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marmolady · 3 years

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Homecoming: Part Three

Continued from PART ONE and PART TWO

Main Pairings: Estela x (f)MC, Graleister, Variego

Summary: Endless Ending. It's the final leg of Taylor and Estela's journey; taking them to Northbridge and old friends... but leaving others behind.

Word Count: 5905

Chronology: After ’The New Taylor’ and ’A Ride to Remember’, sort of midway through ’Inheritance’.

Tagging: @saivilo, @edgydepressedchoicesthot, @sceptilemasterr, @greengroove @mauvecatfic

Thanks for reading!

The echoey halls of the long-since abandoned Celestial rang with grunts and the deafening blows of metal against concrete, marble and glass. The figure of one Estela Montoya-- sledgehammer in hand-- emerged from the billowing clouds of dust, pausing her onslaught only to check in with her wife, who’d been exerting herself more than Estela was completely comfortable with.

Taylor stood up straight, panting, and wiped sweat from her brow. The slight tremble to her knees did not go unnoticed.

“Mi amor, I think you’re done.”

“Done?” Taylor heaved. “I’m no-- yeah, I’m done. I am officially….” She leaned against a wall, and let her baseball bat clatter to the fall. “I’m officially… all emotionally-released out.”

“I’m happy to hear that, cariña.” Estela put her free arm around Taylor, steadying her. “How about I pull up a chair for you so you can keep me company until I’m done?”

“I would like that a lot.”

Soon, Taylor was peacefully reclining on a deck chair brought from the poolside, and sipping a drink from a coconut, while Estela kept up her demolition crusade around her.

Taking down the old resort was a laborious process, one that had begun many months ago when the Catalysts first began stripping the hotel of anything that could be utilised in the small village that had become their sanctuary at the end of the world. Soon after Taylor, Estela, Jake, Grace and Aleister returned to the island, the resort had been gone over with a fine-toothed comb, with anything to be saved carefully removed for safe keeping. Now, what remained of the resort was ripe for a smashing, and once Iris had identified load-bearing structures to be careful of, the bare bones of the once grand Celestial was the site of a purge of a thousand pent-up emotions. There had never been any doubt to Taylor that such an opportunity for catharsis would do the world of good for Estela… but she hadn’t anticipated just how much she herself had needed to expel from her body in screaming blow after screaming blow. She could not begin to count how many times she’d closed her eyes and seen the people she loved murdered at the hands of Everett Rourke… to set fire to every last piece of trace of his awful smug face had the effect of leaving her feeling about ten tonnes lighter. It was everything she’d needed, and as she laid back and watched Estela smash through her own demons, she had to hope… this would be a corner turned for them both.

“Hey….”

Taylor turned her head, and grinned at the sight of Diego cautiously coming towards her.

“Hey!”

“There’s no, uh… debris flying around here is there?”

“Ha. I think you’re safe for now. Estela would have me in a hard-hat if there was any danger.”

Unable to argue with that logic, Diego sat down in the space Taylor made for him beside her.

“I’m just, you know… watching ‘Stel catharting.”

“Yeah, I can see that. Your eyes are bugging right out your head.”

Taylor shrugged and relaxed back in her chair, her gaze still following Estela as she flexed her muscles… which were on fine display beneath a thin tank top. “It’s a nice view; what of it?”

Diego chuckled. “Oh, nothing; nothing at all. Your face is just an absolute picture.”

Every now and then, Estela would glance over her shoulder, and-- sure enough-- Taylor would still be looking at her with the most ridiculous exaggerated heart eyes. God, how Estela loved that dork. Happy that Taylor was taking a well-earned rest, she could focus on her renewed onslaught; slamming into walls, structures… and any little thing that carried that cursed name.

A gargantuan crash had Estela rush to the vast kitchens. The air was thick with dust, already coating the once sparkling bench-tops.

“Grace?”

She needn’t have worried. The woman who emerged from the dust clouds carried a look of determined strength and fierce confidence.

Grace pulled down her earmuffs, her expression softening as she met eyes with Estela. “I didn’t scare you? I, um….” She chuckled bashfully. “I think I had something big and angry I had to get out my system… and it was a little bigger and angrier than I anticipated.”

Estela gave a small nod. “Fair. Things things can just… take over you.”

She knew from experience what that could do to a person. And she had an indelible mark upon her face to prove it.

“Well,” she said, “if you need to talk or anything… I’m maybe not the best at that kind of thing, but I’m here, okay?”

Grace smiled broadly, genuinely touched. “Thank you. And so you know, the offer extends the other way as well.”

It seemed pretty inevitable that old hurts are going to come up amidst all this releasing of pent-up emotion. Surrounded by support, it was a challenge that could be faced. Estela was certain that whatever poison bubbled to the surface, whatever old hurt took her by surprise, it would not be her burden to carry alone. She shook herself back into the zone, and in one fell swoop, took out the last support holding up the bar, which crumbled with a satisfying crack. It felt good. And so, she continued smashing out her demons… whilst remaining just close enough that she could run to Grace’s aid should she get in too deep.

Slowly but surely, Estela got back into her rhythm. Letting herself feel, and hurt… and then letting everything come pouring out.

With a guttural roar, she brought the hammer down hard. Again… and again. For everything Rourke had done…. For the hope for a safe future the bastard had dangled in front of Estela’s mother. For how callously he’d brutally ended that kind, intelligent, beautiful life, then turned around and talked of love. How even when his own demise was inevitable, the sadistic determination he’d had to make his last act the one of killing Taylor. For all those terrible nights Estela had been woken up by her poor wife screaming over deaths at his hands playing out before her, again and again. That demon had blighted every single person he touched. Lies… cruelty… and in his wake a bloody trail. Oh, but if he could see his precious Celestial now… that wicked smug satisfaction would be wiped clean off his disgusting face. Faster, harder, Estela threw herself behind every blow, letting out everything… the hatred gushing forth deep and profound, an all-encompassing whirl that her straining body could barely keep up with.

Her chest heaved. Her arms ached. As Estela watched the last rubble fall around her, a deep exhale took with her breath the emotional torment that had for so long existed in her like a sickness. She closed her eyes, and lay down the sledgehammer. She’d yelled her voice hoarse; her throat burned, and she had no screams left to yell. Slowly, panting heavily while tears and sweat still dripped from her face, she collected herself... taking in the sounds of water spraying from a burst pipe, and the aggressive grunts coming from the kitchen, where Grace was clearly still working through some stuff.

“Stupid… blasted… counter…!”

“Are you okay in there, Grace?”

There was a pause in the frustrated bellowing, then came the voice that seemed too absurdly gentle to have come from the very same person.

“I think I’ve discovered the limit to my own strength.”

Thinking she might as well lend a hand, Estela picked up her hammer and-- carefully maneuvering herself over the mess she’d wrought-- made her way back to the kitchen. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Furball snuffling around through the debris-- more than likely, he’d come in with Fenix, who’d been following Taylor around. Estela gave a low whistle.

“Are you going to be helpful? I’m sure Grace will appreciate it.”

“Mrrp!” Furball cocked his head, looking worriedly at the tear-tracks upon Estela’s face. “Prr?”

Well, that’s kinda sweet. Estela knelt down and gave the little blue fox a reassuring scritch behind the ears, then pulled up her singlet to wipe her face. “It’s all right. I’m all right. Sometimes feeling things is good for you, you know?” Then she stood up, again all action. “Come on, then.”

“You’re, uh, having a little trouble, then?” she asked as she rounded the door.

Grace, taken by surprise, jumped about a foot in the air.

“Oh!” She laughed. “You just about gave me a heart attack!”

“Sorry. I’ve been told I have a bad habit of sneaking up on people.”

“I wouldn’t say it’s a bad habit. I’ve had much worse surprises, I can tell you.” Grace tapped a sturdy steel counter with the hammer she’d been using to smash up the kitchen. “You caught me trying and failing to take out my feelings on this hapless counter. But it looks like even my feelings about my mother aren’t cutting the mustard-- and I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t calculated the most efficient angle of attack.”

Estela couldn’t help but snort a laugh. “You do always think things through. Here,” she said, offering her heavy sledgehammer. “Between you, this baby, and Furball, I think you should be able to smash out a few more feelings.”

Grace took a moment to study her sister-in-law’s face, and it didn’t take long to ascertain that Estela wasn’t just doing fine… she looked really… very well. Lighter maybe. She grinned. This little foray into demolition had been exactly what the doctor ordered.

“I’ll certainly try.”

It was getting dark by the time Estela and Grace-- and Furball-- retreated back to the entrance foyer, ready to leave behind The Celestial for good. Aleister was having a nasty cut on his forehead seen to by Taylor, who had with her the miracle ointment made from the healing leaves.

This, Estela supposed, was what happened when you weren’t quite careful enough about where you directed a lifetime’s worth of anger. And exactly why she’d kept a close eye on Grace… some people just don’t have the competence to throw around a heavy bludgeon.

“Oh, Al, sweetheart!”

Estela forced herself not to roll her eyes, no matter how excessive the fuss. A bit of care and affection had done wonders for Aleister’s disposition, and she was not about to challenge it… especially when she was pretty sure she acted a damn fool herself when the love-goggles were on.

“I, uh,” he muttered, his cheeks pinkening with unmissable delight as Grace took him in her arms, “seem to have clocked myself about the head in an attempt at putting a poker through one of my father’s portraits. The mind boggles… how many images he needed of his own smug face in here….”

“I’m guessing Jake’s still off making sure we got them all?” The absence of the final member of the group had struck Estela-- the lack of snarky remarks and stupid nicknames was glaring. With his intended surrender to authorities looming, and along with it the inevitable facing up to Mike’s family, Jake would be feeling… a lot. If he needed space, his friends would give it, no questions asked.

Diego’s eyes were puffy, and Taylor’s soft with clear concern for her friend. But, of course, how could Diego be even remotely all right? That Estela was seeing him at all was something of a surprise; time with the one he loved was running out fast.

Perhaps he’d seen the question in her eyes, for he said; “I wanted to take one last look at the place before it’s all torn down.” He gave a weak laugh. “Take a moment to remember the poor fish from my beautiful old aquarium room… which became a lot less cool once they’d all gone belly-up. It now looks like Finding Nemo: The Horror Cut, and the smell is… pretty bad.”

“I could have told you that choosing a room with live decorations isn’t the best idea in an abandoned hotel.”

Aleister chuckled, giving his sister an appreciative glance. She might have been something of a brute, but he’d long since conceded that she did in fact hold a few of the family brain cells.

“Trust me,” Diego said, “I’m keeping it in mind for next time.”

It was a long and quiet trek back to Elyys’tel and Catalyst Village; each member of the group was lost in their own thoughts. Varyyn had only just made the journey himself-- he’d given his husband space to say goodbye to a piece of his life that he could never understand, but had returned for him. They strode side by side at the back of the pack… always touching. It was those little touches… the ones they both knew were always offered in a heartbeat, that would perhaps be missed most.

“Hey,” Taylor said gently, slowing so she could walk beside her best friend. “If you want to, you’re welcome to crash at our place tonight. I’m sure we can snag a mattress from someone else’s house so you’ve got plenty of snuggle space.”

“I don’t wanna disturb you, you know? You’d be just upstairs… and there will be crying. Besides, just camping out under the stars together… it might be nice.”

When they reached the village, Diego and Varyyn peeled off from the rest of the group, quietly settling on a secluded stretch of the cove where, for a time, it could be as though there were not a soul in the world but for the two of them.

“I feel like I’m wasting the time we have,” Diego mumbled guiltily. “You’re right here with me, and I can’t even make the most of it because it’s like I’m drowning in… in feeling sad.”

“We are together, my beloved,” Varyyn said gently. “That is, ‘the most’ of any time. The most there ever can be. You always give me the truth of you, and now, that is very, very sad.” He trailed off. “…As am I.”

Diego exhaled deeply, pressing himself against Varyyn’s larger frame and feeling safe. There was no shame in his emotions; he was understood, and cherished in all his raw edges. Varyyn had never asked for anything more of him. It was the reason he had to courage to follow his passion and give himself a chance to grow into what he knew was his truest self… but the road to get there would be testing.

“I will see you every day-- I have become very proficient at the ‘phone’. And we can talk many, many hours. Being elyyshar has some benefits. If I am with you, the council can wait.”

“Even if Seraxa has steam coming out her ears?”

Chuckling in spite of his deep sadness, for he had to do whatever he could to give his beloved what strength he could offer, Varyyn nodded. “Even if.” He squeezed Diego closer, and let his eyes flutter shut, focusing on the very feel of him there in his arms… the way it was meant to be. The way it would be again, for their spirits were irrevocably entwined. “And it will not be long before we are together again. You have heard Taylor talking; she is not going to rest until she finds a way for me to visit you, and in the meantime….”

“I’m just a call away.” Diego wiped away his tears, then brought his hand to Varyyn’s face and guided him into a slow and tender kiss. Just a call away. Just a call away….

Further up the beach, Jake had taken himself for a walk along the sand-- cold beer in hand, and looking up at a wide open night sky for the last time for… well, he didn’t really want to get up on how long.

“Do you want company?”

How long Estela had been lurking behind him, Jake didn’t have the foggiest idea… nor did he know how she managed to sneak up silently on such soft shifting sand. He shrugged.

“Be my guest. Might be a nice distraction from my own thoughts. It ain’t as if I won’t have plenty of time alone with those in the near future….”

“It’s a pity Aleister’s already gone to bed. There’s nothing quite like getting up his nose to keep you out of your own head.”

Jake smirked. Old Malfoy had his weird ways of expressing friendship. Guy would call you an imbecile on one hand and throw tens of thousands at bulking up your legal defense on the other. Something told him that the fights they’d get in over the stupidest goddamn things was just another one of Aleister’s wonky emotionally-repressed attempts at building bonds. And for what it was worth, it actually worked-- with Jake anyway. Any excuse to give Daddy Issues a well-aimed friendly jab.

Estela, on the other hand, didn’t dance around the point with petty jibes and pedantic exchanges. Straight to the point, as she knew Jake had come to expect.

“Look. You are going to clear your names. And Mike is gonna be remembered for the hero he was. We’ll make it happen, all right?” She held his gaze, fierce with resolve, and saw that same fire reflected back at her. “I swear to you… if I have to make it happen my goddamn self. When we’re done, people will be wishing Lundgren had a grave so they could dance on it.”

Jake clapped Estela on the shoulder. “Aw, Katniss. I know we always said Princess was queen of the pep talk, but between you and me, she ain’t got nothing on you.”

“Then make it worth my breath.” She pulled him into a tight hug. “I’m not fucking losing you, you hear?”

“Crystal, Ripley. Crystal damn clear.”

Her face buried in his unkempt hair, Estela fought back the tears that stung her eyes. “Good.”

Pulling away, Jake discretely wiped his own eyes, disguising the movement by running a hand over his stubble. He looked out over the world that had become his home and felt peace.

“You know what? I’m really gonna miss this place.”

Estela followed his gaze across the island, the towers of The Celestial just visible in the distance, and Atropo gently puffing smoke out into the night air.

“Yes. I think I’ll always come back. Maybe we could come here together for like… reunions. All of us,” she made a point of specifying, letting any doubt of her faith in their ability to bring Jake home be put paid to. “We should never forget what happened here.” Nor what we all meant to one another. Her eyes wandered back to her own home in the village, where she knew Taylor was waiting, already going through her bedtime routine. Estela’s heart thrummed with affection. How could they ever stay away?

“I guess, Katniss... I’ll be seeing ya at the reunion.”

Again, she found herself choked up. Enough of this. It was time for bed… before she was a complete mess.

“You bet your ass I will,” she growled.

___________________________

God, it’s cold; Taylor’s first thought as she stepped into the gate from the massive aeroplane. Straight from the tropical climes that had been her normal, even the Massachusetts summer hit her as distinctly chilly. The very novelty of the crisp night air and the lack of her usual permanent layer of humidity-induced sweat was wonderfully exhilarating. This really was something new.

The flight, coming off the five hour journey to Costa Rica and a three hour stop-over, had been utterly draining for most of the group; Taylor was for once grateful for her recently-acquired ability to fall asleep at the drop of the hat. She’d spent most of the duration snuggled up with her head on Estela’s shoulder-- Estela never slept on planes-- and her legs tucked beside Diego’s while he distracted himself from his thoughts with the in-flight entertainment. Aside from the discomfort of sitting in a confined space for hours on end, the emotional onslaught took its toll. Jake had stayed with the group as far as Costa Rica, then left the others to take their flight to Northbridge. Public interest in ‘The Hartfeld Ten’ had waned somewhat, but if they turned up back in the country with a wanted man, an unnecessary hoo-ha seemed inevitable. At any rate, Jake had been adamant that he hit American soil as close to his home as he could swing it, which had put him on a plane to Dallas that left an hour after the Northbridge flight. There had, of course, been tears, but when Jake waved them onto their last leg home, he hadn’t been saying goodbye as someone dreading what lay ahead, so much as a man ready and determined to finally put everything right. For Mike, and for himself.

Through customs and baggage claim, Taylor took in everything; it was utterly bizarre that she’d never set foot in this country before, but so many of her friends’ life experiences-- the memories that had informed her very creation-- had created an impossible feeling of familiarity. It was as if she were seeing simple things for both the first time and the hundredth, simultaneously. She stayed close to Diego, who had been quiet from the moment the plane took off in La Huerta.

“That’s everything, right?” she checked in with him as she hauled a duffle bag off the carousel, only to have it promptly commandeered by Estela. That’s still too much for me to be lugging around? Point taken.

“Well, unless you’re intending to leave Madam and Fenix behind the Animal Arrivals desk in their pet-packs indefinitely….”

“I’ll have you know, wise-guy, that I haven’t forgotten them. Just… putting off having to deal with the foul mood we can expect from Madam Mierdita.”

Estela turned back to her wife with a smirk. “Her I’ll let you carry.”

