#“not quite but we did see a giant floating baby head? that was mostly when we were travelling between dimensions…”

[noodles-and-tea]

Haha… yeah… that’d be crazy…

[celestial-fucking-weeb]

Going... Gone.

Hi guys! This is part of the Citrus Server’s “Auction Collab”, go see the full masterlist HERE!

This fic gets a little darker than my other ones, as you can probably tell from the entire Warnings section, but I promise there’s some sickly sweet (though a little backwards) fluff in there. PLEASE READ THE WARNINGS, THIS IS NOT INTENDED FOR PEOPLE WHO DO NOT WANT TO READ DARK FICS!!!!! 

Art by rorokonaa! You can find their shop here. :)

Sero Hanta x fem!reader

WARNINGS: 18+ MINORS DNI, yandere behavior, mind break, Stockholm syndrome, auction/trafficking, rough sex, unprotected sex, anal play, pet play, bondage, forced orgasms, overstimulation, ownership kink, dubcon/noncon (aphrodisiac), BDSM/kink terms

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How did I get here? What are they saying? Why do I feel so… so… hot? You knew you were kidnapped by the League of Villains, you recognized the faces of Shigaraki and Dabi from the news. You knew you were blindfolded. What you didn’t know was why your entire body felt hot and slow, like you were floating underwater, with a fire in your belly. Why did it sound like people were talking in turns? What are they saying? It isn’t until a hand wraps around your arm, yanks you up, and leads you roughly with a hand on your lower back that you realize you’re stark naked and being led onto a stage… 

“This one’s new- unbroken. She put up quite the fight trying to get her here, but that aphrodisiac has her all strung out and ready now. Doesn’t it?” Your blindfold is ripped off and Dabi’s hand grips your jaw. “So why don’t we start the bidding at 50,000,000¥?” 

Voices of various men calling out higher and higher numbers has you shaking- holy shit… no… it’s not… an auction?! No, no, no… “Awww look at that- look how pretty she looks when she’s scared! Ain’t she just the best when she’s fucking terrified?” Even in your fear-stricken state, you can’t help but grind on the boot he shoves between your thighs. Dabi is smirking condescendingly at your whimpering form, but his words aren’t for you in the slightest. 

Looking out into the crowd, you see mostly villains, CEOs, wealthy men and women, but then you see them… A scattering of heroes throughout the place. Oh thank god, they have a sting or something in place, they’ll save me!!! Tears of hope start rolling down your cheeks, so grateful to think that maybe you’ll be saved. 

“330,000,000¥.” A low voice bellows over the others, silencing them all. You look into the crowd and find the one man with a number card in the air. Tall, dark hair, lean and muscular, a confident triangular smirk gracing his chiseled face. You think you recognize his face, you know he’s a hero, you just can’t remember his name… 

“Going… going… gone. SOLD! Come get your pet off my fucking boot, she’s dripping all over the stage.” Dabi turns to you, choking you and turning your head towards the man striding towards the stage. “Say hello to your new Master, princess. He owns your ass now.” He growls in your ear, the tone of his voice making your pussy clench around nothing and more tears blur your vision. The hero hands Dabi a duffel bag- one you assume is full of money- and collects you. He’s so gentle, scooping you up in his arms with little regard for your weight. Once out of earshot, he whispers to you, “Hey, shhh- it’s okay. I’m your hero now. I’m gonna take you home.”  

“Are- are you here to save me?” You asked softly, clinging to the collar of his unbuttoned shirt. 

“Mhmm, of course I am, little one. Think of all the horrible things those people could have done to you, you could’ve been tortured or killed or worse. You’re lucky I was here to save you, huh?” He smirks down at you when your fearful form curls into him, tucking your face into his clavicle. He thinks you’re just being adorable, so grateful and shy, until he feels your cute little lips close around the skin of his collarbone and suck lightly while you whimper against him. Oh- forgot they dosed you with whatever aphrodisiac they use to keep you needy and compliant. He lets you know he’s aware of your ministrations with a deep rumble in his chest. He subtly adjusts you in his hold, leaving his forearm pressed against your drooling cunt just enough to give you satiating pressure, but not enough to satisfy you without his help. The teasing lilt in his concerned voice is lost on you when he mumbles “Do you need anything? What’s wrong? You’re burning up…” 

“I-it hurts… Please help me, it hurts!!” 

He tries to contain his smile at your pleas, but it's so hard when you’re pressing closer and closer to him, like you need only him. You don’t know it yet, but that’s right; you only ever need him. “I’ll take you somewhere to help, I promise. For now, why don’t you sit on my lap for the drive. Kiri here can drive while I make sure you’re okay.” He nods towards his red-haired friend, who you know as Red Riot: the hardening hero. Red Riot smacks your hero on the shoulder and adds “Of course, man! Anything for Cellophane, isn’t that right, angel~?”, sending you a wink. CELLOPHANE! You knew you recognized him!! Immediately, feeling safe with two pro-heroes, you seem content to be placed on Cellophane’s lap in the back seat, straddling his thigh, as Red Riot slides into the driver’s seat and starts toward what you assume is their agency. 

“Thank you, Cellophane, sir… I’m… I’m sorry, I don’t know where my clothes are...” You mutter against his neck, trying and failing to control the fire in your belly when you feel his hard length against you and hoping he doesn’t notice the way your face blushes and your slick starts to wet his slacks. So naÏve, so trusting… She’s so perfect. She needs me to protect her, she could never do anything by herself. He thinks to himself. 

“It’s okay, little one. You don’t have to be embarrassed, you’re perfect. Such a cutie, aren’t ya?” He coos, pinching your chubby cheek and smoothing his other hand down your naked back. “I’m Sero Hanta, by the way. It feels a little weird calling me by my hero name when you’re in my lap, doesn’t it?” 

“Um… A little…” Your giggle turns into a moan as Kiri drives over a bump a bit too hard, causing you to bounce on Sero’s thigh. You grip his shirt before looking up into his dark eyes and studying his face. “Sero… It really hurts…” 

Luckily, Hanta seems to know exactly what’s happening to your poor little body and presses his thigh further into you and holds your hips, grinding you on him and leaning in close. 

“I know, baby, I know. Here, does this feel a little better? You can cum on my thigh, it’s alright. Just relax and let me help you, little one.” You flush with embarrassment at the idea of climaxing on a pro-hero’s lap, one who just saved you, but you don’t have a choice once the humiliation reaches your needy sex. You can’t even hump his thigh by yourself anymore, relying solely on him to coax you through your orgasm- a thought he truly appreciates, loving the helpless way you whine with your face pressed into his throat while he massages your plump hips and thighs to help you ride out your pleasure. Your climax all but knocks you out, the intensity of the drug overpowering you, but not before your dumb, fucked-out brain recalls a name and makes you utter a phrase that seals your fate before you slip into unconsciousness…

“Thank you, Master~...” 

__________________________________________________________________

You come to laying on a giant pink bed, the comfiest you’d ever been on. Stuffies lined the edges, a sheer white canopy surrounding the headboard. You’re dazed and lost, not remembering how you got here, where you were, or how you’d been bathed, dressed, and completely taken care of. In your groggy confusion, you failed to notice Sero casually waiting for you, watching you from a large chair in the corner of the room. 

“Good morning, babygirl! I’m so happy you’re awake, I was getting really worried about you! How are you feeling?” He spoke so softly, it reminded you of how your father used to talk to you when you were little… Comforting, caring, protective. 

“H-Hi… Where am I? Is this the agency? When did we get here? How long has it been? I need to go home!” The panic in your voice develops the more questions you ask. 

“Aw angel- you are home! This is your room, see?” He stands and gestures to the room as he approaches your bed and leans down to lay his palm on your cheek. 

You flinch at the contact, an action that breaks his heart. “But- wait… Did-... Did you dress me? These aren’t mine… I didn’t have these when you rescued me…” The realization slowly seeps into the back of your mind: maybe he didn’t save you like you thought… 

“You looked so happy there, I didn’t want to wake you! But I thought you’d be more comfortable if you were all clean and had those cute little jammies on, yeah? Don’t you like them?” He’s trying his best to be happy and cheerful for you, to not show you how disheartened he is at your line of questions. He doesn’t want to scare you; at least, not yet. 

“Um… Y-yeah, they’re… nice… But I really have to go home, I need you to take me home, now!” You try to sound as confident as your small voice can muster, trying to be commanding and serious while yanking his wrist away from your face. 

Wrong answer.

Sero’s temper got the best of him at your disobedience, ripping your hand from his arm and slapping you across the face before you could even think to react. “What the fuck did I just say, pet? This. Is. Your. Home. Got that?” He seethed. He grabbed your face in one hand, fingers and thumb digging into your teeth through your cheeks. “I said I’m your hero, why would you make me be mean to you? Aren’t you grateful that I took you away from those horrible people? I don’t want to be nasty to my sweet little girl, but you need to be good for me, okay?” 

“FUCK YOU!” You spat in his face before pulling out of his grasp and running for the doorway. You missed the darkness in his eyes and the almost bored expression as his tape wrapped around your waist, throat, and thighs, sending you screaming onto the floor to futilely thrash around. 

“How fucking adorable… You look so pathetic, like a cat tangled up in their yarn. I think I’ll call you “kitten”, would you like that? Of course you would… A bratty little kitty.” He pulls you to him as you squirm, but your efforts are useless- just tiring yourself out. “You know what happens to bad kitties, don’t you? They get punished.” 

With his final statement, he shoves his hand into your cotton sleep shorts, finding you soaked and ready for him. You whine out for him to stop, but his drenched fingers are promptly shoved into your mouth. “Oh SHUT. UP. You act like you have a say in your fucking punishment, you don’t. I think it’s time to show you the ‘playroom’, brat.” With that, he tosses you over his shoulder and spanks your ass, leaving a bright red handprint as he carries you out of the room. 

You’re dropped harshly on the concrete floor, his tape retracting and rewrapping to keep your wrists bound. “Now, now, kitten.” He growls with a disgusted inflection, “I think if you’re going to act like a brat, even though I can feel how wet you are for me, you should look the part, don’t you?” He walks to the wall behind you, selecting his punishments of choice before returning to you and yanking you to the floor, face down-ass up. “I think a cute little tail is fitting, yeah?” He asks no one in particular as he spits onto your presented ass. You start to squirm away before freezing at the sudden intrusion of a buttplug. “Oh, I’m sorry- is this the first time anything’s ever been in here before? Since you wanted to act like such a bad girl, I figured you’d been a little whore, too. Look at how wet you are, dripping just from me degrading you? Fucking disgusting.” he adds, swiping two battle-calloused fingers across your clit, making you clench around nothing. 

You whine as tears slip down your face, holding back your sobs at being violated like this. Just as you think you’d adjusted to the new stretch of the plug, Sero’s cock lines up to your entrance and he buries himself to the hilt in your tight pussy. Your scream of pleasurable pain is cut off by his hand wrapped around your throat, squeezing the sides to cut off your blood flow and pulling you up to lean back against his naked chest. His other hand snakes down your body, pinching harshly at your nipples, leaving bruising finger prints on your hips and finally landing on your throbbing clit. “You’re gonna cum around my cock until all you can think about is how you fucking belong to me. I’m going to fuck you into submission and you’re going to fucking love it. Yeahhh~ that’s right, I can feel you clamping down around me, you like the idea of being mine, huh?”

“Please, please, NO! I don’t wanna cum, I can’t!! Please no no no-” You’re begging him to stop, to let you go, to stop abusing your poor little holes. As soon as his grip abandons your throat in favor of pulling on the tail plug and bruising your ass with full-force spanks, you climax so hard you swore you blacked out. That’s when you feel it; that sweet headspace that only comes from being broken. You can practically hear an audible crack as your mind shatters, leaving you to float off into blissful submission. Your protests turn into whines, which morph into whimpers, which transformed into breathless pleas as you turned your head to him. He senses your shift in demeanor, hears your breathy moans and turns to meet your gaze. Upon seeing your glassy eyes, dumb little brain so deep into subspace you’d forget your own name, his cock twitches inside of you and a content smile creeps onto his face. His pace slows, but his thrusts never lose the bruising, bodyweight-backed force behind them. The hand on your hip moves to the pouch of your belly, moaning at the feeling of his cock under his hand, poking into your tummy. He releases your plug and moves to pinch your clit between two fingers, overstimulating you and causing you to buck your hips away from his hand, sending you back onto his cock. “Awww~ there’s my good babygirl. You just needed Master to tame you, didn’t you? Acting out because you needed Master to wreck this cute little cunny, hm? That’s it, cum on my cock again, take the rest of your punishment and tell me who you belong to.”

“M-Master~!!! Please, yes, I’ll be so good for you! I promise!! It’s too much, please- too sensitive…” You’re begging so pretty for him, how could he not want to watch you fall apart for him over and over again? Sero finishes with his dick pressed against your womb at your words, but he’s not done with you yet. He pulls orgasm after orgasm from your trembling body, you lost count after 5. The tears and drool have run down your chin, adding to the slick pouring out of your sore cunt and making it all the more easy for Sero to fuck his cum into you once again. “Tell me you love me, kitten. Tell me who you belong to.”

“Fuuuuuck~ please! I love you, I love you, I love you!!! I’m yours, I wanna be your good girl! Please, Daddyyy!” You’re full on sobbing now, trying to please him and not even realizing the name falling from your lips as you crane your neck to pepper desperate kisses on his cheek and jaw. 

“That’s my little angel. I know you have one more for me, cum one more time for Daddy and I’ll take care of you.” His fingers press hard onto your clit and he bites down on your neck, sending you both into an earth-shattering climax. You lose yourself in his touch, squirting all over his hand and the floor below you as his seed floods your walls and warms your insides. 

After coming down from your highs, Sero releases you from his tape and gently removes the plug. He pulls out of you to carefully lift you up and take you into your room, but you cling to him so fearfully, he has to cup your face to pull your face to his. “Hey, hey… What’s wrong, little one? Use your words. What do you need?”

“N-not ready to be empty yet… Please don’t leave me, Daddy! I promise I’ll be good, please don’t leave! I don’t wanna be empty…” You hiccup between sobs, the far-off look in your eyes fading just slightly as the need for intimacy clouds your features.

Sero’s heart practically shatters, kissing your tears away and adjusting you in his arms, easing himself back into your puffy hole and pressing your head into the crook of his neck. You curl into him, whimpers quieting down at the skin contact and the twisted comfort you found in his dominance. 

“I’m sorry I had to do that, little one. You know I don’t like hurting you. I just want to take care of you, you can’t do it by yourself…” His disappointed tone makes you nauseous, but not for the reason you thought it would. You should be disgusted by the situation, by being held hostage after being kidnapped, bought, and paid for. Instead, you felt a horrid pang of guilt at disappointing him, making him go through all this trouble for your ungrateful ass to try to leave him. Why do I feel so bad? HE BOUGHT ME… But… He did take care of me…. And he did help me when I was drugged… I owe him, and now he’s upset. I didn’t mean to hurt his feelings…

“I’m sorry, Daddy… I didn’t mean to… I promise I’ll be good, I’ll be your good girl!” You nuzzle closer to him, hoping he can’t hear the lump in your throat as clear as you can. The tears in your eyes burned, and Sero’s face immediately softened. “Aw, poor baby… I know you didn’t mean it, you just need to understand that Daddy knows what’s best. I know you’re a good girl, little one. I just need you to be my good little angel, not a bad kitten, okay? That’s all.”

“Yes, Master… I promise…” 

“Oh no, babygirl. You only call me Master during punishments or playtime, okay? You can just call me Daddy, alright? You seem to like that better when you’re all cute like this, don’t you? And I’ll call you ‘kitten’ when you need to be put in your place again, but only then, okay?” He whispers, laying back on your bed with you in his arms.

“Okay, Daddy! Can you sleep here with me…? Please?” Your eyes start to close, drifting off from the exhaustion. 

“Of course, babygirl. I’ll stay here as long as you want.” He grins into your hair and places a sweet kiss on your forehead.

Maybe you really do love him. Your hero…

[inactiive-shit]

Monsters

Fandom: Sanders Sides

Prompt: monsters

Warnings: Deceit, Remus, vomit

Pairing: Romantic Dukeceit -> Anxceitmus

Words: 1,892

@sanderssidescelebrations sorry I just couldn’t think of a good title for this one. In other news, I may eventually write more off this prompt as a kind of backstory because I have a lot of ideas now. ANYWHO, here ya go!

“Are you okay, Virgil?” said Patton’s gentle voice. Virgil jumped, then groaned, then took a giant swig of his mostly espresso coffee. He gave Patton’s general direction a despondent thumbs up and carefully put his head back on the table. Patton rubbed his back soothingly, and Virgil could imagine the cooing noises he would make.

“Is he hung over?” came Roman’s deep rumble of a voice. He threw himself down at the table with them, and Virgil could feel all the way down his spine as Roman’s chair and Remus’s were pulled back from the table with a screech. He groaned again and put his arms over his head as though that would block out the noise anymore than his boxy, noise-canceling headphones already were.

“He’s not feeling well?” Patton suggested. “I’m not really sure. He’s only communicating with grunts and groans.” Patton continued rubbing Virgil’s back. Virgil wished he was hung over like Princey thought. At least then there would be an end to this eternal torment. As it was, Virgil kind of wanted to gouge out his eyes and his eardrums. That could solve the problem of the massive migraine that was currently trying to kill him. But hey, the screams of hundreds of unrested souls could do that to a person.

“Well, I don’t know why else he’d be wearing sunglasses inside and with giant headphones on if he’s not hung over,” Roman said. Virgil wished he was hung over. If he was hung over, it would stop eventually.

“Migraine,” Virgil grumbled, face smashing into the table. He could feel the rumble of sympathy coming from Patton as he said something Virgil didn’t quite catch. He sat up slightly and drained the rest of his drink. He shoved the empty cup toward Remus. “More?”

“Should you really be drinking caffeine, though, since it makes your anxiety worse?” Roman asked, clapping a hand over Remus’s mouth to stop whatever was about to come spewing out. “Wouldn’t that just, I don’t know, make your headache worse, too?”

“What about caffeine?” asked Logan, taking the seat on Virgil’s other side. Roman repeated himself and Virgil tried his best not to puke from how the world was spinning around him even with his eyes shut and hidden behind dark sunglasses he’d gotten (read: stolen) from his roommate.

“Actually,” Logan said, voice cutting through Virgil’s headphones with a precision that made Virgil wince, “caffeine is a key ingredient in many migraine medications. It is clinically proven to help. And while the unfortunate, unintended side effect of heightened anxiety does occur with Virgil, it’s fair that he get to choose whether or not that’s worth it.”

“More,” Virgil grumbled again. Remus jumped up from the table and disappeared from Virgil’s limited hearing. More talking commenced around the table, and Virgil began singing a song in his head so that he could block out any wayward stimulation that decided to provoke his already pounding head.

Another chair was pulled out from the table, with a considerable amount of grace that all the other chairs had lacked, and that is how Virgil knew that Dee was there, and also that all of his friends had managed to find him slumped in a cafe, halfway between purgatory and hell. As was the life of a clairvoyant with shit luck. Virgil preferred to take his suffering alone with a side of lonely, thank you very much.

When Remus dropped the drink down in front of Virgil, he almost cried with relief and immediately began chugging it. Maybe, if life were so kind, Virgil could subsist on a diet of solely caffeine and noodles. It hadn’t worked yet, but there was still time to try.

“Bad day?” That was Dee’s voice, smooth and barely loud enough that Virgil could hear it. He winced anyway and nodded as he carefully dropped his head back onto the table. Nothing more was said that Virgil heard, and slowly but surely, the screams died down, too. It was almost peaceful and with his eyes shut to block out any unsavory spirits he may see he could imagine he was somewhere that wasn’t crowded with spirits.

Until a loud shriek of ”Help me, Virgil!” sound next to his ear and Virgil jumped so violently that his headphones flew off. Virgil winced again as the sound of every spirit in a hundred yard radius began assaulting his eardrums. The movement was so sudden that is sent the world tilt-a-whirling again and Virgil knew without a doubt that something regrettable was going to happen.

“Virgil, are you-”

“I’m going to be sick,” he gasped and staggered from the table. He slammed the bathroom door opened and dropped to his knees in front of the first toilet. Everything he’d eaten in the last day was coming up, and there was a hand on his back which could have been anyone and Virgil couldn’t even find it in himself to be embarrassed.

When he was done, the person behind him leaned forward to peer into the toilet and said, “Do you not chew your spaghetti? I could chew it for you and feed you like a bird.” Virgil let out a hiccup of a laugh, feeling the tiniest bit better. There was only one person he knew who would say something like that.

“Shut up,” Virgil groaned. He could barely hear anything over the dead. Reality felt kind of fuzzy which was probably not what it was supposed to be doing, but who was Virgil to argue with the universe? Certainly not the person the universe had fucked over with stupid psychic-seeing-the-dead powers from the day he was born.

Oh, wait, he actually was.

“Are you okay?” Remus asked. Virgil spit up the rest of what was in his stomach. “I think that’s a no. What’s wrong, Stormcloud?”

“It’s too loud,” Virgil said without thinking about it. Then he tensed up and puked again. Now Remus would think he was crazy because it probably didn’t sound loud in an empty bathroom to him.

“What do you mean?” Remus asked, wrapping an arm around Virgil. He might be done puking, he wasn’t sure, but he could tell that Remus was worried about him now because he wasn’t saying anything repulsive.

And if he’d made Remus worried, well, he sort of owed him the truth. He knew Remus wouldn’t care anyway. He was a werewolf. There was no room to judge.

“Mm-hm,” Virgil hummed. “All the dead people are screaming and I’m going to lose my mind if it doesn’t stop because it’s so fucking loud and-” Virgil stopped abruputly as Remus pulled Virgil toward him. He put Virgil’s head on his chest right above his heart and pressed his hand over top Virgil’s other ear. Suddenly, the only sound in Virgil’s head was the abnormally slow ba-boom, ba-boom of Remus’s heart. It was so loud and it was all Virgil could focus on. There was no screaming, no threats, no begging; just the echo of Remus being alive.

Virgil went limp against him and squeezed his eyes shut. It was the most serene he had felt in his whole life.

“Why, Virgil! You see dead people! Why didn’t you tell me? We could have such a fun time,” rumbled through Remus’s chest. Virgil didn’t say anything. It was quiet for once, he was going to enjoy this until his migraine left him the fuck alone. “Did you know I was a werewolf?” Remus asked. That did, unfortunately, require an answer.

Virgil sat back. “Yeah. So’s Ro, and Dee’s a naga and Pat’s a selkie and Lo’s a fae and my roommate is a vampire who thinks he’s a whole lot better as keeping secrets than he actually is. Sorry I didn’t say anything.” With the screaming back and the nasty visions floating around him and the taste of puke in his mouth, Virgil’s words came out kind of stilted and uneven. It didn’t seem to matter to Remus, who beamed.

“Oh, Virgil, I am happy as a maggot in shit to hear that,” Remus exclaimed. “The only reason Dee and I haven’t asked you out yet was because we didn’t want you to think you were getting into a relationship with humans when we aren’t. Ruined the surprise, I think, but what can you do.”

“Remus,” Virgil said slowly. “Did you just ask me out on the bathroom floor right after I puked in the toilet?”

“I like a guy who can get a little nasty,” Remus said and shimmied his shoulders. Virgil groaned, partly because Remus was ridiculous and partly because he might puke again. “So, what do ya say, Stormcloud?”

“Yes, but not right now because there’s still puke in my mouth,” Virgil said.

“Let’s go get that handled,” Remus suggested, “and then you can come back to our apartment and we can keep all those awful noises away. And then when we wake up tomorrow, Dee can ask you out!” He was grinning manically, and Virgil couldn’t help but laugh. It sounded like a pretty solid plan. Remus helped Virgil stand up and brought him over to the sinks to rinse his mouth out. Virgil took a couple sips of water, but decided that was enough or else he’d be spitting that back up too.

When Remus tried to lead him toward the door, Virgil’s legs gave out from under him. Remus, without hesitating for even a second, scooped Virgil up like a baby. He adjusted them until Virgil’s head was on his chest and Virgil had relaxed slightly.

“Okay?”

“Yeah. Just tired.” Virgil shut his eyes again as Remus carried him out of the bathroom. There was a muffled conversation at the table as somebody put his headphones and sunglasses back on for him, and he faintly heard Remus say, “Virgie’s not a normie either!” followed by exclamations and he did really want to hear what everybody thought, but the next thing he knew, he was being picked up out of a car and carried into an apartment.

“Hey, Virgil,” Dee said, plucking his headphones off for a second. Virgil winced, but it was quieter here, less to see and hear, so he hummed a hello. “Remus said you agreed to come over and I really didn’t want to have to take the headphones off to ask in the middle of the restaurant. Do you need anything? Food? Or water? Sleep?”

“Lights off?” Virgil whispered. “I don’t really sleep much like this. But I like listening to Remus’s heart. It makes all the other noises...stop.” Dee smiled in the softest way Virgil had ever seen, and then went to pull all their curtains closed. Remus sat down on the couch, still cradling Virgil, and situated them so that Virgil’s head was directly over his heart. The slow, steady ba-boom, ba-boom was taking up most of Virgil’s senses again.

“Do you need anything else?” Dee asked quietly. Virgil shook his head, and Dee sat down next to them. There was a quiet rumble as Remus said something Virgil didn’t catch, and then a softer one as Dee responded. Virgil took a deep breath and just focused on Remus’s heartbeat. It let the pain fade to background noise much better than anything else did, and Virgil finally fell asleep to the quiet ba-boom, ba-boom of Remus’s heart.

[ohvalleyofplentyyy]

Life, Death, and Between

100 Followers Celebration One-Shot

A/N: Thank you so much for the love and support! I will be posting chapters to Chamomile and Merlin’s Blood soon but wanted to make something special for this milestone :) 

p.s, i’ve linked specific words like flowers and outfits so you can see what i was picturing if you want or if you don't know what a specific flower is :)

male reader insert here!

master-list

Life, Death and Between

“Jasky Baby! Geraaaaaaaaaaalt! Get up!” 

You yelled running up the stairs of your cottage with a newfound spring in your step. The boys were both snug in the two beds you had set up in the attic once you figured they would be staying for a while.

You lived right at the bottom of a huge mountain that was surrounded by a very dense forest, how these two idiots were able to stumble upon your home in the middle of the night three years ago still befuddled you.  

You pulled the blankets off the musician first, then the giant monster hunter and finally ripped open the curtains, letting light stream in.

 Jaskier moaned and put his pillow over his head to shield his eyes. “Y/N, why are you doing this to me?!” He whined.

“Come on! You have to get out of bed and see this!” You said excitedly. Geralt slowly sat up and watched as you ran amok through the room, throwing clothes at them trying to speed up the process.

He chuckled and eventually got out of bed, grabbing the pillow off of Jaskier and whacking him with it. “Come on, we better go before she decides to roll  you out of bed through the window.”

Once the boys were fully dressed (though Jaskier’s shirt was buttoned through the wrong holes making it crumple a bit at the bottom) you ran down the staircase and zipped out the door. “What’s up with her?” The bard mumbled, trying to tame the creature that was his hair.

They came ou the front door and you appeared in front of them wearing a flower crown made up of daisies, baby’s breath, and pink kinnikinnick.

 In your hands were two extra flower crowns that you quickly placed on the boy’s heads and then motioned for them to follow. The two followed you until you stopped at a small body of water that a waterfall ran into from the mountain.

It was a sight to behold.

The water was a serene blue, and the light danced upon it like stars in the night sky. Small water Nymphs skittered on the surface, moving what appeared to be small boats to the center of the pond. These boats were made of wood branches, large leaves and some were mushrooms flipped over.

 But the best part about them was the fairies sitting in them.

All at once, fairies seemed to appear at the pond. So many colors and types, some wore petal clothes and others wore nothing. Wings varied in size, ranging from the size of Geralt’s hand to nail on your pinky.

The three of you watched in awe as a special ceremony was performed on the water. The fairies lined up in two rows on each side, making a pathway from the edge of the pond to the center. In the center, the boats had been enchanted and now floated in the air, sparkles of the pixie dust making them shimmer in the light.

Then all the chattering from the fairies ceased and they turned to the water's edge and watched the treeline as something emerged. It appeared to be a floating carriage made from an old bird nest and flowers. Sitting in this carriage was the most ethereal fairy you had ever seen. She had long flowing lilac hair that flowers were embedded into.

Her dress was made of rose petals, mostly white, sans the bottom hem that was purple tulip petals. It trailed over the carriage side it was so long, making it appear like a wedding veil, floating behind a bride.

 Her wings though were the most gorgeous you had ever laid eyes on, they weren’t very large, about the length of your palm to your index finger. But they seemed to be translucent, the only way you would know they were there is if the light reflected through them, creating a small rainbow effect on the other side.

Once at the edge of the pond, faint music started to play, you looked over to the source and saw several fairies with miniature versions of violins, lutes, and a flute. As the queen of the fairies crossed over the water, the others started to bow as she passed. You immediately did as well when she glanced over to the three of you. Geralt slowly bowed his head and Jaskier did a full bow when you tugged on his tunic.

