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eliemo · 3 years

Text

Something Long and Stupid

Summary: Remus knew he wasn't a good person. He was Deadpool, a killer for hire, "the merc with a mouth." He'd come to terms with what he was a long time ago. He didn't need Spiderman to remind him of what he was.

He didn't need Virgil to come into his life and make him question it for the first time

TWs: Violence, threats, strong language, blood

Notes: Superhero au, Spiderman Virgil, Deadpool Remus, enemies to lovers Dukexiety

New project that nobody asked for. I know I should finish my ongoing wips before starting a new one but I do not control the hyperfixation.

(Part 1) (Part 2)

When Virgil kicked Remus in the chest and sent him hurtling off the building into an active construction site, Remus found himself thinking about how they’d met.

Honestly, it hadn’t started off much better. Spiderman was a piece of shit who thought he was so much better than Remus just because Deadpool killed some people every now and then.

Well, that had been the first impression anyway. They hadn’t exactly started off on the right foot.

Remus had been doing his job, thank you very much, he was a mercenary for hire, it wasn’t like he’d been going after a gang of strangers for fun. And he certainly hadn’t needed help.

There were three of them and one of him, just some standard thugs that had been causing a bit too much trouble for people with more money to spend, their names already set to pay for Remus’s rent this month.

He’d unsheathed his swords, (guns would make it over too quickly, and what was the fun in that?) letting the assholes get their hopes up by grabbing for their own weapons and then—

Then all his targets were all suddenly covered in webs, firmly plastered to the nearest wall with threats and screaming that Remus ignored in favor of whirling around, slicing the air with his blades.

“Hey, what the fuck?”

Spiderman was half hanging off the wall, stepping back down onto the ground when he saw Remus staring. “You’re welcome,” he called, like Remus had asked for him to come in ruin is fun.

Remus scoffed, because rude. You don’t just steal someone’s kill like that. But at least they were immobilized now, which meant shooting them and getting the day over with would be a piece of cake. The webs weren’t budging no matter how frantically they kicked.

He yanked his gun from his belt to do exactly that, only to have another web (seriously, fucking spider webs had no business being this strong) wrapped around his wrist, another pulling the pistol right out of his hand.

“Uh, motherfucker?” Remus took a step back, furiously grabbing at the lingering webs with his bare hands, grimacing at the way it clung to his leather. “Jeez, you want me to decapitate them instead?”

“They’re already down,” the asshole said, like Remus hadn’t noticed. “Back off, Deadpool.”

Remus didn’t have time to be surprised that Spiderman knew who he was, far too busy wanting to run over and punch him right in his stupid masked face. “Ok, clearly you don’t know my deal. Move it, Webs.”

“Then you don’t know mine,” he said, masked eye staring blankly from underneath the hood over his suit. “I’m not letting you murder defenseless people.”

“They’re not fucking defenseless.”

“They’re not breaking free,” the spider said. “The cops will take whoever I capture for them. Call them and leave.”

Remus scoffed and tightened his hold on his sword, wondering if he really wanted to get into a fight with Spiderman in the middle of the afternoon. It was only fucking Tuesday, he was too tired to deal with this shit. “And they can take them in body bags. Give me my gun back.”

Remus was a good foot taller than him, and loaded with about three times as many weapons, but the masked asshole didn’t seem bothered in the slightest. God, he was probably smirking under his suit.

“I finished the fight, I get to decide.” He turned around, his back to Remus like he didn’t even care. “Maybe try to be faster next time.”

“Oh, fuck right off with that,” Remus snarled. “Fuck off. Fuck off and suck a fat dick, you fucking—”

“Either you walk away, or I leave you tied to the wall.”

“Kinky,” Remus smirked, even if Spiderman couldn’t see it under his own mask. “But fat fucking luck. No way in hell am I letting some bitch in black and purple spanx steal my kill.”

Spiderman actually had the audacity to sigh, like he was dealing with a petulant child. “Nobody’s getting killed.”

“You know, I’ve got more than one gun,” Remus said, mentally calculating how fast he’d have to move to shoot every single person in this alleyway. “I’m playing nice. Get out of my way.”

“You’re not shooting someone who can’t fight back.”

“Oh, are you the moral police?” Jesus, Remus wanted to punch this guy. “Man, fuck off. It’s none of your business.”

He grabbed for his other gun, only to immediately feel something wrap around his waist and legs, yanking hard and lifting him into the air. He shouted something he really hoped no pedestrians were close by enough to overhear, doing his absolute best to give Spiderman his coldest glare as he was slammed against the brick wall, upside down, held firmly down by fucking spider webs.

“Oh, you bitch.”

Remus twisted and thrashed, and while he could feel the webs giving way already it would be a good few minutes until he was free. That fucking asshole.

“Next time I see you I’m cutting off your spider ass and hanging it on my fucking wall!”

Spiderman ignored him, and Remus watched as he grabbed the thugs Remus was supposed to kill and one by one swung them out of the alleyway before disappearing completely.

That whore.

It hadn’t been long, unfortunately, until they’d met again, and Remus had of course tried to punch the asshole right in the head.

They’d ended up on the same rooftop, which was even worse because Remus came up here to relax. Spiderman had just been sitting there, legs dangling over the edge as he watched over the city, looking almost peaceful with his hood down and the sun beating against his mask.

So Remus had immediately vaulted over and swung at him as hard as he possibly could.

And then he’d missed, because of course Spidey had to have fucking inhuman reflexes, which was bullshit. He’d ducked away and managed to jump to Remus’s side before Remus even registered that his fist had met nothing but air.

“Can you leave?” Spiderman asked, so unbothered it only made Remus angrier. “I’m busy.”

“Doing what?”

“Making sure people don’t get killed,” he said, moving back towards the ledge. “You should try it sometime.”

Remus crossed his arms, watching the vigilante in disbelief. “You get that I’m a mercenary, right? You’re surprised by the killing thing?”

“I’m not,” he said, and he still wouldn’t even look at Remus. “But I’m stopping it when I can.”

“Oh? So you’re ruining a small business?” Remus threw his arms out and turned towards the ledge overlooking the bustling city. “Spiderman doesn’t support small businesses, you heard it here first, folks!”

Spidey was staring at him now, and Remus had a sneaking suspicion he would not appreciate the look he was being given if the mask was taken off. Asshole.

“I don’t support killing people, Deadpool.”

“Sucks,” Remus said. “You should’ve stayed out of the way. If I wasn’t so kind and generous I would have shot you.”

“You mean if you hadn’t been tied up and defenseless,” Spiderman corrected, and Remus was right back to wanting to punch him. “You’re lucky I didn’t get you arrested.”

Remus dramatically put a hand to his chest and gasped, walking along the roof’s edge. “Oh no. What ever would I have done? I’d be defeated! My one weakness. C ops.”

Spidey didn’t respond, but he did get up and move away when Remus got a bit too close to where he was perched on the ledge. Ha .

“Maybe I should have called the cops on you, Spidey,” Remus added. “They’d finally catch the masked menace. Some jail time might humble you.”

“I’d be fine,” Spiderman said. “I wasn’t the one tied to a wall.”

Remus hopped back onto the roof with a growl, grimacing at the reminder of how long it had taken to get those webs off his suit. “Yeah, don’t do that shit again. Seriously, I can and will end you.”

“Get in line behind half the city, Deadpool.”

Remus scoffed, something he apparently did a lot of whenever talking to Spiderman, and followed him across the rooftop. “Man, your ratings are shit. At least I don't act like a hero.”

It was hard to see, barely noticeable, but Remus saw Spidey’s shoulders tense, just a bit. Apparently he’d struck a nerve. Good.

“I don’t act like anything,” he said, and it was just a little less cocky than before. “I’m just trying to help people.”

“Oh, so you’re playing hero.” Remus grinned, moving until he was crouched right in front of the vigilante. “Ooh ooh, let me guess...you’re in college. You’re ...22. Maybe 23, or 24. You got these big bad powers one day and figured you were the only one in the whole wide world who could protect the people who couldn’t protect themselves.”

Spidey didn’t answer, just looked at him with that blank, unamused stare, so Remus continued. “Or were you born with them? Doesn’t seem like it, you’ve only popped up in the last two or three years—”

“It’s none of your business,” Spiderman cut in, and Remus smirked. “And you’re wrong, for the record.”

“Oh I am, am I?” Remus asked, amused despite himself. “If nobody wants you, why are you even trying?”

Spidey was tense now, and doing a real bad job of hiding it. “Maybe I don’t give a shit what people think.”

“Right.” Remus didn’t need to see the guy’s face to know that wasn’t it. “You do realize how much money you could make with those powers, right?”

“I don’t care,” he said. “I’m fine doing what I’m doing.”

Remus looked him over, he’d seen spidey all over newspapers and on TV before, but this was the first time actually talking to him in person, besides the other day when the asshole had ruined his afternoon. Honestly, it was kinda underwhelming. He expected the suit to be higher tech, at least.

“Are you broke?” he asked. “You seem broke. I could make you a way better mask, by the way. It looks like shit.”

“I’m sure,” Spidey said, completely ignoring his generous offer. Rude. “And how much do you get paid for killing people?”

“A lot.”

Spiderman hummed nonchalantly, no longer looking at Remus. “Well, I’m glad it’s worth it.”

“It is! I sleep like a baby in my king sized bed.” And yeah, that was a little bit of a lie. Barely.. He wasn’t living that luxuriously, New York was expensive as shit, but based on his tech he was way better off than Webs.

“That’s wonderful,” Spiderman said and damn, apparently the masked menace was capable of being a sarcastic bastard as well as a cocky asshole. “You done pretending now? Can I go?”

“I’m not pretending anything.”

“Yeah, ok.” Spiderman was back to sounding arrogant, and Remus couldn’t remember why they were talking instead of fighting to the death. “I know you sleep like shit.”

Remus actually laughed, humorless and cold, because what the fuck?

“Oh yeah?”

“Nobody kills for a living if their life is going great,” Spidey said. “What horrible trauma pushed you to that decision?”

Oh, this motherfucker. This piece of shit. He was so dead when Remus could catch him off guard.

“Nobody puts on a costume and fights crime when half the city wants him dead if his life is going great, either.” Remus smirked, moving to try to get Spidey to look at him again. “At least I get money for it. No student loan debt at 26 is pretty nice.”

He probably shouldn’t have given the vigilante that was quickly turning into his sworn enemy his age but eh. What was he gonna do, kill him? Remus didn’t stay dead.

“That’s great,” Spiderman said. “And all it cost was people’s lives.”

“Yep!” Remus hoped it came out cheery enough to piss him off a little more. “Think of it this way, Spidey. They’re gonna die anyway.”

Spiderman immediately straightened up and stalked to the other end of the rooftop, clearly wanting the conversation to end. Mission accomplished. “Jesus Christ.”

“It’s true!” he called, just to drive home the fuck off a bit more. “Someone would have gotten to them eventually.”

“They’re still people, Deadpool.”

Remus shrugged. “Good people don't get hits put on them.”

“Maybe not,” the vigilante agreed. “But good people don’t murder in exchange for money, either.”

Remus barked another laugh at that, more genuine this time because... yeah? Duh. “No shit. I never fucking said I was a good person.”

“You’re lucky you haven't killed anyone innocent yet.” And goddammit there was that ‘hero’ shit again that made Remus want to throw up. He’d just been starting to have fun, too.

“It’s still not your business.”

“It will be,” Spidey said, perched on the ledge in a way that would make Remus dizzy if he cared. “Stick to killing criminals and we'll be fine.”

“Oh?” Remus followed, smirking in a way that would probably get him punched if he took off his mask. “Are you gonna come get me if I’m not good?”

“That’s my job.”

“Aw, don’t worry,” Remus teased. “I’ll wear something sexy for you.”

“Gross.”

“Love you too, Spider Babe!”

Spidey scoffed, responding with a gloved middle finger when Remus winked. Remus watched a web shoot from his wrist, and suddenly Spiderman was gone, swinging across New York rooftops, leaving Remus to try to figure out how he was getting down.

Remus honestly hadn’t expected to see him again. He was fucked in the head, but he didn’t have any plans to lose control and start killing everyone in sight. He was an asshole, but he wasn’t a villain Spiderman needed to spend time tracking down. New York was busy enough for both of them already.

He did plan on chucking the nearest heavy object at him if he ever saw Spidey swinging past. That never ended up happening. Not that he cared. He didn’t miss him.

He expected to catch a glimpse of him eventually, maybe close enough to yell a few lighthearted threats or call him names, but nothing as entertaining as the argument on the roof.

What he hadn’t expected, was to run right into the masked menace while walking home in the middle of the night.

Remus had just finished a job, something standard and quick, and after wiping the blood from his blades he’d decided to take the long way home. The sun had set, the night air was crisp and relaxing, and it helped Remus forget about the blood stains he needed to wash away.

He’d been cutting through sidestreets, mentally mapping out how to get back to his place. He turned a corner into an alleyway, and—

And there was Spiderman, hunched over himself and leaned against the wall like he’d been using it for support, shaking, gasping, and completely drenched in deep red blood.

Remus froze, and Spidey did too as soon as he registered Deadpool standing just a few paces away, the two of them staring silently for what felt like an eternity.

“Dude,” Remus said when he found his voice. “What the fuck happened to you?”

Spiderman was clutching at his chest, black and purple suit barely able to hide the red stains, leaned heavily against the brick wall as he watched Remus warily. “Nothing.”

“Don’t be stupid. Whose blood is that?”

“Doesn’t matter,” he snapped, and his voice was wavering. “Keep walking.”

Remus took a step forward, frowning at the way the vigilante went tense against the wall. He ignored it. “Whose blood is it?” It came out more of a command than a question this time.

“Mostly mine,” Spiderman said, and Remus could see it pooling around his gloves now that he was closer. “It’s fine.”

“Why’re you bleeding?”

“None of your business. Go home.”

Remus tried to get a better look from where he stood, well aware that approaching might not be the best idea right now. “Was it a gun or a knife?”

“It was none of your business and you need to go away.”

Remus watched him, incredulous, because the idiot was barely standing and losing way too much blood way too quickly, and he was pretty sure Spiderman didn’t have Remus’s whole immortality deal.

“You really want to bleed out on the street like some street thug?”

The vigilante hesitated, and Remus listened to the way his breathing was turning into awful sounding wheezes. “I’m...not going to bleed out. I’m fine.”

“Oh, yeah?” Remus challenged, probably a bit more aggressively than was needed for someone who looked like they were about to keel over. “Walk over to me then.”

He’d expected the lack of response, but even though the eyes built into the suit were practically lifeless (he really should get him some more advanced goggles. He’d be a lot more approachable if his eyes weren’t so blank) Remus could still see his whole body tense in fear.

“No,” he said, low and trembling. “Fuck off.”

“Spidey, this isn’t a joke.” Jesus, that was a lot of blood. “You’re gonna bleed out.”

“And you can throw a party—”

“Fucking come here.” He hadn’t meant to snap, but he wasn’t going to just stand here bickering with the city’s hero until he dropped dead. But Spidey still shook his head, pressed even further against the wall now, and Remus sighed. “Fine.”

Remus took a few steps forward, initially planning on prying his arms away to get a better look at the wound, but Spiderman flinched back, trying to scramble away like Remus was coming at him with a weapon.

Well, Remus supposed that made sense. He had threatened to kill him a couple times last time they spoke.

“Chill it, Spidey.” Remus crouched a bit, suddenly painfully aware of how much taller he was, carefully holding his hands out. “I’m not gonna hurt you.”

“I don’t believe you,” he shot back. Which...yeah, fair. “I know you want to.”

“Does it look like I have a knife in my hand?” Remus asked. “No. Chill out and let me see.”

Spidey didn’t pull away when Remus took his shoulders, but he did flinch as soon as Deadpool touched him, probably involuntarily. Remus ignored it, focusing instead on figuring out where the blood was coming from. It was almost impossible in the dark lighting, especially up against the black suit.

“It’s...not that bad,” Spiderman rasped. “Seriously.”

Remus wasn’t buying that for a second. “What happened?”

“I was stupid, that’s what happened,” Spidey said, arms still wrapped firmly around himself. “It...there were five of them and one of them got lucky with a knife.”

“Jesus, fuck.” Remus pulled back, trying to figure out what to do. “You are stupid. Where?”

He only hesitated a moment. “Uh, my chest. I heal fast.”

“Jesus. How fast?”

Spiderman shrugged, then obviously regretted it when it pulled at the stab wound. “Hopefully fast enough,” he said. “I’ll be fine tomorrow or I’ll be dead.”

“Jesus,” Remus said again, because what the fuck else was he supposed to say? “Sit down. Jesus Christ.”

Spidey thankfully did as he said, though Remus suspected it had more to do with the fact that he couldn’t keep himself standing anymore rather than actually following instructions.

He wasn’t fighting anymore, almost limp as Remus took his wrists and moved them to his sides, but he did look like he was ready to bolt the second Deadpool made one wrong move.

Like he wouldn’t fall right on his face and hurt himself worse if he tried.

Remus could see the source of the blood now, a deep gash across his upper chest that had apparently sliced the black and purple suit like butter, still gushing crimson with each passing second.

Shit.

“Alright, uh.” This wasn’t his expertise in the slightest. Other than digging out some bullets, Remus didn't have to tend to his wounds. “I don’t think I have any fabric or...oh, your hoodie. Hand it over.”

Spiderman stared, and if he didn’t hurry up and get with the program Remus was going to knock him out and handle this himself. “Why?”

“Because you’re bleeding out. Give it.”

Spidey at least had the sense to listen and carefully peel the hoodie away from his suit, sliding it down his arms even as his gloved hands shook violently. Remus couldn’t help but wince at the noise Spiderman tried to choke back, because that had to hurt like a bitch.

“Maybe, like...lay down?” Remus suggested. “Yeah, do that. It’ll help.”

Spidey still hesitated, even as the blood continued to flow and he started to slide down against his will. “I...need to see what you’re doing.”

Remus sighed, bunching up the hoodie and pressing it firmly against the wound, ignoring the strangled gasp that came from the vigilante. Blood was quickly soaking through the cloth, and Remus just pressed harder.

“I’m just putting pressure on it to stop the bleeding,” Remus said. “If I wanted to kill you I’d leave you here. If it stops bleeding you’ll heal, right?”

The only answer he got was another wet, trembling gasp when Remus pushed harder, Spiderman’s blood soaking into his gloves. It took a second for him to realize he was grasping at Remus’s wrists, his hold weak.

“H-hopefully,” Spidey managed, and he really didn’t sound great. His eyes were drooping, and Remus figured the biggest danger right now was letting him fall asleep. “Or, you know. I’ll die.”

“You’re not gonna die,” Remus said without thinking. “I’m gonna stop the bleeding, you’re gonna heal with whatever weird powers you have, and then you’ll be less of a careless idiot next time.”

A few moments passed without an answer, and for once Remus wasn’t entirely sure how to fill the silence. The only sound between them was Spiderman’s labored, ragged breathing, which at least sounded a bit less shaky and faint as Remus continued to press down.

“What are you doing?” Spidey asked eventually, catching Remus completely off guard with the stupid question. “Why are you...trying to help?”

Remus wasn’t trying to do anything. He was helping. The city’s beloved hero would have been dead five minutes ago if he hadn’t managed to interrupt Remus’s perfectly nice, peaceful walk.

He hadn’t even really thought about it. Remus was an asshole, a murderer for a living, but he wasn’t stupid. He wasn’t the guy who was going to leave New York’s savior to bleed out in an alleyway.

Besides, he’d been the first person Remus had been able to have a somewhat entertaining conversation with in months.

“Somebody’s gotta save everyone,” he eventually settled on, still pressing hard against the wound. “And I refuse to be the city’s only mouthy vigilante.”

Another beat of silence, and for a moment Remus thought he might have fallen asleep. “I don’t...save anyone. And I’m not mouthy.”

“You do,” Remus argued. “And you are.”

“I don’t,” he snapped, and at least he didn’t seem inclined to argue about the mouthy thing. “You do your job better than I do.”

Remus took a moment to look over the bleeding hero. He was weak and trembling, and probably dangerously pale and clammy under that suit. The blood flow had definitely slowed, but it hadn't stopped. There was a good chance he wouldn’t remember a damn thing Remus said to him tonight.

And if he did, it’s not like he really gave a shit, anyway.

“I’m a mercenary,” Remus said. “Anyone can kill someone. It takes something a lot stronger to save them. So shut up and stop being self deprecating.”

Spiderman shuddered when Remus carefully peeled back the bloody hoodie, leaning in to get a better look at where they were at. Either he was just that good at fixing stab wounds, or Spidey’s healing powers were gradually starting to kick in.

Remus decided to go with the former. He deserved it.

“I got someone killed tonight,” Spidey said, quiet and unbearably sad. “She...she died because I wasn’t fast enough, and I didn’t—”

“You can’t save everyone.”

The vigilante pulled his hands away from Remus’s wrists, like he’d just realized he was holding them. “I should have tried harder.”

Remus sighed. “You tried hard enough. You did fine.”

That was apparently the end of the conversation, Spiderman falling back into silence as Remus went back to making sure he didn’t start bleeding all over the place again. He didn’t have anything on him to properly clean it up, he wasn’t sure he even owned a first-aid kit, but Spidey’s breathing was starting to even out, and after about ten minutes or so the blood stopped flowing completely.

“You, uh...you good?”

“I’ll be fine,” Spiderman said, and it didn’t sound like a desperate lie this time. He still looked like shit, but he was able to slowly sit up on his own. “Not dying this time. Just...still hurts.”

They were plunged back into silence, slightly less tense than before but no less uncomfortable. Remus eventually relinquished his hold on the hoodie when Spidey was able to carefully take it from him.

Right, he was fine now. Remus didn’t need to stay, it wasn’t his business anymore. It hadn’t been his business to begin with.

“I...owe you,” Spiderman said, almost like it was strange for him to admit. “So, thank y—”

“Don’t thank me, Spidey.” God, this had been a mistake, hadn’t it? “Seriously. Just buy me a pizza sometime and we’ll call it square.”

Spiderman stared for second, unsteady hands holding his own hood to his chest, but the small laugh that escaped at least sounded genuine, and no longer quite so pained.

“Ok,” he said. “Yeah, I can do that.”

Remus hesitated before standing, not really sure if it would be more rude to leave or stay at this point. Spiderman probably didn’t want a mercenary for hire standing over him while he was wounded, whether Remus had saved his life or not.

Remus was still just as far from a hero as the villains Spiderman fought, and both of them had a reputation to keep.

“You sure you’re ok?” Remus asked. “I can like...stay. Or call you an ambulance or...something.”

“I’m good,” Spidey said, sitting up with a small hiss of pain until he was propped up against the wall, breathing still heavy. “You stopped the bleeding, I’ll live. You can go home, Deadpool.”

“Right.” He carefully stepped around the vigilante, still keeping a close eye on his chest to make sure the bleeding didn’t start again. “Just don’t die after all my hard work. My gloves are fucking soaked.”

Spiderman scoffed, but it was more good natured and light than it had been the last time they talked. “You got it.”

Remus kept walking down the alley, only turning around once more before turning the corner at the end. “And don’t forget my pizza, Spidey!”

#spiderman virgil #deadpool remus #superhero au #spiderman au #spideypool #dukexiety #virgil sanders #remus sanders #enemies to lovers #enemies to friends #violence tw #sex jokes #remus being remus #blood tw #injury #sanders sides #fanfiction #writing

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euphoricethan · 3 years

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Alpha’s Kingdom - G.D

Summary: Grayson and Y/n have been friends since high school; a little before that to be exact. They had a not-so-friendly altercation 8th grade graduation, but began a spark with polar opposite attitudes. A typical college party turns to the most surprising nights of their lives.

A/N: this is an old, old, old draft from the beginning of last year that i never finished but now it’s done & i hate it so enjoy! (also lmk if i need to add more tw warnings just in case)

Warnings: smut, mentions of abuse, language, underage drinking, public humiliation(?), violence (blood)

Word count: 5.6k

That evening, Y/n (typically) would be in her dorm blasting music so loud in her earbuds that her introverted, comic-loving roommate would yell at her to turn it down as she studied for a big test the next day.

But, instead, she was called to "haul her ass" over to the Alpha Kingdom —which was what Grayson and all his buddies called the frat— to help with their party they were having for the reason she didn't know.

Y/n was against it, but she had no other choice since she was close friends with Grayson and owed him a favor. (Not to mention that he couldn't hang up streamers to save his life.)

So there she was, resting one hand on his broad shoulder while she pressed the white streamer into the ceiling.

"Hold still." She said under her breath, while Gray was moving around a bunch in hopes his knee's wouldn't give out.

"I can't, my knees are about to give out Y/n," he was looking up at her, watching her shove the dainty piece of paper up into the ceiling.

"'s not my fault." Y/n licked her lips, concentrating hard.

Sooner or later, she came down from the wobbling ladder and took a few steps back to look at her work.

"Looks good kid." he awarded.

"Kid" was always Y/n's nickname; no matter who was older. She was always "kid" and he was "Blue".

Ever since last year or so, Grayson has grown into a huge Godzilla look-alike, and Y/n thought it was hilarious since the reason behind it was that he wanted to impress some girl he met the beginning of the school year and claimed she liked guys who were "bulky."

Then, Blue Whale was introduced. But Y/n got tired of adding the Whale, and Blue just kinda stuck.

"You should help me and Brandon grab the kegs from the back." Grayson folded up the ladder, and whether Y/n was following or not, he walked away to place it back where they got it.

"You know, you really are the impidamy of a typical college frat boy!" she called out.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Brandon, another frat member who was just as dumb as the rest of them, said.

The fact that they didn't even get the joke just claimed to prove her point to where she just shook her head and proceed to the backyard to help the two twin towers carry the one-hundred sixty-five pound keg into the house.

They were all soon lifting, Y/n rather struggling while the two other boys grabbed it with ease.

"God, where do you guys even get these?" she was generally curious, she hadn't seen an actual beer keg in person before. They've only been in movies...

"Brandon's friend's uncle who worked at the bar downtown."

"Worked?"

"He got fired when the manager started realizing that he was missing a bunch of kegs like every week." Grayson said this with ease as him and Brandon finally set the huge keg onto the kitchen floor.

"Kid, pass me that thing over there will you? It's over there." Grayson pointed with his head.

"Grayson, you can't just tell me to hand you something and point with your head and just assume I know exactly what you're talking about."

He was apparently fed up with her, as: he stood, reached behind her, and pulled the hose and nozzle with a sly smirk on his stupid face.

"If you guys need any help, I'll be on the couch." she told them both and exited the kitchen before they said anything; if they hadn't already decided she was no help to them.

Shortly after, Brandon was walking into the living room to sit next to Y/n and place both of his legs over her's.

She let out a small grunt, letting her phone slip from her grasp and leaned into his legs.

"Jesus." she went to retract her phone, but he had beat her to it and was holding it above his head trying to see what she was doing.

"Whatcha doin'?" he asked, flashing the screen on his face.

Y/n was now reaching over him, still just reaching for her phone. "Brandon, I swear to god." she muttered.

"Who's Bryson? Ooh yikes, he has a B name..." he gave Y/n a hard look with his eyebrows raised slightly.

"You have a B name." she shoved his legs off her and was now even more invested on getting her belonging back.

"Yeah but that doesn't count," he was now facing away from her, pulling the phone close to him and reading her most recent text word for word.

"Don't think i'll be able to make it tonight, big test tomorrow. Y/n, what is this!" he showed her own screen to her as if she didn't know what it said.

"Can I please just have my phone back? You're being a dick." she told him.

"Hey Grayson! Y/n's got a boyfriend!" he called out, causing him to walk into the room with his face slightly scrunched in confusion.

"Huh? What'd you say?" he ran his hand though his hair before placing both on his hips.

"Look." he said.

"I don't have a boyfriend, he's just my parter for a class, now can I please have my phone back?!" Y/n was reaching over him again but he had moved his hand.

Just then, Grayson grabbed a hold of his wrist and took it from him. "Dude, don't be a cunt."

"Here kid." his eyes flashed over to her, handing it over as their fingers came in contact with one another.

Grayson found his way back into the kitchen, letting out a heavy sigh as he walked away.

She had followed behind him, seeing his behavior shift and his shoulders drop.

"What's up?" she said, leaning over the counter and watched him rinse off the dishes.

"Blue? what's wrong with you?" she said now, furrowing her brows.

A small sigh left his nose while he just placed the dish in the rack.

Grayson had always been protective over Y/n—ever since they were 11 and some kid made a joke about she smelt like cigarettes because of her father.

He always stood up for her, always. Even though he knows she can defend herself he feels the tightness in his jaw and in his fists when someone mentions her in the conversation.

"Are you mad about something?"

He sighed again, moving from the dishes to the restocking of the fridge.

"Can you talk to me? Like I don't know why all this sudden you're having a pity party..." she cocked her head forward to try and get something out of him.

"It's nothing. It's fine."

"Well no, obviously something is bothering you. You can tell me. Like did I do something? Was it the phone thing? What?" Y/n slid her hand across the counter, standing up now and walking towards him.

"You shouldn't told me if you had a boyfriend." His eyes were harsh on her, leaving them to look at her until she turned her head.

"He's not my boyfriend..." her eyes were to the floor.

"Doesn't sound like it." he closed the fridge and started smashing the cardboard boxes the drinks came in.

"Blue, it's not like that, like at all. We're just parters, he wanted to work on our project tonight but now i'm here so..."

"Why don't you go, since you don't wanna be here." he smashed the final box hard against the counter, causing Y/n to flinch and blink quickly.

"I wanna be here! Damn Grayson why are you being like this holy fuck! Are you drunk already?" Y/n cheeks were getting warm and she gave Grayson side eye until she scoffed and turned on her heel.

