#I am not sure how well that bodes for my ask box | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

zorcskhakis · 2 years ago

Text

happy birthday you funky little ghost twins

✨✨✨

when are you home

Ryou looked at the text message that flashed across the screen of his phone. Bakura. Bakura never texted him, and it was like pulling teeth trying to get him to keep his phone charged and regularly within answering distance. This did not bode well.

On our way now. Why? Am I going to come home to find the house burned down?

see you soon

"Well, that's not at all worrying," Ryou muttered under his breath.

"Who's that?" Yugi asked brightly.

"Bakura," Ryou answered, grunting slightly as he shifted his bag over to his other shoulder, burdened by its heavier-than-normal weight. "He actually texted me, so I just know I'm going to be walking into some sort of disaster when we get home. Honestly, could he have done this on literally any other day…"

"Oh come on, Ryou, have a little faith in him. I'm sure it's nothing bad." Yugi laughed, but it ended in a long yawn. "Ah, man… sorry, guess I'm still kinda tired."

"Yeah, you went into the office quite early today. You were long gone by the time I woke up," Ryou said, his brow wrinkling with concern. "You can't have gotten much sleep. Come to think of it, you've been doing that a lot lately… Do you need me to come in too, to help lighten the load? I know we have that investor meeting coming up…"

"Oh no, it's alright!" Yugi said quickly. "Besides… today was the last day I needed to go in early, so I'll be back to my normal schedule tomorrow."

"Hmm. Well, alright then," Ryou said as he turned his attention forward. They had nearly reached the house - it did not appear to be in flames from this distance, thankfully.

They finally reached the house and stepped inside - it was stunningly quiet. Normally Marik and Bakura could be found in the living room watching YouTube (Marik always claimed this was "work research", but Ryou knew the truth - he and Bakura adored influencer feuds and callout videos), or in the kitchen trying out some monstrous new recipe they had discovered on the internet, but it was so silent Ryou could hear the clock ticking on the wall beside him.

Soon, though, the silence was punctuated by the thumping of footsteps - Bakura was dashing down the stairs.

He rounded the corner, nearly crashing right into Ryou as he stepped into the living room, and shouted, "HAPPY BIRTHDAY!"

Ryou could not help but jump back, startled. "Bakura! I… thank you. What is that?" He gestured to a large box Bakura was holding, clearly struggling under its weight. "Is that for me?"

"Yes!" Bakura exclaimed with a grin. "Go have a seat so I can give it to you."

Yugi smiled at Ryou as he kicked off his shoes and headed for the couch. Marik soon descended down the stairs as well, still in pajamas and slippers with his hair tied up, carrying an envelope in one hand and a box under his other arm.

"Happy birthday," he greeted as Ryou sat down, handing the envelope to him. "That's for you, from me. Go ahead and open it first, I made Bakura promise to wait to give you his gift."

Ryou chuckled as he sat down on the couch. "Alright. Thank you." He gingerly tore open the envelope, puzzled to find a slip of paper that had been printed out with an appointment listing on it. The date listed was the upcoming Saturday, and the appointment…

"A private meet and greet with the Domino Ghost Hunters. Marik, you said no more prank gifts!" Ryou said with a scowl.

Marik smirked back at him. "I did! That's not a prank."

"But you know I hate that show," he sighed.

"Oh, I know. I didn't set that up for you so you could hang out with them, I set it up so you can expose them! You're always talking about how everything they do is fake, now you can go in and prove it! We'll get you all set up with a mic and hidden cameras."

Ryou paused. That certainly was something he had wanted to do since the day he'd first seen the show, and a sentiment he had frequently expressed whenever the show was on TV. It seemed Marik had been paying attention. "Okay… that does… very much sound like a good time."

"And then we'll make a video about it on my channel! It's been way too long since I've gotten involved in some good drama."

"Oh, sod off! You just want to use my ghost expertise to get internet clout!" Ryou shouted, though he was laughing. He crumpled the empty envelope and hurled it at Marik, who swatted it away as he cackled to himself.

"Come on, I know you love drama. Especially ghost related drama. You wouldn't keep us around if you didn't."

"Fine, so I do."

"Okay, now one for Bakura!" Marik declared, handing over the box he had set beside him.

Bakura was quick to accept the box as Marik handed it to him. He tore into it like a wild animal - and gave a delighted, if still somewhat evil-sounding laugh.

"Hahaha, YES! The sneakers with human blood in them!"

"...There’s a sentence I certainly couldn't have predicted the trajectory of," Ryou muttered as he watched Bakura pull on the red and black sneakers, each with a pentagram charm. "Wow, those are… so you."

"I know, right?" Marik said smugly as Bakura laid back on the floor and kicked his feet in the air to admire his new shoes. "Alright, you had better open Bakura's next, or he might explode."

"Alright–" Ryou grunted, then, as Bakura suddenly dropped the full weight of the large box in his lap and then sat himself down on the floor, grinning up at Ryou expectantly. He hadn't bothered with wrapping paper, just a simple moving box leftover from the previous year when they had moved in. Ryou pulled off the single piece of tape holding it closed and looked inside.

It was a wooden box, clearly handmade but with careful carvings on the lid. It was heavy, and Ryou carefully pulled it out to examine it, opening the lid.

"Is this… a board game?" He asked incredulously, finding a folded cardboard board inside that had been painted.

"Yup!" Yugi answered with a wide smile. "Me and Bakura designed it together! I came up with the mechanics, and Bakura made all the hardware."

"Look at the game pieces!" Bakura exclaimed.

There were mismatched dice, coins, and trinkets inside the box - as well as four familiar-looking figurines made of hard-baked modeling clay.

"It's us," Ryou observed with a smile.

"Yes! It took an eternity and a half to make those. Marik kept making me redo his hair."

"This is why you were going into work so early?" Ryou asked, turning to Yugi. "You were working on this?"

"Yeah, we have all the supplies I needed for drafting it out at the office," Yugi laughed. "Then I handed it off to Bakura and he took it from there."

"You guys, this is…" Ryou's voice caught as he spoke, and he held back a sniffle. "It's incredible. Can't wait to play it."

"Speaking of games to play…" Yugi muttered with a small smile.

Suddenly, Ryou remembered his work bag, still slung over his shoulder. "Oh! I have one for you too, Bakura."

Bakura looked intrigued as Ryou withdrew the wrapped gift from his bag. He wasted no time tearing through the Halloween-themed paper - and his eyes went wide at what was underneath.

"No bloody fucking way!" He shouted, turning the large hardcover volume over in his hands. "The Game of Darkness?! How on earth did you manage this?"

"We found the homebrew notes you'd been working on," Ryou explained. "We had to fill in the gaps based on what was… er, legible, but I think we did alright. We are seasoned game developers at this point, after all." Ryou smiled at Yugi.

"This is a prototype, but if it playtests well, we might actually do a print run through the studio! What do you think?" Yugi asked.

"I think we should start running my first campaign RIGHT away! Get out the character sheets!" Bakura exclaimed, leaping to his feet.

"Hold on, idiot!" Marik cried, catching him by the sleeve. "We still have to go to dinner!”

“You’re not dressed and you haven’t even done your makeup yet!” Bakura snapped back, yanking his arm away. “We at LEAST have time for session zero!”

Ryou smiled as he set the board game carefully on the coffee table, watching Marik walk off to get dressed and Bakura tear through the cabinets looking for pens and paper.

“So,” Yugi asked as he sat next to him, their shoulders pressed together. “Good birthday?”

“Yes,” Ryou answered contentedly, putting an arm around him. “Best yet.”

#bakura #ryou bakura #yami bakura #thiefshipping #heartshipping #my favorite thing about this is marik buying bakura a five THOUSAND dollar pair of sneakers #that he will ABSOLUTELY destroy within three months

40 notes · View notes

daringyounggrayson · 3 years ago

Text

whumptober day 17: hemorrhage (AO3)

“Don’t be mad.”

Bruce has been raising Dick long enough to know that that sentence never bodes well. Especially when it’s the first thing to pop out of the twelve-year-old’s mouth when Bruce answers the phone.

“What happened?” Bruce asks with a sigh.

Dick’s voice shakes a little as he repeats, “Don’t be mad.”

“Dick. What happened.”

“I ripped my stitches,” Dick says. “I—I don’t know what to do, I need help.”

“I’m on my way,” Bruce assures, standing from his desk and grabbing his car keys. Dick was stabbed last week on patrol, and now he’s home alone because Alfred is out of town and Bruce thought it would be fine. Dick told him he’d be fine. Alfred is definitely going to kill Bruce when he finds out. “Are you putting pressure on it?”

“Yeah.” Dick doesn’t say it, but by his tone, the duh is heavily implied.

“Everything okay, Mr. Wayne?” Janet from accounting asks.

He smiles. “Fine, fine. My son just cut his hand when he was trying to make lunch.”

“Don’t tell people that!” Dick protests over the phone.

Bruce ignores him. “I need to go home and make sure he doesn’t need stitches.”

“Oh no!” Janet says. “I hope he’s alright.”

“Thanks,” Bruce says, then waves as he continues on his mission. He passes the elevator, choosing to race down the stairs to the parking garage instead. Attention back on Dick, he asks, “How much blood is there?”

“Uh, kind of a lot,” Dick says. “I’m not dizzy yet, but I have my shirt pressed over it and it’s already pretty wet.”

Shirt. Not gauze or towel. “Where are you?”

“Don’t be mad.”

“Dick.”

“I’m in the woods,” Dick says.

“Why aren’t you at the house?” Dick is supposed to be taking it easy. He hasn’t been cleared for exercise yet—likely won’t be for another week.

“I just went on a bike ride, and I must’ve hit something sharp because my tire popped and I fell. Please don’t be mad.”

Bruce pinches the bridge of his nose. “Are you hurt anywhere else?”

“I think I broke my wrist, but it’s just that and my stomach,” Dick explains as Bruce finally makes it to his care. “Should I go back to the house?”

“No,” Bruce says quickly, nearly yells. He takes a breath. “No. Don’t move. The bleeding will increase, and you might do more damage.”

“Okay,” Dick says.

“I’m on my way,” Bruce says, speeding down side streets and taking shortcuts to avoid the traffic. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

It’s one of the worst drives of Bruce’s life. Dick talks to him through the whole thing, then helps guide him to his location. It takes a total of thirty-two minutes before Bruce finds Dick at the bottom of a steep hill. Next to him is his bike, which is partially bent. The fall had been worse than Dick let on.

“Are you alright?” Bruce asks, kneeling next to Dick and looking him over.

Dick smiles at him. “Just a little scrape. No biggie.”

Bruce frowns, takes in the shirt pressed against Dick’s bare stomach. It’s dark red. “You’re hemorrhaging.”

Dick’s smile falters, then fades completely. “Yeah. Feeling kind of dizzy.”

“Hnn. Let’s get you home.”

On the count of three, Bruce scoops up Dick and begins to climb back up the hill. It would be much easier if he wasn’t wearing a suit and dress shoes, but making Dick wait just so he could change wasn’t an option.

Bruce eventually makes it back to the cave, and he quickly stitches Dick’s wound and casts his broken wrist. Luckily, Dick doesn’t end up needing a blood transfusion, but he’s working on juice and crackers to help with the dizziness.

Dick is going to be fine, but he was lucky. If he hadn’t had his phone on him, he could’ve died, and Bruce wouldn’t have even known where to look.

Bruce runs a hand over his face. “What were you thinking?”

“Am I in trouble?” Dick asks, fingers bending the straw of his juice box.

“Do you even realize that you could have died?” Bruce asks harshly, causing Dick to flinch. “You weren’t even wearing a helmet!”

“I’m sorry, okay?” Dick shouts back, meeting Bruce’s eyes for the first time. “I felt fine. And if my tire hadn’t deflated, I would’ve been fine.”

“You don’t know that.”

“It was a bike ride. I wasn’t even going fast. And besides, you go out with injuries all the time,” Dick counters.

Bruce clenches his jaw. “That’s not the point.”

Dick glares at him. “Can I go now?”

“No.”

Dick rolls his eyes and crosses his arms over his chest with a huff. “Then just get on with it. Ground me or whatever.”

“I’m not going to ground you. But this can’t happen again.”

“Whatever.”

“I’m serious, Dick.”

“It’s not a big deal. Biking wasn’t even what caused this—it was the fall,” Dick insists. “I could’ve done the same thing tripping down the stairs.”

Dick’s right, but he shouldn’t have been biking, especially on his own. But Dick’s also right that Bruce doesn’t exactly set the best example—hell, Bruce has let Dick out as Robin with injuries before, and he’ll probably do it again if it becomes necessary.

(And maybe that’s the problem. Maybe he’s not cut out to be a parent.)

“You’re such a hypocrite,” Dick grumbles.

Bruce runs a hand over his face, unsure of what he’s supposed to do, what he’s supposed to say. All he knows is that he was terrified today, and his son is in front of him acting like none of that matters. “Enough.”

They’re quiet for a minute, then Dick asks, “Are you mad at me?”

Bruce’s face softens, and he looks at Dick closely. Maybe he hadn’t made the best decision today, but it had been scary for him too. Worse, when Dick had needed him, he’d been afraid of how Bruce would react. “I’m not mad.”

Dick sniffles. “Can we still go to the baseball game tonight?”

“Do you feel up to it?”

“You promised we’d go,” Dick says.

Bruce nods. Dick had been looking forward to it, and with everything that happened today, Bruce had honestly forgotten about it. “We’ll go.” Bruce checks his watch. “We should probably head out in about two hours. You should rest until then.”

Dick hums, nodding. “Do you wanna sign my cast?”

Bruce smiles. “Sure, chum,” he says, reaching for a marker as Dick holds his arm out toward him.

Alfred will still kill him when he finds out what happened, but it will be manageable so long as Dick isn’t mad at him too.

#dick grayson #bruce wayne #nightwing #batman #batfamily #elizabeth writes

93 notes · View notes

poorlittleyaoyao · 3 years ago

Note

Heeeeyy so i am very intrigued by the possibilities of your yaoli post! 👀👀👀 but since you opened the box of jgy's type being "eldest daughter" may i ask - do you have thoughts on JGY/JYL/LXC?

Anon, I pondered this all day yesterday to figure out what my thoughts are. Instinctively, I was like "oh god no," because this hypothetical polycule consists entirely of people who would get the wrong plate of food at a restaurant and not say anything to the waiter. Every one of them prioritizes keeping their heads down and avoiding conflict--in different ways and for different reasons, but not a single one of them is healthy about it. This REALLY does not bode well for clear and honest communication or setting of boundaries! Add canon’s many external issues into the mix, and hoooo boy, they have a LOT to overcome.

But what if they could?

