#--entirely scared me off of the idea. which in itself is sad and i knew it at the time. but it makes me sadder now. | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

studiojeon · 3 years ago

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bitterness in goodbye | jjk

this is part of my troubled outsiders series. sadly, you can't read this as a stand alone (meaning: feel free to check the previous parts ♡)

| summary | - You can’t help but feel a little sad when Jungkook doesn’t refrain from cuddling your arm after pleading to forgive him. You wish you could cuddle him instead, that he would lay his head on your chest as you play with his soft hair, but you recognize there are some things you just can’t have.

warnings: none (?) i mean chaeryeong insults jungkook which is an atrocity in itself but-

contents: we diving into the angst my friends. jungkook is an innocent, kind hearted soul, i promise. oc's got the feels (out oct. 1) for jk. idol!jungkook × student!reader.

author's note: I EDITTED THIS FROM MY PHONE DO YOU UNDERSTAND HOW FUCKING ANNOYING THAT IS? also, thank u for the amount of support i've been receiving lately, i appreciate everyone lots. feel free to ask away or suggest anything btw, i would love to write for any prompts you guys come up with. 💞💗💖💘💓💕

words: 1.57k

playlist: honey by halsey

Four weeks later, the receptionist of your apartment complex hands you over a cardboard box with the hoodie Jungkook and you had talked about that day on the Han River. Jungkook kept pestering you to please please please send him your address for confidential purposes, which you knew had to do with his determination to literally provide anything that catches your eye right away. You assumed it was a sensitive topic for the boy whether people had purposefully taken advantage of his money before, so you didn’t dare to say anything when the man asked you for your size literally two hours after he dropped you off, scared to either reject his solidare intentions or piss him off for bringing unwanted memories back. In your defense, your personality type keeps oscillating between INFP and INFJ so it’s only natural that you take extra care to make sure those around you have as much peace of mind as possible in your presence.

As pretty and comfortable the piece of soft clothing is, an important factor is missing, something that you can’t recreate buying two of the same size and color, and that is Jungkook's escence and how good it looks on him in comparison to anyone else in the world. Meaning, you didn’t like it as much as you thought initially would. And it absolutely did not have to do with the fact that your short stature made you look like a toddler who stole their dad’s jacket.

Still, in order to show Jungkook how much you appreciate his gift, you bring it to work the next day, and the rest of the days after that, with the excuse that with winter rolling around you needed something to keep you warm in the office. Jungkook doesn’t miss the opportunity to confirm your assumptions regarding your appearance whenever he barges into your office randomly throughout the week, arguing that ”you look so adorable” and doesn’t stop for two weeks more, until he gets used to seeing you wearing something you shared with him. Which doesn’t help ease your growing romantic feelings for him whatsoever.

Because yeah, you liked Jeon Jungkook, just like every human being with eyes and sexual desires, except, you didn’t just like him in a superficial way, and that’s where the problem with him resides. Though you are sure everyone has fallen in love with the endearing boy at some point - especially the excluded and invalidated women of society - you can’t help but place some blame on you for allowing yourself to be swooned so goddamn easily. Your mom had said to you at some point to be wary of the way some men would talk to you when you grew up, their intention usually being getting inside your pants, which has happened to you more times than you'd like to admit. And with the argument that she knew you better than anyone, she claimed you would comply right the second someone talked sweet to you; you despised the fact that was the case with Jungkook (and Jungkook only), although he had never shown any sexual innuendos. What your feelings could do to your relationship with Jungkook and your rather chill lifestyle scared you to death, shiver me timbers and all that shit, having romantic feelings for someone else is embarrassing, especially when your chance with them has been scratched out the second you laid eyes on them.

Jungkook sits on your couch, legs spread on your thighs as you two pretend to watch some series on netflix. “I don’t buy for a second the act you’re putting on right now.” he speaks randomly after staring at your deep-in-thought state for a few minutes and laughs when you snap at him for not letting you overthink in peace. “What’s going on?”

Truth is, you don’t fucking know. A few hours before he arrived at your place (you had to pick him up at the dorm and sneak the both of you through the subterranean parking lot, because god forbid someone saw Jungkook arriving at some chick’s dorm on a saturday afternoon) you swore you would be able to conceal whatever emotional turmoil you had going inside of you without compromising your regular behaviour around the man, but when push comes to shove, it’s impossible to keep yourself from wondering how far you could go before that special someone found out what was going on inside of your head.

Jungkook’s phone rings in his pocket with some annoying tone he had downloaded illegally from youtube the same day the company had handed over the device as a gift for him (you still were a little bitter over how they neglected the rest of the staff but you also knew it was kind of impossible for the human kind to just gift a-thousand-dollar-phones to almost five hundred people out of solidarity). “Hyung?” he picks up, still wary of your unusual behaviour, concerned eyes looking at you. “No, uh- i’m with Yugyeom right now.” and your heart shatters into a million pieces.

You have been suspecting for a while that Jungkook is being hesitant to introduce you to his social circle. Although, you’ve tried your best not to take it personal, it is getting harder to resist the urge to ask him what the fuck is up with that. The fact that Jungkook had to lie about the person he was hanging out with broke your ego; he could’ve just said he was with a friend, right? You suddenly feel like you’re fifteen again, when the guy you liked would love you in the dark but pretend he didn’t know you in the light.

Holding your tears back, you gently push him off and make your way towards the bathroom in the most nonchalant way you could. This is your fault for falling for the nice popular guy in the first place, you remind the reflection staring back at you. Still, as bad as it hurt, there was no way you were going to cry over a stupid boy, let alone when he was literally sat on the next room. He can go fuck himself if he thinks he can just toss this behind as if nothing ever happened.

You text Chaeryeong instead.

“chaery bom bom: i swear to god i gonna throw hands the next time i see the bitch.

chaery bom bom: like who the hell does he think he is? fucking squidward looking asshole.

chaery bom bom: he ain’t even that cute bub, you’ll get over him. i know jinyoung wouldn’t treat you like this”

You sigh. Chaeryeong has been enamored with the idea of you and his former company colleague from GOT7 since the day she met the guy (which was somewhere around ten years ago), and although he was all that, you didn’t like his quiet and cold aura, it intimidated the fuck out of you (Jungkook was the entire opposite of that).

You spray on some perfume just to have an excuse as to why you randomly ran to the bathroom when Jungkook’s inquiring eyes stare as you sit back on the couch, which is exactly what he does. “You done with your call?” you ask, bitter.

Jungkook frowns, a bit taken aback by the sudden question but still unaware of the way his words had made you feel, not even sensing the hostile change in your mood. “Yes, it was one of our managers. He was wondering if I could come back to reshoot some...-thing.”

Okay, now you kind of understand as to why he lied in the first place and to say you feel guilty is an understatement. “I supposed he backed down once you mentioned you were hanging out with Yugyeom.” playfulness makes its appearance on your tone and Jungkook rolls his eyes at you, tongue poking on the inside of his slightly red cheeks.

“Sorry for that” he moves closer and cuddles your arm, like a sad guilty puppy. “It’s just- I don’t want them asking questions''.

You understand. He is a very reserved and private person after all. It took you a bit to crack him open yourself. Plus, you kind of share that trait with him, you’d hate it too if people were constantly on your nerves for the people you decide to hang out with.

And that’s all it takes to forgive him. Not very cash money of you.

“You better not pull that shit again, though” you shift in his hold and he looks up at you. One look into your eyes and he knows what you mean. “I’ll kick you out.”

After nodding, Jungkook resumes his concentration on the series you picked out for him. Due to your short attention span, you are very picky about what you invest your time in, especifically with audiovisual pieces of media, so Jungkook trusts you whenever you recommend something on very rare occasions. As a matter of fact, Jungkook was busy attacking your kitchen counters for snacks (which you didn’t have) when you mentioned Money Heist. “Munch on some grapes instead” you suggested to soothe his disappointment.

You can’t help but feel a little sad when Jungkook doesn’t refrain from cuddling your arm after pleading to forgive him. You wish you could cuddle him instead, that he would lay his head on your chest as you play with his soft hair, but you recognize there are some things you just can’t have.

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delimeful · 4 years ago

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Snapshot: Cleanse

snapshots: a new compilation of mini-fics taking place in the WIBAR universe! this one takes place a few days after Making Adjustments!

warnings: none! Whoops, All Fluff!

It was a few days after the Breakfast Ceasefire that Virgil decided enough was enough.

He needed a shower. Badly.

It didn’t matter that he was on an alien ship full of alien stuff, or that showering meant temporarily ditching the comfort of his hoodie, or even that two out of three aliens would probably happily see him dead at any opportunity.

He had picked up what felt like an entire football field’s worth of dirt, mud, and other muck while him and Patton were planet-hopping, and impromptu washcloth (read: a patch torn from the back of his shirt) cleaning sessions had only done so much. They only came across clean water every so often, anyhow. Most of it couldn’t be wasted on washing.

Patton had picked up on his discomfort back then— that or the smell— but the Ampen’s idea of ‘cleaning up’ was very similar to that of chinchillas’ back home on Earth: dust baths. That’s right. More dirt.

(Yes, he’d rolled around in the dirt with his friend. Contrary to popular interstellar belief, he wasn’t a monster.)

Still, it was time to come clean. Literally and metaphorically.

Patton had spent last night cuddled up to him, which meant that he had actually gotten a full eight hours of sleep (good!) and that Roman was probably sulking around (ungood!). The sense of clarity that came with not being quite so horrendously sleep deprived only made him more aware of how dirty he was. It felt like heresy to even touch any of the numerous well-sanitized surfaces in the ship.

“Patton,” he called, once the Ampen had started doing those little antennae twitches that meant he was half-awake. “Can you show me the wash room?”

The response was a little delayed, but eventually Patton startled into full wakefulness with a little chirp-peep that reminded him of a computer startup noise.

From there, he was led down the circular halls to a square room that sort of resembled a locker room shower area, complete with drainage grates in the floor. There was a ledge along one side of the room that led up to a windowbox-like protrusion, and Virgil could see from here that it was full of soft, beige dirt.

Patton paused, visibly turning his head from Virgil to the washbox, as though measuring things out in his mind.

“That’s probably too small for you, huh?”

Virgil stopped him before he could start making plans for a human-sized sandbox. “Uh, actually, Pat, I need water to wash.”

“Oh!” Patton exclaimed, more surprised than disconcerted. “Well, water we doing over here then?”

Virgil couldn’t hide a smile, and Patton crinkle-smiled back at him before waving him over to the opposite end of the room. He pointed up, where there were little circular discs with a grid of tiny holes set into the wall. “Here you go! Roman uses these to help with his slough, or when he gets particularly rough and tumble down on planetside!”

… Great. Odds were borrowing his shower was probably going to make Roman even more homicidal towards him. Virgil decided to worry about that later. For now, he was faced with the biggest challenge of them all: figuring out how a friend’s shower knobs worked.

Surprisingly, it seemed like the panel set into the wall below each disc worked similarly to the other touchscreens he’d seen set into the control room of the ship. Unsurprisingly, they were all labeled with the written form of Common, which meant he had about zero chance of figuring it out on his own.

Patton noticed his blank stare and patted at his knee, and Virgil squatted down easily so the undersized alien could clamber onto his shoulder. He rose up, and Patton’s little claws scrambled for purchase for a moment before he caught his balance, Virgil tense with preparation to twist and catch him if he fell.

“This little icon has the symbol for on, and this is how you get it hot or cold,” he chirped, leaning forwards to point at the screen for emphasis. Virgil obligingly shifted closer, trying to commit the guidance to memory. “You’re a little squisher than Roman, so you should probably change the pressure, too.”

Once he’d shuffled around so he was sure neither of them were about to get slammed by a jet of water, he tapped the power button.

A three-note chime played as a sort of countdown, and water shot out of the disc, at what was probably the appropriate pressure to powerwash muck from under tightly-packed scales. Virgil pushed the slider down until he could put his hand under without feeling any sting from the water’s impact. Then, he cranked the temperature up until it was just short of scalding.

Patton eyed the steam curling up into the air with a concerned fluff to his feathers, but didn’t protest after seeing the small, delighted grin that Virgil made as he held his hand under.

No, this wasn’t dunking his head in cold streams, or dipping his arm in a lukewarm puddle, or the humiliating icy hose downs in captivity. This was warm water. He’d never take it for granted again.

He shrugged out of his hoodie as he walked over to the entrance. “Does this… lock?”

“Any door on the ship can be sealed,” Patton replied, and bonked his head to Virgil’s sympathetically at the shudder that information sent through him. “Nobody’s going to lock anything without your permission, though, okay?”

“Yeah,” Virgil said, knowing he sounded less than convinced. “Can you guard the door, still? Just in case,” he added in English, one of the phrases he’d used a lot while they were on the run.

Patton gave him a sad look, more than aware how unsafe he still felt, but nodded firmly and dropped carefully down to the floor, taking up position just outside the door like a tiny sentry. Virgil draped his hoodie over him, and then-- checking that the others weren’t nearby to witness and freak out about it-- he gave him the world’s smallest noogie, ruffling the feathers atop his head with a knuckle.

Having preemptively twitched his antennae out of the way, Patton made one of those bird-like laughs at him, batting his hand away. “Go clean! And make sure you wash out for slippery floors!”

Virgil snorted, and carefully sealed the door behind him, trying not to think about the feeling of being stuck in a tiny square room again. He shook his head, dragging his thoughts back on track.

He had access to a warm shower, his first in literal months (...years?). He was going to stay under that spout until every bit of dirt washed down the drain.

---

Roman was midway through a session of storywriting when he heard Patton’s bright voice coming down the hall, passing by his room and chattering all the while.

His ears flicked back automatically to check in, and he frowned when he realized that he couldn’t hear Logan’s arms clicking alongside the Ampen. No, apart from Patton’s tiny tapping footsteps, there was nothing. Patton had to be talking to the Human, then, since he was the only one who ghosted around the ship silently enough to make Roman feel stalked at every corner.

Well. He’d grown tired of watching his characters make a rather vexing detour from his carefully-plotted main storyline anyhow, and he was loath to leave his smallest friend alone with a Human, regardless of how docile that Human pretended to be.

After a brief cleanup of his writing instruments, he was sweeping down the corridor to the commons after them.

Logan was already in the room when he arrived, which was surprising; even Roman had picked up on the ludicrous lengths the Human went to avoid the Ulgorian, as though Logan of all people was someone to be scared of. The nerd’s poison blood was the most “threatening” thing about him, and the Human had already shown how easily he could shake that off.

Patton was leading the Human by one hand, their size disparity as jarring and terrifying as ever. And the Human…

Roman turned his head to the side to study the scene more intently, and that in itself was strange.

Normally, Virgil was almost preternaturally aware of when he was being watched, according to Logan. It was obvious when he knew: the Human went tense and rigid, practically poised to pounce at any moment.

But now, he was trailing after Patton with a relaxed slope to his shoulders, his steps almost languid. He all but collapsed on the fluffy cushion Patton gestured to, eyes gliding shut as the Ampen climbed up after him.

Roman took a few steps into the room, and the Human cracked one eye open-- not entirely out of it, then. The mild suspicion he was regarded with was almost reassuring.

Upon closer inspection, there were physical changes, too. The human had gone from pale, almost grey-toned to having a pinkish tint to his skin. The grey-brown still clung to the hooded garment he’d draped himself in, creating an even more jarring contrast. Dirt, then? It would certainly explain the smudges he left everywhere he touched much better than some strange Human Residue.

… He wasn’t crossing Human Residue off the list of possibilities, though.

Most striking of all was his head. He had originally stalked around with a matted mess of fur, glinting oily in the light where it wasn’t dull with dirt. Now, the fur was clean and stuck out in little fluffy tufts, creating a much less menacing look overall.

Patton apparently agreed, because he’d scampered up to one shoulder and immediately buried his tiny hands into that fluff. Roman and Logan both startled, exchanging an alarmed-exasperated-fearful look, one that had become exceedingly more common after Patton came home with his new Human cellmate.

Surprisingly, all Virgil did was go even more boneless on the cushion, turning his head to better meet Patton’s touch. Patton closed his eyes happily, apparently completely fine with petting one of the most feared creatures in the galaxy.

That wasn’t surprising at all, actually.

What was surprising was the Human’s apparent tolerance for it.

“I wasn’t aware Humans enjoyed tactile ministrations,” Logan said, tapping his wristplates curiously. “Is Virgil alright?”

The Human in question turned slightly to glance at them, eyes still half-lidded. It was probably the least threatening body language Roman had seen from him since… well, ever. “Mm?”

“You’re just relaxing, aren’t you kiddo?” Patton combed through that mess of fluff some more and Virgil lost what little tension he’d regained. “Virgil spent a lot of time on guard while we were on the run planetside. He deserves all the time in the world to recuperate… and all the head scritches!”

Roman’s tail swished exasperatedly, but even he really couldn’t come up with a reason to begrudge the Human for this, not when Patton was so clearly enjoying having someone else onboard to preen. Even if that someone was a Deathworlder.

He moved to settle onto his own cushion under the guise of supervising, though for once he thought the Human might actually fall asleep in front of him.

And if he was perhaps just slightly curious about what exactly a fluffy Human felt like? Well, that was nobody’s business but his own.

#sanders sides #ts virgil #ts patton #ts roman #ts logan #humans are space orcs #space au #wibar #wibar snapshots #watch it burn and rust #writing #my writing #found family #platonic moxiety

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dodo-begone · 4 years ago

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New Normal

Pairing: Yandere!Tubbo x Reader (with some Ranboo)

Request: we need more yandere tubbo i absolutely love the way you wrote him shdhhfjd........ maybe a short fic or some headcanons elaborating on "waking up in the mansion one day"? maybe the reader gets more afraid than going along with it .. I'd love to see ranboos aspect regarding tubbos behavior as well 👀

Word count: 2.3 k

Warning: yandere, kidnapping, drugging

A/n: This is all platonic. Nothing romantic. Also this was meant to be short not this long oh lord.

The night had been unforgiving to you as of late. Every night you felt like you were being watched over. It was so weird. It didn’t matter if the windows were open or not. Or even if they had blinds over them. Your paranoia was being fed by every noise emanating from the darkness. Now you weren’t afraid of the dark, never had been. But now, oh god the dark was terrifying. The unknown of the dark scared you. Anything could be hiding in there. And with this new “admirer” of yours, your newfound fear of the shadows was being fed a damn feast. The last straw for you was when you came home one night and saw your window broken and front door open. It spooked you too much; what if they were still inside? You couldn’t risk that.

That’s how you found yourself in Tubbo’s house, on his couch, hunched over and shaking over a cup of tea. You don’t remember why you came here, in all honesty. There were so many other people you could have chosen that were more than capable of protecting you. There was Sam, Bad, Sapnap, even Technoblade. Yet you still went to Tubbo. He was a comforting presence for you. And you just really wanted some comfort for this new fear of yours. Is this what I child felt when they were scared of the dark and needed a flashlight? God now you feel so bad for making fun of little kids for needing those.

“Hey are you okay,” a hand just fucking attacks your shoulder and you wip around. Oh god what if the guy got you now- wait it’s just Tubbo. Wow you overreacted there. Your swift actions shocked Tubbo, making him take a few steps away from you. He held his hands up in the air; an attempt to show he meant no harm to you. But you were just relieved at the sight of Tubbo.

“I don’t know,” a lump was forming in your throat. The tea isn't helping at all. You were so upset that you couldn’t even tell what flavor it was. Nor did you ask Tubbo, but that didn’t matter. Only distractions mattered now; a way to get your mind off of the paranoid thoughts. “I think I am”. Your grip on the cup tightened. Some of that was you trying to ground yourself, but another part of it was just tension. It was becoming harder to breathe and you had no idea why. There wasn’t a reason. Start breathing normally again- uh what was that breathing exercise?

Tubbo came around the couch and sat by your side. “Hey, can you look at me really quick?” He grabbed your hands and you looked at him. Somehow looking into his eyes made it harder to breathe. “Okay now repeat after me- wait not repeat. Uh, do what I do. Ready?” You didn’t get a chance to reply before he started. “Okay take a deep breath with me. In through the mouth for five and out the nose for four. In for five, out for four.” A small pattern formed from the mantra. Something about the exercise was extremely comforting, but you were never sure on what it was. Well you knew it had to do with slowing your breathing and helping you focus, but you felt like there was something else to it. There had to be something else to it. Why else would it be able to calm you so well right now?

It took a while, but you finally calmed down. Well, “calmed down” being a relative term. You were tired and numb inside. Your attention was completely focused on the flames in the hearth. They were mesmerizing. Happily dancing away, illuminating the room.

You hadn’t realized what was happening. All you remember is looking at Tubbo and then everything just became blurry. The sting of tears stung your eyes. Oh, you were about to cry again. That’s so annoying, stupid. You had just calmed down and yet you’re still crying. Craving human contact must be a symptom of sadness or some shit because you looked at Tubbo for comfort. And he gave you exactly that; opening his arms to give you a hug. Without a second thought, you essentially flew into his arms. He accepted you immediately and held you close. The tears that had once been contained by a damn once again ran free. Slowly you grew tired. Oh how you despised the act of crying and how it drained you so. A little nap wouldn’t hurt.

__________________________________ The sunbeams were attacking you and it hurt so much. So bright, demanding. You didn’t want to get up. Sleepiness still held you captive, flowed through your body like the very blood you had. Yet the light was relentless, attacking your closed eyes through it’s armor. A valiant effort was made to stay asleep and keep the sunlight out of your eyes. But it was futile. Rolling over did nothing but illicit noise and made you mildly uncomfortable. When you finally gave in, you just stared blankly at the wall.

For a wall, it was pretty. Kinda. It was plain but a stylish kind of plain. A timeless look. It took ages to finally muster the energy to even sit up, but you still did. The view changed yet it didn’t at the same time. It was pretty empty in the room. Three doorways, two next to each other on your right and one on your left, a bed, some curtains, a small nightstand, and a bookshelf. Other than that, there was a ton of open space.

Once you regained some more consciousness, you slipped out of bed. There was a jingle, but you didn’t really pay attention to it. You definitely heard it, you just thought something fell on the floor. Whatever it was could wait. The unexplored room was just waiting for exploration, though you could have easily explored it from your bed because of how empty it was. When you got to one of the doors, you slowly opened it to reveal a closet. It was absolutely filled with clothes you liked. Or some you were missing. Didn’t you own that shirt at home? And that one too? Huh, what a coincidence. Pretty cool.

Not even two steps away from the closet was another door, which you also slowly opened. Didn’t want to hit anyone. Through that door was a bathroom. It was pretty big and pretty. Very shiny and clean. There were some care products in there, some shampoo and conditioner. But you stopped yourself from looking too much. You didn’t want to snoop. It was rather rude to do.

Grogley you turn toward the last mystery door. It was all the way on the other side of the room. Man you weren’t awake enough for this. Yawning, you start your way to the other doorway. That must be the way back to the rest of the mansion. Sadly you didn’t get far. Not even halfway there before you were stopped. More accurately tripped. Something made your foot slip from underneath, making you fall onto your stomach. Everything ached, but your ankle felt weird. It was a different pain. When you tried to pull it closer to examine it, something stopped it and the sound of metal hitting itself rang across the room. You nearly give yourself whiplash from how quickly you turn your head.

A metal cuff clung onto your ankle which in turn was connected to a tense chain. At the other end of the chain was one of the bedposts. Specifically the one closest to the closet and bathroom. That’s odd. Okay now what’s going on here? Oh did Tubbo do this to make you feel more secure? Well it was and wasn’t working all at the same time. Because who puts an ankle chain on somebody?

A knock interrupted your thoughts. From your spot on the floor, you whipped your head back around to the last mystery door. You stayed quiet, wondering if you were just imagining noises. But another knock soon came. It was undeniable, very pronounced and purposeful. Whoever was out there- what could they be here for. Panic started to overtake you again, but the sound of Tubbo’s voice coming from the other side of the door caught your attention.

“Can I come in,” Tubbo announces his presence again with another round of knocks. With the amount of noise you made, you were pretty sure he knew you were awake. But you still replied to him.

“Yeah you can.”

