in a little too deep. A drop of something wet and warm dribbles down your neck.

You scream for Keigo. The leader delivers a swift blow to your stomach causing you to double over in pain. You curse, pulling at your arms, trying to break free.

“Shut up.” The leader slices your shirt this time, cutting it down the middle with a knife. He gives you a wicked grin. “Are you hiding any gold here? Pretty little bitch.” A pit forms in the bottom of your stomach. Maybe he wasn’t looking for gold anymore, maybe he was looking for you.

Salty tears well into your eyes. You were humiliated and terrified. You wished you had stayed in the tree idly waiting for Keigo. Maybe if you had you wouldn’t be here. You scream again. You scream for him. Kicking and thrashing, stomping on the feet of the men holding you. A hard slap is delivered to your cheek. It stings, knocking your head to the side and causing you to bite your tongue. You taste pungent metal and the salt from your tears. As you look back up into the eyes of your captor you almost miss the flash of red barreling towards you at top speeds.

He lands on the man to your right with enough force that you’re pulled to the ground with him. You turn to look at your savior, but are greeted with his hands. Keigo grabs your captors head, twisting it so fast that you would’ve missed it if you blinked. His neck snaps with a sickening crunch, but when the second is over Keigo is already on the second man who was holding you. He grabs him by the neck squeezing. His windpipe pops, then his spine bends and breaks like a twig. In mere seconds Keigo had killed two of your attackers. He charges the third one who yells profanities, swinging his knife around. You watch as keigo deftly dodges, grabbing his arm and snapping it at the elbow. The leader drops the knife with a pained cry. Keigo grabs him by the head, you almost expect him to snap his neck too, but he brings it crashing down towards his knee, once, twice, a third time, before throwing him to the ground. The man's face is bloody as he scrambles to escape, dirt digging into his fingernails as he claws at the ground.

“You didn’t tell me you had a monster you bitch!” He screams, you vaguely register it being directed toward you, but everything feels fuzzy and out of place. Keigo was following him almost leisurely, but after the leader closed his mouth he lashed out again, stomping the man’s face into the ground. He then bends over and with one hand plucks him into the air. You hear the low screeching rumble from Keigo’s throat as he brings his taloned hands toward the man's neck, slicing it open. He drops him like a limp fish, then his piercing eyes are turned toward you.

You nearly forgot how you ever saw Keigo as a human. The cold detachment in his gaze when he killed was focused solely on you. They deserved it, by god did you think that those thieves deserved it, and Keigo had saved you. But you weren’t sure the bloodied handed, screeching creature in front of you was your Keigo. The tears that had begun to dry well into your eyes again.

“I told you to stay.” It was almost a demand to explain why you hadn’t listened. He was feral and angry and it was all directed at you. You opened your mouth to defend yourself, to say anything, but all that leaves your lips is a gurgled wimper. As if by magic his gaze softens, he opens his arms, welcoming soft coos coming from his throat. That was all you needed.

You stand on trembling legs, stumbling into his arms. He pulls you in closer, allowing you to feed off his warmth. His wings close around you like a curtain, a shield of protection. He coos softly as you cry onto his shirt.

Maybe you shouldn’t have been so quick to hop into his arms. He was terrifying after all, and had caused you to cry a second time. Dangerous harpy- after your soul. But despite his speed, his talons, despite his strength and deadly accuracy, whatever it was that made him inhuman, was a part of him- and you loved him. So you could love that too.

You melted into his embrace. Keigo was safe. His arms were strong and warm. His soft coos were comforting. You allowed yourself to close your eyes, there was no place you’d rather be.

Slowly but surely you stop trembling and glance back up at him. His face is stone cold as he gazes into the distance, but as if sensing your eyes he turns to you and melts. His sharp gaze softens, his lips which were placed into a small frown turn up. When you first met him, you’d have never expected to him to be capable of an expression: yet here he was gazing at you with reverence.

You were the first to speak.

“I’m sorry. I thought I could trade the fur pelts for money in town while you were hunting. I didn’t think it was dangerous if I stayed on the path.” You felt guilty, you knew that Keigo was taking on an extra burden because of you. As much as you craved adventure it seemed you were still quite new at it -new and naive. This wasn’t the first time he had rescued you, and you were sure it wouldn’t be the last.

He regards your statement with the tilt of his head, he almost reminded you of an owl.

“I promise I won’t wander off again.” You continue, eager to fill the silence.

“You won’t have a chance, you’re not leaving my line of sight again.” He tells you. His arms are warm around your back. You smile at him.

“Does this mean I get to go hunting with you?” You ask hopefully. He hums in consideration. What a soft and helpless human you were. But you were warm and sweet, he was addicted. Just like that the two of you went on bickering as you had before, but something had changed. You were easier to love, safer to let his guard down. You’d seen him at his worst, a bloodthirsty monster ready to enact revenge, and you were terrified. You looked at him with such a stricken expression he wasn’t sure he’d recover, he had killed your own after all. Even if they were scumbags who deserved it. Yet you still ran into his arms, clutched his back and buried your face in his chest. You’d chosen him, unconditionally, and he’d do anything you wanted because of it.

“You should come hunting. You’ll have to learn to be more helpful eventually.” He teases. You smack his shoulder.

“Alright, get off me you overgrown robin.” You push him off you, and he relents.

“Unfair birdie. I think I should get a reward for saving you.” He waddles toward you, wagging his eyebrows. You scoff.

“Maybe if you bring me away from the dead people, and-“ you don’t even get to finish your sentence once before he’s shooting off into the air with you in his arms. He brings you to a meadow, dropping you off into the grass. The second you steady yourself he’s on top of you, hands cupping your cheeks, soft lips pressed against yours. His tongue is insistent pushing into your mouth. Almost as swift as he kisses you he recoils.

“You taste like blood,” his eyes are blown wide, and he places a hand over his mouth. You take a moment to reply, catching your breath.

“I accidentally bit my tongue when he slapped me. I guess it hasn’t stopped bleeding.” You respond. It takes you a moment to think that he might not have recoiled out of disgust or concern for your wellbeing, but out of self control because he had a taste for human blood. You turn to him in fear.

“You don’t eat people… do you?” You ask. He laughs at that.

“Oh god no. Well, not that I couldn’t, but you’re not exactly appetizing.”

“Thanks?”

“It’s not a compliment dove.”

“For gods sakes bird man.” You huff, crossing your arms. When you feel bare skin under them your blood runs cold. That was right, the leader had cut your shirt open. Keigo follows your body language, seeing you stiffen as you remember the state of your dress. He wouldn’t lie and say seeing you that vulnerable and exposed in front of those thieves made filled him with blind rage. Now that they were dead and you were safe he appreciated the view. You were definitely tempting.

“Don’t tell me you’re shy birdie.” He takes a step toward you, gripping your wrists lightly. You flush a deep red.

“Quit teasing me, this isn’t funny.” You try to tug your arms out of his grasp, but he doesn’t relent.

“I didn’t say it was funny, I killed those fuckers for thier crimes.” He pauses the serious tone taking on a lighter intent. “But I still need my reward!” He whines. You roll your eyes.

“You already kissed me, that was your reward.”