For optimal chances of success, I think JGY and JYL need to have forged some type of relationship with each other independently of LXC before anything progresses with all three of them. An arranged marriage with JYL and LXC in the wake of Sunshot avoids some of the Jin drama, but then you’ve got JYL playing second fiddle to Xiyao (and feeling lonely but not wanting to complain), JGY feeling like a mistress (which he would be EXTREMELY uncomfortable with, I think, and which would make him leery around JYL), and/or LXC withdrawing from them both (or worse, trying to force an arrangement too fast like he did with 3zun) because he has no idea how to balance it. That’s too much!

So instead, let’s have JGY and JYL developing some kind of bond while they’re both stuck at Jinlintai during the Burial Mounds time period. JGY’s interactions with LXC are limited then, as are JYL’s interactions with her brothers, so they’re lonely! Maybe they develop romantic attraction then, maybe they don’t, but the groundwork is there. Then, after JZX’s death, JYL agrees to an arranged marriage with JGY because it solidifies her son’s position in the Jin line of succession and lets her continue to raise him, and besides, she knows and trusts JGY.

(”I know and trust JGY!” are famous last words, but in this case it’s gonna be fine, because I said so. It’s also gonna be fine for Qin Su, who is now free to go have a nice normal marriage perhaps to Jiang Cheng.)

So now! Now they’re a couple! An actual romantic couple! But uh oh, what about LXC? Well, “I miss er-ge” was already something they bonded over, and JYL isn’t stupid. JYL is also pretty secure in her own position here, so she decides to have a CONVERSATION about it. JGY would want to do right by her and pointedly NOT be his father, so there’s a lot of “are you SURE it’s fine? like are you SURE?” and eventually they decide that next time JGY thinks of an excuse to go to Cloud Recesses on sect business for his dad, JYL and baby Jin Ling are coming too. You know. Just to see what happens.

LXC does not see this coming but, it turns out, he and JYL have quite a lot that they can talk about and unpack together.

Of course, in the background of all of this, JGS is still possibly having JGY do war crimes... but as the Jin heir’s stepdad and a core component of the Yunmeng Jiang marriage alliance, JGY now has practical value to his father beyond the dirty work he’s willing to do. And with both JYL and LXC monitoring JGY’s behavior, hopefully--because I said so!--an intervention can occur before JGY makes his way into the Forbidden Library. After all, JYL already lost a brother (and, by extension, her first husband) to demonic cultivation crimes. She’s not going down this road again, especially with her own sect and Gusu Lan behind her.

#the yaoli agenda #ft. Lan Xichen

19 notes · View notes

rumblelibrary · 3 years ago

Text

The Diary of Doctor Laszlo Kreizler

Chapter 1 - Chapter 2

Synopsis: Alienist’s notes are private, sometimes gruesome, secrets of others and of himself.Those pages belongs to secrecy and decadence, have a glimpse to this world made of drafts, notes, accidents and reflections. Or maybe it is you the only person that should ever reach for it.

While you read this imagine Laszlo mostly at the end of his day, scraping the ideas and the thoughts, adjusting previous notes with additions, closing the day behind himself with a couple of sentences while sitting in his evening robe, a good glass of whiskey and his glasses bridged almost at the tip of his nose. Or maybe imagine yourself, you sneaky thing, reach for it from a far shelf.

Word count: 3.5k

Warnings: listen, this is the set of ideas and confessions of a man living in the 1890’s. Most of them will be outdated, rough, even deprecating in some analysis of the roles of men, women and social status, religion, etc.So be prepared, my point is to make Laszlo reflect upon those topics, but to be as faithful as I can to his time. Mention of death, mutilation, self harm and sex. Psychologically troubled young children ahead! Author’s note: The story is placed between season 1 and season 2. Thank you for everyone that encouraged me to keep going. I have to wait for my local drop of serotonin to get fully Laszloed to go through this.

Lyra’s Contellation, Illustration taken from Uranographia by Johann Bode

Routine. Routine is comfort. Habit stabilises the character.

If you follow a routine, you won’t ever be victim of imprudence, of evil jokes of fate. The stability earned through calculated and repeated actions brings a sense of fulfilment that forbids other thoughts to come bashing in, breaking rules, breaking hopes that a solid scheduled routine forbids to have. I take my time to begin this week, I planned the things to do, the next steps for the case, the people to meet, the resources I am allowed to contemplate. I feel good, I feel back to myself and the events of the weekend seem far from me and my own perception. I probably got ahead of myself, carried by some instinctual though and random rush of emotion, to be always in contact with the same people and mostly kids probably doesn’t help my stance in the presence of other adults. I feel silly now reading back the last page, I felt tempted to tear it off, but to keep it there should be a small memento of not losing my temper so easily. I read it over and over and I know I am not as charmed as I thought I was. I am just lonely. I have always been and it is normal to face ups and downs even for a man of my age who is more accustomed to it. To desire a partner is a natural instinct, to find somebody attractive is meant by nature, it is the body calling for the natural fulfilment of the reason we are put on this very Earth. But even in a state of nature my own condition would be forbidding me to be part of the natural process of growing my own kind. I am the type of male that would be excluded because of his impossibility to give the protection to the pack, therefore it is just more reasonable to me to adapt to my condition. No matter what my Potentia generandi might be (the ability to procreate).

With all the smugness that characterises him, Niki showed off that he passed my challenge. But to be really of an help to his antics I didn’t show any kind of surprise. I treated him like he did the bare minimum, like he didn’t prove me any kind of superiority. He has a natural attitude toward challenging the figure of power, he is trying to overpower me, but I won’t satisfy his need. I have noticed he has a very technical brain, he finds ways to solve problems in ingenious way and not by throwing himself into the task. I proceeded giving him to work on a clock, an old broken one we had in the institute, one of the kids hit it with a ball years ago and nobody ever worked on repairing it. I gave him the clock, a couple of screwdrivers and a book. He called me a number of German names I won’t transcribe, but it gave me a certain amount of satisfaction. If my intuitions are right, I am sure the clock will be repaired by next week.

Analysis of the victim’s body through John’s eyes. The drawings and sketches are as detailed as I requested, all of this thanks to you joining him. I deal with art critic section, I am used to notice these things. You assure me, you play yourself low and I wonder why, nevertheless you did notice things neither John or I did, which pleased me. It fooled me, distracted me from my purpose to not give in to your witchery, as I leaned closer watching your pale hand move across the pages tracing this or that line, showing how this must be done with the killer on this side and not that side, with words so deliciously elaborate, your way of composing your speech is compelling, you could sell the drawing of a kid like it was a Botticelli. I noticed the shape of your hands, the way you move them, I wonder if you play an instrument, or played, some habits just stick with you through life. I focused on taking notes, your ideas and instructions giving me a new point of view, a new stimulus. What if that is the only way the killer can communicate? Or what if this is the communication that works for him? Could our killer be mute or deaf? Or that’s how society made him feel? This man, or woman, needs a listener and I am afraid that now, since he got our attention and the public’s, he won’t stop. Another killing could be just as close.

Scheduled: meeting with the parents of Alex Garel for new admission, Monday next week at 11 am. Love at first is a fetish and like all fetishes it is based onto an object that hides a deeper meaning, like gloves mean hands, to love at first sight means to see somebody that you think, and think only, to have the chance to share not only a sensual kind of bond, but an intellectual. Love at first sight is based onto not knowing someone well enough, but having the time to idealise most of that someone. I can see why I feel this attraction, using a particular phrase that Sara often mutters when investigating: you tick all the boxes. I know you do, your beauty is everything but conventional, you’re the kind of face that painters would paint and musicians would write hymns about, but any animal on the street would never be allowed to see. You have the grace of the body and the fire in the eyes, and then you speak. When you speak, I realise, you could bring the world to its knees. Also, you never speak out of context, and if you do it is to ease somebody’s position. You do it often with John or with Stevie, you say something really silly in order to put them back to a place of comfort. Some women would call it self deprecating, but I see that you only pick wisely your fights and your wins. You don’t need to earn your peace and quiet by neglecting, but by lifting up the others. I wonder if you do it with me too, if your silences are just you allowing me to be in a better place while instead your judgment is tearing me apart. I shouldn’t care, but I keep wondering, sometimes I take my time to answer you, I analyse every shade, every peculiarity of your question, I am looking for sarcasm, for a condescending voice, for something to hang on and bare you open. To prove myself you’re not perfect. But deep down I know that you do, you judge me and you do well.

Mother never said so. That’s what one of the girls in my care said today. Ursula. She is tough. Skin as thick as an alligator and the tendency to pull her own hair at night or when under a massive amount of stress, enuresis alongside erratic episodes of mutism. I tried the soft approach, it didn’t work. She is too accustomed to be indulged. Therefore today I pushed her a bit overboard, I teased her over opinions on the female body, the female role, she is only 12, but she is soon to bleed, she knows, I can tell from the way she clenches to her skirts, from the way she looks at me as a threatening figure. I am the incarnation of danger to her. Under her steady silence, I pushed a bit more, asking how her mother taught her to be nice and submissive. Does her mother tells her she is going to be a good wife? The phrase, which I reported at the top of the page, surprised me. What is her mother teaching to her then? What closed her so much, locked her soul away, making a small bird like this choose the silence and the retirement of self inflicted pain over, what? Mankind? Or just Men? Is that even a curse? Should I cure her from a truth that her own mother whispered to her ear one night before bed and made a child decide that the world wasn’t a place to share her time with? Am I the man supposed to teach her that men are worth of trust? In the eyes of modern society, who measures its own value over the modesty of the women, she would be a champion, but at what price? I can’t in any way let her parents bring her back home after our recent meetings. Nevertheless, I have to make up my own mind on how to give her troubled soul ease without making her believe in fables. I, as a man, regard myself not worth of any of the trust they expect me to teach her.

In all of my years practicing with people’s feelings and traumas, I challenged myself to find those same traumas within my own mind. It is a tricky game, terrible, anguishing at times. But it straightens me, the pain of others, the pain of kids mostly, so unadulterated and pure, breaks the curtain between me and the lies that I often surround myself with. Pain is made of method, you can open it up, you can scrutinise it, part it piece by piece dividing it in sectors and, partitions, centre part, side part, heart of the problem. Pain is reliable. Happiness is not. It is random, cruelly sudden, unexpected, it washes over you in such deflecting way only to leave you alone a moment after ashamed and alone. I saw you again today. You were in a table full of what I could only guess as your former university colleagues, I saw pain in you, not heavy but constant. Annoyance, a bit of sadness. Your head titling on side and your eyes drifting on the left, you’re imagining something away from them. A place? An object? Or maybe someone? Your hands play circles at the bottom of the flute of your drink like kids do, your smile only one sided. I don’t see you speak at all, only listen. What could keep your voice down? I almost gulped down my own breath as you looked up and I realised how I must have looked. I was having lunch on my own, in a very private table and even entertaining myself with a newspaper on the side. I wish you didn’t, but you came over, your eyes shining. Did I save you? Or maybe I was just a good excuse to leave that painful meeting behind. Don’t be so nice to me, it is not healthy. Don’t look at me like you expect anything more from me than me listening. I won’t smile back at you, I won’t give you care, attentions or thought. I won’t lean for your perfume, I won’t obsess over that dress you wore, that pin that adorned your neckline keeping your undershirt in place, a silver robin, I remember. I won’t remember the number of the buttons on the side of your glove, three. I won’t observe the little moles just under your ear. A small constellation, I later realised, hidden between your ear and the beginning of your neck. I don’t need to check in my books. It is a constellation. It is Lyra. Why? Why you must be like this? Are you the Lyra? Are you the instrument of Orpheus come to me to drag me out of Hell? The Tartarus holds my soul and you should know already, I am not worth the quarter part of Eurydice to be saved and she never came back anyway. I won’t be now recollecting the way your teeth sunk in the inner side of your cheek when you apologised for the annoyance. You apologised twice, I ignored you both times with a raised hand to request peace and silence. I am not letting you in.

Reserved: Tickets for Wednesday’s evening Traviata by Giuseppe Verdi. The guest female lead promises a beautiful show.

Leonardo, as I am learning through Paul Valery essay, is who I would define as a figure of projective identification of the Subject or, to better explain it, of the knowledge of the Subject that formed and grew through the use of sketches in the experience of the Artist. I have always thought that the finest form of art was the representation of knowledge duly undressed by any personal identification. Leonardo, instead, proceeded to represent the figure through the essence of the artist, a representation technically unlimited on objects and symbols and that keep expressing the transformation and development of Leonardo’s own being.Some artists are testimony of the destruction of the world, of the loss of eternal beauty over decadence. And then you have Leonardo, who creates an art that is the gravity of the world’s system, of the nature, of thoughts and abstractions. I wonder if our killer does the same, if the way they presents the victim through their own personal view, if what we can read there it is their stories, their pains, their needs. Their happiness and troubles. What are they trying to tell me? I need to know, I need to know to save a life, of course, but I also need to know to be able to sleep at night. Hair, hair are the epitome of femininity in any era. I keep studying Ursula and her habit to pull the. I took notes on it: she picks them by the bottom, slowly separates them until she gains an amount her mind defines satisfactory and then she rolls her finger and pulls, she does it until her finger is empty and there are no hair left. I find her process incredibly interesting. In men’s case the display of physical attributes is not as vital, a beard can be appreciated but does not modify the power of seduction of a grown man. On the contrary, for women hair are a vital part of their attractiveness toward the opposite sex, society sees the hair of a woman as part of their vital characteristics, also in ancient times for a woman to cut her hair or have her hair cut was a sign of deep separation from the society. Only heroines or whores wore that mark and the association of the two is so rooted into the way society always parted the role of a woman in two that it is nauseating to think of. I am still fearing to let Ursula go away, the repulsion that she is showing toward her own body makes it difficult even for me to crack her shell open as a man, but my deepest worry is when that hate will take a scarier and deeper tool on her. How a girl with such a fear of what her body can do, like sex or pregnancy, can endure in the future to have an husband? Or even to be courted by anyone?

John is helpless and I admire him for that. He doesn’t hide it, he just is. He is vulnerable and exposed, he is an open well bursting with doubts and feelings and troubled waters. He is genuine in a way I could never be. Maybe that’s why I despise even more him talking about you, how he sees you every morning, how you greet everybody, how you behave even with interns, how you like your coffee. Your talents, your wits, how you said this and acted like that and reasoned through him. How you forbid him to drink even when he felt tempted. How you stayed late over to help him collect all the informations I requested him to get. To him. Not to you. The evil demon of envy scratching in the back of my head screaming like a siren out in the sea, he demands to be heard, he demands to be allowed a part in this game. I won’t allow him that. I won’t allow myself any of that. This is a pure game of chess, if I give in a pawn now, I will lose my knight, and I know it. I advice him to not be so closed minded when he praises you, only to get surprised by the charms of a natural logical mind. I find a way to hurt him, he is an easy target, I look at him as his eyebrows twitch and he summons his patience on me. He lost the plot about you already, his bruised pride taking over. You won’t come into my life.

