#But Lost Hollow ALSO sounds p sick | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

introloves · 4 years ago

Note

Omg you are the love of my life❤️ please please *please* write more of Tendou corrupting innocent Christian girls. It’s my oxygen❤️❤️❤️

— sacrilege + sacrilegious acts in a church + blow jobs + virgin reader + corruption kink + drug dealer! tendou tainting a poor little soul once again + praise + tendou being gross abt body fluids + a bit of choking + f! reader

he thinks you’re lying, he thinks your devotion to the church and god was all just an act. what good little brain dead church girls are so needy for something as carnal and needlessly dissected as sex?

after you asked him- with curious eyes taking shy glances straight at his clothed crotch- what it would be like to taste him, tendou immediately dropped you into your knees.

you hadn’t asked out right- but the question of, “what does a man taste like?” let him know what you wanted, what you needed.

so he takes pity on a poor sheltered little thing, naive to the nastiness in the world. naive to the nastiness and filthy being that tendou satori was. he preyed upon the weak, selling whatever they itched for, supplying them for anything their poor hearts desired.

but he thinks it’s different with you, your pull to him, asking him, depending on him to give you what you wanted makes him stay.

he hopes things are different with you, he doesn’t know what it is. maybe it was how nice and pretty you sounded the first time he fingered you against the church walls. maybe it was how shy you were after, offering him your number with shaky hands, scribbled on a piece of paper with looping handwriting, when he dropped you off at your house.

whatever it was, he knew you were just as sick as him.

he grabbed your shoulders, quickly taking a moment to place a sloppy and hurried kiss to your lips before pushing you down.

the sound of your knees hitting the ground cracked loudly through the chamber. the evening air moved through the empty church, whistled through slightly opened windows and chilled his exposed dick.

the pure lust dropping off the tip of him and right to your chin, makes you whine in disappointment. so close to getting a taste. it has tendou grab your face, forcing you up to meet him.

it makes you cry, makes your eyes glaze over in a look that begs for satori to ruin you against pale, slender fingers that hold your face in place.

“p-please.”

the plead leaves your lips like a prayer, quiet, and reserved for only him to hear.

“please what bunny? tell me what you want.”

the pressure from him has you squirming, hands tightly gripping your modest dress.

“i-i don’t know.” you whisper, pangs of arousal painting your poor little thighs.

ever since you met him, he’d be adamant about you not wear any underwear beneath your church clothes. knee length skirts and dresses the only thing keeping anyone seeing the cunt he hasn’t even fucked yet.

he’s been building you up to it, this was lesson two in the short time you’ve been with him. it’s all addicting, he wants to ruin you and you want to be ruined. you’re chasing the same high he gave you when he claimed you against the church that late evening. he supposes that’s his charm, everyone who crosses his path wants more from him. you were the only one he’d give anything for free though.

he was like an angel sent to you, and who were you to deny a gift from god?

he brings the tip of him back to your waiting mouth, watching as you instinctively dart your tongue out to meet him. you look seconds away from panting, acting like a sloppy little girl.

tendou pulls away before you can get a taste. tutting at the way you whimper, wide round eyes looking up in search for a reason for him pulling away again.

“don’t be so eager. what do good, christian girls say before a meal?” he questions, wrapping a large, hand around himself.

“w-we say grace.” you respond, heat pooling at your back, sweat forming along your brow, knowing what he’s going to ask of you.

“that’s right bunny. now, say grace.”

his words have you squirm, bringing to light how filthy you were for the willingness to suck his dick inside a church that counted on you to keep it nice and clean.

it’s remarkable how far from grace you’ve fallen.

but it’s also amazing how good it makes you feel. the thought of him taking you right against the pastors altar has plagued your mind since he’s met you. you can’t sit still during sermons anymore, maybe you were corrupted from the start, what good, god fearing church dweller comes up with such things?

it doesn’t matter, you suppose. not when someone who has eyes and a mouth as charming as tendou looks at you like this, cock hot and heavy, waiting to stuff your mouth with him.

a bead of precum falls to the floor, right next to your knees, staining the carpet.

“bless, o father, thy gifts to our use and us to thy service. for christ’s sake. amen.”

he gives you a smile, eyes shining deviously.

“good girl.”

he presses the glossy head right to your lips, pushing past your teeth to settle against your tongue. he tastes nothing like you’d expect, it’s all salt, a mixture of that and nothing you could compare it to. you can only say it has the taste of a man.

“ah.” the hiss he makes with the way your teeth barely scrape him makes you wanna go crazy. it makes you gush out another obscene stream of arousal.

“put your lips over your teeth bunny. -yeah just like that.” coaches you through it all, a hand placed firmly to your head, moving you up and down on just his tip, not wanting to scare you too bad.

you don’t know what to do, so you let him move against your open mouth. hips slowly warming you up to take more and more. it makes your eyes water, jaw hurting with how wide you have to keep it to fit him in.

but it’s all so worth it, watching his eyes roll the more he gets lost in using your virgin mouth to fuck himself.

“give it a suck.” he grits, greedy with lust. it’s all he needs to cum, the unmoving, dumb look on your face as he uses you got to him more than he thought it would.

you try your hardest, lips sealing around him, cheeks hollowing in to do as you were told.

he shakes, you can see the clench of his stomach, already lithe muscles even more prominent with every contraction.

your eyes widen at the first jump of his dick, but the surprise is short lived as you feel his cum hit your throat.

it makes you gag, chokes you unexpectedly. you try and pull away, but satori is quick to grab you.

“where do you think you’re going.” he spits, watching you struggle against his hand, trying to push away. your hands come up to dig into his thighs, trying to pull away. but he’s strong, still dumping string after string of his cum inside your mouth. it doesn’t taste good, salty and bitter, you want it out of your mouth. but you swallow, not wanting to get his cum on the church floor.

you’re crying, nose running, spit free falling from your mouth with every choke you cough out around his dick.

tendou doesn’t think you’ve ever looked prettier.

finally, once the last drop of him hits your mouth, he lets go. you come off with a sputter, hand coming up to rest against your throat.

he’s on you in seconds, holding your face up to look at him.

“you did so good bunny, made me cum so hard.”

his words make you feel good, make you proud that you could bring him to that point.

he thumbs away tears, spit, whipes your running nose with the sleeve of his jacket, before kissing you. shoving his tongue inside your mouth to lick you clean of him.

when he pulls away, you two are connected with a string of spit and cum.

it’s a reunion of something so human, so disgusting. the seed of man lying deep in your tummy, there’s nothing more holy.

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angstyaches · 3 years ago

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Hey! Here’s the headache request #2 lol

Charlie or shayne (this feels more like Charlie to me, but whatever you feel like!) with an awful headache that is absolutely killer, and it’s lay-on-the-floor-of-the-bathroom-with-the-lights-out-and-cool-washcloth-over-the-forehead-time, except the other one doesn’t know that quite yet until they find them in pain and puking their absolute guts up, which cues lots of gentle caretaking, soft comforting whispers, and maybe camping out on the floor together until the poor kid is able to get some sleep and wake up feeling a little better.

Again, I'm so sorry for losing your original request! I didn't quite make it to the sleep/feeling better, because I felt it come to a natural end.

Word Count: 1458

CW: headache, emeto, demon possession, character needs help moving.

___

He gasped deeply, swallowing back a howl of pain. His stomach was lurching under his ribs, unable to still itself under the amount of pressure that radiated from his left temple.

It hurt, it hurt, it hurt so much that he couldn’t believe this was real, he couldn’t believe he’d ever known a time when his head hadn’t felt like it was being drilled into.

With clammy hands, Charlie felt around on the floor for the wet cloth that he’d been holding against his head before the vomiting had set in. It’d been his second course of action, after downing some ibuprofen (which were now swimming in the toilet drain), and before killing the bathroom light. He finally found it and dragged it towards himself, pressing it to his head and holding it up with an elbow on the toilet seat. Usually, he’d have shuddered in dread at the thought of putting a cloth on his face if it had just been sitting on the bathroom floor, but there was no room for pickiness now.

Besides, he was sure the floor had been washed that week. Yeah. Maybe.

An unproductive retch made his throat clench and forced his jaw open. He was almost relieved to think that he was nearing empty; once the nausea passed, he could focus on becoming a reclining statue on the floor again. Most annoying was the fact that the puking was a result of the headache, but was also making it worse.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, the demon CT mumbled, Human bodies make no sense.

“Charlie, you okay?” That was a voice from the real world, specifically from the other side of the bathroom door. “You’ve been gone ages.”

Before he could even entertain the idea of responding, thick chunks rolled up Charlie’s throat and into the water. He dreaded to even begin to think what those chunks once contained.

“Charlie…?”

Before Charlie could protest, CT’s telekinesis kicked it and unlocked the bathroom door. Shit, he thought, flinching at the sound of the door clicking open. He yanked the cloth down over his eyes, desperate to keep his eyes covered.

“Don’t turn on the light,” Charlie hissed, feeling the demon’s energy kicking in to replace that which he’d already lost from his own body. The effort of talking was so intense, like every word was a kick to the inside of his skull with a steel-toed boot. He barely mumbled out a groan as he pushed himself upwards, his whole body thrusting back and forth lightly with the repeated spasms that went through his tummy.

“You’re sick?” Shayne mumbled, clicking the door shut slowly and cutting off the light from the landing.

“Mmhmm…” Charlie reckoned Shayne had figured it out hours ago, despite his best efforts to appear cheerful during the evening. It wasn’t often that Elliott and Felix made the trip out to Mulberry, and the last thing Charlie had wanted was for anyone to be worried about him. “Headache… bad one.”

As expected, Shayne let out a sigh. “You should’ve said something…”

“Please don’t yell at me,” Charlie gasped, saliva running down his chin as he hovered about the toilet seat.

“This is literally as quiet as I can –” Shayne shut himself up with a soft grunt. He knelt beside Charlie. It was obvious that he intended on rubbing his back while he continued to heave over the toilet, but Charlie had other intentions now that his boyfriend was here.

And by boyfriend, he meant human pillow.

The tiles were freezing as he lowered himself to the ground again. He’d sweat so much more since he’d started throwing up, and his clothes were a little damp and felt disgusting against his skin.

He didn’t really care about the rest of his body, though, as long as he could lay his head in Shayne’s lap. Shivers ran down his back, direct waves of tension that trickled down from his skull.

Charlie whined, low in his throat, as Shayne brushed his hair back from his forehead and laid the cloth across it. His fingers moved slowly and gently as always. It was as though Shayne believed Charlie’s skull was made of eggshell, and that it might have cracked and collapsed inwards if it was put under any serious amount of pressure.

Whereas honestly, it felt more like his head might crack from the pressure coming from the inside.

Even as he was lying still, Charlie felt like his head was being wrenched to the side, as though he was nailed to a turntable that was set spinning slowly. Only the sensation of Shayne playing with his hair kept him somewhat grounded, and even that didn’t feel like nearly enough.

“Just cut it off.” His voice was getting higher as time went on, like he was an old tea kettle slowly coming to the boil. “I want it gone, just – just chop it off.”

Shayne frowned. “Your hair?”

“My fucking head!”

“Sssshhhh…” Shayne’s fingertips glided down the nape of Charlie’s neck. In contrast to the light touch, Charlie could feel his own muscles tensing up, hard as rocks. Every inch of his body was reacting to the pain which, in itself, only really took up about one inch of his skull. "It's okay."

“It's not! I hate this,” he whimpered.

“I know...”

A low groan from the pit of his stomach alerted him to the fact that the convulsions were traveling through his insides again, and he choked on a sob. His head was still in pain after laying it in Shayne’s lap, but it was the most comfortable he’d been in ages. He didn’t want to get on his knees again and lose even more of his dinner.

His chest tightened with a hiccup. Shayne cupped a hand around his shoulder, ready to help him back up.

Charlie tried to hum in protest, but squeezed his lips together upon tasting acid on his tongue. His spine jerked him forward, curling him up even tighter. The cloth dropped off of his forehead again, but this time Shayne grabbed it before it could sit on the tiles for too long.

“Charlie –”

“I c-can’t, I can’t sit up!” He clapped a hand over his lips as his stomach clenched again.

“I’m so sorry, Charlie, just remember I love you.”

“Wh-wha –?” The floor suddenly seemed to tilt in the opposite direction, or maybe it was entire fucking planet, because Charlie suddenly didn’t know which way was up or down. He felt Shayne pulling his arm up around the back of his neck, dragging him to his knees and draping him over the toilet seat. Charlie could barely see for the stars exploding in his vision, but when sickly liquid clawed its way up his throat, he heard it hit another body of liquid at the bottom of the bowl. “Fuck…”

“You’re okay,” Shayne whispered, right next to his face. Charlie’s chin was practically resting on his shoulder. His arm was draped over Shayne’s other shoulder, like he was injured and being dragged off the battlefield.

He felt another wave of nausea bubble up under his ribs, his stomach letting out an uneasy gurgle. Charlie shut his eyes as a mouthful of bile stung his throat before cascading out of him. Needles of white-hot pain shot through his head.

A gentle knock on the door sounded like an elephant being dropped on the landing.

“Fuck – what?” Shayne hissed, turning his head to project his voice away from Charlie’s delicate eardrums.

“Is everything okay?” a voice asked from the other side of the door. Sounded like Felix. “Do you… need anything?”

Part of Charlie wanted to beg for some more ibuprofen to kill the agony in his head, but another wrenching pain in his gut told him it wouldn’t stay down this time either. He heard Shayne hesitate, probably having the same realisation.

“Water might be good,” Shayne said back.

“Blanket,” Charlie choked out softly. He had a horrible feeling he wouldn’t be moving from the tiles for a long time yet.

Shayne sighed again, rubbing a hand along Charlie’s spine. “And the blanket from the sofa, Fee.”

After chucking up another sliver of whatever was still in his stomach, Charlie turned his head and nuzzled into the hollow between Shayne’s shoulder and neck. His body would have crumpled to the ground if it hadn’t been practically tangled up with Shayne’s.

“P-please don’leave me,” he mumbled, realising his was slurring his words.

“Love,” Shayne whispered, sighing in the way he did that let Charlie know he’d just said something mildly infuriating. He wrapped an arm around Charlie’s waist and pulled him even closer, taking even more of his weight now that the sporadic vomiting seemed to have stopped. For now. “I’d never dream of it.”

#StW Charlie #sick Charlie #emeto #emeto sickfic #headache #headache hump #headache sickfic #whump #whump fic #emeto fic #demon possession #demon OC

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otonymous · 4 years ago

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A Bolt From The Blue (MLQC Shaw - NSFW) - Part IV (End): Courage, My Love

Description: The final chapter. The Big Bang 😉 Warnings: NSFW/18+: Explicit/graphic language & mature themes — reader discretion is advised. Potential trigger warnings: physically aggressive behaviour, ex-boyfriends, angst, size kink, profanity, vaginal fingering and intercourse Word Count: 4237 words (~21 mins of thrills, real talk, fluff and smut) Author’s Notes: To all the lovelies who have been patiently following this story: you’ve made it! 🥳 Welcome to the final chapter in this Shaw saga, where we aim to go out with a massive bang (pun intended 😆). Once again, thank you all for every like, reblog, and comment I’ve received on this story. You are all amazing, and I appreciate your support! 💕

As always, tagging the lovely @op-peccatori — I hope you enjoyed this story! I certainly had lots of fun writing this! Please note the potential trigger warnings listed above, dear readers, and happy reading!

Jump to Chapter(s): One | Two | Three

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The quiet is back.

But there is no peace, no relief in the monotony that follows after the man known as Shaw burst into your life like a bolt from the blue, stirring up long forgotten feelings like dead leaves animated by a carefree wind — here one minute, gone the next.

And with each passing day, hope erodes.

Little by little, your heart learns not to race as the clock above the magazine rack approaches 1:30.

It becomes harder to remember the sound purple sneakers made walking through the store.

You stop hoping, wishing, to see a head of lavender hair; that the next person to approach the register would place a cup of Pepsi mixed with Coke on the counter, amber-eyed gaze speaking volumes without uttering a single word.

Days become weeks, and then eventually…

…you stop counting them altogether.

* * *

“You’re looking good. I see you’re doing well for yourself.”

He reaches for the jade pendant hanging around your neck, eyes flashing with amusement when you hit his hand away with an audible smack.

“What the hell do you want? Haven’t you already done enough?” You say through grit teeth, steps quickening as you head for the better lit part of the street, trying to outpace the man and silently cursing the fact that returning to the convenience store was no longer an option at this point.

“C’mon baby, don’t be like that. It took a lot of effort to track you down and I waited a very long time for you to get off work. It’s cold, dark and lonely out here. Is that any way to treat your boyfriend? Or friend, at least?”

“ ‘Ex-boyfriend,’ asshole, and you’re no friend of mine, especially not after the way you took my life’s savings and ran.”

“Baby, it wasn’t like that—”

“Oh yeah?! Did you try telling that to the loan sharks too before they came and trashed my place? I had to move, Leto, because it wasn’t safe for me anymore, not with the way they kept harassing me and the neighbours asking about your whereabouts. They even came to my office. I lost my fucking job. So don’t come around here and tell me that I’m doing well for myself.”

Breaking into a sprint, your mind races as you try to think of a way to lose your ex, anger and anxiety prickling every nerve in equal measure. He had ruined your life, singlehandedly taken away everything you had. And though you had known him once, desperation has a way of making monsters out of men.

And right now, for all you knew, he was desperate and dangerous.

“Please, I just want to talk. I don’t need much this time, just a little bit to get me through this rough patch. I’ll pay you back, I swear, just…just STOP FOR A MOMENT!—”

You shriek to feel Leto wrap his hand about your wrist, but before he could tighten his grip, another arm is thrown around your shoulder, pulling you back until you’re pressed up against a hard, muscular chest, staring at a close up of Snoopy riding a skateboard.

“You got business with my girl?”

That voice. Dangerous and cocksure, yet comforting like nothing else as the muffled words reverberate through the tiny bones of your ear, a prelude to the soothing ba-bump of his heart, rhythm steady and concrete as the ground upon which you stood.

Shaw.

He’s really here.

“Hehe. Your girl?” The derision in Leto’s voice makes you sick to your stomach; you can’t help but hold your breath, waiting for the other shoe to drop as he looks Shaw up and down, zeroing in on his old t-shirt. “Tsk, tsk. So, not only do you enjoy wearing second hand clothing, you also have the habit of picking up sloppy seconds?”

BOOM!

Deafening thunder rolls moments after a bolt of lightning rends the night sky in two, throwing a jagged spotlight on the fury written on Shaw’s face when he moves just as fast to grab a fistful of Leto’s collar. The muscles of his forearm bulge as he holds up the entirety of Leto’s bodyweight in one hand, the sky opening in a sudden downpour as your ex struggles in midair, rain dripping almost comically from dangling feet.

And when Shaw brings Leto’s terrified face up close, the ferocity in those amber eyes sends a chill up your spine.

“This is the last time you’ll ever talk to her, see her, even think about her. Or else I’ll find you and take my sweet time making you wish you were never born, do you understand me?”

Head bobbing in vigorous nods, drops of water fly off the tips of Leto’s rain-slicked hair. Seemingly satisfied, Shaw tosses him onto the ground at your feet, voice low yet audible as it cuts through the din of the storm when he says, “Beg for her forgiveness.”

The fear in his expression almost palpable, Leto looks between you and Shaw — cowardice etched onto features you had once found so pleasing a lifetime ago. He prostrates himself onto the wet pavement, voice cracking in between sobs as he yells over the sound of the rain:

“P-please…please forgive me! I’m a piece of shit! I’m nothing, I’m garbage! I…I deserve to go to Hell for what I did to you! I-I’m so sorry! Please forgive me!”

Leto reaches out a shaky hand towards your soaked shoes before he remembers Shaw’s warning, but it is too late. Black combat boots hit the concrete hard within an inch of Leto’s face as Shaw stoops, yanking back a fistful of hair and pulling until your ex is looking up at you like a pitiful supplicant begging for mercy.

“Satisfied?” Shaw looks to you as if he were asking about something as mundane as the weather. You nod, suddenly too tired to even speak. You wanted to wash your hands of Leto, wanted nothing to do with all that had happened since you finished your shift at the convenience store. All you could do was watch as Leto scrambled away on all fours the moment Shaw loosened his hold, running until he was nothing more than a speck of darkness merging with the night.

The rain is cold, wetness driving against your body to leech even the final bits of warmth from bone. Your clothes are drenched, heavy as they cling uncomfortably to skin. But you are too drained to care, lacking the energy to even notice when the dim light of the streetlamp above is blotted out — Shaw holding his leather jacket over your head in the place of an umbrella.

All you are aware of before your vision goes dark is the anxiety in his voice when he calls your name over and over again, how weightless it felt to be carried in the cradle of his arms.

How much you missed the scent you thought you had learned to forget.

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

“Finally awake, Sleeping Beauty?”

You opened your eyes to gaze into irises of warm amber, the situation similar to one you experienced before except for the fact that this time, you were the one lying in bed, staring at a man who sat on its edge, brows knit with concern beneath soft lavender strands.

“If you slept for any longer, I would’ve had to knock on your neighbour’s door.” Shaw chuckles but the sound is hollow, mirthlessness obvious like the blanched knuckles of his tightly clenched fists.

“What…how did we…” You begin, voice raspy as it dies, a sudden sharp pain in your throat making you wince.

And immediately, Shaw is on his feet, rummaging through cupboards in your kitchen until he finds a glass. You watch him run the tap, fill it to the brim. Feel the strength of his arm around your back as he holds you up, touch lingering even as you down the water in gulps to chase the discomfort away.

“You passed out not long after your douchebag of an ex ran off with his tail between his legs. I found your keys in your purse, so I let myself into your apartment — hope you don’t mind. Although, to be fair, I was also carrying you at the time, so it’s not really breaking and entering.”

Head feeling like it would explode as the events of the evening come rushing back, you turn towards him…slowly…slowly, afraid Shaw might disappear before your eyes should any movement prove too sudden.

Thank him. Now. Before he goes away again.

He is close, so close that you can count those long, beautiful lashes; almost feel the minuscule shifts in the air between you every time he blinks — those pupils encroaching onto gold as they expand and pulling you into their depths as they do.

“Why are you doing this?”

He doesn’t flinch at your question, and you can’t bring yourself to be shocked by the discrepancy between what you meant to say and the words actually spilling from your lips. And as the grey memory of days spent counting the hours of his absence settles like lead in the pit of your stomach, the only thing you knew was that your heart couldn’t survive latching onto this sliver of hope only to have it ripped away again.

All you wanted…was the truth.

“Because I can’t stand to see you sad anymore.”

There is no smirk to stretch across that handsome face, only pain that hurts your heart to see it. Resignation heavy in his voice, Shaw takes a deep breath before he continues.

“Turns out I’m weak when it comes to you. Selfish. I know I’m no good for you; there’s no future with me. I can’t give you anything, can’t even promise you tomorrow, but…I just can’t stop thinking about you. Wondering how you are. Whether you’re eating well, sleeping well. If you’re safe…happy.

“Tonight wasn’t supposed to happen. I just wanted to make sure you got home okay, that some asshole wasn’t going to hassle you at work. But then your ex showed up and when he tried to get fresh with you, well…I couldn’t let that slide.

“Listen, I don’t know what’s wrong with me but…I’m sorry, if I ever made you sad, if I scared you. I’m sorry for everything.”

His gaze drops to the rip in his jeans, the drip, drip of the leaky faucet the only sound in the ensuing silence of his confession. That is, until you say,

“I’m sorry too…that you’re such an idiot.”

His head whips up, brows furrowed and mouth slack as if caught in a rare moment of speechlessness. The shock makes him seem years younger, lending him an air of innocence that you couldn’t help but smile at.

“In case it wasn’t obvious, I’m a grown woman, capable of making my own decisions. I’m not so naïve that I don’t know what I would be getting into by being with you. You say you can’t promise me tomorrow, but tomorrow isn’t promised to anyone. All we can ask for — hope for — is the here and now.

“Love takes courage, as does life. But a life without love…it’s not much of a life, is it? So I’m willing to be brave if that’s what it’ll take for us to be together.”