Not even a second after you reply, the door slowly opens and Tubbo peaks his head in. He seemed to have woken up with some bedhead, which made him look boyish. A little careless for physical appearances, which can be an endearing feature. Tubbo gave the room a sweeping look, checking for something. What exactly, you couldn’t tell. But apparently he was satisfied because he opened the doorway entirely. You swiftly stood up, getting as close to the door as you could.

On the other side of the door was Tubbo in some pajamas. He looked a little sleepy, but his happiness shone through it. You smiled at the sight of him, happy that someone came to get you out.

“Good morning, Tubbo!” You gave a toothy grin and spread your arms to emphasize your joy. “Sleep well?”

“Good morning!.” He gave you a toothy smile in return, but it looked odd. Like it was forced, nervous even. But you must’ve just been looking too far into it. “I slept pretty good. How’d you sleep?”

“I slept like a fucking rock,” you reply with a little laughter. “Honestly? Best sleep of the month, man. Really needed it. Thanks for letting me bunk at your place last night.”

“Not a problem at all,” his smile soon became more natural, much bigger. “I really enjoyed having you over”. It seemed like he was going to say something else, but stopped himself. The nervous look reappeared on his face, and you gave the most reassuring look you could. “So about you moving in-”

“Oh yeah that,” your smile disappeared as quickly as it came. “I can’t just do that Tubbo. I just can’t.” Tubbo seemed saddened by your response. “It’s not like I don’t want to live with you,” you explained. “I’d love to live with you and Ranboo, but I have other responsibilities. Things that have to be done very far from the mansion. Seriously, I’d love to stay.”

“Then stay.” It was a simple statement on his part. You thought it was a little banter.

“I’d stay if I could Tubbo. But I gotta go.”

“You can’t go.”

“Yes I can, Tubbo. Now can you please unchain me, I gotta go.” You lift your ankle and shake it along with the chain for emphasis.

But Tubbo doesn’t even give it a look before answering. “You can’t leave.”

His actions are words are a bit worrying now, huh. This is just a silly prank. Any second now he’ll say it’s a joke and release you. Yeah, any moment now.

That moment never comes though.

“Come on now,” Tubbo starts to lead you back to the bed. “Get back in bed. You still look tired.”

“I’m not tired Tubbo,” your voice hardens to emphasise the fact that you really don’t need this shit right now. “Look I’m completely fine and I have to go. This joke isn’t funny anymore. Just unlock the fucking cuff and I’ll be on my way.”

You two stop at the bed and he gently ushers you in. Climbing on the bed to give you a hug. Struggling against him does no good. If anything, it just makes things worse. He just tightens his grip like a damn python. Wtf why is this kid so strong and clingy? This definitely isn’t a good combo.

“Look you aren’t fine. See?” He emphasizes his point by hugging you tighter. Which you don’t like and groan in protest. “You need to rest. It’s fine. You’re home.”

Internally you start to panic. Yo, hold up, what the hell is he talking about? You know damn well you ain’t home or agreed to stay here. So what does he think he’s doing?

There’s a cough from the doorway, and both you and Tubbo’s attention is diverted to the newcomer. At the threshold of the room is Ranboo. A platter loaded with food held between his hands. He looks awkward standing there. And you don’t blame him because you felt awkward just being in the hug. You couldn’t even imagine the embarrassment you’d get from walking in on this shit. When your eyes meet, he gives you a small, unsure smile.

Movement behind Ranboo catches your attention. You look behind Ranboo’s legs to see Micheal clinging onto Ranboo’s pants. He looked so happy. Well, happy being debatable and interpretive. He looked normal but he was making his little happy noises. Micheal bounded over to you, stretching his arms out while making the most adorable little oink noises. You look between Tubbo and Ranboo for any sign. Literally anything for them. But Tubbo just encourages you. So you pick up Micheal and hold him close to your chest.

Tubbo gives a cheer of joy while Ranboo joins in, though a little less enthusiastic. Still the fact he sounded genuinely happy about this situation was worrying. Especially since he knew what was going on. Knew how wrong it all was. Micheal had no idea. Happily oinking way in your lap and messing with your hands. Suddenly two sets of arms entangle themselves around you; pulling themselves toward you for a hug.

Looking down at Micheal, you now question if the backstory you were told about him was true. Was he actually found wandering around? Or was he kidnapped, just like you?

#c: tubbo #c: ranboo #tw: yandere #yandere #dodo writing #mcyt x reader #x reader #dsmp x reader #dsmp!tubbo #dsmp!ranboo #tubbo x reader #ranboo x reader #yandere tubbo #yandere ranboo #yandere tubbo x reader #tw: kidnapping #tw: drugging #dsmp!ranboo x reader #dsmp!tubbo x reader

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wandaownsthisass · 4 years ago

Text

Why'd You Have to Leave? -- Wanda Maximoff x Reader

a/n: You and Wanda have a fight, she leaves, proving to you that everyone leaves eventually.

-- This fic idea was very random & I'm not sure I like the ending but what can ya do 🤷‍♀️ I hope y'all enjoy it.

Words: 5359

Warnings: Angst! Some swearing & mentions of alcohol, brief mention of a panic attack. NSFW. 18+ Only.

You knew this would happen.

I mean it always does, sometimes sooner than others. But it is inevitable really. In the end, you were always the one to blame, because truthfully it was you who drove people away.

Over and over and over, until they could not take it any longer.

Over and over and over again, you proved to yourself that no one would stay.

So really, you knew this would happen.

It didn’t hurt any less though, watching the person you truly thought would stay, just leave.

She was only supposed to be gone for a month, on a mission that required her to go undercover, no phone calls, no texts, no mail. Nothing. Silence for an entire month, which normally you could have handled but the fight before her departure replayed in your mind, like a broken record.

Except a broken record was once whole, and you’re not sure the relationship you had with Wanda was ever that.

The tears. The shouting. The door slamming. And then silence, complete silence.

And when the day came around for Wanda to come back home, you waited impatiently by the door, ears perking up at every small sound, heart racing when the distant chatter from the team got just a little louder. But then it was almost 10 at night, and worry started to flood your thoughts.

It didn’t last long before a knock came at your door, it was so light you thought you imagined it. Anxiety filling you, you held your breath before replying “Come in”.

You watched slowly as the door creaked open, almost as if the person behind it was hesitant to enter.

It was Natasha, and you felt the dread creep back up your body, reaching your throat, tightening as you held back the tears that threatened to breakthrough.

You didn’t dare speak, for the fear of cracking in front of her. Instead, you let her take the lead, as you chewed insistently on your bottom lip.

“How are you doing?” She whispered, approaching slowly, coming to a stop at the end of your bed.

You nodded, gesturing for her to take a seat. Which she did, and you sat for a moment, almost unsure of how to answer.

Miserable. Scared. Maybe even grieving.

You settled with an “I’m fine”

She disliked your response, her brows furrowed at your words.

“You’ve barely left your room this past month, we’re worried about you”

You scoffed, irritated at the sudden interest in your well-being.

“Why are you here Nat?” You spat.

Your voice breaks, and you’re not even sure if she heard the next words, “Is she coming home?”

The blonde doesn’t even need to reply, her expression failing her instantly, a look of pity directed at your sad state.

“Get out”

Natasha doesn’t bother trying to fight with you, uttering “She’s alive Y/N, I think she just needs time alone”

And with that, she leaves. Her words cut deeper than you thought they would.

She consciously decided to leave you, longer than needed for a stupid mission, not even bothering to tell you herself.

And in some dark twisted way, you thought her death would hurt less.

By the time the next month rolled around, any hope you had left started to die off. Natasha was the only one that heard from Wanda, once a week you would watch Natasha rush off to a secluded area, engaging in a hushed conversation. The calls only lasted a few minutes and although you had started to occupy yourself with other tasks, you couldn’t help but feel the gut-wrenching ache in your stomach when the blonde would look over at you.

A few more weeks passed by and it was an unbearably warm day, which you spent outside suffering through one of Steve’s grueling workouts when you heard the familiar buzz of the Quinjet approaching the compound.

Despite your condition, you noticed Steve’s worried features glance your way before running off to the approaching jet.

There it was. That dread and sadness you worked so hard to push down, came flooding back like a dam bursting.

Even from this far away you knew it was her. Her red hair glistening in the sweltering sun. You watched the rest of the team sweep her into hugs, but your interest in her was interrupted by a taller unfamiliar figure standing behind her.

You could barely make out their appearance, but they were not human. Skin coloured an unnatural red and blue. Almost synthetic-like. Their presence instantly leaving a bad taste in your mouth.

You waited for everyone to head inside before making your way to your room to shower.

You had hoped the cold water would shock the unwelcome feelings from your mind, but time alone only served to create more.

Taking a deep breath, you prepared to enter the living room, where the team was catching up with Wanda and the new guest. You hesitated though, inching closer and closer to the doorway, before changing your mind, turning on your heel back the direction you came.

You had nearly turned around before a quiet voice halted your movements.

You froze just as Wanda’s voice hitched.

“Y/N?” she whispered; goosebumps forming immediately over your skin because it was like hearing her voice for the first time. Was her accent always this prominent?

You could have kept going. You could have ignored her and pretended like you didn’t care. But she was right behind you, and the desire to see her face after all this time overtook you.

You shifted your weight, taking a long deep inhale, bracing yourself. Turning around you averted your eyes, attempting to take her in slowly, hoping to warm up to see her face again after all this time.

So, you did just that and once your eyes arrived at her face, you realized no amount of preparation would have sufficed.

Her eyes seemed lighter like they were no longer burdened by the dullness of the compound and familiarity of her old life. It was as if they belonged to someone else, a person who you struggled to recognize.

Had it been that long? Did she always have that many freckles?

You shook your head, frustrated at the thoughts filling your head, and embarrassment began to creep up realizing you had yet to answer her.

“You’re back” You whispered back; afraid your voice may break if you talked any louder.

She hesitated, paused, observed you like she used to. So, you observed her back. Watched her watch you, a flitter occurring deep in your belly. Subconsciously shifting again on your feet, drawing her out of her stupor, she cleared her throat to answer, “Yeah I thought it was about time”

About time? Almost as if you were just an old friend, and it was time to play catch-up.

A dry laugh fell out of you. “Well, how nice of you to come back.”

A sigh crossed her lips, her eyes flickering down for a moment before returning to your intense gaze. “We should talk.”

“I have nothing to say to you,” you spat back, eyes narrowing. “You said enough when you left without another word, and you said, even more, when you didn’t come back.”

Tears welled in your eyes, memories returning like unwanted guests. That’s when the tears started. That’s when you lost hold of your composure. Because her presence used to be warm. She was back, she came back. Her presence should have relieved you.

But it didn’t. It just hurt, cut open the wound you thought you started to patch back together, but just like that she ripped you open again. And you lost control, again.

You didn’t give her a chance to answer. Because nothing she would say at that moment could fix it. You weren’t sure if anything she would ever say would fix it.

So, you left. You heard her say your name one more time. It was desperate, broken. But you needed space. Tears blurred your vision as your feet carried you to the roof of the compound. You didn’t stay standing for long. The door shut behind you and you crumpled to the ground, sobs wracking your entire body, draining you of any air that was left.

You lied there, hyperventilating, trying desperately to catch your breath. Every fiber of this false control and composure you thought you weaved, just completely unraveled.

You thought you heard someone call your name, but it was so distant and all you could think of, all you felt was the gnawing at your chest.

Hands cupped your wet cheeks, stroking lightly, “Hey hey, Y/N I’m here. Take some deep breaths for me. I’m here”

Your eyes shot open at Wanda’s voice, wanting desperately to rip yourself from her hands. But you didn’t. You didn’t know if it was because you were exhausted or if you wanted to hold onto this feeling for as long as you could. So, you stayed, allowing Wanda to sit behind you, taking the weight of your body against hers.

Her voice wavered, barely holding onto any stability, “That’s it, keep breathing.”

You heard sniffling behind you before her body began to shake. Her tear-stained hand coming into your peripherals for a brief moment.

Your body stiffened at the sight, anger starting to replace any feelings of anguish. You pushed away from her, standing abruptly. You swiveled around to take sight of her. The rims of her eyes were red, tears flowing freely from them.

“What are you doing?” You hissed, ignoring the concern that started to crawl into you.

She wiped another tear.

“I came to see if you were-”

“No. What are you doing back? Why did you come back?”

Anger laced itself in your voice. It took you straight back to that night. It was a stupid fight, both of you too stubborn to admit feelings, too stubborn to stop pushing one another away, too afraid to admit that you were in love. So, you snapped. You pushed to see how much it would take for her to walk away, how much she could handle. To see if she would stay.

It was wrong. It was childish. You knew that. You didn’t blame her; it was your fault after all. You pushed to prove that everyone leaves, and she proved it again.

You could see her reliving that night as well, her eyes staring hard at the ground below her. Her jaw clenched.

"I-I couldn't stand to be away from you any longer. I missed you."

“Stop. Just stop! I don’t want to hear that bullshit.” You yelled.

And you didn’t give her a chance to reply, “All those secret phone calls with Natasha, you couldn’t have just called to tell me yourself? I had to be told by Natasha that you wouldn’t be coming back. That’s all I got. How fucking pathetic. This time don’t follow me.”

The door slammed behind you. You turned the corner at the end of the stairwell and ran right into the stranger you had yet to meet. You glared up at him. His presence fuelled your anger.

“Hello Miss Y/N, it’s a pleasure to meet you. Do you know where Wan-”

“The roof. Now get out of my way.”

He’s pushed to the side, hitting the wall lightly as you brushed past him.

You spent that night in your room, huddled in blankets. Knocks came and went at your door. Each one met with a strangled fuck off, eventually taking the hint you wanted to be left alone.

You spent days in your room, losing track of time. The cycles of day and night coming and going like a blur, like scenes from a movie.

Once in a while, you could register a hushed voice from outside your room. You started to think you were just hallucinating them at times.

Then your solitude was interrupted by a presence entering your room. You didn’t see who it was. You were enveloped by the safety of your blankets, excluding any light that dared to enter your room.

“Y/N? I brought you some food”

It was Peter. You nearly broke at his voice, sadness lacing his words. He was by far your closest friend but being so busy at college you rarely saw him anymore. He knew of the current circumstances, but like most people, you shut him out.

You could only assume Natasha or Steve was responsible for his arrival at the compound. But it was a presence you welcomed. It surprised you. You were so sure that the past days spent alone in your room, you had officially cried out every feeling possible. You felt utterly empty. Endless nothingness.

You peeked out from the safety of your comforter, dry eyes meeting his warm gaze.

“Well, it’s nice to see you. I brought your favourite pizza. Although there is a catch, you do have to share with me,” He smiles, leaning over to grab the food.

“Thank you”

You cringed at the sound of your voice. It was hoarse. It was dry. It was so weak.

The two of you sat in silence for a while. You groaned at the taste of the pizza, finally realizing how malnourished your body was. It wasn’t long before it was gone.

“What time is it?”

“10 am and it’s Sunday”

Sunday. That meant it had been three days since Wanda returned.

“You brought me pizza at 10 am?” You laughed. The sound shocked you at first, you couldn’t remember the last time you laughed. It saddened you.

He smiled at that, “Well, who said you can’t eat pizza at 10 am? Plus, I thought you might need it. I’ve been worried about you. We all have. I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner, I tried. I-I didn’t know how bad it had gotten”

You held up your hand, stopping him from continuing.

“Don’t apologize. Please. I didn’t make it easy”

“I want to ask how you are, but I feel like I know the answer”

You averted your eyes, taking a look around your room. Messy was an understatement. You could barely see the floor. You caught your reflection in a nearby mirror. You broke at the sight. How could you let yourself get like this?

“Hey, I’m right here. It’s going to be ok.”

Peter held you for a while, your tears eventually dying out. You pulled away from his tear-soaked shirt. Embarrassed and exhausted, you look at him, “I’m going to shower.”

You weren’t sure how long you spent washing off the dirt that built up over the past few days. You were angry and annoyed. How could you let her do this to you again?

You pushed away from the thought, instead, relishing in the warm water.

When you returned, clean and in new clothes, your room was tidy. Your bed made and the floor clear of riddled clothes and trash. Peter sat on your bed.

“Wow. Thank you for cleaning, you didn’t need to”

“It’s no problem. Really. I’m here for you. Now let’s go enjoy the day”

The team quieted down immediately at your presence, staring widely at the two of you. You hated the attention. You hated how you searched for Wanda amongst the group. You hated how disappointed you were when you noticed she wasn’t there.

Peter noticed your wandering gaze and grabbed your arm to drag you along.

The sun was blinding. Taking you longer than normal to adjust. But once you did, you stood there letting the warmth encase your entire body. You glanced over at Peter.

“She’s here still. She hasn’t left her room.”

You just stare at him.

“Sorry, is that what you wanted to know?”

You nod, “Has anyone talked to her?”

“Vision did. I don’t think it went too well though. He was thrown out of the room almost immediately. Thankfully he can phase through walls, so she didn’t do much damage.”

You breathe out, “Sounds like her”

Peter clears his throat. “Do you think you’re going to speak to her?”

“I’m not sure if I have anything to say”

You started to walk, and Peter followed. The past days spent in your room allowed you to reflect heavily on the situation. Whether you wanted to accept it or not, you loved Wanda. You’d fell for her the day you met her, nearly 3 years ago. Her presence frustrated you, made you experience things you came to believe you would never understand. She scared you, wholeheartedly.

Her presence also grounded you. Missions spent together allowed the two of you to grow closer, sharing hushed conversations about her life in Sokovia, your life growing up. Sharing painful memories but also the minor details about one another. By now, you could read each other without a second thought.

You didn’t realize the effect she had on you until she left. No one else on the team calmed you like she did. No one else could ever come close to her.

Peter cut in, disrupting your thoughts, “I think you do. I know it’s not my place, but I can see how much you two care about each other. I also know that neither of you have had it easy. But don’t you think you deserve something good? Whatever you two have is special, complicated even, but worth fighting for,”

“Maybe it’s about time you let yourself open up, let yourself have this. If it goes wrong, then at least you tried” He watched you hesitantly, knowing there was a possibility of him receiving a fist to the face.

Instead, you sat with it. Maybe he was right. “I’m scared,” you admitted, taking a deep breath at your vulnerability.

“That means you care, somewhere in that cold heart of yours.”

You shot him a glare, quickly replacing it with a smile. “Yeah, yeah.”

He was right. Not that you would admit that to him, ever. But you did care. You cared a lot. So, you stared at Peter for a moment before heading back inside. You walked right past the rest of the group for the second time, they watched you with curiosity as you headed down the opposing corridor, opposite your room. To Wanda’s.

You didn’t know how long you stood there for. You must have reached up to knock nearly ten times, and just when your fist was about to touch the wood, you froze. If you went in there you had to be vulnerable. You had to admit everything you didn’t want to. Everything you tried so fucking hard to run away from. You would have to do that for this person, and hope, just hope that they would accept all of you.

Wanda decided to be the push you needed. She had heard your battling thoughts from her chair in the corner. Where she had sat for the past days, thinking. She had wondered if you’d ever come. She had battled with just barging into your room and confessing everything. She attempted several times, sneaking out late at night. Nights spent hovered outside your door.

So, when she heard you outside her door, the tightness in her chest started to soften.

Red mist encased the door handle, and you watched as the door creaked open, it startled you at first before you comprehended what was happening. You stepped through the doorway and scanned for Wanda. And you found her, she sat in a chair across from you, she stared intently at you before her features softened, almost as if she still wasn’t sure, it’d be you walking through the door.

You cleared your throat, nervous under her gaze, “Hi”

“Hey, how are you?”

It was awkward.

"I'm go-", you stopped yourself, "I don't know. I have no idea"

She nodded. More silence.

“I’m sorry I yelled at you the other day. It wasn’t very mature of me”

Wanda shifted in her seat, “Don’t apologize. You had-have every right to be angry with me. I’m so sorry Y/N. I really fucked up”, tears ran down her face, which she swiped away almost as fast as they came.

You remained rooted in your spot. Stuck between wanting to comfort her and keeping your distance. You stayed.

“Wanda, I want to be completely open with you. I know I don’t have the greatest track record for being the most vulnerable, but I’ve realized that whatever the outcome is, I need to be honest with you”

You moved to the edge of her bed and took a few minutes to gather your thoughts before continuing, "You are the most important person in my life. I haven't made it easy for you and I didn't make it easy on us. For that, I'm sorry. I hated letting people in, frankly, I didn't let anyone in until I met you. When we met, it was like I could breathe for the first time, which now that I'm saying that it sounds so cliche,"

“I wanted to push you away and prove to myself that everyone just leaves me. I’ll admit, it’s childish and unhealthy but I can’t change what I did. But when you left, it broke me. For a moment I thought you’d be the one to stay. And as much as I hate you for it, I can’t blame you.”

You looked up at Wanda. Taking a moment to catch your breath as the familiar tightness returned.

“I shouldn’t have left. Regardless of how hard it was. I don’t have an excuse for what I did, and I don’t have an excuse for how I handled things. It was immature and I am mad at myself for it. I never wanted to hurt you, I felt that me being there was just adding to the hurt.”

It was your turn for the tears to fall. You wished yours were more controlled, but you couldn’t help the way your body fell victim to everything you had tried to hold in.

Wanda stood immediately, closing the distance before stopping abruptly in front of your legs. You looked up at her through blurry eyes, your hands reached out before you knew what you were doing. Coming into contact with her sweater, you cried harder at the warmth radiating from her body. She stepped in and grasped your hands, placing them on her waist.

Her hands cupped your cheeks, thumbs wiping away the tears. Your knuckles nearly turned white, grasping onto her like she was your lifeline.

“It hurts me when you cry. Yet, I’m the reason for it”

Her hands made their way to yours, reaching back to release them gently from her shirt. Her thumbs continued their movements on the back of your hands. You both stayed there for some time, your tears becoming less frequent and your breath becoming deeper.

“Talk to me please”

Your eyes were closed but you felt her bend down, kneeling in front of you. Your eyes opened and her breath hitched, eyes red and puffy, but remained that bright green.

“Who is he?”

Her brows furrowed for a moment before realizing who it was you were asking about, “Vision?”

“Sure, the red dude”

She smiled briefly, “I met him on the mission, he was one of Stark’s AI’s, I guess he went off on his own for a while before making contact again”, “Why?”

“I think he likes you”

“He had to hear a lot about me while we were together. He knows my heart lies with you,”

“I wanted to wait but I realized waiting is stupid and if I don’t say it now I don’t-”

“I love you. I’m pretty sure I’ve loved you since we first met. I’m sorry it took me so long to say it”

You didn’t know if you’d ever seen Wanda smile so big, the sadness lifting slowly from her eyes, that lightness you saw a few days before returning. The lightness caused by you.

“I love you too. I love you so much. I’m sorry I left, you mean everything to me, I never want you to feel less than that”

You glanced down at Wanda’s lips instinctively, she mirrored your movements before she leaned in slowly to close the distance. Just before your lips touched, you pulled back, ever so slightly, she halted immediately glancing back up at you,

“I don’t think that’s a good idea right now Wan, I still need some time” You replied, hand placed on her chest.

She nodded and went back to her standing position. You cleared your throat before you stood as well, making your way to her door.

“I’ll see you around”

The next few days passed quite quickly, Wanda and you exchanged glances here and there, some turning into lingering moments, it was always you that had to break the contact.

A week later, at The Avengers Annual Charity Gala, you had a little too much to drink. You stood at the bar, gladly accepting the rounds of free drinks being supplied to you by random charity goers, each time thanking you for what you do. Each new person began to weave into one as your vision blurred, the bar counter became the only thing that stood between you and the floor.

You admit, it was irresponsible but that was quickly excused by the rough past few months you had just endured. So, you continued and tried to ignore the redhead and her companion in the corner of the room. Peter approached the bar and ended your fun once you stumbled and knocked over the barstool, apologizing after doing so, “I think that’s enough for her Natasha''

“Peter! I’ve been looking everywhere for you!” You exclaimed, throwing your arms around him.

