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himbodjarin · 4 years

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LUNAR; CH8

18+ ONLY Series Content: Graphic descriptions of gore and smut. Din Djarin/Third Person POV. Chapter Word Count: 8263 (im sorry) Pairing: Din Djarin/F!Reader - no use “y/n”

The Mandalorian is a driven warrior — traversing the galaxy in search of the ancient Jedi — but everyone has their weaknesses, and he’s no different. The Bounty Hunter possessed three in fact. One he’s discovered—The Child. The remaining two, though, he wasn’t aware of their existence. At least, not until he meets a valorous Sharpshooter underneath a moonless night sky; then he’s plummeting down a dark mission of self-discovery, questioning his morals and his Creed while the moon taunts him, the phases of the satellite corresponding to his personal revelations. However, the Girl has a dark past that may come to inflict hardships on the Mandalorian and the Child; it's up to the Bounty Hunter to decide her fate.

Read on AO3 / Series Masterlist

CHAPTER EIGHT: BLUE MILK PANCAKES

Mando still can’t grasp it actually happened—that he’d been so fortunate to experience such a jaw-dropping night with the Girl, with no ulterior motives no less. Back in his youth, when he was naive and desperate, it wasn’t exactly infrequent for a fling to take advantage of him; spend a quick few minutes so that one may eliminate him in his distraction or gain intel on private matters. The Girl didn’t try that—didn’t want that. She sought to provide him with sweet relief and nothing more, not even her own relief.

He felt so fucking worshipped.

Mando is the first of them to wake in the early rise of the sun. He sits there for a moment, savouring the gleaming rays shining through the viewport to warm his beskar and, consequently, his rigid body underneath. The Crest is coated in a layer of ice, corroding the durasteel beneath and, accompanied by the packed snow resting atop, it’s refrigerating the inside of the spacecraft. Mando slips on the discarded glove from overnight—a warmth surfacing his cheeks upon the reminder of last night’s events—and supplies friction to either hand in the prospect it’ll produce warmth. It’s wishful thinking.

Granting him the opportunity to adjust to his surroundings, Mando stretches in his chair and virtually moans at the pulsations ranging through his limbs. It starts at his shoulders and travels through his core, nudging against the wound on his back and easing the tension out of his muscles, and reaches to the bottom of his toes which practically curl with delight.

Mando considers removing the helmet to rub his eyes—the crust in the corners a botheration—lift it a tad in the least, but he doesn’t get the chance. The Child coos beside him, his little arms reaching up for assistance.

“How did you get up here?” he asks, placing him on his knees. The Child doesn’t answer—why would he—and concentrates on balancing across the joints to tinker with deactivated buttons of the nav controls. “Where to, kid?” Mando scans the system’s database for a paragon planet to hunker down for a few days; spend some time with the kid—and the Girl, of course—before being ripped away from the semi-domestic life and continue on his unwritten path of planet-hopping.

There’s a planet not too far; small population, plenty of wilderness for the kid to explore, and there’s not much traffic that passes through. It’s good, perfect almost, and Mando is hesitant to accept the temptation. The Child’s head rotates to look at his guardian, his large green ears twitching curiously. He sighs and sets the coordinates for the planet despite his better judgement. It’s too fortunate; the last ‘safe’ planet they visited ended up in him protecting an entire village and the kid almost being killed. Although, he’s made a trustworthy ally who’ll assist if something were to go down. He glances behind him at the Girl, raking his brown eyes across her contorted body in the seat.

“Hang on, kid.” Mando lifts himself out of the pilot chair, leaving behind a monitoring toddler in his place, and kneels beside the Girl in the passengers. She’s sleeping peacefully and he doesn’t disturb her, despite the positioning she’s managed to get herself into. It’s unpleasant on his eyes and it couldn’t be comfortable. With a tremble in his back muscles, he reaches behind his neck and peels the cloak from his armour to drape it across her figure, relying on it to provide at least a small portion of warmth to her. She clasps the garment slightly and a smile surfaces his lips, his leathers coming up to brush a stroke across her cheek faintly—only lasting a second or two before detaching from her like an uncooperative magnet. Once she’s finally soothed back into position, Mando retrieves the safety belt from beside her and secures it across her waist before grudgingly tearing away from the Girl. “Looks like you’re with me.”

The Child squeals with enjoyment as the Mandalorian returns to his seat.

“Shh,” he instructs, glancing back to see the Girl motionless. He sighs with relief.

Mando joins the buckle’s latches together and wraps an arm around the Child to secure him against himself. The thrusters wake with a roar and quake the craft’s hull, the ion accelerator chamber thawing the thrusters nozzles of their icy barricade—shit, the ice. It’ll pose a threat, a handicap at the minimum if it doesn’t defrost soon enough. He cringes as the Crest whines against the glacier's dominance on his landing gear, but with the newly-maintenance thrusters, it’s no match against the craft. It rips from the ice and retracts to the hull’s underbelly, allowing Mando to manipulate the ship through the sky and out of the atmosphere; slabs of ice and snow descend to the ground beneath them.

The feeble bumpiness fades into a smooth flight and Mando activates the autopilot controls. “Not so bad, huh?” He disconnects the buckle from his belt and slips out of the chair, letting the Child sit in the warm leather. “Don’t go touching things—and don’t wake her up,” he quickly adds, noting the Child’s inquisitive staring as though he hadn’t genuinely noticed her earlier.

Mando sighs and hopes he’ll listen to his request just this once.

The Crest’s hold had been cleaned, just as the Girl promised to do, hardly even a speck of dust surfaced the floor. She’d been busy—and he had just been preoccupied with himself. Mando sighs to himself and browses through his reserved clothing. It mostly consists of bunking apparel—a couple of loose shirts and favourable pants—that he hadn’t had the opportunity to put to use since he fostered the Child. He’s expected—required to remain on the defensive at all times with the Guild breathing down his neck.

He sorts through the articles and grabs the spare flight suit, his only other. It would be ideal to purchase another, especially now with this one having been ripped, but it wasn’t a necessity presently. The fabric in his hands smells of dirt and grime, residue from the lake he attempted to clean it in all those weeks ago, but it’s better than his current—tattered, bloody, sweaty, and cum-stained. What a combination.

Perhaps he should invest in a refresher for his Crest. That way he wouldn’t be hunched over in the dark corners of the hold, stripping the beskar steel from his body for anybody to stumble across. It didn’t provide much assurance being within eyeshot of the cockpit ladder and with the lack of places to conceal himself, his hurried movements advanced. Then again the sheer thought of the Girl seeing him like this—and joining him—isn’t unpleasant; it would make the situation a whole lot less embarrassing.

He peels the last of his beskar from his body and stacks it against the wall, reorienting himself to slip out of his boots. It’s been a while since he last stood without any armour, excluding the helmet, and it feels refreshing in a way. But it doesn’t feel right.

Mando wasted no time in replacing the flight suit, smoothing the fabric out with his gloves and reapplying the ensemble of beskar; each patch of steel fitting snugly where it belongs. It’s slightly more bearable, not having to feel his own mess rubbing against him on the inside of the fabric, and he shoves the dirty flight suit in replace of the clean. He’ll get around to washing it when he has the time—or burn it by virtue of the rip across the arm.

Speaking of arms, the bacta patch on his bicep had aided the wound significantly and within the next day or two, it should be healed. The lesion on his back was a different story. It’s still sore, somewhat better with a night’s rest, but it’ll be a while before he’s out there firing blasters with that same authority. It could cause jeopardy if he’s not cautious.

The Razor Crest abruptly rumbles and falls into a fit of tremors, hurling the Mandalorian against the stationary carbonite pods with fury. “Shit,” he growls and grips his bicep, pleading he won’t bleed through the fresh clothes so soon. It pulses again and the engines’ whining travels through the ventilation, discharging a high-pitched shriek followed by a low hum of a whistle.

“Man-fuck, Mando!” the Girl beckons from upstairs. Mando is quick on his feet up the ladder, clinging desperately to the rungs upon another spasm. “I was sleeping a-and the kid…” She doesn’t need to finish for him to understand, for the Child is sitting underneath the nav panel with colourful cords in his hands; wire coverings peeled away to expose the electricity hazards sparking in his fists.

“Kid, no!” Mando scolds and snatches the cables from his stubborn claws. He babbles a complaint to his guardian as he’s being relocated far away from the electricity. He’s completely dismantled it—Mando will need to implement an entirely new wiring system for the navigation controls alone; a job he’s not suited for. He turns to the Girl for support.

“Don’t look at me,” she raises her hands defensively, “I only know bits and pieces.”

Innocently burbling besides the Mandalorian, the Child watches as leather gloves track across the navigation controls urgently. He’s unbothered by the predicament they’re in—just glad that his guardian had returned to the cockpit’s cabin, it appears. Mando groans in annoyance, fumbling with the nav and fighting against it’s constant glitching. “We’re in luck. There’s a planet on the way. Tatooine. Someone can help us there.”

“Yeah. Heard of it,” she mutters, regrettably, and he wonders what that is all about but it can wait. It wasn’t the time to sweat over the small details. “We’re not going to crash, are we?”

He contemplates, glancing over the system’s diagnosis and dismisses the electrical yammering it erupts. “Shouldn't—there’ll just be a lot of turbulence.”

That there is—turbulence and a great deal of it. There’s too much to maintain an uncoiled stomach throughout the remainder of the short flight and they’re both surprised when they’re successful in their landing, especially without the contents of their stomach having been dumped over themselves. Peli Motto—an innovative mechanic but a bit too communicatory for the Mandalorian’s preference—stands in her hangar with two greasy hands on her hips, eyes squinting through the viewport to gaze up at Mando. Better have my credits ready to go this time, he can already hear her say and he sighs. Credits he did have, but they weren’t exactly his, and there wasn’t much to spare.

“I’ll see to her,” Mando announces and retrieves the Child, “would you care to join?”

The Girl seems hesitant and peers out the viewport curiously. “Do you trust her?”

Mando takes another glance outside. Peli’s droids are nearing his ship to begin operations but with one stern look from the woman, they back away from the craft. “I do.”

The Girl sighs and peels herself from her seat, fiddling with the cloak that had been laid across her body earlier. “This, uh-”

“Clip it on for me,” he instructs and turns, waiting for familiar hands to run across his shoulders. It takes a moment and he considers retrieving it himself, but he’s patient and it pays off—her fingers playing with the neck covering to manipulate the cloak into place, her digits stroking against the back of his neck underneath all the thick fabric. It’s therapeutic somehow or other. He doesn’t quite understand it himself, but feeling the Girl’s pressure against him relaxes him; eases his eyes closed until all he wants to do is sleep, in her arms preferably and with his head on her chest—his head, not his helmet. Mando wants to press his ear against her flesh and listen to her heartbeat, her breathing, but most of all he just wants to be touched and to touch another.

The Girl smoothes her hands out across the cloak, running her palm down his back and ending just before it reaches the curve at the bottom. “There you go.” She smiles. Fuck, her smile. It makes him want to say something stupid, something embarrassing just to get the same reaction out of her; he wants to be the cause of that smile on her face. She adds, “Thank you.”

Mando twists to face her again, his head tilting. “What for?”

“Buckling me up and, uh, giving me the cloak,” she confesses, a timid hue of pink on her cheeks—she was blushing. “You could have given it to the kid or just kept it yourself, but… you didn’t. So, thank you.”

He swallows and reaches his hand up—for what, he doesn’t know. It’s not until his digits touch the soft padding of her cheek that he notices he’s making a move, his strokes transforming into uncertain shakes. The Girl’s blush deepens at the contact and she places her hand atop his, giving a quick squeeze of reassurance.

With that, his head is back to sorting through indecent thoughts and actions—but none are related to those they had been previously; they’re not obscene nor lustful. It’s his Creed that they’re unethical towards. He imagines the Girl reaching for his helmet, her slender fingers brushing against his chin as she does so, and lifts the steel to unmask the face that’s been sealed away for a long, long time. If she tried to do it right here, right now, he’s not positive whether he would stop her.

“We shouldn’t keep her waiting, it’ll be rude.”

She can wait, is what he wants to say, instead, he murmurs a simple, “Right.”

The Child appears satisfied in Peli’s arms, a large smile on his face as he glares up at the Mandalorian ahead of him. He’s receiving every ounce of attention he can muster out of the woman. “You telling me this little one did all that? Maybe if you gave him a little more attention he wouldn’t be tearing out your cables!”

“What do you mean?” Mando ponders. She runs a finger across the kid’s batwing ears and gestures behind him in the distance where the Girl preoccupies herself tending to their blasters. “What are you getting at?”

“Oh, come on! Do I have to spell it out for you? Are you that oblivious?” She sighs and soothes the Child, “You’ve found yourself another lifeform to harbour—probably spending an awful lot of time with her, aren’t ya?”

He’s not oblivious, not in the slightest; he’s just trying to avoid coming to terms with the thoughts in his head. However, he hadn’t noticed his lack of bonding with the Child and he mentally scolds himself. Of course, the kid wants attention, all kids do, and he’s probably becoming rather frustrated at the inadvertent neglect as a by-product of Mando’s fantasies.

“I ain’t saying ya shouldn’t indulge a little,” Peli chuckles and wags her hairless eyebrows at the visor, “I don’t blame ya for that. It must be hard adapting to having a girl like that on board your ship.”

Mando quietly sighs under his helmet but a blush lines his cheeks nonetheless. He’s relieved she can’t see it. He grumbles, “Get to the point.”

“Point is, you can’t ignore a child like that,” she explains, “he’s an impish little critter—smart, too. It wouldn’t surprise me if he did that on purpose to get your attention.”

“He’s costing me a lot of credits for attention.” Black-brown eyes observe the looming figure of beskar and Mando softens slightly. Peli watches with interest and returns the toddler to his arms. “The Girl-”

“She’ll be fine,” she assures, “if she wants to help, I’ll be sure to give her a real workout—don’t worry she won’t be too drained.”

The Mandalorian commits a final leer at the mechanic, enough to cause her to pull her lips tight into a smirk, and he returns to the Girl’s side to exchange his goodbyes, “I’m going to head into town and see if there are any jobs available.”

The Girl raises an eyebrow in question and pauses polishing the blasters, “I’m not coming with you?”

Does she want to come with him? The vocoder emits a hum of thought but ultimately he knows she should stay behind this time, “Peli reckons I should spend time with the kid. Shouldn’t take too long—I’ll just head in and grab the kid a meal, look around for intel… I’ll be back before it’s dark.”

She nods, understanding. “I’ll—just wait here then.”

Mando reciprocates her nod and hesitantly steps back, but the Girl’s fingers loop through his belt and draws him in close to her once again. He steadies himself with a hand on the dip of her waist, digits unconsciously poking into the flesh deeper, and he angles the helmet to her eye level in disarray.

The familiar weight of his blaster slips into position against his thigh but he doesn’t tear his eyes away to look, he doesn’t want to move at all. “Might need it,” she explains, her tone hushed, “it’s good to go.” She lightly taps the blaster with her free hand and he stiffens when her palm comes to rest atop it, the tips of her fingers brushing against the outside of his thigh.

“Thank you.”

“Of course.” Her lips curl into a cunning grin and she tries to hide it by lifting herself onto her toes and breathing through the fabric surrounding his neck. Mando’s muscles flex involuntarily and the hand on her hip slinks a path to the curve of her back, where he fists a bundle of poncho fabric in his leathers. She whispers, “How’s your back feeling?”

“It’s - it’s better.”

She exhales softly and he swears he can feel it through the cloth, warming his jugular with her gleaming words, “So, you won’t be needing my help tonight?” Mando groans as she weakly pats the lesion deep underneath his cloak—it doesn’t hurt, more or less stings like a Droch crawling through his skin and draining his energy, but that was the Girl’s disposition more so than the wound’s sensitivity.

“Well,” Mando clears his throat and steps closer—if that’s even possible—so his lower-half is pressing against her waist, evoking a hitch of his own breath from the contact. She’s so soft against him. “I might need a hand…”

She chuckles into his neck, sending the vibrations from her throat into his and it makes a beeline to his heart. It vortexes around the organ, a current so strong it’d be fatal to terminate the stream. Not that he wanted to stop it. It’s such a pleasant feeling, the phantoms of sunshine-esque tendrils applying a pacifying pressure that feels like that of an embrace; warm hands clasping his heart and delivering delicate kisses across the muscle. He can almost sense the cushioning of lips against the pulsing organ.

“Ya know, I’ve got more than just hands.”

“Fuck,” he whispers, practically drooling at the mere suggestion—he’d be so sluggish to drag it out as long as possible, every single touch of his deliberate to commit all her curves, bumps, even bruises, to memory. Store it away for a gloomy day, like a breach in the clouds; sunbeams breaking through the overcast and introducing a warmth like none other.

Mando cranes his neck to the side slightly and she takes the invite to burrow deeper. The blood in his neck is hot and the air in his helmet sultry. He wants to do nothing but drag her back to the ship and lock themselves away for the remainder of the day, but the irritated child on his hip is starting to get antsy. Mando gasps, “Need to - to take the kid out.”

She hums her sympathy against his neck, “Take your time. I’ll be here.”

Well, time was indeed taken, or however the saying goes.

The Mandalorian had been forced into conversations all day courtesy of the Child; he just couldn’t seem to stop touching things or feeding on display products of each stall they’d pass. Mando’s entire vocabulary had been decreased to continuous sorry’s and kid, no! It doesn’t just end there. The Child was inquisitive of all his surroundings, particularly places Mando couldn’t fit himself—it made for some awkward dialogue between him and the kiosk attendants when he’d be on his hands and knees rummaging around for a loose alien baby.

“I’m not stealing!” He’d reassure but it’d have the opposite effect and turn heads, people eyeing him with curiosity; a Mandalorian, like that in folklore, frantically chasing a little green toddler with something half-alive dangling from its mouth. He’s made a fool out of himself enough for a day. The Child, on the other hand, is still persistent—giving him somewhat of the silent treatment until Mando bargains a promise of food.

The Child attentively watches his food in the arms of the server, streaks of steam and a tender fragrance wafting in his direction as it settles onto the table ahead. “Thank you,” Mando nods and leans back in his seat, unequipping a small bag of leftover credits he could spare for the day and sliding it across the wooden surface, “do you know of any employment opportunities?”

“Regrettably not, sir,” the waiter replies and exchanges final pleasantries before returning behind the buffet to assist an unruly patron.

Mando sighs and returns his guard to the Child—who grabs a spoonful of scalding liquid and squeals in delight—and chews on the inside of his lip in thought. Tatooine is just as detestable as the last time he was here—the hustle and bustle never-ending. One would think that the Mandalorian could blend in with such an immense and diverse population, but his outright existence drew attention to himself; it’s becoming a ritual each time he steps foot inside a cantina. People’s discussions quickly cease as they scrutinise the warrior upon his entrance, contemplating whether they could neutralize him and pry the beskar steel from his body to sell in the black market. Some have tried and failed, of course. In his youth, Mando thrived off the sensation. It was empowering to have others tremble in their skin at the sheer sight of a Mandalorian, but he’s matured and those days are long since dead. He’s travel-worn, too exhausted to concern himself with people’s thoughts regarding him, so long as they weren’t orchestrating his downfall.

“I ain’t never seen a thing like this before,” a disembodied voice mutters from behind the Mandalorian, the shoddy cantina lighting casting a shadow across their table. Mando doesn’t tear his attention from the Child but reaches for his blaster nonetheless, the leathers fiddling with the hilt in preparation. “Where’d you get it?”

When he doesn’t reply, the figure shifts to come between him and the Child—a trandoshan with wide-set eyes and sharp pointed teeth, sneering at the man underneath the beskar. She’s got yellow-brown scaly skin and dons a protective piece underneath an unbuttoned shirt, with a hunting rifle across her back and a carbine strapped to her belt. She steals a chair from the closest table and swings it around to join the pair, placing her elbows on the table and looking back-and-forth between Mando and the Child.

“We’re looking to raise a youngling like this, maybe something a lil’ bit more competent than this one.” The Child’s green ears perk up at the stranger but just as quickly dismisses her, plunging the spoon into the womp rat stew for seconds or thirds—Mando wasn’t keeping track. She glances behind Mando and waves a hand and calls, “Bookoo, what d’ya think?”

Bookoo—a Wookiee decked with nothing more than a dual bandolier across his chest and a small satchel at his hip—appears into view, soaring over the accumulated individuals and extends a welcoming smile at Mando underneath the shaggy rug of his face. “Muawa, ur oh.”

“No? What, you think we’re gonna get anything better?”

Mando interrupts, tired of the banter, “He’s not going with you.”

“We have credits,” she taps the satchel on Bookoo’s hip, they clash against one another inside the leather.

“He’s not for sale.” Mando tears himself from his seat and shepherds the Child into his arms, ignoring the burbles and whines he emits as he tries to grab hold of the bowl. Mando turns for the exit, intently listening to the whispers of the pair behind him, but stops when called for.

“Uh-sir... Mandalorian, sir?” He turns on his heels and eyes the waiter who places two small packages stacked together atop the counter. “Your dessert, sir.”

The Trandoshan eyes the Mandalorian as he awkwardly balances the boxes in one arm and the Child in the other. She steps forwards once his hands are far from his blaster to make her claim, “I promised my group I’d bring back an apprentice, ya see? With a lil’ bit of training, that thing should be good to go. Ain’t that right, Bookoo?”

Bookoo steps back defensively, “Mu waa waa.”

“Stupid Wookiee,” she mutters and rises from her stool, her bare feet tapping against the cantina’s duracrete flooring. She places a claw on the counter in an attempt of intimidation, but she only sustains a pathetic reaction from the waiter. “What’s a Mandalorian need a child for anyways? You raising that thing to become one?”

“We’re done talking.”

“Aw, come on. We’re just having a small chat. No need to run for the dunes.”

The Mandalorian denies her the satisfaction of retaliation and continues outside. The familiar crunch of grit a welcoming sound through his filters—he never thought he’d be comforted by such a sound. The Trandoshan yells one last remark before he steers a corner, “If you change your mind, we’ll be here!”

He’s suspicious of their intentions—and uncertain whether they were tailing him—so he weaves through the night crowd, bumping and pushing the drunkards to and fro. Once he’s scampered plenty, and positive they hadn’t been stalking his footsteps, he returns to Peli’s hangar with a drowsy Child and now-cold dessert. Optimally, the kid will be tuckered out for the rest of the night but it was never a certainty—he just hopes he’ll give him some privacy for at least a few hours.

Peli wipes grease on a rag hanging from a belt hoop of her coveralls and offers Mando a smile, “I assume you got yourself a job?”

Mando shakes his head in defeat and delivers one of the takeaway boxes in her hands.

“What’s this?” She opens the box and her eyes practically light up with joy but it’s short-lived as she eyes him suspiciously, “Is this a bribe?”

“Just a nice gesture. I thought.”

“Hmm,” Peli hums and closes the box, nodding her head slightly. “Well, ‘bout that ship of yours… It’ll be two thousand.”

Two thousand. It’ll bleed their funds dry, but the Crest needs repairs. Without them, they’d be stranded here on Tatooine for the unforeseeable future—something Mando really couldn’t accommodate. There’s too much sand. Too many people. His calloused hands aren’t for sitting on; they’re created to work, and he won’t allow himself to leisure around a planet without performing some act.

The Girl won’t be pleased to hear he’s gone and spent a large sum of her earnings—not to mention how she’ll react when she ultimately comprehends she will be required to stay a little longer than expected. Mando feels his lips curling and he tries to smother it with reasoning; tries to tell himself he can’t keep her detained alongside him forever, but he’s obstinate and doesn’t take heed of his own advice. There’s a leap in his heart and a twisting in his stomach at the thought she’ll remain beside him for a little while longer—at least until he has the credits.