As quickly as they came, the words are gone, leaving you cotton-mouthed and faint as your heart pounds to send the blood rushing to your ears. That could’ve been the only explanation as to why Shaw’s “I knew there was a reason why I loved you” sounded so muffled you had to ask him to repeat himself.

“Too bad, I only say things once.”

And there it is again: the spark in his eyes, smirk on those lips — igniting the fire you only allowed yourself to feel in dreams of his body on yours, skin to skin like kindling to flame.

“Are you that single-minded about everything?” You ask, the smile on your face mirroring his as it approaches closer…

“Only when it comes to not letting go of the one I care about.”

…closer…

“Tell me one thing.” Your voice is barely above a whisper.

…and closer still.

Lips now a hair’s breadth apart, the gentle rhythm of his exhalation blows soft upon your cupid’s bow; a shy request. Your vision is filled with him, wonderfully awash with colour — lavender, amber, the soft pink of his mouth — and you wished you were the very clothes upon his body; saturated in his intensity, dyed in his hues.

His eyes fixate on your tongue when you wet your lips before asking, “That night, when you were hurt so badly you passed out in my store…why did you still insist on coming in?”

Shaw’s breath catches, hitching in his throat. You know because you can feel it, the way the warmth stops short on your skin. And when he speaks, the eyes that hold yours tell you this is no lie.

“Because if it was going to be the last night of my life, I didn’t want to go without seeing your face one more time.”

Love is a funny thing. Formless, senseless, yet the strongest thing that could bind two strangers. You hadn’t known Shaw for long, could count the days you spent together on one hand. And still, entirely without reason, he bled into each and every hour, crept into the darkest corners of your mind to fill your weary heart with a desperation that made it very clear that love was far from done with you.

That right or wrong, the only place you wanted to be was here — held in the arms that wrapped around your body: hot, tight, safe…

…Shaw.

His lips are softer than you ever imagined when he brings his face to yours, plush silk gliding corner to corner to cover your mouth in reverent kisses — one for each night he came into your store, watched over you from afar.

Your stalwart protector.

You tasted it now, the remnants of cinnamon on his tongue from the gum he was so fond of chewing, intensified by the memory of all the times you wondered about its flavour: pink bubbles popping in his mouth as he coolly dealt with the robber, the night you emptied his pockets as your neighbour stitched him up on your bed.

Shaw tasted sweet. Far sweeter than you ever imagined.

And when his tongue slides against yours — slow and sure as it explores your mouth with increasing fervour before drawing back just as you clenched around emptiness, yearning for more, the beast within you refuses to abide.

You like the shock that passes over his face when you move, sudden and forceful, to push him onto the mattress beneath you; the artless way Shaw sinks teeth into his bottom lip in response. You like how he watches as you straddle his hips — gaze earnest and body honest, hardening as you grind undulating circles upon his groin.

But, perhaps most of all, you liked the spark of something wild in those amber eyes, an unpredictability warning that if you weren’t careful, you’d be the one to find yourself pinned to the bed.

Because wasn’t that ultimately the push-and-pull that characterized so much between you and him? Maddening at times, but always, always binding you to Shaw like some red string of fate.

So you nod when he whispers “May I?”, unable to suppress a moan to finally feel his hands on you: tracing along your jaw, cradling your face…resting the pad of his finger on your lip before pushing past to stroke your tongue.

Every sound he makes pleases; the soft hiss preceding the bob of his Adam’s apple to feel your lips pucker around his finger to suck, pink tongue enticing as it swirls along the length of that digit, drawing it deeper into the hot wetness of your mouth.

You never saw yourself as seductive before, but Shaw made you feel sexy. Perhaps the impulse stemmed from some primitive desire, an instinctive call to please the man you felt so profoundly for that shame was the farthest thing from your mind when you pulled his hand from your lips to guide it to your breast, only partially aware of how wet you were becoming from his gaze alone — half-lidded and heavy with lust.

The heat of his touch permeates your blouse, white and transparent still in patches from the rain. You watch his hands as they play: cupping your breasts in a gentle squeeze, thumbs and forefingers catching your nipples to pinch and roll until they stood stiff against the drape of your clothing, the flush of your flesh bold through fabric.

“You’re so beautiful that there are times I think you can’t possibly be real.”

His voice is low, husky. You let it wash over you, almost frightened by how stupidly happy you become, willing the magic to linger even as his words dissipate amongst the sounds of the night: neon buzzing and the faraway screams of sirens in the distance.

A world apart.

Your hands find the broad expanse of his chest, tracing along muscle before circling the nipples that stood erect against his damp t-shirt. Each twitch is endearing, every erratic breath he draws to feel your touch making you fall harder. And when he tries to focus on unbuttoning your blouse while fighting the impulse to tear it clean off your body, the stirring between your legs grows in intensity until he finally pulls the silken panels aside, a quiet gasp escaping his lips to see his necklace nestled between your breasts.

“It really does belong on you.”

The admiration in his tone is laced with a hint of possessiveness that makes you throb. Shaw pushes himself to sitting, gathering you onto his lap in one smooth motion as he buries his face in your chest, inhaling deep. You gasp to feel gentle teeth sink into the flesh of your breasts, Shaw following the chain of precious metal with his lips until it leads to the pendant. And when his tongue slips out to draw the piece of jade into his mouth, he brings your nipple along with it.

“Oh!…”

The sensation is unlike any you’ve known before, the soft wetness of his pliant tongue a searing contrast with the cool, smooth stone rubbing against the sensitive tip of your breast in equal measure. You feel his smile on your skin when you fist your hands into lavender hair, spine curving as your legs begin to tremble.

And he had yet to touch you below the waist.

“Your body responds so well to me. I knew you were a good girl.” He looks up at you, teasing shamelessly even as he continues to lavish attention on your breasts.

“Just your girl, if you’ll have me,” you say without second thought, long past the point of caring to keep your cards close to your chest.

Something breaks in that expression, the final walls crumbling like dust when Shaw blinks once…twice, revealing eyes that shine with emotion when he replies, “For the rest of my life, if you’ll have me.”

* * *

“Hmm!—”

Your moan is muffled, swallowed by Shaw’s greedy lips like he does with every sound of ecstasy that leaks like you do around his cock, buried impossibly deep in your body as it rocks back and forth, back and forth on his muscular thighs…

…doing your best to adjust to his ample size.

He had barely suppressed a chuckle when you first slipped your hand into his jeans, a subtle mix of pride and amusement on his face to see your eyes widen when you couldn’t quite wrap palm and fingers around the entirety of his girth.

And foreplay had only just begun.

“Still doing okay?” Shaw asks, touch tender as he brushes loose strands of hair from your eyes, lips smoothing along the apple of your cheek to feel its pink heat. “We can go as slow as you want, there’s no rush. If it’s too much, we can stop—”

“No! No…I’m okay. More than okay, I’m great. Please…please don’t stop…don’t stop…”

Struggling to string words together, your breath comes in disjointed pants as Shaw begin to thrust up — the look on his face effortlessly sensual when he bites his lip to feel you spasm around him, tight wetness yielding in increments to accommodate his body as it broke new ground.

For you had never taken a man of that size, the litheness of Shaw’s muscular body belying the impressive package he’d been hiding in those jeans. Your jaw ached just to look upon the length of that thick cock, mouth watering as a fresh wave of arousal made you press your thighs tighter together. The movement didn’t go unnoticed. Shaw had drawn you to him then — deft fingers dipping low to trace the outline of your swollen folds through moist panties, lavender head bending to kiss its lacy trim.

He took his time preparing you, licking his fingers before he eased them into your pussy — first one, then two…curling deep until the slippery sounds of arousal told him the time was ripe to introduce the third, leaving you blooming for him even as he whispered, “Think you’re ready for me to make you my girl for real?”

It borders on overwhelming, this sensation of fullness — between your legs, within your heart. And as skin stretched to capacity to accommodate the sweet friction of his slide, you wished there was a way for the euphoria of this connection to last forever:

To the one you could never forget, no matter how hard you tried.

To this man you loved like no other.

“Shaw.”

His name is faint on your breath when he falls back onto the bed, taking you with him. And as you found yourself straddling his hips once more, the altered angles of your bodies gave him the leverage to make you gasp when he begins to thrust in earnest. The eroticism of his face, lost in lust, drives all thoughts from your mind as you drop a hand to your clit, fingers drawing tight circles before his hungry eyes.

The violence of your climax takes you by surprise, having no time to consider neighbours and thin walls as the lewdest sounds escape your lips at high volume. Intense convulsions wracking your body in waves, you clench in time around your lover. The sensation proves too much to bear, drawing out Shaw’s own release as he pulls out to spill onto the folds of your pussy — swollen and pink and trembling still beneath the coat of his pearlescent seed.

* * *

“I love you.”

Morning light trickles across your walls like the slow crawl of spidery legs. Shaw’s words hang in the air between you, a final, sacred moment shared between lovers before the rest of the world wakes.

You loved the hoarseness in his voice; a testament to the hours of noisy lovemaking you had shared in lieu of sleep.

You loved the weight of his hand, stroking softly at the crown of your head.

You loved the rhythm of his heart, echoing just below your ear to confirm his existence.

“I love you too.”

You look up into those amber eyes, trying to discern whether those four little words were sufficient in conveying that fact that you adored every fibre of the man before you.

The smile that graces his face in return is tender, honest…more brilliant than the day breaking in the East.

Your hands find his body, bare beneath the sheets. And as a curious finger traces along the ridge of the scar that runs in a broad stroke across his sculpted abdomen, your gaze falls on his t-shirt, draped over the back of a chair.

“You should probably throw that Snoopy shirt away, especially after what happened last night.”

Shaw follows your line of sight, chest rising and falling in a deep sigh. “Shitty as its previous owner was, I could never bring myself to hate something that reminds me of you. Aside from saving my ass, this was the first gift you ever gave me. And I never throw away gifts from my girl.”

His girl.

The mystery of life is that filled with unknowns though it is, we continue to live, brave in the face of the uncertainty that comes with every passing day. You had no idea what fate had in store for you or Shaw, had no way of knowing if your relationship existed on borrowed time.

The only thing you were certain of was that your feelings for each other were real, that try as you might, neither of you were very good at forgetting the other. That in this moment, here and now, the only thing that mattered was this love that hit you…

…like a bolt from the blue.

Thanks so much for reading! I hope you all enjoyed this Shaw saga! 💖

Check out more of my work here! 📚 (Please do not repost/copy/alter my work. Reblogs, on the other hand, are perfectly fine and much appreciated! 💖👍🏼)

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angeli-marco-writes · 5 years ago

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Charlie Weasley - Secret

A/N - This is my first imagine thing uploaded on Tumblr, and I’m uploading the smutty version of this story on this platform before posting the more PG version to my wattpad collection. Check it out: angeli-marco. Also this somehow became a Gryffindor reader kinda thing, it’s just what works but imagine you’re not in Gryffindor if you fancy.

Warnings - smut, rough sex, choking, kinky, all that jazz. Starting this blog off with a bang, literally. 6k words of p*rn with plot.

Summary - you have a secret regarding the dragon taming Weasley. The only issue is that he sees you as the child you were a few years ago. When you become legal, he seems to seek you out wherever you are. Maybe he has a secret, too.

YOU HAD A SECRET, a secret that no one beside yourself and your best friend knew, not that you’d readily admit to anyone that for your first three years at Hogwarts, you’d had a crush on none other than Charlie Weasley. Now, beginning your seventh year, having not seen him in three years, you’re surprised to find that your crush still lingers.

You’ve kept the notes that he wrote you, since the pair of you were actually quite close, Charlie tucking you under his wing once he found out your love of magical creatures. He nurtured your passion for the outdoors from the start of your second year. He sent notes, would help you access the forest, and he’d show you drawings of all these magical creatures that he wanted tattooed once he was older. He was the best.

All of these thoughts catch up to you while you’re lying in your tent, eyes closed and dreams clouding your vision, willing you to sleep. Until you hear yells.

Screams come from outside, howls and wails, yells for help and sacrifice. Not the kind of happy bellows that you’d expect after the World Cup Quidditch match. And then all of a sudden, moonlight beams in through the canvas of your one-man luxury tent and illuminates shadows you haven’t seen before, making you dwell in eeriness.

A head pops into your tent, followed by a voice, one that’s so familiar it makes your stomach ache and the hairs on your arm stand on edge.

“Whoever’s in here, you need to go! Get to safety, now!”

Charlie. As clear as day.

“I’m coming, what’s happening?” You call back, voice shaky while you try to stand up, legs nearly bowing and giving way beneath you.

“Death Eaters. Wait, Y/N?”

He recognises you from your voice. Your body feels electrified already. Not the right time, you scold yourself, but you can’t help feeling a little pride that he still remembers you.

“It’s me, Charlie, I’ll come to fight with you.”

You hear him stutter from outside, but within seconds, he’s raced across the expanse of your tent and has his arm wrapped around your waist.

“You’re too young,” he insists, but you just pull your wand out and look at him.

His blue eyes twinkle, even in a moment like this, and you feel as though he’s boring into your soul, which in all fairness you wouldn’t say no to.

You sigh, “I’m of age and I’m here alone, don’t think I’m not coming, Dragon Boy.”

He smirks at the nickname you gave him so many years ago, but smiles and brings you outside, still gripping onto you in any way he can.

You run to the centre of the outbreak. Men in masks levitating helpless muggles , the Ministry and other helpers already failing at bringing them down. It’s worse than you could’ve imagined. Charlie pulls you behind him, gripping your wrist with a determination, a protectiveness, one that he still had back in the day. Though it’s not the time, you feel your stomach flutter, even letting out a giggle at his gesture mere seconds before running out from behind him.

You proceed to run into the centre of the action, Charlie not far behind, calling out your name in the most desperate way you’ve heard him speak.

What he doesn’t realise is how much you’ve grown over the past few years. You’ve become trained in combat, mostly thanks to Professor Lupin, and you’re really bloody good at it. You have virtually every possible spell in your arsenal, ones that many ministry members mayn’t even know, all thanks to Lupin again who gave you one on one lessons and prepared you for anything. Not to mention that you play Quidditch for your house team, something that you always admired Charlie for, but now you’re extremely agile, ready for almost anything, and prepared to fight.

What you see is pure injustice, people being persecuted for their blood, all for a sick game. You’re a little scared, that’s a given, but you know it isn’t right, so aim a stunning spell straight at the chest of the tallest man in a mask. Non verbally, so he doesn’t see you coming. He falls to up the ground, wand discarded, a wand which you happily take and slot into your pocket. Your thought process is that you’ll take the men down one by one, maybe with a little help since you are only a 17 year old girl, while the weak ass ministry workers try what’s best for their image.

And really, that’s the way it goes. A good while later, when you’ve participated in a couple of duels, ended up flat on your arse in front of everyone, with a cut on your cheek and anger roaring in your blood, only then do you get a rest.

Charlie and his brother helped duel the masked men, taking them down, while the Ministry brought the muggles down to their Rightful Place and proceeded to wipe their memories. Horrible ordeal, all done incorrectly for press, especially since every single man got away, at least that’s what you counted. You tuck your wand away in your pyjamas. Certainly not the right clothes you wanted to be wearing when meeting Charlie again, but so be it.

You sit on the floor, looking up at the stars and hollow moon, really hungry and a little shaken up. You have a cold compress on your face, well, a tissue that you used an aguamenti charm to dampen and proceeded to lay it over your pounding forehead, throbbing eyes and bruising cut.

“Let me help you with that,” Charlie says, coming to sit beside you. You didn’t hear him approaching, so his sudden presence takes you by surprise. Surprise that evaporates the second he lays his hand on your thigh.

“Fancy seeing you here,” you quip, nudging his shoulder, “didn’t think you’d recognise me.”

It’s true, you really didn’t. You would’ve thought that you’d have to prove your identity with the notes he wrote you and by inside jokes you ice had, but he recognised you solely by your voice, very rare. You’ve changed a lot since your third year, growing taller, filling out, gaining a very desirable figure and you changed your style completely, including a complete makeover of your hair, and a nose piercing.

“How could I not? You still sound the same as ever.”

Once again, true. No matter what other hormonal and physical changes you’ve endured, not one of them included losing the babyish feature that your voice held, constantly making you sound like you’re dosed up on a little helium.

“And, you’re still as cute, but very... um...”

Wow. You have Charlie speechless, what a rarity. He has two modes, silent, or never shutting up, and the latter usually only comes when he’s with friends.

“Grown up?” You offer, turning to face him with a small smirk painted on your lips.

He chuckles, a low rumbling sound from the bottom of his throat while his eyes tiresomely yank themselves away from your best features, “yeah, you could say that.”

He brings an arm around your waist, shuffling along the ground to sit beside you, and then a warm hand encloses over your own, the one holding the bloody cloth to your face. Slowly, he takes the cloth away and replaces its positioning with rough, calloused fingers, tracing the outline of your cut.

“Tergeo,” Charlie murmurs, and he watches all the blood and debris disappear from your face, leaving a clean cut.

You stare into his eyes, feeling the same thing of fireflies in your bloodstream as you did when he looked into your eyes when you were all but a child. It’s illuminating, he makes you feel seen, he makes you feel special. He edges forwards, and forwards, until your breath mingles together...

“Try this!” He exclaims with a fake enthusiasm, jolting his head away from your own and clearing his throat with as much subtlety as a Hebridean black.

Charlie withdraws a small, battered tin from his pocket, placing it shakily into your open palm.

“I use it all the time on the sanctuary,” he opens the tin, places one finger inside, and swipes a cooling, vanilla scented balm over your cut.

You wince, involuntary flinching away from him, but your hand grips his string thigh. He contracts and calms beneath your touch as he rubs the balm over your cut, and you can almost feel it recovering.

“As good as new,”

Charlie brushes his lips against your forehead, the way he used to do, it ignites something special in you both this time.

He hesitates. “You’re still at school, aren’t you?” You nod, tucking your hair behind both ears, smiling up at him shyly. “I’ll see you sooner than you expect, I promise, but I have to be with my family now.”

Bemusement flashes over your face, but instead of questioning it and ruining the mystery, you just settle for a smile. Slotting your palm in his, Charlie steadies you to your feet and swiftly pulls you flush against him.

“You look so beautiful, Y/N, so grown up. I miss you.”

His voice cracks, neediness clear in his deep, dulcet tones. He wraps his arms around your almost bare shoulders, allowing yours to fall around his waist. He’s grown impossibly taller, gained even more muscle, and his heart has most definitely swelled in his absence.

“I miss you too,” you murmur against his chest, the words getting lost within his chest, the warmth of his skin on your face through a tear in his shirt. You could quite happily stay in his arms all day, all night and never get tired.

Soon, though, he withdraws and holds you at arms length, observing every blemish on your face and the way your eyelashes curl and the way your lips quirk into a smile at the mere thought of him. You want him to wander further, for his eyes to follow down your body, the way your bust is accentuated in your scrappy pyjama top, and the way your 3/4 leg pyjama bottoms fall low on your hip and stay snug around you with no effort at all; but he stays with his eyes fixed on yours.

“Stay safe.”

And with a kiss, the brush of his stubble on your cheek, he’s gone and you’re left to wonder if him being beside you tonight was just a dream.

-x-

It’s been months since you saw Charlie last, despite his promise that he’d see you sooner than anticipated. You, however, had expected to see him there as a new teacher on September 1st, but your wish didn’t come true.

Your first two months at school weren’t too bad: a decent DADA teacher (nothing on Lupin though), no escaped prisoners, no escaped trolls or petrified students, and you could safely say that it was the most normal year you’d had so far at Hogwarts, at least since Harry Potter started.

That basic joy and normality evaporated with the announcement of the tournament, which you most unequivocally would not enter under any circumstances, so you stayed out of the way ever since. You couldn’t be arsed with the other schools, nor all the gossip about the tasks, and you instead continued to busy yourself with your nightly creature endeavours. You’d walk to all your favourite spots where unicorns, nifflers, bowtruckles and more stayed, but not once did you bump into Charlie.

You began to feel defeated, lost, like you wouldn’t see him again and he’d just been lying, or maybe it was all a dream. But tonight, your walk is different.

The sun set early, late November creeping in and enveloping you in a warm blanket of darkness, the moon comforting you. It’s not even curfew yet, nowhere near, but maybe you’ll stay out here until sunrise, nap beneath the stars, all curled up with an aethonan winged horse, but deep within the forest you hear clattering. There’s yells, roars, sudden blasts of light, and your curiosity gets the best of you.

You crawl all through the trees and bushes, finding a comfortable path, only to come across four huge dragons in their pens, a collection of wizards, all dressed the same as Charlie, dotted around them. And then, only then, do you see his twinkling blue eyes, a breath of fire from one of the dragons reflecting in them.

“Charlie!” You cry out, not caring about any form of common courtesy on your endeavour through the final brambles until you fall straight into his arms.

“I told you I’d see you soon.” He smirks, but you can just tell that he’s itching to grin like a Cheshire Cat.

You climb him like a vine, legs wrapped around his waist and arms around his neck. You tug at his man-bun and watch as his Adam’s apple bobs up and down. His face falters, cheeks a flaming red, and once again he clears his throat. He turns his head away awkwardly, still keeping his grip on you, so he doesn’t anticipate when you cup his jaw and angle his gaze towards you once more.

“Do you want to kiss me, Charlie?” You ask, voice low and sultry, hips rearranging themselves atop him.

He stutters, tongue tied, pupils blown wide with lust but the colour drains from his face. You repeat yourself, eyes boring into his with a ferocity you haven’t felt since that night in August. His freckled eyelids fall shut for a couple of seconds, crinkling in the corners, and then they shoot open, his nose nudging yours, lips grazing yours...

“Charlie!”

He sighs, putting you down onto the ground, and he turns his back momentarily which allows you to examine the way the moonlight ripples over his leather jacket.

“What, mate?” He calls, the most exasperated time you’ve ever heard him use, and you can see his heavenly back muscles tensing through his clothes.

“A little hand over here?” A European accent calls him over. “When shithead gets back from his food run, then you can run off with your girlfriend, but for now we need help.”

Charlie rolls his eyes and slumps his chest forwards. Clearly he’s not happy, and you can’t blame him. It’s a lovely evening that could be silent shagging you, but he has to spend it being burnt by dragons.

“You’ve had an impact on their language then, they’ll be yelling ‘BOLLOCKS’ soon if you’re not careful.” Charlie chuckles at your quip and brings you into his side.

“You still like animals, right? Fancy giving us a hand?”

You know Charlie well enough to know that he’s actually serious, so he sheds his jacket to wrap around your shoulders, and brings you toward the centre of the fire pit with him. You get strange looks from all the other dragon tamers and you can’t blame them. A girl like yourself, you don’t much look like a dragon tamer, but anything for Charlie.

The task is easier than you anticipated anyway, giving you ample opportunity to watch Charlie’s body, the way he moves, the way he smiles, and you even catch a glimpse of a few tattoos. You feel heat flowing to your core, desperate for him to just snog you already.

All you really have to do is cling to the rough skin of Charlie’s hand and dodge fire, occasionally shooting stunning spells at the Horntail or pulling on some chains to keep the creatures tethered. The beasts truly are magnificent, and it’d be a lot easier to take notes on them and examine them a little more closely if it weren’t for Charlie’s cute bum looking far too tight in his jeans, making your fingers ache to touch him.

You shrug his jacket off when curfew approaches, only just keeping time by slanting his wrist towards yours every so often, and so you drape it back over his shoulders, unwittingly giving him a kind of bear hug. He brings you around to his front, your legs settling comfortably on his hips, and he smirks at you. Bloody hell, just his smirk does things to you.

His breath mingles with yours, fogging your vision from the way it steams in the cold, night air. The moon shines down and illuminates constellations with each and every one of Charlie’s freckles. You slip a hand to his cheek, resting it on his stubble for just a moment while you stare longingly into his eyes. There’s no need to rush such a beautiful moment, but then he dips his head a little in order to catch your lips in a slow, savoured kiss, allowing every feeling the two of you harbour each other to be portrayed through the slow, deft dance if his lips on yours, passion exchanged when his tongue slips into your mouth, longing and urgency once he begins to fervently nibble at your lip...