“You can barely stand, come on let’s sit down”

Peter led you over the couches, and you plopped down with a sigh and slumped over almost immediately.

“Oh my god, Peter, have you lied down on these couches before? This is wonderful”

“Drink some water please, Tony will lose it if you puke on these”

He shoved water your way, clearly annoyed at your antics. You sent him a glare before accepting the drink, “Let me have some fun, you know I can’t stay drunk that long anyways”

“Yeah, but you are a reckless one, and this gala is an important one,” He said, taking a seat beside you, as he placed his hand on your lap.

He noticed your eyes watching Wanda and Vision, her head thrown back at something he whispered to her.

“You’re insufferable, why don’t you two just get back together?”

“I need time. I love her but what if we just aren’t meant to be?”

“That’s ridiculous. She loves you. She’s been watching over you the whole night,” Peter admits, rolling his eyes at you.

“Take this as a second chance, God knows what tomorrow will bring, in this line of work you need to count your blessings and live while you can. You love her”

You nod and take another swig of the water. Wanda felt your eyes and twisted her head to meet your gaze.

“Hold this” You shoved the water at Peter before standing up.

You took a deep breath, hesitated for a moment before you pushed through the crowd that stood between you and Wanda. Vision stood there, entranced by Wanda as she spoke, but she wasn’t focused on him nor the conversation, as she watched curiously as you stumbled your way through the partygoers.

“Wanda. Vision” You said as you tried to center yourself after the abrupt movements.

Vision noticed your state, “Are you okay Miss Y/N?”, you stared at him doing your best to be intimidating.

“I need to speak to Wanda. Alone.”

He nodded and excused himself. You took Wanda’s hand in your own and led her behind you to the balcony.

“What’s going on with you?” Wanda spoke, once the two of you were out of earshot from the party.

“I’m being an idiot. I did it again, I pushed you away when I just talked to you about how I didn’t want to do that again. Then seeing you with-” You were cut off as Wanda surged forward, capturing your lips, your words dying in your throat.

You hummed into the kiss as Wanda pushed your body up against the wall, a gasp left you, allowing Wanda’s tongue to slip into your mouth.

You had forgotten how soft her lips were against yours. Her intoxicating smell filled your senses. The sounds of the party began to drown out as your hands gripped her waist, pulling her body flush against yours. One of her hands cupped your cheek, the other reached behind and pulled at the hair resting at the nape of your neck. You groaned loudly as she pulled your head back, exposing your neck to her.

She looked at you for a moment, her irises flashing red before she leaned back down, her teeth sinking into you.

“Fuck, Wanda”

Every worry, every ounce of hesitation, flew right out the window, the familiar feeling of Wanda replacing it all. You were home. She was home. And you were tired of ignoring that.

Wanda was relentless as she moved her way down your body. You clung onto her, worried that without her pinning you against the wall you would surely fall, your knees weak from the attention.

Her hand stopped at the button of your pants, fiddling for a brief moment as her eyes returned to yours. Eyes dark and a smile written across her face,

“What are you smiling at?” You whisper, half-lidded eyes watching her.

“I missed seeing you like this. So desperate for me”

Her accent was thick, lust laced her words. You inhaled sharply, chest heaving, “God-Please fuck me”

The words had barely left your mouth, before she delved back in, taking your mouth into hers while her hands worked your buttons.

One hand around your throat squeezing slightly, the other slipped into your pants, grazing over your soaked underwear.

She let out a moan, muffled by your lips, the vibration shooting right down to your core.

Her fingers ran over your underwear, before they swiftly shoved it out of the way, two fingers sinking deep into you. It was your turn to moan now, violently ripping your mouth from hers as your head slammed back against the wall.

Another moan as the fingers exited fully before they slammed back into you, she continued the movements and curled her fingers before every exit. Just when you thought you couldn’t take anymore, Wanda entered you with three fingers, as her thumb came into contact with your clit, circling it slowly as she slowed her movements for a moment, allowing you to get used to the extra digit.

“I’m so close Wan”

“I know detka, you’re doing so well”

Your stomach tightened as she lifted your right leg around her hip, her fingers diving deeper into you, bottoming out.

“Come for me” Wanda whispered against your skin.

You let go. A wave of pleasure flowed through you as you yelled her name into the night. Your body collapsed against the wall, Wanda being the only thing keeping you standing upright.

Her movements slowed down, as she helped you ride your release. Once your breathing slowed, your eyes peeled open at her just as her fingers entered her mouth, moaning loudly as she sucked off your juices. Releasing them with a pop.

You pulled her in for a kiss, tasting yourself on her lips.

The two of you pulled away, “Sorry, you were saying before?”

You let out a laugh, “I don’t remember anymore”

Wanda reached down, buttoning your pants back up, "I want to try again if that's something you'd want as well?"

“I’d like that”

“Good,” she smiled, “Let’s get back to the party”

After that, there was no more shouting. No more tears. No more doubt. A year passed and the two of you moved into your own home, it wasn’t far from the compound, but it was yours.

You were happy. Wanda left but always came back, returning to your side.

You were home.

#wanda x reader #wanda maximoff x reader #wanda maximoff x female reader #elizabeth olsen #angst #marvel #wanda marvel #wanda maximov

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alaskasmonsters · 4 years ago

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Patch-Up | Levi Ackerman

levi got injured and you clean his wounds and patch him up, feeling guilty about being the reason he got hurt.

pairing: Levi Ackerman x gn!reader

w.c: 2.665

warning: very minor description of injuries, mentions of blood, Levi is kinda very soft in this one

a.n: i wasn’t actually planning to finish this so quickly, haha, levi i love you. also, i feel like he might kinda be ooc??? i just idk, maybe? i hope it isn’t too bad, though.

A frustrated sigh left your lips as you inspected Levi’s face closer, trying to hide your concern about the head wound and the now dried-up blood that marked a trail from the man’s hair line down to his chin.

He’s been hurt during your fight against Kenny and his guys, hitting his head horribly at one point during, leaving a nasty cut behind.

You already felt bad about that, since it was kinda your fault he hit his head in the first place, as he had to protect you in a moment you weren’t entirely focused and would have certainly died if Levi hadn’t swooped in and saved your ass.

It didn’t help that Levi’s eyes, who were usually set in a cold and unbothered glance had grown softer, which smoothened out the frown he almost always wore on his face.

It was terrifying.

You hoped the man didn’t have a concussion because of your stupidity.

“I’ll clean the wound,” you mumbled weakly, repeating words you’ve already said once to remind yourself to keep moving towards him.

You were hyper aware of the captain’s eyes on you and the way the matratze softly bounced as you sunk down on the bed beside him. You reached for the bucket with fresh water and the cloth hanging off it and noticed in horror that your hands were shaking.

Calm down. It‘s only a little blood.

Dipping the fabric into the water and wringing it out you tried to focus your attention on calming your breath, scared Levi would notice you panicking and get annoyed by your sensitive nature as he once called it.

As you were sure your heart rate had slowed you turned again, sending the brunet a small smile, hoping it looked reassuring, as you moved the cloth to start cleaning around the area of the eyes first, so he could see again.

Your hands were still shaking, you noticed bitterly, but you tried your best to make it seem like it was fine.

A hand then took hold of your wrist in a surprisingly soft manner, holding your arm in place.

You froze in surprise, eyes glancing up to find Levi staring at you. His gaze studying you calmly.

“I‘m okay,” he said.

You averted your eyes, biting your lips.

So he had noticed.

Of course.

He was way too observant to miss your fidgety movements and shaky breath. You should probably be more surprised about the soft tone of his voice and the absent annoyance in his features.

„I know,“ you assured, trying and probably failing at putting a tone of certainty in your voice.

Levi studied your face once more, before he gave a slow nod of approval, letting go off your wrist again.

You hoped he didn’t see you visibly relax after he did.

Quickly, you went to work and started cleaning off the dried blood from beneath his left eye first. That proved itself more difficult than you had expected as the constant weight of his eyes on you made you feel nervous and short-breathed.

Silence fell between the both of you, the only sound being your breathing and the occasional water splashing, when cleaning off the rug.

“Close your eye,” you ordered as you had removed all the blood from his cheek.

Levi did what you told him without complaining, closing his eye while he continued watching you out of the other in the meantime.

You clenched your jaw, slowly growing frustrated by the eerie silence between you two and Levi’s uncharacteristic calmness.

Not that he usually screamed at you, but the aura of annoyance that enveloped humanity’s strongest most days, especially when interacting with you it seemed, had disappeared.

It kinda scared you.

His persistent glance on you, now out of two eyes again as you moved to clean off the cloth, would have felt more comfortable if he’d just rolled his eyes once in a while.

It almost seemed like he was expecting you to do something, or hoping maybe. Although you had no idea of what that could be.

Slowly the silence was growing heavy for you, the urge to fill it with words becoming unbearable. So when you turned back to move on to his forehead, softly brushing dark strands of hair out of his face you said the first thing that came to mind.

“I‘m sorry.“

The familiar frown appeared on his face again and your heart jumped in your chest.

“What are you talking about?“

You shrugged, trying to focus your attention on your task at hand instead of letting your eyes shift back to his.

“I was being stupid and didn‘t pay attention and you had to save my ass...now you‘re hurt,” you whispered, words dripping with guilt.

Tears pricked the corner of your eyes and you cursed yourself at being so hypersensitive. Levi hated when you cried about stupid shit, he hated it when you were being dramatic.

You bit your lips, forcing the tears back down.

„Tch. It wasn‘t your fault your ODM gear malfunctioned, brat.”

Levi did finally sound annoyed (his voice still had that soft nuance to it, though, so it didn’t completely count).

“If I wasn't distracted that moment, I wouldn't have been almost sliced up by one of Kenny’s guys despite my malfunctioning ODM gear and you wouldn’t have had to swoop in and save my ass and then you never would have gotten hurt...” i explained, hands moving faster to rub the blood off of his skin as my voice rose in frustration.

If you had only been able to save face, keep calm and not fall into utter panic the moment something didn’t work out as you had expected it, too. Then this would have never happened.

Levi was right. You were irresponsible and childish and hot headed and...

A cold hand snuck around your wrist once again, squeezing your skin once, twice. Your hand stilled. Turning your face away, you bit your lip in frustration.

You had been told often, by almost everyone you’ve ever gotten to know throughout the years with the Survey Corps, that you wore your heart on your sleeve. Some found it endeatring, calling you soft hearted and gentle, while others were (rightfully) scolding you for it, saying you’d never make it far in this kind of profession when you weren’t even able to hide your frustration with the smallest things.

Armin, one of your new recruits, had once told you you had an honest face. Said it was the reason many people trusted you, since they knew you couldn’t hide your lies or insincerities as easily as others.

Levi had told you many times that it was your biggest disadvantage and he was right. You’d never be able to rise in the ranks, never would be declared the leader of a squad or trusted in a position with responsibility. After all, nobody wanted to take orders from someone who couldn't hide their fear, anger, frustration or sadness.

You almost expected Levi to scold you for it once again, grip your wrist and tell you, no, order you to get a grip, not to let anybody see your weakness...

He didn’t.

“I told you, it wasn‘t your fault,” he told you sternly as his thumb softly stroked the inside of your wrist.

Your brain so gracefully short-circuited at the action and unwillingly, as if you were pulled towards a magnet, your eyes were drawn back towards Levi.

His facial expression was just as monotone as usual, but his eyes, they were different still. An emotion you couldn’t quite grasp hidden just beneath the surface. You didn’t know what exactly it was, but it made your heart flutter.

“I‘m still sorry though,” you protested weakly, smiling a little, hoping it would ease the thick tension.

Levi continued to study your face in silence for a few seconds before he finally let go, with a roll of his eyes and a scoff.

You could hardly hide the feeling of triumph that gave you.

“Brat.”

You grinned at him, turning your attention back to his wounds.

You hadn’t even noticed how long you’d already held his hair back, cradling his head in your hand.

The realization made your cheeks glow and you quickly sneaked a look at the man but noticed thankfully Levi had either not noticed or decided not to comment.

You went back to your job, chest a little lighter.

When you were finished cleaning off all the dried off blood you took a closer look at his injury. Despite the vehement blood loss the cut in his skin was relatively small. It didn’t even need stitches, although it might leave behind a bump, considering the velocity he had hit the roof with on his way down.

You sat back on your hackles and raised your finger. You gave Levi a stern (or hopefully stern) glance as you told him to follow your movements.

“Don‘t be an idiot, i don‘t have a concussion.”

You gave him a pout, unmoving as you eyed him stubbornly.

Judging by how easily he gave in, indicated by a sigh and another roll of his eyes, your worry might be justified.

You started moving your hand slowly and Levi followed the movement for a while, sending you a glare when you started drawing circles and spirals into the air.

You just gave him a grin.

“Okay, any dizziness? Headaches?” you asked.

“Why need a headache when you‘re around?” Levi answered sarcastically.

Seems like he was alright enough to be a little shit, then.

“Don‘t insult the person who‘s been cleaning blood off of you for 10 minutes!“

Now the only thing left to do was patching up his head, Thinking about it, a bandaged head would probably only add even more to his already above average appearance.

You started applying the cloth, carefully wrapping the material around his head. Levi endured your slow process like a champ.

You peeked at him from time to time, making sure the man had no complaints. He was very precise and hated sloppy work and you didn’t want him to think of you as unfit to fix him up. After all you had been the one offering, no, persisting to take a look and you didn’t want him to regret giving in to you.

“Stop looking at me like that, brat.”

You frowned, glancing down at him again.

“What? I don‘t know what you mean. I‘m not looking at you in any specific way.”

The corners of his lips moved up slightly, close enough to resemble a smile and your breath stuttered at the unfamiliar action. Your eyes were pulled towards them, the soft curve of his mouth was strangely captivating to you.

“It‘s the way you‘re always looking at me,” he explained with a teasing tone and his smirk widened a little, making him look less and less like the Levi you’ve talked to every day.

Your face flooded with heat and you quickly snapped up your eyes, to no longer stare at the man’s lips (yes, you had been staring, how embarrassing) but instead into his eyes.

Big mistake.

The amused glint you found there made your face flush an even darker shade of red.

You could curse yourself and that you were once again acting like a smitten teenager instead of a soldier in front of your captain.

Trying to gloss over your embarrassment you shook your head, scoffing softly. Then you focused your attention on finishing your work with the bandage.

“I don‘t look at you any differently than I look at other people,” you declared in frustration.

He laughed. Levi Ackerman, emotionally stunted Levi Ackerman laughed. It was quiet and breathy, more likely a chuckle, almost inaudible, too.

But it shook you to your core.

“You have no issue declaring your love to me multiple times a day, but now you‘re getting shy?“ he asked in amusement, cocking his head to the side.

You huffed.

He wasn’t wrong, you were awfully direct with your affections towards the captain. Just like you couldn’t hide your emotions when it came to your face, you were horrible at concealing them in general.

How could you not comment on his strength and attractiveness when it was a blatant fact. Although you often did it in a joking manner, teasing Levi for having the prettiest face in the Survey Corps and acknowledging his skills with the ODM gear.

It wasn’t fair he was using this against you now.

“Shut up!” you grumbled, pulling at the cloth to straighten it out again.

Levi did shut up, although the smile didn’t fall from his face and his eyes watched you work with interest.

You finished quickly, partly because his gaze on you was nothing short of unsettling, partly because you hoped you’d get away before he started full on teasing you.

You couldn’t quite hide your frustration (as already established) and let out an exasperated groan.

“And stop smiling!” you warned, not sure where you’ve gotten the courage to do so.

Levi followed your movements as you picked up the bucket and brought it across the room to empty its contents into the sink.

“Is my smile bothering you? Didn‘t you say i should smile more?“ he asked in confusion.

“Yeah, but just in general. Not when i‘m in the room!“ you corrected him halfheartedly.

The chuckle you got in response made your brain short circuit once again.

How the fuck was this man so hot?

”Any specific reasons as to why, brat?“

You could only speak of luck that your back was turned towards Levi so you could hide the traitorous shade of red your face must be spotting at this moment. There would have been no denying it if the captain had chosen to comment on it.

Knowing him, he would have.

“Shut up.” you protested again, subtly raising your hands to your face to cool your cheeks a little.

You couldn’t see his face this way but you were sure that Levi put his newfound ability of a smile, maybe even a smirk, judging by the goosebumps you felt on the back of your neck, to use.

While you were busy washing the bucket, Levi got to his feet to study your work in the mirror by the cupboard. He took a few seconds, and you believed he must be sorting the criticism he had by fatality, starting with the least life threatening mistake you made and moving on to the most hard hitting insult.

Despite what you had thought he gave his reflection a satisfied nod.

Okay, what?

“Decent job, brat,” he complimented and yes you might have combusted that moment.

You turned back to the sink, a satisfied smile growing on your lips. Your stomach felt all fuzzy and warm at Levi’s praise.

You didn’t notice the captain approach, only noticing his presence when he was already leaning into your personal space, whispering a soft “Thank you.” into your ear. His hot breath fanned over sensitive skin and you froze in your movement.

To torture you or maybe he didn’t get enough fun out of the situation already, he then proceeded to plant a small kiss to the corner of your lips, missing just enough so it wouldn’t count as a real kiss, before retreating again.

He left the room as if nothing of importance had just happened, leaving you behind, frozen in your spot and heart hammering in your chest.

Levi was already gone when you were able to shake yourself out of the shock.

You carefully touched your cheek, the ghost of a sensation of soft lips against your warm skin still prominent. The memory of him lingering for just a second too long now fresh on your mind.

A huge grin split your face, the urge to jump on the bed and hug your pillow while giggling manically overcame you out of a sudden.

You really were acting like a smitten teenager.

#snk x reader #snk oneshot #levi ackerman x reader #levi ackerman oneshot #levi ackerman fluff #snk fluff #aot x reader #aot oneshots #aot fluff

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leverage-commentary · 3 years ago

Text

Leverage Season 3, Episode 4, The Scheherezade Job, Audio Commentary Transcript

John: From left to right on your radio dial this is John Rogers, executive producer.

Aldis: This is DJ Chocolate Skittles, also known as Aldis Hodge.

Chris: And this is Chris Downey, executive producer and writer of this episode, The Scheherazade Job.

John: Aldis has very kindly decided to join us for this commentary since he was-

Aldis: Hello!

John: He did a lot of work on this episode. This one rode-

Chris: Oh yeah

John: This was one of those ones where you're just like, ‘This actor's gonna be working his ass off for this.’

Aldis: Oh joy.

John: Well Chris, why don't you tell us the origin of this episode?

Chris: Ah well the origin came from a- my friend here to the left, Aldis, back in season one we were just talking about you know things we like to do in our spare time and Aldis mentioned that he loved the violin, he’d been studying it, it was the closest thing to the human voice for an instrument.

Aldis: Yes.

Chris: And coincidentally my wife is a violinist and at the time I said to you, ‘I'm gonna find a way in an episode of Leverage to have you play the violin’ and what did you say to me?

Aldis: I think I said, ‘Do it.’

[Laughter]

Chris: And then you laughed at me.

Aldis: Yeah, we were shooting what was that, the season finale?

Chris: Might've been the season finale

Aldis: That was- yeah, Pasadena?

John: Yup

Aldis: Yeah, yeah, I remember that conversation.

Chris: And this is Martha Boles, terrific actress from Los Angeles.

John: This is interesting actually, we had a- when we were setting up the bad guy here, we had an interesting conversation about- and this is one of those things you talk about in television. Should the reporter be white or not?

Chris: Yeah.

John: Yeah. We were looking at casting and we were like, no it should be a black reporter working with that. And then we got some, you know, feedback that's like, well now it's a white crew of criminals, apparently missing Aldis’s presence, helping out a black reporter.

Aldis: Don’t worry, they miss me all the time.

John: It's one of those- it’s tricky, it's one of those things where one of the reasons we kinda were leery of doing international crimes, first season and second season. And you kinda- because it's always a minefield, it just is. And now in third season, everyone’s comfortable and everyone knows the show well enough that you can kinda try to swing outside the box. I think Chris did a great job taking this outside the box for the first time on the show.

Chris: Yeah it was- it was interesting cause most- I think we talked about this, most episodes start with the bad guy and we kinda work our way from there. We kinda talk about ‘what's the bad guy, what does he want, what is his weaknesses’. And this is one of those episodes that started with a big idea late in the episode which was the orchestra heist, and we kinda worked from there to kind of try and figure out whose our bad guy? And that's- we decided- we hadn't done an African kleptocrat, we wanted to do that for a long time, and this seemed like a good opportunity to do that.

John: Now also when doing a straight heist, because we were coming at it as a straight heist, we wanted a small highly portable object. The cleaner the object, the cleaner the goal of the heist, the more you can work around the elegance of the heist itself. And when you're staring with an elegant heist, which is the music heist, you have to do something very clean, which was diamonds. And so it all sort of fed into this one storyline.

Chris: Yes, yes.

Aldis: Didn't you want to play the organ? At first I mean that's plain and portable and-

[Laughter]

John: Yes, originally it was a giant Wurlitzer organ.

Aldis: Yeah, just a whole thing.

John: This was a ton of fun, this was a great little fight scene.

Chris: Yeah.

Aldis: Kane had too much fun shooting this.

Chris: He had a lot of fun here. And these gentlemen are Garfield Wedderburn and- yeah, Garfield Wedderburn is the lead goon here; his name is goon.

Aldis: Goon.

[Laughter]

Chris: And there he is doing this- some kind of scary tai chi?

Aldis: That was actually a joke and it just made it on the reel, it was like-

John: You know what? We saw it in the dailies, we were gonna cut out of it but it was like- but the idea he would just scare the shit out of those guys to get them to go. ‘Can your dog do that?’ That was great.

Chris: ‘Can your dog do that?’

John: It is nice every now and then to remind people exactly why everyone on the team is there.

Chris: By the way, I love that you named the dog Megabyte.

Aldis: Megabyte, yeah, yes.

John: That was you, that’s right.

Chris: That was all you.

Aldis: If anybody can get that, Megabyte, yes. Now if one of those days we just see the dog, which will probably be a poofy little yorkie or something like that.

John: Dogs are too expensive; we can't afford them.

Chris: We can't afford them.

Aldis: We can't afford dogs.

Chris: We'll do a virtual dog.

Aldis: A virtual dog, yes.

John: That's sad.

Aldis: The little mechanical one with the batteries? Yeah.

Chris: Sure.

John: Now continuing the original conversation, so we knew we were working backwards towards an African kleptocrat, but how do you find a guy who’s like based in the states, so we’re not flying overseas, we’re not trying to fake a city you can't fake on our budget. And so that led us to the research and- did we find someone who was real, Chris?

Chris: Well, there's no similarities to persons living or dead. But, um-

John: We’d like to say for both legal reasons, and so we don't get shot in the face.

Chris: Yes, please.

John: Oh my god, this guy is real and he's horrible!

Chris: He's real, he's horrible. He's not a classical music fan, that was something we brought to it, to facilitate the story. But he is a very wealthy relative of an African kleptocrat who has a house here in the United States and in Paris and has a Bugatti and all the things you would imagine a kleptocrat would.

John: All the way down, actually, to the fact that the reason he does not fall under the- is not criminalized under some of the kleptocrat laws we have here in the States, with the same plot point we have in the show, which is he's been a friend in the war on terror.

Chris: Yes, yes that’s all true.

John: Which looks like he pretty much turns in political opponents.

Chris: Wow, we certainly don't want to say that he does that, but-

John: But oh come on.

Chris: And here we have-

John: Your name’s on the show, they're gonna kill you. I'm not too worried.

[Laughter]

John: And here's Elisabetta Canalis, the loveliest Elisabetta Canalis.

Aldis: Aldis Hodge was never here, was never here. This actually is the second time we've seen her in the entire arc of this third season. So now the audience is getting another taste of exactly who she is, because she just left us off with blackmail, and now, you know, we're digging into her story. Of course at the end of the show, we get to see that she's not as fair game as she comes up to be.

Chris: Yeah, and we wanted to make her kind of you know sexy and mysterious, and I like this scene cause-

Aldis: Sexy what? Sexy?

Chris: Yeah well she-

John: Well there's no reason we just shoot her legs in every scene.