Perhaps the Child was onto something when he went and ripped all those wires out.

“That’s with a discount,” Peli adds.

“I should buy more of those.”

Peli scoffs at his jesting comment and tosses the takeaway parcel atop a flat surface. “The Girl. She’s good with her hands.”

If only she knew.

Something within the mechanic suggests that she does, in fact, know judging by the speculation written across her face; her squinted eyes waltzing his figure and her teeth chomping on the inside of her cheek to avoid voicing a sarcastic comment. The shield of beskar may disrupt his facial expressions—concealing them to only his cognisance—but his mannerisms are increasingly heightened to others and he’s gradually realising he’s not as proficient in masking them as he originally thought.

Mando swallows a thick lump in his throat and shifts his weight to one foot, his hip cocking out vaguely. “Is the maintenance finished?” he asks, shifting the topic to something he can reduce the awkwardness with.

Peli clicks her tongue and rolls her eyes, “Oh, you mean the replacement of the entire navigational controls? Yeah, did it all by myself in a matter of a few hours. No help from my droids. No, it’s not done! Do you know anything about spacecraft restoration?”

“I typically leave that in the hands of...professionals.” Mando chooses carefully. “When will it be ready?”

“Me and your Girl are done for the night.”

His Girl?

Mando’s cheeks flush mildly, a faint tint of pink lining across his nose accompanied by a heat tackling the inside of his visor. Those two little words sound exceptional as the settle surrounding him, fogging his head with the seven letters—seven letters that he couldn’t relate to. They don’t belong to him; wouldn’t belong to him.

But he lets himself fantasise they could—they are.

His Girl.

Mando’s lips ghost underneath the beskar, mouthing the words to himself as though to test the waters; dipping his toes in the substance and sampling the texture before sinking into it, letting it engulf him. He thinks of His Girl’s lips and how soft, how gentle, they looked. Her lips are the sandy borders of a beach—sand he wouldn’t mind if it were to wedge its way through his flight suit to abuse his body— and her tongue, her saliva, are the waters; refreshing but salty, leaving him thirsty for more.

Peli drags him out of his daydreaming without realising it, “But it should be up and running before the suns’ at its peaks. So you better have my credits ready! I’m not free labour, ya know.”

“Don’t worry,” he groans, “you’ll get the payment.”

She crosses her arms taut over her chest and squints at him suspiciously, probably wondering how he’s going to manage to pay her, but her determination fades into moderate compassion with a deep exhale. “All right, gimme the kid.”

“What? Why?”

Her earthy eyes flick up to the cockpit’s viewport and Mando twists his body to observe. The top of the Girl’s head can be seen from his perspective, her arms raised high above her in a stretch and then just as quickly disappears out of sight. Peli teasingly shoves Mando’s shoulder and laughs, “Go on, I’ll take the kid for the night. I’ll even do it for free; reimbursement for the dessert.”

She’s a blessing in disguise—who’s he to decline such a persuasive offer?

“Just-” Peli stabilises the weight in her arms, the Child placidly dozing off in one, “I better not be hearing all that, okay? If you wake either me or the kid up-”

“Thank you.”

She watches him, stunned, and then shakes her head and mutters something under her breath. Mando doesn’t even feel tempted to know what she’s whispering to herself, he only has one thought on his mind: His Girl.

The Mandalorian reunites with the Girl in the cockpit’s cabin. She’s sitting on the floor tinkering with loose cabling with a craned neck to accommodate for the low-rise control board. Mando’s unsure whether he’s delighted to see her down there or disappointed; something within him expecting her to be somewhere less uncomfortable, awaiting his return—it’s a selfish thought and a very hormonal one at that. He sighs to himself and sits in the passenger’s seat, his elbows leaning on his knees to peer over her shoulder. “I thought Peli said you were finished?” Mando queries.

“She’s finished. I’m not.”

Mando breathes her name, introducing it to the cramped cockpit and it’s stale air, and she pauses a moment to turn her head and look into the magnetising visor. Now he’s the one pausing. It’s comical how he’s so easily conquered by a single glance. She doesn’t look at him like that in holoplays—where her eyes gleam in the low light hanging above and her mouth twitches when she’s restraining a smile—so why does his heart flutter and his blood surge through his veins? Rather, her eyebrows are crinkled with discouragement on account of uncooperative cords and there’s a streak of oil across her forehead—she looks just as gorgeous as ever.

Mando’s voice softens as he talks to her, “Take a break. It can wait until morning.”

She dismisses his recommendation, “It’s fine, I can keep going.”

“Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.”

“Quoting me to myself now, are we?”

He shrugs his shoulders. “You’re persuasive.” She chuckles some and he delves into the rumbles, enveloping himself in the bubbliness of it. “I brought food. You can have some if you stop working.”

She quirks an eyebrow and eyes the package in his leathers. “What is it?”

“Come here and look.”

“Are you having some?”

Mando contemplates, but he already knows his answer. “I’m not hungry,” he lies.

“Neither am I.” She deceitfully smiles and returns to her labours—it’s arduous, her fingers firmly twining the wires together and unravelling others apart to reconnect to a bundle loosely hanging underneath the panel.

The Mandalorian had completely forgotten how stubborn she can be, especially with his thoughts distorted by the events of last night; she had been so adaptable and willing to aid him. It’s ridiculous to think they’re the same person. Jaw clenching with defeat, Mando sighs heavily and fiddles with the takeaway box. It’s lid lifts from its fastenings to expose a small stack of fluffy cobalt-coloured pancakes. They’re slightly soggy from the absorbed condiments and stone-cold, having been outside for far too long, but they’re a Tatooine delicacy he had yet to try before.

Mando glances at the Girl and rips the pancake into sections, simultaneously watching her exhaust herself. She groans dramatically and readjusts her position, practically laying on her stomach with her torso hoisted by her elbows. It allows for her to maneuver underneath the control panels—and allows Mando to drag his eyes lower.

His leathers slide underneath the bottom of his helm and dislodge it from position, the beskar expelling a sharp hiss of air. He freezes at the reminder but the Girl doesn’t seem interested in the newly discovered noise; he continues, elevating the hindrance just above his mouth to slot in a slice of torn pancake.

They’re soft like her hands and he lets himself imagine they are—pretends the sweetness of the syrup is actually his cum on her fingers or, better yet, her own slick. He’s reluctant to even chew, not wanting to shred the impure fantasy he’s created upon himself, so he doesn’t. Mando sits there with the pancake in his mouth just holding it there, letting his tongue flatten underneath it and suck the syrup out to relish in the bittersweetness.

It’s only once he’s drained it of its flavour that he finally devours the cake in hunger. It’d been a while since he last ate, but he repeats the process with the other sections he had torn apart—struggling to contain his self-control as he savours the sweetness and imagery of the Girl writhing underneath him.

Mando plops the tips of his leathers in his mouth and absorbs the residual syrup before aligning his helmet in place yet again, his hunger reasonably quenched—his thirst for the Girl, not so much. It doesn’t help matters when she reaches for a cord and her poncho rides up, unmasking the curves of her backside and revealing a splinters-worth of skin above the hem of her pants. He indulges at the sight of taunting skin and licks a drop of syrup from his lips, imagining his head between her thighs lapping at something sweeter—tangier. Mando feels so fucking undignified around her like his honour has been squeezed out of an over-absorbed rag; dripping through the gaps in his fingers and there’s nothing he can do to catch it before it vaporises before his eyes hardly leaving a trace in its wake.

It’s wholly improper how his eyes attack her unclothed skin, obsessing over it like a glass of water in the outskirts of Tatooine. Now that he thinks about it, his mouth is significantly parched and he’s forced to bite his lip to avoid reaching out for the temptation. Still, he hungers to run his fingers across the bare flesh and explore her bumps and curves with his tongue, dragging it over her neck and feel the rumbles of her moans as he sucked on a pulsing vein. Her moans—what a magnificent sound that must be.

The unspoken promise between them plays with the dark crevices of his imagination.

I’ve got more than hands.

Mando’s unsure if she meant it; she hadn’t indicated anything to him since his return. Is she expecting him to make the first move? If so, that’s torturous in itself.

Coffee-coloured eyes battle against the azure cakes and he confronts a moral dilemma. He has an inclination to satisfy the building arousal in his pants but it doesn’t align with his traitorous voice, “Eat.”

The Girl glances over her shoulder and Lord, he could get used to that view especially with him atop of her. She reverts her gaze to the opened box in his lap. “I’m not-”

“I’ve had one,” he confesses and tilts the box to show a stack of three remainders, “two each, but you can have my other.”

“When did you… Did you take off your helmet? In front of me?”

“Behind you,” he corrects.

She doesn’t find the humour in the situation, though, which surprises Mando. “What - what about your Creed? Fuck, Mando. You can’t…”

His expression softens underneath the visor and he sinks to his knees on the ground so he’s eye-level with the Girl, clasping one of her hands in his leathers. “Don’t concern yourself with that. I didn’t remove it entirely, just enough to eat. It’s not that big of a deal.”

“Not that big of a deal? Mando-”

Mando impolitely interrupts her by pushing a torn slab of blue through her parted lips—his digits lingering longer than necessary—and he chuckles at her shocked grimace.

She swallows and slaps his pauldron, “Rude!”

“Sit down and eat.”

The Girl conforms to his invitation and settles beside him, her back firmly planted against the durasteel wall of the cockpit. Mando awkwardly lowers to sit as well, the beskar clanking against the wall behind them but he doesn’t take any notice of it. It’d be like herding a group of Nexu—utterly impossible—if he tried to concentrate on anything but her thigh against his or her hand digging through the box on his lap.

She munches on a blue cake beside him and it takes everything in him to give her privacy and not drool over the sticky syrup running down her fingers. It’s like she can read him though, her unsoiled hand hooking two fingers on the underside of the helmet and dragging it to look at her. “What about you?”

“I’ve...had one.”

“One. I don’t want you passing out on me. Here, I’ll look away.”

Mando eyes the divided dessert between her fingers and the drop of golden syrup slowly making way to her third knuckle. She’s not looking at him and can’t identify whether he’s accepting her offer or not, but she doesn’t dare retract her hand; it just hovers in the air waiting for his leathers to grasp the food from her—they don’t. Something so much softer does, though.

Mando licks a long stripe along the underside of her fingers, tearing the pancake from her clutch with his tongue and reserving it in the cheek of his mouth for later—too preoccupied with the sugary concentrate coating her fingers. She tenses at the sensations. It’s overwhelming, consuming her thoughts and spitting them out in a pile of goo. It’s almost irresistible to not look at him, to not watch as he sucks on her fingers so fucking desperately, but she’s respectful of his Creed even if it kills her.

“Mando,” she whispers because it’s too quiet, too real.

His tongue is persistent, parting her fingers from each other and lapping at the syrup in the crevices of her knuckles. It’s so sweet and he moans around her fingers at the taste on the back of his tongue. Mando doesn’t concern himself with the potential of humiliation—he ought to look downright laughable right now—because she’s so sweet and soft in his mouth, far superior to the pancake he relished earlier. There’s a puny attempt to pull away on her behalf but with a firm grip on her wrist, she holds her position inside his mouth, especially when his teeth lock her digits in place, while her other hand finds the plate of thigh armour and hooks the fingers underneath.

“Shit,” she breathes and leans into him.

The Girl’s palm flattens against his chin and he stiffens his jaw, his movements slacking behind now that he’s focused on the warmth on his face. He couldn’t remember the last time someone had touched him so tenderly, no - he could but he didn’t want to; didn’t want to ruin the moment with the imagery of blaster fire and his mother’s last loving touch.

Her reassuring strokes against his cheeks with her free fingers urge him on and he sucked the final of the syrup from her digits before freeing them from his lips, placing a peck on the tips. Once the helmet is resealed, he finishes the neglected pancake in his mouth.

“You’re not as reserved as you act,” she chuckles, “where was that last night?”

Mando smiles. “Come here and let me show you.”

Where was all this confidence coming from?

He doesn’t care—he’s making a fucking move while he can.

The Girl contemplates him with a raised brow and a small smirk toying at her lips. It makes him want to know what she’s thinking—formulating—in that head of hers, but he’s not left in suspense for long. She braces a leg over his lap and straddles him, constricting her inner thighs against the outside of his and tilting his helmet back to look up at her.

Mando nearly stops breathing, his organs refusing to cooperate in unison with such an unknown weight atop of him. All that confidence from earlier completely obliterates with just one roll of her hips—maybe it wasn’t confidence but arrogance, he thinks. She’s devious, he can see the pleasure in her eyes at his unfolding below her.

“Are you looking at me?” she asks, a hand on either side of his helmet to steady his head.

He nods because he doesn’t trust himself not to whine if he opens his mouth.

She looks back at him and for a moment, just a second, he feels as though she can see him, and then she grinds down and sketches the outline of his stiffening cock below her heat—and fuck if it isn’t one of the friskiest things he’s ever beared witness to. There’s just something so unique about the eye contact when she’s unravelling him like a ball of yarn; he wants to gaze into her eyes without the guard ahead of him and break her apart. “F-fuck, you’re,”-she rolls her hips again, faster-“ah, you’re too - too good to me.”

“I know,” she quips.

Daunting. It’s so fucking daunting being so paralysed with arousal underneath the Girl, stripped down to an accumulated pile of whimpers and twitches as she takes her sweet time tormenting him—and he fucking enjoys every second of it. He’s fatigued from years of bounty hunting, years of being shot, stabbed, beaten, and it’s stimulating having somebody touch him so languidly and voluntarily care for him in such a way.

“Tell me what you want, Mando.”

He swallows.

It’s so fucking ironic. He’s never had more than a few thousand credits to his name at a time and yet, pinned below the Girl with her being so provocative, he feels like the richest man alive—because it couldn’t be luck; he’d never been so fortunate to as receiving a simple bounty commission, a beautiful girl extracting every drop of arousal out of him no less.

He moans her name and inches his fingers under her poncho, “Want - fuck, I need-”

Mando’s pleas are interrupted by a suspiciously familiar disembodied voice shouting, “Come on out and nobody gets hurt!” It’s a gruff, hoarse sound that oils the cogs in his mind. The Trandoshan. She must’ve followed him here…but he took precautions…

He can’t find it within himself to tear his hands away from the Girl to survey the threat outside, so she takes it upon herself to clamber off his lap leaving him cold and hard in his pants. Molten lava rises in his chest as he raises to his feet, staring out the viewport with such vengeance it almost surprises him. The Trandoshan firmly stands with Peli Motto beside her, the barrel of her carbine pressed against her temple, and the Child squirming in her adjacent limb.

“Shit!” he growls and slams a pair of closed fists against the nav controls. It whines upon impact and blips a malfunctioning screen at his outburst.

“Hey, calm down,” she soothes, a hand slipping into his.

“They have Peli! ...The kid.”

The Trandoshan leers at him through the viewport. “Leave that blaster of yours on the ship and get down ‘ere. No funny business either! I’ll fire a hole through her head otherwise. Then the Kid’s.” She accentuates her point by thrusting the barrel against Peli’s temple harder.

The Girl fishes his blaster out of his holster. “They haven’t seen me,” she explains. “I’ll wait until you get close enough to them but don’t try anything without me.”

It could work. It could fail. He didn’t have an alternative plan.

“Okay,” he agrees, understanding the moment between them is long gone.

With one final gawp outside, Mando pries himself away from the nav controls and heads downstairs, bare. It’s not as though he’s completely defenceless; the flamethrower in his vambraces had enough fuel to get him out of a pinch, the whipcord could serve a purpose if essential, and he still possessed his vibro-knife in his boot. None of that can compare to the comfort of a blaster in his hand though.

The Child and Peli Motto’s safety is his priority, so he’ll comply with the Girl’s strategy and get as close to the Trandoshan as possible. He’ll use brute force if necessary.

They’ve relocated to an open region in the hangar where it’ll be near impossible to shield everybody if a blaster fight ensues. Preferably, it won’t come to that. The Trandoshan flexes her finger against the trigger when Peli fidgets with her hands beside her. Mando vaguely shakes his head in her direction and examines the Child’s wellbeing in the yellow-brown scaly arms.

“I’m here.” He raises his hands to demonstrate his compliance, “Let them go and we’ll talk.”

She sneers at him, laughs. “No.” The blaster reels back and whips Peli over the head, knocking her unconscious in a piled heap on the ground. Mando moves forwards, his fists tightening with each step. “Hold it right there.” The Child whines against the cold barrel pressing into his wrinkled forehead. Mando stops hastily, his eyebrows twitching with rage.

“What do you want?”

“I’ve already told you.”

“What do you need a child for?”

She smiles hauntingly, her sharp teeth locking together through her open-mouthed grin. “We don’t need one, but this one’s got a pricey bounty on its head,”—she aims for the flesh above his heart plate—“as do you.”

Guild members. Just his luck they’d be situated on Tatooine at the same time as he is.

The Mandalorian’s visor tilts to the Child in her arms, his eyes narrowing on the outstretched green claw. The kid’s eyes shut and his forehead wrinkles as he desperately tries to concentrate on something, and then it clicks in Mando’s head. His powers. The Child hadn’t used them since they took down the Mudhorn and Mando was beginning to think they had vanished, but they mustn’t have—he’s too focused on the air ahead of him.

The Trandoshan hasn’t noticed his fidgeting and Mando takes it upon himself to keep the barrel focused on him by stepping forwards, providing the Child time to figure out his abilities. “You won’t leave here alive,” he taunts.

She seems unfazed by his remarks, too confident in her plans. “Ah, what do we have here?” The Trandoshan asks curiously, peering over the Mandalorian’s figure and he whips his head to follow. The Girl is subdued in the arms of the acquainted Bookoo, who must’ve been anticipating resistance and remained obscured from their sight.

The Girl fights against his grip but he’s far too strong for her to overpower and she limps in defeat, glancing up behind her at the Wookiee; eyes enlarging and her mouth falling agape underneath the face-covering she donned for the occasion.

Then—the last thing the Mandalorian expects to hear—the Trandoshan exclaims her name in a greeting, “It’s been a while!”

_______________________________

“Muawa, ur oh” - no, thank you “Mu waa waa” - please leave me alone

A/N: Good lord I am so sorry for an 8k chapter, I really didn’t want to split it into two. However, with this one being so long the next might not be out until the middle of next week (if I can manage to actually concentrate for long enough to write). Let me know how you enjoyed it and if you want to be added to the taglist! PS I’m running of gifs...please help...what do yall search for such hd gifs?

taglist: @ohhersheybars, @greatcircle79

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nothisis-ridiculous · 3 years

Text

Take Me Home Now: Chapter Ten

Chapter Ten: Another Mother's Breakin'

Set after the events of ME3.

A rewrite. Ao3.

FemShepxKaidan

"Jane."

The recruit let the knocking go on for a third round, slowly shaking herself from the rickety cot. While these digs were nothing as fancy as the bunk back at the mall, the privacy was a paradise. Blank, dull, metal-lined walls were a price she was willing to pay over the colorful and plant-lined walls of the barracks. The humming noise of life rebuilding, no she belonged in the silence.

"Jane." This time her name was a statement, backed by a hint of threat.

"Just a moment," she groaned, rubbing the crust from the inner corners of her eyes, pushing sore muscles upright and forcing a shirt over her head but allowing it to fall at its own pace. Her pupils narrowed at the sudden influx of light filling her half of the crate, "morning?"

Helen looked her up and down, that damned frown a returning friend, "you should put a comb through that hair."

"For fuck's sa-"

The woman made a sudden jerk, but it stopped with a simple raising of her arm, brushing aside a fallen lash, "language, dear."

"Sorry," Jane's eyebrows narrowed, had she forgotten she was not a child, "why are you here?"

"Because we are going out."

"Don't I have three more days?" Jane returned.

The older woman in a rare admittance of defeat sighed, offering back a raised eyebrow, "you're well aware that was a ruse."

"I knew it!" she didn't.

"Yes, let's be proud that you are stubborn as they warned," Helen retorted with a hint of a smirk, "but you should be ready. I'm not going to let you slide and get breakfast, either!"

Yes, this encampment was a military installment, but it gave no reason to ready herself with the rest of the soldiers. Since Rahna had given up on her she did little to get out of her bunk. So far, her secret remained, but pushing it by becoming a regular around camp seemed too big of a risk. Evelyn gave her some reason to get out, but the kid quickly found friends. Within days she was no longer needed, though the shit still visited at least once a day that prodded her into some form of semblance. The lack of duties cemented her decision to remain secluded, bidding her time with the running videos in her head.

"So why me?" Jane pressed once they cleared the base by a few thousand meters, pulling the ration bar from her mouth.

The woman's dark eyes turned cross, "and don't you waste those rations."

"You'll never want them again after fresh produce," Jane murmured, swallowing down the bland brick of nutrition in three bites.

"The second reason for coming out here," Helen handed over a pistol, "fresh meat and pest removal."

"You know, someplace on Illium would sell Varren skewers as a delicacy," Jane overlooked the pistol with a grin, "man, could that krogan grill up a mean varren skewer."

"The pistol is back up; you should use biotics. No stunts," she warned without heed of her companion's previous comment.

"I'm a paragon of caution," Jane mumbled in response, deciding then it was best to follow after the woman in silence. Pausing only as her leader stopped.

"No stunts," a finger waggled at her, "that kid and her grandfather want you back, and I intend to see that through, despite your best attempts."

Jane giggled, "the LT would love that one."

"Dismiss it all you like, whinge that someone cares about your sorry hide," the woman spat, "you're being selfish. Everyone is hurting if you haven't noticed."

Jane's face drew blank, "while it's true, doesn't it feel better to be pissed off? To be angry that everything is changed? Fuck everyone else. I'm hurting." She looked over the horizon, directly into the blue beam that connected to the Citadel. It seemed so tiny from here, so insignificant.

Helen's gaze followed Jane's gaze, "trying to remember how much worse it could be rarely helps."

"I like to make myself feel better by telling myself that I'm angering out of grief; it's one of the stages, right? But what is there after it? I don't want to let it go and accept my world is gone," Jane's voice mellowed to a whisper, "acceptance is terrifying. It means you have to move forward."

They shared a silent moment together, connecting with a brief touch—neither alone as they thought.

"Who did you lose?"

"My heart."

"Who did you lose?"

"...my heart."

Horizon- Horizon was an awkward fumbling in the dark. An overhanded display The Illusive Man decided to lord over her. He knew her strings and just how to pluck them to make her dance to his tune. Pulling Kaidan into the entire mess with the Collectors was a threat. But as messy and powerless as the knowledge of what the Illusive Man would take from her was the undercurrent of hope. It was foolish to be caught up in the giddy excitement of returned love, But Kaidan loved her. The first confession and bitter tug on her heart. She should have told him then.

Mars- Mars was just as awkward. Running, sliding, and dodging bullets after months of being cooped up in a small apartment awaiting trial. Sideways glances, and a Major who wouldn't stop dogging her every step. He questioned, prodded, and accused her of terrible things. Granted, she well deserved it. He was so close, so in sync as if the years were mere minutes... yet the distance between them was a canyon wide. But the Major loved her, even if it was once upon a time. A lighthearted exchange broke some of the tension, but she still should have told him then.

The Citadel- "What's up" had to be the lamest greeting after an armed standoff. Not a clasping hug, not a gentle smile, instead she vocalized her worry that he was angry. She hadn't taken the shot at Udina, and she had made Kaidan make that impossible decision. To trust her word, to trust an ex-terrorist. It was too much to ask of anyone- but now she was someone he was in love with. Not a past tense, a was, but a current thing. Still, she fumbled, asking him to let her have it and killing any hope of a romantic reunion. Her stolen glances at his backside caught in the act gave him a sheepish glance away and not the confession he was owed.