“Birdie no! You tasted like blood so we couldn’t even kiss properly. You tricked me, that's an unfair deal.” He pouts, lightly tugging on your arms. Not enough to force them to your sides but enough to get his wants across.

“It’s just my chest, it’s not special.” You put up a front of confidence. He grins at you wickedly.

“If it’s hardly special you shouldn’t have any problems taking off your broken shirt and exchanging it for a new one.” His canines poke out from his lower lips. You let out a soft grumble, damn he got you there.

“I don’t have a shirt to change into.” You say, which was true. You had forgotten to pack an extra set of clothes, and you hadn’t been in a town long enough to buy a new pair. You look to Keigo who almost seems devilish.

“Not to worry, dove. I have just the solution for you.”

Turns out his solution was stripping. You watch in horror and embarrassment as his hard abs are exposed to you, glistening with a thin layer of sweat. You try not to stare, but then again he was stripping for you. Not to mention he looked like he was sculpted by the gods.

You wondered what you had done that captured his attention. You were a regular human, something he didn’t like, and you were confident the other harpies must’ve been as equally beautiful as he was.

“Put your shirt back on!” You end up scolding him. He only laughs.

“I don’t need this flimsy human invention.” He throws the offending material at your face. It smells exactly like him.

“Keigo,” you warn. He had given you his shirt, but something about the smug way he was smiling at you made you think you were somehow losing in this interaction.

“Go on, change.” He tells you.

“Fine.”

“Good.”

“Perfect, this is exactly what I wanted.”

“I’m glad.”

He doesn’t back down, but neither do you. With a little huff you shed your backpack unceremoniously onto the ground. He watches you with keen eyes, but it was too late to give in. You grab the bottom of your shirt, hoisting it up over your head, leaving you bare before him.

It takes everything in you not to rush throwing his shirt on. You take it casually, slipping your arms through the sleeves, then popping your head through the neck. It was a little large on you, still warm and smelling distinctly of him.

When you finished you turned to look back at the birdman, as if to challenge him, but he had turned his head away, arm raised up to block his cheeks. It was… cute.

“Birdman are you blushing?” You ask, genuinely curious. You’d never seen him so sheepish before. Though you supposed you shouldn’t’ve opened your mouth. The second you do his dangerous yellow orbs are on you again, predatory.

“I’m surprised you went through with it ‘s’all.” He shrugs his shoulders. The scans over your form. As if seeing imperfections he begins adjusting everything.

First comes the shirt, which he tucked in for you, then rolls up the cuffs so they don’t drape off your hands. Then he moves onto your pants which he pats down swiping off dust and leaves. Then he moves back up to your neck. He licks the tip of his thumb then swipes it against the small streak of blood that had run down your neck from where the knife had pierced you. He brings his thumb back to his mouth several times in order to wipe away all the blood completely. So he wasn’t disgusted with the taste, even humans weren’t appetizing.

You end up lounging in the meadow. His hands were in your hair, meticulously pulling apart every strand and and placing them where he deemed they should go. You weren’t sure why he did this grooming habit, but it had become a staple in your life -after you were attacked, after you had made out, early in the morning, late at night. You'd grown quite fond of it, spine tingling under his touch. You relax, and strain to not stare at his chiseled chest, choosing instead to focus on his face and his deep concentration. The way his golden orbs found every detail, the reverie pressed between his lips. When he finishes he smiles at you, practically glowing.

“Com’ere and let me preen your wings parakeet.” You had learned to do this a week ago, after asking how you could return this (bird) ritual.

He promptly flops to the ground before you, and you take your time righting his feathers, running your hands down them and dusting them off. He practically melts under your touch, cooing and humming. You surge with warmth, doused with affection. Sure you he might not be completely human -he might even scare you at some points- but you would never trade it away for anything. He was your bird man and you were his human.

🪶

The two of you had camped out in a small field next to a pretty large village. Keigo was currently napping in the sunshine, and you promised to get lunch. He seemed skeptical at first, to let you out of his line of sight, but you had showed considerable improvement with hand to hand combat over the weeks and you had promised to bring back chicken. So he relented and allowed the ‘human expert to deal with the smelly creatures’. The town wasn’t too far of a walk, a short path through some tree’s, maybe fifteen minutes. Maybe that was why he allowed you to wander off. If you screamed he was sure to hear you, and would be there faster than you could blink.

So you walked off, with an empty satchel and a bag of coins. The town was beautiful and the villagers were friendly, asking if you had encountered any creatures on your travels, marveling at your willingness to travel the dangerous forests alone. You had left out mention of your feathered companion, remembering how unfavorably your village had seen him. The harpy. The wind demon. You manage a good deal for some friend chicken, and buy a fresh set of clothes and a small necklace for Keigo. You were just about finishing up your shopping when you heard whoops and hollers from a large group entering the village. You turn to the shop vendor.

“What’s happening?” You ask, handing her the coins for the necklace. It was a simple golden chain with a ruby pendant. It reminded you of his wings.

“It’s the Devil Squadron. They protect us from the monsters in the forest.” She tells you cheerfully. You nod along, until you hear a bird’s screeching. Time seems to slow as your feet begin moving before you can comprehend where you’re going.

You see him tangled up in a heavy chained net tangled in his wings, around his arms and legs. He’s drug harshly along the ground his feathers bent at odd angles. You can see the blood he’s covered in, some his own, some coating his hands from the men he killed. There’s something wild in his eyes, a captured animal.

“Let him go!” You scream before you can stop yourself. Before you can think. You’re sprinting toward him, willing your legs to move faster, be stronger. You can’t tell if he’s wailing or if you are. Two of the townspeople grab you, pulling you back away from Keigo. You thrash in their grip.

“Calm down! What do you even want with the creature?” The townsman is grumbling next to you.

“He’s my companion! He’s not some mindless monster!” You yell, pulling and thrashing. Keigo looks to you eyes blown wide. He was terrified, it shook you to your soul. He’s dragged further and further away from you.

Apparently you’re causing enough of a commotion that the head of the group decides to confront you directly. He’s an older gentleman, but by no means weak and frail. He regards you with captious look.

“What is all this ruckus? Was he your prey or something?” He ask, other members of his squadron flocking to either side of you. The interfering townspeople quickly flee your presence, trailing after the parade.

“He’s my friend. Let him go, he’s not dangerous,” you argue ferociously for your friend, for your lover.

“That creature killed four of my men.”

“In self defense! I bet you didn’t call out first, I bet you attacked.”

“He’s a danger to this town.”

“Then give him back to me and I promise you’ll never see us in this shitty town again!”

He laughs at you then, motions the other men forward. They immediately grab onto your arms. You cry out in protest.

“Throw ‘em in the call and treat ‘em nice. I have a couple of questions for them about the creature.”

Your heart drops, and then you full on flip. You scream and stomp, wriggling out of your sleeves and making a break for it, before being thrown onto the hard ground. You beg and cry and plead them not to hurt Hawks. Despite your best efforts you end up locked in a dingy cell. You can hear the cries and screams of people outside, cruel words like monster, demon, killer. You silently weep, biting on your lip harsh enough to draw blood.

It seems like forever before the old man came to visit you. He pulled up a rickety chair and sat in front of your cell. You glared at him with a stare that would kill if your eyes could actually hold daggers.