“Fuck, Charlie...” you moan into his mouth, his hips involuntarily rutting against your core. You can feel just how much he wants this.

His eyes are shut, holding you against him with one hand slipped under your bum and the other exploring your back beneath your top. You kiss him again, needier this time, breathier, and you just pray that everything you feel can be portrayed in your mix of reverent kisses and sultry movements, your hips grinding down on him.

You pull away, gasping for air, rubbing your thumb over the curve of his cheek. You didn’t even notice your other hand moving to fist at his shirt for support, too lost in the moment. Your eyes flutter open and you search his for some kind of a tell tale sign that he just snogged you senseless, and you can see it in how lust-blown his pupils are. The earth cracks beneath the two of you while you’re still wrapped in the security of your kiss, but eventually you slip from his waist and land steadily on the floor, minuscule in comparison to his stature.

“I’ll wedge the portrait open and I’ll see you later. Don’t be too late. I’m sure you know how to sneak into the girls dorms by now.” You whisper to him, your voice carried away with the roars of the dragons and the nightly breeze.

And with a wink, you’re gone, with Charlie left dumbfounded, feet behind as you walk away into the depths of the forest, only to emerge the other side more flustered than ever before.

-x-

As soon as you reach your dormitory, you’re glad to see that all your roommates have disappeared, probably to their significant others' beds, or late night training help for Diggory just to watch him work out. You, however, have no inclination for anything or anyone other than Charlie.

You tidy your bed as much as you can manage, tucking clothes away wherever you can in as small a time frame as you have, leaving ample time to let your nerves subside and your tension to dissipate before getting ready for Charlie’s arrival, you just hope to Merlin that he’ll turn up. The way he kissed you gave you he, the way he savoured you in every sense, kind yet needy, soft yet burning. Just the thought makes you rise in goosebumps, let alone imagining what he’ll do to you tonight.

Finally, after what feels like a lifetime has passed, you’re lying in your four-poster with the covers wrapped around your body, the silk slip you put on leaving nothing to the imagination with the way it brushes your hips and clings to the swells of your breasts, moonlight shimmering on the fabric with any movement, the material almost not even daring to skim your skin from how in control you are of your body in that rare moment of power over yourself, and then you hear a knock, all of your composure flying out the window.

“Hey beautiful, it’s me.”

His voice sounds like molten honey with a slight rasp and you’ve never heard anything more perfect, so with as much normality as you can, you open the door to him.

“Fucking hell...”

The words tumble from his mouth so freely upon the sight of you, hair swept off your face with a scrunchie and nothing but your well chosen slip gracing your body, Charlie looks as though he may combust.

You step aside while Charlie awkwardly walks over the threshold into your dorm, no doubt one that he spent many nights in when he was a seventh year, but as soon as the chestnut door swings shut, he’s got you pressed against it with his chapped lips hovering over your own, the rough material of his jeans tantalising on your bare thighs.

“Did you think it was funny for you to kiss me like that? Climb all over me? Touching me relentlessly? I couldn’t concentrate, your ass in those leggings and you wearing my jacket, I’ve never seen anything so sexy.” He croons in your ear, causing you to involuntarily mewl and buck your hips against his. You were already at his mercy, clinging to his jacket and clawing at the back of his neck while he holds you up, the wood chilling on your tingling spine.

“When I left, you know, I thought I’d never see you as more than a friend, but now? The World Cup? You’ve gotten so mature, and your body, sweet Merlin. You’re all I want.”

You release a strangled moan, not wanting to let him know just how much his words are riling you up, but you’re sure he can already tell by the quirk of his lips, upturning into a smirk, a special glint in his eye that he was notorious for in his last year.

“Are we gonna do this? I’ve fancied you since I was twelve, Charlie, please.”

He chuckles at your desperation, but sheds his leather jacket nonetheless and steadies you on your feet once more. Within seconds, you’re pouncing on him and beginning to strip his shirt, pulling it out from his jeans and up over his head. He seems equally as eager as you with the way his hands take a bruising grip onto your hips, scared of stripping you of your only covering just yet.

You run your hands all over his tanned, muscular torso, covered in burns and tattoos and a fine dusting of dark ginger hair. There’s a Romanian Longhorn on his right peck, a Norwegian ridgeback on his left bicep (slightly distorted from a bad burn), an animated Zouwo on his hip and a crup pup on his perfectly angled shoulder blade. Charlie’s gonna be the death of you, you can just sense it by the heat radiating off his body.

Your eyes bulge as the pad of your finger trails the swells and dips of his abs, and the way his muscles ripple is divine, you may just puddle at his feet.

“I swear, Charlie...” you murmur, your fingers deftly working on his jeans, shoving them down his hips before winding your arms around his neck.

He lets out a broken groan when you tug his hair, weaving your fingers into his unruly red locks. He holds your waist and slowly grips the flimsy fabric in his big hands, allowing your back to arch against him from how electrifying his touch is on your upper thighs and now bare hips...

He kisses your collarbone, sucks marks on your neck, fans his hot breath over the shell of your ear, peppers feather light kisses to your jawline; all of them make you whimper, shivering and trembling like a leaf against his body from his other ministrations as well as the work of his lips. Until finally, his mouth slants over yours and his arms curl around your thighs, wrapping them around his bared torso, every inch of him carved by a Greek god. He slips his tongue into your mouth, savouring the moan that slides from your lips, swallowing it and keeping you for his own. He walks backwards until his knees hit the side of your bed, allowing you to clamber onto his body and latch your teeth onto his earlobe, biting a mark just below.

“Fuck baby...” he whispers. He grips your hips and ass to control your movements on top of him, feeling his boxers just tighten even more. “Your ass is perfect...”

He hikes your nightgown up even more, bunching it above your waist, while he massages the globes of your ass, kneading them between his rough fingers and pulling your ass cheeks apart for him. Just by those simple ministrations, you know that you’re in for a rough night.

“Fuck me, dragon boy,” you plead, eyes trained on his as his entire being is overcome with a desire to devour you, you can tell by the way his nose scrunches and his lips upturn into the most devilish smirk you’ve ever seen on anyone.

“That’s Daddy or Sir to you tonight, baby.”

The gasp that escapes your mouth is the most pornographic sound you’ve made in your life, not that you’ve had much experience to. His palm rubbing your pussy erases all inhibitions, and the thought that you should probably warn him you’re a virgin. Not completely, you’ve done stuff with guys before, but you’ve never gone further than third base, so your dildo is your only relief. That should be enough, right?

“You’re so wet for me, my sweet baby. I bet you taste amazing.” Already you’re mewling, clawing at his back, a whimpering mess and he isn’t even inside you yet.

Within a second you find yourself beneath him, hungry eyes looking at you as though you’re his prey, one hand planted firmly on your pillow beside your head and the other with two fingers knuckle deep inside you. You cry out in pleasure, toes curling, but it all just gets so much better when he begins to thrust his hand at an inhumane speed, fingers curling up inside you and pressing that perfect spot perfectly each time. Part of you expected him to start slow: one finger, shallow and slow thrusts; but he’s just going for it, and the ecstasy is incomparable to anything you’ve felt before.

“Are you already that weak for me?” He purrs.

Yes, yes you are. His movements, the flick of his wrist and the jolt of his fingers deep within whenever you clench around him. You can’t fathom a response, especially not when the heel of his hand continually hits your clit and his lips wrap themselves around your nipple.

“Fuck, Sir, I’m so close...” you whisper in his ear, yanking on his hair with one hand, eliciting a groan followed by a swift slap to your ass, his body now being held up by only his knees .

The way your fingers thread and tangle in his red locks and pull a little too harshly makes him insert a third finger. He twists his fingers inside you, hitting more places than before, and he withdraws his hand. You whine a little at the loss of contact, and certainly don’t anticipate their plough back inside, sharp and vicious, you’re unprepared for the sudden rush of contact to your clit, and even less prepared for the way Charlies tongue licks a circle around your other nipple, so you come. Stars blur before your eyes, a strangled guttural cry leaving your throat as Charlie rides it out for you. You already feel spent, body lax after scratching marks into Charlie's back while you clenched and came totally undone around his hand.

When you look up, Charlie’s still hovering above you, glistening hand between the two of you. As your eyelashes flutter and you focus on him, he knows he has your attention, so brings his hand up to his mouth and curls his tongue around his fingers, all covered with your cum. He moans as he tastes you, the most erotic sound that’s ever graced your ears, and it may just be the most sensual thing you’ve seen in your life. A slight fire lights itself in your belly while watching him, immediately ready for round two, so you let both your eyes and your hands dance down his perfectly toned body to his boxers. Your fingers feebly wrap around his member through his shorts, grasping tightly to cause jolts of both pleasure and pain shooting up Charlie’s spine. He hisses through his teeth and immediately climbs off the bed, only to retrieve a shiny silver packet from his pocket.

“Are you gonna be a good girl, sweet baby, or am I gonna have to teach you a lesson?” He coos.

You never thought that you’d be into any of this stuff, the ‘Sir’ and ‘Good girl’ and the spanking, but Merlin’s beard it’s turning you on.

“I’ll be good for you, but only tonight Charlie.”

He seems dissatisfied by your answer. You can tell by the way he strikes the side of your ass with his palm and proceeds to look completely calm about it. You’re quite literally salivating though, his dominance increasing your pleasure tenfold.

“Fuck,” you whisper, backtracking in your mind, “I’ll do what you want, just fuck me.”

Your hands find the hem of his boxers, pulling them off in one fell swoop and throwing them to the other side of the room. He’s huge, long and a decent girth, so big that you’re slightly fearful. You made a fist around his dick and moved your hand up and down a couple of times, looking up at Charlie with innocent doe eyes that you can tell are driving you crazy by the way his cock twitches in your hand. You stroke him a little faster, thumb flicking over his tip and allowing the drop of pre-cum to lubricate a couple more jerks before you settle back down, watching Charlie as he intently focuses on rolling the condom down his throbbing length. Fuck, it’s beautiful.

“On your hands and knees.” He orders you in a throaty voice. You look at him with eyes full of scepticism but only for a moment before complying, sticking your ass in the air at the foot of your bed, just waiting for him to do something.

He brings his hand down on your ass again, the skin prickling a little, causing you to moan again, seemingly what he wants, because slowly he begins pushing into you. He starts slowly, just his tip entering you after he’s run his cock through your folds and collected your essence. He stretches as the rest of his length pushes in, cautiously placing a hand on the small of your back to steady himself. You clutch the sheets beneath you, pleasure overwhelming the pain.

“Is that ok? I’m not hurting you, am I?” Charlie sounds worried, hands rubbing around your waist and stomach soothingly.

“No, no it’s brilliant, but I don’t mind if you wanna hurt me…”

You can hear his breath hitch in his throat. “W-what do you mean? I don’t want to hurt you properly… what are you thinking of?”

Your pause is atmospheric, leaning into a yoga resembling pose with arms laying flat and your back arched to perfection, boobs pushed into your duvet. You hum, “Choking, maybe a little more spanking, just general rough sex. Mark me as yours.”

Charlie's knees almost buckle beneath him, removing a hand from caressing your body to steady himself on the poster of your bed. “You sure about this? I still wanna actually make love to you, I’m not all dominant…” You let out a soft chuckle and turn behind you, cocking a smile at him. A subtle nod paired with the part of your lips gives him all the answer he needs to grip your hips and pull out from you, only to slam back in with an unrivalled force.

Your ass jiggles with the power of his thrusts, Charlie's dick pumping in and out of you making you reach new heights of pleasure. His hand wraps around your hair, forming a ponytail and pulling you flush against him, your lightly sweaty back against his heaving chest, his hair tickling your spine. One of his hands grips your hip harshly, intermittent grunts of your name escaping his lips, and the other hand moves up your body, massaging your breast and plucking at your nipple.

“Can I choke you?” His voice comes out raspy, followed by a moan as you clench around his twitching cock, merely from his words.

“God, please.” You beg him, unsure if you’ve ever been so needy in your life.

His long fingers slowly wrap themselves around your neck, pressing his palm down and squeezing lightly. Hard enough so that your breath is slightly laboured and your senses are heightened. You can hear him counting under his breath, still thrusting in and out of you ferociously, and when he hears your breathing becoming an issue, he releases his grip. With a few seconds allowance, you gulp down as much air as you can, swirling your head around to face him. You bat your eyelashes at him, tongue darting out from between your lips, and you kiss him. His lips captured by your own, tongue dancing in your mouth, keeping his dominance over you. He spanks you once, twice, squeezes your hip, his mouth still locked on yours, kissing you tantalisingly. His kisses make you crave even more of him, his hand squeezing around your neck again as his pad of one finger travels down from your hip, pinching the skin on your pubic bone, and he presses down firmly on your clit. His thrusts grow erratic, the pressure on your clit and your oesophagus making the fire in your stomach spark even further, your high so quickly approaching…

He pulls away to whisper in your ear, “Come on me, pretty baby. Good girl.” You moan louder at his coaxing words, the wave of your second orgasm crashing over you and drowning you in pleasure. You cry out his name, his lips moving from pressing feather light kisses behind your ear to your lips, swallowing your screams of his names as much as he can. Your fluttering and shuttering around him allows Charlie to chase his high too. He throbs inside you, dick pulsating until he comes too, his movements slowing as you ride your highs out together.

You crash onto your bed face first, Charlie pulling out of you before joining you, your bare legs entangling as his fingertips brush your face.

“So, that was…”

“Perfect.” he finishes for you, pressing his lips to your nose gently.

“Yes,” you agree wistfully, savouring the moment of just being wrapped in his warmth, “a dream come true.”

He virtually giggles, unable to keep his hands off you. “Cuddles for a bit, and then round two?”

-x-

The next morning comes far too soon for your liking, sunlight blaring through your drapes and your bare legs tangled with someone else’s underneath your sheets, a strong arm draped over your body, warmth pressed against you.

You scramble as much as you can, jolting your neck to check that it was Charlie, and that last night was reality, and you let out the heaviest held breath you could from all the relief crashing down on you like waves, until reality hits.

“Shit. Charlie, Charlie, you need to sort the dragons! Fuck!”

It’s already late, but Charlie just groans and brings you closer into him.

“Charles,” you grumble, nudging his arm away from your body as best as you can, but still, he doesn’t budge and you’re too small to move him. “If it’s any consolation, we’ll definitely be doing this again, so you can let me go...”

Clearly that’s the remedy. His eyes shoot open and he begins to press soft kisses across the harsh marks he left last night, his hand gently caressing your soft skin, making you squirm and giggle a little.

Charlie being as gently dominant as he is (complete softie), refuses to let you do anything without him. That includes showering, dressing and hair. He massages any bruises or rough spots where he was a little too strong last night, whispering sweet nothings in your ear, kissing you whenever he can get to your lips.

“Godric, baby, I haven’t been able to get you out my mind for three months.” He tells you, arms twined around your waist while you primp. “You’re so perfect, so beautiful, such a good girl for me.”

Only a four year age gap, yet you still manage to moan the word ‘Daddy’ when he squeezes your hips just right and suckles on that sweet spot.

“Fuck,” his voice is breathy and strained, clearly trying to hold back, “if you call me that again then we’ll miss the task.”

You chuckle at him but hug him nonetheless. Yeah the intimacy is great, but this just started, and he’s a bloody good hugger. Just being close to him is enough. You wear his jacket and twine your fingers with his own, your other hand resting in the crook of his elbow to feel him as close as possible. When you finally do leave the dorm and climb down the disabled stair case, you get the strangest assortment of looks you’ve ever received, everything from shock to fury to admiration to jealousy. Your cheeks heat and you turn shyly into Charlie again, only for your console to be broken by a high pitched screech, one you know to belong to Fred and George when they’re feigning shock.

“Y/N! How could you!” Fred bursts out, pointing at you with a quivering hand, jaw slackened and face aghast.

“And Charlie, sleeping with a student!” George finishes, the exact same expression written across his face.

You merely scowl at them, but they’ve bought even more attention than you’d had before, namely two girls who would be far from happy.

“Really Charlie?” Ginny says incredulously, making fake gagging noises but snuggling into her brother's side nonetheless, clearly happy to see him.

Hermione stands before you, giving you a horrible stern, disapproving look with pursed lips and folded arms. You offer a snide side eye in return, not so subtly removing your hair from your neck just to watch Hermione’s reaction, and it’s worth the audible gasps from those around you. Bruising purple marks scattered across your neck and the join of your shoulder, a red handprint on the column of your throat. Hermione looks like she’ll faint from pure disapproval, after all, you were supposed to be the innocent animal girl.

“Part of me is impressed-“ Fred announces, a sly smirk painted on his lips.

“And the other part is disgusted.” George adds, scanning you up and down as though vying for another tell tale sign.

Charlie gives them what they want, spinning you into his body with his hands holding your waist beneath your jumper, letting it ride up a little to show more bruises. The twins look nothing but dazzled at the sight of your skin covered in splendid marks. They give their brother a subtle look of solidarity, exchanging no further words before leaving. Hermione remains speechless, but Ginny looks simultaneously confused and scarred.

“Sorry Gin,” Charlie says with a genuinely apologetic style, but turns away from her, leaning down to fleetingly capture your lips.

“I guess I’m something to talk about even when I’m gone, but I promise babe, there’s more where that came from. Dinner, tonight, the edge of the forest before I leave.”

You grin to yourself, squeezing his hand as you make your way to breakfast. All that passes through your mind is how wonderful it is that you finally have Charlie back. Your Charlie.

#charlie weasley #the weasleys #weasley imagine #Harry Potter #harry potter imagine #harry potter fic #fred and george #fred weasley #george weasley #hp and the goblet of fire #dragons #tattoos #harry potter smut #weasley smut

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barleyshine · 4 years ago

Text

two slow dancers // p. parkinson

F!Reader x Pansy Parkinson

hohoho... i hope you haven’t been expecting this from me ^^ ahaha! happy birthday! have this small pansy indulgent work from me ^^

remember when i asked u if u’d prefer fluff or angst? well this isn’t exactly fluff but it isn’t exactly angst either. LOL just read it. i hope u like it! listen to two slow dancers - mitski for the Feels

warnings: major character death

You were ten years old when you first met a young girl with jet black hair and snarky attitude.

She told you that her name was Pansy Parkinson and she was amazing, and all the others were worse than her. Naturally, the attitude threw you off, and you immediately hated her. She also told your friend, Hermione, “Why is your hair so frizzy? It looks like you have never heard of a comb”, which inherently made you want to curse her into the ground.

“Parkinson, Pansy.”

You rolled your eyes when she stuck her tongue out to you, immediately remembering all her tall tales and “I’m not gonna get into Gryffindor because it is a stinky house that doesn’t deserve half of what has been given! Slytherin is the best house!” You prayed to unknown gods at that moment, so she can lick her own spit and get into-

“Slytherin!”

You groaned. This is gonna be a long ride.

You were thirteen years old when you decided not to hold all the careless and mean things you said against her.

You heard from your mother that her co-worker was going to visit your sick mother, to hand off some important paperwork to carry back into the Ministry. Upon learning that your mother’s co-worker also was gonna bring her family over for tea, you bubble with excitement to meet a new person during holidays.

That is, until the said person actually comes over.

“Hello! My name is Pansy.” A familliar voice sounded from the living room, and you internally groaned as you mother called you over to say hi.

“Hi everyone,” You greeted lamely. You barely paid attention to what your mother and Pansy’s mother is saying, and you focused on how Pansy looked at that moment.

Her eyes were glazed over, looking over at the kitchen. “Do you want a drink, perhaps?” You ask, a bit irritated.

“Oh no, we wouldn’t want Pansy to cause much trouble,” Pansy’s mother sweetly denied. “Isn’t that right, Pansy?”

Pansy snapped back into the conversation, her eyes alert. You furrowed your eyebrows, confused. Pansy wore the typical arrogant grin on her face. “Yes, of course not!”

You’re confused when the Parkinsons abruptly left, the mother quietly glaring at the daughter, leaving before the tea kettle even boiled.

You were fifteen years old when you finally befriended Pansy.

Pansy was out and about in Hogsmeade with her friends, Theo, Blaise, and Draco, and you couldn’t help but notice that Pansy was wearing a genuine smile on her face while mocking her friends. It was nothing like the weird grin that she always had on her face during class, or the one she wore when visiting your house.

You sighed and continued to trot all the way to Honeydukes, stopping to check out a very confused Harry Potter on a date with Cho Chang. You enter the shop, and-

“What are you doing here?” Your eyes blinked once and twice, adjusting to the lighting in the shop. A Pansy Parkinson looked at you, confused. “I thought the shop said ‘Closed’.”

You furrowed your brows in confusion, exiting the shop to find that, indeed, Honeydukes was closed. You came back in, and come face to face with Pansy again. “Ah, well, what are you doing here?”

Pansy blinked, before opening her mouth, and shutting it.

“I’m gonna leave now,” You muttered. “Don’t want to be arrested for breaking and entering.”

Pansy snickered, before pulling your hand. “I don’t know why, but I trust you not to tell anyone about this,” Pansy said, before pushing open the door to the stockroom.

You gasped.

“They had nowhere else to go,” Pansy explained, carrying up a whole cardboard filled with a litter of crup pups. “It’s the store owner’s cruppies. They trusted me, somehow, to take care of the pups while they’re gone. Don’t ask me why. And I swear, if word goes out, I will end you.”

You chuckled. “Can I touch one?”

Pansy nodded.

You cooed as you scoop one in your arms, being as gentle as possible, and petting them slowly. “When is the owner coming back? I need some sugar quills. And aren’t you a little cutie? Who’s a good crup? Oh, Merlin, it pissed on my gloves!”

Pansy laughed.

You smiled, wanting her genuine smile to last forever.

You were seventeen when you understood Pansy for the first time.

You were about to take a walk down your neighbourhood when you saw Pansy running. She looked frantic and frenzied, and upon seeing you, she froze. You sighed, before running up to her and dragging her inside the house.

“Tea? Or water?” You asked, heading into the kitchen after sitting her down on your couch. Pansy didn’t respond, and you quickly assumed she just wanted some water instead. You came back into the living room to give her a cup of water, and sipped from your own cup of water.

Pansy looked rough. Her eyes were hollow and eyebags were heavy, and her hair was messy and not taken care of. You remember clearly that she always loved to tie her hair, but...

“I cut my hair.” Pansy spoke for the first time. “My mother wanted me to join the Death-Eaters. I refused to.” She laughed bitterly, no humor in her laugh.

Your heart started to break.

“She kicked me out for being a blood traitor.” Pansy’s voice was thick. “I didn’t even do anything- I just didn’t want to join Voldemort because I saw what he did to Draco.”

You set down your cup of water. “Can I hug you?” You asked, responded with a nod. You settled down next to her, tugging her into a hug and she started to sob.

“This will pass, Pansy. And I’m going to stay with you until it does.” You find yourself making a promise when her body was limp in your arms, breathing softly.

You were eighteen when you knew that you loved her.

You both knew that this was it; the war was going to end. With the existence of Death-Eaters in your school, you were always anxious, and so was Pansy. You both spend almost every night on the same bed in each other’s arms, comforting each other and hoping for a better tomorrow.

You were half asleep at midnight when she brushed away your hair from your face, giving you soft butterfly kisses on your forehead, whispering to you a soft ‘happy birthday’. Your heart rate picked up quickly and you found yourself scolding yourself and trying to stay half-asleep.

“I’m sorry that you have to go through this,” She whispered to you, softly. “I’m sorry that we both have to go through this. I’m sorry that I can’t tell you how much I love you because, who knows? Maybe tomorrow we’ll be dead.”

What remains of your broken heart breaks into smaller pieces.

“So I’ll say it now, when you’re asleep and you won’t hear this and reject me. I love you. I love you. I love you.” Pansy said, pressing a small kiss on your cheek. “And I’ll love you even though we both might die in the end.”

She slipped her head in the nook of your neck, and you hummed, before settling back in bed.

You wish you could say it back at that moment.