The Citadel Pt. II- After a shamelessly little amount of convincing, she had found herself in a dress. It was supposed to be simple- a snack on the Citadel. But she had hoped for more, the flirting, the longing stares, compliments, and a little bit of girlish enthusiasm from Kaidan she dared to think they had a chance. It was the first 'I love you' the extra 'I always have' sending her heart fluttering into erratics that she fought to control, lest she make a scene. The graze of his tender lips against her palm relinquished any grasp she had left on that errant heart, the thundering of the heartbeat clouding her brain. The jealousy the rest of her skin felt for her palm stealing another confession.

2181 Despoina- Kaidan would always rue his attraction to adventurous women. Not the woman, but the spark that drove him there. She was always at risk; her daily amount of adventure qualified as a heroic event for most other citizens of the galaxy. For her, it was a normal Tuesday night. But still, he worried, and still, he continued to love her for the constant stress she brought him. Loved her recklessness because it was as much part of her as her freckles. In the wordless hours of the night, his grip always tighter after a harrowing encounter, she was silent.

The Normandy- Neither of them wanted a quick drink. It was a little silly, after all these years, after all his confessions, to still feel insecure about inviting Kaidan up to her cabin. Instead of being direct, he invented the excuse of a short drink to see her. To comfort each other- when they both knew they needed it. Everything felt so final, the end a ticking bomb, an end to the short time they had together. She found strength in him, a safety in knowing she had someone that would catch her. He loved her openly and proudly. He loved her without needing the words returned.

London- It was unreal, after three years finally approaching the finish line. Loss and love in equal measure. Now, it was time for her to go it alone. It was unnatural, and she fought against the notion. She didn't want to be alone- not at the end. Not after this blissful glimpse into the way love had brightened every facet of her being. Kaidan would gladly face a bitter end with her, going arm in arm to meet Garrus at the bar. But it was a fucked kind of love that pushed her to make him leave. The same love that screamed at him to get the hell off the Normandy, the love that now albeit gently pleaded with him to live. It wasn't a roar or a cry of victory but a rumble- a tender declaration. Kaidan knew, even if it took him repeating his love a thousand times over. Six was a good number, short. The heart knew it was needed.

"So refresh my memory," Jane questioned in a whisper, trying not to draw the entire den of Varren upon them at once, "just how many we are planning on bringing back?"

"Are you that keen on vaporizing them all?"

"I certainly can."

"Wouldn't that defeat one of our goals?"

"Well, I don't think you accounted for the transportation of a Varren," Jane noted, looking behind them at the lack of vessel to transport said game.

Jane was ignored with a huff, the woman peering around a blockade, "I want that one."

Jane took a look, the brown striped specimen had to top the list of heaviest varren she had seen, "seriously?"

"Yes. Jane."

"Aye, Aye, Ma'am."

There wasn't time for a seething look or the smarmy reply that would have followed. The creature floated, air-bound as if the weight of the animal defied gravity. It kicked at the air, unable to stop itself from moving toward the barrier that blocked the scent of view of its hunters. Jane yanked her hand forward, dragging against the invisible weight. It felt good, if not for the shred of panic that she might lose time again. The tell-tale sign of blood was not forthcoming.

The blast of sound ricocheting through the plaza quickly overcame any remaining fear.

"Whatever you do, do not approach these things," the recruit barked, yanking the older woman into the corner spot, "they will overwhelm you if they get close."

"Aye, Aye, Ma'am."

The pack burst from all corners, running full boar in the direction of their fallen packmate. Several running members fell in the chaos, while a line of biotic energy sent the group careening into nearby walls and structures. For what inexperience was worth, Helen held up well, keeping up trained focus on the beasts. The old lady had precision aim, wasting hardly a clip during the charge. Jane didn't have to pick up much slack. Now, if there were a third member, everything would be peachy.

The square was silent for a count of three before a single varren cried out loudly.

The alpha was on scene.

While she had not promised to keep from committing to a hair-brained stunt, biotic shockwaves and lifts were boring. A teenage biotic could perform these moves without a sweat, a N7 needed a challenge. She needed the thrill. Blue waves coalesced and pulsed around her form, the familiar vibration against her skin pleasurable. A fluid vault over the barrier propelling her charge into the lone Varren, sending it toppling from the blow. Jane dove for it, pummeling it with blasts of biotic energy until her knuckles bled.

This was no longer a stunt but a method of release.

"Seems those biotics are back online," Helen murmured, wiping something from her eyes.

Jane cocked her head, "where'd you learn to shoot?"

"That? Oh. I thought they'd go out like a coyote."

The blonde smirked, dismounting the alpha's corpse, wiping her fists against a clean portion of the animal's hide. Nothing from Tuchanka went down quietly.

Helen stood over her prize, after a long minute she looked at Jane expectantly, "aren't you going to grab that?"

"Your trophy, your struggle," Jane folded her arms in return, a sly grin crossing her face, "besides, by the way we snuck out of that base, I don't need any more blame for this... what would you call this, stunt?"

"We did not sneak-" but the woman's face betrayed her guilt.

"Yeah, it's normal procedure to hop a barricade at the precise moment the guard changed," Jane knew a thing or two about sneaking out. She'd even stolen a ship twice.

Helen didn't have to struggle with the corpse long before Jane took pity on the woman; she had an unfair advantage anyway. Genetic enhancements, bone grafting, and a little biotic lifting. Unfortunately, she would still be sore when they got back to base.

"Why the need to sneak out anyway? I'm sure you could have roped anyone into helping you," Jane was under no illusion that the woman had any particular like for her, if anything, the woman looked at her with increasing scrutiny.

"None of them would dare."

"Oh?"

"I don't want to talk about it."

Jane understood the sentiment completely.

#fshenko #mass effect fancition #shenko #kaidan alenko #femshep x kaidan #take me home

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kbstories · 4 years

Text

impression//expression

“It’s not like Kirishima had come all this way to U.A. to immediately break the promise he made to himself upon arrival.

It’s just that Bakugou is as feral as they come, and the moment Kirishima recognizes it’s fear he felt crawling up his spine that day, he makes it his personal mission to face it head-on until it’s gone.”

(Or: Being friends with Bakugou Katsuki is anything but a linear experience. Kirishima Eijirou would have it no other way.)

Tags: Kirishima POV, Developing Friendships, Kamino Arc, Kidnapping & Aftermath, Hurt/Comfort, Bakugou Gets A Hug

Chapter 1. Chapter 2. Chapter 3. Content warning for kidnapping, aftermath of violence. Chapter 5. Chapter 6. Chapter 7. Chapter 8. Chapter 9.

***

Nitro!! (Baku 💣💥)

i’m gonna die (sent 19:08)

no seriously i’m this 👌🏻 close to losing it bro (sent 19:08)

aizawa’s voice is so zzzz and it’s like sir,, i’m begging,,,, (sent 19:09)

a little bit of energy. just a little bit (sent 19:09)

A nudge to his side, somewhat urgent.

shit brb (sent 19:10)

“Dude.”

Kirishima keeps his voice down to a hiss, shooting a glance at Aizawa’s turned back just in case. Hidden behind his pencil case, his phone shows Bakugou has read his messages – near-immediately, as always – before Kirishima locks the screen. His own face is reflected on sleek, innocent black.

Next to him, Kaminari is looking at him like he’s lost his mind. “Don’t dude me, dude”, he whispers back. “Texting in Aizawa’s class? D’you have a death wish?”

Next to Kaminari, Mina leans over her desk, clearly curious and uncaring of her notes crinkling quietly under her elbows. “You? Kiri, paragon of wholesomeness and sunshine, breaking the rules? Lemme guess, it’s because of Bakugou.”

Next to Mina, Sero joins the fray with a muted headshake. “So brave yet so reckless. Truly inspiring.”

“You can say that again. That guy’s scary, man.” That’s Kaminari again. He leans in conspiratorially, nodding at Kirishima’s phone. “You got Blasty’s number? How? He almost bit my head off when I invited him to the 1-A chat.”

“Uh, yeah? We’re besties. But guys…”

If they were anywhere else, Kirishima would let out a whine. All he wanted to do was keep himself awake by texting his bro, is that such a crime? Especially since Bakugou’s the only one of ‘em who is actually allowed out there, where the fun stuff is happening. It’s downright cruel to have a new challenge dangled in front of their eyes like the juiciest steak only to be dragged away to the equivalent of plain steamed broccoli. Or something.

Point is: Kirishima’s bored enough he could cry and Aizawa, bless his insomnia-plagued soul, is making it about a thousand times worse with his monotone mumbling while he continues to write whatever-the-fuck in chalk to illustrate his point.

Three mouths open simultaneously in what Kirishima knows will be a too-loud bout of teasing – a frantic gesture of his hand to shut up, shut up, shut up has identical grins bursting on his friends’ faces.

Grins that disappear the instant the familiar sense of Aizawa’s quirk washes over them. Uh oh.

Aizawa doesn’t even have to say anything. Not even a brief pause registers in his lecture yet Kirishima snaps to attention so hard his buttcheeks clench as he furiously scribbles down what’s on the board. Some sort of… diagram? (It’ll make sense later, Kirishima hopes. And if it doesn’t, there’s always his equally draconic tutor-slash-best-friend he can poke into helping him eventually.)

After a semester at U.A., everyone in 1-A is whipped enough that not a single word is breathed between them for a good fifteen minutes. Aizawa talks, they take notes.

Then the adrenaline wears off and Kirishima finds himself drifting once more, fingers automatically flicking the home button. There, over Crimson Riot’s confident grin, three new messages.

Nitro!! (Baku 💣💥)

pay attention (received 19:14)

ffs (received 19:14)

hope aizawa murdered your ass (received 19:16)

No surprises there. Well, the fact that Bakugou has deigned to reply just before a training exercise kind of is, and he even triple-texted which makes a sappy part of Kirishima’s brain think he must’ve rubbed off on him over the past months. The day Bakugou Katsuki discovers emojis can’t be far off now and it will be Kirishima’s greatest achievement to date.

He bites his lip to suppress an amused noise at that. Ignoring the incredulous stare from Kaminari to his right, Kirishima types.

Nitro!! (Baku 💣💥)

haha! i lived bitch (sent 19:32)

minus the bitch askdjfhsk sry (sent 19:32)

i’m just tired af lol (sent 19:32)

how’s things on ur end tho? (sent 19:34)

no asses left unkicked i’m sure (sent 19:34)

👊🏻💥💥 (sent 19:35)

Kirishima gets about a solid second to feel good about furthering his pro-emoji agenda before his phone is snatched away by rigid, white cloth. Wide-eyed, his gaze is met by a flat expression that exudes more exhaustion than any human should rightfully have to feel.

“Kirishima”, Aizawa says, as calm as ever. “How kind of you to lend me your attention.”

Lord have mercy. Whichever hell Aizawa is about to unleash on him, Kirishima will be in it for a while. And when that’s over, it’ll be Bakugou’s turn to have a field day with it.

Somehow, Kirishima is actually looking forward to that last part.

Then, a voice rings out in their heads. Aizawa jumps into motion. The villains strike.

Afterwards, all Kirishima can do is stand there and watch the forest burn. His phone is silent, held between fingers that won’t stop trembling no matter what he does. He unlocks, checks, locks, only to do it all over again a few minutes or seconds later.

Around him, everything is spinning out of control. Reality is too loud, too bright, already overwhelming where it waits to be acknowledged beyond the soothing green interface of his chat with Bakugou.

The messages are still there. Marked read until they aren’t, and Kirishima stares at that subtle difference like it’s the last thing tethering him to the ground. Blue tick, his best friend is fine. Grey tick–

Bakugou let Kirishima take a photo of him, once. Kirishima had complained about his profile picture being that creepy default silhouette, especially once they started texting on a daily basis. So Bakugou sighed and leaned over the tiny table of the café, his chin propped on one hand and his coffee in the other. He’d kept still just long enough for the shutter to go off and called him a clingy bastard right after.

In the soft morning light, there’d been something warm in his typical glare. It’s still there, tucked away in the top left corner of the screen. Fond, red eyes, looking straight at Kirishima ever since.

Higher and higher, the flames reach for the sky with greedy, cobalt fingers, bright enough to take the stars with them. And Bakugou?

Bakugou is gone.

Nitro!! (Baku 💣💥)

hey (sent 23:01)

it’s a long shot but (sent 23:03)

are u there? (sent 23:03)

these are going thru so ur phone is on and i thought (sent 23:08)

idk (sent 23:08)

please respond man (sent 23:37)

please (sent 23:58)

katsuki? (sent 00:40)

Nitro!! (Baku 💣💥)

fuck (sent 3:24)

Bakugou Katsuki

um (sent 6:13)

the pros asked for ur number to track it and stuff so i gave it to them (sent 6:13)

turns out almost nobody has it?? so like (sent 6:20)

if u want a new one after all this it’s on me (sent 6:21)

pls don’t be mad haha (sent 6:21)

fuck that actually (sent 7:05)

be as mad as u want baku (sent 7:06)

u can do whatever ok? when u come back (sent 7:09)

free pass. i won’t guard this time (sent 7:09)

just come back (sent 8:00)

they’re looking for u so u gotta come back (sent 8:02)

Baku 💣💥

sry i just (sent 19:55)

ok still going thru (sent 19:55)

that’s good right? (sent 19:57)

i need it to be good (sent 20:05)

yeah (sent 20:06)

Baku 💣💥

it’s saturday (sent 2:33)

please be ok (sent 4:46)

i miss u (sent 5:00)

Baku 💣💥

we’re on our way katsuki (sent 12:45)

just hold on we’re coming for u (sending…)

wait (sending…)

oh (sending…)

Bakugou is quiet.

When all is said and done, injuries patched up and police statements given, Kirishima waits and Bakugou looks… tired. Small. Glancing back at the precinct with eyes a little too wide, a little too hesitant to truly belong to him.

Whatever he’s searching, if he finds it or not – Kirishima can only guess as Bakugou’s shoulders slump further and he mutters, “Let’s just go.”

In retrospect, he was probably talking to his parents. The Bakugous came for their son in a car as expensive as they come, white with chrome highlights and an interior clad entirely in tasteful, beige leather; it’s an aesthetic that’s the antithesis to Katsuki’s. Their expressions are full of love, though, brows drawn in concern carefully left unspoken. His father opens the back door for him first, going for his own in the front, while his mother ruffles Bakugou’s hair within the one-second-window he allows for the touch before shrugging it off.

“Welcome back, brat. We missed ya.”

Familiar phrases laden with far too much weight. From the outside in, it’s just that: Mildly exasperated parents picking up their kid after some school thing that dragged on into the night, or perhaps a late hangout with a friend. No one acknowledges the nightmare-ish three days they’ve left behind by the merit of time passing and the world spinning on and nothing else – the countless people injured or dead, an entire district torn asunder in a conflict much bigger than any of them, especially Bakugou.

Bakugou, who shuffles onto the backseat without saying much of anything. It’s only after Kirishima trails after him and Bakugou’s eyes meet his own over his shoulder that Kirishima realizes that’s what he’s doing.

Then Bakugou’s gaze softens and he kicks the door of the car open wider. “Um”, Kirishima pipes up, the noise of keys clinking together drawing his attention to one Bakugou Mitsuki. “Is it okay if I…?”

She snorts and ruffles his hair, too. “Kid, after what you did tonight, a ride home is the least I can do for ya. C’mon.”

Kirishima bows politely, a mumble of “Thanks, ma’am” waved away immediately. A moment later, Kirishima’s hand is being grabbed and he’s dragged inside. “Get a move on”, Bakugou mumbles, staring pointedly until Kirishima rights himself and digs for the seatbelt with his free hand. The click of the clasp snapping in is oddly loud in the ensuing silence.

It doesn’t last. The moment the engine purrs to life and the lights go off, a heavy guitar riff screeches from cleverly hidden speakers in perfect surround sound and Kirishima jumps. He’s the only one in the car to do so.

“Whoops, my bad”, says Bakugou’s mom as she turns the music down the slightest amount, her smirk – so familiar and yet not – clearly visible in the rear-view mirror. Next to her, Bakugou’s dad chuckles and shakes his head.

Bakugou himself is turned towards the window, the hand against his chin barely hiding the tiny smirk there. Kirishima lets him have it. Anything that’ll replace that lost expression from earlier is good in his books.

“So. Eijirou, right? Nice to finally meet ya.” Mrs. Bakugou checks in with him via the mirror. Her hand rests on the gear selector. “Where to? We’ll bring you home first. I’m sure your parents are worried.”

And oh fuck, Kirishima hasn’t even thought that far ahead yet. When he snuck out of the house a lifetime ago, all his mind was able to process was getting to Bakugou, saving Bakugou, bringing Bakugou back. As much as both his mothers are angels in their own right, they’re also easily worried and twice as buff as him. There haven’t been many occasions which called for them to throw down for their son but they totally would if given half the chance.

If they catch wind of even a fraction of what Kirishima got up to tonight, someone will have to pay. Kirishima’s willing to bet his most prized, limited-edition Crimson Riot figurine that that someone will end up being all of U.A., nationally famous pro heroes or not.

Before any of that can make it out of his mouth, Kirishima’s hand is squeezed and… Oh. Bakugou’s still holding it. Their skin isn’t touching; Kirishima’s sleeve has been pulled down to prevent that.

(It’s one of those things Bakugou does, tracking who and what gets in direct contact with his sweat and how to neutralize it in time. It makes Kirishima’s chest ache that, despite everything that happened, he is still aware of small things like that.)

“He’s crashing at ours tonight”, Bakugou tells his parents rather gruffly. Still looking out the window like there’s nothing unusual about that at all, and Kirishima gapes at him in complete and utter surprise. Bakugou’s grip only tightens.

“Got a problem with that?”

Just like that, Kirishima finds himself able to process speech. “Nope! Not at all. Uh, that is– Mrs. Bakugou, Mr. Bakugou, can I?”

Bakugou’s parents look similarly caught off-guard. To their credit, they merely blink and look at each other, shrugging. Again, it’s the mother who speaks. “That’s Mitsuki and Masaru to you, kid. Let’s go home, then.”

And that’s that. They set off, the car’s movement a quiet thrum that’s drowned out by complicated drum solos and vocals barely scraping past outright growling. Any other day, Kirishima would’ve been ecstatic to finally get to meet the Bakugous. He’d hoard bits and pieces of knowledge about them – such as the fact that Katsuki’s taste in music runs in the family, what the hell – like a dragon does gold coins. The notion that Bakugou invited him to their first sleep-over ever would be the biggest treasure on that pile, for sure.

Because Bakugou Katsuki is anything if not cautious: with his quirk, with his time, with his trust. Because, after days of pacing his room and worrying himself sick and crying until exhaustion took him out, their plan worked.

They pulled it off, Bakugou is back and alive, and Kirishima’s allowed to stay by his side a little bit longer.

He’s here because Bakugou wants him to be and that… feels better than Kirishima can properly put into words. So, no, he doesn’t boast about it, he doesn’t have the energy to – but Kirishima notes and appreciates it nonetheless, relief forming a ball of warmth and light that radiates within him like a tiny sun got stuck between his lungs and his heart. Bit by bit, it melts the tension off Kirishima’s bones until all he can grasp is the steady presence of Bakugou’s hand in his and how heavy his eyelids feel.

Kirishima could sleep for a week straight and still crave a nap afterwards. Probably.

There’s something he has to do before he crashes, though. With a gentle squeeze, he frees his hand to grab his phone and winces at the dozens of unread messages and missed calls that greet him. Both the group he has with his family as well as the one for 1-A have been running hot most of the night, reducing his battery to a pitiful 12%.

Opening up the chat with his moms, Kirishima scrolls to the bottom of the increasingly worried barrage of texts and hesitates, his fingers hovering over the keypad. Once he starts typing, he’ll have about a minute before shit really hits the fan.

💪🏻Kirishima Power 💪🏻

guys i’m so sorry!!! (sent 21:58)

i know ur worried and stuff and i swear i’ll explain later ok?? (sent 21:58)

just wanna let u know i’m safe!! staying over at baku’s tonight (sent 21:58)

he’s here and safe too (sent 21:58)

🙏🏻🙏🏻 (sent 21:59)

He pauses then, reading that last part over and over again. Safe. Safe, safe, safe. A smile cracks Kirishima’s lips apart and it remains there, steadfast through the flood of new messages rolling in.

Bakugou’s room is both everything Kirishima expected it to be and at the same time… not.

It’s huge, for one, the typical bed-wardrobe-desk setup expanded by a couch and a beanbag, a TV with a variety of game systems hooked up to it, a handful of shelves filled to the brim with books and manga and oh, a whole freaking drum set taking up a corner by itself. The walls are plastered with band posters and signed set lists and – less blatant but still there – the odd All Might merch Kirishima knows Bakugou would strangle him for mentioning, so he doesn’t.

What comes out of his mouth is: “Dude! I didn’t know you played drums. That’s so cool!”

Everything is kept in the triad of black-orange-green Kirishima recognizes from a certain hero costume. A few discarded shirts aside, it’s really tidy. So much so that Kirishima feels ashamed of the state of his own room just by seeing this.

The feeling is compounded by Bakugou picking up those shirts and throwing them in the hamper first thing, a quiet tch indicating he’s annoyed by it. Kirishima isn’t up to outing himself as an unrepentant walking mess in comparison – instead, he makes a beeline for the bookshelf with the manga, eyes drawn to a row of covers he’d recognize in a heartbeat.

“Wha– I’ve been looking for these for ages! They’re sold out every time I try to catch up on ‘em.”

A short glance at Bakugou is answered with a shrug and an eye-roll: It’s Bakugou-speak for do whatever the hell you want. Kirishima pulls out the volume he stopped at and leafs through it.

It’s meant as a distraction for Bakugou, a space for him to drop the put-together façade and breathe without people constantly fussing over him. It’s honestly what Kirishima would rather be doing right now (exploring his best bro’s room be damned) but it’s not what Bakugou needs. Well, what Kirishima thinks he needs.

It’s hard to get a read on him without the constant snark and pointed glares. With some dinner in their bellies and Bakugou’s parents now safely downstairs, the expression that fits nowhere on the Angry Bakugou Face catalogue is back. Kind of uncomfortable and so… absent.

Kirishima is really starting to hate that expression.

It’s entirely accidental that Kirishima actually gets into reading. One chapter turns to three, turns to five, and the troubles and worries whirling ever-tighter in his chest ease for a bit until–

Woosh. A soft, balled-up something knocks against the back of his head. Kirishima startles and almost drops the manga, a vaguely alarmed noise stopped short by the sight of Bakugou in sweats and a well-worn, black shirt. His hair is wet. Wild as ever. At Kirishima’s feet: A similar outfit including a towel.

“Bathroom’s that way. Leave your clothes out by the door, I got special detergent for the nitro. Shampoo and shit’s in the shower, there’s a toothbrush for you by the sink. Use it.”

Kirishima opens his mouth.

Bakugou sighs. “It’s just a fucking toothbrush, Kiri. Wreck it for all I care.”

Kirishima closes his mouth. He nods. His phone is quickly dug out of his pocket and set aside, then he slips out to shower.

A good fifteen minutes later, he opens the door to let out a gust of steam and sees his clothes are gone. The hallway is empty, half-lit by the light coming from downstairs. The Bakugous have been as nonchalant about their spontaneous guest as Bakugou himself; even so, Kirishima tries not to linger or make too much noise as he sneaks back to Bakugou’s room.

“Baku. I’m back.”

Bakugou gives him a grunt of acknowledgement from where he’s fitting some sheets over the couch, folded out to provide a decently sized bed. There’s a pillow and a pile of blankets next to him, wrapped in fresh linen as well. It’s unlikely he’s stopped doing stuff since Kirishima left and if he is about ready to crash in five to ten minutes, he can’t imagine how Bakugou is doing right now.