“That creature he’s a harpy isn’t he?” He asks you first, with a voice that sounds like he’d seen it all. You guaranteed he hadn’t.

“His name is Hawks and yes he is a harpy.” You nearly spit, careful not to reveal keigos name. You were beginning to understand why he had hidden it.

“Hawks.” He murmurs as if reciting an oath. “And you tamed this beast, the taker of souls?” He asks.

“I didn’t tame him. He’s not a creature, he's like a person. And for your information he doesn’t steal souls.” Angry tears stream down your cheeks. Then realization crosses his features.

“Maybe not your soul, but he has a grip on your heart no?”

You stare back at him flabbergasted, but apparently that was all he needed to confirm his suspicions.

“Does he love you back? Is a creature like that capable of love?” He asked you patronizingly.

“He’s more capable than a scumbag like you,” you fire back. Maybe you should’ve been trying to get him on your side. Win him over, but you were just so angry, unwilling to bend to the man’s bigotry. Maybe it was a flaw, but you were confident it was a very human one.

Despite your insults the man seems more amused than he is offended. Instead he chuckles and pulls out a ring of keys.

“You really trust that creature.”

“With my life.”

“Willing to bet on that?”

“Yes.”

He regards you with a small smile. It sends chills down your spine.

“Willing to bet his too?”

“What do you mean?” You weren’t sure what this man was planning.

“See, your monster is out in the town square right now, chained up. All sorts of things bein’ thrown at him, rocks, glass, rotten food. And he’s a killer through and through alright. Killed four of my men without batting an eye-“

“What’s the point?” You cut him off.

“The point is, I’ll give you the key, hell I’ll even escort you into town. You’re welcome walk up and free him -if you don’t mind being hit that is- because I’m confident that he’ll attack you.”

“And if he doesn’t?” You ask, ready to jump at this oppurntunity.

“You’ll do exactly what you said you’d do. Take the beast and get out of my town.”

“Okay let’s go now.” You spring from your seat, more than trusting in Keigo not to kill you.

“But- if your monster moves to attack any of my people I’m putting a bullet in his head.” He stands walking towards a rifle hanging on the wall ready for use. He grabs it, and holds out the key ring to you. It was a risky bet, you weren’t sure how Keigo would react to the humans who so brutally hurt him. You just prayed he trusted you enough to listen.

“Which key is it?” You ask. The man chuckles, releasing you from your confines.

“It’s one of these.”

“Which one?” You demand. He walks toward the door.

“Now sweetie, that's part of the fun. But I promise it’s on there, you’ll just have to try them till one works.” You harshly grab the key ring from the man. He begins leading you to town. There were maybe fifteen keys. You prayed you’d find it quickly.

When you make it to the town center you’re greeted with an unholy sight. Keigo was bound to the ground, chains encasing his arms, pulling his wrists to the ground behind him. It forces his chest up, on display as a target. His wings were bloodied and draped behind him in a heap. Various scratches and bruises littered his body as well as the smell of pungent fruit. The townspeople were jeering at him, screaming profanities and throwing sticks. Your legs move faster than you can comprehend, tears streaming from your eyes.

When you reach him, you shield him from the rocks, pulling his head into your embrace. There’s a pause in the crowd, but you hear the only man mutter ‘carry on’, and the beating begins. The stones hurt, crashing against your back, fruit splattering against your head, slimy trails inching down your neck.

“It’s okay, I’m here now. I’m going to protect you.” You tell him, fumbling with the keys in your hand. He hardly grunts beneath your touch. You bite your lip, looking up in hopes to stifle the tears in your eyes. It doesn’t work as you lean into him, shielding him from the blows, reaching for the lock.

You try the first key, a rock hits you square in the shoulder. You try the second key, a bottle crashes against your head, it shatters and you can feel the warmth of your blood mixing with the sticky fruit. You try the third key, cursing as it doesn’t fit into the lock.

“Get out of here.” Keigo murmurs into your skin, pushing into you. Trying to push you away.

“No. I just have to get this stupid lock off and then we can leave as long as you don’t hurt anyone and we never return.” The fourth key doesn’t work. A low screech rumbles from keigo’ s throat. Another rock hits your leg, a branch smacking into your arms. You hiss out in pain, trying the fifth and sixth key.

“They’re hurting you. I’ll kill them all.” He growls, teeth nearly biting into your skin. A bottle breaks against your back glass shards digging through the fabric into your skin. The 8th key fits into the lock. You let out a little sigh of relief.

“Keigo,” you murmur. “Keigo please just trust me. Let’s go, okay? Let’s get out of here Keigo,” you call to him. His nose nudges into you. You worried, because he wasn’t responding. You turn the key in the lock, the cuffs falling off. He lunges forward pushing you toward the ground away from the unrelenting blows of people who were so kind to you hours earlier. A hush of murmurs befalls the crowd, but all you can see is Kiego’s brilliant golden eyes in the red sky. Then you hear the loading of a gun.

“Please, let’s just go,” you whisper, beseeching him. He looks away from you, down the barrel of a shotgun.

“Your little friend didn’t lie. You didn’t attack ‘em like a wild animal. But you are one, I see in your inhuman eyes, monster.”

You want to shout, want to scream at the injustice that man was besmirching upon Keigo’s name. How dare he insult those eyes, those brilliantly colored pools of gold, as if he was carrying the treasures of the world in its depths. Instead you reach a trembling hand up to cup his face. He doesn’t say anything, leaning into your touch.

Then like a puppet on a string, Keigo stands, then places you on your feet. He pulls you close to him, draping a wing around your form, shielding you from the ugly faces around you. It didn’t matter, you weren’t looking at them anyway. You were only ever looking at him.

The two of you walk out of town, hushed murmurs following you. True to his word the old man lets you leave. You hoped he believed you now, maybe it was too little too late, as your back ached and you smelled of rotting fruit, but maybe he’d leave the next harpy he found alone. Your bird was alive, that was all that mattered.

🪶

If there was something different about the two of you, you could only pinpoint it to the familiarity you develop being on the open road together. To be frank you had never asked Keigo where you were going. In all honesty it didn’t matter to you. What mattered was that it was him, and that you were going together.

Years ago you wouldn’t have believed you finally started your adventure. A year ago, when you had first met your birdman, you never would have imagined you’d get this close. Still, you knew every scar on his back, kissed each freckle that adorned his skin, sung along to each and every one of his songs. You loved him. The sky knew you loved him. You loved him when it rained and stormed. You loved him when it was clear and blue. You loved him beneath the clouds and you loved him above each whipped peak. And one day you finally learned where he was taking you.

It was beautiful. You couldn’t have imagined a more beautiful place, fields of flowers and the trickle of mountain streams. He had placed you in the middle of a large valley nestled into the mountains. You had never taken yourself for the type of person who would frolic, but there was nothing you wanted more than to frolic amongst the flowers. Well, you wanted to kiss Keigo more, but that's besides the point. The point was it was breathtaking, but he still hadn’t said a word since he set you on the ground.

“It’s beautiful Keigo, this is amazing,” you smile at him. He seems to visibly relax, roaming eyes stopping to rest on your own.

“You like it?” He asks, puffing out his chest.