She didn't know what he was thinking, getting mad about something like that and telling her to just go home?

She didn't know the reason behind why he said it either... because if she knew now she probably wouldn't hook up with him later that night.

It's 8th grade graduation. Ethan and Grayson are about to get called up to get their "diploma".

But as soon as the kids who were seated in front of them had to get up and wait to get called up left, Grayson was no where to be found.

Along with Y/n who was a few rows behind them.

Where were they? Good question.

Behind the Gymnasium drinking a Mike's Hard Lemonade Y/n had snuck from her dad before they left.

"Y/n, we're gonna get in so much trouble!" Grayson whisper-yelled, watching her lean over in her dress and press the top of the bottle on the jagged wall.

The top had popped off and she giggled before taking a gulp and holding out for him to hold.

"Shh! We'll only get in trouble if we get caught, now take this before I spill it on my dress. My dad will shit his pants if I ruin it."

Grayson took the bottle from her, awkwardly holding it in his hands.

"Take a sip, it's so good!" she told him, her smile wide and her eyes filled with adrenaline.

This was the first time he had seen Y/n in girl clothes and makeup. Her Aunt was in town for her graduation and helped her pick out a dress and did her makeup.

She complained about how the mascara felt weird on he eyelashes, but he thought she looked beautiful.

He'd be lying if he said he didn't always think Y/n was beautiful. She was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen in his whole life.

He trusted her with his whole heart too. Took everything she said serious and was so gullible it made Y/n laugh so hard she lost her breath.

He loved her laugh too. Making her laugh was his favorite thing he could do, it was like a super power to him.

Which is why when she caught him staring at her in her puffy dress and little platform heels, his cheeks turned bright red and he couldn't stop himself from putting his lips on hers in a quick peck.

He tasted the Mike's Hard Lemonade on her lips, and she was right... it was good.

So good that the peck lasted longer and longer until Y/n placed her hands against his fiery cheeks he let his hands go numb and the bottle shattered onto the concrete.

She pulled away, quickly opening up her eyes to see how dilated his were.

But then, almost at the same time, both of them turned their heads around the corner to see one of the teachers coming to inspect.

Grayson took her by the wrist and they sprinted around the corner until it was safe to quickly walk back to the ceremony as he was called up on stage.

And there he was, walking across the stage in front of almost a thousand kids and parents with the biggest boner ever as Y/n sat in the crowd, her cheeks red and holding the bottle cap in her palm.

They never talked about it after that.

And that summer, going onto freshman year, Y/n had gotten her first boyfriend... who wasn't Grayson.

His name was Tony, and he was a Sophomore.

Grayson was supportive of their relationship of course, but his little heart broke almost every time he saw them together or every time Y/n brought him up.

After September, he had finally broken up with her because she wouldn't give herself to him. She was heartbroken.

But again, Grayson was there for her. Always.

She never knew why he cared so much, because unlike her father, he didn't give up on her— he didn't tell her how much he loved her and then disappeared to get drunk for days at a time.

She really only had Grayson if were being honest here. Her mother moved out of state when she was little, and shortly after that they moved and she met him.

She knew there was always something there. She just didn't know what was stopping her from doing something about it.

Until tonight.

"I'm gonna go take a shower." Grayson said walking past Brandon to quickly walk up the stairs two at a time.

By now, Y/n was now back at her dorm with a million thoughts cursing her brain.

"What's up with you?" her roommate asked, sitting at her desk while finishing up a project for her class.

"I hate men." Y/n said.

"Same. I'm just saying, girls are so much more fun."

Y/n collapsed on her bed, curling up in her jeans and t-shirt as she spoke her thought out loud.

"Should I go?" she asked to no one in particular.

"Go where?" her roommate asked.

"Graysons having this party tonight at the Alpha Kingdom or whatever and I think I kinda wanna go." she was now sitting up in her bed, watching as she turned around.

"You should go. Why not?"

"Well he had a fucking hissy fit earlier because his roommate or whatever took my phone and that Bryson guy kept texting me and— whatever. He's just being overprotective for no reason & told me to go home."

"But I low-key wanna piss him off s'more."

"You should. You can wear that like skirt thing you got and be all slutty. Plus I met this girl yesterday at the coffee place by the L campus and I think we're gonna..." she gave Y/n a raised eyebrow glare and pointed with her head towards her bed.

"Well first of all, I'm not gonna dress slutty; that's like asking for it. Second of all, T.M.I."

Her roommate scoffed. "It is not asking for it, it's called having confidence and if they take it too far that's on them. I say you wear it."

So that's what Y/n did. She put on that dress she had just bought with the red little cherries printed all over, slid her shoes on after brushing out her hair & sprayed her favorite perfume.

"See, told you." she told her once Y/n had grabbed her phone off her bed and jumped down.

"Yeah see and I even put on those pair of thongs I got too. Look!" Y/n lifted her dress slightly, showing off the dainty piece of material.

She gave her wide eyes before saying, "Don't get pregnant now." as Y/n opened the door.

"Same for you."

When Y/n arrived at the "Alpha Kingdom" she was greeted by the heavy smell of beer and blaring music from outside the front door.

As she entered, she made her way to the kitchen where her and Grayson's altercation took place to grab a red solo cup and fill it with punch.

Just before placing the ladle back into the bowl though, someone was grabbing her arm and dragging her with her cup to a secluded area away from everyone else.

She met his eyes with confusion laced in them.

"Ethan, what the fuck man! You made me spill my drink everywhere!" she told him, looking down at her arm as the red colored drink slightly stained her skin.

"Shh!" he told her, gently placing a hand over her mouth before she stuck her tongue out to retract his fingers.

"What do you want." she was shaking the drink off her while putting the cup in her opposite hand.

"Does Grayson know you're here?"

Her brows were furrowed, and she gave him a look that simply answered his question.

"Why-"

"Just come with me." his hand was gently wrapped around her wrist, now taking her out back where at least a hundred people were scattered about.

"What are you doing? And let go of my hand!" she pulled her wrist away from him harshly and placed both of her hands around her cup.

"Fuck! Where'd he go?! Fuck." Ethan muttered to himself.

"E, what's going on?" now Y/n had a worried pitch in her voice, watching Ethan's eyes as he scanned over the back yard desperately looking for his twin brother.

"This guy. He wants to fuck Grayson up or something." he was running his hands though his hair, looking a frantic mess and acting like he was having a bad trip.

"Are you high?" she asked, quickly watching him snap at her.

"No Y/n I'm not fucking high! I don't want someone to beat the living shit out of Grayson, okay?"

"Have you seen him? He's huge. Plus, why would anyone wanna beat-"

"Because of you okay! Some shit went around that you were with this guy and you cancelled to come hook up with Gray. Now he's pressed and is probably gonna kill us both."

"Wait— who? Who said that? Ethan?"

His head along with almost a hundred others spun around when a loud "Dolan!" was called out from the deck above us.

"Fuck me." he said under his breath.

Bryson made his way down, taking the steps two at a time and skipping the last three to land hard on the grass with his heavy work boots.

"Hey Y/n." he spoke, vial in his tone and liquor on his breath.

Y/n and Ethan stood there both in shock. For two different reasons. Ethan was shitting himself, thinking this was how he was gonna die because he hates conflict; and Y/n thought back to the last three hours catching up to her wondering why she came over in the first place.

"So, this the guy you came to fuck tonight? Because it's certainly not me." a chuckle escaped his lips as he took a few steps closer and now having everyone's attention.

"Look man, we don't wanna start anything. I'm sure whatever's going on can be resolved peacefully, alright?"

Bryson took one look at Ethan before retracting his eyes back to her.

The crowd was starting to form around them and soon peoples phones were pulled out filming every second.

"What do you want, Bryson." It wasn't a question, but a statement.

"I just came for the show. You know."

Y/n scoffed at him, brushing the hair away from her face.

He took a deep breath in, now interacting with the crowd that was formed and made eye contact with a few people.

"Y/n can be kind of a slut—" the ooh's and small gasps got him willed up, so he continued. "Don't get me wrong, girls who dress slutty and act it in the bedroom is hot... but when you go to a study session and she begs to suck your dick in the library; see, that's I guess that's just the price you pay when you go to school with the Y/n Y/l/n."

"Dude—" Ethan tried stepping in now, getting in front of Y/n and looking Bryson dead in the eyes. "Don't be a fucking dick."

"Don't act like I'm wrong. Well all know she's a slut! Just look at her!"

Everyone's eyes were shifted upward, looking past Bryson to see Grayson standing by himself in a white plane T-shirt with a green olive jacket on top some jeans.

His tall shadow was standing behind Bryson, causing him to turn around and now face him but he couldn't even get a single word out before Grayson took his balled up fist and forced it against his jaw.

In seconds he and Grayson both were on the floor while Bryson took multiple punches to his face as Y/n's screams for him to stop muffled out.

How dare he say something like that about Y/n? How could he say that to her when she's such an angel? Did she really do that in the library?

The questions were sprinting around in Grayson's head as he took punch after punch to Bryson before the ringing in his ears faded away.

"Grayson! Stop, please!" Y/n's desperate scratchy screams were loud enough to where he looked up at her only for him to be pressed up against the grass.

Bryson was punching Grayson now, and with all his 175 pounds on him, Ethan and some random guy was holding him up and had his arms behind his back.

Grayson stood— only with a bloody nose, split lip, some some small bruising around his eye and both of their blood on his knuckles.

He spit blood out onto the grass, looking around into the crowd —including Y/n— and walked inside while shaking his hands as if they were wet.

Back in the kitchen, Grayson had placed the frozen carrots on his hand and let his head fall between his shoulders over the sink.

He felt her presence approaching, the familiar smell she carried around with her everywhere. "What the fuck was that about Grayson!" she screamed, stomping in the room with her eyes staring at him hard.

"Nothing Kid." his jaw was clenching. He was about to explode again.

"Nothing?! That was nothing!" she was already gone. God, why did she even come in the first place?

"I told you to go home." his eyes were digging into her and he placed his finger to his lip to wipe the blood away before he disappeared up the stairs.

Y/n was about to be death of him.

"You can't just ignore me!" Y/n said while banging on Graysons bedroom door after repeatedly trying to turn the nob.

Inside the four walls Grayson had trapped himself in, he was alone with his thoughts and Y/n desperate to come in and give him company.

Then there were four knocks on his door. The same four knocks they did when they wanted to apologize to one another in 8th grade but we're too ashamed to say the words aloud.

It was their only promise they held to this day. Which is one of the only reasons Grayson sighed heavily and opened up the door for her.

He closed the door behind her, now both of them standing in awkward silence.

Y/n's eyes were glued to her feet while Graysons were softly looking at her in all her glory.

As mad as he was, and the fact that he was breathing hard from his nose to subside how much he wanted to finish Bryson off, when his eyes fell on Y/n he was in awe.

He hadn't noticed how nice she was dressed until now. With a soft white dress, curled hair, and her favorite sneakers that didn't quite match. It made him chuckle.

Her eyes were on him. "What?" she asked, placing her arms across her chest.

"Nothing."

"No, what. Now you have to tell me."

Grayson shook his head in disapproval.

"C'mon Blue, I tell you everything!"

Her words stung him like a bee, because she could see his jaw tense up again and walk away from her.

"Just like when you told me you didn't have a boyfriend?"

"So this is what that was about? Because he is and never will be my boyfriend— or anything remotely like that, ever."

"But you still sucked his dick in the library? See, Y/n I don't understand you sometimes. You can be the nicest girl i've known since we were 13, or the complete opposite."

He was inching closer to her now, his vile words building up to protect himself from slipping his biggest secret.

"Why are you being such a dick! So what if I did?! It's none of you're business anyway. You're so protective Grayson... so manipulative and controlling. You spend all you're time worried about me you can take one second to see what you've done. For fucks sake you just beat the living hell out of some kid in your backyard!"

"He was harassing you!"

"He was drunk. And so are you? How much have you had to drink? Huh?!"

"This isn't about me— it's about the fact that—"

"It's about me! Always my fault, isn't it?! It was my fault I got us in trouble in middle and high school, my fault I caused you to almost lose you're scholarship... is it my fault my dad was a drunk and used to beat me?!" she shoved his chest, causing him to stumble backward a little.

"I never said that." he sighed.

"No but you've thought about it. C'mon admit it! You've once thought about how I could have ruined you're big dreams. And now you wouldn't be here now right?" another shove to his chest.

And that's when Grayson is pressing Y/n against his bedroom door, his hands surround her cheeks and her arms fall to her sides only to be gently placed against his torso seconds later.

They were so close. So close just like the time they kissed in the back of the Gymnasium when they were younger. Her lips were the same to him, still holding onto that Mike's Hard Lemonade, but this time it was more fruity due to the punch Y/n had drank.

But to Y/n it was different. It was so different.

She was taken back almost six years to when she took that lemonade from her Dad's outside fridge and got so much shit later that because he found the bottle cap on her dresser.

She never regretted it though. She felt alive, being rebellious, being secretive and her adrenaline pumping through her veins. She haven't felt the same since... until now.

Grayson opened his eyes, slowly pulling apart and watching her eyes flutter open to look up at him.

"Gray..." he was scared of what she might say next.

"You're drunk." her voice was soft, but it still cut into him like butter and he pulled his hands away from her and took a step back to sit on his bed.

"I'm drunk? That's all I am Kid! Because last time I checked I was in love with you." his mouth formed the sentence and spit it out before he even had a chance to think it over in his head.

"Grayson..." Y/n was still against the door, too afraid if she moved he'd have her back where she was.

"Do you realize how long I've liked you for?! Go on ahead I wanna hear what you have to say." the tone in his voice was something she had never heard before.

"I-"

"The first day I met you Y/n! The second I laid my eyes on you I- I- I had this feeling in my stomach- butterflies. That never happens. Ever. And you know what else?"

She stood there with her arms pinned to her side waiting for him to speak again.

"You'd always flirt with me, all the time. Do you remember that? Remember all those times in the library when you'd drag me down an empty hall and hold my hand until class was over? Or after school when we went to the park and you convinced me to write on the playground? I even wrote our initials under the slide!" he took a deep breath in before he stood up and started pacing the room.

"Oh yeah! And the endless times we would skip class to hid in the locker room and take people's locks and switch them around! You did that shit to me all the time Y/n! And I let it happen..."

"It's not like that," her voice was just a whimper compared to his.

"It's not like that?! What is it like then? You fucking led me on all the time for years and I still stuck around because you're Dad was a drunk and I was the only friend you had and I liked you so much it wouldn't even matter if I wanted to leave!"

"And when you kissed me, behind the Gym at our graduation, I went home and looked at rings because I was so delusional that I thought I'd marry you." Grayson's hands came up to ruffle through his hair, and the tears had started to form in his eyes before he could do anything about it.

"Will you please just listen me to me!" she had raised her voice now, her hands talking with her while her eyes locked with his.

"I like you Blue. I just- it's complicated."

"Right. Because you don't like me like that. Right?"

Y/n sighed. Both of them were too fucked up to be having this conversation right now. "No, because I'm fucking scared! Okay?! You're the only man in my life who hasn't treated me like absolute shit and- and what happens if we do this? Then what? I lose you too? Jesus Grayson do you ever think about anything through before you just go on a rampage?"

"Y/n, just shut up." and that's when Grayson's hands were pressed hard against her cheeks, pulling her close enough to feel him through his jeans.

Y/n still didn't know how it had happened, how they had gone from fighting to her being pressed up against his twin-sized bed in his room with him between her legs.

He hovered over her with his hands on either sides of her face while they locked the eye contact with silent consent.

Grayson's hands found Y/n's waist and slide down slowly until both of his hands were holding her legs open.

"Lift your dress Kid." he said, and she could feel his breath against her clothed clit while doing as he said quickly.

His hands rubbed slowly on her smooth thighs while he watched her do as he said before he pulled the dainty, thin piece of fabric Y/n was wearing to the side.

While doing so, Y/n's breathing caught in her throat to the touch of his rather large fingers grazing against her.

She was nervous, but the adrenaline she craved took over and followed every order that was asked of her.

There was another moment of consent, and that small nod was all Grayson needed as his tongue came in contact with Y/n's wet core.

He started off slow, trying to see how long it would take before she was begging for more, asking him: "Please, Blue... please."

The thought of it made him groan as he felt himself grow in his jeans that caused them to fit a bit more tight.

"Oh," Y/n moaned as Grayson made eye contact with her, just to pick up his pace.

He could hear the light taps on his comforter, and so he took it as another sign until she was slightly arching her back due to his work between her sweet folds.

He didn't realize he was burying himself in her until he loosened his grip on her thighs and stopped quickly to get a breath of air.

But Y/n's breathing was a bit harder now, and she croaked out a small "Gray," to beg him to continue.

But that's not what he wanted to hear. Blue.

His right hand let go of her leg, only to reach down and lightly trace along her silky folds to her pearl. "Hm?"

Y/n reached forward a bit at the sudden touch, and he found two of his fingers slowly dancing around her small numb that made her beg.

"Ple... please," she breathed out feeling him between her with a playful look on his face just knowing he'd get her to say it.

"Pleaseeee, what?" he mocked, opening his fingers just slightly to find her small, tight opening.

Grayson's mouth was just near an inch away from her core as he blew cold air into it making Y/n squirm just to have him grip onto her thigh.

"Gray," Y/n had a hard time finishing her train of thought before he had taken the two fingers and slid them into her wetness as they disappeared in her.

She gasped now, gripping onto his bed sheets and pulling her brows together to help keep the moan in.

She could fight it for as long as she could, but if he kept doing this to her, the whole neighborhood would know what they were up to.

Once again Grayson sped up, now moving his fingers in and out of Y/n while also swirling his tongue around her numb before kind of kissing sloppily and mixing the fluids around slightly.

"Fuck," she said, trying for reach for him as he moved her hand away.

"Say it Kid, go on." Grayson continued while he waited, listening to the sound of fingering his best friend.

And there were the magic words. "Blue, please... shit,"

This time Y/n successfully reached up for him, grabbing onto his brown locks and pulling him close to her core and using both hands to hold her still.

Grayson's mouth was open against her, and when he heard her screech as he felt her legs start to shake, he knew he was doing something right.

This continued, and he loved the sounds that he made her make, and he was nearly coming to his breaking point when he heard one last moan and felt the warmth on his chin.

He took a small collection of Y/n with his tongue and pulled her even loser while she whined and breathed heavy, her grip on his hair still strong.

Once she finally let go of Gray, and before he could even say a word to her, she said: "Fuck me Grayson."

#eeswork #grayson dolan #ethan dolan #grayson #dolan twins #grayson dolan imagine #gray

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hopelesshawks · 4 years

Text

Official Accounts Part 20- Rescue

Summary: (y/n) was perfectly happy remaining anonymous, even if her best friends were all pro heroes and she worked under THE Hawks. Handling the technical aspects of hero work from the background suited her just fine, thank you very much. That goes out the window when suddenly her twitter blows up thanks Denki and the famed no. 2 hero is asking her to run his own official twitter as a result

If you don’t want to see Official Accounts content blacklist #hopelessoa

Warning for canon-typical violence, major character injury, and manga spoilers

Masterlist

No one had come rushing down the stairs after Dabi had alerted you a guest had arrived. Nor had Dabi felt inclined to go check who it was, much to your chagrin. “Hmm, seems our little guest is shy. Shall we call whoever they are down?” Dabi asks. You don’t dignify his question with a response and choose only to glare at him. He saunters up to you, placing a warm hand on your waist, but soon warm becomes hot and then hot becomes burning. Literally. You grit your teeth for as long as possible, not wanting to give the deranged man in front of you the satisfaction, but eventually the pain grows too intense and you can’t help but cry out.

Hawks flinches at the sound of you crying out. His heart wants him to rush in there but his head knows better. Hawks is a smart, calculating man. He knows that Dabi is intending to get a rise out of him. He knows that in a one-on-one fight between him and Dabi, the other man has the advantage. He knows that back up is on the way. The kind of back up that will make this a quick and easy job. He knows all this. His commission approved, highly tuned instincts know this. A small, unhelpful voice in the back of his head reminded him that the last time he chose his brain over his heart in regards to you it had cost him your affections. Is that why every single cell in his body is telling him to go in anyway? No. Hawks would wait. Because it was the rational and logical option. It was the option that was least likely to get both of you killed. He could wait the 10-15 minutes max it would take for one of the others to get there. But then you cried out again, and without him consciously deciding to, Hawks was speeding to your location as if his body was moving of its own accord.

The minute he had eyes on Dabi, Hawks lunged forward and slashed at the other man, aiming for the seams between his healthy and scarred skin. He manages a couple hits but Dabi had been anticipating the winged hero so he quickly moved away from you and out of the way. “Ohh I was hoping it’d be you that showed up!” Dabi laughs. “You should’ve left her out of this,” Hawks growls back. His instincts were on fire in a way they’d never been before. Not the refined instincts of the HPSC, drilled into his head since childhood. No these were more primal, more feral, than that. “We both know this isn’t a good match up for you Hawks. What could possibly have driven you to come charging in like this, hm?” Dabi taunts as he unleashes his blue flames in Hawks’ direction. Hawks rolled away as quickly as he could but still winces as he feels some of his feathers get caught in the blaze. “You gonna talk or we gonna fight?” Hawks snarks back before once again diving in to try and close the distance between he and his adversary.

Dabi had chosen his location well. The confined room severely restricted Hawks’ mobility, further disadvantaging him in a fight already not tipped in his favor. To compensate he sent several feathers out to increase the amount of areas Dabi would have to defend. If he had to take the villain down with a thousand tiny cuts instead of a dramatic final slash he would. But Dabi is smart too and so he picked and chose which feathers to ward off and which to let land. As much as Hawks was hanging in there he was literally burning through feathers at an alarming rate and no matter how much he tried to dodge, the tightness of the room pretty much guaranteed he’d take at least a little heat. This was bad. It was really bad. But he couldn’t stop now. So he pressed on and hoped back up would arrive soon.

Your heart had constricted painfully in your chest when you saw Hawks come flying down the stairs. You knew this was not a fight he would likely win. Not alone. Which is why you wasted no time taking advantage of Dabi’s focus being entirely on the winged hero instead of you. Your eyes turned to the chain and handcuffs confining you and you took a deep breath to steady your hands before getting to work. You carefully grab hold of the chain and start pressing it past the raw skin of your wrists to get inside one of the cuffs until you can loop it over your hand. Then, slowly but surely, you’re able to pull it through until you free the handcuffs from the ceiling chain. You immediately begin working the chain connecting the cuffs, trying to line up the links just right to get the tension you need to break them apart. “C’mon, c’mon,” you groan in frustration as your eyes dart between the cuffs and the ongoing fight.

It’s going as poorly as you knew it would. Granted, Hawks is certainly giving a valiant effort. Dabi is cut and bleeding in several places. A few of the staples on his arms and face are even detached. But there is no questioning who is leading. Hawks could barely fly in the confines of the room anyway but now even if he had the space he wouldn’t have the feathers to do so. He’s breathing heavy and there’s already large angry patches of red skin from the burns he’s received. He can’t afford to throw away any more feathers by sending them at Dabi from all angles so the most he can do is duck and weave Dabi’s flames as much as possible to try and get in close and get in an incapacitating hit. Then you see the determined look in his eye, despite the fact he’s fighting a losing battle, and your blood turns to ice in your veins. It’s like watching your mother’s last moments all over again. One lone hero against a force they clearly can’t beat and yet so, so determined to press on. At least back then the tv screen had put distance between you and the struggle. Now you were watching a hero fall in real time.

You watch in horror as Dabi finally gets the hit he was waiting for and Hawks goes careening to the side. You continue to fumble with the cuffs, the tension constantly falling away just before it can break the chain keeping you from helping Hawks. Dabi laughs and it’s a cruel sound as Hawks has no choice but to curl up and cover his head and vital organs from the raging blue flames. Tears are flowing down your face and your vision blurs as you watch Dabi slowly approach the fallen hero before kicking him in the stomach once, twice, three times. The links of the handcuffs catch and once again you begin to bend them in hopes this time the tension will finally break them apart. “What will be left of you if I clip your wings?” Dabi cackles as he reaches for what little is left of the appendages in question. But before he can do anything the cuffs finally snap. Your quirk comes roaring back to the surface and no sooner do you feel it swell within you are you directing every ounce of it at Dabi, your eyes glowing with the power of it. Dabi slams into the back wall and you surge forward to put yourself between him and Hawks, who looks on the verge of passing out. “Well, well, well. He wasn’t kidding when he said your quirk was strong. This makes things interesting,” Dabi smirks as he slowly gets back to his feet. “Really? Because I’m already bored of you,” you fire back before surging forward and wielding your quirk with a ferocity you never had before.

You’re not a trained hero. Technically what you’re doing is illegal, considering you don’t have any kind of hero’s license. None of that matters in this moment though. What Dabi had on you in experience, you compensated for with agility. It isn’t enough to get you a win but it can buy you time as you pray more help is on the way. Your ribs are aching, you’ve acquired several severe burns, and you’re starting to slow down but still you push and for the first time you think you understand why your mother made the choice she did. Suddenly a familiar voice echoes through the room. “DIE!” Bakugo screams as he comes crashing in, tackling Dabi in one explosive move. You don’t stop to see the result, your faith fully in your friend as you rush to where Hawks is lying unconscious on the ground. You wrap one of his arms around your shoulders and do your best to stand, half walking half dragging him out of the room. You don’t look back until you’ve managed to get him outside of the building but even still you can hear the sound of Dabi and Bakugo’s fight.

“Hawks? Hawks! C’mon I need you to wake up. I need you to wake up for me,” you plead as you lay him down on the concrete, kneeling beside him. You pat his face repeatedly until finally you get his eyes to flutter open. “Oh thank god! Are you trying to get yourself killed? Jesus Hawks!” you sigh, already cataloging his various injuries to report to emergency services. “Keigo.” “What?” “My real name. It’s Keigo. You... you can’t use it where someone might hear but you can use it.” His voice sounds so weak you could cry again. “Your eyes are glowing. ‘S beautiful,” he chuckles, reaching a hand up to cup your face before passing back out. “It’s gonna be ok Keigo,” you reply in a hushed voice, although you doubt he hears you. It’s not too long after that you hear the familiar rumble of Chargebolt’s motorcycle as he races to the location, Mirko arriving shortly thereafter. “They’re inside! Hawks needs urgent medical attention,” you tell them before they can ask. Mirko gives a curt nod and rushes into the building, following the sounds of the fight. Chargebolt hesitates as his eyes scan over your various injuries, the tear tracks still evident on your face from when you’d been crying earlier. “I’m fine, Denki. I promise. Just toss me your phone so I can call an ambulance and the cops. Dabi stole mine,” you assure him. He nods and does exactly that before racing in to help Mirko and Bakugo. As you dial the emergency services number your gaze returns to the number two hero. Almost all of his feathers have been burned away, leaving just the nubs of his wings and the immobile feathers at their base. Laying on his back the way he is, someone who didn’t know who he was wouldn’t be able to tell he’s supposed to have wings at all. Your heart aches as you can’t help but think how small he looks without them.

Author’s Note: I wanna give a big shout out to @dutchintheusa on tiktok who is the one I got the hack about escaping hand cuffs chained to the ceiling from that (y/n) uses here and how to escape handcuffs without a Bobby pin. He’s got a bunch of emergency/survival escape techniques as well as general advice to stay safe in a scary world. I would highly recommend checking him out. The fight is heavily inspired by the fight between Hawks and Dabi in the manga and the fact I have repeatedly wished I could insert myself into that room and protect Hawks (hence the spoiler tag). Also I listened to Tantrum by Ashnikko on repeat while writing this if you want an idea of the ~vibe~ of the fighting lmao.

Taglist [open]: @cathy8taffy @katzurras @grumpyfroggies @captaincyberqueen @itskindofafairything @420-uwu @someweirdshitman @oliviasslut @the-adzukibean @main-ruthyruth

#wing hero hawks #hawks x reader #hawks #hawks x y/n #hopelessoa

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thiswasinevitableid · 4 years

Text

Gift (Indruck)

A second fill for @crepuscularlives

16. we didn’t read the invitation that said this party was formal so we’re in our ugly christmas sweaters. SFW

Duck’s fully prepared for Aubrey, and maybe even Mama, to tease him for his Newton family christmas sweater. When he gets to the Lodge to find everyone dressed swanky, he thinks it’s some sort of elaborate prank. He decides to ask Barclay, since he tends to be less invested in pranks than the others.

“Uhhh” Barclay points to a stray invite, “it said formal, see? We thought a change of pace would be fun.”

“Fuck. I just came straight from a family thing, didn’t think it’d matter.”

Barclay pats his shoulder with a warm smile, “Don’t worry about it, man, it’s not like anyone’s gonna toss you out for it.”

Duck grumbles something about not wanting to stick out as he turns, and spies an even uglier sweater across the room. It’s bright green and fire-engine red with, covered in old-school colored bulb christmas lights, blinking like fireflies.

Somehow, it suits Indrid perfectly.

The Sylph waves when we spots Duck, coming over to join him by the drinks table.

“Hello Duck, I’m glad this is the future where you’re here.” He ladles himself a mug from one of the two crockpots of eggnog.

“Howdy, ‘Drid. Glad I ain’t the only one who went for the ugly sweater vibe.”

Indrid cocks his head, “This is the nicest thing I own.”

Duck groans, reaches up to hide behind a hat that isn’t there.

Indrids smile widens, “I’m joking. It was a, ah, what do always call it...ah yes, a goof.”

He laughs, relieved, “Jesus, you got me good.”

“It’s payback for the time you convinced me that squirrels were carnivorous.”

Duck snickers at the memory of Indrid, in his moth form in the woods, eyeing the squirrels warily.