“Happy birthday,” Pansy said. Your friends had surprised you in the common room, taking turns to hug you and taking magical photographs. It was a dark time, but it couldn’t dampen the ambitious plan by your friends to celebrate your birthday by shoving you inside a broom closet with Pansy. “I don’t know why I’m here.”

“Because you’re a dear friend to me, you arse,” You told her. She wrapped her hands around your waist, and you put your hands on her shoulders. It was soft and scary, but no one was watching. It was intimate.

You hummed a small tune, before moving and swaying to the tune you’re humming. Pansy followed suit, before finally the tune ends and you both are in each other’s arms.

“I should’ve told you this earlier, but... I love you too.” You whisper in her ear, still swaying.

Pansy’s grip on you hardened, before chuckling. “You heard that long ass paragraph I spouted out of nowhere? And you still love me back?”

“It’s because of the paragraph,” You laughed.

Pansy was eighteen years old when she lost you.

note: i hope you like it! bro i swear i never meant to make it sad... it came out of nowhere and punched me in the gut and wrote itself i swear. luvluvluv sorry for the angst but i hope u like dat fluff

happy birthday, @shizarianathania !

edit: minor grammar fixes!

#pansy imagine #pansy parkinson #pansy x reader #happy birthday #harry potter imagine

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thereluctantinquisitor · 4 years ago

Note

[eyes emoji] 26. how dare [you]. Sounds like something Adiran would say but ALSO feel free to take this in whatever direction you deem appropriate ;P

Micro Story Prompt

Or should I say, ah... ‘micro’ story prompt? (729 words - pls I tried).

CW for language because Adiran.

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

“You fucking liar.”

Lirea winced at the venom in Adiran’s voice. She wore her sadness well. She always did. He wondered if she knew how to feel anything anymore, or if it was all just a carefully crafted act. “I’m sorry.” Her voice echoed along the stone corridor, perfectly hollow. “I know you hate me right now. But I was just... father and mother said... I didn’t think...”

“How dare you.” In any other situation, Adiran would have laughed. He would have laughed until he pissed himself at the idea that Lirea, of all fucking people, didn’t think. “Cut the shit - you didn’t think? When do you ever stop? It’s all you ever do!”

Cringing, Lirea moved closer, pale eyes darting the length of the corridor. She almost reached out to grab Adiran’s arm, then clearly thought better of it. "Be quiet,” she hissed. The sound suited her perfectly, the fucking snake. “Adiran, I know you’re angry, but you need to keep your voice down.”

“I’m more than fucking angry.” He couldn’t stop shaking. His body was on fire, pulsing with panic and fury and something he couldn’t even begin to explain. But even so, he lowered his voice. He had to. No matter how desperate he was to tear the palace apart stone by stone, he needed to stay focused. A life depended on it. A life he was too much of an idiot to care about when he had the chance. “Damn it, I don’t have time for this. Take me to him. Now.”

“What?” Lirea’s eyes narrowed. “I can’t just---”

“Lirea.”

Something about his tone - something about the look in his eyes - stopped his older sister mid-sentence, her lips parted, face stunned. Maybe it was the way his breathing had suddenly calmed. Maybe it was the way his hand had moved, instinctively, to curl around the hilt of his blade. Her eyes, blue as The Pale, widened, and for the first time in his life, Adiran saw something very real flash across her carefully sculpted face.

Fear.

“Adiran.” Her tone was careful now. Wary. Good. It should be. “We can’t just walk in there.” Hurriedly, she raised her hands, stepping back as Adiran growled and advanced. “No - listen to me. I knew you would act like this, but I told you anyway. I want to help, or I wouldn’t be here right now. You have to believe that much.”

“I don’t have to believe a damn thing you say.” The sound of his own voice, cold and flat, was unfamiliar to his ears. The voice of a stranger - one capable of things he’d never even entertained before. It was like Riin had once said, smiling at the horizon, the sun a honey glow against his skin. Our lives are made of thousands of tiny moments. I know you feel lost right now, but some day, one of them will light a fire beneath you.

Adiran’s hand clenched hard around the hilt of his blade, knuckles bleeding white as the leather dug ridges into his palm. He didn’t have to believe her... but he would. What choice did he have?

“Fine,” he said, releasing his his grip, his hand instead forming a fist at his side. “But whatever we do, it’s happening tonight.”

“Adiran, you can’t be---”

“Tonight, Lirea.” When it became clear to her that he was in no mood to argue, Adiran pressed on. “Meet me here at first bell. And think of a way to deal with the guards.” He met her gaze. Held it. “If I get caught, I’m taking you down with me. You have my word on that.”

To his surprise, his sister didn’t seem even slightly perturbed. Her brow was already furrowed, her arms folded, her finger tapping a steady rhythm against her elbow. She did, however, spare a final glance for him. The fear from before was gone, replaced with her usual detachment. “Fine,” she said in a voice as chilling as a winter’s night. “And what will you do until then?”

Adiran was already turning away, his mind marching ten steps ahead of his body, his heart lodged firmly at the base of his throat. The fire in the sconces shivered against the stone. The hallway seemed to stretch into eternity.

Panic, he thought, feeling sick.

“Prepare,” he replied. And then he left.

#reluctant replies #with an ambiguous scene >.>#because of course #stonebreaker series #adiran #lirea #just... one big happy family hahahahaha ahem #micro story prompt #thank you for indulging me!#sorry it wasn't as micro as it should have been >.>#I will endeavour to do better next time!#captainsaku

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livayl · 5 years ago

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Tusks and Comfort

After getting increasingly annoying with my non snz Azra drawings I thought it´s time to finally post her first story. :P This is about Orcs and takes places before the outbreak of the great war. Meaning Shokhrakka is somewhere in his mid 30s. Azra is his 5 years younger half-sister.

When Azra falls ill during a shared hunting trip Shokhrakka shows off his great big-brother skills. There is also a really cute, young warg named Tusk. Warnings for: slight bad language at some points. Uncovered sneezing that does NOT hit anybody. It´s basically hurt-comfort mixed with a little snark and an adorable puppy.

Please only reblog this to other snz-kink blogs, thank you. :)

Only enlighted in a dwindling, already dulled sundowns dusk the shaded hollows looked their name more than ever. Once a giant mountain so tall its peak had burst through the highest clouds, frozen and hostile even in summer, now a steep ravine reaching up to the heavens on both of its sides. Its charcoal intestines where streaked with an extensive cave system that intertwined almost infinitely; a careless individual would be forlorn, doomed to an early grave within the former giants cold corpse. Sharp, glistening slopes were disguised in malnourished trees and thorny bushes slightly punctuated with narrow paths only known by few. All cloaked in an ever present opaque fog that, swirling tightly around each figure, created new material for nightmares with each new veil. Obsidian rocks and faded green canopies now glistened with thousands of icy droplets as rainwater poured down heavily. Seeping and carving its own ways, adding new clouds of mist in its wake. As intimidating and dangerous as they were, the towering rock walls and the deeply shaded earth in between were the chosen nights accommodation for a small hunting party. Two orcs sat in a small, shallow cave. Closely huddled together with a full grown warg and its barely adolescent brother under a pointed ledge. Their quarry so consumed the carcass was barely discernible in the dim light. If one listened carefully, the soughing melody of rainfall was split by the edged sound of flint stone hitting gravel.

The wood was still young, freshly grown and thus more in sap than Azra would have preferred it to be. It took a while to ignite the wispy branches until a warm amber glow finally twirled them up in an almost hypnotic motion. She watched them getting devoured by the blazing dance until black billows veiled her sight. The resulting smoke was thick, accompanied by ascending sparks and stung as it wafted skywards.

This seemed to be more than her already assaulted senses could handle as the sharp stench crushed her last resolve and triggered a harsh, prolonged coughing fit. If that alone had not been embarrassing enough, successfully attracting her older half-brothers attention and hidden concern, the itch further up her nose seemed to have been kindled as well. Azra barely had time to fully avert her head or shield her mouth, the sudden urge to sneeze so strong it did not build but explode in a single loud almost primal gasp that did culminate in a rushed: "HEHR-ERSSSCHH-uh!" - that, released down her lap and barely restrained by tightly clenched jaws, escaped through the gap her massive tusks naturally left. Right in its wake came the second one, the irritation still persistently present, forcing her head to rear back as a deep inhale strained her chest. If not overwritten by the sheer urgency of this reflex Azra would have been aware of how frightening the displayed snarl appealed: An already grim face distorted even further, many argent piercings mirroring the fires unsteady flicker. Bushy brows drawn deeply together above teary crimson, slightly slanted eyes. The bridge of her orcish nose crinkled even more while her nostrils flared, curling upwards as did her upper lip, revealing mighty fangs: "Huuhrr-EISCHHAH!"

"Ew. Careful where you spit at." Came Shokhrakka reply from her left, his usual sonorous voice vibrating with suppressed amusement. "Fu-hah- Fu~ck-HEH-WRISSSCH! you- Snrfff."

The repeated disturbance had woken and attracted the younger wargs keen senses, made him scoot even closer to its source. His ashen coat still felt slightly damp as out sized, clawed paws scratched over leather clad skin and a cold, wet nose bumped against Azras bare arm. The cool touch evoked a light shiver.

"Aww....Sorry for startling you, Tuskie. Just snrrf some smoke drifted the wrong way." She gently cooed and rumpled through the wargs shaggy fur, carefully massaging his big triangular head with her own claws. Tusk immediately felt invited to cuddle into her side. Underestimating his own strength he nearly slammed into the Orc as he tried to climb into her lap. His tail kept wagging excitedly, fluffy butt following suit with each turn, which dulled his already feral appearance to looking like a long overgrown puppy. "Careful there." Azra chuckled, the low hum re-sparking an irritation deep in her aching throat to a burning blaze that threatened to lead to another coughing fit.

"Gonna sneeze again?" Her brother asked while scrutinizing her facial features that had scrunched up in a subconscious painful wince. "Ugh I hope not. That was enough to last a damned month."

Shokhrakka smiled as the young warg had finally wrestled enough to reach his planned destination and leaned back against his best-friends chest, pink tongue lolling out in a vain attempt to lick over Azras face. His own heart lovingly-ached a little as Azras full lips curved upwards while her strong, long arms embraced his lanky body. Eyes shining brightly as she dodged the juveniles wet attempts of affection over and over again only to playfully pat and kiss Tusks forehead in between. Still, even shrouded by the crackling fires golden glow she seemed pallid and tired, grayish-olive skin that used to have a metallic hue now dulled dustily. Her nose and the area around her eyes were tinted unhealthily dark and the many adornments seemed to feel more irritating than gracing. The soft sheen was not able to blur the indications of exhaustion that had crept deeper into sharply chiseled expressions as the day had progressed.

Maybe he should have listened to his instincts more than her assurances when this morning his half-sister had woken both of them up with a rattling cough. Sitting in a bed ruffled and damp with a nights cold sweat gleaming sickly like a lost wraith in a swamp. But as much as he already came to understand her, she would have denied any weakness and refused to postpone their hunting trip anyways. Sometimes a culture so obstinately driven with status of strength had its downsides. And little had he known of Azras unrelenting sense of pride born out of pure necessity that came with being a warrior in a culture dominated by men. Only the ever present display of both physical and mental health, a raw force sharpened to comprehensive might, had enabled her to become the warrior that was now feared and admired. Although her nose seemed to have forgotten this important knowledge as the twitching and widely flaring nostrils indicated the urge to relent and release another- or several- sneezes.

He silently observed her crinkling and rubbing said nose, lips already parted more than usual while her mouths corners slowly turned downwards. Then, sudden yet fluent like all her movements, she lifted the heavy warg from both to one knee, hands securely around its waist, inhaled deeply and sneezed harshly off to her free side: "hhhHH-HuhhrESSCHH-UH! -hhh-haah-ERRRSCHHaah!" The expulsions were accompanied by a fine but copious spray clearly made visible by the campfire´s backlight and followed by a volley of rattling, chesty coughs. Tusks ears flattened as he squirmed against her solid grip, his own nose trembled and chaps lifted from sharp teeth with concern at his owners violent spasms. "Hey... You´re alright?" Shokhrakka asked, unable to hide his worry any longer. "It´s all good" Azra sputtered out between coughs, still painfully twisted away from both the animal and her brother as much as possible. "You´re aware that the pup can´t catch anything from you, right?" "There´s nothing to catch." Azra replied, sarcasm unable to mask the rasp breaking her tone. "You were the one who told me to watch my spit. "

"Come here pal, let´s give her a little more space to breath." Shokhrakka said and lifted the restless warg back down to the ground. "You are not getting sick on me out here, are you?" He then asked again, voice lowered to the warmest big-brother tone it was able to achieve. Shokhrakka could clearly see her conflicted between giving reassurance with a lie and the honesty his younger sister normally valued so much. "I-I caught a chill. Nothing bad. Just a little coughing and sneezing." She replied elusively. "A lot coughing and sneezing." Her brother replied flatly. Which wasn't an exaggeration. Through all the time he had traveled and fought aside his sister he had witnessed her ghastly injured and in oppressed pain but had rarely heard or seen a sign of illness. Neither a prolonged fever, cough nor sneeze. In fact the only incident he could recall the later was a harsh double brought about by one of those nasty herbal ingredients- and that felt like months ago.

Azra shivered violently against Tusks warm body and tried to focus on the steady dripping sound of rain and the swooshing movement of paddling paws. The not so little puppy seemed to hunt in his dreams as well- his legs and ears twitching and moving alertly from time to time. Sometimes emitting a low, humming growl that vibrated his whole frame. Azra had barely managed to suppress any more symptoms but had not been able to eat and now it appeared she had lost her ability to sleep as well. Unable to breath through her nose she had to keep her mouth open which irritated her sore and aching throat even further. Threatened to cause convulsive coughing fits every few minutes that she fought fiercely to muffle and suppress. A fight she was predestined to loose.

Amid one of those battles she felt one of Shokhrakkas big and rough hands clumsily rub semicircles between her shoulder blades. Sadly it did little to sooth the tight feeling in her chest, right above her lungs where all the coughing made it ache deeply. "Gross. If you want to cuddle you´re barking up the wrong tree. Sleep, brother." "As if anyone could with all of your baying." "... Sorry for keeping you awake." "Don´t worry about it." "I could go outside." Azra suggested.

In truth she had tried to get up to go outside twice after their wargs had fallen asleep, snoring soundly. Either prevented by a sudden vertigo or Shokhrakkas sudden yet strong grip around her ankle. Not that she could not have been stronger, she thought, when reality was that her whole body felt so weak and wobbly she did not trust herself wrestling with an infant yet alone a fully grown Orc. For tonight it seemed like wrestling that nasty illness was all Azra could spend her remaining strength for. As a new coughing fit forced her to press an already sodden piece of cloth tightly against her mouth, her nose, that damned pesterer, caught the opportunity to follow suit with being intrusive. The prickling tickle spread swiftly, almost stabbing the insides of her already widely flaring nostrils and forced her to suck in a deep rattling breath.

Gods be fucking damned she wished...- "hh hheh HHH-HURRR-ESSCHH!"- she could be- "haah-HERSCHHH-ah!"- more- "HDT-ERSSCHHUH!"- hell not again- "HRAH-EESCHHH-uh!"- quiet... Tusk had woken again, jumped up and looked around confusedly. Sensing no danger, his intelligent eyes stopped their search and locked into Azras own. Two gleaming, golden beacons met smoldering red abysses in the caves dusky twilight. Azras shivering worsened the moment the warm and heavy weight in front of her was gone and she started to curl inward against the sudden chill. "Come on, get up if you can. I´ll spark the fire a little more."

Shokhrakka had tried not to let his worry bleed through too much. But as the awakening flames started their crackling waltz, casting flickering shadows and emitting hordes of glowing sparks, they poured a warm, revealing light over Azras shaking figure. The flaring blaze further illuminated her hollow and pale face that had a glow on it´s own- burning with fever and decorated with glittering droplets of cold sweat around her brow and protruding horns. She squinted her once blazing eyes that seemed dulled to gleaming coal. More swallowing the light than reflecting it.

And it did not seem like she would make it the few steps without an accident. She was swaying dangerously while rising, close to toppling over into the flames. The last thing they needed were burn wounds. "Let me help you." Shokhrakka said, doing his best to sustain his sisters body despite her increasingly growing growls and tension. "Let go or I´ll bite you." She hissed between bared fangs. "Yeah because your feeling so hot you can withstand the flames. Here, sit." Shokhrakka sat down next to the fire, on the smoke averted side, and leaned her against his shoulder on one and the cave walls on the other side for support. Tusk whined faintly, unable to snuggle against his orcish friend without risking to singe his fur. He then turned to bark at his older sister who, still tired and worn from hunting, just yawned in response.

"I can sit by myself." Azra mumbled hoarsely but felt more steady with her brothers tall body seated next to her. Firm, scarred and even a little protective as the shaded hollows themselves. "Hush." "You don´t have to stay up with me." She said a little embarrassed and watched Tusk playfully biting into Varz tail. The elder warg turned to snap at him with an annoyed snarl that started a bickering not unusual for the diverse siblings. "Psst." "You´ll get sick too." "Thought it was just a little coughing and sneezing." "Ye-hhehh-yes... Still." "I won´t get sick."

As much as she hated and dreaded it at the same time, this wretched illness seemed eager to test her brothers immune resolve, reigniting a tickle that had been sparked by the sudden firelight. With Shokhrakka so close she saw no choice but to contain the incoming eruptions as best as possible even if she knew how painful that could end. "Huh-" Azras breath started to hitch and as her lungs drew in a deep breath. She crushed her tickling nose between thumb and forefinger while simultaneously shielding her mouth with the palm of the same hand. "-Haaa-HDT-ERSCH-uh! HehDZSCH-ah..." She could not have done anything to avoid the sneezes, neither was she able to bite back the pained groans after every one. "Ouch. Need to wipe your nose?" "Ndo... Uh..." She managed to answer through thick congestion pounding in her even heavier head while pondering if it would be too disgusting to wipe her soiled hand on her tunic. Screw it, she had done worse.

"Gross." Azras brother mimicked her former statement only to lessen the impact with an olive branch clad in a soft handkerchief. "Didn't know you own a thing like that." "I´m always good for surprises." Shokhrakka replied over her productive noseblow that was followed by an even more yielding yawn. "Try to sleep a little." "I´m not tired..." Azra mumbled. Her eyes caught sight of Tusk and Varz who had ended their little quarrel and were starting to lay down next to each other. Their breaths already coming in slow, relaxed huffs.

She felt the pleasantly soothing warmth of the campfire caressing her front and her sides steadied against both rock solid and safe surfaces; one cold and the other feeling like home. Azras eyes slowly drifted shut, breathing deepening and less labored through the upright position. The soft cloth fell out of her grip as dreams sung their relaxing melodies from afar. Sleep did not sound that bad....

#my fic #my oc #Azra #Shokhrakka #sneezing #snzfic #cold #female #sneeze #I might write part 2 #but damn that got long already #Orc #orcgirl

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prettyandsarcastic · 6 years ago

Text

countdown

Title: countdown Fandom: The Arcana Pairing: Asra/MC Rating: SFW Words: 4,147 Summary: A countdown from beginning (end?) to the end (beginning) Also on: AO3 Author’s Note: Remember that thing I said I was writing? Well here it is, 4,000+ words later. This was originally not meant to be longer than like 2,000 words but [shrug emoji]. Also there is a direct quote from the game in here. And please keep in mind a lot of this was just me pulling stuff out of my ass to fill in blanks.

(This is how it ends starts.)

She stumbles into his life. Literally.

An offer to help right the rickety display she’s knocked over is on her lips before she’s even righted herself and the cacophonous roar of the crowd outside his booth falls away as she turns.

“I’m so sorry! Some princess arrived in the city today; between that and the Masquerade everyone is so excited they’re paying attention to hardly a thing else!” She stops rambling as she’s picking up one of the trinkets he’s made: “Ohh, this is pretty, did you make this! How much? The least I can do is buy something since I tried to wreck the place!”

Her smile cleaves open Asra’s chest, soothes that sudden violence by filling the space between his lungs and heart with sunlight, and creeping vines of blooming flowers wrap around the caging of his ribs. Something deep whispers that he’s already lost a battle Asra didn’t realize he was fighting; caught in the thundercloud color of her eyes.

Rosettes blush beneath the constellations he’s already started charting of her freckles. The realization that he’s been staring hits Asra hard as a smack across the face.

“Your name,” he blurts (too) loudly, awkwardly, sloppily. He takes a breath, tries again. “It’s yours for your name.”

“That’s an awfully steep asking price – names have power, you know.” There’s amusement lurking in the corners of her cheshire cat smile.

She’s not playing fair. It’s hard to catch his breath with how light his chest feels, suffocating on that sunshine she’s stuffed inside of him. “What do you think is a fair price, then?”

Asra spends the next year lingering on thoughts of her smile, the warmth of her breath on his cheek; the kiss she’d used as currency and the taste of his regret when he let her say goodbye without telling him her name.

ix.

A strange illness begins to spread through Vesuiva in the three years since Asra first meets Kaelle. Slowly at first, a handful of people here and there – Kaelle’s aunt is, sadly, one of the first to succumb. Her death brings Kaelle back to the city to settle her aunt’s affairs… and to sell the shop. She’s meeting with a potential buyer in the morning, she tells him, and then she’s heading ba c k... h o m e... t o…

Her words fade as the news clangs through Asra like a bell’s toll, reverberates along his bones almost painfully. The idea that Asra may never see her again is a poison in his veins.

“Why don’t you run the shop?”

She laughs in his face. “Me? Oh no, I don’t think so.”

“I’m serious, I’ll help you!”

“You just don’t want me to leave.”

Maybe Kaelle expects him to laugh off the playful accusation, but he can’t. He can’t because she doesn’t know, Asra’s never told her, hasn’t been brave enough because it was always enough to spend a few moments caught in her orbit. He’s never told Kaelle about the sunshine in his chest and flowers hanging on his ribs and the way he aches when she smiles at him.

“Yes,” Asra admits, and it feels like his heart tumbles from the tip of his tongue as he does.

Kaelle lets him walk her back to the shop, lets him kiss her at the front door when he asks – something to remember him by. It’s supposed to be gentle, the lingering brush of his lips against hers, barely there because he doesn’t trust himself, and it is, at first until Kaelle makes a soft sound in the back of her throat that destroys him.

And Asra kisses her again, stronger, tries to fill his lungs with the taste of her because if this, yesyesyes, if this is the last he has of her, thisthisthis is what he wants to remember. This is what he wants, always, until the ocean tides rise and wash everything away, until the stars burn out of the sky and the sun collapses on itself. He didn’t know it was possible to want something so desperately and they don’t have enough - hoursdaysyears - time.

He comes back to himself long enough to catch his breath. His fingers slide into her hair until he’s holding the back of her neck; the blush of her cheek is searing beneath the pad of his thumb.

“Invite me in,” he rasps into the air between them. “Please, Kaelle.”

She does. Into the shop where the boxes tell him that Kaelle’s been in the city for weeks before he chanced upon her in the tavern tonight (and that she hadn’t intended to say goodbye). Into her bed where Asra spends the hours learning the taste of her skin, and falling in love with the way she breathes and sighs his name. He doesn’t dare close his eyes for a moment, desperate to commit it perfectly to memory down to the stinging pain of Kaelle’s fingernails on his shoulder blades.

In the morning light Asra wakes, weary, heart heavy with a yawning hollow already forming in the pit of his stomach. Until he feels gentle fingers carding through his hair. He rolls, finds Kaelle already dressed and perched on the edge of the bed, her eyes shining.

“I told the buyer the shop’s not for sale.”

viii.

Asra’s a little surprised when he receives a summons to the palace, is even more surprised when Count Lucio asks demands his help. He’s fallen ill with the same sickness that’s been sweeping through the city for the past several years – The Red Plague they’re calling it because of the ghastly color that overtakes the whites of the victim’s eyes. People die everyday by the dozens now, and there’s no telling who it will take, there’s no discernible pattern to the disease’s spread. And no way so far to stem its deadly tide.

He’s seen the people suffering first hand, in the customers that come into Kaelle’s shop and beg for any relief she or Asra can offer. Word must have spread to Lucio about the draught she brews that ease the symptoms for a time, but must not know she’s actually the one who makes it otherwise she would be there as well.