“Yes of course, it’s beautiful.” This time it’s your turn to search his face, trying to discern what he wasn’t telling you. Apparently you didn’t have to wait long.

“Good. Because we’re staying here.” He tells you very matter of factly looking over the fields like it was his domain.

“Staying here, as in living here?”

“Yes? I am speaking your silly little human language, am I not?” He grins at you canine protruding from his mouth.

“Yes Keigo, that’s not what I'm saying.” You explain rather pointedly. He grins stepping closer to you, predatory.

“You want to live with me.” He presses himself against you, drawing you closer with his arms. His statement was more of a demand. You flush red.

“Well, yes. But are you sure about here? Is there water, food? Are we near enough to a town that I can still get supplies, but far enough away that you’ll be safe? And how are we going to build a house? And our trips? Who’s going to watch everything when we’re gone-“ he cuts you off by hooking a leg around your knee pressing into it and making you buckle. You land in the grass rather softly thanks to his intervention. He hovers above you. He opens his mouth, as if to rebuttal your worries, but instead his lips descend upon yours. He tasted sweet, and slightly bitter like the berries you had snacked upon hours earlier. He bites onto your lower lip, huffing against your skin.

He abruptly detaches himself from your mouth, trailing his lips across your chin and down to your neck. Then, giving you a devious smirk, he attacks your sides with his deft fingers, throwing you into a laughing fit.

“Keigo stop!” You wheeze between laughter, kicking and squirming beneath you. He pauses for a moment, grinning like a wild man, before resuming his attack.

“Seriously, bird man, knock it off!” You huff out, and he relents, collapsing on top of your form. His wings unfurl from behind him, swamping you in fields of red.

True to his word, you were staying there, and you did want to live with him. You were expecting a homely cabin, but to your surprise he gets started the very next day on …. a tree house. In typical bird fashion, he refuses to let you help out, even a little.

“Birdie put the pillow down,” Keigo scolds you, shooting a pointed look.

“I can’t even help decorate?” You ask, exhasperated.

“Not a single trinket.”

You supposed this was his way of showing you what a good partner he’d be. Like a wild bird building his nest, your nest. So you take to roaming the fields exploring the flowers. You take a day trip to the nearby village and purchase a book on wildflowers and thier properties. You learn quite a bit, purifying petals and making herbal teas. You have fun too, making flower crowns to place on keigos head as he fashioned the walls of your humble abode, he’d laugh and shoot you smiles of beaming sunlight.

“If you really wanted to cheer me up, you could always give me a kiss.” He requests from you, adjusting the crown atop his head.

“Presumptuous,” you call back to him, but mosey over anyways. You plant a small peck on his cheek, tasting sweat and sawdust.

“Surely you can do better.” He croons, dropping the hammer he was holding and pulling you closer to him. You can’t help the childish giggle that departs your lips.

“Surely I wouldn’t before you’re properly cleaned up.” You chide him, pressing yourself further into his warmth. He whines a little.

“No.” He tells you.

“Yes. You’ve been working all day. You’re sweaty.” You let out an amused ew, as he wipes his sawdust coated cheeks against your skin.

“You’re sweaty too,” He grumbles.

“I certainly am now.”

“Bathe with me.” He demands, pulling away from you to search your gaze.

“You can bathe yourself,” you tell him pointedly. You can sense that you weren’t getting through to him. You were right, because in the following moments you were scooped from your place on the ground and slung over a shoulder. You can tell he was smug about it. He was smug about everything, but especially the hold he had on your heart. He had you wrapped around his finger, and as far as you could discern he would, for the foreseeable future. Still, you never regretted saving an injured bird.

Soon enough your home was built. A beautiful tree house with lots of windows and space. He built a workspace for your flowers, a place to store the medicines you created. There was a balcony with a netted hammock for you to lay upon. Your bedroom was a beautiful pile of pillows and blankets. He looks to you sheepishly.

“Traditionally it’s made of sticks and twine,” he tells you. “But you’re such a delicate little creature I had to come up with a substitute.”

Ah. You realized. He wasn’t just building himself a nest, like he’d build another of his kind. He went out of his way to build a nest for you. One that you’d enjoy living in. Maybe he noticed that sleeping atop the trees wasn’t exactly comfortable. It was an act of love. He was professing his love to you, through this house, showing you the ways he noticed what you needed, what would make you comfortable, what would make you happy.

“Keigo. I-“ the words fail as tears begin to fall from your face. He extends his arms and you find yourself falling into them, pressing a soft kiss onto his lips. He smiles against them, humming.

“You like it?” He asks, searching your gaze.

“I love it, and I love you.”

He kisses you again, pulling you close. This time it’s you who can’t stop smiling. It was clear, so clear to you, that whether Keigo was more bird than man, or more man than bird, you couldn’t care. You loved him, -loved him so terribly much that you felt like bursting. More importantly you knew now -knew more than ever how he loved you the same, the injured bird you rescued with the broken wing.

#mha takami keigo #mha x reader #hawks x y/n #hawks x reader #tamaki keigo #mha au #mha fantasy au #bnha keigo #mha reader insert #mha x y/n

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felidae-abyss · 9 months

Text

Cheetah

AKA: spotted one (indian original name)

Acinonyx jubatus

Felidae family, acinonyx genus

Ultimate Infodump Sheet

General description

Cheetahs have pale yellow, grayish or fawn coats, covered in tiny black spots. The belly fur is lighter than the rest, while the color tends to darken on the back. Cheetahs have distinctive markins under the eyes that go down the muzzle, called a tear mask. They have black rings around the last third of the tail.

The cheetah's paws are long and narrow. They have semi-retractile claws on the front paws, and non-retractile claws on the hind paws.

Cheetahs' head-body length ranges from 112 to 150 cm (44 to 59"), and they are 67 to 94 cm (26 to 37") tall at the shoulder. Cheetahs weight between 21 and 72 kg (46 to 158 lbs). Males are usually larger than females.

They live 6 years on average in the wild, and 19 in captivity.

King cheetahs

The patterns of a king cheetah are caused by a slight melanism. Overall, the spots are bolder, sometimes even forming stripes. They have large stripes along the entierty of thair back, and rings are present on most of the tail.

Physical aptitudes

Cheetahs are the fastest land animal. The highest speed recorded for a cheetah was 113 km/h (70 mi/h). They are the only big cat able to turn in the air while sprinting. They use their tail for steering while they are running. They are bad tree climbers.

Contrary to members of the panthera genus, they do not roar: instead, cheetahs can purr, meow, chirp and yeep.

Habitat

Cheetahs live in savanna, shrublands, grasslands, wetalands, rocky areas, and in the desert. Due to their light weight, they are capable of living in dunes.

Cheetahs present in several small areas of Africa, in countries such as Algeria, Angola, Benin, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Uganda... They are extint on an alarmingly large portion of Africa.

Diet

Cheetahs are carnivorous. Their diet includes gazelles (especially the Thompson's gazelle), impalas, as well as other small ungulates. They also prey on hares, birds, and other small animals.

Cheetahs charge from 70 to 100 meters (27 to 40 feet) away from the prey. They strangle the animal with their jaws. The chase can only last 500 meters (196 feet), and cheetahs can only maintain their top velocity for a few hundred meters.

Contrary to most felids, cheetahs are diurnal and hunt primarily during the day.