He joins Aubrey, Thacker, and Dani by the fire, and Indrid wanders over to oin them, taking a seat next to Duck when the human scoots over to offer him it. Thacker talks about the library and the regrowing cities, and Indrid’s face turns wistful. Duck suspects only he can see it, Indrid’s glasses showing enough of his eyes from the side to make emotions clearer.

(Indrid always sits across from people. The last few times they’ve met up, he sits next to Duck).

In spite of only some gentle ribbing about his clothes, he keeps picking at the sleeve of the sweater. It’s a little itchy, and he could have worn that nice green shirt with the pine tree tie that he likes. And every time he catches a glimpse of himself in a window, he’s back in space, watching an evil hivemind recreate it’s pattern on a mimic of his sister.

“Is it bothering you a lot?” Indrid murmurs.

“N-no, uh, I, uh, just, fuck, it’s nothin,” He stops talking, flees Indrid’s red stare to refill his cider. He pauses to talk with Kirby and Ned, is looking around the room for a new spot to sit (and for Indrid), only for a tan hand to wave him into a hallway.

“Here, try this.” Indrid ties a discarded gift ribbon around his wrist, and he’s no longer looking down at the wool sweater and jeans. He’s in a deep gray suit, with a green shirt and a silver tie.

“Holy shit. Wait, do I look-”

“-different? No, I left your physical form intact. I can make disguises of different magnitudes. A simple clothing swap is easily done. And I, ah, I did not want you to spend a night with friends lost in frightening memories.”

Duck’s about to thank him when the words sink in.

“There was a future where you told me. I, ah, you’ve mentioned what you saw at Reconciliation before, but not that detail.”

“Wasn’t scared so much as pissed.” Duck glances at his shoes, now well-shined loafers.

“Understandable. And useful; the odds were not in your favor, believe me. But well-timed anger can change the course of fate. Just as choosing mercy--even when others urge for violence--can. Punching me also reset fate rather dramatically.”

“Yeah, sorry about that.”

Indrid’s smile is small, and stunningly fake, “It was for the best. I’m going to get some more nog. Would you like some?”

“Nah, still gotta finish this. But I do wanna try some of that salmon dip.”

“In true bear fashion.” Indrid’s smile turns genuine when Duck snorts and elbows him.

They talk and mingle with their friends, Indrid making frequent returns to the nog bowl. Duck steps outside for air, comes back and spends a moment watching Indrid by the fire. Stern notices him, steps away from an animated conversation with a ghostly Boyd about art forgery to join him.

“Quite the dapper costume change.”

“Thanks. ‘Drid did it for me.”

Stern follows Duck’s gaze, then casually sip his wine, “Have you told him yet?”

“Told, uh, told him what?”

“Duck, you spend more time with him than almost anyone else.”

“Half my friends live on another planet now.”

“And every time you look at him, your smile changes. His does too. According to Barclay, he talks about you like you’re the most fascinating thing on earth. Right, love?” He kisses Barclay’s cheek as the cook joins them.

“Yep.”

There’s a crash as Indrid loses his balance and knocks over a lamp, which Aubrey freezes mid-air.

“Shit, he’s hammered.” Barclay sounds surprised.

“How much rum did you put in the nog?” Duck doesn’t remember the sip he had from Indrid’s cup tasting that strong.

“I made two batches, one with booze and one without. Indrid was drinking the non-spiked one earlier. Wonder when he switched.”

“About the time Duck changed clothes.”

“...How did you not catch us durin the Pine Guard days again?”

Stern smiles, “Barclay can be very distracting when he wants to be. And none of you have ever asked exactly how much I worked out.”

He has a point. As does Barclay when he points out that Indrid should have someone take him home after the party.

When Duck offers him a ride, Indrid chirps excitedly, bonks his forehead on the roof of the car, and climbs in. By the time they get back to the ‘Bago, Duck knows he can’t just leave Indrid here.

“You’re staying?” Indrid bounces on the bed as Duck turns on the space heaters.

“Just ‘til you sober up. I’ll stay out in the main cab so you can sleep.”

Indrid lets out a chirr that intensifies when Duck slips the ribbon from his wrist. It almost sounds perturbed.

“I mean, uh, I can go if you really need me to.”

Indrid shakes his head, barely managing to get his shoes off before burrowing under to covers, “Please stay as long as you want.”

Duck nods, excuses himself to use the bathroom, and comes back to Indrid chirp-snoring into the pillows. He’s such a cute, weird man. Duck will just sit down a second to make sure he doesn’t wake up and need something.

The one small seat is taken up by a binder, which opens when Duck lifts it. Instead of the expected paper avalanche, he finds drawings, each in their own plastic slip. He flips through it as he settles in the chair. Interspersed with the drawings are papers labeled in one or two two words of Sylph, and Duck reverse engineers their likely meanings from the images that follow them. The section with all the plants and animals must be “nature,” the one with parties and state fairs “events.” There’s even a section that’s all elements of winter holidays; the Rockefeller tree with decorations that suggest the 1930s, a menorah in a window, candles on the table of a house that’s seen better days. Towards the back is a section that has to be “friends.” There are one or two people who appear in images with Indrid. Including the kind that make Duck quickly turn the page. The further he gets in that section, the more familiar faces he sees; Barclay, Aubrey, Jake, Ned.

He sees himself, returning from saving the world, battered but alive.

“The odds were not good”

Tucked at the very back of the section, between the final empty pages and the binder, is a folded paper. Curious, Duck opens it.

It’s him. With Indrid. They’re on Indrid’s tiny bed, kissing.

God that looks nice.

Startled by his own thoughts, he tucks the picture back into the binder and sets the whole thing on the floor. Decides one of the paperbacks strewn on the floor is a better way to occupy himself then accidentally finding more personal images.

--------------------------------------------

The world is ending, everything is ripping away into the sky, everything he’s fought for is gone. He failed. He didn’t want a destiny, and he’s failed the fucking thing anyway and it’s all gone and there’s no future for him now but to be torn into ash-

“Duck, Duck wake up”

He jolts, whams his head into the wall of the very intact Winnebago at the edge of the still standing Monongahela while a very alive, now-sober Indrid leans over him.

“Owfuck.”

“Oh, oh no, I’m sorry, you were very clearly having a nightmare and I figured you’d like it to stop.”

“Yeah” He rubs his head, “yeah I did. Thanks. Sorry if I woke you up.”

“Given that in many futures our positions were reversed, I don’t have a lot of room to complain about someone shouting in their sleep.” Indrid sits down on the floor next to the chair, stays silent as Duck coaxes his breathing to even out. A hand hesitates in the air, then touches his arm, rubbing it reassuringly.

No one else saw it. Not even Minerva or Leo, the only people who could understand the horror of seeing a thing unfold with scant chances of stopping it.

Indrid’s hand brush lightly over his own before returning to his arm.

No, not the only people.

“Indrid, can I ask you somethin?”

“Of course.”

“The day we let The Quell through and saved the worlds did you, uh, did you see what woulda happened if Aubrey hadn’t blown the gate apart?”

“Yes.” The reply is quiet.

“Do you, uh, still see it sometimes?”

“Now and then, but I have far more bad timelines in my mind, and more failures in my past, for my nightmares to draw upon than you do. That is half the reason I drank so much tonight. Around the time of the winter solstice, my nightmares increase in frequency and intensity, Sylvain only knows why. Sometimes substances dull that.”

“Oh, ‘Drid.” Duck turns in the chair. Indrid’s gaze stays straight ahead, but his fingers shred a nearby scrap of paper.

“The irony is, I love this time of year on Earth, in spite of the chill. I love the winter holidays, the gathering of warmth and light to hold one over until the spring returns. But my enjoyment of it is dampened by the workings of my powers and mind.”

“Fuck, guess I oughta count myself lucky I only got a few bad visions to remember.” The joke falls flat, and Indrid glances at him.

“That vision is nothing to laugh at. I’m glad you had it all the same, glad you triumphed and survived.”

“Woulda really sucked to accept my destiny only to fail at the last fuckin second.”

He shuts his mouth to stop the next thought from escaping; Indrid doesn’t need to know that he sometimes fears that everything he’s done and wants to do now that fate is no longer hanging a talking sword over his head will somehow be hollow.

“You were so much more than your destiny, Duck Newton. You still are.”

The sincerity, half-obscured in shadow and red lens, is too much. He doesn’t know what to say, or if he should say anything at all.

“Guess, uh, guess you likin the holidays explains that section in the binder.”

“Yes. Wait. Did, ah, did you look through the whole thing?” Fear slips into his voice.

“Uhhuh.”

“Even the, ah, the last page?”

“Yep. Some real beautiful drawin’s in there. Some mighty interestin ones too.”

Indrid nervously taps his fingers together, “Since you are about to ask, that future took place shortly after the cottonwood. You, you came by to apologize for punching me and to tell me you were glad I was alright and, and ask me to stay in Kepler and when I asked why, you did that. Just one little kiss. That’s as far as I got before the timelines changed. It’s, it’s alright, of course, that’s how timelines work, and you did eventually apologize.”

He did, two or three separate times, and each time Indrid brushed it off, insisting it was what needed to be done.

Duck sinks to the floor, turns on his knees to bring them face to face.

“What are you-” Indrid stiffens as Duck gingerly pushes up his glasses. He’s never seen Indrid’s face like this, uncovered but still human, and it takes all the air from his lungs.

“Which eye did I hit?”

Indrid touches the right side of his face. Duck tips forward, balancing his fingers on Indrids thighs, and kisses the corner of his right eye.

“There. Now it’s a real apology.” He whispers in Indrid’s ear, close enough that faint, hopeful chirps reach him. He moves a few inches down and over, lips the barest strip of air away from Indrid’s own.

“You, you don’t have to. Just because something appears in a future doesn’t mean it’s fated to happen.”

“What if I want it to happen?”

Indrid surges forward, cupping Duck’s face. His kisses re feather-light and sweeter than nectar, and Duck wants to drink them down, knows that after this taste he’ll never be full.

“Duck I, h, I want” Indrid clings to him, his words turning to chirps nd clicks, as he’s so overwhelmed by a little kissing.

“Want me to keep, uh, ‘apologizin?”

“So very much.”

“Then take me to bed, darlin.”

The instant they hit the bed Indrid pulls Duck atop him, fingers fawning over his body as he kisses him over and over. When they stop to catch their breath, Duck remembers something,

“‘Drid, what was the other half of the reason you got drunk?”

“A problem of my own making. I did not foresee just how you would look in your suit, and I was trying to avoid an, ah, embarrassing bodily response. Alcohol helps my kind of Sylph in that regard.”

Duck chuckles, nips Indrid’s lower lip, “want me to put it back on?”

“Not just yet.”

“Want me to kiss you ‘til we fall asleep?”

“More than I’ve wanted anything for Christmas in a long time.”

Duck kisses him, keeps teasing their lips together as he murmurs, “then consider me your resent, darlin.”

#indrid cold/duck newton #indruck #winter fills #taz amnesty

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jlf23tumble · 4 years

Note

While we excitedly wait for some amazing new mom Harry fic would you maybe rec some of your favorites that are already out there?

Oh, man, I was born to answer this ask...actually, I've done it before AND I even made a "the signs as mpreg Harry fics" for @vibey-lesbian, but timeless masterposts about Harry Styles as a mom can always stand an update! I legit planned to do this earlier this morning, but work kicked my ass, and I am literally FINALLY free to do it, so let's all get inspired for @momrryfest2020, hmmmm???

I hemmed and hawed about how to sort all these because it can be a little overwhelming, so I think I'm gonna just do rough categories, under the cut!

Canon Canyon: Could it happen this way? You tell me, y/n!!

Little Wonder, @sweariwouldnt. I love that Kim from Modest is a tagged character in this, but all in all, this is sweet and fluffy and so cinematic, that scene with the pills! The abortion discussion!

The Sunshine Stays, quickedween/ @becomeawendybird. I don't know how to describe it, but this fic is a pretty and warm and cozy sweater.

Put It Into Words, orphan_account. Love me a good babymoon, and this features some body worship/praise plus canon a/b/o, which always makes me smile because yeah! Why not!

got a river for a soul, cabinbythesea. DIRTY TALKKKKKKKKKKKK.

Teddy Bear Princess series, noelle1224. I promise you, the entire series is worth a read, but pregnant princess is where shit kicks OFF.

Funkink! Most of these involve dirty talk, roleplay, and happiness

When the Wolves Come Out, @rosemarianthyme. I'm gonna put this down under breeding kink, and maybe that's a stretch because it's not the main focus, but for the love of god, read and enjoy!

Baby Tell Me, @star55. This author has written quite a few amazing parent fics recently, but this one is on the kink side, girl direction, the entire SERIES, geddit!

slow and steady, @cabinbythesea. MORE DIRTY TALK, we love to see it!

I Just Wanna Taste It, @homosociallyyours. I feel like this is 10000000% canon, and I love the entire concept because on one hand, the WS video is all WaTeRmElOn Is PuSsY, but on the other, prego belly vibe, god, the mind of Harry Styles, the levels, the fine lines, if you will.

I May Be Crazy, Don't Mind Me (Say, Boy, Let's Not Talk Too Much), @shapeoflou. This feels so canon, yet it is not: basically, Harry working some pregnancy kink talk into the mix.

Angskink! Most of these involve dirty talk, roleplay, and sadness

Fertile Ground, Blake/ @newleafover. THIS STORY, MY GODDDDD, it's perfection, it's short, it's one of my all-time faves in terms of the emotion and ground covered, just masterfully done, I love that I can reach out and chat with the author about garlic (among other things), like, constantly, do yourself a favor and read every fic they’ve ever written, you won’t regret!

I Want Your Belly, @sulkingroom. Both Melissa and @vondrostes have written some INCREDIBLE Harry/other pregnancy kink fics lately (Terran's zayn/xander/harry, help), but Jesus, this one! Yeah! Adam out there, making dreams come true!

violence of my own touch, 14hrflight/ @silverfoxlouis. Honestly? Anything Chi has written for these two is a must read, but the overall ANGST in this fic, ouchhhhhh.

i cannot reach your heart, HappyPrincess/ @pattern-pals. This fic is a heart-clencher, the dirty talk, the aftermath, and it’s the second part in a series, but the whole thing is worth the read and the tears on two levels.

AUs that feel like real-life AUs, pure romcom vibes only

Answer All Your Wishes, @sadaveniren. I don't know the U this is based on (Tom Fletcher/Giovanna Fletcher, blogging????), but if you want to see pinterest Harry living his best WAG life, here you go!

Falling for me won't be a mistake, @rearviewdreamer. Workaholic doctor Harry Styles let's it all hang loose on vacation, oopsie baby!

You look so beautiful in this light, @hopelesswriter. One of the very few fics that uses mommy as a kink name instead of daddy, and I sure hope there's more to come!

i'll make this feel like home, @zouisclimax. I love that this list features not one (1) but two (2) amazing fics where Harry carries another man’s baby, yet it all works out.

hard to confess, by @hereforlou. THIS FIC, mannnnnnnn, it makes you want to slap some people back into reality, but the way it all unfolds, the dramatic bathtub scene, yeah.

Roses in Bloom series, mybeanieandme and radadusta. Honestly, this is like watching a movie that already exists, and credit to the authors because it feels like it's an AU based on a U, yet I don't think it exists? Is Stevie Nicks at that baby shower? I still need to revisit, but i don't think so, boo.

taste on my tongue (just can't get enough of you), messyjessy08. Yes, I would seriously watch the hallmark/lifetime/logo wherever it ends up movie of new mother omega harry squirting milk in a sexy way.

Time to move on to individual author territory!

ballsdeepinjesus bb: one of my fave authors in this fandom, period, and they produced not one (1) but two (2) related-ish masterpieces

oh baby baby, the reason i breathe is you. God, even just reading the tags makes me smile, Harry and his life plans and how it all works out in a 9k fic, be still my heart.

deep in my heart i know there's only you. The tag about competitive parenting classes? Just know I pictured it during that SNL skit.

Supernope City: another fave author, someone who just knocked it out of the park in this genre, too

Can't Hide It, You Might As Well Embrace It. There are only two (2) Harry Potter AUs that I will read, and this one is one of them!!

Needing You More and More, Let's Give Love a Try. The other fic on this list with the specific trope of "Harry's pregnant with another man's baby, but it doesn't even matter".

Jaerie Junction: I can't even begin to tell you how much I love the way Jaerie gets into pregnancy kink at a level that speaks to my soul, here are JUST A FEW gems!

Next Exit. Gimme that sweet, sweet gotta-pee desperation.

never boring. Lactation kink at a Christmas party? How is this perfection only 2k??

I'm not that other guy. Lactation kink at work?? How is this perfection only 3.6k??

freaks from the internet. GOD, THIS SERIES RUINED ME, SO GOOD (basically, omega Harry has a breast-milk-selling side hustle, and his ex is...intrigued)

I Think You're Already Home. This one was a WIP that I would drop everything to absorb: famous agoraphobic alpha Louis Tomlinson secluded in his home, hiring omega Harry Styles to birth his child? OKAY!

to change how you see and what you believe. The dirty talk! THE ROLEPLAY!! AND THEN IT HAPPENS!!! Plus yoga.

Finally, some epic tales that just ended or are still in progress:

Say Something, @kingsofeverything. LISTEN, I have been this fic's fan since it was a random idea on Lauren's blog, bring on the timestamps! Basic idea is 50YO divorced omega Harry, with three grown daughters, meets 28YO alpha Louis through a heat-help service, and oopsie baby!

little bitty rattle (and all our dreams are comin' true), @itsmiz. The long-prayed-for (by me) sequel to the Sometimes Green and Sometimes Blue universe, pregnant omega Harry (and all kinds of related insecurities)

#fic reg #momrry #gotta cross post!!!#mpreg #mpreg harry #omega harry #GOD FORBID i go back to edit the tags #sorry for the long post

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kenzieam · 5 years

Text

Destroyed - Chapter Seven (Chris X Raen)

Rating: M - ***TRIGGER WARNINGS***

Warnings: Violence, language, drama, angst, mentions of abuse and rape

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@iammarylastar @captstefanbrandt @jewels2876 @moonbeambucky @badassbaker @everythingisoverrated @jeremyrennerfanxxxx123 @oliviastan17 @igothroughphasesalot @sashli @lorilane33 @pinknerdpanda

I KNOW I’M MISSING TAGS, PLEASE LET ME KNOW IF YOU WANT IN

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Okay, so this is the final chapter of Destroyed. I hope you’ve enjoyed the ride.

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Word Count : 7200+

After spending a few restless hours trying to sleep, Chris gave up and headed downstairs to start early. Al came in at his usual time, raised a shaggy brow in question but didn’t comment and for that Chris was grateful. His thoughts and heart were churning enough without vocalizing his turmoil.

Around midmorning, his cell phone started to ring, and Chris looked up from the car he was changing spark plugs on to stare at the screen. He knew who it was, and if he didn’t have a ratchet in his hand to squeeze until the impulse faded, he would have answered it, the misery in his chest no doubt over-flowing into his voice.

Al shuffled by, glanced at the screen then up at Chris. He could see the question in the old man’s eyes, why aren’t you answering the call of the woman you were head over heels for just yesterday? but Al didn’t say anything, save for a flash of sympathy in his rheumy eyes, and that, somehow, was worse.

A minute later the phone rang again and it was even harder for Chris to ignore it, to force his attention back to the car in front of him, his teeth grinding as he stared unseeing at the engine; but his resolve held, by the faintest of threads, and the phone blessedly fell silent again. Chris exhaled in a rush after another minute, not realizing until then that he’d been holding his breath and swallowed hard before focusing back on his task.

A day passed, then two.

On the third, Chris broke.

Three days of silence, three days of thinking and Jesus God, that’s all he’d done is think, his mind a rat in a cage, gnawing on itself in crazy contrasting circles of fuck, I want her so bad and you can’t, remember Erin until he’d thought he was going section eight.

A phone call wouldn’t work, he needed to see Raen, and Al didn’t look surprised when Chris simply dropped the impact wrench in his hand around ten that third day and simply strode to his truck without a word.

His hands shook as Chris shifted into neutral and turned the key off, staring out the windshield at Raen’s house. He couldn’t see the Cruiser, but it might be in the garage. He hesitated before exiting the truck and, when he reached the door, took a deep breath, biting his bottom lip to stop it’s quivering.

He reached out and pulled the storm door open, raising his fist to knock on the solid wood door beyond, but a flash of white caught his eye. A note, folded into the doorjamb, fluttered to the deck by his feet and he stooped to pick it up, his heart jolting when he saw his name printed on the outside.

“Shit,�� he whispered, almost inaudibly, as dread ran cold in his veins. Was this the proverbial Dear John letter? Hands shaking, he unfolded it and began to read, numb feet carrying him unconsciously to a nearby Adirondack chair that groaned under his boneless collapse.

Chris,

You’re right. I need to get things figured out. I know I need to go back and face my past.

Chris felt a jolt of dread. “No,” he muttered as his heart began to pound almost painfully. What are you saying? You’re going back?? Don’t go back, Marshall will kill you! Baby, what are you doing?! Stark fear coiled low in his gut. Whatever he’d been trying to say that night, ‘go back to face your violent ex’ wasn’t it. Raen had been lucky to escape the way she had, if she went back, Marshall would be merciless, he would make sure she never left him again, and a shallow grave would be his perfect solution.

“No, baby… no!” Chris hissed, tears starting to cloud his vision. He was already too late; he’d waited too long. Damn him and his fucking stubborn pride. He should have answered the phone that first day, then he could have stopped her, talked her out of this lunacy. If anything happened to her he’d have no one but himself to blame. His thighs were tensed to launch him from the chair and gasping a deep breath, he forced himself to read further, to not completely lose his shit before he finished the note.

I tried to call you, but you wouldn’t answer, so I’m telling you here instead. Last night, after you left, I saw I had a voicemail message. I was scared to listen to it because the number was from his town and I was afraid Marshall had found me; but this morning I made myself do it. It was the sheriff.

Marshall is dead.

Chris physically jolted in shock, collapsing back into the chair. What the fuck?? Pulse still racing even as relief crashed through him, Chris forced a few calming breaths before continuing, frowning heavily at the note.

He was shot dead by a guy named Lefty Mills after he caught Marshall in bed with his wife three weeks ago. It took the sheriff this long to track me down. I always wondered if Celia Mills was the woman he was seeing, now I know.

I have to go back for a while, all of Marshall’s possessions passed to me and I have to get rid of everything; sell the house.

I dropped my cell while I was packing and broke it, so I’ll wait until I get here before I try calling you again, hopefully you’ll answer, even just to yell at me…. I’m surprised at how much I miss just hearing your voice already.

Please give me time to sort out my head. I hope this trip will be long enough. You’re right, you’ve been hurt too and I’m not the only one who’s suffered at the hands of someone else. I’m sorry I jumped to conclusions with Annette, my willingness to blindly believe her has as much to do with my fucked-up perception of men as it does with the simple fact that I still can’t believe someone like you would be interested in someone like me. I know you don’t like to hear that, but it’s true, at least to me.

I don’t know how long I’ll be gone, but I’ll try calling and I hope you’ll still talk to me.

Raen

The note fell from Chris’ boneless hand as he sagged back in the chair, a riot of emotions racing through him.

Raen left.

But she’s safe, at least from her ex.

I need to hear her voice. I need to tell her we’re okay. That I need her, more than I’ve ever needed or wanted anything in my miserable life.

She’d heard him and she acknowledged his pain. She still suffered from this crazy notion that she was somehow unworthy of him, that he was out of her league but he had time to convince her otherwise, to help her see the truth about herself; she was worthy, of everything good and so was he.

Two more days passed without a word from Raen and Chris was about three breaths away from packing some shit and going to her himself, the fact that he had no idea exactly where no longer an issue, when his cell rang, finally, and he all but dove for it, scrambling over the fender of the truck he was working on, smashing it to his ear with a breathless “hello, Raen?”

“Chris…. Is this a good time?”

“Of course, yeah… how are you? Are you okay?” A thousand different thoughts and words threatened to tumble out of his mouth, concern for her immediate safety, assurance that he understood her, anger that she was so far away right now, and he wasn’t with her.

“I’m fine, Chris. It’s…. I’m fine.”

“Tell me the truth, please?”

Raen sighed. “I can’t believe I ever lived here…. Being gone, having perspective…. What the fuck was I doing here, Chris?”

Chris exhaled into the phone, not able to answer.

“I was stupid-”

“No.” Chris replied sharply. “You didn’t know any better, there’s a difference.” Raen fell silent and Chris struggled to find a safe topic. “Are you having any trouble with the house?”

“No,” Raen answered quietly. “The men around here, they have no problems bloodying their women over supper not being ready on time, but they wouldn’t dream of disturbing a brother’s property. Most everything was still here, and I don’t have the energy to track down what was stolen. I’ve been selling what’s left for cheap or giving it away. I think I have a buyer for the house too.”

“Do you want me…. I mean, can I come down there and help you?”

“No… I mean, yes, I’d love you to be here with me,” Raen corrected herself, lifting Chris’ heart. “But I’m almost done, by the time you got here, I’d be done with all this shit. Besides,” she paused, and Chris could visualize her picking nervously at a cuticle, biting the ragged edge. “I don’t want anyone seeing this… this shithole.”

“I grew up on the wrong side of L.A., doll.” Chris reminded her dryly.

“This is worse.” Raen countered. “Your neighborhood was poor, this town chooses to be ignorant, it’s embarrassing.”

“I miss you.” Chris said suddenly, the words dodging his careful filter.

Raen exhaled tremulously. “I miss you too, and I’m so sorry about-”

“Later,” Chris interrupted gently. “We’ll talk about all that later, okay? When you’re back?”

“Alright,” Raen murmured quietly. “I don’t know… how much longer I’ll be here but… can I call you tomorrow?”

“Baby, of course.” Chris grinned widely, relief flooding his limbs. “I’ll be here.”

“Thank you,” Raen replied, relief evident in her voice. “Can I… can I ask a favor?”

“Yes, doll. Anything.”

“It’s not important, I understand if you can’t-”

“Doll, it’s fine. What?”

Raen sighed before asking tentatively. “I have some plants that need watering… and my mail-”

“No problem, Raen. I got it.” Chris felt a flare of annoyance, hating the town and life Raen left and the fact that she was forced to go back there, even for a little bit. It chipped away at her, steadily and insidiously peeled away the layer of confidence she had been building, turning her back into the scared little mouse that had somehow found the strength to leave before. She asked for his help now as if she was scared, like she didn’t deserve it, as if she expected to be rejected and it burned Chris’ heart. She needed to get out of that poison and fast. “Doll, I…”

“What?” Raen asked gently when he paused, not knowing he was fisting his hand on his thigh, his eyes closed as he tried to keep his voice steady.

“Don’t stay there long. Can’t you wrap up the house sale over the phone? I can hear it in your voice, that place is starting to mess with your head again.”

“I know,” Raen whispered. “I felt it right away… I’m scared here.”

Chris squeezed his fist until the phone trapped in it creaked under the strain. “That’s it, I’m coming down there-”

“No!” Raen blurted, then took a deep breath. “No, Chris, please. Some of these guys… I don’t doubt you could take them, but then you’d be in jail down here and I… I need you. Dammit, I’m so selfish-”

Chris’ heart swelled and he blinked sudden tears. “I need you too. Please don’t stay there long, come back soon.”

“I will, and Chris? Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, baby. I mean it, I’ll do anything for you.” Except let you go. “No, I mean it. Thank you for this, giving me another chance, for respecting my wishes now and staying up there… that’s what’s missing down here, free will. Women down here, they’re servants to their husbands, they have no voice-” she broke off, sniffling hard. “But for some, it’s like a mark of pride, you know? ‘I serve my husband, the man of the house. I’m a good God-fearing Christian woman’ and all that shit. It’s so messed up-” She trailed off and cleared her throat. “I can’t focus on that; I’ve got to wrap this mess up…. I’ll call you tomorrow?”

“I’ll be here, baby.”

“Bye.”

The phone disconnected before Chris could reply, not that he could have forced the words anyway; the forlorn tone in her ‘bye’ bit deep and tears shone again in his eyes as he set the phone down, taking several deep breaths and wiping his face almost angrily before returning to his work. He needed the distraction, and he needed to get ahead because as soon as Raen was back, he was taking time off and pampering her; showing her what she meant to him, what they could have together, what they would have together, if only they could somehow get out of their own way.

The next days dragged, some of the longest of Chris’ life, and he’d had a lot of long, sleepless nights in his life. He found himself spending a lot of time up at the quarry, sitting at the top of the trail, letting the breeze, quiet and view work their magic on his tense muscles and over-wrought mind.

Raen called infrequently, not out of neglect but because of problems with the phone lines. Marshall, apparently, had been rather laissez-faire about bills in the last few months, and all utilities were shut off within a few days of Raen arriving. Only a small number of neighbors actually had long-distance plans and Raen was afraid to ask for favors anyway, so she was forced to go down to the local Piggly Wiggly and stuff endless dimes and quarters into the decrepit payphone there, which was of a rather whimsical nature, refused to transfer collect calls and worked only sporadically anyway.

This did little to relieve Chris’ underlying anxiety, but he refused to add to Raen’s obvious frustrations when she did manage to get through to him. Some of Marshall’s old hunting buddies were giving her a hard time over his possessions, wanting expensive items for cheap or free, sometimes making up stories about verbal agreements over beers where Marshall had ‘promised’ them his outboard, or his shotgun, if ‘shit went south one day’. Who knew, honestly, whether he had said such things, or even meant it if he had. Marshall had talked big when he was drunk, and his noble brotherhood was a shady bunch at the best of times, never missing out on a deal.

Chris burned with anger when Raen told him this, he wished again, for the hundredth time, that he was with her down there to help and his fists balled tightly as he imaged burying them in all these good ol’ boy’s faces.