“Un dì, felice, eterea, mi balenaste innante, e da quel dì tremante vissi d'ignoto amor.” (“On a day, happy and ethereal, you appeared in front of me and from that day, trembling, I lived on an unknown love”)

The words of Alfredo in the first act of the Traviata keep running through me, a chant that won’t let me go, almost painful. The Opera House, that was my hiding place, a place where in plain sight I could let out myself, unleash. The catharsis of the characters involved running through me, I didn’t need anything but their voices and those musical instruments to let out my fears, doubts and anger. When Alfredo came to the scene tonight, the lights were strong and slightly pinkish, the performer bursting out of the seams with passion. My eyes diverted only to see you there. Alone. Those blinding lights gave you the the radiance of a vision singing the notes of greek myths and heroes, that dark blue evening clothing rang through my eyes like it was a bright yellow, the little shiny details that adorned you so clear against the heavy lighting to look like transparent pieces of water collected to adorn your beauty. I wasn’t me, but Alfredo, and I was helpless against you sitting so far and yet too close from me. I was naked in front of thousands. I am aware of the effect you have on me and our last conversation was barely regarded as one. This is infatuation, this is the pure work of a lonely mind and not something worth of any of all the words that I am dissipating here. Yet. I saw you cry at the climax of the opera, Violetta, the protagonist, heartbroken falling on stage consumed by pain and regret for her lost love and ultimate sacrifice. Your eyes shone as you tried to hide the tears and collect yourself. Through my binoculars, I saw your throat tremble and gulp down something more than just a sigh of pain. Your jaw clenched, your gloved hand moves to hide your shaking lips. I reckon, I have never seen such sad lips look more inviting. You look at the wall on your side breathing through your nose and not even that can save you by the strength of the voice of the soprano. You’re defeated and so you brought a fine silk handkerchief to your eyes, your shoulders bent inward in self defence. The Opera won. It won you like it always wins me. I wonder if you felt like this because of a past lover, somebody that broke your heart and made you feel wrong in any way. And because of that little wonder it is even more clear to me why I am a man worth of no trust. Because for a moment, I know, I wished to be the one that broke your heart. That gave you just the pain you’re inflicting on me so mercilessly by offering intoxicating kindness and beauty. To own your thoughts, tears and shame. To be the one man you have to look away from. I want to own all of that and, maybe, I will be freed of you the day you’ll be just another human being that hates Dr Laszlo Kreizler.

Tagged @cazzyimagines @lieutenantn @handmaiden-of-mischief @thesunflowersutra @zemomybeloved @fictionlandslanddreams @charistory @greeneyedblondie44 @apparrio @hb8301 @whatawildone

Let me know if you want to get tagged too <3

#the diary of doctor laszlo kreizler #dr laszlo kreizler #laszlo kreizler #dr laszlo kreizler x reader #dr laszlo kreizler imagine #dr laszlo kreizler x you #laszlo kreizler x reader #laszlo kreizler headcanons #thealienist #the alienist fanfic #the alienist fanfiction

73 notes · View notes

hewwocopter · 3 years ago

Text

Spoilers for Season Two of Monkie Kid...

Just... my thoughts on WBS.

This may be me overthinking it, but when WBS appears to just, like, sink into his body (that sounds strange I know, but I can’t find a good way to describe it right now-), is that her possessing him? Or is this just a visual representation of how she is affecting him?

The show is very deliberate on how they express emotion. Especially through their visuals. So this could be a case of me overthinking it for sure, but... I just wanted to point it out. Maybe she left something there. Like in his mind. Because in S02E7...

He has another flashback. It’s very brief, but it’s there. And his eyes do that blue glowy thing. Again, is this just a visual cue? Or is there something more? Or am I looking way too much into it? Probably! But I wanted to share my thoughts!

Also, more on WBS. I think she is after MK, maybe to possess him?

I’m 98% sure she can remotely possess people, as well as more than one person. Why do I say this? Well, as I was writing this and gathering pics, I realized that the mayor dude (who first appeared in S01E8) is obviously affiliated with her in some capacity.

When he gives MK the skeleton key and tells him it can open anything, Mei asks, “Ooh, anything? Like a pet shop full of puppies?”

To which he responds, “Yes, or the door to a lion’s cage, or an orphans piggy bank, or...” To which it cuts to the box that WBS’s essence (?) was kept in. “An imprisoned mystic power source... whatever you’d like!” ...Then he disappears. In a puff of blue smoke.

I think WBS has a small influence on people from a distance. Not sure how she found the key if that was the case, but she was trying to break free of the prison. And it just so happens that the key ended up with MK. The guy whose notorious for making somewhat impulsive decisions? Maybe he would go seek it out?

Luckily in this case he didn’t. But still the key made it to her, and she was released from the prison.

The mayor dude was still possessed in S02E7. While WBS was possessing the little girl.

So... that... can’t bode well for her potential targets. But it also adds some weight to my theory on what I said earlier, that she left something in MK. Maybe a placeholder or something, or a failsafe for if he gets to be much out of hand, I dunno!

Talk to me! I want to hear your thoughts on this.

#I know this is all over the place but *shrugs*#also RIP macaque 2020 - 2021 it was a good run #Monkie kid #monkie kid spoilers #Monkie kid theory #WBS #MK #hewwo rambles #posted 5/23/21

136 notes · View notes

randomingoftherandomness · 3 years ago

Note

Your writing is so much fun! If you feel like it, maybe some more Emperor/Empress? maybe some people want to put pressure on Emperor Zhou but forget that Empress Wen isn't a pampered noble who has never held a weapon in his life?

Hahaha... Thanks! I’m glad you’ve enjoyed reading my works thus far (❁´ω`❁)

I hope you’ll like this one too!

Note: Prince Xu here refers to Zishu (just in case anyone is confused)

There are some parts that will only make sense if you have read this chapter (AO3 only). Takes place after this chapter.

Each Minister, with temples streaked with greys and whites, eyes shrew and calculating, all looked at each other in turn; each men had grown up in the comfortable bosom of the capital, none had ever tasted a grain of sand or a moment of hardship in their route to power. All of them were born of the aristocracy so entrenched and deeply rooted in all sectors of society that they have never had a day of worry about their place or their families’ paths in life. It would be simpler to say that their forebears laid the foundation for this nation and their children will reap the fruits of it for generations to come if they are careful.

And this would have been the case, had it not been for the august personage currently occupying the golden seat.

Even before Prince Xu had reached his majority, he had been a pillar of strength to the South and by the time he was crowned a Prince of the First Rank, his military exploits could fill halls with their glory and there was no doubting that he will be a repelling force by mere presence alone. If he had any designs on the throne, it would have been easy for him to build his own faction to stake a claim for it.

But he had not done such a thing. If anything, he made sure to throw his support fully and utterly behind the Crown Prince and to only return to the capital for special occasions that merited his being there. When the old Emperor had died, that had been the longest period of time he had stayed in the capital. Going as far as to have a battalion of his men stationed within marching distance of the city gates as a deterrent to any dissent when the Crown Prince took the throne.

It’s a pity that Emperor’s reign was too short for him to have made a proper mark on the passage of time.

By the time Prince Xu had slicked the flagstones red with the blood of those traitorous scum in revenge for the death of his brother, there was no place for him to go but ascend into the highest position of prestige in the land.

Every single Minister can still remember the way Prince Xu looked as he had led his men right up to the throne room; stalking forth in his armour at the head of a hundred men, face streaked with glory and gore, carrying the sunlight on him as he climbs the last steps up to the throne room. If he had been mistaken as some primordial war god at that moment then, no one would have been surprised.

And then there was the Empress.

The Empress who had borne the Emperor a son and has just birthed another, thus securing the Dragon lineage. The Empress who was still the only official wife of the Emperor, and if the spies in the Inner Palace are to be believed, the only one the Emperor would even deign to look at and listen to - much to the consternation of the Ministers who had hoped to push at least one of their enterprising daughters and granddaughters into the Son of Heaven’s bed.

The Empress who was very much distinctly, a man.

Which makes what they’re doing something that borders on treason and necessity itself.

That man’s influence on the Emperor and the Court cannot continue and must not be allowed to. The gathered Ministers drink their tea in silence, watching the door for the messenger who will bring the report of their success.

They know they cannot lay a hand on either the Crown Prince or the newborn prince; the Emperor has them well-guarded and wrapped in the security of his most trusted guards who were beyond reproach and bribery. But it did not mean they could not get to the Empress. There were more than a few Palace maids and eunuchs who were still loyal to these deeply rooted families; people they have forged connections with that had spanned generations. These were the people they’ve tasked to attend to the Empress during his confinement.

It will be easy to dispatch of an eyesore who should have never been crowned in the first place.

Someone clears their throat and another sets his teacup down a little harder than it should be. Each one of these men looked peaceful on the surface, wrinkled face unmarred by any visible markers of stress. In fact, if anyone were to look into this group of men, they would have thought they were all bound for enlightenment at any moment. But the tension of waiting is punctuated by the changing of the hour and under the placid surface was nothing more than the seas in the middle of a storm.

They were about to call for an attendant to refill the teapots, when a long shadow colours the doorway. Their first instinct was that this was their moment of victory but that quickly sours into the cold realisation of who the person is.

“Your Highness...”

The Ministers rise in a flurry, going to their knees, bowing in flustered and fear tinged greeting.

The Empress smiles. His tall figure is hidden by a long black cloak which does little to downplay the sheer imposing nature of his presence as he crosses the threshold, calmly looking around the gathered members of the Court here. His long dark hard is pulled back in a simple undo, adorned with clasps of gold and turquoise. “Good evening, sirs,” He says, still wearing that smile. Someone bustles forth with a chair and the Empress sits. It is then that they realise that with him are ranking members of the Palace Guards who loom in their dark uniforms and the severe glints of their swords.

“If you’re looking for the Emperor, he isn’t here. He has been provided with a suitable diversion with our children,” The Empress says sunnily, accepting a proffered cup of steaming tea. Sighing as he takes a sip, he calmly regards them with a cheerful sensibility that was at odds with the way the troop of Palace Guards immediately take up all corners of the room.

This does not bode well.

“The way I see it, you have two options. One, you confess to an attempted assassination on this one’s life. In court. In front of all your peers, in front of my husband. Now, I’m sure you all know what he is capable of. What we are both capable of. Your crime will implicate not only you but your families as well,” The Empress says solemnly.

A cold silence descends. “Minister Jing, how is your new grandson, hm? Just celebrated his full moon, didn’t he? And how about your new concubine, Minister Tan? Pregnant, isn’t she? And at your age too.” The Empress huffs, passing the teacup back to the young maid next to her. “Ministers, I could go on.”

“And the second?” Someone quietly asks.

“The second is a warning. Not for you, but for everyone who comes after you.”

With a languid flick of his wrist, he calls forth General Han Ying who unlatches the cover of a plain box to reveal lengths of white cloths. The meaning is clear.

“Of course, it won’t be all at once and I am not so unimaginative that you all will... Leave the same way,” The Empress chuckles, closing an elegant hand over his lips. “Choose this path and we will arrange everything for you. From the second it begins to the moment it ends and to what comes after. You won’t have to worry about a single thing. No one else gets hurt.”

One of the elder Ministers shudders, lifting his head. “This is cruelty.”

“This is a blessing,” The Empress counters, all trace of geniality gone. All gathered cower lower to the ground.

How could they have forgotten? When this man was crowned, he’d been crowned with blood still rusting on his armour and dripping off the edge of his blade. This was the man their Emperor has chosen and for good reason.

With the quiet rustle of fabric, the Empress stands, apparently satisfied with the display of his magnanimity for the day. “You choose.”

#wenzhou #word of honor #wen kexing #zhou zishu #gab writes stuff #emperor & empress au

63 notes · View notes

katnissmellarkkk · 4 years ago

Note

General #7

Hiiii! Okay, well I bet you thought I forgot about this! Or, more than likely, you forgot you even requested this back in Decemeber. But never fear, my child. I remembered and have been thinking of this fic and what to write for months.

And so I’m so sorry, I’m a total perfectionist and I started and discared like 3 ideas for this before deciding on this oneshot sooo if this sucks, I’m at least comforted by the fact that I accomplished something in writing this itself? That sentence made zero sense but... I’m tired 🤷🏼‍♀️😅.

Prompt : General # 7 :

“Is that blood?”

“Yes but that doesn’t matter right now, what does matter is-”

“You are literally bleeding.”

Anyways, thank you for the prompt and here we go!

Whispers Of Light

I don't know exactly how I got roped into this. How exactly Delly Cartwright, Peeta's best friend—and alright, my friend now too—managed to convince me to help her and Leevy and about three dozen other members of the community with sorting boxes.

Sorting boxes. Organizing contents. Decorating with "found treasures".

The type of activities Prim loved doing with our mother. The type of activities I refused to do after my father died, to punish my mother for her depression.

The type of activities I now kick myself for walking out on, that I'll never be able to take back. I'll never be able to get those moments back with my sister. I'll never know what those hours between her and our mother entailed, because I chose to exclude myself, just so I could hold onto my petty anger for something that was out of all our control.

Maybe that's why I agreed to help Delly and the others with sorting through boxes upon boxes of debrief, of the items that scarcely survived Twelve's bombing almost two years ago. Maybe I only agreed out of guilt, both for never doing this type of endeavor with my sister and for being the direct cause of the bombing itself.

But whatever my reasons were, I agreed to help nonetheless, and I always follow through my promises. If there was one part of me forged in the war, if only one minor aspect of me was amplified in the smoke and haze and blood of revolution, it was the importance of keeping your promises, against all odds.

The dire consequences of a broken promise has long lasting aftereffects, beyond anything either Haymitch or I wish to dwell on.

"Katniss!" Delly calls, holding up an old, half-ripped paper book that is completely void of a front cover. "Look! I think this book is from the old Apothecary Shop!"

I squint at the dusty, decimated item, not entirely convinced. "I don't think so?" I murmur, unable to even decipher the words on the now melted, conjoined pages. "I'm pretty sure my mother kept the only apothecary book in her family?"

Kanon Bagley turns to inspect the battered item in his girlfriend's hands as well. "I don't think this is a medicinal plant book, Dells," he says sheepishly, a small smirk playing on his lips.

She gives him an incredulous look. "What do you mean medicinal?"

I peer up at him too, not comprehending his meaning any more than Delly. "What kind of plants do you think are in here?" I ask, taking the nearly destroyed object myself and flipping through the worn pages again, seeing odd herbs that neither of my parents ever mentioned or had on hand. "These don't look like the poisonous ones my father told me about?"

Kanon bites back a laugh now and I can't help feeling a little perturbed. As kind and soft-spoken as he usually is, I'm foreign to the feeling of him laughing at me. "What?" Delly snaps at him before I even can.

He still chuckles though, in spite of both our nasty glares. "You guys, it's a book of plants that'll get you high."