[Laughter]

Aldis: Exactly, there's no reason to put her in heels and closeups on the face, no! Not at all.

John: This was a nice bit that you came up with: the idea that kind of flirting, sexy, dangerous. And Nate Ford being smart enough to realize it’s a very bad idea.

Chris: I love this, this is one of my favorite flashes.

John: It's one of my favorite zooms, it's a hypothetical zoom, it's something we never usually do.

Chris: I like it because right here she looks so bored,

[Laughter]

Chris: There's something about the insouciance of it, of her.

John: Oh another guy being garotted in front of me.

Chris: Oh stop the tape.

John: It's another Thursday for me.

Chris: And he was- Tim was great at, you know, holding his throat like that.

John: Yeah the- well the sort of implication, again, is again, it’s tricky the team has been playing a lot without ever being taken down themselves. Tim has to carry a lot of the weight acting because he's the one who interacts with Elizabetta the most, to convey the threat she portrays to make sure you take her seriously. And nice diagrams on the glass boards. I always love the glass boards

Aldis: Provided by…?

John: Who drew on that one? I don't think I drew on that one, I wasn't there for that one.

Aldis: Really?

John: No, that handwriting is too good that's not me. Usually- yeah, usually I spew the bullshit that goes up on the glass.

Chris: Now what's nice-

Aldis: And it- oh, sorry, go ahead

Chris: Oh I was gonna say it’s a nice opportunity to get a little bit into Eliot's backstory which we, in the early scene in the bar, he alludes to the fact that knows about these- what goes on in these countries, these Chinese- these child soldiers. And you know I think here you can kinda see this whole- this whole particular case is really, you know, affecting him directly.

John: Yeah it's part of the over the course of the arc, kind of peeling back everybodys past this season. And we gave Eliot you know- we really wanted to sort of reset and remind people for the finale that Eliot, you know Eliot killed people. Eliot was not a good guy and is trying to be a better guy.

Aldis: What I had to say was nowhere near as intuitive as that, but the prior scene a lot of- a lot of times you'll see Sophie wearing that dog tag, it’s blank. It's like a name tag, but it's blank, and that's an ode to the fact that she hasn't given Nate her real name. And it kind plays throughout the entire season so for those of you have paid attention-

John: We actually used it, we actually- the audience doesn't know those dog tags are blank because she doesnt show the dog tags. But when she told us she was doing it we wrote-

Aldis: Did I just give up a secret?

John: No, no, no it’s cool. What happened is: she wears them. And we were like, ‘What are those?’ And she told us dog tags are blank, it's a little private joke. So we wrote it into the show, that's why she gets the blank pendant in episode 13, cause we just thought that was really cool and that's something Gina came up with on her own.

Aldis: It's just gonna be a drinking game every time they spot the dog tags.

John: Sure, there's already a lot of drinking games.

Aldis: There are.

John: There are a lot on the web, you go on there's a lot of drinking games.

Aldis: Every time we say ‘seriously’, drink!

[Laughter]

Aldis: Not that we promote that here, no.

Chris: Not at all.

John: No, I don't do all of these with a beer in my hand.

Chris: No no drinking games.

Aldis: What is that you're drinking John, water?

John: It’s- yes, dark Irish water.

Aldis: Yes.

John: This was a nice again- we started splitting people up so we could- the coverage is a little easier. and it helped us remind- Third season we started taking a lot of the prep that was implied in act 0 of seasons 1 and 2 and moving it into act 1 and act 2 of this season. Where you see them doing the prep and putting together the plan on the fly as they get information.

Chris: Right.

John: Which both makes it more dynamic, and helps us with shooting.

Chris: Yeah, I mean this is a very plan-intensive episode, and you want to try and make the planning side interesting visually.

John: Yeah because there's so much pipe to lay in a believable way to get to that great fourth act. I mean you have to make sure the audience is utterly invested by that point.

Chris: I like this little bit with you guys right here.

Aldis: Me and Kane man, when we get together it's always a party.

Chris: But what's great about you guys is it's not always the bickering brothers, where you're yelling at each other that makes me laugh. It's just the little throwaway things of the two of you together.

Aldis: It's the little things that bring the sparkle to your eye, the little things.

[Laughter]

Chris: And they just the way we did this-

Aldis: This was a funny sequence to shoot.

John: Yeah this was great. This was- what did we name the reporter?

Chris: Guy Hamilton which is an ode to Mel Gibson's character in The Year of Living Dangerously.

[Laughter]

Chris: For all you folks out there keeping score. By the way, I forgot yesterday when we did Gone Fishing Job that you are- your names when you went into the bank and were Brody and Quinn from Jaws.

John: Because you're gonna need a bigger boat.

Chris: This looks great, by the way!

Aldis: I'm pretty sure you need another drink for that.

Chris: Look at that, he's there!

John: I've seen far less convincing stuff on CNN.

[Laughter]

John: I'm fairly sure, yeah

Chris: And there's Giancarlo Esposito fantastic.

John: Friend of Tim, came in and did this for us. Really really great, flew in.

Aldis: His daughters’ actually in the orchestra, they- one plays violin the other plays viola.

John: Oh cool.

Aldis: Yeah, so he had a lot to discuss.

John: I love seeing the evil dude Skype list; I just realized we could see it on there. It’s like ‘Lefou is away. Where is Lefou?’

Chris: Pizza Hut? Why does he have Pizza Hut on Skype?

John: On Skype? That's weird. And who is that lurking behind him?

Chris: Oh lurking behind him is Nnamdi Asomugha who is an all pro cornerback for the Oakland Raiders. Arguably the best cornerback in the NFL.

Aldis: And you have your Raiders ball here, it's perfect.

Chris: And I have my Raiders ball here to prove it.

John: Now how did he wind up on the show?

Chris: Well, you know, like any famous Hollywood story, it started at a hockey game.

[Laughter]

Chris: My- we have a mutual agent, and he invited me to a hockey game and said, ‘This is my friend Nnamdi.’ And although I am a big sports fan, for some reason the best cornerback in the NFL eluded me and I just met him as a guy. And we were chatting and found out he was- he acted and I asked him at the time, his families from Nigeria and I- this was a year ago, and I said, ‘Can you do a good African accent?’ He said, ‘Oh definitely.’ I said, ‘Alright, well if we get a part for, you know a big guy, menacing guy with an African accent I'll call you’. And lo and behold, episode came up and he did a fantastic job.

John: I think his family is from Ethiopia, actually.

Chris: No, I think he’s Nigerian.

John: Nigerian? Oh ok. And here- this is her playing Christie Connelly again.

Chris: Yes, yes.

John: Yes, this is why we started bringing back the- as we realized that they are gonna be roles that the- it also sort of came up as we did our research that con artists tend to settle into certain roles that they've done background on, and also that they've established the credentials to. We mention later actually on another episode that she's like, ‘I got seven years worth of work on this identity’, so she's doing a similar gig, so why not use the same name?

Chris: And let's be honest it's also our nod to James Garner, who was Jimmy Joe Meeker in multiple episodes of the Rockford Files.

John: Yes exactly, also she gets to use her native accent in this.

Chris: Yeah, that’s right!

John: Cause Gina is from New Zealand, not England. Most people- she grew up in England but she was born in New Zealand, and was a child in New Zealand, so she gets to use her kiwi accent here. Very kicky little gold chain going on there.

Chris: And I love this, this is a great kind of subtle sales pitch that she just sells so well.

John: Yeah. And again this is one of those great things in the show, not blowing smoke up our own skirts, but the fun of having great actors is you con, con, con, and then you park it on these little two-person scenes and it's fun, you know, it actually plays.

Chris: And here's- you know I like the idea that we've kind of developed with Hardison’s character that, you know, he's chafing a little bit around the crew, and, kind of, as the youngest member of the crew, kind of like, sees that he’d like to run his own crew someday and kind of expressing that here. I mean how did you approach this Aldis? Was that something that you kinda thought of for the character?

Aldis: I approached it, I stretched, I, uh, did a couple push ups.

John: Well we get a lot of emails from him ‘I should be the lead of the show,’ so it's a similar thing.

[Laughter]

Chris: But I know we had discussions about it not being a typical father/son kind of vibe. Right?

Aldis: Right, right, right. This is- this entire situation was newly presented to me in the script. That's when I found out that I was like, ‘OK, Hardison wants to step up.’ But I think that- I mean, it's a great premise and he is the youngest, so he has the most to learn because he hasn't figured out all of his bad habits just yet.

Chris: Right.

Aldis: And so he can sit back, watch his team, watch how they work, watch the mistakes they make, and then ten season later, hint hint, audience, hint hint-

Chris: Ten seasons when you'll be all of 35.

[Laughter]

Aldis: Exactly.

John: Then you'll be ready to lead the crew.

Aldis: Exactly.

John: Yeah no it's- we really played around with it. It's not father/son it's sort of- it’s really Paper Chase but for crime.

Chris: Yes, yes, very much, I think that's a great way of putting it. And I love, here, too, if I can blow some more smoke up you, that, you know, we play big characters in these cons that are, like, larger than life. I mean, I think, you know, the Ice Man Job character comes to mind-

Aldis: [Mimicking the accent he did] The Ice Man Job.

Chris: When you play a kind of a small reserved guy, all inside, it's such a nice change, and it’s like it adds a vulnerability to these con characters that I think is great.

Aldis: He's very not- he wasn't a meek character, but he's very, very humble.

Chris: Humble that's better.

Aldis: He came from a hard life, he knew how to appreciate what was there, he knows how to prioritize, you know, to put everything else before his own needs. And that's kinda where I felt this character was coming from. He couldn't be too big or else, you know, with all of the skills, his grandeur, he would have done something with that by now; he's a cab driver, so he's gotta be quiet about something.

John: And the- also, this was the first time I think we put- we had talked about the different skills, as you go into every season you talk about like, ‘How do we make sure we focus on the characters? How do we make sure nobody blends in the background?’ And one of the things is reminding everyone- and we did this really in the Jailbreak and especially in this one to set it up, Parker is great at three dimensional heists. Parker rotates objects in three dimensional space. So she's Nate's partner here; he might be able to cook up plans, but she's the one telling him the parameters of those plans with the physical heists.

Aldis: Right.

John: No one is better than her at physical insertion, and that's one of the things we kinda hammered during this season.

Aldis: I think our skills- I mean we’re all necessary to one another, but our skills kinda levy a system of checks and balances-

John: Yeah.

Aldis: The way the government should do it. But we can do one thing and take it only so far and then pass it off, then the next team member polishes it up and takes you to the very next level.

John: What- Chris why don't you talk about how we structured the heist?

Chris: Well you know the- back when we were trying to break the story the initial idea behind it was that there would be two levels of tension in the big act, in the big heist. There would be part of the team breaking in to steal the object, and there would be Hardison on stage sweating out having to play this impossible solo in front of people. And the problem that I was running into was: why did these two things have to happen at the same time? Why now? Why can't they be breaking in on a Wednesday, you know, when Hardison's not scheduled to play this. And John, you said- thought about it for a minute, and you said, ‘Well obviously it's the only time that they can do the heist is when there’s- when the orchestra is playing because that's when they have to turn off the motion detectors.’

Aldis: Because John has stolen from an orchestra before, when they-

[Laughter]

Aldis: He speaks from personal experience.

Chris: And I took a minute and I said, ‘I could kiss you on the mouth.’

[Laughter]

John: That was one of those ‘what's in the Arclight’ days? I contributed almost nothing else to this episode. I was busy off doing the season opener. We were banging these out before the rest of the staff- and I came up with that bit and I'm like, ‘You're gold, go have fun, I’m out.’ I got that, and then we basically- knowing the motion detectors couldn't be beaten and played us back into the other security measures, and created this impossible vault. And that was also fun, we started for the first time throwing stuff at the team where it's like, ‘yeah there's some stuff you just can't beat,’ you know, that you have to go sideways.

Aldis: I’d like to note here that I'm wearing every possible shade of gray that there is known to man.

[Laughter]

John: Why is that? Is that an emotional choice? Is that about his ambivalence about his role in the con? Or is that-?

Aldis: I have no idea

John: Always say- you know what? Do the thing I just did with him, start with ‘obviously’ it's a good way- when you wanna throw up an enormous amount of bullshit just start with ‘Obviously.’

Aldis: Obviously!

John: And then just, people buy it.

Aldis: What we wanted to do was confuse the audience.

John: Oh Scheherezade, exactly how'd you choose Scheherezade?

Chris: Well we needed- we needed a piece that was public domain, as a practical matter, because we have budget constraints in this show. And that ended on a violin solo. And it was- I forgot what the other candidates were, but my wife, I have to give her credit at least a little, fantastic violinist, picked Scheherezade and said, ‘You gotta listen to this.’ And I listened to the last 7 minutes because I knew we needed it to kind of roll out in real time over the course of the heist. And the solo just kinda like dropped me, I thought, ‘Oh my god, this is gonna be fantastic.’ And then when I did a little research on Scheherezade’s story, how she was the wife of a- in the story of the Arabian Nights he killed- every night he married a different wife, and killed them the next morning. And then Scheherezade walked in and figured she'd be finished, but every night she told him a story, and the story kept him on- you know, on the edge of his seat, she never told him the ending and finally after 1001 nights he married her. So I said OK, that’s the first grifter in history’. And that just kinda fit in thematically with the whole episode, and that's when we knew we had to use that piece.

John: And our music guy Joe Deluca putting a lovely little sort of spin, sort of-

Chris: Yeah he had a very nice-

John: -Arabian Nights spin on the score there. Now, you play violin. What did you think when we dropped Scheherezade on your lap?

Aldis: Well I was screaming inside, running for my life.

[Laughter]

Aldis: Jesus I've only been playing just for- not even five years, and when I took the music to my music teacher, she like- lord have mercy, she had a heart attack. She was like- she had been playing professionally for 20 years before she tackled Scheherezade. My other teacher had been playing, also, I believe between 20 and 30 years before she tackled Scheherezade so I had no confidence whatsoever. No, kidding, obviously I was very impressed with the piece. It's a beautiful piece. I love the song and I was actually very open to the challenge. I just wanted to make sure I did it well enough to do the song some justice. Now shooting these scenes being surrounded by actual musicians was awe-inspiring and-

John: Really? You really? Oh.

Aldis: Man, it was terrifying.

Chris: Yeah where did this rank among the scarier things you've done on the show? Where would you put this?

Aldis: This is the top right here.

Chris: This is the top right here.

John: So not running on top of a moving train.

[Laughter]

Aldis: Not at all man.

John: Really? That was fine, but this? This was terrifying.

Aldis: I'm a nut man, I'm a nut. I can do that because-

John: I can tell you as your executive producer with an insurance policy on you, you can do this whenever you want, don't do the train again.

Aldis: I shan't! I shall not.

Chris: And this actor, Michael Winther, fantastic New York stage actor who came in and did an amazing job. It was originally written I think he was Spanish and then I asked Michael-

John: Well you were kinda basing it on Dudamel.

Chris: Exactly it was based on Gustavo Dudamel who was the Venezuelan, kind of, rockstar conductor of the LA Philharmonic.

Aldis: Oh yeah.

Chris: Yeah, and Michael said that he could do German and I thought well there's nothing more intimidating than someone talking to you with a German accent.

Aldis: German accent, yeah.

John: Really?

Chris: And he was just great.

John: Even if it's like ‘I would like some hugs now,’ still it's creepy, it's not- yeah.

[Laughter]

John: Apologies, and now the angry letters from people with a German accent will be coming in.

Aldis: Exactly, you'll be getting a letter from the government.

John: A nice stall, you can't get it too far. And, you know, this again is kinda focusing on how everyone does things. Parker needs paper. Parker needs plans. Parker needs drawings. This is how she thinks. She was trained by an old school thief, and it's cool cause we're kinda hinting at the thing you're gonna find out in episode 5, like how she was trained, you know, trained by an old school thief, she thinks like an old school thief.

Aldis: Yeah

John: And then we do the fun- and this is, when you're constructing something based on a high concept, the fun of it was we have an impossible heist, stuff rolls back from that. Okay if it's impossible, that means we have to see the planning, we have to see the surveillance, we have to see the surveillance to establish to the audience the rules of the heist.

Chris: Right.

John: Cause you had already said, and I will say the first thing you said to me was ‘I wanna do a heist where there's no words.’

Chris: Yes.

John: And I said ‘You're out of your mind and it's unshootable’. I actually utterly dismissed you, and then you came back like, ‘We do it this way.’ And I was like, ‘Alright, that’s slightly less insane.’ But that required the rest of the episode to do an enormous amount of work.

Chris: Yeah, you need to know- once you got to the heist, you need to know exactly what people were doing and why, without any dialogue. And so- and that kinda required that the heist needed to be fairly simple.

John: Yes.

Chris: So, you know, that kinda was a little bit liberating for me, cause once I realized, OK, I drew this corridor, you know, we had to get past this keypad, and then there was a room, we had to blow a hole in the floor, it was like from a to b to c, as long as I made it fairly simple and easy to remember in the planning stages, we could carry it out.

John: And this is also one of the great things about physical production. You actually flew up and scouted this, right?

Chris: Yeah, we did.

John: You adjusted the heist based around the physical location.

Chris: Yeah well, we built this hallway here-

John: Is that a build? I thought it was a-

Chris: This is the hardest working hallway in show business.

John: I thought it was the hallway on the other side of the concert hall?

Chris: No, no.

Aldis: No, me and Chrisitan built it ourselves.

John: Oh that's where Elizabetta was. That's right, there you go.

Chris: That’s right.

John: Yeah, now we're establishing the rules, and a little hint there that Nnamdi is not your ordinary thug.

Chris: Yeah.

Aldis: Yes.

John: Yeah, just that little wince.

Chris: And here, again, you know, it was we had plans in front of Tim that he could actually trace the line and that's exactly where you were going. Those are the plans of the set.

John: Those are the plans for the set?

Chris: Yeah.

Aldis: Yeah!

John: That’s great!

Chris: I mean that showed him, he could draw- I showed him here's where you draw the hole, that’s where it’s gonna be.

John: Yeah and big props to Bekka Melino and everybody in production design this year. That vault looked gorgeous.

Chris: Yeah, it did.

John: Everything looked gorgeous, you know, set dec.

Chris: I have to give her credit for something else in that too. In the original script, the locker numbers in the vault were numbered; they were just numbered. And she called me up and said, ‘What do you think if we made like some kind of symbol or something for them, and maybe like musical terms?’ And I said, ‘That's fantastic.’ And it kinda helped build the character of Moto as someone who is just, you know, obsessed with music.

Aldis: Appreciates music.

John: Yeah.

Chris: And here's where-

Aldis: This is a tough thing, a tough deal for me. Not me personally, but for Hardison because of the fact that- I mean, this is a big deal trying to walk away from a mission with such reasonable cause.

Chris: Right.

Aldis: Only because of the fact that he's afraid, it's not because his life is endangered, it's simply because he's afraid.

Chris: Did you feel like that was- I mean, but performing without being prepared is like the, sort of, go to nightmare that people have, right?

John: Only if you were pantless could this be worse.

Aldis: Exactly, it's also the fact that if he performs poorly he could mess up the entire heist.

Chris: Yes

Aldis: But he was more afraid of himself performing badly then messing up the heist. And-

John: It's an interesting look into the character, because he's a perfectionist and he tends to- he’s tended to take the path he has in life because he's been able to be good at it.

Aldis: Yes.

Chris: Right.

John: You know, it's always interesting once you're past school and once you're an adult when you try to do things, you try to learn a new skill once you're out of your teens, and you realize ‘Oh, this is very hard.‘

Aldis: Yeah it's like learning violin.

John: Yeah exactly.

Aldis: As an adult, as I am doing now.

John: Really hard. But no, you just couldn't drop Scheherezade on you.

Chris: Here's a great-

John: This is a great shot actually, because we actually never shot this. This was footage of them actually getting into place.

Chris: Yes.

John: From the dailies that we had when we rolled the camera on. And that we wound up assembling together into a shot and then digitally placing the conductor into the middle of it.

Chris: Oh yeah, when we get to the later shot of the conductor there, that was- that’s totally digital. This the- orchestra is Marshall Tuttle is the conductor of the orchestra, it’s a local Portland community college orchestra. And they, you know, I have to give a lot of props to them because they got the music and they had to mock play the piece, but that meant they had to prepare for it, they had to know.

Aldis: Yeah I actually learned from them that day the rest of the piece. I mean all I knew up to that point was the solo. Until they said- and I knew bits and pieces of the other music until they said, ‘Hey, so we actually wanna shoot you playing the, you know, the bit before stuff.’ I’m like, ‘Right now, guys?’

John: Oh yes, a surprise by the way.

Aldis: Surprise!

John: This quick thing, they're gonna pop the camera on you there as you do this thing you just learned how to do.

Aldis: So I was just watching my fellow musicians around me as we shot, I was just watching their fingers and going off of them but hopefully you can’t tell.

John: That's a great little shake, that head shake like, ‘No, let's not get too heavily invested’.

Aldis: That was a real head shake that was ‘I do not wanna shoot this scene right now.’

[Laughter]

John: Could we please stop?

Aldis: None of the trepidation in this is faked, it’s real fear people. Real fear.

[Laughter]

Aldis: I dreaded this more than anything.

Chris: So there was less acting in this than typical episodes because you actually had fear.

Aldis: The fear yes, no acting at all, man, it was not hard to be afraid. At all. Whatsoever.

John: And here's Elizabetta, and it was interesting- I will be totally honest we knew we needed stuff for the finale-

Chris: Yeah.

John: And no idea what we needed it to be yet.

Chris: Right and right. And also to a certain degree, you know, when you have a MacGuffin, you know an item I want you to get, and you struggle as to what it could be, and we did struggle, we argued what is- what's in the envelope? And ultimately it's pretty cool when you don't know what it is.

John: Yeah it's point blank. It’s- yeah.

Chris: And you know we don't want to give anything away, but it did help us in the finale.

John: Yeah, well they've seen it by now, in theory.

Chris: Oh, okay.

John: Usually they watch all the way through and then do the commentaries.

Chris: That’s fine then. So that's fine, I'm not a spoiler.

Aldis: So what was in the envelope, fellows?

John: In the envelope is the evidence that the Italian needs because she's part of the shadowy international intelligence organization that launders money through Moto’s blood diamond accounts.

Chris: Yes.

John: And yeah that's actually- if you do a lot of research in money laundering, we did a lot of money laundering this year.

Aldis: Yes we did.

John: You find out that a lot of sort of black ops stuff, and a lot of the governments- there's a reason it's still around. You know governments find it useful, you know, and certain parts of governments find money laundering, international money laundering useful.

Chris: And here we go now we start- we start the clock and the dialogue is about to end pretty quickly.

John: Yeah I think we did like two touches, two clarifying things once we test screened it.

Chris: Yeah.

Aldis: We did an entire fourth act with just pure music.

Chris: Yeah, this is it here, we go.

John: Yeah this is it. Nnamdi did a great job in this, by the way, I want to say, because he's acting without dialogue and that's hard, you know, for a young actor.

Aldis: It’s like stare at this paper bag and make it interesting.

John: Yeah, exactly.

Chris: And I have to give Brian Gonosey here, our editor, a lot of credit here, too, because this was like editing a music video, because this was- we had to kinda time this stuff to the music, and this was, you know, this- in listening to the piece, you know, in my mind I had punching in numbers for this part, cause I could hear it in my head, and-

Aldis: Now this-

Chris: And now- oh.

Aldis: No, I’m sorry, go ahead.

Chris: Well this is just when you have an all pro quarterback from the NFL on your show, and you have Christian Kane who is a gigantic football fan, you're gonna have him knock him down in full run.

Aldis: Now Christian really took that hit.

Chris: He sure did folks.

John: He hit that wall hard, baby!

Aldis: This man is paid to hit people.

[Laughter]

John: Beth took this hit too.

Aldis: Yeah.

Chris: She did take that hit.

Aldis: She took it like a trooper.

John: Wait where'd- Chris played football for a while, what was he, tailback? What was Chris?

Chris: Well I know, back in high school, yeah.