The band of fairies died out as the queen flew up from the carriage. In a somber voice, you heard her speak.

“Thank you all for coming today, this ceremony has been long overdue since many have treated our kind unfairly, we have had no reason to have it. But now, a true friend has stepped forward and offered their unconditional love to us. It is with great honor that I present our new Guardian of the Forest.”

Jaskier whispered to Geralt, “Do you know who it is?” With a small smile, Geralt answered. “Yes, I do.”

 This greatly intrigued you, so you bent over, “Who is it then?” Geralt made a motion to look forward.

There were two small fairies in front of you, one of them lime green and the other an ivory color. They both wore white tulip tunics and were holding a long shawl out. It was very thin and resembled the queen’s wings. There were small symbols etched into the edge all around it with pixie dust.

“It’s you.”

You watched in awe as the fairies draped the shawl over your shoulders and led you to the edge of the water where the pathway of fairies floated. You took a step into the water, the sweet cold tickling your bare feet and soaking the bottom of your skirt. But it did not matter, as you walked down the path of magical creatures.

You noticed others that had come to watch the ceremony. Some deer with on the opposite side of the pond, small hummingbirds flitted to a branch overlooking the water. Even butterflies flew around, watching the scene unfold.

Once at the center of the pond, the queen flew down to you and bowed her head.

“Thank you for always doing what is best for the forest. Your caring nature has shown us that there are still humans worthy of knowing our powers. You shower us with loyalty and never ask for anything in return, only a friendship. Now that you have proven yourself to be a true friend, it is with great honor that I bestow you, Guardian of the Forest and Creatures.”

With a wave of her hand, a flower crown made of twine, lavender, baby’s breath, poppies, and everlasting floated over and took the place of your other crown that two fairies took off your head. Then, with a kiss to your forehead, magic flourished.

You fell into a small slumber as Geralt and Jaskier watched in awe as you were lifted by magic from the water. The fairies flew upwards and circled around you, dancing and singing a magical chant.

Oh, our Guardian,

Protector of all

Loves and cherishes

Anything big or small.

Oh, our Guardian

Whom we adore

Let us celebrate

This moment they are reborn.

As they sang, the water rose from the pond and encased you in a sphere of magic. Lights flashed through it and sparks of pixie dust sprinkled down from the circle. It was like fireworks were going off inside this magical womb made from the water. 

The faires chanted and sang until the water started to tremor and then bursted out in every direction.

Light flooded the area, coming from you then simmered down. Gently, you were lowered down to the pond’s surface, only this time, you were able to stand on the top and not sink through. Your once wet clothing was now replaced with a new outfit.

The fabric flowed down your body like ripples of water. It was a white dress that had puffed flowing long sleeves that stopped at your wrist and moved in the wind. The bodice came up and around your neck, various designs in lace and jewels coating the front. It went down from your waist to the water, the trail behind it sitting atop the water just as you were.

You now had small baby’s breath woven into the braided crown of hair. The braids seemed to hold with no ties or lacing, only the sparkle of magic showed beneath the sun's rays.

But was most awe-inspiring, were the new wings that adorned your back.

Beautiful blue morpho wings now fluttered out from behind you, stretching and glistening in the light. It was surreal, you touched the wings as they curled around you, now another piece of your body and mind. 

The queen smiled at you. “Thank you so much for trusting in me.” You said to her. You brought your hand up to her and she hugged it, making you grin.

“Y/N!!! Y/N!!” When you turned, you saw Jaskier jumping up and down on the side of the water, Geralt smacking him up the back of the head when heads turned to see the commotion as the bard quite reasonably freaked out.

“You may go to them, you are now the bridge between the fae world and humans.” With one last smile to the queen, you walked on the water’s surface until you stepped foot on land. Jaskier bounded over to you followed by a fast walking Geralt.

You floated a few feet off the ground and spun for them. “Well, what do you think?” The bard gasped, “You, you! You’re a spirit now! You, you, you have wings!!!!!” He spoke very quickly, trying to process his thoughts and emotions on what had just conspired.

As you lowered to the floor, Geralt took your hand and gave it a small kiss on the back of it and then did an elegant bow in front of you. “She’s the Guardian of the Forest, not a spirit you idiot. We wouldn’t be able to see her if she was.”

You chuckled, “I can see so many things now that the human eye cannot, the world is so beautiful! There are so many lives that we cannot see with the naked eyes, it’s amazing.”

Jaskier walked around you and trailed a finger down your left wing, “Well, if anyone was going to watch over the forest it would definitely be you. You spend every day tending to nature and it’s inhabitants.”

 “Including us.” Geralt added, leaning against a tree.

With a wave of your hand, the train of the dress hooked to the back of your waist and you took each of your friend’s hands, walking back to the cottage.

 As you walked, Jaskier asked questions. “Will this change everything? Will you leave and live in the forest? What happens now?”

“Oh Jaskier, I’m not going anywhere. I’m the bridge between fae creatures and humans remember? I’ll always be here for you, now I just have a broader approach to the world around us and some added abilities. I understand that I will have to live up to my title as Guardian and sometimes leave to protect the creatures I love, but I’ll never be gone forever. I’ll always come back to my dearest friends... if they want me too.”

Geralt put an arm around you, “Of course we want you to.” 

You gasped, “Is the great Geralt of Rivia saying that he wants me around? Gee Jasky, did he wake up this morning feeling ill? This is very peculiar for a Witcher…”

Jaskier threw back his head and laughed, Geralt just shook his and smiled.

Then you got a bright idea, “Hey, now that I’m not just another damsel in distress for Geralt to protect on journeys like Jaskier—“ “Hey!” “—maybe I can come with you guys when you leave for adventures!”

“Are you sure that would be safe Y/N?” The Witcher asked. You nodded, “I think that maybe the fates led us to each other because they knew we would be able to help each other. It’s destiny!” Geralt groaned, “Don't say that word.”

You nudged him with your shoulder, “I’m not such a bad destiny to have am I?”

“No Y/N, you’re the best destiny to have.”

With that, the three friends walked through the forest, back to your cottage. 

Some say that many songs were created that day, the day Life and Death and Between came to be friends for eternity.

Toss a coin to your Witcher

O’Valley of Plenty

O’Valley of Plenty

O’

The tales of three are whispered

In the dead of night

As Life and Death, became friends

And joined the quest to fight.

To save mankind from its horrid greed

Greatest of friends, and seldom foes

A human also accompanied thee.

Toss a coin to your Witcher

O’Valley of Plenty

O’Valley of Plenty

O’

And a friend to the Guardian of humanity.

<3

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tags: @stretchkingblog97​  @alienemilyyyy​  @angelic-kisses13​  @alwayshave-faith​  @holyhumorliteraturelight​  @emilyhuynhhh @holychic​ 

bolded are tags that didn’t work.

[caydesgirl-uldrensprincess]

Forbidden || Chapter Three: Fallen and Ball Gown Talk

"The plan is simple, gate crash their ether extraction party and gets out," Tori explained, pointing to her holographic map.

"Got it," Chloe said, twirling her knife between her fingers.

"That's it?" Isabelle asked, folding her arms as her ghost Hermione materialized by her left shoulder.

"Yes, hopefully," The female Exo Titan muttered.

"That's not reassuring," Hermione commented, floating to the other side of  Isabelle, her pink and purple shell glinting in the sunlight.

"Let's play it safe," Came Chloe's ghost, Moondance.

"Says the ghost whose Guardian's a reckless fool," Tori chuckled.

"You get a little reckless after going through three vanguards, one of them being my dad," Chloe stated, sheathing her knife.

"Touche," The Female Exo said.

Isabelle just rolled her eyes and summoned her sparrow, she just wanted to get this done and over with. Her latest book was waiting for her at home and she left off on a cliffhanger. "Come on girls, less bloody chit chat and more action," She said over her shoulder as she mounted her sparrow. 

"Knowing us, it's gonna be done in under ten minutes, you would think the Vanguard would give us something more, I don't know, challenging?" Chloe elaborated, summoning her sparrow and climbing onto it.

"Exactly, I for one would love to do a harder raid on Venus," Tori chuckled, she too climbing on her sparrow.

The trio zipped off towards the ether extraction. 

The planet this mission was on was Mars. It was mostly run by Cabal, but there were some Fallen here and there, not too much though. That was a good thing. Unlike the Cosmodrome, that place was littered with those scathing pirates. 

When the girls arrived at their destination. They jumped off their sparrows and crouched and crawled to the cliff edge just ahead. They laid on their stomachs. Isabelle got her Shepherd's Watch rifle ready, looking down her sights.

"They're just bloody milling about, for now, the Elinski haven't even started extracting yet," She said, watching the targets carefully.

"How many are there?" Chloe asked, loading ammunition into her hand cannon.

"Not many, about twenty or so," The Warlock answered.

"This is gonna be a walk in the park," Tori commented.

Isabelle chuckled and put her rifle over her shoulder. "If you move now the three of you can eliminate them without any problems," Percy, Tori's ghost, said materializing by Tori's shoulder.

"No reckless mishaps," Came Moondance, making Chloe let out a dry chuckle of her own. 

"Chloe, I'm serious, I'm getting tired of reviving you every five minutes," He said, appearing in front of his guardian, and the trio of females tried to contain their laughter. "I can't make any promises, buddy, but I'll try," The Huntress stated.

"Hermione, you wanna add something?" Isabelle asked as her little light appeared.

"Yes, the Fallen have started extracting ether, better hurry," She said.

The Warlock nodded and the girls moved silently down the cliffside. Isabelle and Chloe grabbed two Dregs from behind and dragged them behind a rock. The Huntress stabbed them for good measure. Isabelle pointed to Chloe and Tori then pointed right, then she pointed to herself and pointed left. The Huntress and Titan nodded went right. The warlock crept around a giant boulder grabbed and fusion grenade and tossing it to the nearest target, just as one of Chloe's swarm grenade landed in the middle of the extraction and started a commotion amongst the Eliksni. Vandals and Marauders put up their guard and started scouting the area.

"On my signal, we jump into action," Tori said over the comms.

"I'm ready when you are," Came Chloe.

"Same here," Isabelle replied, putting bullets into her rifle, "let's just get this over with so I can go home and read."

She watched as Tori jumped out from behind the boulder across the way and created a shield as she started firing her auto rifle. Isabelle got on top of the boulder she was behind and aimed down her sights, killing Dregs and Vandals left and right. She saw Chloe jump out from the corner of her lense, hand cannon blazing and knives everywhere.

When the Captain appeared, all three girls fired at him all at once. Taking him down easily. Lastly, they destroyed the ether extraction device. 

"Ramen on me?" The Huntress offered.

"Sure, why not," Tori obliged.

"But after we report to the Vanguard," Isabelle stated, as the three of them transmitted to the ship.

~~~

Isabelle, Chloe, and Tori walked out of the hanger and to the Hall of Guardians. They had to report back to the Vanguard about the ether extraction the Fallen were trying to do. Isabelle looked at the guardians they passed. Some were talking in small groups, others danced to nothing-in-particular, and some were just getting back from bounties and cashing them in. The trio passed Lord Shaxx, who was manning Crucible matches and looked like he was on his twelfth cup of coffee. Isabelle looked at Eris, who was muttering about Oryx coming back. Finally, the Vanguard was in full view. The Warlock watched as her best friends split off and went to their Vanguards. Chloe to Cayde and Tori to Zavala. Isabelle walked over to Ikora.

"Isabelle, how was the mission?" Ikora asked, looking up from the tablet she held.

"Oh, you know, way too easy, like taking candy from a baby," Isabelle replied.

"Good, I assume you and your fireteam were efficient enough to get the job done?"

"Yes, and yes, Hermione, Moondance, and Percy were the real help," The Awoken female said, mentioning hers and her friends' ghosts.

Ikora smiled, "That's good to hear, there is something I would like to talk to you about if you haven't already heard."

Isabelle furrowed her brows, "What is it? Did I do something. . . wrong?"

"No, no, it's just that Queen Mara Sov has invited the Vanguard and the guardians to a ball," The Warlock Vanguard explained.

"A ball?"

"Yes, but the Prince-- Uldren Sov-- has requested you to accompany him as his plus one."

Isabelle's jaw dropped, her cheeks flooding with warmth. Uldren wanted HER to be HIS plus one? She felt like she was dreaming, like actually dreaming. Hermione must have felt the wave of shock go through Isabelle because she appeared next to her. Isabelle straightened and shook her head. 

"Sorry, that's quite shocking, I thought the Awoken didn't like us, guardians, very well, especially Uldren," She said, her fingers find their way to her hair, tugging at the bubble-gum pink strands nervously.

"Queen Mara wishes to make us allies," Ikora stated, "and I see why do you?"

"Yes, because the enemy is growing ever so slowly and we want to be prepared for a possible attack, which, I guess, is why Mara wants this ball," Isabelle responded, "to extend her allies."

"Very well, my young pupil, I've taught you well," The Warlock Vanguard smiled, "You are dismissed."

Isabelle nodded and headed out of the Hall of Guardians, finding Chloe and Tori outside waiting for her. They were both exchanging a few words when the noticed Isabelle approach.

"Hey, Bookworm, did Ikora tell you about the ball?" Tori asked, her pink optics glowing brightly in the dimly lit Tower Plaza.

"Yes, and something quite shocking," The Warlock replied.

Isabelle could have sworn Chloe's human ears perked up at this, or was that just a hunter thing? But her icy, blue eyes were focused on her hand cannon as she started cleaning it.

"What is it?" The Huntress asked.

"Prince Uldren has asked for me to be his plus one to the ball," Isabelle admitted, her cheeks heating up.

The Huntress' head snapped up and the Titan stared in shock. It was clear that they were not expecting this to come out of Isabelle's mouth. She again started playing with her hair.

"Well, looks like your Prince Charming wants you after all," Chloe smirked, mischief flashing in her eyes.

"I doubt that," Isabelle rolled her eyes and folded her arms.

"Chloe, wipe that shit-eatin' grin off your face!" Tori scolded, her southern accent coming out.

Isabelle laughed at this as the Huntress flipped Tori off. The Exo just rolled her optics, shaking her head lightly, "Real mature, Clo, real mature."

"Anyway, who wants to go down to the city tomorrow and shop for dresses, especially Izzy's," Chloe said.

"Me, what's so special about the dress I'll be wearing?" Isabelle asked, playing with her hair.

"Because you are going with a Prince as a date," The blue-haired female replied, putting her hand cannon in its holster and stowing the cleaning cloth in her pocket, "you need to look outstanding, absolutely gorgeous, but not too much, or else people will think you're trying to outdo their queen."

"Okay, and whom might I ask is gonna be your date, Chloe Faith?" The Warlock inquired, "though I have a bloody feeling I know who it is."

The last part was said under her breath.

"Cayde asked me, he said 'it'd be fun and that ya haven't gone out since Nathen cheated on ya and ya deserve to dance with a real man'," The Huntress just blushed lightly.

Everyone knew Cayde was head over heels for Chloe, even when Andal was still here. Isabelle knew Chloe felt the same way, but she backed off and cut herself from any type of romantic relationship because of how Nathen cheated on her and because her father was killed. But Isabelle was glad Chloe accepted the offer of going with the Hunter Vanguard.

"Anyway, who are you going with Tori?" The Huntress asked.

"I was thinking of maybe asking Amanda," The Exo replied, "just as friends though, I'm not looking for a girlfriend or boyfriend right now."

Tori was bisexual, and when she came out Isabelle happily supported her, along with Chloe. After all their best friends, why wouldn't they support her?

"Chloe, didn't you say something about paying for ramen?" The Warlock asked, changing the subject.

"Yes, now let's go before the shop closes and Cayde gets off duty," The blue-haired female exclaimed, ushering Isabelle and Tori over to the Bazaar.

~~~

The next day Isabelle woke to something nudging her shoulder. "Isabelle, it's time to get up, you told Chloe and Tori you would go shopping for ball gowns today," Hermoine said, still nudging the Awoken woman.

 She opened her eyes and found her ghost floating in front of her. Isabelle turned her head towards the window, early morning light poured through it. "Did I fall asleep reading again?" She asked, sitting up in bed and letting out a yawn.

 "Yes, I put a bookmark in the place where you left off and set the book on your nightstand," The Little Light answered, bobbing up and down whilst twirling in the air.

"Brilliant, what time is it?"

"Just a little past seven."

Isabelle nodded and got out of bed, trudging over to the bathroom where she ditched the white, cotton t-shirt and black shorts she was wearing and jumped into the shower. She let the warm water relax the tense muscles in her body from yesterday. Then she focused and washing her hair, making sure all the knots and tangles came out. Lastly, she washed her body and shaved her legs and underarm.

Getting out of the shower, Isabelle wrapped herself in a fuzzy, pink towel, as well as her hair. She walked over to the sink, brushed her teeth, and did a small amount of makeup. She unwrapped the towel from her hair and proceeded to blow-dry it. After her hair was dry, she ran a brush through it and put it in a side ponytail. Isabelle walked over to her closet and pulled out a light, long sleeve, black, turtle neck crop top, a maroon denim skirt, and a pair of black, knee-high boots. She put on the outfit, along with prescription glasses, and checked her phone.

A text message from Chloe.

Chloe: Meet up at Clara's Cafe before shopping?

Isabelle: What time?

Chloe: 8:30, sound good?

Isabelle: Yes, see you and Tori then.

Isabelle checked the time, 7:58, and put her phone in the pocket of her skirt and left the room. She made her way down the floating steps to the main floor. Chloe gave her enough time to grab a small breakfast consisting of a PopTart and a Honey Crisp Apple. She then grabbed her purse hanging by the apartment door and left, locking it tight, and texting Chloe she was on the way.

Isabelle made her way out of the Tower to the city below. This gave her enough time to get to Clara's Cafe, a popular place among the city's people and the guardians. She entered the small coffee shop and spotted Chloe and Tori at their usual table. Chloe was dressed in a snapback hat that read 'Hunter' across the front, a white crop top that showed off her shoulder to wrist tattoo sleeve, a pair of ripped, faded, skinny jeans, and black converses. Whilst Tori wore a black t-shirt, a red jacket, sweat pants, and a pair of plain sneakers. Isabelle took her seat next to Chloe.

"You look cute, Izzy," The Huntress said, sipping what looked like a green tea macchiato.

"Thanks," Isabelle said, opening her Kindle app on her phone.

A waitress came around and asked for Isabelle's order, which was her norm, a chamomile tea with extra honey. The waitress nodded and went to put the order in. The Warlock continued to read a book on the kindle app as Chloe and Tori talked about raids and what ones they wanted to do for the millionth time over. 

"Isabelle Aubrey Brigham, get off the phone and talk to us," Tori scolded.

Isabelle sighed and turned her phone off, putting it in her purse. "Come on, I was just getting to the good stuff!"

"Good stuff as in a vivid sex scene?" Chloe asked.

"No, not all the books I read have sex scenes in them," Isabelle scoffed, "let's change the topic, how's your sleep schedule, Clo, has it got any better?"

The Huntress' smirk immediately faded, and she looked down at her lap. "No, it hasn't, the nightmares are getting worse," She answered, her tone saddening.

"I'm sorry, Chloe, I wish we could help," Tori said, reaching over the table to put a hand on her friend's shoulder.

Isabelle gave rubbed Chloe's back. If anything more could be said about her best friend, it was that she suffered from nightmares often and had the worst sleeping schedule in history. Isabelle could visibly see the exhaustion on the Huntress' face. The dark circles under her blue eye were quite noticeable.

"One chamomile tea with extra honey," came the voice of the waitress.

"Yes, thank you, darling," Isabelle said, taking her drinking and sipping it lightly.

The waitress left to get the bill.

"You know, talking about my sleep schedule isn't important right now, finding our dresses for the ball is," Chloe stated, going back to her usual cocky self.

"Right, the ball," Isabelle muttered.

She still couldn't believe she was Uldren's date. It made her nervous and not many things made her nervous. But Uldren was royalty, a real prince, and Isabelle? She wasn't even royalty. Far from it actually, she was just a guardian. Just a normal, everyday guardian who loved the company of books more than anything else.

A few short minutes later, Tori ended up paying the bill and the girls left the cafe. They walked around the city streets trying to find a good dress shop. "I really hope I have enough bloody glimmer for this," Isabelle said as the trio entered an expensive-looking dress emporium.

"Welcome to L'amour De La Rose Dress Emporium," A silver and blue female Exo with a French accent said, "My name is Aimee-9, what can I help you with?"

Chloe stepped forward and smiled kindly, "My friends and I are looking gowns for a ball next week."

"What kind of gowns are you three looking for?" Aimee asked.

"I'm looking for something simple and elegant, in the color silver," Tori replied.

"I want a dress that's nothing flashy and doesn't draw attention to me, but elegant and enough for a Hunter Vanguard to drool," Chloe stated. 

Isabelle looked around. She didn't know what she wanted.  

"Miss, what would you like?" The silver and blue Exo asked.

The warlock opened her mouth to speak, but Chloe beat her to it, "She'll have one that's absolutely stunning and will have Prince Uldren begging for more!"

"Chloe, can you bloody shut it!" Isabelle spat, then took a deep breath, "I would like something elegant too, something lacy with a beautiful floral pattern and pink."

"Very well, I'll get some dresses you could choose from, please follow me," Aimee said, leading the girls to the fitting rooms.

[timeagainreviews]

The Edge of Acceptable

Hello friends! Previously I said I would try and post an article between then and my "Doctor Who: The Edge of Time," review. This was mostly due to my not knowing how long it would take me to finish playing the game. Well, intrepid reader, it appears I overestimated the game's length, as I have beaten it and I have many things to say. Before we begin, however, I would like to state that this review will be full of spoilers, so if you plan on playing "The Edge of Time," for yourself, you may want to hold off reading this. There, you've been warned. Let the spoilers commence!

The game begins in a laundrette somewhere in a dark corner of London. After some strange anomalies, a television kicks on, and the Doctor, played by Jodie Whittaker can be seen on screen. Speaking directly to you, she tells you that you're the only person that can help her. Suddenly a shift in the lights (and possibly time) occurs and the laundrette is filled with a black sludge reminiscent of the purple gunk from "The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild." Peering from the individual dryers along the wall are black sludge monsters with murky red eyes that stick to you. If you get close to them, they lunge and crack the glass.

After explaining to you that the universe is like a hard drive and that people and moments are like individual files, the Doctor informs you that someone has installed a sort of computer virus. Lost on the edge of time, she is unable to help you, but using a bit of her Doctory magic, she's going to help you help her, and by extension- save the universe. It's no small order, but you're raring to go!

It's during this point, however, that I did find myself slightly frustrated with the game design. As the Doctor begins speaking to you, she's oftentimes drowned out by the music, making it hard to hear what she's saying. When I went to the options menu, I was surprised to see that no option to lower the music volume was available. There was however a subtitles option, which I opted out of due to my feeling that seeing subtitles somewhat sullied the immersion. The next bit of frustration came from the following scene in the back office of the laundrette.

Another big source of frustration was the controls. While in the office, you're made to find the code to a safe, and then enter the code into its keypad. As excited as I was to be playing a new Doctor Who game, I almost rage quit due to the sheer difficulty of entering a simple four-digit code. Now, it's worth mentioning that at this point, I was still using my Playstation controller. After switching to the Playstation Move controllers, my experience improved exponentially. However, even with these Move controllers, performing minute actions felt a lot like trying to unwrap a lemon sherbet while wearing a pair of woolly mittens.

You learn a little bit about the late owner of the laundrette. He used to be a janitor at Coal Hill School, and he's now a pile of ash on a chair. The books strewn about the office show he was a man interested in strange phenomena dealing with time and space. The Doctor, using a bit of Time Lord magic, has stashed her sonic screwdriver away in the safe. After fishing it out, I took great glee pointing it at literally anything I could. Sadly, the sonic has very little actual interactivity with the surrounding world other than pre-scripted actions like opening doors that carry the story to the next stage.

Once outside, you get your first glimpse at a Dalek saucer, floating above the sky like something from the Dalek Invasion of Earth. It's a great little callback, and the alley conjures images of Totter's Lane. After building a signal booster with junk from the alley, you call the TARDIS to your location, where it materialises like the beautiful Ghost Monument we all love. Now, I'm not too proud to admit it, but as I walked into the TARDIS for the first time, I got a little misty-eyed. It really does feel like you're walking aboard the greatest ship in the universe. The people at Maze Theory did a fantastic job rendering the Thirteenth Doctor's TARDIS interior. And yes, the console does dispense custard creams. Trying to make my boyfriend laugh, I held the biscuit to my mouth and was pleasantly surprised when my virtual character actually ate it!

This joy was short-lived, however, because I was once again at the mercy of needing to perform exacting tasks with rather sloppy controls. What should have been a joy (piloting the TARDIS), was instead another rage quit moment. Really though, this is more of a problem native to virtual reality. You're only ever as good as your tools, and Move Controllers aren't hands. Controls are one of the game's biggest flaws, really. For instance- there is no duck or crouch function. Meaning that despite all of the wonderful little Easter eggs peppered throughout the game, the second you drop one on the floor, it's gone forever.

After being recruited by the Doctor, you're treated to a title sequence in full 3-D glory. Let me tell you, the time vortex has never looked cooler. I was like David Bowman entering the Star Gate. Moments like these are when the VR really shines. Afterwards, the first place you land is sort of a head-scratcher. You arrive on what looks like a planet, where you're being stalked by a creepy race of aliens known as Hydrorks. I was slightly sad that you never have to actually worry about them. They're mainly there to scurry about in the shadows. Despite the warnings of a woman you're speaking to over a holo-pad, they don't ever actually attack you. You can stop right in front of them and shine your torch at them and walk away unscathed.

If you recall from my Doctor Who and Video Games article, I complained that one of the biggest issues Doctor Who games have is puzzles. This chapter of the game has the most egregious of the puzzles and had me worried that it was about to devolve once more into a series of irritating puzzles, but they lessen as the game progresses, much to its benefit. I would like to mention though, that the game does take accessibility into consideration. Puzzles involving colours also incorporate shapes for those that are colour blind. You can also switch between hands with your sonic screwdriver, a fact that I, as a left-handed person, wish I would have discovered far earlier in the game.

After getting to the lift, you discover the planet you're on is a sort of space ship. The effect of leaving what seems like the outdoors only to find a giant window overlooking alien planets was like something David Lynch would do. I was reminded of episode three from "Twin Peaks the Return," when Dale Cooper exits a room in a building surrounded by a vast purple sea, only to find himself climbing out of a boxy spaceship surrounded by a network of stars. This kind of otherworldly experience is yet again another strength of VR. After a series of puzzles involving lasers, you meet Emer, the ship's computer that forgot it was a computer. Remember how I mentioned David Bowman earlier? Well, the "2001: A Space Odyssey," vibes don't stop there, as Emer's interface looks a lot like HAL 9000. It's a great little homage.

Before leaving the ship, you save Emer onto the sonic screwdriver and find yourself a time crystal. The time crystals are artefacts the Doctor needs you to collect to save the universe. It's a little vague in that "It's a video game, so just go get the thing," kind of manner. But it's a video game, so I'm not even bothered by it. After arriving back on the TARDIS, the Doctor uploads Emer into your brain. Emer's job is to help you along with little hints here and there. I was a little disappointed because the only reason I can imagine they did this is because they only had Jodie Whittaker for six hours on the day she recorded her dialogue. Having the Doctor speak to you like her closest friend is a rapturous bit of nerd joy, so replacing her for a bit is regrettable. But Emer is a likeable character so you don't really mind. The only time Emer really gets under your skin is when she's dropping hints repetitively. You may know exactly how to solve a puzzle, but the mechanics aren't as spelled out. Having her tell you what you already know, over and over again begins to grate on you.

The next place you visit is a very shabby looking Victorian London. You know right away that you've entered Weeping Angel territory. However, the classic Who fans will love the fact that part of this portion of the story incorporates Magnus Greel's time cabinet from "The Talons of Weng-Chiang!" I could tell the people at Maze Theory threw this in for the nerds out there. The Weeping Angels portion of this chapter is easily the creepiest moment in the game. There's a jump scare that had me jumping out of my skin. For full immersion, headphones are a requirement as the sound design is full of little creaks, groans, and stabs as the Angels make their way toward you. The incorporation of the cherubs (which you never see) and a baby pram only adds to the nightmare fuel.

This isn't to say that this sequence is without criticism. One of my chief complaints is that it's a very repetitive sequence. Once you do the first portion, you know exactly how to do the next portion. It then becomes a waiting game which is more tedious than tense. If they'd had varied up the gameplay in this section, I would have said it was the best part of the game. Instead, the Angels only play a minor part, and once you know how to beat them, their terror factor plummets. After a while, the worst part of getting caught by an Angel isn't the dying, it's the waiting for the level to reload. Even with my PS4 Pro, the loading times are egregious. Expect to spend a lot of time staring at the floating orange embers that are the loading screen. At least you can fiddle with the sonic screwdriver while you wait.