It takes a full minute for the meaning to dawn on me. Long enough that Leevy and a couple guys I used to go to school with come over to inspect the book as well. Long enough that they confirm Kanon's assessment just as I realize we're talking about plants that'll make you feel akin to how the morphling made me feel while confined for I killing Coin.

While everyone else snickers—and Delly full on chortles—I pass the book back to Kanon, sliding out of the crowd and moving towards a brand new box of savaged items.

It's not that the mention of plant-based drugs is a trigger for me. It's not something I ever truly gave any thought to before, to be honest. My father likely knew of them but it's not like he was about to bestow that kind of knowledge on his eleven-year-old and my mother perhaps felt it was inappropriate to mention.

No, it wasn't the subject in itself that hit a sore spot for me. But like so many times before, it's where the subject led my mind. It's where the topic took me back to.

Snow's Execution Day. The day I chose to kill President Coin instead. Being thrown back into my old tribute room. Getting high on the morphling.

Trying to forget all that I'd lost. Trying to forget my little sister becoming a human torch before my very eyes. My district engulfed in flames. The ambiguous loss of my best friend.

The connection between me and Peeta that I believed then would be permanently severed. That I believed then to be irreparable.

I suppose I believed then I was irreparable too.

And I miss Peeta suddenly, even more than I already did. Because he always knows what to say when my thoughts turn dark, when I'm suddenly triggered out of the happy, every day events and suctioned backwards to a war torn bird with her wings clipped.

But he's not here to talk me down or scare away the ghosts haunting my mind. He's not here to comfort me or even shoot me a supportive glance. No, he's at his very busy business today.

Peeta's bakery—the Mellark Bakery—has only proven to withstand the test of time these past few months. Since someone accidentally burned down the place, with nothing more than a croissant and a fancy Capitol toaster, the rebuilt bakery has been nothing but a success.

And also extremely time-consuming, I grumble internally, as I begin to pull out stuffed toys that once belonged to dead children.

"If any of those are still intact, we can donate them to the community home," Leaf John says as he opens the box across from me.

"And what exactly are we supposed to be use as decorations from these boxes?" I murmur, peering into another cardboard container, full of half-charred papers and cloths.

The general idea of today, as Delly had pitched it to me last week, was to help the community of Twelve finally sort through these boxes, donate what we could to those in need and decorate the new Justice Building with the leftover contents inside.

Somehow though I can't imagine pinning up terrible drawings of plants that'll inebriate you or headless teddy bears is going to bode well with the district.

Delly rolls her eyes in my direction—a whole new kind of response that I never thought I'd be receiving from the girl who skipped through the town square until she was fourteen years old—before nodding towards boxes on top of the ladder. "We're decorating the Justice Building with the surviving photos from those boxes, Katniss."

"Oh." Then why am I sorting these grimy, dirt-covered playthings? Why didn't anyone give me more clear instructions on today?

And why has it taken almost two years for Twelve to get a group of people together to organize the surviving items from the bombing?

I have no idea how Peeta's managed to get two bakeries built in the time it's taken for thirty-eight of us to come to the Justice Building and look through fifty cardboard boxes. And if I'm being honest, I have no idea why I'm even still here helping. I'm clearly not contributing much to the event. There's definitely more than enough volunteers without me.

And, of course, I could be at the bakery right now. Without a doubt, I'd be of more service there than I am here, digging through dusty knickknacks. I could be helping Peeta and Thom and the other part-time employees, exerting more knowledge and authority than I have here.

After all, Peeta did say the bakery was partially mine. In his mind, at least.

The ulterior motive of getting small, fleeting moments with my boyfriend, of basking in the feeling of safety with him beside me, of the occasional stolen kiss or hand squeeze when no one is looking, runs through the back of my mind.

And sways my decision immensely.

I open my mouth to tell Delly and the others that I'm about to head out, that they clearly have it covered here and I'm just in the way, when at the worst possible second, Leevy kindly murmurs, "Katniss, do you mind starting on the box on the ladder? Seeing if any of the pictures are in decent enough shape?"

I hesitate for a long moment, realizing immediately my predicament. It'd be rude to leave right after someone just essentially assigned me a task. I did agree to be here today, to help out with this tedious project. Leaving right now would only come off as rude and inconsiderate.

This is the reason I never did enjoy group assignments in school. The longer I'm here, the more I'm rediscovering this fact about myself. The division of the workload, the bore of the standing around, not knowing if you're doing the right or wrong thing, the lack of total control.

But I still nod after waiting a beat too long and agree with the nicest flare in my tone I can manage.

I'll go through the one box at the top of the ladder and then subtly make my exit afterwards. The image I unintentionally conjured up of Peeta and the bakery is still pulling at me, making me anxious to get back to him, to see him again even though we were together only three hours ago.

Since we officially became a couple a few months back—though Haymitch scoffs at that notion, claiming we've been together since Peeta first started sleeping over in my bed—I've found myself growing far more clingy to him than I ever could have anticipated. I hate when he leaves for the bakery in the mornings now, even as I still revel in the solace I find inside the woods. I look forward to his return home every night. More than even look forward to it, I'm usually at the bakery around the closing hours, helping him clean and inventory, asking him when he's coming home. Maybe looking somewhat unconsciously flirtatious as I say it.

I grab the box sitting on the ladder's top stair and pull it open, easily maintaining my balance one rung down, the same way I maintain my balance on a tree branch while hunting.

Inside pours out a plethora of photographs, mostly of Twelve's now past citizens. Near the top of the pile I see images of Greasy Sae's daughter, Dolly. The mother of her granddaughter. The daughter who died of croup a few years before the war.

Those photos must belong to Sae, I realize. Which means more of her items are probably scattered throughout the boxes here. And despite the fact that I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that she'll tell me not of be impractical, that if she's made it two years without these things she doesn't need them now, I still make a mental note to return her lost items. If nothing else, I make a mental promise to give back to her the photos of her daughter.

I know better than anyone what kind of comfort photographs of the deceased can provide.

As if in line with my thoughts, as if I alone manifested it somehow, the next image that catches my eye is one I entirely do not anticipate.

It's a shiny photo, on the kind of glossy paper my family could never afford. In the image is a blonde man with broad shoulders and a tall build. Wrapped in his embrace stands a petite girl, with long blonde curls and mascara accentuating her already long lashes. The couple both have eyes that match the color of the sky and are dressed up in some of the nicest clothes in all of Twelve. A white dress with lace. A gray suit with a black vest. The pretty girl wears jewelry and lipstick and there's a familiar glint in the male's eyes and I find myself mesmerized.

And I can't pretend I don't see my boyfriend in both of their faces. I can't pretend Peeta isn't the spitting image of both his parents.

He has his mother's smile, I realize with startling assurance. I never saw the witch smile personally, at any point in my life so I suppose I wouldn't know where he got his charming, sweet grin from.

The mannerism looks so out of place on his mother. The kind smile Peeta has, the one that could light up a blackened sky, doesn't bode with the woman in the picture, even on her wedding day. The charming smile doesn't fit with what I know of the woman's character. With what little about her Peeta chooses to share.

But I'm even more surprised to find how much Peeta has come to resemble his father. How much Peeta has grown to favor the now deceased man.

The last time I saw the baker—the original baker, that is. Haidon Mellark—before the Quarter Quell, I resented the fact that Peeta wasn't as tall or as broad as his father. I privately believed if he'd inherited those traits, he'd be even more likely to win the games again and I could worry about him less.

Peeta was always taller than me and was always remarkably strong, after working in the bakery since childhood. But his father was a whole different level. Haidon Mellark, I'd forgotten until now, had a body that could only rival my own father's.

And as it turns out, Peeta did inherit Haidon's physicality. He just also happened to be a late bloomer. Like his mother, I imagine, staring at her tiny frame in the picture.

The change in Peeta's form occurred so gradually I barely even noticed until a couple months ago, when I woke up with my head against his heart and abruptly realized just how broad he had become. Until I couldn't even reach to kiss his jaw on my tip toe. Until he started laughing at me and had to lift me up in order to properly embrace the way I like.

"Katniss?" I hear Delly beckon, trying to bring me back to reality. Trying and failing, that is. I hear her but only in a vague, distant sense. My mind is still stuck on the image in my grasp. Still stuck on the novelty that I managed to find a remembrance for the boy who still at times questions if his memory is full of lies.

"I still cry about my family and somedays I can't even remember their faces."

I never even considered the possibility of finding a token of Peeta's departed family here. It never occurred to me, the potential finds in this box at my fingertips, that I could take home to my boyfriend. I never imagined finding him something to hold onto when the inevitable dark day came again like a storm cloud, full of thunder.

I'm so entranced what this could mean for Peeta, so lost in my own little world, that I'm barely even hanging onto the ladder. I'm definitely not as steady as I should be, standing near the top rung.

And I'm definitely not steady enough to hang on when Delly gives it a rough shake, trying to catch my attention.

The boxes break my fall. Sort of. Kanon and Leaf John had taken the liberty of placing the empty cardboard, already looked through and emptied, beneath the ladder.

Falling headfirst into a large, void box is better than falling plainly onto the filthy, concrete tile floor. But not ideal. Not as helpful as falling into a box of surviving clothes or toys would have been.

Delly apologized profusely for shaking the ladder. She'd even begun to cry when she noticed the blood seeping from my forehead.

Thankfully Kanon was there, as I didn't have the energy to console her much. I don't even know how I managed to cut my head at all, but it stung a fair amount and it provided me the excuse I wanted minutes prior, to escape the group project and head for the bakery.

Even after the fall, my mind still was cemented on the newfound treasure. My first instinct was still to show this memento to Peeta as soon as possible.

Kanon though, like a good friend, insisted on walking me home, despite my many protests that it was unnecessary, that I was just fine, that I could walk home blind if I had to. He insisted, foiling my intention to walk directly to the bakery and not wait for Peeta's return home, which still remained hours away.

Kanon was surprisingly stubborn when he felt strongly about something and I chose to relent, to give in and allow him to accompany me back to what used to be Victor's Village—where he now resided with Delly, inside Peeta's old home—without much fight.

Fighting for your independence and autonomy doesn't exactly present you as rational when there's a bloody gash in your forehead.

"Doesn't that hurt?" Kanon asks as we make out way up my porch.

I look up, maybe a little startled, from Mr. and Mrs. Mellark's wedding photo. "My head?"

"Yeah," he says carefully, looking at the blood like it's a mutt in an arena.

I shrug, doing my best not to indicate how dizzy I actually feel. Either from the fall or the blood still dripping out despite my attempt to plug the wound up with old cotton rags someone sorted into the trash box. "I've had worse."

He chuckles, a little sardonically. "Yeah, so have I."

I thank him for walking me home—for it was as inconvenient as it was sweet—and close the door slowly behind me, before leaning my ear against the wooden frame, waiting. Waiting for him to climb the steps down from my porch and make his way back to the Justice Building. Waiting for him to be far enough out of sight that I can sneak back out without him also trying to accompany me to the bakery.

It's not that I don't appreciate Kanon and Delly and all of my other friends' concerns. It's the fact that I wish to bestow a likely loaded item upon my boyfriend and I really don't need an audience to do it.

It's not the easiest feat, to slyly time it so Kanon won't hear me opening and shutting my front door again. And it's probably not my smartest plan, to walk alone along the rocky cobblestones and the uneven concrete, with a less than level head and body.

But I make it to the back door of the bakery still, just as I knew I would. It takes three times as long, but I make it there nonetheless.

Still clutching the photograph of his parents between my fingers too. Still with the same primary focus on my mind. To give him a token of remembrance, a token of the imperfect family he lost so tragically, that he still greatly missed, even when he can't say their names. Even when he can't conjure up their faces.

"You don't remember your family?"

"Sometimes I do... I'm not so sure other days. My memory isn't exactly top notch, if you know what I mean."

I push open the heavy-weighted back door, using all the energy my body can muster up. To my relief, Thom is already in the back room, sweeping flour off the floor.

"Hi, boss," he greets slyly as I walk in, barely glancing up at me. I shoot him an over-the-top eye roll, though I can't help smirking myself at the stupid nickname, when he beckons Peeta. "Hey, your girl is here!" He yells loudly. Too loudly to be packed with customers at the counter.

I take that to mean the daily rush has come and gone. Which would be very convenient, as it means I can present Peeta with my finding that much faster, without having to worry about his business—or our business, as he teasingly calls it—being held up.

I hear the sound of my boyfriend's quiet laughter from the front. The sound that I akin to my father's singing or my sister's squeal of delight. The last sound still alive that can make my heart do a flip.

But it dies out the second he peaks his blonde head into the back room. The moment his baby blues, the same color as both his parents', meet my silver ones and then trail upwards.

Almost as if remembering the gash in my head, I reach to my forehead, to ensure the makeshift cloth bandage is still in place.

"Katniss?" Peeta says, his eyes looking far more nervous than I anticipated. Which I can only take to mean the red liquid has seeped through the plain fabric. "Is that blood?"

I don't want him to focus too heavily on that fact though. Like I told Kanon, I've had much worse injuries in my life. Me and Peeta both have.

Just look at his prosthetic leg.

"Yes," I reply easily, before moving closer to him, pushing the glossy photograph towards him. "But that doesn't matter right now. What does matter is-"

"You are literally bleeding."

I sigh, feeling slightly perturbed now. "Peeta, look," I insist, thrusting the image of his parents towards him, waiting for it to take anchor.

And it does. It takes a beat longer than I expect, but it happens nonetheless. I watch silently as the image captives him, as the shiny photograph takes him back to a time when this exact location was the only home he'd ever known and this business was run by the two people inside the picture.

He touches the photo, as if to test it's realism, before looking up at me in disbelief. "Where did you find this?"

"The Justice Building today. Inside the boxes, with all the things lost in the bombing."

There's a long pause as Peeta process this. The silence makes me antsy, finding myself abruptly uncertain of what could be going through his mind.

Finally, he whispers softly, "I never thought I'd see this picture again."

And the awed, tender smile that spreads across his face swiftly encompasses me in its warmth.

And I suddenly don't even feel the gash in my head anymore.

Read The Rest On AO3

#everlark #thg #the hunger games #everlark fics #fanfic #everlark fanfic #fanfiction #my writing #play with me 🥰

73 notes · View notes

sorry-apsalar · 3 years ago

Text

Everything's Going to be Okay

First off, this fic contains temporary character death. Everything's going to be okay though, don't worry.

Second, I've been sitting on this fic for months, like half a year maybe. I wanted to write more but this was the only part I was actually interested in writing. I've tried several times to continue and do a more complete thing but it wasn't happening so I've decided to just post this because it's complete enough even if it's not the full story of events following this.

Fry really didn’t want to wake up but the cold metal hand patting his cheek was insistent in drawing him back towards consciousness. “Come on Fry, I know you ain’t dead yet so hurry up and open your eyes already. It can’t be that bad, can it?” There was an odd note to his voice, an emotion Fry couldn’t quite place, especially since he was fairly sure he’d never heard it in Bender’s voice before. Meaning it was probably a good idea to wake up and see what he was upset about.