Aldis: He played in it, and he wrestled, too. Nnamdi is a big guy.

John: Nnamdi is a big guy.

Aldis: He's like 6’ 4” something, 6’ 6”?

Chris: And he wanted to do all his own stunts and we were like, ‘Please, we do not want Al Davis on our ass.’

[Laughter]

John: ‘I'm sorry, did you hurt the greatest quarterback in the NFL in your little pretend show this weekend?’

Chris: He's like, ‘You know what the stunt mans doing? I can do that!’ And we said, ‘We know! Please don’t!’

Aldis: Now the NFL owns Leverage.

John: We’d have a bigger budget, that'd be alright.

[Laughter]

John: And then now down through the floor, this was fun playing around with- thank you Mythbusters, playing around with directional blowouts, and thermite and all the other sort of how to- oh that's a- and Nnamdi won't go down.

Chris: No, he won’t.

John: We were- this- he’s the thug who ate his Wheaties.

Aldis: I think that's a great part about this entire sequence and just the character in general is: cause he finally- somebody gave Eliot a challenge, a real challenge you know. It was kinda like the season finale for the first season.

John: But that guy had technique, you know, that was the thing. What Eliot is facing right now is another dude who kills people professionally.

Aldis: Yeah.

John: You know, and just with power. It's also fun cause it’s- all Eliot/Parker scenes are inherently fun.

Chris: And here, and this was all built around the music. We knew this was gonna- we were gonna build to- there's a giant gong hit here and that was gonna be- that was the whole thing was timed to the explosion and now one of the words ‘boom’.

Aldis: We really blew a hole in a floor and let Nnamdi fall through? He was a trooper, he took it?

John: Yes, please don’t tell the Raiders.

Chris: Please don't tell Al Davis.

Aldis: I'm kidding, guys. Kinda.

John: This was actually shot later, we actually rebuilt the ceiling and then dropped it in later.

Chris: Yeah, it’s great.

John: They did a great job because they- it was like ‘We need you to build that ceiling that we built a couple episodes, but put a hole in it.’ Like, ‘Alright.’ Yeah. And Nate being in the middle of it unexpectedly is a wonderful development.

Chris: Even this, all this all the editing was just timed perfectly to the music as he pulls, Walle is his character, pulls into the corner. And here it is.

John: That's a nice beat, actually, was Sophie- that's a nice choice by Gina, Sophie being totally confident because she knows, she's already in on the hypnosis thing. So she's already ahead of it, and what that was meant to be encouraging.

Chris: Now here it is.

Aldis: [Humming the song]

Chris: And, you know, I have to say my wife, violinist, gives you huge props here for your fingering and your bow work.

Aldis: Thank you. You do realize this song haunted me as I was practicing and preparing for it? It literally was playing in my head when no other sound was on in the room. I painted a picture called The Scheherazade. I painted the notes themselves because I had to get it outta my head. It was-

Chris: That’s great.

John: Where's the painting?

Aldis: It’s still back in Portland waiting for me to get back to it.

John: Nice.

Chris: Now what kind of response did you get from people when this aired?

Aldis: A lot of musicians actually said I did a good job, which I was proud about. I was- I was more concerned about how musicians would take it. Because they know what to look for, and as I watched I was like, ‘Alright,’ you know, cringing, but a lot of them they really, really dug it.

John: Well you always see the flaws in your performance, you know.

Aldis: Yeah of course because I’m looking for it, as the actor. By the way, this scene when Beth has the tear, that wasn't a tear she just had allergies, but played to her strengths and- right there the yeah.

John: It's just the smoke and stuff, the allergies.

Aldis: Very dusty, you know, we just kept it, we kept it. I’m kidding Beth’s a great actress, she did that on her own.

Chris: She’s fantastic. She did that, I mean, that's pretty amazing.

Aldis: Yeah was that her choice there?

Chris: Yeah.

John: Yeah, that wasn’t in the script.

Chris: And we didn't have a lot of time for that, too, we were really running out of time for that scene and they, boy were they great reacting to it.

Aldis: The boy did it! Uh!

[Laughter]

Aldis: Y'all know what this is! Sexual chocolate!

John: We’re gonna have to make t-shirts now, I hope.

Aldis: We are gonna have to make t-shirts.

Chris: Now in the original script, you got a girl's phone number; we had to cut it for time but there was.

John: Sexy violinists.

Aldis: It's alright, Hardison gets numbers.

Chris: You know, Hardison, we've been trying to hook you up and I'm sorry we ran out of time.

John: Well, you know that's alright, there's- I don't think the fans would like the girl.

Aldis: I think if I ever got hooked up, fans would just murder Hardison because-

John: They would not be happy.

Aldis: They're waiting on Parker.

John: Well also, you know, and what's interesting is: you've kind of changed looks since the first season. You were a very skinny kid when you came in that first season. You turned 21 the night we hired you.

Aldis: Yeah 21, I'm 24 now.

John: Yeah, you put a little man weight on you now.

Aldis: Man weight, shaved the whiskers a little bit, try to give you a little something different each year. Next year I'm gonna come in about 250 pounds.

John: Nice, maybe with a cane cause you can't quite walk, you got the gout.

Aldis: Cankles baby.

John: Rock the gout. This is brutal- just looking for the rematch.

Chris: I love the look.

John: Every time I see this, I try to figure out a way to bring that character back.

Chris: Can we bring him back?

John: Seriously man, that look as he rolls forward is like, I want that rematch.

Chris: You know he makes more money than everyone in- you know, I mean he's- he’ll fly out on a private jet and come do it.

John: Just I gotta figure out something. And then I remember cause it was great, cause- I was actually out of town and then you shot this, and I didn’t see anything until I saw the first cut of this. I didn't see any dailies and so I saw the first cut of this and when he rolled forward that time I'm like ‘Oh! No wait, I know there's no rematch’ but-

Aldis: Yeah.

John: It’s- it was fun it was being able to watch this episode as a fan was a big treat.

Chris: Yeah, and here it was trying to pay off the Scheherezade story by having Nate make up something on the fly.

John: Yeah, it's the- thematically it yeah it starts with a con, it has a heist in the middle, and ends with a con.

Chris: Ends with a con.

Aldis: Yeah.

John: And you just the balls- the sheer stones it takes, ‘I have no idea what's in this.’

Chris: Yeah, right?

John: Just absolute sheer stones. To just bet on a sealed deck. We actually talked about that, we had played around with poker episodes and just what kind of- we talked at length- and it's one of those things that will never wind up in the show but we wind up talking in the room, what kind of gambler Nate is. And Nate is a guy who will bet on whole cards he hasn't seen.

Chris: Right, yes.

John: Yeah which is not necessarily the smartest thing in the world, but that’s that guy.

Aldis: He's the kind of guy who loses all his money first at the table, but eventually gains a couple chips back.

John: Yeah, yeah. Or manages to just be luckier than smarter, but smart enough to know he's lucky.

Chris: And I have to say Marcel Davis here played Simian Moto the president, and did an amazing job. I mean he's a local Portland actor.

John: Yeah, really- Portland. Never disappoints, Portland is a great place with great actors.

Chris: Now you can kinda see Gina slipping in there. It was- I know we had a couple of comments.

John: We had ten people on that set!

Chris: It was hard.

John: She's that black shape that kinda moves in with the secret service.

Aldis: I just saw her slip in there, keep your eyes open.

Chris: Keep your eyes open folks. She had- apparently she had a great time assembling this gun.

John: She was kinda rocking out the Helen Mirren in RED there.

Chris: She was.

John: She was really kinda- that was hot. She did- I watched the dailies on that like eight times, come on, she's very good at this. And the gloat, the drag out, the gloat.

Chris: The gloat and the drag away.

John: Very nice and the president. Oh Nnamdi wants to go! Let them go! Let them fight! That drinking game for Enter the Dragon. It’s like every time.

Chris: There we go, another time we’ll bring him back.

Aldis: Let's just send this out to all the Oakland raiders fans and see if they put in a vote, do you want Nnamdi back?

Chris: Do you wanna see Nnamdi back, please?

Aldis: Let's see what happens.

John: Promised by the DVD. Yeah.

Aldis: I feel it'll be promising.

John: And this was a nice set up, and again it was interesting because she had such the upper hand in the first episode, this is the one where Chris really kinda reset that, yeah, Nate Ford is not a patsy.

Chris: Yeah.

John: You know he is- there's a reason they’re using him. He's a dangerous guy, and he's become more of a dangerous guy this year because he's acknowledged who he is. Last year this would've played out differently.

Chris: Yeah, no it was- you know, the sequence was flirty, dangerous, a little bit of banter then she puts the screws to him and then he puts the screws to her here.

John: Yeah cause he knows. He knows, he dealt with these types of people, you know, he's not ignorant of exactly how big a game he's playing in right now. Great, great shot. She- this is a 1960s shot, that shot right there, I really love this. And she's got a very classic late 60s look and that was interesting because we used it- we actually called the character the Italian as shorthand because it was an archetype from the 60s, and then when she came on the show we were trying to come up with a name it's like, we're not gonna beat The Italian.

Chris: No no, it’s the best.

John: Just keep it there. And it kinda kept her in the headspace, when we wrote the scripts it kept her in that zone.

Aldis: And when she happened to actually be Italian!

John: We started with that, that was the-

Aldis: Ahhh, ohhh, ahhhh!

John: Did we not explain that to you?

Aldis: Ahhhh!

John: We just happened to get Elisabetta. Yeah, there you go.

Aldis: There go- ahhh!

Chris: And this is a nice kind of close out to, you know we sort of set up earlier that Eliot has some regrets of things that he may have done back when he was a soldier. Things he saw in Africa. And I thought Tim had a nice ad lib here, cause he kinda indicated that it was Eliot's idea to provide money for kids in the community based on them selling the violin.

John: And that's- and yeah it was another thing, too, as we moved into the third season of, why are these people still together. You know the second year they had realized they were family but were not emotionally evolved enough to explain, to acknowledge that. Third year where they are together and you begin to see- you know Hardison sees this as his crime college. And he loves these people, but this is his crime college. You know, Eliot is beginning to see the path to his redemption. You know, Nate is the acknowledgement of his identity. Parker is becoming a human being. You know, everyone has their reason they're there. You know, Sophie's reason to be there is basically, she had come back to run the crew while Nate was in prison. And to be acknowledged as the co-lead. This is a great scene. By the way, you play this wonderfully, this is a big turn here.

Chris: Yeah.

Aldis: Thanks.

Chris: It was- you know this was a tricky reveal here because- and I'll say that on the hypnosis front I consulted with a hypnotist-

[Laughter]

Chris: This is not just me making stuff up out of thin air.

John: I'm the one to make stuff up out of thin air, Chris actually researches shit.

Chris: And in fact, the hypnotist said to me that if somebody had a- was extremely proficient in something at an early age, whether it was athletics or music, that he could put someone in a deep trance state and return them to their ability, that their life experience is kinda what's gotten in the way of their ability, that it's all up there in their head. And that's all that we’re saying here, we’re not saying that he made you- Nate made Hardison able to play, Hardison always knew how to play, it was just cleaning out the cobwebs to get you back.

Aldis: Right.

John: Also Sophie's- Gina's playing that complicitness in a really nice way, which is she went with it, she didn't like it, and she doesn't necessarily like what Nate’s become. Also fun, you had really focused on this is, during the research, the idea that prison is a bad idea for most criminals. Most criminals just go in and become better criminals. It's- they call it crime college, you know, and what tricks had Nate picked up while he was inside.

Chris: And look ultimately that the one of the things that makes Nate able to run this crew from- is that he's not a nice guy. And that he will push any button to get whatever he wants done. And that makes him, I think, a better leader, and a more interesting character than if he's just you know got your back every time you're in trouble.

John: We cannot say this enough: Nate Ford is not a nice man.

Chris: Yeah.

Aldis: Right.

John: But that's what's required in the world that we set up in this show. And that's Scheherezade Job! Amazing job, both of you. I really wanna say this, I came to this as a viewer and this is one of my favorite episodes of the season, and of the entire run.

Aldis: It's one of my favorites.

John: I told the first time I watched this, I told Chris I wish my name was on it. I wish that I had the ‘Written by’ credit.

Chris: And you, you know I made a little comment to you back in season one, and boy did you make me happy.

Aldis: It happened.

John: It’s great.

Aldis: Well thank you man I enjoyed it. The script was one of my best scripts, one of my favorite scripts from the entire three seasons, so.

John: Thanks man.

Chris: Thanks.

John: Alright stay tuned more coming up.

Aldis: Peace.

#Leverage #Leverage TNT #Leverage Audio Commentary Transcripts #Audio Commentary #Transcripts #Parker #Alec Hardison #Elliot Spencer #Nate Ford #Sophie Deveraux #Season 3 #Episode 4 #Season 3 Episode 4 #The Scheherazade Job

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dracosathenaeum · 3 years ago

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OBLIVIATE | D.M. ABANDONED FIC OUTLINE

Hello~

I’ve had this fic for @fuckingdraco ‘s writing challenge outlined for almost a year now. Half of it is a skeleton; i have some scenes which are fully written out and others which are just first drafts and idea dumps. this is quite literally copied and pasted so good luck if you read it.

I never had the heart to completely delete it but never liked it enough to write it; so here is my 2.2k draft fo what would’ve been a series.

If anyone decides to read it, be warned, it’s a mess. i just didnt want it to die in my notes so it’s having a life here, in my new section of my masterlist ‘fics that never saw the light of day’.

warnings: memory loss, fight scenes, gore, fighting

Being in a secret relationships had its ups and downs

You had to sneak around

But that just made the moments you were together so much more meaningful

You couldn’t brag about him to your friends

But the both of you were quite private people anyways, explaining your absences as studying in odd places

No one ever found out

It was just you and draco

The summer of 5th year was hard as he spent all of it in the south of France with his family

But it made coming back in 6th year so much more exciting

your fingers ached to touch him as you walked past his carriage

It was moments like this that you wish you could openly love him

But when your friends started gossiping about how Harry Potter thought he’d become a death eater, you were suddenly glad you weren’t linked to him publicly

That thought itself set a heavy weight of guilt on you

He came back in 6th year and he had changed

His kisses lost their spark

His eyes lost their light

He’d fuck you rough and hard, almost as if forgetting himself. Before making it up to you in the next instance

Slow love making that made you feel like you had just slept with an entirely different person

You followed him

You supposed you shouldn’t have

But he was skipping meals and you couldn’t exactly talk to his friends when they didn’t know you

You couldn’t confide in your friends as they wouldn’t understand

So you had no other choice

You followed him throughout the nights, and every time you would find him slipping into the room of requirement when he should’ve been slipping into bed with you

Once you had gauged what time he usually went and on what days you yourself went, 10 minutes before he was due

You watch as he fiddles around some ancient looking cupboard and you wonder why you’re jealous of a dead tree taking up dracos time

You watch as he sends things through, until finally it works for him

But its not happiness on his face nor relief

It looks like dread

He doesn’t look like he’s accomplished something, no there was no way

You watch as he takes off his tie, throwing it in the pile of robes and jumper

You watch as he rolled up the sleeves to his arms, the arms that had held you up more times than you could count

And you watch as the dark snaking lines of the dark mark are exposed on your lovers skin

His eyes whip round to see yours, instantly widening in fear

It isn’t until you try to walk towards him and he throws his hands up to stop you do you realise the shattered glass littered around you

He flicks his wand and you walk over, standing in front of him trying to figure out why

“How did you hide it from me for so long.”

“Simple charms, I was hoping you wouldn’t have to find out.”

More dialogue where he explains

“I don’t have a choice.”

“You always have a choice.”

Draco please

“I can’t, I had to take this on my skin because my father fucked up”

“If I, if I stop now, I cant save my mother”

“Draco please, we can find a way around this”

You kiss him

And it feels like you’ve both gone back to before 6th year

When times were simpler

When he loved you and you loved him and that was it

No other interruptions

“Oblivate”

PART 1

“Y/n?”

“I’m sorry, do I know you?”

“Draco Malfoy, we share some classes but we haven’t spoken before.”

“Oh, im sorry, of course. I’m really tired I dont usually forget peoples names I swear. I must’ve been so tired I wandered in, I apologise.”

“It’s okay, the doors over there.” You take that as his polite cue of asking you to leave

He offers a tight smile, one you remember from first year, one you remember seeing across the hall as he’s shut down by Harry Potter

Poor guy must be going through something

“Y/n”

you turn, you dont even hesitate. You dont know what it is but you feel as if you’ve known him all your life

You change and you see a gold ring dangling from a dainty gold chain. You ask your friends if they’ve seen it before

im forgetting so much these days

But you keep it on, it brings you an odd sense of comfort

You keep it tucked beneath your blouse, bringing it to you lips on occasion when youre anxious.

He had forgotten about his ring, the very ring you had clasped between your thumb and finger as you worked on your essay. How was he possibly supposed to get it from you

he’s well aware he’s staring but his mind is whirling

He needs that ring

“Draco, isn’t that your ring?”

He should’ve obligated himself, that might’ve been easier

“I’m sure it just looks similar.”

“Draco, we both know that’s the Malfoy famlily crest, I wondered why you stopped wearing it.”

“Wait did she steal it?”

misplaced it

She picked it up

He had to awkwardly walk over to pick it up

“That’s my ring.” You had told him all about how your friends hated him and how you had feigned indifference the entire time

He had to act the part

Youre flustered, eyes flicking between the ring and him, fingers clasping it tighter as if not wanting to let it go

He notices and his heart clenches at the sight

Remembering the night he gave it to you

*flash back*

“I’m so sorry, I must’ve picked it up by accident here.”

“Wait, how do you even know it’s his, prove it Malfoy.”

“My vaults could buy Hogwarts, why would I be stealing gold from a nobody?”

Your cheeks flare up and your friends glare at him but see his side

You struggle to unclasp it, and of course you fucking do because his stupid fucking ass charmed it so only he could take it off

he watches as you struggle with it, turning to a friend to help before you have 6 girls pulling at the very expensive chain on your neck

“For fucks sake youre going to damage it, let me.”

Your breath hitches as his surprisingly warm fingers brush your hair out of the way, fingers working quick to unclasp the necklace, the weight of it leaving your neck and you feel surprisingly empty

“Thank you.”

You watch as he goes, your fingers scratching over your neck, feeling something bubble in your throat

This was pathetic, you were so sad over something that was never yours in the first place

You spend the remainder of the time trying to figure out how you cam to be in possession of it in the first place

your name is written in beautiful cursive on a letter that you cannot help but love

You turn it over to see a beautiful wax seal on it, fingers trembling as you break it

The chain is yours.

d.m.

You tilt the envelope over into your hand to feel the familiar weight of the chain in your hand, clasping it around you neck in an instant

You look in the mirror but you dont recognise yourself

Your friends are surprised when you study with them

When you go back to your dorm room at a reasonable time

And you dont have a clue where it is they think you go

But how could you possibly explain to someone what you font remember

The chain is too light around you neck, its just not the same, it feels as if it’s chocking you rather than bringing you comfort

You start digging through your trunk and draws, looking for something to act as a pendant before you finally do.

Hidden at the back of one of your draws you find a little velvet box you dont remember stashing away. But then again, you dont seem to be remembering much these days.

Its a tiny little constellation of stars, charmed to sparkle and you heart wonders why you had never worn it before. It was a simple little charm but once hooked onto the necklace, you look at yourself in the mirror and finally feel as though a little part of you has returned.

PART 2 THE CONSTELLATION IS DRACO

6th and 7th years are a blur

A blur of horror

You dont really understand how life had changed so abruptly

You dont know how you end up fighting in a war at the age of just 18 but here you are

Draco stands with Hogwarts

And then his mother calls

You’ve seen him

Of course you have

You know what he is, know what his parents are

But you also know what he has done to make Hogwarts more bearable for you under the Carrows watch

The small things, diverging attention away from you and your friends

He wasn’t evil and some part of you knew that

You watch as he takes a shuddering breath and starts to walk

You watch as no one stops him

You watch as he loses more of his soul with each step towards mr no-nose

You dont know why you do it

You run

Your friends call your names, teachers joining in

They think youre joining the other side, they think youre fucked in the head, as they had since that incident in 6th year

But no, you were just missing something

you catch up to him pretty quickly, pulling him to a stop

“Ah, another to join my cause. Welcome young lady.”

“You know me. Im missing something but whenever I’m with you, whenever im holding this stupid constellation close to my heart, I feel at ease. Why”

he stares at you incredulously, and why wouldn’t he. Youre in the middle of a battlefield, Harry Potter has just been declared dead and Voldemort is less than a meter away

But you dont feel scared

And you feel stupid for not feeling scared

“It has felt like I dont even know who I am for the past 2 years, what did you do to me?”

You know everyones watching, you can hear the gasps on both sides as they think the worst of him

“I did what was necessary.” That was the first time he had spoken more than 2 words to you since he had gotten his necklace back that day in the library

“Draco, this is no time to be flirting. Come join me, bring her with you if you want.”

He tenses as voldy rests a boney hand on his shoulder, pulling him towards the other side, away from you

“If you won’t be joining us, we will use you an example of what will happen if you dont join us.”

You stare at him unfazed, fear was something you had gotten used to

Your fingers grip your wand in hand, running through all the spell harry had taught you in the da but its not enough

You are no match for voldy as he throws an unforgivable at you

You hear screams around you but all you hear is silence, as if the world had finally gone silent

Draco watched as the spell hit you directly in the chest. He had spent 2 years living with his actions all for it to have gone to naught in a single second

He watched as the light from his wand hits you

Before rebounding off you as if it hit a shield

There’s a flash of black and his mother is infront of him, wand out from deflecting the spell from bouncing back and hitting him

“Mother?”

“She’s important to you?”

“She gave him one of the fucking family heirlooms, either she’s important to him or he’s an idiot”

His parents were… bickering in the middle of a battle

voldy recollects himself but before he can talk neville speaks up “I have no idea what’s going on but-”

Draco drowns out the noise as he stares at you on the floor, youre covered in dust and in blood but youre alive

He hears screams as harry rolls from hatreds arms, he hears the cries from death eaters but all can see is you

“We’re switching sides now?”

“I mean he’s fairly distracted, he won’t have time to hunt us down, we owe it to our son.”

Fight scene

You remember everything

Fred Weasley teases the both of you, “we have a war to win, you can fuck later.”

He copy his lazy grin, a grin that lights you up, a grin that reminds you what’s left to fight for

You see the spell before he does

Youre in an arms reach of him but Draco cant reach you in time

You push Fred to the floor, putting yourself in the line of fire by default and draco has to watch you get hit all over again

“We need to talk about what exactly it is ive been wearing around my neck this entire time.”

“I think only my mother can answer that.”

[if you made it this far, send me an ask with the word ‘chicken’ and i’ll send you a cursed photo xx]

#draco #draco malfoy #draco x reader #leaving this here to die #officially giving up on this fic #rip

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high-lady-of-earth · 4 years ago

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A Strained Solstice (in which Mor speaks without thinking)

Hi!!!! This is a one shot requested by @mitchloveswriting

I combined it with an anonymous request for fluffy Az x Reader. At this time, I don’t write anything 18+ but maybe in the future!!

Thanks for the requests and I hope you like it<3333

Azriel x Reader

Prompt: “az reader where everyone keeps asking when he and elain are getting togethr but reader gets sad bc theyve secretly been a thing for years pls?”

“Happy birthday, Feyre!” Everyone yelled at the same time.

It was a picture perfect moment. Feyre blew out the candles on her ridiculously elaborate birthday cake (courtesy of Rhysand, of course) as the Inner Circle looked on. Rhys stood next to his wife, Nyx in his arms, as he smiled at her. To their right, was Nesta and Cassian, mated and glowing as they held hands and looked at Feyre with love. You stood to Feyre’s left, with Amren and Varian next to you. Standing opposite of your High Lord and Lady at the table was Mor and Elain, the former with tears in her eyes and the latter with a broad, beautiful smile.