After receiving the next time crystal from Magnus Greel's time cabinet, it's time to move on to the next phase. The Doctor begins to tell you a little more about who is tearing apart reality- an entity known simply as The First... or the One. I honestly can't remember which, and the internet isn't much help. It's not a very memorable name, much like the title of the game itself. This "First One," is the very first form of consciousness in the universe that has awoken to find her creation of other forms of life is a disappointment to her. Our penchant for death and destruction has lead her to believe that the only course of action is to reboot the universe, hence the reality virus.

Our next stop is Metebelis...Four? I would be lying if I said I wasn't massively relieved to discover they weren't sending us to Metebelis III. That would have been cruel and unusual. When arriving at Metebelis IV, you're greeted with a gigantic temple structure. In VR, its size and design are really grand in scope. I was reminded of my visit to Durham Cathedral with its impressively high vaulted ceilings. After a quick time jump, you find yourself in a point in history where the Daleks have taken over the planet. I really enjoyed the music cues in this part, because you knew right away you were about to encounter Daleks. You can almost hear a digitised version of their voices in the score that really sets the tone.

This portion of the game was probably my favourite. A lot of it is sneaky stealth missions, which gradually increase in difficulty. The only problem with the stealth portion is you really need to bait the Daleks into following you at points. It goes against usual stealth mechanics which at this point are generally universal. When you accompany this with long load screens, and Emer repeatedly telling you what you already know, it gets to be a bit much. But getting to drive around as a Dalek later on in the level makes up for this in spades.

Much like the Weeping Angels portion of the game, the key to beating this section is patience. You can systematically work your way through the level by budgeting your time. If you take out drones and Daleks in the right order, it's a piece of cake. It becomes a memory game at that point. That being said, I still had a lot of fun. Dalek vision was especially cool. After tearing ass through various temples, you find yourself sort of outside of time. The reality virus has almost torn the universe apart but using memories of the places you've been, you're able to hold things together long enough to stop the First One. The Doctor congratulates you and tells you what a star you are. Emer is given human form for her efforts. The TARDIS drops you off back at the laundrette, seemingly to do it all over again, which leads to my biggest question about the game. Am I supposed to play it again, or was that just a meta-joke from the designers encouraging you to replay at your own leisure? Furthermore, is the Doctor not also now stuck in a time loop along with the player?

I've not done a second playthrough, so I can't rightly say if it adds more content to the game. I'm going to bet the answer is probably no. This is a shame because for a game that has been marketed for as long as it was, and had its release date pushed back almost two months, it's surprisingly sparse. At the very beginning in the Laundrette, the Doctor mentions both the Stenza and the Zygons, which made me expect to see at least one of them throughout the game. What turned the laundrette owner into a pile of soot? Hell, you don't even see the sludge monsters from the laundrette again. I expected them to be a far bigger problem than they were. The game is surprisingly devoid of other characters. Perhaps this is a symptom of VR, but disembodied voices, static Angels, skittering background aliens, and rail driving Daleks are the most interactivity you'll have with other characters.

Throughout its runtime, I couldn't shake the feeling that "The Edge of Time," was originally supposed to be a much bigger game. While I'm aware that most VR games are generally shorter in length, this feels truncated. Perhaps it was from budget issues or internal problems, I can't say. But is it twenty quid's worth of video game? I would say that maybe with DLC it would be, but as is, it feels incomplete. The ability to select chapters does increase replay value. I could see myself pulling up the Weeping Angels level for a group of friends. However, due to the lack of variety in said level, I don't see the novelty lasting long. If they were to release a couple extra levels that were more like survival horror where you were in a creepy mansion avoiding Angels, or maybe something with Cybermen or Zygons I could see the value increasing. I wouldn't want to pay more for these levels, mind.

Compare the price of this game to going to a movie with friends. These days £20 will buy you maybe two tickets to see a film. The game is basically a feature-length episode of Doctor Who. So if my boyfriend plays the game, and my wife and friends, then sure, it's paid for itself. But for people who might play this game alone, they may want to wait until the price drops a bit. I had a good time playing the game, myself, but I have to temper that response with the fact that I am a massive Whovian. Will it have the same appeal for casual fans of Doctor Who? That's really the big question, isn't it?

When the game was announced, my first reaction was to shake my head at the BBC's inability to make a proper Doctor Who game. As you may recall from my article on Doctor Who games, this stems from the fact that going with VR was pre-emptively cutting off a large portion of gamers. While there is a very real demand for Doctor Who video games, VR is still a niche market. Not everyone is going to buy VR just to play one game as I did. And even if they are, VR systems aren't cheap. I had to purchase mine on credit. The cost of admission is now much higher than the asking price of twenty pounds. That being said, the game manages to prove that Doctor Who video games can still try new things. The formula and gameplay are very close to what a lot of people have wanted for years. While I still don't feel like we've seen a truly great Doctor Who game, I had a lot of fun with this one.

[spideyy-girl]

Speak Now - Bucky Barnes (AU)

Request: Do you do any song fics? If you do, could you please do a Bucky Barnes fanfic with Speak now or Angel with a shotgun with a college/roomate Bucky??

Summary: based on the song Speak Now by Taylor Swift (i suck at descriptions as you know so imma leave it at that just read it)

Warnings: lil bit of angst, wedding crashing, some fluffy at the end ;)

Word Count: 2769 (7.6 pages)

Date: September 26th, 2018

A/N: YES!! I DO TAKE SONG FIC REQUESTS. I actaully love them to be honest. SO feel free to send some. Sorry I haven’t been updating and thanks for being patient with me school just started a few weeks ago and that’s always shot haha yay. But I’m back on track! Hope you guys like (Also one of my older imagines but it’s not too bad I guess haha)

I am not the kind of girl, who should be rudely barging in on a white veil occasion

But you are not the kind of boy, who should be marrying the wrong girl

Bucky Barnes has been my best friend since sophomore year in high school. We met at Phys Ed, where I had surprisingly outrun him, which almost never happened. It was bound to be ever since. 

In recent years I had even begun to develop a crush on the long-haired man, well, at least it was at first just innocent. I didn’t even realise I was falling until I hit my head hard on the ground. What would cause such an awakening, you might ask? 

“He’s getting married,” Steve Rogers, our neighbour and Bucky’s roommate said, looking almost depressed about what should have been happy news. But how could anyone be happy? Especially with Carli Anne Johnson, the biggest princess bitch in town, in fact, maybe even the world. The bowl of ice cream you had in your hand was dropped out of pure shock, devastation, anger.

“H-h-he, w-what?” You asked, trying to contain yourself. You were never one to show any signs of weakness. “To that bitch?! I can’t even look at her without wanting to rip my eyeballs out. And he never even told me!” I started yelling, pulling at the strands of your Y/H/C hair. Steve nodded solemnly.

“I know, which is why I came here.” He said looking at you, grabbing your shoulders with his strong hands. “You can’t let him marry the wrong girl, we all know that it can’t be her he spends the rest of his life with, especially you.”

And that’s how I got here, about to crash my best friend’s wedding, and hopefully win him back. I couldn’t let him marry the wrong girl.

I sneak in and see your friends

And her snotty little family all dressed in pastel

And she is yelling at a bridesmaid

Somewhere back inside a room wearing a gown shaped like a pastry.

Steve helped me sneak inside the venue, Bucky had asked him to be his Best Man anyways. I see the giant hall at the end of the corridor, plastered in white ribbons, streamers, and other decoratives. There was an expensive looking velvet carpet with gold trimmings rolled down the aisle all the way up to the altar. I could see some of my fellow classmate’s and some of the football team, Bucky’s friends, sitting in the pews. On the other side of the grand hall, I could see the Johnson family, all dressed to the nine’s in beautiful pastel pinks, purples, blues, and yellows, while the men wore sharp black tuxes.

As I walk further down, I can hear screaming. I knew that voice. Actually, this yelling often occurred right in front of my face, targeted at me. Carli’s tan face would start to turn red, the colour not suiting very well with her perfectly curled platinum blonde hair and sparkling baby blue eyes. 

I peeked into the room to see the exact image I thought of playing out right in front of me. It was odd seeing it from a different angle. She was yelling at her little sister, Lizzy, who looked like a rose pink pastry. I felt awful for the young girl, to have such a monstrous being as a sibling. What did Bucky ever see in her? Sure, she was gorgeous, but that shouldn’t have mattered.

“Stop being such a little shit, Elizabeth. Last I recalled today was my special day, not yours. I’m the one getting married, not you!” Carli screamed at the quivering girl, her spit flying into her face, the fat tears rolling down her face slightly smudging her makeup. “Not like anyone would ever want to marry you anyways. You’re not even that pretty.”

“But Carls, all I asked for is if you could help me with my hair and makeup since I figured you're the expert at this.” Lizzy reasoned, trying her best to look strong and stop crying. “I just wanted to spend some time with you! I never see you anymore!”

“Thank God,” Carli mumbled, though it was still clear as to what she had said. “I don’t even know how I survived with you for, like, ten years. I’m happy I’m getting away from all you losers. Now, why don’t you go and fix yourself up, you look like a trainwreck.” She stomped off to the attached door to the dressing room when she finished.

This is surely not what you thought it would be

I lose myself in a daydream, where I stand and say

I drag my eyes away from the young teenager and continue onto my path towards the grand hall where the ceremony will be held. My mind didn’t even process what I was doing, where I was going, the events about to happen. My nerves started to crash over me like a raging tidal wave. I was walking in the open, not stopping to think if anyone had seen me or are about to. Then I felt a tight grip on my arm, pulling me into a small room on the side.

I was about to scream but I felt a rough hand cover my mouth, muffling the sound. Dread rippled through my body as my eyes widened and breath hitched.  Oh no, I thought to myself. Please don’t let it be him, please don’t let it be Bucky. 

The hand was lifted when they were sure I wasn’t going to screech at the top of my lungs and turned me around. Thank God, it was Steve. He looked a bit worried, and a bit terrified.

“You okay? You were sort of dozed off, walking around there.” He said, scanning you over. “ You’re lucky I caught you before someone else did. I just wanted to check if you remembered the plan.” I nodded, staying silent.

“I don’t know if I can do this,” I said quietly, keeping my head down. “What if he really is happy with her? I would ruin his life.” Steve shook his head, shaking me.

“Have you seen him lately? A total mess, I’m telling you. Besides, I think he’s been dropping hints for a while now.” Steve encouraged me. “Why don’t we run through it?”

Don’t say yes, run away now

I’ll meet you when you’re out of the church at the back door

Don’t wait, or say a single vow

You need to hear me out, and they said Speak Now.

I went through a small speech I was supposed to give when I would barge in. I had so carefully written it to perfection, but now I could only remember bits and pieces. What was I thinking when I agreed to do this?!

I pretended as if Steve was Bucky and the crowd, but I couldn’t even say it in front of him, let alone like 500 other people. I told him where I planned to meet him if he did agree to run off with me, away from Carli, her stupid stuck up family, and apparently all the other troubles of the world.

I couldn’t let him say yes though. Although I would never admit it aloud, I realised the way Bucky had looked when she popped out of nowhere and stole him away from us for the rest of the day. If I let this ceremony go through, she’ll steal him away for the rest of our goddamn lives.

It’d hurt me too, seeing him run off with the girl he never loved. Not just because of my constantly growing feelings towards him, but that’s also the protective best friend side coming out of me. I couldn’t stand him not being happy, and living the rest of his sorry days with that thing.

Somewhere deep down, I hoped knew that it was supposed to be me up there in the flowing white gown and veil standing in front of him, a big smile adorned on my face as well as his. And he knew the exact same thing, pondering it just minutes before he got married off, but to the wrong girl.

Fun gestures are exchanged

And the organ starts to play a song that sounds like a death march

And I am hiding in the curtains

It seems that I was uninvited be you lovely bride to be

I hear excited whispered conversations that are soon cut off by the earth-rattling sound of the giant organ playing. The tune of ‘Here Comes the Bride’ was smoothly played out, as the small voices were silenced. The tune sounded depressing as if it were a funeral instead of a wedding.

Everyone turned their head to the back of the room, where I was standing just moments ago. I had hopped behind a velvet curtain matching the roll of carpet down the aisle when I heard the first chord of the organ.

I got a good look at everyone’s faces who had attended. As it seemed, there were a lot more familiar faces than I had counted. Mostly everyone from our year, and even quite a few from the ones below and above us. Of course, I wasn’t one of those individuals. I hadn’t gotten an invitation.

I wasn’t even informed of the engagement. My best mate’s engagement.

I wondered then if she had forced him not to send an invitation to me, or if I had possibly even slipped their minds. It was almost 100% not the latter. Surely Bucky would’ve said something if he was free to say it. Right? 

I’m distracted by my thoughts as my eyes land on the said boy. His long black waves were gelled back, other than a thin strand that hung loosely at the side of his face. It looked much different than his usual ponytail. He was dressed in a white tuxedo with a black button up underneath and a black bowtie. He had white pants to match his blazer, and shiny black loafers adorned on his feet.

But the most different thing about his look was the stern look on his face. He looked almost emotionless, not happy but not angry or disappointed either, it was nothingness. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that side of him, his signature flashy grin was always plastered to his slightly chapped lips, it was always his best feature. Without it, he looked like a lost soul.

She floats down the aisle like a pageant queen

But I know you wish it was, you wish it was me

Don’t you?

Right on queue, I heard the clicking of her six-inch heels, like she needed to be any taller anyways. Although I despised her more now that I ever did for the whole time I’ve known her, I can’t not say that she looked absolutely stunning. Her long, lacy white wedding gown dragged behind her for what seemed like miles, held by two of her bridesmaids at the end. her veil was laced, with small white flowers on the headpiece. Her white heels laced up to her knees, also covered in little flowers and butterflies. 

Although she was the devil in human form, I do see the reasoning as to looking past her ugly personality and to her beautiful exterior. In fact, there were many people who would accept her for just that. But not Bucky. Not my Bucky.

I looked at him, back up near the altar, and although I could tell he thought she did look stunning, that he felt guilty. Like he was thinking the same as me, imagining my face, my body, my persona in that flowing dress, those high heels, behind that veil.

She stepped up to stand in front of him, like any other normal wedding, when I noticed that she held the exact same expression as her fiancée. The nothingness. And then, the ceremony commenced.

I hear the preacher say speak now or forever hold your peace

There’s the silence there’s my last chance

I stand with shaking hands all eyes on me

Horrified looks from everyone in the room but I’m only looking at you

“If there are any objections, speak now, or forever hold your peace,” the priest says as he stands between the couple. Bucky looks around the room, almost hopeful that someone would stand up, but no one. Not yet anyway.

I look down at my hands, sweaty and shaking. I wipe them off on my lovely Y/F/C dress, and lightly grasp the soft material. I look up to see Steve looking back at me expectantly.

“This is your last chance!” He mouthed at me before winking and turning back to the front as if nothing had happened. I took a deep breath, before standing up from my place.

“I object!” I stated loudly, everyone in the room freezes, before turning towards me. Every single pair of eyes stared me down, but I focused on only one thing, or more specifically, one person. James Buchanan Barnes. 

“What the hell do you think you’re doing, you bitch!” Carli screamed, stomping her feet and her face turned redder than I’ve ever seen it before. “Get out of here! You weren’t invited! No one wants you here-”

“Shut up for once, will you?” Bucky snarled at her, but not breaking our eye contact. I could see the ghost of a smile starting to appear again.

“These two obviously aren’t now and never will be truly happy with each other, it just wasn't meant to be,” I said, as I slowly inched up the aisle. “And I’m here to make sure that Bucky Barnes doesn’t marry the wrong girl.”

“Thank God,” he mumbled with a slight laugh, only to get harshly hit in the stomach with a bouquet of flowers in the hands of Carli.

“What the hell are you talking about, baby? We’re perfect for each other, and everyone knows it.” She said after she dropped the flowers and started to rub his arm, only for him to shoo her off.

“Let’s be real here, Carls. It was never gonna happen, and it never should. You’ll find the perfect person for you one day, but let me tell you now that that person is definitely not me. Because me person is right here, in front of me. Y/N L/N.” Bucky said as he walked down the shallow steps towards you, his bright smile in full effect once again. I smiled back, feeling tears well up in my eyes. 

I am not the kind of girl, who should be rudely barging in on a white veil occasion

But you are not the kind of boy, who should be marrying the wrong girl

So don’t say yes run away now, I’ll meet you when you’re out of the church at the backdoor

Don’t wait or say a single vow, you need to hear me out and they said Speak Now

And you’ll say let’s run away now, I’ll meet you when I’m out of my tux at the backdoor

Baby I didn’t say my vows, so glad you were around when they said Speak Now

I met Bucky at the back of the church once he changed out of his suit and into his usual black jeans and a band tee. I quickly changed out of my dress as well. When he walked out he looked like he was glowing as he wrapped an arm around my shoulders and kissed my temple. I smiled and cuddled into his side as we started walking away from the chaos.

“I’m so happy you showed up. I didn’t know if Steve had told you or not about it. I was sort of planning this.” He says as we got into my slightly worn down car. I started it up and drove out of the parking lot onto the abandoned narrow road.

“I’m happy I did too, wouldn’t want you marrying someone like her. Don’t know what you were thinking.” I laughed and he soon joined in, nodding his head in agreement. After the laughter died down there was a silence. It wasn’t awkward, just sort of there. “So, what happens now?” I ask, looking at him for a quick moment. He smirked, putting his arm on the back of my seat, squeezing my shoulder.

“We run away together, we can continue our education somewhere else. You know, live happily ever after.” He said in a mocking quirky voice. I giggled.

“Sounds like a plan.”

[ciathyzareposts]

Game 324: The Keys of Acheron (1981)

As an expansion of Hellfire Warrior, the game has no main title screen.

           The Keys of Acheron

United States

Automated Simulations, Inc. (developer and publisher)

Released in 1981 for Apple II and TRS-80, 1982 for Atari 800

Date Started: 5 April 2019

Date Ended: 5 April 2019

Total Hours: 5

Difficulty: Easy-Medium (2.5/5), but heavily adjustable by player

Final Rating: (to come later)

Ranking at Time of Posting: (to come later)

Every once in a while, it’s a good idea to remember that the Dunjonquest series existed. Its first edition, The Temple of Apshai, released in 1979, gets my vote for the first true commercial RPG. Sure, Beneath Apple Manor, Dungeon Campaign, and Space technically preceded it in 1978, but none of them are what we would consider fully-featured RPGs. Temple of Apshai and is paragraph book, full of evocative descriptions of rooms and treasures, was the first earnest attempt to bring the essence of a tabletop RPG module to the computer. Co-creators Jeffrey A. Johnson and Jon Freeman should be names that we invoke as frequently as Richard Garriott or Brian Fargo.           

A typical Acheron screen has me fighting a fungusman in a twisty cavern. A treasure can be seen beyond him.

           The Temple of Apshai was a huge success, ported to nearly every platform that existed at the time, and it naturally generated a slew of sequels. Oddly, Epyx released several different sets of sequels for the original game. The first set began with Hellfire Warrior (1980; link to my review), which added Levels 5-8 to Temple’s Level 1-3. This series continued with The Keys of Acheron (1981) and Danger in Drindisti (1982). At the same time, Temple continued onto a different set of dungeon levels with Upper Reaches of Apshai (1981) and Curse of Ra (1982). In between these titles, Epyx published a few “microquests” using the Dunjonquest engine but with a fixed character: Morloc’s Tower (1979), The Datestones of Ryn (1979), and Sorcerer of Siva (1981). The engine also spun off two horrid action games with no RPG elements: StarQuest: Rescue at Rigel (1980) and Star Warrior (1980). The whole series wrapped up with the terrible Gateway to Apshai (1983), which couldn’t even spell its own name right on the title screen. Dunjonquest also inspired a series of simplified diskmag and shareware titles, including Quest 1 (1981), Super Quest (1983), Dungeons, Dragons, and Other Perils (1984), and Cavequest (1985).

I bypassed Acheron in 2014, claiming that I couldn’t find it, but I must not have tried very hard because the Azimov archive says that it’s been uploaded there for at least a decade. (And thanks to commenters J.D. and metallik for helping me get it running.) I probably just thought of it as an expansion to Hellfire Warrior, which I’d already covered. But I figure it’s worth taking a second look now, partly to remember the Dunjonquest series, but mostly because it was the first CRPG scenario designed by Paul Reiche III, co-founder of Toys for Bob, and co-creator of, yes, Star Control and Star Control II.

This was Reiche’s first computer game credit after a couple of years designing tabletop Dungeons & Dragons modules for TSR, and his experience can be seen in the quality of the backstory and in-game descriptions. The setup is that the character has been asked by the wizard Abosandrus to recover four magical gems–emerald, amethyst, ruby, and sapphire–from the dungeon. The gems, known as the “Keys of Acheron,” have the power to open or close rifts between worlds, and Abosandrus wants to use them to prevent the immortal demon lord Kronus from invading. The dungeon takes up four levels, labeled “Abode of the Dragon,” “The Temple in the Jungle,” “The Crystal Caves,” and “The Shadowland of Kronus.” The game does the same weird thing that Hellfire Warrior did where the first and third levels have room numbers (and associated descriptions in the book) but the second and fourth don’t.             

Kronus himself appears randomly throughout the game’s levels and cannot be killed.

          The game is a bit tricky to get going because it requires the original Hellfire Warrior disk for booting, character creation, and shopping. The Acheron manual tells you bluntly that you’ll screw everything up if you don’t follow its instructions to the letter, and for a while I couldn’t find the instructions. Fortunately, as usual, a helpful commenter came through.            

My character at the beginning of this session. I created him as a veteran of Hellfire Warrior.

           Character creation thus precedes exactly as Hellfire Warrior, where you can randomly roll a Level 1 amateur or manually enter your own statistics and create an indomitable titan right away. After you buy your melee weapon, armor, bow, and arrows, you can choose to spend excess money on various draughts and elixirs. These modify your statistics and abilities for the next dungeon session only. You can also stop by Malaclypse the Mage and get your weapon or armor enchanted (up to +9) and buy a few magic items that only last the duration of the adventure.            

Available magic items.

         In one last screen before you enter, you can donate money to Benedic the Cleric’s mission, which seems to increase the chance that Benedic is the one that finds and resurrects you when you die. Otherwise, you may be found by Lowenthal the Wizard, who takes all magic items that you own before returning you to the town for resurrection; or Olias the Dwarf, who takes all your items; or a random monster, who just eats you.        

I confess I reloaded save states in such circumstances.

        Once inside the dungeon, the game behaves just like the earlier incarnations. You use “R,” “L,” and “V” to turn and rotate the character and then type a number from 1 to 9 indicating how many steps to move in your facing direction. “S” searches for traps, “E” searches for secret doors (you have to be pretty close to the door), and “O” opens them.               

Finding a secret door.

           When monsters appear, you can try to shoot them at a distance with a regular arrow (“F”) or a magic arrow (“M”), or wait until they get close and use “A,” “T,” and “P” for attack, thrust, and parry. When the monsters get your hit points down, you can heal with a salve (“H”), nectar (“N”), or elixir (“Y”) if you’ve purchased them. If the room has a treasure, you grab it with “G.” The controls are all quite intuitive except for movement, which never stops being clunky.           

Melee combat with a grifffin. There are, alas, no spells in the game.

           You have to be careful about stamina. The game tracks encumbrance (including weapons, armor, and found treasures), and the faster you move with more weight, the faster your stamina depletes. Standing still causes it to (slowly) recharge, and you don’t want to be caught in combat in such situations. I had fewer problems with it here than in the original Hellfire Warrior.

The rooms and corridors are all uniformly dull–the top-down equivalent of Wizardry‘s wireframes from the same year. (There are mild icon animations but nothing to get excited about.) This is where the Dunjonquest series is greatly enhanced by the monster, trap, room, and treasure descriptions in the accompanying manual. On the screen, you may enter Room 16, but with the manual, you know you’ve entered a cave where:           

The air is intolerably hot. To the west you can see roaring flames. As you make your way through the passage, you stumble over something. Looking down, you see the fragments of a huge egg. It would seem that the Dragon has borne young ones.

            If you meet one of the baby dragons, you consult the manual to see that:           

Although this creature resembles its parent closely in its scaled, wormlike form, it is fortunately much smaller, typically 6-8 feet in length. Even though the immature beast cannot breathe flame (and luckily so!), it will attack anything it meets with ferocity.

             You defeat him and head down the corridor, only to accidentally stumble in a dragonfire trap! The manual has you covered there, too:           

With a titanic roar, the corridor fills with the burning flame of the Dragon’s breath. You should have been quieter, more careful. Now it knows you are here.

            But eventually you defeat your foes and pick up the treasure in the room. The screen tells you that you’ve acquired Treasure #8:           

A quaint piece of giantish artwork, a skull carved from a huge agate. Surely some collector of such things would buy it, but for how much?

                    As noted, levels 2 and 4 don’t have any room descriptions–some limitation imposed by the game basically faking the Hellfire Warrior application into thinking it’s playing Hellfire Warrior levels. But to compensate, Reiche used treasure descriptions more as encounter flags rather than literal treasures. Sometimes, you find healing items that can be repeatedly taken. Other times, you find a clue, as in “a severed hand . . . clutching spasmodically” that eventually “points north, up the corridor.” And still other times, it’s just flavor text, as in “the floating remains of one of the kraken’s more recent meals.”

The overall dungeon designs are superior to the earlier games in the series. You start in the “Abode of the Dragon,” a classic dungeon of rooms and passages featuring trolls, ogres, giants, grues, and the titular dragon. These are not Level 1 monsters, so you’re expected to bring an experienced character. The room descriptions have you begin in a field and (depending on the way you go) either enter a tunnel immediately or follow a shoreline around to a cave entrance. They both converge on the dragon’s lair, one via a straight path through monsters and treasures and the other taking a shortcut through a secret door. A side area leads to a unicorn’s grove, where a non-hostile unicorn lets you take an opal necklace. Other treasures found throughout the area include a magic sword and a healing potion; I think this is the first Dunjonquest game where any of the found treasures can remain a permanent part of your character.          

The game’s take on a “grue.”

           The demon Kronus occasionally pops up in all of the levels, and there’s nothing to do but run away. The manual says that he cannot be killed, and my experience bears that out.

The first Key of Acheron, a “spherical ruby gem as large as your fist,” is found beyond the slain dragon. Overall, the level has more valuable treasures than the others, and if you thoroughly explore, by the time you return to the surface, you’ll have enough money to enchant your sword and armor and drink every elixir in the apothecary’s shop before your next trip.          

The first key lies beyond the dragon.

         “The Temple in the Jungle” offers no room descriptions and simply has you navigating a fairly open level with different types of dinosaurs, giant dragonflies, and Sserpa (snake god) shamans. For the first time in the series, this level has an adventure game-like quality where the “rooms” don’t lie in consistent directions, and the map warps on itself. You have to create a little node map to find your way through. You eventually find the “amethyst key” in a room occupied by a giant tarantula.            

Fighting a giant dragonfly in what we have to imagine is a trackless jungle.

           “The Crystal Caves” puts you in an extinct volcano. There are some interesting “trap” areas that the game suggests are deep pools full of piranhas from which you have to climb your way out. Mechanically, you do this by searching for secret doors, but a player with an imagination will appreciate the game’s attempts to do something clever with limited mechanics.

Battling lava beasts, lizards, fungus men, salt slimes and dodging earthquakes and cave-ins (again, all described in detail in the manual), you eventually find your way through secret doors and recover the “emerald key” in a cavern.             

I collect the third gem.

           The last level is called “The Shadowland of Kronus.” Like the jungle, it lacks room descriptions, but here almost none of the treasures are actually treasures. Instead, they generally contain clues or taunts from Kronus.            

Some of the treasure descriptions from the final level.

          The level takes the longest to explore. Eventually, you find your way through a secret door to a large, open water area, where the game uses a treasure encounter to suggest you’re paddling around on a boat. Waves and “black rain” do damage to the character while you’re attacked by shadow bats, fiends, and krakens. Another node map is necessary to chart a path through the area.           

Release the kraken!

            You arrive ultimately on the shores of a citadel (this is all related via treasure paragraphs) and a walkway where numerous gaps suggest a “broken railing”; going through these gaps leads to instant death. Eventually, you come to Kronus’s chambers with side-rooms for a torture chamber, library, and bedroom. Each room has appropriate monsters, like wraiths, astral skulls, and automatons. I particularly enjoyed the treasure encounter in the library, with its Lovecraftian allusions:             

You stand in a library filled with books, scrolls, and tablets of arcane and eldritch knowledge. Looking around, you find such titles as De Mysteriis Vermis, The King in Yellow, and a complete edition of the Pnatonik Manuscripts. Resting on a nearby table you find a particularly interesting volume entitled The Necronomicon. When you open the book you find it filled with incomprehensible writings, and you feel an unholy chill pass through your body. Perhaps some wizard will buy this strange librum.

                  A secret door leads from Kronus’s chambers to the final area. You pass through a room of fake sapphire keys (and lots of monsters) before arriving in a room with Kronus himself guarding the real final key. As before, there’s no point in fighting Kronus. You have to dart up, grab the key, find a secret door in the north wall, and escape the dungeon before he kills you.           