The Count offers wealth and fame, a title even, anything Asra desires is within Lucio’s power to give.

But Asra thinks of the coliseum, hears the roar of a crowd calling for a kill so loudly it carries through the streets. He thinks of the district that flooded last week, how the displaced residents asked for aid from the palace and none ever came. He hears the carts rolling through the streets, the steady ring of the undertaker’s bell and calling -

Bring out your dead!

“No.” The thought of helping Lucio is enough to turn his stomach – let him suffer the way the people have suffered because before he had fallen ill, Lucio didn’t care about the devastation the plague wrought. “My magic isn’t for sale.”

He expects Lucio to throw a fit, but Asra is alarmingly surprised when the Count’s eyes, not yet that glaring red, light up with amusement. “Isn’t it? I thought that was the purpose of that tacky shop you have.”

The casual mention of the shop is enough to freeze Asra’s blood because it’s too close too close to Kaelle. And something must shift just enough in his expression, or the way he holds himself because a feral grin splits Lucio’s face – he’s scented Asra’s blood in the water. There’s something there that Lucio can leverage against him, he just doesn’t know what it is.

“I should have made my meaning clearer,” Asra says despite the panic clawing its way up his spine, “my magic isn’t for sale to you.”

Asra turns sharply on his heel despite not being formally dismissed and the guards stop him in the doorway. “Mark my words, magician, you will help me, eventually.”

Asra never did like the way Lucio said it.

vii.

A city-wide call goes out.

The Count and Countess are opening the palace doors and making available their near limitless resources to anyone willing to devote their minds and skills to curing the Red Plague. To whoever cures the plague goes wealth, renown, and the unending gratitude of all Vesuvia.

Kaelle finds Asra in the middle of furiously packing. “Asra, what in the world are you doing?”

“We’re leaving, getting as far away from Vesuvia as we can,” he tells her. “Somewhere we’ll be safe.”

“I’m not going anywhere, and I don’t think you should either.”

The conversation devolves quickly into an argument. Kaelle wants to help find a cure for the plague, to help the people suffering and dying. She won’t listen to Asra telling her that it’s a farce, Lucio doesn’t care about the people, if anyone finds a cure it may never even make it to those who so desperately need it. It may be a farce, she argues, but if she helps then she knows the cure will make it to the people even if she has to personally see to it.

And he hateshateshates how calm she is in the face of his distress.

“What if you get sick trying to find the cure!?” Asra shouts, though it comes out choked with emotion. He blinks and the whites of her eyes are red, her lips cracked and pale. Blinks again and the vision’s gone but his stomach turns over itself, the floor sways beneath his feet.

“People risk their lives everyday, and for much less than a plague cure,” she replies. Only Kaelle would find nobility in such an agonizing death. “This is bigger than you or me, Asra.”

It is, but Asra can’t admit how terrified he is, can’t swallow down the acrid taste of it in the back of his throat. He doesn’t want to leave without her, but he can’t stay – it’s tearing him a p a r t.

Three steps out the back door Asra wants to turn around, but he doesn’t.

vi.

The desert is lovely, bright, and vast. When the sun is at its highest Asra can see for miles in every direction until the heat warps the distant horizon. At night the moon soothes and comforts what the day scorched and he counts the stars until sleep overtakes him. It would be peaceful, beautiful, but even out here he can see the distant red clouds over Vesuvia, the towering plumes of smoke from the Lazaret and the furnaces that burn all day and night and reach up, up, up, like a skeletal hand trying to pull the sky down, down, down.

Letters from Kaelle find their way to him at their desert sanctuary, though he’s not surprised – he hadn’t exactly made it a secret where he was going. The letters arrive once a week and they ease his heart at least a little, though the days in between he’s a tangled knot of anxiety and agony.

She tells him how she is (still healthy and proud of the work she’s doing); about the doctor she’s working under (Dr. Devorak); how the city smells of smoke constantly (from the crematorium); that this winter’s snow was black (polluted by soot and ash); and that she checks on Muriel frequently (I still don’t think he likes me very much).

After a few weeks the letters stop asking Asra to come home, but she finishes each one the same:

I love you. My heart misses yours. I’ll see you soon.

In his letters Asra tells her that he spends his time doing little jobs for the nearby village, patching a roof here, healing someone there (I helped deliver a baby, can you believe it?); how he was invited to their annual festival (I wish I could have danced with you); and keeps her updated on the status of her beloved succulents (still alive and thriving).

He does not stop asking her to leave the city to join him and ends all of his letters the same:

I love, love, love you. I miss you terribly. Keep yourself safe.

It happens during one of the days between letters. He startles awake, his body so overwhelming hot all over that he twists and vomits over the side of the bed. There’s a cloying sickly-sweet smell permeating the air that he recognizes as the scent of dead and dying things. All he can taste is blood between his teeth and every struggling inhale burns like he’s swallowed hot coals. Something is... deeply, deeply wrong.

I’m… sorry, Asra.

He summons a ball of light and looks around only to find every one of Kaelle’s succulents, thriving only hours ago, has withered and died.

The shop is dark and cold when Asra returns. It is also immaculately clean and there’s a letter sitting on the counter with his name on it.

My Dear Asra, If you’re reading this then it means you’ve come home and I cannot tell you how happy that makes me, unfortunately, I’m not there to welcome you back and for that I’m sorry. I began suspecting I was sick the day I sent my last letter and began writing this one; after I finish it and clean the shop I’m taking myself to the Lazaret – I can’t bear the thought of getting anyone else sick. I want you to have the shop, it was always more yours than mine anyway since you’re the one who wanted me to run it in the first place. But I have a request to make of you – the last request of a dying woman – find Julian… Dr. Devorak and help him. Something is terribly wrong in Vesuvia, and I don’t believe it’s entirely because of the plague. And please, try not to hate Julian, he’s a good man and I didn’t tell him I wasn’t feeling well. He’s going to torture himself enough as it is when he finds out. I’m sorry, Asra, that I’m leaving you but I don’t regret staying even now. I love you so very dearly. Everything I am will burn to ash save for that and if that love is all I’ve left behind… I think I’ll be alright with that. Don’t let me haunt you, I don’t want to be a ghost of regret that you carry in the dark corners of your soul. I love, love, love you. I will wait for you in the next life. Kaelle

Asra only knows the blackened bones he finds are Kaelle’s because he can still feel the last vestiges of her magic desperately clinging to the marrow. The sun that she’d lit in his chest all those years ago goes supernova, collapses on itself and leaves nothing but a heavy, endless black that settles like silt in the bottom of his lungs and kicks up with every gasping, wailing breath. The flowers that she’d woven around his ribs wilt and wither and die, rot away to compost at the base of his spine.

He’s certain that he shatters, sharp, glittering edges catching in the light. He wants to bury her twofoursix feet deeper, crawl into that grave and make it theirs and when, a thousand years from now, someone digs them up will find his bones wrapped around hers and think he must have loved her like a tragedy because they knew nothing of the before; but his heart refuses to stop beat-beat-beating behind the prison of his breastbone.

Instead he picks up his pieces and puts them back together wrong.

(It will take Asra years more to understand that breaking and being broken are not the same thing.)

iv.

There’s a spellbook in the shop that Asra has never opened, one that had belonged to Kaelle’s aunt and lives in a locked, protected cabinet. Kaelle never told him how her aunt came to be in possession of it, and truthfully she may not have even known.

What Asra does know is that the book is unlike any he has ever seen before and that the spells, the rituals, are powerful. He has only seen Kaelle use the book twice in the years he’s known her and each time after working the spell, she slept for two days.

If Kaelle were alive here, he knows exactly what she would say to see him unlocking the cabinet.

(Don’t let me haunt you, her letter had said. But how can he not when the silence of the shop echoes with her absence, when the air is still perfumed with the scent of her hair and he turns toward every shifting shadow in the vain hope that it will be her.)

But Kaelle is dead not here, and Asra is just desperate enough.

It takes surprisingly little to convince Lucio of the ritual – a not entirely untrue lie about only helping the Count to help himself. Lucio never suspects Asra’s duplicity because he believes that everyone is just as self-centered and self-serving as he is.

iii.

He wishes, deeply, that Kaelle had been wrong about Julian… Ilya. He is a good man, ridiculous, dramatic, flamboyant but good and maybe that’s why Asra finds it so difficult to truly hate the man the way he wants.

Ilya talks about her sometimes, his brilliant apprentice, because he doesn’t know what she was to Asra, doesn’t know they even knew one another. He can never make himself stay and listen. He doesn’t want to share her memory with anyone, and Ilya remembers her wrong. So Asra leaves Ilya to his pacing, goes to the tree where he carved her name – to remember why he’s come to the palace in the first place. He closes his eyes and pretends the wind rustling the leaves is Kaelle’s whisper in his ear, the breeze through his hair is her gentle fingers.

But Ilya is too curious for his own good, asks too many questions and yearns. It’s easy enough to distract him.

Ilya tastes like desperation, like the last swig of whiskey in the bottom of a glass, all burn and none of the warmth. Asra wants him to realize it’s a mistake to want him, that there’s something inside of him that rose from the graveyard in his chest with cracked skin and a snarling voice that cannotcannotcannot give Ilya what he wants. But he takes everything Asra gives him and still asks for more!yes!harder! until Asra’s heart-sick, grieving pain is bruised, scratched, and bitten into Ilya’s skin.

The next morning Asra heals the marks, hands softer, gentler than the night before – he ignores the warmth in Ilya’s eyes, the hope in the corner of his smile. In another life Asra could have loved Ilya the way he wants…

… but not this one.

ii.

The voice comes from everywhere and nowhere all at once. He hears it in his head, feels it in his bones, in the goosebumps that rise on his arms. There’s someone – something, moving around him, assessing.

What will you give me, I wonder? Is there even a price you won’t pay?

“Anything.” Everything, he doesn’t say.

… That’s an awfully dangerous offer. You have no idea what I could demand as payment.

He’s willing to pay any price. Pleasepleaseplease. Take the breath in his lungs, the blood in his veins –

The beat of your heart? Now there’s an idea… Are you certain?

“Anything,” Asra repeats, steady. Certain.

As you wish. Asra blinks, feels the weight of a dagger in his hand. The blade is as long as his hand and wickedly sharp. A heart willingly given, for a soul returned.

“You can’t just take it?” he asks.

That’s not how it works. It’s a bargain, both parties must be willing.

“… Will I feel it?” he wonders. Because they are somewhere between real and not, neither here nor there.

It will be the most painful thing you have ever experienced.

“I doubt that.”

But Asra is wrong. So very, very wrong – it’s simply a different kind of pain. At the first bite of the dagger’s blade against his chest, Asra sucks in his breath against the sharp pain. The warmth of his blood blooms through his shirt, runs in rivulets down his skin, to the waist of his pants. There’s sweat at his hairline, his knees thump to the ground; he nearly loses his grip on the dagger.

Someone is screaming, it rackets around Asra’s skull and down his spine.

He can’t get the blade past his breastbone, falls forward into his hands, panting, slip-sliding in the pool of his blood so thick he can see his wrecked reflection.

Somewhere, the voice sighs and there’s the phantom sensation of a comforting hand on his shoulder, soothing down his back. It’s alright, that’s enough now.

No!

Asra rears up onto his knees, grips the hilt with both hands and lets loose a scream that tastes like copper as he uses all his strength to force the blade past his breast until it gives with an alarming crack! He can’t see through the tears in his eyes and the way his vision is beginning to tunnel. But he starts to carve with jerky, imprecise movements.

He half expects the thing he pulls out of his chest to be withered and black, but it’s warm and dripping red, fluttering like a baby bird in the palm of his hand.

The bargain is struck.

Asra wakes abruptly as if from a nightmare, gasping, sweat cooling on his brow. He’s in the shop, but he can’t remember how he got here from the palace – wasn’t he just in Lucio’s private dining room?

As he swings his legs over the side of the bed a sudden, lancing pain in his chest stops him with a groan. It’s sharp and white, almost blinding in its intensity and steals his breath. He feels heartbeat beneath his palm, but it stutters, skips like a stone over water.

A crash from downstairs startles Asra to his feet, and there’s another once he reaches the bottom of the stairs.

When he pulls back the curtain to the backroom, Asra stops in his tracks.

“… Kaelle?”

He’s not thinking as he crosses the room in three strides, drops to where she’s crowded into the corner and pulls her to him. His eyes are burning as he tucks his face into the crook of her neck, breathes in the scent of her skin – feels her heart beatingbeatingbeating against his. Asra never wants to let Kaelle go, he wants to climb inside of her, live inside her skin and make a home out of her bones, fuse his soul to hers.

And for one beautiful, blissful moment Asra is the happiest he has ever been. The sun in begins to rise in his chest, blushing sunrise colors fill his veins and coax those long dead flowering vines back to life around his ribs.

He pulls back, confused, when she doesn’t return the embrace – the look on her face is afraid and there are tears threatening to spill over her cheeks. A low, keening moan sounds from the back of her throat.

“Kaelle? It’s alright, you’re home.”

She doesn’t seem to understand him, doesn’t seem to be able to do much of anything, and then –

The bargain is struck.

Asra remembers why his heart is skipping, why it feels like he was stabbed in the chest. Be cause he was, because he had carved out his heart to bring Kaelle back to him. He looks at her more closely now and sees nothing of the Kaelle he knew. There are no scars, no blemishes, none of the imperfections he had known so well. But it is her, it feels like her so why –

A heart willingly given, for a soul returned.

… Only her soul had returned. Not her memories.

Asra pushes himself to his feet, backs away from Kaelle, out of the back room and into the shop proper. His thoughts begin to spiral just as she begins to wail – a high, distressed sound – asking for help in the only way she knows how right now. This wasn’t supposed to happen. She was supposed to return to him alive and whole – why hadn’t it worked?

Dismally, it occurs to Asra that he should have offered more. He should have carved his whole heart out of his chest, reached beyond that and tore his very soul out of himself.

But it’s too late now. So Asra takes a calming breath, wipes the wetness from his lashes and returns to where Kaelle is hiccuping and sobbing in the corner. She stops when she notices he’s come back, but still curls into herself tighter when he crouches in front of her.

“My name is Asra, I’m going to help you, Kaelle.”

(This is how it ends starts.)

Thanks for reading, I know it was long! Reblogs are welcome!

#the arcana #asra x apprentice #asra x mc #asra #julian devorak #asra x julian #kaelle #kay writes

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gwydionae · 4 years ago

Text

Eyes Wide Open

A/N: The urge to write this came on very suddenly, and it's a bit outside my normal style. It happened after I read an old Naruto fanfiction called "Rain Petals" by Sedentary Wordsmith from 2008, and while I don't know that mine and their's have much in common, I felt I should mention it. Not only did it make me feel inspired - it's 26 unique one shots dealing with Sasuke in one way or another - but it's just a darn good fic that deserves a bit of spotlight.

Anyway, fic completely under the cut as the descriptions of bloody corpses starts at the word go, lol. I wasn’t trying to be graphic, but some stuff is just gross by nature. :P

Posted on fanfiction.net >here<.

Teaser: Seven year old eyes gazed at his own seventeen year old corpse, his decade long obsession walking slowly away, blood still dripping from the eyes held tightly in his older brother's grasp.

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. Canon divergence. Rated M for gore and violence.

Eyes Wide Open

Seven year old eyes gazed at his own seventeen year old corpse. They were as empty and lost as the bloody body, allowing the low, mirthless laughter emanating from the nearby figure to permeate the large room without garnering even a blink. His clothes and weapons were stained a vibrant red, contrasted occasionally by a protruding white bone. The fingers on his right hand were burned black. His seventeen year old eyes were still half open, vacant.

At some point the laughter had stopped, replaced by words, words that swirled around his seven year old eyes without really being comprehended. His dead body was being addressed. The speaker came forward, kneeling down, the black cloak with crimson clouds also showing signs of a brutal battle. A hand with a red ring slowly reached out and touched his pale face, turning his seventeen year old eyes towards their own. The man pried an eyelid open wide. His red eye with three black tomoe stared back. The laughter rang out again.

Black, empty, seven year old eyes watched as his brother ripped his seventeen year old eyes from their sockets, his body not even yet having the chance to lose its warmth.

Prize in hand, the older man seemed to contemplate his bloody corpse, pausing only briefly before carelessly, effortlessly tossing it into a candlelit corner of the dim room, a chokuto soon following its former owner. Seven year old eyes followed and stared as if entranced as light flickered and danced around his empty eye sockets, the bloody shadows boring into him, mocking his failure. His brother still lived. He had given him even greater power. His clan would most assuredly end with him. And those who had gone on before would not be avenged.

He could not join them, his mother and father, his aunts and uncles, his grandparents, cousins. He could not. He would not. He would remain, weak and broken and useless, unfit to wear the family crest upon his back, worthy only of at last being slaughtered. Seven year old eyes, too traumatized to cry, could merely watch as his decade long obsession walked slowly away, blood still dripping from his seventeen year old eyes held tightly in the older man's grasp.

_________________________________

Thirteen year old eyes snarled and screamed, silent and hoarse, as the shadow of his killer again loomed over his decaying body. His brother's eyes - his seventeen year old eyes - raked over his bloated abdomen, his reddened skin, his balding scalp, the stains from the foul liquids he secreted. A slight wrinkle of the nose was the only sign of the stench of decay in the air; a small smile betrayed the man's sick pleasure.

Hatred and anger raged at the one he once cherished and envied. He did not want those eyes - his eyes - to see his body in such a state, to sneer at his body in such a state. This disgusting, desecrated shell had trained, fought, sacrificed to gain the strength, the power to stand in the other's presence, and though death was his lone prize, he would not abide the shame those eyes made him feel. His thirteen year old eyes held too much pride and conviction for that.

His brother was speaking now, but he did not hear it. His intense seething was like a high pitched ringing, a focal point for his attention, vibrating in the thick air. Only the raised fists with fingernails painted purple managed to momentarily pause his solitary tirade, and when fingers unfurled, thirteen year old eyes widened, choking on humiliation and contempt.

Dull black eyes bore into him, one in each pale palm.

The hands slowly tipped, allowing their contents to roll off and plummet towards the hard floor, the sound of the impact like the boom of thunder. His brother's eyes landed next to his reddened, balding head. Empty sockets stared at dull black. His seventeen and thirteen year old eyes stared at them both.

Shaking with fury, thirteen year old eyes cried out their frustration and agony long after the courier had departed. _________________________________

Sixteen year old eyes studied what was left of his body impassively. His hair lay wreathed on the floor around his decaying scalp. Some of his finger and toe nails, as well as his teeth, had fallen out. Maggots had taken up residence in his chest cavity and eye sockets. Only his bloodstained clothes and faithful chokuto were left as clear indicators of who this mass of rotting flesh had once belonged to.

His brother's eyes had long since closed for the final time.

The squirming mass of maggots held his gaze. Even amongst death there was life, unfulfilling and grotesque as it was. The wriggling scavengers gnawed at his remaining flesh, consuming his body to build their own. They would go on to live their short, meaningless lives, and die unknown to anyone.

He had been a maggot in life. Clinging to death, in both his inability to let go of lost loved ones and his obsession with pursuing a murderer, he scratched and clawed his way to power, tearing down others to build up himself. His village, his team, his best friend, all became mere tools in his quest for vengeance. All of it so he could burn fast and bright, extinguishing before his life's only ambition could ever be fulfilled. And now his remains lay still and forgotten, one less unwanted pest in the world of men.

He had been a maggot. Sixteen year old eyes could see that now. But there was nothing to be done for it. He would stay among his fellow parasites until they left him behind, and when his rotten corpse fully decomposed, eventually leaving no trace of the life cut short, he would remain in his involuntarily acquired tomb, his eyes used to the lonely darkness. _________________________________

Twelve year old eyes widened in disbelief and dread at the two figures before him. His stolen seventeen year old eyes followed the slope of their cloaked arm down a hand with a fingernail painted purple toward the grim display of flesh and bone in the candlelit corner. Even the maggots had nearly all left him now, a hollow gaze and gasp visible beneath what was left of his dry, cracked skin. But it wasn't his stolen seventeen year old eyes he wished to shield from the sight; it was the wide, bright blue eyes, the eyes that shone with denial and despair.

The hand with the red ring reached up to gesture to the gloating face where the only two thriving pieces of the nearby corpse remained, filled with triumph. His eyes, but not his triumph. The other figure stared in shock, realization dawning on the all too innocent face. Thick, heavy tears flowed steadily, unceasingly down tanned cheeks. Whispers of grief escaped from between growing, sharpening teeth, turning into snarls of rage. Blue eyes darkened to red. And twelve year old eyes watched helplessly as his best friend clashed with his brutal murderer.

Wind and fire roared within the confines of the dark room. The two became thirty as twenty-eight additional tear-stained faces popped into existence, all avoiding the gaze of their black cloaked opponent. But as fists, weapons, and chakra clashed, more and more wisps of smoke filled the room as thirty rapidly dwindled to twenty, to ten, to five.

Splatters of crimson decorated the walls and floor, adding fresh stains to his grave as twelve year old eyes tried wildly to discern which of the combatants it was spilling from. Both friend and foe bore injuries, but as five became two once more, the gap in skill and damage taken showed clearly in the older man's stoic countenance and the younger's ragged breaths.

Twelve year old eyes felt cold. Numb. His friend was going to lose. His friend was going to die here, body left to be the food of maggots and forgotten alongside his own abandoned corpse. His friend who had tried so desperately to save him from his fate. His friend who he'd betrayed, mocked, scorned, forsaken.

Animalistic eyes were unable to keep up with the assault while avoiding the other's deadly gaze as another blow aimed to kill descended.

His friend, his one and only true friend, who did not deserve the same dishonorable death as a selfish failed avenger.

The hand with the red ring wielding the bloody kunai seemed to slow in its approach. The whipping of the black cloak, the rippling of the dark hair, all movement suddenly, inexplicably waited for shocked, feral eyes to catch up. He watched and dodged as the trajectory of the kunai towards his vulnerable throat was revealed, ducking out of the way with a foresight the older man had seen only once before and had been certain would not be seen again. Red eyes refused to blink as the near miss flew by, his mind registering the split second of an opening with which to deal his own fatal wound, an uncharacteristically exact and precise blow.

Now, Naruto!

Swirling, howling wind and chakra struck his brother squarely in the chest. Blood poured from pale lips parted in horror as red eyes turned black trailed down to the carnage spewing from their body before fluttering closed. Knees giving out, the older man sank to the floor, crumpling into a gory heap. The room fell silent. Red eyes returned to blue. And stolen seventeen year old eyes grew dim once more.

Twelve year old eyes watched as the remaining figure briefly hovered over the defeated before tentatively kneeling down. Such a position was held, soft squelching noises the only disturbance, and upon finally standing back up, the other boy turned toward his derelict candlelit corner. He glanced at the tanned hands grasping something in their bloody grip.

"I think you should have these back, Sasuke."

Two black eyes - his eyes - were placed gently on the ground near his rotting corpse. His brother's eye sockets stared into nothingness, empty.

"I'm sorry. And... thank you."

Soft tears once again dripped from blue eyes, though twelve year old eyes were calmed by the sight of a small smile and the continued sound of a gentle voice. The presence of his best friend brought him a peace he hadn't known since his eyes were much younger, holding a far more innocent glint, and the words spoken to his broken body reminded him of laughter and joy.

The other boy had done the impossible and saved a dead man.

Six year old eyes smiled as they watched their friend walk away. Fire purified his remains to ash, the space around him growing even brighter and warmer than the cleansing flames. He could see his family again. He could rest now. His eyes closed for the final time.

_________________________________

A/N: Are line breaks gone??? Where did they go?? Am I just being dumb?? Anyway sorry for all of the eyeballs. XD Also there’s a specific, uh, thing I did in my writing that I doubt anyone will pick up on, but there is a specific paragraph towards the end where, in case what happened is too vague, it gives a bigger clue - I was very particular about when I used the words “his” and “he”.

As always, critics and grammar police are appreciated!