Y’know, the guy who just survived being kidnapped by Japan’s newest and most notorious villain menace. No amount of pretense can make that simple fact undone.

Kirishima pads over to help, the offer to take over already on his lips but– Too late. The last corner is already being tucked in and laid flat with grim-faced efficiency. Left with nothing else to do, Kirishima sits down on the very edge, eyes downcast and fingers fiddling with the hem of his borrowed shirt. There’s some sort of band logo on it, an English word written in that typical death-metal-font that looks like someone dumped a bunch of white sticks in a pile and called it a day.

It’s soft. A little loose and frayed around the edges.

“Hey, Baku?”

Taking the blankets, Bakugou dumps them in Kirishima’s lap. “Mh?” He makes to step away and Kirishima doesn’t think, just reaches out and catches the back of his shirt.

“Dude, seriously. Just… sit down for a minute. Please?”

And Bakugou… listens. He stops, he frowns at Kirishima for a moment like he’s trying to figure out what his deal is, he sighs like he’s been presented with the world’s most aggravating puzzle – and then he tells Kirishima to scooch. “What? I’m not gonna sit on the fucking floor”, he says.

Kirishima can’t keep the relief off his face as he gladly makes room on the couch, leaning against its arm and tucking his legs in. Once Bakugou has settled, cross-legged with an elbow propped on the backrest, Kirishima throws the blanket over both of ‘em. Might as well get comfortable while they still can.

“Okay.” He steels himself with a long, slow breath. “I know you hate this kinda thing and we’re both tired and… stuff. Still, though: Are you okay?”

Bakugou gives him a look, which– Okay, fair. It’s a dumb question with an obvious answer. Kirishima doesn’t back down, though, humming to buy himself some time to rephrase.

“Like… It’s fine if you’re not. Okay, I mean. And if you’d rather go the fuck to bed and not think about this for a while that’s fine, too. But that was pretty rough and you’ve been, um, quiet. And stuff. So, I’m kinda worried. Y’know?”

Kirishima pauses. A bit lower, he mumbles: “And I missed you. So yeah.”

At some point, he dropped his gaze to his hands, limp and useless in his lap. Kirishima swore not to be a coward anymore but it’s hard, to speak and ask about things in full awareness he has no fucking clue what he’s doing.

All he wants is for Bakugou to be okay. That’s all that matters, at the end of a day like this.

“I’m not”, Bakugou says, tentatively. Like he’s making up his mind as he goes. “I’m not gonna waste your time with ‘I’m fine’. I’m not. This shit’s fucked up.” And again he sighs, sounding so fucking tired Kirishima’s heart squeezes in sympathy.

“I haven’t slept in three fucking days; my shoulders are killing me from using my quirk and sitting chained to that stupid chair and whatever the fuck else. The League scouted me specifically because they thought I’d make a good villain and fuck them for that. Fuck them. But it’s just… It’s whatever. It doesn’t matter.”

Whatever Kirishima expected, it’s not that. He looks up and into Bakugou’s eyes and–

He can’t mean that, can he? Kirishima searches his face for evidence to the contrary, traces the tension around Bakugou’s mouth and the exhaustion smudged under his eyes and the line between his brows, growing deeper under Kirishima’s scrutiny. It all reads defeat. It hurts.

They won, right? A childish voice within Kirishima can’t help but cling to that even as he looks back down. They won, and things are supposed to get better when you win.

“People got hurt. People died, Kiri. Heroes, too.” Bakugou takes a shaky breath, a hand going to his hair and rubbing it roughly. “Fucking… Best Jeanist was there and nobody at the precinct wanted to tell me if he’s alive or dead or what. All of Kamino Ward is fucking gone and All Might–”

Bakugou’s voice cracks right down the middle and it hurts. Like there’s a beast tearing through Kirishima’s chest to rip out his heart and throw it to the floor, stubbornly beating as it bleeds out.

Kirishima wants to say something. Anything. All he can hear is Bakugou’s breathing but it’s all wrong, off-rhythm and thread-bare and upset, and any doubt what that means is erased as Bakugou’s hand clenches on the sheets and he sniffs, wet on the exhale.

“Baku–”

“Don’t. Kiri, don’t–”

He’s always been like that, ordering him around and demanding things when politeness dictates to ask for them instead. His tone is as close to pleading as Kirishima’s ever heard from Bakugou, though, and it twists him up inside to the point he feels distantly nauseous.

“Don’t look.” Bakugou isn’t supposed to sound like that. Not now, not ever. “Okay? Don’t f-fucking– Don’t look at me right now.”

“Okay”, Kirishima says. “I won’t.” His own voice is a mess as well, trembling all over the place. “I won’t, Nitro. I won’t.”

You’re safe, is what he wants to tell him. It’s okay, you’re safe now. That’s not what Bakugou is asking of him. Kirishima can’t stop himself from crying because it’s always been hard not to when the people he loves are doing it, but… He tries. For Bakugou, he’ll always try.

Through eyes heavily clouded by tears, he sees Bakugou’s hand tighten, knuckles going white and bloodless. Painfully tense, and Kirishima can’t stand the sight of that, either.

He shuffles a little closer to place his hand over that fist, careful to only touch the back of Bakugou’s hand. Kirishima whispers, “I’m here”, and Bakugou audibly swallows. He lets him slip his fingers in-between his own.

Holding on, just as he did in the car and when they met in mid-air, that desperate instance that decided whether he would make it out alive or not.

Bakugou holds on even as he breaks for good and his shoulders shake with his sobs. As he continues to breathe in gulps of air that sound strangled and desperate, through tears that leave a pattern of uneven dots on the blanket. By morning they will be gone without a trace: The sun will come up, the world will continue to travel around it, and time will reveal the road they walk on as they walk it, step by step by step.

Just because it’s meant to pass doesn’t make this moment any less real. Any less important. Kirishima sits there and listens to his best friend cry. He remembers days spent without him and the mad dash to save him. He thinks of dumb questions and obvious answers.

It’s hard to tell if this is one of them, so he gathers all his courage and asks: “Katsuki. Can I hug you?”

Just like last time, Bakugou doesn’t say anything. He laughs, a watery, humorless thing – and he pulls at Kirishima’s shirt to crush him to his chest. His arms wind around Kirishima’s neck, Bakugou’s face pressing against his hair where Kirishima won’t be able to see him.

It’s fine. Kirishima’s great at hugs; he can totally work with that. Clenching his eyes shut, he adjusts his grip around Bakugou’s waist so he can rub his back, following the bumps of his spine. Up and down, over and over. Bakugou goes boneless in their embrace, not about to let go anytime soon and neither will Kirishima.

Eventually, Kirishima tucks his head against Bakugou’s shoulder, blinking sleep from his eyes. Safe. He doesn’t fight the sharp-toothed smile on his lips. Bakugou mumbles, “Fucking sap”, nearly drowned out by their collective sniffling.

It sounds a whole lot like thank you. Kirishima’s smile only grows.

>>Chapter 5

#my hero academia #boku no hero academia #bnha #mha #bakugou katsuki #kirishima eijirou #kiribaku #bnha fanfiction #hi kamino still makes me emo: the manifesto #this fic is also on AO3!!#reblogs appreciated c:#my stuff

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ertrunkenerwassergeist · 4 years

Text

Born Into the Wilds - Snippet

This chapter is already 8 pages long and still not finished XD

Hhhmmm, what to choose...

“I would have loved to see their faces though,” Libertus suddenly said, jarring Nyx out of his thoughts.

“What?”

“With the fire-ash. I would have loved to see the Insomnian's faces when it suddenly grew up from under the streets.”

Crowe gave an amused snort. “Probably as dumb as yours was.”

“Hey! You weren't a paragon of serenity either, so you have no room to comment.”

The two glared at each other until Crowe huffed and rolled her eyes good naturedly. “Yeah, whatever.”

By now they had all seen the newsreels about it. Interviews with upset pedestrians and citizens that their beautiful city had been blighted by a blessing of Ifrit. But on moogle net there were quite a few people voicing their interest in learning more about this. Especially young people. It was strangely heartening in a way.

Nyx looked out his window at the large form of the fire-ash peeking out from behind the buildings. It's crown had grown around the main street of Insomnia and the Founder's Plaza along with a few other places. It looked like round islands of bronze and green in all the grey. Currently there were concerns flying around about how much light the lower districts were getting now with the tree blocking out much more of the sun than the buildings already had, but Nyx could already tell that somehow they now had even more light and that the air had become cleaner.

“You think the sinehär gisdrauhti will declare it a sacred sight?” Pelna asked no one in particular.

“Don't think so,” Crowe answered. “They would never declare something of Astral making sacred. Also, it's at a too inconvenient a place to set up a sacred sight. I give it until noon today at most until the children are climbing all over it.”

“No bet,” Libertus snorted, amused.

The sudden ringing from a phone made them all twitch. Libertus gave a quiet slew of curses and fished his phone out of his pocket, it's screen lit up and emitting a series of semi-melodic high pitched jingles. He answered in Lucian.

“Yeah? Ostium speaking. - Wait, how did you get your hands on this number? - Yeah, okay stop. What did you call me for? - Know what, get yourself over here and we'll talk about our training sessions. - Of course that's alright. Why wouldn't you be able to come down here? We didn't shut us off from the rest of the city, you know.” Libertus sighed and rolled his eyes before giving out the address for Nyx' apartment. “You know how to find it? - Good. See you in an hour then. And don't be late.”

“Did you just invite the Amicitia kid for food?” Nyx asked with a raised eyebrow.

Libertus stared down at his phone like he couldn't believe he had just done that. Suddenly, Nyx grinned.

“Admit it. The kid grew on you.”

His hunting-brother scowled and shoved Nyx in the shoulder. “Shut it, you.”

“But you don't deny it,” Nyx singsonged and ducked out of the way of the kitchen towel sailing his way.

Someone clapped their hands together to gain their attention. It was Crowe.

“Okay, playtime is over. If we want to eat at a reasonable time today, we need to start to clean up. No getting out of it Luche! Don't think I didn't see you try to sneak away. You can help Libertus in the kitchen.”

The bond's expression did not change eve a little bit as he walked over to the kitchenette, where Libertus had finally started to sort through the bags. As always, he had bought at least thrice as much as should be needed.

Nyx turned back towards his bed and started to resort the loose papers into their proper binders, all carefully labelled for easy manoeuvring. It was done relatively quickly, so after he was done, he went to help Crowe, who just shooed him away. So he just shrugged, turned the TV louder and retreated into a corner to mix some limeschti after his Clan's recipe.

“... live from the Founder's Plaza.”

“Thank you, Lucius. I'm here at the Founder's Plaza where you can see the very top of the fire-ash. It appeared yesterday precisely at high noon, causing a minor accident on the Insomnia Main Street and surprising the pedestrians here,” a female reporter in a muted green military styled blazer spoke into a microphone.

“They still harping on about that?” Libertus wondered out loud. “That's old news already!”

“Not for Insomnians,” Luche said. “You know they love to regurgitate things like that again and again, until no one wants to hear it anymore.”

“Thank you. And that was Julia Videte, life on-site. And now please welcome in our studio renown biologist Doctor Sania Yeagre. Thank you for coming, Doctor.”

The screen showed a woman in her early to mid thirties with dark skin and black, curly hair done into a bun on top of her head. Large glasses framed eyes that glinted with a childish enthusiasm rarely seen in adults.

“The pleasure is all mine,” she said, a bright smile on her face.

“What can you tell us about the general attributes of a fire-ash?”

“The Fraxinus Ifriti, commonly known as fire-ash, belongs to the olive family. Since the fall of Solheim this tree has become exceedingly rare, for a few centuries it was even considered extinct until they found a living specimen during the construction of the Tomb of the Fierce on Mt. Ravatogh. It also is the slowest growing tree on Eos, with barely half a centimetre per year. Studies also showed that its sap could be used as a strong curative.”

“Can I infer from the scientific name, that there is a connection to the Infernian?”

“No shit,” Libertus muttered, causing Nyx to snort.

Sania Yeagre, not at all perturbed by the leading question, nodded enthusiastically. “Yes! In some of the earliest botanical works we have today, it is listed as a symbol of Ifrit's blessing. Which is why the tree must have been very common during the existence of the Empire of Solheim. It is depicted in near every work of art we have left of that time.”

“Then the fire-ash that spontaneously sprouted from Little Galahd, can be seen as a sign of the Infernian blessing the Galahdian people?”

“I imagine so. This is a very rare opportunity. I returned to Insomnia as soon as I heard of the fire-ash's existence. Hopefully the Galahdian leader will let me study it.”

Nyx shared a look with Pelna, who had also finished cleaning up his papers. He stood by the door, papers and laptop crammed under one arm.

“I'll be back soon. Just need to put these away and get Tethys, Moireus and the girls. We'll also bring another table and some chairs. There's no way we'll fit all at this tiny thing you call your dining table, Nyx.”

“Hey. I haven't needed a bigger one until now.”

“Time to get a new one, then,” Pelna teased and slipped through the door.

Nyx scowled after him while Crowe and Libertus snickered and Luche's lips ticked up into a grin. A knock came from the open doorway. There stood Athina, her hand raised and a smile on her face. She looked gorgeous in the dark red tunic dress with a wide cream cloth belt.

“Athina!” Nyx exclaimed, surprised and joyous. “Come in. Can I offer you some tea?”

“Good day, Nyx. Thank you, that would be very appreciated,” she smiled.

She stepped into the apartment and towards the table that looked like nothing had changed for the last ten minutes. Still papers were everywhere but woe to the person who wanted to help Crowe clean up her mess.

“Can I help you? Four hands are faster then two,” Athina asked the other woman.

Nyx was about to open his mouth to tell the dark skinned woman that it was hopeless to ask, when Crowe squinted at her and nodded after a few seconds of staring, which Athina bore patiently. Libertus gave him a wide eyed look. Crowe never let people help her with cleaning. Never. Athina, not knowing what had just happened, just asked their storm-sister where which papers went and started to help as per her instructions.

Very deliberately Nyx turned around and reached around Luche to fetch another tea cup. His last one, since he only owned four. He poured the last of the tea he had made earlier, and earned himself a bright smile when he set it down at a spot of now paper free table. The answering smile growing on his face was more of a flirty smirk that made Crowe roll her eyes.

Not too long after that there was a roast in the microwave oven and Libertus had gone to fetch Crowe's to put the second roast in. Because one was apparently not enough with the amount of people who were suddenly coming. Pelna returned with Tethys and the children not too long after that, bearing a foldable table and chairs along with more dishes. Nyx sent them a grateful look.

“Nyx!” Moireus cried and barrelled into his legs to give him a tight hug around the waist.

“Buhgil! How have you been? My, have you grown taller?”

Nyx tousled the boys hair, which earned him a bright, toothy smile. “I grew this much!” He held his thumb and index finger about two centimetres apart. Nyx nodded, impressed.

He looked up and gave Tethys, Ker and Dione welcoming smiles. “Thanks for coming.”

“Thanks for having us,” Tethys returned with a smile of her own.

“Don't mention it. I think Libertus' secret ambition for today is to feed the whole house with how much he bought.”

“I want to see the pretty tree!” Moireus spoke up, tugging at Nyx' trouser leg.

“You need to ask your parents that, buhgil. Maybe they'll take you tomorrow, if you're on your best behaviour this evening and go to bed without complaining.”

“I will!” the boy nodded eagerly and ran over to his mother to tell her, even though she had clearly heard every single word being spoken.

The TV was turned off and someone set up a CD player on his chest of drawers. At once a lively drumbeat filled the apartment along with their chatter and the smell of meat and steaming vegetables. It gave Nyx a sudden pang of homesickness. What would it be like to do something like this again in his Clan house? To fill it with voices and music and laughter? He hoped he would find out sometime soon.

Not long after everything was set up, the tables and chairs cramped into all the available free space, and they were just starting to set down the plates, there was another knock at the door – which, surprisingly enough, had been closed sometime during this endeavour. Nyx, who was closest, opened it.

#ffxv #born into the wilds #snippet #a pretty long one #they're having a dinner party for some reason #there's stuff to be done this chapter #and they decided to throw a dinner party #why?#*shakes head*#I love sania yeagre #so have her rambling about the fire-ash #geist writes

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iheardarumorxxx · 4 years

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Midnight Sun, Chapter 9 - Port Angeles

Right. I remember this chapter from Twilight. I also have heard quite a bit about this chapter. This is gonna be a ride.

Eddie starts off this chapter saying that he used to be the ‘responsible’ one. I would like to remind everyone that Edward Anthony Masen Cullen spent a few years eating people he percieved to be horrible criminals because he didn’t like animal blood and was being a whiny baby. But go off, Eddie.

SM is still trying to paint Jessica as a rude bitch and I still don’t buy it. It is extremely clear to anyone with eyeballs that Mike has a thing for Bella, and it is pretty obvious that this date he’s going on with Jessica is because Bella said no. So her thoughts come off as insecure. She’s a teenage girl, so I think insecure is a pretty standard thing. Not always, but SM has painted these kids as the stereotypical teens, so.

Basically, I still don’t buy the attempt to make Jessica seem evil.

Bella has wandered off to go get that book she wanted, and Eddie is simply freaking out because he let his daughter out of his sight for one minute and she wandered off. He’s about half a second away from considering getting a leash to put on her. Seriously, though, that’s how this reads. A parent frantic because they lost their child in a crowded store or park. We all know she’s gonna get a serious scolding for this one. Maybe even grounded.

a volly of snarls erupted from my throat

Okay, we’re still not to the big rant about vampire instincts in this universe, yet, but I want you guys to remember this for later. It absolutely aides in the point I plan to make there. Also a ‘volly’ of snarls. That sounds so forced and I genuinely laughed out loud when I read it. Anyway, Eddie has found Bella and she is with the Evil Bad Guys Who Have Ill Intentions.

I would see how he enjoyed the hunt when he was the pray. I would see what he thought of my style of hunting.

Technically a spoiler because it hasn’t happened yet in this book, but not because we’ve seen it in Twilight. Eddie literally does not do anything to this Lanny guy or his friends. He gets out of the car, makes a mean face at them, and then gets back in the car and drives off. Maybe SM has Eddie go back out and hunt them later after he drops Bella off, but that doesn’t fit in with his squeaky clean good boy persona that Daddy Carlisle puts on him, so I doubt it. The scene as we know it comes off as very ‘man, if my girlfriend wasn’t here I’d kick your ass’. Because Eddie is a lot of bloated, puffed up talk.

When SM uses dialogue tags like ‘ordered’ to describe how Eddie says things, it just really hammers home that point I’ve been making about red flags. Even if it’s practical, like him telling Bella to put on a seat belt, especially since Pires bend the will of cars to their inane and idotic physics.

We went on a tangent about one of Eddie’s kills from his Vampire Batman days, and like honestly? I watch a lot of Criminal Minds. I see a lot of this kind of stuff, and it is absolutely awful that people like that exist in the world. I’m not saying that they shouldn’t be stopped. HOWEVER, this idea Eddie has that he was playing a good guy by taking justice into his own hands, I don’t jive with that. Now, I am aware of how faulty the criminal justice system is, especially with victims of sexual assault and domestic violence. I’ve lived that, myself. But if Eddie is so comfortable taking another life, no matter how he tries to justify it, he is no better than the people who he’s deciding to kill for their crimes.

a highly justifiable murder

See, this. This is why I don’t buy that SM’s Cullens are the paragons of good that she is constantly trying to say they are. There is no such thing as a justifiable murder, no matter what. Solving heinous acts with heinous acts simply perpetuates a cycle of heinous acts.

I wasn’t giving her a chance to say no.

This is a trend that will continue throughout the entire series. I will point you to all of the times that Edward never gave Bella a choice in a matter, including leaving her in New Moon, and DISMANTLING HER CAR ENGINE IN ECLIPSE SO THAT SHE COULDN’T GO SEE HER FRIEND. That one in particular rubs me the wrong way for reasons, but we won’t do that here. Just know that Edward never actually lets Bella make a choice in this series, and even when he pretends to, he does everything in his power to make the outcome go his way.

And now we’re at the restaruant. I’ve heard some stuff about this scene and god, can I not WAIT, but for now, let’s just talk about the one off waitress character. She is clearly only here to be a rival to Bella for this scene. Brief, unimportant, underdeveloped. And honestly? One off characters don’t actually need that development, not really, but what I can’t stand about this one is that she is literally only here, both in this book and in Twilight, so that SM can puff up how clearly Bella is so much better than she is. Because, you see, Eddie doesn’t find the pretty hostess attractive, he only has eyes for Bella. Her entire point is so that Edward can look at Bella, and therefore, the audience as Bella is their SI for this world, and go on about how much better and prettier and more perfect she is than this woman. It’s just gross.

“Do I dazzle you?”

This is still, in my personal opinion, the best and most iconic line in a series full of iconic lines. Eddie the Dazzle Machine. Charming the pants off people when he’s trying to scare the shit out of them. It’s hilarious, and so fuckin’ romance novel cliche, and I love it.

This restaurant is apparently a real place in the real Port Angeles. And from what I understand, at least when the Twilight craze was in full swing back in 2008, they got a lot of extra business and a lot more people ordering the mushroom ravioli. Even put something about Twilight on their menu. Good for them, taking advantage of that free marketing. I have never been to Port Angeles, and am allergic to mushrooms, so I can’t say I’ve experienced the dish, but if any of you have, please let me know if it’s worth the hype.

Its so funny that right now, Eddie is worried about Bella being cold and going into shock, while Bella is over there huffing the fumes off his jacket like it’s a paint can, and he can’t even tell that that’s what she’s doing. The girl is doing everything short of just shoving her whole face in it and inhaling, but he’s too thick to get it.

And here we are folks. The meat and potatoes of this chapter. The big comparison. The reason the cover has a pomegranete on it. Edward Anthony Masen Cullen has the absolute GALL to compare Bella, the boring, walking video game avatar to Persephone. Lets break down Persephone for a second here. There’s a lot to break down, but let’s stick to the basics, for fear that this rant gets wickedly out of hand before I can stop it. Persephone radiates optimism and hope. Persephone is soft, sweet, but has a temper that could kill a man. Persephone is sympathetic. When in the ever loving FUCK has Isabella Swan ever shown any of those characteristics? She is NEVER optimistic about anything. She fucking exists in a constant cloud of negative thought and assuming the worst. She isn’t hopeful about ANYTHING, not even her future with her PRECIOUS Eddie because she’s always questioning his intentions and feelings for her. She is not sympathetic in the slightest, no matter what SM tries to shove down my throat. She treats her friends like shit, she manipulates and lies her way through conversations so she doesn’t have to deal with them, she compares Mike to a FUCKING DOG. Bella is not comparable to Persephone, and it’s fucking beyond ham-fisted, it’s fucking EGREGIOUS to try to make that comparison.

I could see more of an argument for comparing Eddie to Hades, since, ya know, Hades fucking stole Persephone to be his wife and most stories about Hades paint him as kind of a moody, brooding dickbag, but I’m still calling fucking foul on this attempt at comparison, SM. No dice.

Moving on.

Eddie describing Bella’s skin as ‘velvety’ gives me war flashbacks to those grocery store checkout novels with Fabio on the cover that my mom used to read. Eghhh.

So, Bella touches Eddie’s hand and it’s described in a way that gives me very G-rated sex vibes. Which just makes me wanna tell them to get a room because they’re in public right now, and also don’t do that in front of Bella’s salad ravioli.

Eddie is still being super controling and weird about Bella eating, and honestly, I super wish that Bella had had the good sense to get the hell out of there with Jess and Angela. Or that she would have the good sense now to excuse herself, find someone on staff, ask to borrow a phone, and call her dad. Because this guy is literally throwing out every red flag that exists. I know I say this a lot, but if Bella were a normal girl, she would not be charmed by this guy, she would be freaking creeped out and trying to get away from him. He isn’t even subtle about his creep factor or charming enough to play it off.