With a groan, Fry forced himself to open his eyes. He was leaning back against an uneven wall. Bender hovered over him, one hand out stretched to tap Fry’s check, the other held a lantern, its light dim and lens cracked, it was seemingly the only source of light in whatever space they were currently in. A large splotch of something wet and red was smeared across Bender’s front, it looked an awful lot like blood but that didn’t make sense because robots didn’t bleed.

“You’re awake,” Bender said as he withdrew his hand from Fry’s face. He sounded… relieved? “That means you’ll be fine, right?”

Fry wanted to push himself up a bit further but… the fact that everything seemed to hurt told him not to. “What happened?” They’d been going into a scary looking cave to deliver a package to the client who’d ordered it who was supposedly inside. Presumably they were still in that cave since they certainly weren’t outside. So… what had happened? A cave-in perhaps? That would explain why it was so dark and perhaps why Fry had been unconscious.

“It was a trap. Those bastards tried to kill us. They failed though, look see, even the lantern survived.” Bender gestured with it, making it sway back and forth a bit harder than Fry was comfortable with given how it was their only source of light.

“Why’d they try to kill us?”

“How should I know? It doesn’t matter though because they blew the fucking cave up on top of us and now we’re trapped behind a damn wall of rocks and dirt. I’d tell you to dig us but uh…” he looked Fry up and down a grimace, “yeah. That means I have to though. Ugh, I hate manual labor.”

“What?” Fry’s brain seemed to be running slow and the pain made it rather hard to think. Why had Bender been looking at him like that? And why did everything hurt so much?

Bender said something in response but Fry missed it as he looked down at himself at last. He clothing was soaked in something warm and red… blood, he was covered in blood. It was impossible to tell where it was all coming from in the in low light of the damaged lantern but surely it couldn’t all be his, could it? But then where else would it have come from? And further down, his leg lay twisted an odd angle that no human leg was supposed to bend and it might’ve just been his imagination playing cruel tricks on him but it looked like part of his bone was sticking out as well, covered in more blood.

“Fry!” Bender snapped in a tone that suggested he’d been trying to get Fry’s attention for a little bit now. The ‘wet red stuff’ on his front made more sense now; he’d moved Fry to lean him up against the wall. “You hit your hit too or something?”

“Uh… I don’t know.” He honestly had no way of knowing anymore. “But what… how’d this… happen?” He gestured vaguely at himself.

“The explosion and shrapnel and stuff turned your soft meaty body into swiss cheese. It didn’t do much to me for obvious reasons.” He hit a fist against his chest, making a hollow clang. “And a big boulder landing on you fucked up your leg. You were lucky though because it probably would’ve killed you if it had hit you somewhere else. But you’ve survived some pretty bad stuff in the past. Even if that was with immediate medical assistance, which we don’t have down here, you’ll still survive this, right?” That odd note was back in Bender’s voice as he finished speaking

“Uh… I don’t know.” He certainly didn’t feel like he was going to be all right after this. Though he hadn’t felt that way during all the other times he’d taken serious bodily harm either. But unlike those times there weren’t any doctors nearby with their nigh-on magical healing technologies. They were trapped in a cave on a planet in the middle of nowhere without even basic medical supplies which didn’t bode well for him. But… “I hope so.” Hoping was all he could really do.

A few seconds of heavy silence went by in which Bender was still as a statue before he jerked out of it. “Well, I’m going to get to moving boulders and stuff. Those punks are so going to pay for this as soon as I’m out and uh… I guess after I take you to a doctor too. Call me if you need anything, okay?” He placed the lantern down on the ground next to Fry before turning to leave, presumably heading in the direction of the cave in.

Fry watched him disappear into the darkness, wanting to call him back but… as much as he didn’t want to be alone, his only chance of surviving this was Bender getting him out and to a doctor. So… “I love you,” he called after him instead just in case this was his last chance to say that.

Bender’s footsteps paused. “Is now really the time for being all sappy and stuff?”

“I don’t see why it’s a bad time for it.”

“Fine, I love you too so don’t you dare fucking die or I’ll never forgive you.”

Fry’s small laugh quickly petered out because it hurt too much. “I’ll try my best,” he forced out in a weak voice.

Without Bender there to keep him focused, Fry quickly started having trouble staying awake. Even with the pain every tiny movement and even breathing brought, sleep seemed to beckon him. If he fell asleep now though would he ever wake up? So he fought it. … It was a losing battle though.

It was awfully cold too. So much so, his hands and feet soon began to grow numb from it. Which was odd because hadn’t the planet been rather warm, even inside the cave? He’d complained about it to Leela before heading off with Bender while she stayed back to refuel the ship, using the ship’s backup fuel canisters; she’d told him to suck it up and deal with it. So why did it feel so cold now?

He didn’t want to die in the cold, especially alone. … More like he didn’t want to die at all, there was still so much to see and do. He still hadn’t mastered the holophonor. And there were still so many TV shows left to watch with Bender and video games to play on his phone while avoiding work. And so many other things too. He couldn’t die yet, not like this, he wasn’t ready. … But he’d never would be ready, huh? And he didn’t really have a choice in the matter; he was dying whether he liked it or not and… he didn’t want to do it alone.

“Bender,” he tried to call out but his voice failed him and it came out rather weak instead.

Despite that, the sound of Bender shifting rocks stopped. A few seconds later, he emerged back into the weak lamplight. “What?” The annoyance in his voice and stance were forced. “I’m trying to get us out of here which you should be grateful for since I don’t normally do that type of thing.”

“I… I’m dying,” Fry choked out. “I’m… not going to make it.”

“Nonsense, you’re still breathing so it’s fine. You said so yourself… sort of.”

Fry whimpered as he shook his head. “I’m cold and numb and… it hurts so much. But… I just want to sleep.” He didn’t even have enough energy to be as panicked as he should be. “I don’t got much time left.”

“Well… I’m trying to get us out as fast as I can, what more do you want from me?” Lacking any real energy, Bender’s attempt at callousness failed. He had to know that even if the way to the ship was clear, getting to anywhere with proper medical facilities would take a couple hours at least. Fry was growing increasingly certain he didn’t have that long, let alone however long it would take to dig out of the cave too so…

“I don’t want to die alone.” That had always been one of his biggest fears, that he’d die alone and no one would care. He didn’t have to worry about the latter at least but the former was still scary. “Please Bender I… I… just please… I don’t want to die alone.” That wasn’t too much to ask for, was it?

Still as a statue, Bender stared at him, his expression unreadable, for several seconds before he jerked back into motion. “If that’s the case then I guess I just got to use this sooner than I thought I would.” As he spoke, he opened his chest compartment and reached seemingly all the way to the back to pull something out. A small black metal box. He flipped that open to pull out a rectangular object with a switch on it and wires coming out either end of it. One of which ended in what looked an awful lot like the brain scan caps in science fiction movies.

“What’s that?” Fry asked as Bender leaned over to put it on him.

“Don’t worry about it. Just… trust me when I say everything’s going to be okay, all right?” Bender secured it in place under Fry’s chin, tight enough to be uncomfortable. Fry didn’t trust himself to be able to loosen it though so he let it be as Bender sat down to lean back against the wall next to him.

“I love you. You’re the greatest friend I’ve ever had or could’ve ever asked for and the best…”

“What did I just say?” Bender’s annoyance was real this time. “As much as I like it when you acknowledge how great am I, you’re talking like you think this is the end.”

“But… it is.” And Fry was struggling to even stay focused enough to say the things he wanted to say, how much longer before even that was too much for him?

“I told you, everything’s going to be okay so just trust me and shut up already, talking’s a waste of energy.”

Fry did trust him but… he didn’t seem to know what was going on. Was it denial or him not understanding how death worked? Couldn’t be the latter, not solely anyway. Maybe a little bit of both then? Fry didn’t have the energy to explain though.

Bender was fiddling with the wire coming out of the other side of the rectangle thing. It split off into two plugs. One of which Bender opened his chest compartment to plug it into himself or into something else inside him. The other he stared at for several seconds, seemingly unsure what to do with it before shrugging and pulling it into his chest compartment too. He went much deeper with that one, his arm stretching up inside himself.

“What is it?” Fry tried again, having to force the words out. Perhaps if his mind didn’t feel so cloudy he’d be able to come up with even guess but… he had nothing.

Bender didn’t even glance his way as he instead pressed the switch on the box connecting them. A strange hum filled Fry’s head, loud but not unpleasant, especially since it seemed to lessen the pain a little, making it even harder to focus and think.

Bender said something that Fry couldn’t quite understand for some reason as he leaned back against the wall and took Fry’s hand into his own, intertwining their fingers. His tone was reassuring though, which was rather unlike him but… it was nice.