“Gee, thanks.” Taylor caught Diego’s little snort of laughter at her expense. Okay, a laugh out of Diego is definitely worth incurring the wrath of the little monster.

Finally, they stepped out the Arrivals doors, trolleys loaded up with heavy luggage and two very curious furry travelers.

“Do you think they’re here ye--” Grace had been wondering out loud before-- “Sean! Michelle!”

Even in a bustling crowd, Sean was easy to spot, head and shoulders over most of the people surrounding him. An effusive Michelle darted into the walkway, sweeping both Taylor and Estela into an embrace, and guiding her small band of weary friends out the way of the rush.

“You wouldn’t believe how good it is to see you all!” She held Taylor at arms length, giving a quick appraisal and then going back in for a hug, satisfied. “You look amazing. Death’s door is all in the past.”

“Oh my god,” Taylor choked out, “it’s not even been a minute and my face is already aching from smiling so much!”

“I’ve been trying to convince Michelle not to worry about you too much,” Sean said as he came out of a hug with Grace to give Taylor’s shoulder a squeeze, “if there’s anyone who can pull a miracle comeback, it’s our Taylor.”

Perhaps it was guilt, but Taylor felt a violent swing of emotion. This wasn’t a victory yet. “We’ve just got to keep that lucky streak going a little while longer… bring us all home.”

A cloud of sadness passed over Sean’s eyes, but his warm smile remained. “No one’s throwing the towel in. Not by a long shot. But my Momma always taught me to savour the wins along the way… and seeing what it was you came back from, this is a big one.”

Taylor exhaled heavily. You’ve got to let it go… just for now. Letting yourself by happy is going to make you stronger when it matters. But it sure was hard. She could see that guilt reflected in Estela’s eyes… which she caught and was met with a tender smile that told her it would all, somehow, be okay.

“Right!” Michelle said. “We were thinking, Diego, Taylor, Estela in the big car with me-- there’s room for the pet carriers in the back. I am dying to show you the house! Aleister and Grace, if you want to go with Sean, he could either take you straight to your place or you can swing by and say ‘hi’ to the masses.”

Grace beamed. “Oh, we will most definitely be swinging round to say ‘hi’!”

“Please tell me Raj hasn’t thrown us some raucous, moronic homecoming party…,” Aleister muttered under his breath.

“You were joking when you said there might be something party-like waiting for us, yeah?” Taylor queried from the back seat of Michelle’s car as they turned onto the freeway.

“The ‘might be’ was only because I wanted to break it to Aleister gently. You’re going home to a party. Period.”

“They do know that we’ve been travelling non-stop for more hours than I care to count, right?”

“Oh, don’t even get me started!” Michelle huffed. “Before you completely panic, I’ve already laid down the law that whenever you’re done, it is done.”

Taylor chuckled nervously, exchanging a glance with an equally trepidatious Diego through the mirror. “I’m going to give Al all of five minutes before he high-tails it out of there.”

Michelle sighed. “The Raj party train is fairly unstoppable. But,” she added with a little twinkle in her eye, “no one is brave or stupid enough to stir up a sleep-deprived Estela, so I’ve been assured it will all be low-key.”

“You’re welcome,” said Estela.

The car pulled up a short while later in front of a big timber-clad house. A really big timber-clad house. Two storeys and --from what Taylor could see-- a window looking out of a loft space as well.

“Wow…,” she breathed.

“Damn,” said Diego, who’d been quiet for most of the journey. “You weren’t kidding when you said you splashed out….”

Michelle shrugged, but her delight in her friends’ reactions couldn’t be hidden. “You do remember that there’s going to be eight of us living there? Including one Craig Hsiao. We were getting a house with space, or we wouldn’t be doing this at all. Again, all credit to Estela for funding this. I’m still not convinced you’re not a little crazy, but there’s no way I’m complaining. This place is gorgeous.”

As she unloaded Madam in her pet-pack, Estela kept glancing up at the house, a curious expression on her face.

“Hey…,” Taylor said, giving her wife’s fingers a squeeze. “Are you okay, love?”

“Yeah, it’s just… weird. I don’t feel comfortable with thanks, I guess. We needed somewhere to stay, I’ve got money now… it’s not like it’s some noble deed or anything.”

Michelle gave a dry laugh. “I saved your life, you gave me money to buy a big-ass house… don’t worry, we’re even.”

Just then, the front door swung open and Quinn bounded out, the broadest of smiles across her face. “You guys! Welcome home!”

“Quinn!” Taylor put Fenix’s crate on the ground and leaped into a waiting hug… and by the time she lifted her head, she was completely surrounded.

“You made it, brah!”

“Dude-- du-u-uude!”

Suddenly, the hugs were coming from all directions.

Okay, I’m definitely home.

The three new arrivals were quickly roped into a brief house tour, starting with the main lounge, which to everyone’s relief, was not in fact set up for a rager. A few streamers and a ‘welcome home’ banner was the extent of visible party. As Raj explained, the main housewarming shindig would be happening once everyone was actually awake enough to enjoy it. Maybe in a day or two.

“And this,” Quinn announced, after having left a wide-eyed and stuttering Diego to explore his new digs, complete with a enormous screen from which to call Varyyn and digital copies of what appeared to be every major movie and television release from the eighteen months he was away on La Huerta, “is yours.”

She opened a door to a staircase up to the loft-space.

“We really hope you like it.”

Again, Estela’s expression twisted to one of poorly hidden discomfort. Taylor gently took her hand and led the way, understanding. That strange mixture of what she was adjusting to… feeling part of a close group of friends who wanted to look after her and that awareness, now pretty hard to ignore, that she now had money to her name… it was all rather a lot, especially after a long day’s travel.

Quinn, either by reading her friend like a book or by plain instinct, gave the couple some space. “You just take all the time you need. If you want, I can bring Madam up here so you can settle her in? We’ll all be downstairs with hot cocoa waiting whenever you’re ready.”

Taylor turned and gave a slow nod. The emotions rolling through her were overwhelming-- to be once again surrounded by almost the entirety of her family was more wonderful than she could say, and yet, it made the ache of Jake’s fate hanging in the balance all the more obvious. She was excited, and drained, and so fucking grateful for the love she was receiving in spades. That was how she was going to get through. That was how they were all going to get through.

“Thanks, Quinn-- you’re the best. I think Madam will be really happy to get out of that box.”

They reached the top of the stairs and switched on the light.

“Wow,” Estela said softly, her cheeks flushing a little. “This is really nice.”

After what had been put together for Diego, neither of them had known what to expect, but Estela and Taylor’s huge room was wonderfully simple and homey. A big comfy armchair in the corner, a wooden bookcase to match the bed, and a lovely soft rug underfoot… all the essentials for their private bolthole. Two arched windows tilted up to a beautiful view of a starry night. They had their own ensuite bathroom, which both regarded as a definite plus with six other people sharing the house-- including one Michelle Nguyen who did have a reputation for taking her time in front of the mirror. What struck Taylor most, though, were the small thoughtful touches scattered around the whole place. The many, many photographs that had been hung on the walls… a brand new knitting basket for all of her bits and bobs… fancy lotions that had come from The Elysian… the beautiful painting Quinn had gifted them upon their first anniversary… and perhaps Taylor’s favourite, a little plush dragon that had been propped up on the pillows.

Estela flopped backwards onto the luxurious mattress and exhaled, long and deep. Letting the feeling sink in… the feeling of being welcomed home with open arms. Known, and accepted, and loved. Without opening her eyes, she extended an arm, which Taylor wriggled under to be brought into a soft embrace. They were one more step closer to ‘happily ever after’. On their way to peace and healing.

Taylor saw it there already. Her sweet warrior, at ease with the world… and making her thrum with devotion.

They’d made it this far… so very far. Time for the next chapter.

#endless summer #playchoices #estela montoya #estela x mc #diego soto #jake mckenzie #grace hall #varyyn #variego

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giorno-plays-piano · 4 years

Text

Your place

Pairing: Steve Rogers x Reader (High School AU)

Warnings: yandere, obsession, bullying, threats, non-con.

Words: 1510.

Summary: You suffer in the arms of America's golden boy, the one who has been bullying you for years.

P.S. I just realized most of my smut fics are about Bucky, so I decided to write one with Steve instead. Btw, all characters had reached 18 years of age. Hope you'll enjoy!

______________

"Damn girl, you better put some makeup." Someone's loud voice behind your back made you flinch. "Y'know, you can still do something about that face."

You heard a burst of laughter and bit your lips. It had always been a part of your daily routine for several years once you moved to New York and went to Abraham Lincoln High School. God, you regretted it with all your heart.

"Come on, Sam. Give her some credit." You didn't even need to turn your head to know who was speaking. "She's the natural beauty, isn't she?"

You spun on your heels, watching harshly the group of guys leaning against the wall and smirking at you, all beefy, muscular and tall. The biggest assholes in whole Brooklyn; players of Howling Commandos, your school's basketball team; the ones most of the girls dreamed about and to whom they sent love letters every goddamn week, as the guys claimed. They had been your absolute nightmare since you got transferred to this place.

You glanced at Steve Rogers, America's golden boy, incredibly handsome with those blonde hair and blue eyes; the picture-perfect image of a diligent, polite student; the one whose face they put on promotional posters every year. You knew better than anyone else who was hiding behind this facade of "just a kid from Brooklyn".

"What, are you moody after yesterday's game?" You smirked, knowing very well that they had just lost against Hydra, the team Steve always hated with all his soul. "Go fuck youself and calm down, dear. Or are your buddies gonna lend you a hand, maybe?"

The smile fell from his face as the guy frowned, his bright blue eyes burning a hole in your figure. You guessed he really missed those days when you just listened quietly while he and his friends kept insulting you, but these days were long gone. You grew some teeth by the end of your final year.

"Listen, you little..." Bucky hissed, but Steve raised his hand and made him fall silent as you grinned, clenching your lunchbox in your hands.

Oh, he was mad. You knew well how much Rogers detested swear words, especially if they were coming from a woman's mouth.

"Watch your language, girl," his voice was unusually hoarse, his eyes watching you intensely, "or I'll have to teach you how to speak to a man myself."

"I'd like to see that." You giggled nervously, relieved there were enough students passing by to prevent Steve from doing anything stupid. "But if you want to complain to Mr. Banner to give me a detention, please feel free, dear."

You turned around with a silly smile on your face, waiting for him and his friends to give you some more empty threats, but you heard nothing at all as you kept walking. Suddenly feeling victorious and somewhat invincible, you laughed to youself, hurrying away. Did you just make those assholes silent, gasping for words at your audacity? Did it truly shut their goddamn mouths? God, it was unbelievable. Well, maybe going against Steve Rogers wasn't wise, but you couldn't pretend you were okay with that attitude of his after all those years of pure humiliation. You did nothing but protected yourself, right? Besides, he could hardly do anything since you were never alone at school, and after finishing your classes you were lucky to be driven home by your dad who worked close.

But maybe buying a mace wasn't a bad idea.

You laughed at yourself, finally arriving at the cafeteria and landing on one of the seats with a loud sigh. You knew Steve and his friends wouldn't do anything - their college admission was at stake, and you'd be happy to provide police with all the details if anything were to happen to you. Surely, they wouldn't risk it for just a few words you exchanged with them this morning.

_________________

Shit, you were so late for your PE class! Everyone was already at the field while you ran to the locker room, gasping for air. You didn't need Maximoff to yell at you the third time this month.

You threw your bag to the floor once you spotted your locker and jumped to it, abandoning your skirt in a matter of seconds and desperately trying to get your shorts out. You didn't care much about your surroundings as no one else was inside the locker room. Class had already started 10 minutes ago.

You didn't think anyone could be waiting for you here on purpose.

Before your heard the lock snap, somebody slammed your body into the locker, pressing you to its cool metal door so hard you lost your ability to move. Frightened to death, you were ready to scream, but someone's hand clamped over your mouth, muffling the sound. God, what was happening? Who was that? Why didn't you see anyone?

"Shhh, it's okay." You knew this voice too well. "You can keep screaming, but there's no one around, you know that."

You grunted against his hand, trying your best to throw the huge guy off you but achieving little: Steve was a bull of a man. His enormously big body leaned so close to yours that you could feel his every fucking muscle with his chest pressed to your back. His other hand gripped your throat tighter to make you stop squirming.

You needed to keep your mouth shut today instead of provoking him.

"Yeah, like that." Steve shushed you in a mockingly gentle tone, lifting his hand from your mouth and nuzzling against your ear, inhaling your scent. "I like when you're quiet."

"What the fuck are you doing, Rogers?" You asked him furiosly, pretending you weren't frightened to death. "Have you lost your head?"

"Language." His low gutteral growl made you shiver as you felt his palm on your neck moving.

Clenching your teeth, you tried pushing him away once more, but instead you just grinded against his heated body and realized he was... aroused, the bulge in his pants obvious as you moved your ass. God, no. No, no, no! You were at the edge of going into hysterics, shaking and pushing and crying with his hand on your mouth again. It was hard to breath with so little space Steve gave you, his unbearably hot body covering yours.

"What happened, dear? Cat got your tongue?" You were disgusted at his sweet loving tone. "Aw, don't worry, I'm not going to hurt you. You wanted me to teach you how to speak to a man, remember?"

His grip on you was madly strong - you winced in pain once Steve had squeezed the cheek of your ass with his huge calloused palm, your head pressed into the cool metal locker as he hovered above you. When he started kissing your neck, you bit your tongue in utter despair. He was fucking sick. Deranged. He was ready to do this over some little quarrel when the only thing you actually did was responding to his bullying.

Your mind was hazy as you started losing your strength after good five-minute struggle. Rogers didn't relent in his efforts to keep you pinned and completely defenseless.

"This is rape, Steve." You whispered, exhausted and anxious. "Do you understand?"

"Come on, what are you saying?"

His hand travelled down to your hips as he caressed them gently and moved to tug your panties down your legs.

"You're so wet for me, dear. How can you call it rape?" You shut your eyes when Steve touched you down there, forcing you to spread your legs and settling in against the craddle of your thighs. As he moved the elastic of your black panties, his fingers were playing with your folds, and you realized with shame he was right as he spread a bit of your wetness on your skin playfully. "Admit it, you have a thing for bullies."

"No, I d..."

Before you could bark at him he forced you to turn your head and kissed you hungrily, pushing his tongue in your half-opened mouth. You squirmed, grasping his hand, yet his arm that he used to hold your chin before swept yours away as he pushed you against the locker even harder. You could feel his erected cock through the fabric of his school pants.

Making a soft noise at the feeling of his tongue rubbing against yours, you heard Rogers groaning, his chest heaved. If you could pull away, a shudder would rush down your spine at the sight of his face. Instead of a school bully there was a predator waiting to tear his prey apart.

"Stop, please..." You panted heavily once he finished kissing you, his fingers still caressing your womanhood, your juices leaking down your thighs. "Why me? What have I done? You have hundreds of girls who want to throw themselves at you."

He smiled and rested his sweating forehead against yours, teasing your entrance.

"You see, it's easy. You get off on being bullied, and I get off on bullying you." Steve started rubbing little circles on your engorged clit, admiring your blushing cheeks. "We can have so much fun together if you just stop resisting me and take your place."

___________

Tags: @finleyjayne @alexakeyloveloki @helenaeisenhower @villanellevi @hurricanerin @lovelydarkdaydream

#steve rogers x reader #steve rogers #dark steve rogers #dark steve rogers x reader #captain america #yandere

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meetthetank · 3 years

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Cruciamen Chapter 10: Order of the Devoted

Rating: Mature Archive Warning: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Categories: F/M, Other Fandom: NieR: Automata (Video Game) Relationships: 2B/9S (NieR: Automata), A2/A4 (NieR: Automata) Characters: 2B (NieR: Automata), 9S (NieR: Automata), A2 (NieR: Automata), A4 (NieR: Automata), Emil (NieR: Automata), Kainé (NieR) Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, genre typical violence, On the Run, Monster of the Week, 9S is a half demon, 2B and A2 are shapeshifter Dragons, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Smut in the future, inaccurate depictions of medical procedures, Fantasy Biology, A2 is Nonbinary

The first thing A2 notices is how soft the surface they’re sleeping on is. It reminds them of times as a hatchling when they would nuzzle into their mother’s downy feathers, safe and sound while they slept. Something is draped over their body too, just as gentle. For the first time in a long, long time, they are content and unafraid for their safety.

The next thing they realize is that this is not where they lost consciousness, and all of the warmth in their body rushes away, replaced by icy gripping fear.

Their eyes fly open and they sit upright, ready to fight their captors to the death and escape their prison. They expect to see a pit of rotting mud and meat, or a dank cellar of stone. Instead, they find themself in a small cozy room, complete with a mirror and dresser opposite of their bed. A quick scan around the place reveals nothing out of the aggressively ordinary beyond a plate of fruits and other, strange foods that A2 has never seen before.

They don’t lower their guard yet. If their time in the Bog has taught them anything it’s that horrible things can be waiting in every shadow. The soft bed and heavy blankets might be comfortable, the room itself might be bathed in warm sunlight, the foods beside them might smell inviting, and they might not feel like they’re on death’s door anymore… but it could be a trap or an illusion or a horrible dream. Any second their surroundings could shift back to the prison pit, or they could be hallucinating, on the brink of death while some Bog animals gnaw at their limbs.

… They stare around the room for a few minutes. Nothing happens.

Somehow, waking up in a safe and comfortable room is the most unbelievable thing that’s happened to them, in their mind.