Edward thinking he has any edge at all is like white bread thinking it’s the right kind of bread for a hamburger.

Anyway, chapter ends with Eddie paying the bill and the pair getting in the car to head home. And the drama chord of the last sentence that’s supposed to play in your head when you read it falls flat. They’re on the way back to Forks and Eddie is chomping at the bit to hear Bella’s latest theory that we know from Twilight isn’t actually a theory so much as she heard a story from Jacob and then did some searching on some shitty Angelfire website. Or Geocities. Either way. And then she just went ahead and had a big old prophetic dream about it.

Next time, we get the awkward car ride home and more. Thanks for hanging around guys. As always, feel free to message me (though, please note to anyone who has sent me anon messages that are rude or angry because I’m making fun of this book, I’m gonna ignore you.), recommend what books I should put on my list for my next recap series, and feel free to buy me a snack using the CashApp tag in my bio.

See you next time, babes.

#sierra recaps stuff #midnight sun #midnight sun spoilers #midnight sun recap #twilight #ms chapter 9

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archaic-medico · 4 years

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Snapped: Part 3 - Homeworld

While Connie was preparing for Paragon’s return on Earth, he was arriving on Homeworld and headed straight for the throne room.

“STEVEN,” shouted Spinel as Paragon entered the room. She took off running towards him to give him a hug, but quickly ran into a diamond shape wall.

“Spinel, I know you have missed me but we will be having none of that today,” Paragon said in a calm and collective manor, “Now, will you be a dear and go fetch Blue, Yellow, and White for me and let them know I’m here,” Spinel nodded slowly as she got an extremely uneasy feeling as Paragon put his hands on her shoulders. She quickly took off to gather the other Diamonds as Paragon walked over to his throne.

“Pearl, once she comes back with the Diamonds, when I snap my fingers, I want you to cut her down,” Paragon ordered as he sat down on the throne.

“As you wish my Lord,” Pearl answered as she bowed to him. After twenty minutes, Spinel and The Diamonds were approaching the throne room.

“I not sure why exactly he wanted to meet with you all, but I’m telling you something has changed with him. He’s glowing pink, he’s taller and buffer and when he touched my shoulders, I felt terrified, like he wanted to rip my gem apart,” Spinel explained to the Diamonds as they approached the throne room.

“Oh Spinel, he probably just had one of those human growth spurt thingies,” Yellow said as she looked a Spinel on her shoulder.

“Spinel, you’re just overreacting, Steven is too kind hearted to even shatter someone,” Blue said as they walked up the stairs to the entrance.

“But, but, but,” Spinel stuttered as they reached the top of the stairs.

“No buts, Spinel. We will have no more of you saying awful things about Steven,” White said as she opened the door. Once they entered the room, they saw Steven sitting on his throne, tossing a bubble in the air and catching it. When he saw the four of them enter, he popped the bubble midair, causing a small explosion, similar to a fire cracker.

“Aunt Blue, Aunt Yellow, and Aunt White, how wonderful it is to see you all again, it’s been far too long since we last talked,” Paragon said, in a calm manor. The Diamonds were a little shocked, Spinel was right about the drastic changes in Steven’s appearance.

“Steven, it’s so good to see you again as well. For what to we owe the pleasure of this little visit,” White asked approaching Steven.

“First off, I’m no longer going by Steven, please call me Paragon,” he corrected White as she said that vile human name.

“Oh, why the change in your name, Paragon was it,” asked Blue with curiosity.

“We’ll get to that and the reason for my visit in a moment, but first Spinel can you please join me over here,” Paragon asked still very calm and collective. Spinel looked at the Diamonds for reassurance, they all gave her a nod of assurance as she started walking towards Paragon.

“Hurry it up Spinel, I don’t have all day,” Paragon said in a calm but slightly annoyed tone. After a few more seconds, Spinel was finally standing next to Paragon, he then snapped his fingers, signaling for Pearl to attack. Pearl leapt at Spinel, drawing both of her blades. Before she even knew what was going on, Spinel’s form had been sliced into three, staring at Paragon with a confused look before finally poofing. Paragon didn’t even look at Spinel as Pearl cut her down, he was too busy enjoying the shock and horror on the Diamonds’ faces. Without even looking he had reached out and grabbed Spinel’s gem before it had a chance to hit the floor.

“SPINEL,” the Diamonds cried out as they watched her get cut down by Pearl.

“Now, Blue you asked why the change in my name, well I’m no longer half human. I have been under so much stress that it caused me to poof and I reformed as a pure Diamond. But I dare not call myself Pink Diamond, as she, along with you three, were a major source of the stress and trauma throughout my life,” Paragon stated as he began squeezing on Spinel’s gem as pink energy started sparking around his hand, “I’ve had a lot of time to think since you attacked me Spinel, I’ve let you and them off way too easy. I’ve decided that none of you are worthy of living anymore.” After a few seconds, there was an audible cracking that could be heard and was also visible on the heart shape gem as he increased the pressure. A few more seconds later, it shattered in to a thousand pieces. The Diamonds watched in horror as Paragon had shattered Spinel. Paragon dumped the shattered remains of Spinel on the ground.

“Steven, how could you,” cried Blue at the death of Spinel.

“I thought you were supposed to be better than this, better than we use to be,” White said in horror.

“What the fuck happened to you, Steven,” Yellow said angerly.

“I TOLD YOU, MY NAME IS PARAGON, YOU FUCKING MORONS,” he screamed, cracking the walls of the throne room, “Everyone in my life is responsible for my creation. Having the love of my life reject me was the straw that broke the camel’s back and caused me to snap. I’ve had so much horrible shit happened to me over the last four years, that the stress became to unbearable and 99% of it was your all’s fault. Blue, you locked me in a tower, where I nearly starved to death, because that is what you would do to punish Pink. Yellow, you stomped on me nearly crushing me to death. White, you ripped the gem from my body and I was literally seconds from death because you thought it would get Pink back. Spinel tried to kill me and the Earth just because of something Mom, not me, did. All three of you have sent Gem’s to capture me. You all tried destroying my home with a Geo Weapon. You all corrupted hundreds of Gems, which in turn attacked me and my home. I should shatter you all right now, like I did Spinel,” Paragon ranted.

“And why won’t you,” asked White.

“Oh I will be, but there is another part to your all’s punishment that I have in mind for you,” Paragon answered as he stood up from the throne and disappeared before reappearing with his hand on Blue’s gem. His hand started glowing bright pink as he began to siphon off the light from Blue’s gem. Blue screamed out in pain as her light was being taken from her. Yellow and White watched as the color from Blue’s form began to fade as she started to glitch out. As this was going on Paragon was growing taller, but still maintaining the body build of Jasper as his power grew. Soon Blue’s physical form had disappeared as Paragon had siphoned the remaining light from her gem, leaving only a colorless gem behind. Paragon now stood as tall as Pink did before she turned herself into Rose Quartz. White looked on in horror at Paragon as he then bubbled Blue’s gem. Yellow only grew angrier as Paragon then exploded the lightless gem into thousands of tiny pieces.

“This is your punishment White, me stealing the light from your gem to increase my own power. I will become a perfect Diamond, one that will succeed were you have failed and I will take over the entire universe. I will shape it in my own image and obliterate all that resist my authority,” Paragon said as he laughed maniacally. Having heard enough, Yellow charged full speed a Paragon, punching and knocking him out of the building and sending him crashing into the streets. Paragon slowly got up, wiping the blood from the corner of his mouth.

“Well, that was a wonderful punch, Aunt Yellow, but please allow me to respond,” he said as he dusted himself off as he stood up after a few minutes. He took off his cape and threw it to the ground. He then took off running back towards the throne room at a high rate of speed, the wind from him running knocked anyone along the path over. As Paragon made his way back towards the throne room, Yellow was picking up the shattered remains of Blue in attempt to gather all her pieces to reform her using her new powers. She had almost all the pieces picked up when Paragon came running through the door and punched Yellow in the back of the head with a bubbled fist with enough force that it had shattered Yellow’s helm. Yellow responded by turning around and throwing a punch at Paragon but was blocked. He responded by throwing a punch of his own. This went on for a few minutes before Yellow headbutted Paragon as he blocked one of her punches, knocking him into the floor with such force that it left a crater behind. White saw this as an opportunity and attempted to intervene and help Yellow in the fight against Paragon, but was stopped when Pearl’s blade sliced through her Achilles tendon with her sword.

“You little wench, how dare you attack me. I’ll shatter you for this,” White said as she tried to grab at Pearl, only for Pearl to slice her hand off. White screamed out in pain as Pearl’s sword sliced cleanly through her wrist. Yellow, who was repeatedly stomping on Paragon in the crater, heard White cry out in pain, turned to see Pearl swinging her sword at White. Yellow charged towards Pearl at full speed ready to squash her like a bug, when something grabbed her leg. She turned around to see that Paragon was already back on his feet and had a firm grasp of her right leg.

“I don’t know where you think you’re going but our fight is nowhere near over,” Paragon said as he swung Yellow over his head and into the floor, repeating the process over and over again, leaving a crater each time. After ten minutes, Paragon stopped, having destroyed the throne room with Yellow’s body, right before Yellow was about to poof. Paragon then floated into the air.

“What’s wrong Aunt Yellow, you don’t seem to have that cocky attitude as you had before, when I was letting you win,” Paragon gloated as he floated down on top of Yellow’s gem.

“Fuck…you…Steven, When I get…up… I’m going to…squash you…like the fucking bug…that you are,” Yellow weakly said as she lifted her head towards Paragon.

“I TOLD YOU MY NAME IS PARAGON, and you’re not going to get the chance to. Now time for you to join Aunt Blue, Aunt Yellow,” Paragon said as he began laughing as he placed his hand on Yellow’s gem. Once again Paragon’s hand began to glow bright pink as he started siphoning off the light from Yellow’s gem. White watched in horror as another one of her sisters was being killed by her nephew. As Paragon siphoned the light from Yellow, his body again compensated for the increase in power by growing taller while still maintaining the body build of Jasper. Soon Steven had siphoned all the light from Yellow’s gem as he now was the same height as Mega Pearl. White watch as Paragon picked up Yellow’s colorless gem, tossing it in the air and catching it, as he walked towards his Aunt. White attempted to back away but was block by Pearl, who was getting ready to swing at her with her sword, but was stopped by Paragon.

“No need to kill her yet, Pearl,” Paragon said as he bubbled White, “We’re taking her back to Earth with us, but first, I need you to warp to Little Homeschool and be my herald, advised them that I’m coming soon. Let Connie know I’m upset she didn’t stay put like I asked her to,” Paragon then took Yellow’s gem, tossing it in the air and blasted it with an energy beam and reducing it to dust. Pearl activated the warp pad and headed off to Little Homeschool.

“Why don’t you go ahead and steal my light and shatter me like you did Blue and Yellow,” White cried from inside the bubble.

“Because I want the people of Earth to watch me do it, I want them to learn to fear me, so they know that I’m not fucking around when I tell them to obey me,” Steven said shrinking the bubble down giving White less space to move. Paragon chuckled as he knew that his rule over the Universe would soon begin.

#snapped #EVIL STEVEN #au story #steven universe #steven universe au #alternate universe #diamond steven #white diamond #blue diamond #yellow diamond #trigger warning #may be triggering

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unnecessary-database · 6 years

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every movie has multiple epilogues, right?

(the epilogues will be multiple) (if you’re new here, don’t start here.)

Filming with a freshly engaged Kara and Lena was both a dream and a nightmare, Sam reflected. Their chemistry on screen had only grown with the years, going from something big and raw and nervous and real to something easy and safe and true and wonderful. It was exactly what Sam wanted to show on screen with a relationship, especially between two women. It went even better since Lena and Kara were so clearly stupidly in love and on the same exact page. It was a nightmare because they were stupidly in love.

Sam had been dumb enough to film the bedroom scenes in the middle of the schedule. There had been another hickey fight, which the makeup department thought was amusing until they realized they had to cover said hickeys every morning. Kara had most definitely started it this time. Kara still maintained it was Lena's fault, since Lena started it the last time. (That was partially true. Lena had started it in revenge for the first time, though Lena had started it the first time too. Sam was still torn between grateful and annoyed she had them film those scenes towards the end of the movie last time, so they were together in real life when they did it. She had specifically planned it so hopefully they'd get their shit together and she wouldn't have to suffer through them playing that one out as "best friends". She was right, but then had to deal with them as a couple. It was a marginal win.)

The hickey fight was, while amusing to most of the crew, almost entirely irritating to Sam, though she was sure she'd laugh about it eventually. Like when she used it as blackmail. She did have plenty of pictures of both of them covered in hickeys in bizarre locations. "I'm honestly stunned the two of you manage to contain the hickey fight to the filming of those scenes," Sam muttered at them at the end of one. Kara, already a little red, blushed scarlet, and Sam held up a hand. "I don't want to know."

Filming with them was also a nightmare because of how many of Sam's crew were hopeless shippers that couldn't stop sighing dreamily whenever they did something especially cute. And a fifteen-year-old Ruby that only wanted to spend her time with Lena and Kara, who were mostly only too happy to take her in.

But all in all, the dream side won out. Sam rarely had to track them down separately anymore. They both had their own trailers, but Sam was pretty sure that Ruby had taken over Lena's and turned it into a video game hideout, and Lena had yet to be seen inside of it. They were both always in only the highest of spirits, and did that annoying thing where they dragged everyone else up to cloud nine with them. Mostly though, Sam was just pleased she didn't have to watch them dance around each other anymore. That shit had been painful.

Maybe also because Kara and Lena had already asked her to officiate the wedding.

---

"Lena," Kara whined. "We. Are. Going. To. Be. Late."

"And whose fault is that?" Lena called, and Kara sighed.

"Sam's, I'm gonna say," Kara yelled back. "She put filming that final sex scene on the second to last day. She knew we'd have another hickey fight."

"And yet," Lena reminded her, appearing from the bathroom and tilting her head back for inspection. Kara nodded; nothing was visible. "You were the one who put them in such an obvious spot." Kara tugged at her collar wordlessly, baring her collarbone, which was much more colorful than usual. Lena shrugged, unrepentant. "Maybe I did it because I knew Sam wanted you in suits until the movie came out for promotional reasons."

"Uh huh," Kara said, accepting Lena's chaste kiss on her cheek. "Or maybe you are the one that wanted me in suits."

"So what if I do?" Lena asked nonchalantly, reaching for her purse and heading for the door. "It's good press, that's all I have to say about--oh!"

Kara had picked her up from behind and spun her around. "If you do, I might have to have a word with your inner demon-witch," Kara said, releasing her and failing to contain a smile. "Because she's not quite so inner every once in a while."

"Oh, please," Lena huffed, "I've been like this the entire time you've known me and you love it."

Kara tilted her head, considering. She twisted her lips to the side, and Lena raised an eyebrow. "You're right," Kara decided. "Now come on, Miss Morally-Redeemable-Demon-Witch, we've got tickets to the gayest show on Broadway's final run with its original stars and we really cannot be late, Winn and James will kill us."

"Alright, alright," Lena said, pushing at Kara's stomach to get her to move out the door. "After you, Prince Charming."

"Don't start," Kara warned, trying for stern but unable to stop the smile from pushing up at her lips. "Actually, why did you even start that?"

Lena shrugged. "I think it's very fitting. You're very dashing, you always charm everyone, you're like this paragon of goodness. You rescued me from my horrible family."

Kara wrapped an arm around Lena's shoulders and kissed the side of her head gently. "I know we've talked about this a million times before," she said in Lena's ear as they stepped onto the sidewalk, "But I never rescued you. I'm thrilled to be awarded the honor of being there for you, but you rescued yourself all on your own."

Lena took a deep breath in and out. "I know." She was silent for a moment, squeezing at Kara's hand. She smirked. "Maybe it's just because of your abs then."

"For the love of--"

"Come on, Kara, we can't be late. I know you've seen the show fifteen times already but it's still their last run." Lena tilted her head thoughtfully, smiling widely. "And Winn and James' two-year anniversary."

---

"Soon-to-be-married superstars are taking a break to go rebuild a barn?" Alex stared at them. "Lena, unless you've got something up your sleeve, this is a very poor plan. Kara knows nothing about building. She might look it, but she is not the handy type of gay. She can build a set, but structural supports? That thing will crush you in your sleep and I am not ever going to be in the mood to drive an hour upstate to come dig the pair of you out of the rubble."

Lena snorted and Kara protested, Maggie snickering in the background. "Relax, Alex, we're just redecorating. We already paid someone to do it. We're just helping with the design. It's where we're going to have the wedding, you know we've already set the date. Plus, you're all welcome to come visit."

"Just not right away," Kara muttered. "We've barely finished with the press tour and haven't been alone together for more than a minute since New York." Lena slid her fingers into Kara's, whose frown eased out slowly.

Maggie raised a glass. "Cheers to your lesbian hideaway, then. May we borrow it when you aren't aware for forevermore."

---

Lena woke up to the sound of Kara cursing fluently and the smoke alarm.

"Fuck ow shit damn fuck, the fuck is wrong with this thing? Shut up, you're a fucking mechanical piece of engineering, so stop beeping at the smell of my burned flesh it is seven thirty in the morning, for the love of god and sweet shit, there isn't even any smoke, thank you, that's right, shut the fuck up you motherfucking little--oh. Hey Lena."

Lena felt her eyebrow rise as she moved into the kitchen, wrapping her robe a little more firmly around herself. They were still working on central heating solutions. "Having fun with the kitchen?"

Kara smiled sheepishly, her face at total odds with the stream of venom coming out of her moments ago, especially with two of her fingers stuck in her mouth in a fashion that could only be described as adorable. She removed them to show Lena a mild burn across the backs of them, and Lena clicked her tongue in disapproval, moving the freezer to pull out the frozen peas. "Thanks," Kara murmured, hissing as Lena pressed them against the burn.

"Morning, darling," Lena said mildly, and Kara looked up from her burned hand shyly.

"I was going to make you breakfast," she said. "I had not, um, something went wrong."

Lena glanced over to where Kara had at least successfully turned all the heat off the range. "Has it been a while since you cooked this?"

"New recipe," Kara admitted guiltily. "I wanted to try that thing on Giada last night."

Lena's stomach chose that moment to grumble, and Kara quirked an eyebrow. "Shut up," Lena muttered automatically, and Kara grinned. "Darling, that's very sweet of you, but I thought we established after the knife-in-your-finger-instead-of-the-corn and blood-in-the-cornbread incident that you wouldn't try any new recipes without going over them with me first so we could plan it out?"

Kara pouted, and Lena sighed. "But Giada went over it," she whined at her peas, still firmly facing the floor.

"You have different strengths than Giada, superstar." Lena ducked to kiss Kara, who accepted it with her lower lip stuck out just the slightest, and Lena smiled into her. "Sit down and walk me through it." The smoke alarm went off again, and Lena sighed. "Over cereal," she added firmly, and ignored Kara's dramatic sigh. "I have plans for you that involve you being whole, and I am not about reschedule because you were feeling chivalrous, Prince Charming."

Kara smiled, slow and easy, and Lena felt the familiar warmth creep into her chest. "Yes, ma'am, Miss Robot Murderer."

"That really was your favorite role of mine, wasn't it?” Lena mused, pulling cereal out of the cabinet. “And we hadn't even met yet."

Kara blushed and looked back at her peas. "No comment."

Lena narrowed her eyes. "Oh, there will be a comment," she vowed, and watched with satisfaction the red creep up Kara's neck.

#movie au #supercorp #id like to apologize to proudtobealuthor for making another outside the masterpost #oh well #we all know im a mess #finals aint too bad thanks for checking in #this is like #structured procrastination #it motivates me #so i tell myself

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wonderfulworldofmichaelford · 5 years

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Michael After Midnight: Dragon Age II

Dragon Age is a series very near and dear to my heart; ever since playing Origins back when I was in college, I have been inspired by the stories, characters, and lore. Hell, Origins alone is a huge inspiration to my writing, and why wouldn’t it be? It has great locations, deep lore, a core main party without a single weak link with each and every party member you have being unique and entertaining in their own right, and an epic story with all sorts of twists and turns. And it only has two really shitty segments in the whole game! It’s truly a great first entry in a series.

But despite my love for it, I put off playing the sequel for most of the decade, only playing it for the first time this year. And why is that? Because… the critics said it was bad… yes, unfortunately in my younger years I took what critics said without any grains of salt. Dragon Age II was not very popular back around the time it came out, mostly because of its radical departure from the style of the first game, with more hack-and-slash-esque combat, a much more simple and self-contained story, and a cast of characters far more divisive than the first time around. It’s only over time that people have started to give it the respect it deserves, but much like fellow fantasy series The Legend of Zelda it comes at the cost of the current game being bashed.

So how is this red headed stepchild of a sequel, anyway? Did the critics have a point, or is this really an underrated gem? Well, I’m happy to report that this is indeed a fun and fantastic game, and I heavily regret being kept apart from the lovely Merril for so long due to poor critical reception, but there are a lot of problems too. For everything it does really well, it kind of shits the bed in other areas, and a lot of that can be contributed to a rushed development cycle that got this game churned out just over a year after the first one, leading to things like all items lacking the detailed descriptions they would get in the first game, which doesn’t sound like much, but then you get an item called something like “Uncle Horky’s Spanking Rod” as a magic staff and there’s no explanation as to why it’s called that and you have to imagine up some ludicrous backstory for it.

The lack of flavor text is a minor gripe, though, compared to the obnoxiously repetitive environments of dungeons. Reusing and flipping dungeons around and reusing assets would be one thing, but here they literally just take a map, flip it a bit with no changes to the details of the level, and just block off doors that lead to areas they don’t want you going. The worst part is on your mini map you can see the blocked pathways you likely saw ten minutes ago in another dungeon, which just makes a lot of the missions feel bland and samey. It also doesn’t help that enemy types are rather paltry, so you’ll be fighting a lot of the same mooks in the same maps over and over as you grind for items, gold, and EXP.

And then there are some of the characters. The worst of the bunch are sadly two characters who are returning from the first game and its expansion Awakening – Anders and Isabela. Isabela is arguably worse, because she honestly seems rather fun and nice at first, if overly and aggressively flirty, but as the story goes on, it’s revealed that she is actually the cause behind some of the biggest issues in the first few acts, which she neglects to tell you until it is far too late and unless you decided to maximize your friendship with her, she will run off and never return to your party. I can’t deny that this completely soured me to her, and at the end of the quanari invasion of Kirkwall I was only upset I couldn’t find her in act three and kick her ass for what she did.

Then there is Anders. Poor, poor Anders. In Awakening, he was one of the most funny and charming characters, a nice little substitute for Alistair that I actually ended up liking for than the Weenie King of Ferelden. Here though? Anders can not go one fucking conversation without bringing up how oppressed mages are and how much the templars suck and blah blah blah. The worst part is I do agree with him, but he’s just so whiny and obnoxious about it I left him behind all the time, dooming my party to having no healer even as I fought high dragons, blood mages, and Corypheus. It was worth it to not hear Anders bitching about templars and insulting Merril and Fenris. Oh, and Anders nukes the chantry and sets off a civil war. Isabela may be a nasty bitch, but Anders definitely comes out looking like a huge cunt by the game’s end.

The entire endgame is kind of an utter mess too, seeing as no matter whose side you join you end up fighting the same two bosses, with one of them just not making any sense whatsoever. And then the game just sort of ends on a very unsatisfying cliffhanger. And as much as I just complained, all of this stings because really, the rest of the game is quite good, and the story is fun if scaled back from the epic tale of Origins.