Fry squeezed his hand as hard as his failing strength would let him. He wasn’t dying alone or unloved and… that was enough right now.

~~~

Fry came to slowly. Something was off though. He opened his eyes to the sight of a cave wall several feet away. It didn’t look normal though, it was like he was looking at it through a night vision camera. Why was he even in a cave? … Right yeah, the delivery mission and then waking up in pain… he’d been dying and now wasn’t? He certainly didn’t hurt anymore which was a huge plus all on it own.

“See? I told you everything would be okay,” Bender said, sounding rather pleased with himself. But when Fry turned his head to the left to look at him to ask what exactly had happened, he wasn’t there. Hmmm… weird.

Fry turned his head to look to the right next and was met with the rather peculiar sight of himself. But everything about that sight was wrong. He was unnaturally stiff and covered in blood, the latter of which made sense based off his recollection prior to waking except for the fact that it looked mostly congealed now. … Dead was the only word that could describe it, he was looking at his own corpse.

He yelped as he pulled away because what the actual fuck? But the corpse – hiscorpse – was holding his hand and wouldn’t let go and… Suddenly he was holding still and looking away, though not by his own volition.

“This is going to be a lot more troublesome than I initially thought,” Bender said, the location of his voice indiscernible

“Bender? What’s going on?” Fry didn’t like whatever it was. But then again he was still here while his body was very dead. Was he a ghost?

“I guess I didn’t exactly tell you what I was doing. But I’m sure even you can figure it out fairly quickly.” Bender’s hand, that was also his own somehow, rose in front of his face to give a small finger wave. Things just kept getting stranger but one thing was pretty clear, he seemed to be in Bender’s body somehow, looking down at himself and seeing Bender’s open chest compartment with the two wires coming out confirmed it.

“I’m a ghost possessing you?”

“Close but not exactly. I downloaded your mind onto my hard drive” As he spoke, Bender carefully pried his hand out of corpse Fry’s stiff grip. It was coated in a thick layer of congealed blood.

Fry shuddered in disgust, looking away again as he tried to shake it off. It didn’t work though; despite being made of metal he could still feel it clinging to him or… more like to Bender.

“Stop that!” Bender reinserted control and tried to wipe it on Fry’s jacket before Fry pulled it back.

“Can we please not touch my corpse? It’s weird and… I don’t like it.” Touching one’s own corpse was not a thing anyone should ever even be able to do, let alone actually do if given the chance.

“It’s not really you anymore so why does it matter? But fine, whatever, if you insist. Let me take this off though.” Bender at least had the kindness to let Fry continue to look away as he reached over to take off the wired cap off Fry’s corpse. He then unplugged himself from the device, a rather odd feeling sensation, before putting the whole thing back in its box and then that back in his chest compartment.

“Why didn’t you tell me that that thing was going to download my mind or whatever?” Fry asked as he wiped off what could of the blood on Bender’s hand onto the rocks making up the floor – which wasn’t as effective as he would’ve liked but what else could he do? “That would’ve been a huge comfort, you know.” Knowing he wasn’t going into oblivion would’ve made the whole dying thing a lot less scary and upsetting. And it’s not like Bender didn’t have enough time to explain, he’d had plenty.

“In case you refused.”

“Why would I ever refuse?”

Bender shrugged as he stood up. “Humans and other living things are peculiar about their bodies for some reason. I’ve heard of instances where your kind have refused stuff like that in the past so I wasn’t taking any chances.”

“Well, those people were dumb.” Fry would’ve never even considered refusing such a thing even if sharing a body with his boyfriend was really weird and seeing his own corpse was all kinds of horrible that he’d probably have nightmares about later. “Is this like a permanent situation though? Are we going to be in the same body forever?”

“Fuck no. As much as I love you, I need me time sometimes too so I’m transferring you to your own body as soon as possible when we get home.”

Good, Fry wasn’t a huge fan of sharing a body either. He wanted his own body, preferably the one he’d had before. That wasn’t an option though so he’d take what he could get. … But then again, he’d presumably be uploaded into a robot, basically making him a robot, right? That would be pretty awesome. Heck actually, he was technically a robot now, wasn’t he?

“Can I bend something? … If that’s all right with you?” It was Bender’s body and he really didn’t want to impose, especially since taking on Fry like this was probably not his idea of a good time but he’d always admired Bender’s strength and now that was kinda his so… he really badly wanted to bend something just because he could now.

Bender sighed and fondly shook his head – conversing with him when they were in the same body was really weird. “Sure, if there’s something around here to bend, you can bend it.”

Fry looked around, carefully avoiding glancing at his corpse. Unfortunately, they were in a natural cave and thus the only thing around was rock wall and the boulders and stuff, making up the cave-in, nothing all that bendable. Well, there was the lamp, its battery had run out while they’d been ‘sleeping’. Still careful not to look directly at his corpse, Fry located it and snatched it up off the ground.

Its already cracked lens shattered as he bent it with ease. It was only a small lantern but it was still made of pretty sturdy metal and he could bend it all out of shape in any and every way he pleased. It might as well have been putty in his hands.

Bender kindly let him play with it for a while before interjecting. “As much fun as this is, we really need to get out of here.”

“Right uh… yeah.” Fry opened Bender’s chest compartment and quickly placed the mangled, unrecognizable remains of the lantern inside. That was another something he’d always wished he could do. It was like having a giant pocket, one he didn’t have to worry about stuff falling out of or being pick-pocketed. “How do we get out?”

“I don’t know, maybe the same way we came in.” Bender turned to face the rockslide. In hindsight, that had been a rather stupid question. “So get to digging meatbag. … I guess I can’t really call you ‘meatbag’ anymore, huh?”

“Nah, you can still call me that if you want to.” It would be weird if Bender didn’t occasionally call him that after all the years he’d been doing it.

“All right then meatbag, get to work.” Bender pointed to the cave in but made no move to start digging them out himself. “But then again, you doing it would technically be the same as me doing it and you’re already dead so there’s no need to rush anymore. So, actually let’s just wait for Leela to come save us instead.”

Under normal circumstances, Fry would’ve been more than willing to go with that plan. Even now it was tempting but his corpse was only a few feet away and he’d rather not think about that or the fact that it would probably start rotting soon and that was not something he wanted to see any part of. With all that hovering over him like an oppressive cloud, he wanted out of here as soon as physically possible. So, he stepped forward to start of the rock pile. “I think I’d prefer to dig out.”

“Really?” Bender groaned. “Fine, whatever, I’m not helping though.”

Bender’s initial attempt at digging out had cleared only about enough to be noticeable. Despite how long it had felt to Fry at the time, he clearly hadn’t been long at it before Fry had called him back. But Fry was making good progress. Up until he started to feel dizzy anyway, messing with his coordination and balance. It was almost like he was starting to get tipsy or something.

“That’s enough,” Bender said, breaking his silence as he took back control of his body. Fry’s instinct was to fight that because he wanted out of here but it was Bender’s body, he was just a temporary passenger.

Bender stepped back from the cave in but thankfully didn’t turn around. He opened his chest compartment and somehow knew just where to reach to pull out a beer. He downed the whole thing in one go and instantly Fry felt better. Right yeah, because robots ran on alcohol. After tossing the empty bottle aside, he pulled out another and down that one too, finishing with a flame belch.

“And that’s the last one,” he said as he tossed the bottle off somewhere too. “So no more digging or we’re going to run out of fuel faster.”

“I thought you always carried a lot of extra bottles though, especially when we go out on missions.” They’d all been in enough crazy situations by now to bring extra everything they needed when going out. Especially when it was to a particularly distant planet as this one had been.

“Yeah, I do, but do you have any idea how much power it takes to upload a human mind into anything, especially when it needs to be done quickly? And it’s not like there’s an outlet anywhere nearby so all that power had to come straight from me. So you better be grateful, especially since I have to put up with you in my body for who even knows how long.”

“Oh uh… I guess that would probably take a lot of power, huh? Thanks, I… really appreciate this, like a lot.” More than he knew how to put into words; if Bender hadn’t done this, he’d be… who even knows what or where, probably oblivion would be his guess. But instead he got to continue to exist after death. This didn’t count as being alive anymore though, did it? He was still dead, his corpse was mere feet away, just not gone. That was… creepy to think about so he wasn’t going to anymore. “You’re really awesome for doing this for me.”

Bender chuckled smugly. “Yep, I’m great and awesome.”

Fry wanted to hug him but… well actually he could sort of. So, he did, he was hugging himself too but it still counted, right? Especially since it was Bender’s body.

“This is really weird,” Bender said but didn’t put a stop to it. When Fry got his own body, he’d be sure one of the first things he did with it was give Bender a proper hug, for now though, this would have to do.

“What if Leela assumes we’re both dead and thus doesn’t even try to dig us out?” And thus they would be trapped in here until Bender ran out of fuel and then what would happen next? … They’d die, right? Meaning Fry would die again. He wasn’t ready to face death again, not so soon after the first time.

“Yeah, no, that’s not going to happen. She’ll know I survived so she’ll at least want to dig me out.”

That was a fair point actually but it only calmed Fry’s nerves for a short time because… “What if the assholes who attacked us went after her too and now she’s also dead or dying and…”

“This is Leela we’re talking about here. You really think she’d let those chumps get the best of her?” Another good point.

“But… but…” On top of not wanting to potentially die again Fry also really wanted out of here. He wasn’t normally plagued by claustrophobia or anything like it but the longer he spent in the presence of his slowly rotting corpse, the more he wanted away from it. Refusing to look in its general direction didn’t make him any less aware that it was there. “Look at how much progress we made? Surely we’re almost out. I bet if we cleared just a few more rocks we’d begin to see…”

The ground shook beneath them accompanied by a loud but muffled boom. Whatever it was also raised a cloud of dust from the cave-in as it shifted, most of it collapsing outward away from them. It didn’t clear it, not even close, but it did make as sizeable hole in it through which light could be seen. Not sunlight but a lantern, its light growing stronger as the person holding it stepped into the breach. It was Leela of course.

“See I told you,” Bender said smugly before starting for her. “It’s about damn time you showed up. We’ve been trapped for ages.”

“Yeah, sorry about that. I kind of had to deal with an army of aliens trying to kill me and steal the ship. And then I had to steal some explosives because the ones we have the ship were too powerful and probably would’ve made the cave in worse and possibly crushed you guys. All that kind of took a…” Leela paused as Bender pulled them up onto the rock next to her. “Is that blood on your chest?”

“Yep, and hand.” Bender lifted the hand still coated in Fry’s dried blood. “I need a shower.”

“Where’s Fry? Is he okay?”

“That depends on your definition of ‘okay’.”

Leela stepped past them to jump off the rock. Which unfortunately was far enough into the cave to allow the circle of her lantern light to reach Fry’s corpse. She gasped and presumably ran over based off the sound of her footsteps but Fry didn’t see because no way was he looking in that direction anymore. Instead he focused on the cave wall on the other side.

“He’s dead.” Leela’s voice was full of grief and shock. Fry truly hadn’t died unloved, he had friends who cared about him too.

“Yep,” Bender said, “but don’t worry, he’s…”

“How can you be so indifferent to this?” Leela was almost yelling. “I thought you loved him. How can even you be so…”

It was Fry’s turn to interrupt now because the last thing Bender deserved was Leela’s ire. “It’s fine, I’m fine. Well… I guess that does depend what your definition of ‘fine’ is because I am still dead which is… pretty awful and disturbing and scary. But… other than that I’m fine.”

There was a heavy beat or two of silence before Leela found her voice again. “W-what?”

“This is what you get for not letting me finish Leela.” Bender crossed his arms and tapped his foot in annoyance but thankfully respected Fry’s desire to continue to stare the wall and not look in that direction. “Before he died, I uploaded his mind onto my hard drive. So he’s basically sharing a body with me now.”

“Oh uh… but how? I thought the technology to do that kind of thing was super expensive and not portable.”

“Well, I stole a prototype portable version.”

“Wait, that thing was only a prototype?” Fry had assumed it was tested and safe. “What if it hadn’t worked?”

“You wouldn’t be here right now, duh.”

“Well uh… I guess that’s good,” Leela said. “Why’d you put him into your body though? Wouldn’t it have made more sense to carry something else around for that purpose?”

“I did but I didn’t think I’d have to use it any time soon and filled that flash drive up with porn. So when he was dying I had to decide if I wanted to delete all that porn or delete a few extraneous things from my hard drive and deal with sharing a body for a little while. It’s a lot of porn, most of it good too, so it wasn’t really a hard decision.”

“What’d you delete to make room for me?”

“The last traces of the code meant to make me follow the Laws of Robotics and a few other things so unimportant I don’t even remember what they were.”

“What’s the Laws of Robotics?” Fry was pretty sure he’d never heard of such a thing before.

Bender shrugged. “How should I know? I just deleted everything having to do with them other than the name. There’s no way I ever followed them though so it doesn’t matter. Now let’s get out of here, I’m so done with this cave.” He turned and started for the exit.

“What are we going to do about Fry’s body though?” Leela called after them. “Is okay to just leave it?”

Fry halted, earning a small annoyed sound from Bender but this was important. He still didn’t look over his shoulder at Leela as he answered her though. “Burn it and spread my ashes on the moon.”

“Why?” Unsurprisingly Bender didn’t understand. That was fine though, he didn’t need to, to follow Fry’s wishes.

“Because the very few times I thought about what I wanted to have happen to my body after I died, that was what I decided I wanted. It’s in my will.”

“All right Fry. We’ll burn your body. Bender and uh… Fry let’s go get some stuff for burning from the ship.” As she spoke, Leela climbed back up onto the rock next to them and led the way out.

“What else is in your will?” Bender asked as he followed.

“All my stuff is supposed go to you, except my space heater and all my food, that goes to Leela.”

Bender chuckled. “Sounds good to me, we don’t need the heater anymore anyway, especially since I still have the one installed in me. I don’t know what I’ll do with any of your junk but it doesn’t matter.”

“Wait what? No! I’m still here so my stuff going to you doesn’t really count.”

“Nope, too late, you died and already brought your will up for this weird moon thing of yours so all your stuff’s mine now.”

In hindsight Fry probably shouldn’t have even said anything about that part of his will but it was too late now. Though, it didn’t really matter much anyway, Bender had always had a ‘your stuff is my stuff’ attitude that had only grown stronger since they’d started dating. So really, Bender being the legal owner of all his stuff probably wouldn’t change much. … Sharing a body for however long they would have to probably would though. Being transferred to his own robot body would certainly change stuff too. In how many different ways though? … That wasn’t something he needed worry about yet. For now he was just glad to still exist.

#my writing #futurama #frender #philip j fry #bender bending rodriguez #temporary character death

43 notes · View notes

hansols-yoda-boxers · 3 years ago

Text

Camp North Star - September 1st

Reader x Jeon Wonwoo

Word Count: 1239

Wonwoo hadn’t returned when you woke up that morning. You knew then that he must have spent the night somewhere else and that made your stomach churn. You were pretty sure he had only been fooling around with you and if Yanan was right that he had lied about having a crush then he probably wasn’t pursuing anyone else.

As you went about your morning, washing up and eating breakfast you pondered it while also trying to think of where he could be. You didn’t know why he would lie about who he liked. If he liked you he could have just said he didn’t want to say, right? Or he would have just said it was you? But what other reason would he have for lying?

It was eating at you now. People kept saying you two liked each other, or at least seemed like it. He was really sweet to you before. But then it all changed when he told you he liked Yoohyeon. Did you put distance between you two or did he? Did it matter at this point?

What if you had missed your chance? What if his feelings for you were gone right when you’d figured yours out? That didn’t seem fair but was anything fair in a cosmic sense? It could have just been tied to sex. Maybe he liked having sex with you and he thought he had feelings. Then his feelings would be gone now, wouldn’t they? But then, they wouldn’t have been actual romantic feelings to begin with? Just lust and trying to keep getting in your pants.

You couldn’t quiet your brain through your morning routine or after when you went back to the cabin. Still no Wonwoo and you were welling up with things to say to him. You tried to think of where he could be and started your search.

The studio was a good place to start. Though you knew Jihoon was likely finished much of what he had to do to pack up, he still spent a lot of time working with the equipment until the last day, taking the extra free time to work on his own music. It was a good place to start at least.

The building was very quiet when you entered. The lights in the hallway were off and that didn’t bode well for your theory. He had to be somewhere around camp. Would he have taken himself on a hike? He didn’t usually do that. Maybe he was hanging out with a different friend. He had more now because you forced him to be social. Tracking them all down would be a nightmare. This would have been much easier when he was a total hermit.

It was dark behind the studio door and even as you knocked you knew no one was there. Your brain ran through a list of places. You still didn’t know where he was last night but you weren’t 100% done with things at the canoe cabin. A few things needed packing away in mouse proof boxes and whatnot. Maybe he went to get that work done?

It was worth a shot.

The dew on the long grass wet your ankles as you walked towards the lake. Were this any other morning you might have enjoyed the way the birds were twittering, that it wasn’t swelteringly hot, or the beautiful, clear sky. But you had a mission at the moment and you were determined to see it through. So the beauty of the world didn’t quite register in your already busy mind.

Your brow furrowed as you spotted a tent near the canoe buildings. That was strange. Who would sleep out here? Was that where Wonwoo was? Why? You couldn’t fathom a reason unless he wanted to get away from something in the cabin.

You didn’t want to think about what that might be. You didn’t know what you would do if he truly decided he’d had enough of waiting for you to sort yourself out. You had finally pieced it together. The more the thoughts twisted your gut the faster you moved until you were running across the lawn.