A2’s stomach roars, and suddenly they remember that they haven’t eaten in… gods, they don’t know how long. They look over at the plate of… things, on the small table. There’s a bunch of small purple fruits hanging from little vines in a pile, a block of pale yellow stuff, something that looks in between the color of flesh and the writing paper humans use to record things, a cup of warm water, and a couple of bottles of odd colored liquids. The pale colored food has the shape of an oblong rock, but sags when they press their finger to it. Its outer shell crackles enticingly, but they turn their attention to the plants instead. At least they know that the purple orbs are fruits. They pluck one off the vines and roll it between their fingers for a moment. It’s somewhat firm with a thin skin around it, broken where it was connected with what reveals a soft flesh inside that drips with juice. They cautiously sink their teeth into a small portion of one end which explodes in their mouth.

A2 decides they like these purple fruits, and gulps down the rest of them in seconds, followed by the soft yellow block and crunchy but also soft paper colored food. All of it tastes strange, but pleasant. It isn’t as good as fresh kill, but it quells the hunger that gnaws at their gut. The darker portion of their mind chastises them for eating things that could very well be poisoned, but A2 doesn’t care. They’re fed for the first time since going into the Bog.

The sink back into the bed, full of strange new foods and ready to fall back asleep. However just as they begin to get comfortable, their body begins to itch. They groan and drag their nails against the focal points, mainly their thighs and shoulders, to find them wrapped in tight bandages. They hold their arm up to inspect, finding only clean white wrappings and the stink of some sort of chemical. It smells a bit like fermented berries but less sweet. Carefully they pick at the bandages on their elbow, unwinding them bit by bit once they find the end stuck between two layers. As the final layers start to unravel, their arm begins to sting and feel like their skin itself is peeling off. Sure enough, they pull back the last layer to find raw, red skin. Skin, not scales. Portions of their scales stick to the bandages, flake off when the bandage is removed, or cling to their skin by the smallest thread of mucus.

A2 puts the bandages back on as tight as they can.

Suddenly the wooden door to the outside world flies open and in steps a woman with black robes with a mess of curly black hair tied back. She’s much shorter than them, most likely coming up to where their chest would be, and either well fed or muscular under her robes. Probably both, if they had to guess. A2 freezes in place as they watch her cross the room with a ceramic pitcher in her hands. The woman’s green eyes widen when they meet A2’s

“Oh good!” she says, her voice warm and kind. A2 recognizes it as the same voice they heard just before passing out in the Bog. “I didn’t expect you to be awake already.”

They don’t respond. The woman keeps watching them as if waiting for them to say something. A moment later she clears her throat and approaches A2’s bed. They can feel their hair--now much lighter than before--bristle even though this woman doesn’t appear to be a threat.

“... My name is A4. I’m a nun in the Order of Devoted. I’ll be taking care of you while you recover.”

Still A2 remains silent, their eyes never leaving A4.

“You must have some questions. I know it can be scary waking up in an unfamiliar place, but I assure you this is the safest place you can be in this region.”

The only form of movement A2 gives in response is blinking when necessary.

“... You’ve been unconscious for about two and a half days,” the nun begins as she pours the water into a smaller cup. “You were in a very poor state when we found you, but our holy magic has been sufficient in helping you regain your strength.”

She sets the cup on their bedside table. “Unfortunately you seem to have contracted an illness from spending so long in The Great Bog, and it’s not one spells can fix. Bog Rot is something that requires the old medicines. Regular herbal baths, cleaning of infection sites, various salves, and-”

“I don’t need your help,” A2 snaps, brows knit tightly together. They try to look as intimidating as they can, despite how pathetic they feel wrapped up in blankets and bandages.

A4 smirks. “Ah, so you can speak. For a moment I thought you couldn’t or didn’t understand my language. But I’m sorry, you need treatment-”

“I’m not a charity case,” they growl.

The nun’s eyebrows shoot up in shock, but then she puts her hands on her hips and scowls, though her emerald eyes still hold kindness. “I don’t think you understand how serious this disease is. You-”

“I. Don’t. Need. Help.” A2 leans forward and snarls, baring their pointed teeth at A4.

For a split second there’s fear on the nun’s face, a brief flash of pallor across her face. “Yes, you do. This is only the beginning stages of the Rot. Your skin will start to become necrotic. You won’t be able to walk, stand, or even clean yourself. One by one your organs will rot away and shut down. Within a month you will be clinging to life while your body rots from the inside out.”

They scowl, but A4’s little sermon does strike a cord in them. They cross their arms over their chest and stare holes in the floor. Somehow wasting away in a sickbed is a worse fate than starving to death in a mud pit. Unlike in the desert with Emil and Kaine they’re in no condition to assist with anything, so repayment is out of the question for now.

Gods, they hate being stuck like this.

“Look,” A4 says, her stern expression falling into one of genuine concern. “I can tell you’re strong. Most people would have succumbed to the Rot and the pain. I’ve seen many warriors fall into torpor after a mere week, yet you remain conscious and alert. You’d be free to leave once you regain your strength, if you wish.”

A2 chews at their bottom lip as they think, still scowling at the floorboards.

“... Fine,” they huff. “But I’m not letting you wash me. And I can take the medicine myself.”

A4 lights up with a radiant smile that makes A2’s chest tighten. “Great! I’ll leave fresh bandages and salves for you on your table every day. You have to change them each morning or if they get too dirty. The salves will sting a bit but they will prevent further infections. Oh, and exercise is important to the recovery process as well. Helps combat muscle wasting. So I’ll be helping you walk around the Convent grounds every mornin-”

“Like hell you are,” they snap, “I’m not a dog-”

“The walks aren’t negotiable.” A4 doesn’t even look at them as she gathers up old sheets and clothes. “End of story.”

A2 sits back in their bed and scowls, once again, at nothing. Just before A4 leaves their room, they realize something of theirs is missing.

“Where did you take my sword?” It’s a question in technicality, but A2 says it like a command.

“Your sword?”

“Big, black iron blade. Has a…” A lump catches in their throat. “... A black feather on the grip.”

“Oh! Yes, we did recover that from the village.”

“Give it back to me.”

She sighs. “Weapons are not allowed in the medical wards, but…” A4 looks towards the door like a child sneaking treats from under their parents noses. “I can take you to it while we’re on a walk.”

A2 feels a growl rumble in their throat.

“It’s safe, I promise. I won’t let anything happen to it.”

There’s an air of sincerity around the nun that lends credence to her words. That, and A2 simply doesn’t have the energy to press the issue further.

“Mm…” Is all they respond with.

A4 nods, then shuts the door behind her, leaving A2 alone with their thoughts. They sigh and stare up at the ceiling, wondering why the world won’t let them die.

#nier automata #A2 #nier A4 #fantasy au #nier fanfiction #tank fics

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smokeybrandreviews · 4 years

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The King of Iron Fist

I don’t talk about this much but i am a massive, massive, fan of fighting games. I’ve been playing these things for decades, since all the way back in ‘92 with the release of the original Mortal Kombat. Watching the growth, decline, and then resurgence of the fighting game community has been a goddamn treat for me. Admittedly, i suck at the Capcom titles. Absolutely terrible. I do okay with the Rival Schools franchise, but outside of that, straight up balls, man. Never my forte. I’m pretty good with the original MK trilogy, the sprite based one, but absolutely awful with Deadly Alliance through Deception. I hated the fighting styles in those games. They were so goddamn awful, it was sickening. I do okay with the MKIX, MKX, and MKXI titles, though. They feel like the old games which lends itself to my old timey skill set. That said, my strength lies with the two Namco headliners; Tekken and Soul Calibur.

I mastered every Tekken title through 7, though, admittedly, I'm not so godly in the newest release, only great. Personally. For me, Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection is the title I'm best with. I love that game, man. I can use literally everyone in the roster to perfection. All of their moves. All of their ten-hits. I maxed out my rank in the Ghost Battles with several of the characters and ranked in the top-10, worldwide, leader boards when it was first released. I was feeling a bit nostalgic and wanted to revisit my favorite fighting franchise, giving a little love to my favorite fighters, kind of like how i did with my Persona 5 mains. They are ranked, top to bottom, in order of my skill with them. I even threw in the rank i reached in their respective Tekken games, just for good measure. Since 6 is the last one i really spent any time with and there might be a few characters introduced in 7 or, like, the Tag titles that I'm pretty good with but don’t really have a correlation in rank, I'll have to approximate my skill with a Tekken 6 rank, just to keep things equal.

1. Emilie De Rochefort - Tekken 5 - Tekken God

Lili is my main from 5 onward. Her speed, power, and cross-ups are ridiculous. There is a fluidity to her style that makes for an amazing number of possibilities. All of those flips, somersaults, and hopping knee pokes make for a varying arsenal of devastating stuns. If you can time your attacks right, you can string one, long ass, chain of hits that will deplete an enemy with a Perfect within seconds. Her strength carried over into Tekken 6, easily winning me over in that title, too. I haven’t played much of 7 but what i did get into, Lili feels a little nerfed. She just feels a bit slower than she should. That’s not a problem or whatever, but it is kind of annoying that have to have so many gaps in my assault.

2. Hwoarang - Tekken 3 - Tekken God

Hwoarang was my main for years. He was the very first character that i mastered in any Tekken title. See, my older brother would come over with his PlayStation and commence to beat my ass in Tekken 3 for hours. One day, he told me to actually get good and lent me his Sony for a week. Welp, i did just that. I got good. Real f*cking good. Hwoarang uses Tae Kwon Do, which is dope because it’s easy to combo with, but this dude’s strength is in his juggle potential. His kicks lack the power of his master, Baek Doo San, but they come out faster and in more numbers. Within that week, i was able to string together a flurry of devastating kicks that not even my big brother could counter. Twenty-three years later, he still hasn’t beat me in a single game. If Lili isn’t available, Hwoarang is my guy. Even so, i am probably equally skilled with both, i just prefer the stylish flourish my darling Emilie has with her style.

3. Steve Fox - Tekken 4 - Tekken God

Steve was a quandary when he first released. Dude has no kicks and it was ridiculous to see in a game with such an expansive roster of fighters like Tekken, especially in the fourth iteration. His addition was ridiculous to me. And then i tried him. My, god, was his speed stupid. See, in a fighter like this, speed kills. If you can bust a quick combo, maybe juggle a cat, maybe fired off a quick combo before retreating out of counter range, you can destroy an opponent in seconds. That’s why i love Lili. That’s why i love Hwoarang. Steve Fox has that same potential but it’s different. You can’t launch characters too easily and being a puncher, his reach is limited, but you can juggle the f*ck out of them if they end up airborne. Steve has a lot of weapons to f*ck you up in a near infinite juggle if you’re not careful and i know all of them. Interestingly enough, he’s gotten better with age. I prefer his 5 version but 6 and 7 are pretty beefy, too.

4. Kazuya Mishima - Tekken - Tekken Lord

Kazuya is my power hitter. I’m a speed guy, admittedly. I love the juggle. I love the chains. I love the artistry in forging a string of consecutive, devastating, combo hits. The issue is, there are motherf*ckers like Paul Phoenix who can punch a planet into retrograde in this game. Now, against a computer, I'm fine with my main three Tekken Gods. I’ll dog walk a computer, no matter how high the difficulty. Once you’ve beaten Jinpachi on the highest setting in Tekken 5, you are ready for anything. However, against a real person who knows how to use a power character like the f*cking bears or goddamn Jack? Nah. If they’re good with that heavy-hitter, i have to bring in my own and Kazuya is that ringer. Dude’s probably the second strongest character in the the game after his pops, Heihachi Mishima. The difference? Kazuya’s cross ups are f*cking ridiculous. All of that twirling and overhead kicks make for some confusing hurt when you know how to execute.

5. Eliza - Tekken 7 - Tekken Lord

Eliza was an interesting character for me to pick up. I was curious about her so i bought that money pit Tekken Revolution or whatever. I hated that game so much but i played enough Eliza to feel borderline conceited in my ability. Imagine my elation when my darling drowsy vampire made her cannon appearance in Tekken 7. Again, i didn’t play much, but i did find that my Revolution skills translated well and i was even able to pick up a few new tricks. Eliza, admittedly, is super wonky to master, she’s similar to Alisa Bosconovitch that way, but her mix ups are superb. If you put in the time, Eliza is a very rewarding character to play.

6. Marshall Law - Tekken - Tekken Lord

The elder Law is my guy. I’m a sucker for a Bruce Lee facsimile and Marshall is one of the best out there. He has a good combination of speed and power but it’s his mix ups that endear him to my heart. That and i learned how to play with him because Forest Law, Lee’s son, was the character my brother beat my ass so handily with for months in Tekken 3. I learned Forest out of spite but, when his pops returned in 4, i made sure to master that version, as well. Over time, i grew to love playing with Marshall. He has a very unique, very acrobatic and showy style, like his real life inspiration.

7. Jun Kazama - Tekken - Tekken Lord

Jun ain’t no joke. That Kazama style martial art is something nasty. I could have probably put Asuka here, i am about as good with her as i am Jun considering how similar their styles are, but i have to give respect to the original tooth fairy. Jun Kazama is a f*cking problem, man, She’s deceptively powerful but quick with those hands. She will poke the f*ck out of you with such insidious precision, you won’t even realize you died even after the match is called. The way her blows flow make for some unwieldy mix ups and stupid juggle stuns. I hated fighting her in 2. I hated fighting her even more in the Tag titles. But i love fighting WITH her, especially if you can master that funky timing she has.

8. Lee Chaolan - Tekken 4 - Tekken Lord

Lee is bit of a detraction form my usual fighting fare. He’s kind of a gag character. A little effeminate and a little cruel, Lee’s kicks are the real deal. This cat sends those footsy out at blinding speed and you know how much i love my speed. The thing is, he lacks the power of, say, Hwoarang, Baek, or Bruce. I actually picked up Lee n 4, then Violet, on a whim because i thought it would be funny to beat someone with a character i had no idea how to play. After that first round, though, i was on it.Dude felt good in my hands. I knew Lee was something special and spent the rest of the night with his pokey kicks and flying drop kicks. It was f*cking incredible. I couldn’t believe i slept on such an amazing character for so long. I went back to Tekken 2 and spent weeks with him just to get a proper feel from start to finish. Now, he’s a staple of my rotation. Only when I'm feeling flamboyant, though.

9. Devil Kazuya - Tekken 2 - Dragon Lord

I picked up Devil Kazuya way back in Tekken 2 because i liked the design. Also, the face laser. That sh*t was stupid. As time went on, and the games advanced, i always went back to Tekken 2 in an effort to hone my skills with the original Devil. To my surprise, when Tekken 7 dropped, Devil Kazuya was playable once again and my skills translated perfectly. Dude has a few new tricks and i immediately ate those f*ckers up but it felt so good taking to the air once more. It sucks he only has two, official, appearances but this is one of those cats that i played a lot with in the Tag titles. Like, SO much. Devi was my second choice after Hwoarang in the original Tekken Tag and, like, my fourth in Tekken Tag 2. Obviously, I'm just as good with Angel, too. I mean, they’re the same f*cking character so i better be!

10. Anna Williams - Tekken 2 - Dragon Lord

Oh, the Williams sisters. Similar to the case of Jun and Asuka, I'm probably equally as good with both the Williams but Anna is my preferred character. I just like her design better. That and her deceptive ass sexuality. Anna is gorgeous but she will f*ck you the f*ck up. The Williams sisters are power characters and you can’t tell me otherwise. These chicks will ruin your life as a fast as Paul Phoenix if you’re facing off against someone who knows how to use them. I know how to use them very well. Again, Anna over Nina, but I'll mess you up regardless.

11. Zafina - Tekken 6 - Dragon Lord

Zafina was a surprise. Her style is all over the place. I read somewhere it was designed after a snake or something. That sh*t is fitting because she is a slippery motherf*cker, man. Zafina took me a while to master, kind of like Eliza, but once you understand her strengths, this chick can be a proper powerhouse. She’s quick, juggles well, but pokes like a f*cking champ. If your poke game is strong with her, there’s a good chance you can stun lock an opponent into a perfect or two.

12. Devil Jin - Tekken 5 - Dragon Lord

Admittedly, i wanted to put Jin from Tekken 3 on this list. His mixture of Kazama and Mishima style martial arts is mad potent. I love the way dude plays. It’s like fighting with Jun and Kazuya at the same time. However, with the release of Tekken 4, Jin unlearned literally everything about the Mishima style and decided to master normal karate. That sh*t was whack, man. I mean, it was fine, i learned the new Jin fine, but it wasn’t MY Jin. That said, my Jin was in the game, only he took the form of a devil. Devil Jin is f*cking ridiculous. I understood a lot of his abilities because of my mastery of Devil Kazuya but, with the addition of the Kazama style martial arts, Devil Jin was a f*cking beast in that game. He’s kind of a beast in every game he makes an appearance. between the two, i prefer Devil Kazuya, but I'll wreck a guy with Jin if necessary.

13. Bryan Fury - Tekken Tag Tournament - Dragon Lord

I love Bryan Fury. The design, the inspiration, the brutal fighting style, that ridiculously evil laugh; Dude is just amazing. I got pretty good with Bruce Irvin in Tekken 2 so when he wasn’t around in Tekken 3, i was a little bummed. It took awhile for me to pick of Fury, i actually first really got into the character in Tag but i did fool around with him in 3 a little bit. That was after i was surprised by how effortlessly powerful he was in Tag. Dude ain’t Bruce, but he’s still pretty dope.

Honorable Mentions: Unknown, Armor King, Ling Xiaoyu, Alisa Bosconovitch, Heihachi Mishima, Bruce Irvin, Kazumi Mishima, Miguel Caballero Rojo, Josie Rizal, Eddy Gordo

#Tekken #Mishima Zaibatsu #G Corporation

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master-sass-blast · 5 years

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Found Family, Part Two --Neena.

HELLO.

Okay, this fic covers a LOT of ground. Like, it’s not long (not by my standards, because nothing is EVER going to seem long in comparison to Gatekeeper EVER AGAIN), but it jumps through a lot of fics I’ve already written.

Thus, I have a list (not in order of how it lines up in this fic) of links to the different fics I include different side scenes for or reference: Authority Issues, “Myshka,” Rubber Meets Road, and Decisions, Decisions.