Let’s get the obvious best part out of the way: Varric. Varric is literally the best part of the entire Dragon Age franchise. He’s a snarky, wisecracking surface dwarf with no beard who writes best-selling novels, constantly has his shirt open to show off his magnificent chest hair, and has a crossbow named Bianca that he is uncomfortably attached to. He is one of the greatest characters ever created, and there was not one single moment I left him out of my party, because he is a blast to have around, and what’s more, if there’s ever a situation where the dialogue wheel pops up and you can let him talk… you’ve won. This guy can talk his way out of any situation. There’s nothing bad you can say about Varric, and he is in fact the only companion in the game I can wholeheartedly stand behind as a paragon of great writing.

I love the other characters, don’t get me wrong, but they have their issues. Aveline and Fenris in particular, with Aveline being a bit too by-the-books at times to the point where she exacerbates the quanari conflict by demanding that elves who killed a guard who raped one of their own be turned over to her after they converted to the Qun. This is all despite her knowing full well that the poor elf girl would have otherwise gotten no justice seeing as how city elves in this setting are second class citizens at best. Still, she has a rather adorkable romance questline where you hook her up with one of the guards, and she’s not a bad person, just a touch misguided at times.

That last sentence can also apply to Fenris, but on a grander scale. He’s a cool, edgy, brooding elf who absolutely fucking hates magic with every fiber of his being. He is the Anti-Anders, though he’s far less annoying about it, and it’s hard to really blame him for being bitter seeing as he was a sex slave for an evil wizard for most of his life and then just had misfortune after misfortune piled on him. I really hated how mean he was to Merril, but otherwise I warmed to him and befriended him.

And that brings us to a very special girl, Merril. Merril is an adorable, klutzy, scatterbrained blood mage elf who is hated by her people due to the lengths she is going to repair an ancient artifact to bring a piece of her people’s heritage back. While she can be a bit arrogant and stubborn about the whole thing, it’s mostly due to how no one around her seems to believe in and support her; naturally, I believed in and supported her, and while things still managed to go south, she seemed at least to learn a little bit. Overall I found her to be an absolute sweetheart, and she never left my party, much like Varric; frankly, I was going in expecting not to like her and was going to romance Fenris instead, but as it turns out Merril won my heart immediately and my Hawke went lesbian this playthrough.

On that note, as much as I like how Merril, Fenris, Isabela, and Anders can be wooed by either gender in principle, I do kind of feel making everyone bisexual with no rhyme or reason kind of cheapens things. It’s weird for me, a bisexual myself, to be saying that, but it just feels off to be able to get together with everyone, with everyone being Schrodinger’s Bisexual until a romance is initiated. It’s nowhere near as bad as Skyrim, but I just feel it kinda cheapens the romance options. I prefer Origins and Inquisition in that regard, where you don’t have all the options but you do have some unique choices. But, hey, at the end of the day I’m hardly complaining that my Lady Hawke got to polish Merril’s Eluvian, if you know what I mean.

Aside from the characters, I think the game’s real strength lies in its story, which is fitting since the entire game is framed as a story being told by no less a storyteller than our pal Varric. It has a three act structure, with each act detailing a different year in Hawke’s rise to become the Champion of the city of Kirkwall, which is a crime-ridden wretched hive of scum and villainy. The first act mainly has Hawke making a name for themselves, living in the slums with their uncle, doing dirty work to try and get back a little prestige, and recruiting all of their allies, with the act culminating with a trip to the Deep Roads, every DA fan’s favorite location. It’s a nice setup for a lot of twists and turns later in the story, and choices you make in certain dialogue options or quests actually can change what sort of quests you get later. Then again, this is Bioware, so this sort of “action have consequences” gameplay is expected.

Act two deals with just how Hawke becomes the Champion. Rich from the expedition into the Deep Roads, Hawke gets to do all sorts of fun things, such as track down a serial killer who ends up murdering their mom, being stabbed in the back by one of their friends, accidentally inciting a race war that nearly burns down the city, and having to duel the warrior leader of the qunari to the death in combat. Yeah, act two really piles it on to Hawke, but it does tie into the game’s themes of how no matter the level of success, great actions will also come with great consequences, even actions meant to better one’s lot in life, which also resonate in the personal quests of characters like Merril and Fenris, who despite ultimately achieving their goals in the third act feel hollow, lost, and even broken by the end, and that’s not even getting into what Anders does. However the conflict with the qunari is resolved, Hawke is declared the Champion, and things seem ok.

But then comes act three, and boy do things go wrong. Knight-Commander Meredith has gone cuckoo for Coco Puffs and conflict between templars and mages seems inevitable; this act is basically wrapping up hanging plot threads and companion quests until Anders finally nukes the chantry and all hell breaks loose, leading to the final battle. The ending here isn’t particularly happy, with Hawke ultimately ending up a fugitive in the epilogue, and things can get even worse if you make poor choices in Inquisition, but that’s just the way the cookie crumbles.

Here’s the thing: everything I just said? It could be entirely different from my playthrough depending on the choices you make. Sure, some things are inevitable, like Anders committing terrorist acts, Hawke’s mother dying, and Meredith going absolutely bonkers and making you fight statues, but depending on how you play, maybe you’ll like/romance Isabela, maybe you’ll resolve things with the Arishok differently, maybe you’ll side with the templars… the story ends the same but there are so many ways to make your story different. Throw in some great lore, some fun DLC that reveals some shocking truths about the lore, and the fun albeit simplified combat, and you’ve got a game here that has a lot of replay value if only to see where all the plot threads can lead.

I definitely think this is a good game, even a great one. It has its share of problems, but so did Origins, and frankly I’d sooner put up with the backstabbing pirate hooker and the pissy mage terrorist again then go through the fucking Fade and Deep Roads one more time. If you liked the first one, definitely give this a shot; you may end up liking or disliking some of the stuff I dislike and like. That’s the fun of these Bioware games, different aspects are going to appeal to different people. The question is, do I find it better than Origins?

In some respects, yes; I much prefer the simpler combat here, and I like the more down-to-earth story in this one, but at the same time Origins just had stronger characters overall and I’m a sucker for “save the world” fantasy tales. While Origins infamously had some real mind-numbing slogs in the form of the Fade sequence and the Deep Roads, while those environments were tedious at least they weren’t boring. But on the other hand… Origins didn’t have Varric.

It’s really a tossup, frankly, and I love both games a lot. I think each of them has their place and each of them brings something interesting to the table for the series. It’s one you really need to play for yourself to get a good grasp on; don’t be like me and put it off for nearly ten years, give it a go right after your done with the first game and see how you feel. Your experience is going to be a lot different than mine, that’s for sure.

#Michael After Midnight #Review #video game review #Dragon Age #Dragon Age II #Bioware

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carmenlire · 6 years

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Put the Fire Out

@magnusandalexander has a Malec Spotify playlist and Seven Dials is on it and when I listened to it, this popped into my head!

read on ao3

Alec grins, a savage glint in his eye. It’s him against a dozen Dormai demons and he relishes the fight. Adrenaline courses through him, making him feel impossibly invincible. It’s been ages since he was in a good fight, since he was forced to use the wide breadth of his skill against an opponent.

He’s filthy, with ichor burning patches of clothing and stinging exposed skin. His blood is flowing-- from a cut above his eye to where a demon had pierced through his thigh.

He doesn’t feel anything, though.

His focus is complete, unwavering. The fighting is too close range for proper archery, so Alec makes do.

He always does.

He has an arrow in one hand and a dripping seraph blade in the other. He has half a dozen runes activated and were anyone to observe him, they’d only see a blur of movement and hear the agonized cries of the demons. Alec grants no quarter. He’s long since lost track of time, but he’s down to half a dozen of the disgusting things left.

They’re reptilian, with rows of teeth so sharp they could peel the skin off their captive effortlessly. They’re as big as leopards and move with the same cunning grace. They grin back at him, wild expressions of rage and determination. He’s been backed against the wall for awhile now and they smell victory.

Alec didn’t become the best shadowhunter on the east coast without being put through his paces, however. Alec’s own smile becomes wider and more feral as he lunges forward, cutting his blade through the air to decapitate one of the monstrosities. In the next instant, his arrow is embedded in the eye of another Dormai demon, their screeches deafening but bringing grim satisfaction.

Alec’s vision is hazy and red and he hastily wipes his arm across his forehead, clearing the blood away and restoring his vision. The remaining four demons are staying at a distance for the moment, clearly trying to strategize the best way to take out the threat that’s killed almost ten of their own.

Alec braces his weight on one foot and takes the time to swipe his blade across his thigh, cleaning it as best he can until he gets home.

Alec has a lot of issues with being a shadowhunter. He didn’t let himself acknowledge them until a few years ago, but there’s no denying that being a nephilim carries a lot of baggage. Shadowhunters are upheld as paragons of the downworld, they have a tendency to be homophobic and unwelcoming in the extreme, and they’re not known for their bedside manner.

As Head of the Institute, Alec has worked to change some of those things both at his institute, and with shadowhunter policies at the top through official Clave channels. It’s a slow process but Alec has all the time in the world and nothing sets his blood on fire like his brethren being the worst versions of themselves.

This, though. Alec can’t deny that he can’t get enough of the hunt. Out here on the streets of New York-- or Rome or Tokyo-- it’s just him and the demons. It’s a test to see who’s the best and Alec always wins. He’s the best archer and a devil at seraph blades or throwing stars or anything else that catches his interest. He’s a dedicated student and has spent countless hours pouring over the weapons room, sharpening his ability in a wide range of weaponry and combat strategy.

Alec loves the buzzing under his skin during a fight and immediately following. Sometimes, the high lasts for hours-- Alec used to burn the energy off in the training room, even though he’d be so sore or injured that just standing hurt. But now, he has Magnus and his fiancé knows just what to do to bring him down.

All of that will come later though. Right now, Alec is acutely aware of the sting in his thigh, a dull throb that beats in time with his pulse. One of the bastards had caught him with their claw, grotesquely long things that had the strength of steel. Alec thinks the wound might go all the way through but he can’t worry about that now. For now, he puts it out of his mind and ignores the blister swelling between his thumb and index finger. His hands are so calloused that he’s still surprised when skin splits under a crushing grip on a blade or bow.

The pain brings everything into focus. Alec has long since stopped using training and patrol as an excuse to engage in destructive behavior, but it’s this, that makes his blood turn hot. The knowledge of what his body is capable of, how much it can stand, how powerful it can be, that makes going out on patrol something he still does once a week, rain or shine.

He thinks it keeps him sane.

There’s no thinking when confronted with demons that would rather swallow a person whole than breathe. There’s only reflex and action and cold, calculating skill. Alec doesn’t advertise it, but sometimes he thinks there’s more Jace in him than he likes everyone to believe. It’s no secret that parabatai share a piece of their soul with the other and Alec has often wondered if that need for release that rides him so hard when he’s out in the field isn’t an extension of what Jace feels. Or maybe, they’re both blood-thirsty bastards that enjoy killing a little too much.

Whatever the case is, it doesn’t matter now. One of the demons jumps straight in the air before coming down almost on top of Alec. Alec deflects it’s limb with the flat of his blade, but the force brings him down onto his back. The demon is leaning over him, ready to make the killing blow, when its screams rip through the air. Alec’s arrow is embedded in its heart and the thing dissolves into black ichor, absolutely suffocating Alec in the stuff.

Alec coughs, trying not to throw his guts up as the last three charge at him at once. Spitting out a glob of pitch black saliva mixed with blood, Alec feints back and drops down, bringing them closer. Once they’re within striking distance, it’s a battle of the highest caliber.

Sweat is dripping down Alec's face, his back, into open cuts. His body aches, a pulsing bruise, and he swears a blue streak when one of the demons gets a lucky hit in and throws him against the wall, his head hitting brick and sounding a loud crack down the air. Alec blinks several times and grunts out a fuck as a different one reaches for his arm, jerking it and snapping it clean in two. The pain is blinding but shit just got real and Alec clears his head through sheer force of will.

With one arm out of commission, Alec is left with a seraph blade and his wits. He hauls himself up to his feet. He sways a little unsteadily but when he catches one of them coming towards him in his peripheral vision, he turns in reflex and brings the blade up just as the demon lunges forward, impaling itself and turning to ash.

Only two to go, Alec thinks and fixes his grip on the hilt. In quick succession, Alec has killed one of the last demons, falling onto a knee and stabbing the creature through its stomach, hissing as yet more ichor spills on him.

It’s one on one now and Alec’s grin returns, a maniacal gleam in his eye. If anyone saw him now, they’d think him a mad man. This has been the most brutal patrol he’s been on in months and even though he’ll regret everything tomorrow, right now it’s satisfying as hell. He’s killed eleven demons without backup-- a rookie mistake he would dress anyone else down for-- and soon that will be an even dozen.

This last demon is smarter than the rest of them and stays back, taking Alec’s measure for a moment before ducking to the right. Alec has barely enough time to bring his blade up and grunts when his thigh gives a vicious pang as he takes a step back to absorb the impact.

What follows is long minutes of combat. The demon is a persistent fucker and each time one of its limbs crashes against him, Alec aches a little more. It’s through sheer chance that it leaves its side vulnerable for a split second, but that’s all the time Alec needs to finish him off.

With the last demon dead and sent back to hell, the alley is quiet. It’s just Alec’s harsh breathing and the drip of blood from the seraph blade.

Alec exhales and winces as he becomes aware of everything. In the next minute, he’s activated his iratze and sighs in relief as he feels his arm knit together and feels the worst edge of the bruises and cuts heal.

Alec wipes his blade on his jeans and shoves it into his thigh holster. He walks over the the wall and picks up the arrow he’d dropped, returning it to the quiver still on his back.

He takes out his phone and sees that it’s almost four in the morning. He’d been in this particular fight for almost an hour and it’s time to head back.

Alec makes his way to the loft, his body in pain but he’s buzzing. The adrenaline has yet to burn off and with his runes still working, Alec sees everything with crystal clear acuity. He hears the clacking of heels as a prostitute walks towards a car with blacked-out windows. He sees the homeless man in the shadows of a doorway and can smell the leftovers the couple down the block is carrying.

It’s a few minutes before Alec reaches the loft. He opens the door quietly and eases it shut when he sees that Magnus must have gone to bed. Alec toes off his shoes and stows his gear in the special box Magnus had placed in the entryway for him so long ago.

He walks carefully into the ensuite, swiping a bottle of whiskey from the drink cart on his way, past a sleeping Magnus, and doesn’t breathe fully until he’s in the bathroom and has the door closed behind him.

Alec turns the lights and faucet on and rummages in the cabinet for needle and thread. While his iratze would fix the critical injuries, the wound on his thigh is still bleeding and Alec needs to stitch it up.

Field Medicine 101.

Alec unfastens his thigh holster and peels his soaked jeans off, tossing everything into the corner. He takes off everything else, leaving him in just his underwear, and takes his first look at the injury. There’s a jagged opening on his thigh, just right of center, and Alec winces as he knows what’s to come. Walking over to the floor length mirror, he turns around and sees an exit hole. Alec limps back the the sink-- the wound is much more painful now that he knows the extent of it-- and practices his breathing while washing his hands a few times over with antibacterial soap. The shit’s astringent but that’s just what he needs right now.

Drying his hands, Alec reaches for the bottle of whiskey. He’s never acquired a real taste for liquor but that doesn’t stop him from opening the bottles and taking a few liberal swigs. It burns all the way down. Alec takes a moment and breathes past it before taking a few more drinks.

It will take a few moments for the alcohol to take affect and in the meantime, Alec looks grimly down at his leg. He could leave it be. Take a shower, and then when he'd wake up in the morning it would be closed and well on its way to healing. But, Alec doesn’t want a jagged scar from the demon’s claw and it’s easier to get it out of the way.

With a last deep breath, Alec reaches for the whiskey bottle one last time and manages his way into the bathtub. Once he’s standing in it, he pours liberally over the open wound front and back.

While Alec has had to fix things up the rough way a few times, he never gets used to the burn. Everything turns white-hot and his vision wavers as he gasps then swears a blue streak-- all while trying to keep quiet.

His strength rune is still activated, however, and when he reaches for something to focus on instead of the pain, he ends up hitting the shower wall and sees the cracked porcelain. He has a brief thought that Magnus will need explanations for why he needs to fix the bathroom when all of a sudden, he’s steady again.

The pain is still licking up his insides but it’s simmered back down to manageable. Alec threads the needle and starts making military-precision stitches. It’s only half a dozen but Alec has to grit and hiss his way through it. Ales is a warrior, a born soldier, but some things are impossible to get through stoically.

He’s only done the front so far and is just contemplating how the hell he’s going to stitch the back of his thigh up, when there’s a tenative knock on the door.

“Alexander?”

Alec fumbles for the whiskey bottle, taking another deep sip in an effort to control the wavering in his voice.

“Yeah, babe?”

“Can I come in?”

Alec doesn’t really have a good reason for keeping Magnus out. He already knows Magnus will be annoyed that he didn’t wake him up to heal himself but Alec is loathe to use Magnus’s magic whenever he’s perfectly capable of dealing with things himself.

Holding back a grunt of pain, Alec just answers, “Go ahead.”

The door knob twists and slowly swings open. Magnus peers in and takes in the bunched up clothes in the corner absolutely reeking of ichor and blood, the whiskey bottle with just a few sips left, and Alec, standing in the bathtub hold a needle and thread that's also been doused in whiskey.

He just raises a brow and takes in the row of neat stitches in stark contrast to Alec’s pale skin. “Have fun tonight, darling?”

Alec grunts out something unintelligible that sounds like an agreement, followed by a muttered, "Yeah. I killed a few dozen tonight. Felt good." Magnus can’t help the slight worry in his gaze. He knows his fiancé. It’s obvious Alexander loves demon hunting. It’s in his blood, part of his very biology. Magnus has seen Alec after enough hunts gone well to know how keyed up he can get-- it’s a rush of the highest order and Magnus usually tries to stay up and wait for Alec on nights that he knows he’s going on patrol. Alec is a superbly talented shadowhunter but he isn’t infallible. It’s in moments like this that Magnus sees the fragility of what he’s found. He didn’t finally get a love for eternity only to lose him to demon filth.

Magnus knows that while Alec is shameless about his magic in bed and for the most frivolous things-- hot coffee in bed without moving, as his own tailor service-- Alec absolutely hates asking for Magnus’s help with anything serious. Alec thinks he’s inconveniencing him, which is such horseshit but Alec’s always been the last to see his worth.

Alec has the good grace to look sheepish and Magnus just rolls his eyes before coming over to the bath and holding his hand up to Alec’s thigh. The blue of his magic swirls around and Alec’s breath catches at the warmth, at the comfort Magnus’s magic always brings. He holds still, only relaxing when he feels his leg heal completely. Magnus moves on to the various cuts and bruises littering Alec’s body. Alec sags in relief as the pain trickles away.

Magnus hums, a little under his breath, and Alec’s eyes become impossibly heavy. He’s crashed hard and Magnus catches him as he sways a little. He helps Alec sit in the claw foot tub and turns the water on-- just a hair short of too hot, just the way Alec likes. He leaves Alec to lay for a moment, heading towards his apothecary. He grabs a few medicinal scrubs and healing potions and when he comes back, Alec is dozing. Magnus pours the liquid in and the air immediately becomes tinged with the scents of lavender and eucalyptus.

Alec drags his eyes open and smiles a little at Magnus, grabbing his hand and kissing it in gratitude.

Alec washes off the ichor and dried blood and sweat. Magnus changes the water twice and lets Alec soak for a few minutes, using that time to just take him in.

Alec is a handsome man. Sharp cheekbones and delicious stubble with wonderful hazel eyes makes his face the most interesting Magnus has ever studied. His body is well-muscled befitting a warrior and Magnus lets his gaze wander for a moment.

His very own dark Adonis.

After ten minutes or so past, Magnus gently wakes Alec up with a chaste kiss. Alec hums and blinks his eyes open, looking so open and soft that Magnus can hardly stand it.

He urges Alec to stand up and magics a towel into his hand, drying Alexander himself. He barely lingers anywhere interesting, far too aware that dawn is approaching and they’re both ready for sleep.

They walk to the bed together, and Alec all but falls into it, face first. Magnus chuckles and turns off his bedside lamp before crawling into his side. He’s immediately covered by an octopus who buries his face into his shoulder, throws an arm around his stomach, and wedges a thigh between his.

Alec hums and presses even closer. He’s radiating heat and contentment and Magnus lets that blanket cover him and lull him to sleep.

The last thing he hears before drifting off is Alec’s slurred, “Thanks, Magnus. I love you so much. 'Night, babe.”

They’ll wake up around noon and enjoy a leisurely brunch. They’ll talk about Alec’s tragic inclination to do everything himself and Alec will apologize and things will get better. Alec always listens and adjusts his behaviour accordingly. They’ll go their separate ways and complete another day as the power couple of New York’s downworld. Alec will go on another hunt and taste that edge he loves so much and Magnus will always be there to heal him and make sure that he makes it home every night in one piece.

It’s a predictably unpredictable life and Magnus wouldn’t have it any other way.

#put the fire out #malec fic #my writing #malec fic rec #bamf alec lightwood #alec is a soldier!! a damn good one #I've been up for almost 24 hours #and am on my third flight of the day #so this might be incoherent as shit lol #but we tried

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veryangryhedgehog · 6 years

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“God is Dog Spelled Backwards”, an Ede Valley story by Hedgehog.

Jilli felt like she was falling.

A week ago she’d been so confident in her plan, but now that it had finally been executed, an unwavering sense of unease began to linger in the air around her. This whole take-over plan had been to give Jilli control over her life, but now more than ever she felt like a rat trapped in a maze.

It was because the Director was missing. After discovering her office to be empty, and devoid of any clues or information, Abigail had brought her back to the girl’s bathroom, and decided to give Jilli some space. Quite of her own accord, Jilli’s legs took her wandering. Nearly the whole night she’s searched blindly for where the Director might be before Doug found her around three in the morning and took her back to her room.

“She… I think she’s watching me, Doug,” she’d confessed as she buried her head in his chest.

“Who?” he asked, confused.

“The Director. She could be anywhere, just waiting, watching to see what I do next. Where is she, Doug? Where is she??”

“Whoa, whoa, Jill, calm down,” he grabbed her shoulders as she began to scream. “Of course she’s watching you; she’s watching all of us. But now you’ve shown them that they can stand up to her. If she even lifts a finger at you, she’ll have a whole school to answer to.”

That helped, a little bit, but Jilli couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched for the rest of the night, and slept poorly. She kept wondering back and forth, over and over again in half-delirium, what would happen in the morning, when the student body would awaken to find itself alone? The gates were shut, the fence electrified. No one was getting in.

But with the morning sun came a newfound determination. She was the mastermind behind this coup, so now it was her job to lead the newly liberated sheep, right? It wouldn’t be too difficult. Jilli had watched Sakura lead the idol group for years.

When she entered the cafeteria, Doug to her left, Abigail to her right, the rest behind her, she witnessed growing insanity. The students were a hive of bees, humming incessantly to each other, glancing over at the vacant lunch lines. They were beginning to realize that something had changed.

They passed their normal lunch table, and Jilli motioned for the others to sit which she continued to the front. A queen had to address her subjects.

She jumped up on the platform at the far end of the room, the metal beams above her seeming to dangle over her head. The students gradually hushed and turned to her. They were looking for an answer, any answer, and she intended to give them one.

The microphone was dead, but it didn’t matter. Jilli had a voice that carried. “My name…” she began, and stopped as she caught the eye of a few hundred students and her voice hitched. “My name is Jilli Nakajima,” she began again, “and I am the new Director.”

Needless to say, the floor erupted into a flurry of confusion and panic. Jilli just stood there, and waited. Eventually, they realized that she was holding her explanation, and they hushed once more. And so Jilli began to speak.