You instinctively knew that Azriel stood by the door, forever sticking to the shadows. You could feel his presence under your skin, almost like a sentient force that pulled you towards him with every fiber of your being. Your situation with the shadowsinger was sort of complicated, you had feelings for him and he reciprocated, leading to a few steamy makeout sessions during the year that you had been in the Night Court, but he had never deepened it. Never mind the fact that you wanted him to. You yearned for him to come to your side and be yours publicly, but you were too afraid to tell him.

The cake magically cut itself and you were handed a small slice of cake, the perfect size that you wanted. You silently thanked the House for knowing you so well. This year, Rhys splurged on Feyre’s birthday cake. It tasted amazing. The delicacy melted on your tongue and the frosting was so sweet that you moaned in delight.

“The cake must be phenomenal.” Said a voice behind you.

You whirled around to find Azriel casually leaning against the wall. You blushed as you realized what sound you had just made.

“It is pretty good.” You replied, a little embarrassed that Azriel had heard you. He walked towards you and you held your breath as his hand moved toward your face. The shadows that always surrounded him began to disappear a little.

“You’ve got some frosting on your cheek.” Azriel said softly as his thumb brushed against your face.

You stilled as you felt his callused finger linger a few more seconds than was necessary. Then, you watched his thumb move towards his mouth and kept staring as his tongue darted out and licked the frosting that had been on your cheek. You felt heat begin spread throughout your body as you saw your desire mirrored in Azriel’s eyes.

“Azriel! Do you want some cake?” Cassian yelled.

The moment was over as Azriel’s shadows returned and you saw the usual mask of ice harden his features.

“I’m fine, Cas. I stole a bit of Y/n’s.” Azriel replied to Cassian.

You felt your hope die a little as Azriel so casually dismissed the moment you two just shared. The all-too-familiar disappointment rushed back in and you once again felt the longing for what your friends had. Ever since you had been rescued from Hybern’s prison by the Inner Circle, your heart longed to find its mate.

“I would like to open presents now. Rhysand, please be a dear and bring them to the family room.” Amren announced. You knew the petite female was itching to get her hands on her new jewels.

You didn’t wait for Azriel as you walked into the family room and took a seat on the couch next to Mor. She looked so elegant in a purple gown and matching amethyst jewelry. You probably paled in comparison in your pink dress that seemed to be loose in too many places. Your worries melted away as Rhys brought in the solstice presents.

Of course, Amren opened her gifts first, receiving a majority of jewelry. You had given her a diadem of rubies to match the necklace Varian had given her years ago that she loved. Next, Rhys and Feyre opened the gifts for themselves and Nyx. It was no surprise that they received a lot of baby stuff, with your contribution being a magical baby rocker. Cassian and Nesta opened their gifts, which was made up of weapons and tactical gear. Mor got a lot of dresses and clothing while Varian received miscellaneous items. You gave Elain gardening stuff, like most people. Your gifts consisted of different things, from books to clothing to a painting from Feyre.

Lastly, it was Azriel’s turn to open his gifts. He received pretty much the same thing as always from everyone— weapons. You had his gift in your hand because you wanted to give it to him personally. Azriel was opening Elain’s gift when you heard Mor speak up next to you.

“When are you two going to get together? You’ve both been beating around the bush for years and I think I speak for everyone when I say put an end to our misery.” Mor said to Azriel and Elain.

Both Azriel and Elain blushed and you felt tears come to your eyes. The Inner Circle seemed to have no idea how much you cared for Azriel. Or maybe you were a fool, and you couldn’t see that he liked Elain. That would certainly explain why Azriel had never made the two of you official. You were just something to distract him from Elain, who he was forbidden to touch so that they could keep the alliance with Lucien and therefore Jurian and Vassa. The tears were threatening to spill over so you abruptly got up and muttered something about getting more wine as you made your way to the dining room.

You had just reached the table when you realized you still had Azriel’s gift in your hand. You set it down and asked the House for a wine glass, which appeared in your hand. You filled it with wine from the bottle on the table and sat down to wipe the tears from your face. You played back what had just happened in your mind, noting how Elain looked at Azriel like he was her savior. You were so deep into your thoughts that you didn’t notice someone softly sitting next to you.

“Is everything alright, Y/n?” Cassian asked you. He put a hand on your shoulder and looked at your face with concern in his eyes.

“I’m fine, Cas. It’s just another migraine.” You lied. He could tell you weren’t telling the truth.

“Is it because of what Mor said? You know she says stuff out of turn sometimes.”

“I’m fine.” You repeated. You held the wine glass tightly in your hand. Cassian sighed and got up, presumably to go back to the others.

“You know, Az is fool. You’re so much better than the rest of us. Even Elain left Feyre to take on the responsibility of feeding their entire family. But you, your kindness has no boundaries, even after what you went through with Hybern.” Cassian said.

“Will you tell them I had a migraine and went home?” You asked. He nodded and went to join the rest of the Inner Circle.

You put on your coat and and the House put your presents in a bag for you as you stepped into your slippers. Before you had the time to start descending the ten thousand stairs to your apartment in the city, Azriel appeared. He walked towards you, his presence dominating the room.

“Where are you going?” He asked. Azriel kept walking towards you, and he seemed a little angry. You had no idea why he thought he had the right to be angry and you weren’t going to be scared by his demeanor. You refused to yield a step and stood nose-to-nose with Azriel as he stopped in front of you.

“I had a migraine and I’m going home to rest.” You stated. Azriel narrowed his eyes, but you weren’t cowed.

“You haven’t had migraines in a month. I would know.” He said. You pricked at his last sentence.

“Would you really know? You seemed to be too focused on Elain to notice anything.” You accused. Azriel took a step back a laughed. He actually laughed.

“So that’s what this is about? You’re jealous of Elain because of what Mor said. Elain has a mate.” He said incredulously.

“That doesn’t seem to stop her.” You muttered as you finally looked away from him. Azriel lifted his hand to your chin and brought your face to look at his once more. He brushed a lone strand of hair away from your eyes.

“Let me fly you home, Y/n.” He said.

What did that mean? Did he want you? Was he just trying to apologize? Azriel saw your hesitation and quickly said, “It doesn’t have to mean anything.”

You nodded and he picked you up, bridal style. Azriel’s arms lay under your knees and back and you silently reveled in the feeling of his muscles. His shadows closed around the two of you and you barely felt it when he took off into the air. You buried your face into Azriel’s chest. You never liked flying, but it was better than the alternative of descending ten thousand stairs and walking to your apartment. You felt Azriel’s slight stubble on your cheek as he leaned down to whisper in your ear.

“I never licked the frosting off my thumb from Elain’s cheek, Y/n.” He murmured in your ear. If the words themselves didn’t make you curl your toes in excitement, then his husky tone did. Azriel’s voice caressed you as you blushed. You stayed there like that, in Azriel’s arms until you were both out of range of the House and he winnowed into the cozy living room of your apartment.

He set you down and you took a couple moments to orient yourself properly. Winnowing, no matter how many times you did it, always made you dizzy. You set the bag containing your presents on your coffee table and noticed Azriel’s present on top. You reached into the bag and took it out.

“I got a present for you.” You said.

“I have one for you too. I wanted to give it to you in private.” He replied.

You handed him the wrapped parcel in your hands. Azriel unwrapped his present and looked at you questioningly.

“The others don’t notice the shadows under your eyes. I know you aren’t sleeping, Az. It’s a tea I made. It’ll help you sleep.” You said. Azriel took a deep breath.

“How did you know?” He asked. You moved closer to him and put your palm on his cheek.

“I can see through the mask you put up for the others. I can see the purple smudges under your eyes.” You replied. Azriel engulfed you in a big embrace.

“I’m sorry that I haven’t given you my all, Y/n. I’m dealing with a lot of stuff, but I’d like to revisit us after we deal with the human queens.” He said.

You nodded and Azriel kissed your cheek. He pulled out a little package from his pocket and put it into your hand. You opened it and drew in a breath when you saw a key nestled in a velvet box.

“I have a house outside of Velaris. Only Rhys knows about it. Sometimes the city is a little much and I need to escape it and I wanted you to be able to have somewhere as well.” He said sheepishly. This time, you hugged Azriel and gave him a broad smile.

“Thank you.” You whispered.

#azriel x reader #azriel #inner circle #azriel x elain #acotar #acomaf #acowar #acofas #acosf #feyre archeron #rhysand #cassian #nesta archeron #amren #varian #mor #elain archeron #acotar fanfiction #submission

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a-small-batch-of-dragons · 4 years ago

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Unfurl and Fly

Prompt: Hello! I've been meaning to request this for so long but, you'd never posted any Sanders Sides fanfics till recently so I finally get to ask! = D

This is simply a request, but could you possibly to a Hurt/Comfort and Angsty o ed! Virgil fanfiction? Where he hides his wings for whichever reason you want- And it's *painful*, and eventually his wings get to damaged from constantly being hidden and self-groomed and other stuff of the sort and the others find out either accidentally cuz Virgil is in Too Much Pain, or Virgil reaches out- Just, take creative liberties with it! (Platonic LAMP all around- Or you can decide if it's romantic! Idc, whichever you prefer-) = D You can decide whether the others have wings or not, or if it's only the 'dark sides', or no one except Virgil, etc etc. I just have craved this for So Long in your writing specifically!

Whether you decide you would like to do this idea of not, that's fine! ^^ Just thought I'd suggest it! Thank you very much! = D - moonscar

Thanks for the request, babe!

Read on Ao3 The sequel: Soar

Pairings: LAMP, DLAMP, DLAMPR, found family babes let’s go

Warnings: self-hatred, some implied self-harm, self-destructive behavior, poor Virgil is not having a good time, y’all. Sympathetic Janus, sympathetic Remus

Word Count: 7,932

Out of all of the Sides to have wings, why the fuck did it have to be Virgil?

Come on, it’s not like it even fits with Anxiety, being able to fly? Having these big fucking things sticking out of his back? No thank you, that’s more literally anyone else’s thing! Roman would love it, he’s sure, soaring to great heights and all that. Patton’s the closest one of them to actually being an angel. Logan could use them to fly away from the bullshit.

But nope. Virgil’s the one stuck with them. Isn’t that just fantastic.

Virgil grunts and pulls his hoodie on tighter, zipping it up over the sports bra. He growls and reaches back to tug the wings into place under the layers of fabric, hunching his back so the others don’t notice that there’s conspicuously more mass on his back than there’s supposed to be. Thank god he’s already known for baggy clothes.

He has to walk carefully. Too much jostling and the wings’ll pop loose. He leans on the stairs as much as he can before making his way to the back of the couch. He looks around. No one else is here.

Which would make sense, seeing as it’s three am.

Virgil winces when something twinges in his shoulder blade. His ears strain to pick up the sounds of anyone moving; no floorboards creak, no doors open or close, no sinks or anything else. Shit. Fuck, it’s happening when he’s breathing now too.

Shit.

Wincing, Virgil unzips his hoodie and slowly, slowly starts to lift his shirt up, sliding his hands under the material to try and—

A door opens upstairs and in a flash, Virgil’s hoodie is fully zipped up and his hands are back in his pockets.

Patton walks downstairs, rubbing his eyes. He blinks lazily and turns to go to the kitchen.

“Patton?”

Virgil winces when Patton startles horribly, whirling around until his eyes land on Virgil, perched on the back of the couch.

“You scared me, kiddo,” he pants, leaning against the counter before forcing a smile onto his face, “what’re you doing up?”

Virgil shrugs, trying to hide his flinch when one of his wings snag against something. “Just couldn’t sleep.”

“Aw, I’m sorry to hear that.” Patton tilts his head. “Anything I can do to help?”

Patton…Patton might be nice.

Patton would help, right? He—he’d care enough to help. Wouldn’t he? Patton had tried, so hard, when Virgil was first…around, just to make him comfortable, help him fit in, make him feel at…at home.

But—but Patton is the kind of person who would do anything to help someone and Virgil…Virgil doesn’t want that either.

Patton would see his wings—his ugly, dirty, huge wings—and look at Virgil with so much pity that he would be forced to help out. And the thought of hands in his wings was bad enough. The thought of unwilling hands in his wings was even worse.

Not Patton.

Virgil smiles, tightlipped in the dark. “No thanks, padre. ’S just the job.”

It’s a little sad how quickly Patton nods. “I trust you, kiddo, if you say you can do it I believe you.”

A sigh of relief lessens the ache in his shoulder blades for just a moment, then Virgil narrows his eyes. “What’re you doing up right now?”

“Needed a drink!” And sure enough, Patton goes into the kitchen and grabs a glass. “You want one?”

“…no, no I’m good.”

“Suit yourself.” Once the glass is full, Patton yawns, his jaw cracking, before he walks over to ruffle Virgil’s hair. “You gonna try and sleep a little?”

“Maybe.”

“G’night, kiddo.”

“Night.”

Once Patton vanishes back up the stairs, Virgil holds completely still until he hears the door click. As soon as it does, he slumps, burying his head in his hands, ignoring the bolt of white-hot pain that shoots through him. That was too fucking close.

What was he thinking? He can’t be here, not now, not while they hurt so much.

He sinks back to his room, biting his lip to stifle the noise when his wings slip under the bra. Now he won’t be able to get it off without hurting them—fuck why is this is fucking life?

He has to go slow, agonizing second by agonizing second, until the bra lies crumpled at the foot of his bed and he’s panting, sweat beading on his forehead and two new gashes in his lip. He takes one shuddering breath, then two, then—

“Come on, you assholes,” he mutters, “just…fucking cooperate for me.”

His wings creak and groan as he unfurls them, stretching them out until his throat protests with the effort of holding back a scream. He bound them wrong this time. One of the tendons is twisted, slipped over the bone on his right wing and every flex threatens to rip it entirely. His eyes, screwed tight from the effort, blink away tears, catching a glimpse of himself in the mirror.

He forgot to cover it again.

Virgil winces when he sees the state of his wings. The primaries aren’t lying flat, the secondaries are all bent out of shape, he can see the loose feathers stuck in the rest of the mess, and his oil gland must be clogged again. He can hear everything rasping together, the creaking, and everything. He—he has to try again.

Slowly, he sits down in front of the mirror, crossing his legs and sitting up as much as he can. He holds his wings out and winces at the sharp yank. Flexing his fingers, he reaches out with his hand and starts combing through his feathers. He can’t get the right angle no matter how much he twists his wrists and trying to hold the wing in place doesn’t work either. But he’s able to pull a few of the loose feathers out. It doesn’t matter that he plucks out several of the remaining healthy ones as well.

Alright. Step one done.

Virgil braces himself and twists, reaching out quickly for his wing before his back pulls away from him. He grabs it with two outstretched hands and can’t stop the cry of pain when another sizzling bolt races down his spine. He can barely hold onto it for three seconds before he has to let go. A roll of nausea makes him retch, hunched over himself, tears springing anew to his eyes.

Pathetic.

Can’t even clean yourself properly.

Worthless.

Useless.

Dirty.

The room rings with shuddering breaths as his chest heaves, the pain still zinging through his wings. He can’t. He can’t do it. He can’t clean them properly, not now, maybe not ever. He fucking bound them wrong, like an idiot and now he has to sleep on his stomach and if someone walks in they’ll see them and he won’t be able to bind them properly if they don’t heal and—

The fucking worst thing about his wings is they always try and make things better. They twitch whenever he’s near someone he likes or bristle when he feels upset. And when he’s alone, all by himself, about to have a panic attack, they always try and hug him.

So Virgil cries there, on the floor, surrounded by his ugly, dirty, painful wings.

He sleeps on the floor that night too, a few pillows here and there to keep him from pressing his face directly into the ground, wings as outstretched as he can until he can ignore the pain long enough to fall into a fitful, uneasy rest. When he wakes, the joints are still tender and he curses, knowing if he tries to bind them again it’ll just get worse. That means a day of staying in his room, which by itself wouldn’t be awful except that the others would know.

When Virgil was alone, he could have his wing day all by himself and no one would care. He could stay shut up in his room without fear that someone would come and knock on the door, wondering where he was, if he was okay, did he need anything? He’d tried, he’d tried so hard to convince himself that alone was better, alone was safe, alone protected him.

But the others were magnets, always pulling him closer, closer, closer until he was bound within them. How was he supposed to pull away from that warmth, that care, when every time he was close to it his wings reached out? He had to start binding them when he first appeared to Thomas, yes, but it wasn’t until recently that he had to start binding them. Because they would reach for the others. All the time.

He couldn’t have that.

So he tied them up.

And it was worth it. It was worth being able to stand next to Roman, to see that smile up close. It was worth being able to stand next to Logan, to hear him talk and explain everything he could ever want to know. It was worth being able to stand next to Patton, to feel warm and safe.

The pain was worth it, even if it didn’t always feel like it.

The others couldn’t know about his wings. If they did, they might—they would—

Only dark sides had animal traits. If they knew Virgil had wings—

Virgil shakes his head and groans into the pillow. He can’t go back. Not after what he’s done. He can’t—he won’t—there isn’t—

He barely remembers being small. He remembers being scared, being afraid, fumbling in the dark, but he almost never remembers being small. Small enough where he didn’t know yet to be afraid to ask someone for help, when hands in his wings weren’t tied up with problems or intimacy or care or obligation. Small enough where he could cuddle into the lap of someone who loved him and not have to worry.

He remembers getting older and being scared, huddling in the dark with the others.

He remembers rubbing his hand over shedding scales. He remembers helping rub away the twitches in newly formed tentacles. He remembers hands, hands in his wings.

Those memories are locked away, behind bars Virgil won’t let himself bring down.

A knock on the door startles him out of his thoughts.

“Yeah?”

Fuck, does his throat sound like that?

“Virgil?” Logan. “Are you alright?”

“What the fuck is an alright,” Virgil mutters, pushing himself up off the ground and wincing, before raising his voice, “I’m fine, Logan.”

“You didn’t come down for breakfast—“ shit— “and we were concerned.”

“Didn’t feel like coming down,” Virgil tries, aiming for nonchalance and failing miserably, “but I’m all good here.”

“Are you certain?”

Logan…Logan would help.

Logan would understand things from a logical perspective. He would be the most business-like about it, just doing what needed to be done and leaving. He might find it…interesting? He would get it over with.

He would…get it over with.

A human figure having wings is illogical. Virgil doesn’t want to be stared at like some sort of…object. And…and…Virgil wants to be cared for, not treated like a chore. The desire burns a shameful hole in his gut, the craving for soft words and gentle touches accompanied by flaming cheeks and a roll of disgust. He doesn’t think he’d be able to hold back the tears at being treated so…coldly, even if it would be better for him.

Not Logan.

“I’m sure,” Virgil grits out, “thanks, though.”

“Of course. Will we see you for dinner?”

Swallows before his tongue chokes him. “Dunno.”

“Very well.”

He hears Logan walk away and cringes. That was awful. But he’s made a commitment now, so he has to get ready for dinner. Four hours should be enough.

Sitting up is a slow process and every few moments he has to stop when his vision grows spotty. He flexes his wings, watches the shape twist back for a few seconds before he has to relax it again. The ache has dulled slightly and maybe he can try again.

Raising his arms straight above his head, muscles straining, shaking, Virgil bites his lip and holds for one, two, three seconds until he cries out and lets them drop. Nope. No way. If he can’t even do that, he’s not gonna be able to pull the sports bra over his head, much less get his wings tucked into position. He winces and looks around for the belt.

He hates using the belt but it is easier on his shoulders. Instead of tucking the whole folded-up mess into the sports bra, he folds his wings up as small as they’ll go and wraps a belt around them, straining behind him and valiantly ignoring how much it hurts until he’s sure he’s got it around the joints. He lets go with a gasp, rolling his shoulders experimentally. It still aches, yes, but much less, and as he turns to the side, if he just wears a big enough shirt, with his hoodie on, no one will notice.

That means he can use the rest of the time to get used to it.

By the time he walks down to dinner, the others are waiting, Roman’s face lighting up in a huge smile as he sees Virgil round the top of the stairs.

“There’s our little Stormcloud!” He waves Virgil over to the chair next to him. “Haven’t seen your gloomy face all day, I’ve missed it!”

Virgil snorts. “You’ve just missed seeing another version of you, Princey.”

“Can you blame me, Hot Topic?” Roman winks. “We’re gorgeous.”

“The fact that we all share a face should not be surprising to you,” Logan remarks as he closes his book.

“Aw, you think I’m hot.”

“Pasta!” Patton places the pot on the table and Virgil winces when the sound makes his wings twitch. He doesn’t catch Roman’s concerned look. “Who wants what?”

“Just olive oil for me.”

“You got it, Logan.”

“I’ve got mine,” Roman announces, sweeping half of the condiments on the table toward him and combining them in…a way.

“…jeez,” Virgil mutters.

Patton rolls his eyes fondly as Logan and Roman start idly bickering about the appropriate condiments for pasta. A steaming bowl slides to a stop in front of him and without pausing, Roman passes Virgil the jar of sauce.

Virgil watches the jar slide to a stop in front of him, blinking up at Roman who just gives him a quick wink and goes right back to bickering with Logan. Patton giggles as Logan pinches the bridge of his nose, obviously trying to hide his smile as Princey grins. It’s a game now, to see which one of them will break character first. Princey’s the actor, but Logan’s got an incredible deadpan face. And when he’s in a playful mood the two of them can go at it for hours. Virgil and Patton just sit back to watch the show.

As it turns out, both of them break character at the same time tonight, Logan stumbling over a word, and Princey accidentally slurring Logan’s name as he tries to come up with a comeback. Logan immediately tries to hide his smile behind his hand only to snort when Princey screws his face up in protest.

“How did I manage to do that,” he cries, “I said—what the hell did I say?”

Patton’s laughing too hard to answer and Virgil just shakes his head helplessly.

Logan snorts. Tries to stifle it again. Then his giggles start to slip out. “D-damn it.”

Roman gives up trying to stop his own cackles and throws his head back, letting it ring out. “We were doing so well, too!”

“We were indeed,” Logan says through a smile, “perhaps we should try again.”

“No, no, no, I won’t be able to get any words out before I’m reminded of whatever the heck my tongue did.”

“What word were you trying to say?”

“I don’t even remember.”

Dinner gets finished and Logan stands to help Patton clean up. Roman leans back in his chair, stretching his arms over his head. Virgil watches him, his eye first caught by the movement, lingering when he sees the rush of relief on Roman’s face.

Is…is that what stretching is supposed to feel like?

“Stormcloud?”

Virgil blinks. Oh. Oh, fuck, he’s staring. Roman stares down at him, his head tilted.

“You’ve been quiet today, Stormcloud,” Roman says, too low for Logan or Patton to hear, “everything Gucci?”

Nope. Princey’s not allowed to do that. Definitely not. He’s not allowed to sound that caring because Virgil will talk to him.

“Everything’s fine.”

Roman raises an eyebrow. “Uh-huh.”

“Shut up,” Virgil grumbles, shoving Roman halfheartedly as he chuckles.

He goes to pull his hand back but Roman catches it, making him wince when his wings jar. This time he doesn’t miss Roman’s look of concern.

“Virgil,” Roman calls, “are you hurt?”

Yes. “Nah. Just slept weird.” On the ground, in pain.

“You don’t want me to sic Patton on you, do you?”

Virgil shudders, ignoring the twinge in his wings again. “No. Nope. I’m good.”

Roman chuckles, pressing a quick kiss to the back of Virgil’s hand. “Alright. You just come and tell me when you need something, hmm?”

Roman…maybe Roman?

Roman, who is desire and passion and so, so warm to the touch. Roman, who has tried so, so hard to make Virgil his friend, to care for him. Roman, who looks at Virgil with soft expressions and sly winks and is just so there.

…Roman, who treated him like a villain. Roman, who Virgil knows struggles to keep his own head above water most of the time. Roman, who can put on a mask to rival any actor’s, who can hide everything so well they might never know what’s really going on.

Not Roman.

“…yeah, sure, Princey.”

“Marvelous!”

And despite everything, despite the pain in his wings and the belt digging into the soft points of his feathers, Virgil smiles, just a little.

If this is what he has to deal with to be a part of this, then he’ll do it.

Then Deceit shows up and Virgil panics.

Not because of what this means, not because of how it’s going to affect Thomas, but because Deceit knows.