Summary: an overview of your siblingship with your coolest big sister ever, Neena.

Rating: T for mention of injuries, mention of kidnapping, allusions to abuse, allusions to rape (like you can tell what they’re talking about but it’s not graphic/it doesn’t happen to you or Neena), and mild moments of angst.

Pairings: Piotr Rasputin x Reader.

Special thank you to @leo-writer for proof-reading this to make sure I wrote Neena right since I still haven’t seen either of the Deadpool movies sdhflksdjlsfjdls.

@marvel-is-perfection, @chromecutie

You didn’t grow up with siblings. You’re pretty sure your parents only had you to fulfill the societal expectation of having children and creating a family. They definitely didn’t have any kids after your mutation presented –one “abomination” had been enough for them, fuck them very much.

You hadn’t realized just how deeply, desperately lonely you were until you escaped to the Institute, until you were surrounded by people every day and could talk to them, hang out with them, laugh with them.

And Wade’s a godsend, if God exists and has a really weird sense of humor. He’s a ball of chaos and has the best sense of humor. He sticks to your side like glue most days, and you don’t know what you’d do without him.

But Wade isn’t always around. And, despite his best efforts, he doesn’t manage to take care of all the things you need to learn.

Fortunately for you, you’ve got the coolest big sister to lend a hand whenever Wade’s off running a mission –or his mouth, as the case may be.

Neena “Domino” Thurman.

Neena is, without a doubt, the single coolest person you’ve ever met. She’s stylish. She walks with swagger. And, unlike Wade, she actually has her shit together.

You don’t get to see as much of her as you see of Wade; she has her own apartment and does work out side of the X-Force stuff, but she occasionally pops over to the X-Mansion to train with some of the people there or talk to Xavier.

Point stands: the two of you haven’t spent much time together. You’re usually running around with Wade anyway.

Until one morning, she pulls out the chair next to yours at the breakfast table and sits down next to you. “Do you have a bank account?”

You, unfortunately, are in the middle of horking down as many pancakes as you can in one sitting. You try to swallow the mass amount of mush in your mouth –and when it’s clear you won’t be able to do that without choking, you just shake your head.

“I didn’t think so.” She smiles and pats your arm. “I’m training with Logan today. Come find me when you’re done eating. I’ll help you get one set up.”

You blink after her as she walks away. You’re not exactly sure what just happened –or why it just happened—but you’re pretty certain that the coolest, most together person you know just offered to help you get your life in order.

Well. You’re definitely not gonna turn that down.

The two of you set up shop in the dining room when she’s done training. As fortune would have it –part of you is starting to wonder if Neena’s probability powers extend through time and space—you’d had the foresight to grab your birth certificate and social security card before running away from home. Add the laptop Wade bought for you, and you’re all set to make your own bank account; you don’t even need to leave the mansion –bonus!

Wade pops into the mix in the middle of it all. He’s resplendent in his suit, freshly back from a mission with Cable. He cocks his head to the side when he see your documents and laptop on the table. “What did I say about giving your information to Internet trolls!”

“Nothing. Ellie taught me about Internet safety, not you,” you fire back. “And I’m not!”

“I’m helping her set up a bank account,” Neena explains.

Wade goes quiet for a moment as he processes that. “Huh. Yeah, that’s probably a good idea. Hey, let me know when you’re done; I can give you some cash!”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“Sure I do! What are siblings for? Besides, I don’t do my taxes, so this a good way to make sure that my dough gets distributed.” He ruffles your hair, then stares at his gloved hand. “I probably shouldn’t have done that. There’s so much blood on my suit.”

“Ew!” You wipe at your hair with your hands, then shove him away from you. “Go take a shower, you fucking cretin!”

“Ooh, ‘cretin!’ That’s a fancy insult! Very—” Whatever he’d been about to say next is abruptly cut off by a very tired, very pissed Cable grabbing him by the collar of his suit and yanking him back, effectively choking him.

“Shower, you walking, talking dildo,” Cable growls as he shoves Wade in the direction of the locker rooms used for clean up after training and mission.

“Ooh, is this the part where we shower together? Shit, I don’t think I have any lube on me –ow!”

Neena shakes her head as the two men disappear from view. “I don’t think I’ll ever understand how Cable hasn’t killed Wade yet.”

“Who’s to say he hasn’t? It’s not like it’d stick.”

“Fair enough. Alright, click that box –that gets you a debit card. You’re gonna want that for shopping and stuff. Cash is good, and you’ll definitely want to stick with it if you have to go under for a bit, but plastic’s good for regular life stuff. Helps set up a paper trail and all that.”

You do as she instructs, then glance over at her. “Thanks for, uh, helping me with all this. I don’t think I would’ve ever considered to open my own bank account.”

The corner of her mouth turns up in a smile. “I had to figure this all out on my own after I left Essex House. Even if I’m lucky, I still wish that I’d had someone to help me with this shit.” She looks over at you. “Always pay it forward. Be the person to others you wish you’d had.”

You nod, humbled.

She studies you for a moment, then nods at the laptop. “Alright. Let’s get this wrapped up for you.”

You don’t see much of Neena after that. You’re busy training –and breaking shit with Wade—and she’s busy having her life together and being super cool—

Until you run into her in a hallway at Xavier’s. “Oh! Neena! Hi!”

She grins at you. “What’s up?”

“Oh, nothing much.” You heft the laundry basket you’re holding. “Laundry day.”

She frowns at the small pile of clothes in the basket. “You don’t have much to your name, do you?”

“I kinda had to take whatever would fit in a backpack when I left,” you explain. “I can’t exactly fly with a suitcase.”

“Makes sense.” She cocks her head to the side. “Do you have any plans for today?”

“I mean… I need to put my clean laundry away.”

She smirks. “And after that?”

“Uh… not really, no.”

“Cool; me either.” She grins. “Let’s go shopping.”

She takes you out to a couple stores, helps you stock up on shirts and pants and pajamas and –everything you’d wear day in, day out, basically. You need just about everything.

The two of you swing by a coffee shop after to get a bite to eat.

You marvel at the stylish purple and blue exterior. “How’d you learn about this place?”

“Lucky find.”

You squint at her. “Do you ever get tired of saying stuff like that?”

She grins. “Nope.”

The two of you –and the hundred million bags from your excursion—bump into Colossus as you make your way back into the mansion.

“You had very busy day.” He frowns as you wrestle with your armload of bags. “Do you need help?”

“Uh, I think—” You curse as one of the handles on the bags breaks. “Yes, actually. That’d be great.”

He takes the majority of the bags –he’s got the hand size and arm strength for it—and the three of you head up to your room to get everything sorted.

You’re chattering a mile a minute about your day, what the stores were like, the coffee shop. “—and they have a trivia question of the day, and if you can answer it correctly you get a free pastry with your drink! I thought that kind of thing only happened in TV shows.”

“It’s pretty common,” Neena says with a chuckle. “If it wasn’t, they wouldn’t have it in TV shows.”

You shrug. “It’s not common in the middle of nowhere.” Your jaw clenches involuntarily, and you start digging through your bags and tossing clothes on your bed before you’re swamped by bad memories. “Look! I got so much cool stuff!”

Colossus chuckles at the flurry of fabric. “Perhaps you should take tags off first.”

“Oh, yeah.” You try tugging the price tag off the shirt in your hand, then tug at it with your teeth when it doesn’t give.

“Myshka—”

“Hang on.” The tag breaks, and you spit it on the floor with a triumphant laugh. “See –aw, fuck. The little plastic thingy didn’t come out.”

Colossus smiles at you and shakes his head. “Wait one moment. I will get scissors.”

Neena smirks as he walks out the door, then gives you a look when his footsteps fade down the hall. “I’m pretty sure he likes you.”

You roll your eyes. “No. We’re just friends.��

“I know you like him,” she fires back.

“Well, that doesn’t mean he likes me,” you retort, ignoring the way your heart squeezes painfully in your chest. “So there.”

Neena shakes her head. “Whatever you say –but I’m usually right about these sorts of things.”

You quash the hope swelling in your chest and go back to unloading the bags from your shopping trip. It won’t happen. Don’t get your hopes up.

Your outings with Neena become a regular thing after that. She helps you fill out your closet, pushes you to apply for a library card, takes you to various shops around New York when you both have time.

She also becomes a bit of a confidant when you’re dealing with stuff you don’t want to talk to Wade about; he’s wonderful and hilarious and surprisingly wise, but Wade’s also unhinged and unstable. Cable –Nate—is aloof and just as lost in the present as you are.

And, sure, most of the X-Men come from unhappy pasts, but Neena just… gets it in a way that the X-Men don’t.

Sometimes, even, you think she gets some of it better than you do.

Case in point, when she walks into your room and drops a basic padlock, a set of real handcuffs, and a lock picking kit on your bed. “How was your day?”

“…Good.” You look at the stuff on your bed, then look at her. “What’s all that for?”

“I’m teaching you how to pick locks.”

“I can do that with my powers.”

She grimaces. “You won’t always have them.”

You shrug –she has a point after all. You open the kit and pick up the padlock, then stop and look up at her. “Won’t your presence affect my ability to do it? Like, make it easier?”

“Practice is practice,” she says simply, and that’s that. She shows you how to do it once, how to hold the tools properly, and then sits down on your desk chair while you have at it.

You work at the padlock with the lockpick, but you can’t help but notice the way Neena’s knee bounces up and down boot rubbing against the carpet with a soft scuffing sound.

You glance up at her after a moment, note the way her arms are crossed over her chest and she’s staring off at nothing. “You okay?”

She swallows visibly. “Job,” she offers after a moment, as if that explains everything.

And you guess it does, sort of. You’ve been around Wade and Nate after jobs have gone wrong. Wade’s always a little twitchier after, a little more homicidal; Nate doesn’t have many visible tics, but throws himself into work like the world depends on it.

Which, considering the jobs he does, maybe it does.

But this is the first time you ever seen Neena rattled.

It’s disconcerting.

“Didn’t go well?” you venture.

She shrugs. “Got paid.” She sighs when you put the lock and pick to stare at her –a clear sign that you want her to talk. “I was hired to rescue some rich millionaire’s daughter. The paycheck was good, he’s an environmental and queer rights activist, so I figured why not.” Her mouth tugs into a harsh grimace. “Didn’t make it in time.”

You stomach drops –and then you frown. “But… why would you get paid…”

She shakes her head. “Not that kind of ‘in time.’ The other kind.”

It takes you a second, and then— oh.

Oh.

No wonder she’s so rattled.

“It just… it reminded me of when your parents hired bounty hunters to get you back,” she admits wearily. “If Colossus hadn’t gotten there when he did…”

You shudder at the memory. “Yeah.”

She looks at you, finally. “You’re not always going to have your abilities to help you. The more tools you have under your belt, the better –whether they’re ‘ethical’ or not.”

You nod. You get it.

You start practicing on the padlock again.

Neena’s the one that teaches you how to drive after you crash a car with Wade, too.

She’s smirking at you when you when you walk into the garage at Xavier’s. “What, exactly, made you think that Wade fucking Wilson would be a good driving instructor?”

You scowl a little, even though you deserve it. “I wasn’t exactly thinking. At least, not about that.”

She laughs and nods for you to get into the driver’s seat.

She takes you out on back roads –and keeps you at the speed limit, unlike Wade.

You drive for a while, getting the feel of the vehicle, how to turn properly, how to avoid potholes.

Eventually, Neena speaks. “How are you and Pete doing?”

“Better,” you say as you steer the car around a curve. “It’s been a little tense for a couple days, but I think we’re alright.”

“Story is that the two of you had a pretty bad fight.”

You let out a huff. “Something like that, yeah.”

After an hour and a half, the two of you are back in the garage at the Institute.

Neena pulls out a bag of tools before you can make a break for the mansion. “We’re not done yet.”

You frown at the tool bag. “What are those for?”

She grins. “I’m teaching you how to hotwire a car.”

“Wow. Hold the fucking phone for a minute.” Neena stares at you while you work on picking the lock on the driver’s side door. “‘As much as I deserve having to deal with each escalation in your behavior the longer you refuse to deal with void left by your parents.’ He actually said that to you?”

You grimace, but nod. “He was mad at me.”

“No shit. Doesn’t make it right.” She leans against the hood of the car as she watches you work. “You’re staying with him after that?”

“That’s the plan.” You toss a quick glance her way. “You think I shouldn’t?”

She shrugs. “Hey, it’s your choice. Frankly, I’m a little more worried about his control issues than anything else.”

“Ah. That.” You chuckle a little. “Yeah, I’m good with that.”

“You sure?”

You nod after a moment of thought. “Piotr’s tendencies… it usually isn’t about shit like this. It’s about little stuff. It’s about how the fridge is organized, or his teaching schedules, or me eating enough vegetables. Stuff I don’t necessarily care about, stuff that doesn’t hurt me or anyone else.”

Neena nods in understanding. “And what happens if it turns into something worse? Something that does hurt you?”

“That’s a bridge I’ll have to cross if and when it happens,” you say with a shrug. The car door picks that moment to pop open, and you let out a whoop of victory. “Awesome!”

There’s the sound of footsteps outside, and then Piotr’s striding into the garage. He frowns when he sees you and Neena. “Myshka, what are you doing?”

“I’m teaching her how to hotwire a car,” Neena says amicably. Her expression sharpens when Piotr’s turns to exasperation –and suddenly you can see the well-trained mercenary and fighter that hides just underneath her skin—and she points a finger at him. “She’s already been kidnapped once. If it happens again, knowing how to hotwire a car is a skill that she will need.”

Piotr relents with a grimace, even if it’s just barely. “I came to tell you dinner is almost ready.”

“Alright. I’ll try to be done in about twenty.”

He sighs, but doesn’t argue. “Will you be staying, Neena?”

She smiles. “Sure.”

She stops by to visit you after Wade and Nate move out after the incident in Hell’s Kitchen.

You’re out on the back patio, enjoying the late afternoon sun and the warm weather –with that damn wheelchair nearby, because heaven forbid you try to go anywhere without it.

You’ve got new sympathy for Charles, that’s for sure.

There’s the familiar sound of Neena’s boots in the kitchen, and then she appears by your side -with a box of Poptarts in hand, bless her. “I bring gifts.”

You grab the box from her and tear it open; you rip open a package –strawberry flavored, one of your favorites—and shove half a pastry in your mouth with abandon and complete indifference to whatever judgement you might receive. “You’re my hero.”

She laughs as she sits down in the seat next to yours. “I figured Pete would be keeping you on a clean diet. Thought I’d hook you up.”

She’s dressed in a distressed, light wash denim jacket, a white tank top that has ‘i do it better’ written on it in pink lettering, green shorts patterned with four leaf clovers, her boots, and sunglasses.

She’s the coolest person you’ve ever seen, bar none.

“How’s your leg?” she asks as she swipes a packet of Poptarts for herself.

You let out an annoyed huff, partially at your injury, partially at the pastry theft. “Hurts, even with the meds. And I can’t do anything for myself –though Piotr does have to help me shower, so…”

She cackles when you let your voice trail off and waggle your eyebrows suggestively. “Yeah, yeah, you’ve got a sweetheart of a man who loves to get you off whenever you ask for it. We know. Rub it in, why don’t you.”

You mime rubbing soap on her arm, then let your hand drop back in your lap. The two of you giggle for a bit, amused with yourselves.

“What happened?” you ask after the laughter dies off completely. “After I was taken into the hospital. Why isn’t Piotr talking to Nate? I mean, I know they’re mad at each other…”

Neena chuckles darkly and clucks her tongue. “You know you almost died, right?”

“Yeah. Piotr said as much.”

She nods. “Just checking. Anyway, he—” She chuckles again. “He hauled off on Cable as soon as the medics took you into the hospital. I’m surprised he didn’t break his nose; he might’ve been armored down, but he swung hard.” She goes quiet for a minute, considering, then adds “I think that’s the angriest I’ve ever seen him.”

“He punched dad?” You almost can’t believe it. You know Piotr gets angry, but his version of aggression is usually verbal or emotional.

Well, he’s hauled off on Wade once or twice, but Wade is Wade.

You never thought he’d do it to anyone else.

“He was pissed with him,” Neena says evenly. “Blamed Cable for taking you into a mission you didn’t have enough training for.”

You groan and pinch the bridge of your nose. “Seriously?”

“Castle sided with him, too,” Neena says. “Said you were too green for the environment.”

And, well, they might be right on that, but punching people is not the answer, Piotr, for Christ’s sake.

“What do you think?”

“I think you’re not a mercenary and usually don’t go against people with guns. That makes you green.”

You slump in your seat. “Fair enough.”

Neena pats your shoulder. “It’s not your fault.”

“I know.”

The two of you sit in silence for a bit.

This is the one thing that Neena’s better at than Wade by miles. Wade doesn’t do silence; he always has to be doing something, always has to be saying something.

You get it; you used to be the same way. But since getting into therapy, Alyssa’s had you working on being more comfortable with quiet, with stillness.

Neena’s a good person to practice with, if nothing else.

Eventually, though, you bite the bullet and ask her the one thing you know Piotr won’t tell you. “How bad was it? When… when I…”

She squeezes your hand reassuringly –and then tells you the truth. “It was bad. You almost destroyed the dock.”

“I killed people.” It isn’t a question.

She nods. “All of the traffickers. A couple of the victims, too. There’s always collateral with this kind of stuff.”

You let out a shaky breath and try to keep that at the forefront of your mind.

You only partially succeed.

“You’re a powerhouse,” Neena says casually, like it would fit alongside ‘pass me a fork please’ or ‘put milk on the grocery list.’ “I didn’t realize how strong you were until I saw you at the docks.”

“You’ve seen me fight before.”

“Yeah, but I’ve never seen you cut loose. It’s impressive.”

“Just once, I’d like to ‘cut loose’ without losing it.”

“You’ll get there,” she says, squeezing your hand once more. “I know you will.”