Afterwards, she wouldn’t even remember what she’d said. She knew that she told them what they’d did, that now there were no adults at St. Adelaide’s, and the students were in charge. And Jilli would lead them.

“I will not pull strings from the shadows, but be forward and honest,” she said, hoping that the Director could hear her. “I will also not keep you here. If anyone wishes to leave. I will be opening the gates on Friday for five minutes.”

After that, she thanked the crowd and got down. She could feel all their eyes on her. They all probably thought she was insane. But everything was fine now. It was all fine. No one, not the Director, or her manager, or her mother, or Kyoko could hurt her now. She was in control.

Jilli sat down at the usual table with all her friends around her. Abigail was discussing who-knew-what with Victor, highly animated as the rims of her round glasses glowed in the harsh light, Sonia was staring off into space while Gil studied her, mildly concerned, and Doug… Doug was only picking at his food.

“Are you okay?” she asked. Why wasn’t he happy? His torture was over.

“It’s just…” he looked at her, as if he wanted to say something, then he shook his head, and said something different instead. “Mike never came back to the room last night.”

“He didn’t?” Jilli leaned forward, concerned. “Come to think of it, where is he now?”

The others at the table began to take an interest. “Who was the last to see the lad?” Gil asked.

“Well, he was at the Director’s office with Abby and I,” Jilli said. “But I had to leave and I haven’t seen him since. Abby?”

“I went back after I dropped you off but he had already left.” Abigail thought for a second. “Oh, but you know, I left the library unlocked. He’s been spending an awful lot of time there. I bet he just fell asleep.”

Mike had been getting a little strange lately, like an undertone she hadn’t noticed before taken the forefront of his personality.

Doug sighed heavily. “I’m gonna have to be the one to drag his ass out of the creep zone, aren’t I?”

“Hey,” Victor frowned. “She’s sitting right here, you know.”

“I didn’t name any names,” Doug raised his hands in surrender.

“It’s alright, Victor. I take it as a compliment,” Abigail cut in, her smile shark-like.

“It was not meant as one.”

“I don’t care.”

For an instant, it seemed just like everything was normal. But still, the tight lump in Jilli’s gut remained. She couldn’t help feeling numb, unreal, disassociated, like she was floated two feet above her own head.

She hoped Mike was okay.

~~ o ~~

Mike was not okay.

The world returned to him slowly, gradually. First as light, then color, then shape. One by one these elements came together to form coherency. He felt numb, unreal, disassociated, like he was floating two feet above his own head.

For an instant, it seemed just like everything was normal. He was lying in his bed in the dorm. But slowly, he began to feel the cold metal on his wrists. It was that cold that brought him back to himself, a least a little. And he didn’t like what he saw.

He was strapped to some sort of table by his wrists and ankles. It was at a forty-five degree angle so if he turned his head he could see a little to the sides.

This room was small and dark, more like a cell than anything. One light shown down from above him, striking him directly in the eye, which made the rest of the room harder to make out. But from what he could see, the wall were padded.

That was somewhat worrying, but he didn’t begin to panic until he saw the IV in his arm. Then he freaked. First he tried to scream, but the best he could manage was a little whimper. Then he struggled against the restraints but his limbs wouldn’t quite obey him and his movements were sluggish.

Where? Why…? Mike couldn’t think clearly enough to form a coherent question.

“He… hel…p,” he managed with intense concentration.

“Even if you managed to scream, no one would ever hear you all the way down here.”

The harsh familiarity of her voice sent shivers down his spine. It was undeniably Abigail, but there was something wrong with it; an undertone he hadn’t noticed before taken to the forefront of her personality.

He stopped struggling. He was too weak to do so anyway.

“There’s a good boy,” her converse made a squeaking sound against the concrete floor as she came around to stare at him, the rims of her round glasses glowing in the harsh light.

“Wh… wha…”

Abigail tilted her head in mock concern. “Do you have something to say?” she asked. “It’s okay, take your time. That tranquilizer I stabbed you with was meant for horses, I think. Sometimes I get so confused.” He could tell by her shark-like grin that she hadn’t been confused at all.

“W… who are you?”

“Oh Mike, please,” she tittered, the sound practically filling the small cell. “I know you’re not that much of a dumb shit. I already told you who I am. Oh, wait, I know what it is. You just can’t believe that I’m the one who put your dear friends through so much suffering. I seemed like such a good girl. Unfortunately, people just aren’t as good as you’d like to think they are. I didn’t lie to you, Mike.” And here she put a small receiver to her mouth and spoke into it. “I’m the one who pulls strings from the shadows,” he wondered what was so funny about that as she began to chuckle. “I am the Director.”

As much as he wished he could, even Mike couldn’t deny it now. That right there was the voice he’d grown to dread over the last month, right in front of his eyes. But even addled though he was, something still nagged at him.

“Bu…” he tried, his words slurring. “The Director has… dir…ected the school since…”

“1976. That’s right!” she beamed. “I see all that research paid off. Yes, I am, in fact, much older than I appear. Well, mentally, at least. By my calculations, I am physically about nineteen years old, give or take a few months.”

“How?”

She shrugged. “Well, I had to test the Project’s theories on someone, and at the time, the only someone I had was myself.”

Mike’s eyes widened. “The Project.”

“I’m sure you know the story by heart now,” Abigail waved him off. “It was the Cold War, there were rumors that the Russians had created the perfect soldier so the government opened up St. Adelaide’s Research Facility to experiment on children and—” she paused, grinning gleefully as Mike’s eyes widened. “Oh, but you didn’t know that last part, did you?”

Mike shook his head. “No… no.”

“Oh, Mike. Did you really think ‘Buttercup’ was a flower? You can be awfully dumb for someone so smart. Buttercup was a nine-year-old girl. Many of the scientists almost balked at the idea of using children, but it was necessary, you know.”

“How is… something like that… necessary?” Mike couldn’t think straight. Everything was wrong now, it was all wrong.

“Project Paragon works in three stages,” she held the requisite number of fingers in front of his nose and they blurred across his vision. “Mind, body, and soul. The mind element in particular requires… extensive surgery. You see, adult minds are already well formed, in control. But a child’s—or a teenager’s—mind is incredibly spongy. It can change its ways. Thusly, children. Thusly, you.

Mike’s stomach did a somersault, and the metaphorical motion nearly made him puke. He strained against his restraints. “No.”

“Yes.” Abigail’s eyes gleamed. “I know I won’t fail this time. Your mind is the spongiest I’ve seen in years. It adapted remarkably well to the large amounts of antihistamines that I slipped into your Red Bull.”

So it wasn’t Red Bull that gave you wings. It was just drugs.

“The process will take maybe a week, and most of that will be devoted to altering your biology form this inside out. This time… it will be perfect. You will be perfect. I’ve learned from the original Project’s mistakes, oh yes.”

Mike pulled so hard at the restraints that he nearly dislocated his shoulder.

“You see, I’ve discovered the problem with the first paragon, Paragon Alpha. They let her keep her memories. She remembered who she had been. She mourned the loss of her own innocence and proved uncontrollable. Now, I can’t ‘erase’ your memories, per se, that’s impossible. But I can put them somewhere you’ll never find them.”

“You’re… you’re insane.”

All she did in response was stare at him, a curious smile plastered on her face.

“I never said I wasn’t.”

Skipping, she fiddled with the IV on his arm, despite his struggling. After a second, a strange, green liquid began to flow through the IV and into his arm. “Now, to do a little altering to that DNA of yours. I won’t lie, it’s going to be quite painful. Essentially, your whole body is going to die and be replaced, one small bit at a time.”

She gave him a pat on the cheek before she turned and opened the door to his cell. “I’ll be back in a few hours to check up on you. Don’t go anywhere.” Her cackle echoed down the hall.

The silence was deafening as Mike waited for unconsciousness to claim him again. But as the seconds passed, his stomach fell. He realized that there would be no mercy. Whatever future that green liquid was bringing, he would feel every second of it.

The pain started slowly, just a tingling and slight numbness of his extremities, but with growing horror he knew that it was only going to get worse.

Mike felt like he was falling.

#Ede Valley #Mike Miller #Abigail Hodge #Jilli Nakajima #Doug Bailey #writing

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babymakingnojutsu · 7 years

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CHAPTER 25 - Creep

He wasn’t back soon.

Sasuke slept in his own bed for the first time in over a month, and spent the night wondering what he was missing. There was obviously something, and not just the events that were currently going on and Sasuke wasn’t there to see. But however long Sasuke stared up at the ceiling and tried to puzzle out Naruto’s concerns, it wasn’t long enough.

At about ten in the morning, Naruto flashed back into existence, this time with Shikamaru and their complete assortment of luggage in tow.

“Let me explain,” Shikamaru said the second Sasuke opened his front door. He had a hand over Naruto’s mouth and turned his perpetually unimpressed gaze onto Sasuke. “Sasuke, we all need to talk. Let’s get inside.”

They got inside.

Sasuke started making tea, watching Shikamaru and Naruto cautiously out of the corner of his eye while they muttered between themselves.

“Just like you practiced,” Shikamaru told Naruto, who looked nervous. He looked nervous about talking to Sasuke, and Sasuke couldn’t remember ever seeing that before. Ever.

“Sasuke, I’d like to bring up the baby topic again,” Naruto said. “Specifically Hinata. We should make her a second baby whether or not the baby becomes a jinchuuriki. If she says no to the jinchuuriki part, we have another kid. If she says yes, we stay with one baby each. What do you think?”

That…was not the topic Sasuke expected. He watched Naruto with a frown, and then glanced over at Shikamaru.

“Just humor him. He’s getting to it,” Shikamaru said with a stunning amount of patience.

So, Sasuke pulled out three cups, pouring each of them some tea as he said, “She’s going to say no to the bijuu. After Kazuki, we know the Hyuuga clan will only accept a standard-issue Hyuuga, and that means no jinchuuriki. Which means we end up having a baby.”

Naruto dumped the same disgusting as ever amount of sugar into his tea with a shrug. “Okay, so I’m not excited about the infant care part, but who ever is? Actual baby babies aren’t fun. But even without the whole ‘saving the human-nature spirit connection from destruction when I die’ part, I’m kind of…I kind of like the idea of a you and me baby? And seriously, how awesome would our kid turn out?”

He didn’t like the idea of bringing a child into the world without feeling the glorious loving enthusiasm he had for Sarada, but Naruto did have a point. Their kid would be pretty awesome. Still, Sasuke took a sip of tea to give himself time to formulate a reply. “The timetable would be tricky,” he said, and ignored the ecstatic grin that broke across Naruto’s face. Or tried to, at least. “I’m going to be pretty busy in a month, since you’re giving me another genin team, which I’m pretty sure is against the rules-”

“It’s not,” Shikamaru provided.

“Whatever. But I’m not going to be able to create a foolproof you-and-Hinata baby seal and a jinchuuriki-bonding baby seal for us in one month. You either get me training a genin team, or me making us a baby. I can’t do both,” Sasuke said. And it was true. No matter how involved the bijuu claimed they would be or how easy they could make the process, the fact remained that they both had male chakra.

Bolt existed because Kurama could be male, female, or any other gender the fox desired. Kaguya Lee existed because it was technically Sasuke, Rock Lee, and Kaguya herself who had given birth to Kaguya Lee – two male chakra signatures, but in the end it was actually one very powerful and very female soul being given a body.

A Sasuke-Naruto baby would be two male chakra signatures, and one bijuu tossed in to fool Sasuke’s jutsu and get sealed inside the tiny creation. It would be tricky, and if there was one thing Sasuke wasn’t willing to fuck up, it was magically creating babies. Particularly if it was their baby.

“That’s fine! The bijuu can wait until the next chuunin exam,” Naruto said. “Maybe they’ll use the time to decide which one of them is getting sealed in a human again. And also you shouldn’t spend much time with your creepy genin team because I’m pretty sure they’re going to try and kidnap you.”

“What?”

“I’ve only had the opportunity to really observe Eichiro – who goes by Uchiha Eichiro when you aren’t around – but it’s enough that I can tell his obsession with you is getting to a dangerous level,” Shikamaru said, and finally started drinking his tea with a heavy sigh. “It starts with if I’m good enough, he’ll love me, and then moves on to I’ll convince him, I’ll make him love me, until it reaches the if I can’t have him, nobody can stage.” Shikamaru looked up, eyes piercing into Sasuke’s even with the curtain of hair covering one of them. “Eichiro is now at the second stage.”

Sasuke scoffed. “That’s-”

“Eichiro is now at the second stage,” Shikamaru repeated. “He gave you a report about an attempt on Naruto’s life, which he stopped. He offered to present Konoha the entire village of Oto on a silver platter. He expressed regret you know he doesn’t feel. All of it was lies, and all of it was for your benefit. None of his work got your genin team, Eichiro most of all, what they want. They threw all of their best attempts at you, and they didn’t work.” Shikamaru sighed again, taking another sip of tea. “I was watching him closely during your exhibition match, Sasuke. He snapped when you started smiling.”

“I didn’t smile.”

“Yeah you did,” Naruto said, and grinned at the memory. “You were having so much fun, it almost made me want to join in until you went all avenger-mode.”

“Which was also Eichiro’s doing, in a way,” Shikamaru added. “Akishige’s regular taijutsu technique is a fluid state of movement, not-”

“Wait. Wait wait wait, Eichiro told him to do that?” Naruto asked. When Shikamaru nodded affirmation, Naruto demanded, “Why?”

“Because mental instability is the easy gateway to manipulation,” Shikamaru said, and paused briefly for another sip of tea. “You break someone, and then you can piece them back together how you want.”

“This is ridiculous,” Sasuke said. “They’re not trying to mind-wipe me. They’re just…” He frowned, looking for an adequate word. “They’re lost, they’re still stuck in their own heads, and they need help.”

Shikamaru sighed (he did that a lot) and slumped against the table, looking towards Naruto. “You’re the only one who can ever make him listen.”

Naruto frowned. “Sasuke, I know you still think you need to take care of your creepy genin,” he began carefully. “I know you still see them as children you need to protect, even from themselves. It’s good of you to think that, but they’re beyond help.”

Uzumaki Naruto saying someone was beyond help, or beyond saving was laughable. And Sasuke laughed, backing away from the kitchen counter and saying, “Says the idiot who tried to save me. For years and years, people told you I was beyond help, and-”

“That’s because you’re different, Sasuke!” Naruto shouted. “It was a completely different situation! You ran off to try and get strong enough to kill Itachi, which you were kind of justifiably obsessed with after all the manipulative shit people kept doing to you.” He scowled. “Which people keep doing to you, and you’re not seeing it – and that’s the point! You not seeing it or noticing it or whatever is their goal, but we’re here. And we see it. So trust us, trust me, and stay away from Eichiro.”

Sasuke did trust Naruto. He trusted him with everything, and the dissonance in Sasuke’s mind ached as he tried to resolve the conflicting truths of ‘Naruto wouldn’t lie about this’ and ‘my genin team is team and needs my help.’ It left him pressing his head against the sink, trying to find comfort in the cool metal against his forehead.

“I can’t see it,” Sasuke whispered, a final confession. “But I trust you can.”

“There are things we can’t tell you, proof we aren’t allowed to provide, but Naruto’s right. You need to trust us on this. They want their Kage, and they’re willing to do anything,” Shikamaru said.

How many times had his creepy genin team told him he couldn’t understand their feelings? They’d attributed it to his own background every time, like Sasuke was the mentally unstable one of the group. And fine, Sasuke wasn’t exactly a paragon of mental health or anything, but he should’ve seen that there was something skewed about how they thought of him. He’d known they were creepy and obsessive, but…did he even want to know the things Naruto and Shikamaru were keeping from him?

“They aren’t beyond saving, Naruto,” Sasuke said, raising his head to look Naruto in the eye. “I’ll stay away from them, but they aren’t beyond saving.”

“Your team hunted down Kisame and tortured him to death for information about Itachi,” Naruto said, dead serious.

“Kisame was already dead,” Sasuke said.

Naruto shook his head. “He managed to survive, he got his brain in a shark summon that turned half-human or something, it was weird – anyway, point is, he’s definitely dead now because your creepy genin team found him in a tiny village where he was living peacefully and killed him,” Naruto said, and gave Sasuke a pointed look. “So they would have information on Itachi. Which gave them sensitive information on you.”

“Are we ignoring the information-sharing Sasuke policy now?” Shikamaru asked.

“For this? Yeah,” Naruto said firmly. “Listen to me, Sasuke. Eichiro is smart, and he’s obsessed, and he has one goal. It’s not – fine, so maybe they aren’t beyond saving, but they are past the point where they’re safe for you to be around, okay? Can you accept at least that much?”

Sasuke nodded, staring at the wall.

“Give us a minute, Shikamaru,” Naruto said, and Shikamaru obliged, up and out the front door without a word. “Look, you know about the policy where we keep you out of the loop and the council keeps it’s mouth shut about my ex-traitor co-parent?” Sasuke nodded again. “Screw it. This is a big deal, and you deserve to know this shit. If you have a question, if you want to know about what your creepy-”

“I don’t,” Sasuke said.

“If you change your mind, the offer’s not going away, okay?”

“I won’t.”

Sasuke went for a walk. He wasn’t due back in Konoha for another week, so he took a walk for four days, came back, and cleaned the house and tried to get his shit together for the other three days. And when Sarada and Bolt came back through the front door Sasuke had to fight back tears because finally, finally he was holding his kids and the were so excited and so happy and Sasuke hugged them so hard it had to hurt as he choked out, “I missed you too.”

#babymaking no jutsu #naruto fic #THINGS GET KINDA DARK NOW

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tarysande · 7 years

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Fic Update: Any Four Walls: Trap

Well, since it’s my birthday, you guys get treats for coming to my party. <3

Also on AO3

Trap

Garrus’ visor counted the time since the airlock doors had closed behind Shepard. When the team’s comms went dead, he chalked it up to the amount of interference the ship was giving off. Not surprising. Unpleasant, though. A lot could happen in 16 minutes and 46 seconds. And he hated being in the dark.

To keep himself from worrying, he kept his gaze fixed on the sensor readouts, waiting for the inevitable. As he and Shepard had discussed, the whole damned thing screamed trap like Omega’s flashing neon signs pointed to bars and dancing asari. He just wasn’t sure where it would come from.

He was so plugged into the ship that he was already on his way to the QEC before Joker pinged him to let him know Liara was on the line.

“She doesn’t sound happy,” Joker added, unnecessarily.

No one who knew the girls had sounded anything like happy since they were taken, after all. Garrus swallowed his initial retort, thanked Joker for the head’s up, and hit the elevator’s controls again, harder, as if repetition and frustration could make the damn thing move any faster. He ignored the faint echo of ache in his chest and tried not to imagine the way the doctor would scowl at him if she knew.

Liara started talking even before her form shimmered to life, words tumbling over each other so rapidly he had to make her start over again three times. She pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes—a gesture borrowed, no doubt, from Shepard—and said with forced enunciation, “What is happening over there, Garrus? What is she thinking?”

The words still didn’t make sense. Panic began to gnaw at his gut, tenacious as a varren’s jaws clenched around a fat pyjak. “You know something I don’t, T’Soni? We lost contact the second she boarded that ship.”

Liara turned away from him slightly, fingers flying over a series of haptic interfaces he couldn’t see. She said, “This broadcast has hijacked emergency signals across the galaxy, Garrus, pinging from comm buoy to comm buoy, bypassing protocols. I’ve seen nothing like it since the early days of the Reaper invasion.”

Before he could start demanding answers instead of vague fear-mongering, his omni-tool pinged with Liara’s link.

“That is as close to live as I can manage across this much distance, and the turian Councilor does not want to know how many laws regarding appropriate use of data transmission I just broke sending it.”

Garrus hardly heard her. The angles and quality of the video were those of a decent security system. Black and white, but not grainy. The kind of footage he’d always appreciated when working at C-Sec, because facial recognition was easier when faces weren’t pixellated all to hell. Not cheap. Not amateur.

In this case, he almost wished for some interference.

His eyes tracked the images flashing before his eyes and though he recognized all the players—of course he did—he could make no sense of what they were doing. As he watched, a biotic explosion from Jack sent turian bodies flying into the air, all splayed limbs and awkward angles. Alenko’s powers kept them there. And Shepard—Shepard took them out, one perfect headshot at a time. Faces disappeared in unmistakable showers of greyed-out blood and bone and plate. One after another. No misses. No warning shots. No shots to disable instead of kill.

Though he could not actually hear it, he felt the report of the Widow like he was the one on the wrong end of it.

A shiver ran the length of his spine and this time the ache in his chest had very little to do with his recent brush with death. Sure, they’d had their good-natured competition over headshots, but that was back when the galaxy was swiftly going to hell and the forces shooting at them were very much aiming to kill.

Even then, he’d seen Shepard shoot out knees or shoulders when she could easily have taken the kill. He’d teased her for it, on those rare occasions he’d pulled ahead. She wasn’t big on killing when she didn’t have to. He’d never known her to be motivated by hatred or revenge.

This, though.

This was a massacre. Cold and clean and precise. Almost surgical.

The turian forces—if they could be given such an illustrious designation—wore armor predating the Reaper invasion and none carried weapons more dangerous than outdated pistols and the occasional assault rifle that had seen better days. The shots they managed to fire didn’t come close to penetrating the armor and shields of the squad raining death down on them.

Garrus knew turian expressions. These were not murderous. They were confused.

Terrified.

He knew, he knew Shepard was familiar enough with the anatomy of plates and mandibles and body language to see what he was seeing. Especially since she was looking down a scope. Zoomed in. Nowhere to hide.

Another head exploded. Another turian fell.

Over it all, a desperate turian voice—was it the voice of the woman Shepard had spoken with? He couldn’t be sure. He couldn’t be sure—subharmonics trembling with fear, whispered, “If you can hear this, if you can see this, please. Please, we need help. We are under attack. This is Matta Casarus of the trading vessel, Enixus. Please. We don’t have much time. We—Spirits, we think it’s Commander Shepard. She’s—oh, help us. Please. Please help us. We haven’t done anything wrong. We haven’t done anything wrong.”

Over and over and over.

Of course it was Commander Shepard.

The N7 emblem on her chest was unmistakable, after all.

Even he, who’d thought he’d seen every side of Shepard there was to see, didn’t recognize the cold, implacable expression in the eyes behind the glass of her helmet.

“Liara,” he said, “this isn’t—you know this isn’t Shepard. This isn’t her MO.”

Liara said nothing. The turian kept pleading for help. Garrus shook his head. “Liara.”

“Garrus, this looks—”

“I know how it looks. She wouldn’t—she was provoked. She had to have been provoked.”

Again Liara fell silent. He’d known her long enough to recognize the expression she wore as discomfort. Pain, even. “If this is about the children—”

“Of course it’s about the children!”

Her eyes pleaded with him. “The rest of the galaxy doesn’t know about the children, Garrus. To them, it looks as though…”

He exhaled heavily, crossing his arms over his chest because what he really wanted to do was hit something. Hard. Really hard. And he didn’t think it was smart to take his frustration out on the QEC. “As though the galaxy’s most recognizable hero has gone rogue.”

Liara nodded. “I could—I could attempt to cut the feed, but I fear it would only make the situation worse.”

“Shit,” he snarled. “This is the trap. Not a ship swinging out of deep space, guns blazing. Nothing that would allow her to come out on top, like she always does. This. Discrediting her. Destroying her.”

“Discrediting you both.” Liara worried at her bottom lip with her teeth and shook her head. “There are two Spectres at the heart of the destruction, and you’re the only Councilor aware of their movements. Either you sent them, or they have both gone rogue. The Council will want an explanation.”

“The Council will want a scapegoat, you mean.”

“You know they are still recovering from the damage Saren did to the reputation of the Spectres. If Shepard…”

She didn’t finish. She didn’t have to.