The final encounter.

        Alas, just like its predecessor, the game is disappointing in its lack of acknowledgement that you’ve completed the main quest. Treasures are ephemeral things; they disappear, converted to gold, the moment the game transitions from the dungeon disk to the program disk. Thus, there isn’t even any way for it to record the fact that you’ve found each of the four keys on their appropriate levels. Even if there was, it wouldn’t matter, because the moment you leave the Acheron dungeon disk, you’re back in the Hellfire Warrior program, which doesn’t even know that Acheron exists. As with so many other places in the Dunjonquest series, you have to use your imagination to return the gems to the wizard Abosandrus and seal Kronus in his own dimension.

           The appearance of Treasure #1 four times in a row (this is the last) is the only “proof” that I’ve won.

           The Dunjonquest entries have always evoked tabletop modules, but this is perhaps the most sophisticated of the lot–a testament to Reiche’s prowess as a dungeon master. In a GIMLET,  I rated it 24, two points higher than Hellfire Warrior, apparently feeling better about both encounters and the economy.

I’ll try to check out Danger in Drindisti in the future. After that, the Dunjonquest series falls apart, perhaps more from the breakup of  Automated Simulations (and its rebranding as Epyx) than from anything to do with the quality of the series. If the Dunjonquest series had continued and grown, we might have enjoyed Gold Box-quality games before the Gold Box.

****

I’d like to ask a favor of my U.S. readers. I’m looking for places across the United States that sell Diet Coke with Ginger Lime in 20-ounce bottles. Exactly that–no other flavors, please, and no cans. Just Diet Coke with Ginger Lime in 20-ounce bottles. If you happen to see them at a local convenience store, drug store, or whatever, I would appreciate an e-mail to crpgaddict@gmail.com. Thank you!

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/game-324-the-keys-of-acheron-1981/

[insanitysscribblings]

Reyna Writes: An Unlikely Pair [UPDATE - 6/27/18]

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My need to write has been building up, so have another snippet of this pet project~

~Reyna

Usually, Zuko slept on his back. It was a force of habit: if his back was exposed, he was a sitting duck. And ducks who just sat idly had the unfortunate habit of winding up dead.

However, when he was having a particularly nasty nightmare, he couldn’t help his thrashing. So when he woke up, a hoarse scream tearing through his throat, it was to his surprise, relief, and consternation to find that he had flipped onto his stomach sometime during the night; his scream was lost to the down of his pillow, which was hopefully enough to keep it from reaching Katara’s ears through the very thin wall between their rooms.

Zuko sighed, pushing himself to sit up, grasping his dagger once again. It was a gift, one his uncle had given to him the day he enlisted in the military. The handle was made of pearl, with words of power etched into the steel: Never give up without a fight.

Zuko swallowed, carefully tracing his fingers over the inscription while his breathing slowed. It was okay. He was here. He hadn’t surrendered. He had fought to survive. It was okay...

With another sigh, he replaced the dagger under his pillow and slid out from under his sheets, parched. He should really get into the habit of keeping a pitcher of water next to his bed, but if he was being honest with himself (and he rarely was), he just needed a reason to get out of his room. If only for a few minutes, to chase the bad dreams away.

He received a surprise when he stepped out into the hallway: the TV in the living room was on. He paused, squinting against the blue glow that reached the hall. What in the world...?

The answer to his unfinished question came when he rounded the corner and found Katara curled up on the couch, in her pajamas and her messy bun, tired eyes shining with unshed tears in the glow of the television. Zuko paused, cringing when Katara noticed him and hastily hid her face, rubbing at her eyes. Why did he seem to always stumble upon her crying in the middle of the night? This was twice now, damn his luck.

“Oh, Zuko,” Katara muttered, and Zuko frowned at the note of false cheer in her tone as she turned back to him with a dry face and a too-bright smile. “What’re you...?” She trailed off, her eyes scrutinizing him. Slowly, her fake smile faded, and her eyebrows came together. “Bad dream?”

Zuko grimaced. And this was thrice now that she had caught him emotionally compromised after a nightmare. He didn’t know how to feel about being called out like this--when Sokka happened to catch him in his late night prowling, he never pried, but he did insist on reminiscing about “the good times” they had in boot camp, though if Zuko recalled correctly, those “good times” involved a lot of Sokka getting them in trouble with his backchat and sarcastic comments. Pain in the ass...

Zuko glanced away, looking for a way to change the subject. A laugh distracted him, and his eyes were drawn to the TV as a beautiful woman laughed brightly while two children splashed around in a kiddie pool.

He blinked. It was Katara--wait, no, the woman was a little too old to be Katara. And their noses weren’t the same, nor were the shape of their eyes...

Despite the minute differences, it wasn’t difficult to put it together: Zuko must be looking at Katara’s mother.

From the corner of his eye, he saw Katara shift uncomfortably.

“I...sh-she died around this time of year, when me and Sokka were kids.” Zuko hated to see the fresh tears prick Katara’s eyes, and so he looked away. “I was feeling nostalgic tonight, so--”

“You don’t have to explain anything to me, Katara,” he said gruffly, folding his arms defensively, as if they could protect him from this conversation. He wasn’t good with emotions, whether they were his or someone else’s, so this was pushing him way out of his comfort zone. Dimly, he recalled some moments over the years where Sokka would suddenly become sullen during the summer, and he suddenly felt ashamed that he had never thought to ask why. Some friend he was.

“I know,” Katara replied with a weak laugh. Zuko chanced a glance at her, finding her eyes on the screen once more. He spotted her phone clutched in between her hands, and a memory from earlier that evening came floating to the surface.

“Is that why you threw your phone earlier?” He blurted out before he could stop himself. His horror struck him acutely when Katara’s eyes suddenly flashed over to him. But it didn’t appear to be him she was angry with.

“No,” She spat with a scowl that, frankly, intimidated Zuko, even though he happened to be a soldier. “I was being harassed by Jet.”

Jet? As in a jet plane? No, wait, that didn’t make sense. Damn it, Zuko, wake up.

“My ex,” Katara clarified, appearing to notice Zuko’s confusion. His brows immediately furrowed for a different reason entirely.

“What do you mean, he’s harassing you?” He growled, feeling his gait stiffen. If Sokka was here, he’d be howling for blood right now. Honestly, Zuko wouldn’t blame him.

Katara peered at him, apparently sizing him up. When Zuko continued to scowl, her lips twitched in a suspicious manner, and she patted the spot next to her. Though he raised an eyebrow, Zuko did as she asked and took a seat.

“I guess ‘harassing’ is the wrong word,” she said softly, though her face looked mutinous as she unlocked her phone and went to her text messages. Quietly, she handed her phone over, something that surprised Zuko. Hesitantly, he took it, watching her out of the corner of his eye to see if this was really okay. She gave him a nod and a smile, and inwardly, he marveled. How could someone be so open like that? Like she had nothing to hide?

Zuko was careful to only glance at the most recent text messages, and there were a lot of them. The further he went down, the more he scowled.

Jet, Katara’s asshole ex who cheated on her, was basically demanding that Katara return to their shared apartment. Though Katara hadn’t bothered to respond to any of them, there were ‘apologies’ peppered in here and there, and assurances that he and whatever woman he had cheated with were through, but mostly, it was whining that Katara was giving up on them too quickly, and that Jet needed her.

Zuko made a disgusted noise. Selfishness. Manipulation. He had seen these tactics one too many times to mistake them for anything else.

“He’s harassing you,” Zuko confirmed, handing Katara’s phone back to her with a dark look. “You need to block his number.”

“I really should,” Katara mused, giving her phone one last irritated look before she huffed and set it down on the coffee table. “I...just need time.”

“He’s going to keep texting you until you answer if you let him.”

“I know. But...”

“You’re not seriously thinking about going back to him, are you?” Zuko demanded suddenly, sick at the very thought. Some part of him wasn’t quite sure why this was, but he shoved it aside. In living with Katara, he had come to know her as a kind, compassionate woman with a temper that rivaled his own if he pushed her to that point, but overall, she was someone who did not deserve to be guilted back into a terrible relationship by a shitty ex.

Katara blinked, her eyes wide and surprised, for some reason.

“Of course not,” she replied, her tone becoming withering. “How stupid do you think I am?”

“I don’t think you’re stupid at all,” Zuko said roughly, insulted by the insinuation. “Which is why I’d be disappointed if you made such a stupid decision.”

Katara blinked at him again. Zuko couldn’t understand her expression, but something in the way her eyes shone as she looked at him made him flush, and he looked away awkwardly.

“I mean,” he tried again, searching for a way to rephrase his rough words as he rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. “This guy--I don’t know him, but I’ve heard Sokka talk about him. It sounds like he was a giant man-baby, and you don’t need that. You shouldn’t be having to take care of someone you plan to marry--you should have someone who’ll be your partner, and who’ll treat you like an equal, not like his mom. I know you’re used to taking care of Sokka and everything, but it wouldn’t kill you to let him learn how to do things himself, and your jackass of an ex really shouldn’t have you waiting on him hand and foot. I guess...I’m just saying you deserve better. That’s all.”

He trailed off in a mumble, feeling his whole face turning red and cursing himself for it. What the hell was he embarrassed for?

A touch on his arm made him jump, and he turned to find Katara smiling at him, her eyes glowing.

“Thank you, Zuko,” she said softly. The blue of her eyes was so distracting; they looked almost inhuman in the glow of the television, as if she wasn’t actually human, but a spirit masquerading instead. A shiver went down Zuko’s back, and he could do nothing but nod, his throat suddenly constricted.

He needed to get out of here. He was steadily getting more and more confused on how to deal with her, and he needed air. Now.

As he stood up, excuses on the tip of his tongue, Katara suddenly gripped his wrist.

“Wait!”

Zuko paused, staring down at her in surprise. Katara seemed to grow embarrassed; she dropped her hand, and she glanced away, a finger curling through a loose strand of her thick hair.

“I-I just...I mean...could...could you stay? For just a little longer?” She asked, looking meeker than Zuko had ever seen her. When he continued to stare, a dark flush made its way into her brown skin. “I-it’s just that...well...with the movie we watched earlier and everything...”

She trailed off, but Zuko caught her meaning in an instant. As he snorted, her flush grew darker still.

“Don’t laugh!” She protested, but Zuko ignored her, chuckling as he grinned down at her.

“Scaredy cat,” he teased her once again, his amusement growing as she glared up at him. “What’s wrong, Katara? Don’t want the spooky ghosts to come and grab your ankles from under the couch?”

“You’re an ass,” Katara snapped at him, though sharp amusement danced across her features, even as she fought to keep her scowl. “Never mind, go back to bed. I hope the ghost kills you first.”

“No you don’t,” Zuko contradicted her, obligingly sinking back onto the couch next to her. “Who would protect you if I’m dead?”

“I’d just make my escape while it’s busy murdering you in your bed,” Katara said smartly, her nose in the air as she crossed her arms. Zuko snickered morbidly at that.

“You’d just leave me like that? That’s cold, Kuruk. Aren’t you studying to be a doctor?”

“And as a doctor, I’d know a lost cause when I saw one, Caldera,” she shot back at him, more than comfortable with dishing it out as she took it. She was spirited that way, Zuko had discovered; unafraid to stand up to him when he was being a jerk. While it used to annoy him, it was quickly becoming a part of her that was endearing to him. She reminded him a little of Azula, back when they were kids, and when things weren’t so...

To distract himself from the dark turn his thoughts were taking, he took up a pillow and shoved it against Katara, knocking her over onto the other side of the couch.

“Hey!” Katara protested, quickly snatching up a pillow to retaliate, and there was nothing but laughing, teasing, and banter for the rest of the night.

Zuko stirred slowly, reluctant to wake up. His internal clock was panicking; he was probably running late for work. That made him frown, and his hand reached for his nightstand, wondering why his alarm hadn’t gone off yet.

When his hand met nothing but air, his brows furrowed further. Where the fuck was his phone?

Zuko slit his eyes open.

There was a whole lot of brown hair in his face, a weight against him, and slow, even breathing that did not belong to him.

Zuko froze.

What the fuck was happening?

Had he brought home a girl? While the times that happened were few and far between, it was still known to happen. But why couldn’t he remember doing so? Did he drink himself into a stupor last night?

There was a shift, a small groan, and a yawn. And then the girl lifted her head, blinking bleary blue eyes at him.

It was Katara.

The instant Zuko recognized her, she froze, staring wide-eyed at him. Then, at the same time, they yelped and scrambled away from each other, ending up on opposite ends of the couch, staring at each other. As he gaped at her, Zuko rapidly bullied his brain into remembering what occurred last night, and how they had reached this point of all things:

They had been talking. Then they roughhoused. Then they talked some more, easing further and further into the couch as they did...

And then they must’ve fallen asleep. That was where Zuko’s memory ended.

Relief flooded him. Oh, thank the spirits. If they had done something unbelievably stupid last night, there was no way Sokka would’ve forgiven him.

Katara seemed to reach the same conclusion he had, for her shoulders relaxed, and he could see her letting out a breath, an awkward smile crossing her face.

“So...” she began.

“Yeah,” Zuko replied, clearing his throat. He rubbed a hand over his face, frowning slightly when his hand made contact with his scar.

Of course nothing had happened. There was no way.

“I have to get ready for work,” he grumbled, getting to his feet. Katara seemed to notice the change in his voice, but other than a slight tilt of her head, she said nothing, and just nodded.

“I should get ready for class,” she mused as well. Before she could get up, however, Zuko rushed into his room, snatched his towel, dashed across the hall, and slammed the bathroom door shut behind him in record time. Back in the living room, Katara huffed in irritation. “I do not take forever in the bathroom!”

“Yeah, right. And pigs don’t fly,” he replied dryly, smirking to himself when Katara growled curses at him, the sound of her voice trailing off as he heard her pad into the kitchen, presumably to start the coffee pot. Turning, he dropped his towel on top of the toilet cover before he shucked his pajama bottoms and boxers, turning on the shower.

Though he had to rush through his morning routine, he got to work just in time by some miracle, and even had a smile to offer Iroh when he encountered him.

“Morning, Uncle.”

“My my, good morning, my nephew,” Iroh replied, eyeing his nephew keenly as Zuko shrugged the strap of his briefcase higher onto his shoulder, intending to go to his office to handle the finances of his uncle’s import company. “What a smile. That is a rare occurrence. Did you manage to get a good night’s sleep last night?”

Zuko paused at that. As Iroh watched, interested, a hand came up to rub the back of Zuko’s suddenly flushed neck.

“I guess so,” was the only reply he offered before he was walking again, towards his office. Iroh smiled and drank deeply from his tea cup.

[linssikeittomies]

The Place Between Here And There - An Excerpt From Ch 8

Masterpost

I disappeared without a single sign of life for a long while, but chapter 8 is underway! I’ve been struggling with writer’s block but it might finally be lifting. @freakyfeline has been helping me out with grammar, sentence structure and such. Ch 8 will have emotions running high! Fights! Fluff! Romance! Here’s some astronomy nerds stargazing.

--

If they weren’t in the city, they could see the stars really well. It was a cloudless night, and the moon was only a crescent, so the snow wouldn’t reflect too much light. It had been a while since he last saw a proper night sky. “Hey, wanna go stargazing?” Vanya put down his notebook and looked surprised. Yeah, Al didn’t come across as the outdoors type, and honestly he mostly wasn’t, but every now and then some wholesome outdoorsy goodness was just what he needed. And stargazing was basically the most romantic thing ever. Never mind that you had to drive out real far from the city to get a good view, and that it got stupid cold in the winter at night, but seeing the Milky Way while cradled in the arms of your lover just couldn’t be topped in the romance department. “Alright. We could try Aster park, it doesn’t have many trees.” “No, no, we gotta drive way out into the boondocks. Trust me, it’s worth it.” “Are you sure you want to? Have you ever even been camping?” “Hell yeah. I lived in the middle of a desert for a year, I know what isolation is. You?” A flash of discomfort crossed Vanya’s face before he answered. Was he really that afraid of spontaneity? Or was this another case of his mind working all backwards? You’d think he’d jump at the chance to get away from civilization, what with his hatred of humanity, but maybe he only liked being alone in a crowd? “We used to play in the woods every now and then when we were little, but it isn’t quite the same as a desert. Being so far away does not sound like a good idea. What if something happens?” “Vanya, baby, nothing’s gonna happen! We just drive out, stay for a while, and then drive back. I’ll keep you safe.” “I will consider it if you can find a pharmacy there that carries an antidote for snake poison”, Vanya claimed, but in reality it seemed like he was warming up to the idea. He was smiling, at least, and the objection was said in a teasing tone. “I promise, it’s gonna be the one of the best nights of your life.” “I will hold you responsible, should either of us die.” “Fine by me! We should get driving right away if we want to get back before morning. Put on your warmest clothes, it’s gonna be freezing.” “What? Now?” “Yeah, now.”

For a few seconds Vanya looked alarmed. He didn’t like surprises, because he liked everything nice and planned beforehand, so his life could be as boring and predictable as possible. But despite his concern, the thought intrigued him, so it didn’t take much more convincing to get him dressed. Al borrowed a coat from him, since his bomber jacket wasn’t meant for prolonged cold. Ivan also offered fur hats for them both, but Al convinced him to leave the ridiculous things home. Why did he even have them? No city in the state had cold enough winters for them. On the way, Vanya got steadily more nervous as they went on. He’d never been far from a city, he said, and he hadn’t realized how dark it got. He had expected it to be more like the city, where streetlights didn’t allow for real darkness. He denied being scared, but from the way he struggled to keep his voice unaffected and how he steadfastly kept his eyes on the road ahead, and most of all how he started leaning more and more towards Al the further they got, Al called bullshit. He wanted to tease Vanya about it, but the Russian could get really touchy at times, so instead Al just took one of Vanya’s hands in his own. It must have helped somewhat, since Vanya started taking more part in Al’s monologuing, and it got halfway to being dialogue. He  even stayed relatively calm when Al took the car off the main road and started navigating whatever tiny dirt roads he found. If he’d been alone, he could’ve spent the whole night just driving along, not caring where he ended up and only worrying about how to get home once he felt like going home. However, with Vanya fretting about finding their way back, he didn’t want to scare the man further and so stopped the car at the first turnout they happened upon. “Isn’t it a great view? Aren’t you glad we came all the way here?” “This is exactly the type of place people get murdered in”, Vanya mumbled in response, but the way his eyes were glued to the skies revealed that the scales were tipped in favor of the stars. Al settled on his back on the ground and beckoned Vanya to join him. Vanya settled his head on Al’s chest, still nervous. Even through the thick layers, he thought he could feel Vanya’s heart thumping. Maybe it was just imagination, but he still soothingly petted Vanya’s back. It felt odd being the one comforting the other, when Vanya was a head taller and about 40 lbs. heavier. It should’ve been Al curling up in Vanya strong arms and being protected. Not that he was the type, there were very few things he was scared of, and murderers weren’t one of those. He could K.O. any bad guy who had the brilliant idea of coming after him. Ghosts were another matter, but they weren’t real, so who cared? “We’re the only people for miles.” “I can’t even see anything. It’s so dark.” “Not even the stars? Babe, I think you’ve gone blind.” Vanya snorted at the stupid joke. It couldn’t be that he found it actually funny, it was just his nerves. Some more reassuring was in order. “Don’t you worry about anything. I’ll keep you safe, darling.” “Thank you.” Vanya was probably blushing. It was too dark to see, but his voice was subdued and embarrassed. “Look, there’s the Big Dipper”, Al said and pointed at the sky. Ursa Major was almost right above them. He had learned to recognize most of the constellations visible in the northern hemisphere a long time ago – his father was a space enthusiast, and Al had picked up on the hobby very early. His dad was a star man, while Al grew up to become more interested in planets. “The stars that make it are called Alkaid, Mizar, Alioth, Megrez, Phecda, Merak and Dubhe”, Vanya informed, not knowing Al knew the names of most stars in the zodiac. “Wow, I didn’t know you were into astronomy!” “I don’t have much time for it these days, but I was always interested in space. I think every child is at some point in their life.” “Have you heard about the giant blob of water just floating around in space?” “The one orbiting a quasar, who hasn’t?” Vanya answered arrogantly. “Do you know about Kepler-452b?” If he was looking to challenge Al, he was up for a serious competition! “Sure, it was huge news! It’s a shame the star it orbits is too dim to see with the naked eye. We could’ve searched for it.” “It would be difficult to find it, there are so many stars”, Vanya said, his voice was full of awe. Al wished he could see his face, it was rare to see Vanya with any other expression than calculated calmness and small smiles. With that kind of voice, he had to be staring up at the sky in absolute wonder. “I can’t even find Cassiopeia, and it’s one of the first I learned.” “You’ll find it eventually, love. Straight down from Dubhe”, Al reminded, and even pointed a helpful finger towards the constellation. It was one of the easiest ones to find, thanks to the stars that made the W-shape being some of the brightest in the sky. There were also a bunch of fainter stars in the constellation, but not a lot of people even knew that. Most thought it was just the five. Vanya probably wasn’t one of those people. “I know that much”, Vanya scoffed, offended that Al thought he was that unfamiliar with the night sky. “I’ve just never seen this many stars, I can’t see the forest for the trees.” Al saw the opportunity for a great joke. It might even help Vanya relax some more. He was already doing great, he’s been so scared to come out in to the middle of nowhere, populated only by tiny-ass dirt roads with no lights anywhere, and yet there he was. Nestled comfortably in Al’s arms, breathing calmly,  not even glancing around frantically. “Wow, the stars are so beautiful”, Al started, snickering. “I’m still certain that we will be leaving this place in bodybags, but I must agree”, Vanya answered, also with a light chuckle. “Know who else is beautiful?” “Many people”, Vanya mumbled darkly, probably thinking along the lines of not me, and possibly I will find them all and eliminate them. “Which one are you thinking of?” “No, no, you’re supposed to say who, and then I say me.” Because Al didn’t dare say anyone else’s name like the meme required, after the reaction Kyle had elicited from Vanya. “Oh, it is a joke of some sort. I see.” Vanya sounded a tiny bit relieved. Next time Al would play it straight, Vanya really needed a boost in self-confidence, despite having the best skin Al had ever seen in real life and wonderful proportions, not to mention his hair was the silkiest thing on Earth. Maybe he could’ve used a little bit of muscle definition, but on the other hand, the soft teddy-bear looked fit him to a T. Al couldn’t have pulled it off, he needed to be lean because his aura was completely different from Vanya’s. “Why the hell do you even have internet? You didn’t even know what does the fox say!” “I don’t have time for memes, Fredya. They are meaningless.” “You can pronounce Megrez but not meme?” “I can also pronounce Arcturus.” Oooooh, the uppity snob! Like he was any better at English than Al was at Latin! Stupid Vanko-sounding walking stereotype. “No wonder, I’ve tried listening to Russian and I’m convinced it’s just people hissing at random.” “Hush, lyubimiy”, Vanya laughed and snuggled up a little closer to Al’s face. So even if the joke had failed, it had reached its goal of relaxing Vanya further. Al kissed the top of his head, glad that Vanya had decided to forgo the stupid fur hat. As funny as it would have been, it wouldn’t have fit the romantic atmosphere. “Vanya, say something in Russian.” “Would you like me to hiss something specific at you?” “Nah. Feel free to profess your undying love to me or whatever. I just like to hear you talking in tongues.” Al only spoke English and a few words of Spanish, thanks to his brother-in-law. Almost all of those words were cusses. “I will call you a little poopy-pants brat”, Vanya snickered. Knowing him, he totally would. “Aww, c’mon”, Al play-whined. Vanya chuckled against his neck and thought for a little while. When he spoke again, it sounded like he was reciting a poem or something. “Sredi mirov, v mertsanii svetil, odnoy zvezdy ya povtoryayu imya… Ne potomu, chtob ya yeyo lyubil, a potomu, chto ya tomlyus' s drugimi. I yesli mne somnen'ye tyazhelo, ya u neyo odnoy ishchu otveta, ne potomu, chto ot neyo svetlo, a potomu, chto s ney ne nado sveta.” Poems under the stars. Vanya really had a knack for romance, he should let it show more often. Intimacy was a little scary for him, so he liked to play it cool and keep his distance. It was nice that he was slowly coming out of his shell, even if Al was getting impatient with how little physical contact there was in their relationship compared to the previous ones he’d had. ”That was nice. Got any more?” ”Mne nuzhno vremya podumat'.” ”I have no idea what you just said, but it was hot.” “Spasibo. Ya sdelayu vse vozmozhnoye, chtoby poradovat' vas.” “I wish I knew foreign languages.” “You have the time to study one”, Vanya lectured, like Al didn’t already have his hands full with his hobbies. It was easy for Vanya to say, he already knew English. He had forgotten how energy-draining learning something new was. “Hey, you were supposed to only talk Russian. I’ll let it slide if you say something romantic.” “Alright. Ya ne zasluzhivayu tebya v svoyey zhizni, no ya rad, chto vstretil tebya. Ya nikogda ne khochu rasstavat'sya s toboy. Ya khotel by vyrazit' svoyu blagodarnost' luchshe.” “Everything sounds so smooth when it comes out of your mouth.” “Vot klassika: Ya vas lyubil - lyubov' yeshche, byt' mozhet, v dushe moyey ugasla ne sovsemyu no pust' ona vas bol'she ne trevozhit - ya ne khochu pechalit' vas nichem. Ya vas lyubil bezmolvno, beznadezhno, to robost'yu, to revnost'yu tomim - ya vas lyubil tak krenno, tak nezhno, kak day vam bog lyubimoy byt' drugim.” “I bet you’d make a good singer.” “I’m afraid I am a better dancer than singer. I can carry a tune but anything more is beyond me.” “Really? We should go dancing some time, tear up the dance floor.” “Not that kind of dancing. I meant ballroom and ballet.” “You? Ballet?” Al asked astonished. Ballroom he didn’t bat an eye at, but a ballerina needs to be able to support his own weight on his toes. Vanya would need to weigh about half his current weight to do that. “I know, I don’t have the body type for it”, Vanya agreed begrudgingly. “The stereotypes just keep piling up”, Al laughed. He pictured Vanya doing pirouettes with those funny little ballet shoes and crashing through the floor. “Don’t ever change, babe.” They spent an hour spotting constellations and talking about all the distant planets and stars they had heard of until Al got too cold. In the car Vanya got started on about nebulas, and how in elementary school he had been so jealous of a classmate who had his bedroom walls covered in posters of them that he had emptied ten elmer’s glue bottles in the boy’s backpack. He hadn’t been caught, so he had repeated the trick the next semester. He had planned a third hit, but then the boy had transferred due to his mother remarrying a man in another city. Who knew, baby Vanya had been a little rascal!

[myheroarabella]

The Entrance Exam

The time had passed quickly enough after it had been announced that I would be attending UA. Before I knew it, it was the day of the entrance exam. I found myself standing in the crowded auditorium listening to Pro Hero, Present Mic explain how the exam would work. Robots, huh? I think I can manage to take out some stupid robots. The crowd bottlenecked through the doors to the training field, and it didn't help that everyone kept stopping in my way. I pushed my way through, past some green haired kid that looked more like a baby than a hero-in-training, and found out why everyone had stopped. The training field was huge. I knew it would have to be bigger than the auditorium for all the hopefuls plus several robots to fight comfortably in, but this had to be the size of a small city. Everyone around me was just as mesmerized as I was. It was like a full blown city, plus they had several of these on campus. I knew that UA was big, but I didn't think it was that big.

"Okay, start!" Present Mic's voice rang out from above us. Nobody, including me, moved a muscle. We were all too stunned by confusion to understand right away. I assume Present Mic caught onto this quite quickly, because he followed up. "What's wrong? There's no countdowns in real fights! Run, run! The die has been cast you know!"

And with that, everyone took off. Some got somewhat of a slow start thanks to the mild dizziness I inflict on those around me. Quickly, the pack split apart, each person going in their own direction to find one of the limited number of robots. I continued ahead down the main thoroughfare, just behind a boy with light hair who was making explosions from his hands to propel himself forward. Cute. I heard a crash from my left and turned quickly, confronting the three-point robot causing havoc in the alleyway. Three points isn't a bad start. The sensation of sneezing-but-not was like second nature to me, and I quickly dropped the pressure around what I assumed to be its head. I could see the effects quickly, ice cracking around the area. The metal had a particularly warm breaking temperature (carbon steel, maybe?), so it didn't take much on my part to make its head brittle enough to just kick. My shin connected with the metal and it almost shattered upon impact. Sparks shot out of the cracks I had made and I assessed the threat to be gone. The exam carried on like this for several minutes, mostly by myself, though I ran into that blond boy a few times. He was ruthless when fighting, and always went for the kill. I could respect that, but he sure as hell wasn't going to beat me. Seeing him defeat a robot just encouraged me to do more, and I occasionally dropped the pressure around him when he was close enough. The rules didn't say we couldn't use our quirks on other prospective students, after all. I resolved to talk to this boy after the test, he seemed interesting and driven, the kind of person I could get behind. A crash, louder and bigger than I had heard yet, sounded from my right. When I turned to look, there was a giant, hulking robot with a large zero on its shoulder crashing down the street towards me. Everyone around me stopped their fighting immediately to turn and run, and I felt the same sentiment that they did. But that kid with the green hair was out in the middle of the street and he wasn't moving away from it, even though it was getting closer to him with every second. Aw, shit. I'm gonna have to save him. I thought, and took a step closer to the kid. A hand clamped onto my shoulder, and when I looked back to tell the person to get your hand off of me, don't you know who I am, I saw the face of the explosive blond boy.