“You can’t know that,” you argue.

“I’m not usually wrong about these sorts of things.” She grins at you. “I was right about Pete liking you.”

You roll your eyes. “Lucky guess.”

“Sometimes luck’s all you need.”

“I could definitely use some more,” you grumble.

“I think you’re doing pretty good, all things considered. Hell, you might even be luckier than me, given all the odds you’ve faced down.”

You huff at that. “I don’t randomly find fifty dollar bills on the sidewalk.”

“Different kinds of luck for different kinds of people,” she says with a smile.

And then Piotr comes out with some water and your next round of antibiotics and pain pills, and you can’t help but smile at the sight of him.

Yeah, you’re pretty lucky.

#sass writes #piotr rasputin x reader #colossus x reader #neena thurman #domino #neena is the coolest person ever #she has swag #so much swag #deadpool fanfiction #x men fanfiction

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thatonecomicgirl · 6 years

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Marvel Fic Recs

Gonna keep this going over time as I find new ones, but here’s a compilation of ones from my bookmark list. Read tags when you get there; I’m not responsible if you continue to read something marked with stuff you don’t like! I’m a multishipper and like variety, so it’s not all going to fit in one box.

Chiaroscuro - Photographer!Peter Parker asks Wade for some help for a project.

“Peter needs to take a good picture for a college course photography assignment, but can't, for the life of him, find a decent subject, and time is running out. It's a good thing Wade is willing to lend a hand (or, rather, another part of his anatomy).Pure fluff: definitely not half as dirty as that last sentence would have you believe.“

--Yeah I can’t help but love Photographer!Peter and fluffy Spideypool so

Ghost Stories - Steve doesn’t take off the Winter Soldier’s mask. He helps anyway.

“Steve doesn’t like bullies, on principle. It's less about justice, or decency, or righteous indignation; more about the look in the eyes of the people getting stepped on, the people getting trampled, the people getting lost.So it cuts all the deeper, when Steve recognizes strength, precision, endurance, capacity: sees the pieces of himself not born but made, reflected in this body, this person, this weapon: the Winter Soldier.It slices through Steve’s soul when he returns the Soldier's gaze, and reads the only thing that lives in the deadness that pervades behind those irises in the night.It’s not You can’t beat me.It’s more You can’t stop them.“

--GORGEOUS okay? It’s wonderful? Stucky oriented, super interesting, and the ending just. Ugh. So well written.

Ain’t No Grave (Can Keep My Body Down) - The Winter Soldier recovers (sort of) and illegally adopts two kids with Steve.

“It's six in the morning, and Steve is heading out on a run when he nearly trips over a bouquet of sunflowers on the front steps of his brownstone.

For a second paranoia takes over, and he kicks the flowers a little, waiting for them to explode. They don't. They also came with a card, which he picks up. The front of the card has a tasteful picture of the Brooklyn bridge at sunset. It's very nice and sedate, like the kind of card you would buy to give to your boss. On the inside someone has written a short message in big, shaky block letters.

I AM SORRY FOR SHOOTING YOU.

Steve sits down hard on the steps.”

--I read this forever ago and could not for the life of me find it again until recently. Bucky has so many ups and downs and craziness happens. It’s blunt, beautiful, and dark and rough where it needs to be. So so good.

For the Life, For the Day, For the Hours - Killmonger Lives Series

“If it were up to you, you would’ve been out of your rooms and on the move the minute you were able. Cell? Room? Whichever, doesn’t make much difference in the end, does it.Bad enough waking up in the first place, after you said, you said— But it shouldn’t be that much of a surprise. Shouldn’t be a shock to find the lord high king of wherever doing whatever the fuck he wants, even if you didn’t already know that’s already the basis for Wakandan international and domestic policy. Kind of makes it worse waking up with only a memory of pain, and when you pull up your shirt to look, there’s barely even a scar to mark the occasion of that one time you decided you were ready to die. Definitely makes it worse that you’re pretty sure T’Challa thinks he’s doing you a favor.“

--Okay don’t be put off by the second person because this series is freaking gorgeous and if BP didn’t already make you somewhat sympathize with Erik then this will put you in his head and when he has to deal with Avengers he’ll just feel like he’s tripping so

despite the threatening sky and shuddering earth (they remained) - So freaking good

““They really didn’t want the mask to come off.” Hill thumbed through the scans, and pulled out a film that she then handed over to Sam, face mostly expressionless but for the flat line of her pursed lips.

Sam accepted the film and held it up to the light, angling so both he and Steve could see it, squinting at the outline of the Winter Soldier’s skull, and the blips of unnatural white that showed up, God, in his brain, not to mention about half his teeth, plus the mask, with its thin protrusions—

“Those are pins,” Steve realized. He looked over at Hill. “The mask—it’s nailed to his face.”

Hill’s face was as unmoved as ever. “Like I said. They really didn’t want it coming off.”“

--AAAAH so so so good. Steve takes in the Winter Soldier, not knowing it’s Bucky (because mask nailed into skull) and it turns out Steve is plenty traumatized too by the whole situation, and Sam Wilson is a blessing to all. READ IT.

(I’ll add more in reblogs later)

#marvel #marvel comics #mcu #fanfiction #fanfic #ao3 links #fic recs #fanfiction recommendation

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robbmywolf · 8 years

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Wolf on a Leash

Part Two to this Part One!

OMG I got such positive feedback from the first part! I DID NOT EXPECT THIS. You guys spoil me tbh, thank you for all your kindness and support xxx

Summary: The feuding continues. Robb and Y/n manage not to get along even worse than they did before, but Ned’s resolve prevails. Starks are stubborn and breaking their will is near impossible.

Tags: THE FIRST OF THE HATE FLIRTING, s l o w b u r n, humor duh, AnGsT aLeRt, Stark family feels, unresolved jealous feelings

Tagged Lovelies: @im-smad, @salliebley, @reader-fics, @a-girl-who-loves-disney (lemme know if you want to be tagged xx)

{okay woah btw this is a LOT longer than the first part hehe sorry}

Chapter 2

“He’s mine to hate and hurt and do with as I please, no one else’s,” You hear yourself hissing at Lady Evangeline, shoving your face forward and closing in on her personal space despite the frantic beating of her delicate fan to keep you at bay.

Her intimidated expression of growing fear (of you, you realize with a twisted satisfaction) is not what pulls you from your sudden flash of gripping fury.

It’s actually the silence beside you that shakes you free of it. Robb is silent. That never happens, Robb always has something to say in retaliation to literally any words that leave your mouth whether they pertain to him or not. You pull your face back only enough to swing your blazing gaze on Robb, whose expression holds the shape of an emotion you haven’t seen on him before.

Earlier that Month -- The morning after your first night chained together

You wake yourself by accidentally biting your tongue.

You’re shivering so harshly on the floor beside Robb’s bed you worry for second when you can’t move your toes. Grey Wind is still beside you, a life-line of warmth, a furnace that you find yourself clutched around as much as possible. Your nose is pressed into the thick winter coat at his neck trying to hide your face from the merciless nipping cold patiently numbing bit by bit of your flesh.

How you managed to get any semblance of rest in your current conditions simply boggles your freshly woken mind, your thoughts slushing around disoriented in your mind before you remember the catastrophic events of yesterday. Your eyes fly open and whip to land on your shackled wrist wrenched hanging at an unnatural position.

Your stomach drops and for a moment you think you’re going to be sick when you realize why you are on the floor and who is in the bed above you. Instead of vomiting you tug on Robb’s hand gently so not to wake him, and pull your own hand down to your body. He gives no resistance still asleep and quite -- surprisingly -- pliant. His big hand falls over the edge of the bed and quickly you squirm your shackled hand under Grey Wind’s belly as he lays on it, hoping to regain feeling in the appendage that’s frozen solid. The wolf jumps mildly at the sharp sting of cold but only gives a snort before settling again, fully awake but happy to rest beside you. When your hand still feels like a block ice carved straight from the Great Wall after a full five minutes, you huff sleepily and try to think of other ways to warm yourself up.

All without waking Robb, of course.

You want some peace and time to yourself, your face naked of the mask you always put on when he looks upon you. Basking in this relief you are careful not to disturb his own shackled wrist too much and mute the little clinks of metal as best as you can.

Finally you settle in a position that has you facing the bed, shivering escalating by the second, Robb’s limp hand hanging only a foot from your face that’s going numb like the rest of your body. The hand is pink with fresh warmth from being under the many layers of Robb’s bedding, fingers long and palm wide and welcoming. The texture of his sword-callouses are revealed through curious strips of light tiptoeing down from the windows. You would have reached out to touch it, maybe hold on to it to steal some of its heat, but you honestly couldn’t feel your hand so the appendage stayed unthawed at your side.

Grey Wind gives a small whine of concern as he noses at your neck, the wet cold of it making you flinch, as the wolf takes note of your unhealthy condition. Robb stirs and gives a sleepy huff. You hold still hoping he doesn’t wake just yet. Despite you being about to black out from the cold stealing feeling from every part of your body, you desired the alone time more.

You never did have a knack for self preservation.

An old fear-warped memory of lying in a similar cradle of chill and ice wipes across the backs of your eyes you didn’t remember closing. A white forest canopy blinds you as you lay in the snow feeling your body descending into stages of a slow death. You felt your body sinking deeper and deeper into the glacial embrace of the earth around you accepting your body into its depths.

Robb wakes suddenly, yanked into consciousness from the bowels of sleep like a fish on a line. He groans and shuts his eyes against the unforgiving winter morning light pouring through the barely curtained windows. There’s a slight chattering noise that comes into his notice -- teeth clanking together -- and Grey Wind is whining loudly.

“Hush now,” Robb gravels grumpily in his sleep-strained voice at Grey Wind as he makes to turn over, but is stopped at a sharp pull on his left wrist. “What the --,”

Robb whips bleary-eyed around at the feel of rude metal clutching at his wrist. He goes into momentary panic then settles when he remembers yesterday but then panics again when he spots you on the floor. Your skin is that same grey-blue and an eerie sense of deja-vu smacks him across the face and leaves his chest feeling hollow and rickety.

Grey Wind is giving him a threatening wolf glare.

“Gods!” Robb exclaims under his breath as he entangles his legs from the nest of warmth on the bed and hauls you up. You’re dead weight, head lolling and eyes sealed shut.

Robb’s concern spikes considerably at this as he wrenches you up to the bed and hastily tucks you under the blankets, and comforters, and furs. Gods he left you one fur to sleep under. A potent self-disgust boils and gurgles in Robb’s gut as he continues frantically trying to warm you up.

You had stopped shivering. That wasn’t good.

Ice sickness was common in the North; you shiver, then start to lose feeling in your extremeties, then it creeps to claim more and more of you until you lose conciousness, then you stop shivering, then you....

Robb refused to even think the last step. With mounting panic he unwraps you quickly and strips you of your clothing. He doesn’t even feel guilt at seeing your naked body without your permission because this is life and de -- no. He will not even think it. Once your body is fully exposed he fiercely strips himself of his own clothes and unreservedly clutches you to him in a desperate attempt to lend you his heat knowing this is the most efficient way to regulate your body temperature. Your skin is nothing short of ice, freezing to touch and almost just as hard. Hoisting you up bridal style, he snags as many furs and quilts he can get his hands on and waddles over to the low burning fireplace in his room. Robb quickly revives the flames, coaxing them to roar tall and hot, and holds you against him while wrapping the both of you in the bedding before the licking heat of the new fire.

Robb shakes despite the fact that he’s sweating as your heavy head rests back against his collarbone, your back to his front, body limp between his legs and still impossibly cold. It is almost like your skin is refusing his warmth.

“Just take it! Stop being so stubborn and just fucking take it!” Robb demands of you as his fears take turns stabbing at the muscle of his heart.

He begins to rock your bodies back and forth in a subconscious effort to calm himself. His full fledged panic blocks any and all intimate thoughts that would have run through Robb’s brain any other time he might of had a woman naked between his legs and pressed flush to his chest.

But this is Y/n and she’s dy--

Grey Wind interrupts Robb’s train of thought by curling up to both of their forms and licking warm stripes up Robb’s cheeks. It takes the young Stark a second to realize he is, in fact, crying.

Robb assigns the reasons behind this to the crazed delirium of being thrown into panic and trauma directly from sleep. Because without a doubt he still despises Y/n even as he clutches her closer to him, the full passion of his hatred still so tangible and easily accessed even now. He shoos Grey Wind away from his face, wiping the snot and tears on his shoulder so he won’t have to sniffle like a sobbing child, and regains a shred of his composure.

Y/n twitches promisingly in his arms and he feels her chest heave a big refreshing sigh, restarting her system.

She will be fine.

His skin tingles like hot coals where it touches her’s and he can’t tell if the force between them is shoving them apart or yanking them closer together. This battle keeps him where he is.

When you eventually wake Robb gets a marvelous deck to the face the second you muster enough strength to swing the weight of your arm.

He doesn’t ever tell you this, but you bruised his jaw so badly it hurt to talk and eat and breathe for weeks.

Ned refused to unchain you.

Robb sleeps willingly on the floor of your chambers now.

Middle of the Month - a week or so after that first morning

It’s not often Winterfell hosts guests in the middle of winter. But House Cerwyn has come to stay at Winterfell for a seemingly innocent visit. The party came through the recently shoveled court yard on a gentler winter morning. Ned received the head of the family Cley Cerwyn with loud, proud Northern words of greeting and jovial claps on the back.

The point of this visit baffled the Stark siblings while Ned and Catelyn seemed almost eager, giddy to host the Cerwyns. It didn’t take long to work out the hidden intention though. The day after the Cerwyns’ arrival, introductions were made as the Stark family officially received them in the large banquet hall.

Catelyn had put up quite a fuss about you being chained to Robb for the introductions but Ned kept steady to his word and left the two of you shackled. When Ned offered the visitors an explanation as to why his eldest son was chained to you, Cley had burst out laughing followed by companionable chuckles from the rest of the family.

Catelyn was still bitter but didn’t bring the issue up again until later that week.

Robb and you were currently walking across the snowy cart yard heading towards the stables. One of your favorite mares is giving birth and you wanted to watch or maybe help deliver the foal if Robb would be willing (which he wasn’t when you originally asked to attend such an event). But after much arguing, some haughty threats, and a quick fist fight, you convinced him to at least let you observe.

Lady Evangeline Cerwyn strolls arm in arm with Sansa, both ladies twirling their delicate winter parasols on their shoulders as they walk around the bustling yard. It’s midday and the snow coming down in generously light and dainty. The beautiful eldest daughter of House Cerwyn catches Robb’s eye.

He noticed Evangeline’s beauty immediately when they were formally introduced, she just had that easy natural beauty about her that men went to war over. She was the perfect gentle-woman in every way a respectable noble lady such as herself should be.

In effect, she is everything you are not.

Your beauty is like a diamond that has yet to be polished from its cage of sharp black granite. It hides itself beneath your blunt personality and the gruff-n-tough way you hold yourself. You carry yourself more like a soldier, an equal to any man rather than a lady. Plus you were not from noble birth, in fact you didn’t come from any family at all. You are an orphan.

You realize as you feel Robb tugging you towards her and Sansa, away from the stables drawn to her like a moth to a flame, that you’ve never had a last name.

It makes you impossibly sad for some reason, muting any protests you might have said and dampening any fight you might have put up as Robb comes to stop in from of the two halted ladies and gives a graceful courteous bow.

“Ladies,” Robb says in that deep voice he uses when he’s trying to be impressive and seem older.

You don’t even bother trying to hold back your eyes as they roll generously in your sockets. You cock your hip and set your weight in it stubbornly, jutting it out further as you grumpily place your hands on your hips calling attention to the shackles between binding you together. Sansa squints at you in a coded warning. She must like Evangeline although its not hard to see why, she’s everything Sansa aims to be -- minus the being married part.

Your mouth quirks a little and suddenly you know exactly why the Cerwyns have come to Winterfell.

You fight the urge to drag Robb away kicking and screaming to the stables, not knowing where such an immature childish impulse came from. Shaking it off you hone in on the conversation that’s been going on in your mental absence. Robb is charmingly giving a more in depth, quite frankly biased explanation as to why you both are shackled together as Evangeline blinks up at him under a swath of thick pretty eyelashes.

“ -- took her in and she’s been a nuisance ever since. You see my Father has this very odd sense of humor as most of us Northerners do, and thought that if he chained us together she might learn a few manners!”

You distinctly remember Ned saying this should teach Robb a few manners and some humility but you only grumble unintelligible sounds of disagreement under your breath.

Evangeline giggles then at Robb’s humor that was made at your expense, the sound of it chiming like tinkling glass bells in the wind. Her luscious hair falls around the frame of her face forming this vignette around a vision of grace. A lovely addictive smile plays at her lips, rewarding Robb for his efforts and inviting him to try some more.

You refrain from turning to face Robb wanting nothing more than to carefully analyze his reaction to this blatant beauty flirting with him, but you know you couldn’t do that without being noticed. Confused silence yawns in your heart when you wonder why you even care what he’s feeling.

There are only some many petty urges you can strangle back when it comes to Robb, and right now, in the presence of a flirting Evangeline -- the perfect wife chosen for Robb by his parents -- they are practically impossible to restrain.

“He takes longer to do his hair than I do.” You blurt in a vomit of words out of a numb mouth, the statement ridiculously random and having nothing to do with the conversation.

The memory of standing impatiently beside Robb this morning as took his sweet time arranging his deep mahogany curls atop his head still fresh in your mind. You’re pretty sure he does it to piss you off but you hoped the little tid-bit would serve to embarrass him. Because it’s unmanly to groom yourself too long right?

You want to show her how close you are to him, a small curious voice curls up from the black depths of the your mind that you never venture into, a sign that says ‘DO NOT ENTER, GO BACK’ placed at the threshold.