Reproduction

Cheetahs reproduce year-long, but mostly during wet season. Makes provide no parental care, and only interact with females during mating. If the female encounters a coalition, she will most likely reproduce with several males.

Gestation lasts between 90 and 95 days (about 3 months). Cubs open their eyes 4 to 11 days after birth, and start walking after 12 days. The litter size in the wild is 1 to 6 cubs, with an average of 3. In captivity, litters with 8 cubs have been recorded. Cubs are weaned between 3 and 6 months, and become independent between 15 and 17 months.

Cheetah cubs have a long, blue-ish gray mane along their head, neck and back, called "mantle". They gradually lose this fur until they reach adolescence. A study suggests that the mantle makes cubs ressemble honey badgers, which aids them to survive as a lot of animals avoid honey badgers.

Predation is the highest on cheetah cubs. The survival rate in Serengeti National Park, where several large carnivores live, is of only 17%.

Endangered

Cheetahs are classified as vulnerable in the IUCN Redlist. The population is fragmented and keeps on decreasing.

The causes are all human: climate change, energy production and mining, urban development, agriculture, roads, hunting, human intrusion, modification of natural systems, invasive species....

Extra links

An interesting, well illustrated informational website that I wish I'd found earlier in writing this

Amazing footage of a cheetah hunting a wildebeest

SOURCES

#ultimate infodump sheet #infodump #cheetah #cheetahs #felids #felid #felidae #feline #big cat

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chaos-cousins · 17 days

Note

Pelipper mail! A dream. A good dream.

"What do you want to read today?" she asks you as she lets you down and the two of you wander along the walls of books.

"Ummm..." Your eyes scan the bookshelves. They land on the section for physics and history of technology, and you point up excitedly. "Physics! Technology!"

"Should have guessed," Mother laughs, and pulls out a hefty textbook. She leads you to a reading area, ambient and lit by warm lamps, and lets you read along with her as she says all the words aloud.

"What is the distance formula?" she suddenly quizzes you after a little while of reading. "It's alright if you don't—"

"Change in position equals initial velocity times change in time plus one half of the product of the acceleration and time squared!" you say in one breath, and she blinks rapidly.

"You memorized that already?"

"Yup!"

You both start to laugh again (more quietly, as to not disturb the library), and Mother kisses your forehead. "Never change, little bird. I am so proud of you."

Do I

I just

I wanna go back to sleep.

#pokeblogging #rotomblr #//he is sobbing. so many emotions for poor boy

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swiftbluelightning · 17 days

Note

Pelipper mail! A dream. A good dream.

"What do you want to read today?" she asks you as she lets you down and the two of you wander along the walls of books.

"Ummm..." Your eyes scan the bookshelves. They land on the section for physics and history of technology, and you point up excitedly. "Physics! Technology!"

"Should have guessed," Mother laughs, and pulls out a hefty textbook. She leads you to a reading area, ambient and lit by warm lamps, and lets you read along with her as she says all the words aloud.

"What is the distance formula?" she suddenly quizzes you after a little while of reading. "It's alright if you don't—"

"Change in position equals initial velocity times change in time plus one half of the product of the acceleration and time squared!" you say in one breath, and she blinks rapidly.

"You memorized that already?"

"Yup!"

You both start to laugh again (more quietly, as to not disturb the library), and Mother kisses your forehead. "Never change, little bird. I am so proud of you."

Ah. So... that's what it's like. To be cared for.

It feels so unfamiliar. I wish it didn't.

...I hope someday I can... make sure someone grows up thinking my unfamiliarity is strange. Grows up loved and adored and happy.

Grows up knowing I will always be proud of them.

#pokeblogging #rotomblr

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dazeracha · 1 year

Text

han jisung, drabble n.1 (angst, fluff, established relationship, death scenario) english.

"han. hanji" with one of your eyes refusing to open and your shoulders slightly crumpled, you shake the thin boy's upper arm. the best case scenario is that he will wake up and find some relief in being awake. worst case is that it will take more effort and a harsher aproach to make him wake up. "bubba, you're having a nightmare again". your voice is hoarse by the sleep but soft, and your palms press more diligently his shoulder, not in a piercing way, but trying your best to make him feel the comfortable pressure of your hand. han was shaking in his sleep, tiny spasms hitting his lower limbs and his eyes and eyebrows pursed closed. you know that sooner or later he'll start to mumble and it'll turn into cries of help, and -really praying every night to avoid this- some muffled screams.

with you being more awake by now, realizing how deep in his agony he is, you slide one of your hands under the nape of his neck. your thumb caressing the soft spot below his ear, and try to bring him close to your chest, pressing your lips to his forehead. your heart beating fast as your boyfriend starts to cry, unaware of his surroundings and the reality of his condition: that he's safe and sound with you. he always has been.

you can see the pearls of sweat dribbling down his forehead, and the thin baby hairs growing in his front line sticking to it. the breath was stuck in his throat and, slowly but surely, you felt yourself tense up. this timestamp was new and was an anomaly to his usual night terrors. shaking him a bit more heavily, you held with your other hand the top of his head, making sure not to hurt him. your mouth was close to his ears, pronunciation more clear and punctilious now.

"han, baby. i need you to wake up. you're dreaming" you said. you could feel the heartbeat of your boyfriend reverberate against your upper abdomen, and intense knot forming in your stomach. it was out of control: the sweating, the beating of his heart, the clutch of his fists, his throat pulsating and his veins visible, not a single sound leaving his mouth. the tears were rolling down his cheeks and you were at loss of words and strategies by now.

"han. han jisung. i need you to wake up now" you stated frantically, sitting up and trying to get his tense body to sit by your side, failed. "love, please wake up, you're scaring me. please, you're okay, we're home" your thumbs pressed against his cheeks, cleaning his tears while holding his body against yours.

all of the sudden, you feel his body relax, the muscles on his face decaying, his dirty blond hair puffed around his features. his body weight plops down on you, which makes you sigh in relief. as you put your forehead agains his, you stick your hand under his shirt, pressing your palm against the center of his chest in an effort to give him a much needed cuddle. "thank g-"

your words stick to the back of your throat in a choked sound, as you feel your blood hitting the back of your feet in a hot rush throughout your whole body.

you don't feel a heartbeat.

almost juggling your hands around and crashing them around his body, you press your ear against his neck, sweating cold at the fact that you dont feel his heart there either. both your hands shoot to hold his head, out of words and without taking a single breath. if the moon outside was witnessing this loss, it would crash down on earth with all it's weight. because she had heard all the prayers you shooted to the sky for your so-perfect boyfriend, tormented by his own nightmares about death, failure, loneliness. han always said that losing you would feel like losing himself, like a bird being destroyed by the velocity of a car in a highway. his subconscious mind was well aware and working every night to remind him of it. to make him go through awful losses and terrific scenarios everytime he hit the pillow.

nothing could have prepared you to be the one being hit by, not only a car, but a truck.

your boyfriend seemed dead in your arms.

you felt like throwing up. you held him flush to your body as you nuzzled your head in his neck, eyes shooting in the dark to nowhere specific, while some grotesque noise was boiling in your throat. you could feel your veins pumping blood as you screamed with all your force, your eyes closing themselves out of reflex. your hands gripping his shirt. your ears ringing.

you sit up.

the breath you were holding was finally hitting your lungs and your whole body was shaking.