Deceit knows that Virgil has wings. Deceit knows that Virgil is a dark side. Deceit knows that Virgil hasn’t told the others.

He’s safe—at least he thinks he’s safe—because if Deceit tells them about his wings, he’d have to tell the others he sheds too. And Deceit won’t ever volunteer information about himself like that. Virgil has one moment of panic on the witness stand, thinking Deceit’s about to split his defenses wide open, but no, no, he’s wings stay tucked up, ugly and rumpled, Virgil’s very own dirty little secret.

Luckily—or unluckily—there are too many other things to focus on for Deceit to let slip that particular little secret. Virgil is too worried about Thomas and Patton and Roman and Logan and everything to worry any more about his wings. He runs on adrenaline and worries for days, weeks, months until it’s all he can think about, over and over, coffee being drained as quickly as Logan can brew it.

He plucks out his own feathers in the dark and washes the blood off the carpet. He strains to move his arms, his shoulders, anything, just to get a little more range of motion. He wipes the crusted salt from the corner of his eyes and grits his teeth.

Then Remus shows up and does what Remus does best: wreak absolute chaos.

Roman is knocked out, Logan gets a shuriken in the forehead, and Virgil tells Thomas he used to be a dark side.

The second he sinks into his room after that he tears at himself, his hoodie thrown to the corner of the room as his wings groan and buckle and writhe as Virgil paces.

Why did he do that why did he do that now he knows now they know now it’s going to be so much worse they’re going to hate me again I’m going to be alone alone is safe alone protects me but alone is cold and lonely and alone hurts it hurts I hurt make it stop please—

He’s panicking, he knows he’s panicking, he knows he should go, go find someone, have Logan help him, talk to Roman, get a hug from Patton, but his wings are out, he can’t put them away and they hurt, they hurt so much, everything hurts so much, he just wants it to stop.

Virgil collapses onto the floor, ignoring the sickening crunch as one of his wings buckles under his weight. It just…it just hurts.

Thomas doesn’t say anything.

Patton doesn’t say anything.

Logan doesn’t say anything.

Roman doesn’t say anything.

Remus doesn’t say anything.

Janus doesn’t say anything.

And somehow…somehow that’s worse.

It doesn’t get easier, it just gets repetitive.

He doesn’t try to get the spots he can’t reach anymore. He knows he can’t get the oil glands cleaned. He washes them as best he can but he knows he can’t dry them properly. He wears the sports bra. He wears the belt.

He endures.

Then he fucks up.

Janus has been watching him. In fairness, Janus watches everybody, but he’s been keeping a particularly close eye on Virgil. If Virgil didn’t know any better, he’d think Janus was suspicious of him, that he’d do something to ruin Janus’s seat at the table, or hurt the others, or try and turn them against each other. It would make sense, given their…history.

But Virgil knows Janus better than that.

He knows that look and that’s why he shies away from it.

He lashes out and he hates himself for it. He scorns Janus’s attention and has to hold back a gag. He slams his door shut and claps a hand over his mouth to stop himself from crying.

He can’t let himself stop now. If he stops he’ll fall apart. He’s been numb for so long he wants to stay numb, can’t start feeling it again or—or—

He can’t. He just can’t. The dark sides may be accepted now but that says nothing about Virgil.

Which is why it is so, so stupid that Janus chooses to stand next to Logan when the next session comes. Because he’s right there, so close, where Virgil can practically feel his presence prickling along his left side and he’s so glad he bit the bullet and wore the sports bra today because his wings are straining to reach for him.

But then Remus pops up next to Roman and Virgil visibly flinches.

He’s able to pass it off as surprise but the knowing look Janus gives him tells him Janus can see right through him.

He shouldn’t be feeling this way. He shouldn’t. He left the dark side ages ago, he shouldn’t—this shouldn’t—

He shouldn’t be aching for them. For all of them. His wings shouldn’t be bristling and yearning and his back shouldn’t feel like it’s splitting in two right now.

His mind shouldn’t be filled with thoughts of the soft touches they would give him as the helped groom his wings, the gentle jabs and playful barbs tossed back and forth as they supported each other.

He shouldn’t feel so cold.

The debate is already going, Logan and Patton tossing things back and forth, Roman and Remus doing the same. Janus adds a comment here and there, Thomas frantically trying to keep track of all of them. It’s far too easy for Virgil to withdraw, sink into his head, focus on keeping his wings in, make them stop, ignore the ache.

Someone shouts right next to his ear and without thinking, Virgil reaches out and grabs Janus’s cloak.

He freezes.

Fuck fuck fuck he fucked up he fucked up—

Why the fuck had he done that? Was it just because he was scared? He’s Anxiety, he’s always scared, why had this made him do something he hadn’t done since he was tiny?

He’s not some frightened child anymore, tugging on his parent’s clothes to beg for scraps of comfort. Is this what he fucking wants, to be coddled, told pretty lies about how everything was fine?

Too late, he realizes he’s still holding on and tries to let go quickly enough that no one will notice.

It only partially works.

The others are too busy scolding Remus—who just looks very pleased with himself—to notice. Except for Janus.

Of fucking course Janus notices.

Virgil shoves his traitorous hands into his pockets. He hunches his back, not caring that it makes his wings strain against the fabric of his hoodie. The only one who could see them right now is Janus and Virgil’s already dug his grave there, hasn’t he?

He just wants this to be over so he can go and Janus will stop looking at him.

The video ends and he can’t be the first one to sink out of the common area, that will draw attention, he can’t draw any more attention, but the longer he stays then someone will ask him something and he doesn’t want to—

Oh.

He blinks. Is…is the room empty? Oh. He can sink out now.

…or he could stay here.

The others tend to go cool off in their rooms after heated videos, just until they can all come out and make nice again. Virgil…Virgil has the common room to himself.

“Virgil?”

Fuck.

“…hey, Janus.”

“Hello,” Janus says softly, and no, no, no, don’t do that.

Janus is being kind and it’s so hard for Virgil to just stand here and not let his wings rip out of the hoodie. He didn’t sink out, he stayed, of course he fucking stayed, Virgil tugged on his cape like a little kid—

Virgil curses under his breath, collapsing to sit on the steps. He ignores Janus’s soft noise of concern and balls his hands up, beating out an erratic rhythm on his legs. His back hurts. His shoulders hurt. His wings hurt. Now his legs hurt. Now his hands hurt.

Something grabs his hands and pulls them over his head. The searing pain tears a cry out of his throat.

“Shh, shh—“ Janus, it’s Janus— “none of that now, sweetie.”

“Let me go.” It’s meant to come out as a snarl but instead, here Virgil is, whimpering at Janus’s feet.

“Will you keep hurting yourself if I let you go?”

No, Virgil wants to lie, yes, he wants to say just to spite him, what comes out of his mouth is neither of these.

“You’re hurting me,” he pants, “you’re—it hurts.”

Janus is silent above him, still holding his arms firmly above his head. Virgil chokes back a sob in the agonizingly painful position, barely suppressing his cries enough to still his shoulders which of course did nothing to alleviate the pain. Then another hand—right, he has six—touches gently beneath his chin, guiding his head up.

Virgil meets such an open expression of concern that tears spring to the corners of his eyes. He looks away immediately, only for Janus to crouch in front of him. He keeps a hold of Virgil’s hands but the release in his shoulders is enough to make him gasp.

“Sweetie,” Janus calls, “sweetie, look at me.”

“No.”

“Virgil, I need you to look at me.”

Gritting his teeth, Virgil looks up at Janus. Janus squeezes his hands once.

“When was the last time you had your wings groomed?”

Virgil’s heart drops to the pit of his stomach.

“Y-yesterday.”

“Did you do it yourself?”

“…yeah.”

“When was the last time someone else helped you groom them properly?”

Virgil swallows heavily and doesn’t say anything.

“…oh, sweetie, have you not had anyone help you groom them since…?”

Janus doesn’t even have to finish his sentence before Virgil’s nodding, the shameful secret finally spilling out. It’s Janus, he rationalizes, he knows how to keep a secret, right?

“Why haven’t you told them,” Janus murmurs, his voice broken, “why, sweetie?”

“Because telling people things is always so easy,” Virgil snarls.

Janus accepts it with a slow nod, reaching out to cup Virgil’s cheek. On instinct, Virgil jerks back, unable to get away from the touch because of the grip on his hands. Janus’s eyes widen.

“…oh, sweetie…”

“Don’t tell them,” Virgil blurts out, “please don’t tell them.”

“You’ve been hurting yourself, Virgil,” Janus whispers, “so badly, I can’t let that continue.”

“I’ll—I’ll fix it, I can fix it—“

“You know you can’t do this by yourself, honey.”

“I have to,” Virgil cries out finally, “I have to, I can’t—I messed up, I messed everything up, I have to do it alone now, I have to—“

“What did you mess up, sweetie?”

“You a-and Remus and I can’t—I can’t ask you ‘cause I messed it up so bad—“

“Shh, shh,” Janus soothes instantly, reaching out with another pair of hands to cup Virgil’s face properly, “you haven’t lost me, sweetie, you haven’t messed anything up so badly. You know you can come to me for help, you can always come here.”

“But you’re—“

“What, sweetie,” Janus prompts when Virgil cuts himself off, “what am I?”

Nope. Because Virgil can’t even use the dark side excuse anymore because now the dark sides are accepted. He has no fucking excuse. He has no justification for why he’s doing this. He’s—he’s—

He’s hurting himself.

“It hurts,” he whispers instead, “m-make it stop.”

“Do you have enough energy to sink out, sweetie?” Virgil shakes his head. “Okay. I need you to stand up for me, honey.”

Getting to his feet is a slow process, Janus murmuring encouragement as they go. He sets Virgil’s hands gently against the stair railing and whispers that he’ll be right back, he just has to grab some things, wait here, please? Virgil lets him go and clutches the railing for dear life, trying to keep the waves of nausea inside thank you very much.

“What do you mean, you haven’t seen him?”

“I knocked on his door, he didn’t answer.”

“So?”

“So I…tried the knob.”

“Roman!”

“I know, I know, I’m not supposed to, but I was worried and he isn’t in there, so—“

“Wait, he’s not in his room?”

“No! That’s the problem!”

“Well then where is he?”

“I don’t know, that’s why I came to find you two!”

“Wait…Virgil?”

No, no, no—

“Stormcloud,” Roman breathes from the top of the stairs, racing down, “there you are, we’ve been looking for you!”

“What’re you doing down here, kiddo,” Patton asks worriedly, “are you…you don’t look so good.”

Logan hustles around the end of the stairs to face him and no, no, Virgil doesn’t want this, not now—

“Virgil,” Logan calls softly and he sounds so much like he cares— “Virgil, are you having trouble standing?”

Virgil nods jerkily.

“Let’s have you sit down, then,” he continues gently, trying to cover up the shake in his voice.

When he doesn’t move, Roman can’t help himself. He walks forward, his arms opening to hover around Virgil’s waist.

“Can I carry you, Stormcloud,” he asks, “just to the couch?”

What does he do? He can’t say no, not when they look so worried. They just keep asking questions, they’ll just—but Janus asked him to wait for him, but standing is so hard and they all look so worried—

He nods again.

Logan carefully places his hands around Roman’s neck as Roman scoops him into a princess carry, heading for the couch. He sits down in the middle, holding Virgil as securely as he can, looking up when Logan crouches in front of them, nervously adjusting his tie. Patton sits on his side, pulling Virgil’s legs into his lap.

“What do we do?” Roman whispers. “I don’t—what do you need, Stormcloud?”

Logan nods encouragingly, still looking at Virgil with his brows drawn until realization dawns on his face.

“Virgil,” he says as he gets up to sit beside Roman, resting his hands on Virgil’s shoulders to encourage him to lean against him, “are you…is your ‘everything machine’ breaking?”

Oh.

Yeah, that’s what’s happening.

It’s Roman’s turn to have the ‘aha’ moment when he nods, taking one of Virgil’s hands and tenderly pressing a kiss to it. Logan keeps a steady, grounding pressure on his sides as Roman carefully lies him on the couch, going to the kitchen.

“Can you sit up? It’s perfectly alright if you can’t,” Logan assures quickly, “but it might be easier to drink something if you are upright.”

Virgil nods.

“Thank you,” he murmurs, “we’ll go slowly, alright? If you feel dizzy or light-headed at any point, squeeze my hand and you can lie back down.”

As promised, by the time they’re fully sitting up, Logan’s hand still on his shoulder, Roman’s breezed back in with a tissue box, a glass of water, a glass of orange juice, and a mini french loaf on a tray, set it all down on the coffee table, pulled the table close enough where he can perch on the edge, and reached out to take his hand again. Patton rubs encouraging circles into his knee, murmuring soft words of encouragement.

Virgil can’t move. He doesn’t know what to do. He—they feel so warm, they keep touching him so gently, it—his wings are straining.

He whimpers when Logan’s hand lands on his back and Logan moves away immediately. The loss of contact has him itching to reach out but he can’t can’t can’t—

“Well.”

Janus.

Virgil blinks, and sure enough, there he is, standing with his hands clasped out of sight. Distantly, Virgil thanks that he’s still trying to keep Virgil’s secret, hiding whatever he has behind his back. He makes eye contact with Virgil and asks a silent question.

Virgil can’t respond.

“Janus,” Patton says, “do you—do you know what’s going on?”

“Can we help,” Roman blurts, “with whatever it is?”

Logan stays silent, gaze going back and forth between Virgil and Janus. Janus doesn’t take his eyes off Virgil.

He’s waiting, Virgil realizes, to see if I’m going to let them help.

…he doesn’t really have a reason not to anymore, does he?

Logan leans closer, his lips barely brushing Virgil’s temple.

“Please,” he whispers, “please, dearheart, let us help care for you.”

Oh.

Oh, fuck.

“…help.”

It’s loud enough for Janus to hear and he nods sharply, sitting down on the floor and holding out his arms. “You’re going to need to pass him to me. Be careful of his back.”

It takes the other three to get him tucked up against Janus’s chest before they shuffle back, wary. Janus wraps his lowest pair of arms around Virgil’s hips, holding him close.

“You just focus on me, sweetie,” he whispers, much too quiet for the others to hear, “and if you want them gone, you say so, okay?”

“R-Remus?”

“Remus is coming, sweetie, he found me looking for your things.”

“You kept them?”

“Of course we kept them.” Janus rests their foreheads together. “Of course we did.”

Janus holds him close, whispers a few more soft words, until Virgil nods and lets him unzip his hoodie.

“How, sweetie?”

“…sports bra.”

He can hear Janus swallow a noise of protest before he nods. “I’m going to have to cut them off, it’s going to hurt too much if we try and pry it off you.”

“But—“

“Sweetie,” Janus hushes, “you’re losing circulation, it’s not good for you.”

Virgil shudders. “…does that mean you have to cut off m-my shirt too?”

“Do you think you can hold your arms up long enough to get it off?”

“…no.”

Janus holds him tightly. “I’m so proud of you, sweetie, I’ll be gentle, I promise.”

Against his better judgment, Virgil turns and tucks his head into the crook of Janus’s shoulder, breathing in the familiar scent. “…always are.”

“I’m going to need the others to help me, help you, okay?” When Virgil nods, he can feel Janus look at the others, can feel the way his face changes.

“Roman.”

“Yes, I’m here.”

“I need you to get Virgil’s hoodie off.”

“O-okay,” Roman says, and Virgil can hear him shuffle up behind them, “is it already unzipped?”

“It is.”

“Here we go, Stormcloud,” Roman says softly, sliding the battered old thing from Virgil’s shoulders like it’s some fine silk garment, “you’re doing great…there. Where should I—“

“On the couch.”

There are a few more rustlings and then Janus’s mouth appears by Virgil’s ear again.

“I’m going to cut them off now. You just hold still for me, alright?” Virgil nods and Janus squeezes him around the waist. “Good.”

He turns his attention to the others. “Virgil has decided to trust you with this. I have decided to trust you with this. Betray that trust and you will not like the consequences. Am I clear?”

Murmured assurances. Then the soft rip, rip, riiiiiip of fabric, and the pressure on his wings releases.

Virgil’s sure Janus is talking from the vibration of his throat and he’s also sure the others are saying something back, but he can’t hear anything right now over the rush of blood in his ears from his wings unfurling, creaking, in all their ugly, dirty glory.

He winces, tries to stretch them, only to hear a cry of dismay from over his shoulder and an ‘oh, sweetie,’ from Janus. The tendon snaps back out of place and his wings slump.

“Virgil,” Janus says next to his ear, “Virgil, Remus is here now. Do you think you can explain what we need to do or would you like us to?”

Virgil should explain. It’s his problem. It’s his responsibility.

But…but it would be nice to not have to…for once. To…to let them take care of him.

“…c-can you?”

“We can.”

He feels another warm hand on his bare side and Remus’s voice in his ear.

“Hey,” Remus says, “you really are a mess right now, huh?”

Coming at any other time, it would be an insult. But right now, laced with concern, Remus’s statement sends a rush of warmth down Virgil’s spine.

“We need to get the tendon reset first,” Remus says. Someone shuffles over to join him. “You know what you’re doing?”

“I think so.” Oh. It’s Logan. Logan knows what he’s doing. Good, good. “Hold still for us, dearheart.”

“Ah!”

“Sorry, sorry,” Logan stammers, “but we’ve got it now.”

“You’re gonna be sore for a bit, little monster,” Remus says, “but Logan’s right. You’re all reset now. You wanna stretch it out? Carefully?”

Virgil does, tentatively extending his wing and it—it feels better. Well, it feels bruised and sore and achy—but it feels better.

“It…it’s back,” Virgil says in a strangled whisper, “it’s back.”

“Yes, sweetie,” Janus murmurs, “now let’s get you cleaned up.”

Virgil drifts. In and out. He hears Remus explain how to straighten his feathers, feels two strong steady hands carding through them, Looks up to see Roman, expression more focused than he’s ever seen, sees that expression melt when he catches Virgil’s eyes. Plucks a loose feather out and lays it in a growing pile.

Feels two more on his other side and looks around to see Patton doing the same, running his fingers through the primaries, secondaries, up to the covets, and through the scapulars. Feels his fingers linger just where the tips of the feathers brush Virgil’s bare back, stroking reassuring rhythms where he lands.

Janus still has two of his arms holding Virgil in his lap. With Virgil’s nod, he slowly raises Virgil’s arms above his head again, letting the others have access to the rest of his wings. With his last two hands, he starts smoothing the bottom of his wings, lingering in the spots where Virgil winces, gently tugging and adjusting until everything’s just right.

A flash of movement and he sees Remus over Janus’s shoulder, grabbing a spray bottle and two hairbrushes. He ruffles Virgil’s hair as he goes back around, warning him before he starts gently spraying Virgil’s wings, passing the hairbrushes to Roman and Patton with the instructions to try and get as much of the gunk out as possible.

“You,” Roman murmurs as he works, “are magnificent, Virgil, just look at you.”

“Don’t,” Virgil manages, “please don’t tease.”

“I’m not teasing,” Roman promises, brushing a part of his wing that sends a shudder down his spine, “you’re…you’re—these are spectacular, Virgil, truly.”

Virgil shifts in Janus’s lap. “…ugly.”

“What?”

“…they’re ugly.”

“Of course they’re not, what do you…” Roman turns to him. “Stormcloud, who told you that?”

“…me.”

“Falsehood,” comes Logan’s voice from directly behind him, “your wings are indeed quite splendid.”

“Because they’re interesting?”

“Because they are a part of you,” Logan corrects softly, “and yes, because they are interesting.”

“We love you, kiddo.” Patton reaches up to squeeze his hand. “That means all of you, even your wings.”

Virgil opens his mouth to respond when hands slip through his feathers and every breath is stolen from his body.

“Here,” Logan says softly, “are they here?”

“Yep. Feel around in there a little, you should find the—“

“Here.”

Two thumbs swipe over the glands and Virgil shudders, right down to the tips of his wings. Logan pauses, leaning forward and doing it again. Virgil shudders harder, warmth shooting through his body, so warm, so warm. Then Logan’s hands start spreading the oil through his feathers and Virgil can’t.

“Shh,” Janus soothes, holding him tightly, “shh, I know, sweetie, just hold on…you’re doing so well.”

“Be gentle, Logan,” Roman orders, his gaze fixed on Virgil’s face.

“I am.” Logan does it again and Virgil gasps. “This area is simply…sensitive.”

Virgil swallows. “…haven’t…haven’t been able to…to…”

“You have not been able to reach these areas yourself,” Logan finishes when Virgil can’t make words happen anymore, “and so the sensation is heightened by the newness of it.”

“Y-yeah.”

Then Roman’s hand brushes over his alula and he whimpers.

“S-sorry.”

“Would I be mistaken in saying this is quite…an intimate action?” Virgil shakes his head at Logan’s question. “Then you do not need to apologize. Trusting others with this level of intimacy is difficult, and you are doing very well.”

“You are, kiddo,” Patton adds when Virgil makes a noise of protest, “and you don’t have anything to be embarrassed about. It’s okay that you’re sensitive, it’s okay.”

“Is this alright, Stormcloud,” Roman asks softly as he keeps brushing the feathers, “can we keep going?”

“Mhm,” Virgil mumbles, head lolling forward, “mhm.”

“Good.”

As they finish removing the clearly damaged feathers, the real grooming starts. Roman and Patton start gently tugging here and there to pull out loose and broken feathers, pushing the ones that are just slightly crooked back into place. The hairbrushes, with nice wooden spokes, split the feathers easily without a snag as Logan carefully works the oil throughout. Remus slips down, carefully spreading the oil over Virgil’s back, kneading out the tension from his sore muscles. Janus holds him steady, murmuring softly.

Virgil floats, punch-drunk on the fuzzy feeling from Logan’s hands, Patton’s hands, Roman’s hands, Remus’s hands, Janus’s hands. It’s so warm, so warm, as he feels the lingering strings of hurt and tension slowly and persistently untangled from his wings.

“I think that’s everything,” comes Logan’s soft voice an uncertain amount of time later, and yet none of the hands move away.

“You’re so pretty, kiddo,” Patton murmurs, running his hands through the feathers, “so, so pretty.”

“Guess you really did dig the purple, huh?” Remus gives Virgil’s hair a ruffle. “I think these are the best these have looked in a while.”

Virgil shifts in Janus’s lap. “…yeah, well…”

Janus shushes him. “It doesn’t matter, now, sweetie. It’s okay.”

“You were hesitant because being vulnerable is hard,” Logan adds, still stroking up and down the joint of his wings, “that isn’t anything to be ashamed of.”

Virgil opens his mouth to reply when Logan’s fingers skitter over the spot right under the joint and he cries out.

“…Virgil?”

Logan raises an eyebrow when Virgil simply shudders, his back arching. Slowly, he does it again, smiling when Virgil all but purrs.

“I think he likes that,” Patton says quietly, “don’t you, kiddo?”

Virgil whines.

“Where else are you sensitive,” Roman murmurs, scritching his fingers lightly along the top of Virgil’s wing, “where else, Stormcloud?”

“I don’t think he’s got command of words right now,” Remus chuckles.

“If Virgil’s wings are anatomically similar to bird wings,” Logan murmurs, “then…”

Roman’s hand is tangled in his alula. Patton’s hands are rubbing at the crook of his wings. Logan’s thumbs stroke over the oil glands again.

Virgil’s mouth is suddenly very, very dry.

Remus’s thumbs suddenly dig into the space between his shoulder blades, startling a short moan out of him. He hears a chuckle from over his shoulder.

“Does that feel good, dearheart,” Logan murmurs, his nails scraping lightly over the soft skin where Virgil’s wings met his back, “right there?”

Virgil’s only response is a long, low, drawn-out sound that would have been mortifying had he any control over his brain right now.

“Oh, wow,” Patton mumbles from the side.

Roman reaches up and wiggles his fingers next to Logan’s and Virgil keens.

Janus chuckles, lowering Virgil’s arms around his neck and reaching out to scritch lightly at the marginal covets. “You’re about to get spoiled, sweetie,” he murmurs, “you just hang on, hmm?”