"Don't bother. He'll make it out fine, he's not stupid. Now let's go before you get both of us killed." He growled, and pulled me away from the kid and the robot.

Nope, this guy is abso-fucking-lutely insane. That kid can't survive that bot.

But as we ran away, I saw that same kid with the green hair jump unbelievably high in the air and deal a punch to the robot that instantly put it out of commission. I stopped in my tracks and dropped the pressure so the guy pulling me would stop too.

"What the hell. He just one-punched that thing. Does he have like, super strength or something?"

"Yeah, something like that. Now let's go." The guy tugged on my wrist again, but I stood fast. The kid was plummeting from at least 150 meters in the air, and he was going to hit the ground. Hard. If I could only get close enough to him, I might be able to at least slow him down a bit... Now even the blond was staring, watching the kid fall. It seemed to happen so slowly, yet so fast at the same time. He was getting too close to the ground, going too fast. I couldn't watch, so I instinctively turned away and squeezed my eyes shut, inadvertently placing my face directly on the blond's chest. I waited and waited to hear a splat, or a crash, or the crack of all his bones breaking at once. But it never came. All I heard was: "Holy shit."

I pulled away and glanced back to where the kid would have fallen. Instead of his mangled body on the ground, I saw him floating a meter in the air, a girl's hand still extended from a slap.

Antigravity. Handy.

The warmth I had grown used to on my wrist was suddenly snatched away from me as the blond turned away. He had a look of irritation on his face, like the green-haired kid had done him a personal disservice by surviving.My attention was pulled back to the kid as he fell to the ground with a thump. His arm and both of his legs were purple with bruises, and Recovery Girl wasn't too far out. With the sheer scale of her healing, he would be fine.

When I turned to leave, the blond guy who had pulled me away was gone. Probably off to study for the written exam. I shrugged and made my way towards the exit of the training field. After the written exam, the teachers at UA would take a week to decide which students got in (and which classes those students got into), and which didn't. So, I headed home to prepare for my first day, my thoughts wandering to the green-haired kid and the blond. What was their story? Why did the blond hate the other one so much? Would either of them even get in?

[letsgetfuckingsuperwholocked]

Accidents Happen (Episode 7/?)

Peter Parker x Pregnant!Reader

A/N: Love you all! This is going to be a loooong chapter! Woop woop! Shit’s getting real! There’s a lot of dialogue in this part LOL!! I made it extra-long in celebration of my first ever fanfic (Stone Cold) turning one on 9/27!

Warnings: Teen pregnancy, swearing, violence, blood, etc.

 Accidents Happen Masterlist // Masterlist

“Sean Morris has escaped.”

ESCAPED? What the ever loving fuck does she mean ‘escaped’? Was he coming for you?

“Y/n?” Natasha’s voice came over the phone, out of breath. The gunfire had ceased for a moment, “Are you there?”

“I-I’m here.” You stuttered out, hand shaking as you grabbed Peter’s forearm in fear, “What happens, now?”

“Clint and Wanda are on their way to come collect you, Peter, and May.” She grunted, and you could hear a shout coming from her end, “Tony is collecting your mother.”

“Okay.” You replied, staring numbly at the window in your shared bedroom. “See you soon.”

When you hung up, you laid a hand on your stomach and turned to Peter, “Did you hear all that?”

“Yeah.” He replied, jumping out of bed and helping you up. “Pack what we will need. I’ll wake up Aunt May.”

“I’ll do it. You pack.” You picked up one of Peter’s sweatshirts from the ground, pulling it over your head and covering your tank top and shorts. “Don’t forget our school bags.”

You sped out the door and into the hallway, trying not to panic. It was hard not to. The team had assured you that the cell your dad had been locked in would hold him. It was supposed to be made for Bruce, if he Hulked out. You knew this would fucking happen. How the fuck did he escape? Did all the prisoners escape? What the hell did this mean for you? They promised you were safe…

You threw open May’s door and shook her awake, “Aunt May, wake up. We have to leave. Now.”

“What?” She groaned, sitting up quickly, “What do you mean we have to leave? Is there a fire? Are they evacuating the building?”

“No.” You shook your head, pulling the covers off her, “I’ll explain on the way, but we need to get to the Avengers Tower, now. It’s an emergency. Pack your things.” You tossed her a sweatshirt and she yanked it over her head.

“Are we safe?” She ran to her closet, grabbing a bag and shoving her clothes into it. “Are you safe?”

You handed her the work uniform on her dresser, “No. We aren’t.” You sat down on her bed, laying a hand over your stomach and swallowing down the panic that was threatening to fry your nerves, “My dad is in town.”

“Your dad?” She knelt in front of you, laying her hands over yours, “Y/n, does your dad want to hurt you?”

“We don’t know.” Your voice was shaking, “Clint and Wanda are picking us up. We need to get somewhere safe.”

“The Avengers?” She asked in shock, eyes wide. “You know all of them?”

“I’ll tell you when we get to the tower, May!” Your breathing was getting worse, and the pressure on your chest was increasing, “Can y-you see if Peter has everything?”

“Sure, honey.” She kissed your forehead in comfort, running out of the room with her bag and calling out his name.

The paralyzing fear was racing through your veins like ice.

“Daddy! Please!” Your four-year-old self cried, “I don’t want to, anymore! It hurts!”

“Do it, now.” He screamed in your face, vein in his forehead prominent with anger, “I’ll kill Mommy if you don’t!” His gun was pointed to your unconscious mother, her limp body sprawled on the kitchen floor. “Heal it, or mommy dies!”

You laid your hand on the little kitten’s face, cradling it to your chest with shaking arms, “But Daddy, I think it’s dead!”

“HEAL IT NOW OR I PUT A BULLET IN MOMMY’S HEAD!”

“Y/n!” Peter’s voice brought you back from the memory playing in your mind. You hadn’t even noticed that he was crouched in front of your shaking form, nor that you were clutching the bed like you were going to float away. “Y/n, we have to go.”

May was standing behind him with her hand on his shoulder, fear in her eyes. You could hear Clint and Wanda in the living room, gathering what few bags you packed.

The anxiety was making you nauseous, and the baby kept doing little flip-flops in your belly.

“I can’t keep doing this, Peter.” You sobbed, knuckles white with the death-grip you had on the bed, “This is all too much.”

“I know, Baby.” He laid his hands over yours in comfort. His face was pale, and dark circles were becoming a permanent stain under his usually bright eyes – eyes that were shining in concern. “We can deal with it when we get to the tower, but we have to go. We need to get you and the baby somewhere safe.”

You took a deep breath, trying to clear your mind. It helped a little. The pain of the anxiety was still present, but you were beginning to think clearer. “Okay.” You stood on shaking legs, trying to gather yourself. “Okay. I’m okay.”

He led you out of the bedroom with his hand around your waist, mostly to keep you moving. “Alright, we have to go.” He placed your cross-body purse around your neck, taking the bags and turning to Clint and Wanda. “Lead the way.”

Clint and Wanda walked ahead of you, in full gear. Their posture was stiff, calculating, and ready for an attack.

“The tower is secure,” Wanda said to you, accent thick “The only prisoner to make it out alive was your father, but more were waiting outside the tower. We will find him, Pachen’ye.” Nat’s fucking nickname was starting to spread.

The stairs were torture. They didn’t want to take the elevator – fearing that someone would fuck with it – so you were forced to take the never-ending staircase. Trying to quickly go down many sets of stairs when your equilibrium was off, and having a giant watermelon in your uterus was not easy. You couldn’t catch your breath, and you kept slowing down with the fear that you were going to fall down the stairs.

Eventually, Peter picked you up - bridal style - and you made it to the ground level with no incidents.

When you reached ground level, you tried to walk through the lobby like nothing was wrong. You didn’t want to rouse suspicion of civilians, and get to the tower as fast as you could. Luckily, there were no incidents in the lobby.

Not until you were in the street.

BANG!

You jumped as Peter shoved Aunt May to the ground, causing a bullet to hit the wall versus her chest. Peter pushed you into a crouch as Clint Opened fire at the shooter, and Wanda created a field around you all. Civilians started screaming, and running in all directions.

“Wanda, get them out of here!” Clint shouted, running off. He was yelling something into his comms.

Wanda grabbed Aunt May, hauling her up. Peter threw the bags into the trunk of the big SUV as May helped you hop up onto your seat. The windows were bullet-proof, but you still crouched down as far as your belly would allow. May jumped in next to you and Peter hopped into the passenger side. Wanda, using her abilities to shield the car, threw it in drive and stomped on the gas – jerking everyone back.

“Now, what the hell is going on? Why the hell are there people shooting at us?” May yelled, gripping the bar as Wanda drifted around a corner.

“My dad is part of HYDRA.” You replied, feeling nauseous from getting tossed around in the vehicle. “He was detained in the tower, but he somehow escaped.”

“Your dad? How do you know he was there?” She let out a yelp as a bullet hit the windshield in front of Peter, grabbing onto his shoulder in panic, “You know, I feel like there is a lot of things you two aren’t fucking telling me.”

“Aunt May, not now!” Peter yelled from the front seat, grabbing two guns from the glove compartment and handing you the Glock. You quickly checked the magazine, then clicked it back into place and pulled back the slide to rack the chamber. You kept your finger off the trigger – since there was no safety on the gun – and intended it to be that way unless you needed to shoot it.

“Oh, HELL NO.” May screamed, anger in her voice, “Why the fuck do you two have guns?! Where the hell did you learn about guns?!”

You both know Natasha Romanoff… There was no way that she wasn’t going to teach you the basics of handling a firearm.

“Aunt May, calm-” Peter was cut off as Wanda cried out and stomped on the brakes. You were all thrown forward, as the car came to a screeching halt. “Wanda what the hell?”

She didn’t reply with words – just a groan of pain – and you gasped when noticed a little hole in the windshield. “Peter, she’s been shot! I thought these windows were bullet proof!” You leaned back to dig through your bag, pulling out a tank top and pressing it to her wound. You handed Aunt May the gun, “Keep your finger off the trigger, unless you intend to shoot. There’s no safety.”

That earned you quite the look.

Peter unclicked his seatbelt, leaning over the center console to check her out. He grabbed the comms from her ear and put it in his own, “Guys, Wanda’s been hit.” He listened for a moment. “Okay.” He turned back to you, “Tony dropped your mom at the tower, and is around the corner. He’s going to cover us, and I’m going to drive.”

“Peter, you don’t even have your license!” You yelled out, leaning back as he shoved Wanda in the middle of you and May, “Do you know how to drive?”

“I’ll figure it out.” He snapped, throwing the vehicle into drive, “Left is brake, right is gas! That’s all I need to know, right now!” He stomped on the gas, and you lurched forward, going fast.

You continued to hold pressure on Wanda’s wound, blood leaking through the tank top and wetting your hands. Wanda looked at you with a serious look, “Don’t you dare try and heal me. We don’t know how it will affect the baby.” She winced as you pressed down. The shot was through her shoulder. It looked like it had gone completely through, but you didn’t know the extent of the damage. You could usually sense the extent when you healed someone, but – like she said – you didn’t know if it would hurt the baby.

“The hell does she mean? ‘Heal her’?” Aunt May held Wanda in place as Wanda cried out in pain. “Do you have something to tell me, Y/n?”

“I have abilities, May!” You looked up at May’s shocked face, “I can heal people.”

She was silent. Her eyes shone with – what looked like – hurt, and her mouth was opening and closing like she was trying to say something and didn’t know what to say.

That was when things went to shit.

“FUCK!” Peter yelled, slamming on the brakes and jerking you to a hard stop. “Y/N, get the gun.”

You quickly switched with May after wiping your hands on your – Peter’s – sweatshirt. You held the gun in your hands, as she applied pressure to Wanda’s wound. Wanda looked about ready to pass out from blood loss, breathing starting to get shallow.

“Wanda, don’t pass out!” You unclicked your seatbelt. “How far away are we from the tower?” You asked, leaning over to get a better look at why Peter had slammed to a stop. Holy crap! There were people running everywhere. It looked like a war zone. HYDRA agents were attacking civilians while the new SHIELD agents – and the Avengers – were attacking HYDRA.

It was fucking mayhem.

“We’re still a block away.” He unclicked his seatbelt and turned around to face you, “Do you think you can run?”

“I might be pregnant, but I still have legs.” You rolled your eyes, “What about Wanda?”

“Leave me for Med Evac.” She murmured, head lulling onto May’s shoulder.

“Not happening, Wanda.” He turned on his comms. “Tony. We can’t get through the crowd with the SUV. Wanda needs medical attention, really bad. Are you sure the tower is secure?” He listened for a moment. “Alright.”

“What’d Mr. Stark say?” May asked, brushing her damp hair from her face. Wanda’s blood stained her forehead. “What do we do, now?”

“We have to carry her. We can come back for our stuff, later. We have to go, now.” He opened the door, running to the other side and opening May’s door to help carry Wanda, “Y/N, carry the purses. Everything else stays.”

Your purse was already around your person, and you stacked May’s on top of yours, “Peter, we only have 15 bullets, each.” You grabbed his hand as he helped you down from the SUV, “Is that going to be enough? What if this turns into a shoot-out?”

“I’m wearing my web slingers.” He sighed, glancing over at May. “We’ll be fine, as long as we move fast. If we start getting shot at… run. Leave us behind. Get you, and the baby, to safety.”

You shut the door and Peter moved to grab Wanda, throwing her on his back like a piggyback ride. You kept your gun down, trying not to attract attention to yourself, and keeping your eye out for HYDRA agents. Small bombs were going off in the streets, people were screaming, and there was debris everywhere. It was almost like aliens were attacking, again. There was so much chaos and damage. Four in the morning, and Manhattan was lit up like it was midday. There were fires, flashes of light from Tony’s beams, and it seemed like everyone in the city was awake and terrified.

A big man stepped out from an alley ahead of you, aiming a gun at Aunt May. “SHIELD bitch!” The man screamed, and Aunt May gasped as the man charged at her.

Bang! Bang!

The man fell to the ground.

You shot the man twice with shaking hands. Once in the chest, and once in the neck. Blood had sprayed from his wounds, splattering against a horrified Aunt May. You could see him choking on his own blood, but you didn’t want to dwell on it, yet.

You needed to get your baby, Wanda, and Aunt May to safety.

“Keep moving.” You shouted, grabbing May’s arm and pulling her along. “We need to keep moving.”

“You shot him!” She shrieked, tears streaming down her thin face, “You actually shot him.”

“I shot him before he could shoot you, now move!” You shoved her forward, feeling a little bad about being so pushy. “We’re almost there.”

The tower was like a beacon of light. It was so close, you could almost see into the lobby. You could see Ed from security, standing at the doors with an M16 in his hands.

When he spotted your group, he ran to the doors, unlocking them and ushering you in.

“Thank god you guys made it.” He sighed, laying a hand on your shoulder, “I was worried.”

“We’re fine, Ed.” You were huffing from exertion, free hand holding your aching lower back, “But Wanda needs to go to Med Bay. She’s been hit.”

He pulled out his walkie, summoning Med Bay down as Peter set Wanda on the ground, stripping off his hoodie and bunching it under her head like a pillow. May leaned down to put pressure back on the wound, and Peter walked over to you.

He immediately wrapped you in his warm arms, holding you close to his chest. “You’re safe.” He whispered, “Thank god. Oh my god.”

You went to say something, but instead you turned – shoving him off you – and vomited in the waste bin. The anxiety had made you nauseous, earlier. Now that you were at the tower, and your adrenaline was lowering, you couldn’t hold back the bile anymore. At least you didn’t yak on Peter, again.

You groaned, turning back to Peter, “That really sucked.”

He brushed your hair from your sweating forehead, pressing a kiss on your hairline, “Were you internally freaking out as much as I was?”

“Probably more than you were.” You smirked, wrapping your arms around his neck. Your shoulders sagged in relief. You were finally safe. You shuddered, “I shot a man twice… in the neck and chest.”

His hands went around you, running along your spine, “I know. I saw. Are you okay?”

You shook your head. “I should be feeling worse than I am. That was somebody’s baby.” You laid your head against his shoulder, “Should we be concerned about telling Aunt May everything? I’m pretty sure she heard you say you were wearing your webslingers. I told her about my abilities.”

He shrugged, “I mean, she caught me in the suit one time, and I told her it was a Halloween costume. I think she’s been suspicious, ever since.” He was silent for a moment, and you could hear the chaos on the streets starting to die down. Then, he moved a hand to your belly, “We should be careful. All this stress can’t be good for the baby.”

You pulled your eyebrows together in thought, “I wonder if the baby is going to inherit my ability, or something like it?” You put your hand over Peter’s, “Spiderman as a father, and a mutant as a mother. This kid is going to have something.”

“Or maybe nothing.” He shrugged, “It happens.”

You looked over Peter’s shoulder, seeing Aunt May hand Wanda off to Dr. Cho.

“We should talk to Aunt May.” You grabbed Peter’s hand, and running your thumb along his busted knuckles. “She needs to know.”

___

“WHAT?” May shouted at Peter, throwing her hands up in frustration, “Your him? Spiderman? You said it was just a costume! You lied to me!”

You and Peter were sitting on the bench at the end of the bed in Peter’s room in the tower. You were all three freshly showered, and the sun was starting to shine through the window. You and Peter were sitting on the couch at the end of the bed, like two teenagers who had just gotten in major trouble. Which, was not that far off.

“Aunt May-” He tried to explain, but she cut him off with a shout.

“I cannot believe you, Peter! We only have two rules in the house!” She held up two fingers, “Rule number one: we do not put maple syrup in the refrigerator.” She ticked off the first finger, and pointed to the second. “Rule number two was that we were always going to tell each other the truth.” She put her head in her hands, “I feel like those two rules are fairly simple, and I haven’t been that hard of a guardian.”

“Aunt May, you’re the best parent anyone could ever hope to have.” He insisted, standing up, “I just didn’t want you to get hurt.”

“What about you, Peter?” Tears were streaming down her face and she pinched the bridge of her nose in frustration, “I promised to take care of you, and how can I do that if you’re risking your life? You should think about these things, honey. It isn’t just you anymore.” She pulled him into a hug, “Who else knows?”

“Ned, the team, Y/N, and now you.”

She hit him in the shoulder, “‘The team’? Are you an Avenger?”

“Not officially.” You finally spoke up, hand gently running over your bump as your kid fluttered around, “They won’t let him become an official Avenger until he’s a legal adult.”

“What about you?” She let go of Peter, sitting next to you, “Are you an Avenger?”

“No.” You grabbed her hand, “I just started working in Med Bay, but I won’t be healing people until after the baby is born.” You looked down at your bump, “We don’t know if healing people will affect the baby.”

“How long have you had this… ability?”

“Since I was little.” You squeezed her hand, which had moved onto your belly, “I was born with it, I’m pretty sure. I figured it out around three or four years old. My dad is a mutant. He has super strength.”

“Your dad is HYDRA?”

“I guess.” You shrugged, trying to lock those feelings in a box and lock it away, “I haven’t seen him since I was seven. My mom left him and-”

“WHERE THE HELL IS MY DAUGHTER?!” You heard someone scream from the communal lounge.

“Speak of the Devil.” Peter muttered, crossing his arms in distaste. You gave him a look. She’s still your mother. “Sorry. Hard to like her when she threw a bottle at your head a few weeks ago.”

“She what?” Aunt May turned towards the door, standing up. “I’m going to kick her fucking ass.”

“Aunt May, please.” You sighed, hauling yourself up. “It’s fine. I healed and I left. I barely see her, anymore.”

Aunt May and Peter looked at each other communicating something to each other that you didn’t catch, then looked at you. Annoyed, you followed your mother’s voice and found her standing in the middle of the lounge, yelling at a dirty Steve Rogers.

“Ma’am, you need to calm down.” He tried to reason with her, running a hand through his hair in frustration, “Y/n is-”

“Right here.” You finished, rolling your eyes. “Mom, stop yelling. He can hear you just fine.”

“How the fuck did these idiots lose your father?” She threw her hands up, bracelets clanking together. She was dressed like they found her in a club. “I thought The Avengers were supposed to be ‘earth’s mightiest heroes’? Don’t you have that big, green bastard that fucked up a few cities? Use him.”

“Mom.” You snapped, pinching the bridge of your nose in frustration, “Don’t offend the people who just saved your damn life.”

“They did nothing but snatch me up from my date with Mikey, and hold me against my will.” She was swaying back and forth like she was drunk. She probably was. “They left Mikey in the club. How do I know Mikey’s safe?”

“Who gives a flying fuck about Mikey, Mom.” You yelled, crossing your arms. “Dad escaped and we don’t know if he knows about you and I being in New York.”

“I don’t think he does.” Natasha’s voice came from the doorway.

She was just as filthy as Steve. Soot covered her whole body, there was dark spots that looked like blood spatter on her uniform, and there were bruises forming on her face. She looked like she had gone through the ringer. She looked exhausted.

“How do you know?” You asked, not wanting to take the team’s word for anything, anymore. Not after they promised he wasn’t going to escape.

“He immediately went for the weapons and HYDRA, instead of you. Plus, you aren’t an Avenger and you aren’t in the news or anything.” She had a point. “I think you are safe for the time being, but it would be beneficial to move into the tower.”

“What about school?” Aunt May’s voice came from behind you, “The kids can’t just drop out. The school year is almost over.”

“That’s where I come in.” Tony entered the room, clean and holding a few small boxes in his hands, “I designed these a while ago. I was going to give these to you as a part of a baby shower gift, but now seems appropriate.”

He tossed the boxes at Peter, who caught them easily. He handed you the box with your name on it, and you tore into it.

“A watch?” You stared at it, confused. It was one of those fancy, touchscreen watches that hook up to your smartphone. The band was black with cute little colored music notes. “It’s cute, but what does this have to do with my safety?”

“It has a panic button.” Tony sat on one of the couches – a small drink in his hand. “It looks like one of those Apple Watches, but it is really my own design. It has all the same functions, but if you press and hold the little red button for a few seconds, it sends the team a distress signal with your location.” Tony took a small sip of his drink, then continued, “Plus, they are stylish. Also, it’s hooked up with FRIDAY, so you won’t be needing a pass to get into the tower anymore, and FRIDAY is around if you need anything.”

“Cool.” Peter took his plain, black one out of the box - putting it on his wrist. “So, we can go to school?”

“You will wear this watch at all times, and be escorted by agents,” Tony stood, sending a look of distaste in your mother’s direction, “but, yes – you can go to school.”

You smiled, putting on the watch. “Cool, thanks.”

“Now that everything is all fan-fucking-tastic,” You mom snapped, “Can I leave?”

“Yes. Please, get the hell out of my tower.” Tony waved a hand in her direction, walking out of the room.

You sighed, lump in your throat. You had no more energy to deal with anything. You needed to go to bed. You were not about to start arguing with everybody about your mother. “I’ll call you later, Mom.”

“Don’t bother. I’ll be fine.” She snatched up her purse and stomped towards the elevators. Steve shot you a sympathetic look, following her to make sure she found her way to the lobby.

“I need to go to sleep.” You sighed, putting your head in your hands, “I think it’s safe to say that we are not going to school, today. It starts in…” You looked at your new, fancy watch. “Actually, it started ten minutes ago.”

“I’ll sleep in Y/N’s room.” Aunt May headed back into the hallway, “You kids go get some sleep.”

__

OMG! Did you hear about what happened in Manhattan, this morning?

HYDRA?? Insane!

Why aren’t you guys at school, today? Ned said he hasn’t heard from you since you told him about your ultrasound?

How did that go, by the way??

Fuck, I’m spamming you.

Wait! Ned just said your building got shot at, last night!

Are you okay????

Hurry the fuck up and reply to me, woman!

I WON’T STOP MESSAGING YOU UNTIL YOU ANSWER ME!

Now I’m worried!!! Y/N!!

“Jesus, Michelle.” You groaned, turning on your side towards a sleeping Peter.

He looked so cute when he slept. His mouth hung open, just a little bit, and he would lightly snore. His face was free from any anxious expressions, his curls hung in his face, and his cheeks got a little red when he slept. He usually slept with his arm around you, but he had been so exhausted that he passed out on his stomach, with his arms under his pillow.

It was adorable.

You replied to Michelle: We are at The Avengers tower, actually. Crazy shit happened. Tell you more, later! We’re all just fine and safe. Baby is doing wonderful! Keeps kicking my goddamn bladder! Can it be my due date, yet? UGH.

You knew you weren’t going to get any more sleep.

You had to pee. Again.

After kissing Peter on the cheek, you heaved yourself up out of bed and walked into the attached bathroom. Once your business was said and done, your teeth were brushed, and you threw your hair up in a bun – you went to go find Aunt May.

You figured she called into work, so you headed a couple doors down and lightly knocked on the door to your bedroom.

“Come in!” May’s voice chirped.

You slowly opened the door, pulling the sleeves of Peter’s sweatshirt down. “Can I come sit with you?”

“Of course, sweetie.” She patted the bed next to where she was sitting and reading a book, “What’s on your mind?”

You sat down, pulling your legs into a crisscross. You looked around your newly decorated room – Wanda and Natasha had done an awesome job – staring at the little nursery corner. There was a crib, changing table, and a rocking char. The whole room was a grey and cream color theme. The nursery was gender neutral, had cute little elephants, and was perfect. You loved the rocking chair more than you would ever admit.

“Y/n?” May broke you from your thoughts, laying a hand on your knee, “What’s on your mind?”

“I’m sorry, May.” You looked down, grabbing the hand that had been on your knee, “I’m sorry that we lied to you. We didn’t want to, but we didn’t want you to get dragged into all of this. Then, you ended up getting dragged into it, anyways.” You looked up at her, tears forming in your eyes, “Are you mad at me?”

“Oh, honey.” She leaned forward, pulling you into her arms, “I could never be mad at you.” She ran her hand up and down your back like Peter usually did, “I love you, okay? There is nothing that you could do that would make me mad at you. Disappointed, maybe. Mad? No. I will never be truly mad. I just want you to be safe and make good choices in your life.”

“I love you, too, May.” You sniffed, tears leaving hot trails down your face. “I’m sorry I yelled at you so much in the car.”

She chuckled, “I was going a little insane. I needed a little check.” She pulled back, brushing your hair from your face and wiping your tears, “How are you feeling? A lot has happened. You shot that man.”

You closed your eyes, “I don’t want to think about that.” You laid your hands over your bump, protectiveness washing over you. “I didn’t want him to hurt you, but I didn’t think I was going to kill him. I just… reacted.”

“You saved my life.” She rubbed her hands up and down your upper arms in comfort, “Thank you.”

“I don’t want anything bad to happen to you,” You confessed, shyly looking down at your hands, “I need you. You’re like my mom. Better than my mom.”

She threw her arms around you and let out a small sob, “Oh, honey. I love you and Peter like you are my own children. I don’t want anything bad to happen to you, either.”

“Y/N? May?” Peter’s sleepy voice came from the doorway. He was rubbing his eye with one hand, and running his other hand through his hair. He was barefoot and in his pajama pants. Luckily, he had thrown on a tee shirt, because he got weird about May seeing him without a shirt on.

“Hey, Peter.” May pulled back and wiped her face, “Come to join the sob fest?”

“Why are you crying?” He fell onto the bed, laying across the bottom of the bed on his stomach. He grabbed your hand, running his thumb over your knuckles, “Do I want to know why you’re both all weepy?”

“It was a cute moment. Shut up.” You smirked, rubbing the tears from your face. That was the moment that your baby decided to kick you in the side, and you let out a huff, grabbing the sore spot. “Jesus, kid. You’re going to break me.”

Peter put his hand on the spot, rubbing it. He leaned down and jokingly scolded, “Quit kicking your Mommy.” The baby nudged at his hand. His eyes bulged from his head, “Did the baby just kick my hand?”

You smiled, nodding. “The baby is sassing you already.” You chuckled as the baby nudged his hand, again. “This kid is going to be a handful.” You looked down at your belly, “Quit giving Daddy sass.” You looked up at Peter, and he had the biggest grin on his face. He looked so in love, already, and you felt a warmth of love in your chest. The three people in your room – one in utero – were your family. Nothing else mattered.

You would deal with your father. You would deal with your mother. You would deal with what happened. You would deal with the repercussions of telling May. You would deal with all the HYDRA bullshit.

You just needed moments like these.

Moments where nothing else mattered but your little family.