"oh my god" you heard the masculine voice to your left. suddenly, your tender body was being taken to crash against the bare and warm skin of your boyfriend. "dear god y/n" han was pressing his lips against your temple, and you wish you could react to it but your sight was still adjusting and a slow but steady ringing was still pressing your ears. "you must've been having an awful nightmare, i've been trying to wake you up for a good minute now"

you looked up at him, your mouth barely hanging open as the tears were forming heavily at the corner of your eyes. you could avert the dark circles under his shiny and big eyes, the warmth of his palm against your cheek, the line of his collarbone and the curve of his muscular shoulder. the little pond at the end of his throat.

"don't ever do that to me again. don't you dare to leave me like that" you said, sobbing, grabbing back his hands and leaving some full of need kisses against his jaw and cheek, still shaky and very much broken. his eyebrows were arched and he held you with much more intent this time, kissing you back as he could, whispering praises and sweet words to your ear.

"i would never leave you, moonshine" he said laying you down on the matress agains him, nose to nose. "you're my savior every night".

#i just blurted this out without thinking #maybe someone reads it #i haven checked any mistakes #enjoy #han #han jisung #han jisung fanfic #stray kids fanfic #skz #skz soft thoughts #skz soft hours

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theluckywizard · 1 year

Text

WIP Wednesday

A little bit from an upcoming chapter in my long fic In the Shattering of Things. Little meet cute for my Inquisitor and "Serah Bird".

I’m agonized on her behalf as Juniper limps her way back up the hill, the rock lodged firmly into her shoe making a racket on the bridge into the keep. It’s late enough in the day that I try not to bother anyone about it in the stable, tying her off and lifting her hoof up between my knees to have a careful look. No amount of prying with my hands will get this massive rock out, even after digging away the compacted dirt with my bare fingers. This project will need more leverage. I unfasten my jack and strip it off, slinging it over the hook on the wall of the stall beside me. I pray that a hoof pick might be enough, because the thought of trying to hammer it out without Dennett around to assist is a bit daunting.

I gather a couple tools that might be useful from around the stable, assembling them on a nearby stool. Clutching her firmly between my knees again, I brush away as much of the silt and gravel as possible to assess the sticking points of the rock.

“Maker, Juniper, you sure have good aim,” I mutter, wiggling the hoof pick under the obvious jam. I apply some leverage to no avail on each of the tight spots but the pick merely begins to bend. Juniper shuffles on her three legs and nearly knocks me over. “Hold still, you oaf. I’m trying to help you.”

A cloaked man leading his horse in glances over at me in some amusement as he ties his mount up near the water trough and starts removing the heavy saddle bags. His eyes linger on me as I reach for a screwdriver on the stool that I did not position close enough and gracefully, I nearly keel over into a mound of manure in the act. I bounce on my left foot until I regain my balance, collect my dignity and try at the rock again. I really don’t need the man’s scrutiny right now, but he seems bent on applying it so I do my best to ignore him. Cranking the screwdriver carefully so I don’t poke the soft tissue of Juniper’s hoof, I use her shoe as a fulcrum. Enough force is needed that I find myself wincing, knowing that the rock might achieve some distance when it finally pops free.

When the cobble launches forth, accelerated to a dangerous velocity across the stable, I stumble back against Juniper’s hind quarter and watch in slow moving horror as it makes contact with the man, pegging him squarely in the shoulder. The rock hits forcefully, but it only makes a muffled clank, and I’m relieved to discover he’s wearing armor, or pauldrons at the very least under his cloak.

“Sorry,” I manage in high-pitched humiliation. He reaches a long arm to the ground for the projectile and walks toward me with it with a shockingly easy smile on his face for a man who was nearly knocked out by my blundering. He stops a few paces away and I come to grips with his size. I’m a fairly tall woman but the top of my head only meets his shoulder.

“Quite the elaborate murder plot,” he remarks in a refined accent that I can’t place between Ferelden and the Marches.

“You have no idea,” I reply with a smile. “I’ve been planning this for weeks.” He laughs, handing me the rock.

“Better luck next time.” He runs his hand through his shaggy, longish brown hair as he pushes the hood of his cloak off his head. “Bet she’s feeling better,” he says, gesturing at Juniper. I glance at the sizable stone in my hand and then up at the traveler who has a charming face hidden behind a scruffy beard. He regards me frankly with an arresting sky blue gaze.

“Almost certainly.” I set the rock down and pick up her hoof again to inspect it. I glance up at him when he lingers. “So what brings you to Skyhold?” I ask, always interested in the people who drift our way.

“Door to door knife sales. Kitchen knives, utility knives, murder knives. I even have one that can slice clean through a metal pipe!” he says with a fetching grin. I tilt my head up to raise my eyebrow at him, my amusement emerging at the corner of my mouth and then glance down at his distinctive plate armor. “Seriously though, no, I’m here for hire. Mercenary work.”

“Is that so?” I ask, curious. He reaches a giant hand out to me in greeting.

“Barnabus Bird,” he says. I set down Juniper’s hoof, wipe my hand on my breeches and shake his gloved one.

“Quite the name for a mercenary,” I tell him. “Memorable.”

“It is, isn’t it?” he says, pleased with himself. “And your name?”

“Violet,” I improvise, knowing I’m a sitting duck with no one else around.

“And what does Violet do for the Inquisition?” he says as if he knows it’s a made up name.

“Official Inquisition weathervane adjuster,” I reply, matching the ridiculousness of his initial cover.

“A lot of weathervanes in the stables, are there?”

“You’d be surprised!” I untie Juniper and lead her into her stall, aware of my vulnerability around a hulking mercenary in a quiet stable. Barnabus Bird returns to his horse and continues unloading him, glancing back at me appraisingly. I pull my jack on over my filthy shirt.

“That’s an interesting mark for a weathervane adjuster,” he says keenly, pointing at the faint glow in my hand and the pale streaks that climb up my arm. Shit. I’d forgotten about the Anchor. I prepare to make my escape from the perceptive gaze of this nosy interloper.

“Of course, it helps me with my adjustments. A blessing from the Maker,” I say with a smile. I head out of the stable and turn around to bid my farewell. “See you around, Serah Bird.”

"Nice to meet you, Inquisitor," he calls after me. I shake my head at my foolishness, glancing down at the cursed green glow that gave me away. I hurry quickly back into Skyhold through the kitchen, wondering if he’ll be recruited by Cullen or Leliana or some combination of the two. His sheer size could be useful to our forces. But then again perhaps this knife salesman could be a decent covert operative.

Tagging others who may wish to share their WIPs!

@nirikeehan, @doomhippy83, @monocytogenes, @rakshadow, @warpedlegacy, @ar-lath-ma-cully, @crackinglamb, @ir0n-angel, @kiastirling-fanfic, @rosella-writes, @liza011, @breninarthur

#dragon age inquisition #dragon age fanfiction #rose trevelyan #in the shattering of things #enter hawke #hawke x trevelyan #hawke x inquisitor #serah bird or messere hawke?#purple hawke

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the12thnightproject · 2 years

Text

Chapter 23: Five Ounce Bird/One Pound Coconut. Stand back! Sasuke's trying science. Also. Still raining.

