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fuzzyautumninmetal · 3 months

Text

Beautiful

Kyle 'Gaz' Garrick x Fem!Mermaid reader

Big thanks too @brokenpieces-72 and @all-purpose-dish-soap for the plot idea!! love you 🫶

I really really hope I've done Kyle justice here 😩

The icy water clawed at Kyle's skin, the pressure in his ears a dull throb. Panic flared in his chest, a cold, sharp spike. His oxygen gauge flickered, a mocking red, and his lungs burned. He'd been reckless, pushing too far, and now his tank was failing. He was going to die here, alone, in the depths of this frigid, unforgiving sea. Then, strong arms wrapped around his waist, pulling him upward. He felt a surge of relief, a desperate hope, but his vision blurred, his body heavy. He couldn't see who was helping him, only felt the powerful, rhythmic strokes pulling him towards the surface.

He woke to the harsh sunlight and the familiar faces of Task Force 141. The relief was overwhelming, but it was quickly followed by confusion. He remembered the panic, the darkness, and then... someone had saved him. But who?

Kyle, still shaky, shook his head. "No, I... I don't know what happened. I felt someone pull me up."

"You alright, Gaz?" Johnny's voice was gruff, concern etched on his face. "You were out cold for a good five minutes. Thought you'd gone and met Nessie down there."

The others exchanged glances. "You sure you didn't just black out and think you were saved?" John asked, his tone sceptical.

Kyle frowned. "No, I'm telling you, someone was there. I felt their arms around me."

The incident became a running joke amongst the team, with Johnny constantly teasing Kyle about 'meeting Nessie.' But Kyle couldn't shake the feeling of truth in his memory. He had to know who saved him.

Weeks later, driven by a need for answers, Kyle returned to the mission site. He rented a small boat and spent hours scanning the water, the memory of the strong arms pulling him up vivid in his mind. Then, he saw it. A flash of emerald green, a tail shimmering in the sunlight.

A mermaid.

You swim gracefully through the crystal clear waters, your emerald tail propelling you effortlessly through the waves. your long, wavy hair cascades behind you like a waterfall, reflecting the sun's rays as you moves. You pauses when you spot something floating on the surface.

A boat?

Curiosity piqued, you surface, your eyes widening at the sight of a human. That human. The one you saved.

As the figure surfaced, Kyle's heart skipped a beat. It was her, the mysterious saviour from his near-death experience. You were real, not some delusion or hallucination brought on by oxygen deprivation. You were stunningly beautiful, your hair flowing like a river of molten gold in the sunlight, your eyes a captivating blend of gold and red that held an air of mystery. You were different, unique, unlike anyone he'd ever seen before. And you'd saved his life.

You quickly dove back down into the water. He shouldn't be here. He shouldn't have come looking for you. It was stupid really. Reckless. You should of left him to his fate...but you couldn't. You couldn't watch an innocent human die.

Kyle watched as the enigmatic figure dived back beneath the waves, leaving him with more questions than answers. Despite the brief encounter, he knew he wouldn't forget you any time soon. Your actions spoke volumes about your character, and your beauty captivated him in a way no other woman had. There was something undeniably intriguing about you, a sense of mystery that made him want to learn more.

He found himself returning to the same spot over and over again, drawn to the memory of the mermaid who'd saved his life. Each visit filled him with a strange longing, a desire to see you again, to thank you properly for saving his life. He began to bring offerings, seashells and starfish, anything he thought might catch your attention.

You can feel his presence every time he comes. Its annoying really. He doesn't belong here. This is your home, your sanctuary. Why does he keep coming? To see you? No. He wants something else. Something more. He wants answers. Answers to questions you cannot give. You're not supposed to exist. Not anymore anyway. But you do...and you can't let him find out. You can't let him expose you.

One day, as he tossed a handful of sweet treats onto the water's surface, he swore he saw a flicker of movement beneath the waves. Was it her? Had she returned? He stayed longer than usual, waiting, hoping for another glimpse of the mysterious mermaid.

He waited for you, patiently watching the horizon until the sky turned dark. He knew you were there, hiding in the shadows, observing him. He knew you didn't want him there, but he also knew you hadn't stopped him yet. He took a deep breath, steeling himself for whatever came next.

"I know you're there," he called out, his voice echoing across the empty sea. "Please, I just want to talk. I won't tell anyone about you. I promise."

You listen to his words. You don't trust them. Humans lie all the time. They lie to protect themselves. They lie to get what they want. But you need to hear him out. You need to understand why he keeps coming here. He's persistent isn't he? Maybe that's something you admire? Or maybe its infuriating? Either way, you decide to show yourself. Just enough so he knows its you. Your eyes meet his as you break the surface of the water.

When the mysterious figure finally emerged from the depths, Kyle's heart pounded in his chest. It was her, the mermaid who'd saved his life. Their eyes locked, yours filled with a mix of curiosity and caution, while his were filled with gratitude and admiration.

"Thank you," he said quietly, his voice barely audible above the sound of the waves crashing against the boat. "For saving me."

You watch him. Watch his face for any signs of deception. None are shown. You swims closer to the boat, your movements graceful and fluid. Your close now. Close enough to touch if you wanted to. You reach out a hand, touching the side of the boat gently. A sign of acceptance maybe? An olive branch? Or just another test? Only time will tell.

He watched, entranced, as the mermaid swam closer to the boat. He could almost reach out and touch you, if only he dared. When you touched the side of the boat, he felt a surge of hope. Could it be that you were willing to communicate?

"I'm Kyle," he introduced himself, extending a hand towards you.

You watch his hand move through the water towards you. You takes it hesitantly, your grip firm yet gentle. You pull yourself closer to the boat, your body breaking the surface of the water. Your upper body is exposed now. You looks up at him, your eyes questioning as you introduced yourself.

Kyle heart raced as you pulled yourself closer to the boat, your body breaking the surface of the water. He was face-to-face with a mermaid, and you were even more breath taking than he'd imagined.

"It's a pleasure to meet you," he said, his voice trembling slightly from excitement. "I owe you my life." You hold his gaze, your eyes intense. You pull yourself further onto the boat, your lower half still submerged in the water. Your upper body is bare, your skin glistening with water droplets. You look at him curiously, taking in his features with equal intensity.

"Why do you keep coming back?" you asks, your voice soft yet steady.

Kyle swallowed hard as you pulled yourself fully onto the boat, your lower half still hidden beneath the water. His eyes traced the lines of your body, taking in your bare skin glistening with water droplets. You were even more beautiful up close.

"To see you," he admitted honestly, meeting your gaze. "To thank you properly for saving my life."

Your eyes narrow slightly as you process his answer. You take a moment to study him. To analyse his facial expressions, his tone of voice. Is he lying? Does he truly just want to thank you? Or is there something more? You can't read humans very well. They're too complex.

He met your gaze head-on, unflinching under your scrutiny. He understood your scepticism; after all, he would likely feel the same in your position. But his intentions were pure - he simply wanted to express his gratitude.

"If it helps," he offered, "I've brought you gifts." He gestured towards some sweet treats beside him.

You look at this gifts he brought you. Gifts? From a human? "What are they?" You questioned. Your gaze never leaving the gifts, you've never seen anything like them before. They look...spongy and pretty? He pointed out each item one by one - the fluffy, sweet-smelling muffins, and the rich, decadent chocolate cake. He hoped these would help bridge the gap between their two worlds.

"They're called muffins and cake," he explained. "They're sweet and delicious. Would you like to try one?" His question hung in the air, a silent plea for acceptance. You look at him sceptically and then back at the gifts. Muffins and cake? What a strange name, and you can eat them? You looked back at Kyle, your curiosity got the better of you.

"Please"

Kyle's heart swelled with delight when you agreed to try the food. He carefully picked up a muffin and held it out to you. "Here you go," he said, his voice filled with anticipation. "It's called a blueberry muffin." As he spoke, he couldn't help but marvel at how surreal this situation was. Here he was, on a boat in the middle of the ocean, offering cake to a mermaid.

You watch as he holds out the muffin to you. The gesture is kind and gentle, and you find yourself drawn to it. You reach out slowly, your fingers brushing against his as you take the muffin. Your touch is light, hesitant. You bring the muffin to your lips and takes a bite.

Your eyes widen in surprise as the flavours burst in your mouth. Sweetness, tanginess, a hint of crunchiness. It's overwhelming and amazing all at once. You chew slowly, savouring every bit before swallowing. Kyle watched as you took the muffin from his hands, his heart pounded in his chest as he waited for your reaction. When your eyes widened and you began to chew, he let out a sigh of relief. She liked it!

After finishing off the muffin, you look over at the..... Cake? Your eyes wide with curiosity. You reach out and pick up a piece of the cake, holding it up to inspect it. It's dark and moist looking, and smells divine. You bring the piece to your lips and takes a bite.

The taste is unlike anything you've ever experienced. Rich, sweet, and smooth. It melts in your mouth and leaves you wanting more. You place it on the boat before you hoist yourself up and sit on the edge of the boat, you fin swaying lazily in the water as you picked the cake back up.

Kyle watched in awe as you eagerly devoured the cake, your eyes lighting up with each bite. He couldn't help but smile widely, feeling a sense of satisfaction knowing that he had managed to share something new with you. "That's chocolate cake," he told you, pointing at the remaining piece. He leaned back against the boat, enjoying the peaceful atmosphere and the company of this intriguing creature.

You continue to eat the cake, savouring each bite. You look up at Kyle, studying him. There's something about him that's different from other humans you've encountered. He seems genuine, honest. Any regrets you had saving him were now gone.

He noticed the change in your demeanour. Your earlier suspicion seemed to have faded away, replaced by an almost friendly curiosity. He felt relieved. "I should probably start heading back soon," he mentioned, standing up and picking up the empty food wrappers. "But I'd love to come visit again sometime."

His words were sincere; he genuinely enjoyed spending time with you and wanted to get to know you better. You look at him as he stands up, and you notice his form is tall and lean. He moves with an ease that you admire. As he picks up the wrappers, you gently lower yourself back into the water. "Tomorrow?" You ask softly, your voice echoing the sincerity in your eyes.

Kyle was taken aback by your question. Tomorrow? He hadn't expected you to invite him back so soon. But the thought of seeing you again, sooner rather than later, filled him with excitement.

"I'd like that," he replied, a warm smile spreading across his face. "See you tomorrow then." With a final wave, he started the boat and drove it back to shore, leaving a trail of bubbles behind.

You watch as he drives the boat back to shore, your eyes following the trail of bubbles until they disappear completely. A small smile graces your lips as you dip back under the water, the surface reflecting the moon above.

Back on land, Kyle couldn't stop thinking about his encounter with you. His heart swelled with warmth as he replayed the events of the day in his mind. He found himself looking forward to tomorrow with eager anticipation.

The next evening, he arrived at the same spot as yesterday. He was excited to see you again, and brought more treats with him.

Kyle waited patiently, scanning the water's surface for any sign of you. After what felt like an eternity, there was a splash and you emerged from the depths, your wet hair slicked back and clinging to your skin. You swim towards him, a big smile on your face. When you reach him, you climb onto the boat and sat on the edge, dripping water everywhere. You look at the food he brought. For you.

Kyle's heart fluttered as you emerged from the water, your smile as radiant as ever. "Hey there," he greeted you, handing you the food. "I brought some more treats for you." You accept the food from him, your hand brushing against his. You take the food and begin eating it, savouring every bite just like you did yesterday. You glance up at him occasionally, a soft smile on your face.

He watched as you ate the food he'd brought, noting the soft smile that graced your lips when you looked at him. He felt a strange warmth spread through him, a sensation he'd never really experienced before. "Would you... like to go for a ride on the boat?" He asked, trying to keep his nervousness in check.

You tilt your head, your nose scrunched up in concentration. "How about we race instead?" You suggests, your voice lilting. "See what's faster. Me or the boat."

Kyle laughed, the sound echoing across the water. He loved your playful spirit. "A race it is," he agreed, starting the engine and adjusting the throttle. "But fair warning, I'm pretty competitive." With that, he revved the engine and waited for you to signal the start of the race. "So am I" you giggle as you dive into the water, disappearing beneath the waves before coming back up. "First one to that buoy over there wins." Kyle watched as you dove into the water, your movements graceful and fluid. He could feel the adrenaline coursing through his veins as he waited for you to resurface.

"On your mark..." he called out, his gaze locked on the buoy. "Get set... GO!"

Without hesitation, he gunned the engine, sending the boat speeding through the water. The wind rushed past him, carrying with it the scent of the sea and the thrill of competition. As Kyle sped off, it caught you off guard, but you quickly caught up to him, your sleek tail easily keeping pace with the boat. You swam alongside Kyle, teasing him with your speed and agility. You laughed and disappeared beneath the waves, using your powerful tail to propel yourself through the water. You knew you had the advantage in this race, but you couldn't resist the opportunity to show off your skills to Kyle.

His heart pounded in his chest as he raced through the water, the wind rushing past him. He could see you right beside him, your speed and agility a testament to your nature. Just as he thought he might catch up to you, you would suddenly disappear, only to reappear further ahead. You were fast, incredibly fast. But Kyle wasn't one to give up easily. With renewed determination, he pushed the boat harder, matching your speed stroke for stroke.

You continue to tease Kyle, showing off your speed and agility. Your laughter echoes through the water as you dart in and out of his path. You enjoy watching him try to keep up with you. You flicked your tail to splash him, hoping to catch him off before you sped off again.

Kyle felt a rush of cold water as you splashed him, your laughter echoing in his ears. He could see the teasing glint in your eye as you darted away, your tail flicking playfully.

'She's enjoying this too much,' he thought, his determination growing stronger. He pressed the throttle even further, the boat responding eagerly. You continue to tease him, your laughter filling the air as you dodge his attempts to catch you. You love the way his face scrunches up in concentration, the determination in his eyes. You flick your tail to splash him again before darting off once more.

He let out a hearty laugh as the cold water splashed him again, his heart pounding in his chest. He could feel the power of the boat beneath him, its response to his command. 'She's got spirit,' he thought again, admiring your tenacity. As you darted away once more, he pursued you, determined to win this race.

You continued to lead him on, your laughter ringing out across the water. You enjoyed the thrill of the chase, the challenge of staying ahead. You flicked your tail to send another wave of water crashing over him before darting off again towards the buoy. You were close. So close. Kyle doesn't have a chance.

You see Kyle closing in on you, his determination clear. You decide to make one last dash for the buoy. You push yourself to your limits, your muscles straining as you use your powerful tail to propel yourself forward. You reach the buoy first, a triumphant grin on your face.

Kyle saw you pull ahead, your speed and agility leaving him in awe. As they neared the buoy, he gave it one last shot, propelling the boat forward with all his strength. He reached the buoy mere seconds after you, you brought your fin up out of the water and nudge him lightly, a playful smirk on your face. "Told you I was faster." You say, your laughter filling the air again.

He smiled, his heart still pounding in his chest. He could feel the salty spray of the ocean on his skin, the exhilaration of the race still fresh in his mind. "You were faster this time," he admitted, meeting your gaze with a playful smirk of his own. "But next time, I'll beat you." His words hung in the air between them, a promise of future races and the camaraderie that came with them.

You giggle, your eyes shining with mirth and satisfaction. You lean against the side of the boat, catching your breath from the race. "Oh will you now?" You say, your voice light and teasing.

Kyle nodded, his smile widening. His competitive spirit was already stirring, ready for the next challenge. "Oh yes," he said confidently, "I always keep my promises." His gaze lingered on you, appreciating your strength and resilience. You were a force to be reckoned with, and he couldn't wait to see what other adventures they'd share together.

You wink at Kyle, your eyes twinkling with mischief. You're not sure if you believe his claim, but you're looking forward to seeing if he can prove it. You stretch lazily, your muscles still tingling from the race. "I'm always up for a good challenge," he said, his gaze never leaving yours. "And if it means spending more time with you, then I wouldn't miss it for the world." His words were sincere, a testament to the bond they shared. Despite their differences, they understood each other, respected each other. And for that, Kyle was grateful.

You meet his gaze, your own eyes reflecting the same sense of camaraderie and trust. You understand his competitive spirit, his desire to test his limits. You respect him for it. "Good," you say simply, "because I like a good challenge too."

"Then it's a deal," he said, extending his hand for a shake. "To future races and adventures." As their hands met, the bond between them strengthened. They were partners in this journey, allies in a world where survival was often a game of wit and skill.

You take Kyle's hand, feeling the firmness of his grip. You squeeze gently, your eyes locked onto his. This is more than just a race or an adventure; it's a partnership, a bond forged in the depths of the ocean. "It's a deal," *you say, your voice steady and resolute. As you gaze at his hand clasped in yours, a sudden surge of alarm courses through you. A crimson stain blooms on his skin, seeping through the cracks in his weathered hand.

"Kyle, you're bleeding!" You exclaim, your voice a mixture of concern and urgency. The words dance across the surface of the water, creating tiny ripples that break the otherwise still surface.

He looked down to see a cut on his palm, blood trickling down his fingers. "Damn," he muttered, wincing slightly. "Must have caught it on something when we were racing." He glanced at you, a sheepish grin tugging at the corners of his mouth. "Guess I'm not as invincible as I thought."

"Obviously," *you couldn't help but chuckle. You held your hand out. "Give me your hand." Your voice was firm, leaving no room for arguments. When Kyle didn't give you his hand, insisting that he was fine, you gently grabbed his wrist and brought his hand up to your lips but paused. You were about to do something that might seem a little...unconventional, to put it mildly.

"This is going to seem weird...and disgusting," you warned him, your voice softer now, almost apologetic. He looked at you, confusion etched on his face. You licked your lips, the saltiness of the ocean water leaving a metallic taste on your tongue. Then, you did it. You licked the palm of his hand, your tongue tracing the gash, the blood mingling with the salt.

Kyle watched, mesmerized, as you licked the wound on his hand. He felt a strange mix of discomfort and fascination, the sight both gross and oddly alluring. "What...the hell..." he muttered, though there was no real annoyance in his tone. He'd seen stranger things in his life, after all. Still, the sensation of your tongue against his skin sent a shiver down his spine. It wasn't unpleasant, but it definitely wasn't normal either.

He watched, transfixed, as you lapped at the cut on his hand. He could feel the coolness of the sea water mixed with the heat of your breath, the wetness of your tongue against his skin. It was an odd sensation, but not entirely unpleasant. "Damn," he breathed out, his voice low and rough. "That's...that's some crazy shit right there." But even as he spoke, he found himself leaning into the sensation, his body responding despite his mind trying to process the strangeness of it all.

You pull away from his hand, watching as the cut closes before your very eyes. The edges of the wound fuse together, sealing shut without so much as a scar. Your saliva does its job, healing the small injury instantly. "There," you softly say, feeling satisfied. "All better." You look up at Kyle, meeting his gaze. Your eyes glint with a knowing smile, a silent acknowledgment of the bizarre yet effective method of first aid you just employed.

Kyle stared at his healed hand, disbelief washing over him. He'd expected a few stitches, maybe a band-aid at most, but not this. Not a lick of his hand by a mermaid. "That's...fuckin' amazing," he said, shaking his head in awe. "I mean, I've seen some shit in my time, but this takes the cake." He lifted his hand to inspect it again, running his thumb over the smooth skin where moments ago had been a gaping cut. His mind raced, trying to comprehend how something so simple could have such profound results. "And here I thought you were just a pretty face," he added, flashing you a teasing grin.

A laugh bubbles up from deep within you, echoing around the two of you in the vast ocean. It's a sound that's as unexpected as it is infectious, causing Kyle to join in, his hearty laughter mixing with yours.