I look at you, and see the rest of my life flash in front of my eyes. -Unknown

Episode 8

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Author: http://teambattlebuddies.tumblr.com

Recipient: http://achievemenhunter.tumblr.com

Summary: Nothing even remotely interesting has ever happened in Micheal's life. Nothing fun, noteworthy, or cool. He's tired of the boring self pitying person he's become but honestly? There's nothing much he can do about it really. That is until a handsome stranger accidentally turns his boring life on it's ear when he's witness to a supernatural event. Things are significantly less boring when he's fighting Vampires side by side with two gorgeous guys who he thinks might want him too.

Warnings: Violence, Alcohol, NC-17

WordCount: 11,093

It’s Tuesday night, so naturally nothing much is happening. Nothing really happens on Tuesdays. Nothing of importance or significance at least. Most people don’t like Mondays, but whether good or bad, shit happens Monday. Nothing’s ever happened on a Tuesday. It might be the shittiest day of them all.

Michael gulps a craft beer because he’s a dying man anyway. A man dying of boredom that is. A man staring at the game playing in the corner of a dive bar when, if you asked him, he’d have no answer to the score or the teams or even the sport. He cares so little, the only reason he’s even looking at the TV is because it’s moving and something is happening, even if it is an old rerun of some sport Michael couldn’t care less about. Hell the only reason he’s in this shitty bar is the thought of being that guy in a shoebox apartment he can barely afford, alone, drinking beer staring at the wall, well the thought of that’s just about the only thing sadder than being where he is and doing what he’s doing.

God, his life sucks.

Even Michael hates his boring, self-pitying ass. He hates his job? He should quit it. He’s lonely? He should try dating. He’s horney? He should pick someone up at the bar or just jack off or something. God he’s such a fucking whiney baby. Get a grip.

“I’ll just have a water.”

Michael’s eyes drift over to this designated driver guy because he has to be even sadder and more bored than Michael. Water? Really.

But this guy doesn’t seem to be part of some sad Tuesday night party, he’s alone at the bar. And he’s pretty fucking hot if Michael’s honest. Like He’s short, built as hell, and wearing a leather jacket. All things setting off Michael’s boner meter.

Come on, Michael. Time to take life into his own hands. And by life, he means… well you know. Apologies to his right hand but he’d prefer other company tonight if he’s honest. So Michael tries to be casual, try not to be too much of a desperate son of a bitch. Just sit next to him, put down his empty glass and order another. There. Now he has a reason to sit next to this guy.

There’s not many guys Michael feels comfortable openly flirting without first finding out a few things, like ‘Is he gay?’ but that’s a box already checked here. He emanates the most powerful top cub vibes what with his shaved head and facial hair and honestly just everything this guy’s got going for him. He’s got to be gay.

“So, you come here often?” Fuck. Shit. It’s been so long since he’s talked to anyone hot, let alone this hot. What a dumb fucking thing to say. ‘You come here often?’ what kind of reply is he gonna get then? ‘Nope/Yeah.’ Then Michael says ‘cool’ and that's that. The end. What’s his next line? ‘Are you from fucking tennesse or something? Because I’m a fucking stupid asshole.’

“Nope.” The guy says and MIchael wants to crawl into a fucking hole.

“C-” Michael begins, resigned to how this conversation is going to end.

“Not my scene, usually.” The guy continues. And that accent? What are the chances of another east coaster down here in Texas? High, probably, but still Michael likes.”You?”

“Uh…” He wasn’t expecting to have to reply, fuck. “...Nah, I don’t really get out much, so I’m not really anywhere often, except for work and-”shut the fuck up, Michael! Stop fucking babbling. Act cool you piece of shit. “-uh, home.”

“I’d say the same about myself really, if work wasn’t almost anywhere.” He laughs to himself, finishing off his water.

Michael smiles along with him because he doesn’t know what this guy does so how’s he supposed to get the joke? “So what do you do?”

“Oh, uhh…” The guy drinks his water and he looks like he’s stalling. What, does he strip for bachelorette parties? The fuck is this non-static work environment secret bullshit? “I work, um, freelance… security?”

Well that’s a fucking lie if Michael’s ever heard one. He isn’t gonna call him out on it. Whatever this dude wants to keep private is his fucking business. Instead, Michael just leans in closer, “Wow… that sounds interesting…” He touches the guy’s hand and he realises that he doesn’t have any idea what this guy’s name is. And honestly? Michael’s kinda into that. “Freelance, huh? Flexible work hours?”

“I can get called in last minute pretty often, but mostly I make my own hours.”

“So you’re free tonight,” And here it comes, fucking head first into this shit, “And if we’re both lucky, all morning too?”

“Umm…” It doesn’t even look like he’s paying goddamn attention. The guy is straight up looking over his shoulder at something across the bar! “So, you got any, uh, hobbies?”

Well he was just thoroughly ignored. It doesn’t matter, the guy’s beautiful brown eyes are back on him and really Michael doesn’t need some polite guy. All he needs is a burly top to give him something interesting to do for a few hours. “I play a lot of video games,” Attempt number two, “If you want, you can come over. We could play something if you want?”

Just as he gets to inviting him over the dude looks over his shoulder at something again. Or not something Michael realises. Someone. There’s the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen across the bar. Right. Did he misjudge this guy? No. Not fucking possible, if this guy was straight he would have rebuffed michael immediately. Maybe he’s bi though. He doesn’t even look back at Michael as he starts to speak again, “Yeah, video games. I’ve got an xbox at home. I’ve played so much GTA V sometimes I almost just steal a car in real life before I can stop myself. Hahaha…”

“Right.” This guy’s just babbling now, straight up looking away from him. Not that Michael can blame him or anything, that chick is incredibly hot. Like long curly hair, slim legs, big red lips, and giant tits? If Michael was into girls he would be all up in that. They apparently both want the both thing if those fucking bedroom eyes she’s giving the guy Michael’s been trying to fuck are anything to go by. And fuck, she’s definitely winning this battle, no contest. Michael makes one last attempt, but it’s weak. He’s already given up.

“I’ll suck you off in the parking lot.”

The guy doesn’t even acknowledge him, instead just fucking gets up and walks out, following the gorgeous goddamn woman and her mile-long-leg, curves-in-all-the-right-places ass. Michael hopes they both have a terrible night.

He orders two shots of whiskey, pays, and downs them.

He literally just met that guy and he fucking misses him. Michael has no idea what he’s like, but he was from the east coast. He had such broad shoulders. He played GTA V! They were practically fucking soulmates!

He hopes the shots get him tipsy enough to get over the loss of the love of his life. Or at least tipsy enough to tide him over ‘til he gets home. Then he can actually get shitfaced and cry on the phone at a friend or someone he went on a failed date with or something.

Fuck, Michael doesn’t know. He’ll surprise himself.

His chest is warm and his legs feel like they maybe want to be kind of rebellious and unresponsive. It’s all good. Maybe not good, but not bad.

He’s out of the dim light and into the dark and cool night. He unlocks his phone to call an uber because he lives too far to walk home at midnight.

Ah, cool, it’s 0:01.

“Fuck-”

Michael turns to the voice against his better judgement. It’s the voice of the guy who rejected him and honestly Michael doesn’t need to see those two fucking against the wall, but millions of years of evolution cause him to look over at the source of the noise. Science is bullshit.

But they’re not fucking.

They’re fighting. Viciously. The woman tightens her grip around the guy’s neck and Michael’s head goes fucking blank for a moment. He has no idea what to do, even as the dude knees her in the stomach and pulls her head into the wall next to him as she’s doubled up.

Then he whips out this thing, it looks like a fucking knife. Hot guy has a knife,  what the fuck.

Call 911! Screams the only voice in Michael’s short circuiting brain but it’s too late. The guy drives his -not a knife, it’s too thick- into the woman’s chest and Michael has never been more glad he didn’t get that guy to fuck him.

Shit, he could have ended up stabbed!

His fingers are already dailing, something he does in the split second before things go crazy.

There’s this sound like someone sucking on a pipe organ or something, but like, this sucking sound, but through like an amplifier. It’s loud and like maybe she’s inhaling hard with that -holy shit, holy fucking shit, she’s got a full on stick in her chest- in her lungs. Then like she’s voldemort in the last Harry Potter Movie, she flakes away. All at once, she turns to dust, or like dandruff, or dandelion seeds as she floats away into the wind.

There’s gravel stuck into Michael’s hands before he even knows what that means. His ass hurts and not in the way he wanted it to. Shit. Shit. What the fuck. What the fuck. What the fuck!

The guy’s eyes snap onto him as Michael's muscles bypass his brain and just start scrambling as far away from this guy standing above him with a fucking sharp stick he used to kill and fucking evaporate some woman in this goddamn parking lot. He’s going to die. He’s going to fucking die here.

Michael’s back hits the front of a parked car and there’s no further he can go. The guy is standing right over him and Michael can see the guy’s eyes snap from him to the phone on the ground. Shit. Michael dropped his fucking phone. If only he’d hit that call button, it’s not likely but at least there’d be some fucking chance that he wouldn’t get stabbed. It’s too late now though.

The guy picks up his phone. “Huh. I guess you saw all that then…”

Michael is so dead.

Then he sticks out his hand. His empty hand. Like he’s trying to help Michael up. Michael instinctively flinches, drawing further back. He wanted to sleep with a fucking murderer. What the hell is wrong with him.

“Wait, uh,” The guy takes his hand back, following Michael’s eyes to the wooden stake in his hand. Like there was something else that Michael was going to be scared of. What the fuck is wrong with this guy? Oh right, he’s fucking crazy. Like, literally just killed someone batshit insane.  “I-I’m not going to, uh, stab you if that’s what you think.”

Michael laughs. It’s not like he finds this situation funny or something. It’s just, pure disbelief. Disbelief at the statement. Disbelief at his fucking situation. Disbelief that he was about to die. Because Michael doesn’t picture his death often, but murdered in a parking lot was not one of the scenarios he’d imagined.

“No, really!” The guy raises his hands. Surrendering. Michael could make a break for it? Get back in the bar. “Look,” And the dude drops his sharp stick.

There’s a silence. The guy with his hands up just stands over Michael. Michael stays on the ground, brain frozen halfway through the complex equation of things that could happen and ways to not die.

Then the guy talks again, “I-uh- you weren’t supposed to… see that. I mean. Um, I’m Jeremy.”

Ah yes, a wonderful time for introductions. Good to know your murders first name. Wonderful.

“Yeah, I’m Jeremy and uh…” Jeremy -probably a fake name. Like why would he give out his actual real life name? “Um, can I buy you a drink.”

What?

Fifteen minutes ago -hell, fucking like 2 minutes ago- Michael would have been ecstatic to get a drink from a  handsome stranger, but after seeing a literal murder? He’s less excited if he’s honest.

“If you’re afraid I’ll, um, kill you or something, there’s -uh. Witnesses? Yeah, witnesses in the bar.” Jeremy explains, he seems pretty panicked about this whole thing too. “I can explain.”

MIchael just stares at him.

“Right, um. I’m going to go back into the bar. If you want you can join me. I guess. I’ll pay.” Jeremy babbles like he was the one to see the murder. But Michael reasons that he’d be pretty freaked out if someone saw him commit a murder. Fuck, he’s probably the only person standing in Jeremy’s way from getting away with literal murder. Of course he’s being nice about it.

Jeremy backs up slowly, like he’s hoping Michael will spring up before he’s fully in the bar. Fat fucking chance, dude. Michael’s good where he is. Once Jeremy has backed fully into the bar Michael gets inch by inch back to his feet.

His heart is pounding so fast and hard and he can barely feel his limbs. This must be what actual fear is like. It’s a lot different from fear that your character’s going to die. He feels less sick playing video games. There’s nothing tying him here now, he could just leave. He really should leave.

He should leave.

Michael’s heart takes a while to calm. His knees take even longer to rebuild themselves from Jello. It takes just enough time for him to decide to do the dumb thing. He could just leave. Never come back. Get out of here and move on with his life but he knows it’s going to eat him alive. The curiosity. The chance to talk to a real-life actual murder and here how he fucking evaporated that woman and why. He decides to go back in because there’s no one stupider than Michael Vincent goddamn Jones.

Michael Jones, biggest dumbass alive.

Still on wobbling legs, with a thousand frogs hopping in his stomach, he goes right back in the bar. No one looks at him and yet he feels like there are a million eyes on him. It’s awful, the vulnerable exposure all over his skin. The fear is still there. Adrenaline can suck his dick. He walks at a fucking snail’s pace to try not to fall over.

One foot. Next foot.

Jeremy’s sitting in a booth texting someone on his phone. Maybe he’s got some serial killer friends that get off on his descriptions. God, Michael can’t fucking understand why he’d wanted to fuck this guy before. He’s probably bald so he doesn’t have to wash blood out of his hair. That’d be a pain in the fucking ass, Michael bets.

“Ah-hem.” He clears his throat because there’s really nothing to say. And frankly, his tongue feels so thick in his mouth he doesn’t know if he’d be able to talk at all, let alone coherently.

Jeremy starts making a soft “Ap!” sound as he drops his phone. The fuck does he have to be skittish about?

“Oh, ah. You came back in! That’s good.” He pockets his phone again, “So, uh, do you want to sit down?”

Michael laughs again. One of those laughs where he doesn’t know where it came from. One that’s just there, like he didn’t make the sound at all, but he did. He sits down though, right on the edge of the seat. He doesn’t know why. Maybe to run faster? But really how much faster is three inches?

“So. I-uh, this is going to be completely insane. Fuck, you’re just not going to believe a word I say,” Jeremy goes off rambling, getting increasingly quieter and more strained in his voice as he goes on, “God, how am I going to explain this…”

Michael just kind of sits there. Waiting because, what the fuck does he say? ‘Aw no buddy, I’m sure whatever bullshit excuse you have is really convincing!’

The guy finally takes a deep breath and closes his eyes. Like he’s reorganizing his excuse in his head. Then he begins.

“Okay, you know that Lady? She was a Vampire.”

Well this dude’s fucking crazy. Michael called it, bullshit excuse. Except either this guy adamantly believes this and he’s like, legitimately crazy, or it’s the first excuse he could think of.

“I'm calling the fucking cops.” Michael tells him matter of factly, because it was a fact. To emphasise this he takes out his phone.

Jeremy looks at him bemused. Or amused? Michael knows what amused means but that's not quite what Jeremy looks like and bemused sounds so goddamn similar so maybe? His eyebrows shot up and he looked like he wanted to smile. So if that's not what bemused means then Michael's been using that word wrong since he first learned it.

“Really? What are you going to tell them?” And Michael doesn't get it. He should be begging him not to call. Threatening him! This guy just killed someone! The fuck is he so smug for?

“That you're a fucking murderer!” Michael catches himself mid yell. But, looking around it seems everyone is either too drunk or doesn't care enough to turn and even just give them a dirty look. “That you're crazy and you killed that lady outside.” And then we'll see who's laughing.

“Really?” Jeremy mocks surprise, “But where's the evidence?”

“I fucking saw y-"

“Yeah, but where’s the body?” Which… makes sense. The body just evaporated. How the hell did he do that. The only times Michael had ever seen anything like that happen was… in vampire movies. When the vampire got stabbed with… a wooden stake.

What the fuck.

Vampires aren't fucking real. Vampires don't exist.

Maybe Michael's the one who's crazy.

Maybe this is a dream. It certainly doesn't feel real.

“Do you even know how you would describe the woman you think you saw me allegedly ‘murder’?” Jeremy cuts into his thoughts with his dumb fucking nonsense. Of course he knows what she looked like! Her hair was… beautiful, and her eyes were… really pretty or something. Fuck. He knows he knows what she looked like but the details are gone. He can't picture her face but he knows she was gorgeous. Was she Asian? White? Black? He has no fucking clue, which doesn't bode well for giving a convincing testimony.

“Why can't I-? Did you do something..?” Michael drifts off. Either he has a concussion or something or something legitimately supernatural is going on here. And Michael wishes he thought it was a head injury.

Jeremy gives him that little white person grimace you do when you’re trying to say ‘sorry, man’ when you have no actual control over the situation at all. Michael’s had two beers and two shots so he’s starting to feel like he’s drunk too much to deal with this. Or not enough. Michael’s head is so full of just general buzzing and fog that the only place for his thoughts to go are out his idiotic mouth.

“...but vampires aren’t fucking real.”

Jeremy looks away and shrugs his shoulders. Yeah, yeah, Michael fucking gets it ‘what can I tell ya?’ and ‘it is what it is’ and all those fucking bullshit placating platitudes. ‘It’s all going to be fine’ yeah, bullshit it’s going to be fine. Fucking vampires exist.

Things are never going to be fine.

But if Jeremy had to kill that lady then does it make it okay to find him super hot? Because really, who hasn’t wanted to fuck Buffy?

And a dude buffy? The absolute dream for Michael’s dumb gay ass.

Really after the adrenaline and the fucking terror of tonight Michael may have discovered something about himself, and that is the thought of hunting vampires -especially with the cub equivalent of a goddamn Winchester brother- has got his dicks attention. He’s not suicidal so of course he’s not going to actually go around hunting vampires but it sounds like a pretty hot role play in the comfort and safety of his own home. Right now though? Michael just wants to be in the thick capable hands of Jeremy and then never hear from him again. Maybe he’ll forget about vampires one day. Heck if he can get Jeremy to fuck him hard enough he might forget by the morning.

“I’m Michael,” Michael says, trying to figure out quite how to pull off the transition from complete and utter disbelief to ‘let me get into them pants’. “By the way.”

Jeremy blinks.

“You told me your name, and I thought we could maybe try this again from square one.” Michael says and really everything has happened way too much so he is honestly just going to block it out until tomorrow. Or never. Who cares! “I’m an electrician and I’m here because my job’s boring and my life’s boring so I thought it might be a good time. Somewhere to do something and have a little fun.”

Jeremy shrugs and reintroduces himself, “I’m Jeremy. I hunt supernatural creatures-” creatures? Not just vampires? Well fuck, if goddamn bloodsucking dracula motherfuckers exist then fairies and centaurs might as well too. What the hell does it actually matter. “-but my day job is doing freelance art for next to no money. I’m here to kill a dangerous vampire, but now that that’s done I’m just here to drink.”

“Well that makes two of us,” Michael does that half smile that his last ex fucking loved. “So I’ve got to wonder what a vampire hunter’s house looks like. Walls hung with weapons and trophies of all the vamps you’ve dusted?” He laughs a little to show he’s not actually interested in hearing Jeremy’s fucking interior decorating scheme.

He laughs, “I think the landlord might not like that.” Jeremy stands rapping the table quickly as he stands -knock on wood?- “I was gonna get a shot. You in?”

Michael smiles.

His boss is going to be so pissed at him in the morning

--

The night so far has gone almost exactly as Michael had hoped. Excluding the vampire thing. Obviously. But otherwise he’s met a hot guy, had a couple of shots, and is sharing an uber to the hot guys house after asking to see something they both know he doesn't actually care about. In this case it might happen to be that Jeremy mentioned he had a necklace made of hellhound teeth. It sounds cool, yeah, but would Michael go out of his way just to see it? No.

The uber driver gives them a tired look as they leave, Michael clinging to Jeremy because it’s Texas, but it’s Austin and Jeremy’s got those massive guns that if he’s honest, Michael wouldn’t mind seeing in action again. With a little three fingered wave the driver’s off again and the night is cold and the air is thin.

Jeremy’s house is small to say the least, not in a great neighbourhood. But Michael’s not here to have kids, he’s here for a one night stand and then forgetting about Vampires and Ghosts and shit that his brain keeps coming up with explanations as to why they can’t be real anyway and so Michael’s going to sleep with a murderer. He’s done worse though. He once had an ex who played League of Legends.

“So hellhounds…” Jeremy continued the story of how he got the teeth as he flipped through his keys -jesus christ he had a lot of keys, it was like he was some kind of storage unit janitor or something- “...they usually burst back into flames when you kill them, but I wanted those teeth, so I-” The door opened, “-well I had to…What are you doing up?”

Jeremy stopped in the doorway, but Michael could easily see over him to where another man as sat on a couch with a book in hand. He can only hope this other guy is a roommate and for the love of god please don’t let him be this guy’s-

“Hun, who’s your friend?”

Boyfriend. Well now Michael’s never going to get laid. Thanks life, really fair hand you’re dealing him here.

“Oh, this is Michael. He saw me ice that vampire at the bar.” Jeremy explains, shutting the door behind him as it dawns on Michael that either Jeremy is really good at keeping it cool or he wasn’t planning on sneaking around behind his boyfriend’s back. So either this guy is a fucking idiot or him and his boyfriend aren’t exclusive. Michael doesn’t know if he’d be alright with that or not.

“Why’s he here?” The Boyfriend asks over his book.

Jeremy ‘um’s a little, “Well he wanted to see the necklace I got from that time we got rid of that cult-  The hellhound one.”

This Boyfriend puts his book down and he’s got these little reading glasses on and all of his hair held up in this messy bun. These two truly look like Michael’s fantasy threesome. He can say for sure right now that if they offered? He’d have his pants off before they’d even blinked.

God he’s so fucking lonely.

“He came all this way to see a necklace?” The boyfriend says, and he seems to get it. Like he hears how it sounds, because to anyone it sounds like Jeremy invited him over to fuck. “Is it just for the necklace or did you forget to text me?”

Jeremy goes beet red and Michael doesn’t really know what that means but he’s kind of stuck inside because Jeremy’s blocking the doorway. Fuck man He just wants to leave now. Well, yeah he wants to have a threesome, but if that’s off the table then really he just wants to leave.

Jeremy sputters, “I-uh-no!” Jeremy coughs, “No, really I just invited him to see the teeth. Proof! Because I was telling him about… vampires and things.”

“Well, if he’s here because of… uh… well I’m not really up for tonight. Bring him around Saturday maybe?”If only Jeremy had introduced his boyfriend then Michael wouldn’t have to just think of him is The Boyfriend. Also it’s starting to sound more and more like something was going on. Either they’re both murderers and Michael shouldn’t have come here or The Boyfriend thinks he’s here for a threesome. Well that’s two of three on the same page it seems at least.

“No!” Jeremy glances from Michael to his Boyfriend, “I, uh, Well if he wants to… but I swear! I swear to God I didn’t invite him for uh…”

“Well, he can see the necklace if he comes back on Saturday,” The Boyfriend says, getting up, “But I’m going to bed and you better be coming with me. You really need to tell me if you’re going to bring strange men here, whether you’re planning on having sex with them or not.”

Jeremy looks between them guiltily. Welp with is just great.

He takes an Uber home with a new number in his phone and the promise of a threesome on saturday apparently.

This has been a very weird night. Michael doesn’t even know if he wants to go, sure they’re both super hot and it’d be a good time but he should just delete Jeremy’s number right? Go back to doing nothing and forgetting Vampires are a thing.

Because honestly who wants to deal with that.

--

Michael looks at the text Jeremy sent him yesterday for about the fifty thousandth time. He’s still got this internal debate about what he’s going to do. It’s a struggle between how lonely and horny he is constantly and how much he’s decided that vampires and Hellhounds don’t actually exist. The bartender could have slipped something in his drink! Or Jeremy could have actually just killed a real life woman and he’s a fucking idiot for going to his fucking house rather than calling the cops. The problem is, it seems, that he can’t reconcile between his peace of mind and his peace of dick.

Why is his life so hard.

Buffy-> sorry about last night. i was a little drunk i guess. didnt eat yknow?

Buffy-> this is awkward and weird but i thought i should explain

Buffy-> it’s cool if you’re not into this just block me i guess? but me and Ryan have been talking about having a threesome for a while and he thought i had brought you over because of that which i swear was not what i was planning on

Buffy-> but uhhhh if youre down we’re down i guess

The lights in the house flicker on all around him. Electricity restored and Michael’s work here is done. His mind is on the texts and how to respond, they’ve been on his mind since he’d gotten them. Hell, Jeremy’s been on his mind since before that. There’s nothing in his life that matters enough to take his mind off of it. Nothing’s interesting or fun enough to occupy him with any other thought than if he should respond or delete.

Michael sits in his car just staring at his phone. He’s got nowhere to be and nothing to do until his boss calls him with somewhere to be. Otherwise he has all the time in the world just to stare at his phone while the angel and devil on his shoulder argue.

Trouble is he doesn’t know which one’s which really. They’re both more like two assholes who don’t know jack from shit.

The phone starts buzzing in his hand and his heart skips like fifteen beats thinking that it’s Jeremy. But it’s not. The screen reads ‘BossMan69 calling…’ and Michael doesn’t know if he’s sighing from disappointment or relief. Really it depends on what way he’s leaning in his internal struggle.

“Yeh?” He answers, pulling his feet from the dash. Time to get this show on the road, earn that bunce he needs to afford his five basic needs: food, shelter, water, video games, companionship. Or, well, four out of five isn’t that bad really.

Predictably his boss doesn’t call to tell him he has the day off, or a raise, or anything besides just where and what is needed and to confirm that even though he didn’t come back and he didn’t text that he fixed the wiring in that old couples house and he can move on to installing some switches in someone else's place. Predictably he gets there later than his gps tells him he should because he spent at least ten minutes staring at Jeremy’s texts and wishing he hadn’t quit smoking. It’s to the point where if he saw someone pass by with a cigarette he might just leap out of his car and wrestle them for it. He doesn’t because it’s Austin and smoking is almost illegal here but he would have. Let it be noted that Michael would have done it. He fucking swears on the big man himself.

When he gets to the house Michael looks from the gps address- screen screaming out how he has arrived at his destination- to the house. It’s the only house it could be and fuck if he would just need to install switches. Michael would be fucking surprised if this place had light bulbs installed. It’s classic horror movie haunted old house, it’s even got the old dead leafless tree. Well, it might not be dead, it’s fall so there aren’t any leaves on any of the trees but that’s not the point. The point is there’s practically a lightning crash behind this house and Michael stares up at it. He doesn’t get freaked out easily and even here it’s more the fact that this place is old as shit that he’s bothered, but onto the property sends a shiver down his spine.

He grips his bag harder.

--

As it turns out the job is easier and harder than he thought it would be.

On one hand he actually didn’t need to install anything, so thank christ for that. On the other hand well, Michael isn’t much of a runner really.

Really the suspicion creeped in on him when he opened the door and was met with the most beautiful man he had ever seen. Like stunning, perfect skin and amazing eyes. Then he smiled with weird sharp teeth, oh and then he had Michael look over at something on the wall and while he was distracted the guy, uh what was it again? Oh right, he tried to fucking bite his neck.

Now he’s locked in the bathroom with a heart beating a million miles a fucking minute because he literally just decided that vampires don’t exist. He had just decided that and yet here’s this guy trying to fucking drink his blood, living in a straight up dracula-style weird old house.

Slow footsteps creep down the hall, obviously maximizing the scare factor because this guy wanted to be classic. Honestly it’s so cliche Michael almost doesn’t believe in vampires again. On the other hand the vampire dude starts running his claws against the wall and he sounds like he’s getting fucking close and Michael can guess how well a lock is gonna work against an actual creature of the night.

His phone buzzes again.

Shit!

Vampires have fucking super good senses right? As he immediately panics about how he’s going to actually die because his service provider needs to tell him right now that he’s almost out of data for the month. Michael whips out his phone to make it shut the fuck up because really what the hell else are you supposed to do in a vampires bathroom as ominously makes his way to kill you?

But it’s not TMobile. It’s Jeremy.

Buffy-> yeah this is weird you should just block me

The beautiful fucking son of a goddamn bitch vampire hunter. Michael knew that he was a stupid but honestly this is rock bottom. How did he forget that he has the number of a vampire fucking hunter?

You-> yo help??

You-> m at 33 rver garfen blvd

You->big creepy house can’t miss it

His phone buzzes back with Jeremy’s reply.

Buffy-> whatd u need????

You-> vamp help

Buffy-> shit man??? b thr sooon.

Buffy-> get a sharp stick

And with that sage advice in mind Michael can hear the wood on the door that is the only thing keeping him from becoming a bloodless corpse creaks. A dent begins to slowly form outward as the dude, with obviously inhuman strength, pushes his flat palm from one side of the door to the other. It’s fucking intimidating, yeah, but if this guy keeps up his whole slow pursuit thing that he seems to get off on he’s going to get fucking dead soon. Jeremy seems to know what he’s doing.

Michael hopes he does at least

The door splinters as it bends back farther and farther before the whole centre breaks away as a pale hand pushes its way through the door. He’s gonna have to call someone to come replace his door. Then he’s probably going to fucking murder them too. The long nails in the vampire’s hand scratch along the wood.

Searching for the fucking knob that’s going to pop the door open and then Michael’s going to die.

He’s so fucking scared he couldn’t even think of a good Shining joke.

Adrenaline doesn’t make things slow down like in the movies. Michael doesn’t get another five minutes to think of his next move, but it’s like his brain moves faster. Like when you close all other windows and suddenly your game moves a lot faster, his brain shuts off all the unnecessary windows of sexual frustration and disbelief and panic so the one and only function he needs can run at maximum speed; survival instinct time bitches.

The splintered section of wood from the door had slid across the tile floor. Sharp? Check. Wood? Check. Near him? Well nearer to him than to the vampire -whose hand found the door knob so now it really was split second.

No time to think.