#naruto #sasuke uchiha #uchiha sasuke #itachi uchiha #naruto uzumaki #uchiha itachi #uzumaki naruto #my fanfiction #yup there i go ignoring canon again #don't ever expect a story from me in which itachi lines up with his canon self lol

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literallyjustanerd · 7 years ago

Text

In His Eyes (Chapter 8)

School is back in! And yet I somehow managed to write the longest chapter yet!

Genre: Slow build/eventual romance Word count: 5008 Pairing: Nightcrawler/Angel Rating: T+

You can also read this chapter (and all the chapters before it) here!

The night is cold. Cold enough that when Kurt exhales, the air billows out in front of him in a small, translucent cloud. His legs are drawn in close to his chest, his tail hugged tightly around him, and after twenty minutes he has only just lifted his head from where it has been buried into his knees. The moon’s light is weak and milky, but with his eyes he can still see the wind meandering through the tall oak and pine trees that pepper the grounds below him. His lips still feel strange: numb, and not just from the cold. It is as though he can still feel Warren on them, warm, desperate, unexpected, and… welcome? Unwelcome? Kurt still cannot decide. During the brief, fleeting moment they had been locked together, Warren’s hands firmly grasping each of Kurt’s arms just below the shoulder, Kurt’s muscles had turned to melted butter, and he had wondered whether everything was fixed, if everything after the kiss would be the fairy tale he had always secretly wanted he and Warren to be.

But the moment the warmth began to fade, the moment the magic was broken, the all-swallowing pit in his stomach had assured him that no, this wasn’t the part of the story where the protagonist and his love interest finally confessed their true feelings to one another and embraced and kissed and laughed about how foolish they’d been trying to hide it. Instead, it was the part of the story where the protagonist, filled to the point of nausea with a sudden embarrassment and terror, fled the scene, and hid on a roof for twenty minutes to avoid confronting his own feelings, and the feelings of the boy he’d been pining over for months. And now, here he is, huddled against the bitter night, feeling the wind turn the tearstains on his face into small streams of concentrated cold and wondering how he is ever meant to look Warren in the eyes again. Is Warren upset with him for running away? Is he hurt? A sick feeling kicks up in the hollow of Kurt’s chest. Is he angry? He tries to picture Warren in his room, surrounded by the things Kurt had left for him, the evidence of a gesture that now seems childish and unwise. Kurt himself feels childish and unwise. Too unequipped to be in this situation at all. Of course it had burned to the ground.

Fix. Warren had asked Kurt if he thought he was going to fix him. The word lingers in Kurt’s mind, unfolding and reshaping into new and unhappy realisations. Warren thinks of himself as broken, as in need of fixing. Warren thinks that Kurt thinks of him as broken. That, above all, is enough to erase the last of Kurt’s anger, and replace it with something even harder to swallow: regret. Deep, dark, horrible regret, the claws of which tease at his insides, pulling strings now and then to make him remember another cutting remark or lamentable retort he had thrown out in the moments his temper had taken control. He should have stayed. He should have talked to Warren, calmed him, and calmed himself. He should have found a way to defuse the situation. He considers prayer: that is what has always assisted him through these tough situations in the past, steering him towards redemption and reconciliation. But for some reason, he knows that tonight it will be of no help to him. Instead, he lets out a deep sigh, watches the mist of his breath dissolve in front of him, and allows his muscles to relax a little. He will be out here for a while yet, simply because he cannot imagine making himself move from this still, silent reverie. At least here, in the almost ethereal, surreal atmosphere of complete isolation, he can pretend he has only imagined all the events that now plague his thoughts.

You are a fucking idiot. The voice in Warren’s head has been repeating those words, occasionally with different, more scathing words added in. He lies on his bed, splayed uncomfortably on top of his wings and looking up towards the high, faded ceiling. Now and then, another surge of frustration hits him, and he slams a fist into his forehead or kicks the heel of his foot into the wall in anger. The heat of the moment, and the rush of emotions that had come with them have long since passed, leaving him with nothing but a desolate feeling in his stomach. It is as though there is a hole somewhere inside him, and the more he thinks about what he has done, the more he remembers the look on Kurt’s face in the instant before he vanished, he more empty he feels, and without any way to react, the sensation consumes him until it lights every nerve in his chest and fingertips on fire and leaves him to burn alive. The image of Kurt’s face will not leave his mind. His eyes, frantic and defensive, like a cornered animal. He could almost see Kurt searching through his mind and trying to figure out what angle Warren would take now to continue his side of the fight. The look that assumed that whatever Warren had done had to be some new tactic designed to find crueller and more unusual ways to put him down. Imagining the look alone was enough to defeat Warren, to leech all the anger out of him. The idea that Kurt would see him as an assailant, and would see the kiss as some strange new way to hurt him, seethes within his mind and forces him to confront everything he has said to Kurt over the months, every way he had pushed and pulled and otherwise abused the boy’s kind, forgiving nature. If only he had it in him to be able to tell Kurt the truth: he has captivated Warren for months, aroused feelings in him that have confused him to no end. And the kiss? Well, the kiss was the result of too much repressed emotion bubbling over and taking over his conscious mind. Warren drives the heels of his hands deep into his damp eyes, welcoming the pain that blooms out from beneath the sockets. Once more he hears it: you are a fucking idiot. That is the last he can remember before falling into a restless, uneasy sleep.

When the next morning comes, both boys dread facing the real world again. The realm of friends, of amicable teasing and complaints about the usual things like breakfast and homework, seems so far away, and the prospect of pretending to be fine in light of the previous night’s events feels hopeless. Even outside of that, both are acutely aware that part of their argument had been heard by two of their friends, neither of who would have had any qualms in sharing the juicy piece of gossip. And yet, they have no choice, and to avoid arousing suspicion, Kurt forces himself to rise from his bed and dress himself in anticipation of a long, hard day. Warren can get away with not leaving his room: it has been a long, long time since anyone but Kurt has stopped trying to rouse him on the days when he decided he would not face the world of the living. But Kurt has a reputation to keep up. Kurt approaches the table where his friends sit a little later than usual, and immediately knows his efforts to seem light and carefree have been for nought: they are speaking rapidly in hushed tones, talk that ceases the moment Jean catches sight of the blue boy drawing near and chokes off her story mid-sentence. His stomach constricts: how much do they know? He cannot ask – or rather, he will not ask. He does not have it in him to start such confrontations. And so, he sits down with his slice of buttered toast and quartered orange, and tries to tolerate the nausea that accompanies his dread of Warren appearing. Mercifully, in a small reprieve, the meal passes without any sign of him, and Kurt is able to finish eating and slip away from the table before anyone can work up the courage to ask him a question. Scott watches carefully as Kurt leaves the dining hall, tail almost literally between his legs, reminiscent of a hurt puppy in demeanour. He loses himself to thought and speculation, and Peter has to repeat himself twice before he finally gets any attention. “He didn’t show up in our room until late last night,” he says, gaze shifting from the closing doors back to Scott. “No?” Scott replies. “Nope. Had no idea where he was. He was gone when I fell asleep, there by the time I woke up.” “Hm.” “Any idea what might’ve happened?” Scott frowns, eyes still stuck in the middle distance “No. None.”

It is almost not a lie. While he knows as much as anyone else at the table about what specifically took place between Kurt and Warren the previous night, he is at an advantage being the only one to know about the subtext between the two, at least from Kurt’s side. In his mind, a scene takes form: Warren accusing, insulting, denigrating, and Kurt cowering, meekly defending, wishing he had just stayed quiet. As the conversation at the table turns to wondering just what the pair could have been fighting over, Scott rises from his seat and sets his sights on the door. Past the crowd, through the doors, up the main stairs as his footsteps echoed through the empty, cavernous foyer, and along the hallway towards Warren’s room Scott takes himself, fuelled by a deep-down desire to protect his friend. The sound of a heavy bass line and screaming guitar grows louder as he approaches: a clear sign that Warren is in no mood to attend classes today. As he goes to reach for Warren’s doorknob, he feels a momentary breeze, and Peter is next to him, leaning back against the wall on the opposite side of the door. “What are we doing?” he asks casually. “Get lost, burnout.” “Whoa. I’m not the one messing with other people’s private affairs. I’m Kurt’s roommate and you don’t see me trying to fight his battles for him.” “You don’t get it.” “What’s there not to get?” Scott drops his arms to his sides in annoyance. “It’s nothing. Not my place to say.” “Ah, come on, tight ass. Let me in on it.” His insistence brings on a sigh. A deep one. He can tell Peter is not about to let up: for someone who can get most things done in a fraction of a second, Peter is relentlessly patient when it comes to gossip.

“Kurt has… a bit of a thing for Warren,” he says carefully. Instantly, Peter’s eyebrows rise with the new revelation, a smile spreading across his face like a child who has just successfully snuck into somewhere they do not belong. In the pause before Peter speaks again, the screeching and wailing of the music stops, leaving a brief moment of silence before the next song begins and the two boys are afforded the cover of noise once more. “Really? What sort of thing?” “I don’t know,” Scott says shortly. “Just a thing. He told me about it the day Warren started flying again.” “So you think this fight they’ve had is about that?” Peter asks, turning to face the doorway as Scott folds his arms and shrugs in response. “I don’t know. That’s what I’m here to find out.” “God, please tell me you’re gonna go in there and try to intimidate him into talking to Kurt. I so want to see that.” “What?” Scott frowns under his glasses, and Peter is already on thin ice. The boy across from him grins, daring Scott to argue the point, and demonstrate himself as not just a “stick-in-the-mud,” but uptight about it as well. Left at a stalemate, Scott gives a heavy sigh and knocks firmly on the door. Predictably, there is no response, and Scott knocks louder. When more time passes and the two boys are still left waiting, Peter decides to take matters into his own hands. “Warren! Open up, jerkface!” The music dims, the bed creaks, and heavy footsteps sound as Warren approaches the door, swinging it open with a look that instantly shatters all Scott’s hopes of appearing imposing. He says nothing, instead shifting his eyes from Scott to Peter expectantly. His eyes looks sunken and slightly out of focus. If his visitors didn’t know better, they could swear the redness and puffiness in his eyes suggested tears.

Peter looks from Warren to Scott pointedly, cocking an eyebrow in an attempt to remind Scott of his purpose. Scott shakes himself out of his own thoughts and clears his throat, trying to scrape together the conviction to seem authoritative. “I want to know what happened with you and Kurt,” he states, emulating his best teacher voice. Warren rolls his eyes and goes to shut the door, but Peter’s foot blocks his path. He makes a mock tutting sound, smirking like the whole situation was a game. “Come on, Angel,” he jostles. “We just want to help.” “I don’t want you guys to help. This isn’t your business.” “You made it our business when you did something to hurt Kurt,” rallies Scott, glad to have found a place to revive his original intention. But the surge of confidence is short-lived when Warren scoffs. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he dismisses in little more than a mumble. The idea that Scott would have the gall to come to him as Ororo had previously, and to talk to him like a concerned school counsellor, ignites a small flame of anger in Warren, and considering the unfamiliar and uncomfortable rollercoaster the past day has been, it is at least a comfort to return to something he is used to. “So why don’t you tell us what we’re talking about?” Peter cuts in before Scott can reply, and all this suggestion earns him is a harsh glare from Warren, a wordless answer to his question. “Look, I don’t know what you assholes think you’re doing letting yourself into me and Kurt’s business, but you’re not going to play mediator with us. Stay the fuck out of it.” Scott’s eyes narrow, and in a movement that comes off as slightly childish and unconvincing, he steps forward towards Warren, lowering his tone to one that he hopes is at least a little threatening. “Listen, buddy,” he begins, and even Peter has to suppress as smirk at how obviously put together the line sounds. “I don’t give a damn about you or your side of this. I care about Kurt. And since, for reasons I still can’t find, he wants to keep trying to bring out whatever worthwhile thing he sees in you, I’m making it my job to make sure he doesn’t get hurt more than he already has been.” Silence sets in. None of the three boys seem to know how to continue without breaking the roles they have set for themselves. Eventually, Warren lets out a heavy, tired sigh and closes the door in one sharp, jerky movement. After a beat, the music is turned up once more, and Scott and Peter are left standing outside the door as though they had merely imagined Warren’s entire, brief appearance.

“What a jerk,” Peter finally says, in a tone so casual and blasé that even Scott has to smirk. “You gotta wonder what Kurt sees in him,” he replies, shoving his hands into his pockets as he begins down the hall. Peter gives a shrug as he follows. “Maybe it’s just physical.” “Can you imagine Kurt liking someone just for their looks?” “Yeah, you’re right. He’s too goody-goody for that sort of thing.”

In Warren’s room, far from the unfeeling and uncaring brick wall Scott and Peter have just spoken to, Warren is wearing a thoughtful, solemn frown, replaying Scott’s words over and over in his head. The anger at his overconfident and under-practiced demeanour has subsided, or rather has been eclipsed by an intense need to known just what motivated Scott’s words. Kurt wants to keep trying. Kurt sees something worthwhile in him. He dimly wonders whether he should change the words in his mind to wanted and saw, but he does not want to approach the thought directly. In the time since the previous night, he must admit he has spent an amount of time planning words he never truly intended to say to Kurt, scripting apologies and explanations and confessions that were supposed to make things better, or at least earn him a second –no, it had to be fiftieth by now, at least– chance. Now, however? While he still believes he could never say out loud the exact words that had been part of his fantasy conversations, the prospect of speaking to Kurt begins to drift back into the realm of possibility. After all, wasn’t it the persistently happy, forgiving, fluid and flexible nature of Kurt that had fascinated Warren in the first place? And couldn’t he try to replicate that, to try and earn Kurt’s trust back? It still seems optimistic, something that hardly fits into the complex puzzle that forms Warren’s psyche, but maybe that is what he needs right now. An action that defies all the rules set by his previous self, that marks a real change into something better than himself. Into something that maybe, just maybe, could be deserving of Kurt’s time and –dare he say it– his affections. But, unsurprisingly, these thoughts are soon beaten down by the same dark force that has kept him from deviating from his usual ways for years. Just as always, Warren is left in the purgatory between wanting to act and being too scared of the outcome to make a move. He writhes on his bed in indecision for lengths of time he cannot know, then paces his room back and forth, reaching for the doorknob a thousand times but never going further. The music he had been playing has long since run out as he perches on his desk chair and restlessly bounces his leg, pent up emotions and desires festering and itching under his skin. By the time lunch finally comes around, the build has become too much, and Warren moves quickly, decisively, leaving his room with the door still open behind him and striding down the hallway with long and slightly hasty steps. There is an extremely small window of opportunity here, and if he misses it, he knows his willpower will be doomed to disintegrate altogether. He reaches Kurt’s door, slowing down subconsciously as he nears it. As the inside of Kurt’s room comes into view, the lines in the script he has frantically written in his head suddenly become jumbled and inarticulate. The door is open, and when he takes one more step forward to peer in and sees that he has made it, his heart still clenches anyway. Peter has already been and gone, depositing his books carelessly on his bed and whizzing off down to the dining hall for lunch. Kurt, however, takes his time, setting his books on his desk and sorting through what work he will have to do that afternoon. He does not notice Warren behind him, observing the way he moves, taking in every detail. There is something missing from him today; he moves more reluctantly, without the energy or fluidity that usually drive his gestures. Even his eyes seem to be duller today, and Warren’s heart plunges through his stomach at the realisation that the reason for his expression is Warren’s own actions. As the seconds wear on, and Warren hears the telltale sound of footsteps climbing the stairs, he shakes himself from his thoughts, and takes the plunge, clearing his throat to alert the boy opposite him to his presence.

Kurt jumps, shocked from his thoughts by the realisation that he is not alone, and for a moment he teleports instinctively away, reappearing in his room after spending a split second outside on the lawn. He looks through his own cloud of deep purple smoke, seeing the figure of Warren in his doorway, and feels a dizzying mix of hope and dread. It is plain to see that Warren is agitated, too, and Kurt is unsure how exactly to react to his sudden presence. He opens his mouth, but no words come out, and it takes an eternity for Warren to realise that he will have to offer an explanation himself, since Kurt has no way to request one. “Wanna talk?” he mumbles, hands balling into fists and shoved into his pockets. As he speaks, his eyes flick repeatedly between Kurt and the floor, between where he wants them to be and where his instincts direct them. Kurt does not know exactly what it is that makes him nod, that makes him point to his neatly-made bed and close the door behind Warren as he slinks into the room and sits down on the edge of the bedspread. His wings shift nervously, settling and resettling against his back, unable to find a position that would relieve his discomfort. Kurt hesitates before he sits down, shifting over to put a little more distance between himself and Warren. Both boys look forward, finding a patch of wall or carpet to stare at in lieu of looking at each other. “You been okay?” Warren asks presently. Kurt lifts his shoulders in response. “I’ve been fine.” “Good.” There is a certain insincerity to Warren’s tone, and he knows Kurt can hear it, but he does not know how to make it go away. Neither comments on it, lacking the conviction or the willpower, or both.

“So… You want to talk. Let’s talk,” Kurt sighs, breaking the thick silence. “Where do we start?” At being given a direct question to answer, and at being spoken to with the manner of a lost schoolchild, Kurt summons the drive to give a direct reply, and to make a solid demand for answers to the many questions he has been agonising over. “Why did you kiss me?” Though taken aback at first, Warren is glad to surrender his part in directing the conversation, and sinks a little further forward, forearms on his knees, in preparation to respond. Willing his words past the dam in his throat, he speaks. “Because I wanted to.” “Because you wanted to what?” “Because I wanted to kiss you.” Kurt makes a soft humming sound. “Your timing was a little off.” Surprisingly enough, his remark draws a faint laugh from Warren, a mere sharpened breath of a laugh, but a laugh nonetheless. “Yeah… No shit.”

Outside, the sky is above the mansion is dark, heavily overcast with only sparse patches of blue between the cloud cover. When Warren looks up at Kurt and sees him gazing into the sky outside, he turns his head to face the window as well, and with a newfound resolve, scrapes together a few words from the many mental essays he has written for Kurt. “Look, I’m an idiot. You know that by now, right? You have to.” An uneasy frown takes over Kurt’s sharp, angular features, but as he opens his mouth to reply, Warren holds up a hand to stop him. “I’ve treated you like crap. I’ve treated you worse than crap, and you didn’t deserve any of it.” Warren allows himself a private smile, and with his eyes in his lap he is unable to see that Kurt is now staring intently at him. “Hell, you’re probably the one around here who deserves to be treated the best.” Already, something is different. The light in the room takes on a new quality, polished and crystallised by Warren’s forthright words. No longer is there a haze of uncertainty between the two, intertwining with and distorting their feelings and intentions. Kurt feels as though he is seeing Warren anew, just as he had on the day that he had first seen him take to the sky. Though he wants to speak, Kurt stays silent, sensing that there is still more Warren wants to say. Sure enough, with a deep breath to support his sudden surge of sincerity, the winged boy continues. “I’m so sorry, Kurt. I should have been upfront with you from the start. I’m just… I’m like poison, I guess.” Warren clenches his fists, and squeezes his eyes shut for a moment. Kurt has never before noticed just how striking Warren’s eyes are. A pale, milky blue, with small flecks of darker grey towards the centre. They are pained now, sorrowful, and Kurt’s heart aches as he quickly finds himself getting lost in them and in the mournful sadness in his words. “Any time I get close to people I just end up hurting them. I’ve never been able to make a friend or have a relationship that didn’t go to shit because of me freaking out about them getting too close. Ever since I was a kid, from my asshole father to everyone after.”

It takes a long time for Kurt to find the proper words to reply. He has always known that Warren took the sort of image of himself that belonged in an angsty teen drama, but to hear him say the words out loud is confronting, and it hurts Kurt as deeply as any of Warren’s insults. His instincts tell him to do whatever he can to soothe Warren, to take him into his arms and comfort him, but his conscious mind knows that this is not what Warren needs right now. Coddling will do nothing for him – it is real, genuine talk that stands a chance at helping him. Warren, meanwhile, feels a magnificent weight lift off his chest, leaving him feeling free in the same way he did in the air. Never had he imagined that the one thing he had always detested, always avoided as though it would be his death, would feel so fantastic. The sensation is addictive, and Warren suddenly feels the intense urge to spill out every last word that lies within his still extremely full mind. “I’ll admit that the way you treated me hurt,” Kurt begins softly, breathily, and Warren returns to reality immediately. “It hurt a lot. But that doesn’t mean you don’t deserve a second chance. You’ve been through a lot. You still need help with some things.” “Would you still be willing to offer that help?” Warren feels foolish for asking, especially in such a pathetic, sentimental tone. But this shame evaporates when Kurt gives a small, inward smile that sets off an involuntary flutter in Warren’s chest. Gradually, Kurt begins to realise that the space he had put between he and Warren is too much, and quite diffidently, he shifts over the bedspread, stopping with just a little more than an inch between his own leg and Warren’s. “Would… Would you be willing to accept it?” Too distracted by the sudden closeness of the boy he’d been all but obsessed with for weeks, Warren cannot reply in words. His throat goes stiff, and all he can think about is the fantastic warmth radiating from the boy, and how badly he wants to feel more of it. He musters a nod, a slow but assured gesture. Moments pass, though to the two boys on perched on the edge of Kurt’s bed, they may as well have been on a different planet, one completely their own.

It is Kurt this time that closes the distance between them and presses his lips to Warren’s. Softly, tentatively, nothing like the unplanned and haphazard kiss of the previous night. Kurt slips his hand into Warren’s, who responds by lacing his five fingers snugly into Kurt’s three, his eyes still closed as he returns the gentle, tender pressure. A shudder ripples down his spine and along his wings as he feels Kurt’s other hand against the back of his neck, grazing against him so lightly before it lands that it sends tingles sprawling across his skin. Feeling the intuitive desire to return the gesture, he lifts his free hand and, with eyes still shut tight, lets it feel its way across the bedspread until it finds Kurt’s side. It moves upwards painfully slowly, caressing Kurt’s arm and bringing out an intensely satisfying shudder from the boy as he softens further into the kiss.

When at last the two part, each one is giddy and smiling, and neither one has any intention of fleeing the scene for any other reason than to run to the nearest rooftop and yell to the world what has just happened. Both too caught up with each other, neither knows how much time passes before one of them finally decides to break the quiet. “I never thought you’d actually…” Kurt breathes, his fingers still tightly knitted with Warren’s. He does not even need to finish before Warren nods in agreement. “Me neither.” The two share an open, breathless smile, cheeks flushed hot, and in Warren’s case, bright red. The skin on the back of his neck is cold now, already missing Kurt’s touch. He is struck by another impulse, and acts on it with a smile, leaning in and pecking Kurt on his temple. Kurt smiles in response, the expression as bright as a star and as warm as the sun. He lays his head on Warren’s shoulder, his tail subconsciously curling around Warren, the spade gliding back and forth over the place where Warren’s hip meets his thigh. Left undisturbed in Kurt’s room, the two of them sit for as long as they can together, savouring the perfection of the moment and hoping that nothing would come to end it before they were good and ready to leave each other’s side.

#yay i finally updated #sorry to keep everyone waiting #in his eyes #nightangel #nightcrawler #angel #archangel #Warren Worthington #warren worthington iii #kurt wagner #x-men #x-men: apocalypse #comics #marvel #fic #drabble #fanfiction #xmen

17 notes · View notes

vita-e · 8 years ago

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My MPHFPC Movie Notes

Love the opening credits, fits spirit and theme of the book

(music in general is good)

Hate the different opening line – rather generic imo.

Asa please I know you’re a good actor. Please stop being so flat.

“Jake”

This all feels rushed.

Grandpa has lost his marbles and his acting ability.

“That guy gave me the heebie-jeebies” is all you have to say after nearly hitting a man?

“Jake” was in the house for only 10 seconds, didn’t even bother checking the whole house.

This opening is so boring that my foot fell asleep.

Was this the first take? There’s little to no emotion.

Grandpa Portman doesn’t sound like he’s dying. At all.

1943?! What’s the point of changing the date?!

Also, what’s the point of changing his last words which were a lot more mysterious?

C’mon dude, your grandpa just died! Show some emotion!!

Why do the hollows look like Slenderman rip-offs?

Dr. Golan’s a woman? I’m fine with this – but I won’t be later.