Raen held her own though, to Chris’ pride and satisfaction. Her time away from the swamp had strengthened her backbone, and the assholes backed down eventually when challenged, showing that their agreements had been entirely opportunistic fiction anyway, their tough guy acts flummoxed by a little woman who’d obviously been corrupted by both the devil and heathen yankees.

Chris was surprised to hear his phone ring early one morning, even more surprised to see Raen’s name on the display. For atmospheric and generally creepy, shit-hole town reasons, the pay phone had only seemed to work when dark was closing in and Raen had never been able to reach him until after supper.

“Raen! You okay?” Chris’ heart was stuttering a nervous tattoo in his chest.

“I’m better than okay, I’m great.” The smile was obvious in her voice and Chris sagged against his counter with a muffled groan. “I’m on my way back.”

“Yeah?” His crooked grin would have made Raen’s heart flip if she’d been there to see it.

“Yes, I got up at the ass-crack of dawn and left. I’m calling from a truck-stop thirty miles down the road.”

“That’s great,” Chris exhaled in relief. “That place… it wasn’t good for you.”

“I know,” Raen murmured in commiseration. “I double-checked with the realtor, I can finish any paperwork over fax or email and Marshall’s friends have picked the place clean.”

“Good, baby. That’s good.” Chris smiled, his body warming with excitement and anticipation. They hadn’t really talked about what had happened yet, as per their agreement, but things just seemed to be falling into place and Chris would eat his left hand before he rocked the boat again, before they’d had a chance to figure things out face to face.

“Yeah, I made some decent money from selling his shit and, with the house selling, I think I’ll be okay for awhile. Maybe be able to look for something away from The Bend.”

“That would be so good, baby.” Chris murmured tenderly, shifting his weight, moving the phone from one ear to the other so he could reach over and pour some coffee into his travel mug. “Its up to you, but you can do so much better than that bar. What about opening a bakery? Your cookies are amazing.”

Raen exhaled into the phone, she still didn’t believe her creations were that good, while Chris seemed prepared to bankroll her entire operation, as long as he got unlimited baked goods in return. “Chris-”

“Just think about it, there’s that building over on tenth that would work. It’s got the space and I know Zeke has some stuff he picked up at that restaurant liquidation auction, you know he can never pass up a ‘deal’, and he would sell them to you-”

“You’ve really thought about this, haven’t you?” Raen teased.

“I have. Baby, that’s all I’ve done lately is think about you and me.” The words slipped out before Chris could stop them and he found he really didn’t want to take them back.

“Yeah?” There was a softness in her voice now.

“Yes. I mean, we still have to talk about what happened,” Chris swallowed. “But… doll, I’ve told you how I feel about you… it’s not a secret.”

“I know, and I hope you know how I feel too.”

“I do,” Chris murmured, wishing Raen was there, so he could wrap his arms around her, feel her lips on his, smell her sweet scent and let it take him away. “I can’t wait to see you again.”

“Me too.” Raen paused, thinking. “I’ll be a few days driving back and I’ll call you when I can…. But I should get going, there’s a trucker eyeballing me from the counter.”

“Raen?”

“Nah, he just wants the phone. I’ll call you later, Chris, okay?”

“Okay, baby. See you soon.”

The next days were a wash, and only with determination did Chris manage to focus on his work, Al eyeing him almost mischievously (or as impish as the old Mainer was capable of being) as he fumbled around, periodically whistling and often finding himself staring off at nothing, his mind once again daydreaming. The old man said nothing though, except to smile, his eyes twinkling merrily, when he caught the Boss off in la-la-land.

On the third day, Chris was practically useless, and it was a good thing he was the boss, or else he’d be fired for such ineptness. Raen had called that morning, saying she would get into town early this afternoon, and after a short nap would come by the shop to meet Chris at closing and from there, they could decide what they wanted to do for the night.

Chris knew what he wanted to do, what he’d wanted to do since he’d first laid eyes on her, and his hunger for Raen had not been dampened by distance or time. And it wasn’t just for the sexual rush, if that was all he was wanting, any of his previous hook-ups would have been satisfactory, what he wanted with Raen was the connection, the sharing and intimacy that making love with another could bring you. Not since Erin had Chris felt any sort of joining with a woman and, while part of him was still wary of giving itself away again, a larger part hummed with delicious anticipation, a yearning not just for Raen’s body but her everything, his total fusion with the woman who’d become the most important thing in existence for him.

His heart soared, and his head crashed into the hood hovering above it, when Al called out suddenly late that afternoon.

“Hey, Miss Raen. It’s been a while, sweetheart.”

Scrambling to wipe his hands on the rag stuffed in his pocket, Chris stood and, suddenly shy, shuffled towards Raen, watching her hug the old man like a treasured friend.

He waited until they parted before biting his lip in sudden nerves as he held his arm out, exhaling in relief when Raen rushed into them, crushing herself to his chest and he bowed around her, nuzzling close and letting the sensation of her back in his arms relax the edgy energy humming through him.

“Hey, baby.” He murmured, burying his face in her hair, drawing a deep breath and letting it out with a faint groan. “I’ve missed you.”

“I’ve missed you,” Raen whispered, her lips tickling the soft skin of his throat and making him shiver. “Are you almost done here?”

Shit, Chris could have been halfway through a rebuild, with six hours of the workday ahead of him, but that didn’t matter right now. “Yeah, let’s go. Al? See you tomorrow.”

“You sure, boss?” Al teased, his eyes sparkling, giving an old man’s congested chuckle when Chris flipped him off. “Take your time, boss. Nothing here that can’t wait a few days.”

Chris shot him a look without any real heat behind it and the old man laughed again. “I’ll lock up!” He called to their retreating backs before turning back to his task, effectively shutting them out of his mind as he began to hum some old jukebox oldie under his breath.

Raen waited while Chris hurried through a shower and emerged, still dripping wet and pulling his t-shirt on over low-slung jeans, to head over to her place. He couldn’t stop himself from reaching for and holding her hand as she drove, shooting her tender smiles whenever their eyes met.

There was a peacefulness in Raen now that hadn’t been there before. With Marshall dead and gone, his leftovers dealt with, Raen had found a measure of closure and serenity. A small part of her still simmered with rage at his treatment, and of his escaping any form of revenge or punishment she could give him, but the more important part was the fact that Raen was free of him, at least physically. The mental and emotion scars would take longer to fade, and may never disappear, but at least she now had this measure of security.

Chris too felt a relief at Marshall’s passing. While he would have loved to, and indeed, had fantasized about, delivering holy hell and vengeance down on the bastard, Chris couldn’t deny the results. Raen was free, in a relatively clean way; no messy arguments or threats, no fights over property and while Chris would have preferred to have been the one to shoot him, to stand over the prick’s body and be the last thing the asshole saw as he damned him to the deepest hell, he couldn’t change it, and to do anything but embrace the results would be foolish.

After a quiet dinner, Chris gently tugged Raen towards the living room and onto the couch, wanting nothing more right now than to snuggle with her and she curled into his side readily. The television played softly but it was merely background noise. Chris’ full attention was directed at Raen, at holding her close to him, nuzzling his face into her hair and murmuring tender words to her. Raen clung to him, gifting him with matching soothing touches and assurances and before long, she was straddling his lap, carding her fingers through his shorn hair, scratching her nails gently along his scalp. Chris let her play with a tender smile, his hands resting on her hips, enjoying her simple attentions with a contentedness not unlike a big, purring jungle cat.

Eventually, his eyes fell shut and he simply existed, lost in her caresses until her fingers tightened mildly on his scalp, tilting his head up slightly. He opened his eyes to find Raen gazing at him intently and his heart sped up at the hunger he saw there. He wet his lips in anticipation, his gaze dropping to her mouth and he couldn’t stop a faint moan, a low sound of surrender deep in his chest when she leaned down, holding his head in place as their mouths finally connected.

Still gripping him, Raen tilted Chris’ head where she wanted it, deepening the kiss, savoring his taste before pulling back slightly, not letting Chris lean forward to follow her and biting her bottom lip playfully when Chris opened his eyes again, his pupils blown and growled almost inaudibly.

“Baby,” he groaned. “Don’t tease me.”

“You want more?” Raen grinned.

“Fuck,” Chris rasped. “You know I do.” His hands tightened on her hips, rolling her core roughly over his cock, groaning with pleasure as Raen gasped.

His eyes hooded, Chris held her gaze as he continued to move her against him, rocking his hips up to meet her, neither able nor willing to hold back the hungry noises rumbling low in his chest. Raen leaned forwards again, an eager lunge, and their kiss was almost brutal, rough and desperate and claiming.

Raen whimpered as they devoured each other, jaws opening wide to let them taste the other fully, their tongues tangling in the sweetest way.

“I want you so bad, baby.” Chris groaned, his inhibitions, the resolution to go slow for Raen burning away like fog hit by sunlight and his face twisted in the most delicious pain, eyes rolling back, when Raen rocked her hips hard and curled her fingers around the back of his head at the same time, pulling his face in to nestle in the soft skin of her cleavage, nails biting in just enough. She inhaled sharply when Chris turned just enough to press his lips to her skin, a caressing, tender touch as he drew in a deep, contented breath.

She didn’t speak, but Raen stood and, holding out her hand to him, pulled Chris to his feet. His heart hammered in his chest, almost painfully, his body tight as bow string in anticipation. Would he finally be able to taste her? Touch her and bury himself deep inside her, feel her come apart around him?

Her lip caught in her teeth again, Raen tugged at him, gently guiding Chris down the hall to her bedroom and, when they reached the end of her bed and she turned around to face him, Chris was right behind her, looming over her, eyes dark and hooded.

His hand reached up to cradle her jaw and he searched her gaze, looking for any sort of hesitation or hint that she wasn’t completely ready.

“You want this, baby? You want me?” He asked, his voice a low growl of barely leashed lust and animal want. If she said no, he would tear himself away, but it would be the worst pain he’d ever felt.

“Yes,” she whispered, and her eyes fluttered shut as Chris crashed his mouth to hers.

He tried to go slow, he wanted to go slow but his hunger was too desperate, his appetite raging and fortunately, Raen seemed similarly affected, her nails scratching at him as she clawed his clothes from his body; her hand pushing his jeans down roughly before she reached in and wrapped around his cock with surprising gentleness. Her grip was tentative, almost unsure, as if all she wanted was to feel him, but had never been allowed to or felt safe enough to reach for a man this way before.

Chris rocked his hips into her hand encouragingly, although her touch was almost too much already, his cock straining in her hand, leaking at the head and a wrecked groan spilled from his lips as she started to stroke him, her smooth palm running up and down his shaft.

His hand ran along her waistband as he pulled and yanked at her leggings and he swallowed her gasp of mingled surprise and pleasure when his fingers finally swept lower, brushing along the outside of her underwear. A possessive growl threatened to spill from Chris as he felt her, already wet for him and his cock twitched heavily in her inexperienced hand. He delved deeper, pushing his fingers between the ribbon edge of her underwear and her hot skin, finding her folds slippery and soaked, her thighs trembling slightly as he stroked her clit.

Throwing off the rest of their restraining clothes, Chris guided Raen down onto the bed, crawling up beside and partially on top of her and capturing her mouth again as his hand stayed between her legs, gently stroking and rubbing, making Raen writhe beneath him, moaning and whimpering. Slowly, he pushed one finger inside her while his thumb stayed on her clit and she shuddered in mounting ecstasy.

“More-” she breathed, barely audible, gasping when Chris moved his hand faster, then added a second finger, stroking an erotic ‘cone-hither’ inside her; his cock straining against her thigh, angry-red and weeping. Christ baby, you’re so fucking tight! His mind groaned, the words trapped behind gritted teeth.

“Chris-” she breathed, eyes finding his. She looked almost afraid, unsure of the tsunami of sensations crashing through her, but the way she clung to him, her nails scratching his back and shoulders, her hips rocking her into his hand showed her mounting desire.

It hit him then, and the realization cut him deep; she’d never experienced a true orgasm before and a rush of masculine triumph, possessive victory at being her first flooded his body, made her responsiveness to him that much sweeter. “Let go, baby. It’s alright, I’ve got you. Just let go and feel it.” Chris whispered, voice rough and threatening to crack with the dizzying emotions swirling around them.

She came apart on his fingers with a whimpering cry, and Chris groaned with her, his body almost crazily affected by her pleasure, his hips rocked involuntarily against her thigh, searching for friction.

As her senses returned, Raen’s eyes opened and she looked into Chris’, the simple appreciation and adoration in them slaying him. In that moment, he would have done anything for her, given up or sacrificed or taken anything in this world, if only to see the tender worship and love shining in hers like it was now. Slowly, holding her gaze, he brought his hand up to his mouth and sucked at his fingers, licking her essence from them. Her taste was indescribable, liquid heaven and he groaned low in his throat, a primal sound as his eyes fluttered shut for a beat.

Raen stared at him with shock and wonder and Chris realized that, when he was able to finally bury his face between her legs, that he would again be her first in something, the first time a man’s mouth had laved love and attention on her most tender flesh.

“So sweet, baby.” He groaned, his world narrowed down to Raen and this bed, and the love being made between them. It was like it was his first time, Raen’s first time, and they were discovering the joys and ecstasies of bodily pleasures together. He captured her mouth, delving inside, let her taste herself on his tongue and swallowed her answering moan, gloried in the way she responded, clawing at him for more, more.

In the years since Erin, Chris had fucked women hundreds of times, but he’d never made love to one. Although he’d been balls-deep in all, he’d not truly been intimate with any.

Now, he broke their kiss, rocking back on his heels and gripped Raen’s thighs, tugging her closer so he could rub his cock through her folds while he watched her expression. He wanted to see and experience every nuance, every subtle flicker in her eyes as he drove inside her; wanted to hear her, see her, taste and feel her come apart around him.

“Chris,” she whispered.

He could hardly drag his mind away to necessary business. “I need-” he groaned as a fresh wave of pleasure surged through him. “A condom, they’re in my-”

“It’s okay.” Raen broke in, her hands trailing up the tender skin of his thighs, scratching along the wiry hair and getting dangerously close to his desperate cock. “You’re clean?” At Chris’ almost frantic nod she smiled, and the warmth and love in her gaze was the greatest thing he’d ever seen. “I am too, and I trust you. I want to feel you.”

“Baby?” Chris groaned, dangerously close to losing the battle with his desperate body as he stretched over her, resting his forearms on either side of her head, her thighs clasped around his hips. “But you could get pregnant again-” The thought of Raen carrying his baby, round with his child, of spilling his seed deep inside her so it would take root and grow didn’t scare him the way the thought had with previous women; he realized he wanted that, with startling intensity, but not yet; it was too soon, if not for them as a couple, then Raen herself. Not yet, his mind hummed. Not yet but soon, I want that, I want to make you pregnant, doll and be a family, share the product of our love together.

“I’m on the pill,” Raen whispered, almost sounding embarrassed. She didn’t tell him the full reason, that she’d gone to a doctor as soon as she was settled here, all but begged for the prescription so that she’d never again have to worry about someone doing to her what Marshall had done, forcing a baby on her, then brutally stomping it away. But even if she hadn’t been protected, she realized the thought of making a baby with this man was the furthest thing from frightening, Chris had shown, from their very first meeting, that her comfort and safety was the most important thing for him and, as she’d just murmured to him as he hovered over, sweating and straining, fighting his body’s desire to make sure she was okay first, she trusted him. “Please, Chris.”

He groaned, long and low in his chest; he could deny her nothing and his body raged to finally feel her. Holding himself steady, he drove into Raen with one long, slow push and the sound that pulled from his body was pure animal need. Raen winced and Chris froze, ready to pull out.

“Raen?”

“No… it’s okay.” Realization made her eyes bright. “It always hurt… before, but with you… it feels good.” Chris gazed down at her, pure love and gratitude shining in his eyes and she reached up to cup his face.

He closed his eyes, leaning into her palm but his eyes opened again as he heard Raen whisper. “Keep going, you feel so good.”

Unbelievable love and tenderness flooded his heart and Chris vowed in that moment to die for this woman, to protect and cherish and love her with everything he had and would ever be. He was hers, forever.

He’d not been bare, breathtakingly raw, inside a woman since Erin, but not even that compared to the sensations crashing through him now, made him weak and vulnerable as a teenage boy experiencing his first time. Raen’s walls squeezed around him and he gritted his teeth, freezing in place until he could control himself again. There was no way in hell he was coming before Raen did. Slowly, he started to move, small thrusts at first growing deeper and harder as her body accepted him and Raen’s legs locked around him like a vice, her nails scratching up his back.

“Chris! Oh god, I don’t-”

Had the prick Marshall done anything right? Had Raen truly never felt how pleasurable it could be between lovers? Chris cradled Raen’s cheek, gazing into her eyes as he moved above her, the muscles in his back flexing and relaxing with each thrust.

“I got you, baby.” He murmured. “I won’t let you go.”

“Chris-” she gasped. “I don’t, it’s never-”

“Feel it, doll. Let go, come for me-” his words devolved into an animal groan as Raen convulsed around him, letting go with a sharp cry and it was suddenly too much, the intimacy, the closeness, the absolute trust Raen was giving him, allowing him to be with her like this when she had no reason to believe what happened between lovers was anything but pain and hurt and he surrendered with a roar, body shuddering as his own release crashed over him like a tidal wave, stronger than he could ever remember.

Absolute, all-consuming ecstasy rocketed through his veins, the throbbing of his cock almost painful as thick ropes of his seed pulsing deep into her, filling her and seeping back out to coat where they joined. It was long moments before Chris was cognizant again, collapsed over Raen and panting heavily into the curve where her neck met her shoulder. Raen’s fingers trailed burning trails up and down Chris’ raw back, her thighs still trembling around his hips as he lifted his head to gaze down at her.

A small, tentative smile tugged at her lips, growing into a full-on grin when Chris smiled back down at her, both still breathing heavily. Bumping her nose with his, he tipped her head back just a bit and claimed her lips again, slicking his tongue inside her mouth with a groan. Pulling away from her mouth, he trailed his nose gently along her cheek and jawline, peppering tender, sucking kisses along her skin, hissing when she tightened around him, still deep inside her, then tucked his head into the space of her other shoulder, inhaling her scent deep. Not since Erin had he allowed himself to be tender like this after sex, permitted himself these gentle vulnerabilities and affections, he usually rolled off and away, lit a cigarette or stood up and dressed, ready to leave, but he’d simply not wanted to stay like this until now. He couldn’t press close enough, he couldn’t be loving enough, the human body simply wasn’t capable of expressing the level of devotion and love he was feeling right now, but he could try.

“Chris,” Raen murmured, turning her head to whisper against his temple. She clung to him just as tightly as he was to her and there were heart-breaking tears in her voice that made Chris raise his head in concern, gaze tenderly down at her while he cradled her jaw and ran his thumb along her bottom lip. Had he hurt her? Had his intensity, his hunger for her been too much?

His eyes bored into hers, searching, and although there were tears turning her lilac-grey eyes into shimmering jewels, there was no sadness in their depths. Her lips trembled slightly as she smiled up at him and he kissed her again before resting his forehead to hers and closing his eyes.

The words came freely to him then, they didn’t burn as they left his mouth, didn’t promise retribution for giving himself away again, when the last time had gone so spectacularly to shit.

“I love you, Raen.”

ONE YEAR LATER

“I’ll get it.” Chris called, setting down the bag of groceries and dashing to the ringing phone. Behind him, Raen moved further into the backyard, setting down their new puppy, a gangly mixed breed of dubious parentage, to race around, yipping happily.

“Hello?” He panted, slightly out of breath from the sprint. He and Raen had just been outside after he’d picked her up from the new bakery she’d opened a few months ago, a bakery that was exploding in popularity, just as Chris had predicted, based on Raen’s skill; and the kisses they’d been indulging in, pressed against Raen’s vehicle had not been helping his oxygen levels.

“Chris?”

He froze, feeling like he’d been kicked in the guts. “Erin?”

“I… I got your letter.”

Chris cleared his throat, standing stiffly beside the counter. “It was a suggestion… a way to put my past to rest, writing letters.”

“You forgive me.” It was half a statement, half a tremulous question.

Chris exhaled heavily. “Yes, I do. I’m letting go of all of that. I’ve moved on, Erin.” He paused, not entirely sure he wanted to ask. “What about you, how have you been?”

“I’m okay.”

“You quit the drinking? The drugs?”

Her hesitation answered him, and Chris felt a surprising wave of sympathy.

“Chris, I know you didn’t believe me then, but it’s still true. I’m so sorry, about what happened.”

He closed his eyes, pinched the bridge of his nose. “It’s all in the past, Erin… but thank you.”

“You have a girlfriend?”

“I do.” Chris replied stiffly.

“Are you happy with her?”

“Erin, I was happy with you.” Stunned silence met his declaration but he forged ahead. “With Raen, I’m beyond words. She’s my moon and stars, she’s my everything and I’ll never understand why she ever even looked my way.”

A long pause and shaky exhale. “She’s lucky to have you.”

“No, I’m lucky to have her.”

Erin exhaled, a little less than steadily. “That’s… good, Chris. I’m happy for you.”

“Thank you.” He took a deep breath. “Have a good life, Erin; but I don’t think you should call here again.”

A sniffle. “Really?”

“Yeah. We’re done, Erin. I have a new life, a better life now.”

“Okay… good-bye then.” She whispered.

“Good-bye, Erin.” Chris set the phone down and exhaled heavily. After a beat, he turned to tackle the groceries and startled slightly. “Raen, baby. I didn’t hear you come in.”

“That was Erin?” Raen asked quietly, standing in the doorframe, her lilac-grey eyes darker somehow.

“Yes…. What did you hear?”

Raen bit her lip, then smiled faintly. “Everything after ‘I was happy with you’.” She stepped closer, stopping within a foot of Chris and gazed up at him. “You mean it, what you said?”

“Of course I do… Raen, and I’ll never understand why you gave me the chance.”

“Don’t,” Raen whispered, reaching up to cup the back of his head, drawing him down for a tender kiss. She pulled back just enough to rest her forehead to his and they just stood there for a few heartbeats, sharing the same air, letting the other calm and soothe them.

“And just think,” Raen whispered, pecking Chris’ scruffy chin. “In two and half weeks, I’ll be Mrs. Chris King.”

Chris’ eyes opened, locking on hers and his heart sang. “You will. And…” Chris let his hand trail down to rest tenderly but protectively on the gentle swelling in Raen’s lower abdomen. “In less than five months, we get to meet our little girl.”

“I can’t wait.” Raen murmured, her voice cracking. Her hand covered Chris’ and she snuggled closer, burrowing her face against his chest. “I love you, Chris.”

Chris pressed a kiss to the top of her head and rested his cheek to her hair as he wrapped his arms tightly around her. For a kid from the wrong side of L.A., for a man who’d nearly died for lies and deceit, then spent the next five years lost in darkness and pain, he’d done alright.

“I love you too, Raen. Forever.”

#bucky #bucky barnes #bucky barnes fanfic #bucky barnes fanfiction #au bucky barnes #sebastian stan #destroyer chris #destroyed #chris and raen #destroyer chris fanfiction #destroyer chris fanfic #chris x raen #destroyer chris romance #destroyer chris angst #destroyer chris drama

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justreadingfics · 6 years

Text

Looking For a Heartbeat (7/?)

Pairing: Bucky Barnes X Reader

Series Summary: You and Bucky used to be in a relationship. Feelings were hurt, you left. It’s been two years and you’re back. You both will handle the reunion well, won’t you?

Chapter Summary: The day after the rooftop.

Word Count: 2.3K

Warnings for this chapter: angst, cursing, canon physical violence, actions that could be interpreted as suicidal thoughts.

A/N: Thanks @nedthegay for helping me with this chapter! Please, let me know what you all think. Links are ruining posts, so you can find the the masterlist link on my description.

Steve has his full Captain mode on, pointing and explaining the strategies for next mission. The details of the it mimicked in the 3D holograms hovering over the round table. Something about alien guns and dealers based on an abandoned construction site. Bucky couldn’t tell exactly. Always the same old shit. Whatever Steve’s says falls on deaf ears. His thoughts are somewhere else. Or better, someone else...

His attention is fastened on the vacant seat between Nat and Tony. As far as he remembers, you were never one to be late for briefings, especially the ones right before missions. The team should be those Natasha and Tony, alongside Steve, himself and you, but it’s been at least 20 minutes and you haven’t shown up yet.

Drifting off to the last night events he can’t believe he let that happen. When you got to the roof he thought that maybe that would be the opportunity to finally talk to you, come clean to whatever there might still lingering between you two. But like the damn coward he is, he chickened out, only for two seconds later, to fuck your brains out against the wall.

Jesus… he swears he can still taste you in his tongue, feel your velvet touch around him, the softness of your lips against his… He has no idea what came to his mind. He wasn’t really thinking. All he felt was the desperate need for you, like an addict who finally gets a taste of their drug of choice after a long time of abstinence.

Now, after the relapse, he has to deal with the hangover.

He had had no self-restraint. He was so fucking harsh on you…and you let him. He had you bare and vulnerable under his demanding touch and you let him do whatever he pleased, giving yourself fully to him, driving him fucking crazy.

You don't deserve this… the way he's been treating you ever since you came back. No matter what happened two years ago, you're not to blame for his own insecurities. You’re not to blame for how unstable he becomes when it comes to you. It's all on him.

Regret weighs on him over the way he left you there, wrecked and alone. But why the hell did you have to go and tell him you loved him? The moment he heard you saying that, holding him between your arms, sounding so fucking sincere… his heart thundered and swelled inside his chest, begging his dazed mind to believe you, to give himself to you the same way you had just done. But in his head, the reality of what you were saying mingled with flashes of the complete abandon he felt when he realized you were gone, and then him begging you to hear those same three words years ago that day in London. If that's the truth, if you truly love him, why did you run from him the way you did?

The sound of opening doors in front of him takes him out of his own thoughts.

“Hey, hey. Look who finally decided to grace us with her Director of SHIELD’s ass,” Tony exclaims, giving you a teasing smile.

As you walk to Tony with a tired smile and bend down to put your arms around him, Bucky can’t avert his stare from the dark circles around your eyes, which you clearly have tried to conceal with makeup. His stomach flips with shame, replaying in his head the way he left you the night before.

“How the hell did you manage to keep Pepper in a thousand years long honeymoon, old man?” You pat Tony’s shoulder wearing a smile that doesn’t reach your eyes by a long shot.

“Oh honey, I could tell you how, but Cap here would choke on his own guts, and you don’t want me to break America’s favorite toy soldier, do you?”

Nat and you chuckle and, as Steve rolls his eyes and opens his mouth to respond, Tony adds, “By the way, I heard last night was girls night, huh? A wild one, sugar?” He winks after giving you a once over.

As Bucky’s eyes widen, your hand flies to cover your neck in a clearly unconscious act and embarrassment etches in your face, which you quickly try to hide with tight lips.

“Ok, ok. Enough with the chit chat. Sit down, Y/N, I don’t have all day for this shit.”

Bucky thank the Gods for Natasha Alianovna Romanoff. Always saying the right thing at the right time.

Answering Tony’s grimace at her with a similar one, Nat pulls the chair beside her and in front of Bucky for you to sit, which you promptly do, delicately running your hand over your neck and not even once glancing at Bucky, switching your attention to Steve, instead, who pick up from where he’s left off.

His fists clench under the table, gripping the jeans over his thighs. The embarrassment you’ve shown at Tony’s comment feels like a punch in his guts. He’s disgusted at himself. He’s been that rough, if not rougher, with you during sex before, but this is completely different. Before, there was solely lust, desire and love behind his possessive, demanding actions. Last night there was desperation and even a twisted wish to somehow provoke harm, like some sort of retaliation… He feels like shit, like he’s taken advantage of you, like he’s truly hurt you. And hasn’t he done exactly that?

He’s a goddamn moron, that’s what he is. Fucking you like he did, instead of acting like a grown ass man and talking to you like Anna had told him to…

Anna...

Is what you said the truth? Is Anna really in love with him? Is he really so blind?

“Are you listening, Bucky?” Steve’s voice is stern.

Bucky blinks and look around, all eyes on him.

Except yours.

“Yeah, yeah, sure.” He lies and nods at Steve, before his eyes seek yours again, only to see your distant gaze fixed on your hands over the table, as your fingers swiftly tug at one another.