Michael takes the leap and bends to grab it, but time doesn’t slow for him and the door clicks open as his hand grasps the splintery wood and he’s going to need tweezers soon. But the Vampire’s fangs are fully exposed, extended like a snake’s and Michael can see himself in third person perspective; bent double and clutching a piece of wood, overshadowed by a tall imposing figure poised to strike.

There’s only one thing he can do and that's back the fuck up. Back up and stand up. But this isn’t a turn based game, there’s no Michael backs up then Vampires makes his move. It’s simultaneous as the ever encroaching threat looms closer, jaw wide, and Michael backs up until his back hits cool, hard tile that he can feel a thousand times more through his cotton shirt than he should. The wood splinters more in his hand when he grips it harder. He’s fucked but the part of his brain that tells him exactly how fucked he is was shut in favor of recalling literally any action movies he’s ever seen.

Michael knows it’s kill or be killed right now and he aims to kill.

Or maim. He’s still not sure how comfortable he is killing someone. Or Something.

The vampire takes a step closer and Michael’s had his arms for quite a while. He’s pretty sure he knows how long they are. He takes the swing, pointy end slashing across his body. He catches the vampire’s hands, dragging sharp splinters into gouges into his palms. Fucking get wrecked.

The vampire recoils, surprised, and Michael knows that at least he’s going to be the most difficult meal this vamp’s had in awhile.

“Fucking take that!” He yells kicking out at the Vampire’s balls, which doesn’t seem to do much other than knock the vampire off balance. It doesn’t last long though because Michael is not a kung fu master and he’s not very fast. A tight grip wraps around his ankle as the vampire steadies himself on Michael’s fucking leg and now it’s Michael’s turn to be off balance. And off balance doesn’t really cover it when, with the strength of a fucking ox, his leg gets wrenched upward and he tumbles backward onto the tile floor.

His elbows take the brunt of the force as his leg is dropped so his head doesn’t split in half, but he still cracks it hard against the floor, seeing white and feeling a deep nausea in the farthest parts of his stomach. And there’s a thousand pound man laying on top of im all of a sudden. A man made of fucking pure marble with razor sharp teeth and it’s the fucking end of the line.

The vampire’s teeth brush against the junction of neck and shoulder.

Michael still has a grip on the splintered wood.

Fangs plunge into his skin and it hurts like fire and knives.

Michael uses all of his strength, his considerably lackluster amount of strength, to drive the wood into the vampire’s back.

It doesn’t quite make it all the way to his heart but it clearly hurts because suddenly he can breath and his wounds are bleeding onto his shirt and skin and not into some fuckers mouth.

A door bangs open downstairs. “Michael!” Jeremy.

The vampire twists around to the source of the noise and Michael isn’t one to let an opportunity like this pass him by. He knees him right in the side, twisting himself to punch at the fucker. Which is a bad idea. It’s like punching a brick wall.

“Michael!” Jeremy yells from much closer.

“Fuckin’ hurry!” Michael yells back before the vampire gets his hands around his neck, crushing his windpipe. He doesn’t even know why he bothers clawing at his hand, trying to do something.

Jeremy appears in the doorway. The vampire turns his head again and Michael kicks out again, catching his ribs. “Take that you undead fuck!” Jeremy’s eyes light up in the corner of Michael’s vision.

Michael needs to stop being this gay for like two seconds.

With a stake in hand Jeremy runs in and now it’s two on one and Michael kicks his foot out hard, aiming for the jaw. He doesn’t know if you can knock out a vampire but he sure as hell tries. Jeremy goes straight for the heart, plunging the stake into the vampire’s heart with enough force to push all the way through his back. Then again, the ear splitting vacuum cleaner death rattle as the vampire dissolves into dust.

“Jesus fucking christ!” Michael topples onto his back, gasping for breath, “Fuck this holy fuck.”

Jeremy grins back at him, breathing hard too, “Yeah.”

His hands are so bloodless they don’t feel like his own. Fuck, nothing feels real past his eyes. “And you do this everyday? You’re a fucking lunatic!”

That laugh, it’s warm and genuine and full of relief over saving someone he barely knows, tugs right at his heart. But Michael shuts that down real quick. No need to catch any kind of feelings ever. Feelings, quite frankly, can suck his fucking dick.

“I wouldn’t say that, but yeah.” Jeremy says, still laughing in his eyes. Beautiful brown eyes that Michael could fucking care less about.

Couldn’t.

Michael couldn’t care less about.

And there’s Jeremy’s hand on his shoulder, “But you’re okay?” and it leaves him gasping, for a moment.

“Uh- yeah. No.” Michael cuts himself off, wrenching down his shirt, “He uh-” It still hurts. Two pinpricks and every vampire movie, every zombie movie, flashes before his eyes. Is he gonna turn? Is Jeremy going to kill him? Can he live off chicken blood and work the night shift? “I-I got, uh, bit.”

Jeremy blinks, “Oh, I have some, uh, disinfectant in the car. Infections. And a bandage for the bleeding,” He says, making a move to help Michael up, “But otherwise?”

Okay, no fear of becoming a vampire apparently? “No.” That’s lucky, “So bites don’t make you turn? I mean movies probably aren’t the most accurate thing to go by here but-”

“No-” Jeremy laughs like understands Michael’s hesitance. Like he’s been there. “No, it’s more, um, you have to drink vampire blood. That’s how you turn.” He pulls down his own collar, “I’ve been bitten -fuck- fifteen times?” Sure enough, his neck is littered with small white pin pricks. “It’s not really a big deal. It hurts like hell but otherwise.”

“Right.” Michael says, using Jeremy to finally get on his feet. “Right.”

Right, right.

When his wounds are dressed and his questions are answered the car is quiet. It’s a lot to take in. True it was a lot to take in before, but now it’s like it’s settled in his head.

Vampires are real.

Vampires are real and he has a crush on buffy thinks Jeremy is kind of attractive and will leave it at that because he really doesn’t want to get involved in this vampire nonsense.

Except that’s the most exciting thing he’s done in his whole life. That’s the first thing in years to get his heart to beat faster than a destiny raid It’s the first time he’s actually been in real danger and all of a sudden extreme sports make sense. He wants to fucking go bungee jumping.

“How long,” He edges into the silence carefully, “Uh, how long have you been hunting vampires?”

It gets harder and harder to lie to himself every time Jeremy laughs. “I didn’t believe any of it even after finding Ryan’s books. He was… really into supernatural stuff. I just thought he was into fairytales and shit but I got attacked by a fucking little goblin thing and I believed all of it since then.” He explains, “But my, uh, first vampire was maybe three years ago and it was just some dumbass who’d been sleeping for too long to know any modern technology, so it wasn’t hard.”

There’s one important thing Michael caught in all that and it’s unfortunate but, “So how long have you and Ryan been dating?”

“Uh,” Pausing to think is not a great sign for Michael. A threesome is one thing but Michael sincerely doubts he fucks good enough to get Jeremy to leave a long term relationship, “Five years? Five and a half. Learned about the supernatural stuff maybe four years ago? Got engaged eight months ago though. I know that one.”

Oh, they’re engaged. That’s nice.

“Engaged?”

“Ha, don’t have a date or anything. Hard to do that shit you know?” Jeremy says. Michael agrees even though no, he doesn’t know.

The car stops in front of Jeremy’s house again. Maybe Michael can worm his way to be a permanant fuck buddy? Or they could be one of those weird throuple things you see on buzzfeed? But he’s getting ahead of himself. He’s getting way ahead of himself. He just thinks Jeremy’s hot, no need to get into any weird three person relationships quite yet. He doesn’t even know how that would work. Ryan gets Jeremy monday wednesday friday and Michael has him tuesday thursday saturday? Do they alternate sundays?

“Babe! I’m home!” Jeremy announces into the house.

“I didn’t know you had gone!” Ryan yells back as Michael follows timidly behind. He doesn’t know why he’s here.

“I went to go help Michael with a vampire situation.” Jeremy calls, taking off his shoes in the entrance. Michael quickly follows perhaps a little too quickly. He hopes Jeremy didn’t see that. He’d think Michael was some kind of idiot, almost falling trying to pull off sneakers like a fucking idiot.

And again Michael’s reminded how incredible Jeremy is. Ryan walks in, drying his hands on a tea towel, as handsome and tall as ever. “Michael?”

Ouch.

“Uh, Michael.” Jeremy presents him with a nervous hand like he’s something to be embarrassed about. He is, but he doesn’t like being treated like it. That’s just fucking rude. “Michael? From, uh, yesterday?”

Ryan looks him up and down. He’s starting to feel really exposed and uncomfortable under the judgmental gaze of this apparent supernatural expert when Ryan finally smiles. He’s got pretty teeth and a smile like he’s never seen any suffering. He’s a good liar, Michael can tell. “Right! Michael.”

It’s thursday. A day of confusion and a day of awkward meetings and realizations. Thursday’s always that kind of day, a day where a lot’s happening. This thursday Ryan smiles at him, and Jeremy’s by his side and his heart fills with warmth and Michael knows in that moment that he needs to get laid more than anything in the world because he’s barely known these two a day and he thinks he might be a little in love. “H-hi.”

“Do you wanna-” Ryan winds the tea towel around his wrist “-I made enough dinner for left overs if you want to join us?”

“Um, yeah. Sure.” He says. Honestly he had no other choice.

--

They bring it up first. At dinner. Jeremy and Ryan have this whole cutesy couple thing going on that makes Michael’s stomach hurt but they have this whole thing where they look at him and they hold hands and it’s like they’re going to offer him the best deal he could ever accept.

“So…” It begins after comfortable conversation peters out to comfortable silence over mashed potatoes and chicken legs. “You actually did really good.”

“Hmm?” Michael asks with his mouth full.

“Handling the vampire,” Jeremy clarifies, “You did good.”

“Mmm.” Michael agrees verbally but not mentally. He knows he would be a fucking raisin if Jeremy hadn’t been there to help him. He swallows his potatoes, “Thanks, but I would have been toast without you there!” Thank fuck he ran into Jeremy at that bar.

“Ha, well you handled yourself pretty well,” Jeremy assures and the look he gives Ryan kicks Michael right in the chest. “You’d be welcome to join sometime.”

Join? Join what? “Er-”

Ryan cuts in, “He means that -well- when we meet people and we show them vampires and supernatural shit is real they sometimes want to… help out?” Oh. They want to bring him into their vampire hunting squad.

“That’s-maybe.” It’s an interesting idea. But he has a job and he values his life. Michael stares at his potatoes. Who’s he kidding. He doesn’t value his life he’s fucking bored at home all the time.

He wants to be fucking Buffy for a change.

“Maybe,” he says, “Uh maybe I can help out? One time. See how it is…” Like a fucking vampire hunter internship program. Like he’s fucking auditing a class or some shit.

Jeremy and Ryan look at each other and then back to him, “Sure.”

--

At five his shift ends and plugs Jeremy’s address into his phone. It’s so fucking surreal still, even after hanging around with them last night talking about exactly what he’d be doing. He feels like he should prepare, mentally or physically or something, but his head’s just empty because he just can’t understand what’s going on.

He’s going to go help two gorgeous guys hunt vampires.

He wonders if this means the orgy’s off.

Michael pulls up into the driveway. Does his heart exist? Or is it beating so fast he can’t feel it? It’s just weird to think that he’s going from just a normal job to actual supernatural shit. He knocks on the door and just kinda stands there, rocking on the balls of his feet. Nerves.

It’s Ryan who opens the door, smile on face, “Michael! You made it.”

“Yep,” He says because there’s nothing else to say and saying nothing is even worse.

“Come in,” Ryan says, making room for him to shuffle in. He takes off his shoes; he knows the drill.

“So what are we doin’?” He’s already buzzing. Fae? Sea monsters? It’s been all he could think about and he’s been doing research. Well if looking up mythical creatures on wikipedia at four in the morning counts as research.

“I’m making hot cocoa babe!” Jeremy calls from the kitchen, “Ask Michael if he wants some!”

Well it doesn’t seem like anything particularly exciting is actually going on then. The buzzing in his chest slows.

“You’re not going to make me any?” Ryan asks as they both cross into the kitchen.

Jeremy clutches his chest in mock offence, “You think that I don’t already know you want some!” He smiles at Michael who is very gay, “So do you want any?”

“Uh,” It’s gonna make him gassy and he likes both these people, “Nah.”

Jeremy shrugs at him, “Suit yourself.” Like he’s doing this for himself, he’s thinking of them on this one. If it was up to him he’d be chugging hot chocolate six ways from sunday. Fucking lactose goddamn intolerance.

“So uh,” the room had settled into a comfortable silence and no one had answered his question, “What are we doing?”

Ryan pauses blowing on his drink, “Well this is your first official go, so we’re gonna go slow.”

“Like faeries or some bullshit?” He could fuck up a faery. He could wreck a fucking faery.

Jeremy and Ryan laugh.“Oh god no,” Ryan says, “Faeries are probably the most dangerous.”

Note to self: you cannot just fuck up a faery.

“Yeah, no there’s a gnome that’s tearing up some golf courses,” Jeremy explains, “Luckily everyone thinks it’s a mole.”

A gnome? Like a tiny garden decoration with a stupid smurf hat? “How do you know it’s a gnome?” Because isn’t it more likely that it’s just a mole anyway?

“Well there’s… uh… signs.” Jeremy says unhelpfully. No shit.

Ryan cuts in, “Flags, clubs, balls and all sorts of things have been going missing and gnomes get pretty-” He gestures vaguely with his cup, “Enamoured with human things.”

“Okay…” It’s not the biggest indication. People lose things all the time but they’re the experts so Michael’s just going to trust them on this. It’s not like he has any idea about the signs a gnome is living in his pants let alone on a golf course. “Okay so, what? We lure the little guy out with some cool people things, snatch him up, and then what? Release him into the wild? Kill him?”

Jeremy smacks himself in the face, “Ah shit, Ryan! People things!”

There’s barely enough time for Ryan to get out a confused “Pe-” Before Jeremy jumps out of his chair.

“We’ve wasted so much time looking for what they eat, but-” He calls, already out of the room, “-can’t we just…”

Exchanging looks with Ryan is a weirdly bonding experience. Maybe because they’re both just so confused by what’s happening.

“We can set a trap with” Jeremy marches back into the room, big box in hand, “Old shit we don’t need!” He looks so proud of himself. Ryan looks less proud when he stands up to look at the contents of the box.

“No.” He says. Which fuck, he’s the expert. Or one of them. It sounded like a good idea to Michael. “We’re not using my computer parts!”

“But Ryan,” Jeremy whines, “You never use them.”

“I will!”

“When?!”

Oh shit. This turned into an argument too fast for Michael to handle. Normally he’d just leave but they’re both standing in the only door way. Maybe he could just climb out the window.

“Just admit you’re using this as an excuse to get rid of my shit!”

Michael pointedly looks away from the arguing couple. His friends? You don’t technically count as a booty call until you’ve slept with them, right?

“You always say you’re going to use them! When? When are you gonna use broken computer parts from the 1800s? I’ll tell you. Now!”

“You can’t just volunteer my things!”

This is uncomfortable. This is weird and Michael really shouldn’t be here for this.

“I just thought this would be a good way to lure the goblin. Sorry I solved our problem I guess.” Jeremy drops the box of computer parts a little harder than is probably good for them. “We can use my things then. I’ll go grab some old shit of mine I guess and we’ll use those to catch this fucker. They’ll probably be more interested in some action figures anyway.”

Honestly this might be one of the more uncomfortable situations Michael’s ever been in.

Ryan gasps, “You are not.”

“Oh yes I am, Ryan.” Jeremy says, glaring at his fiance.

Ryan stares, horrified and Michael starts to feel like maybe he’s missing some context on these action figures. “We’re so close to that full set, please-”

Jeremy sighs dramatically, hand on chest, “I know Ryan, but we need to get rid of those gnomes, and if you won’t let me use your useless garbage, well…”

There’s a long silence as Jeremy and Ryan glare at each other. Each daring the love of their life to crack. Is this normal couple shit? Michael hasn’t dated anyone for longer than two weeks since, well, high school.

“Fine.” Ryan says, “But only because I got you the last of the set for Christmas.”

Jeremy’s eyes light up, “You what!” then his face falls, “You bitch! I’ll ruin Christmas for you too then! Remember-”

Honestly, Michael might give anything for a hot boyfriend who spoils his Christmas presents.

--

It’s gnomes (which they caught and replaced with an actual mole in the dead of night, but not before Ryan’s whole collection of computer parts was ripped to shreds) then a dragon (it was tiny and starting small fires outside of town and Jeremy almost convinced Ryan to let him keep it before the thing set Ryan’s shoes on fire) and in what felt like no time he was out with Jeremy hunting dangerous vampires (Jeremy’s laugh makes Michael’s heart twist) and in the wilderness with Ryan, luring werewolves away from civilization (Ryan’s smile makes Michael dizzy and giddy).

He doesn’t even realize they’d missed saturday plans until Jeremy reminded him.

Lil J-> i kno we were gonna hang like two weeks back but if ur on for this monday we can make up for that

Which either means ‘time to make up for lost threesome’ or what it says on the bag. Hang, beers, scrabble. Only time will tell.

Not much time. Michael pulls up to the curb. He’s prepared for both scenarios, wearing his nice underwear and his tighter pair of pants, but nothing too overt. To someone that didn't know Michael only owned two unstained shirts he would  just look like a regular guy.

The sun’s on his face and he locks his car. Condoms? Check. Beer? Check.

He knocks on the door. Over analysing and over thinking everything. Jeremy brought up the missed booty call, meaning he’s probably going to get laid. But Ryan and Jeremy hadn’t seemed particularly interested in him so it was probably just a regular hang. But you don’t have to be interested in someone as a person to have sex with them, so-

“Hey Michael,” Jeremy smiles from the open door, “You brought beer! Nice. Come on in!”

Somewhat stiffly, Michael does just that and suddenly it’s easier. He’s been in this house before, he has beer and he knows where to put it. He’s friends with Jeremy and Ryan and what happens will happen. That doesn’t mean the anxiety tightening in his chest is gone, but it’s easier for him to say ‘fuck it’ and start heading to the kitchen, throwing back a quick, “Thanks for inviting me. I’m just gonna put the beer in your fridge.”

“I’m real glad you brought that. I knew I forgot something, we only have hard liquor.” Jeremy catches up behind him, diverging from Michael’s path to the fridge to instead kiss Ryan, “And you didn’t buy any last week either.”

“Well I don’t drink it, how am I supposed to remember to buy it?”

“So, uh, what did you guys want to do?” Michael asks.

Jeremy and Ryan exchange glances that could mean anything. Don't jump to conclusions. “We were thinking about watching a movie,” Jeremy’s got a lilt in his voice that might not mean that this movie is a ‘netflix and chill’ sort of situation, “But we can do whatever you want.

Michael is very consciously not getting his hopes up and his mouth, which feels farther from his brain than usual, says, “Uhh, yeah. Movie. Um.” Pull yourself together! “A-a movie sounds fun. What were you going to watch?”

Jeremy shrugs and Michael grabs his rising hopes and pulls them down like a helium balloon. Intuition can be a dumb fucking bitch sometimes. Best not to make an ass out of him or Jeremy.

“Well Jeremy’s never seen Pulp Fiction,” Ryan says, giving Jeremy an intense look.

“Oh right!” Jeremy says, “We were gonna watch Pulp Fiction.”

Jeremy and Ryan look at each other again. Doing that weird ‘we’ve been dating long enough to develop telepathy’ thing couples do.

“I’ll make popcorn, you get it set up.” Jeremy says as he apparently either wins or loses their telepathic negotiation.

Ryan nods and turns to Michael, “Do you want something to drink? We’ve got soda, water, and you brought beer.”

“Uh,” This situation is too stressful for him to stay completely sober, “I’ll have a beer.”

--

Michael hasn’t been able to pay attention to the movie and he doesn’t know if he’s supposed to be. Jeremy seems enraptured by Uma Thurman’s performance, but he keeps creeping closer and closer to Michael. Maybe it’s subconscious? But why lean closer and closer to Michael rather than Ryan?

Jeremy’s hand brushes his thigh and Michael can feel every vibrating molecule in his body. He could feel a fly bat its wings across the room. He tries to pay attention to the movie.

“Milkshake.” Some character he doesn’t know the name of says. Jeremy’s hand is fully on his thigh now. This is happening isn’t it? His dick is starting to take some notice too. Jeremy’s hand is so close and he’s been alone a long, long time. He’s just so fucking hot.

��I’m gonna go get more popcorn.” Ryan leaves and Michael gives a little nod to his back for apparently no reason. Everything in his brain is going so slow. Someone on screen laughs. Jeremy’s thumb traces circles in his thigh and his heart is in his ears so loud you’d think it would deafen him but he can hear birds chirping in fucking Europe.

Ryan comes back without refilling the popcorn bowl. In fact, he has no bowl. And he sits next to Michael, so now he’s sandwiched between the two and they’re both leaning on him, hands on him. He’s breathing three times as hard as normal but who could blame him? Michael moves his own hands, slowly. One, then the other.

First he lets his left drift closer and closer to Jeremy’s and when their pinkies touch he feels like a middle schooler. This was going to happen and they all know it, why did it have to move so slowly and so carefully. Why did he have to plan eight moves ahead? This isn’t fucking chess. So he takes the leap because it’s been a long time coming and Jeremy is so fucking hot.

He grabs Jeremy’s face and leans in to catch his lips. To kiss him.

Jeremy makes a startled, ‘ah!’ and then his hands are both on Michael’s waist and his beard scratches Michael’s face as he kisses back. This is happening. Holy fucking shit, this is happening.

There are two pairs of hands on the hem of his shirt. Two pairs of lips kissing him, Jeremy’s lips in tandem with his own and Ryan’s on his neck, finding those places on his pulse that make him sigh and moan. It’s like being with one person with two heads and four lips. Maybe years of monogamy turn you into a single finely tuned instrument with sex. Getting that routine together and knowing each other so intimately and knowing exactly what does what to your partner and how long they can last.

Michael whines and maybe it’s because Ryan grazes his teeth just below his ear or if it’s the thought of becoming part of this routine, this shared machine.

Jeremy pulls away and Michel tries to follow, but then he feels his shirt coming off and the next step from making out comes back to him. His dick is straining on his jeans. Well, he doesn’t really need them anymore. Ryan and Jeremy seem to decide wordlessly to double team Michael’s body, trying to cover every inch in kisses which makes taking off his pants difficult, but he settles for unbuttoning them. God that’s so much better.

The sound of Michael's relief seems to be a cue for Ryan because no sooner had Michael groaned than Ryan wound his fingers in Michael’s hair and tilted his head back to kiss him softly. Following, lingering kisses - letting Michael set the pace. Well Michael wasn’t one for slow and sweet. Especially not when Jeremy’s hand starts to palm his cock.

“Mmm fuck,” Michael groans between kisses and Ryan chuckles and Michael can feel it vibrating through his chest. He pulls Ryan back by his collar, bringing him back to the fast and hard pace Michael had set to handle the anticipation as Jeremy settles between his thighs and starts to pull down his pants.

Ryan pulls back, fixing Michal with a hungry look, his devious little smirk burning it’s way into Michael’s mind. Jeremy licks a long stripe from base to head and Michael can’t help but gasp.

Michael pulls himself back to his senses because Ryan’s looking at him with such a smug, satisfied look, he can’t let him get away with it. He pops the button on the front of Ryan’s pants, which shuts his stupid face up. Jeremy seems to be doing his utmost to distract Michael from giving his fiance a handjob, which would be fair in any other situation, but now it’s just plain rude. Jeremy keeps doing this thing with his tongue that makes Michael just want to hold on to something for support, but instead Michael starts pumping at Ryan’s dick and Ryan just moans and leans his head on Michael’s shoulder. Not even trying to help Jeremy.

Which… Is actually super fucking hot. Ryan, who’s always in charge and who takes control in research, in planning. Ryan, just becoming pliant and whining with Michael’s hand on his dick.

And Jeremy starts groaning around Michael’s cock, and it doesn’t take a genius to know two plus two equals Jeremy is touching himself through his pants and the thought makes it hard not to just cum right then and there.

Everything is fucking magical and Michael can’t believe anything that’s happening.

--

Michael wakes up, overly warm from being squashed between two people all night, and in desperate need of a glass of water and a piss. He tries to sit up, but Jeremy just tightens his grip around Michael’s shoulders.

“Hmm, no…” Jeremy says vaguely, brow furrowing. Michael’s heart is so light he could be floating through the fucking ceiling. There aren’t words that exist in the world that can explain how much this can’t be a one night thing. How Michael knows he’s gotta be here every day, held down by Jeremy. How the steady breathing of Ryan right behind him can’t just be here today and not the next and the next.

As Jeremy said last night when he wasn’t sure if he should leave or not, this bed is definitely big enough for three people.

He’s still got the piss though, and fix his parched throat, so -much to sleeping Jeremy’s dismay- Michael extricates himself carefully and climbs over Ryan’s sleeping form.

From the doorway he smiles over at them, and the clock on the nightstand blares out ‘3:26 am’. The wee early hours of a Tuesday morning.

[zombierunfiction]

Season 2 Mission 14: You're Rocking The Boat

Charlotte couldn't believe her eyes.  Sara was alive!  She smiled brightly as she ran over past the now broken pieces of deck and tackled Sara onto the deck making the blonde grunt laughing.  "Sara... Oh god Sara you're alive...."  Charlotte cried softly hugging her tight.

"Holy Mary, mother of God - Runner Eight... Wait, am I hallucinating through stress?  Janine, do I need a slap?"  Sam asked.

"I'm quite willing to deliver one if you'd like me to, Mr Yao."  Janine stated.

"Uh, no.  That's um, very generous of you."  Sam hesitated.

"I'm a very kind person."  Janine said with a smirk.

"But Runner Eight!  Is that... is that really you, Runner Eight?  We thought you were dead!"  Sam said happily.

"She can't hear you.  No headset."  Janine stated.

Sara gently hugged Charlotte tight before getting up slowly.  "Nice to see I was missed.  I suppose you all thought I was dead."

"Yeah, just a bit."  Simon stated.

"Yeah. because you know, that's what usually happens when you get bitten by a zombie.  And run away, saying you've been bitten by a zombie."  Jody explained.

"I didn't think you were dead."  Charlotte said wiping her eyes of the tears of happiness.

Sara chuckled punching Charlotte's shoulder.  "That's my girl.  Always keep the faith.  It's a long story.  I'll tell you when we're not in imminent fear of our lives, okay?"

"Good point."  Simon said.

"Fair enough."  Jody agreed.

"Before that, we've got some people to save.  Come on, up these stairs!"  Sara said leading them through the door where they let out the zombies.  Soon they came across some zombies that hadn't followed the others out.  Charlotte and Sara took them out easily.  "That's the last of the zoms for now.  Let's get these doors open."  Charlotte and Simon slams their shoulders into the door before stumbling in.  "We'll have to move quickly.  The bridge should be down this corridor."  

"Should be?"  Jody questioned.  "You mean, you didn't come from the bridge?"

"No, no, no, not just now.  But it was me who told the captain to put in that shout out for you, Char.  I couldn't tell him to mention my name.  You'd think it was a trick, because you all thought I was dead."  Sara said looking at Charlotte.  "I knew you were trustworthy, Char.  And I hoped you wouldn't be able to resist a mystery."

Charlotte chuckles then looks around.  "What... what happened on this ship?"

"Yeah.  It hasn't been sailing around like this since the apocalypse, has it?  A ghost ship full of zoms..."  Jody said softly.

Sara laughed softly.  "Still spooky as ever Jody.  Glad to see you haven't changed.  Now, they had a good thing going here for a while.  About three hundred people on a massive cruise liner, crew and captain still alive.  Some of the passengers - those who had heard enough about what was happening on land not to want to get to their familiar or friends - they threw their lot in together.  Sailed the seas, zom-free."

"So, that's why it looks so, kind of, military?  all those locked containers on deck, all the doors numbered with those codes..."  Jody said.

"Yeah, yeah.  They run a tight ship here.  Kept their supplies in good order.  Stopped off in ports to gather more-"  Sara started before Simon held up his hand.  

"Oh, don't tell me. I've heard this tune before.  One person gets bitten, doesn't tell anyone else -" Then Jody lept into the statements.

"-enclosed space-"

"-nowhere to run to-"  Simon continued.

"-dark corridors with the sea battering against them, trying to barricade the enterences but knowing it's impossible to defeat the undead rising up around you-"  Jody said seeming to get more sinister as she spoke.

"Yeah, that's enought thinking about it for you, Jody."  Charlotte said.  "You'll give yourself nightmares."

"Come on!  There are a few survivors holed up in here."  Sara said knocking at the door.  "Captain the zombies are gone."  She called as the door opened letting them in quickly.

"Sara Smith!  We thought you were dead."  The man wearing the captain's uniform said quickly locking up the door.  The sound of people talking and a baby crying is heard as Charlotte looks at everyone.  They were scared, hungry, and in shock.  

"You're not the only one."  Simon said softly.