“A month ago,”? Wasn’t it more than a few months until he finally sought help? (I haven’t read the book in a while)

Asa is still a bit flat but he’s doing better in these scenes.

Tiny Jacob is super cute!

His acting is bad, though. This is a given for child actors.

The dad is an ornithologist. He wouldn’t change a bird documentary to a football game (although that was a bit funny.)

Why does Miss Peregrine look so young? In the book, she looks more like a mother waiting for her children to give her some goddamn grandkids.

Bronwyn is 9 now I guess.

Hugh is 11 now I guess.

“Where’s Emma? She could float.” SHE COULD NOT.

Grandpa Portman sounds more English than Polish. Throwing in a Polish nickname doesn’t convince me that he’s Polish.

“Little tiger”? He called him “Yakob.”

“No eyes,” in the book, Jacob tells a sketch artist that they have 2 like a normal mammal. This may be personal taste, but for me, monsters are scarier when they look more human.

Kids this age wouldn’t laugh! They’d see the picture of Millard and go “Holy shit! He’s invisible!” Kids are gullible, dammit. (I had this problem with the book as well.)

Funny how younger!Jacob dresses exactly like Asa.

Damn, kid, he said he didn’t want to talk about it! Chill!

Still 0 emotion, I guess.

“He was a wonderful grandpa, but not… such a great dad, you know?” Damn, that hits home for me – but doesn’t this talk happen later in the book? Like, this talk happens at the island.

Wait, the scene just ends there? No argument? Damn, Jake just doesn’t care that his dad is smack talking his idol.

JESUS fuckin’ twins.

Jacob’s cousins were brats and I believe teenagers as well, so why are they perfect lil’ angel twins that look 10 at the oldest?

Also, why is Jacob’s house so small? His mom is an heiress to a Wal-Mart type store-chain.

Cairnholm is apparently popular enough to warrant postcards.

And popular enough to warrant a spot in a travel book, wtf? It’s not even big enough to be seen on a map.

The dad looking at Jake like he’s crazy gives me life lmfao.

Cairnholm is 100% my aesthetic.

Where’s Kev???

What? But… Uncle Oggie is a relative of Martin?

Didn’t imagine Kev looking like that but okay.

Franklin is me trying to make friends tbh.

I’m so glad Worm and M.C. Dirty D made it in.

Aren’t the residents like… a bit afraid of the home themselves?

Aesthetic™

Wait, what? Oggie can see? He looks blind.

1943? At that point, Germany was taking a more defensive stance, doing lots of evacuating.

“And they were lovely, too.” In the book, Uncle Oggie claims they were strange and rarely spoke.

“3 months later”? He left the day after the loop was created!

Is that the dart competition I keep seeing on Vine?

Wait, why is Enoch there? I know they fucked with his character a lot but he probably joined after the loop was created since he’s from an older loop, otherwise he’d age forward ~30-40 years – so why is he next to (who I presume is) Abe, who left after the loop was made? (or in this case, before!)

Enoch’s little laboratory was in the basement, not upstairs.

The twins might’ve been in the loop at some point, but they certainly aren’t there when Jacob arrives.

Wait, so instead of chasing after them, he runs away? Jake’s a pussy.

And he trips and gets knocked unconscious by a rock. Wow.

Bronwyn, despite being the wrong age and having no personality, is at least cute and it’s fun to watch her carry Jake.

Why is Millard so tiny? You can say that his age is ambiguous, but in the book Jacob clearly states that his voice sounds like that of a young man’s, not a young child’s.

“You’re Emma!” (John Cena voice) Are you sure about that?

Why is Olive, like, 16? She’s supposed to be 7-9 years old (and ofc she has Emma’s powers instead.)

“She sent us to get you”? Why, though?

Standing there all creepy ain’t gonna make him want to follow you.

Jake doesn’t seem to see the change in the weather.

“I am the manager” reminds me of that one Tumblr comic.

Ngl, Millard would do this – if just for fun. He’s a little shit like that.

What’s the point of lighting the place on fire? They’re distracted enough.

Did they just steal someone’s horse?

Millard no longer has any personality out of “Yeah” and “Yep.”

Emma is not nearly bitchy enough. Or at all.

The house is gorgeous! It looks just like I imagined it!

What the fuck, why is Miss Peregrine so young? I know I mentioned this before but what the fuck.

“Right on time”?

“I had to kill them twice this month” WHAT. MISS PEREGRINE DOESN’T KILL UNLESS NECESSARY

Miss Peregrine is not nearly this creepy in the book.

THAT’S NOT ENOCH.

Why does he sound mildly Scottish? He’s from London and has a slight cockney accent.

From now own, every time I see Enoch, 5 years are taken off my life.

Why is Fiona 11 and English? She’s supposed to be in her late teens and Irish – not to mention, SHE DOESN’T TALK!

I don’t think Fiona’s powers make things huge.

“Imm-breen” it’s “imm-brinn”

Do the twins have names?

Claire looks cute!

I don’t think Millard, no matter his age, would be very interested in physical activity. He’s a brains over brawn kind of type, you know?

Kind of uncharacteristic of Hugh to send his bees after a friend.

I’m gonna cry. At least one of my babies looks right.

Horace feels… off. All the components of his personality are certainly there, but in different degrees than in the book.

I’m sorry, what? A daily chore that’s reset by the loop? Miss P, these are kids and teenagers! They’ll get bored of doing that every day! I know because I am a teenager!

That squirrel would be going crazy and scratching her up. I know this is a nitpick but squirrels are vicious, man.

Was this scene the only reason they swapped Emma and Olive’s peculiarities?

Why are her shoes so hard to take off? What if she has to get away in an emergency? She’s fucked!

Why’s it so hard to pull her down?

Emma doesn’t seem to heartbroken over Abe’s death. In the book, she bawled upon overhearing that he died.

This dialogue barely hints at Emma and Abe having a romantic relationship, making only people who read the book know this information. Non-book readers might just assume they were close friends.

Of course, instead of borrowing Victor’s clothes he has to borrow Abe’s.

God, am I the only one that hates looking at Finlay? He’s not ugly – a bit handsome actually! -- he’s just… kind of weird looking.

So… Olive is good friends with Enoch? Don’t get how they got that out of the book when they have no interactions in the first book.

His dolls are meant to be made of clay! Now he just looks like an older Sid.

The stop motion is terrible.

So, they care enough about Enoch’s character to remember that his parents ran a funeral parlor, but not enough to make him his actual character.

Did he not see Millard’s silverware moving? Did no one see it?

So, Enoch is clearly mad at the statement Horace made, so why hold back your retort by whispering? Was he sick on this day of filming?

No one needs that much carrot.

Hugh’s been living there for 70 years; pretty sure he’d never forget to put his net on.

Wait, so he remembered to bring it with him, but not to put it on?

S L U R M P

“She’s embarrassed in front of Jake.” Uh, Hugh, I think you flubbed your line, it’s “Claire don’t eat with the rest of us.”

Oh, thank god, she has the same peculiarity.

I’m crying, Claire is so adorable!

Enoch’s a bigger asshole than I remember him being in the books.

Although it wasn’t in the book, I do like the inclusion of the call from Abe. It makes no sense whatsoever, but I still like it.

Would Horace really be comfortable sharing his dreams – especially via projector?

“Some of his dreams are prophetic,” shouldn’t ‘some’ be ‘most’? Everyone’s dreams can hold some form of future-telling, albeit in an abstract way. If only some of his dreams are prophetic, that barely makes him peculiar.

I don’t get why Horace’s dreams are at all symbolic. They should be literal.

Why did he see Ms. Avocet get kidnapped when she, in fact, didn’t?

“Horace must’ve just had a bad dream, that’s all.” HIS DREAMS ARE PROPHETIC.

Wait, so they have a phonograph outside? And it works?

Why make Miss P creepier, but tone down the creepiness of the reset scene? Think of it: 9 children you barely know wearing gasmasks are singing an old song you don’t know to the tune of bombs falling. That’s a lot scarier than listening to the song on a phonograph.

I just remembered: they never offered the reason why Cairnholm gets bombed. In the book, it’s stated that the island had a sort of anti-aircraft gun which made it a target, but here the Germans simply bomb it to be seen as more evil than they already are.

I do admit, the reset scene does look beautiful.

Jake doesn’t seem as terrified, though.

Emma learning about cellphones is pretty cute.

And we’re back to talking about Abe.

“More than a few minutes,” it’s closer to hours, days even if we’re going by Library of Souls.

Already with Ms. Avocet?

(Cinema Sins voice) Jake’s dad reminds me too much of my own father in this scene.

Okay, so I’m assuming “Mr. Barron” is some wight higher-up? I know he’s not, but for the sake of the notes let’s pretend I don’t know.

Man, he really is my dad. He acts all weird and pretends like nothing happened later.

Who dresses like that in the 21st century!? I like the aesthetic too, but you don’t see me walking around in a Rococo period dress.

No one talks like this either.

That fuckin’ dart competition’s going to get me every time.

Who the fuck rests on their bed with their shoes on?

Bronwyn is cute but… I can’t get over the fact they made her younger and erased her character.

Would it kill someone to say, “Can we try that take again?”

WHY did they make Miss Peregrine so creepy? She was never this creepy!

Yeah, and he’s trying to warn you of potential danger. Also, can I ask where the fuck he got that letter?

Every time I see Finlay’s face a deep hatred resurfaces from the darkest corners of my heart.

All the kids in that room together just chilling is cute.

OKAY THIS IS WHAT PISSES ME OFF. I know for a damn fact that Enoch would never be mean to someone who was kind to him.

In the book, Bronwyn wanted nothing more than for Enoch to wake up Victor but go off I guess.

According to the timeline, HE SHOULD BARELY KNOW ABE.

That’s not how he brings them back to life, though? It’s not like he’s doing heart surgery, it’s more like he’s just gonna smell like death (literally) for most of the day.

Enoch being there as Jake realizes Victor’s dead really takes out a lot of the punch from the scene. Having him show up afterwards (like in the book) is better since it’s more like ‘Realization -> Confrontation’ instead of just… explaining and scaring.

I don’t know if Tim’s ever been around a normal human being before but usually you don’t see their heartbeat.

Okay, so… he can’t bring people back to life, only use them as puppets. First off, that’s gross, and second, that’s a nearly useless peculiarity.

How can tears roll down Victor’s cheek if he’s never conscious anymore? Dead people are known to shed tears, but it’s after they die and are decomposing, and Victor can’t decompose because he’s in a loop!

Does Miss P just do that on a regular basis?

Wasn’t that a rowboat?

That’s carbon dioxide, you can’t breathe that.

How is she swimming? Wouldn’t she just walk? She has lead shoes on!

I don’t think skeletons keep their hair.

Well how the hell does that work?

“Air, it’s my peculiarity.” No, it is not.

I’d rather trust a bunch of information I don’t want the people I love knowing with an adult, but okay.

Wait, so Emma has the Map of Days now?! It was stressed countless times in the trilogy how much Millard loves that damn thing and you give it to EMMA?!

Okay, WHAT? Barron is the leader now!? I guess Miss Peregrine’s brothers just don’t exist now!

“Bad peculiars”? They’re ex-peculiars, because they don’t have powers anymore!

They took the kids, too, you know.

Wait, while they’re at it, didn’t this conversation take place at night?

Just tell him how Abe could see monsters, then he’ll believe. No need to be dramatic.

Hollowgasts sure as fuck would not loop along with the townspeople, they’d be free to roam around or they’d get left behind. Also, Victor died AFTER the loop was made! He got tired of living there and tried to leave and died THIS IS SUCH A SIMPLE STORY TIM.

Did I mention that I hate how the hollowgasts look?

You could have told him earlier but okay.

I don’t remember any of this from the book.

“Tired of living in loops.” Caul was tired of peculiardom being a ‘matriarchy.’ Yes, there were some problems with how peculiar boys who could turn into birds were treated but overall Caul was crazy and narcissistic.

I guess there are only 13 wights, opposed to hundreds or even thousands.

Also, why are they all upper-class? I’d assume a lot would be lower.

Didn’t they also blow up half of Siberia?

EYEBALLS? It’s from consuming their souls! I guess Tim just wanted to put in some ugly ass imagery.

Wait, why are they still eating? They’re fine now!

Almost forgot Millard was in this fucking movie.

But they weren’t even going to try it again! It was a ploy! And why hold it where a normal person could find it!?

This ‘leaving’ bullshit pisses me off because it’s breaking so many fucking rules. Hollows can’t enter loops so leaving is more dangerous than staying, which is what she chose to do in the book!

Claire is so cute.

Makes a bit more sense that an old blind man on his own died than a healthy, (I’m assuming) mid-age museum curator but okay.

This is probably the dumbest thing Jake has ever done. Surely, he knows that normal people can go in, but that they can’t enter through the loop, right? And he could potentially also be a danger, so why call out to him?

This reveal isn’t nearly as powerful as the one in the book. By doing his other voices from previous identities he’d taken before to watch over Jacob, he intimidated him and by finally revealing himself as Dr. Golan, he immediately made the one normal person that Jacob felt a bit safe around a danger and in that moment, he realizes what he had done by telling him everything.

Okay, here’s why I’m pissed they made Dr. Golan a woman. Reason 1 is because it shows that Tim wanted to make the wights really overpowered by letting them keep their peculiarites, and reason 2 (separate of reason 1) is because they didn’t make the rest of their identities women. Like just make a lady ornithologist and have her be a peculiar who can turn into a bird but can’t control time, making her feel self-worth incredibly low and hate ymbrynes. It took me a minute to think this up, Tim.

That’s not how you take off contacts.

Did this fucker really think he could take on an adult?

Hollowgasts can’t enter loops but okay.

This is a bit of a nitpick but the fact that Jake was used as a hostage instead of Hugh just shows how much they didn’t give a shit about the other kids unless they had a relationship cookin’ for them.

So, she has a crossbow, but she’ll just go down without a fight? That’s not like her at all!

This is NOT the time to be petty, Wal-Mart brand Enoch.

I just realized that Horace has like 4 lines and now I’m sad.

I would be so happy that instead of turning into a bird and leaving that Miss Peregrine just fucking decked him. It’s a lot more in character than just letting them take her.

I don’t remember Miss Peregrine trusting a 16-year-old with the lives of 9 kids but okay.

One of the few good things this movie brought me was a peregrine falcon sound so I could look it up and see if it was accurate. I then found a video of a sweet old man filming a peregrine falcon’s call and providing quiet commentary. Just felt that was worth mentioning.

Since when did Jacob become good at strategy?

Cute scene, but it means nothing to me.

Okay I guess Miss Avocet never mattered.

Just destroy Wal-Mart brand Enoch, please.

Why does Fiona have the most lines out of the neglected kids? She only had 2 lines in the whole book!

That bomb would be enough to take care of it, but okay go ahead and shoot it.

Olive seems pretty in-control of her peculiarity, so why give her gloves?

“It’s only 6 months old.” What?

Time travel is bullshit. Also, I don’t think it works like that?

“I know you’ll choose Abe.” Well, duh, I’d rather see my grandfather again than some cute girl I met a few days ago that barely even seems to like me that well.

Okay, so the movie I’m watching is really choppy and cuts at random parts and it just cut in the middle of a sentence Wal-Mart brand Enoch was saying and I couldn’t be happier.

Yeah, but the loop entrances are usually in places normal people won’t go. (ex. Miss P’s loop entrance, Miss Thrush’s loop entrance, etc.) Seems dumb to put it on a ride. Imagine sending your kids on there and when the cart comes back one of them is missing?

Okay, so there’s only 4 hollows and 6 wights left according to the movie. Why are they all so afraid of them then?!

In the book, a lot of them were trained to handle guns, and in the movie they still have their peculiarities – so WHY are they not attacking Emma as soon as they see her!?

I’m pretty sure that in the book Jacob had been seeing Dr. Golan much longer than 3 weeks.

Yeah, Florida’s a hellhole, to be quite honest.

I guess no one cares about a floating girl in the sky. I don’t see any iPhone’s out recording.

Never mind, I see one (1). I should see much more, though.

How would the hearts stay in the skeletons? There’s nothing for them to hold onto.

Is there no staff at this place?

How are these skeletons in general staying together?

This fight is pretty dangerous. They’re exposing normal people to peculiardom.

Okay, so now the wights use their peculiarities to fight.

Horace saved lives at least 3 times but I guess he’s just useless now according to the movie.

Man, Tim, you sure did a good job of creating strong female characters! /s

How is Mr. Barron not dead? She lifted the boat out of water and the closer you get to the bottom of the ocean the more pressure you’ve gotta deal with.

3 cheers for this forced romance! Hip-hip! (Boo)

This 16-year-old doesn’t need to tell these women what to do.

Why is Miss Peregrine in a different cage?

I guess Barron just had some blue eye contacts on him.

How did the hollow get down there?

I guess Jake’s a perfect shot now, since it’s convenient.

(vomit noises)

Again, time travel is bullshit. Wouldn’t there be another Jake walking around?

Wait, they’re still there?

Hurray for more terrible loop entrances!

In the book, this would be the second time they had kissed but okay.

Never knew that birds could just be stationary while in the sky.

Wait, so she just… keeps her clothes? Trust me, I don’t want to see a naked woman in something other than an art piece or otherwise but that was a rule that they had in the book.

Well that was a load of shit. At least with the ending there can’t be a sequel.

#mphfpc #the readmore was essential #i apologize if it doesn't work on mobile

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izzy-b-hands · 4 years ago

Text

Phantom, Chapter Four

Bones, a tunnel, and beginning of a revealing of a secret long kept.

My love to all who read/like/reblog.

None of them had so much as looked at the conservatory, namely because they had been warned it had been long unused. The windows from the outside and those in the house seemed filthy, enough that seeing inside it was impossible.

But the door to it wasn’t locked, and though the wooden floor was covered in dirt, walking inside of it didn’t seem inherently dangerous.

“You don’t think we’re going to find bones just sitting out, right?” Roger asked, peeking into the pots of decayed plants. “I mean, if you were going to hide that you killed your kid-”

“We don’t know who killed this person,” Brian interrupted. “And we don’t know who else is here and listening.”

Roger nodded.

They tried to keep the search relatively clean, dumping pots of soil into bigger pots that had room in them before sifting through the dirt. But there was nothing. No shards of bone, no fragments of any sign that a body had been hidden in any of the sadly wilted and rotting plants.

“We need another clue,” Freddie sighed, leaning back on his heels, knelt near one of the bigger pots. “There’s something we’re missing.”

John stamped his foot onto the wooden flooring. “What about that?”

“What about what?” Brian asked. “You, stamping your feet?”

“Underneath,” John replied. “It doesn’t sound hollow enough to have any basement space under it, which means there’s dirt and some sort of foundation underneath this instead.”

“We’ll need tools,” Roger sighed, and they spread out to see what the house held.

They returned, about fifteen minutes later: Freddie, with a hammer he’d found when he ran back out to the shed, moving quickly to avoid getting too soaked again in the rain; Roger, with a large cleaver he’d found in the kitchen; Brian, with a few tools from one of the fireplaces; and John, with a crowbar.

“And you found that where?” Roger asked John.

“In a room that looked like it used to be a nursery,” he replied. “Trying not to think about the implications of that.”

“Fair enough,” Roger agreed. “So, we’re just...going to start yanking up the flooring?”

Freddie smashed the claw end of the hammer into the wooden floor, and nodded. “What other way is there to go about it?”

The rest of the night was filled with the sound of them working at the flooring, then sifting through the dirt packed beneath it.

“I’m no expert,” John said, wiping sweat from his brow. “But this isn’t how flooring is meant to be done, I don’t think.”

“It’s weird,” Roger agreed. “No support for it, no other foundation. No wonder walking on it felt so odd.”

“Why would you even want it done like this?” Freddie asked to no one in particular. “What a waste of money, to-”

He swallowed. “Do we still have those gloves?”

It was Brian’s turn to wear them, and he rushed over as carefully as he could.

“There,” Freddie directed, and sure enough, a small human-looking bone came out of the dirt.

Brian shivered. “I’ll go put it with the skull. Don’t like touching it for long. Sorry, to...you. If you’re listening. It isn’t you, I’m just not used to ah...disinterment, like this.”

The search focused on that area from then on, even after they had to seek out torches and candles to set up around the room.

And slowly, piece by piece, more emerged.

The skeleton covered most of the table, some of the bones broken and fragmented.

“Is this all of you?” Freddie asked the board, as they stood in front of it. It rested yet on the open end of the table, the ring sat on it.

“Yes,” Roger breathed, as the ring skittered. “Oh thank god.”

“We..” Freddie hesitated. “I admit, I don’t know what the best thing is to do now. We don’t even know who used to own this place, or how long you’ve been here. Do we call the police? The company that rented the house out to us? Both?”

“S, H, O, W, Y, O, U,” Roger spelled out as the ring moved swiftly from letter to letter. “You can show us what to do next? You mean by spelling it out, right?”

“No,” John read as the ring moved faster this time to the word, almost angrily. “L, I, B, R, A, R, Y.”

“Oh god,” Brian muttered. “The book. I’m not touching it, I don’t care what they ask of us.”

Freddie quietly picked up the board, the ring in hand, and nodded to Roger. “Get the book just in case. If we need it, we’ll find some other way to decipher it other than having Brian touch it.”

“Thank you,” Brian sighed. “Should we...leave the bones here?”

“They aren’t likely to get up and leave,” John said, and for a moment, the tension of the whole situation broke enough to let them laugh.

“You make a good point,” Brian chuckled. “Very well. Sooner this is over, the sooner we can get back to what we’re meant to be doing.”

“I don’t know,” Roger said as he grabbed the book from the nearby trunk. “I think we could have a second career with this.”

“Let us solve your old murder mysteries, also pay us and we’ll play you something?” John suggested.

“Might need to be a bit catchier, but essentially that, yeah,” Roger replied.

The atmosphere was wonderfully lighter as they made their way through the main hall, upstairs, to the library.

It was different from the study only in that it was bigger, and had a marvelous fire place in it as well. The shelves were dusty, but at one time it was easy to believe that all the books on them had been well-loved.

However, nothing about it looked particularly sinister or concerning.

“I know you’re probably sick of giving us hints,” Freddie smiled. “And maybe you think we’re dense.”

“It really depends on the day and the topic,” Roger interjected.

Freddie nodded. “We’re sharp otherwise, I swear. But we do need you to tell us what we ought to be looking for here.”

He set the board and ring down on a coffee table in the center of the library, surrounded by two overstuffed couches and an armchair that looked ready to fall apart.

“F, I, R, E, P, L, A, C, E,” he read out as the ring moved. “Something to find in the fireplace.”

“No,” John read, watching the ring move. “Then what? It’s cold, but not cold enough to start a fire up.”

The ring moved back to no, again and again, and again, seemingly in frustration.

“C, R, A, W, L,” Roger read when it finally moved back to the letters. “I’m sorry, but if that means what I think...”

He sighed, and looked to his clothes, then to everyone else’s, all covered in dirt and wrinkled from the rain. “Well. They’re ruined already, I suppose.”

“We can’t go up a fireplace,” Brian said.

John was already over to the fireplace, fiddling about with everything on the mantel. When that did nothing, he knelt down into it, fussing about at the corners of it until there was a loud ‘click.’

With that, the back of the fireplace fell open, and a tunnel was exposed.

“What,” Brian breathed softly. “Will we even fit?”

“We’ve come this far,” John replied. “May as well try.”

It was a tight fit, made worse for Freddie and Roger, trying to hang onto the board and ring, and the book, while they crawled.

“Can I just say,” Brian said, his voice echoing against the dark metal sides of the tunnel. “We’re never blindly renting a place to record again. How has no other band found any of this yet?”

“Thing of it is,” John said. “It was expensive for us to rent this place, but for a more established band? Would be pennies. And the company couldn’t tell me why all the bands prior had never finished out their recordings here; I just figured they got bored of it, or needed some equipment that this place doesn’t have-”

“Oh my god,” Brian interrupted. “But it was probably this, them being haunted the whole damned time.”