“Let’s go, then.” Steve commands, switching off the holograms and leading the way to the jets after everyone promptly got up to follow him.

~~~

Everything happens so fast. The place where you busted the dealers is a construction site, huge and open. The team needed to disperse in order to deal with the unexpectedly large number of hostiles, who were heavily armed with all kinds of alien weaponry and tech.

You face each one of them who dare to cross your path with all you got. You are reckless, and don’t listen to Cap’s orders or anyone else’s words of warning through the coms. If they said there was too many hostiles at a certain spot, there would be; you don’t wait when they tell you to, don’t listen when someone told you need help and can’t do what you’re doing alone. All you see is red. From the enemy’s blood or yours, you can’t tell. This is what you do best, this is you. And right no all you can be is you. And all you can do is fight without anything else in your head and your heart.

You only stop when you finally hear his voice calling your name. He is shouting, calling for you, desperately, pleadingly, angrily. You turn around just in time to witness what happens next.

One of your opponents were right behind him as Bucky runs to you. You’re quick to take the man down with a single perfect shot from your gun, but not quick enough to stop him before he used a blaster to tear a thick piece of concrete from the construction. Your blood freeze as you see it crashing down towards Bucky’s direction. You sprint to him, screaming and calling his name, taking down whatever blurry figures that come between you and him.

You finally remember to breathe again when you finally get to him and see he has somehow managed to block the concrete, but his metal arm is stuck under the heavy block.

“We gotta get you outta here,” you pant, kneeling in front of him and pointlessly trying to move the block.

“It’s worthless, even I can’t move it.” He’s trapped with his side to the floor, holding his machine gun securely against him with his flesh hand, “There’s more coming, you gotta go,”

“Tony, Steve, where are you? Bucky’s stuck, we need you here,” You ignore him, shouting through the comms.

“I’m a little stuck myself, darling, gimme a minute.” The answer comes from Tony.

“I spotted you two, I’m coming over,” Steve replies.

And that’s when a buzzing sound catches both you and Bucky’s attention. You spot the shooter up in the building roof before the small red device attaches to the top of the block trapping his arm. Through the small screen, the countdown started: 15, 14…

“Get the fuck outta here,” Bucky screams and pushes you making you fall backwards.

You ignore the desperation etched on his face and in his voice to favor your own, as you get back up and bolts to the device, trying to pull it out of the rock, to no avail. Some damn alien shit...

10, 9…

“Steve, Tony…”

“Almost there,” Steve shouts back.

“It’s gonna fucking explode. I might be able to take it, you certainly can’t! Get the fuck out of here.” He gestures with his arm for you to go.

“I won’t leave you,” You cry out, still trying to unattach the small explosive.

7, 6…

“You’re gonna die, Y/N.” He desperately begs.

“And do you think I fucking care?” You snap, locking your gaze with his. Silencing him completely.

5, 4…

The ticking of the countdown in the background is all you can hear as you keep staring at each other.

His blue eyes are terrified and his parted lips are speechless.

3, 2…

“Back off.”

Tony’s voice makes you step back as he jumps to the device, easily hooking it off with a blast and tossing it to the sky just before the loud thunder of the explosion booms.

“Do you have a fucking death wish, Y/N? You were gonna blow the fuck up,” Tony yells at you at the same time he pulls the block off of Bucky’s arm.

You don’t answer. Steve, who has just arrived, gives you a concern expression, offering his arm to lift Bucky up who remains astonished and wordless, staring at you.

Terror still haunting his eyes.

~~~

The rides back home from missions are never cheerful. Even in victory, there’s always the regret, the feeling that more could’ve been done, the heavy weight of the casualties, the collateral damage, and the darkness that inevitably came with a fight.

However, you can’t remember ever feeling the way you feel now. The whole team is quiet; each one busy with their own demons, but also trying to digest what had almost just happened to you.

He’s sitting right across from you. You can feel the fire in his eyes burning into you. But you don’t dare to look at him.

The jet lands and you’re the first one to rush out, only nodding when Steve says he wants to see you in his office the next day.

You run to your room, leaving the door unlocked behind you. Breathing heavily, you sit on your bed and stare at the door. He will come, you know this. To scream and yell at you. Call you crazy and reckless. You know what you said and how it sounded. You’re not sure what it really meant for you, though.

But you know he won’t let this one go.

You wait for him.

~~~

It’s hard to contain the tremble on his hands as he rushes past the elevator and hurries over to the stairs, hoping the physical exertion would at least ease down a bit the hurricane inside him.

You were going to die. Right there in front of him. And it seemed like that was all you wanted at that moment. His throat is tight and he feels sick. So utterly sick at the thought. The way you came back, last night, the mission… This is not ok. You’re both a couple of fuck ups and it needs to end.

Right now.

His heart hammers with every step as he climbs up to her floor. He needs to see her, talk to her, listen to her voice.

He needs to calm the fuck down.

Bucky’s rushed pace halts completely when he meets the door in front of him. He takes in a deep breath and runs his hand over his damp locks before bumping his fists to the wood repeatedly.

A few seconds pass before the door opens and startled eyes meet his.

“Bucky?” She takes in his appearance, “Are you ok?”

“Is it true?” he ignores her questions, his eyes frantically analyzing her face, “Is it true that you’re in love with me?”

A small gasp slips Anna’s parted lips and her eyes widen even more while she takes an unconscious step back. He can tell she’s struggling with her mind before her jaw clenches and she straightens up her posture, keeping her gaze on him.

“Yes, it is,” she answers, simply, in a soft, yet full of resolution voice.

Bucky doesn’t even let the words sink in before he crashes his lips on hers.

~~~~

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky x reader #bucky barnes #bucky angst #angst #bucky barnes series #bucky barnes angst #looking for a heartbeat

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makeste · 5 years

Text

BnHA Chapter 224: More Like Slidin’ Go Fuck Yourself

Previously on BnHA: We caught up back to real time and learned that the Shigaraki Squad has been battling Gigantomachia basically nonstop for the past month and a half. Tomura in particular has barely eaten or slept (the others at least got breaks), yet is in an oddly good mood despite having not made much progress. Anyway, Twice got a phone call from Giran’s number, except that it turned out not to be Giran, because we of course know that the Quirk Liberation Army has captured him. Guess what else they’ve done! If you guessed “tortured him for a week and severed five of his fingers and placed them in symbolic locations to send a message to the League,” you guessed right and that’s pretty fucked up that you actually guessed that! So anyway, DetCEO, who apparently goes by “Re-Destro”, bragged to Tomura about how they have 116,516 “liberation warriors” spread throughout the country and have been preparing for this moment for generations. They want to tear down the world and rebuild it as a place where everyone can freely use their quirks. Almost doesn’t sound too bad, until you remember the whole “kidnap, torture, and dismember” thing (and the fact that Re-Destro killed poor Mickey Mouse just a handful of chapters ago). Also they knew Tomura’s exact location somehow, and Re-Destro threatened to sic all of the top heroes on them if they don’t cooperate. He told Tomura to meet them at Deika City in Aichi Prefecture so they can have an epic battle.

Today on BnHA: Re-Destro invites the Shigaraki Squad to a big ol’ murderfest free for all in Aichi prefecture. The squad takes a few minutes to debate the merits of accepting this invitation, with the most pressing arguments in favor being “they kidnapped and tortured our bro Giran” and “they know our location and will sic all of the top heroes on us if we don’t”, while the biggest argument against is the whole “it’s obviously a trap” thing. Ujiko, who’s listening in on the whole thing, warns that he won’t be able to lend them any High Ends for the time being. But Tomura doesn’t seem too concerned, and asks Ujiko to warp them over. His plan is to have Gigantomachia follow them and fuck up the Meta Liberation Army’s day, thus killing two birds with one stone for him. So they head to Deika City, picking up Dabi on the way, and are greeted by none other than fucking Slidin’ Go, who’s apparently evil. Huh. He leads them through the city, which seems mostly abandoned. “Seems” being the operative word, as it turns out the city is occupied by Liberation army cronies, who proceed to greet Tomura and the gang with some friendly violence. Tomura and co. respond in kind, and the focus shifts to Toga, who’s facing off with Kizuki from the Army who has All Might’s eyes and Katsuki’s quirk (a winning combo if I do say so myself). Anyway so now they’re gonna fight.

(As always, all comments not marked with an ETA are my mostly-unspoiled reactions from my first readthrough of this chapter. I’m caught up with the manga now at chapter 226, so any ETAs will reflect that.)

so apparently Re-Destro told Tomura to be at the location within the hour, because Horikoshi has apparently learned his lesson about long, drawn-out arcs. thank you god, thank you jesus

apparently they know the League can warp, so they won’t accept any excuses for them taking their sweet time

and this is super creepy tbh

satellites. why didn’t you think of that, Tomura? here you guys are relying on secret traitors for your intel instead like amateurs

but seriously, it’s so creepy to have people with this capability and have them be the bad guys. imagine what kind of dystopian shit they’d get up to if they actually won?? it wouldn’t be pretty, I can tell you that much

obviously go meet up with them and kick their asses. or, even better, take the gorilla with you

oh my god Twice I love you so much though

Twice you are the Kirishima of villains. Tomura! listen to him! you can be villains who both win and rescue!!

oh my god Toga

TOGA I BELIEVED IN YOU WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS

Twice is passionately saying that if there’s even the slightest chance he’s still alive, they have to go

now Compress is chiming in and pointing out that charging in with no plan is a very bad idea and that Twice always gets “attached” too easily. omg. stfu Compress. so sorry for actually giving a shit, dude

so what does Tomura have to say about all this? villain he may be, but his origin story involves being “rescued” by AFO after being seemingly abandoned by everyone else (or so he believes anyway). are you going to just leave Giran to a fate like that? and then there’s the matter of that satellite tracking you too

oh shit

wow what a fucked up move dude. but effective though

ooh now he’s getting in touch with Ujiko and asking if he was listening in

Ujiko is all “you kids are always on your fancy little ‘radios’“ lol what. Ujiko it’s 2214, cell phones have been around for 250 years. get with the fucking times dude

meanwhile poor Twice is clutching his head and moaning that he’s splitting apart, but only Toga seems to care. ;_; ahh Twice

Compress is getting all hopeful and thinking that they can use the High Ends to battle the Liberation Army

but Ujiko is all “sorry but no”

please stop calling them children you fucking creep omg. do you not even care

so Hijack Noumu’s name was “Hood”, huh? farewell, High Puns Noumu. it’s been fun times but I was seriously running out of things that start with “high”, so I’m gonna latch on to this Hood thing if you don’t mind lol

well we all know AFO being gone is more of a temporary inconvenience (:

lastly, it’s very curious how he says “difficult” as opposed to impossible. please give us the deets of how Noumus are made already Horikoshi. I know I’m gonna regret being so curious but I want to know all the same. open that big ol’ Pandora’s box

Compress is all “well fuck”, but Tomura says that wasn’t his plan anyway. oh?

I bet you he wants to use the recording of AFO’s voice to get Giganto under control

ahhh, yeah, it’s looking that way my dudes

oh my god you guys

fuck me. but just. it’s the first time I’ve ever been struck by a resemblance between the two of them, is all. something about the confidence in his smile. for once he’s not unhinged; he’s perfectly in control of himself and he is a man with a plan, and just. damn. boy you look like your grandma and I’m feeling those Shimura feels though

anyway, so it’s interesting that he’s also getting Dabi to meet up with them. meaning his plan is (for the moment, at least) beyond my comprehension, because I certainly can’t figure out wth he’s thinking right now

and now Spinner’s all “we’re seriously rushing straight in?!” and pointing out that they have no idea what they’re getting into and they’re going up against an army that’s supposedly 110,000 strong

ah, okay, maybe I did figure out his plan after all

okay but then why do you need Dabi

now Ujiko is yelling in his ear “BUT WHAT WILL YOU DO IF IT WAS ALL A BLUFF?!”

and Tomura is all “well then Giganto will fucking die, s’no skin off my back”

Spinner keeps expressing doubts and it’s really starting to look like he may actually switch sides you guys

Tomura is all “don’t make me say it again”

oh good he is fixing Twice up now

... [headpats]

oh Tomura

the good folks of Deika City might want to think about getting the fuck out of Dodge you guys

(ETA: they are all bad folks. you fuckers have only yourselves to blame. have fun being dusted, roasted, compressed, and floated twice over. and Goron pounded. and whatever Spinner fucking does. is it really just the samurai sword. whatever.)

oh look Dabi did join them after all

you guys seeing them act like heroes is so fucking weird though. I know they’re our protags for this arc but still. weird

why did you agree to come?? because you love them you jerk. and you owe Giran as much as anyone

petition to rename this the Villain Feels arc you guys

oh shit

good instincts you guys! good eye, Toga!

OH MY FUCKING --

MOTHERFUCKER!?!?!

so there really was a reason chapter 219 was named after this guy, huh?? he had such a minor role but Horikoshi wanted to make sure we didn’t just immediately forget about him! holy shit. motherfucker did you even return all of those wallets??

holy shitballs this frictionless fuck hugged Katsuki and Shouto and no one suspected a damn thing

AND!!!

as we know, Katsuki was right to call attention to this. but now we know Slidin’ was being intentionally dismissive of the villain’s tech in order to hide Detnerat’s involvement! son of a bitch. that might even have been why he was there in the first place

look at this piece of shit

fuck this guy so hard

oh my fuck

petition to rename this arc the Villain Feels/Stephen King Novel arc

holy shit

well at least we know they’re all expendable. that’s good, considering the League isn’t likely to go out of their way to keep any innocent passerby from dying horribly. run that mission statement by me again one more time, Tomura? “destroy everything?” yeah that’s what I thought you said, thanks

wow and the big bads are here too already!!

if the one on the left (Kizuki, just went back and checked) fights anyone other than Toga I’m gonna lowkey be rooting for her ngl

YOOOO

WHERE DID ALL THESE PEOPLE COME FROM ALL OF A SUDDEN AND HOW QUICKLY WILL DABI BURN THEM ALL TO DEATH, DO YOU THINK

like, okay, so you wanna come at us like that then?? fun! fucking bring it!

holy shit this guy is a politician??

is that what he means by “party”? damn these guys are in the fucking government and everything

government, big business, satellites... look, no pressure here Tomura, but if you don’t win, I’m starting to think we are seriously screwed

anyway so Twice is all “who cares about these guys, where’s Giran?” and I have to admire his focus in the face of... all this

Hanabata is gesturing to the observation tower in the distance and says Giran is “waiting” over there with Re-Destro

and Twice is all outraged because they said they’d return Giran to them when they got there. “you filthy liar.” wow imagine that. bad guys lying about shit

someone or other appears to be watching everything from the nearby security cameras. probably RD. motherfucker

now these two guys are introducing themselves to Tomura because I guess they’d like to be disintegrated today

nice knowing you guys. but not really

hahahahahhaaa

I know it’s fucked up, but they had it coming, and that was some of the stupidest shit anyone in this manga has pulled in a hot minute though

hard not to see an explosion and immediately think of my boy Kacchan! but obviously he’s not there, so what gives??

oh shit

sladkfjalskdfowiehfoksSDLFKJSLDGKHL

okay. okay hold up. gather my thoughts. can’t just keysmash, gotta get my brain back into working order here...!

motherfucker how did I know the girl was gonna fight the other girl. well whatever

THIS BITCH HAS KATSUKI’S QUIRK BUT FROM LONG-DISTANCE?! LIKE PYROKINESIS BUT WITH EXPLOSIONS?! WHAT DO YOU CALL THIS, COMBUSTIKINESIS?? ALSO I KNEW I WAS RIGHT TO LOVE HER FROM THE OUTSET OMG

and on top of that, that gesture with her fingers is giving me strong flashbacks to [S] Cascade from Homestuck

TOGA FAKED HER OWN DEATH TELL ME MORE!?!?

ARE WE GOING TO GET SOME MOTHERFUCKING TOGA FLASHBACKS YOU GUYS I CAN’T. I KNOW I’VE SAID IN THE PAST THAT I DON’T CARE AND WOULDN’T MIND IF SHE JUST STAYS CRAZY WITH NO EXPLANATION BUT THIS IS ALSO GOOD YOU GUYS. I CAN’T LIE, I’M SO FUCKING HYPED RIGHT NOW??

TOGA YOU HAD BETTER FIT THAT FLASHBACK INTO A SINGLE CHAPTER THOUGH BECAUSE THE GOLDEN WEEK BREAK IS ALMOST HERE AND I S2G HORIKOSHI IF YOU PULL ANY BULLSHIT AND LEAVE ME HANGING FOR TWO WHOLE FUCKING WEEKS, I WILL HUNT YOU DOWN MOTHERFUCKER

(ETA: THIS BITCH DOESN’T EVER LISTEN TO ME AND MY EMPTY THREATS. GODDAMMIT.)

oh my god. hype for days. you guys. this is amazing

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jflashandclash · 5 years

Text

Tales From Mount Othrys

The Versatility of a Guitar String

Warning: Depictions of Violence.

***

“Forget your family.”

Flynn’s melody murmured in my dreams like the silkiest spider threads rocking a slumberer’s hammock. “You deserve to enjoy this: the start of your new life. Let yourself forget.”

Her words cradled my mind in a tranquilizing solace. At the time, the only response I could utter was, “What other family? You’re all the family I need.”

--Memoirs of a Talking Head[1]

***

When Jack agreed to tear down the gods, he didn’t think it would involve him snorkeling in a toilet.

It did.

Jack thrashed and twisted, barely getting a gulp of air before being submerged again. His orange converses squeaked uselessly against the bathroom’s floor tiles.

The girl shoving his head into the water bowl was much stronger and larger than he, despite being several years younger. Between dunkings, her and her friends’ laughter reverberated off the walls.

This, unfortunately, wasn’t the first time someone had forced Jack to be well acquainted with the most vital part of a restroom. Last time, Ms. Daisy Blackwell, one of the prettiest girls at his church, had taken Jack behind the church after his solo at one of their concerts. She had said she wanted him to sing to her. When Tommy Higgles, her boyfriend, found out that she asked Jack to do more than sing to her, he and his friends cornered Jack in the boys’ bathroom at school.

Last time, Tommy had emptied all of Jack’s medication into the toilet bowl. “That straightening out your memory, freak!” Tom had shouted.

This time, the water was cleaner. Or, at least, it wouldn’t give him an overdose as he choked on it.

Last time, Jack had no idea it was going to happen. Ms. Blackwell had heard Jack “confused” things a lot, and that he was “confused’ about her relations with Tommy. But, afterwards, Ms. Blackwell wouldn’t acknowledge him in public, or that anything had happened between the two of them, like the other boys and girls that had taken an interest in Jack at his small high school.

This time, Luke had warned Jack that it was a Camp Half-Blood hazing ritual, one from which Luke could not spare him. Jack had to either fight off a hulking daughter of Ares or get humiliated.

Despite the warning, Jack felt himself thinking the same thing he had before: I’m going to drown.

The water seeped into his lungs during his squirming. Pressure mounted in his chest. There wasn’t enough time to cough. Panic made his heartbeat thud inside his head. His head smacked into the toilet bowl with each thrash.

The worst difference surfaced as he forced his limbs to stop fighting. Last time, Jack knew he would reach eternal salvation if he died the humiliating death of a toilet warrior. This time, as Jack willed his body to give up, he wondered, Do half-bloods even have souls?

The fingers clenching his hair pulled his head back, stretching his body in a strained arch.

He sputtered and coughed out the water.

Clarisse La Rue’s sneer loomed in his peripheral. “Had enough of a swim?”

At least there was a toilet directly in front of him, so no one would have to clean up the content of his lungs and stomach. That would be rude to any godly janitorial staff. He hacked, unable to talk for a moment.

Clarisse released him.

Jack barely missed cracking his head against the toilet bowl. Blurrily, he searched around, trying to prop himself up on the cool, slick floor.

The laughter echoed around the room. The massive girl stood.

“Why?” Jack finally choked out.

“To show you the pecking order,” Clarisse said. She and her friends got up and left the bathroom stalls.

Jack trembled. The first time he tried to get up, his legs felt like jelly. Finally, he got to his feet and stumbled to the sinks. He turned one on and dunked his head under, reminding himself that he was in control of the water rinsing him off.

The monsters on the Princess Andromeda had been way nicer on his first day. They at least ignored him or said he smelled good.

Someone shook Jack’s shoulder.

He flinched.

“Hey, we’re not really supposed to be in the girl’s bathroom.”

Jack tried to look through the water at his escort: a thirteen-year-old child of Apollo named Ryan. He had tan skin and an athletic build. Once he got Jack’s attention, he crossed his arms and raised his eyebrows.

After a few more moments of feeling the water against the back of his head and his neck, Jack shut the sink off. He let his dripping bangs plaster onto his face and soak his flannel shirt. The top was already drenched. As it turned out, toilet water: not refreshing.

“Why didn’t you help?” Jack asked. To still be there, Ryan must have stood by the entrance the whole time, watching.

Ryan’s expression was skeptical. Like everyone else who had commented on how old Jack was, Ryan seemed disappointed by what he saw. “You think I can put a dent in a child of Ares?”

Jack shrugged. “You could have run to get help.”

“No one is going to help against Clarisse.”

No wonder Luke hates Ares and his children.

Although the room felt warm with the climate control, Jack hugged himself. It took every ounce of control not to tug at his hair and to, instead, dig his fingers deep into his ribs. He promised himself he wouldn’t mess this mission up and that meant acting as normal as possible.

Mission? Quest? Had Kronos called it a quest?

This was the exact time Jack should be asking Ryan questions. Phil and Luke both said Jack was perfect for this type of quest, because he was so unassuming and genuinely curious when asking questions. Charming and harmless, as Ms. Blackwell had teased him.

“Doesn’t that bother you?” Jack asked. “Were you dunked?”

Jack tried to imagine coming in here as a young kid, before he met Flynn and knew Greek monsters were real. He would have thought this was whole place was a cruel prank or a bad dream.

“All new people get dunked,” Ryan said. He looked impatient. “You get over it.”

Jack felt like his tongue was four times too large. That didn’t seem right, but he doubted saying so would get him any points with Ryan.

Only twenty-four hours, Jack reminded himself. Twenty-four hours before Luke, Lucille, Lou Ellen, and I need to get out. You can be normal for twenty-four hours.

He hoped.

Summer solstice was a day away. From what Luke got out of a quick Iris Message and a dream vision with Kronos, some kid named Percy Jackson should be starting some massive war with the gods. Percy should have been be dragged into Tartarus with something called the Master Bolt. Then, this camp wouldn’t be safe. It would crumble into a battlefield between the gods.

“Just remember when Clarisse dunks you that she’ll be killed in the crossfire. I’ll make sure of it,” Luke had said.

Jack didn’t want Clarisse and her friends to be killed in the crossfire. He just wanted her to be less mean. Seeing her in person, the former seemed much more likely.

Ryan sighed. “Come on. Let’s see if you you’re as bad at horseback riding as you are with archery.”

Jack shuffled forward. He guessed Ryan didn’t intend to sound so critical, but no one at camp could believe Jack had survived on his own for so long, being a son of Apollo. Although Phil immediately stated that Jack had been claimed—he hadn’t, whatever ‘claiming’ meant—whispers went around that maybe he was supposed to be in the Aphrodite cabin instead.

“At least he’s good for the girls to look at. Don’t think he’ll do much in the coming war,” he had heard Lee Fletcher, his cabin counselor, muttering when Jack accidentally elbowed Chiron in the chest during their archery lesson.

Jack knew he wouldn’t have survived on his own, but Luke had him under strict orders not to mention Flynn or Luke or anything about Kronos. As for that day, they didn’t know each other, which was a real shame. Jack wanted Luke to show him Thalia’s pine tree.

The rest of the training was similar. Fortunately, his cabin mates—is that what they were called?—and Chiron were too distracted by the fights that kept breaking out between the children of Athena and Jack’s siblings. Something about Poseidon being in the right to take a stand against Zeus? Jack had only recently learned the gods and titans were real. He couldn’t keep the internal bickering straight.

Most people were too distracted and tense to pay Jack much attention for the rest of training, which was a problem. That meant he couldn’t complete his mission either. He hoped Lucille was having more luck in the Aphrodite Cabin and Lou Ellen in the… where had Luke said she’d go?

Luke’s words haunted him. “Either we turn them or we consider them sword fodder. Anyone on the Olympic side will need to die, so you’re doing them a favor if you can show them how corrupt the Olympians are.”

Flynn, Jack’s girlfriend, understood immediately. That’s why Luke had sent her on a mission to a place called New Rome. Luke said that would be too difficult for Jack to tag along.

This quest was a test for Jack, Lucille, and Lou Ellen: a way to prove they were worthy of Kronos’ next world.

Like introducing people to Jesus, Jack mused. He remembered walking through the sterile halls of Botin’s Hill Hospital, how the sick welcomed him inside to hear him sing church songs. Pity he didn’t know any about our savor, Kronos.

Jack frowned. Luke and Phil kept saying he could heal people with his song. But, the sick people didn’t always get better when he sang. Sometimes…

“Jake, right?”

Jack flinched. The Apollo cabin was setting up for the campfire. He’d zoned out, watching as the Hephaestus campers stoked the flames. Everyone else referred to the cabins by numbers, but Jack couldn’t keep those numbers straight, so he tried to catalogue everyone by the few gods he did know.

A friendly, blond nineteen-year-old stood beside him. The familiar scar made Jack grin, despite his feelings of being a failure. He shouldn’t want to talk to Luke. That would mean reporting that he’d had no luck converting any of his siblings, or even seeing if they could be converted down the road. The children of Apollo seemed to love their—his—dad wholeheartedly, though Jack hadn’t gotten any specific person’s story yet.

Luke squeezed Jack’s shoulder. “How’s your first day going? You came in at a rough time.”

Jack knew that Luke had to pretend they’d never met before, but the convincing, detached quality of Luke’s voice was demoralizing, especially with how he got his name wrong.

Jack managed to nod at him. He hadn’t realized that, when he sat down on the log, he’d pulled his knees up and was rocking.

Almost frantic, Jack straightened out his legs and stopped rocking. Normal for one day. Normal for one day. He repeated to himself. Then, he could tell Flynn that he’d done a quest, right? He could show Luke that he’d be worthwhile in his army. Besides, the campfire was all about singing. This is where Jack could shine.

Jack gave Luke a much more confident smile.

“Just keep it together, buddy,” Luke said, his grip on Jack’s shoulder becoming uncomfortable. “I’m sure the rest of your night will be a success—”

Another camper, an Athena boy, raised his voice in middle of a discussion, drowning out Luke. “—maybe because someone needs to keep order in this camp—”

“Oh, can it! You’re still pissy at Poseidon for a rivalry that you won. Get over it! There’s no reason you’d be on Zeus’ side otherwise!” one of Jack’s siblings shouted at the Athena camper.

More shouts broke out. The campfire flickered uncomfortable, dark red. The flames looked too low on the wood to still be lit.

Jack felt like something was about to go wrong, something important.

One of the Ares campers shoved the Athena kid—Malcolm? He stumbled, barely dodging around the fire. He slammed into another camper to keep his balance. And—

The movement was too fast for Jack to dodge, not that he would have thought to.

One of Jack’s siblings toppled backwards.

Pain flared in Jack’s throat, as the kid’s—Will’s?—elbow smashed into Jack’s windpipe. Will hadn’t meant to, he’d been trying to pinwheel to keep his balance—

Jack flopped backwards, clutching at his neck. He coughed. Each breath rasped painfully.

Hands gripped Jack’s shoulders. They dug into his skin, dragging him away from the campfire. Another member of his cabin went to pummel Malcolm, even though the incident hadn’t been Malcolm’s fault.

The yells were jumbled. The bodies crashed into a scuffle—they looked more like a random mob of strangers than cousins and siblings. All Jack could think was, My throat—Dear God—can I still sing?! What if they crushed it? What if they crushed my windpipe?

A more logical part of him said that his windpipe would be fine. He needed a few minutes to recover. That would be it, right? What am I without a voice? That’s my only useful trait. Would Flynn want me anymore?

He wheezed.

Whoever was dragging him pulled him up onto his feet.

The pain lessened, but the panic made Jack clutch at his neck. He tried to talk. His voice came out a squeaky rasp.

He expected Luke to be his savor, to be chastising him for over-dramatics.

The person beside him was a foot too short.

“Come on. We have throat lozenges in the cabin,” Ryan said. He released Jack and started walking back towards the housing.

Jack pointed frantically back to where the campfire had become a battle zone. The Ares and Apollo campers teamed up against Athena. A centaur already stood in the fray, pulling teenagers off each other.

“Chiron will take care of it,” Ryan said, “We plenty outnumber Cabin Six and you’ll be in the way if you stay.” This time, the irritation in Ryan’s voice was unmistakable. “You’re really not cut out for this, are you? You had plenty of time to move.”

Jack trembled. He reminded himself that Ryan, like other kids that had mocked him, was a child of God’s and that all God’s children were…

Something flipped in Jack’s head. They weren’t equal, were they? And God—the gods—didn’t love them equally. Luke said that Percy Jackson—the son of Poseidon that Luke had framed for the thievery of the Master Bolt—that kid could control water. Thalia had been able to shoot lightning. These gods, the Greek gods, didn’t treat them as equal, else Thalia wouldn’t be a pine tree.

By the time Jack got enough of his voice back to talk, they approached the golden exterior of Apollo’s empty cabin. “You seem like such a natural,” Jack said. His voice was raspy, but functional.

A tightness squeezed Jack’s stomach when he examined his little half-brother. Throughout all the training that day, Ryan had excelled.

Ryan sighed. Tension released from his shoulders as he opened the cabin door. He paused. After a moment, Ryan held the door open for Jack. “My mom told me I was a half-blood when I was very little. She knew Apollo was a god, so she set me up with archery lessons as soon as I could pull back a bow. She was a pediatrician and let me play with all of her college text books.” He shrugged. “The other campers think I’ll surpass Chiron with a bow one day, and I’m already a better healer than Will, but I had a head start.”

This is was it! What Jack was supposed to be doing all day! Getting his new cabin mates to open up: about themselves, their feelings about being demigods, their opinions of their parents. For some reason, Jack didn’t feel better about the success. The tightness in his stomach squeezed until he felt his breath going short again. He wanted Ryan to shut up.

“You knew the monsters were real,” Jack said. He hadn’t realized that would be an option. He stepped inside.

“Well, yea, we all did,” Ryan said like it was obvious. The cabin door shut behind them. No one else was around. Ryan walked past the corner stacked with instruments to the medicine cabinet. He withdrew the lozenges and handed them to Jack.

Jack frowned, examining the packaging: ambrosia coated. Even with simple things like pain killers, he always checked ingredients in case they conflicted with his medication. Jack popped one in his mouth and bit down hard.

Everyone knew that you were supposed to suck on lozenges; but, Jack wanted a sharp sensation in his mouth. Cinnamon spiked his taste buds.

Ryan gave Jack a wary look. “Listen, Jack, maybe you’d be better off at home with your mortal family,” he said. “It’s not that we don’t want you here, I just don’t know if this is the safest place for you with this war brewing. Tomorrow, Summer Solstice, this camp might be about to explode, and you’re not really trained for combat yet…”

Ryan looked genuinely concerned. “We can loan you a weapon from the armory. Since you’ve made it so long without any help, I doubt your aura is that strong or ever will be strong enough to attract monsters. It’s not that we don’t want you here—or that Dad doesn’t want you here. I mean, he claimed you. That’s a big deal. It means he loves you and all, but—”

Jack bit down harder on the lozenge, wanting to crush it. He hadn’t been claimed.