Everyone pauses then looks to you as the weirdness of what you just said settles in the air like an echo of a bass bell. At this point you don’t even have the decency to be embarrassed, you just are glad Robb’s not looking at the Cerwyn vixen anymore.

The pretty noble-lady in question looks you over for the first time even though you’ve been standing there for more than ten minutes. Blatant and purposefully not hidden disgust colors her lovely features. You fight the urge to curl into yourself and hide behind your own shadow at the unexpected sharpness of her gaze. Sansa’s eyebrows knit together and her eyes flash at you in more warning not to embarrass her any further in front of her respectable family-friend.

“Well I can see that.” Evangeline eventually breaks the silence, retaining a cruel lightness to her tone that lets everyone know who is higher on the food chain. “Robby’s hair looks dashing fit for the young noble lord that he is,” She pauses to send Robb a gorgeous half smile at the compliment, batting her eyelashes at him once before returning her eyes back to you in full force, judgment and all, “But as for you and your hair I dare say it is not quite up to par.”

Robb hides his snicker poorly as your face falls a little in a moment of caught off guard insult, but you easily regain your composure. Really? She was insulting the state of your hair? It seems you have grossly over-estimated her ability to dismantle someone. Her rank was her only weapon against you. Getting insulted by her was like the equivalent of Evangeline throwing one of her handkerchiefs at you.

Evangeline easily out ranked you, like by leagues, therefore you knew you could never publicly slander her back and get away with it like how she just did to you. You grit your teeth knowing your presence before her is only tolerated because you’re literally shackled to the heir to Winterfell.

“I apologize for the ugly mark I’ve dashed across your day, maybe I should retire so as to not further disturb your peace.” You respond in easily registered mocking tone, ticking your head to the side like a bird of prey and giving her a chilly threatening smile (the mechanics of which you learned from Catelyn Stark).

“Oh! How kind of you to go to such measures to rid me of your ill-timed presence.” Evangeline plays back with a smug smirk on her face, like she just dropped a bombshell.

You pity her if that’s the best she can do. You yourself know you could bring her down but you know she’s not worth the effort, it’d be too easy. But you get good practice out of it none the less.

Sansa observes Evangeline every twitch and hangs onto her every word like she’s witnessing something sacred. The young red head quickly learns (to her extreme disappointment, ‘how dare you be better at something than Evangeline’) though that even though Evangeline has the higher status, your verbal sparing skills greatly out due Evangeline's. Robb happily watches, completely entertained, as you two continue to exchange icy phrases having to sometimes think hard to keep up with the coded insults.

You both eventually end with overly articulated flourishing sentences, even Sansa looked fed up at this point, and you parted ways. You fully expected for Robb to put up a fight and want to stay with Evangeline (in fact you were bracing yourself for it), but he easily followed you as you turned sharply and trudged away. He had only shouted a polite farewell to a pouting Evangeline.

“What was all that about?” Robb questions in a tone you’d never heard him use before. Okay, never heard him use with you. “Was that how women fight over men? Did you two fight over me?” He has a bounce to his step you noticed and when you looked up at his face he was smiling.

Instinctually you want to point that he’s smiling and somehow twist it into an insult or thing to hold over his head, but at the last minute your throat clogs up and blocks the habit from controlling your tongue. Instead you gulp thickly as you expertly run your eyes over his face, getting hit with how handsome Robb is. You don’t notice so much but for some reason its smacking you in the face now.

His eyes are bright, similar to how they are when he’s angry but its a different kind of lightness. It’s carefree. You watch how his face molds around his smile thats big and generous and inviting, drawing you in and welcoming you to share in his happiness.

With a gallant amount of effort you get a shaky grip on your emotional reigns and roll your eyes before smacking him upside the head sharply. Robb exclaimed a surprised ‘Ow!’ but gave no more protest other than rubbing the back of his as you began talking.

“No you idiot, we weren’t fighting over you. What we were doing was determining who was more powerful. It’s how women size each other up.” You explain in the most elementary way possible as you both walk on, some sort of synced autopilot taking you both towards the stables.

(You had not noticed until now how in-tune you both had become. Robb and you already were highly intelligent of the others emotional inner workings do to you both manipulating each other all the time, but now that awareness has grown to something more powerful than you realized. You had entire conversations without needing to speak, made decisions based on the other’s body language. It was so overwhelming and so out of either of your control, that you pretended it wasn’t happening.)

“More powerful?” Robb asks with a naughty curl to his smile that made your breath catch in your throat, his happy mood determined to prevail the fall of his pride. He continues to practically trot at your side; you tell yourself its annoying.

“Yes like, oh how can I explain this to your primal male brain?” You sigh dramatically as you squint up at the grey sky while easily dodging his fist that was aimed for your shoulder, “It’s like a ‘Who Has the Bigger Cock’ contest.”

When you look back down from the sky, blinking some of the water out your eyes since the clouds made it too bright to stare at for long, to catch Robb’s gaze you find his eyes wide. His mouth had dropped out of its full grin to hang open in a mock-scandalized ‘O’, but the corners of his lips were still suspiciously curved up giving him away.

“Did you just say–,”

“Cock? Yes, men and prostitutes don’t own the word. Cock. There I said it again.” You challenge as you playfully shove him away from you (where did that urge come from?), him breathing out a strange noise through his nose that sounded almost like a laugh as he regains his step and shoves you back.

Robb looks fascinated at the fact that you said a dirty word when you both recover your gaits beside one another and reconnect gazes. You smirk at him as a witty thought pops into your head and slips off your tongue.

“Lady ‘Your Hair Isn’t Up To Par’ wouldn’t be caught dead saying the word cock.” You tease as you jut your chin up at the jab. A foreign but yet oddly addictive energy zings between you two then, the atmosphere around you morphing and changing into something new -- something....exciting.

Robb’s cobalt irises shake with mischief and flash at you, except this time its not anger its something else.

“I bet I could make her say it.”

You gasp, trying to hide your scandalized grin, and go to smack him upside the head again but Robb unfortunately learned from last time and ducks away in time. With his stupidly fast reflexes he snatches your offending shackle-free wrist and chucks a triumphant cocky smirk at you over the horizon of your fingers.

“Let go of me Curly.” You grunt playfully as you wrench your wrist out of his grip and start up your walking pace again. The nickname coming easy and out of the blue.

“Then don’t hit me Stray.” Robb throws right back at you and this time the chain doesn’t need to yank him to fall into step beside you, he does it himself.

When you roll your eyes at him as you always do, there isn’t a single hint of the usual frustration or anger or bitterness that accompanies the gesture. What appears in replacement is a fuzzy and weird and warm feeling that sits esoterically on the throne of your heart. You shy away from figuring out what it is and what it means, scared for some reason.

You both watch the foal be born. It’s a young stallion. With a murky expression on his face Robb tells the stable master to name it Curly.

End of the Month - current day

There had been a small ball that had been thrown in the Cerwyns’ honor (and the anticipated unannounced union of their houses, you had thought bitterly though you did not want to know this aggravated you so much). It was just the two families who were in attendance, but there was music and dancing in the banquet hall after a grand meal. Catelyn unlocked Robb from you for the entire evening.

It was strange to not have his presence always at your right. It was almost akin to losing a limb -- a weird, frustratingly uncomfortable hollowness. You kept torturing yourself with questions you couldn’t answer; like if Robb felt the same way, felt this emptiness that plagued you.

As expected you were not allowed at the festivities, and instead spent the evening fencing with Jon out in the chilly court yard. Jon noticed how you moved like you had a limp, an illusion that something was missing -- an intangible feeling that you were off-kilter -- but he already knew the reason. Jon knew you better than you knew yourself honestly, but he wouldn’t ever dream of telling you that. You might not be a Stark, but you had the temper of one.

It wasn’t until Ned called you inside when everything was dying down and people were retiring to their chambers so he could lock you and Robb back up, that things took a sharp fucking turn to the left. Robb had appeared in the hallway leading to the court yard you had just in from -- with Evangeline on his arm. They were chatting away, easily leaning in towards each other like a magnet was coaxing them closer. They really were a perfect match. For some reason the thought made your stomach twist, then plunge into your gut.

As Robb, without looking or paying any attention to no one other than Evangeline, offered his wrist to his Father and Ned gently took yours, something in you died. A small tragedy that was being mourned by your soul as it wept in the flesh cage of your body. You ignored this and kept your eyes down, following Ned’s fingers as they deftly moved around your wrist and Robb’s, familiar with the lock and key by now.

Ned noticed how quiet you were and concern seeped into the lightness of the evening. He knew better than to ask a young woman if she was ‘okay’ and let it be. When he announced his departure with nothing more than a polite Stark Grunt, you immediately wanted him to stay.

Don’t leave me with them! Your eyes pleaded, by you kept them down so Ned couldn’t read them and fufill your wishes.

When Ned was gone you endured the horrific torture of having to wait for Robb and Evangeline to bid each other good night. Evangeline was prolonging things on purpose, I mean you couldn’t blame her. What really struck home for you though was the smile Robb was giving her. He never looks at you that way (not that you ever tried to earn it).

“He’s mine to hate and hurt and to do with as I please, no one else’s,” You hear yourself hissing at Lady Evangeline, high on this powerful strange emotion coursing through your veins and letting instinct carry your actions.

You shove yourself in between the two with no warning making them unlink arms. With mounting chargin you close in on her personal space despite the frantic beating of her delicate party fan to keep you at bay. Her intimidated expression of growing fear (of you, you realize with a twisted satisfaction) is not what pulls you from your sudden fever of gripping fury. It’s actually the silence beside you that shakes you free of it.

Robb is silent.

That never happens, Robb always has something to say in retaliation to literally any words that ever leave your mouth whether they pertain to him or not. You pull your face back only enough to swing your blazing gaze on Robb, whose expression holds the shape of an emotion you haven’t seen on him before.

This sets a flock of starving crows into a madden flurry in your stomach, their sharp beaks plucking at your insides and eating you alive. Because you know all of Robb’s faces; Every. Single. One. Having memorized the intimate paths to take in order to unlock his different emotional states, these maps of mind, heart, and soul you’ve made well trodden over the years, learning him from the inside out to get the best reactions from him. You know how to manipulate him just as he well as he knows how to manipulate you.

But now, staring at him with the fire in your soul weaning a bit and twisting into a new foreign kind of burn, you don’t recognize him. Who is this? What’s that face? Your mental radars are setting off alarms in your head as you rush to figure out what in the name of the Seven is going through his head. You always know what Robb is thinking, usually you despised this talent (but also found it quite useful) but now could not for the life of you take advantage of it.

You didn’t even realize the gentle-lady Evangeline had scooted away and gratefully fled the bubble of tension, leaving Robb and you openly glaring -- or gawking -- at each other in the middle of the hallway. A tender winter breeze sneaks in from the closed door behind you, whistling lowly as it sweeps by and nips both of your noses in cosmic jest.

It dawns on you quite slowly.

But once your mind catches the thought, takes firm but gentle hold of it in its embrace making sure that it won’t slip away, do you start to unwrap the answer to the emotion on Robb’s face. Your soul holds its breath.

Agreement.

Pure, gilded, unrestrained agreement was what it was -- the feeling looks so raw and new on his features, like it shocked Robb so thoroughly he didn’t have the means to hide it. Enigmatic acceptance follows closely behind to color in the leftover untouched bits of canvas on Robb’s face, reigning free and wild to mix like drops of blood in water, swirling like whirlpools to full collected potency in the azure blue of his eyes.

His soul stares at you hard from behind matching cobalt windows, sizing you up and after a couple heart beats, cautiously waves invitingly at your own soul. You feel her press up curiously against the back of your eyes to analyze him back. The pressure in your eye sockets may have indeed been due to the presence of your soul, but the pressure was also do to the accompanying vengeful tears, anxious to be released having been pent up and barred from their grave of the outside world for so long.

The whiplash-like emotional shock that you are crying in front of Robb kickstarts in your body and your skin erupts in gooseflesh. Robb does nothing in response to seeing wetness in your eyes bulge then give as one tear sparkles poetically down your cheek, accept curving the center of his eyebrows up in clean concerned awe of you. You feel disconnected from your own limbs as they move you on their own accord, sprinting off somewhere as everything becomes overwhelming.

Its too much.

You feel like a wave is cresting in your chest and you’re not sure your heart will survive it washing over you.

You’re so focused on running from yourself that you don’t even register that Robb’s being hauled along with you, the chain binding you both together.

Robb doesn’t know what to make of things. Too many emotions have torn through his heart tonight and he’s more than a little hesitant to break all, if any of them down. He’s more than a bit surprised when you drag him to his chambers (since they have been sleeping in yours since you almost froze to death). His mouth opens to make a comment but he thinks better of it and shuts up.

He lets you lead, recognizing that you’re taking your day clothes off in the weird ballet you both have mastered over the past month. How you manage to get out of your day clothes one-handed baffles Robb every time with all the layers and skirts and corsets and shifts. You leave yourself in your plain white fabric shift and Robb strips down to his undershirt and matching underpants.

Without a word you shock him once again and crawl down to the floor, settling on the thin fur carpet beside his bed, grabbing multiple quilts and furs and pillows down from the bed to make a small comfy nest.

Robb again can’t find his voice so he wordlessly lays on the bed, letting his hand hang off for your comfort, and listens as you make a last few adjustments and settle. Right on cue Grey Wind noses in through the cracked open door, the heavy wood slightly uneven on its hinges, creaks back closed. He hops on the bed but stops when he sees its Robb, then hops back down to nestle into your nest with you.

Robb sighs.

The room goes quiet.

He hopes things go back to normal, whatever normal is, tomorrow.

Robb doesn’t get his “normal” back quite the way he expected.

It’s the wee hours of the night and his mind never really shut down from all the craziness of the evening. His consciousness may be resting but his brain has refused to stop thinking.

He dreams about vague shapes moving through grey snowy light, familiar intimate colors he recognizes blur and mix together trying to confuse him. He reaches for something, knowing that he wants whatever he’s reaching for but unsure as to what it is. This does not deter him. His dream-self sifts through these colors, wades through them hoping to spot that tell tale color even though he doesn’t know what color he’s looking for.

You don’t dream at all. Your heart closed off the pathway that connects your mind to the secret unknown chambers of your heart, leaving only blackness to consume you.

Suddenly, instead of darkness, pain consumes you and shoves you awake like a tub of ice water had been poured over your head as something heavy traps you to the ground, making it hard to breathe. For a moment you think the ice water is real and you hold your breath and try frantically kicking to the surface, working your legs and waving your arms around as best you could under the weight holding you down.

Purple feathers explode in Robb’s dream as he lands on something soft thats writhing savagely underneath him, still searching for that One. Seven forsaken. Color.

Disoriented you lurch and spaz under the weight on top of you when your breath starts to run out, tangling yourself in ropes of thick seaweed...or are those arms? A weird noise leaves your mouth, lips pressed to something unidentifiable. A softness brushes over your face and you can’t fucking see --

Whatever has cushioned Robb’s fall squirms under him like an angry shark, sharp pokes of bone jutting into his gut making more kaleidoscopes of color burst like fireworks behind his eyes.

“Umph!” You grunt as you free your non-shackled hand from its anonymous captor and wave it around blindly trying to come to grips with what, exactly, is happening. You’re not sure if you’re still drowning or even in water.

A crisp smack! sounds in the room and a stinging sensation burns across Robb’s cheek. This jolts him out of his dream-world and plunges him head first into loud confusing reality.

For some reason Robb yells on the rocketing fall back down to consciousnesses,

“The feathers aren’t yours!”

You momentarily pause your struggle like you were struck dumb by lightening, before resuming your shoving when you feel more than hear the rumble of Robb’s familiar morning voice as his chest you find, is in fact -- impossibly -- pressed flush to yours.

His voice is an anchor and now you know for sure you aren’t underwater.

“What, Robb?! How -- get OFF!” You shriek in the scattered anarchic chaos of the darkness, your voice cracking from a tight throat and words coming out a jumble of nonsense due to your sleep-lazy tongue. “You great oaf! Your chest -- OW! Robb that’s my breast, get your filthy hands --,”

You grunt in pain as his head knocks hard against your skull when he suddenly jerks on top of you, and a slight ringing sounds in your ears. Honestly you can’t tell where your body starts and his begins as you both scramble to cradle your throbbing foreheads. Both your hands tangle on the way up causing more dismantled disorientation.

Grey Wind sits neatly on his hind legs a safe distance from the mess, watching you both struggle, ears twitching, wondering in a wistful wolfy way what the heck his dumb humans are up to now.

“Robb -- get, just move your, Gods, will you just get off!” You cry as Robb regains an idea of where he is what -- who you are.

“Stray?” Robb gravels once his head stops spinning and the stinging sensation in his cheek roles into numbness.

Robb stills over you and before he can carefully remove himself from you, you take his hesitation as stubbornness and knee him clean in the groin. Of course, if you were more awake, you would have realized that kneeing him in his family jewels would only delay his departure from your body, not hasten it.

Naturally, Robb’s body hunches and curls down into your further as blinding white pain courses through him, groaning loudly in your ear.

You make a very embarrassing squeaky noise as you feel the chords of his muscle stretched across his body bunch and pull to collect in his abs as he crunches over, forehead grinding into the carpet beside your head, face squished up in blind agony against your neck.

A small disconnected part of your mind notes the feel of resurrecting stubble on his angular cheeks as he presses against your sensitive skin.

Rationally you know Robb isn’t doing this on purpose because you kinda set yourself up for this one, but the feeling of all that sinewy muscle working against the length of your body sets fires in your veins. Heat licks up your neck and stings in your cheeks. You have never been so grateful for pitch black in your entire life.

You try to say something witty and sarcastic as Robb writhes on you in paralyzing pain that crawls like molasses through his system, but you find that you suddenly did not know any words. Language is a foreign concept to your brain as the weight of Robb on you churns your mind steadily to mush and makes your body go more pliant beneath him.