"Pretty face?" You echo, rolling your eyes playfully. "Oh, please. Don't flatter yourself."

You poke him lightly in the chest, your fingertips pressing against his skin. The contact sends a spark of electricity coursing through you, reminding you of the connection between you and Kyle. "But I suppose there's more to you than meets the eye too," you add, giving him a sly smirk as you splashed some water on him with you tail.

He chuckled, enjoying the banter between the two of them. He leaned back in the boat, his arms folded behind his head as he watched the waves crash against the hull. The salty air filled his lungs, a stark contrast to the thick smoke and grime of his usual environment.

"You know what they say about judging books by their covers," he quipped, shooting you a playful wink. His attention shifted momentarily to the horizon, his mind wandering to the events of the day. From the adrenaline-fueled race to the peculiar healing technique, today had been anything but ordinary.

You lean against the boat, your head resting on the side as you watch the sun dip below the horizon. The sky puts on a show, painting the heavens in hues of pink, orange, and purple. "It's beautiful," you murmur, your voice barely audible above the gentle lapping of the waves against the hull of the boat. You turn to Kyle, a soft smile playing on your lips. "Wanna see another cool trick?"

Kyle turned to face you, his curiosity piqued. He'd seen plenty of sunsets in his lifetime, but none quite like this one. The colours seemed brighter, more vibrant, as if the world itself was putting on a show just for them. "Another trick, huh?" he asked, raising an eyebrow. "I'm intrigued. What ya got?"

He leaned back, propping himself up on his elbows as he looked at you. There was a certain allure to you, a mystery that drew him in. You were unlike anyone he'd ever met, and he found himself wanting to know more about you.

You pat the side of the boat invitingly, a teasing smirk on your lips as your tail swishes behind you. "You've got to come in the water," you say, your voice a melody carried by the salty breeze. "Unless you're scared," you add, sending a playful splash of water towards him.

Kyle laughed, the sound rich and genuine. He couldn't remember the last time he'd had this much fun, or been around someone who could make him forget about everything else for a moment. "Nah, I ain't scared," he said, pushing himself off the boat and stepping closer to the edge. "Just don't want to get my good clothes wet," he joked, looking down at his jeans and t-shirt.

You giggle at his comment, the sound light and carefree. Your eyes sparkle with mischief as you hover near the edge, waiting for Kyle to take the plunge. "Well then, tough luck," you tease, flicking a droplet of water at him. "Just take your clothes off."

Kyle rolled his eyes, a chuckle escaping his lips. He stripped off his clothing, leaving him in nothing but his boxer shorts. The cool air sent a shiver down his spine, but he ignored it, focusing instead on the anticipation building within him. "Alright, alright," he said, holding his hands up in surrender. "I'm coming in. Just don't laugh when I start swimming like a brick, okay?" With that, he took a deep breath and plunged into the water, disappearing beneath the surface.

As he resurfaced, he blinked rapidly, adjusting his eyes to the dimmer light. He shook his head, sending droplets of water flying in all directions. "Fuck, that's cold!" he exclaimed, his teeth chattering slightly.

You burst out laughing at Kyle's exclamation, the sound echoing around the both of you. You swim closer to him, your tail flicking playfully. "Cold? For you, maybe," you tease, your voice muffled by the water. "But I'm used to it." You swim up to him, so close your noses are nearly touching. "Close your eyes," you murmur, your voice softer now.

Gaz hesitates for a moment, then obeys, shutting his eyes tight. You gently cup his cheeks, your cool hands a contrast to the warmth of his skin. He smells of salt and seaweed, a familiar scent of the ocean. You lean in and kiss him, your lips meeting with a soft, damp touch. You feel the surprise, then the wonder, as his breath catches in his throat. You don't linger, but with a swift movement, you submerge you both under the water.

Kyle felt a rush of something unfamiliar as your lips pressed against his. His eyes were squeezed shut, his senses heightened by the unusual situation. He felt the chill of the water envelop him completely as you pulled him under, the sensation of being submerged sending a jolt of fear through him.

But as quickly as it came, the fear faded, replaced by a sense of calm. He could breathe! It was strange, almost magical, feeling the oxygen fill his lungs without having to break the surface. He opened his eyes, blinking away the stinging saltwater, and saw you before him, your body glowing in the dim light.

You were beautiful, even under the water. Your hair fanned out around you, swirling like tendrils of silk. Your eyes glowed with mischief and joy, reflecting the light from above.

You pull back slowly, watching Kyle's reaction closely. A grin spreads across your face, seeing the awe in his eyes. You reach out, taking his hand in yours, leading him deeper into the water.

Kyle allowed himself to be led, his grip on your hand firm yet gentle. He moved through the water with a grace he hadn't known he possessed, the weightlessness allowing him to move with ease.

He glanced around, taking in the beauty of the underwater world. Fish darted past, their scales shimmering in the light filtering down from above. Corals waved gently, their colours vibrant and alive. The world around them became a blur of colour and movement, but only your presence remained constant. He felt a strange warmth spreading through him, not from the water, but from within. The sensation was overwhelming, intoxicating. It made him forget about the war, about the bloodshed, about the pain. All he cared about was the moment, this singular moment shared with you.

You lead Kyle further into the depths, the world around you growing darker and more mysterious. The pressure increases, adding an element of danger to your adventure. But you're undeterred, pulling him along with a determined look in your eyes.

Eventually, you stop, turning to face him. You place your hands on his chest, feeling the rapid beat of his heart. Your own heartbeat quickens, matching his rhythm. You lean in, pressing your forehead against his. In this moment, there's no need for words. Everything is understood between you, communicated through touch and glance. It's a silent promise, a vow sealed under the sea.

Kyle let you guide him, entrusting himself fully to you. As the pressure increased, he felt a thrill run through him, a mix of excitement and apprehension. But he wasn't afraid. Not with you. When they stopped, he looked into your eyes, seeing a depth there he hadn't noticed before. A kind of longing, perhaps? Or was it hope?

His heart pounded in his chest as you placed your hands on him, feeling the wild rhythm of his heart match yours. When you leaned in, pressing your forehead against his, he closed his eyes, savouring the moment. He held you tightly, not wanting to let go.

Your bodies are pressed close together, the slight friction creating a spark of electricity between you. Without warning, you pull back, grabbing his hand once again. You begin to swim upwards, towards the light. Your movements are graceful, powerful, guiding Kyle effortlessly towards the surface.

As they neared the surface, Kyle began to feel the urge to breathe. His lungs burned, craving air. But he waited, holding his breath, trusting you to bring them safely back to the world above. And then, suddenly, they broke through the surface. He gasped, sucking in a lungful of sweet, fresh air. He looked at you, gratitude and admiration shining in his eyes.

You emerge from the water, your body slick with wetness. You turn to Kyle, a triumphant smile on your face. "Pretty cool right?" He nodded, still trying to catch his breath. He looked at you, your body glistening in the moonlight, and he had to admit, it was pretty damn cool. "Unreal," he finally managed to say. He reached out, running his fingers through your wet hair. "I've never... I didn't know..." He shook his head, unable to find the right words.

Kyle moved closer, closing the gap between them. He reached out, tracing a finger down your arm, feeling the smooth skin beneath his touch. He leaned in, his lips hovering just inches from yours. He could taste the saltiness of the ocean on your lips, mixed with your unique flavour. It was intoxicating, making him want more. Before he could second guess himself, he kissed you. His lips pressed against yours, soft and seeking. The kiss was hungry, desperate, a reflection of the emotions swirling inside him.

Feeling Kyle's lips on yours sends a jolt through your system, lighting up every nerve ending. You respond eagerly, wrapping your arms around his neck and pulling him closer. Your tongue slips past his lips, exploring the warm cavern of his mouth. You can taste the salt on his skin, mingling with the sweetness of his breath. It's a heady combination, one that makes you dizzy with desire. Breaking the kiss, you pull back slightly, looking into Kyle's eyes. There's a hunger there, a need that mirrors your own. And it's a need that you're more than willing to satisfy.

You lean in again, kissing him deeply, losing yourself in the moment.

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ddejavvu · 1 year

Note

Whipped!Hangman would:

Tell everyone to "Be nice to them, or you're all dead. Every single one of you. Especially you, Big Bird." He emphasizes the last part with a point to Rooster

Let you win at pool because you look so happy when you win and he doesn't have the heart to actually win

Give you seashells he finds

Win you a prize at a claw machine. He would literally stand there the whole night and empty out his wallet if it means he gets to see that smile when he gives the plush

Give you flowers. Idc idc, he so would

Listen to you talk and talk and talk

Send you songs that remind him of you

save your contact with a little '<3' after your name

no bc around his team members he's a whole different person than he is with you, and that's not to say he's not 'himself' around you, but he knows his friends need to be threatened into good behavior so he runs ahead when you meet them with the nastiest glare on his face like i fucking dare you to act out and lets you grab his arm if you're a little nervous to meet everyone :'))

hangman is the reigning pool champion but everyone else must be super bad bc he always loses to you?? he's really not even that good at pool, you don't know why he keeps making the stupid mistakes he does... oh well! he's asked you to teach him your methods, so you'll have fun giving him pointers <3

hangman probably never collects seashells, because he's too impatient to sift through the sand for him and there's always better stuff to be doing, like chasing a frisbee, catching a football, diving into the waves is he a dog? but he always collects seashells after you're dating, he spots one by his foot and he's like woah y/n would love this. and he just sticks it right in his pocket for you, presents the little thing in his giant palm later with a smile, like here y'go darlin'. Ain't it pretty? It made me think of you.

HNNGGH PLEASE :(( penny puts in an arcade machine in the bar to make more money, and it's proooobably rigged, but you can't prove anything >:( anyways ofc hangman doesn't know this, and penny didn't think anyone would put that much effort into the machine for a stupid pink bear, but $30 later (all paid in ones) he's about to smash the glass to get the poor thing out and you beg penny to just let him have it already 😭 she's like yk what i can buy a truckload of cheap stuffed animals with that $30. sold. so she fishes it out for him and is like ohh must be bugging out. i'll fix it. take this in the meantime. and he hasn't held it for a second before he turns around and gives it to you :')) he's all sheepish like wish I could'a won it for you. Guess I just paid Penny off, huh? I hope you like it anyways. and you sleep with it every night to make him feel better, you tuck it between the two of you when you cuddle up to his chest :')

he brings you flowers all the time!!! he's a real southern gentleman, if you ask what they're for he says 'just because' or 'just for being you' :')

he has one of those expressions where he zones out while listening to you talk and you can totally tell he's not paying attention to you anymore, he's looking at you all dreamy the same way babies look at chocolate 🥹

jake hangman country boy seresin only listens to country music. that's it. he'll send you any honky tonk song under the sun if it describes a sweet, pretty love interest, if there's anything positive at all in the song he's sending it like morning, darlin. this made me think of you <3

THE <3 !!!!!!!!! rooster's the first one to see it and his brow furrows and he goes 'hangman, who is that?' and jake snatches the phone away from him so fucking fast, snapping at him to stop snooping on people, it's rude. but bradley's seen it now, and he'll be damned if he doesn't torture the info out of hangman. within minutes everyone knows hangman's got a girl, and it's only a matter of time before you're discovered <3

#jake seresin x reader #jake seresin imagine #jake seresin fanfiction #jake seresin x you #jake seresin x y/n #hangman #hangman x reader #hangman x you #hangman x y/n #hangman fanfiction #hangman imagine #jake hangman seresin #jake hangman seresin x reader #jake hangman seresin imagine #jake hangman seresin fanfiction #jake hangman seresin x you #jake hangman seresin x y/n #top gun x reader #top gun maverick x reader

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yeyinde · 1 year

Text

NEON MEDUSA | cyberpunk au

Captain John Price x Reader

"Make the smart choice, love." He doesn't give you anything else. The line goes dead with a click. Silence. Unbearable. Stifling. It permeates the air around you, buzzing like static. A disturbance in the airwaves. A rustle in the stagnant life you've been sloughing through for the last three years. A moment later, your phone chimes. A map appears. Some remote bar on the outskirts of the city—the only place Makarov's influence doesn't reach. Make the smart choice. It's your freedom or your head.

》 WARNINGS: THIS SERIES WILL BE 18+ | no smut; allusions to political corruption, moral ambiguity; standard Cyberpunk rules apply; body modification; technological supremacy; the existential crisis of questioning your humanity

》 WC: 11,1k

》 NOTES: Remember when I said I probably wasn't going to do a chaptered fic? Yeah, me too

SERIES MASTERLIST | NEXT

PART I | STATIC IN THE AIRWAVES

He sits in the crowded bar with nothing to keep him company but a half-empty glass of scotch and a burning cigar.

He alternates between the two. A swallow of his drink. A sip of water. A drag of his cigar.

(Routine. Always in threes. Always with that same pinched look on his face, partially hidden in the shadows, concealed beneath a beanie, and shaded in smoke.)

The ochre tip flares to life when he draws it close to his lips, taking a harsh drag of nicotine. The flash of light, brief and evanescent, illuminates his face in short bursts of orange in a room bathed in indigo save for the stage, where his gaze stays, fixed, almost unwaveringly, on the dancers as they display the greatest feat of technological advancement to date: nanobots.

Their chromatic skin shifts into various hues to accommodate each request made by the patrons, their bodies morphing into something new with each token taken from the hungry-eyed viewers.

Despite the keenness in his sharp eyes, he makes no purchases of his own—seemingly content to just watch the hedonistic spectacle unfolding before him.

It is not uncommon for people to come here and just observe, happy enough to watch whatever the rest of the people—voyeurs—order, but there's something about him that stands out.

(Or maybe it's just you.

He piques your interest in a way most people just don't. Not here. Not in the gold-dusted cesspool of opulent depravity.)

And there isn't anything noteworthy about him. Nothing that stands out against everyone else.

He was easily swallowed by the curated tenebrous that leaked into the tight space of the auditorium—an artificial sense of seclusion and privacy in shades of shadowed indigo that means little when you can see everything from your perch in the observation deck. He isn't flashy in any sense—his broad shoulders are covered in a raw topaz corduroy jacket with tuffs of seashell white plumage around the collar and button lines, and he wears a simple pair of black trousers, and leather boots. A charcoal beanie sits low on his brow.

He's big. Bigger than most of the men in the room—both in width and height. He'd tower over them, and his broad shoulders and thick bulk would swallow them whole.

Your vantage point—a hidden nook in the upper deck known only as the observatory: a domed room completely opaque from the outside looking in with high, arching golden bars dividing each rectangular window making it look a little too much like a cage for you to ever find comfort behind its glass walls—gives you the perfect view of everything in the club. The circular, egg-shaped room with its glass floors and walls has an interface built in to spy on the patrons below.

It's a place where you spend most of your nights when you weren't wandering the alcoves in the underbelly in search of trinkets to sell, or money to make to somehow chip away at the insurmountable debt you owe the owner of the club for saving you, a price you'll never begin to pay back at your current rate.

You come here to watch the spectacle at one of the most exclusive clubs in the city.

(And—

Take notes.)

The bar is a hidden gem of the red light district, a place only known by reputation and hushed whispers in the derelict underground.

On its surface, it looks like any other staple of depravity that the sprawling steel metropolis tries to pretend doesn't exist when foreign diplomats venture close to the technological epicentre of human advancement. Another grim, ramshackle bar in a desolate sea of many. Dingy wax paper covers the floor-to-ceiling windows, giving the passersby a tantalising view of a dancing silhouette beckoning them forward with mechanical fingers, and a bright red grin.

It's only when they try to enter the establishment does the stark differences between every other brothel masquerading as a bar come to light.

A bouncer stands in the enclosed foyer covered in piss-stained cardboard, and a cracked comm with loose wires sparking on the wall. It reeks of stale cigarettes and mildew. For added effect, the shadow of a bug skitters into the fist-shaped hole in the wall.

"Password?" He barks, his hand curling, pointedly, over the handle of his gyrojet. A threat.

It deters most people simply wandering by in search of sin.

Except for the ones with an invitation. The password. That prized piece of information gets them access to a club funded by the Inner Circle.

Most of the clubs in this district are known for their loose morals and shady rules, but none are as infamous as the White Horse, who dabbles in more than just pleasures of the flesh. A place where shady deals are conducted in secrecy in the opulent booths overlooking the stage. Where the madams, and misters overseeing the dancers turn a blind eye to illegal requests that are made.

A den of sin and filth wrapped in decadence. A place where anything goes so long as you have the money, the power, the status. Where nothing is barred, and the beds on the upper level are never empty.

More money passes through here on a bad day than those living in squalor near the district will ever see in their extended lifespans.

Men spend impetuosity to drag the dancers away, the nanos shifting into something new, something garish, to their deviant delights.

And men like him are a dime a dozen. You can find one anywhere in the red light district, sipping on alcohol, and feasting on the libertine victuals offered for the taking. Nothing about him is particularly noteworthy. Another concealed face in the louche mouth of debauchery.

And yet—

He stands out.

The only vice he partakes in is a cigar and drink. He doesn't let his eyes linger on the soft curves of the dancers, or the bared flesh they offer up. He watches with a detached, almost clinical disinterest.

Maybe, then, it isn't so much of what he is, but rather what he isn't.

There is a wryness to him, a soft derision in his steel gaze that seems out of place in a seedy bar filled to the brim with licentiousness. Most men come to quench their lustful appetite on the display of grandeur in front of them, making demands with a press of their finger to shape the dancers in front of them to whatever matches their hunger.

None of them has ever looked so disgusted.

He tries to hide it, face folding into something passive, nonchalant, when he thinks people are staring, or when the barkeep makes his way over to pour him another shot, but it breaks sometimes. Beneath the rim of his odd bucket hat, startling blue eyes morph into contempt at the men around him. Even with the rim pulled down low over his brow, covering the colombina mask concealing the upper portion of his face, you catch the anger frothing in cerulean.

It's an odd look considering where he is, and the prestige, the importance (both financial and influential) that he must carry just to be let inside, and yet—

Scorn. Derision. Disgust.

None of it is directed at the dancers gyrating on the flashing stage, putting on a grand performance of a technological prowess yet to be made available to the general public. Their willingness to contort their artificial bodies into various forms—men, women, genderless beings, animalistic features, elongated limbs, and a whole host of pabulum effigies—just for the paying patrons' lustful amusement incites none of the blunt disdain he directs at the men and women around him.

It's not the performers, then, but the audience.

Some come here with their status placed upon their head like a crown, chin refusing to dip down an inch lest the artificial diadem slip from their clinging fingers. They wear their aristocracy like a perfume, letting it permeate in the air surrounding them for all to inhale, to notice. They like to pretend they aren't enticed by the display available to them and are often mockingly cruel to the dancers, and the workers catering to their paying whims. It's a game to them. Coming here is a sport. A fulfilment of a quota.

An invitation alone is worth more than the going price of most cities, and the opportunity to maybe rub elbows with the financier of the establishment is enough to make greed spin in their eyes.

As cruel as they are to the staff, and as much as they like to lift their noses high in contempt, it's a farce. They're posturing.

The intrigue in their green eyes doesn't mask their peacocking.

His, you find, is genuine.

But why?

It's there that he makes his fatal mistake.

A man, a regular from Verdansk, grabs a passing dancer a little too hard, jostling their shoulder until metal grinds together in a piercing whine that goes wholly ignored in the pulsing bass, and jeers from the crowd.

He pulls them down, a lustrous smirk creeping across his face, and whispers something in their ear before jerking his chin toward the upper deck where the rooms are.

The exchange, his rough treatment of them, goes largely unnoticed—or rather, ignored—by the crowd. It's hardly a spectacle—not worthy of their attention like the display on the stage.

But he catches it.