“How soon were you claimed?” Jack interrupted. The twisting in his stomach kept getting tighter. He felt like he was on the cusp of something important and that something would make all the tension disappear. It had to do with what Ryan was saying, but he wanted the kid to stop talking.

“As soon as I stepped foot into camp,” Ryan said. He rocked onto his tiptoes, like he was getting impatient to go back outside. His gaze shifted back to the door as though the eye motion could shove Jack back out.

Jack hugged himself. “Apollo… Dad. You speak really highly of him.”

Ryan glanced at the door again, then back at Jack. He sighed, rolling back onto his heels. “Yea… I—I owe Dad. He’s kinda awesome.”

These campers seemed to know so much more about him. How could you say that a Dad you’ve never met was awesome? Had Ryan met him?

At Jack’s silence, Ryan got a sad smile on his face. “I guess I can tell you about it. My mom never fell in love after him. She said it was impossible after she had a full summer with him—”

A one night stand. A one night mistake, Jack remembered his mother assuring Steve about his conception, when Steven got nervous about the guy before him. They thought Jack hadn’t come downstairs for a nighttime snack. His Mom had never held that one night stand against Jack, had she?

“—so I was raised with my cousins like they were my siblings. My older cousin, Cindy, she was diagnosed with leukemia. Mom and I prayed to Apollo every night and I sang to her every night for a week. She… she got better. Way faster than medicine by itself should have allowed—”

The package slipped from Jack’s fingers.

The individually wrapped lozenges scattered across the cabin floor.

“Wow—you okay, dude? You look like you’re about to be sick,” Ryan said. The smile vanished from his face. He knelt down, plucking some lozenges from the ground.

Jack should have apologized. He should have knelt down to help. Normal for one day, echoed in his mind. The thought couldn’t penetrate his other ones. It couldn’t stop his hands from clutching at his hair.

What would it have been like? To grow up with a family that knew what was happening to him, to know he wasn’t crazy. Not to be medicated. Or outcast. No “you’re just confused, sweetie.” No, “All children are equal in the eyes of God.”

In that instance, Jack realized something. People treated life like it was a living thing that chose to be fair or unfair. It wasn’t. It just existed. People were made unequal. They would be treated unequal. These gods, their gods, played favorites.

“Ryan…” Jack whispered, trying not to hyperventilate. “You saved your cousin with your singing. Could you kill someone with your singing?”

His vision had tunneled. All Jack could see was the smaller boy, crouched under the instrument table, gathering a lozenge from a guitar. There were spare strings on the table. When Ryan put his hand on the table for balance, he knocked them to the side.

Then, Jack couldn’t see Ryan.

Shelby was the worst. Her body was sprawled in the middle of the hallway, on top of Charger, their German Sheppard. The other bodies—those Jack could easily pretend weren’t real. But, Shelby, had face-planted in a pool of her own vomit. The bile plastered her black hair around the wooden floor like a drowned victim’s hair splayed into a water halo… She was impossible to ignore. Jack had to carefully edge his way around her and Charger’s bodies, hoping the real one would show up and tell him to stop being silly, and terrified the real one would show up since they might increase his medication.

The day after they found his family, Jack had been too scared to tell Luke and Flynn why he thought their deaths were his fault.

He had been singing in the shower. He was thinking about how angry he was at his family while he sang. Then, they were dead, just like some of the patients at the hospital died as soon as he finished singing to them.

Why could Ryan save people, his loved ones, with his voice, when Jack could kill?

The pressure in Jack’s stomach made him feel like he’d throw up. That tension was wound so tightly, Jack knew it would snap. It was about to snap. He couldn’t stop—

“I guess, in theory,” Ryan said, beginning to rise from under the table, “I’ve never heard of someone—”

There was a loud thwack.

Jack didn’t know he’d cracked Ryan’s skull into the table. Not until the second time he did it. Ryan’s hair felt silky under his fingers. The head under his hand resisted the first time. Not so much the second.

Jack’s heartbeat thudded in his head, deafening. He didn’t hear the noises Ryan made. He didn’t feel Ryan’s head slip from his hands or how Ryan kicked backwards—how Jack’s leg gave out under the kick so Jack was level with the instrument table.

He saw Ryan’s mouth move, to sing to heal or call for help. Some autopilot took over, shut him up. Shut. Him. Up. We’ll make the two of us equal. We’ll play favorites the way that gods do.

A dull ache nagged at Jack’s knee, where he’d collapsed behind his little half-brother. He fumbled for something in the room to gag Ryan. His fingers snatched up something thin, metal, and pliable.

Jack didn’t remember shoving Ryan back to the floor; he must have. The intention was to wrap the guitar cord between Ryan’s teeth. Just to soften Ryan’s screams.

Then the metal cord pinched the skin around Ryan’s neck. The small kid bucked and thrashed. Ryan’s nails dug at metal. Those fingers fumbled backwards, swatting at Jack.

None of his attempts reached Jack. Jack’s knee now pressed into the small of Ryan’s back. The guitar cord was long enough that Jack could pull it taught at such a distance that Ryan couldn’t touch him.

The way Ryan squirmed, Jack’s own screams, the pain in his bruised knee as Jack simultaneously kneed the back of Ryan’s spine while jerking Ryan’s neck backwards: it felt distant, muffled.

Until someone covered Jack’s mouth.

“Be quiet!”

The words brought Jack back into reality. So did the hands that dragged him backwards.

“Holy Hera!” another familiar voice said.

There was a clop of hooves on the wooden floor.

Until that someone removed the hands from his mouth, Jack didn’t realize what he’d been screaming over and over.

Why does Dad love you more?

Ryan wasn’t moving.

Dad couldn’t love him now.

Jack trembled. He stared at his hands. Cuts lined his palms, where he had wrapped the guitar string to anchor them. Bruising would follow. His breath tightened. That tension inside him had snapped. He didn’t have any energy left. No anger. Just a sense of queer calm.

That same autopilot took control. Guilt nagged at his consciousness the same way pain nagged at his knee.

“No,” Jack said, “No—no. I—I’m sorry. I’m so sorry—”

“Shut up,” Luke repeated, slapping Jack upside the head. He sounded terrified.

Jack clutched at his hair. The strands felt slick with sweat. A sob caught his throat. What was happening to him? Had he just—

“Watch it, Luke.” Someone stepped around the two of them. Phil’s furry legs blocked off Jack’s view of Ryan’s body. “Flynn isn’t going to like it if she hears you’ve been smacking around her Jackie-boy. Now, let’s see. It’s been a long time since I needed to sneak a corpse out of a cabin. You sure like to keep me young and spry, don’t you, Jak-Jak?”

Phil’s comment was light.

No answer would come from Jack’s lips, at least, not beyond a whine.

Phil turned towards Jack and knelt down. Those dark eyes glittered with something that made Jack nauseous: compassion. He put a hand on Jack’s shoulder. “Kid, I need you with us. We gotta move fast. Which blanket won’t be missed if we wrap Ryan in it?”

*****

My betatester was very angry at me for the deficit of hugs and happiness for Jak-Jak. Don’t worry. Part II is more lighthearted. Okay, PHiL says it’s more lighthearted, though that guy could probably say that at a wax clown museum.

Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed! Stay tuned next week for the last part of this short! I hope everyone had an awesome Halloween! :D

Footnote:

[1] I’m going to write this one day.

#Tales from Mount Othrys #Percy Jackson and the Olympians #Heroes of Olympus #luke castellan #jack #TFMO #PJO #HOO #fanfiction #Ryan #Will #Phil #Chiron #Malcom #All the characters for less than a second!#clarisse #I want to dress up as character Jack for Halloween....#Lemme go grab some electric base strings...#And a Pax... I'll need a spare Pax handy....

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goodwriterwithbadhabits · 6 years

Text

Flower Road

Masterlist

Here we are attempting to continue writing. I hope you enjoy this one.

Warnings: Injuries, gang shit, blood, violence, swearing

“Again? Jesus, whoever your soulmate is, is a total fucking klutz.” You were not the least bit shocked that your best friend, Lisa, used the small flowers, that were blossoming from your cheek as a greeting.

“Honestly, at least it's Baby's Breath this time and not like when the damn peonies popped out of my leg the other week.” You shrugged. You were used to the flowers by now, having had them blossoming since you were 17. Part of you wanted to believe that your soulmate was just clumsy, but you couldn't think of any way of cutting your cheek in the same way without being either punched or lightly shot.

“Luckily it goes with your dress, are you ready?” Lisa was here to force you into social interaction, aka, come with her to a party hosted by the company she worked for.

“Almost, I need my bag and shoes. Is it cold out?” You asked, letting her into the apartment and going back to your room.

“It's chilly. That fake fur jacket I bought you would look good.” She called as you slid on the gold heels she asked you to wear.

The two of you had met during college a few years prior when you were studying fashion and textiles while she studied dance. When you had graduated YG had swooped in to snag her as a model while you ended up working for another company as a designer. Tonight was some big Gala held by Kwon Jiyong, the CEO of YG and of course Lisa was dragging you with her.

“Let's go, we're gonna be late.” She called as you wrapped your jacket around your shoulders.

“Alright, how do I look?” You asked, pausing in the living room to pose.

“Fantastic, baby. No one's going to be able to take their eyes off you.” She gasped, grabbing your bag for you.

“You have no room to talk.” You noted, poking her side through the large cutout.

“Maybe so, but just do me a favor and text me if you end up leaving early with a hookup?”

“Lalisa Manoban!” You scolded as she scurried out of your apartment. “You little shit.”

Lisa disappeared an hour into the party, so you ended up finding your way to the open bar at the back of the room. You knew your dress had ridden up your thighs a bit as you continued to enjoy your drinks, but the longer you sat, the less you cared. You were halfway through a martini when someone next to you made their presence known.

“Hello there. I'm Hyuk,” He didn't seem intimidating, but maybe you were just drunk. He wore a crisp suit that did nothing to hide his muscular body.

“I'm Y/n. Nice to meet you.” You smiled.

“Beautiful flowers.” He remarked, fingers ghosting over the small bloom, making your skin erupt in goosebumps.

“Thank you, there from my soulmate.” He grinned at you, waving down the bartender for a drink.

“I've never seen you around, do you work for YG?” He inquired, you shook your head.

“Nope, I'm just really close with a few people that work here. So I got invited, but I seem to have lost my date.” You frowned, turning your bar stool to look out at the crowd of party-goers.

“I can be your date.” You turned back to Hyuk, “I mean its a shame someone as exquisite as you would be left on your own.” You felt your cheek burn under his gaze.

“You're too sweet. You're alone too, how come?” He smirked, cocking his head slightly.

“Do I look alone, sweetheart?” He down the rest of his whiskey and cleared his throat. “Dance with me?” You through back the last of your martini before accepting his hand and partially stumbling your way to the dance floor.

It felt like hours passed, moving between drinking at the bar and dancing to your favorite songs. As you paused to breathe, leaning partially on the bar, you looked at Hyuk, really looked at him. His tie was undone and the top two buttons of his shirt were open. To put it gently he was hot. He noticed you staring and looked over at you, smiling.

“See something you like?” He asked.

“Actually yeah, very much so.” He moved closer to you, a hand going to rest on your hip.

“How about we get out of here?” He offered, “Head back to my place?”

“Sounds like a plan.” You grinned. “We need to get my coat and purse though.” He nodded, a smile plastered on his lips as he offered you his arm. As you made your way through the crowd, Lisa spotted you from where she was dancing with another friend of hers. She sent you a confused look as Hyuk ducked into the coatroom to grab your things. You mouthed back that you were leaving and turned back to Hyuk as he came out, not seeing the look of shock that plastered across Lisa's face.

Jiyong was observing the party from the VIP section, a good-sized balcony above the party itself where he and a few others, namely his right-hand men, affectionately known as Big Bang by other mob groups, and Youngbae's dear wife. He leaned on the railing, nursing a scotch and soda, and debating leaving early. He was thankful for makeup and bandages, even as the cut on his cheek stung as he sweats. No one needed to know about his other life, no one that wasn't part of YG, as many of the people below were.

“Jiyong Oppa!” A voice cried. Ji glanced to the side and saw the ginger mop of one of his closer colleagues, Lisa running up the stairs to him.

“VIP members only.” The giant of a security guard stopped her.

“Oppa, please. I think someone is about to be hurt. Someone very dear to me.” She practically begged. Ji nodded, prompting TOP to call for her to be let in. “Thank you Oppa.”

“Explain, quickly.” TOP ordered.

“A friend of mine just left with Bang Hyuk, she's very drunk and-” Before she could continue Ji had turned to her.

“Bang Hyuk was here, and no one told me?” He nearly growled.

“I didn't see him until just before they left.” She bowed her head in shame. When she looked back up at him, he could see the tears in her eyes. “Please help her, she's my closest friend.”

Setting his glass down on the railing, Ji pondered a moment. Looking over at his closest friends, he wondered what it might feel like to lose one of them.

“You should help her.” Hyorin offered. “Perhaps he let something slip.” She shrugged from her place on Youngbae's lap.

“She has a point.” Dae shrugged. “I can go.” He stood, shrugging off his jacket.

“We'll both go. I want out of this party anyway.” Ji sighed. As he too shrugged off his jacket, there was a sharp pain in his side. Lifting up his shirt, he discovered a bunch of Peonies blossoming from his side. Lisa gasped. Ji was used to small injuries, which usually blossomed Baby's Breath, the only other time this had happened was when his soulmate had cut open her arm a few years prior.

“Let's go,” Ji ordered, yanking his shirt back down. “Dae with me, you two, be ready to shut the party down.” He instructed the remaining boys as he moved towards the stairs. “And Lisa, go home, take someone with you, the more the merrier. We'll contact you if we find her.”

“Yes, Oppa.”

The boys made it outside, into the quiet air, but the sound of shouting, alerted them to the side street.

“What good was stabbing her before she answered?” At the voice, both men pulled their handguns from the back of their waistbands. Ji motioned for Dae to get to the other side of the entrance, as they heard footsteps approaching them. “What are you doing? Go get her.” Ji knew that voice, Bang Hyuk.

“What's the point? She'll bleed out before she gets help.” Someone scoffed. The footsteps grew closer and Ji and Dae raised their guns, ready to kill whoever it was. To their shock, a woman in a pale gold dress, came stumbling into their field of vision, clutching her abdomen where a huge red stain was spreading.

“Shit.” Ji gasped as her legs gave out and she fell towards him. He caught her before she could hit the ground, cradling her in his unoccupied arm as he knelt on the ground.

“Fuck it's G Dragon.” Someone yelled Ji looked up, down the alley where Bang Hyuk and a few of his lackeys stood, staring at them. Gun raised, with Dae standing just behind him, Ji silently dared them to make a move, but instead, they turned tail and ran. Dae moved to give chase but stopped when Ji set his gun down.

“What the hell is going on? I heard yelling.” CL, a good friend, and Big Bang associate inquired as she made her way towards them.

“I need you to get the doc, and tell Taeyang and TOP to shut the party down.” Ji ordered, focusing his attention back on the girl in front of him. There, resting along the cheekbone, was a small bloom of Baby's Breath.

Your whole body felt heavy as your brain began to wake up. You usually never got hungover, so the dull throb of pain was new. As you cracked your eyes open, you were greeted with what you could only think to call “not your ceiling.” There was no way in hell you had gotten so drunk you couldn't remember your one nightstand. You tried to sit up but a stabbing pain in your abdomen made your head fall right back onto the pillow. You heard a door creak and turning your head you were greeted to a strange young man.

“You're awake! Thank god, hyung's been worrying his ass off.” He smiled broadly at you. “How are you feeling?”

“I-what happened? Where am I?” You asked. He sighed, smile falling into a frown. Before answering he helped you sit up, resting your back on the fancy headboard and letting you see the room. Which was huge, to say the least.

“I think, it might be best if the boss explains.” He fluffed the pillow and handed you your purse. “All your stuff is still in there. I'll get Ji and bring some food.”

“Okay, thank you, um”

“Daesung, but my friends call me Dae.”

“Thank you, Dae.” He bowed and left the room without another word. Opening your phone you found nearly 50 missed texts from Lisa and your boss, Lisa telling you that Jiyong had told her you'd be staying with him for a few days and the ones from your boss basically just yelling at you for not showing up at work and threatening to fire you. According to your calendar, you had missed an entire day, or at least most of one.

When the door creaked open again, a man with red hair entered, offering you a gummy smile.

“How are you feeling, Y/n?” He asked.

“I've been better, I can't remember what happened.” You confessed as he sat down on the end of the bed, resting his back on the fancy footboard.

“What do you remember from last night?”

“My friend Lalisa took me to the YG party. I was sitting at the bar drinking when this guy came over and started chatting me up. We danced and drank a bit but after that it's fuzzy.” You explained, hand absentmindedly going to play with the flowers on your cheek.

“The man you were with was Bang Hyuk, the leader of a very powerful mafia, that let's just say, doesn't like YG. As far as we know, he thought you had information about Big Bang, and stabbed you.”

“Oh, my poor soulmate, I almost never hurt myself, this is probably quite a shock.” You gasped.

“It's not so bad,” Your eyes shot over to the man, finally seeing the bandage on his cheek. He raised his shirt partially, exposing the Peonies that were blooming on his side. “I forgot our flower was a peony.” He mused. “I'm Kwon Jiyong.”

“You're my soulmate?” You asked quietly.

“It appears so.” He smiled his big gummy smile, which made your heart skip a beat. A knock at the door stopped you before you could say anything and Daesung opened it bearing a small array of fruits and yogurt.

“Doc said nothing too extravagant just yet.” He explained, setting the tray on the bed. “Sorry boss, but it looks like the fancy first date will have to wait.”

“Get out Daesung,” Jiyong ordered, scowling playfully at the younger man.

“Thank you.” You called as he left.

“You were gonna say something before he interrupted.” Jiyong prompted.

“Oh, um. See I've had this suspicion for a while now, about how you keep hurting yourself and-”

“I'm the leader of Big Bang, the mafia.” He blurted.

“Oh, fun, see I was worried you might be a boxer or something from how ridiculous your wounds were.” You joked, laughter from both of you echoed through the room until his phone rang. He answered it and frowned deeply.

“I've got to go, something came up at the company.” He sighed. “I'll be back soon though, and I'll take you home okay?” Stood up from the bed but before he made it to the door you called out;

“Wait. Before you go.” He turned back to you and you motioned for him to come closer. Cupping his face, you placed a soft kiss on the bandage on his cheek. “Thank you for saving me.” You whispered as you pulled away, but before you could get too far, he had captured your lips with his. His lips were mind-numbing and soft, nearly making you forget how to breathe until he pulled back, resting his forehead on yours.

“I'll always save you.” He confessed. Pulling back, smiles were plastered on both of your faces. “But I would text Lisa sooner rather than later. Otherwise, you may have to save me from her wrath.” He joked.

“I will come back soon.” He placed another kiss on your lips before scurrying to the door. “I will.”

#kwon jiyong #kwon jiyong imagines #g dragon scenarios #g dragon imagine #big bang imagine

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wiggly-blue-shite · 5 years

Text

Chapter 18 The Bell Doesn’t Dismiss You (Tedgens)