He bit down on his tongue. The pain was a focus. Something tangible. Something he could control.

“Who is she, Liara? Who has this kind of power? Not some two-bit trader, that’s for damned sure.”

“The Enixus is registered to a Matta Casarus, whose record is impeccable. She was with the turian military for eight years, regularly earning commendations of the highest order. She was given an honorable discharge to take over her father’s trading business when he was killed by pirates in 2180. She ran supplies during the Reaper war. According to her financials, she took losses while others were profiteering.”

He sighed. “A paragon of virtue, then. Wonderful. And?”

“And the woman Shepard spoke to is not Matta Casarus. I am certain of it.”

“I hear the ‘but’ loud and clear, Liara.”

“I do not know who she is. Forgive me, Garrus. I will continue my search, but—”

“I know,” he said. “By then it’ll be too late. Shepard’ll have killed the real Matta Casarus and her whole damn crew in front of an audience of trillions and anything we say afterward’ll look like a coverup. Keep looking. I’ll—crap. I have to stop this.”

“Are you certain that’s—”

He ended the communication before Liara could finish.

He connected to the flight deck. “Joker—”

“Already on the way, boss.”

“Listening in?”

Joker snorted. “Didn’t need to. Not like Liara ever calls with good news.”

“And you’re not going to try and stop me?”

“You could break both my legs by looking at ‘em the wrong way. No, thanks. You might have to go through the doctor, though. She’s parked herself in front of the airlock and she’s looking mutinous.”

Garrus wished he could laugh. He really did. Instead, he cut the line and started composing a message to the rest of the Council he feared would be utterly ineffectual.

Had to try, though.

He had to try.

#any four walls #garrus vakarian #shakarian #femshep #shepard vakarian family shenanigans #mass effect #my fic #fanfiction

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maximelebled · 7 years

Text

2017

Howdy! Time for the yearly blog post! There's enough depressing stuff that happened this year, so I want to try and not focus too much on that; talk more about the positive and the personal. (I am looking back on this opening paragraph after writing everything else, and I don’t think that ended up true.)

I find it increasingly harder to just straight up talk about things, especially in a direct manner. I think it comes from continuing to realize that so many things are extremely subjective and everything has so much nuance to it that I feel really uncomfortable saying a straight "yes" or a straight "no" to a lot of questions ("Nazis are bad" is not one, though). Or even just a straight answer.

I always end up wanting to go into tangents, and I inevitably run into not being able to phrase that nuance. You know that feeling, when you know something, you have the thought in your head; it is so clear, right there in your head, it is crystal-clear to your soul, yet you have no idea how to word it, let alone doing so in 140/280/500 characters. Frustrating!

I guess I could just put a big disclaimer here, "I am not a paragon of absolute truth and don't start interpreting my words as 'Max thinks he is the authority on XYZ' because you'd be quite foolish to do so"; but that doesn't help that much. Online discourse, let alone presence, can be so tiresome these days; not to be too Captain Obvious, but, there are quite a lot of people that delight in engaging those they see as their "opponents" in bad faith.

As a white man, I don't have it that bad, but still, I'll continue to tell you one thing: the block button is extremely good and you should feel no shame in using it. It drastically improves your online experience. (There are some very clear signs that make me instantly slam the button. I’m sure you know which ones too.)

Anyway, regardless, it's hard to get rid of a habit, especially one you've unwillingly taken on yourself, so I apologize in advance for constantly writing all those "most likely", "probably", "maybe" words, and writing in a style that can come off as annoyingly hesitant sometimes.

I started watching Star Trek this year. My Netflix history tells me: January 29th for TOS/TAS, March 26th for TNG, June 3rd for DS9, November 9th for Voyager.

TOS was really interesting to watch. A lot of things stood out: the (relative) minimalism of the sets and the directing was reminiscent of theater, and even though that was, generally speaking, because that's how TV shows used to be made, it was still striking. From a historical perspective, "fascinating" would still be an ill-suited word to describe it. Seeing that this is where a lot of sci-fi concepts came from, suddenly understanding all the references and nods made everywhere else... it was also soothing to watch a show about mankind having finally united, having exploration and discovery as its sole goal. I feel like it wouldn't have made as big of an impact on me, had I watched it a year prior.

I've always thought of myself as rejecting cynicism, abhorring it, but it's harder and harder to hold on to that as time goes on. I still want to believe in the inner good of mankind, of people in general, but man, it's hard sometimes. I think what really gnaws at me most of the time is how so many of the little bits of good that we can, and are doing, individually, and which do add up... can get struck down or "wasted away" so quickly. The two examples that I have in mind: Bitcoin, this gigantic mess, the least efficient system ever designed by mankind, has already nullified a decade's worth of power savings from the European Union's regulations on energy-efficient light bulbs. And then there's stuff like big prominent YouTubers being, to stay polite, huge irresponsible fools despite the responsibility they have in front of a massive audience of very young people. It can be really depressing to think about the sheer scale of this kind of stuff.

What we can all do on an individual level still matters, of course! I try my best not to use my car, to buy local, reduce my use of plastic, optimize my power usage, etc.; speaking of that, I've often thought about making a small website about teaching the gamer demographic in general quick easy ways to save energy. There is so much misinformation out there, gamers who disable all the power-saving features of their hardware just to get 2 more frames per second in their games, people who overclock so much that they consume 60% more power for 10% more performance, the list goes on. Maybe I'll get around to it some day.

All this stuff going on makes it hard to want to project yourself far ahead in the future. Why plan ahead your retirement in 40 years when it feels like there's a significant chance the world will go to shit by then? It's grim... but it definitely makes me understand the saying "live like there's no tomorrow". Not that I'm gonna become an irresponsible person who burns all their savings on stupid stuff, but for the time being... I don't feel like betting on a better tomorrow, so I might as well save a little bit less for the far future and have a nicer present. You know the stories of American workers who got scammed out of their own 401k? That's, in essence, the kind of stuff I wish to avoid. If that makes sense.

Anyway, going off that long depressing tangent: something I liked a lot across The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager, was how consistent they were. The style of directing, framing, camera movement, etc. was always very similar. Now, you can argue that's just how 80s and 90s TV shows on a budget, a 4:3 aspect ratio, and smaller SD screens worked, yes, but I do believe there is a special consistency that stuck out to me. I jumped into the newest series, Discovery, right after finishing Voyager (I don't plan on watching Enterprise) and the first two episodes were confusing to watch... shaky cam, a lot of traveling shots, shallow depth-of-field, and the tendency to put two characters at the extreme left and right of the frame.It’s a hell of a leap forwards in directing trends. It all gets better after the first two episodes, though.

youtube

I remember alluding to the King of Pain project in my last yearly post. I'm glad I managed to finally do it. I'd talk about it here, but why do it when I've made 70 minutes of video about it? (And unlike my previous behind-the-scenes videos, it's a lot more condensed, and hopefully entertaining.) Unfortunately for me, I completed the video in late June, with only a month left to the TI7 Short Film Contest deadline. So I ended up making two videos back-to-back. I had to buy a new laptop in order to finish the video during my yearly pilgrimage to Seattle. It was intense! And thankfully, I managed to pull off the Hat Trick: winning the contest three years in a row. I would like to think it's a pretty good achievement, but you know how us artists are in general; as soon as we achieve something, we start thinking "eh, it wasn't that good anyway" and we raise our bar higher still.

While I do intend to participate in the contest again next year, I know I'll most likely do something more personal, that would probably be less of a safe bet, now that the pressure of winning 3 in a row is gone. I already have a few ideas lined up...

... and I do have a very interesting project going on right now! If it goes through and I don't miserably land flat on my face (which, unfortunately, has a non-zero chance of happening), you'll see it in about a month from now.

youtube

I'm pretty happy to have reached a million views on all three of my shorts; a million and a half on the TI7 one, too... it might reach two million within six months if it keeps getting views at the current rate. It surprises me a bit that this might end up being my first "big" video, one that keeps getting put on people's sidebar by the all-mighty YouTube™ Algorithm™. There's often a disconnect between what you consider to be your best work, and what ends up being the most popular.

This reminds me that, a lot of the time, I get people who ask me if I'm a streamer or a "YouTuber". My usual answer is that I'm on YouTube, but I'm not a "YouTuber". I wholeheartedly reject that subculture, the cult of personalities, the attempts at parasocial relationships, and all that stuff. It's just not for me. Now, that said, I do hope to achieve 100k subscribers one day... I'm getting closer and closer every day! The little silver trophy for bragging rights would be neat.

My office was renovated by my dad while I was gone. It's much nicer now, and I finally have a place to put most of my Dota memorabilia. He actually sent me this picture I didn't know he'd taken, behind my back, in 2014; the difference is striking... (I think that game I'm playing is Dragon Age: Inquisition.)

Tinnitus. I first noticed my tinnitus when I was 20. I vividly remember the "hold on a second" moment I had in bed... man, if I'd known back then how worse it'd get. Then again, the game was rigged from the start; as a kid, I had frequent ear infections because my canals are weird and small. What didn't help either was the itching; back then, they thought it was mycosis... and treatment for that didn't help at all. Turns out it was psoriasis! Which I also started getting on my right arm that year. (It's eczema, it's itchy, it's chronic, and the treatment steroid cream. Or steroids.) Both conditions got worse since then, too.

Tinnitus becomes truly horrible when you start the doubt the noises you're hearing. When all you have is the impossible-to-describe high-pitched whine, things are, relatively speaking, fine. You know what the noise is, and you learn, you know not to focus on it. But with my tinnitus evolving, new "frequencies", I have, on occasion, started doubting whether I was hearing an actual noise or if it was just my inner ear and brain working in concert to make it up. So I end up thinking about it, actively, and that makes it come back. I had a truly awful week when, during an inner ear infection, the noise got so shrill, so overwhelming, I lost so much sleep over it. I couldn't tune it out anymore. It was like it was at the center of my head and not in my ears anymore. I wouldn't wish that on anyone. I'm not even sure that I'm in the clear yet regarding that. But, like I said, it's best if I don't dwell on it. Thinking of the noise is no bueno.

Really, the human body is bullshit. Here's another example. A couple months ago, I managed to bite the inside of my mouth three separate times. I hate when it happens, not because of the immediate pain, but because I already dread the mouth ulcer / canker sore (not sure which is the appropriate medical translation; the French word is "apthe"). Well, guess what: none of these three incidents had the bite degenerate into an ulcer... but one appeared out of nowhere, in a different spot, two weeks later. And while mouthwash works in the moment, it feels like it never actually helps... it's like I have to wait for my body to realize, after at least ten days, oh yeah, you know what, maybe I should take care of this wound in my mouth over here. And it always waits until it gets quite big. There's no way to nip these goddamn things in the bud when they're just starting.

But really, I feel like I shouldn't really complain? All in all, it could be much worse, so so so much worse. I could have Crohn's disease. I could have cancer. I could have some other horrible rare disease. Localized psoriasis and tinnitus isn't that bad, as far as the life lottery goes. As far as I'm aware, there's nothing hereditary in my family, besides the psoriasis, and the male pattern baldness. I wonder how I'll deal with that one ten, fifteen years down the line...

Just as I'm finishing writing this, the Meltdown & Spectre security flaws have been revealed... spooky stuff, and it makes me glad I still haven't upgraded my desktop PC after five years. I've been meaning to do it because my i7 4770 (non-K) has started being a bit of a bottleneck, that and my motherboard has been a bit defective the whole time (only two RAM slots working). But thankfully I didn't go for it! I guess I will once they fix the fundamental architectural flaws.

The Y2K bug was 18 years late after all.

Here's a non-exhaustive list (because I’m trying to skip most of the very obvious stuff, but also because I forget stuff) of media I enjoyed this year:

Series & movies:

Star Trek (see above)

Travelers

The Expanse

Predestination (2014)

ARQ

Swiss Army Man

Video games:

Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice

Horizon: Zero Dawn

What remains of Edith Finch

Uncharted: Lost Legacy

Wolfenstein II

Super Mario Odyssey

Metroid: Samus Returns

OneShot

Prey

Music:

Cheetah EP by James Hunter USA

VESPERS by Thomas Ferkol

Some older stuff from Demis Roussos and Boney M.... and, I'll admit reluctantly, still the same stuff: Solar Fields, the CBS/Sony Sound Image Series, Himiko Kikuchi, jazz fusion, etc. I'm still just as big a sucker for songs that ooze with atmosphere. (I've been meaning to write some sort of essay on Solar Fields... it's there, floating in my head... but it's that thing I wrote earlier: you know the idea, intimately, but you're not sure how to put it into words. Maybe one day!)

I think that's about it this year. I hope to write about 2018 in better terms!

See you next year.

#year in review

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kookieseyes · 7 years

Text

I hate you │4

summary: You and Jungkook get close while doing the assignment until something changes member: Jeon Jungkook x reader genre: fluff, romance, angst word count: 2538 warnings: fuckboy!Jungkook badboy!Jungkook I hate you Masterlist │ 1 │ 2 │ 3 │ 4 │ 5 │ 6 │

A/N: Thank you, everyone, for loving this story. I’m so grateful to all of you, I never expected the response to be this good, because this is the first fic I’ve written. I’d really appreciate it if anyone gave me an honest feedback. Anyway, here’s the part 4 and as always, I already have the next one planned.

“I’m sorry, what?!”-Ava wasn’t exactly thrilled when she heard what you’d done last night. “So you left early yesterday to talk to him?”-she asked while you were about to grab two cups of coffee from the coffee machine for both of you

“Yes, and it went quite well”-you answered, purposely avoiding eye contact so that Ava wouldn’t catch your thoughts about how walking up to Jungkook was definitely a bold decision. “When did you say you were going to meet?” “I haven’t texted him yet, so we still need to figure it out”-you said and felt how your phone started buzzing in your pocket. Both of your hands were occupied by hot coffee so you motioned to Ava to pick it up instead of you. “Are you sure about that?”-Ava’s surprised and dismayed expression shifted from your phone to your confused face. “What are you talking about?”-now you were getting nervous, why did she have to make that face as if the end of the world was coming soon.

“Explain”-she shoved the phone into your face. It was so close you had to take a step back to make out the blurred lines on the screen. It was a reminder you had set yesterday:

“Today, at 3, meet Jungkook in the library”

“Huh? But I didn’t...Oh, no, I must have texted him while I was drunk yesterday” “you don’t say, just check your messages”-she clicked her tongue as if she couldn’t believe you. “No need, I remember texting him”-your voice was barely audible, making your embarrassment obvious.

“Girl, you seriously need to stop doing stupid shit! Stay away from him as much as you can, you know better than anyone he’s not a good news.How much time do you have left anyway?” “If the reminder is correct, about ten minutes”

“Then go, you don’t want to keep your partner waiting, do you?”-She said teasingly, while undoubtedly feeling sorry as she watched your misery

It took you at least twenty minutes to get to the opposite side of the campus where the library was. By the time you got there, you were out of breath. You might’ve been lacking in many things but you were never late. You opened a door leading to a big hallway, just to be blinded by the sun, shining from the other side of the hall. You were too busy shadowing your eyes to see the black outline of the figure coming towards you.

“Ms. Perfect is late, how come?”-it was Jungkook’s voice. Did he actually get here on time? “Aren’t bad boys supposed to be lazy, how did you get here on time?”-you tried to avoid the subject. “I didn't, I just came in from the other side”-of course, he was not the punctual type. “We’re even then”-you said and he chuckled as he opened the library door for you to go ahead of him. You couldn’t deny that his chuckle made you smile too.

“So what’s the plan?”-he asked as soon as you sat down. “I was thinking, maybe write entries in the diary one by one, write one day and then give it to the other person to continue”-that way you wouldn't have to be in each other's company that much-”But we would still have to meet up from time to time, you know, to make sure we’re both following the plot”

You discussed what both of you wanted to write about and decided that your plan was the best. He listened to you with no objections, paying attention to every single word you told him and offered his opinion. You were pleasantly surprised by discovering how smart he was, it was the first time you saw his quiet and serious side. That was the first one of your weekly meetings and occasional ones in the middle of the week if something was not going according to a plan.

Your next meeting was on Saturday, you were working a morning shift at a cafe and told him to come there in the second half of the day. Next customer walked up to you, you were busy placing money from the previous one in the cash register so you asked him without looking

“What would you like, sir?-sounding cheerful and being a paragon of an excellent employee

“Sure, Sir sounds better than a jerk”-you immediately stiffened after recognizing the noise and embarrassing yourself once more.

“Jungkook, it’s you!” you said as if it wasn’t obvious enough

“Hello to you too, can I get one Americano and one, what it is you like?” “You don’t have to, I get free coffee whenever I want”-why was he being so nice, it was bothering you for some reason, him not being his typical self. “All right, when are you done? “In ten”-you answered and heard how your co-workers started sneaking glances at the boy you were talking to. He sat close to the window with a cup of Americano and occupied a seat in front of him for you.

“Are you guys dating or something?”-one of your co-workers asked with clearly evident attraction towards Jungkook in her eyes. “No, no, we’re not, he’s all yours”-she couldn’t contain her happiness at hearing your words as she one more time looked at the boy, oblivious about what you two were talking about.

Your shift was over now, you got changed into your casual clothes and sat in front of Jungkook, in the seat he had kept for you. He was now halfway done with his drink, blowing into a straw to make air bubbles with the remaining liquid in the cup. At that moment he looked the most childlike you’d ever seen him. You wanted to scold him for playing with his drink and couldn’t help yourself but smile at how innocent he seemed. When he noticed your reaction, he immediately stopped as if he got caught doing something he wasn’t supposed to do.

“I’ll take your cup if you’re done”-your nosy coworker who talked to you just a few minutes ago approached your table. She started shamelessly flirting with him, dropping a pen by “mistake”, just to bend over in a suggestive manner. She stood up and sneaked a neatly folded paper into a boy’s hand sitting in front of you. In response, he snickered and slowly put the paper in his pocket.

“Fuckboy alert!-you said and fake coughed after seeing the scene being played out in front of you. He looked up at you not with angered expression as you had expected, but with genuine amusement

"Fuckboy alert?? I didn't know that was a thing"

"Yes, I have a fuckboy radar"-you announced proudly

"You must've known from the beginning who I was then"-he raised an eyebrow and waited for your response.

"I did, for your information, the first time I saw you in class"

"You mean the first time you couldn't take your eyes off of me?"

"huh?"-you said flustered, not liking the way he had caught you off guard

“Don’t play dumb, I saw the way you looked at me”-you were dumbfounded, why did he have to bring that up? “You did? I don’t know what you want me to say then, we all make mistakes”-you nervously shifted in the seat and shrugged your shoulders to make your words more believable. “No need to be embarrassed, I thought you were cute too, the way you looked away when I caught you looking at me”-what? he thought you were cute? “Don’t flatter yourself, that doesn’t mean I think of you the same way”-you quickly made yourself clear “Same here”-he said and shook his head in a slow motion

The conversation between you easily started flowing, never having a moment of awkward silence. He was funny and interesting to talk to and was not that bad if you looked over his fuckboy side, but it was too big to ignore. Maybe you were starting to hate him less, even not hating him at all.

Your work was going well, you were ahead of the schedule already having written about ten entries into the diary. You had a whole system set up, one handed over the diary to the other in the hallway and set a new date for meeting and discussing plans for next entries. Meeting places always changed, once when you had nowhere to go Ava offered you both came over to her place. She wanted to know how it was going between you two. She had a roommate but she was out of town. You sat down on the floor with Jungkook. You noticed Ava and her roommate didn’t have enough money to buy furniture. The only couch was already occupied by Ava herself. She just sat there reading a book but occasionally you caught her looking at you two. Every time Jungkook shifted, every time he got closer to you to check what you wrote, every time he made a comeback to your remark you saw Ava raising her eyebrows and smiling to herself. “You can’t say it’s “fairly freezing””-you pointed at the sentence he wrote “Why not?” “Because it’s either freezing or not, it’s not gradable”-you said as if it was the most important thing to discuss. “Well, maybe the person we’re writing the diary about doesn’t know that”-he would never, ever let you win any argument. It was a game between you. “you want her to be dumb like you?”-You pointed your finger at him. “So if you don’t know whether an adjective is gradable or not you’re dumb?”-he did have a point, but no way in hell you were gonna let him win. “No, I was referring to you being dumb in general, this being just one example”

“Okay, smartass does “utterly” work?-he rolled his eyes at you. “Yup, “utterly freezing”-you said satisfied with yourself. You won this round. “Geez, you’re so picky”-said Ava, entertained by you two bickering “I know, right? Is she always like that?”-Jungkook turned around to ask the girl still cuddled on the sofa.

“You tell me, you spend more time with her nowadays than I do”-Of course, Ava had to make a pungent comment to get on your nerves. And she succeeded at it.

“Not my fault if she can’t refrain from seeing me”- As if your best friend going against you wasn’t enough, Jungkook had to team up with her against you. “Hey you jerk, I’m right here!” You snapped your fingers in front of his face to get his attention.

“I can see that!”-he grabbed your wrist and got it away from his face. You struggled to free your hand from his grip and gripped his wrist in return “Do you have a death wish?”

“Guys, can you keep it down? Some people are trying to read”-You let go of each other’s hands and returned to your positions, his touch still lingering on your wrist, sending a weird sensation to your stomach and you could tell he felt something similar judging by how hesitantly he let go of your hand and looked you in the eyes, as if he was trying to read your mind. The movement didn’t go unnoticed by Ava either because as soon as Jungkook left and you were the only two remaining in the room she bombarded you with questions:

“What the actual fuck? What was that?” “What do you mean?”-you decided to play dumb, maybe she’d let you off the hook more easily

“Don’t you dare make that innocent face, spill everything”-she wouldn’t settle for your shallow explanation until she strained every bit of information from you. “There’s nothing to say, you know how he flirts with everyone” “I know, but it’s not about him flirting, it’s about you reacting to him”-you didn’t even try to deny it.

“Okay, maybe snapping fingers at him was too much, but..” “But? Just admit it already, you like him, don’t you? “What? No! If there’s anyone who knows how much I hate him, it’s you, you know that” “I believe you, Y/N, I just don’t want you getting hurt, okay?” “I won’t I promise, once the assignment’s done, I won’t have to see him anymore”-you always knew you had to stop at some point, but saying it out loud made it more real. The assignment would eventually be over and then you wouldn't have any reason to see him any longer.

The following day you didn’t have to meet in person. He had to write the next entry and give it to you in class but he never came and didn’t answer neither your texts or calls. You were about to call him again to ask for a diary when you saw him talking with others, phone in his hand. So he was ignoring you on purpose. Obviously, he wanted to avoid you but you were in a hurry to go to work and couldn’t wait anymore.

“Jungkook” “What?”-he turned around and asked you in a stern voice

“I need the diary back”-he rolled his eyes in an annoyed manner as if you were interrupting something important “Follow me”-he said without changing his tone, not even looking at you in the eyes. You were close to his car when you noticed dark red line forming on the other side of his face “Oh my god, you’re bleeding”-he slowly raised his hand and touched his face to wipe the blood away-”Are you okay, what’s wrong with you? “Nothing”

“Bleeding is not nothing”-you were genuinely concerned, something bad definitely had happened to him “I said it’s nothing, It’s none of your business, okay? Take what you came for and go”-he opened the car door and threw the diary in your hands” “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” “Just go”-his voice was cold and rough, eyes radiating with the same annoyance You didn’t need to be told again. You realized as you were walking away from him that tears had heated up your cheeks, you felt humiliated and stupid for believing he had changed and most of all for being dumb enough to let his words hurt you... again. It had to stop, so you didn’t bother to see his messages when he texted or pick up when he called you ten times in a row. The worst thing was that you weren’t even angry at him, you were mad at yourself for knowing what was coming and yet still falling into his trap.

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