Amongst the vile sycophants and their greedy stares, he stands out in stark contrast when his eyes narrow in anger, knuckles whitening around the glass.

You've only heard of his type in passing. The kind that thinks they're sticking up for something greater than themselves.

A hero. A martyr. A saviour.

Muted whispers in shadows. Promises they'll never be able to keep burrowed into filament; sweet words laced with that detestable thing that rots your insides, and leaves you sick with apathy when it extinguishes. Jaded and wrong and—

His type poisons you with hope, and leaves it to crumble in the hollowed amphitheatre of your aching, mutilated chest when they realise it's futile and do the one thing they're best at: running.

For the greater good, of course.

The battered remains of love in shambles mean little to them when they place the world on their shoulders to absolve themselves of their sins. The weight of it crushes pity and sorrow and contrition and failure into a ground powder that they can sneeze away with—

I had no choice.

Heroes, you find, are usually just a pantomime of their internal ugliness. They lash out at what they name injustice but sometimes slip up and use their given name when calling everything wrong with the world, with them, into question.

It's a good thing that they usually avoid places like this.

One where the people who fight for good, for humanity—the ones who wave and blink and grin on the holographic advertisements on each major street corner, or wander around with their translucent skin and faux smiles as they shell out promises (and products) of a better tomorrow—let their faces twist in horrific depravity under the strobe lights and cover of darkness. Politicians. People in power.

It's enough to snuff out any sense of optimism.

This is a place where hope comes to die with a single press of a greasy finger against a holographic screen.

A man like him has no reason to tuck himself into the corner, eyes misting over in anger and contemptuous spite at the patrons who feed the rapid descent of mortality.

The sight of him gnarls a sense of unease in your chest. A burgeoning bloom of that poisonous seed they warned you to stay away from. The one that strikes like a cobra and burns like a molten rock against your skin. That leaves you a raw, gaping wound festering in the cesspool they make sanguine promises to pull you out of.

They never do.

They make grand claims about being given a prophecy of martyrdom, and how they must devote themselves, wholly, to a cause that never comes to fruition like it does in the aeons-old fairytale of a bygone era when romance meant something.

Your fingers curl over the golden bars of the gilded cage you've been left in, and you wonder through the raw ache in your chest as it splits open, another wound among many, who he's trying to save here.

Then, grimly, you wonder how long it'll take for him to give up like the rest.

Intrigue gnaws at you until the needling pinch of curiosity becomes too much to bear.

(Curiosity, and something you'd rather not think about—)

It's easy to slip away from your perch unnoticed. No one bothers with you much outside of bringing you to sporadic liaisons with the man who acts as a silent owner of the bar—among many, many other things—and you use that sense of anonymity to wander down to the ground floor, and toward the man sitting in the corner.

The difference between them and him is made more apparent when you move closer.

A cybernetic thumb and forefinger knead the skin over the bridge of his nose, eyes pinched shut in a passage of pain that flickers over his face. With him too preoccupied with his headache, he doesn't notice you sidle up, and you take the opportunity to study him with an eager gaze.

He's handsome.

Muted neon blue cuts through the skin of his cheeks, running over his cheekbones, and dipping down toward the corner of his mouth. A flash of metal on his temple peaks beneath the rim of his beanie, catching in the shadowed glow of the pink and purple strobe lights flashing through the dim room. The circular curve and the soft metallic give the impression of the beginnings of a cranial implant. One that costs a hefty price to upkeep, but gives the wearer unlimited access to information fed directly to their non-dominant eye.

It's something only issued to the military. To the police force.

But the shape of it is archaic, old. Something of a crest—a familial design unique to the big families, to the clubs, that run the city, or parts of it. Gangsters. Mercenaries. Merchants. Scholars. Politicians.

Nepotism, undoubtedly, shaped the enhancement, but the design is foreign to you. You think of the common ones—the local police force and security, Shadow Company; the innovative engineers of the Inner Circle; the Shepherd family and their long, and bloody, history of politicians, leaders—but none fit the intricate weavings snaking down his temple.

Another peculiarity to add to the growing list.

The limited light in the darkened auditorium colour him a chiaroscuro of light of blue and grainy black, and the way he keeps his palm positioned over his face as he rubs the tension from his brow leaves the rest of his face hidden from your prying gaze. A shame, you think, and make the mistake of moving closer.

Beneath a metal knuckle, his eye cracks open.

"I'm not interested."

The timbre of his voice is rough—a masculine rasp that's abrasive, and thick with something heavy in the back of his throat. It makes you shiver. You blame it on the noviceness of your incipient intrigue.

"Oh?" You mock, and offer back a shrug you hope is more blasè than perturbed. "That's kinda surprising in a place like this."

"I'm not here for that—" his words cut off with a sharp huff, voice tapering off as he digs his thumb into the divot between his brow until the skin is indented from the metal.

The way he says the word is full of an exhaustive sort of contempt: the kind that says he's tired. Of this, of the anger coursing through his veins.

A hero on the verge of cracking apart at the seams..

(It didn't take him long.)

He's a picture of bone-weariness when he bows his head over the table, elbows knocking against the surface with a harsh thud that makes you wince. He doesn't seem to notice it—or maybe he's so far gone, that anything that isn't bitter disappointment or the white-hot sting of rejection feels almost good to him. A break in the routine. A physical hurt in place of the emotional turmoil saviours like him must face.

If, of course, he even is one.

You question your original assessment of him when his wrist bends, and his long, thick fingers wrap around the rim of the glass.

A hero. Maybe you were wrong.

He looks like the same tired men who spend their waking hours working a job they hate, one that grinds against their skin until a hole forms and the wound begins to rot. Miserable. They reek of bitterness and discontentment. And when they're not being burnt out against the heel of a profession that doesn't even know they exist, much less care about the droop in their shoulders, the callouses, the ennui and megrim towards life, they combat the existential despair by saturating their organs in liquid formaldehyde to stop the slow, methodical rot of that pesky little thing called hope. Happiness.

You wonder if he came here for something different to numb the self-inflicted loneliness, or if all that anger he directs at the men is just a reflection of his desires that disgust him so much.

It's the crushing sense of disappointment that maybe you were wrong and, worse yet, maybe he was right.

(In this life, there are only idiotic hopefuls and those smart enough to know better.)

Still.

He's different in a way you're not used to. A man with rough edges and sour words; blunt and bludgeoning.

Interesting.

You wonder what makes him tick. What ugliness he's hiding, and what secrets he's running from.

His neck is thick, muscles tensing when he tosses his head back, and swallows down the last of his drink.

(You wonder what it would feel like to sink your teeth into his jugular—)

"I don't need another drink, either," he says, voice thick from the burn of alcohol, and little more than a growl.

You offer another shrug—one that he doesn't see when he bows his head again, palms scoring down his face.

"Again," you murmur, a fleeting tease. "Still not offering."

His thumb presses into his temple, index finger sliding over his forehead until it rests in his webspace. He inhales deeply in palpable exasperation, broad chest expanding and pulling the charcoal shirt taut across his shoulders.

"Then what the hell—"

His lids crack open, eyes sliding to the side as he stares at you, properly, for the first time since you wandered over.

The surprise in his gaze as he takes you in makes your heart jump, slamming harshly against its bone prison. His eyes—a deep, almost unending blue—are pretty. Piercing.

He swallows again, hand pulling away from his brow slowly—dazed, almost, as if he'd been expecting one of the dancers on stage instead of—

Well. You.

Human. Wholly.

It usually catches people off-guard to see someone so bare, so void of any visible enhancements or upgrades.

On the surface, anyway. The debt you wracked up from the man says something must have been done. That one day, you'll dig too deep into your tissue and find wires and cylindrical tubes instead of veins. A circuit board instead of a heart. An artificial stem instead of a brain.

More android than human.

Your teeth sink into the soft flesh around the corner of your mouth, and you brace yourself for it—for the—

"I didn't realise I talkin' to a bloody bot."

It doesn't prickle against your skin—one that bleeds red, and bruises in flaxen when you dig your fingers in hard enough. It doesn't.

"I'm not."

He blinks at you once, mystified, but then something in his gaze sharpens. A keen awareness, a spatial depth, that seems out of place on a mere man. You think of the holographic images of grizzly bears mid-hunt, stalking their prey through the thick furze, and then of the curiosity that dips from beady, ink-black eyes when they find something that disturbs their territory. An unknown thing—neither predator nor prey.

He turns in the seat, shifting until his body is facing you. His elbow rests on the table, hand dropping down again to hold onto the rim of his glass. The other drops to the back headrest of the seat.

He doesn't move over or offer you a spot to sit. A pointed gesture, you're sure. A sign of your disturbance. An unwelcome visitor.

You ignore it in favour of drinking in the display of his body, loose and lax in the seat with his knees spread, and the toes of his boots akimbo. His muscles flex under the tight, grey shirt, moving with each shuffle of his hips to get comfortable.

He's bigger than you thought. Threateningly so.

"That right?" He says the words slowly, and draws them out in that coarse voice of his.

His index finger taps a strange rhythm on the rim of the glass as he considers the weight of what you divulged, and your eyes are quickly drawn to his human hand—thick, scarred fingers; knuckles scabbed and cracked—and to his nails. They're short, and jagged. Grizzled. They're dirty, too. A fine line of dirt sits under the gnawed hyponychium, bitten down to the plate.

"Fancy that—a purist."

His words make you snort, and you tear your gaze away from his filthy nails—dirty hands—and shake your head in refusal. Dismay. Exasperation. Some amalgamation of them all.

He isn't the first to assume that of you, and you know he won't be the last.

Your physical appearance is startling to some who quickly think you're an android with your untainted skin, void of any visible enhancements like the ones cutting through his cheeks, etched into his temple, his chin. The entirety of his left hand.

Some consider the relationship between humans and technology to be almost symbiotic. After all, artificial intelligence, modern human evolution, and cybernetics wouldn't exist without the fundamental human imagination, nor their human hands to construct life into these grand things.

It usually falls into two categories—technological subservience: those who believe AI, androids, robots, cyborgs, and nanobots were created by humans and therefore, belonged to humans; and technological coexistence: the merger between us and them until the lines blur, and it becomes one and the same.

(Or, more extreme: technological dominance—zealots who believe that god exists in the mainframe of AI, and worship them like deities.)

On the opposite scale lies the purists. Those who believe that the relationship is not symbiotic, but parasitic. A curse.

"Hardly—" The defensiveness in your tone makes you wince, and you soften the edge of your words when his forehead creases, adding: "It's all internal."

"Internal, huh," his eyes dip, rolling down the length of your body as if confirming your claims. The weight of his gaze makes your skin burn, blistering under the intensity of his bold stare. "That's unusual, ain't it?"

"Not where I'm from."

"And where is that, hmm?"

The way his voice tapers off into a growl makes you shiver. Feverish.

Dangerous. This man is dangerous.

"I—" You swallow down the thick pool of anxiety that swells in the back of your throat. You're not afraid of him, but there's this overwhelming sense of intimidation that bleeds from the furrow of his brow, the unrelenting stare he fixes on you—almost as if you're being interrogated. Unease makes your stomach churn.

Maybe this was a mistake—

His eyebrows lift in a silent display of impatience.

It's not something you speak about openly—or at all, really—but the words brim on your tongue, as if pulled there by the magnetic draw of the man sitting in front of you, fingers tapping against the rim of the empty glass while the other reaches over his chest, torso twisting as he blindly pats around for the cigar burning away in the ashtray.

"I don't know," you murmur, letting the words puncture your chest when they slip past the seam of your lips. "Don't remember much of it."

He considers your words with a slight tilt of his head. Thick, metallic fingers draw the burning cigar to his full mouth, partially hidden behind the wry curls around his lips and chin. He settles in his seat again, eyes lidded, heavy.

"That so?"

The end burns orange when he draws in a mouthful of tobacco-saturated smoke, eyes creasing slightly as the endorphins bloom under the deluge of nicotine coursing through him.

The sight of him, thick thighs spread over the polymer seat of the booth, elbow resting on the table with his wrist bent, fingers still on the rim of the glass, cigar in his other hand, makes something warm fill your chest.

Trepidation, you hope.

You offer a shaky shrug in response, and nothing more.

He hums. "Unusual, innit? Not rememberin'."

The entire history of your life is a black hole until three years ago when you woke up in a luxury hospital room with an unplayable debt on your head and a body that has never really felt like your own.

(A man, maker, who called himself your saviour, and ensured you'd never really be free.)

You echo the words he said to you all those years ago when you asked who you were, where you came from, and why you didn't know—

"It must not be worth knowing."

It's a murmured echo not meant to be taken seriously. There's no deeper meaning behind the regurgitated words that ring out in your head; a quick response to those questions that rear late at night when you can't sleep, and your mind wants to torture you further.

It doesn't matter.

And really, it doesn't. You can't remember it, and in the three years you've been living, reacclimating to the idea of recall and recollection, no one has ever tried to find you.

There's no memo being sent out to the great beyond with your name or face attached to it. No one but him has claimed to know you. To care.

Whatever happened in that life is gone. Empty. A black void of nothing, not even embers or a crackling voice. It's a hole where your sense of belonging goes to rot.

It does not matter. Not anymore.

But the way he flinches at your words—a barely concealed jerk of his limbs, half-aborted when he realises he's doing it—makes you think, for the first time in three years, that it might.

It's swallowed down by a flash of teeth peaking through his amber beard. A rictus grin greets your words.

"That so?"

All you can do is nod.

"Doesn't help convince me you ain't a bot."

"I'm not."

His brow ticks up. "Do bots know their bots? Androids can be made to think, created with sentience, but they aren't. It's only when they hurt, do they realise—they were never human at all."

Your chest tightens. He didn't just strike a nerve, he bludgeoned into it.

"I am," you argue, but the words are less sure, firm, than you want them to be. They tumble out, shaky and filled with the fears that have been twisting inside your head since you blinked into existence, and read accounts of androids doing the same. "I bleed. I hurt. I feel. I think. I—"

He bites on the end of his cigar before drawing both hands up in front of him, palms open and facing you.

"Easy, there." He mutters, voice low and muffed around the stem of the cigar, and—

Soothing.

"I'm only teasin' you. If you say you're human, you're human. That's all that matters, mm?"

You shudder. "I am, I—"

"What's your name?"

You echo the name given to you when you woke up in a daze and were told to meet the man who saved your life. The one he greeted you with when he welcomed you into his luxury office of cut mahogany and reinforced carbon.

When it slips out, the pinch between his brow deepens.

"That's your name? Or is that just what they call you?"

"It's—" you flounder for a moment. "It's my name."

"You don't sound too sure."

"Can I be sure of anything?" You volley back, venom leaking into the words.

"You haven't gone lookin'?"

"For what?"

Where would you even start?

"You know…" he begins, shifting in his seat once more. There is a tension in his brow. An even curl to his lips, teeth still bared. "I try to find people like you. Bring them home. To justice—or whatever that might be. A lot of 'em claim to not remember, to not know what they did, or why they ran. You tellin' me somethin' similar, love?"

"I'm not missing."

His eyes are filmed with a facsimile of something placid. Even. But there is a current beneath the surface. A raging torrent of unsettled water churning up the seabed. It'll drag you to the bottom, and press you flat against the rocks as it roars above you.

You might be able to crack your eyes open under the swell, fingers digging into the murky sediment below your supine body, and vaguely make out of the rippling surface. A taunting mirage just within reach but the tumultuous waves would crush your fingers for even trying to grasp for it.

You shiver.

"You sure about that, love?"

Love. Love. The words stick against some part of your head, clinging to the fibrils and ringing across gyri until every synapse rattles with the heavy tenor splitting you apart.

"—Do you know me?"

The look surfaces.

"No." You seldom feel hopeful that anyone does anymore. Maybe on a distant planet, in a distant city, someone is still looking for you. "But I am lookin' for someone."

"Looking—" your brow furrows together as you eye him warily. Concern etches into your chest. Knotting tight like a spooled ball. "Looking for who?"

He shrugs.

He shifts in his seat, brings his hand away from the glass, reaches into the sherpa-covered folds of his jacket, and pulls out a small device. He proffers it to you, the design is reminiscent of a netphone, but—

Out of date.

You stifle a grin as you take it from him, but it's barely hidden, and he huffs when he catches sight of it. A soft chuff of mirth spilling from between full lips.

"Watch it," he mutters.

Your eyes run along the length of the thin phone—dark chrome, chipped in some places along the sleek, curved edges, but the screen is intact—and you marvel at the oddity presented to you. It's not like the netphones made by Four Horseman Corp., but the design is almost a replica.

The man reaches up, and presses his cybernetic finger against a small, concave placeholder near what must be the mouth of the device, and the screen flickers to life.

A man stares back at you. His hair is blond with the sides shaved, and the top long. Handsome, you think, with his full lips, and long nose. The light dusting of his beard around his cheeks and moustache—just as blond as his hair. He looks like the models that pose on the holographic glass of the boutiques downtown.

"Who is he?"

"Alex Keller. He's been missing for six days."

Six days.

Something ugly rots inside of you.

"And you think he's been here?"

"Last place he was."

"Couldn't be," you murmur, shaking your head. "I'm here almost every night, and I've never seen him before."

"Might not 'ave noticed him, bein' so distracted 'an all."

"Distracted?"

Your lift your chin, confusion etched into your furrowing brow.

When he catches your eye, he jerks his head toward the stage. "You work here, don't you?"

"Work—"

It never really occurred to you that he'd think you were a dancer. A working bot. An android. Pleasure Androids—a disgusting attempt at cheekiness from the makers; the slogan on the advertisement makes pledges and promises about the state of the art pleasure-bots designed to suit your needs, upgraded now with nanobots that change their shape, their anatomy, in the blink of an eye.

You exhale through your nose. It isn't the first time you've been mistaken as such, and maybe if you were, the debt would have some small indent in it by now, but—

"No, I'm not allowed." You murmur, shrugging. "I know the owner so I just come here sometimes to hang out. People watch." A wry smile twists at the corner of your lips. "You see all manner of things in a place like this. Kinda entertaining if it wasn't so—"

Disgusting.

"You know the owner?"

His words are careful. Concise.

"Do you?"

He shouldn't. He is many things, but stupid isn't one of them.

The man says nothing, and gives away little more than a slight incline of his shoulders. Neither agreement nor refusal. His prevarication worries you.

"Hey, who did you say you were again?"

He brings the cigar to his lips, eyes never wavering from yours, and draws in a mouthful of chemical fumes. It was that intense stare that drew you to him, but now that the weight of it is on you, you find yourself feeling like little more than a bug under a microscope.

His chest rumbles when he shifts, twin funnels of smoke flaring from his nostrils. It disperses into wisps, and quickly scatters when it meets the fur lining his jacket.

"I didn't," he mumbles, voice pinched in a low, airy growl tinged with smoke. More evocation.

"Well," you add, brows notching up in a pointed gesture for him to continue.

He doesn't, opting instead to bring the cigar back to his mouth. Ashes drop, landing in his umber beard.

He's messing with you. Drawing your discomfort out.

"Who are you?"

The demand comes out less forcefully than you intended, words trembling with your surmounting unease.

It would be all too in character for him to send someone to spy on you, to catch you unawares, and to feed the hungry with his secrets.

"Doesn't matter."

Your glare does little to away him. "I'm leaving—"

"I'm just lookin' for my friend."

"Like I said, he couldn't be here. I've been here every night this month. I would have seen him." Seeing the gnarled expression that slips over his brow, a broken anger tinged with equal parts frustration and, most breakingly of all, desperation, you add, if only to soften the blow: "I can ask around, maybe. See if the workers know anything."

"I've been," he rasps, words still bleeding with his frustration. "They don't know anything."