More slurs, shitty parents, and violence

~~~

He was definitely drunk. Mom was the only one there. I should call her. She probably wouldn't pick up. She's definitely pissed at me. Not that I blame her.

I should go check on her in person. Keith is probably still there. But it's my mom. I need to know she's ok.

I find myself scrounging around the kitchen for something to eat. I feel bad for just leaving like this. He's still asleep and I don't want to wake him just to say bye.

Why is this kitchen so big! I can't find shit. Where the fuck is the cereal. I could just not get breakfast.

"Good morning." Well he's not asleep.

Wow. How do he look that good after just waking up. That's some bullshit.

"Morning." I smile over at him, fully aware that I look like I was just hit by a truck. I don't want to leave without giving him a good explication, but that's a rough conversation.

"Whatcha looking for?" Henry walks closer.

"Something to eat." It's his kitchen he'd know where stuff is.

"Well what do you want to eat?"

Anything? I literally do not care, I'm just hungry.

"I guess cereal." Everyone has cereal right? That seems like a fair request.

Henry opens the drawer next to me. It is filled to the brim with cereal. What kind of Willy Wonka shit is this. Every fucking cereal known to man is in that drawer. What is this house?

"Take your pick." Henry gestures dramatically at the cereals. That adorable dramatic dork.

I guess I'll get some Frosted Flakes. That's always a safe bet. Pretty much zero nutritional value but it's food! Henry grabs a bowl and spoon, and some milk out of the fridge.

"Thank you." I pour out some cereal and eat. The familiar taste of Frosted Flakes, solidly mediocre.

"No problem." He kisses me lightly on the forehead. His lips are so soft, I nearly melt. "I'll be upstairs if you need me."

He exits the kitchen and goes back up the stairs. And I didn't say that I have to leave. Shit. I'll tell him after I finish eating I guess.

Once I finish eating though I can here the shower turn on. I should just go now. I need to check on her. I just don't want to leave Henry.

But mom. I know in my heart that she's fine, but. If anything happened. She's my mom. I need to know that she's ok.

I hear the shower turn off upstairs. I finish up the cereal and put the empty bowl in the sink. I'll just go up there and tell him that I have to leave his awesome weird house, and his warm grasp, to go check on a mother who might not love me for who I am.

She might not love me for who I am. She might not love me anymore. I can accept my father hating me, I haven't seen him and years. He might as well be dead. But Momma... Just because of something as simple as who I'm attracted to. She's my mother.

I have to leave. I'll go say bye to Henry.

I climb up the stairs and into Henry's room. He's standing in the middle of his closet. He seems deep in thought.

"Whatcha looking for?" He startled me this morning, I'm allowed to return the favor.

He starts blushing like craz- he's just wearing a robe. I just walked into his room without even like knocking and making sure THAT HE WAS DRESSED.

Henry makes some flustered sounds.

"Oh sorry I should have knocked." Ok now tell him you have to leave. It's simple. You'll see him at school later.. "So what are you going to wear?"

Nope, that's not at all what I meant to say. You

dumb bitch.

"I-I don't know" Henry stumbles on the words. I definitely should have knocked.

Wow he has a lot of clothes. How does he afford this shit. Like everything is nice.

Henry steps aside, inviting me to help him choose an outfit. I can see why he's having a hard time deciding. His closet could be it's own fucking retail store.

Some checkered jeans catch my eye. Those would look really good on him. Now what else would look good? I have no idea how to choose out of all of these shirts. He'd look good in all of them. That's a nice turtle neck though. Now shoes... ohhh combat boots.

"These pants and this shirt. Combat boots." I pull out the shirt and pants. I gestured to the boots, they're the only combat boots in there but I wanted to be really obvious.

I set the clothes down on his desk. I really hope that it'll look good in him, not that he'd own them if they didn't look good on him.

I leave the room and hop back downstairs. My car clothes aren't very nice. Not that I have really any nice clothes. I throw on the flannel and the jeans. They look the best together out of all my clothes.

What am I still doing he-

Henry runs down the stairs in the outfit I set up for him. Oh wow that turtleneck is tighter than I thought it would be.

"How do I look?" Henry does a little spin. Fuck he's adorable. How is someone that tall, not that he's that much taller than me, have such small person energy.

"You look great."

He really does.

"So do you." Henry winks and walks past me. Mother fucker knows he's adorable, and he's going to use that to kill me. I'm fine with dying like that.

He enters the kitchen. I follow in behind him. He opens a drawer and pulls out a fucking packet of pop tarts. If I had fucking known he had fucking pop tarts.

"What you have pop tarts!" I don't even care that I've already eaten. I am going to fucking inhale some god damn pop tarts. Henry giggles.

"Yup." Henry tosses me a packet of pop tarts. Man it has been so long since I've had these. And they are just as good as I remembered. "Come on we should head to school."

What school? It's like 6:30, school doesn't start till like 8.

"What it's so early." Why the fuck would anyone want to be on campus that early. And I can't go to school now. If I get to school I won't go home.

"Yeah I have a zero period. But I'm sure you could hang out." Of course he has a zero period. Henry looks real awkward. I can tell that he doesn't want me to be alone. That's nice of him, but I can take care of myself.

"No it's fine." Say the thing dumbass, "I should go check in with my mom." Mom is left alone with a definitely drunk Keith, and I'm here. I should have fucking left sooner what am I doing?

"Oh ok yeah." Henry kisses my cheek. I wish I could take him with me, but it's definitely not safe. He'd also be late to his zero period, we can't have Mr. Valedictorian be late.

"See you at school." I wrap my arms around arms waist. This feels right. I kiss him lightly. It's nice to have this little moment of peace.

"See you at school."

We head out the door. I get in my car and drive away from that awesome house and Henry. I can't think about him right now though. There's more important shit going on.

I pull up to my house. Keith's car isn't here. That's a good sign. I done actually know if Mon is home right now. I guess I'm about to find out.

I don't need to fucking knock, it's my house. I walk through the door. All the furniture is thrown about. Shit.

"Mom!" I call out into the house. I honestly don't care if Keith is still here. I want to see him try and step to me. THIS IS MY GOD DAMN HOUSE.

I hear movement from the other room. Well someone's here. That's good. Well, I hope it's good.

My mom bursts through the door of her room. Not a hair on her head is misplaced. She's fine. Oh thank god she's fine.

"I DID NOT RAISE A FAG." She's immediately yelling. "AND HOW FUCKING DARE YOU NOT COME HOME WHEN I TOLD YOU TO."

It's a miracle I didn't come home when I knew this was waiting for me.

"Mom, it was just a little-" I will keep calm. If you fight fire with fire the world would go up in smoke.

"I WILL NOT HAVE A SON WEARING MAKEUP."

"My friend just wanted to-"

"Oh yes let's talk about your friend. The one in the picture right?" She stopped talking but this sickly sweet tone is so much worse. "You were on that boys bed."

Jesus Christ. I don't even... What am I supposed to do? How the fuck can I respond?

"What does it matter?" I will never understand where they are coming from.

"WHAT DOES IT MATTER?"Back to yelling, great. "KEITH. GET OVER HERE."

Shit. He's here. But his car isn't outside. Damnit, I shouldn't have come. I should have just stayed with Henry.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" Keith walks up and ignore any personal space that I could have had.

Keith doesn't scare me. He's just a bumbling drunk who spends his time here, instead of anywhere else.

"I could ask you the same question." This is my fucking house and I'm not going to let him bully me out of it.

Before I can realize what's happening, he has his fist cocked back and...

Fuck. The left side of my face sears with pain. Shit. My eye isn't opening.

"DONT EVER TALK TO ME THAT WAY." Likes he's done something to earn my respect. Like I should care about his opinion.

"Fuck you" I am not afraid of him.

A punch to the gut, and my knees give out. Jesus Christ only one punch and I'm down. Pathetic.

Keith steps away seemingly proud of himself. Fucking bastard.

"Get out of my house." Keith turns and takes a step. My house, mother fucker thinks it's his house. THAT FUCKING SON OF A BITCH.

"This is my house." My voice feels gravely. It hurts a little to talk. But I don't fucking care.

Keith turns, he looks furious. Good.

A blinding pain quickly spread throughout my body, from my stomach, where is foot makes contact. Shit. Keith kneels down.

"I will not have a fucking faggot in MY GOD DAMN HOUSE." He screams in my ear. As if I wasn't already in enough pain. He stands and leaves the room.

It's just me and mom. She's ok and that's what matters. He didn't hurt her. She's ok.

The look in her eye heart my heart. She shouldn't have to see me like this.

"Mom..." fuck. It hurts so much to speak. It feels like someone shoved sandpaper down my throat.

But everything is fine. Mom's here. She's my mom, she can't just let this happen. She can see how fuck shitty Keith is.

She doesn't come over to help me. She stands still.

"Mom..." I manage to say again, but fuck it hurts.

She follows Keith out. She leaves me here. She left me like this.

"MOM!" I can't move. I want to run after her but everything hurts. God damnit.

I can't tell if I'm crying because of her or because of my eye. But I'm just laying there crying, unable to move. I can hear Keith and Mom screaming at each other in the other room.

I can't live here anymore. I barely live here anyways. I can live in my car. I can't be here. Keith will never leave. It's not like I'm keeping anything valuable here anyways.

I can get away from this.

I'm finally able to pick myself up. I'm going to be extremely fucking late to school. My left eye is basically useless so driving is going to be interesting.

I pull into the student parking lot. 10:00 am. It should be break period right now. I missed two fucking periods. Great.

I grab a bag and grab a glimpse of my phone. Holy shit. That is a lot of notifications. Well it's nice to know they care.

I quickly forge a little doctors note. The lady in the attendance office really doesn't care. I put on some sunglasses so my eye doesn't draw to much attention. Ok. Everything's fine and this is a normal school day.

The lady in the office does not bat an eye at the forged note. She just signs me in. God bless public school.

I step out of the office and into the courtyard. I immediately spot Emma and Henry. They look worried. Really worried. I feel really bad for doing that to them.

"Hey guys." I walk up behind Henry. He spins around. The look in his eye. He almost looked like he was going to cry.

"Ted!" He hugs my tightly. Too tightly. Fuck. It's a nice sentiment but Christ it hurts.

"Hey Henry." I smile to maybe cool his nerves a little bit. I try to hug him back but I don't have the strength right now. Henry loosens his group slightly. Ok that's better.

"You look like shit." Emma back at it again with the snarky comments. You can always rely on her for those.

"Always a pleasure Perkins." Emma smiles sincerely back at me. She's a good person. I look back at Henry. He still looks terrified. "I'm ok Henry."

"No you're no-" He begins. I just went through quite a lot and I just want to have some bliss. So I cut him off by kissing him.

"I am fine." It's a blatant lie but I really hate seeing him worried.

"No you're not." Henry pulls off my sunglasses. Shit. Now the whole courtyard can see my fucked eye. "What happened?"

I should tell him. He deserves to know, he's been worrying about me. But I don't really want to tell him. It just really fucks with everything.

"I can't live with my mom anymore."

#tedgens #the bell doesnt dismiss you #fanfic

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crestedcurls-blog · 6 years

Text

Come Home To Me

A commission piece for the lovely @idiotcrusader

SFW, Reaper76, some violence in the beginning.

6.6k words

Read it on AO3

Los Muertos was a plague on the small town of Dorado. They had intercepted several weapons shipments and had used them to terrorize tourists and extort protection money from local businesses among other crimes. Their spree of violence had gone unchecked by the officials who were spread too thin to deal with the threat. It required an outside set of skills.

The vigilant had moved quickly after the first reports came in, moving from his search in Canada for answers to the warm streets of Mexico. After renting out a small hotel room--paid in cash, under a false name--he began his search, following the movements of the criminals. There was one skirmish involving a little girl and a grenade, but nothing had come of. He was simply left with some new bruises and the girl’s voice, ringing in his ears: You’re one of those heroes, aren’t you?

He was no hero. Not anymore.

76 geared up for another assault. This time, he would be ready for them. A shipment was being moved and he needed to get ahead of it before the weapons could be used to hurt more. Oh, how he claimed he didn’t care, that he worked solely for himself and his own interests, but that was a damn lie to himself. 76 cared about every person who his actions saved. Which is exactly why he was here, and why the weapons needed to be stopped.

Into the darkness he moved, using only the glow of the visor to define the world. Los Muertos was not a quiet gang and he could hear the laughter of the grunts loading the expensive tools of war into crates before moving them onto the transport. Rapid fire Spanish echoed down the alley, a joke before sharp, barking laughs. Serious tones took over, and something about the guns were mentioned--god, 76 wished he remembered more Spanish. Despite his itchiness to head into the firefight, his training stayed his hand, forcing him to remain down the alley, out of view.

After minutes passed, his patience was rewarded and 76 was able to gain a better understanding of what opposed him. A team of gangbangers, armed with heavy weapons and perhaps a little too much of whatever drug had hit the market recently. Without taking his eyes off the scene, he took stock of his weapons--a couple of biotic canisters, several extra pulse clips, and a Beretta strapped to the outside of his thigh.

This was doable.

His inventory stocked and prepared, 76 waited for another minute, listening to their movements. His restraint was rewarded in the form of one of the scouts stumbling slowly down the alley that hid 76--it was go time.

Soldier 76 moved all at once, appearing from the shadows to grab the scrawny man by the jaw and slam his face against the wall, hearing the bones in his jaw and cheeks crack under the pressure. 76 didn’t stop to listen to his screams, climbing up the nearby fire escape before the fallen criminal’s friends could investigate too closely.

Three of the gangbangers moved into the dark alley, toting oversized weapons that even an experienced 76 regarded as lethal. Once they were below him, 76 dropped from the rusty metal, already firing his pulse rifle. The three barely had time to make a noise before high-powered shots slammed into their bodies and they fell to the ground.

Bullets peppered the ground around his feet, hardly missing the worn boots as 76 threw himself to the side. At the entrance of the alley, a man stood with a large minigun, and it was already spinning up for another onslaught, sure to shred the little cover that the vigilant had managed. Quick thinking led Jack to the fallen man that had originally tested his luck, and the belt of grenades slung so casually around his chest.

Grab, pop, throw and go.

He didn’t even look at the bomb hit the ground, blowing up the man with the impressive weapon and another who had been approaching as backup of sorts, toting additional ammunition for the gun.

That left only two more lackies and the two big guys who seemed to be calling the shots at the moment; Unsurprisingly, they remained back by the shipment in order to protect their precious stolen goods.

Turning, 76 barely had time to raise his rifle again before a bullet sliced through the skin of his right shoulder, cutting it in two down to the bone. With a grunt and a gasp of pain, he raised the pulse rifle with his non-dominant hand, feeling the pull of skin and muscle, and blindly sprayed the alley, connecting with the taller of the two lackies and dropping him beside his fallen friends. The clip was now empty and one arm was solidly out of commission, but he had managed to cut down the crew that much more.

As the final underling advanced down the death-ridden alley, looking nervous, 76 cast aside his precious rifle in favor of the pistol strapped to his thigh. A full clip and the practiced ability to reload with one hand made for a better close-quarters weapons. The brute had three bullets emptied into him, killing him instantly. Rapid Spanish filled the air, the remaining few gang members growing concerned for their friends who had met their fate in the narrow alley.

76 rounded the corner to a hail of curses and bullets. Languages were never really his thing--there was no need for a foreign language in the fields of Indiana--but 76 managed to pick up on a few of the phrases from his time with--No, no. No distractions. His friend was gone, he wasn’t worth 76 losing his life over too.

Dodging behind a pile of trash and old broken boxes, 76 let a curse slip from him. Jesus, he was too old for this anymore. How long could this firefight go on before someone gave up? Before everyone was dead? Before even he was running on total empty? It had been days since he had slept soundly, and the meager meals he had managed made it difficult to feed his super-soldier metabolism. Could he really keep this up?

The next second found him rolling forward, spraying bullets as fast as his sidearm would fire. One nailed its target but the others missed widely. 76 cursed the injured arm for his failure.

Almost in slow motion, 76 watched the large rifle nestle against the shoulder of the brute, watched him take aim and fire. Then, pain, raw and visceral, exploded in his left shoulder. Two more of the shots connected with 76’s legs, one with his stomach.

Soldier 76 let out a scream as he hit the ground.

Despair began to replace that resilient, bitter flame of hope that he had managed to keep kindled since the explosion. Now, death lurking at the corners of his eyes in an inky black smog that threatened to choke him. Bitter and unyielding, the soldier stayed on his knees, trying and failing to rise to his feet once again. Sensors in the visor picked out the backs of the escaping targets as they sped off through the streets with the stolen weapons. He failed to protect himself or the streets. He had failed the mission, failed the objective. 76 had lost.

God damn it.

The old soldier felt a tear slip down his face. That little girl, the shopkeepers, the homeowners, they were all relying on him to clear this evil out, to extinguish the crime spree that put all of their lives at risk. And now he was bleeding out in several places. Instinct told him to reach for a dwindling biotic canister, but exhaustion stayed his hand. Maybe it was his time. Maybe he could finally rest, and be done with all of this bullshit. 76 had been fighting it for so long, but now he was stuck. Nowhere to go, nothing to do. Even Reaper, his ultimate adversary, had vanished like the ghost he was. And now 76 couldn’t even defeat a small gang in Mexico.

Pathetic. He could hear the voice of his old commander from the army screaming at him in his ear. The mission’s not over until you get your guy.

“The mission was long over,” 76 argued with the dead man in his head. “I failed, and my family paid the price. Let me rest.”

The mission’s not over until you get your guy. Reaper’s still out there. Go finish this.

Maybe it was the voice of the man who changed his life, who had saved him from a life on a dusty farm that had 76 reaching tiredly for one of the biotic canisters. Maybe it was just angry old spite and a need to finish something, anything, before he dies. Maybe it was just because he was too lazy to let himself bleed out and ultimately too scared to pull the trigger himself. Hell, who knows if the serum would even let him die then? No, it was much better to remain on his feet, even for a bit longer.

But his hand never made it to the small canisters at his hip, interrupted instead by the sensation of a shotgun resting against the back of his head. 76 didn’t move any further, just froze as much as the injury in his arms would allow him to. Looks like Death had found him in more ways than one.

“Soldier 76.” That ruined voice rasped at him.

“Reaper.”

“Didn’t think I’d find you cleaning up the trash in Méjico.”

“I figured you needed a break from me chasing you. But I guess you ended up chasing me anyway.” 76 bit back a grunt as more blood leaked from him. It had struck him that the old CO was right, he didn’t want to die, not yet, not like this. One hand creeped further toward the the canisters, hoping that Reaper might take this small mercy for him. “Can I just--”

The shotgun pressed harder against his skull, grinding into the bone. “I don’t think so.”

76 began to grow angry with the arrangement. It wasn’t meant to be like this; they were meant to meet on fair fields, faced off in a duel to a death. Not Reaper preparing to murder him, execution style. Twisting to look up at him, 76’s lips twisted up in a scowl; not that Reaper could see behind that mask, but the emotion was still there, clear in his voice. “Either kill me or tell me what you want, asshole.”

Behind the porcelain mask of his own, Reaper’s face gathered into a snarl as well. How dare he talked to him like this, this disrespectful little sh--

76’s face blanched, the blood loss making itself known. Screw the gun to his forehead, he was going for the canisters. And to his surprise, Reaper held his trigger finger. The crimson hands cracked the tube and bathed both of them in a golden hue, beginning to erase many of the fresh wounds and repleting his energy some.

The vigilant now distracted by the sudden relief and with dark eyes obscured by the hooked visage of the owl mask, Reaper gazed over the body that seemed so familiar. Stolen intel had referenced the fact that 76 may be the hero of before, the golden boy immortalized in a permanent statue. Funny how permanence had no place anymore. But here, now… Reaper’s suspicion had been confirmed. This was him, this is the man he once protected and cared for, a partner he had once loved. Once upon a time...

The gun against his head seemed to waver for a second. 76 glanced sharply up at the man, confused as the deadly weapon slipped from his forehead and back into a cloud of smoke. What was even more concerning than was watching the shadowy form fall to his knees facing 76, bowing his head in what seemed like a sorrowful gesture.

“I’m so sorry, Jack.” The rasp was less pronounced, the words more familiar this time.

76 pulled back sharply, confusion lacing his brow. That voice…

“G-gabe?” He reached out toward the man, hands wrapping around his shoulders--The texture was bizarre, solid, but wispy around the edges.. “Gabriel Reyes?”

The hooded form nodded. “It’s me, Jack.”

“You’re a-alive.” Jack managed out, wounds still making it hard to focus. “What… what happened to you?”

Alarmed at the blood that refused to cease, Gabe chose to dodge that question in favor of wrapping himself around Jack, supporting his battered body. “C’mon, Jack, let’s get you safe.”

…

Jack was set carefully on the bed of the dingy motel room. The former strike commander enjoyed the security of the streets, of being anonymous, but nothing could beat a hot shower and a semi-decent bed and for as long as he planned on staying in Dorado, having both was a advantage to his cause.

He had fallen asleep as Gabe carried him back. Perhaps the blood loss was greater than he thought, or the day’s emotions were just too strong. Either way, Jack dropped off shortly after Gabe had scooped him up in those all-too-familiar broad arms. At the sensation of being set down into the cool sheets of his hotel bed, Jack slowly cracked his faded blue eyes. From behind the red visor, Gabe was regarded with suspicious eyes as the wraith bustled around, pulling the first aid kit and a glass of water from the small bathroom.

Jack tried yanking the kit from the figure and insisting on doing it himself. Gabe couldn’t be trusted, not yet, and Jack was always the better medic of the two. But that wasn’t obvious by looking at Jack; he was tired, drained, and the boring eyes of Gabe didn’t help the crooked stitches and the gentle stabs with the tools that were meant to help, not harm. Where was Mercy when you needed her?

“Let me help you, Jack.”

“I don’t need your damn help.”

But nothing deterred Gabe as he settled down next to a wounded Jack. Something about this felt more familiar than either one of them would have liked to admit, but neither one commented on the eerie similarity to the past years. Jack watched him carefully as Gabe pulled out a knife, designed to cut away the ruined fabric of his pants. While he was aware of what Gabe’s goals were, it didn’t make the sensation of his enemy brandishing a weapon over his form any easier.

Gabe ignored the way that Jack reached automatically for the comforting feeling of the now-missing sidearm. Jack’s weapons had been collected by the wraith, sitting in a pile in the corner to be cleaned and fixed up, and to avoid Jack shooting him. He’d get the weapons back, later. For now, Gabe set to the gruesome job of slowly cutting away the ruined material, revealing the two major holes in Jack’s legs. Blood still leaked weakly from the bullet wounds, forcing Gabe into action before he could help with the rest of the battered soldier.

With the help of a set of tweezers and some sterile thread, Gabe was able to remove the bullets and close the wounds. Jack’s face had gone ashen silently, as he faded in and out of consciousness. The super soldier never attempted to escape. Healing needed to happen and honestly? It was nice to have someone else taking care of him.

Once satisfied that the injuries in Jack’s legs would heal, Gabe moved up to unzip that gaudy leather jacket with 76 depicted on the broad shoulders. Internally, he reminded himself to tease Jack about the ridiculous call sign later, after the danger was removed. Jack’s eyes flashed open behind the visor, but the man was too weak to fight Gabe off; He’d just have to have faith that he was here to help, not to harm.

And slowly, the old soldier was patched together again. Once satisfied that Jack wasn’t going to bleed out from the major injuries, Gabe cracked one of the biotic canisters in order to clean up some of the smaller scratches and bruises while Jack napped. Reassured that the vigilante would survive the night, Gabriel got up, gathering a small spread of snacks for the two and booted up the old TV to play some old novella while Reaper attempt to rest.

“Gabe?” Came the weak voice from beside him as he settled back into the bed. “What happened to you?”

“I was in the explosion. That witch Moira had been playing around with some of these nanites. Gave ‘em to me before a major mission in Dubai. Been using them since, but after the explosion--” Gabe remembered it bitterly, body burned and crushed under a piece of the Overwatch logo. He recalled the blood pooling in his mouth, in his shoulder, pain sparking from every nerve. Gabe desperately screaming, trying to get his hands to turn to wisps in order to free himself. It was only as he felt the life fading from him that Gabe’s entire body had splintered into pieces and escaped the embrace of twisted metal and concrete. He had never been able to maintain the same body again, too ruined to get every piece back where it should be. Now he was just some grotesque husk of a man once was, an abomination of humanity and death.

Shaking himself, he returned to the conversation at hand. “I was scattered into pieces after something fell on me. I’ve been piecing myself back together since but… It hurts. And I can never maintain it for long. I can never really go back to the way I was.” Gabe finally managed out the truths that had locked themselves away in his head for so long. “What happened to you, after the explosion?”

Jack laughed, a bitter, soulless laugh that hurt his stomach. “Everything. I was a mess. I just ran, Gabe. I just fucking ran. Been surviving, running, since. Trying to figure out what happened, but it’s just not there yet. I’m missing something and I have no idea what.”

Gabe nodded; he knew the feeling. Thankfully, Jack hadn’t mentioned anything about Gabe’s own viglianting, about the masked figure only known as Reaper. Gabe was scared to go back, scared to show what was left of the once powerful Blackwatch commander. He had signed on with Talon, if only to have O’Deorain there to maintenance the nanites. Since joining, Gabe had hidden behind the mask and cloak to prevent his identity from getting out. Anonymity was his protection.

Glancing over at him, the former Blackwatch Commander opened his mouth, just to close it again. A smear of red on Jack had caught his eye, something missed earlier. The large gash began just above his eyebrow and disappeared downward in a slant over his nose. “Jack, your face--!” Gabe reached out, claws moving slowly to Jack’s face, but the vigilant jerked away before he could touch him.

“Don’t touch it.” His voice was grim as he shifted away on the bed, carefully. Shit. That broken glass behind the boxes; he was too preoccupied by the gunshots at the time, the pain hadn’t registered. And now Gabe wanted to take the mask.

Jack had never told anyone about the poor eyesight that plagued him after the explosion; the smoke and bits of glass had shredded his corneas, rendering him completely blind at the time. The sight had returned somewhat, over the years, but everything remained blurry, colorful shapes. The only thing that helped was the red visor, stolen from a locker in a long-forgotten Overwatch base. It had been made for him years ago, in case of a hands-free mission, but now provided his aid in day-to-day activities. Very rarely did the man go without it anymore, and never in the presence of others. Especially not Gabe.

Gabe sat up, brow furrowing under his own mask. Self-esteem issues plagued him too--a face that never seemed to be solid greeted him when he lifted up his own mask. It was a mockery of what he once was--handsome, with a strong jawline and a broad nose ever-so-crooked from the years of abuse that he endured in the military. Now, it was a mish-mash of a dead man reanimated, a travesty of who he was before.

It took concentration to keep his face together. Tiny wisps of inky black smoke billowed from it, the nanites keeping him alive burning off and regenerating at rates faster than he could keep track off. Without focusing, his face could be engulfed by the inky smoke, ruining his features and turning him into stuff of nightmares. A fair amount of mirrors had been broken over the new look. And so, the man devised his own disguise. A harbinger of death, someone to seek out the guilty and enact as judge, juror and executioner. It was a mission to hell paved with good intentions. After a while, Gabe lost sight of who was the good guy and who was the bad. And now he was just the Reaper, angry and lost, wandering the streets in search of a clue to his past life and what happened to Overwatch.

Gabe sucked in a breath, watching Jack carefully through the slits in the porcelain mask. It was obvious that the idea of being without his mask in front of Gabe made him uncomfortable, so it was up to Gabe change that. Clawed gloves rested over Jack’s hands, gently guiding them to his own white mask. Trust starts somewhere, and Gabe was willing to extend that olive branch.

“Are you sure?” Was Jack… concerned?

The pointed chin dipped down in a nod. It was time. Together, the old partners removed the owlish mask and set it aside.

At first, the space behind the mask was blank, a wall of inky darkness that resembled nothing that Jack had ever seen. After a couple of beats, though, Gabe’s face slowly began to solidify in the darkness. Smoke dripped from mounding nostrils as the blackness hardened to form tired eyes and a sagged face. Gabe released Jack’s hand, resisting the urge to hide himself from view.

Jack resisted the urge to pull back. The face was seemingly intact, but whatever lurked behind it was a smoky mess, wisping out from behind the hood to create a ghost-like effect. It was as monstrous as it was familiar--a hard jaw, peeking out from the elements, the half-curve of his lips into an amused smile, a richness deep within the man’s eyes. Jack had been in love with him since their days in the SEP but it was only after their promotions that his desperate pinnings had been realized.

In the back of his head, Jack remembered the first time they kissed; in his office, after Gabe had gotten back from a particularly dangerous mission. After weeks spent in the infirmary, Gabe had shown up with that infuriating half-smile and Jack found himself pinning him up against the wall, taking his lips angrily, hands roaming an injured body. It was only after a few minutes of kissing that they had broken apart, gasping and laughing.

Gabe had loved him.

In a way, Jack still loved him.

“Yeah, it’s pretty bad, huh.” Gabe interrupted Jack’s thoughts with a bitter laugh, running rampant of those hours spent in his office together. “Kids call me a monster. Maybe I am.”

Jack reached out with one hand, almost nervously. Red leather brushed against Gabe’s face as the long fingers of the super soldier curled around his jaw, resting his thumb on his nose and gently rubbing it. Though the mask could help him view, this was a better way to see. Gabe was alive. Hidden by his own visor, Jack began to weep, tears filling ruined eyes and dripping down a hooked nose to collect somewhere below his view.

“Easy, Jackie, I’ll put it back on. I know.” Gabe had cried, too, when he first saw himself. Or at least tried to. He couldn’t distinguish between tears and smoke anymore.

“N-no. Leave it off.” Came the command, thick in his throat. “I love it like this, love you like this.” His thumb rubbed carefully over Gabe’s face, mapping it out--as if it was impossible for Jack to have forgotten it in the first place. Jack spent the next minutes taking in his face, the scars and changes it had underwent since they had last seen each other, so many years ago.

After the moment had past and Gabe had shifted under Jack’s hands--clearly uncomfortable at the attention--Jack removed his hand. It was time for Jack to reciprocate the man’s trust and allow him to work on the gash that laced his own face.

With a similar nod, Jack indicated that he was ready for the removal of the visor. The claws came up to rest against the red glass, ready to catch it, as Jack reached back to undo the clasp that attached it to his face. With a click, it came undone and rested in Gabe’s hand for a moment, before he pulled it away from 76’s face and set it to the side of them, next to his own mask.

Milky blue eyes didn’t look up at Gabe. His face had been ruined by the explosion, debris burying itself in the soft flesh of his head and neck. Jack still remembering the metal pole that swung down, slicing his face in two as he pulled desperately at the rubble pinning him to the ground. Blood had blinded him, spilled into his mouth, choked him out. He had panicked, screaming and sobbing, but the oppressive darkness refused to respond, didn’t help him. Just miles and miles of crushed concrete, blood, that damn blue jacket…

He shook himself, bringing himself from the nightmares of the past that had left him with years of claustrophobia and blindness. Without the visor, Jack only had vague, colorful shapes to define his world; to go without it was a nightmare, but Gabe was right, he needed to clean the wound. Yet another scar slashed into his face--so handsome, in his youth--that would need to be cleaned up. Usually, he’d do it himself, cleaning the blood from his gear and stitching up the ruined skin by feel alone; But this time, smooth hands came up to brush against his face, making him jump nervously.

“Be calm, Jack. I’m not going to hurt you.” Gabe had removed his clawed gloves, revealing hands that certainly looked like his, but were too frighteningly flawless to be his. The nanites had forgotten the calluses and scars from years spent fighting, leaving only cold, too-soft skin. Knuckles brushed against Jack’s cheekbone, remembering the exact moment when he fell in love with his SEP partner.

It was just after they were deemed successes by the SEP scientists. Gabe and Jack had been deployed on a mission somewhere in South Asia to take care of a small group of insurgents who had been kidnapping and executing the local people there. Jack had volunteered to be some kind of distraction while Gabe had snuck around the back to successfully free some of the kidnapped. But before long, they had caught onto the trick and grabbed the nearest person, a girl no older than fifteen, and placed a gun to her head. Jack had volunteered himself, traded his life for the girl’s, and it was in that moment that Gabe got the satisfaction of putting a bullet through the insurgent’s head. It was also in that moment that he realized he was falling stupidly in love with the wide-eyed golden boy from Indiana of all places.

Gabe retrieved the first aid pack, practiced fingers wiping away the dried blood and removing the contaminants from the gash. The needle was strung and the ruined skin was pulled back together.

So far, Gabe hadn’t guessed the man’s weakness, but Jack wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t soon. Jack was a twitchy mess, jumping slightly every time the creeping hands brushed against his face. Between his inability to see more than a cloudy shape near his eyes, and the fact that Gabe was Reaper, the current bane of his existence, Jack wanted nothing more than to sink through the bed and disappear. The pain of the needle barely registered; the old soldier was too distracted by his thoughts to even think about the minor prick against war-leathered skin.

Azure eyes finally looked up at Gabe shortly after he finished with the stitches. There was a pause as Gabe’s gaze devoured the man’s face, taking in each scar and bump, seeing the stories of the years between the explosion and now, the pain and weariness lurking just behind a carefully-constructed wall. But his eyes--there was something wrong. They weren’t the bright blue that took away Gabe’s breath as a young commander, the ones who burned memories in his brain of tired nights looking blankly over war plans, of weeks spent on the battlefield, serious and angry, of the time spent together when Gabe tried to teach Jack how to dance and then they were laughing and falling over each other, rough lips embracing each other in the early hours of the morning where nothing could touch them for those ten minutes--

“What happened to you?” Gabe finally managed out, around the torrent of memories that washed over him.

“War. What else?” Jack had been rasping like that since the explosion, doing everything he could to hide his identity. Today, he’s just Soldier: 76. He couldn’t go back to Jack Morrison even if he wanted. “Things have changed since we last saw each other.” Quietly, he prayed that Gabe didn’t see the way he tried to lean away, to hide his face.

“Jackie.” Gabe caught his chin and pulled his face back toward him. “Are you--the explosion… Are you blind, Jack?”

There was a long pause. Jack closed his eyes and released a long breath. If he didn’t talk about it, if he didn’t acknowledge it, then it wasn’t true, it didn’t happen. But here came Gabe, destroying those foundations. Shit.

He didn’t realize, the one small tear that leaked from his ruined eyes. Jack hadn’t cried since the explosion, since extracting himself and turning his back on everything that he helped to build since he was a young adult. The crystalline drop fell from him, falling onto the blanket below. More followed it, just silently slipping from the closed eyes.

Gabe sat and watched the display for a couple of seconds before gently scooting forward and wrapping his hands around the man’s jaw and cheek. Jack didn’t fight him for the first time since they met. Ghostly hands, dripping in smoke, brushed over his nose, wiping away the tears, catching Jack as he leaned forward into the man’s hands. And just like that, Jack lost himself in the arms of the man he once loved, quietly crying with their foreheads pressed together.

They stayed like that, two old soldiers pressed together, holding each other through the horrors of the world once again. They were the seawall in the storm, standing strong together, finding faith within each other, weathering everything the world had to beat them down with. Nothing could touch either of them now.

Jack was the one to pull away and carefully wipe the rest of tears away. Cloudy eyes opened again and he could almost detect a smile where Gabe’s lips should be.

“I missed you, Jack Francis Morrison.”

Jack snorted at the use of his middle name. Gabe was the only one, aside from the legal documentation, who knew his full name. A name that he had left behind in Indiana, on a farm in the middle of dusty nowhere, where he wanted nothing more than to escape. Now, the only thing he wanted was to go home, but he wasn’t sure where home even was anymore.

“Ya know, Gabe, you never told me what your middle name was.” Jack laughed a bit, moving past the tender moments of before.

“Don’t have one.” The man shrugged, laughing with him. “Parents never gave me one.”