Shingen x OC; Kenshin x MC (Mai)

Previous Chapter: here

Logline - Disguised as a boy, Katsuko finds herself working for Shingen, but her dangerous masquerade becomes difficult to sustain when she falls for the man with a fatal secret.

“Wow, Katsu. You’re actually cute, like a real girl – oof!” Yuki turned to glare at Sasuke who had elbowed him. “What?! She is.”

“I agree with the sentiment, though not the wording,” Sasuke said. He was regarding me, well, scientifically, so maybe his operating system was checking my appearance against the ‘real girl’ matrix.

I waved both statements away. “Mai and Yoshimoto ambushed me.” Ok… how should I bring this up? If Sasuke truly was a time traveler, did Yuki know? What if I was wrong? Maybe he’d just found the glasses somewhere. Was there a way to ask him without coming across as insane? “While I was with them, something occurred to me, something I guess I never noticed before… oh, I mean, I did notice, but the implication didn’t hit me until now because of the full-frontal distraction, but…”

Yikes. Speaking of operating systems, difficult conversation.exe was failing to load.

Sasuke sighed. “Word vomit again.” He looked along the puddle dotted walkway, then out toward the courtyard, the torrential downpour drowned the benches. There was even standing water in the zen garden, where a mini-flood had overwhelmed the sand underneath. No zen on this newly formed pond unless the ripples from the raindrops counted. “I hope I don’t need to sit down for this?”

“Well, probably not. It’s a question, actually, but-” I glanced at Yukimura. “It might be related to some sensitive information … maybe I should ask in private.” Yuki had trouble with the concept of ‘girl.’ I couldn’t imagine how he would deal with the concept of ‘girl born 450 years from now is standing in front of you, and oh by the way, your best friend also won’t be born for another 450 years either.’

“Hey!” Yukimura scowled at me. “Sasuke and I share our sensitive stuff all the time.”

With a wince, Sasuke patted Yuki’s shoulder. “Again. Agree with the sentiment, but not the wording. Whatever it is, I don’t mind Yuki hearing.”

Uhhhh.

The blunt question, ‘are you a time traveler’ stuck in my throat. I couldn’t risk an over-the-top response from Yukimura. Better to ask indirectly. If Sasuke was what I thought he was, he would understand, and if not, he would shrug it off as a weird question. But it was a question that any modern nerd would know the answer to, and I realized that Sasuke had a strong layer of nerd under that ninja mask. “Sasuke… what is the air speed velocity of an unladen swallow?”

“African or Euro-” was his automatic response, before his eyes got wide behind those plastic frames. “When?”

I wanted to hug him in relief. “Which when? Do you mean, when did I leave, or when did I arrive?”

Yuki’s head ping-ponged between the two of us. “What am I missing?”

Sasuke ignored him. “Both.”

I reeled off the date that Toshiie and I had gone up to the Togakushi Shrine to argue about my freerunning risk taking. “When we arrived here it was late 1575. The twelfth month... December,” I amended, knowing that Sasuke would be familiar with the Gregorian calendar.

He seemed to be doing math in his head. Wait, of course he was doing math in his head. “Ok, so you left …” he glanced at Yuki “your village about the time I started researching temporal anomalies, but I hadn’t pinpointed any yet-”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Yuki interrupted. “Temple abnormalities? Is this about the Ikkō-ikki?”

Sasuke pinched the bridge of his nose. “It’s a long story that I will try to explain later– Yuki, please get Mai and tell her to meet us in my room.”

“Don’t start the story without me!” Yuki looked annoyed at being ordered off in the middle of a conversation, but he did as Sasuke requested.

“I need paper.” Sasuke seemed to be talking to himself. He turned and headed toward his quarters without checking to see if I was following him. “I studied weather patterns, researching back nearly ten years and there weren’t any strange storms at Honno-ji that year.”

“What’s Honno-ji got to do with it?” I hurried to keep up with him – thank God he hadn’t decided to short cut through the ceiling this time. “Oh, the storm.” I remembered the storm in Kyoto the night that Nobunaga was almost assassinated. Is that when Sasuke came… no, that didn’t fit. I had met Sasuke three years before that happened. “Toshiie and I were brought here by a storm, but we weren’t anywhere near Kyoto. We were in Nagano, at the Togakushi Shrine.”

Sasuke halted, and I nearly plowed right into him. “There’s another wormhole? Holy crap on a cracker… or does the one at Honno-ji move around?”

I figured that was rhetorical, since this was the first time I’d heard anyone mention a wormhole.

When we reached his room, he dove for a scroll of paper, scribbling math like a mad scientist… which I guess he was, when he wasn’t a ninja… and… holy crap on a cracker indeed, how did that come about? “What is it that you did in the future?”

He muttered something along the lines of Theoretical Physics, but he was deeply plugged into his data already, so I took a moment to look around his room – I didn’t see anything that looked like a time machine, but how had he gotten his hands on a telescope?

The rattle of paper indicated that Sasuke was still in computation mode, so I kept discretely poking around his room - I envied that he had a hearth in it like most of the upper echelon of warlords. It was clear sign of Kenshin’s affection and respect. He may have started out as a scientist, but he was now an important part of Kasugayama.

From outside the room I heard Mai’s exasperated voice. “Yuki, slow down! My legs are not as long as yours!” By the time Yuki pulled into the room, she was half out of breath. She took in the sight of Sasuke in the middle of a labyrinth of scrolls on the floor. “What’s the big emergency?”

“Stand back. He’s trying science.” (I’ve always wanted to say that).

Sasuke freed one hand to give me a fist bump. Then he glanced up at Mai. “Mai, Katsuko is from… where we are.”

Mai too?

Duh. Of course, she is. Sasuke had always said they were from the “same village.” It was stupid of me to have forgotten that.

“Oh my God? Really?” Mai squealed and hugged me. “How long have you been here? Were you at Honno-ji too? Were you scared? Wait… your brother… him too? When did it-”

I was trying to keep track of her questions in order, but before I got too caught up, Yuki interrupted us.

“I don’t understand,” Yuki said. “If all three of you come from the same village, how come you didn’t know each other already?”

I looked from Mai to Sasuke, deciding to let them handle that one.

“Kenshin already knows, so I don’t care if you tell Yuki.” Mai gave Yuki the kind of look generally reserved for annoying younger brothers. “If you think he’ll understand.”

“Shut it boar woman.” Yuki returned the look. “I’m not the dummy who nearly ran off a cliff.”

“That was my first night here… things were confusing.” Mai directed her comments at me. “There was a storm and a fire and an assassination attempt.”

“Oh my.” God, I’ve missed being able to cap quotes.

“Yuki,” Sasuke explained. “We’re not exactly from the same place. We’re from the same time… about five hundred years in the future. A wormhole – a tunnel in space and time- brought us here.”

“Huh.” He scratched his head and glanced at where Sasuke’s telescope was pointed out the window. “Alright, I know you guys wouldn’t lie to me-” he paused and gave me the side eye.

Mai kicked him. “Rude.”

He rubbed his shin and glared at her. “Stop that!”