You huff, shaking your head. "Asking those kinda questions here is what makes people go missing in the first place. Is that what your friend did? Come poking around and—"

Balming one wound just to prick at it later. Your words, the bitter sting, get you a flash of teeth, bared canines in sharp indignation.

The man leans forward, eyes pelagic and fixed, unflinching, on you. It makes you squirm. Heat blooms under your cheeks. The rush of it makes you dizzy.

"And what makes you special, then?"

You shrug, and hope the tremble in your limbs goes unnoticed. "I get a free pass."

"Why?"

"It helps to know people."

"Like the owner."

"Yes," you murmur, voice laced with your hesitation. "Like him."

"Him, hmm?" His eyes narrow. "And his name wouldn't happen to be Vladimir Makarov, would it?"

"How—?" Then, hastily, you add: "No. The tech mogul? No. Why—why would—"

"Save it." He reaches into his breast pocket and draws out a sleek, black card. Cupping it in the palm of his hand, fingers curled over the edge, thumb braced against the side, he tilts the screen. Immediately, the black filmed surface under his thumb shivers, flickering into a shape. A logo.

The emblem makes your eyes widen. "Military police?"

He hums. When his thumb pulls away from the surface, it changes back to a blank, black rectangle. Void of any meaning. Any substance.

Your breath quickens when he slides it back into his pocket.

"Why are you—"

"Makarov's been naughty, hasn't he? The future Zakhaev promised is a bright one, isn't it? Better eyesight. Better sense of smell. New, indestructible limbs—" He rolls the knuckles of his cybernetic hand at you, appendages moving instantly. "Stop ageing. Stop getting sick. Everything that could kill us is no longer an issue, hmm? For a price, of course."

"Nothing in life is free—" the words are ripped from Imran's advertisement ages ago. Nothing in life is free, but sometimes a better tomorrow is worth the price of today.

"Yeah," he murmurs. "Just get a loan through the Four Horseman, hmm? Pay them back a paltry sum every month. Worry about the payment later—upgrade yourself now."

The new slogan. You try not to shiver under his abrasive, scorching stare.

"But," he continues, shrugging. "When you can't pay, is he the one who sends his henchmen after them? The ultranationalists. The ones that take back his tech through force and sell the parts on the black market. And—" his eyes harden. "The cycle repeats. People die, debts go unpaid, and yet—mysteriously enough, he grows richer. Now, why is that, mm? How can that be possible?"

"Makarov isn't connected to the Ultranationalists. He's—"

"A businessman? A pseudo-politician? A philanthropist just tryin' to make the world a better place, hmm?" He leans forward, eyes cutting into jagged ashlar. "Then why is the Horseman funding them?"

"He isn't. It must be some kind of mistake—"

"You say that like you know him. Know him personally."

"I don't—"

"Don't lie to me, love. Won't do you any good." He leans back, hand falling to the side of his glass. He taps out a strange rhythm with his index finger—the old tune of some forgotten song. Tap, tap, tap-tap, tap. "I heard about you."

His words are a strangled pressure around your throat. Heard about you. Impossible. No one has. No one ever does. You're as invisible as Makarov wants, followed around by his henchmen at a sizable distance. They never bother interacting with you. Never speak unless they have to.

You're a flea hiding in the soft coat of a millionaire. Unneeded. Unwanted. A burden.

Your circle mostly consists of people who frequent the underground. The black market where you can find almost anything for a price—even the age-old books about fairytales and fantastical adventures. Information, too, if you know what you ask for.

Your face has never shown up on a missing person bulletin. No one has ever asked about you.

(No one cares, no one knows—

—six days.

Three years.

It doesn't matter—)

In your crushing silence, the man's eyes narrow. There is no flash of victory in his gaze, but you scent the arousal of a predator stalking its weakened prey nevertheless.

"Heard 'bout your debt, too—" he tuts, a rasping coo that sounds how you imagine the bristled tongue of a big cat would feel shredding your skin. "He's the one who saved you, ain't he?"

It becomes too much. The pressure bubbles over.

All your meagre years of existence have taught you to quell the surge of fight or flight, to push it down and stand firm, stoic, amid the array of nefarious people who happened to cross your lonely path in the catacombs where they barter over lives, and makes deals with the devil for any number of precious commodities—even people. A person with a debt, you found, is worth significantly less than someone without. A truism you've heard hissed into your ears when you turned their offer of freedom down.

Handing the leash from one hand to another is hardly autonomous.

You know from these experiences that any sense of weakness or fear is blood in the water. A struggling fish on the verge of being eaten by the predators lured in by its futile struggle to stay alive.

In its effort to survive, it inadvertently signs its death warrant.

If you don't look like you belong, then you don't. A simple fact you've picked up from years of weaving in and out of Makarov's towering shadow.

It's easy to forge some sense of delusive confidence in the face of those people, the ones who clutch at your arms hard enough to leave an ache in your bones, but something about his composure, his gall, to approach you like this makes that carefully constructed mask crumble into broken pieces at your trembling feet.

His eyes, you think. They're not the flat, empty gaze of a predator sparking to life when a piece of meat is dangled in front of it, but something deadlier.

The assured placidity of a man who can play the long game; a hunter who is used to stalking his prey over long distances.

The look in his eyes says he can wait this out for as long as it takes.

Fight or flight. You've crushed the concept down to basal parts: a silly whim that will just get you killed. Fight and you'll be forced to contend with people who've been doing this a lot longer than you have. Flee and you'll never be allowed back inside.

You've never had any choice but to ride the high of adrenaline and paranoia out until they got bored with your vacant stoicism.

(Or—when in doubt—use your trump card of touch me again and do you have any idea what Makarov will do to you?)

Somehow, you know neither option will work on him.

And it itches under your skin. Hackles raising. Heart pulsing. Blood rushing with the heady cocktail of adrenaline.

You turn, ready to flee, but his hand lashes out through the shadows, catching your forearm in a tight grip.

"Look, love," he murmurs, words low, guttural, like he's speaking to a cornered animal. "This is bigger than you. Than me. Do you want that debt gone? To be free of 'im? Well, here's your chance."

A test. The information he knows is too much for any regular officer—even a military one.

"Makarov isn't like that."

There's a flash of something—disappointment, maybe; disgust—but it's gone in an instant. Hidden behind layers and layers of distance.

"Maybe not. But several of his companies showed up on someone's ledger. We know this person wasn't a partner in the Horseman. He wasn't one of the four. But he was collecting money from Makarov."

"It's probably through his charity fund."

"Don't you wanna know why your saviour is funnelling money to corrupt officials? Or why do people who can't pay for upgrades end up dead on the street? Stripped down like a piece of meat and sold for profit. Doesn't any of this concern you?"

"Makarov would never do that—he'd never stain his public image."

"He isn't the man you think he is. None of them are."

"Maybe you're not the man I thought you were. Maybe coming over here was a mistake."

An impasse. Uncrossable.

He's a rat, you think. A plant from Makarov to test your resolve. Your will.

The glare on your face hardens. Yuri must have told him your type. Must have let it slip the kind of man that seems to catch your interest. Broad shoulders, thick thighs. A tapered waist. Gruff, chiselled men with dirty hands, stained from hard work. Honest, good men.

Men who belong in fairy tales. Blacksmiths and forgers. Miners. Ironworkers. The kind who wants nothing in life but simplicity, a warm bed, and a hearty meal. Ones who stand up to injustices but would never, ever call themselves a hero.

A rough gentlemen that wouldn't even consider themselves as such.

Stupid. How stupid.

He was always too good to be true. You should have known better.

When the silence stretches on, pulled taut like a rubber band, he huffs. Shattering the icy tension with another roll of his massive shoulder.

"Here," he reaches into the folds of his jacket once more, and retrieves a new card. A chip. "If you ever change your mind, gimme a call."

Makarov is a smart man.

"I won't."

But he's raised you to be smarter.

Makarov is many things—a money-hungry monster included—but above all of that, he's a businessman with a reputation.

He's only one-fourth of a massive tech conglomerate that puts public relations and corporate profits over everything else—even personal gain. None of the heads makes any decisions without express permission from everyone who eats at the table. Doing otherwise would get you killed.

Have you ever heard the story of a hydra? That's what we are. Four horsemen. The heads might change but there will always be four.

To do something like this would put him at direct odds of everything the Horsemen, the Inner Circle, set forth to do. Risking it all to sell his own repossessed parts at a lower profit margin on the black market is absurd. Crazy.

He'll make more money on the interest each debt accumulates than he would having it paid off in full, or even wiped. It's an unspoken underline all the Horsemen profit from. Their own personal gain.

You can't see him losing that over a meagre payout in the black market.

And as a regular peruser of the market, you would have noticed him, or someone in his circle, down there.

(You know everyone down there.)

It's impossible.

And yet—

The run-in with the man rattles you still.

You're quick to deduce that he isn't a plant by Makarov. He'd never let one of his talk about him like that or accuse him of the kind of things that would bring the Horsemen together in a way that could only end with Makarov on trial.

It being Makarov is a gamble he'd never take.

But him not being on Makarov's payroll is equally risky. It's not exactly a secret that the Inner Circle runs around with shady groups—Ultranationalists., and Konni rogues being some of them—but nothing has ever been confirmed, and the Ultranationalists have never been loyal to anyone except their agenda.

People who tend to ask questions about the Horsemen are either added to the payroll or, if that doesn't work, silenced.

Military. They don't usually get involved in corporate affairs.

But you suppose a missing friend is enough to spur anyone on.

You should forget him. Should push him from your mind, and pretend he was just a figment of your imagination. Something that crawled from the foetid cesspit where hope rots, and stood in front of you offering sanctuary with hands that leaked pestilence down on the grungy floor of the club that bred and reared depravity.

What he was offering couldn't exist in the same space as that place.

But he knew you. Knew about your debt. The one thing you wanted more than anything else offered up in a chrome-plated palm. And—despite everything you've tried to erase it—the only group who'd have the ability to do so approaches you.

It's odd. This whole situation seems strange.

Offering up information on Makarov to the military in exchange for freedom. You know it isn't him. It can't be. The risks outweigh any potential money Makarov would make doing this. His life for a paltry sum when a single person's debt on their upgrades singlehandedly paid for several of his his penthouses in Al Mazrah.

Seems too good to be true, and you were taught to be wary of the hand that feeds you.

Logically, you know you should toss the chip away, and never deal with this again. Or, better yet, to hand it over to Makarov to deal with and bargain for a chunk to come from your debt.

If you were selfish, you would.

No.

If you weren't selfish, you would. But you are, so you don't. You don't because he didn't promise a chunk, he promised all. All of it. Gone. Erased. Voided. The balance on your head would be zero. Nothing. You'd be free of Makarov—a man who saved you only to imprison you in a gilded cage.

A man who is more enigma than you could ever begin to unravel.

Why he keeps you around on a short leash, content to let you weave in and out of his many assets as you please, only having to meet with him every few months in what feels like glorified check-ins to confirm you're still desperately seeking a way to sever the ties that are reinforced with steel.

The man is strange, but Makarov and his murky intentions for you are even more so.

It makes those needling questions rear again. Ones that can't help but wonder if Makarov keeps you around because you happen to be his greatest achievement: manufactured sentience.

After all, even the most sentient androids in the world know, fundamentally, that they are not humans. There is a categorical difference, and the idea of false humanity was deemed too cruel to bestow upon someone—android, cyborg, or otherwise—and so, telling you outright that your insides are an immaculately designed machine is not only illegal, but it's also the one thing he'll do anything to avoid—

"—a PR nightmare," he spits, words soaked in the same venom that leaks from his narrowed glare. You watch the implosion from your perch near the floor-to-ceiling window in his penthouse, eyes gazing impassively out at the technicolour city sprawling below. His voice carries through the room. "A fucking—"

Disaster.

In a stroke of unfortunate luck, someone in the local police department made a report on a man left for dead in the gritty downtown streets of the city—affectionately named Killhouse—after being stripped of all his implants with near-surgical precision.

No one ever reports on these specific cases because of how often they happen, and where. It's no secret the police keep a wide distance around the area that moonlights as a broken redlight district and the entrance to the black market. It's almost wholly under the thumb of the constantly warring Vanguards—the Hellhounds and the Tyrants are almost always in some type of civil dispute—and a very not-so-secret secret is that they pay the police to turn the other way.

This, then, is quite a deviation in how things are normally done.

His debt to Four Horseman Corp is made known to the world—an insurmountable number that never seems to decrease due to the exorbitant interest piled high.

It brings about uncomfortable questions, and the greedy outlets sink their claws into the morsel offered like starving rats scavenging for scraps. They plaster it everywhere until a discussion starts.

Why is interest so high?

The discourse surrounding the oligarchy on technology is not a new one by any means, but for the first time in a very long time, it doesn't feel like it's going to get swept away anytime soon. The launch of their new nanotechnology is halted until it dies down. Until the media circus has quieted enough not to let sales of a new product tank.

PR nightmare, indeed.

The timing is suspicious, but the cop who made the report is new enough that it doesn't raise too many eyebrows. Human error. A simple mistake.

You think back to the man, fingers idly running over the groove of the chip you told yourself you'd toss out nine times already, and wonder if it's connected.

Makarov's call wasn't too impromptu considering he regularly likes to check in, but he sent Anatoly instead of Yuri and something about the brutal man leering at you sets your teeth on edge.

His usual meetings mainly just consist of him lauding your neverending debt over your head, and reminding you he doesn't accept dirty money. And, of course, to gather names.

Your appearances at the White Horse are less about contemplating the depravity of the upper echelon, and assembling a list of men and women who visit, and what they purchase.

Makarov's greatest achievement—and his biggest spy.

"You hear anything?"

In the darkened glass, his reflection lifts his head from where it was bowed over a netpad, angry eyes skimming through the abundance of articles, and fixes themselves on you. Narrowing.

"Hear what?"

"What else?" He huffs. Wrong answer. "Anything about this when you were at the club."

You haven't been back since that night, offering excuses to your watchman, and glorified chauffeur as to why you couldn't go.

"No," you say and hate the way your mind immediately flashes back to that man. "Nothing really."

He stands up from his chair—throne, really—and lays his palms flat on the surface of his chrome-plated desk. It sparks to life under his fingertips, LED lights flaring through the wires embedded into the grain. A holographic menu in net blue pops up in front of him.

The glass inverts the image, but you could make out the familiar cage anywhere.

"You left your post for a while. Borodin said you slipped away from him."

It's not outright accusatory yet, but you catch the paper-thin wisps of suspicion in his tone all the same.

It doesn't surprise you when he follows it up with, "so, where'd you go?"

"I saw someone," you shrug. "Wanted to get a better look."

"Who was it?"

"I don't know." It's not a lie. Not the whole truth, either, and you think he senses that.

"It wouldn't happen to be a police officer, would it? This stupid shit—," he lifts his hand, sweeping it across the articles drifting by in the side of the screen before laying it over his brow. "—could end me. And the timing, too."

Words bubble in your throat. You don't know what compels you to speak them aloud—maybe the needle of humour weaving through the conflicting tangle of everything gnarling inside of your chest—but they tumble from your lips without any regard to who, exactly, you're speaking to.

"Maybe once you're gone, I won't have to worry about my debt anymore."

The hand rubbing his forehead stills.

You tense, teeth sinking into your tongue until you taste blood. Stupid.

"Is that what you think, kitten?" Slowly, he lifts his head, hand sliding down until it covers his jaw. His eyes are burning. "You don't owe a debt to me—you owe a debt to the Inner Circle. Not the Horsemen, not Zakhaev. But to us."

You turn from the window with a sharp jerk, eyes widening. Despair sinks its claws into your jugular.

"You're an asset. An investment. The technology used to save your life is unprecedented. Do you think we'll just let you go? Do you know how long it'll take to pay your debt off, kitten? Five hundred and thirty-six years—and you're barely paying off the interest as it is."

Makarov often has his lackeys do the intimation for him—Anatoly in particular—while he hides behind the mask of a charismatic innovator just looking to improve the world. It's rare he ever raises his voice, or his hand.

This, the picture of anger perched behind his chrome throne, is the closest to something true to his real self than you'd ever seen before. Anger. Bitterness. Contempt.

He moves slowly around the desk, and you feel every second of it like a blunt stab to your chest. Trepidation, fear.

You've become so complacent with what Makarov pretends to be that you forget who he really was.

When he finally reaches you, the storm cloud in his gaze clears into something like sadistic victory. Vindication.

He leans down, his chin brushing over your cheek.

"You better hope nothing happens to me. I'm the only reason you're not being made to work for us as well. You like your freedom, yes? Then I suggest you pray I stay alive, kitten."

You stare at the image on the screen, and try not to let yourself weep at the sight of it so bluntly looming before you.

A debt owed to the Inner Circle.

A contact promising payment in addition to employment to them. The handler of the current account is Vladimir Makarov.

Maybe it's naïvety, ignorance, but you've always assumed the loan was only to Makarov. He was the first person you saw when you woke up—the first real one, anyway—and something about him seemed almost too big for the small room you were housed in. Too surreal. Everything felt new and strange and familiar and old and comforting and—

And then he said:

You know how this works, don't you?

You didn't. Or maybe, once upon a time, you did, but everything inside of your head was scraped clean with a scaple until the walls were barren and empty. Void of any substance.

Who you were was a black hole. A vaccum.

Makarov was the one who filled the vacant space with purpose. With meaning.

And you hated him for it.

Made to pretend to be whatever he decided fit his needs; a puppet for his amusement.

He owned you.

Made you whole again.

In that, you just assumed that he was the one who footed the exorbitant bill to resuscitate you from whatever hell you clawed out of, narrowly avoiding the gnashing maw of death. It made sense.

And in many ways, you just assumed that he would die.

A corrupt CEO. They're rampant here. Heads roll all the time, and you were content with waiting it out until someone put the barrel of a gun to his forehead and told him his tyranny was up. Freedom drenched in the blood of your financier.

Fitting, isn't it?

You were pulled from the blood-soaked cobblestone, and given a second breath of life by his hands.

Born in blood.

(Born in blood. Died in blood. Born in blood. Freed.)

You slip the chip into your phone, breath held in your throat as the calling card loads.

It's archaic. No one uses these chips anymore except old people, and the government. Untraceable. It's good for a single contact number only. The sight of it makes you huff—a shaky bloom of mirth in your chest.

It feels out of place. You trample it down, hiding it behind a mask of indifference, nonchalance. The same veneer Makarov glues to his own.

(Something you'd rather not think about.)

The screen idles for a moment. No answer. A sham call. A fakeout. A—

He doesn't appear on the screen. It's blank. In the black surface, your sallow face stares back. Traitor.

"I was wonderin' when you'd call."

"You expected me to?"

"If you were smart, you would have."

"If I was actually smart, I wouldn't be calling you at all."

"Mm, I'm glad you did," he murmurs, voice tinny and thin through the speaker. "A debt that big won't just go away…"

It stings. You swallow it down. "Yeah. Guess you got that right."

"What's wrong?"

"Aw, do you care? That's sweet."

"I've been called many things, love. Sweet ain't one of them." He shifts. You hear the clink of his metal fingers tapping over the ancient phone in his hand. A surly old man with an old chip. You stifle a laugh. It's ridiculous. You're ridiculous. This whole thing is—

"—Important that we find the link between the missing parts and Makarov. It might lead us to Alex, and—"

"Huh?" You blink. "I never said I'd—"

"Go see what you can dig up for me. I need something—a paper trail. I can't get into the black market, but you can."

"How do you know what?"

"Know a bit about you, love."

"How?"

"You ain't the only one with friends in high places." Another shift. The grind of metal against metal. "Now, are you in? Or are you gonna try and pay this debt off on your own, hmm? How long will that take you? Few hundred years?"