"I got lucky.  Come on, we've got to get out.  Charlotte, you carry the baby."  Sara said as Charlotte stepped over to the young mother who gently handed Charlotte the baby.  She gently pat the baby boy's back to sooths it gently.  "Now, Char, you know what to do.  Off this ship as fast as you can."  Sara said as she opened the door fast.  "Go!"  Charlotte took off down the stairs quickly holding the boy tight.  She could hear the footsteps of the others hot on her heels as they head for the rope bridge.

"It is, though, isn't it?  It is actual, real Runner Eight, totally alive and stuff?"  Sam said laughing softly.  "Oh Raijit's going to be pretty pissed off after he carved that memorial statue out of soap.  Janine's had to leave for a bit - maybe she's gone to tell him.  Runner Eight... Runner Eight!  Lucky we didn't give her designation to anyone else in the meantime."

"Sam?  Just a quick thing.  We're about to climb up onto the cliffs.  Are there any, you know zombies around that might try and eat us?"  Jody question as they all started to climb on the rope bridge back onto the cliff.

"Oh, I um... oh yeah, no.  Just checking my cameras for you now.  Nope, all looks clear.  You seem to have got all the survivors out."  Sam said as everyone cheered as Charlotte gently bounced the baby looking for the mother.

"My baby!"  The woman said running over to her.  "We can't thank you enough!"  She said as Charlotte handed her the baby.

"No problem."  She said walking over to Sara as the Aurora captain walked over.  

"Sara, Jody here was telling me you saved their lives.  We never made a better decision than pulling you out of the ocean."  He said happily.

"Out of the..."  Jody questioned for a moment before he continued.

"We've got all the living out now, but well, you should know we had quite a cargo with us.  Electronic components, medicine, weapons, canned and dried food.  The Aurora's got a hole punched in her the size of a car where we hit rocks before I could get to the bridge, and the tide's coming in, but that'd be the way in, if you want to try and rescue some cargo."

"Wading around in a sinking ship in the dark?  Don't you know Titantic's my favorite movie?"  Simon said sarcasticly as he walked over.

"I'll try and find some Celine Dion for you."  Sam said.

"No please... I don't want to be like Margret Atwood."  Charlotte said as Sam chuckled softly.  Soon the four of them were down on the beach on the bottom of the ship.  "The hole is under the tide.  We will have to swim in."

Sara nods as they wade into the water and dive below the water into the hole.  They broke the surface gasping as Sara climbed onto the stairs holding her hand out to Jody helpping her up.  Jody and Sara helpped Simon onto the stairs as Charlotte swam over.  Sara and Jody reached down grabbing both of her arms lifting her out.  

"God was that cold." Jody said shivering.

Simon shivers as well before speaking.  "Okay, climbing up through a giant hole in the boat that's rapidly filling with water.  I like an air of danger.  Now guys, I know that this is what they always say in horror movies, but I think we should all spl-"  

"Don't say it."  Jody said quickly.

"I think it's sort of against the jinx if you say that that's what they always say in horror movies."  Simon  countered.

"No, it intensifies it!"  Jody cried.  "Haven't you seen Scream, or Cabin in the Woods, or any post-modern horror movie?"

"You know, I did think -"  Simon started before Charlotte holds up her hand.

"We should split up.  It's the best strategy."  Charlotte said.

"Simon and Jody, you go towards the forward compartments.  That's where we all slept, and the meds and food are there.  Lots of antibiotics, sterile dressings.  Char, you and me will go down into the hold via the back stairwell, there, to get the weapons.  It should be mostly zom-free."  Sara said pointing to a door at the top of the stairs.

"Mostly..."  Jody said softly.

"Charlotte's seen it all.  Come on, Char.  If we don't stay ahead of the tide, we'll be trapped in this ship with a horde of zombies.  Quicker we're in, quicker we're home.  Run!"  Sara said fast as they headed their assigned ways.

Once through the door  Charlotte and Sara headed down the stairs as fast as they could seeing the water rushing in starting to fill the section.  "This place is filling fast and it's as dark as balls in here."

Sara snorted suddenly.  "Dark as balls?  Have you been hanging out with Simon more often.  Your jokes are suffering."

Charlotte laughed softly.  "Well someone was busy living on a cruise ship instead of being back at Abel."

Sara reached into her pocket and putted off the top of a flare as it lights up the room.  "That's better.  We can see by my flare now.  Atleast we're running another mission together, you and me."  They get to the bottom of the stairs finding that the water was up to their thighs.  "Just keep up the steady pace.  I know it's hard, with the water up past your knees.  We'll be there soon."

A sudden loud shriek echos through the ship making both of them turn fast.  "What in the hell was that?"  Charlotte questions.

"Sounds like some people are still turning gray down here, I think."  Sara said.

"It didn't sound like a zombie."  Sam said softly.

"Things sound different echoing through water..."  Sara explains as they continue through the water.

"You... sure it's just zombies?"  Charlotte asked.

"To be honest, I haven't been down this far before.  They kept the lower doors locked from the start.  I don't know what's happening down there, and I don't want to know.  We just have to get out now, Char."  Sara said quickly as another shriek echos through the ship.

"That... yeah.  Five, get out as quickly as you can.  something... it sounds like something happened down here."  Sam said.

"So how did you even end up on this ship, Sara?"  Charlotte asked.

"I'd been floating for five days.  Got chased by a pack of a hundred zoms on a dockside.  Managed to get a small boat moving, went out to sea.  Great idea, except it was low on fuel, and once that was gone, no way to get back inland.  Drifted further and further out to sea.  I was damned lucky the Aurora picked me up a while ago.  Less lucky the last time they went to shore to hunt and pick food, someone must have got bitten.  Well, you know how fast that spreads."  Sara explained.

"Yeah... but were they letting people down here before then?"  Charlotte asked.

The sound of groaning was heard behind them making both of them turn fast.  "Damn!  We've picked up four zoms.  Come on char, keep going!"  Sara said as they continued to try and run through the water.

"You know, I'm suddenly quite grateful for ordinary zoms."  Charlotte said as Sara looks back.

"Been seeing a lot of those fast ones?"  Sara questioned.

"Increaseingly.  They seem to have a boner for me aparently."  Charlotte said making Sara snort chuckling.

"Good to know our runs won't be boring."  she responded as she looked around.  "I know they stored weapons and ammo just through this hatch, and I can tell you-"  Sara starts as they opened the hatch as a suddenly wave of water with an odd smell washed over them.  "I'm extinguishing the flare, using a battery torch."  Sara said putting out the flare quickly as she reaches into the water pulling out a battery torch pointing it ahead of them.

"That's a lot of guns for a small crew."  Charlotte said looking at the guns on the walls of the ship.  "Why would a cruise liner have all those weapons?"

"They were lucky, I think.  Teamed up with some Navy people early on.  Okay, Char.  I'll put these hand guns and clips into your pack."  Sara said as Charlotte handed her the pack.  "You take those rifles.  come on we've got to get moving.  Come on!"  

Charlotte started grabbing all of the rifles she could grab as Sam speaks up.  "What's the hurry?  four slow zoms behind you, tide won't be in for another half hour yet."

"You can't smell what we can smell. There's not just water leaking through this compartment - it's fuel!"  Charlotte said quickly.  "The flare would have ignited it and if we're not careful and quick we will go up like a roman candle."

"Oh that's not good."  Sam said slowly.

"Come on!"  Sara said as they got to a set of stairs and ran up it quickly.  "There, see it!"  She pointed to a side wall that had a tank with a large hole punctured into it from a beam above them.  

"Must have been smashed when you dropped the life boats.  Let's go!"  Charlotte said as they ran up the several flights of stairs.  

"Probably should be shooting at anything about now.  Even those zoms approaching from that deck."  Sara said fast as they continued to run up the stairs.

"I've warned Four and Three.  They're off the ship with a haul of electronics and meds."  Sam laughed softly.  "Doc Myers is pretty excited.  Now, get off that thing as quickly as you can, Char.  It's getting dark, though.  Mind your step, and mind those zoms!"

"It's ok, Sam.  We're nearly there.  Okay, okay, come on!"  Sara said as a zombie slammed out of another deck just missing Charlotte.  Charlotte cried out and raced up after Sara.

"Fuck!  That zom nearly got me!" Charlotte shouted.

They pushed up several pieces of broken ship and made it onto the main deck.  They raced along the holes in the deck avoiding them as the captain was waiting on the otherside of the rope bridge.  "Sara!  This way, over here!"  He said as Sara ran over the bridge followed by Charlotte.

Simon came up behind them and cut the rope quickly to keep the zoms from joining them on the cliff side.  Charlotte panted heavily laying the rifles on the grass breathing slowly.  "Wow.  That is a lot of guns."  Jody said.

"We brought what we could.  James, uh, the Abel Township runners here were asking... why was it that no one was allowed down belowdecks, even before the outbreak?"  Sara asked looking at the captain.

"Well, we, uh..."  He paused.  "... before the outbreak?"

"Yeah.  When I came aboard?  Whenyou picked me up from the ocean?  Even then, no one was allowed down to the very lowest decks."  Sara said.

The captain thinks for a moment.  "It was for safety.  Some of the ventilation stopped working, no one could fix it.  Dangerous build-up of gases."

Charlotte looks over at him oddly.  There was no build up of gases save for the fuel that was leaking into the room.  "Dangerous build-up of screaming gases."  Sam said softly into her headset.

"And now the tide's going to come and carry that ship away with all those lost souls inside it, sailing forever on that voyage of the damned!"  Jody said dramaticly.

Charlotte blinked looking over at Jody.  "Wait, have you been reading Edgar Allen Poe again?"

"Hmm... Maybe we could get someone to come back in the morning, thought, if it's still there.  Take a look."  Sam said softly.

"That's not the way I want my vessel to end.  Hand me that flare."  The captain said holding his hand out to Sara.  Sara handed him the flare confused as he lights it then tosses it into one of the holes.

Charlotte stood up quickly.  "What are you-"

Suddenly an explosion comes from the ship as a plomp of fire and smoke errupt from the ship coming out of the several holes in the vessel making everyone shield their eyes.  The fire felt hot as Charlotte slowly uncovered her eyes seeing the ship now on fire.

"Wow..."  Jody breathed.

"There goes the Aurora."  Simon said as he watched the ship burning.

"Why were they storing flammable fuel on deck?"  Sam questioned.

Sara sighed as she turned to Charlotte.  "Now we'll never know what was happening in the lower decks."

"Uh, yeah.  I suppose we can bring the survivors in, for food and shelter.  I mean, I suppose that's what we should do."  Sam said.

"Tide will carry her out to sea, like a Viking Funeral for all the lost souls that were on her."  The captain said as Charlotte looked at him slowly.  She picked up the rifles and steps away from the group.  

"Sam... what ever happened there that needed a lot of guns and ended in screaming will be buried at the bottom of the ocean.  I suggest we might encourage the survivors to move on after a few days."  Charlotte whispered softly.

"Sounds like a good thought.  Bring them in."  Sam said as she looked at Simon and Jody who she knew heard her.  They nodded in agreement as they started to lead them back towards Abel.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

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Season 1 Beginning

Season 2 Beginning

[prettieparker86]

Deliverance Part 2

Pairing: Donald Pierce x Reader

Gif Credit: @reveriegifs, Thank you for letting me use this beautiful gif! Not only does this blog make gifs, but they are one hell of a writer too! If you haven’t checked them out, you should.

A/N: This was a long time in the making. I know. I’m sorry. I have a few more parts planned for this if you all would like, or we can leave it two and done. So let me know... 

Part 1 &  Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6 & Part 7

You spent most of the morning packing. Only the necessities, mostly Danny’s things. Donald had told you to only take what you absolutely had to. 

Which wasn’t that hard, after years on the run, only staying in one place for a few months, there was very little you were attached to. Revealing your stockpile of weapons to Donald had been the hardest.

 From the moment your son was born and the nurse laid that precious baby on your chest, you knew there wasn’t anything in this world you wouldn’t do to keep him safe. The feeling was primal, instinctive, and only grew stronger as the years went by. 

You weren’t big on weapons, especially with a toddler, too many would be too hard to carry moving as frequently as you did, but you had enough in a locked bin to ease your worries if you were found. 

Donald had caught you off guard, you had been dead asleep after a long shift, you convinced yourself that was the only reason he got the upper hand on you so quick

 But revealing that bin to him had been a leap of faith. You had asked for his help, practically begged for it and he was giving it, you think, but that didn’t been you had dropped your guard completely. 

Only a fool would trust Donald completely just because he gave his word. You were still a mutant after all. And your son meant too much for you to ever be a fool. 

Donald admired your stash as minimal as it was. Admired your attempt to so fiercely protect your child. He took what he wanted, a shot gun, your semi-automatic pistol and a couple knives. Then told you to leave the rest.

 You didn’t know where you were going. You only prayed Donald would keep his word and keep Danny safe. And if he didn’t? The thought lingered in the back of your mind. 

You had already made peace that you would do whatever you had to to Donald or anyone else to keep Danny safe, if it came down to that. The morning replayed steadily in your mind as you packed…

 As dawn had settled in that morning, slowly sneaking in through the cracks on the blinds to your balcony, Donald had sat on your old lumpy couch, watching Danny sleep for what felt like hours. 

You had let him, fighting your own fatigue, slumped in a kitchen chair, fighting the urge to crash. Donald didn’t move or say a word for the longest time, and you had tried to take that as a good sign.

 Trusting your gut and what you remembered about him, that this was a sign Donald was battling some internal moral war with himself over your betrayal, and his commitment to the Transigen against the safety of his young child. 

Not wanting to rock the boat. No wanting to risk his wrath. You prayed his paternal instincts were stronger than you ever gave him credit for. For your son’s sake, you needed Donald’s help, like it or not.

 It was just after seven in the morning when Donald finally stirred, the change instantly jolting you back from your stupor. 

Meeting you as you stood, the air in the room thick, awaiting his verdict, Donald gave you the answer. 

You and Danny had to leave, disappear again, and he was going to help you do it. He explained you were made the moment he found you, you weren’t safe there anymore, and then he sent you packing.

 You were scared, though you put on a brave face for Danny. You wanted to believe Donald. Needed to believe him, but the cautious sensible part of you couldn’t help but worry he was going to double cross you. You knew what he was capable of. 

Donald had tapped away on his phone for over an hour, typing, making calls in hushed voices as you packed. Your nerves heightening with the cloud of suspicion that surrounded him. 

But then you would catch Donald’s gaze on Danny, catch the way he looked at the boy, there was a softness in that gaze that quieted your fears. It was the same softness that got you out of Transigen to begin with. 

You didn’t trust Donald to not screw you over after you screwed him, but watching him with your son, you were starting to believe he would protect Danny, and that was all that mattered to you.

 Your almost finished packing, you were grabbing the last of Danny’s things when your son wandered over to you. 

Dinosaur leg in hand, body dragging behind him, he reminded you there was still traces of your fight with Donald last night that hadn’t simply slipped away in the morning light.

“Ouchie mommy, you ok?” Your little boy asked, his eyes focused with concern as he reached for your neck.

 You heart sunk with his tender words of worry, Danny was a sweet boy, always had been. 

You didn’t even need to look in a mirror to know what he was worried about; your throat and shoulder had been aching all morning, but in all the commotion, you hadn’t even thought to check how bad it really looked.

“I’m ok baby, mommy’s gonna make it all better, ok?” You reassured him, pulling him into a hug as you kissed the side of his head. 

This was not something you ever wanted him to see, but the heavy feeling in your belly warned there was probably going to be a lot more you hadn’t planned on in the days ahead.

 Entering the bathroom, you stare back at your reflection in the mirror, your hands running over the slope of your neck as you inspect your injuries from last night. 

Your neck is swollen, tender to the touch, and lined with dark blue fingerprints where Donald had choked you and pinned you to the wall.

A sound from behind rips you from your inspection, you glance up to spot Donald leaning on the doorframe, watching you silently.

 “You almos’ ready?” He drawls out, his face expressionless, but his eyes, his eyes hold a heaviness that you know comes from remorse. 

Suddenly remembering that look from your days at Transigen. You’re reminded of how hard it was for him to see what he did to you. 

For all the destruction and pain Donald could inflict, you had learned, he never really liked hurting women. He could do it if the job called, but it never really sat right with him.

Seeing that look in his eyes, you can’t help, but remember the first time you realized Donald wasn’t just a monster.

 You had been at Transigen for weeks it felt like. You weren’t entirely sure. Time was fluid behind stark white walls and steal doors that rattle through you when they lock. 

But they had been testing you that day. They called it testing, you called it torture and that day was one of the worst you ever had. 

They had been pushing you, testing the limits of what your body could endure and still be able to heal. Testing the limits of your capabilities, they said. Slicing, burning, electroshock, tortures your mind had never conceived of until that day. 

Refusing to let them see you break, you held on as long as you could, but finally your body gave out, your abilities drained against the onslaught of agony you were enduring.

 By the time they brought you back to your room you could hardly move. They had rolled you in on a gurney, Donald placing you slowly on your bed, bloody and bruised, before leaving without a word. 

Every time you tried to move it felt excruciating. Open wounds and painful bruises littered your body, but you were too weak to heal yourself, so you withered on your cot in agony for most of the night. 

Listening to the silence and occasional outburst that echoed through the hall as silent tears continued to stream down your face.

 You wanted to die, but your damn body wouldn’t give out. The pain was so bad, you couldn’t discern what hurt the most. It was like every cell in your body was on fire, screaming and you were too broken to fix it. 

You passed out for a little while you think, your body too tired to fight the pain, but once you came to, the pain was back more overwhelming than ever against your exhaustion.

 Unable to hold it together any longer, you found yourself sobbing against your pillow. Nobody cared about your suffering. You didn’t matter here. You were just a lab rat in a cage.

 You vaguely remember hearing the door open as you tried your best to curl in on yourself, every movement a labor of torture that sent whimpers off your lips. 

You opened your eyes to the sound of a chair scrapping across the floor, coming to your bedside, before a body lowered into it. 

The black pants told you it wasn’t Dr. Rice, but the piercing blue eyes that filled your vision next told you it was Donald as he peered down at you.

“No more… Please… Please…. I can’t…” You begged, your body shaking and crying against the effort it took to speak and the agony that came with it.  You didn’t even have enough strength to care how weak you looked in front of a man you hated.

 “Shhhh… I want you to breathe.” You remember hearing in your ear as he brought a finger down to your lips. Running the pad of his finger along your plump flesh. 

More tears fell as he hushed you, your pleas wasted on a heartless man.

Moments later you felt a prick in your arm, it stung as you whimpered. Any touch amplified, your body like an giant open wound. 

You tried to brace yourself as best you could for more pain, but it never came, quite the opposite actually. Almost instantly, your agony began to subside, roaring to a dull throb. 

Your head began to feel foggy and what little discomfort that remained didn’t even matter.

You look up to find those piercing blue eyes hovering over you again.  Looking so hard at you you could practically feel them under your skin.

“That feel good, baby?” He smirked, his voice like velvet in your floating brain.

 A lopsided grin curled on the corner of your mouth as you slowly nodded. 

You caught sight of his gold tooth as he smirked down at you, your eyes growing heavier by the second till they finally closed completely.

You felt his callused hand gently stroke the hair off your forehead and tuck it behind your ear.

“Git some rest.” His drawled out in a low husky breath. 

You start to slip away to the sound of the chair pulling back, his boots on the tile floor, you were out before the lock ever clicked.

Mercy, that was the first moment you realized he was capable of it.

 Your mind drifts back to reality as you give Donald a nod through the bathroom mirror.

“Almost finished.” You say as you run your hands over your neck, focusing your energy and concentration. When you remove your hand, the bruising is gone and only your natural skin tone remains. 

Tugging off your loose tee-shirt, you stand in your spaghetti strap tank top, inspecting your shoulder next. Your shoulder hurt worse than your neck did, more muscle strain. He got you good there, though you try not to let it show on your face.

 The bruising equally as dark as your neck, but a wider area was marred. Covering it with your hand, warmth fills the spot as you focus. Removing it, it’s as if the mark had never been there.

You turn around to find Donald’s piercing eyes still on you. He’s never really been fond of seeing the mutant side of you, but that’s not the sense you’re getting from him just then.

 “All better.” You force a smile, but Donald doesn’t look convinced as he pushes off the doorframe and steps to you. 

You feel his fingers run over the curve of your shoulder before his knuckles move along the slope of your neck. The tenderness of his touch takes you by surprise. 

You’ve still barely spoken since he started shooting out orders for your escape. You’re still not sure what you are to each other now, but you don’t stop him either. 

His gaze lingers heavy on your skin as his touch sends tingles rippling underneath. You had forgotten his touch could do that.

 “It won’ happen again.” His husky voice drawls as his hand slowly trails your flesh.

It’s the look in his eyes that pulls at your heart strings. What he did was wrong, but it wasn’t like you didn’t give it as good as you got. 

You’re sure he must have a few marks from your attack that he’d never let you heal. You weren’t entirely sure where you two stood, but you didn’t want him beating himself up over this.

Hooking your knuckles under his chin, you raise his face until he meets your eyes. You hate seeing that look in his eyes, knowing what he’s thinking of himself for hurting you like that.

“Only if a beg first,” You tease him with a suggestive smirk, glint in your eye as you arch a brow at him.

Trying to lighten the mood and sooth the vulnerability buried in his regretful gaze.

 The look in Donald’s eyes shifts almost instantly as a smirk slowly spreads across his face, gold tooth shining back at you. 

You feel his robotic hand reach around and grab your ass, feel it give the round mound a good squeeze. 

You such in a quick breath as you feel the heat of his stare coil in your belly. 

This you two always did well. Your bodies understood each other far faster and better than your minds and hearts ever did.

Pulling your hand from his chin, he gives your knuckles a playful bite, before releasing it to grab your jawline. 

He gives it a quick tug closer to him before his thumb finds your mouth, teasingly dragging it along the plump flesh of your lower lip.

“We use to have alotta fun, didn’ we baby?” He drawls low and sexy on his breath.

 Your chest rattles as you stare into his hungry eyes, your breath picking up under his touch. 

You haven’t been with a man since him. Not after Danny, you couldn’t risk it. Your son is everything. 

More than enough, but suddenly under the glare of Donnie’s attention again, you feel like putty in his hands. Your body begging for him to keep going.

 “I can’t find legos.” A little voice huffs in frustration beside you, ripping you from the haze of Donald’s spell.

Your face whips to your son as you pull Donald’s hands from you. Not sure what you and Donald are, and even less sure what you want your son to see. 

Knowing he’s never seen you around a man like this before, you feel the need to be cautious. You don’t want to confuse him.

“That’s because I already packed them. We’re going on an adventure, remember? Let’s go make sure we got everything and we can go.” You smile at your son, trying to ease his frustrations and the pout on his lips.

 You glance back at Donald to find his eyes glued on your son. You’ve noticed that in the short time he’s been there, if Danny’s in the room, Donnie’s watching. 

You can tell he’s still pretty skittish with the boy, not sure what’s ok and what’s not, but he’s trying.

“You gonna drive?” Donald jokes, tilting his head at Danny with a mischievous grin.

“Yep, I drive.” Danny nods without a clue as to what he’s agreed to, before marching back down the hall, dragging his stuffed dinosaur behind him.

“Five minutes,” You say, turning back to Donald before placing a quick kiss on the corner of his mouth, surprising yourself as much as him, before you slip past him, creating some much needed distance.

 You’ve kept your worries at bay, trusted in Donald’s direction as best you could. Trusting he would help you and Danny. It wasn’t until everything was loaded and you were set to leave before your anxieties peaked. 

Pulling open the backdoor to his lifted SUV for you, carseat already strapped in, your heart started to pound as you clutched Danny closer to you. 

Something about that vehicle was terrifying. Maybe it was the monstrous wheels that made it tower over everything and capable of plowing through anything, or the deep shade of darkness that cloaked it, or the blacked-out windows that held their secrets inside, but something about it sent your heart racing. 

Like you were about to willingly load your baby into a cage you wouldn’t be able to escape from.

 Stopping suddenly in front of the open door, you turned to Donald as he waited on you, your pleading eyes searching his. Trying to find that honesty you had once discovered in his eyes.

“Donnie… Promise me this isn’t a game.” You begged, needing his word this wasn’t a trap as you held your son close to you, running your fingers through his moppy blonde hair.

As his steady face relaxes, you can see he’s reading your fears. 

“You gotta trust me, baby. That’s the only way this is gonna work.” He answers honestly, the gritty texture of his voice soothing your fears as you catch sight of the man you once loved, the man who looked out for you when no one else did.

 Swallowing hard against your fear, you nod and place Danny in his carseat. Strapping him in as Danny’s hand reaches out high to Donald.

“Hand!” His little voice yells, his fingers willing as he does.

You glance over as Donald raises his robotic hand, running the fingers backwards and forwards to Danny’s complete amusement.

“Oooooohhhhh!” The little boy squeals with delight.

 You can’t fight the smile that swells on your face. You aren’t the only one as Donald’s gold tooth shines back at you through his smirk. 

You hadn’t even realized Danny noticed the hand, but seeing his love of it brings you joy. Donald never said it, but you knew he had a love hate relationship with that hand. And seeing Danny’s love of it seemed to make Donald happy. 

You give Danny’s hand a quick kiss as he tries to mimic Donald’s movements, not quite able to match them with his human hand.

Turning back to Donald he flashes you a quick smirk, the happiness Danny seems to pull out of him setting you at ease. 

“Hop in Darlin” He drawls, before you hit the road.

[our-journal]

Saturday July 13, 2019

This weekend we wanted to spend time outside since the weather was nice. We couldn’t figure out what to do to enjoy the great outdoors, but Reed came up with an awesome idea: go to the Detroit Zoo. The sun was hot, but a high of 91 degrees and a heat advisory didn’t stop us from having fun all day. The first thing we saw at the zoo was adorable penguins in their new exhibit. One came right up to the glass to get a closer look at us, giving us a chance to see all its little features. We loved watching them swim through the water and jump around on rocks. The exhibit smelled fishy and had its own gift shop, where we found some really cool penguin enamel pins to add to our collection. We couldn’t help but overhear a dad screaming at his daughter for simply looking in the gift shop and wearing an outfit he didn’t like, and we decided we never wanted to be those kinds of parents. The next exhibit we saw was the butterfly house, where different butterfly species fly freely around you. They had so many beautiful butterflies, but our absolute favorite was the big Blue Morpho. Watching them float among the flowers was so mesmerizing that we decided we must have a butterfly garden in our own backyard one day. After that, we followed the main trail which gave us a chance to see the sea otters, amphibians, camels (including a baby), one red panda, and chimps/gorillas. Seeing the monkeys was not only cool but also hilarious because one of the chimps had an extremely nasty-looking prolapse of the asshole. We thought it looked uncomfortable until Reed saw a sign that said, “Don’t worry! It’s normal!” Turns out, female chimp assholes prolapse when they’re in heat. Disturbing. At this point, one of us (won’t name names) was getting semi-hangry. In order to avoid a heat headache, we had to each lunch soon. First, we squeezed in one more exhibit, the Arctic Circle, where the polar bear is during cooler months. It felt like a mile-long hike down into that building, and it was funny because this dad walking down with his family in front of us pretended like the door was locked when we finally got there and he tried to open it. We were all like “UGH!” until he laughed, saying just kidding. It was funny, and it’s definitely a prank I can see Reed pulling on me if he were the one opening the door. We got to see a few seals, but mostly just cool off before lunch. We ordered chicken and fries for lunch. Once we started eating, Reed goes, “I’m not even that hungry” which was funny because it seemed urgent. During our meal, a peacock with amazing plumage hung out near us. After lunch, the rest of the day flew by. We got to see flamingos, white-faced monkeys, female lions, eland antelopes, white rhinos, zebras, and giraffes. We had the chance to walk through the kangaroo exhibit, where they were all resting together in the shade. On the home stretch, we got to see prairie dogs, bald eagles, bison, a few barn animals, an anteater, deer, and the amphibian exhibit. We had a great time together at the zoo, holding hands, getting sunburnt, laughing, and enjoying the fresh air. We shared some Dippin’ Dots before finishing up and heading home around 4:00ish. When we got home, I couldn’t quit the sun, so we hung out at the neighborhood pool for a little while. I love chilling at the pool together and playing in the water when you finally decide it’s not too cold for you anymore. After swimming, we decided to go out to dinner. We went downtown Rochester to Georgio’s pizza. I like this place because they have good pizza, and their giant slices remind me of when we first started dating, when you’d come hang out with me in the tux shop during my shifts. You’d bring a giant ass slice of pizza. At the restaurant, we decided that we didn’t really want the night to end yet. We brought our leftovers home, grabbed chairs from dad’s house, and drove back downtown for Movies in the Moonlight. I’ve always enjoyed this little event, my mom took me to it a bunch when I was a kid, so it was really cool to share the experience of a movie outside at night with my love. He had never really done that before, and he ended up liking the movie, which I thought he might. I loved our Saturday together. We did a lot, and we had a lot of fun doing it all. I wouldn’t want to spend my beautiful Saturday outdoors with anyone else.