You burst through the door to the cabin, making Wonwoo jump and drop the paddle in his hands.

“Geez, why did you-”

“I love you.” You said breathlessly, the words leaving your lips before you could stop them.

Wonwoo’s mouth fell open as he tried to process your words, staring at you in shock. He was at a loss for words when you started to find so many.

“I didn’t- It didn’t click until last night. Every time I have sex I start thinking about you. No matter who it is, my mind is reminded of how you touched me, how it felt with you. I think about you so much. And I think about us. And I thought I just missed what we had and how sweet you were and how nice being with you was and then I said your name. I was with someone else and I said your name and I realized th-that I’m in love with you. And I want you. And I wanted to tell you but you weren’t there in the cabin and I’ve been looking for you all morning and now you’re here. And I found you. And I love you.”

You were out of breath from the running and the rambling and Wonwoo was still in shock. You started to worry it was too much. Maybe you shouldn’t have mentioned about having sex? He knew that you did though, even if he didn’t know the details. Either way his lack of reaction was stressing you out.

“Wonwoo,” you said gently, taking a few steps into the cabin. “Please say something, anything. It can be a rejection. I can take it, just… please…”

Wonwoo stared at you for another moment before suddenly closing the distance between the two of you. You gasped as you wrapped you in a tight hug, squeezing you against himself as if he never wanted to let go.

“Do you mean that?” He asked quietly.

“Of course,” you said.

He pressed his face against you, nuzzled into you. “I love you, too.”

You held onto him tightly, feeling like the world was righting itself after so much offset. This was what you’d been wanting. This was what you’d been craving. You just didn’t want to let yourself see it.

“I was worried I was too late,” you mumbled.

“You were worried?!” Wonwoo pulled back to look at you. “I’m the one who messed it up. I shouldn’t- I thought telling you I liked someone else would be easier. I thought it would keep things simpler but they got messy anyway.”

“No,” You cupped his cheeks with your hands. “I should have realized it when I felt so upset hearing you say that. It should have clicked that I had feelings for you then.”

“Do you think you would have been ready for them?”

You giggled. “Probably not.”

Wonwoo dropped his gaze a little, his voice getting quieter. “Do you think you are now?”

You leaned in, surprising him with a sweet kiss that made your own heart burst, his arms wrapping around you protectively, warmly. You dug your fingers into his shirt, holding him like he was everything you needed.

“Yes,” you murmured, resting the tip of your nose against his. “I am.”

#f i n a l l y #also i will explain where wonu was #it just didnt fit in the flow of this convo #camp north star au #cns au #seventeen imagines #wonwoo imagines #jeon wonwoo imagines #only 4 things left #and only 2 spin offs and the main story to finish

28 notes · View notes

thran-duils · 4 years ago

Text

Lost In Zero Gravity (P.15)

Title: Lost In Zero Gravity (Part Fifteen) Summary: Fem!Reader x Mob Boss!Tony Stark x Mob Boss!Steve Rogers. Reader is a call girl who runs high end parties. She catches the attention of Tony Stark who invites her back to his room with his friend. She might have performed too well because she becomes their new favorite play toy and they don’t like to share. Words: 3,145 Warnings (for the fic in entirety): Smut, prostitution, infidelity, angst, domestic violence, stalking, possessive behavior Author’s Note: The reader here is someone who celebrates Christmas, just a heads up!

Part Fourteen || Part Sixteen || Masterpost (mobile) || Fanfic masterpost

Something touched your face and you jerked awake, blinking in alarm.

“Shit, sorry,” you heard Tony say as you came to clearly. You exhaled sharply hearing his voice, relaxing back down onto the couch. He was trying not to laugh and failing. He brushed at your forehead again affectionately and said, “Look at two of my favorite girls snuggling on the couch together. A nice thing to come home to.”

You turned your head, seeing Luna was curled up behind your back against the back of the couch. Tony reached behind you, petting her. She got up immediately and crawled up onto your side to get more, stretching her back legs. Tony obliged and she stuck her tail up before hopping down to the ground and sauntering off.

“Well, she got tired of me quickly,” Tony said sounding sour. “Little bitch is holding a grudge I was gone for a week.”

You sat up and moved your pillow, waiting for him to sit down. He simpered in response, “Well, at least one of you still wants my attention.” He sat down and you laid back down, using his thigh as a pillow. “And it’s the better looking one, so that bodes well for me.”

Considering you had fallen asleep, the movie had gone back to the main menu and was playing on loop.

“Interesting choice,” Tony commented seeing it.

“Polar Express has become a classic for Christmas,” you told him seriously. “And I fell asleep on it. And I did want to watch it.” You reached for the controller and started it over.

“Is there a reason for that…? Should I be prepared to be bored?”

“I had watched about three other Christmas movies before this and I was really relaxed,” you returned.

Tony admitted, “Fair enough.” He looked around the room and said, “You really went to town on the decorations.”

“I had a lot.”

“Looks like my tree was the perfect thing for your ornaments. Perfect gift giver.”

You snorted and said, “Is that you digging for a ‘thank you’ again, Santa?”

“Yeah, maybe,” Tony answered, his hand coming to your waist. “Where are my cookies in thanks?”

You turned your head to look up at him and asked, “Do you really want me to make you some cookies? Because the only ones I can make on a whim right now are peanut butter.”

Tony smirked, gripping your side. “No, sweetheart. Thank you for being so on the ball though and ready to indulge my whims. You’re a treasure. But I ate enough desserts and bullshit at Disneyland to last me for months.”

“Did you have fun?” you asked, turning to look back as the movie started over again.

“Mhm,” Tony nodded. “Loved standing in lines for an absurd amount of time not only for rides but also for pictures with people pretending to be characters. But it made the kids happy, so that’s what counts. And before you even ask, yes I did use a Max Pass. The waiting was still atrocious.” Before you could ask anything else, he cleared his throat, “How was it here?”

“Fine,” you answered, giving a slight shrug, not offering anything else.

You were truly sore from how much sex you had been having. Steve had wanted to go at it every day the last week and he made sure it happened, alternating between rough and caring. It was lucky, for him, that his wife was gone for the majority of the week, so he was able to come here every day after he got done with business.

“Hmm, sounds like I should pry more but doesn’t sound like you also want to talk about it,” Tony commented quietly. “Conundrum.”

The feeling riled up again to speak to someone about the gala. You pushed away from him, pausing the movie, and he leaned his head back, looking at you with narrowed eyes at your sudden movement.

“Steve was really horny this week. Like every goddamn day kind of horny. So, I’m pretty sore and tired,” you told him. He rose his eyebrows in response, and you said, “You asked me to elaborate, so I am. Also, I don’t know how he’s feeling because he’s been forcing me against tables but then being gentle other times. It’s very hard to read. He really hurt my hip against the kitchen table.” Tony looked concerned, his mouth opening like he was going to ask a question, but you pressed on, wanting to mention this to him, “And that guy from Monaco was at the gala we went to and he was watching me.”

Tony cocked his head. “What?”

“Laurie. That French guy.”

That caught Tony’s attention and he asked seriously, “He was stateside? At the gala?”

“Yes. Is that not normal? Cause he was looking pretty creepy.”

For a split second, you saw genuine apprehension in his face. But, Tony cleared his throat and adjusted in just another second, the mask coming up. He forced a smile, covering up the concern that had been there moments before, and said, “It’s fine. Just weird that he was watching you is all.”

You did not believe him for apparent reasons, mainly his body language. And he changed the subject quickly, “I brought you some gifts over here in this bag, but you can’t open them until Christmas.”

Holding back a sigh that he had brushed it off so easily, you asked, “Did you wrap them?”

“No,” Tony admitted, and you frowned. He explained, “Definitely paid to have that done.” He noticed the look on your face and asked jokingly, “Is that going to be a problem? I can send them back to the park.”

“No. It’s just astounding to me that people don’t like wrapping presents. It’s one of my favorite things. Make sure they look perfect.”

He leaned over the side of the couch and dug through the bag he must have placed down when he came in. “Speaking of cookies…” He came back up with a plain box and handed it to you. “That one you can open now cause it’s perishable.”

You took it from him, opening the box to find Mickey gingerbread cookies and an assortment of other Christmas decorated fudge and cookies.

“Don’t make yourself sick,” Tony commented.

“What a dad thing to say. Have you not left that mode?” you retorted, shooting him a look.

“I see your wit hasn’t lessened. Why do you try to push my buttons?”

“Because it’s fun,” you told him and he sucked his bottom lip in at that slightly, watching you.

Taking one of the pieces of fudge, you closed the box and put it on the coffee table. You took a bite and then held out the other half to him. He leaned forward, taking it, his lips wrapping around your fingers. You smirked at the flirtation, savoring the piece in your own mouth.

“Too bad you’re feeling sore,” Tony said after he swallowed his piece. “That was mighty rude of Steve.”

“Quite,” you agreed.

“Well, we will just have to wait then. Let you get good and limber again. That should take what/ A night?” You snorted at that. “What? I can be patient. And thoughtful.”

Satisfied knowing he was not going to try to push you tonight, you laid back down, tucking yourself back under the blanket, snuggling up on his thigh.

“I’m glad you’re back,” you told him sincerely as you started the movie again.

You felt his fingers caress your side at that.

<><><>

“How was it here?” Tony asked the next day at the office, as Steve placed a coffee on his desk from the intern that had gone on a coffee run for the office.

Steve shrugged, “Alright. She was well behaved. We went to the gala. And I spoke with Richard there, got that all sorted out. He’s going to open up the port when we need it.”

“Anyone notice you two speaking about that matter?” Tony questioned.

“Of course not. Everyone had their noses too far down in their drinks.”

Tony snorted in response before he asked, “Did you notice Laurie?”

Steve’s brow furrowed. “Laurie who? Capron?” Tony nodded. Steve shook his head, “No. Why?”

“Y/N did. He was watching her.”

“Okay?” Steve said slowly, not getting it. And he should not because Tony had omitted the part about the bet when he mentioned to Steve that Laurie had been displeased he was meeting with Alexandre.

“Well, you know how I raced?” Steve nodded in acknowledgment. “He challenged me. Laurie did. Wanted to bet on Y/N.” Steve’s lips parted, vexation washing over his features. Tony said quickly, “That’s why I raced. I wasn’t gonna leave it in the hands of that random person they were having race for the company.”

“Why didn’t you tell me that?” Steve demanded. “Tony, what the fuck?”

“It wasn’t relevant. I won, didn’t I?”

“Why did you accept at all?”

“Because you know he would have just asked to take her right then. You know him. And I didn’t want to start that shit right there in front of all those cameras or put Y/N in that position or embarrass her.” Tony exhaled sharply and leaned forward over his desk, “Just… keep your head on a swivel. I don’t like that he’s stateside. He was really not happy about that meeting with Alexandre.”

Steve’s jaw was tight staring Tony down before he finally sighed, “Fine. Yeah. I’ll… we’ll figure out what he’s doing here.”

<><><>

“I still can’t figure out what to get you for Christmas,” you told Steve, watching him from the bed. He had come home during the day for a quickie. He had stayed away for a few days, much to your muscle’s relief.

“You don’t need to get me anything,” Steve told you as he pulled his pants up, working on his belt. “You’re enough.”

Picking at the sheet, you stared down at it, chewing on your bottom lip. Steve was moving around getting ready and he broke the silence, “What’s on your mind, Y/N?”

“Are you going to let me go home for Christmas?” you asked, looking at him hopefully.

Steve stilled for a moment in buttoning up his shirt, his eyes running over you there. You did not break eye contact, wanting to make it clear you were serious about this.

“I have been thinking about that,” Steve admitted. “Most of the guys have family they want to be with. You wouldn’t have anyone here – that I would want to be here that is – to watch you anyway.” Steve gave a tight-lipped smile. “So, my hands are kind of tied here.”

Hope was blossoming in your chest.

“I need to talk to Tony about it. But there will be rules. You’d need to check in regularly. It’d be a short trip. A couple days.”

“That’s okay,” you said eagerly.

Steve’s eyes crinkled and you closed your mouth, trying to relax again. He watched you for a few more moments before he went back to finishing buttoning up his shirt. He grabbed his suit jacket off the back of the chair and put it on too.

Coming over to the bed again, he gave you a kiss. “Don’t forget to wash the sheets before Tony gets home.”

“I will,” you said to his retreating back.

<><><>

You walked up the front steps, already hearing the chatter from inside. You could see some of your family in the living room window, laughing, already playing games. That was a Christmas Eve tradition. Taking a deep breath, you opened the front door. You had not called your grandma to tell her you were coming. The only ones who knew were a couple of your cousins you had reached out to.

When they noticed it was you, there was a chorus of happy greetings.

A wide smile coming across your face, you said hello in return as one of your aunts brought you to her, squeezing you close. Your bag fell by the wall by the door and you left it there to make the rounds.

Your grandma and grandpa were both in their respective chairs, your grandpa excited to see you. You made sure to hug him tight, kissing him on top of his head.

Turning you looked at your grandma. You had not spoken to her since you had left here weeks ago.

You asked gently, “Merry Christmas. How are you?”

“Better now that you are here, dear,” your grandma answered sincerely, a warm smile gracing her lips.

You broke at that, closing the space between the two of you and you wrapped her up in a tight hug. She held you back in return, and you blinked back tears knowing what she had said when you saw her last was true about her not being upset with you. Steve and Tony had not ruined your relationship after all.

<><><>

You looked down at your phone on the table and saw Tony was calling. You quickly snatched it off the table to avoid your cousin from seeing the name. One of your uncles had just begun to serve dessert. You had agreed to texts, not calls. What was Tony doing? You had just texted them an hour ago, sending them a pic that you were really at the house.

Getting up from the table, you said, “I need to go to the bathroom.”

“Well, hurry back! You don’t wanna miss my cake!” your uncle said as he cut in, placing another piece on a plate to distribute.

You smiled, “Of course not. It looks delicious.”

Turning away from the table, you saw the call had already gone to voicemail, much to your worry. But he was already calling again.

Coming into the hallway, you brought the phone up to your ear and answered in a hushed tone, “Hello?”

“There you are,” Tony responded, sounding taut. “Thought you were ignoring me and I was going to be pretty fucking irritated.” He sounded well on his way to being drunk; you knew the switch in his voice by now. “Make me regret letting you go off at all.”

“Well, I’m here. I’m at the house.”

“I know you are, sweetheart. I just… you’re gonna find a private space for yourself and then call me back on FaceTime.”

“What? Why?”

“Because I’m horny, Y/N and I needed a distraction for a moment. Get the tension out of myself. I hate the missus family. Go to the bathroom or something and give me a show.”

“Tony,” you hissed into the phone as you continued walking down the hall and the staircase leading to the lower part of the house. “We are in the middle of dessert. That’s—”

“You’re wasting time,” he interrupted you. “I’ve got to get back to this stupid party sooner rather than later. I’m already halfway worked up. Don’t leave me hanging, love. I just need to see you. Real quick. Promise. Call me back.”

He hung up the phone and you stared down at it dumbly for a few moments before letting out a strangled, frustrated noise. Your hand gripped the newel post as you propelled yourself down the staircase to go to the bathroom downstairs. Not following what he was asking would only get you in trouble and really make him regret letting you come here and have him refuse you in the future.

You locked the bathroom door for good measure. Turning around, you took a deep breath, trying to relax. You had given shows like this before, it was not foreign to you. All he wanted to see was you playing with yourself.

Pressing the callback for FaceTime, he answered, “Thank god. What were you doing?”

“I had to go downstairs,” you told him.

Fortuitously, you were wearing a skirt and it was loose. You pulled your underwear down, kicking them off. Taking your top off, you tossed it by your underwear. Looking around the bathroom, you looked for something you could use to prop up your phone and you spotted a small statue. Snatching it off the shelf, you sat down on the ground, your back against the tub. Using the statue, you propped the phone to point towards you and you spread your legs.

“Yeah, that’s good,” you heard Tony say softly and you could hear him already starting to jerk himself.

Your hand came to your pussy and you ran your fingers slowly up and down, not moving past your lips yet.

“How do you think I taste?” you asked, stroking slowly.

“So fucking good,” Tony returned, strained.

“You like tasting me?”

“It’s my favorite.”

Pressing one finger in, you moaned lowly. Your fingers came up to your mouth and you sucked on them before coming back to your clit, circling quickly.

“I wish it was you,” you keened, your fingers delving deeper.

“Fuck, me too,” Tony husked, speeding up.

Freeing your tits from your bra, you played with them, moaning as your fingers moved quicker. You kept your voice low as you teased him, hoping that no one would come up to the door. You had chosen the bathroom at the back of the house for a reason; the bigger one was closer to where everyone was.

Tony let out a groan as you described how wet and hot you were for him.

“I’m yours. All yours,” you told him, sultry.

“Shit, baby, I’m so close,” Tony groaned.

“Come for me, please,” you half whined, spreading your lips further apart to give him a better view inside. You continued encouraging him, circling your clit quickly.

“Fuck!” Tony exclaimed, shuddering breaths leaving him, and you knew he had finished. Your hand slowed and you waited until you were sure he was done before you dropped your hand. Picking up the phone, you covered your pussy again. The phone was pointed up at the ceiling; he must have laid it down on the counter.

After a few moments, he exhaled deeply, “Christ. Thank you, baby. That was good.” He picked the phone back up and said, “I gotta get cleaned up. Don’t forget to text. Have fun at your party.”

He hung up and you let out a breath of relief that he had one, gotten off, and two, no one had interrupted you.

You got yourself straightened out again, remembering to flush just to keep up the allusion. You did wash your hands though for real before leaving the bathroom.

“Thought you fell in,” one of your cousins joked when you appeared back in the dining room.

“No, sorry to disappoint,” you returned, pulling your chair back out and you sat down, picking up your fork. Everyone was almost done or already done. You took a big bite and chewed, savoring it. You gave your uncle the thumbs up down the table and he looked happy.