"Makarov will kill me if I do this—"

"And how many people will be killed if you don't?"

You don't answer. Can't. That responsibility shouldn't be on your head.

He sighs. A rough huff of static through the line.

"If you want that debt gone, meet me at the location m'gonna send you. You called for a reason. Makarov can't touch you if you owe him nothing. Their ship is sinkin', love. You gonna go down with them? Be a prisoner your whole life? Or are you gonna be smart an' abandon ship while you still have the chance, because once I leave that place, m'not gonna answer again. You'll be on your own."

"I'll think about it."

"Make the smart choice, love."

He doesn't give you anything else. The line goes dead with a click. Silence. Unbearable. Stifling. It permeates in the air around you, buzzing like static. A disturbance in the airwaves. A rustle in the stagnant life you've been sloughing through for the last three years.

A moment later, your phone chimes. A map appears. Some remote bar on the outskirts of the city—the only place Makarov's influence doesn't reach.

Make the smart choice. It's your freedom or your head.

#captain john price x reader #john price x reader #captain price #john price #captain john price #captain price x you #captain john price x you #finally #she's here #and she is a behemoth #price cod #cod but make it Cyberpunk #cyberpunk au #cod au #cod cyberpunk #captain john price x cyberpunk au

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alimaybankkk · 2 years

Text

sunshine PART TWO

part 1 heree

summary: the pogues r vv curious..

warnings: i don’t think any?? besides violence lol

pairing: jj maybank x fem!routledge!innocent! reader

————————————————————————

kie held your hand, walking alongside you down the beach.

“ooh!” you cried, bending down to pick up a water bottle and stuffing it into your garbage bag.

the sun was still rising, and kie had no energy to do anything but walk this early in the morning. she groaned, pointing to the sand. “sit?”

you shook your head. “kie, you’re all about saving the earth. what’s going on?”

“tired…”

you were an early bird. you were up early every morning in some kind of cute outfit to watch the sunrise. you needed some sunshine as early as possible.

you sighed. “you’re right. maybe i should have asked someone else.”

kie raised an eyebrow. “like who?”

you grinned, starting to walk a bit ahead. your outfit today was a flowy purple shirt and cutoffs.

“seriously, y/n, who?”

you shrugged innocently and kneeled on the shore, picking up a seashell. “look how pretty!”

kie rolled her eyes, angry you were secret keeping. “let’s go. i wanna go home.”

you frowned and stood, shoving the seashell into your back pocket.

“you got a new necklace,” kie acknowledged quietly.

you blushed, feeling the necklace around your neck. “yeah, i did.”

“i didn’t know you used those beads. are those yours?”

you shook your head and walked faster.

* the pogues had once more left you out of their discussion, leaving you dangling your feet into the hot tub and reading a book.

jj watched you from the side of his eye, barely listening to the conversation being presented in front of him.

kie cleared her throat. “so i think your little sister as a mystery man, jb.”

jj’s head immediately flung back to the group, gasping at her words.

john b scowled. “i’ll kill him.”

“chill out, man,” pope said. “we don’t know who it is yet.”

“she really likes him, i think,” kie said.

jj hid his crossed fingers behind his back. he knew they were probably talking about him, but there was always a possibility there was another boy.

“i don’t care if she likes him or not.” john b growled.

sarah grabbed his hand. “no, it’s cute. she’s in love.”

“we have to figure out who it is,” cleo insisted. there was a hum of agreement from the group.

kiara nudged jj. “you good?”

he bit his lip. “yeah, i’m good.”

“well, how can we figure this out?” cleo asked.

john b looked at jj and raised an eyebrow.

jj sighed, hiding his excitement. he’d finally have a reason to talk to you. “i’ll go talk to her.”

he stood and jb slapped him on the back and watched him walk over there.

kiara shrugged. “i wish it was him. they are like childhood lovers.”

john b gave her a look. “i’ve made it very clear she’s off limits.”

jj approached you, sending you a smile. “hey, princess.”

you looked up, grinning excitedly. you went to kiss him, but he held you back, turning around. “you can’t kiss me, baby.”

you frowned, heart breaking. “why not?”

“they’re watching us. let’s just talk.”

you nodded, disappointed. “got another tan,” you told him.

he nodded. “saw that. very pretty.”

you nodded and looked at his wrist, grinning when you saw his bracelet. he returned the favor when he saw your necklace.

“so, they’re talking about you over there,” jj said.

you frowned. “why?”

“kie said something about a ‘mystery man’ of yours. someone i know, baby?”

you giggled. “maybe.”

he grinned, looking up to the sky. you grabbed his hand. “why can’t we tell them?”

jj looked at you with sadness, knowing you were all he wanted. “i would tell them, baby, it’s just your brother.”

you nodded, frowning. he sighed and stood up. “gotta go. i love you, baby.” he ruffled your hair.

“i love you, jj.” you said in a sad voice as he walked away.

“anything?” sarah asked when he came back.

jj shrugged. “she won’t crack.”

————————————————————————

“so our plan is,” john b clarified, leaning against the wall of the chateau hours later. “jj drives her out of her room and then we sneak and take her phone. plan?”

“and what if she takes the phone with her?” pope asked.

“she doesn’t really care about her phone. she’ll most likely leave it. plus when she’s alone with jj, he’s like her best friend so he entertains her. right, j?”

jj rolled his eyes. “i still really don’t like this plan. we’re already invading enough, but stealing her phone? i mean, come on, man!”

“what’s up with you, rude boy?” cleo asked.

he cocked his head to the side. “never mind. let’s do it.”

kie raised an eyebrow but nodded. she wanted to figure out what was driving her best friend crazy. “let’s go.”

and so they walked down the hallway, everyone but jj stopping to cram into the bathroom.

“ow! get off, man!” cleo yelped, elbowing pope in the gut.

“fuck off!” he growled.

“shh!” sarah covered his mouth and john b ran his fingers through his hair.

“this is the least heated situation we’ve ever been in and yet it feels like the worst,” he said, pacing.

“john b, do you really think it’s right to go through your sister’s phone? she’s not ten anymore.” sarah asked.

he bit his lip, punching the wall. “shut your mouth, sarah!”

her eyes squeezed together and she flinched, about to cry. everyone in the crowded room grew silent.

“i’m sorry.” jb said. he wished his sister was still much younger than him, the one that would be tricked into cleaning and the one that loved sweets and princesses and playing mermaids. he couldn’t stand the fact you were growing up, and it gnawed at him day and night.

jj shuffled through the hallways rather loudly. he didn’t have to care about getting caught. he approached your room and did a little knock code you guys made when you were nine.

“jj?” you asked, setting down your remote.

“hey, princess,” he whispered.

you grinned, standing to kiss him. you were more than relieved when he kissed you back, grinning. “wanna come watch a movie with me?”

you looked at your tv. “okay.”

he grabbed your hand, followed by grabbing the phone that was on your bed.

leading you into the living room, he waited until the tv and the couch were set up to watch titanic before he unlocked his phone.

he texted the group chat, “clear,” and minutes later he heard very quiet shuffling.

you looked at him. “is everyone else home?”

he gave you a confused expression. “no-no, do you hear someone?”

“a big crowd of people,” you told him, sitting up and gripping his bicep.

he winced. he knew you relied on him to protect you, and it broke his heart to know that he was protecting you from himself. “just watch the movie, sweetheart.”

he checked his phone and saw a text from john b. her phones not in here. what do we do now?

he smirked and texted, find a new plan i guess? without me though. i can’t just leave her here. we’re watching a movie. also don’t come in. told her no one was home.

he mentally patted himself on the back. damn, you’re a genius, jj, he thought.

he sighed, turning his phone off and pulling you into his chest. he cuddled you for a little bit until you fell asleep and he slipped out of your grasp.

he gave you a kiss on the forehead before leaving the room, going outside to meet the pogues out back.

they were dangling their feet over the hot tub, discussing quietly about a plan.

“find nothing yet?” he called from the patio.

“jj, come here, you got to help us!” cleo yelled.

he sighed. “damn, they all just need me, don’t they?” he said to himself.

“coming!” he yelled back.

jogging to the hot tub, his brain missed the interpretation that there was a rope right where he ran, tripping him. he fell face flat, groaning.

john b got up quickly to help him up. jj groaned and felt around for his belongings that fell out of his pocket. his hands landed on his phone, but that’s when he noticed john b froze.

“jj,” john b asked slowly. “why do you have my sister’s phone?”

he winced, gripping the blades of grass underneath him. soon, he was surrounded by the rest of his friends. “damn, i thought that was mine!”

“you thought a bright yellow phone case was yours?” kiara asked.

“i—i didn’t see the phone case, guys. swear. if you want it, you can have it.” he swallowed.

john b gave him a look. “what’s going on?”

“i just really don’t think this is right, man!” jj cried.

“please,” cleo chuckled. “when have you ever cared about what’s right!”!

there were “yeah’s” and “mhm’s” from all around the group, but jj gripped a tighter hold on the phone.

“you know what, fuck you!” he yelled. “i made a promise to your sister when we were little that i would protect her no matter what. i’m going to follow through with that promise whether you like it or not.”

john b let his mouth fly open. “jj, i’m her brother. it’s fine, it’s just a phone.”

“then let it go, man!” jj exclaimed, standing up and brushing himself off. “there’s really no need for you to be going through her phone if it doesn’t matter that much. if you want to find out so badly, find out a different way.”

he picked up the phone and kicked the kickstand off of his bike and drove away, not before revving the engine and messing with the dirt in the lawn.

“get out of here, man!” john b said, flipping him off.

“john b?” you called, waiting until your older brother issued a grumpy ‘what?’ “have you seen my phone?”

there was silence for a second, but then he said. “no.”

you sighed, setting into your bed and diving into your book.

you heard a crash from outside and looked to your window.

that’s probably the kitten that’s been limping around!

you rushed to the window, hoping to catch it and save it, but instead, you stared into the eyes of the beautiful jj maybank.

“oh, hey, j,” you whispered, now understanding to be discreet.

he grinned, shoving you to make room for him to slip in. he kissed you and you giggled.

“i know we’re trying to keep secrets, but i’m sure john b wouldn’t mind if you showed up at your best friend’s house.”

he widened his eyes. “i’m sure he would, cupcake.”

you lifted an eyebrow. “why?”

he reached into his pocket and pulled out your phone. “long story short they’re trying to snoop and i interfered so they got mad.”

you grabbed your phone back from him. “did you go through it?”

“quite the opposite. why? got something to hide?”

“stop,” you smiled. “and no, not really. but if they found anything about you on it, they wouldn’t be too happy, would they?”

he shook his head. “that, princess, they would not.”

you nodded and climbed onto your bed. he followed you, slipping under l the covers with ease. he pulled you close to him, resting your head in his neck.

you only felt pure happiness before you drifted off.

“she’s sleeping, douche!” you heard. you sat up, startled by the noise. you felt empty when you didn’t see jj next to you, but you felt scared when you heard him in the hallway.

you stood up and walked into the kitchen, on the verge of tears when you saw a glass fly at jj’s head.

“john b?” you said quietly, causing the commotion in the room to stop.

“sis…” his voice trailed off, picking up a stray pillow that had been thrown near you. “sorry. i— um..”

you looked at jj who wiped his bloody lip. you gasped and sprung into action, grabbing a paper towel and raising it to his precious mouth.

“john b, did he fall?” you asked, knowing the answer was no.

he sighed, pinching the space between his brows. “no, sis… shit-i—”

“your brother’s a dick, princess.” jj said.

you looked up. you knew jj never called you that in front of john b.

“you guys have been sneaking around?” john b scoffed.

“don’t call it that, man!” jj cried, shoving john b’s chest.

“jj, no!” you cried, grabbing his hand. “please don’t hurt him.”

and then you gave him those puppy dog eyes that he adored and hated at the same time. he completely folded, apologizing under his breath.

“so yeah, you guys have been sneaking around?” john b asked.

jj tried to control his anger. “i said, don’t call it that.”

you looked at him. we are sneaking around though, right?

“you guys haven’t…” john b’s voice trailed off.

jj cringed. “fuck no.”

your heart sunk. not that you wanted to do anything like that anytime soon, but jj made it seem like it would be disgusting with you.

“oh.”

“can we not fight about this?” you asked, walking the boys to the couch.

“john b, man, i love her.” jj said, not making eye contact with him.

john b froze. “oh.”

you bit your lip. “i love him too.”

jj chuckled. “damn, jb, if you didn’t put me in charge of caring for her when we were little, then maybe i wouldn’t do it so much.”

john b nodded. “yeah, i guess this is mostly my fault.”

you nodded.

“okay, can we go back to sleep now?” jj asked.

john b chuckled, still nervous. “sure… i guess.. but don’t—yeah..”

jj made a face and nodded and grabbed your hand.

“no more hiding, baby.” he whispered to you.

you giggled.

“i have something for you,” you said once you were back on your bed.

he leaned back, excited. “gift away, princess.”

you pulled out a simple necklace you threw together. it was just a gold chain and a seashell in the middle.

you shrugged innocently and kneeled on the shore, picking up a seashell. “look how pretty!”

“i was doing a litter sweep on the beach with kie and found it. i thought of you.”

he grinned. “that reminds me. baby, i think of you all the time.” and he leaned in and kissed you before going back to bed.

#jj x reader #jj mayback x reader #jj maybank #jj mayback imagine #jj obx #jj maybank x reader #obx #obx fic #obx imagine #outerbanks #outer banks #outerbanks fic

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chaotic-anonymous · 10 months

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Welcome Home characters at the beach

Wally Darling

• No doubt that our favourite little guy would be staring down at something. Possibly a crab or perhaps a pretty sea shell

• Would be fascinated by things on the beach

• Might get buried in the sand

• "Oh. I'm shorter now." -Probably Wally who's buried in the sand.

Barnaby B. Beagle

• Would most probably jump into the sea the moment that they reach the beach. I mean he'll dash out the car on all fours and splash into the water.

• Is probably the one who buried Wally in the sand.

• Like he dug a hole in the sand and thought it'd be funny to bury Wally in there.

• Barnaby will dig Wally out later but might forget.

• I don't have much ideas for Barnaby. I'm sorry.

Frank Frankly

• Most like to not get in the water.

• Rather chill on a sun lounger and read his book.

• Might be interested in observing some bugs at the beach. Yes, apparently there are bugs at the beach.

• Has to save Eddie from his bug troubles yet again.

• Julie might beg for Frank to join them playing volleyball. Frank and Julie are a team!

Eddie Dear

• Being a mailman is tiring so I think he'll enjoy a relaxing day at the beach.

• A fun day at the beach with his friends? Great!

• I can see Eddie and Howdy playing volleyball together. And yes, they're competing against Frank and Julie.

• I imagine that Eddie would need Frank's protection from the beach bugs. Like Eddie would run to Frank if he saw a bug like a Rove Beetle or something.

Julie Joyful

• Absolutely loves the beach

• Like absolutely excited and enthusiastic about all the things you could do at the beach

• Definitely looking for pretty seashells to keep and decorate a sand castle with!

• Julie would absolutely try and build the most epic sand castle ever and claim herself as the ruler of the sand kingdom

Sally Starlet

• Can Sally really go in the water? I mean she's a literal star. Would she get put out/die in water or would she survive with cartoon logic?

• Either way I don't think Sally wants to go in the water because it'd probably ruin her sun spikes.

• I see Sally rather be chilling in the sun lounger as well.

Howdy Pillar

• Just like Eddie, Howdy would enjoy the beach as a day off from work at the bodega.

• Or maybe he'll still be running a business but at the beach instead

• I think Howdy would be selling things like sunscreen or sunglasses in exchange for seashells if he does decide to run a beach business

• Yes, seashell currency at the beach but I'm sure jokes and stories still work

Poppy Partridge

• She's definitely making sure that everyone remembers to put on their sunscreen. She wouldn't want anyone to get sunburns after all.

• The worried parent who is making sure that everyone is safe

• Is terrified of the sea. Definitely wouldn't go near the water.

• Instead, she'd be preparing food for everyone. A little beach picnic

That's all I could think of. This is my first time doing headcanons so sorry if it's bad. I may or may not have wrote this late at night.

#welcome home arg #welcome home puppet show #welcome home #wally darling #frank frankly #julie joyful #eddie dear #howdy pillar #poppy partridge #barnaby b beagle #sally starlet #welcome home headcanons #headcanon #headcanons

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twistedwonderlandshenanigans · 9 months

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Random HCs I Probably Overexplain - Deuce Edition 1!

Deuce was born deaf! Delia didn't know what was going on exactly, and it was a a lot for a first time, SINGLE mom to hear that her son...couldn't. It was overwhelming to say the least, but Delia had fought this hard to keep the son she had been told to give up, she wasn't going to give up at this point. Her relationship with her mother was strained because of it, but not completely cut off. She started learning sign language right away, even as she was finishing college with her newborn. Once she graduated she was lucky enough to find a job that would grant her flexibility for her kid, and after plenty of research she decided to save up to give Deuce cochlear implants. By the time he was three or four though, his love for blastcycles was already apparent. Though he couldn't hear them, when a few came down his street he could feel the vibrations and he got so giddy and giggly about it. Whenever Delia took him for a walk, when blastcycles came by he would get into a crawling position and just giggle his little head off as they went by. She wouldn't know until later, but his other senses were also slightly amplified by his magic. Delia ended up getting laid off when he was about four, but her mom and extended family surprised her with the funds she needed to get her son the cochlear implants she wanted to give him. Her mom let her move back in, and they slowly started to build their relationship again as Delia was able to job search and continue saving money. Meanwhile, during the day Delia could dedicate her time to helping her son adjust to the world of sounds. Deuce wasn't a huge fan of it for a while, but when he and his mom went on nature walks he loved it. He loved the sound of seashells clinking, the sound rocks made when they were thrown in the water, and found out that animals make noises. Delia was eventually able to buy her own house, a few hours away from her mom in case she needed help again. It was a very humble, very small house but it fit her and Deuce just fine. As he got older, she was able to make sure he had hearing aids that worked properly for him, but it often meant a lot of sacrifice on opportunities he couldn't have, or couldn't do. He was about twelve when this fear of missing out what his friends were doing and whatnot started to take root, and that fear of missing out turned into anger at not having the same opportunities as those around him because of the situation he and his mom were born into. He was never mad at his mom, just kind of at the world. He ended up being brought home when he was 14 by the police for trying to steal a blastcycle, but it was a small town so he was let off with a warning and out of respect for his mother, went back to the shop he tried to take it from to work for free for a bit. It was at the shop that he met a few punk kids that made a few poorly worded choices, and he ended up being top dog by accident. Finally feeling like he belonged though, he wasn't going to give it up and devolved into the delinquent we hear about in canon.

#v talks #twst #twisted wonderland #twst hcs #twst headcanons #deuce spade #twst deuce #random hcs I probably overexplain

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cartoonfanaticmonsterrobotalien · 10 months

Text

Solar Opposites in: Solar Monsters (by @avaveevo)

Ch. 3

The next day, Terry was getting stuff ready for the beach as he smiles at Korvo putting on his bathing suit and putting on the sunscreen on the Pupa as he wines.

Terry: takes a deep breath and sighs Finally, a real beach day for the Solar Opposites. Better than the last time we had to save a beach from a giant space lobster!

Korvo: Well thank God there isn’t any space toxic waste involved, which was sadly my bad. puts a beach hat on the Pupa and then a toddler-size swimsuit for the Pupa

Pupa: Fishies.

Korvo: That’s right Pupa, a real beach day for the Solars. Better to celebrate my accomplishment with a nice day at the beach for the family. Calling out Yumyulack? Jesse? Sonya? Are you almost done?!