“Starting to think that, yeah,” John said. “But hey, look at it this way. If we solve this, not only can we probably come back and record here for free after the fact-”

“Least they could do for us,” Roger scoffed.

“Right,” John agreed, and continued. “But then we don’t have to worry about being chased out of here while trying to finish the record. And we’re helping whoever it is who died. Surely that’s got to count for something, doesn’t it?”

“It does,” Brian said. “I really want to get back to the actual work we came here to do, is all.”

“So do we all,” Freddie said. “Fucking hell, how long is this thing?”

“Not so long,” John muttered as he slipped out of the end of it, into a dark, brick room. “Did anyone grab any of the torches?”

“No,” Brian sighed as he joined him. “We put the candles out, but didn’t think to grab the torches.”

“That sounds about right,” John chuckled. “I’ve got a lighter, do you all have-”

Three hands immediately whipped lighters out of their pockets, even as Roger and Freddie finished slipping out of the tunnel and into the room.

“Good,” John continued. “One at a time though, otherwise they’ll all be used up at once, and then we’ll be shit out of luck.”

“Don’t relish the idea of that,” Roger winced. “Down here, in the dark. No idea of how to get back up and out.”

Brian gently placed a hand on Roger’s shoulder. “Rog.”

“Yeah?”

“Please stop talking about that, how we don’t know if or how we’ll get out of here,” Brian continued. “I...really, really, really, cannot think about that right now.”

“I don’t like thinking of it either,” Roger said. “Agreed. No more mention of possibly being trapped here.”

John led the way out of the room. There was no door, just openings, that led into similar empty and round rooms, with dirt floors. The air was thick, and combined with the fear of no escape, it would have made anyone claustrophobic.

Even so, they kept calm. Hands reached out for each other as needed, to ensure no one got left behind or lost. The sound of each other’s breathing reassurance that, if nothing else, at least none of them were alone.

As they entered the next new room, this one bigger than all the others, it became clear that they had never been alone in the house at all.

“That is...a lot of skeletons,” Roger muttered. He had been holding Brian’s hand down the latest hall, but he squeezed it tightly now.

In front of them, at the head of the room, was a dais, with a lectern, perfectly sized for the book in Roger’s other hand.

And all around the room, serving as a macabre trim, were skeletons in open coffins leaned against the walls.

#text post #LeeH writes #Queen band fic

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california-icecream · 7 years ago

Text

Wow look, another short story. Also, TW: suicide, depression. (All characters are mine besides Cre)

Hey also if you want extra pain, listen to Hurricane by Fleurie while reading. Love ya, have fun♡

Dean stood in front of everyone, a bouquet of red roses clutched tightly in his shaking hands. Tears fogged up his glasses as he tried to hold himself together.

The priest continued to speak. Dean didn't believe in God or anything at that point, but he continued to listen. He couldn't help but become angry. How dare this man speak? How dare this man speak and act okay while Cre sat lifeless in a box?! How dare he?!

Dean shook with anger despondency as the oblivious man spoke. The priest didn't understand. He didn't know Cre; he didn't love him. Yet he still stood in front of everyone and had the audacity to speak like he knew him.

Dean never got to wear a tux with Cre. Never got to go to a fancy restaurant and order extravagant things while all dressed up. But now, he supposed, they did. They were both dressed in black and white tuxes.

We finally got to wear our tuxes, Cre. I hope you know you look very wonderful. You always did look better than me, but you didn't care. You still loved me. You loved me and now you're gone. Now you're…

“Dead…” he whispered the word out loud as tears streamed down his flushed cheeks, staining his pristine white collar.

Why? Why Cre? Sure, his boyfriend has—had—a temper, but he was a good person. He didn't deserve this! Why?! Why did he have to die?!

“Why?!” he yelled, falling to his knees, sobbing openly. He palmed his eyes, not caring as he made a scene. His heart was ripped from his chest, leaving a cold and dark hole that ate him up from the inside out. He wished he couldn't feel a goddamn thing.

His body shook as waterfalls poured from his eyes, his arms wrapped tightly around himself. Nothing and no one could replace Cre. He would never be the same. He would never be whole, never feel happy. Cre was it. His happiness, his person, his world.

All ripped away from him by one person, by one drunk driver on the wrong side of the road.

Why couldn't've it been him?! Why couldn't've he been the one in the car, the one in the box, the one who's dead?!

“Cre! P-please!” He screamed, pain flooding every choked sound that escaped him. “Please… come back t-to me.. please…” He continued to weep, curbing into the fetal position. He heard people talk; he heard them whisper. He didn't care about them, he didn't care about himself, he didn't care about anything.

“Dean…” Neltic knelt at his side, placing a hand in his shoulder, trying to calm him down. Dean continued to cry,noticing the feeling of his lungs burning with each breath. Neltic helped him to his feet. He stumbled like a drunken man.

Like a drunken driver.

Without warning, Dean broke out of Neltic's grasp and ran towards the open casket. Cre lay with his hands folded over his stomach, looking professional. Not like him at all. It made Dean sick.

The distressed teen didn't think as he cradled Cre's body to his chest, crying, desperate to hear his beautiful heartbeat once again.

“Come on, Cre, come on, I know you're busy p-playing, right? Just a f-funny joke.” He felt Neltic and Matches try to tug him away as people began to stare and pull out their phones.

“Shove them up your ass! He's going to be okay! You'll see! You'll all look like fools and we will laugh at all of you and eat.. and e-eat b-b-blueb-berry p-p-p-pancakes…” He wiped his cheeks and held him closer, waiting, hoping, praying for a heartbeat.

“Dean, you need to let go…” Neltic and Matches continued to pull on him, more firmly, breaking one of his arms free.

“Get the fuck off me you pricks! Get off! Let go! Stop! I'll kill you! I'll fucking.. I-I’ll…” he couldn't speak at his grip loosened and his two friends dragged him away, back to the car. He didn't feel himself get out in the back seat, nor did he feel Neltic let him use his lap as a pillow. Dean didn't notice much of anything as they drove him away from the funeral. From Cre.

“No! Go back!” He screamed as loud as he could, his voice hoarse from crying and yelling. “I can't leave him! I can't! I can't leave Cre!”

“Shh, I know, Dean, I know. It will be okay. It's okay..” Neltic rubbed his back as Dean curled around the blanket Cre and him used to cuddle under. It still smelled like him.

Once they got to the house, the other two all but dragged the depressed teen up the stairs and into the house. Neltic picked him up and carried him into his and Cre's room, laying him on the mattress. Everything smelled like Cre. Dust floated in the air, illuminated by the sunlight.

Dean felt hollow. He had nothing. Nothing to love. Nothing to give. Nothing to get. Nothing to die for. Nothing to live for.

And then Dean got an idea.

He checked the calendar and chuckled mirthlessly as his finger found that day’s date.

The teen wasn't a teen anymore. Twenty years. Twenty years on that day. That day. His birthday.

Dean got out of bed, no longer crying or really breathing or doing much of anything. He wandered silently downstairs, hearing Matches and Neltic arguing over what to do. Well, Neltic mostly. Matches sounded almost indifferent.

“Show some fucking emotion, guy! The kid just lost the love of his life!” Neltic shouted with icy anger.

Matches looked at the ground. “I'm sorry that happened to him, but—”

“No ‘buts’ you fucking piece of shit! That's my friend up there sobbing his eyes out and you can't even bother to look at him?!” Neltic slammed his hand down into the counter. “Fuck you! Fuck you and you're stupid little lighter with your stupid little goggles and you're fucking indifference to everything on this goddamned Earth! You can just—”

Dean had stopped listening. It was all white noise. He walked down to the basement, feeling empty as he flicked on the light. His blurry eyes found the pistol lying on the wooden table. He was lucky Matches had been cleaning his gun, he was lucky Matches was a security guard, he was lucky they were fighting too loud to hear as the pistol cocked, a smooth bullet sliding into place.

He stumbled with nausea, knocking over a chair. The yelling from upstairs was silenced for a moment, but then there were pounding footsteps towards the basement. He was lucky he locked the door.

Dean Novak aimed the sleek metallic gun into his mouth, not tasting anything as its barrel rested on his tongue.

“Dean! Dean open this door! Dean please open the door! Dean!” Neltic yelled, banging on the door.

I'll see you again soon, Cre. I miss you, but I'll see you again soo. I promise. I'll be wearing my tux. You always said I'd look cute in a tux. I love you so much. I'll see you soon.

The world seemed to move in slow motion as Dean's finger slid up the gun until it rested on the trigger. His heart was beating steadily; he was not scared.

The door splintered open as Neltic kicked it in. Once, twice, three times, until the door gave out, wood spraying everywhere.

That's weird, Dean thought, he almost looks like he cares.

Bang!

And then Dean stopped thinking anything at all.

#sad #depression #this hurts wow #okay writing i guess #not my best work #i tried #wrote this at like fucking 4 am #have mercy #please thanks #love you guys

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nyklifsondiviiportfolio-blog · 7 years ago

Photo

A note from the editor:

I am the editor, not a very good one at that. I purposely have changed certain letters to misspell words to hide a secret message for my long lost love. This is a lie, I just am quite horrendous at spelling. I use my dictionary as a pillow but my skills have not improved. Oh well. I was getting about the same amount of sleep either way. This is the story of Iphis as told by Iphis, for Iphis. I use it pronouns because I am a shape-shifting dragon which makes pronouns quite pointless. For me, at least. Everyone else makes quite a stink about it all. I think there is prime potential in just using a single pronoun for everyone but that is also an unpopular opinion. Anyways, enjoy the book and have a splendid day.

drink a cup of tea, and all that.

A forewarning; Iphis is not your typical hero or princess and this isn’t really a typical story. Or maybe is it extremely typical and you will laugh at me when it is all said and done. I’m not called Maktabe the Foolish for nothing. Well, i am not really called that...so it is for nothing. You can call me that if you like. It would give my weary skeleton a good rattle. Now it all started during an unexpected summer of flames…

Prologue:

Crochet lace drapes. Her grandmother had made them. Each stitch sewn in

candlelight before bed. The curtains framed the first floor window that always was flooded with sunlight from dawn till dusk. They had been dyed dark blue with the juice from zilchberries that had been deemed unfit for fermenting. Now, from swaying in the sun's rays all day, they had softened to a baby blue. Next to this window was the stairs to the cellar and bedroom.

The forest opened up to a field where the town of Dilchlam grew. Grasses and wildflowers ran amuck.

Zoom in, the scene awakens as a soon-to-be-mother comes back to from the depths of her nap. She is drenched in sweat. She is sitting in a tub of liquid. Not actually a tub, a rocker. The rocking chair had hollow that would fit to form, that was now filled with this. Colorless. Odorless. The baby kicked. She rocked back and forth a few times, droplets ker-plashing onto the floor and sprinkling onto the forgotten book about medicinal kelps. The book had walked to sleep for her afternoon nap to fight off morning sickness. The baby is coming. She takes another swig of reality when she looks out the back window. The sky is black, and the forest is orange. Trees aren’t

orange or red or yellow? Fire. Everywhere. She panics and jumps out of her seat only to fall to her knees.

Everything had to be hacked. That’s the noise axes make hak hak hak. Every day on the outskirts rang the song of the spitting and cursing of lumber laborers sweating under the sun. Building a town from scratch. Carving a community out of the endless woods. The ancients. Their history was sealed in the wood chip insulation and in between the cracks of the floor boards. In the grain of their homely furnishings.

She had made the cradle out of wood; a group of villagers had chopped some birches with the intention to create stools. Luece loved the feeling of her overworked muscles after sanding down the pieces for the crib. After it was puzzle-pieced together the couple had placed it lovingly by their own bed upstairs. So excited, so scared, so different. This piece of furniture was how she came to terms with the prospect of being called mom. She was prepared, the baby had a place to sleep. No more.

Luece is on the ground, coughing coughing cough. Her lungs are on fire. The world is on fire. Dilating. Pain. Not now. Not here. T his isn’t how the baby was meant to come into the world, b ut that is where Luece is wrong. The ancient pines can only grow once the seeds are put through immense heat. This child could only be born in these exact circumstances, and from the ashes will rise a magic that has been forgotten, but dearly needed. She crawls past the book shelves and banister to get to the cellar, her only salvation from the heat that threatens to collapse her walls.

The books they owned were mainly different herb identification books, anatomical reference, and Jeb’s joyous historical-fiction romance novels. He would tell

neighbors they were Luece’s because he was embarrassed for having such an odd guilty reading pleasure. Across the room behind the extendable table and left of the tiny tea-kettle of a stove stood the proud dish container, the ceramics cabinet. The cabinet was barely dry from the fresh stain painted on two mornings ago. The wood was leftover from Cercie, a kind neighbor’s, flooring. Jeb had used his whittling skills to carve two love birds into the center of the doors, the lock was hidden in one of the eggs in the roost. A small brass master key hung on the hooks next to the door, polished from continuous use every day. There were two other nails, one for Luece’s ring and one for Jeb’s.

Jeb, a farming man, had a key to the two town silos on his ring. Both had an mid-sized iron latchkey to get into the house. His nail had a bit of fuzz stuck on the end from catching on his sleeves. He would hang his keys up while taking off his jacket to put into the book shelves and coat peg collection next to the bits of metal budding from the wall. Thus, every damn one of his long sleeves was frayed at the ends. Lucinda and Jeb gave up on patching them after realizing they needed--at the minimum--daily repairs.

The basement has mud floors and rafters that serve them well as a cloth and herb drying rack. Without trying to outdo the community’s healer, Lucinda had acquired more natural cures to ailments than any other being within fifty miles. She was suspicious of anyone who practiced seithr-based healing and always aimed to be prepared for any circumstance. Albeit, except for natural disasters. But this firestorm is nothing close to what nature intended it to be. This is a ritual, the coming of a new age.

This fire is searching. Searching for the woman who lives in this cosy home. This house, you see, is burning down. By tomorrow there will be little left besides the stove, a hole in the ground, and quiet country dreams left in the ashes.

There hadn’t been a summer of flames in over a hundred years. Why now? Why? WHy? WHY? pangs pangs pangs pangs pangs pangs of pain. the baby was coming and we were destined to go up in flames. She felt the cool mud floor against her cheek. She grabbed a rag often used for holding vegetable shavings and wiped her brow. She inched her way over to the potatoe sacs, never having her face more than two feet from the ground. Her ears were filled with the roars above her, the fire was feasting on her and her husband’s hard work. W e are going to die...at least I will not burn alone. Her vision became as hazy as her brain, f rom the smoke? When did the room become this smokey? Her thoughts were replaced with overall nausea from inhaling toxins and at the horror that she was glad that her offspring was not meant to make it into this world. She hugged the potatoes needing an anchor and salt water leaked from her eyes. I would give anything to take his place. He? Her body convulsed. She vomited into the peel bucket. No mess yet. Easier clean up for later.

Ironically, their house is the perfect kindling, made of wood floors and wood walls. They, at it’s conclusion, called it their little slice of log-heaven. In this state, it more resembled hell. The home is a simple and sound design. A gopher lives under the one

stair that they labeled the porch. They had named him Samuel. Jeb, good-naturedly would talk about making samuel a hat “one of these days...” The step was actually just a large, smooth rock. The structure was painted evergreen in reference to the origins of the materials. It sat ten miles away from the ‘hustle & bustle’ of the town-center. That’s how they liked it. Alone with each other. But w here is Jeb? H erding cattle into the town hall, wishing for the fireproof enchantments hold. Praying lovely Leuce and the baby-to-be are safe.

Unheard sobs and ripping of fabric. Lucinda is chewing on stingers to numb her insides. She usually makes tea out of this fowl root for women in labor, but unfortunately she is nowhere near the probably-melted kettle. Her fingers twitch. Both eyelids are glued closed and lines have formed battalions on her brow. P lease don’t let us burn to death, she begs the powers at work. The fire hears her cries, but inches closer, hoping to meet an old friend. Screams under earth. Screams under a burning skyline. Screaming. Screaming. A head and two legs. A body of flesh.

Persiphis was born from the overwhelming heat that may be seen as a wall of destruction, but the resins of the past have melted away. The pine seed has awoken to a new world with a bit less decay and a hopefull future full of new growth on the horizon.

A pinecone when overrun by hellfire itself will trigger a mechanism, from within create the chance to bring about life.

Fire is the agent of rebirth. Fire is a magic that brings new paths and life. Luece flopped over and crawled to her baby, wearing bright pink new skin. They are red and radiant surrounded by flames. It must have been the vapors poisoning her brain but she thought she saw small lines of flames curling around her baby’s arms like a garden snake coiling in comfort. How did we survive? And then it all goes blurry.

Chapter 1 The first spark Iphis grew. The house was rebuilt, smaller, sturdier. In the aftermath of the fire, there was no wood left for log designs. So mud bricks and ash paste became the main construction method, except for old Macus’ place. He used straw and ash cakes. Said it would have better insulation. Dirt floors and moss rugs. Iphis grew. Among flames of chaos Leuce had managed to not explain Iphis’ odd birth and both their survival story. No one seemed to care, the villagers were just grateful that the medic did not die and was somehow well enough to tend to the many burn victims who had not been as lucky. Between making salves and draughts; not to mention how day and night Leuce was wrapping and unwrapping and rewrapping and boiling bandages. Jeb was in charge of helping make sure enough food had been safely stored for winter and shepherding the animals that had gotten loose. Both were so tired by the end of each day they would fall asleep in their clothes right after a lukewarm broth dinner. They were a quiet newborn. Always warm, not with fever thankfully. The baby was strapped to either parent’s back for half the day and then the bundle would be handed off. Breastfeeding was done on the move. Rush rush rush. How’s the baby? Still eating? Still pooping? Still breathing. Good. There was no panic. Every person fell into a job. And that was life. The burned wild began to heal with each water replenishment. The stream came back with a roar. The waterhole was usable again. Harsher crops were planted for the next foretold season. Iphis grew. The town had now restarted and order was returned. Daily lives had more structure. A grey season passed into a windy season. Many nights were spent in the cellar hoping the roof would hold. Please hold. Please. Mother would pray. Father would close his eyes and fall asleep listening to the winds howl in heartbreak, trying to infiltrate every home in search of a lost love. The pair would read to Iphis and tell them stories. They would coo and gurgle in the ways that infants do in appreciation of art. Then would slumber.

Iphis’ mother used fireweed to cook instead of fire. It grew in plenty replacing grasses and shrubs in places the flames had gone higher-than-roofs. It only needed a single spark and then would ember for hours. This intrigued the baby to no end. Their eyes would turn orange in the glow. Townspeople had all but converted to fireweed due to it’s abundance. Only Luece noticed the change. She added it to the list of unmentionable (why?/unexplainable) traits her child possessed.________________________________________

Iphis learned to crawl. And crawl they did. Anywhere and everywhere. For a small being who has no sense of direction, they managed to find more ways to get lost than found. Under cabinets, on shelves, behind desks, in buckets. “The child needs a leash or watcher, we are gonna lose her--if I do not lose my mind first...”Leuce began to scrub her child’s already soiled dress. Jeb let go of his pile of fabric when he heard the tears hiding behind her eyes, “With the amount of dirt that accrues on this kid I say we just make her clothes dark” a chuckle ends his sentences while maneuvering around their awkwardly placed stone table. He hugs her from behind. Leuce hiccups. She looks at the crib stained black with soot that will not wash away. She let out all the air in her chest. Turns around in his arms. Eyes closed. Face to shoulder, face to collar bone. They sway, like seaweed in an underwater forest.

Meanwhile, the topic of these first time parent’s, has awoken from their nap. Bright green eyes crumple and blink. The world is too bright. So much stimulation, big yawn. Lips widen to show teeth coming in. Bright red gums, raw from their efforts. Little white pearls poking out on all sides. One sharp incisor is fully in. A gum-filled smile. As if they broke their teeth into bits chewing on rocks. One fist shoots out from the blanket, a test. All clear. “A-chew” A small nose squeaks out after inhaling dust not quite cleaned up from the weekly sweeping. They fell asleep in a pile of fabric scraps that morning. What was a comfy spot then, became a prison of inter-knotted bits that tangled around them whilst dreaming. They squirm and twist and plunge their limbs in many directions. Until, they are freed from the final bits of flannel that held them. Iphis rolls onto their hands and knees. They wriggle like and eel zigzagging across and off the sewing corner’s carpet. The floor is dirt, a normalcy, comfort. Bits of grime dot their legs, feet, and hands as they scooch towards a smell. Familiar. Bump bump bump. They see a toy in their periphery, it’s their belt-bat. For teething. They can chew on the leather head and wings cut from old belts. And cuddle with the stuffed

body. Two button eyes-one bright orange glass. The other is iridescent, made from a barnus’ greyish shell. A mud-feeder found in the shallows of smaller bodies of water. But, they ignored this distraction and reached a large basket with a lid.

Iphis recently reached that in-between where they can not walk, but they can stand a while if holding onto something else for stability. They touch the intricately woven reeds shaped into a diamond pattern using the contrast between different stalk shades. They reach out and run their hands over the small ridges. The smell is coming from here. The babie’s curiosity is heightened with the fact that this basket has a lid on it. Most baskets in the house are open with a handle. Or they are clay urns. What is this? What is inside?

Iphis grabs handfuls of floor and spreads their legs real wide for balance. Similar to a drunkards sense of balance, they dip this way and that, landing again and again on their butt, trying in vain to stand up. A sleeved arm leans against the cold stove. Perfect prop. In a series of pushing each limb out to full length with all their might Iphis stands and with one hand on the side of the stove they grab at the lid with the other, bouncing to stay balanced. They are reach-reach-reaching. Their stubby fingers barely graze the lid enough to push it back. Victory. “EEE!” Their back dips back and they fall forward grabbing onto the lid. The basket rocks. A little bit towards the wall. A little bit backwards. Swaying, like the couple downstairs. This is a precarious position where Iphis stomps a foot for strength, but the socked toes slip. They impact with the basket. With one support beam gone wild Iphis tries to hold onto the edge more. The basket hesitates and seesaws, Iphis is knocked onto their back. “Wumpf.” The basket topples over with their combined weight. “Crash!”

The contents tumble out. ------------------------------------

“Pitter-patter-pitter-patter.” “pit pit pat” The couple look towards the ceiling. “Speaking of infuriating infants...”

The two lock hands and give each other tired smiles. “Bum-bamp!” Now worried looks are exchanged, “thu-thud thu-thud thu-thud thu-thud thu-thud” of taking the ten stairs two-at-a-time. The wash forgotten, left to soak. The scene unfolds as Luece’s eyes take in damage. First, Empty blankets, at least Iphis is not being strangled by them. Then, no baby choking on fabric. Different snippets of jackets and patches were thrown about, to the left of their mattress on the floor. A single bit from the hem of a yellow skirt has landed on her pillow. Next, chairs are all upright not crushing her child. With each discovery she feels relieved simultaneously while her anxiety heightens. Where? Where? “Persiphis? Sweeety?” She starts to move to see behind the table--“ack”--Leuce swings her head over to Jeb. Mid cringe--“I stepped on the bat.”

They both hear a giggle that echoes off the stove. Red bursts across the room, blinding the adults. Both stagger. Leuce’s eyes adjust, dotted with black spots. The room dulls to a calmer hue of red. She cautiously walks over to the stove. There lies Iphis, covered in fireweed, the waxy leaves have already been used up as a natural wick. Each little spiral burned up while the stem continues to burn at a low flame. The light changes and each small patch of stalks flicker. They are dotted in whispers of light blue.

Blue sparks. Blue blood. Blue fire dancing in the afternoon light.

The baby wasn’t crying. No smell of singed hair or flesh alight. “Is this a dream?” The color had drained out of Luece’s face. She began to shake. This woke Jeb from his shock. He has got to do something. Help. Get water. He began to put out the danger. Pouring water on the plants ring by ring. Circumambulating his child until he reaches a sleeping Iphis. Not a single burn on their soft skin.

With tears in his eyes he picked up the infant. “She’s breathing.” He looks at them as if holding a wild dozaerk and not his flesh and blood. Turns.

Leuce’s eyes are just as puffy. She opens her mouth, but no words come out.

Deep breath. “I think...I need to tell you about what happened…when Persiphis was born.”

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