Virgil wraps his arms around Janus and holds on for dear life just as fingers wiggle into his axillaries and he freezes.

Then he melts, right into Janus, right into the hands in his wings, the sound physically being ripped out of his chest.

Lips brush the side of his neck like the owner couldn’t stop themselves. The hand on his right twitches violently. From his left comes a long, shuddering breath.

“Oh, Stormcloud—“ Roman, that’s Roman— “you best believe we’re going to spoil you all the time.”

Just like that, everything multiplies. Pats, strokes, kneads, scritches, ruffles, so many so many so many gentle, adoring touches and soft voices in his ears and Virgil flies.

General Taglist:

@frxgprince @potereregina @reddstardust @gattonero17 @iamhereforthegayshit @thefingergunsgirl @awkwardandanxiousfander @marshmallow-fluffy @creative-lampd-liberties @djpurple3 @winterswrandomness @sanders-sides-uncorrect-quotes @iminyourfandom @bullet-tothefeels @full-of-roman-angst-trash @ask-elsalvador @ramdomthingsfrommymind @demoniccheese83 @pattonsandershugs @el-does-photography @princeanxious @firefinch-ember @fandomssaremysoul @im-an-anxious-wreck @crazy-multifandomfangirl @such-a-dumbass

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#sanders sides #fic #dragonbabbles #virgil sanders #roman sanders #patton sanders #logan sanders #janus sanders #deceit sanders #remus #sympathetic deceit #sympathetic remus #sympathetic light sides #tw self harm

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dameronology · 4 years ago

Text

one hell of a mandalorian {din djarin}

summary: actions speak louder than words - which is good for din djarin, because he's not very good at words. (this was a commission for an anon! i hope you enjoy).

warnings: language

enjoy!! if you're interested in commissions, you can find out more here :)

- jazz xx

Din Djarin was a man of few words.

That had become clear not long after you'd met.

It wasn't that he didn't like talking, or that he was rude - he'd just never had the need for it. The Mandalorian could spend days and days in hyperspace, on his own with nothing but a frozen bounty to keep him company. And they were hardly chatty, even before they were thrown away into the trawling depths of carbonite animation. There were a few select geniuses who tried to make conversation with him in a last-ditch attempt to appeal to his humanity and beg for mercy, but so far, they'd had a zero-for-zero success rate. It wasn't that he didn't have any humanity to appeal to it - because he did, and his weird, green surrogate kid was an absolute testament to that - but it just took a little bit for it to come out.

The beskar made him seem a little...robotic. Like a droid, which was ironic, because he wouldn't have gone near the things with a ten-foot-barge pole. Din had just become so used to people seeing his mask and his intimidating posture before him that having human traits, like feelings and thoughts and opinions, had never been any use. Having defining traits and a personality was all well and good, but nothing helped you through the galaxy quite like the ability to put the fear of God in people.

The Mandalorian was something, but Din Djarin was somebody. He was good; not necessarily pure and golden-hearted like a typical comic book hero, but he had a strong moral compass. Sometimes, it pointed in opposite directions, but he helped those who needed it and he paid his dues. That was probably a lot more than anyone in the galaxy could have said for themselves. In the fight of good and bad, in a world that existed entirely and black and white, there was nothing more grey than an honest man. Somebody who refused to pick a side held the power of both. For that, Din could have either been extremely smart, or extremely dumb.

Sometimes, he was extremely dumb. Made the wrong moves in combat, or got too cocky, however out of character it was for him. It was the losing fights that truly brought out the human side of Din, and it took a very, very specific eye to see it, sometimes to the point where even he missed it. It never went over your head, though.

You'd joined the crew on the Razor Crest as a mechanic - then you became a baby sitter, and his partner-in-crime, and the closest thing he'd ever had to a friend. His non-verbal nature meant that most of his emotional cues came in the physical form. It went over the heads of everybody else, but between your intuition, and the time spent in such a cramped space, it quickly became like a second language to you. Helmet tilts when he was confused, and little nods when he was pleased; tensed shoulders when the Mandalorian was nervous and balled fists when he was about to absolutely lose his shit.

Today was one of those days. Even though you were both in one piece and the baby was - by some absolute fucking miracle - asleep, it almost hadn't been that way. Nevarro had been quieter than usual, and Din had let his guard down; finally convinced himself to relax a tiny bit and ever-so-slightly loosen the stick that was firmly up his backside. His sudden lack of awareness for your surroundings had meant that someone managed to track the Crest, however briefly. The kid had barely noticed, and you weren't phased by what had been a simple, human mistake. Din, true to nature, was already beating himself up for it.

That was evidenced by his heavy footsteps, and the way he'd immediately retreated to the cockpit and slammed the door. Common sense would have entailed that he wanted to be left alone, but you'd long surpassed the point of any of that. Common sense didn't exist in a galaxy like this one. Doing the obvious thing was, nine times out of ten, usually the wrong way. Expecting the unexpected was the right way to go.

You'd paced outside the door for the better part of fifteen minutes - to go in, or to not go in, that was the question. You were torn between wanting to give Din space and wanting to be there for him; a cranky Din was often an unbearable one, but you cared deeply for him. Maybe a little too much, but that was a can of worms to open later.

"Din?" You gently called. Nothing. "I know you're brooding, or whatever it is you do under that helmet, but talking is good."

"I'm fine."

You sighed. "The scale goes great, good, bad, awful, world-ending and then fine."

"I've never heard that before in my life."

"Yeah, I just made it up on the spot." You murmured.

Resting your hand against the doorknob, you pondered for a moment. Did you want to risk it by going in? Making him mad when he was literally shutting you out? It was hard to know what to do with Din - it wasn't like he came with an answer key, or even a vague manual that could point you in the right direction. It was all just guess work.

"Is the helmet on?" You softly asked.

"Yeah."

You took that as a sign - with a deep breath, you gently opened the door and stepped inside the cockpit, shutting it quietly behind you. The tense atmosphere inside was almost enough to swallow you whole. The man practically radiated angst.

"Talk to me." You took a seat beside him.

"There's nothing to say."

"Bullshit." You murmured. "You might have a thousand inches of beskar hiding your face but your body language is a dead giveaway."

"I'm meant to protect you and the kid." He replied. It wasn't much, but it was better than silence. "It's my job to catch bad people and outrun them when I need."

"You did outrun them." You reminded him. "I'm safe. You're safe. The kid is safe. Does anything else matter?"

"It shouldn't have happened in the first place." Din said. "I was relaxed-"

"- you allowed to relax." You cut him off. "Despite your best efforts, you're a human being."

Reaching out, you gently placed your hand over Din's ungloved palm. He didn't resist or try to brush you away. His hands were soft and callous in equal measures, which felt like a fitting metaphor for him on the whole. You tangled your fingers in his and held on tightly, perhaps in a sad attempt to remind him that you were there.

But Din knew you were there - he could feel it constantly, and he thought about it just as much. Every day of his life prior to you had been filled with rigidity and angst, then you'd come waltzing in and for the first time in years, he'd untensed his muscles and stopped looking over his shoulder. Learnt to take a breath and enjoy the simple things in life, like Grogu laughing or you accidentally tripping over a tree branch. You'd become so important to him that the prospect of losing you was too much for him to even fathom. He'd come close today - too close - and it had been an eye-opener. The irony was that telling you why he was so fucking scared was more frightening than the entire thing itself.

"Don't be so hard on yourself." The gentle pull of your voice lulled him back to reality. "Please?"

His grip on your hand tightened. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay." You breathily smiled. "You don't have to apologise."

"I never thought I'd have someone like you." Din admitted. "Coming so close to losing you was terrifying, even if it wasn't that close at all."

He'd never been so open about his feeling towards you before. Obviously, you knew that he viewed you in a way he didn't see anybody else, but that knowledge had been based entirely on physical cues and mere guesswork. You'd never expected him to vocalise the way he felt, or even acknowledge them. It wasn't necessarily a bad thing, or even something you considered to be detrimental. The words came as a nice surprise.

"You mean a lot to me, Din." You said. He'd always loved the way his name sounded when you said it; nobody had used it for years, not since he'd lost his parents. It was something to vulnerable and personal. You were the only one he trusted with it.

"I do?"

You didn't mean to laugh at that - you really didn't, but it just came out. A low snort of disbelief; shock at his absolute inability to read the fucking room. Din was as intuitive as they came, with the ability to read criminals like a bedtime story he'd been rehearsing since he was a kid. Then it came to you, and he knew nothing. Absolutely nothing. To call him clueless would be the understatement of the century.

"Maker." You murmured. "Of course you do - more than anyone or anything."

"You're special to me." Din replied. "It scares me sometimes."

Din was straight forward with everything he said - it was just finding the courage to say it. He'd gone into battle with Imps and Republic Rangers alike; fought krayt dragons and droids and fellow Mandalorians and yet this entire thing shook him to his very core more than anything else.

You didn't know it, but you were perfectly holding his gaze. Staring right through it and looking right into his soul. He forgot he had one sometimes. It was probably a little dusty and covered in cobwebs, but it was there, and you were bringing it right out of him and back to reality.

Din used his grip on your hands to pull you a little closer - a moment later, he gently pressed the cold metal of his helmet to his forehead. It was the closest you'd ever been to him, even if it wasn't that close at all. You could hear his soft breathing through the modulator, the sensation acting as a stunning reminder that there was a person underneath there. There were times when you forgot, or felt a little disconnected from the idea entirely. You'd never felt the need to see his face, though - you hadn't a clue what he might look like, but at the same time, you had an image of him in your head. It was as clear as day; as bright as the suns on Tatooine and as persevering as the kid's insistence that he receive all your attention, all the time.

You knew what the action was; a Keldabe kiss. The Mandalorian had recounted its meaning to you not long after you'd met - he'd finally let his barriers down and let you plague him with questions about his culture and the creed, and you'd stumbled on the subject. Initially, you'd been entertained by the fact that it two such vastly different meanings. On one hand, it could be a headbutt. A beskar punch to knock the daylights out of anyone who particularly annoyed you. On the other hand, it was almost a romantic gesture; a way that Mandalorians could show their affection to one another without having to remove their armour.

Din had the latter meaning in mind, but also so much more. He was giving you a piece of his culture - including you in the very thing that defined him as a person.

"It won't happen again." The Mandalorian gently said. "I'll never let you get hurt again. I promise."

"I know." You softly smiled. Your eyes closed, enjoying the feeling of the cool metal against your forehead. "For what it's worth, I have your back too."

He softly chuckled. "Thank you."

You gently pulled back, eyes meeting again (not that you could tell).

"Seriously!" You said. "I can be a bad-ass."

"You can be a lot of things." Din replied. "You're one hell of a girl."

"And you're one hell of a Mandalorian."

#din djarin x reader #din djarin x fem! reader #din djarin x you #din djarin imagine #din djarin imagines #mandalorian x reader #mandalorian x you #mandalorian imagines #mandalorian fluff #din djarin fluff #star wars x reader #star wars characters #star wars x you #star wars imagines

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nightshade-minho · 4 years ago

Text

MOONSTORM [ iii ]

You know that feeling when you know you’ve made a terrible mistake?

Yes. That feeling.

It’s a feeling that never really goes away. You had to learn that the hard way.

Irrevocable actions, stupid mistakes. You were heart-wrenchingly familiar with all of it.

To err was human apparently. You...weren’t human, though.

It seems like being superhuman was insignificant, after all. At the end of the day, nothing mattered. None of your powers did.

Despite it all, you still lost him.

warnings: depressing shit (it gets better though dw) mentions of death, violence, sexual content, future smut

wc: 2.8k

moonstorm masterlist

It felt like the world had lost all color.

It had happened so many months ago, and yet it still felt like it happened just yesterday. The memories of stumbling out of his lair, covered in his blood and your tears, still fresh in your mind.

The image of his face, betrayed and yet so calm as he uttered those last words to you...it haunted you constantly.

You found yourself looking at the moon every night, dreaming about what could have been. The nightmares endlessly plagued your sleep as well, causing you to fear even your own bed.

No...even after Hyunjin's effects on you wore off, your own brain took on the responsibility of torturing you by conjuring up more heartbreaking dreams. Dreams which made you long for something you knew you’d lost forever- never to be yours again.

You never truly realized how much you’d gotten used to having him around. Life was so glaringly empty and meaningless without him. It was a complicated relationship…and yet it still left a giant hole in you. An all-encompassing despair that threatened to swallow you up.

With him gone, it just didn’t feel right to be a superhero anymore. How could you be the strong role model for everyone in the city to rely on when you knew just how weak you’d become? Even when the newspapers were covered with your heroics, even as the mayor addressed the city and expressed his desire to give you a medal for stopping yet another supervillain from roaming the streets- you stubbornly refused to don that costume ever again.

You stayed hidden through it all. You just couldn’t bring yourself to go out in public anymore. Your vigilante costume lay forgotten in the back of your closet- crumpled and sad.

It just...felt wrong. At the moment you felt nothing but pathetic. You didn’t have time to waste saving a snotty kitten stuck on a tree or stop a petty criminal from robbing a bank- all you were fit to do was eat ice cream straight from the can, and watch a soulless movie. The same routine, day in and day out. You hadn’t left your apartment in nearly a month, not even to buy groceries. Every second was spent wrapped up in blankets, pondering what you’d done.

Was that selfish of you? Probably. You were discovering new flaws by the second.

Sighing, you sat up a little, your ass almost numb from how long you’d spent lying down. Glancing up, you saw your father’s portrait looking down at you. You swallowed and slowly stood up from your bed, groaning to yourself. Why did he suddenly seem so disappointed?

Maybe a little bit of fresh air is what you needed, considering you were starting to believe the paintings were changing expressions. After all, you had work to do anyway- might as well take advantage of the nearby café’s free WiFi.

***

Here at last.

You sat down in the corner of the café, so tired you could barely move a muscle. But you had to get a move on with your life- the recovery should have happened by now.

And yet here you were, months later. Nothing seemed to be able to fill the hole he left behind, and even now you wished you could go back home as soon as possible.

Had it...had it been a mistake?

Of course it had. Your misery was evidence, and you weren’t sure how much longer you could convince yourself that you’d done it for the good of the city.

The truth was... Hwang Hyunjin scared you.

He made you feel things, made you want to be someone else entirely. Every ounce of rigidity and austerity you’d imposed in yourself disappeared every time you were with him. He made you want to give everything up- give up all the responsibilities and burdens you carried on your shoulders to be with him. To be like him- free.

It wasn’t Hyunjin who was a threat to the city. No, not directly.

It was you- or rather the lack of you.

This city needed you to survive, and if Hyunjin managed to change you...it surely wouldn’t have lasted long without your help. Hyunjin had never really been the city’s biggest threat- there were far worse villains and it was them who you really fought against.

He was more of just an inconvenience, someone you had to deal with from time to time. And then he’d struck that deal- after which the nature of your relationship had turned into something entirely different.

Every time he acted up, it was usually just a ploy to get your attention. And attention was exactly what he got. You’d reinforced his behavior like an idiot.

You told yourself it was a chore, but it wasn’t all that convincing. You’d loved spending those nights in his bed, loved the way he was an expert at making you come undone with his body and his words.

It really had seemed like a good idea at the time. The right thing to do. However, it was quickly starting to seem like anything but.

You sighed as your mind tried its best not to travel back all those months. Dipping a teabag into the liquid, you mindlessly observed the customers in the cafe. Many of them were young, teenagers who were heading out before class.

You sighed as you recalled your own high school days, the times Hyunjin and you had hung out in a cafe much like this one.

“You don’t have to help me with this project, you know.”

“Ah, shush. It’s our final year. I’m not going to leave you alone.” He smiled as he flipped through his books, taking a sip of his coffee occasionally.

“You act like you’re not sticking to me like white on rice the rest of the year.” You roll your eyes, chuckling to yourself.

“Don’t get snippy with me, missy.” He smirked, still thumbing the pages nonchalantly. “Or I’ll have to punish you.”

“You- I- what?” You wouldn’t admit it, but the thought caused a fluttering sensation in more than one place. It was a little bit of a shock, considering the two of you had done nothing more than make out and flirt, until now.

“Chill. I’m kidding.” He shook his head, looking up at you. “Unless…” He wiggled his eyebrows.

“Stop it! I’m supposed to be working right now.” You whined, swatting him with a rolled up paper.

“I don’t care.” He tapped his fingers on the table. “Hm...do you know what I’m thinking of right now, Y/n?”

“W-what?”

“Thinking about how easy it would be to slip my fingers under your skirt and play with that pretty pussy of yours. I’m pretty sure it’s soaked your underwear through by now.”

Fuck.

Your cheeks flushed as you stared at your plate. You couldn’t find it in yourself to respond properly- his mere words had already turned you to a mess.

“S-shut up.” You mumbled, reading out formulas aloud as you tried to divert your attention from it. Hyunjin let out a teasing chuckle at your lame attempt to change the topic, shaking his head as he stared at his book again, unaware you were looking over your own at him, pressing your thighs together subtly.

God, he was so...so annoying.

You snapped out of it, sighing as you looked around at the much less crowded cafe. Had it always looked so dull? So lifeless?

The thought of him was hurtful- it felt like a dull knife, screwing itself into you. Reminding you what you’d done.

You’d killed the love of your life.

And now? There was no way to bring him back.

***

“Murder is never something a superhero should resort to. A good hero always stays true to themselves- they only kill if it’s absolutely necessary.”

A cough.

“But of course...villains are exempt from that rule. Killing one villain’s life could save countless others.”

Hm. You weren’t exactly sure if your father was right. Although you were just a child, you still had some knowledge of morality.

Was he? Killing just...seemed wrong. You didn’t know if you could bring yourself to do it, no matter how evil the person was.

“Surely there are other ways to neutralize someone evil, Father?”

He narrowed his eyes at you, before shaking his head coldly. “Untrue.”

“The truth is, some lives are expendable, my dear Y/n…” Another cough, before he cleared his throat and fixed his gaze back on you.

“You must always look for the greater good.”

***

You still remembered the day you first met Hyunjin.

He was 13, and you were just a little younger. Your families were good comrades and allies, so your eventual meeting had already been planned.

The two of you were in the living room with everyone else as they talked to each other, mingling and chattering like adults usually did. Hyunjin and you made an unanimous decision to sneak out to the rooftop, and get to know each other better.

“So...our parents are allies now, hm? This means we’re going to see each other a lot more.”

“Of course we are! We’re both prodigies, like my dad and your mom...we inherited their powers, so they’re obviously going to want to cultivate those.”

“You speak pretty fancy for a 12 year old.”

“Hey, so do you! Besides, we’re gifted, aren’t we?”

“Hm.” He sighed, swinging his legs and inhaling. After a few seconds of silence, he spoke up again.

“Do you actually like having these powers?”

“Oh? Well, yeah...I do...my father tells me stories of his days as a superhero. I want to help people, just like him.”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. I’d much rather live a normal life. Get a normal job, find someone to love, and have a normal marriage in a normal town.”

You pressed your lips together. “To each their own, I guess. Personally, I just want to get rid of all the evil in the world and make my father proud.”

“Really?”

“Yep.”

“Evil…” He tapped his chin. “How does one even know the difference between good and evil?”

You raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean? I’m pretty sure it would be obvious in every situation.”

“I disagree. The distinction is blurry. No one knows for sure, and definitely not at first glance.” He sighed. “I would know.”

You brought your knees to your chest as you observed the city below. “Well, I guess you’re right…” you paused, your heart feeling a little heavy for some reason.

“Do you know?”

“The line between good and evil is thin, Y/n. I can’t say I know for sure. But do you know what will always help you remember?”

“What?”

“Your heart.” He said softly, glancing at you and offering you a small smile.

“Just do whatever feels right...trust yourself.”

***

You sighed and shut your laptop.

Home. You needed to go home, cause your heart ached too much. You definitely weren’t ready to go back to work yet. You hadn’t done anything productive today really, just drink coffee and reflect on your actions. Regretting....regretting it all.

It’d been wrong. The wrong choice, the wrong decision.

You knew that, now. There could have been another way. You shouldn’t have rushed into it like that...how could you?

You felt a surge of hatred towards yourself engulf you. It was all your fault, this pain you were feeling. You didn’t have anyone to direct this immense anger towards except yourself. You realized this little fact in horror, your heart clenching as you wished things could have been different.

Finishing off your coffee, you placed a few bills on the table as you left the café, heading home. Ready to burrow under the blankets again, wallow in your self pity and pain. There wasn’t much else to do except succumb to acceptance.

You made your way down the street, humming the saddest song you knew under your breath.

All of a sudden, you felt eyes burning into your back. Your own eyes widening slightly, you turned around quickly-

But there was no one there.

Weird. Sighing, you decided to go back to going over your plans for tonight in your mind.

Maybe watch a movie in hopes of triggering some sort of emotion in you...or maybe take a bath, light some candles and listen to depressing music- shit.

It happened again. Someone was following you- you could feel it. Uncomfortable, your breathing slowly started getting heavier as you tried to formulate some kind of plan in your head-

The next thing that happened was so sudden you barely registered it for a second.

Your hand was gripped, so tightly you felt it would bruise. Aggressive, shocking and swift as lightning- it took several seconds before you realized someone was trying to kidnap you.

“Stop! Leave me alone!”

Struggling against the person holding you, you caught a glimpse of the masked man and decided to scream, hoping to gain some attention from somebody, anybody. There was no way this was happening, not right now. Your day had already been bad enough, why was the universe so intent on rubbing salt in your wounds?!

The urge to fight had never been stronger. Yet there was no strength left in your body. You couldn’t fight back against this man- he was taller than you and somehow even matched you in strength. Unless you exposed your powers, there was no way you would get yourself out of this predicament. Somehow you managed to smack him with your arm weakly, making him hiss.

“Let me go, please!”

The coffee cup fell out of your hand, brown liquid spilling all over the ground as you were pulled into the dark alley so quickly, no one would notice. Your eyes darted about in panic, trying to work out a possible escape route when the masked man caged you in, his arms on either side of you.

A horrible sense of déjà vu enveloped you. It’s all you can do to not scream, trying to keep yourself calm so that you could escape.

It’s ok, breathe in...and concentrate.

The heat within you started to crackle, your palms beginning to burn up gradually.

Your eyes blinked as you decided to try and take a good look at the person holding you. Their head was covered with a black mask, their finger held over their mouth as they ran their eyes over your distressed expression.

Inhale. Exhale.

“What the fuck are you doing?” You hissed, staying still and pretending to give up the struggle. “Unhand me now, or you’ll regret it, trust me-“

“Shh! Y/n, please…” He shushed you, his voice shaky.

You stopped in your tracks.

Huh?

That voice…

“I’ll explain... but first we need to get out of here, fuck-” He looked from side to side quickly, scanning his surroundings.

Shit. Why does that voice sound so familiar?

“Who- who are you?!” You managed to get out, the heat fading away as deep, panicked confusion took over you instead.

There was a small sigh as your assailant stood up a little straighter, groaning. And then, his fingers deftly pulled the mask off, clutching it in his hands tightly.

Golden locks spilled out, a handsome visage coming into view. Plump lips and beautiful eyes, looking oh so familiar.

No.

It couldn’t be. This wasn’t happening. What the fuck, what the fuck, what the actual fuck was going on?

It’s him.

But it can’t be.

How? It’s not possible-

You’re definitely losing your mind.

The man’s breathing got quicker as he watched your expression morph from fear into one of pure, electric shock.

“I know you’re shocked, Y/n, but please listen to-“

Your chest started heaving, quickly rising and falling as your heart pounded against your rib cage.

This...could not be happening. What was this? Was this a nightmare? Yet another sick, twisted dream? He couldn’t be standing right in front of you...it was impossible. No. No no no no no no no.

It was all too overwhelming, and your brain and body seemed to agree on that. Your mind swam, your thoughts all over the place as you felt yourself sway on your feet.

“This- I-“ You stumbled over your words, tears slipping past quickly as you tried to form words to express what you felt.

Pain. Searing pain, taking over, spreading from head to toe.

Your breathing slowed as the world suddenly went black, Hyunjin’s shouts in the background fading away...until there was nothing but silence.

Pure, unadulterated silence.

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