Yumyulack: offscreen I’m ready!

Jesse: offscreen Almost ready! Trying to tie up my swimsuit and whoa! gets the swimsuit tied up by Sonya Thanks sis.

Sonya: offscreen No problem!

Korvo: sigh I knew I should’ve bought her a regular teenage girl’s swimsuit.

Two minutes later, Human Korvo drives bus to the beach as he began to breathe in the fresh air. He then check his eyes for some strange reason but he sighs in relief, which concerned human AISHA. Human Yumyulack then kept looking down at the pills as he sighs. Human Terry strokes Human Yumyulack’s hair softly as Human Yumyulack looks up and smile at his father. Then, the bus made it stop at the bus parking lot as the Human Solar Opposites got out the bus with joy.

Music for this scene:

Human Jesse: Yay! Finally some beach time!

Sonya: Oh boy! I’m gonna make a sandcastle!

Human Pupa: Yay!

Human Terry: Okay guys, just remember? Don’t do anything crazy sci-fi! Got it?!

Human Yumyulack, Human Jesse, Sonya and Human Pupa: Got it Terry!

Human Korvo: Now, let’s finally have some fun in the sun.

The kids cheer as they run to the beach in joy. After they found their spot, Human Korvo begins to relax as he sees the kids having fun. Sonya is a building sandcastle, Human Jesse is having fun in the water, Human Yumyulack is busy using a metal detector and Human Pupa is splashing in the water with Human Jesse keeping him safe.

Human Jesse: Easy there Pupa. We don’t want you to wonder off in the water.

Human Pupa: laughing as she splashed around in the water

Human Yumyulack: Come on! Come on! Give it to me. Papa like!

Human Korvo: calling out Don’t go searching for swords or other stuff with that metal detector now.

Human Yumyulack: Got it Korvo! detects a pipe that caused him to fall and scream

Human Korvo: sighs Teenagers.

Human Aisha: I know right? But, still adorable, right?

Human Korvo: Yeah.

As the Human Pupa continue having fun in the water, he suddenly hears something.

Beach Teen #1: You know what I heard from the other dude?

Beach Teen #2: What dude?

Beach Teen #1: I heard that one dude made it the snack shack on this beach and he made it! Got a free milkshake!

Human Pupa gasp and looks at the sigh with a milkshake on it. In wonder, the Human Pupa sneaks away from Human Jesse offscreen.

Human Jesse: picks up a pretty seashell Look Pupa, I found a… huh? sees Human Pupa not here

Human Jesse looks around and notices Pupa’s floaters near her family’s beach stuff and sees a skateboard bought.

Human Jesse: What?!

Sonya: What’s going on? gasp

Human Korvo: What is it- sees the Human Pupa on the skateboard Oh shit! Pupa!

Human Aisha: Damn it Pupa, not again!

The Human Pupa skateboards all around the beach’s sidewalk as everyone watches him. Two man dropped their cigarettes upon seeing Human Pupa skateboarding. A kid who was getting ice cream watch as the wind blew his ice cream on his face as he screams.

Ice Cream Kid: BRAIN FREEZE!

The Human Pupa continue skateboarding while his family watches in amazement. The only one who didn’t watch it is Human Terry, who is busy getting for him and his family at a beach store. Suddenly, one of wheels on the skateboard exploded and it starts grinding as Human Pupa gasp. The skateboard hits a rock as it made Human Pupa fly off it.

Human Pupa: twirling around in mid air while screaming

Human Korvo: Oh shit Pupa! Hang on! Korvo’s coming!

As Human Korvo runs up to catch the Pupa…

Mother: Now kids, let us thank the lord for this wonderful- Human Pupa hits the window Toddler!

Kids: Bountiful Toddler.

Kid #2: Amen!

Human Korvo helps get the Human Pupa unstuck as he sighs in relief and then the beach goers started to cheer for Human Pupa as a waiter hands a free strawberry milkshake over to Human Pupa.

Human Korvo: sighs What am I gonna do with you, you little rascal? tickles the Human Pupa on his tummy

Human Pupa: giggling

Meanwhile, Human Terry is about to return to his family with some beach snacks.

Human Terry: sighs Now, to bring some delicious snacks to my family and-

Mugger: Come on and give me your snacks. brings out a gun and clicks it

Human Terry: Hey! What do you think you're doing?!

Mugger: Shut the fuck up! Human Terry whimpers Fine, then how about some this! stabs Human Terry in the left arm

Human Terry: screaming voice FUCK!

As Human Terry held his bleeding left arm and starts breathing in and out, he looks as the mugger leaves and he stands up once Human Jesse saw the whole thing and runs up to her father.

Human Jesse: Holy shit! Terry, what happened?! Human Terry’s eyes develop tears as he began to whimper Terry? Are you… okay?

Human Terry breaks down into tears as Human Jesse puts her hand on his shoulder. A few minutes later, the police arrived upon the event as the doctors came and put a bandage on Human Terry’s left arm.

Human Korvo: Oh, my poor Terry. Officer, I want to press charges the mug who did this.

Human Terry: Thanks Korv…

Police Officer: Got it sir. Don’t worry, we’ll let you know when we found the mugger. Take care.

As the police and ambulance left, the kids look at Terry in worry.

Sonya: Mr. Korvo, is Mr. Terry gonna be okay?

Human Korvo: I’m sure he will. Hopefully.

Human Yumyulack: Aw Terry, we’re so sorry. We should’ve known. But, it’s gonna be okay.

Human Jesse: Oh Terry…

Human Pupa hugs Human Terry while crying and drinking his milkshake as tears run down the baby’s eyes. Suddenly, Human Terry started see his eye vision flashing orange as he began breathing in and out frantically.

Human Korvo: Terry? Why are you-

Human Terrry screams as he falls on his knees, which made his family gasp.

Human Korvo: Oh no! He must be having a trauma attack! Don’t worry honey, grabs Terry’s hand I have a solution to this, come on.

Human Korvo runs as he holds Human Terry’s hand and he made it to the ocean as the two husbands sit down and Human Terry started to calm down as he sees his husband’s hand on his.

Human Korvo: Feeling better...?

Human Terry: Yeah. Thanks, Korvy...

Human Terry then looks down as Human Korvo notice the depressed look on his husband’s face as the kids watches in worry.

Human Korvo: Honey, what’s wrong?

Human Terry: Korvo… don’t you think… I’m not brave…?

Human Korvo: No...you're very brave. You just have trouble using it.

Human Terry: Well, that’s the point Korvo. I am always afraid. All the time.

Human Korvo: What do you mean by tha-

Human Terry: Because, I AM ALWAYS AFRAID! Human Korvo yelps a little Ugh! I just hate it so much! Everyone time something horrific or bad comes up, I always act like a coward and just ran away! I’m not strong! I’m not brave! I’m just a fucking cowardly alien who doesn’t do anything right and just let fear take over him. sighs in frustration as he held his head down And I don’t think I’ll ever be brave, I never will be.

Human Korvo: Oh, Terry. I don't think you're any of those awful things...

The kids watch sadly at their dads as Human Korvo puts a comforting hand on Human Terry’s shoulder.

Human Korvo: You're the most bravest and most sexiest alien I ever knew. I'm happy to call you my husband.

Human Korvo kisses Human Terry on the cheek as Human Terry smiled. The two fell down the sand as they began to have sex on the beach.

Human Yumyulack, Human Jesse, Sonya and Human Pupa: Aw god! I’m gonna fucking hurl barfs in a trashcan Aw geez! Gross guys! Eeeewww!

Human Jesse covers Human Pupa’s eyes once Human Aisha then came back with some snacks.

Human Aisha: Got snack ya dummies! sees Human Korvo and Human Terry having snacks What the fuck did I miss?

Human Korvo and Human Terry continues to have sex while making out. The scene then flashes to two days later where it shows Human Korvo being awarded the Monthly Award as his friends and family cheer for him and congratulated him.

Cleveland Schroeder: Congratulations Korey Opposites! For this amazing new Beast Scanner! That saved so many innocent lives last week! Let’s give a huge hand for Human Korvo!

Human Korvo smiles as Human Terry kisses him on the cheek and Nova smiles at his side while a picture is taken and the newspaper press is spreader with the headline Korey Opposites, Scientist at GeenaDavisVille Labratories, won Monthly Award for amazing scanner. A few minutes later after the ceremony, the gang started to head home while Human Korvo heads to his room.

Kevin: Hey congrats Korvo!

Randall: Nice going man!

Mia: That is so amazing of what he invented!

Ms. Perez: See you at home!

Human Korvo: Okay guys, I’ll meet you down there later. I just need to go get something.

Human Terry: It’s good. I’ll stay with you.

Human Korvo: Now now Terry, I think it’s best if you head home while taking care of our kids. Let me know when the celebration is ready.

Human Terry: surprise at first but smiles and understands Okay honey, kisses Human Korvo on the cheek see you home. leaves I love you!

Human Korvo: smiling as he watches Human Terry leave I love you too…

Suddenly…

Beverly: Korey!

Human Korvo: groans

Beverly: I like to have a word with you. You may be all smart-ass and stuff but I…

But then, Human Korvo sees the bearded man from last night and runs off.

Beverly: What the?! Hey!

Human Korvo follows the bearded man, only to see him gone. He then sees a destroyed door with a knob destroyed as he sneaks in there. Human Korvo looks around and then sees the bearded man doing something as Human Korvo hides behind the wall.

Human Korvo: What the fuck?

Bearded Man: Let’s see, L-M. G-3. H-I. U-7. B…

As Human Korvo covers his mouth so he won’t get caught, he looks around, and gasp silently and then sees drawing and details on animals, beasts and men and women, especially horrific ones. That looked like if someone has fused man with beast as Human Korvo’s fingers began to go dark.

Human Korvo: Oh fuck…

As Human Korvo backs away, he accidentally stepped on something that made the beaded man turn around and see him.

Human Korvo: Shit shit shit!

Bearded Man: Well well well. If it isn’t the winner.

Human Korvo: Who are you?! What the fuck are you doing here?

Bearded Man: Korey, Korey, Korey…

Human Korvo: H-how did you know my na… suddenly looks closely at the man Wait a fucking second, I’ve seen your face…

Bearded Man: Oh well, I see you just ha-

Human Korvo: FBI Most wanted! You’re a criminal! notices his fingers going black and gasp

Beared Man: Huh? Very good point… for alien!

Human Korvo gasp and falls down screaming as he turns back into his Shlorpian self as he backs away on the floor.

Korvo: H-how did you know?

Bearded Man: A lot of people deserved a lot of things.

Korvo frantically presses the button as he breaks down in tears of fear

Korvo: tearfully You leave me alone!

Bearded Man: N-now I think-

Korvo gots out his pepper spray as he sprays it on the bearded man’s face and kicks him to the floor as Korvo enters the elevator and closes it.

Bearded Man: groans

Korvo starts breathing in and while crying in the elevator. As the elevator opens, Korvo pulls himself together and dries his tears away as he looks around and gets on his motorcycle.

Korvo: looks back while putting on his helmet I hope nobody saw me when I turned back.

Korvo then turns the radio which plays Novocaine from Fall Out Boy and drives off:

As Korvo drives away, the bearded man snarls at him and gets into a GPS Van as he drives off. Beverly sees the photo and follows the bearded man’s van. Beverly gets in her car and drives off.

Back with Korvo, he starts to feel relieved and safe from the bearded man as he starts to feel calm and removes his helmet and pants a little, until his vision starts flashing aquamarine.

Korvo: gasp No no no! feels a pain in his chest I gotta get home stat.

Korvo puts his biker helmet back on as he drives his motorcycle home. Once he made it home, Korvo frantically takes off his helmet and puts it on his motorcycle as he heads. Until…

All: SURPRISE!

Korvo screams a little but is amazed by what his family and friends did for him and smiles as Terry gives him a big kiss.

Korvo: Aw thanks guys. Sorry I was running late, I encounter a psycho.

Cherie: Huh?

Sherbet: Whuh?

Korvo: I’ll explain later. eyes continue flashing Right now, how about a toast?

Korvo pours Champaign’s into a wine glass and taps it.

Korvo: So, I want to make a toast. To my husband, my kids, my friends and my frenemies. I want to say how much you all mean to me, and to be honest, I don’t really care about some dumb old prize. I am just happy I have so many people who support me and cares about me as much as I care about all of you, so let’s just-

Suddenly, Korvo feels a sharp pain in his head as everyone gasp.

Randall: Korvo?

Korvo: groans in pain as his eyes starts glowing again

Darcy: Is everything okay?

Terry: Don’t worry, I got this. heads over to Korvo Honey?…

Suddenly, Korvo’s vision starts to static as it shows an angry Terry.

Terry: Why are you being so embarrassing?

Korvo: I’m sorry! I can explain!

But then what is really happening in real life, is a concern Terry backing away.

Terry: Hey. Hey. It’s okay Korvy, it’s nothing to be embarrassed about.

Korvo: You’re right! I am embarrassing! I really fucked things up.

Yumyulack: Yeesh. He must be so tense.

Montez: Don’t worry, let’s back away a bit.

Mia: Good idea.

As everyone backs away, Korvo continues cowering as he began to breath in and out.

Korvo: I’m sorry Terry! Why didn’t it tell you?

Terry: Aw honey, what is it you wanna- vision You already made us feel fucking stupid enough!

Korvo: No-no. I did to protect you! You and the kids would’ve freaked out!

Everyone began to grow concern about this.

Nova: realizing what is happening Oh no.

Terry: It’s okay. You can tell me anything.

Korvo: Yes! You can tell me the truth!

Terry: You wanna hear the truth?!

Korvo: freaking out WHAT'S THE TRUTH, TERRY?!

Terry: YOU'RE NOT SPECIAL!

Korvo gasp, as the vision heads back to real life, which shows a concern and worried Terry.

Terry: K-Korvo?

Korvo: You’re right. I’m not special at all!

Korvo runs up the stairs without a word, as Terry and the others remain in shock.

Terry: What the fuck? That not what I said. All I said is that his fucked up skin condition makes him special.

Mia: Aw Poor Korvo, he must be so stressed.

Cherie: Yeesh. You weren’t kidding when you told us this skin condition was a big deal.

Principal Cooke: Is he gonna be okay?

Terry, believing Korvo needs to be reminded that he is loved, decided to head upstairs.

Terry: Don’t worry guys, I’ll go talk to him.

Suddenly, everyone heard a soft deep moaning.

Sonya: What is that…?

Terry: Don’t worry sweetie, I’m gonna go check it out. You and your siblings just stay here and entertain them.

As soon as Terry leaves, the Solar Opposites siblings look at the adults as they began to grow concern.

Yumyulack: So, who’s up for charades?

As Terry renters the room, he sees Korvo not here but then notice a big lump on it.

Terry: Korvo? Are you alright? hears moaning Korv?

Suddenly Terry sees something rising from the bed, Terry then timidly pulls the covers off. He then gasp, the figure rises up, and it reveals itself to be a giant monster Shlorpian, with horns that has icy blue tips, glowing aquamarine eyes, bat wings, icy blue tips on his fingers, he is bigger and muscular than other Shlorpian and he has sharp teeth as he turns around and sees Terry:

Terry: Aaaaahhhh!

Meanwhile downstairs, Jesse is doing the Batman Theme song with Pupa.

Jesse: 🎵 Na na na na na na! Na na na na! 🎵

Pupa: 🎵 Batman! 🎵

The adults heard Terry screaming and gasp.

Cherie: What was that?

Pezlie: giggling

Kevin: Is Terry okay?

Jesse: I don’t know. Yum and I will be right back! Sonya, you keep them busy!

Yumyulack: carries Pupa Come on Pupa!

As soon as the three alien children left, Sonya is overjoyed as she squeals in excitement.

Sonya: I know! We'll do charades!

As soon as Yumyulack, Jesse and Pupa enters their dads’ rooms, they see Terry backing away in fear.

Jesse: Terry?! What’s wrong is everything o-

The three alien siblings then see the beast as they gasp and scream in horror when suddenly…

???: distorted deep voice DON'T LOOK AT ME!

Terry and the kids grow shock that it speak as Terry walks to up to him.

???: Terry…I'm so sorry...

Terry: Korvo? Is that you?

Monster Korvo: Y-yes.

Terry: puts a comforting hand on Korvo’s face Baby, what happened to you?

Aisha: popping out of nowhere Oh shit! You weren’t supposed to see that!

Yumyulack and Jesse: What?!

Pupa: See what?!

Just then Sherbet and Nova enters the room.

Nova: Oh shit! That’s what you meant by, it’s time!

As Monster Korvo moans in dismay, Terry and the Replicants and Pupa’s eyes shrink down upon what Nova said.

Terry: What did you say?

As Monster Korvo looks down, Nova puts her hand on Korvo’s giant shoulder.

Nova: Korvo… it’s time…

A few seconds later, Monster Korvo gets out an old fable page that shows information about his family’s history.

Monster Korvo: Okay. Here’s the truth about my family’s bloodline. fable opens up to flashback It was the dark times on Shlorp. Our ancestor Koran, needed a way to keep his family safe. So, he prayed desperately for a way to protect his family from giant beasts. And with that, he was amazed by the night creatures so much, he transformed into a Super Shlorpian! And with that, Koran was able to fend off beasts, robbers and other dark folk. Which lead to the birth of an emotional monster… the Mundane… a creature that is sadly a form a Shlorpian takes after so much suffering and in pain from words, abuse or something like that… so Koran manage to help these people control by helping them remind them who they are… which led to the beast being sealed until it’s ready to be set free when the wounds are too investable to heal… so shifts back to the present as years past it has passed to their Replicants who has passed it on to theirs… which has actually been considered a blessing…

Suddenly…

Yumyulack: Are you.. SERIOUS?! eyes starts glowing purple again So it’s all your faults!

Terry: Oh shit!

Jesse: Yumyulack! No!

Super Shlorpian Korvo then got out the pills as Nova helps hold the squirming Replicant down and Korvo puts the pills in Yumyulack’s mouth.

Super Shlorpian Korvo: It’s okay! I had this form

since I was your age.

Yumyulack: eyes turn back to normal You…did? Wh-why you didn’t tell me?

Terry: Yeah, why didn’t you tell us?

Super Shlorpian Korvo: Because, I got so angry and I lost control when I was your age. I ended hurting some Shlorpians. The doctor told me I was forbidden to tell anyone until I was older. Which… happened right now…

Terry: Oh. Well, I think your form is awesome sweetie.

Jesse: Pretty cool. Look at these abs!

Yumyulack: Yeah! My adult is like a super hero this is so cool!

Nova and Sherbet then look sadden as they look at Super Shlorpian Korvo, who starts crying.

Terry: Honey, what’s wrong?

Super Shlorpian Korvo: I-I just feel so awful. I’ve been lying to all of you for years. I was just so scared of how you would happened if I told you guys. I couldn’t tell you the truth because of the monsters are bad thing. crying I really am a monster…

Terry: Hey. None of that is true. You're not a monster. You're beautiful.I know what you did was wrong, but hey. All I see is an amazing scientist, a great father, a good friend and an amazing husband. Shlorpian, or Super Shlorpian, you will always be my Korvy no matter what. I promise, it’s gonna be okay. I’m here for you. We all are.

Terry then kisses his Super Shlorpian on the forehead gently as Super Shlorpian Korvo smiles and the kids start to hug him.

Jesse: We love you Korvo.

Yumyulack: Shlorpian or Super Shlorpian…

Pupa: Big.

As Korvo smiles, he finally began to shrink down as he turns back to normal as the family gasp.

Terry: Korvo! You’re you!