Jack slowly fell silent, the laughter disappearing from his face as the stitches pulled uncomfortably. “I’m not totally blind. Can see alright with the mask, but when I take it off…” A hand waved in front of his face. “It’s all gone. Just blurry shapes and colors.”

Gabe sat quietly next to him, introspecting, before slowly taking the vigilant’s hands. Jack tensed but didn’t pull away, moving forward with Gabe. Gabe carefully placed Jack’s hands on his chest before letting go, allowing Jack to feel him, to feel the sensation of his body disintegrating and repairing constantly. It took effort for him to maintain the shape of Gabriel; the nanites wanted to simply fall apart into a ghost-like matter, but for now, Gabe would keep the energy up to allow the man to feel him, feel what happened to him.

Jack pulled back a bit, shocked to find the man’s body thrumming beneath his hands. Jack had been with Gabe long enough to understand the full extent of what the super soldier bodies could do, but this was… too much. Frighteningly too much. It felt like there was a buzz of a current, throbbing beneath his touch.

“I’m a monster, Jack.”

“You’re my monster, Gabe.” A wry smirk touched scarred lips. “I still can’t believe you lived.”

“I wasn’t supposed to. It was everything that Moira did, that witch. Suppose I could thank her, but this life isn’t worth thanking her over.”

The pair fell silent, thinking about what could have been, where they were in life now, and what’s to happen next. Jack would need more help than this, and his face still had to heal before he could go back out there. Gabe wasn’t welcome back with Overwatch, he figured, so the world awaited; after all those who caused the fall of Overwatch were still out there, and they still needed to be punished for what happened.

There was a sound next to him--Jack had fallen asleep. The day’s trauma had finally caught up with him. His body, though super, had faced enough trauma that just the act of relaxing was enough to push him over the edge into unconsciousness.

Gabe laughed in his smoky way and settled in next to him. The old ghost didn’t need to sleep anymore, but it was nice to play the illusion.

…

Gabe was up before him, having never gone to sleep. Not to be fooled by Jack’s tricks, though, he snatched the mask up from the bedside table, to prevent him from stealing out and leaving while Gabe was making some kind of food.

Minutes later, the sound of panic pulled him from the hot plate where eggs were cooking. Jack was on his feet, hands darting wildly around for his mask, for his only sense of vision that he had left anymore, that was clutched loosely in Gabe’s left hand. Unknowing of where he was in those few seconds, Jack snatched up his rifle from where it had been left, and pointed it squarely at Gabe.

“Where is it?!” There was a mess of red in Gabe’s hand, that could have been the mask. He considered diving for it, but Gabe would react too fast. If only Jack could see.

“Easy Jackie, easy. It’s right here.” Gabe lifted the mask, with the other hand outstretched slowly reaching for the barrel of the impressive weapon. Once he managed to point it toward the ground, Gabe handed Jack the mask back. Even the sensation of snapping the mask back into place relaxed the man some; Gabe was thrown into sharp relief against the light, and Jack felt himself soothed. The gun was replaced on the bed and Jack slowly moved forward, investigating what Gabe was making.

“Why’d you take it?” He asked warily, following the ghost-like shape into the other room.

“I didn’t want you to leave on me; we have to talk about what happens next, after all. And you’re notoriously slippery, Jack.”

“Ha! I always was the sneakier of the two of us.” The joke was light, a stress reliever of sorts.

At that, Gabe laughed out loud. “I was the one leading a covert strike team under cover of darkness and media blackout, and you had a goddamn statue. Whatever helps you sleep at night.”

The pair sat down to the eggs that would soon go cold. Neither one of them needed to eat much. For Jack, it meant going without the mask for even longer in order to eat, and that was out of the question for now. His sight was too important for that. But for now, the pair just sat over the quaint breakfast and continued their conversation, desperately yearning for some semblance of normalcy in a world wracked by war and anger.

“What happens next, Jack?” Gabe asked, sipping quietly at his coffee. Unlike Jack, Gabe didn’t mind going without his mask, so long he managed to avoid any reflective surfaces. Watching himself constantly disintegrate and regenerante was not his idea of a good time.

“I don’t know, honestly. Overwatch wants me back, wants us all back. Talon’s been getting too close, and Winston’s already faced them down twice. But at the same time, I don’t know if I can give up all of this.” Jack waved vaguely at the air around him, talking about his current profession of faceless heroism. If he were to step back into the eye of the world--even illegally, as the current Overwatch state was--Jack would be forced back into control, forced to take the helm of a sinking ship. That is, of course, if he revealed his identity. For now, Jack Morrison was enjoying the freedom that being dead gave to him. The thought of losing it scared the hell out of him.

“Heh, yeah. The monkey was always faster than I took him for.” Gabe mumbled softly with a small smirk. “I didn’t want to hurt him. He got in my way, everytime. If he just let me get past him, let me in, I would have taken the information I needed and been on my way.” At Jack’s questioning look, Gabe took another sip of his coffee. “I work independently of Talon. Sure, I work for them occasionally, as a contractor of sorts. Help them get what they need, while they help repair me when the nanites can’t. It’s a trade of power. they don’t have anything on me that I don’t want them to have.”

Jack nodded, quiet for a moment. He was thankful for the return of the mask, so his expression remained anonymous. “I want to go home, Gabi.”

“Me too, Jackie. I miss them.”

“I wonder if they’d accept a couple of old soldiers.”

“Something tells me they’ll take all the help they can get, even from a dead man and a ghost.”

…

And so they had began their journey back north, to where Overwatch was starting their roots again in the scorched Earth of where the former organization used to tower. Stops came along the way--raids on Talon bases, sidetracked days where they’d hunt down small cells of terrorists and gangs, helping the odd family in crisis, but they always trekked north. Something about it seemed so right; sleeping by day, moving under the cover of darkness at night, but being together and whole and right again.

There’s a Greek myth that humans used to come in pairs, with four arms and legs. Fearing their power, Zeus split these humans in two, dooming them to travel the world, constantly searching for their other half, their soulmate. And though Jack was no longer a religious man, he could understand the myth. He had found his other half.

Jack Morrison and Gabriel Reyes were whole again.

#gabriel reyes #jack morrison #soldier 76 #reaper #overwatch #overwatch fanfic #commissioned piece #Crested Writes #reaper76 #overwatch fanfiction

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a-queer-seminarian · 6 years

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a masterpost of all the sermons i’ve preached

just because i feel like having them all in one place!

all of these links lead to audio of me preaching and a transcipt of the sermon. i include an excerpt from each sermon, and i’ve put the titles of the sermons i’m proudest of in bold.

“The Neighbors Nobody Wants,” Luke 10:25-37

My first sermon! Preached at University Presbyterian Church (now called Grace Presbyterian Church) on July 20, 2016

How often have you put the word Christian in quotation marks when you’re talking about “those Christians”, you know the ones, who claim to serve God with one breath and oppress LGBT people with the next! Those “Christians,” who drive anyone different from them away from their churches and refuse to bake cakes for same sex couples — we put them in quotation marks because we all know they’re not really Christians, am I right? Wrong. Their perspectives may range from mildly dissimilar to fundamentally at odds with our own when it comes to various issues, and yet — we share a God with them. We share a Savior with them, and even more intimately, a Body. They may not like it any more than we do, but we are all part of the Body of Christ. This is even more intimate than being neighbors with them, which is pretty intimate in itself — this is a matter of beating as one heart, listening for the same voice with the same ears, walking the earth with the same feet. It’s hard to admit it, but these are neighbors we have turned away from, have given up on. And these are also neighbors who have been the robbers in our own stories, beating us and denouncing us for being LGBT or even just supporting those who are. And maybe we have good reason for calling them “false” Christians — maybe we do it because they first did it to us. But if any healing will ever happen in this beautiful, bruised, broken Body of Christ, both sides need to drop the quotation marks. No more Christians versus “Christians.” Because what right do we have to judge who is or isn’t really Christian?

“Silence,” Esther 8:9-14

Preached at Louisville Seminary chapel for its More Light (LGBT) service, October 2016

Listen. I know how your heart speeds up when you try to speak up— my heart does too. I know the lump that forms in your throat (that’s Silence, trying to stop you from speaking) and when you speak anyway, maybe people will be mad. Maybe you’ll have to fight. Maybe you’ll even lose. But speak anyway. And if you have to fight, then fight not with swords but with words, not with violence but with love and truth. If we speak, the scars of silences once carried will map themselves into a vision of a future where no one needs to bury themselves to stay alive.

“Called from Conformity into Renewal,” Romans 12 (only a transcript for this one)

Preached at Louisville Seminary chapel for its preach-in service in solidarity with Princeton Theological Seminary during their preach-in in protest of raising the voice of Tim Keller, who is against LGBT+ people and women being ordained, on their campus; April 2017

“Do not be conformed to this world,” they reminded me. “This world,” according to them, was one that was all too lax in terms of sexuality and gender. “This world” celebrated being LGBT to the point that it was practically a trend, so that everyone these days thought they were gay or bi or ace or trans. Wow, I would love to find “this world” these guys claimed to be living in.

“Taking Up the Cross and Finding Life,” Mark 8:27-36 (link leads to a video and transcript instead of audio)

Preached at Louisville Seminary chapel for its More Light (LGBT) service, October 2017

The world tells me these things — my gender, my love— are just my cross to bear – and to bury, that I need to suffer because somehow these things are sins, that’s right – my love, love! the pair of wings God fixed on my shoulders to help me fly to Them is actually a heavy weight, a sin, a sickness – but God knows I have seen far too many of my people nail themselves to that cross, bleed out as you watched to think for a moment that God is the one who placed that cross on our shoulders.

“Song in Babylon: Joy as Resistance,” Jeremiah 29

Preached at Covenant Community Church in Louisville on November 26, 2017

Maybe sometimes, resistance is not about big actions, about battles, about outright rebellion. Maybe sometimes, resistance is the simple decision to keep living, to not give those who would see you crushed the satisfaction. God is asking Their chosen to do the impossible -- to keep on farming and having families right there in exile -- because God knows this is what will enable them to survive. God tells the people to multiply in Babylon, and not to decrease – because choosing to waste away in their grief, to flicker and fade into nothing while they wait for God to lead them home, would be the act of surrender. To plant and grow, to celebrate marriages and births and the simple pleasures of daily life – that is the act of resistance.

“Talking to Strangers,” John 4:1-30, 39-42

Preached at Covenant Community Church in Louisville on January 28, 2018

I invite you to imagine the kind of person you would be shocked to be asked for something from. For me, it would be a certain brand of Christian. For an extreme version, think of a Westboro Baptist Christian, who literally wants people like me dead. For a less extreme version, I think of my girlfriend’s parents, who shudder at the mere mention of me. I can’t imagine them asking me for water, making me aware of their need. And besides, wouldn’t sharing a cup with me give them, like, queer cooties or something? Reverse the image, now. Whom would you never be caught dead asking for something from? Would I dare to ask one of those types of Christians for water? Or would I decide there’s no use asking, of course they’d never share with the likes of me. Why should I put myself at their mercy like that only to be turned down?

“ ‘Who Sinned?’ -- Re-thinking Disability and Centering the Marginalized in Their Own Stories,” John 9:1-38

Preached at Covenant Community Church in Louisville on February 11, 2018

One of the stranger conversations I’ve had in my life involved me mentioning to an acquaintance that I was autistic. I was not prepared for their response: “Oh no! What happened?”I had no clue what answer they were expecting. What happened? Um...I was born?

“I AM the Light of the World,” John 8:12-18

Preached at Covenant Community Church in Louisville on February 25, 2018

The light that Jesus brings is not always comfortable. It’s the dentist’s lamp that sears into your eyes, makes your pupils shrink in pain – but is necessary as something that can illuminate the dark recesses of your mouth. Without that light, the dentist won’t be able to identify the buildup of plaque, the wearing down of gums, the signs of cavity. It’s not about judging what you’ve done to your teeth – it’s about making things right. Are you ready to let that light into your life? Are you ready for the transformation it brings?

“I AM the Vine,” John 15

Preached at Covenant Community Church in Louisville on March 25, 2018

Saint Catherine of Siena, a nun from the fourteenth century, has a slightly different vision of what it means for Jesus and humanity to be joined as one plant; here are her words: “And you, high eternal Trinity, ...When you saw that this tree could bear no fruit but the fruit of death because it was cut off from you who are life, you came to its rescue with the same love with which you had created it: you engrafted your divinity into the dead tree of our humanity.” ...I appreciate Saint Catherine’s conception of grafting [because] grafting together plants of a different species is tricky business; often,the two prove to be incompatible. But in this story we find that, by some miracle, divinity and humanity are two compatible “plants,” that somehow, our created state can be joined to our Creator’s state. ...

"The Remorseful Cry,” 2 Samuel 18 (that link leads to the transcript; see here for a video recording)

Preached in my basic preaching class on April 1, 2018

We are called to an expansive love, a love that cares for our most distant neighbor as much as our closest friend, a love that extends even over our enemy. If we love in this way, things will get much more complicated, and much messier. After all, if we love the casual acquaintance at work and the stranger on the street as truly as we love our sibling or parent or partner, we’ll be compelled to look and notice how our individual decisions are affecting their lives. We will find that our tiny sphere of personal relationships creates ripples that spread much further out.

“The Wounds of Jesus: Goodness Embodied,” John 20

Preached at Covenant Community Church in Louisville on April 8, 2018

Christianity has been deeply influenced by the dualism of Greco-Roman thought, which claims that the spiritual is good and the physical is bad, that we are most godly when we can escape the “cage” of bodily desires. We strip all manner of physicality from our conceptions of heaven, letting it become some abstract realm in the clouds where spirits whiz around free of their bodies. And I totally get the appeal of this vision of heaven – there is a lot that I do not love about my own body. People gender me wrong because of it, for one thing; and it’s susceptible to pain; and my skin and eyes and ears are overly sensitive, often leading to distress; and I absolutely hate getting sick, who doesn’t? ...But this favoring of the spiritual over the physical, glorifying the former and demonizing the latter, cannot be the whole picture – not when God shaped those bodies in the Beginning and called them Good; not when Jesus rose from the dead not only spiritually but bodily.

“Jesus Gets Schooled,” Mark 7:1-8, 15, 24-30

Preached at Covenant Community Church in Louisville on May 6, 2018

In this story the humanity of our divine-and-human Jesus is at the forefront. At first it shows us the ugliest parts of that humanity, the tendency towards prejudice that all of us have...but, thanks to his willingness to hear the woman out we will see this ugliness transform into one of the most beautiful parts of human nature: the ability to learn, to change our minds, to improve ourselves.

“When the Good News Feels Like Bad News,” Amos 7:7-15 and Mark 6:14-29

Preached at Grace Presbyterian Church in Tuscaloosa on July 15, 2008

Following in the footsteps of the prophets is no easy thing – it’s an often uncomfortable, sometimes dangerous or costly, frequently thankless task. People receive the good news like it is bad news – because from the perspective of the world, it is. God’s good news of social norms turned on their heads, of liberation of those who are dehumanized and exploited, demands major changes, changes that will come with losses. We may lose some friendships, some comforts, some unfair advantages in order to reach the new heaven and earth. We will all die a little before we are raised up utterly transformed.

“Radical Rest: The Fourth Commandment,” Exodus 20:1-11

Preached at Covenant Community Church in Louisville on August 19, 2018

It’s my favorite of the Ten Commandments, even though I cannot claim to follow it very well. Who can, these days? Who can say they take off a whole day every week just to rest? It’s impossible, for most of us. ...And that’s why I love the command to rest one day every week: I love it because it seems impossible. Because if we were to achieve it, it would be a radical thing. Because God does not instruct us to have this Sabbath rest only for ourselves, but for “you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns.” In the days of the Bible, children were subject to the whims of their father, livestock to their farmers, slaves to their masters–they could only rest if he said they could. ... For God to declare that these people must be allowed to rest alongside the people in power is a command for equity, for justice.

#worship #sermon tag #sermons #log #masterpost

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ifdragonscouldtalk · 6 years

Text

Bring Me Back (to Life) -- Part Three

Part One ~~ Part Two

yooooo it’s ya girl. this isn’t really where i was going to take the third chapter but people kept asking for BACKStoRy instead of WAITING PATIENTLY so here

Warnings! For mention of rape, canon typical violence, and gore

He hadn’t seen his baby boy for three days.

For all he knew, they weren’t feeding him, or giving him water, and he was still shaky on making it to the potty even though he’d been trying his hardest to help him, and he was still not good at talking and was more prone to screaming and pointing at what he needed than anything else, which he knew they wouldn’t like and--

And they had a gun to his head, as he stood sweating in front of the fires, feeling broken for the first time since he’d gotten here -- how long ago was it? A year? -- silent tears running down to his clenched jaw as he stared into the too-bright light of the forges.

“Are you ready to comply?” The voice was coy and too sensual for this place, and it made a shiver run down his spine for all the wrong reasons. He nodded slowly, feeling the cool press of metal against the back of his head, and refused to close his eyes to imagine what would happen if his head split open, brains sizzling in the forges, leaving his little boy here alone. He stared into the fires until his eyes watered, and pretended the tears were from over-exposure, and not because he was broken.

He was dragged to a work table by the back of his neck, wincing as fingers dug into his skin and knowing the gun was following close behind.

“Make me a glove.” The voice was hard now, and Tony welcomed it. “Make me a glove that will lock a hand so it can’t move.” He slammed something down on the table and Tony flinched, looking down at the shock collar and feeling a small trickle of cold drip down his spine. “Put the mechanism of this into the lock. So that if you try to unlock it, or cross a certain threshold without it being deactivated, it will incapacitate you.” The man’s mouth was too close to his ear, breathing hot air on his skin, and he shuddered. “Go ahead, Stark. Build your own prison. You won’t see your boy until you do.”

Two sleepless, draining days later, Tony stood still as the prison of his own creation was locked onto his hand, standing in the middle of his dingy room. He stood, unseeing, as he waited for his boy to be brought back to him, fearing the shape he would be in. Tears came to his eyes when the precious bundle was dragged through the door, scooping Peter up into his arms, fingers flexing desperately against his bonds. He refused to let the tears fall; he was done with crying. It was time to change something, to do something. He had to trust that someone, somewhere, was looking for him still, after all these months. His boy was crying, and it broke his heart.

He couldn’t help but wonder how everything had fallen apart just as they had clicked together.

His first week living on campus was also his last.

He simply wasn’t ready to live like that, completely on his own, at 15, surrounded by older kids and patronized by the people who were supposed to be his peers. His dad respected that, and hired someone to commute him back and forth to school every day, and Tony was endlessly grateful. “Anything for you, kid,” his dad had said, and he had given a watery smile, the stress of the week catching up to him.

His first party was also his last, at 16 and too young to understand the other kids, not really, even though they were only a few years apart. He didn’t remember much of it, except the overwhelming feeling of loneliness and the burn of drinks he didn’t really like sliding down his throat, and then, later, the burn of it as it came back up all over the kind older student’s shoes, and the burn of his face in embarrassment. He woke up in Rhodey’s bed, hungover and overwhelmed as Rhodey spoke on his phone to his father. He blinked up at the older genius as he smiled gently and leaned over to brush sweaty hair off his forehead, and tilted the phone away to whisper “I’ll get you some Advil.”

His first job outside of Stark Industries was also his last. 17, and finally over the desperate need to provide that came from an overly-intelligent 14 year old that cursed the fact that they weren’t allowed to work, he found a job at a mechanic shop just off campus, fixing engines after class and laughing with the older men that worked there. He drove home in the evenings, and had dinner with his dad as they talked about their days, and after they would tinker in the workshop or he would do homework, and it was good. He stayed in touch with the garage after he quit for SI full time, but his love for tinkering with cars never faded.

His first PA was also his last. “I don’t need a PA Dad, I don’t do enough for it!” he had argued at 18, even as he worked on the homework for his second doctorate while Howard had cooked dinner.

“I know you don’t,” Howard had replied with a smile. “But I promised this girl a job, and I think you’ll get along with her.”

Virginia was spitfire, gorgeous and strong, and she and Tony got along right off the bat. Tony laid it out straight, that he wouldn’t need her. “We’ll see about that, Mr. Stark,” she said with a smirk. A month later, he thanked his dad for the best thing that ever happened to him, more well rested than he had been in a few months, and happy as Pepper smirked over his shoulder, her neatly organized planner clutched in her arm. Howard smiled back, and winked as he said “She’s going places.”

The first time he had sex was also his last. 19, and certainly drugged, sweaty and needy and dark. He had cried when he woke up, and the Maya had panicked and left. His father was angry, but not at him, and so was Pepper, who had found him on his bed, crying. Rhodey had threatened to break his vow to never hit a girl.

A month later, as Howard had started the process to quietly press charges, they found out she was pregnant. He cried again, over the fact that he was going to have a baby, a child who was innocent and would need him. “We don’t have to keep it,” Howard told him. “She might not even want it.”

“No!” he gasped, tears streaming down his face. “God, no! Dad, I’m- I’m going to have a baby.” Howard held him close.

“Jesus Tones,” he said, his voice barely more than a whisper. “You’re going to have a baby.”

They fought for it. It wasn’t publicized. Maya didn’t put up more than a token argument, and they promised to recompense her for the trouble, but Tony wanted his little boy or girl more than anything. He would love it, he promised, near tears, and the judge ruled in their favor. They wouldn’t press any more charges about the rape, if only Maya carried the child to term and gave up her parental rights. She agreed, and on the steps outside the courthouse she broke down in tears.

“I’m so sorry, Tony,” she sobbed. “I don’t know why I did it. I’m so sorry.” He didn’t have anything to say to her.

Three months later, 20 years old, he cried in the hospital as he held his new baby boy, who was screaming for all the world to hear, unable to believe he had created something so beautiful and perfect as this small child. “You’re going to be a great father, Tony,” Maya had said weakly, sweaty and exhausted. He smiled at her, and kissed her hand. That was the last time he saw her.

The first time he fought with his father after Peter was born was also the last. Peter was five months old, asleep in his room, and Tony was trying to control his voice.

“God, Dad, I get it! But you, you don’t understand. When things happen, when things get out of control and our weapons are used to hurt people, that leaves us accountable. It doesn’t matter if we didn’t pull the trigger, because we designed the system! I don’t want Peter to grow up like that, in a world where his family profits off the lives of others. Mom wouldn’t want us to be in that world. You claim you’re a futurist, Dad, but you can’t see it. I want Peter to grow up in a world where his dad, his granddad, helped save lives, helped make the world a better place. I don’t want us to be the merchants that profit off of people’s death. I know you’re getting a lot of pressure from all sides, all lot of pressure to shift production of SI into weapons because it’s profitable and will connect us with the government, but can’t you see it? A world where, one day, people can actually talk instead of kill? Please, Dad. Please understand.” Howard stood for a moment before sagging.

“I do,” he sighed. “I do understand.”

Tony grinned as, a month later, he stood in the wings while his father announced the end of SI’s weapon production, opening their medical and tactical gear research, severing some contracts with the government even while they forged new ones that would keep people safe, instead of killing them.

“I believe in a world where people talk instead of fight. We’re not there yet, but I hope that the public takes this move for what it is -- a statement, and a step in the right direction.” Tony looked down at Peter as he gurgled happily, bouncing him and pressing a kiss to his cheek.

“That’s your Pappi,” he whispered rocking side to side. “Look at your Pappi, he’s out there changing the world. Look, Peter.”

“Changing the world, huh?” Howard said dryly, and Tony looked up with a smile. “Like this was my move.” He paused. “You’ve always been smarter than me,” he said softly, and pressed his palm to Tony’s cheek. Tony blinked at the soft touch, taking a step towards his dad so they could embrace. “You’re my greatest creation, Tony. The best thing that ever happened to me.”

“Yeah,” Tony said, clearing his throat so he didn’t sound quite so choked up. “Peter’s mine.”

Six months later, everything fell apart. He and his father were in the car, going out together to celebrate Peter’s first steps, and everything was good and happy. But he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. “Dad,” he said suddenly, “why are you going 60 in a 45?” Howard frowned, and pressed down on the brake.

“Shit.”

“Dad?” He was scared now, leaning over Peter in his carseat protectively, like that would do anything.

“Tony, the brakes aren’t working. Just, protect Peter and hold on.”

Everything else devolved into screams and flashes of light as they careened down the road, taking a turn too fast and skidding into the trees, the crunch of glass and screech of metal filling his ears as he screamed and held Peter, his ears ringing with the sound of his baby’s terrified cries and his father’s shouts.

The car was steaming, and his head was pounding. He pushed back his hair and stared at the blood turning sticky on his hand before looking down to check on Peter. There was a small cut on his cheek, chubby arms waving desperately in the air, choking on cries, not understanding. He swiftly unbuckled him, cradling him to his chest, before looking to his groaning father. Howard was bloody, a black eye and a broken arm, and Tony’s heart jumped as he fumbled for his cell phone, dialing 911.

“Dad, Dad please, stay with me here, I’m getting help now-” He fell silent as he followed Howard’s gaze into the forest, seeing the men streaming out of the trees, armed to the teeth. This was a set up. “Shit.”

“Tony, run. Run! Tony, take Peter and run!” He didn’t want to leave, but he did, terror pushing him on as he shoved the door of the car open and took off, jostling Peter in his arms. He could hear the gunshots in the distance, tears streaming down his face, wondering if it was the last time he would see his father. A sob escaped him. He didn’t look back.

They didn’t get very far.

Tony’s first time escaping wasn’t his last.

“I will never, ever stop trying to escape, stop trying to make your lives hell,” he snarled, clutching Peter tightly to his chest. The boy whimpered, to quiet -- he had learned quickly that silence was the best option here. This wasn’t the life Tony wanted for his baby.

“Next time, we’re going to kill the boy. If he can’t control you, he’s useless.”

He stopped trying to escape.

Now he was here, slowly coming back to himself as he clutched his boy, 24 years old and too broken for it, rocking back and forth. He wasn’t sure if he was soothing himself or Peter. He wasn’t really sure who he was anymore. Just a Merchant of Death, and Peter’s father. That was it.

#talon writes #marvel fanfic #bring me back (to life)#tony is a good dad #tony as a father #tony's son peter parker #peter parker #peter is tony's son #dad tony stark #howard stark #howard was a good father

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ruminativerabbi · 6 years

Text

An American Hero

John McCain’s death was hardly a surprise. (The announcement at the end of last week that the decision had been made to discontinue medical treatment was certainly a clear enough indicator that he was coming to the end of his days.) I admit that the national wellspring of emotion the senator’s death brought forth from political fellow travelers and opponents alike, even leaving the President’s belated and begrudging response out of the mix, caught more than a bit off-guard. But it was Senator McCain’s posthumously-revealed wish that he be eulogized in a bipartisan manner both by Presidents George Bush and Obama that made the strongest impression on me. That these were the two men who the most consequentially thwarted his own White House aspirations—the former by defeating him for the Republican nomination in 2000 and the later by defeating him in the presidential election of 2008—also impressed me as a sign both of humility and magnanimity. The funeral is this Saturday, so I’m writing this before knowing what either man will say. But my guess is that both will rise to the occasion and pay homage to the man, not for holding this or that political view, but for having the moral stamina to move past his own defeats at both their hands to return to the Senate to continue his life of service to the American people.

Senator McCain was a complicated figure and hardly a paragon of invariable virtue. He himself characterized the decisions that led to his involvement in the “Keating Five” scandal the “worst mistake of my life.” (The fact that he made that comment after the Senate Ethics Committee determined that he had violated neither any U.S. law nor any specific rule of the Senate itself speaks volumes: here was a man who could have gone on to crow about his innocence—or at least about his non-guilt—yet who chose instead publicly to rue the appearance of impropriety that he feared would permanently attach itself to his name.) He owned up publicly to the fact that, at least in the context of his first marriage, he was not a model of marital fidelity. He was in many instances a party-line guy, going along with the plan to invade Iraq without stopping to notice that there was no actual evidence that Saddam Hussein possessed the weapons of mass destruction President Bush was so certain had to exist and in fact going so far as to refer on the floor of the Senate to Iraq as a “clear and present danger” to our country without pausing to ask himself how he could possibly know that in the absence of evidence that Iraq possessed actual weapons capable of reaching these shores.

On the other hand, his more than five years as a prisoner of the North Vietnamese—the beatings and the torture he endured, his refusal to accept the early release offered to him because the military Code of Conduct instructs prisoners to accept “neither parole nor special favors” from the enemy, his two years of solitary confinement—speaks for itself. (And the phony “confession” he signed at a particularly low point when his injuries had brought him to the point of considering suicide does nothing to change my mind about his heroism. In the end, he defied his captors in every meaningful way and was momentarily defeated by them only once.) As does his lifetime of service to the American people, one given real meaning specifically by the fact, as noted above, that he specifically did not abandon his commitment to serve merely because he was twice thwarted in his bid for the presidency and instead simply returned to the Senate, following the admirable example of Henry Clay, who lost the election of 1824 to John Quincy Adams and then, after serving as the latter’s Secretary of State for four years, returned to the Senate where he served as Senator from Kentucky for two non-consecutive terms and died, like McCain, in office.

But it was McCain’s posthumous letter to America that I want the most to write about today. Lots of literary masterworks have been published posthumously—all three of Kafka’s novels, for example, came out after he died in 1924—but most have been works that their authors for some reasons chose not to publish or were unable to get published in their lifetimes, not letters that their authors specifically wished to be publicized after they were gone from the world. That concept, however, is not unknown…and the concept of creating what is called an ethical will in which a legator bequeaths, not physical possessions or money, but values and moral principles to his or her heirs is actually a Jewish practice that has its roots in medieval Jewish times.

There are early examples of something like that even from biblical times—the Torah contains the pre-posthumous blessings that both Jacob and Moses left behind for their heirs to contemplate and to allow to guide them forward after Jacob and Moses were going to be gone from the world. (When the New Testament author of the Gospel of Matthew portrays Jesus as doing the same thing, in fact, it is probably part of an ancient author’s effort accurately to depict Jesus as a Jewish man doing what Jewish men in his day did.) But the custom reached its fullest flower in the Middle Ages—the oldest extant ethical will from that period was written by one Eleazar ben Isaac of Worms in Germany and dates back to c. 1050. After that, there are lots of examples, many of which were collected and published in two volumes back in 1926 by Israel Abrahams under the title Hebrew Ethical Wills and still available for a very reasonable price. There is even a modern guide to preparing such a will to leave to your own descendants in Jack Riemer’s Ethical Will and How To Prepare Them: A Guide for Sharing Your Values from Generation to Generation, published in a revised second edition just a few years ago by Jewish Lights in Woodstock, Vermont.

And it is in that specific vein that I found myself reading Senator McCain’s letter to the American people: not as last-minute effort to make a few final points, much less to get a few last jabs in at specific, if unnamed, opponents. (The Bible has a good example of that too in David’s last message to the world, which includes a hit-list of people David hopes Solomon will find a way to punish—or rather, to execute—after David is gone from the world and Solomon becomes king after him.) The McCain letter, neither vengeful nor angry, is not at all in that vein. Nor is it particularly soothing: it is, in every sense, the literary embodiment of its authors hopes for the nation he served and his last word on the course he hopes our nation will take in the years following his death. To read the full text, click here.

Senator McCain identifies the core values he feels should lie at the generative core of all American policy: a deep dedication to the concept of personal liberty, an equally serious dedication to the pursuit of justice for all, and, to quote directly, a level of “respect for the dignity of all people [that will bring the nation and its citizens] happiness more sublime than life’s fleeting pleasures.” Furthermore, he writes unambiguously that, in his opinion, “our identities and sense of worth [are never] circumscribed, but enlarged, by serving good causes bigger than ourselves.”

He characterizes our country as “a nation of ideals, not blood and soil.” And then he writes this: “We are blessed and are a blessing to humanity when we uphold and advance those ideals at home and in the world.” But his tone is not at all self-congratulatory. Indeed, the very next passage is the one that seems both the most filled with honor and trepidation: “We weaken our greatness when we confuse our patriotism with tribal rivalries that have sown resentment and hatred and violence in all the corners of the globe. We weaken it when we hide behind walls, rather than tear them down; when we doubt the power of our ideals, rather than trust them to be the great force for change they have always been.” It is hard to read those words without reference to the current administration, and I’m sure that McCain meant them to be understood in that specific way. But the overall tone of the letter is not preachy or political, but deeply encouraging and uplifting. His final words to his fellow Americans are also worth citing verbatim: “Do not despair of our present difficulties,” the senator writes from the very edge of his life. “We believe always in the promise and greatness of America because nothing is inevitable here. Americans never quit, we never surrender, we never hide from history. We make history. Farewell fellow Americans, God bless you, and God bless America.”

I disagreed with John McCain about a lot. We were not on the same side of any number of the most important issues facing our nation, but those divisions fall away easily as I read those final words. Here, I find myself thinking easily, was a true patriot—a flawed man in the way all of us must grapple with our own weaknesses and failings, but, at the end of the day, a principled man and a patriot. His death was a loss to the nation and particularly to the Senate, but the words he left behind will, I hope, guide us forward in a principled way that finds in debate and respectful disagreement the context in which the American people can find harmony in discord (which is, after all, a peculiarly and particularly American concept) and a focused national will to live up our own Founders’ ideals.

In the physical universe, energy derives from tension, friction, and stress. In the world of ideas, the same is true: Socrates knew that and developed a way of seeking the truth rooted not in placid agreement but in vigorous debate. That concept, almost more than anything else, is what shines through Senator McCain’s literary testament to the nation. He notes wryly, and surely correctly, that we are a nation composed of 325 million “opinionated, vociferous individuals.” But he also notes that when debate, even raucous public debate, is rooted in a shared love of country, the result is a stronger, more self-assured nation, not a weaker one enfeebled by conflicting opinions. I think that too…and my sadness at the senator’s passing is rooted, more than anything else, in that specific notion.

John McCain’s life was a gift to our country and his death, a tragedy. May he rest in peace, and may his memory be a source of ongoing blessing for his family and for his friends, and also for us all.

#John McCain

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