“It’s ok Mai. He’s right. I would lie… but I don’t have the kind of imagination to make something like this up, and when I do make stuff up, I avoid coming up with things that would make the listener doubt my sanity.” Because even in my own time, if someone came to me claiming to be a time traveler, I would probably not believe them.

“I still have the things I had with me when I came through,” Mai said. “That helped convince people.”

“Toshiie and I got attacked by bandits, like minutes after we… landed? Appeared? All I had left was my clothing. But after almost seven years, those have since disintegrated. Although I still have my IC card.” It had been in my pocket, so it hadn’t been lost with everything else.

“Seven years?” Mai sounded shocked. “I’ve only been here a couple months. But I decided to stay, so I suppose at some point, I will have been here seven years.”

“Decided? There’s a way to go back?” I’d stopped thinking about that possibility long ago, having figured that whatever quirk of fate that brought me here had been a one in a million event.

Sasuke was frantically scribbling math – physics? – calculations. “The wormhole opens occasionally at Honno-ji. If Togakushi is another node then that alters things considerably.” He muttered to himself. “I can’t go much further without a clear sky.” He indicated his telescope. “The short answer is that it’s possible to go back, but I need more data to give you an exact time. Honno-ji will open sometime next month. No idea about Togakushi.”

“Do you want to go back?” Mai asked. “When I first got here, it was all I could think about, but now I can’t imagine living anywhere else.”

“Moot point. I can’t abandon Toshiie.” I plopped down on Sasuke’s futon – looked like we were going to be here a while. Sasuke grabbed another scroll so violently that it unrolled across the room.

Yuki picked up the scroll and tossed back to Sasuke. “Wait. Sasuke… does that mean you’re going to go back? And Katsu, when you find your brother, you’ll leave too?” He sounded a bit sad about the possibility of both of us leaving … which was flattering, especially considering recent events.

“I never thought it was possible, so I put it out of my mind.” I was used to it here, and I felt like I was living a more purposeful life than I had been in the future. “I don’t even know what I would return to – I’ve been careful not to do anything that would alter the future, but I killed that sniper a few weeks back, and well, even before that – Yuki shut your ears – well, you probably noticed there are people who supposedly died before now, but… didn’t.”

Sasuke raised his hand. “Saved Kenshin.”

Mai raised hers too. “Saved Nobunaga.”

Geez, no wonder the timeline was haywire. “You two are the butterflies?”

“Ugh, don’t mention butterflies,” Sasuke said. “Don’t worry. The timeline you came from is unaltered. We’re in a different one, but if you go back, you’ll return to your own timeline, not the future of this one. Er… theoretically.”

I think I understood that. “So, we’re in a multiverse?”

“Theoretically,” Sasuke repeated.

“My brother had the scientific brain in my family. If he sent me a message – like in a time capsule – in the hopes that I made it home and was looking for him in history, would that time capsule be in the future of this timeline, or the future of the one we came from?” I hoped I had phrased that right.

“This timeline, not your original one.” Sasuke paused in his calculations. “Theoretically.”

I’m starting to hate that word.

Yuki groaned, lay on the floor and flung his hand over his eyes. “This is too weird for me. Wake me up when you start talking about stuff that’s important in the present.”

“Actually.” Sasuke continued, a feverish light gleaming in his eyes, “It could be in an infinite number of future timelines.”

Oh… I was beginning to feel sympathy for Yuki – it was starting to feel overwhelming. It sounded like the best way to find my brother was to continue as I had been.

“There’s much that’s still unknown,” Sasuke said. “Mai and I were transported from the same moment, but we arrived four years apart. I never have figured out why.” He returned to his frantic mathing. It’s not all that exciting to watch someone do math, so I listened to Mai talk about her life as a fashion designer, and what happened to her the day she’d been sent back in time.

Somewhere in the middle of that, Yuki fell asleep, snoring so loudly that walls vibrated. Or well, I suppose that could have still been the rain.

“Hm,” Sasuke said a while later. He’d filled several papers with scribblings. He’d also repurposed one of his Ninja wires and had constructed a mobile of some kind which was either a model of the world… or he’d gotten off track and played a short game of cat’s cradle. “I’m left with two competing hypotheses. One is that the wormhole anchors at both Honno-ji and Togakushi – and possibly other places- and any of us could use either location to travel back and forth to the future, whenever it opens.”

A loud snore from Yukimura alerted us to the fact that he was still out for the count.

Sasuke pushed his glasses further up on the bridge of his nose and continued. “That’s the one I’m leaning toward, pending further data. However, there’s a non-zero chance that the Togakushi node anchors this timeline to a different one. Meaning that if I… or Mai… went through at Togakushi – we could potentially run into that timeline’s version of ourselves, or if Katsuko went through at Honno-ji, the same thing could happen. Or the timeline would try to self-correct, and send us through to a completely different future, one in which we either never existed, or were no longer alive. Theoretically.”

I knew I was beginning to hate that word.

“Or it could even-” He broke off and tilted his head toward the corridor.

The bell at the guard station was clanging … and there was the sound of running feet in the corridor…

Voices… lots of them… yelling.

The door to Sasuke’s room slid open. Shingen stood at the threshold. He looked us all over, although his gaze iced over and slid past me. “Yukimura! Sasuke!”

At his voice, Yukimura woke up with a start, and was instantly alert.

“Emergency council. Come on.” He strode away. Vassals and guardsmen were rushing past the door.

Mai clutched my arm. “What? Are we under attack? Is Kenshin going to war?”

“It can’t be a war… there’s not been any hint of it,” Sasuke muttered as he transformed from Scientist to Ninja. Ok, seriously, that’s some superhero shit right there.

“He’s right – no one would attack without us getting a warning.” And Shingen would have gotten that warning. Nothing happened in this part of the country that he wasn’t aware of. “There’s no one around here who could attack us without warning.” You can’t move an army across Japan without somebody noticing, and Shingen had an entire network of people whose job it was to notice that kind of thing.

Sasuke and Yukimura were already out the door. Without needing to consult each other, Mai and I followed. Even if it wasn’t a pending battle, it was clearly urgent. Though Mai and I hadn’t been specifically invited, I doubted Kenshin would send her away if she showed up, and I planned to stick close to her.

The meeting hall was semi-organized chaos, and hard to hear anything specific over shouted instructions and the rain pounding on the roof. Kenshin was directing the Uesegi, Takeda and Imagawa forces into three groups. “Shingen will go upriver and try to divert—”

Yuki stood toe to toe with Shingen, yelling at him. “Not in this weather, you’d be the worst kind of fool to risk-”

Shingen said something back to Yukimura, but Kenshin’s shouts took precedence again. “—lead the people to higher ground if the fortifications fail.”

“Are you sure we’re not under attack?” Mai gazed at Kenshin’s battle face. She was still holding onto my arm, and her nails dug into my skin.

Upriver…

Divert…

Higher ground…

“No.” I looked toward the window, where sheets of water were still pouring from the sky – had been pouring from the sky for the past two days. “It’s the river. It’s flooding… and there are dozens of little villages in its path.”

@bestbryn

#TBT12Lies #throwback thursday #twelve lies i told shingen takeda #ikemen sengoku #fanfic #ikesen shingen #shingen takeda #ikesen sasuke #ikesen yukimura #ikesen mai

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