Korvo: Yes! I’m normal! Well, almost normal! Thanks guys. But we can’t tell Sonya about this. She wouldn’t understand about this. You know how scared she can easily be.

Terry, Yumyulack and Jesse: Good point. You bet. Absolutely.

Terry and Korvo then kiss. Then, a knock was heard.

Sonya: Korvo! We heard you’re all better. Is everything okay?

The door opens and it shows Korvo in a new aquamarine gown.

Korvo: Yeah. Just ceremony post stress. I’m sorry guys.

Principal Cooke: It’s okay. We know that skin condition is really fucked up.

Cherie: Yeah, it okay. We know you didn’t mean it.

Ms. Perez: We’ll still support no matter what.

Sonya: Mr. Korvo? Are you okay?

Korvo: Hey Sonya!

Sonya: Mr. Opposites!

Sonya hugs Korvo and Terry as they smile. Later, that night, Terry was waiting for Korvo in bed. Until, he heard groaning.

Terry: Huh? Korvy? Are you-

Terry suddenly sees Korvo transforming again, but this time more calmly and tries to rip his robe apart.

Super Shlorpian Korvo: Fuck. My clothes. They're too...too tight.

Super Shlorpian Korvo rips his robe apart with huge strength as he roars. Terry then grows smitten by his husband’s abs as he blushes.

Terry: Damn, those fucking abs sure look sexy.

Super Shlorpian Korvo: Oh. Y-you do? Thanks…

Super Shlorpian Korvo then looks down sadly.

Terry: What’s wrong honey?

Super Shlorpian Korvo: Terry? I’m scared. No on can see me like this. They would be afraid, especially Sonya.

Terry: Don’t worry, I’m sure they’re never gonna know. I promise. You are still my husband, and whatever comes, we’ll get through it together.

Korvo suddenly sees the sunrise as he panics.

Terry: Wh-what’s wrong?

Super Shlorpian Korvo: I-I’m scared I might get burned in that form.

Terry: Hey. I’m sure it won’t. takes Korvo’s monster hand Come on.

As Super Shlorpian Korvo and Terry heads up on the roof, he sees the sunrise and as it shines on his body, Korvo doesn’t feel a burn as he smiles and Terry looks at him while smiling. The two alien husbands then head back in their room as Korvo began to approach Terry.

Terry: Hmm? What is it honey? What’s wrong?

Super Shlorpian Korvo: Ssh. Let me take care of you, baby…

Terry then realizes what is happening and grins, and the two alien husband began to have sex, this time in Korvo’s super Shlorpian form as they began to moan.

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euphoriabled-memes · 2 years

Text

So Much (For) Starters.

All starters are lyrics taken from the album So Much (For) Stardust by the band Fall Out Boy, released March 24, 2023. Please feel free to change as you see fit. ( Seeing as I’ve made this meme the day this album came out, some lyrics may be incorrect. My apologies! )

Love From The Other Side

“You know I'm dying out here.”

“What would you trade the pain for?”

“You were the sunshine of my lifetime.”

“I'd never go, I just want to be invited.”

“Sending my love from the other side of the apocalypse.”

“Every lover's got a little dagger in their hand.”

“Nowhere left for us to go but Heaven.”

“Give up what you love before it does you in…”

Heartbreak Feels So Good

“No matter what they tell you, the future's up for grabs.”

“Is there a word for bad miracle?”

“Nobody said the road was endless.”

“Could we please pretend this won't end?”

“We could cry a little? Cry a lot?”

“We could dance our tears away, emancipate ourselves.”

Hold Me Like A Grudge

“When you ask how I've been, I know you mean well.”

“I guess I'm getting older 'cause I'm less pissed.”

“Silent killers are these years coming like waves.”

“You put the ‘fun’ into dysfunction.”

“Hold me like a grudge.”

“The world is always spinning, and I can't keep up.”

“Part-time soulmate, full-time problem.”

“I guess, somehow, we made it back.”

“I am a diamond on the inside, just add the pressure!”

“I thought I knew better, I thought it would get better.”

“I figured somehow by now, I would have got it together.”

“We'll do more than just get by.”

Fake Out

“Make no plans and none can be broken.”

“Do you laugh about me whenever I leave?”

“Do I just need more therapy?”

“Love is in the air, I just gotta figure out a window to break out.”

“My mood board is just pictures of you.”

“I'm not sad anymore.”

“We did it for futures that never came and for pasts that we're never gonna change.”

Heaven, Iowa

“Kiss my cheek, baby, please.”

“Would you read my eulogy?”

“I will never ask you for anything — except to dream sweet of me.”

“I will never ask you for anything.”

“Tell me when the party ends.”

“Will you still love who I am?”

“They don't know how much they’ll miss.”

“Save your breath; half your life you've been hooked on death!”

“Be careful what you bottle up.”

“I'm saving this all for later.”

So Good Right Now

“We'll drive until the engine just gives up.”

“I know I've made mistakes, but at least they were mine to make.”

“I'll be whatever you need me to be.”

“I cut myself down to whatever you need me to be.”

The Pink Seashell

“There's no point to any of this, it's all just a random lottery of meaningless tragedy and a series of near escapes.”

“I take pleasure in the detail, you know, a, a Quarter Pounder with cheese? Those are good.”

I Am My Own Muse

“I like playing dumb, letting you figure me out.”

“I was faded, in my own defense.”

“We got to throw this year away.”

“The trumpets bring the angels, but they never came.”

“I know I keep my feelings so tucked away.”

“Just another day spent hoping we don't fall apart.”

“Let's twist the knife again like we did last summer.”

Flu Game

“I guess to you now, I'm just a face in the crowd.”

“Oh, God, kindly please, would you kill me now?”

“Carved out a place in this world for two, but it's empty without you.”

“I've got all this love I've got to keep to myself.”

“All this effort to make it look effortless.”

“I can't be who you need me to be.”

“Every candle's gotta run out of wax.”

Baby Annihilation

“Time is luck, and I wish ours overlapped more.”

“The first time I took the mask off, just had another one on underneath.”

“I'm just melted wax on a birthday cake, another year fades away.”

“If you want a job done right, you gotta do it yourself.”

“What is there between us, if not a little annihilation?”

The Kintsugi Kid (Ten Years)

“I'm pretty sure, as far as humans go, I am a hard pill to swallow.”

“I spent ten years in a bit of chemical haze and I miss the way that I felt nothing.”

“Passed my old street, the house I grew up in. It breaks your heart.”

“Four of the Ramones are dead.”

“And I miss the way that I felt nothing.”

“You don't know me anymore.”

What A Time To Be Alive

“That’s the way the world used to be before our dreams started bursting at the seams.”

“I don't care if it's pretty.”

“The view's so pretty from the deck of a sinking ship.”

“Everything is lit except my serotonin.”

“Please, I just need someone to hold me.”

“Oh, what a time to be alive.”

“They say that I should try meditation, but I don’t want to be with my own thoughts.”

“I just want to be your cherry on top.”

“when I said ‘leave me alone’ this isn't quite what I meant.”

So Much (For) Stardust

“I feel like something that's been stretched out, over and over again.”

“I don't have the guts to keep it together.”

“Life is just a game, maybe.”

“I'm stuck in a lonely loop.”

“I need the sound of crowds, or I can't fall asleep at night.”

“Another year of possibilities left unwrapped like gifts the day right after Christmas passed.”

“I'm pretty positive my pain isn't cool enough.”

“I think I've been going through it.”

“In another life, you were the sunshine of my lifetime.”

“I used to be a real go-getter.”

“I used to think it'd all get better.”

“We thought we had it all.”

#has anybody done this yet #Lyric Meme #lyric starters #fall out boy lyric meme #fall out boy rp meme #Fall Out Boy lyric starters #fall out boy rp starters #indie rp meme #indie rp starters #indie roleplay starters #indie roleplay meme #indie roleplay prompts #rp meme #rp starters #roleplay meme #roleplay starters #roleplay prompts #so much for stardust starters #so much (for) stardust starters

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mimiwrites2000 · 8 months

Text

Hello!

My name is Mimiwrites2000, you can call me mimi.

I’ve been writing in the Attack on Titan fandom since 2020, and I mainly write AruAni.

I have all of my fanfictions on Archive of Our Own, and some of them here on Tumblr.

I have one ongoing fanfiction, called Legends, and it’s my pride and joy.

Anyway, here is a masterlist of all my fanfiction up to February 2024.

Hope you enjoy!

MASTERLIST

Legends {M}

Archive of Our Own

A legend that was unveiled by a miracle.

These miracles sometimes are better forgotten, left in the past where no one can go back. But Armin engraved his name into the folds of her mind, tear a piece of him and gave it to her, following her everywhere. Annie ran away, to the edge of earth, but when she closed her eyes, she saw his blue eyes. They danced around a legend that made them encounter each other over and over again, a time in crimson blood, a time in a cold night under the stars, and a time in an embrace.

everything happens for a reason

The Last One To Reach The Tree {G}

Archive of Our Own

If the tree could speak, it would’ve cried. If the tree could speak, it would’ve sobbed and wailed and mourned humanity, mourned the death of humanity in every human’s heart. If the tree could speak, it would’ve begged to be burnt, to be cut down. Mikasa was eager to meet with Eren, she was eager to reunite with him. And so was Armin.

Post Canon story about the theory that Armin is the last one to reunite with them.

Attack On… Podcast! {T}

Archive of Our Own

As the Attack on Titan series comes to an end after ten years, the cast is reunited in hosting a podcast, talking about their times on the set of the filming, their friendships, and all in-between. And well, shenanigans are inevitable.

Attack on Titan acting AU, as the cast host a podcast, and interview the rest of the cast.

What Does White Mean? {M}

Archive of Our Own

The ocean lulled them to sleep, and the sun woke them up with mild kisses. Tangled with each other, in their cabin by the beach. After the war ended, they moved together, ever since, they faced obstacles, issues, and misunderstandings. One of them was Armin’s seashells. Stubbornness got in the way, but no matter how much they tried, they couldn’t keep their hands to themselves.

Heal Me, and I'll Heal you {T}

Archive of Our Own

Annie decided that she had enough of fighting And as she waits on the ship, watching the ocean, she visits memories from years ago, up until the night before, when she saw him for the last time. He waved at her, with a shiny, silver ring around his finger. They were separated with an unspoken promise, and healing wounds

A fanfic about Annie giving Armin her ring, and all the events leading up to it~

*Chapter 131 and up spoilers

I Don’t Want to Let You Go {T}

Archive of Our Own

The rumbling started, titans were stomping people to death all around the world. The world was ending, But they were on a sailing ship, trying to save whatever they could reach, they were on the desperate mission of stopping Eren. But Armin found himself tangled in Annie's embrace, inhaling her scent, feeling her warmth.

Chapter 131 one-shot.

When I Was a Human {M}

Archive of Our Own

The boat sailed in the middle of the ocean, trapped within a repetitive blue patterns of waves and glistens of sun rays adorning them. On it sat two lost souls, that forgot what it was like to be human.

Armin told Annie many tales when she was in the crystal, however, there was one story he never got to finish… Annie asks about it, and Armin finds himself in a swirl of memories of how he was revived four years ago…

Betrayal {M}

Archive of Our Own

They met in an alley, a narrow, foul-smelling passageway, in the middle of a cold night A few months later, he found himself walking to that place, the place where his life crumbled and was reborn, and just like last time, she was waiting for him. a journey of lies and deception, desires and emotions

What If I Kiss You? {G}

Archive of Our Own

‘What if I kiss you?’ He asked, and she answered.

“My Love” {M}

Archive of Our Own

On a boat, in the ocean, when the sun is the only witness of their love, the only one who knows about their secret. Content, joy, satisfaction, a combination they never thought they could live, until they met each other, until they loved each other.

tell me, what’s on your mind? {G}

Archive of Our Own

On one particular evening, at a dinner for the ambassadors, the serene night was too loud. Her chest closed on her lungs and her thoughts fogged her mind. Her thoughts weren’t the only thing troubling her. On that night, her father joined her silence, and pieces fell into place.

A fanfiction about Annie’s feelings, and her father helping her accept them~

Blue Meeting Blue {G}

Archive of Our Own

When Annie looked in his eyes, the world stopped spinning, time froze, air halted. The waves in the ocean quietened, the forests' rustles ceased, and the wind subsided. For a moment, peace engulfed the world, the chaotic place wrapped in a fragile silence. To witness the blossoming love in the youthful hearts.

the day of their wedding was finally here, Armin and Annie, the world waiting for them, and they were ready to face it, as one. Husband and wife. a one-shot about Aruani wedding, based on fanart by Bella (_superspicy on twitter)

Red Eyes See Grey World {M}

Archive of Our Own

He realized that he knew the ocean long ago. When he first looked into her eyes. She held the ocean and the sky in them, colliding and harmonizing to the waves. If only he knew, he would’ve held the ocean in his hands, never letting it go. But she was slipping away from him, Away she drifted, far from him. Wars never held happy endings. But the universes shifted and clashed. The constellations reformed in the sky, and life was reborn again. And maybe, just maybe, he might be able to fullfil his promise to her, in another life, in another universe.

When Champagne Is Served {M}

Archive of Our Own

His feet glide through the hall, meandering between fancy dresses and tuxedos, a shiny tray in his hand. The servant of the Leonhart’s mansion, at yet another annual ball. But then the grandiose gates are opened.

She steps in, shoulders back, chin high.

He looks away, a smile pulling at his lips.

all the things that could have been {M}

Archive of Our Own

There’s a first for everything. A numb mind and a loose body. A light head, free of conflicts and thoughts. But a blessing only lasts for short, fleeting moments, before intruding parasites attacked his mind, bringing him back to himself. An invader of far-fetched wishes and unrealistic hopes, circling around a person far away from his reach.

A story of Armin drinking with his friends for the first time while they were in Marley, Annie not leaving his mind~

Trust {G}

Archive of Our Own

A one shot about Armin and Annie finally having a moment after they met in chapter 126

*spoilers for chapter 126

Kiss (Blue) {G}

Archive of Our Own

*spoliers for chapter 125 Armin had set off with Gabi by his side, trying to catch up with Connie, who wants to feed Falco to his Mother's titan form. However, on their way, they meet with someone...

Continue On Being You {G}

Archive of Our Own

It could take him years to compose imaginary symphonies in his head, but one speck of reality to break it all. Four years are enough to change a person from the inside out, but the core might not change, the core might be as solid as a crystal, if the person continues on being themselves. For four years. He was trapped in his mind. She was caged in crystal. But the shields will break off, and the two oceans will collide.

A fic about Armin finding Annie after she breaks out from the crystal~

A Quiet Witness {M}

Archive of Our Own

A candle sees more than it could ever tell. And as it witnesses the lifetime of two miserable souls, maybe some stories are better left untold.

A story about Armin Arlert and Annie Leonhart... and a candle.

Fire and Rain {M}

Archive of Our Own

Fire Igniting from within herself Rain Pouring, cold on her skin And just like any other human, she has a limit as well. She cries, on their bed, alone. Until the door creaks open, and he walks in. Annie is facing a new feeling that she never experienced before, jealousy, and her insecurities only fuel it. However, Armin knows exactly how to blow these insecurities away. And so he does.

If The Stars Could Speak {T}

Archive of Our Own

One life time is not enough. Maybe two or three. They would relive their lives, over and over again. As long as they met again, under the same sky, beneath the same stars. But the stars sometimes opted to play, and one time, the stars entertained them being enemies in one of those lives. However, it is said that fate can pivot the stars malicious plots, deciphering them and blowing them apart in the vastness of the black sky. With a careful eye at the clear sky, reading between the glimmering dots, fate found the way to bring them together, where they belonged: by each other’s side, in that life, and every following one.

This is a two chapters fanfic, written by mimiwrites2000 and XianKar, it's a part of the Summer Fic Exchange (July - 2021), under the prompt: Stargazing in a Field

This Is Goodbye {G}

Archive of Our Own

He decided that today was the day. The day he'd turn a new page, a new beginning, and start over. And for someone to head into a new path, they might need to let go of their past.

This is goodbye.

‘stop saying my name like that’ {G}

Archive of Our Own

She looked around the room, as if she wanted confirmation from anyone or anything around her, to confirm that what she was hearing was true. Her eyes darted at the bookshelves, at the wooden chairs, at the photo frames, at the bottle of wine on the desk— but they didn’t speak, they just watched her bleed out.

That Christmas and That Necklace {G}

Archive of Our Own

It was Armin’s first ever Christmas, and for Annie, it was her very first one after the war. To say the least, they both were looking forward to spending this occasion together. Faste But, if there was something they learnt from the many wars of army and wars, was that nothing goes as planned. And that Christmas was no exception.

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yellowhollyhock · 6 months

Text

these are now the buttonverse turtles

Tang Shen, living above her parents dress shop in New York City, had a button collection. Because of financial troubles and gang activity, she was sent to live in Japan with her uncle Adachihara Kaito.

Met Hamato Yoshi at poetry club. Kind, unassuming, responsible. Loves learning about clothing design (Shen finds it boring but sure whatever she'll teach him), gardens, obsessed with animals. He has all kinds of pets throughout the years.

Kaito and Shen never knew he was involved with the Foot Clan.

Oroku Saki, betrayed that his best friend is actually considering leaving the Clan for a life with some little rich kid from America. However. He isn't telling on him. He covers for him, in fact, for years. He and Shen become friends too, though he always keeps more walls up with her. He has a big hand in helping them plan their elopement.

Shen can't understand why Yoshi wants to run away. Her uncle likes him. Her parents have been dying to meet him. But she knows he's been keeping secrets since they met, and maybe this is how she finally finds out everything.

She does, when they're ambushed by a group of ninjas led by Saki.

Shen and Yoshi escape; she writes to Kaito that she's going to America and will explain everything later. Her and Yoshi are both devastated and afraid. He apologizes for the secrets and promises to leave such a life in Japan; she gives him four buttons. The first one she ever collected, a small seashell with swirls of blue that inspired her to begin; a fancy red pearl she'd stolen from an expensive dress in order to give to a sobbing toddler, who had not been interested; a simple purple octagon, the last one she took from the shop as she packed for Japan; and a large orange circle speckled with yellow, one she'd found on the street on a day she'd been homesick. She tells him not to leave behind what he's collected; they may need it in the life they want to build together.

After all, it was because of gang activity she was sent away from New York in the first place.

She dies at sea.

Hamato Yoshi delivers the news to her parents in person, and writes to Adachihara Kaito. Neither want to see him again.

He makes a meager living at a plant nursery. He stops practicing ninjitsu. Slowly, he starts to build himself a life that isn't all based on grief. He's good at gambling. He's fascinated by western art. He discovers an underground city where Yokai, Y'Lyntians, Utrom, and others who do not feel safe on the surface live.

Wait, what?

He helps an Utrom who's been separated from his body suit escape an antagonstic goat Yokai. He delivers bonsai trees to an old man who appears human but clearly isn't, simply calls himself The Ancient One. He gets the nickname 'Splinter' when he is able to remove one from a a Tengu under a dangerous spell, thereby saving a small community of Y'Lyntians. He plays and wins the Battle Nexus, mostly in an effort to learn more about a spider Yokai in a position of power whom he suspects is involved with the human gang, the Purple Dragons.

The Hidden City has everything Splinter needs, he finds. He begins expanding Shen's button collection, and dabbles in clothing design. He has fully and willingly left the human world behind by the time he is captured by a group of Utrom who are experimenting with genetic alteration in order to build themselves better bodies.

He escapes, but over the next few weeks, he begins morphing into a rat.