~~~

Forever tags: @coconutqueen21 @undecidedsworld

Fic tags: @icant-hangout-imdrumming @oceaniamaddness @multifandom-superlover @imsonick @holl2712 @here4thefanfics @agustdowney @fanofalltheficsx @buttercandy16

#tony stark x reader #steve rogers x reader #dark tony stark #dark steve rogers #dark marvel fic #my shit

95 notes · View notes

spooky-mister · 3 years ago

Text

﹥━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━﹤

Hey!

So I am definitely continuing I Am A God when I have the time, but for now, have a tooth-rotting Spiralshipping fic <3

This fic is set the morning after Zeke was supposed to meet his dad for takeout/Will claimed to be sleep training his son.

Also this is my first time writing for these characters so be nice :)

﹥━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━﹤

One Of The Good Ones

Fandom: Spiral from the Book of Saw

Paring: William Schenk x Ezekiel Banks

Genre: Tooth-rotting fluff

Word Count: 1,545

Potential Triggers: None I'm aware of. Feel free to comment <3

Spoilers?: Yes

﹥━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━﹤

One Of The Good Ones

What happened to dinner with his dad?

William Schenk slowed his steps to a stop as he gazed into the meeting room, appreciating the sight of Ezekiel Banks asleep on his work with a soft smirk of amusement. It was a good thing he was the first in. Zeke's fellow cops didn't seem like the sort to let him get away with sleeping on the job - even if they weren't worth half of Zeke's integrity and dedication. Will sniffed, glancing over his shoulder before slinging a large flask of coffee under his arm and meandering over to the table. He shuffled to a stop beside Zeke's sleeping form before huffing a laugh and tapping the detective's shoulder.

"Hey, Banks," He mumbled, voice gruff with fading sleep. His schedule didn't leave much room for rest. "Wake up, partner."

Zeke reacted with a near comedic intensity, dragging an audible laugh from Will as the rookie took a step back. Zeke cried out and thrashed his arms, soon setting his eyes up on Will with a mix of relief and embarrassment.

"Shit, Man - don't do that!" Zeke scolded, running his fingers through his rough hair. "Never wake a man while he's sleeping! Jeez…"

"Yeah, well… Better me than Fitch," Will retorted in good humour, hesitating before setting himself down next to Zeke. "Are you okay? What happened to dinner with your dad?"

"Old man cancelled on me," Zeke explained as he rubbed sleep from his eyes. He looked exhausted, Will noticed. How long had he been sleeping? “Came back in to work the case. Must have gotten too comfortable."

“You could have called,” Will offered with a frown, setting down his flask and letting his bag slide off of his shoulder. “We could have worked the case together.”

“What about sleep training?” Zeke muttered in response, eyes drifting to Will. Will paused at that. Right. His… Family. He didn’t have time to retort before Zeke spoke again. “You worked hard yesterday - you deserved a night off. Enjoy your family while they last.”

“You’re just a beacon of romance and optimism, aren’t you,” Will teased, appreciating the glimmer of a smirk received in return. “Well… Thanks. Did you at least get to eat last night?” Zeke’s hesitation didn’t seem to bode well for Will’s throw-away concern. Will arched a thick brow. "...Zeke?"

"I was gonna order something in," Zeke reasoned. "I left the takeout my dad ordered at his place so he had somethin' when he got back. But then I guess I-"

"Fell asleep," Will finished for him, taking in the sigh and the nod as Zeke started shuffling through papers again. Will was feeling oddly involved in this minor inconvenience. Why did he feel so compelled to take the mantle of caretaker? Zeke was an adult. Older than him, even. But Will felt the draw to guard and care for his partner as a skilled gardener would cultivate a flower they planned to pluck. "Well, that's no good. How are you supposed to lead an investigation on an empty stomach?"

"Jeez, mom - I don't know," Zeke huffed a laugh, looking Will over. "What's got in your head all of a sudden - I can take care of myself." Clearly. "If you hold the fort, I'll run out 'n grab a… Coffee and grilled cheese or somethin'."

"No need," Will sighed as he hiked his satchel up onto his lap. He could see Zeke's puzzled expression as he rifled through before drawing a plastic tupperware - still beaded with hot steam. He hadn't been able to let it cool before leaving for work. He sniffed and set it in front of Zeke with a fork and his tall flask. "...Homemade frittata," He explained with a gesture of his hand towards the box. He smirked at Zeke's baffled expression. "I made it for me, but… Y'know, I actually ate last night."

"...Nah," Zeke shook his head, pushing the food back towards Will. "I ain't eating your breakfast, Schenk. I-" He paused when Will put a firm hand on the tupperware, locking eyes as the younger detective slowly slid it back in front of him. He bit his tongue before letting out a sigh and popping the lid off of the plastic. "Thanks," He muttered, taking hold of the fork and poking around the fried egg and vegetables.

Will watched Zeke's apprehension with muted amusement for a moment before speaking up. "It's egg," He explained. "Egg, cheese, spinach, garlic… It's nothing bad, Zeke. I'm not trying to trick you." He got a kick out of the look of minor embarrassment on Zeke's face, chuckling.

"I didn't…" Zeke went to defend himself before sighing and scooping a large piece of frittata onto his fork. "Thanks, Schenk." He shovelled it into his mouth, chewing it with a hum.

"Will, please," Will reasoned, watching the detective's changing expression with a growing smirk. The 'Mmm' sealed the deal as Zeke wiped his mouth with a hand and reached for the flask. "Good?"

"Shit, man - that's… You made that?" Zeke raised his eyebrows and pointed at the frittata. He was baffled at Will's confirmation. "Jeez… You really are the full package, huh? Your wife must love you."

"Yeah… Maybe," Will mused with a smile, admiring Zeke as the man ate. Part of him wondered why he'd even developed that lie… It just created one more barrier between himself and Zeke. But he couldn't go back on it now. "Maybe I can cook for you again sometime."

Zeke hummed in agreement, slurping down the breakfast with only half a mind on his manners. "Haven't had many homemade meals since mom left," Zeke explained between mouthfuls, sensing Will's sudden tension. "Knew the number for the pizza place before I was potty trained."

"Just… You and your dad as well, huh?" Will mumbled, watching Zeke closely. "Yeah… I know how that is. But my dad wasn't… Around much by the time I got to middle school - I learned to take care of myself." Was that giving away too much about himself? No… If anything, it was pulling Zeke closer. He could tell by the familiar concern in the detective's eyes.

Zeke floundered for a response for a moment. He was never good at conversations like this. The feelings were difficult to process… So instead he turned his attention back to his meal. He scooped up a forkful and switched his gaze to Will. "You wanna share?" He asked, an attempt to change the subject. "Today will be pretty intense… You wanna get fuelled up."

Will moved to hesitate, but… this was a moment of tenderness. Of sincerity. He could tell this was Zeke’s way of letting his guard down, so he smiled. "Sure," He agreed, leaning towards the fork. Zeke seemed taken aback by the movement, clearly expecting Will to take the fork, but he quickly adjusted - moving the fork to Will's mouth and watching the young detective take it into his mouth. It was weirdly intimate… Or maybe it had just been a while.

Will pulled off of the fork and knitted his brows, chewing through the mouthful of warm eggs. He shrugged slightly and reached for his flask to wash it down. "I've made better," He commented before flooding the taste out with coffee. He tried not to focus on Zeke’s scoff.

"Made better, huh?" Zeke muttered, turning his gaze away from Will and digging his fork into the tub. "Might have to prove that one, man - this is pretty fuckin' good…"

Will perked up at that and smirked. "...Are you inviting yourself round for breakfast, Detective Banks?" Will teased, biting back a laugh as he watched Zeke's face drop. He let Zeke fight for a retort for a moment before shaking his head. "I know what you meant." Will was just indulging in a little wishful thinking.

Zeke cleared his throat, pushing around the rest of his breakfast with a fork before offering it back towards Will. "Uh… Thanks, Schenk. I needed that." He offered before getting to his feet. He could feel a growing, undefined tension between them… And he wasn't a fan.

"Will… please," Will corrected, licking his lips as he watched Zeke readying himself to leave - probably to get his own cup of coffee. But… Will didn't want him to leave. He swallowed dryly, leaving Zeke to gather up his jacket and step away from the desk before quickly reaching for the man's wrist. He met Zeke's puzzled expression with apprehension. He… Wasn't completely sure why he'd done that. "I'm… Glad you enjoyed the frittata. Sorry." He moved to pull his hand away.

Zeke smirked, chuckling softly and reaching to playfully ruffle his young partner's hair. "Man, don't say sorry…" He hesitated before leaning over and delicately pressing a kiss to Will's head. "You're one of the good ones, Will… Now get to work."

Will bubbled into giggles as Zeke gently batted the back of his head on his way out, unable to stop the colour in his cheeks or the grin on his lips. Shit - did Zeke really just… He felt like a giddy school girl. And as he glanced back to watch Zeke leave, he could have sworn that he saw a smile to match his own on the senior detective's face.

﹥━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━﹤

#spiralshipping #spiral #saw #saw series #saw franchise #william schenk #zeke banks #ezekiel banks #spiral from the book of saw #spiral spoilers #will x zeke #zeke x will #fan fiction #fanfiction #fluff

48 notes · View notes

reiven2017 · 3 years ago

Text

Happy birthday to you.

His son was a professional killer, Robin, the grandson of a bloodthirsty psychopath, and an insufferable child. Damian could have been expected to do anything and more, but when he approached Nim, his expression more somber than before, and quickly asked what seemed like a simple question, Bruce fell into a stupor.

Bruce was busy working in his office, completely focused on the documents and didn't even hear the door to his office open. He glanced briefly over the top of his glasses before returning to his work. "I'm listening, Damian. "it's been a few minutes. Damian wasn't happy about the idea of asking Bruce for help, but he wasn't going to listen to Dick's taunts, and Alfred, with his stiffly English manner, wasn't the right person to turn to with this question, so he didn't have many options. Wayne finally asked.

Bruce stopped writing, raised his head, and looked at his son with a strange expression on his face.

"Did he hear correctly?»

-" Damian?" - "What? I didn't think I asked anything so weird. " The boy said irritably, frowning and watching intently. "No, I said. Of course not. Just...why would you do that? " He could see his son pondering the answer for a moment, unsure whether to trust Bruce. - "You need to. "Damian's voice was cold, and there was an impenetrable mask on his face, and the man realized that he would not get a more detailed answer from him. — "So, what do you usually get for your birthday? "The boy repeated the question more impatiently. Despite his cold tone and stony expression, the slightest bit of nervousness in his demeanor was conspicuous. "Usually?" Bruce looked thoughtful. —" It depends on who exactly you are giving to, a woman or a man, and what else this person loves or is interested in. Probably the most common gifts are books or some useful things." Bruce continued to watch his son, finding his behavior strange, to say the least. Damian was still a rather obnoxious and sullen child, he had no friends and it didn't seem to bother him much, but his son never did anything for nothing, so there was something to worry about. He could see the gears turning in Damian's head as he pondered Bruce's words. It was several minutes before he seemed satisfied with the answer, and with a curt nod to his father, Damian left.

A week had passed since that incomprehensible conversation between him and Damian, and Bruce was still wondering why his son needed this information. Just as he was beginning to forget about it, the man standing in the doorway caught Damian doing something very strange. Sitting in his room, surrounded by a variety of new, apparently just bought things, from the TV to the candy, the boy stared intently at the wrapping paper in front of him. His gaze, pinned to the object in his hands, did not bode well for this colored piece of paper, and over his angry mutterings, Bruce heard a couple of words. —" It shouldn't be any harder than holding a gun." the man heard his son repeat it a couple of times, as if to convince himself of this, but the crumpled pieces of paper, scattered and viciously crumpled, said otherwise. Bruce could see how Damian was annoyed by this activity, but despite this, the boy continued to try to wrap something that looked like a box more or less neatly. Alfred stopped beside the man, carrying a tray. "Master Damian has been doing this since this morning. I am absolutely sure that I heard a couple of obscene expressions in Arabic and saw a spot of glue on the carpet, but despite this, he makes a success. This box looks neater than the last one." "The last one?" Bruce asked. "Yes, sir. If my memory serves me correctly, this is the 8th box in his hands in the past five hours. The first two were painful to look at. "The butler spoke in a monotone, but then his lips stretched into a small smile. —" I'm surprised Master Damian is so diligent and patient." "Me, too. Patience is not the best side of his character. Do you know who this is for, Alfred?" "No, sir. Master Damian didn't tell me who we owed this debacle to, but I think we'll find out soon enough. Bruce heard a crash in the room and turned away from the other man to look at his son. Damian struggled furiously with the tape, his eyes burning madly, and Bruce wasn't entirely sure that he wouldn't tear down the mansion by the end of the day.

November 15. An unremarkable day for everyone else except Damian. A whole week of effort, his frayed nerves, and his unequal battle with scotch had been all for this day. He got up, a few hours early for school, and in less than a minute, his nervousness had reached its limit. Thinking about it, he squeezed out almost the entire tube of toothpaste, then spilled coffee on his pajamas, forgot to walk Titus, and the most terrible thing for him almost lost the object of his efforts. Gift. Beautifully packaged, with purple bows at the top. He ignored the questioning looks from his father and Alfred as he stalked back to the car, clutching the gift in his right hand and the flowers in his left. Amazing white roses from the main garden of Gotham City. Don't go into the details of how he got them. Damian continued to ignore the strange smiles of the butler and Bruce, mentally rolling his eyes and realizing that this was not all they had to do.

When the stone mass of Gotham Academy finally came into view, Damian was already nervous. Not that it was so difficult for Damian Wayne to walk up and hold out his hand with a gift, saying a few words, but now he was as worried as ever. It was the first time he'd ever given her anything.< i> Yes, it was the first time when he gives something. . He just didn't know what to expect or what to be prepared for. Maybe she wouldn't like the gift. Or she doesn't like gifts. Or something else, and that was all he was thinking about right now. But the moment X has arrived. Alfred dropped him off at the main entrance, smiling calmly at him and wishing him a good day. Damian stumbled out of the car, almost tripping over his own feet, and frowned grimly. As if it's his shoes that are to blame for his being such a mumbler. His gaze swept the landing in front of the main entrance, and Damian stiffened as his eyes caught the girl. Rachel found Damian's gaze as well as his, and smiled at him warmly, waving her hand vigorously. The boy sighed softly, mentally urging himself to calm down, and in one superhuman quick step, he was at her side. Raven stared in surprise. Damian, without taking his eyes off the floor, in some uncoordinated movement, handed her the flowers, literally thrusting them at her, and quickly began to repeat them. - "Happy birthday, Rachel Michaella Roth! I bought you a present and I'm going to give it to you and I really said it." he pulled out the gift with the same quick movement, placing it in the girl's hands, without looking up from his shoes in embarrassment. It was a few agonizing seconds before he caught a movement from Rachel, and then the warm touch of her lips on his cheek. Damian blinked dumbfounded, pinned to the spot only by touching the tips of his finger to the cheek where the girl had kissed him.

#ravenrot #raven #demonbirds #damirae

32 notes · View notes