You think you hear yourself slur something about beauty sleep but you’re not quite sure.

It takes Robb a really long time to come back into his head after the pain in his groin lessens just enough to allow coherent thought to filter to through. It takes a Robb an even longer time to work out where all his limbs are.

As limb locations start popping up, he slowly realizes why you are so still beneath him. His body is on fire with the ghost of your touch smothering him.

He mistakes your stillness and absence of words for disgust and horror instead of the current pile of fluff and goo you actually are. The darkness rolls it eyes but serves its purpose to confuse the two of you further, if that’s even possible. He immediately huffs an apology and scrambles awkwardly off you, wincing dramatically still in quite a bit of pain. You really dealt a punch. Once Robb is a safe distance from where he estimates your knees are, he speaks.

“Y/n?” He honest to Gods whispers like you’ll explode, or maybe injure him fatally this time.

You don’t respond as you stare wide eyed up at the ceiling you can’t see. After a moment you gulp and ask no one in particular, maybe the blackness above you,

“What the fuck?”

Robb chews over your words for a hot second, snorts, then collapses to the carpeted stone to lay down on his back beside you. The tension from earlier breaks like a dam.

“You do realize I’m not going to be able to have children right?”

Robb hears you roll your eyes at him in the darkness and receives a very unlady-like scoff, followed by a weak punch in the shoulder for his trouble.

“Men are such babies.”

Robb smiles.

Okay shit wow, sorry that was a lot longer than the first part! Let me know if you liked it or not if you want to :) I take requests xxx

#Robb Stark x reader #Robb Stark x Y/n #Robb Stark fanfic #Robb Stark imagine #Robb Stark angst #Robb Stark fluff #GoT imagine #Nikki writes #Wolf on a Leash #robbmywolf

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meetthetank · 5 years

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Maled[I]ctum pt. 2

Rating: Explicit Archive Warning: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Category: F/M Fandom: NieR: Automata (Video Game) Relationship: 4S/A2 (NieR: Automata) Characters: A2 (NieR: Automata), 4S (NieR: Automata), Anemone (NieR: Automata), Original Machine Additional Tags: bloodborne references, Blood and Gore, Robogore, little bit of eldritch nonsense, Hallucinations, Nightmares, A2 has big guilt, Post-Ending E (NieR: Automata), the smut is in chapter 2 for those who are impatient, i understand horny priorities, Hurt/Comfort

Dismantling the machine wreckage proves to be a more complicated affair than previously thought. In addition to its immense size, a large portion of the scrap is contaminated by the strange organic matter, rendering it unusable. Most of the Resistance swarms the area shortly after recovering an unconscious 4S from the wreck, along with the bizarre machine creature’s body.

He’s lucky his injuries aren’t as bad as they feel. Without the Bunker and a steady supply of new bodies and parts, the repair process takes two days. The Resistance medics and 9S work together to open up 4S and set some of his displaced components. Nothing major needs to be replaced, much to his relief, but calibrating his fine motor functions comes with a few hiccups. Something must have been knocked loose during that fight.

The moment repairs are done, 4S tears around camp asking if anyone has seen A2. He expects the repeated negative answers, but that doesn’t quell the tension building in his gut. 9S offers to help him look, but he declines. Knowing A2, she’d only be more frightened if anyone else aside from a select few went looking for her.

It isn’t unusual for A2 to disappear for a day or two, and normally 4S is happy to let her be, but this time...the way she looked at him...It doesn’t sit right. She went through something far worse than being held captive by that monster. Once he asks practically everyone at the main Resistance camp he sets out on his own.

4S searches the area near the forest castle and A2’s usual haunts. The secluded places she frequents when she needs a quiet moment to herself show no trace of her being there for a long time. No tracks, no machine corpses. Nothing. Pod 035 picks up a faint sign of activity, but it’s old and far past the forest. He’s in no condition to be tearing through the denser woods looking for someone who doesn’t want to be found.

Two more days pass before 4S returns, despondent, to the Resistance camp. Just as he suspects A2 hadn’t stopped by at all, but the improbability of it all doesn’t stop the foolish hope he had as he entered the camp. He sits on a bench in the small rest area near the jukebox, listening to the twanging of some ancient human ballad.

He doesn’t notice 9S until he sits in the spot next to him. 4S jumps a little at 9S’ sudden presence but gives him a little nod shortly after.

“Still no sign of A2?” 9S asks.

4S shakes his head, “Nothing. No trail, no signals...I’m really worried about her.”

“What she lacks in everything else she makes up for in strength,” says 9S followed by a sigh and a shudder, “She’ll be okay.”

He manages to smile a bit, “I know but...she was really shaken up by...something. I want to help her but I don’t want her to feel smothered…”

“Yeah, I know the feeling…” 9S mutters, his gaze wandering to 2B as she lifts an absurdly heavy box with ease.

4S slumps in his seat and buries his head in his hands, “I get the feeling she’d never come back if I confronted her now, but…”

“You don’t want her to end up hurting herself.”

“Yeah...She’s,” 4S sighs again, then goes quiet for a long time, “...I don’t know if she’ll come back after this one…”

A lump forms in his throat as he says that, as if the words had a physical weight to them. He didn’t want to admit to himself the possibility, but it’s time for him to be honest with himself. In his head, he believed that she would be attached to him enough for that alone to bring her back his way, but...Their relationship is a bit complicated, or ambiguous to say the least.

9S puts his arm around 4S shoulders, “Of course she’ll come back. She was on the run for...Six years, was it? That can’t be a life she wants to return to.”

“I hope you’re right, Nines.”

“Here,” 9S says as he stands up, “Why don’t you help me out today? Anemone wants me to start looking at that machine creature today. Could help you take your mind off things for a while?”

4S hesitates for a moment. The memory of that...thing he and A2 fought sends chills down his spine. He has no great desire to come face to face with its malformed corpse any time soon, but 9S does have a point.

“Sure, I can lend a hand.”

It isn’t often that the medical equipment is repurposed, even temporarily, for a task away from the main Resistance camp. With materials being as limited as they are, and without the support of another group like YorHa, they need to use whatever they can. Considering this is a major discovery when it comes to machine evolution theories, Anemone allowed for a considerable amount of tools and personnel to be devoted to this.

Unfortunately, all those tools and personnel are under the command of Jackass, so 4S and 9S wait until she throws out everyone for being incompetent and then gets distracted by one of her insane personal projects.

The setup is reminiscent of a mad scientist’s lair in an old human story. Fitting, considering who was overseeing this. Various tools and recording equipment lie scattered without any care or reason, all surrounding a large table holding the machine’s corpse covered with a tarp.

4S and 9S spend a few minutes cleaning up and organizing their equipment while idly chatting about old times. They had rarely worked together in the field while YorHa was active, but the scanners were all fairly close friends in one way or another. Though, 4S had always been on the edge of that group, nowhere near the social butterfly that 9S was. He can’t help the twinge of sadness that creeps into his voice when he mentions his time in relative isolation while he was doing deep field reconnaissance.

“Right,” 9S begins, eager to switch gears for both their sakes, “Let’s get started.”

It takes their combined efforts to pull the tarp off of the body, sending the stench of rotting flesh billowing through the whole tent.

“Ugh!” 4S gags and covers his face, “Gods, it smells worse than it was alive.”

“I’ve never seen this kind of growth on a machine before,” 9S says as he covers his face with a clean towel and begins a preliminary scan of the corpse, “Aside from those two command units, Adam and Eve.”

“I thought those were one of a kind?”

9S shrugs, “It wouldn’t be out of the ordinary for the machines left on Earth to try and replicate past evolutionary paths. But this one is a lot different.”

As 4S begins to separate the growth on the creature’s arm from its body, he replays the encounter and the state he found A2 in his head, “I’ve never seen a machine do things like this one could. Have you seen the Pod records?”

9S shakes his head, “I haven’t had the time. Here, why don’t you start working on that piece while I go over your footage?”

With a quick wave of his hand, 4S commands Pod 035 to display a video feed for 9S.

At first, the growth appears to be just a simple mass of metal and tissue with the occasional piece of bone. Each piece of anything that isn’t soft tissue or connected to the central metal bone is carefully cut away and placed onto a tray nearby. It seems to be only random bits and pieces of machine scrap until 4S come across a strange shape underneath layers of warped muscular tissue.

Unlike the fractured and rough textures of its counterparts, this object is smooth and rounded. A few hairline splits zigzag across its surface, yet it stays together as 4S shifts it around to cut away the connective tissue surrounding it. Once most of the flesh is cut away, 4S pries the object out with a firm tug.

A smooth, diminutive skull sits in his hands, gazing at him with hauntingly vacant sockets. It bears some resemblance to a machine head. The bolts next to the optical sockets, serial numbers and machine script carved into its surface, and unique alloy betray its true nature. However, it’s eerily android in its appearance. Or rather, eerily human. A row of half formed teeth, some pointed and some blunt, deep nasal and optical cavities, and an oblong shape show more similarities to androids than any other machine.

But as 9S pointed out before, there were two machines that were vastly different from the rest not too long ago.

4S sets the skull down on the tray, next to the other tiny, misshapen bones he had extracted from the growth. A clavicle, two humeruses, six ribs, pelvis, and an assortment of vertebrae form a sickly small skeleton.

“Hey, 4S?”

A jolt runs down his spine as he snaps back to reality, “Yeah...yeah what’s up?”

9S glances at the grim display on the tray before continuing, “I finished going over your footage.”

“Oh. Well did you see anything odd? I mean, besides everything.”

9S pulls up a stool and takes a seat near the creature’s stomach, “At first,” he begins as he starts a scan of the machine’s body, “I thought that it was an attempted copy of the Adam and Eve units, and looking at the…what you’ve extracted so far, that theory is partially right.”

4S raises an eyebrow, “...But?”

“But…” he looks down and takes a deep breath, “But there’s more in line with another machine I’ve encountered.”

“What?”

“When I handed over that enemy data back when...back a while ago, there was one bit of data that I didn’t give you because it was just…” he takes a deep breath and shudders, “I didn’t want to think it was real.”

As much as 4S’ curiosity burns in his head, he doesn’t press 9S further. The discomfort is visible in the way his eyes dart around to anything, how his eyebrows knit together, and how he grips the edge of the table.

“Listen, 4S…” he begins after a bout of tense silence, “If-...When A2 comes back, if she seems...off, be careful. When 2B and I fought that thing in the sewers, something...happened to her, and when we got back to the Resistance camp she…” Again, 9S shudders and blushes, though that might have been 4S’ imagination, “Just be careful, okay?”

4S nods, “Of course. Don’t worry about me.”

“Good.” he sighs again, “...Let’s take apart the rest of this thing. I’ll give you the enemy data when we’re done.”

A2 knows she shouldn’t feel this deep shame as she lingers in the shadows of the forest zone. Just a year ago, the thought of returning somewhere she ran from was insane; now, she’s slinking back to the castle as if she’s done something wrong.

She hasn’t done anything wrong...right?

No, of course not. She just needed some time away from...everything.

…

Gods, she was such a coward.

It wasn’t just that, in the days since the fight on the beach, it’s felt like something was itching just inside her skull or under her skin. She’s lapsed into old self destructive habits as well, like picking at the dermal seams 4S spent so much time on.

4S…

Thinking about how worried he must be about her, what he might have gone through when looking for her, or what might happen when she comes back...It makes her stomach coil like a spring so tightly she starts shivering. A2 is no stranger to guilt, but it has been some time since the feeling caused a physical reaction in her.

As the crumbling facade of the castle comes into view A2 plays with the thought of turning back. Could she really face him after all this? Would things just...go back to normal? Did she even want that? She doesn’t know what she wants. Hell, she doesn’t even know if she wants to take another step forward. Her legs lock in place, and aside from a light shiver that runs through her body, she stands so still that a little boar comes up to her and sniffs at her foot. She shoos the boar away with a gentle kick, sending the little animal squealing back to the safety of the woods.

A2 takes a deep breath. No use delaying the inevitable any longer. She forces herself to walk. Just, one foot in front of the other, one step at a time. There isn’t any reason to be afraid. That doesn’t stop her from being terrified, though. She shuts her eyes and focuses on the sound of her footsteps on the crumbling stone pathway.

She expects 4S to come rushing down to her the moment she reaches the castle steps, but she only hears the soft songs of the birds that make their homes in the trees and tiny crevices in the walls. There isn’t even the echoes of him running errands, the groans of his jerry rigged terminals, or Pod 035’s made up language.

“Must be resting…” A2 mutters to herself.

Sure enough, there’s signs of activity through her home but 4S is nowhere to be found. The stray piles of supplies that she usually leaves lying around the entry hallway are all cleaned up and organized into bins and shelves nearby.

She meanders through the castle like a spectre, floating from room to room with no real goal in mind. Not looking for anything, not searching for a goal, just wandering. She flips through books in the library, accidentally knocks over some dusty suits of armor, and fiddles with anything she can to find to keep her mind from running a mile a minute.

It isn’t long, however, for those distractions to run out and eventually A2 finds herself at the threshold of her small bedroom. Like the rest of the castle, all of her stuff is rearranged and cleaned. Even her bed is made, but it isn’t the bed itself that disturbs her. Perhaps disturbed isn’t the right word, but the neatly folded set of clothes similar to the torn rags she wears now makes her feel...strange.

She rolls the cotton of the shirt in her fingers. Exactly the same as the one she wears now, albeit not torn and bloodied. It smells a bit musty, like it’s been sitting out for a few days. Her chest tightens a little, but she changes into the new clothes regardless. They stick to her grimy skin and torn seams. She mentally kicks herself for not washing first thing once she got home.

...Home…

The realization hits her like a punch from a goliath. She has a home. Something to come back to, a safe place to let her guard down and relax.

Someone to…

She curls her hand into a fist, bunching up the fabric of her shirt. A weird tightness forms in her throat and chest it dawns on her that she’s being watched.

With wide, wary eyes, she turns back to the doorway to see 4S just...standing there. Watching her. He looks surprisingly calm, despite everything, but there’s a tension in his face that even someone as unobservant as A2 can pick up on.

A2 looks at the floor, suddenly far more interested in the brickwork than him.

“...Hey,” she says, the word catching in her throat.

His green eyes dart about, studying every detail about her that he could as quickly as possible. He lingers on the fresh wounds that begin to stain her new shirt, the way her shoulders slump with exhaustion, and the weariness in her own expression.

With great gentleness, he speaks, “...Are you hurting?”

“I’m fine-...” A2 stops herself short as a sharp pain shoots through her arm, “...I’ve been better.”

4S approaches her slowly, his dark eyebrows knitting together, “Here, let me help.”

The moment his hands touch her she flinches away, causing 4S to do the same. There’s hesitation in his grip as he lightly pulls her towards the bed and sits her down on it. A2 could swear she feels his hands shaking.

His fingers ghost over her injuries and torn skin seam as he takes stock of what ails her physically. He mutters his findings to himself while A2 stares at their feet, her head hanging low. She lets him move her arms and body as he cleans the dried blood that’s caked around her skin seams.

“Does…” 4S says, his touch lingering on her arms, “Does anything hurt internally? Any pain when you move?”

A2 shakes her head, “Just a bit sore.”

4S nods once, then allows a tense silence to fall between them. Neither one looks at the other, and neither one wants to think about why.

After moments where nothing but the stale breeze passes between them, A2 speaks up.

“I think...I’m just gonna lie down for a bit.”

“Alright. Call for me if you need anything...Okay?”

“Yeah...Of course.”

As she gets settled into bed, 4S allows himself a quick glance backwards before leaving her to her thoughts.

For a week they do this dance. With the exception of grafting new skin onto her wounds, 4S and A2 avoid each other. Sometimes, she sees him in the corner of her eye only for him to brush past with only a mumbled apology or for him to duck back out of her view. When she asks him about it during the hour or so they see each other, he waves if off as a coincidence or just making sure she’s okay. The cadence and waver in his voice tips her off to his real motive. He is checking on her, but he’s making sure she hasn’t run off again.

She can’t shake the guilt, something that seems like a constant for her. It starts eating away at her nerves and her resolve. How long would things continue like this? Would they stay this way until they both drift apart? How much longer would it be until she’s alone again. The visions and the fear from that machine creep back into her chest and constrict her lungs. It’s such a similar feeling to...before. When she watched Number 4 smile at her one last time.

Only this time she can control the outcome.

It’s much less dire, of course. 4S is in no danger of dying in a fiery explosion, but A2 feels as if she’s going to explode if things don’t go back to the comfortable and mundane. She knows 4S won’t come to her, he’s too cautious. He knows she’s skittish when it comes to...feelings, and for that she’s grateful. He’ll let her come to him when she’s ready to talk, and it might be the point of no return very soon. Whether she’s ready or not, she has to do this.

Around this time of day 4S is tinkering with one project or another in his room. Normally A2 leaves him to his work, but this is something akin to an emergency. Besides, he’s probably not working on something important or dangerous. He has a more level head on his shoulders than 9S.

A2 hesitates at the wooden door to his room, grinding her teeth as she fights with herself. It’s absurd, she already has her hand on the door and now she thinks about backing down? She’s fought with worse things than her own feelings and memories. This would be nothing. 4S is reasonable, he won’t freak out at her about any of this.

Her knock on the door echoes through the stone halls, and the few seconds before she hears 4S’ footsteps on the other side feel like an eternity. The door swings inward, revealing a grease-stained 4S staring at her with bewildered green eyes.

“A2? What’s wrong, is everything okay?” he asks, brushing his hair out of his eyes.

“I’m fine. I just…” she sighs and shuffles her way into his room, “Do you have a second to talk?”

His eyebrows shoot up, then return to normal a moment later, “Of course.”

4S gestures for her to sit on his bed (more of a cot in truth) while he pulls the chair from his workbench over and wipes his hands and face off with a rag. She pulls her knees close to her chest and curls up as tight as she can. Something to quell the shivers that emanate from her gut.