It's a difficult change to process, so he does what he usually does when he's stressed: adopts a pet. On his way to the rescue, he sees a young boy in traffic drop a box of baby turtles, who slip through the sewer grates. His smaller and more agile new body allows him to make it to their rescue.

He names them after his favorite artists. One night in his small apartment in the Hidden City, he's telling them about Tang Shen. He places a button in front of each of them as he shares what he's learned about accepting his past, using the pieces to forge a future that does not have to reflect his trauma. But sometimes it does.

A knock interrupts him; The Ancient One seeks his help with a fight that has spilled out from the Battle Nexus, and threatens to reveal their world to the humans as well as tearing them apart from within. Splinter hurries away.

When he returns, his turtles have begun to anthropomorphize, and their shells to resemble the buttons he gave them. They've been injected with the mutagen. He doesn't know when or why.

Now feeling he can't trust anyone, Splinter takes the turtles into the world between the Hidden City and New York.

The turtles grow up in the sewers. They know Tang Shen's story very well. They learn ninjitsu.

They do not know about the Hidden City, Big Mama and the Purple Dragons, or the New York branch of the Foot Clan.

After all his promises, Yoshi never stopped keeping secrets.

#tmnt buttonverse #things that started as a joke #if you can believe that after reading this post #anyway #tmnt

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perspectivestarters · 1 year

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Perspective's Sentence Starters; So Much (For) Stardust by Fall Out Boy (Part I)

LOVE FROM THE OTHER SIDE

"It kills me."

"You know I'm dying out here."

"What would you trade the pain for?"

"I'm not sure."

"We were a painting you could never frame."

"You were the sunshine of my lifetime."

"This city always hangs a little bit lonely on me."

"I'd never go, I just want to be invited."

"Get the feeling."

"Don't fight it."

"Sending my love from the other side of the apocalypse."

"I just about snapped."

"Don't look back."

"Every lover's got a little dagger in their hand."

"I'm falling in and out of love."

"Nowhere left for us to go but Heaven."

"Summer falling through our fingers again."

"We're taught we gotta get ahead."

"No matter what it takes."

"The kind of pain you feel to get good in the end."

"Give up what you love before it does you in."

HEARTBREAK FEELS SO GOOD

No matter what they tell you, the future's up for grabs.

"Is there a word for bad miracle?"

"Nobody said the road was endless."

"Nobody said the climb was friendless."

"Could we please pretend this won't end?"

"It was an uphill battle."

"They didn't know."

"We could cry a little."

"Don't stop dancing."

"We'll cry later or cry now."

"You know it's heartbreak."

"We could dance our tears away."

"Heartbreak feels so good."

"We said we'd never grow up."

HOLD ME LIKE A GRUDGE

"I know you mean well."

"Who am I dialing tonight?"

"That's a bummer."

"I love my life."

"I guess I'm getting older."

"I'm less pissed when I can't get onto the guest list."

"You put the "fun" into dysfunction."

"Hold me like a grudge."

"The world is always spinning, and I can't keep up."

"Can't do it on my own."

"Part-time soulmate, full-time problem."

"I guess, somehow, we made it back."

"I am a diamond on the inside, just add the pressure."

"I thought I knew better."

"I thought it would get better."

"I figured somehow by now, I would have got it together."

"We'll do more than just get by together."

FAKE OUT

"I make no plans and none can be broken."

"Remember us just like this forever."

"This can't last."

"Do you laugh about me whenever I leave?"

"Do I just need more therapy?"

"Love is in the air."

"I just gotta figure out a window to break out."

"It was all a fake-out."

"My mood board is just pictures of you."

"I didn't take the love when I had the chance."

"I swear I'm not sad anymore."

"We did it for futures that never came, and for pasts that we're never gonna change."

HEAVEN, IOWA

"Kiss my cheek, baby, please."

"Would you read my eulogy?"

"I will never ask you for anything."

"Dream sweet of me."

"Tell me when the party ends, will you still love who I am?"

"Scar crossed lovers, forever."

"I'm checking myself out forever."

"I'm saving this all for later."

"Here we are untouched forever."

"They don't know how much they’ll miss."

"Save your breath."

"Half your life you've been hooked on death."

"Be careful what you bottle up."

"I closed my eyes inside of your darkness and found your glow."

SO GOOD RIGHT NOW

"I got this doom and gloom."

"I feel alright."

"I got love in my heart."

"Let's sneak in from the cheap seats."

"We'll drive until the engine just gives up."

"Feelin' so good right now."

"We'll crash and burn somehow."

"I know I've made mistakes."

"At least they were mine to make."

"All of our wildest dreams, they just end up with you and me."

"I ripped myself apart."

"I'll be whatever you need me to be."

"I cut myself down to whatever you need me to be."

THE PINK SEASHELL

"Parents got divorced when I was, uh, (age) years old."

"I saw my father about three times a year after that."

"The answers are all inside of this."

"There's no point to any of this."

"It's all just a random lottery of meaningless tragedy and a series of near escapes."

"I take pleasure in the detail."

#rp sentence starters #rp sentence meme #rp sentence prompts #sentence starters #sentence meme #sentence prompts #lyric sentence starters #lyric starters #music starters #rp meme #rp memes #rp prompts #ask meme #*mystarters #*smfs

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awhorrerstory · 9 months

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Is trust enough?

Part 1/?

Hello yall! I just started watching Merlin after watching supergirl and totally falling for Katie McGrath so I decided to write a book for Morgana because I choose gay sadness. I’m trying to make it slow burn but we’ll see how it goes, I’ll be writing as I go so slow updates! I’ve only found a few for Morgana with gxg so I hope I can do her justice! Thank you for reading! Also happy birthday to Katie McGrath!!!

Warnings: violence, gay panic, slight nsfw at the end.

Y/N was a girl around the age of five when her father became a knight of king Pendragon, her mother became a maid to the lady of the kingdom, leaving y/n to fend for herself. She often ran along the shore of a nearby river, where she often collected seashells of many shapes and colors. Her fascination focused on the shapes and animals that aligned the river. One foggy day, when y/n was 8, she was being stocked by a hungry lynx. The girl was too focused on a cute fish that was enjoying its time as the lynx slowly approached her.

Morgana Pendragon had run away from the castle; desperate to get out of that ‘boring old place’. Her guardian; the king of Camelot, ignored her and relayed on the servants to take care of his mistake. Morgana had stumbled upon the young girl at the stream, looking at her curiously as she played in the water but quickly realized the girl was in danger. Morgana drew her dagger, slightly worried that what she was taught for self defense was not enough to take down the wild cat, and the fact that she was only 10. Still, Morgana knew she could not stand by and let this girl be killed. She crept up on the approaching Lynx and struggled to keep quiet due to the leaves and sticks. The rustling alerts the cat and it turns, pouncing on Morgana causing her to cry out gaining y/n’s attention. Morgana stabs the cat but it only makes the animal more angry as it growls and scratches at her. Morgana held the jaw of the Lynx while it tried to bite her, y/n taking the discarded dagger and stabbing the beast over and over again from behind until it stopped moving. Morgana quickly pushed the lynx off of her and gasped as she continues to panic. “Hey! It’s okay I killed it!” Y/n assured the crying girl, grateful for the save. “M-my apologies, I tried saving you but…turns out you saved me.” Morgana smiles and extends her hand as Uther had taught her. “My name is Morgana, pleasure to meet you.” She says smiling at you. “Y/n, thank you for saving me.” The girl says gratefully.

Since then, the girls became close. Morgana often snuck out to meet her friend at the stream daily and y/n began to feel happy every time she’d see Morgana come to the shore and looked forward to seeing her. Morgana learned of y/n’s father being a knight of the king and y/n was told about Morgana’s routine at the castle. These meetups continued until Morgana was punished for being caught outside castle grounds and y/n thought the girl had died from the plague or ran away entirely from her home. Morgana came back a week later, bruises and markings on her skin she refused to talk about; but that day she asked y/n something she never had before: “do you want to come over?” Morgana asks softly as she approaches the y/h/c girl. Y/n looks back at her in curiosity. “Sure? Should I trust you though?” Y/n asks with an uneasy feeling, not knowing whom Morgana belonged to. “And what happened to you?” Y/n asks, examining Morgana’s face and arms. “It’s nothing. Will you come? Please?” Morgana looks at y/n pleadingly. “I want you to meet my father so he doesn’t worry I’m coming out to meet a man.” Morgana says rolling her eyes. After the 5 years of knowing each other, y/n never knew who Morgana really was, never knew she was royalty. “Alright. I’ll have to ask my father though.” Y/n says smiling at the green-eyed girl. Morgana smiles and nods, “tell him it’s the Pendragon house…” she mumbles glancing away from her friend. “You mean…king pendragon?” Y/n asks her voice laced with confusion. “I’m sorry-i didn’t tell you I was scared about how you might react and I was worried you wouldn’t want to be friends or anything if you knew who I was.” Morgana rambles, her anxiety getting the best of her. “So you’re the daughter of the king?” Y/n asks in confusion and surprise. “Not exactly…they call me the lady of the castle, whatever that means.” Morgana rolls her eyes causing y/n to giggle making Morgana smile. “There’s those dimples I love to see.” Y/n says placing her hand on Morgana’s shoulder. “Nothing you could do would make me not want to be your friend Morgana.” Y/n says causing the older girl’s heart to swell. Morgana hugs y/n, y/n hugs back, surprised but welcoming the affection. “I’ll come meet the king then…if it means that we can play together.” Y/n smiles pulling Morgana into the stream Morgana screaming out as her dress becomes soaked. “Y/n! What the hell?!” She yells while laughing and pulling the other girl into the stream with her causing y/n to gasp playfully before the girls began splashing each other and laughing. Morgana smiles and looks at her friend, both of them wet and giggling as they get out of the water. Morgana looks y/n up and down worriedly, “come with me, we can sneak into my room and you can get some dry clothes at least.” Y/n smiles at Morgana, “are you sure? I don’t want to get you in trouble Morgana…” she says worriedly, but Morgana shakes her head, “nonsense, come.” Morgana takes y/n’s hand, both the girls feeling a spark as their hands touch but deciding it was nothing but electricity. Morgana led y/n to her horse and y/n tenses up. “Come now, you’re not afraid of a horse are you? You must’ve rode before with your father.” Morgana teases as she helps the girl onto the horse, “I-i have but never with anyone else…” y/n says nervously as Morgana gets on behind her, her arms wrapping around y/n while reaching for the reigns. Y/n feels a rush of blood to her cheeks feeling Morgana’s arms around her. Shes unsure why, maybe she was nervous about the horse…right. Y/n held onto the saddle as the girls rode through the forest and towards the castle, Morgana’s arms tightening around y/n as the horse ran faster. “It’s okay y/n, I got you.” Morgana assures y/n as they rode. Y/n’s heart only quickened at Morgana’s words and Morgana was just as confused. It felt right to hold y/n, her heart continually pounding around the girl she met 5 years ago. Y/n had showed Morgana a world the castle never could and she was very grateful for their newfound friendship.

After the 5 years of knowing each other, y/n never knew who Morgana really was, never knew she was royalty. “Alright. I’ll have to ask my father though.” Y/n says smiling at the green-eyed girl. Morgana smiles and nods, “tell him it’s the Pendragon house…” she mumbles glancing away from her friend. “You mean…king pendragon?” Y/n asks her voice laced with confusion. “I’m sorry-i didn’t tell you I was scared about how you might react and I was worried you wouldn’t want to be friends or anything if you knew who I was.” Morgana rambles, her anxiety getting the best of her. “So you’re the daughter of the king?” Y/n asks in confusion and surprise. “Not exactly…they call me the lady of the castle, whatever that means.” Morgana rolls her eyes causing y/n to giggle making Morgana smile. “There’s those dimples I love to see.” Y/n says placing her hand on Morgana’s shoulder. “Nothing you could do would make me not want to be your friend Morgana.” Y/n says causing the older girl’s heart to swell. Morgana hugs y/n, y/n hugs back, surprised but welcoming the affection. “I’ll come meet the king then…if it means that we can play together.” Y/n smiles pulling Morgana into the stream Morgana screaming out as her dress becomes soaked. “Y/n! What the hell?!” She yells while laughing and pulling the other girl into the stream with her causing y/n to gasp playfully before the girls began splashing each other and laughing. Morgana smiles and looks at her friend, both of them wet and giggling as they get out of the water. Morgana looks y/n up and down worriedly, “come with me, we can sneak into my room and you can get some dry clothes at least.” Y/n smiles at Morgana, “are you sure? I don’t want to get you in trouble Morgana…” she says worriedly, but Morgana shakes her head, “nonsense, come.” Morgana takes y/n’s hand, both the girls feeling a spark as their hands touch but deciding it was nothing but electricity. Morgana led y/n to her horse and y/n tenses up. “Come now, you’re not afraid of a horse are you? You must’ve rode before with your father.” Morgana teases as she helps the girl onto the horse, “I-i have but never with anyone else…” y/n says nervously as Morgana gets on behind her, her arms wrapping around y/n while reaching for the reigns. Y/n feels a rush of blood to her cheeks feeling Morgana’s arms around her. Shes unsure why, maybe she was nervous about the horse…right. Y/n held onto the saddle as the girls rode through the forest and towards the castle, Morgana’s arms tightening around y/n as the horse ran faster. “It’s okay y/n, I got you.” Morgana assures y/n as they rode. Y/n’s heart only quickened at Morgana’s words and Morgana was just as confused. It felt right to hold y/n, her heart continually pounding around the girl she met 5 years ago. Y/n had showed Morgana a world the castle never could and she was very grateful for their newfound friendship. These different reactions began shortly after Morgana officially became a woman. Her eyes began to roam and she caught herself staring at y/n on different occasions.

Shortly after they departed, Morgana and y/n reached the castle, Morgana helping y/n off the horse and pulling her through the castle to her chambers. “Go ahead and pick something out, I’m going to have Gwen prepare a bath for me.” Morgana says as y/n looked around the room in awe. She hasn’t been in a room as big before, “Morgana this is…” “too big and bland?” Morgana finishes with a roll of her eyes, quickly stripping away her wet clothes. Y/n laughs and turns to Morgana, “No I was going to say it’s“ she paused as she saw Morgana without her dress her breath caught in her throat as she blushes and feels a stir within her. “Quite breathtaking.” Y/n finishes with a hint of lust in her words as she looked away from Morgana.

The king didn’t mind y/n. He was glad Morgana had something to entertain her little did he know that y/n and Morgana had growing feelings for each other. They spent their time together and Morgana was the happiest she’s ever been, and so was y/n. But the two wanted more, both not knowing what the other thought, though their tension obviously growing. Morgana often found herself having dreams of the two of them together…hands caressing each other, lips on one another and fingers buried inside each other. Morgana often woke in a sweat, but at least it wasn’t a nightmare…

Morgana met up with y/n at the stream her eyes roaming along her friend once more before greeting her; “y/n.” The girl looks up at Morgana, smiling at her. “Hello Morgana.” Y/n says, standing up and hugging her best friend. Morgana hugs back holding y/n tightly, “could I sleep over tonight? At your house.” Morgana asks causing y/n to look at her curiously, “my house? There’s much more room in yours-” “I don’t want to be there tonight.” Is all Morgana says while not meeting y/n’s eyes. Y/n nods and stands up to get a good look at Morgana. “Okay. We can. I’ll meet you in town and we’ll go okay?” Morgana nods and she smiles gently, “thank you y/n. I’ll see you at 6.” She says, getting back on her horse and riding back to the castle. Soon enough, Morgana met up with y/n in the town square, getting off of her horse and looking for her friend, who hugged her from behind surprising her. “Y/n, you scared me. Ready for our sleepover?” Morgana asks turning and returning the hug. Y/n smiles, “indeed, I love spending time with you Morgana.” She says as the two begin the walk back to y/n’s parent’s house. They go in and as usual no one was home. Her father being a knight and her mother a servant in the castle meant they weren’t around much. Y/n and Morgana walk into the kitchen and y/n prepared drinks for them while Morgana relaxed on the lounge in the main room. Y/n came in with two cups and offered one to Morgana as she sat down next to her. Morgana thanked y/n and they began to drink together and Morgana discussed things she would do if she was ruler. Y/n listened and smiled at Morgana’s rules and nodded along, agreeing to the changes she wanted to make. “Morgana, there’s another reason you wanted to stay here wasn’t there?” Y/n asks, almost knowingly. She could tell by the way Morgana tensed up at the mention of the king, the way she’d grow cold if y/n ever mentioned that Morgana looked hurt or bruised. “Well…it is my birthday.” Morgana admits smiling at y/n causing the girls eyes to widen. “Oh goodness! We better get plastered then!” She says giggling as she pours more ale for them. Morgan’s laughs as y/n rasies her glass, “to 20?” She preposes almost as a question causing Morgana to giggle and nod raising her own glass to clink with y/n’s. “To many birthdays together.” She says her dimples on display as they drank the ale. Soon after more drinks the two of them were a bit tipsy and Morgana grew more bold…

“Y/n, I’ve been…having these dreams-” “the nightmares again?” She takes her hand, “are you okay?” Y/n asks worriedly. “N-no…those are terrible too yes but I’ve been…having dreams about you, about us.” She says looking at the y/e/c eyed girl. “What do you mean?” Y/n asks softly, unsure of what Morgana meant. Morgana sighs; “they’re…good dreams but, very intimate…I wake up feeling quite flustered.” She says her eyes meeting y/n’s nervously. Y/n’s eyes widened in realization, “oh…I mean, how long have you been having them?” Y/n asks, blushing from the alcohol. Right. Morgana looks away at her glass, “a few years now…I just…didn’t want to ruin what we’ve had. I don’t know what I’m feeling for you y/n.” Morgana says looking a bit distraught. “It’s okay I’ve been…having these thoughts too. I thought it was wrong, the king declared same sex relations a sin, and here I am, having erotic dreams about his ward.” Morgan’s chuckles smiling and looking to y/n with something in her eyes that y/n hadn’t seen before.

“Trust me, I know how it feels.” Morgana says chuckling again and turning to her friend. “But I also know it feels right when I hold you, and when you take my hand in yours.” Y/n shakes her head, “you’re just saying this because you’ve been drinking-” “no.” Is all she says before grabbing y/n by the chin and kissing her softly. Y/n kissed back, not wanting to push the older girl away whatsoever. “Morgana…” she mumbled breathlessly against her lips as they pulled apart, Morgana wanting to make sure y/n was comfortable. Morgana kissed y/n again, pulling her onto her lap as y/n slips her tongue into her mouth, deepening the kiss. Morgana humming in pleasure at the new feelings and meeting her desires. Her hands go to y/n’s breasts, squeezing and groping them as y/n whimpered into the kiss. Morgana tries to stand up but found her legs were too shaky to do so, causing both girls to giggle. “Apparently I’m too excited to lift you, so let’s go to your room.” She says softly as she tucks stray hairs behind y/n’s ear sweetly. The girls make their way into y/n’s room, shutting the door behind them as Morgana begins kissing y/n again, this time more rough and desperate. Her hands grabbing what they could as Morgana pushed y/n against her bed, “Morgana we shouldn’t…” y/n mumbles as Morgana continues to kiss her, “what? Are you okay?” Morgana asks worriedly. “No I’m scared it’ll ruin what we have, please we can’t.” Y/n says reluctantly pushing morgana onto her back. Morgana sighs and nods, “You’re right I’m sorry…” she mumbles softly as she catches her breath. Y/n hugs Morgana, and they cuddle. Morgana feels like she’s about to fall asleep so she drifts off leaving y/n confused on what just happened and still wrapped in her best friend’s embrace.

#gxg #smut #lesbian #katie mcgrath x reader #morgana pendragon x reader #morgana pendragon #morgana x reader #merlin

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