“I wanted to talk about the shit that happened with that weird machine…” she mumbles, avoiding eye contact, “I just...don’t know where to start.”

He watches her expressions shift from anger, to sadness, and back within the span of a split second, “Maybe...When I found you, you looked like you were in some kind of trance. What was that? What was happening to you?”

A2 winces at the memory, “The damn thing hijacked me. Made me see things...feel things that weren’t there. It made me…,” she shudders, “It must have messed with every sensor that still works.”

4S shuffles closer to her, “What did it make you see?”

“Its…,” she groans and buries her face in her hands, “It...It made me see Number 4. The whole squad. They…,”

He takes one of her hands in his, “It’s okay…” he mutters gently and rubs her hand.

“They tore me apart.” she says in a lifeless voice, her eyes glassy and unfocused, “The visions tore me apart piece by piece. They drowned me, beat me, blamed…” she can’t stop the tears from welling up, “They blamed their deaths on me...and they’re right.”

“A2…”

“They were right. If I wasn’t a coward, if I fought with them-”

“You’d be dead too, A2.” 4S says sternly, holding her hand just a bit tighter, “You’d be dead along with them.”

“But-”

“No. I won’t sit by and let you blame yourself anymore for what happened in the past. I don’t care what that machine made you see or made you think you saw, but none of that was your fault and none of them blame you for what happened!”

A2 opens her mouth and shuts it just as quickly as she tries to formulate some sort of counter. She tries to draw her hands close to her body but 4S’ grip remains strong and holds them in place. His green eyes hold her gaze even as she tries to look at anything but him. Anything to avoid showing weakness, anything to not break down.

She fails spectacularly.

Tears pool in her eyes and spill over within seconds. Her synthetic muscles give out all at once as she collapses in a heap in 4S’ arms. Brutal, silent sobs rip through her body with such intensity that she begins to shake and shudder. 4S holds onto her as tight as he can without hurting her. He rubs her shoulders and back with a soothing yet heavy hand, while his other hand combs through her short hair. Gentle refermations of her safety and soft whispers seem to calm her quaking body after a moment. She grips onto his shirt as if it’s the only thing keeping her afloat.

A2’s breathing starts to even out and at first 4S thinks that she’s beginning to wind down, but then her quiet sniffling turns to growls. Her nails dig into the skin of 4S’ chest, and 9S’ warning starts to play over and over in his head. Despite himself, fear begins to worm its way through his gut. A2 is strong. Far stronger than he is. If something went wrong, if something possessed her to, she could kill him by barely lifting a finger.

Yet he takes hold of her trembling hands and the low snarls in the back of her throat stop. Her hands tremble in his, and her wide, fearful eyes let him know that none of that was intentional. 4S leans forward and rests his forehead on hers with her hands still clasped tightly in his.

“Hey, look at me,” he whispers, “A2 look at me.”

She tries to look at anything but him to no avail. Everything in her body tells her to run away. Get away from these bad feelings and shitty memories and hide in the wilderness until she breaks down for good. But she doesn’t want that. She doesn’t want to leave him, she doesn’t want to be alone again. She can’t be alone again.

Slowly, her eyes meet his. In her head she prepares for the inevitable flashbacks those deep green eyes of his give her, but instead of seeing the eyes of Number 4, his face remains his own.

“You’re okay, A2,” he mutters to her, “I promise I’m not going to let anything hurt you.”

She snorts and rubs at her puffy red eyes, “Idiot, I should be protecting you.”

“There she is,” 4S breaks out in a smile, “There’s that brash moron.”

“Shut up.”

4S gets caught in their moment kisses A2 on the cheek, just beneath her eye. This isn’t the first time they’ve kissed, not by a long shot, but it is the first time that it’s felt so...natural? He supposes that’s the word for it. In the past it had been bouts of passion that broke free of restraints on both their sides, but it never went further than that. This time the simple gesture caused a comforting warmth to bloom in his chest. Judging by A2’s tired smile, she felt something similar.

“A2…” he begins, their closeness loosening his desire to hold back what’s on his mind, “I know that...I know I’m not Number 4 but-”

She pulls back from him, her brows knitting together, “Stop.”

“What?”

“Stop comparing yourself to her,” an icy determined glare warps her expression. For the first time in weeks, strength returns to her, “Number 4 is gone. You’re not her, you’re never going to be, and....I don’t want you to be. I want you to be you.”

4S tries to blink away the tears, “It only took a near death experience, huh?”

“Oh, shut up!” she shouts. She slugs him in the shoulder playfully and puffs out her cheeks after he catches her face in his hands again. “You’re an ass.”

“Hey, you’re not doing anything to stop me,” teases 4S. He kisses her cheek once again.

He immediately regrets saying that. In a show of speed and strength, A2 pulls him into a tight hug and flings them both onto the bed. 4S struggles, but he’s no match for the combat model’s strength. She holds him down as they laugh at themselves and the absurd turn their heavy conversation took. A2 digs her knuckles into his scalp to the sounds of his protesting as he flails his arms and legs in a wild attempt to break free.

Eventually she lets him go, the fatigue of an outburst of emotion catching up with her body. She fails to suppress a yawn and 4S chuckles at her sudden exhaustion. He rolls off of her and curls up against her side as she settles into bed.

“Tired?” he asks.

A2 nods, “Mhm...Haven’t been sleeping well.”

“Okay.” 4S starts to sit up, “I’ll let you rest.”

He’s about to stand up from the bed, when A2’s hand grabs onto his wrist and tugs him back down.

“Huh?”

“S…,” she seems to choke on her own words and looks uncharacteristically vulnerable, “Can you...stay?”

“...Of course,” he says with a warm smile.

Sleeping with A2 is...a full body experience. 4S had his expectations, sweetly snuggled up against her and curled in her arms. Or her in his, either way would work for him. Instead, he’s treated to erratic movements, constant tossing and turning, and nearly being shoved off of the bed multiple times. Yet despite this, they end up in a semi-comfortable position for both of them, although 4S believes it was entirely by accident. Sharing a bed was, in truth, something they would have to learn how to do.

4S is unsure how much time has actually passed by the time he starts to wake up, though it couldn’t have been more than a few hours judging by the fact that his Pod’s alarm hadn’t gone off yet. A2 remains asleep, wrapped around him with her chest pressing against his back. Her breathing is light and steady, and tickles at the back of his neck.

She’s so...warm. The way her hands mold to the shape of his chest and stomach…

A deep, tightening pain in his gut makes him flinch, and brings him to agonizing consciousness. Glancing down at the odd bulge in the sheets, just between his legs, reveals source of his discomfort.

What a useless feature… 4S muses to himself.

Carefully, 4S shuffles out of A2’s arms, doing all he can to avoid waking her and to avoid letting her hands drift further down. He winces with each movement, even the fabric of his shorts rubbing against his erection sends jolts up his spine.

The moment he’s free of A2’s hold, he rises from the bed centimeter by centimeter so as not to shift the ratty mattress too much. All he has to do is make it out of the room without waking her and make his way to somewhere secluded to take care of this issue. Of course he could always attempt to sleep it off, but with how awake he is at the moment he doesn’t think it’ll be possible.

It’s only when success is nearly in his grasp that it is snatched away from him.

“Hey...Where’r you going?” A2’s grumbles in a raspy voice heavy with sleep.

Synthetic blood rushes up to his face one moment and then back down the next, “Uh...J-just going to stretch my legs a bit.”

“...What’s wrong. You sound nervous.”

Oh , of all the times, why did it have to be now that she learns to be observant?

“I’m fine,” 4S tries to maintain an even level to his voice.

“Why are you standing all hunched over like that?”

Her questions are just as pointed and cutting as her swords. 4S sighs. He always underestimates her intelligence, seeing as she’s not only a prototype model but a combat model as well. They’re not exactly known for being as capable as scanners when it comes to...really anything that isn’t killing. Yet she’s pinpointed exactly what he’s trying to hide. The heavy, almost icy tone to her voice convinces him that she doesn’t need him to explain his current state, but instead beckons him to come forward about it.

“Come here.”

Her sudden confidence makes him shiver.

4S turns back to her and returns to the bed with slow, plodding steps. The way her icy blue eyes roam over his body make him feel exposed, naked, despite being fully clothed. There’s a shift in her expression as he approaches though. At first she looks at him like an old world predator eyes a slab of meat, but as he sits on the edge of the bed the confidence falls away piece by piece.

“A2…”

His breath is heavy in his throat as he reaches out to cup her face in one of his hands. Her warmth is infectious, her breath just as heavy as his. Despite the way her eyes hold his with an intensity he’s rarely seen outside of battle, he can feel the subtle way she shivers with each breath.

“Are you...sure?” he asks, hoping that he’s understanding what all of this means. In the past she’s been reluctant to even touch at moments, why is she suddenly doing this?

Was this what 9S meant by strange behavior?

A2 nods, “Yeah...But I um...How does...this...start?”

A wave of relief hits him. She’s not under some strange control or in a damaged frame of mind. He wouldn't be able to live with himself if he took advantage of her like this.

4S smiles, “Just follow my lead, okay?”

Their kiss starts out tender, soft even. A2 recoils back, but leans into it only moments later. Her hands start to wander around their bodies as if she’s not sure what to do with them. Without breaking their admittedly awkward kiss, 4S takes her hands in his and places one on his neck, and the other in his hair. Her fingers immediately hook into his curly hair and pull him closer than he thought possible. Heat rises in his gut once more, spurring him to push things further faster.

4S leans back against the bed’s headboard and pulls A2 onto his lap. For a minute or so, things continue much in the same way as they had before. Position aside, their kissing is rather tame. Chaste even. Simply savoring each other’s warmth and the way their mouths move in tandem. But there’s a desperate edge to A2, in the way she moves and her labored breathing. She wants more, she needs more. She just doesn’t know how to take it.

So, 4S parts his lips and in turn hers. With his tongue he tests her bit by bit, prodding at her lips, her teeth, her tongue, whatever he can reach. Her hand tightens in his hair to the point of discomfort, yet it doesn’t bother 4S in the slightest. In fact it seems to intensify just how good everything feels right now. A tiny whimper escapes from the back of his throat as she tugs on his hair a second time.

A2 suppresses a grunt, or a moan, or something in her throat. She grinds against him so slowly that 4S isn’t sure if she realizes what she’s doing. Carefully, he returns her motions, raising his hips to meet hers beat for beat in a clumsy rhythm. Fingernails dig into the skin of his neck when his teeth scrape against her lips, so he breaks their kiss to gently bite her lower lip.

She gasps, her breath ghosting over his face for a moment before he leans in and nibbles at the underside of her jaw. Another gasp as he slides one hand beneath her thin shirt and traces the outline of her muscles and lines of carbon plates barely concealed by synthetic flesh. A2 doesn’t normally shake in situations outside of life threatening combat, but her body trembles beneath his touch.

There’s a strange shift in A2’s movements when 4S begins to leave small bite marks down her neck and to her shoulder. He can feel the thundering of her pulse quicken as he clumsily grabs at her breasts. Between the blood roaring in his ears and the amplified sound of their bodies, he doesn’t hear the low rumbling from A2’s chest until it’s too late.

Her mouth traps his suddenly, pushing him back until his head smacks against the headboard. His shirt and shorts are all but torn from his body by A2’s desperate hands. The cool air of the castle makes him shiver all over. A groan catches in his throat but is quickly silenced by A2 climbing on top of him further. She practically towers over him now, ravaging his mouth and hungrily grinding down on his now exposed cock.

Like the flip of a switch, A2 goes from unsure to ravenous. Both her hands tangle themselves in his hair, holding him down and kissing up and down his neck. He feels the scrape of her teeth against one of the taught tendons in his neck once, twice, and then they clamp down around it. An intense jolt runs through his whole body. His back arches, hips thrust up, and a sharp whimper escapes him. She bites him again, worrying the skin of his neck between her teeth and eliciting more moans and cries from him.

4S isn’t sure when the tears start to form in his eyes, but his body becomes so overwhelmed with the pain and pleasure that it's the only reflex he can manage. He gulps down lungfuls of air the moment A2 pulls back off of him just a bit, removing the pressure from his chest. There’s something in A2’s eyes, something that 4S can’t place. Her eyes are dark, pupils blown wide and lids half closed. He’s never seen this look from her before and it makes him feel...strange. There’s fear, that one is easy to identify, but there’s also...excitement. His gut coils as A2 shuffles out of her tank top and shorts.

This was really happening, wasn’t it…

4S always pictured this being more planned and careful, and without the fear for his life that nags in the back of mind. Of course he wants this, and he knows A2 wants this.

But did he want this to go so fast?

A2 tugs him up to her lips by his hair.

Oh god yes he wants this.

He moans against her mouth and ruts his hips into hers. There’s a brief but powerful sensation that shoots up his spine when his cock presses against the space between her legs. A2 must have felt something similar as she groans against his mouth. One of her hands rakes down his stomach and grips onto his cock far too tightly.

“Ah!!”

A2 recoils back, that dark look in her eyes fading instantly, “Shit! Are you okay?!”

“Yeah-...Yeah I’m okay…” he pants, “Just...gentle. Be gentle with...that.”

When that half-lidded look doesn’t come back immediately, 4S pulls her down for a quick kiss and takes her hand in his. He guides her hand back down to his cock and starts to move it up and down as slowly as possible at first. Once she gains her confidence back his hand falls away only to rise back up again to tangle in her hair.

Most scanners do this sort of thing by themselves, but oh god does it feel so much better when someone else does it to him. Especially someone he cares about. He does his best not to jerk his hips into her hand too fast, and the exertion of self control makes him pant and sweat. In response A2 strokes him longer, harsher, pushing him to the point of pain again. He throws his head back against the pillows and lets out a long, loud moan that he’s sure he heard A2 laugh quietly at.

There’s a spot that A2 ghosts her thumb over that makes him almost scream, and the tight coils in his stomach threaten to unwind right then and there. It’s only through gritting his teeth and focusing on anything but how fucking good it all feels that he’s able to not come.

“A2…,” he says in between heavy pants, “A2, please…”

“What.”

He shoots her a scowl, though it isn’t as intimidating as he’d like since he’s blushing and sweaty, “What do you mean what,” he growls.

She smirks at him, that heavy, dark-eyed look returns, and she sinks down onto his cock without warning.

“F-Fuck!” he shouts, “A2!”

She hisses through her teeth as she adjusts to having him inside her. 4S is about to ask her if she’s okay but the words catch in his throat when she shifts her hips. He isn’t sure if his visual processors are failing or if A2 managed to hack him somehow, but he swears that stars and sparks fly across his eyes. He throws his head back into the pillows again and lets out a moan that’s much louder than he intends it to be.

“Where-...” 4S tries to say as she raises herself off of him and slides back down, “Where did you- Haa….Learn-...”

“What,” responds A2 in between pants, “You think your-...ngh...Your stash of h-...human mating behaviors are...Haaa...Secret?”

“Well...I did until now.”

A2 laughs a breathy laugh that sends waves of strange pleasure through both of their bodies, “Next time, label that file as something boring.”

“Ugh, just shut up and fuck me.”

They find their rhythm, clumsily and slowly, but eventually they fall in sync with each other. Every time A2 raises herself off of his cock, he pulls himself back so that all but the very tip remains in, only to slam their hips back together. Each time, A2 crushes her body against his harder and harder until he’s afraid that she might break his pelvic chassis. Well, not for long anyway. Once the wet and the hot overtake his mind again, the soreness fades into the background.

4S meets her beat for beat, thrust for thrust. He tries new angles and methods to try and force her to cry out in pleasure, much like he does. It’s...strangely awkward to him, to be the only one making noise. A rigid spot on the front of her walls makes her groan and gasp so he aims for that again and again and again, but it all falls to the wayside once his pace reaches a feaverish, desperate peak.

His hands latch onto her hips, fingernails digging into the curve of her waist and giving him the leverage he needs to thrust his cock deeper and deeper into her. Her hands grip his wrists, her chest heaves with each labored breath. The way her walls constrict around his dick lets him know that they’re both within sight of the end. For now.

4S’ mind devolves into simple lines of code. Single words, simple actions, and blinding speed. Anything higher than repeating the actions that bring him and A2 this intense pleasure are tossed aside.

Hunger. Need.

More.

M o r e

M o re moremoremoremoremoremoreMORe.

Suddenly, A2 gasps and grabs his shoulders so hard that he’s shaken from his stupor. Her whole body heaves with each breath she takes. 4S swears he can hear her teeth grinding against each other and the wanton moans she desperately tries to suppress. If he wasn’t consumed with primal repetition he might have tried to edge those sounds out of her, but it’s all he can do to keep himself from coming each time he thrusts into her.

4S slows to a crawl, letting himself linger inside of her. It takes all of his willpower to pull out once, twice, and on the third he can hold back no longer. All of the tension in his gut releases as A2 lets out this long breathy sound. She’s still holding the moans back, but he can’t contain the moan that echoes through their room. Something in the back of his mind tells him he should be embarrassed, but he could care less right now. He revels in the circuit-melting euphoria for as long as he can before he has to breathe and bring himself back to reality.

A2 looks down at him with dark, half-lidded eyes. Her face, flushed red, covered in sweat, is hidden by the white hair that clings to her skin.

He’s never seen anything more fascinating.

As she gracelessly flops onto the bed beside him, he can’t help but feel a twinge of disgust at the white, sticky mess that covers the bed and parts of their bodies. Maybe it’s a quirk with scanner models, but he hates being dirty.

He nudges A2 in the ribs with an elbow, and she cracks one eye open at him in a tired, half-hearted glare.

“We should clean up,” he says.

A2 just scoffs, and rolls over on her side, taking as many blankets as she can with her, “If you can carry me, go for it.”

4S sighs, and lays back against the sweat stained pillows.

He’s never been more infatuated with her.

#nier atuomata #nier automata fanfiction #A2 #4S #A24S

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